Crystal Line

by Anne McCaffrey

  "Oh!" Donalla flushed beet-red and turned away, looking anywhere but at Killashandra. "No one told me about this."

  "I know," Killashandra said sympathetically. "It's another case of us knowing it so well we think everyone else knows it."

  Donalla took another deep breath and managed a weak smile. "I gather—I mean—well, is that why certain partnerships . . . Oh, I'm not sure what I mean."

  Killa laughed, flicking the switch on the hot-water heater, as she began preparations for cooking breakfast. "It has a tendency to make minor quarrels disappear in the morning."

  By the time she had eaten, Donalla had turned clinical in her examination of the sensual effect of sun-warmed crystal on human libido. Killa answered honestly and fully, amused at Donalla's professional curiosity.

  "What's astonishing is that more singers don't sing duet," the medic finally announced, turning inquiringly to Killa, who shrugged.

  "I suppose it's like anything else," she said. "Palls after a few score years."

  "You and Lars were partners for—" Donalla bit off the rest of her sentence.

  Killa regarded her for a long moment. Those of the Guild who did not lose "time" in the Ranges were taught not to make comparisons that could upset singers.

  "A long time," Killa said. "A very long time." She paused. "It doesn't seem like a long time. How old am I, Donalla?"

  "You certainly don't look your age, Killashandra," Donalla said, temporizing, "and I won't put a figure to it."

  Killa grunted and heaved a big sigh. "You're right, you know, and I don't really want a figure."

  "You don't look older than four, maybe five decades," Donalla offered as compensation.

  "Thanks." Then Killa rose, having finished her meal. "I've got black I might be able to cut out of that face. I've got to try." She waggled a finger at Donalla. "Only today, you make bloody sure you take any cut right out of my hand the moment I've pulled it free. You wrench it from me, if necessary; and carefully, mind you, stow it in the carton."

  Donalla stood ready all day to follow those orders, but they were never needed. The black had fractured right down into the base of the site. Killa swore, because she had cut so carefully the day before. She hadn't heard the fracture note as she finished cutting the third shaft. Usually a crack like that was not only audible but sensed even through the thick soles of her boots.

  "Damn, damn, and double damn," she said, admitting defeat in midafternoon. She had even tried to find an outcropping somewhere else in the rock, but hadn't had so much as a murmur from crystal.

  "What?" Donalla asked, rousing from a state of somnolence. She had been patiently watching Killa's explorations from a perch on the height.

  "It's gone. No point in staying here."

  "We're going back?" Donalla's face brightened.

  "We shouldn't. We should look around."

  "Lars only gave you these coordinates."

  "Yes, but somewhere around here," and Killa waved her hand in a comprehensive sweep that took in the entire ravine, "there'll be more black crystal."

  "How long will it take you to find it?"

  "Ah . . ." Killa waggled her forefinger. "That's the rub. I don't know where."

  "Well, then, let's go back to the Cube and get coordinates to another known black-crystal site," Donalla said, pushing herself off her perch and brushing dust from her trousers.

  "It'll take us three hours to get back," Killa heard herself protesting. "Why, I could be—"

  "Circling the area unprofitably for hours, days, more likely," Donalla said. "Let's do it the easy way, with another set of coordinates. Huh?"

  Killa considered this, sweeping aside all the arguments she was ranging against the common sense Donalla was speaking. She owed it to Lars. He had been right. She had some black to return with. She shouldn't waste time. She should cut where they knew there was more.

  "You're right. Absolutely right. We go back. We do it Lars's way."

  Chapter 10

  Lars was pleased with the four she brought back, disappointed by Donalla's failure, and relieved that they had returned. He had other coordinates for Killa to use.

  "I don't really like this," she told him. "It still feels like claim jumping."

  Lars grinned at her. "You won't say that when you have to share the proceeds, Sunny."

  "There's that, too, of course," she said, making a face at him.

  She went out by herself within the hour, after getting a severe lecture from Lars about remembering to stow black the instant she cut it.

  "If I find it!"

  "You will."

  She did, but whatever crystal there might have been there once was now buried under a mass of rubble and boulders too big to be shifted. She sang at the top of her excellent lungs and didn't hear so much as a squeak from the buried crystal.

  So she returned to the Guild, arriving just before dark and, while Lars was willing to give her another set of coordinates, he wasn't willing for her to start until the next morning.

  "Take a long bath, have a good meal, sleep in a good bed," he said with a wink and a leer. "Missed you, Sunny," he added in a soft voice, and pulled her to him, to kiss her neck. He pulled a face as he licked his lips. "Yugh! You need the bath."

  "Thanks!"

  "Look," he said, becoming serious, "I badly need your help, Sunny. Really, more your presence and a nod or two when necessary. If you seem to be going along with my scheme, the others're more apt to."

  "Go along with what scheme?" she demanded, warily. Lars was wearing his Guild Master's face.

  "I've got three other singers who I believe—I hope—are still flexible enough to go along with me in this."

  "In what?"

  "Easy, Killa." He grinned down at her, a twinkle returning to his eyes. "Using coordinates from the inactives."

  "Oh." She began to see both his problem and his scheme.

  "I also want to see how they respond to that alternative Donalla's suggested."

  "Which is?" She had slightly eased herself back from his embrace.

  He scrubbed his head with his knuckles, a sure sign that he was uncertain and nervous. "If singers didn't spend so much time trying to find claims they haven't worked in a while, if they could just go right back to them, they'd save a lot of time."

  "So you want them to permit Donalla to hypnotize them and force memory of their coordinates?" Killa asked, cutting to the gist.

  He nodded.

  "I don't think they'll go for it," she said, shaking her head.

  "You took mine and found the black. You took Rimbol's and got to his site."

  "I know it can be done, and you might get some singers to use inactives' coordinates, but I don't think you'll get them to submit to hypnotic recall of their own sites. You know how paranoid we all are about claim locations."

  "Paranoia doesn't have to enter the picture."

  "Ha!"

  "Look, Donalla's not a cutter and she's demonstrated her integrity as a medic. She's certainly not going to violate their trust."

  "First she has to get it."

  "All right, but she's not about to go mouthing off coordinates. Muhlah, but she could implant—in herself—a posthypnotic command to forget what she's just heard."

  "She could?" Killashandra was surprised.

  "Even better, she wants to give each singer who'll go for this a keyword. She may have to keep track of keywords, knowing the fragile memory of singers"—and Lars gave Killa a wry grin—"but that keyword would allow them to recall their own coordinates without any other further assist."

  "I mean," Lars continued, beginning to pace the room in his enthusiasm, "this is the way it'd work, according to Donalla. She gives them a posthypnotic command to remember coordinates whenever they set down the sled. That's locked in their memories. Guild records show what they cut, if not where they cut. When they want to return to a site, they say the password, and that makes the information accessible again. To them, and them only, so their privacy hasn't been
violated."

  "It sounds feasible—for those who accept hypnosis."

  "You seem to be one of the few who don't," he said, resignation in his voice.

  "I've always marched to my own drumbeat," she said in a light tone that masked her own sense of failure. She really did want to help him. "Count on me for support—for however much good it does you."

  "Your support'll mean more than you imagine, Sunny," he said, and gave an emphatic nod of his head. "Go on and get cleaned up. I've got a few more things to clear off my screens." And he gestured to a desk littered with pencil files. "I'll meet you in the main dining hall in an hour, all right?"

  When she had bathed and dressed with some care, she made her way to the dining hall she had not patronized at all in recent years. There weren't that many diners in the big room, and most of the alcoves were dark. It made her shiver a little. Was it just that all working singers happened to be out in the Ranges right now? That there wasn't a group of novices waiting around to be infected by the symbiont? That the large number of support staff had all decided to eat in their quarters this evening?

  She looked around for Lars and then heard his distinctive whistle. He was just loading a tray with beakers of what looked like Yarran beer. Beside him were Donalla and Presnol and three singers, the same three she had recognized at the meeting at which Lars had officially opened inactive claims.

  Now he nodded toward a banquet table off to one side of the huge low-ceilinged room, and she turned to meet them there. She managed to drag one singer's name to mind: Borton. Pushing harder, she remembered that he had been in the group she had "graduated" with. He didn't look much older than he had looked back then. But why should he, if his symbiont was doing its job?

  "Borton, how nice to see you," she said, smugly pleased that she had placed him. She smiled at the other two, a man and a woman, as if she remembered them, as well. She gave Lars a quick glance.

  "Tiagana, Jaygrin," he put in quickly, "do you recall Killashandra?"

  "I think we've met either on ships leaving Shankill," Killashandra said, addressing Jaygrin, "or wandering around the moon waiting for a shuttle." She glanced at Tiagana. "Ah, Yarran beer. What would we do without it?"

  That seemed to bridge the gap. Everyone reached for a glass from Lars's tray and then helped transfer platters and covered dishes to the round table. Lars acted the genial and diligent host and sent Presnol back for more Yarran beer when the first beakers were empty. Killa saw flashes of amusement in the other singers' faces, as if they were well aware of how Lars was trying to lull them. It had been a long time since she had been in a peer group, or in a dinner party of any kind. If it hadn't been for Presnol and Donalla deftly stimulating conversation, this party might never have come to life. But it did.

  "All right, Lars, you've dined us and beered us, so what's this really about?" Borton asked, settling back in the chair as he pushed his empty dinner plate away from him.

  "All four of you have been profiting from cutting on inactive singers' claims," Lars began, "and that's exactly what I hoped would happen. But I'd like you four to take this a step further." He went on, using almost the same explanation he had given Killa an hour before. Had he been rehearsing it on her? She wondered. But, since she had heard it already, she could pay more attention to the way the other three were responding to his scheme.

  Tiagana didn't bother to disguise her reluctance. She leaned away from Lars, toward Borton, who was sitting beside her. He was not as unreceptive. And as for Jaygrin, Killa could almost see the credits dancing in his eyes, and his smile was positively greedy.

  "How do we know that Donalla can't unhypnotize herself and consciously know our claim locations?"

  "She can't," Presnol said flatly, his tone brooking no argument.

  "I wouldn't want to," Donalla said. "It would be pointless since I don't sing crystal, and the cutter is always paid on what he or she brings in. I couldn't count on you to remember to give me a bribe, now could I?"

  Jaygrin laughed, showing narrow, almost feral teeth. "So the deal is, Lars Dahl, that we'll get inactive singer sites plus this hypnotic business to remember where we cut?"

  Lars nodded.

  "And no share out of the cut?" Borton asked.

  "On the first cut of an inactive, you pay the twenty-five percent, but only the Guild tithe on any subsequent cuttings."

  Even Tiagana looked interested now.

  "It works," Killa said, deciding to enter the discussion. "I've flown out and cut as long as the claim was good. Came back in, got another set, and flew directly to it, ready to cut again. Of course, one claim was buried too far to be reached, but the coordinates were accurate. Saves a lot of time and wasted effort."

  "You've been doing what Lars described?" Tiagana asked.

  "I have," Killa replied, nodding and managing a slightly smug curl to her smile. "A snap." She snapped her fingers to match her words. "I think it's a lot easier on a body, too," she added, indolently easing her buttocks down in her chair. "Muhlah, when I think of the days I've spent trying to find a site, trying to remember if it was still workable. Sure saves a lot of stress." She debated putting a word or two about loyalty to the Guild but knew that wouldn't cut much with singers. Only credit did. And Lars's new scheme was indeed the key to larger credit balances and fewer dry runs in the Ranges. "No more dry runs," she reminded the three singers as they mulled over what had been said.

  Presnol slipped away from the table and returned with more Yarran beer. Wisely Lars switched to a discussion of the dinner they had just eaten, criticizing the preparation of one or two dishes and asking if anyone else had found them wanting.

  Singers would talk food till the galaxy grew cold, and Presnol and Donalla kept the beer circulating until only Lars and Killa, who had been more abstemious than her custom, were able to walk straight.

  "Do you think it'll work?" she asked him as they made their way to their quarters.

  "We'll know tomorrow. But that Jaygrin's going to try it." Lars chuckled. "Avaricious bastard! But then he's never come in with any of the darker colors on his own."

  Which, in crystal-singer parlance, was the most insulting thing one could say about another cutter.

  Chapter 11

  As Killa was setting off for the next set of coordinates Donalla had obtained for her, she saw the other three singers readying their sleds in the Hangar. When she came back two days later, she had a full carton of deep amethyst crystals in fifths and thirds. They were not, of course, the black she had been after. But she had remembered that Clodine had said the darker shades were in short supply, so she had stayed to cut rather than return empty-handed.

  Before she had lifted from the site, she had jotted down the coordinates and slipped the notation under the sheet of liberated markers taped to her console. In plain sight and yet hidden. Now if she could only remember that! She ought to think of some sort of code, something she would twig to the moment she saw it. She began to regret that she wasn't a good subject for hypnosis. She wondered how Tiagana, Borton, and Jaygrin were getting on. She was pleased that she could recall their names so easily. If she wanted to remember something, she really could!

  She was in rare good spirits when she brought the cartons in to Clodine.

  "Haven't I seen you here a lot lately?" the Sorter asked, grinning because Killa was.

  "Sure! I'm enjoying an excellent streak of luck. It was bound to happen," Killashandra said blithely, "given the probabilities. Even if these aren't blacks."

  Clodine held up the heaviest of the fifths, adjusting her eyesight to scrutinize the crystal. She put it on the scales and made minute adjustments, nodding all the while.

  "Well, you remembered amethyst, and there's a good market for them right now. Two space stations are being constructed, and the big Altairian waystation is expanding, so darks are needed for their life-support systems. Lars'll be real pleased to know these have come in."

  "I'll tell him myself, hear?" Killa winked at Clo
dine.

  "It's nice to see you like this, Killa," Clodine said, and gave Killa's arm a tentative pat. "And you're not even buzzing."

  "No, I'm not. I feel as if I could cut forever these days."

  "I'd heard you already had!" Clodine said with rare flippancy.

  In great good humor, Killashandra laughed, then chuckled more heartily from her gut when she saw the final figure on two days' work. Many were the times in her past when she would have killed for such totals. Yes, Lars's idea of getting coordinates out of inactives was brilliant.

  Before she went down to her quarters, she stopped in the Hangar office to ask for her sled to be ready for the morning.

  "Why don't you just stay out, like you usually do, Killa?" Murr asked. "You're like an overnight homer, in one day and out the next."

  "I find what the Guild needs, I cut, I bring it in. Much more efficient that way, isn't it?"

  "You're using a lot of fuel," he cautioned.

  "I've the credit to pay for it, Murr. Humor me."

  She left him there, but his morose attitude brought her down a bit. The moment she entered her quarters, the comunit buzzed.

  "Muhlah! Can't I even have a bath first?"

  "Killa?" Lars's image came up on the screen. "Glad you're in, C.S. Ree. Would you join me as soon as possible in my office?"

  She started to say something snide about his formality, but before she could speak he stepped to one side and she saw that he had visitors in his office: visitors who were wearing the clear plastic suits and breathing masks that meant their errand was urgent enough for them to risk possible contamination by the Ballybran symbiont.

  "Permit me time to become presentable, Guild Master Lars Dahl," she said in a similar manner, and waved the comunit off.

  Curiosity moved her to shower and change quickly. Very few people would take the chance these were. Urgent was almost always interesting. As she strode into the office, there was a new person at Trag's desk who looked up, seemed about to challenge her presence, hesitated, and then looked quickly back to the screen. She palmed the door and entered Lars's office.