"They went."  She was surprised to find dish, bottle, and wine glasses empty.

      "Fine.  Than we can start on more."

      "More?"  But already a pungent spicy odor emanating from the caterer had sharpened her appetite.  "I'll bloat."

      "Very unlikely.  Had you gone out with your class, this is exactly what would have been served on your return from the ranges.  Yarran beer, since you have cultivated a taste for it, would be appropriate to wash down the spicefish."  He dialed for more.  "Beer has also, for millennia, had another normal effect on the alimentary system."

      His comment, delivered in a slightly pompous tone, made her laugh.  So she ate the spicefish, drank the beer, responded to certain natural effects of it, and, at one point, realized that Lanzecki had coaxed, diverted, bullied her into continuously consuming food for nearly three hours.  By then, her satiation was such that when Lanzecki casually repeated his suggestion that she install the black crystal, she agreed to consider it.

      "Is that why you've stuffed and drunken me?" she demanded, sitting erect to feign indignation.

      "Not entirely.  I have given you sufficient food to restore your symbiont and enough drink to relax you."  He smiled away her defective grammar and any accusation of coercion.  "I do not wish you to endure Passover's mach storms.  You might be ten levels underground, buffered by plascrete a meter thick, but the resonances cannot be" — he paused, averted his face, searching for the precise word — "escaped."  He turned back to her, and his eyes, dark and subtly pained, held hers, his petition heightened by the uncharacteristic difficulty in expressing his concern.

      "Do you ever .  .  .  escape?"

      The delicate bond of perception between them lasted some time, and then, leaning across the table, he kissed her question away.

      He escorted her back to her quarters, made certain she was comfortable in the bedroom, and suggested that in the morning she take her cutter down to be checked and stored, that if she was interested in weather history, she could review other phenomenal Passover storms in the met control the next day at eleven and see something of Storm Control tactics.

      The next morning, she reflected during her shower and notably hearty breakfast on Lanzecki's extraordinary attentions to her, sensual as well as Guild.  She could see why Lanzecki, as Guild Master, would exploit her eagerness to get into the ranges and secure Keborgen's priceless claim.  She'd succeeded.  Now, in an inexplicable reverse, Lanzecki wanted her off-planet.  Well, she could decide this morning when she watched the weather history, whether that was the man or the Guild Master talking.  She rather hoped it was the former, for she did like Lanzecki the man and admired the Guild Master more than any man she had so far encountered.

      What had he meant when he said she was unpredicted?  Had that been flattery?  The Guild Master indulging a whimsy?  Not after he had assisted her in getting out into the ranges; not after she had successfully cut black crystal?  Especially, not after Lanzecki had very forcefully defined to her in the Sorting Room the difference between the man and the Guild Master.

      She winced at the memory.  She had deserved that reprimand.  She could also accept his solicitousness for her health and well-being.  He wanted more black crystal — if that was his motive.  All right, Killashandra Ree, she told herself firmly, no section or paragraph of the Charter of the Heptite Guild requires the Master to explain himself to a member.  Her ten years at Fuerte Music Center had taught Killashandra that no one ever does a favor without expecting a return.  Lanzecki had also underscored self-preservation and self-interest with every object lesson that was presented.

      She didn't really want to leave Ballybran, though it was probably true that she could use the credit margin of an off world assignment.  She looked up the payment scale:  the credit offered was substantial.  Perhaps it would be better to take the assignment.  But that would mean leaving Lanzecki, too.  She stared grimly at her reflection in the mirror as she dressed.  Departing for that reason might also be wise.  Only she'd better mend her fences with Rimbol.

      Grateful that she would not have the additional expense of replacing the cutter or facing the Fisher with that request, she brought the device up to Engineering and Training.  As she entered the small outer office, she saw two familiar figures.

      "I'm not going to be caught here again during Passover," Borella was saying to the Singer Killashandra remembered from the shuttle.

      "Doing your bit again on recruits, Borella?" the man asked, negligently shoving his cutter across the counter and ignoring the technician's sour exclamation.

      "Recruits?"  Borella stared blankly.

      "Remember, dear" — and the man's voice rippled with mockery — "occasionally, you pass the time briefing the young hopefuls at Shankill station."

      "Of course, I remember," Borella said irritably.  "I can do better than that this time, Olin," she went on smugly.  "I cut greens in octave groups.  Five of them.  Enough for an Optherian organ.  Small one, of course, but you know that that addiction will last a while."

      "I'm rather well off, too, as it happens."  Olin spoke over her last sentence.

      Borella murmured something reassuring to him as she handed over her cutter to the technician, but showed a shade more concern for the device.  Then she linked her arm through Olin's.  As they turned to leave, Killashandra nodded politely to Borella, but the woman, giving Killashandra's cutter a hard stare, walked past with no more sign of recognition than tightening her clasp on Olin's forearm.

      "Of course, there are those unfortunate enough to have to stay here."  Her drawl insinuated that Killashandra would be of that number.  "Have you seen Lanzecki lately, Olin?" she asked as they left the room.

      For a moment, Killashandra was stunned by the double insult, though how Borella would have known where the Guild Master spent his time was unclear.  She resisted the insane urge to demand satisfaction from Borella.

      "Are you turning that cutter in or wealing it?"  A sour voice broke through her resentment.

      "Turning it in."  She handed the cutter to the Fisher carefully, wishing she didn't have to encounter him as well.

      "Killashandra Ree?  Right?"  He wasn't looking at her but inspecting the cutter.  "You can't have used this much," and he peered suspiciously at handle and blade casing.  "Where'd you damage it?"

      "I didn't.  I'm turning it in.

      The Fisher was more daunting than Borella and her rudeness.

      "You could have left it in your sled, you know," he said, his tone not quite so acerbic now that he had assured himself that one of his newest cutters had not been misused.  "No one else can use it, you know," he added, obviously making allowance for her ignorance.

      She was not about to admit to anyone that she had lost the sled.

      "I'm going off-planet for Passover," she said and belatedly realized that he had no such option.

      "Go while you can, when you can," he said gruffly but not unkindly.  Then he turned and disappeared into his workroom.

      As she made her way back to the lift, Killashandra supposed she ought to be relieved that someone remembered her.  Possibly the Fisher was able to associate her with a device he had so recently crafted.  Or perhaps it was common knowledge through the Guild that Lanzecki had berated a new Singer.

      She shouldn't let the encounter with Borella rankle her.  The woman had inadvertently confirmed Lanzecki's advice.  Furthermore, if Moksoon could not remember Killashandra from moment to moment, how could she fault Borella?  How long did it take for a Singer's memory to disintegrate?  Killashandra must learn to overcome habits and values acquired on Fuerte in the Music Center.  There one sought to put people under obligation so they could be called in as support for this role or that rehearsal room, to form a trio or quartet, throw a party on limited credit, all the myriad arrangements that require cooperation, good will! and .  .  .  memory of favors past.  As Lanzecki had pointed out, "Gratitude depends on memory."  The corollary being "memory lasts a finite time with a Singer."  The only common bond for Crystal Singers was the Guild Charter and its regulations, rules, and restrictions — and the desire to get off Ballybran whenever one could afford that privilege.

      Carigana shouldn't have died?  Now why did that come to mind, Killashandra wondered as she stepped out of the lift at Meteorology.  According to the ceiling-border message panel, the viewing was already in progress in the theater.  As she hesitated, another lift, this one full of people, opened its door, and she accompanied the group to their mutual destination.

      The theater was semidark and crowded, people standing along the walls when all seating was occupied.  On the wide angle screen, cloud patterns formed and reformed with incredible speed.  At one point, Killashandra saw Rimbol's face illumined; beside him were Borton and Jezerey.  She recognized other members of Class 895 and the weather man who had taken them to the sensor station.  The turbulence of the storm was not audible.  Instead a commentator droned on about pressure, mach-wind velocities, damage, rain fall, snow, sleet, dust density, and previous Passover tempests while a print display under the screen kept pace with his monologue.  Killashandra managed to find space against the far wall and looked over the engrossed audience for Lanzecki's face.  She hoped he hadn't made his offer of the off-planet trip to anyone else.  If he was being magnanimous, surely he would also give her first refusal.

      Then she became caught up in the storm visuals, thinking at first they must have been accelerated — until she compared wind velocities and decibel readings.  She was aghast at the fury of the storm.

      "The major Passover storm of 2898," voice and print informed viewers, "while not as severe or as damaging as that of 2863, also formed in the northeast, during spring solstice, and when Shilmore was over the Great Ocean in advance of Shanganagh and Shankill.  The inauspicious opposition of the two nearest planets will emphasize the violence of this year's storm.  Seeding, improved emulsions, and the new wave disrupter off the coasts of Buland and Hoyland should prevent the tsunami drive across the ocean which caused such widespread havoc on the South Durian continent."

      The screen switched frequently from satellite pictures to planetary weather stations where the wind shifts were marked by waves of debris flung in vertical sheets.  Killashandra fell into that mesmerized state that can befuddle the mind, and for one hideous second she almost heard windshriek.  A particularly frenzied cross-current of detritus shattered the trance by inducing motion nausea.  She hastily left the theater, looking for a toilet.  The moment she reached the soundproof stability of the quiet corridor, her nausea waned, only to be replaced by the gnawing of severe hunger.

      "I had breakfast," she said through clenched teeth "I had plenty of breakfast."

      She entered a lift, wondering just how long the postrange appetite remained critical.  She punched for the infirmary level and swung into the same anteroom she had entered barely four weeks before.

      No one was on duty.

      "Is anyone here?" she demanded acidly.

      "Yes," the verbal address system responded.

      "I don't want you.  I'd like to see — "

      "Killashandra Ree?"  Antona walked through the right hand door panel, an expression of surprise on her face.  "You can't have been injured?" The chief medic took a small diagnostic unit from her thigh pocket and advanced toward Killashandra.

      "No, but I'm starving of the hunger."

      Antona laughed, slipping the instrument back into her pocket.  "Oh, I do apologize, Killashandra.  It's not the least bit funny!  For you."  She tried to compose her face into a more severe expression.  "But you put it aptly.  You're "starving of the hunger" for several reasons.  While the others were convalescing from the fever, we could administer nutritional assists.  You had no fever, and then you were sent out to cut.  The appalling hunger, you realize, is quite normal.  No, I see you don't, and you look hungry.  I'm just about to have a morning snack.  The lounge will be deserted, as everyone's peering at last year's storms.  Join me?  I can think of nothing more boring than to be compelled to eat mountains and gulp them down in solitary confinement.  You did remember, of course" — and by this time Antona had guided her back to the lift and, at their destination, down the length of the lounge to a catering area as she talked — "that the symbiont takes twenty weeks to establish itself thoroughly.  We have never managed to find out the average spore intake per diem since so much depends on the individual's metabolism.  Now, let's see .  .  ." Antona pressed menu review.  "You don't mind if I order for you?  I know exactly how to reduce that hunger and restore the symbiont."  Antona waited for Killashandra's agreement and then toured the catering area, dialing several selections at each post before signaling Killashandra to take a tray and start collecting the items delivered.

      Food enough for the entire final year student complement of the Music Center presently covered two large tables, and Killashandra ravenously started to eat.

      "If it's any encouragement, your appetite will slack off especially after the symbiont has prepared for Passover."  She smiled at Killashandra's groan.  "Don't worry.  You'll have no appetite at all during the height of Passover — the spore buries itself in crevices."  Antona smiled.  "In the Life lab, we have rock crabs and burrow worms over four hundred years old."  Antona's grin became wry.  "I don't suppose that aspect of Ballybran's ecology figured in your orientation.  There isn't much life on this mudball, but what there is lives in symbiotic relation to the spore.  That's how it keeps itself alive, by increasing the survival mechanisms of whatever host it finds.  It behooves Us, the new dominant life form, to study the indigenous."

      As she ate, Killashandra found Antona's ramblings more interesting than Tukolom's lectures.  It did cross her mind that Antona might just be indulging in the luxury of a captive audience.  Antona was not lazy with fork and spoon, so her "morning snack" must have answered a real need if not as urgent as Killashandra's.

      "I keep trying" — and Antona emphasized that word "to correlate some factor, or factors, which would once and for all allow us to recruit without anxiety."  She paused and looked with unfocused eyes to one corner of the dining area.  "I mean, I knew what I was to do before I came here, but if I had made the complete adjustment, I'd've been required to sing crystal."  Antona made a grimace of dislike, then smiled radiantly.  "The prospect of having all the time in the world to delve into a life form and carry through a research program was such a gift — "

      "You didn't want to be a Crystal Singer?"

      "Shards and shades, girl, of course not.  There's more to life here than that."

      "I had the impression, that crystal singing was the function of this planet."

      "Oh, it is," and Antona's agreement rippled with laughter.  "But the Crystal Singers could scarcely function without support personnel.  More of us than you, you know.  Takes five and three-quarters support staff to keep a Singer in the ranges.  Furthermore, the Guild doesn't have the time or the facilities to train up members in every skill needed.  There are plenty of people from the Federated Sentient Planets quite willing to risk adaptation and the possibility of having to sing crystal to come here in other capacities."

      "I'm a little confused .  .  ."

      "I shouldn't wonder, Killashandra.  You do come from Fuerte, and that conservative government had off notions about self-determination.  I did wonder how you came to be recruited, though you are one of our nicer surprises."  Antona patted Killashandra's arm reassuringly.  "The Fuertans we've had in previous decades also made good hosts."  Suddenly, Antona frowned, eyeing Killashandra speculatively.  "I really must run your scans again.  I've developed five separate evaluation tests, two at the primary level, which, if I say so myself  — and Antona smiled modestly — "have increased the probability figures by 35%."

      "I didn't think the Guild was permitted active recruiting," Killashandra said, doggedly returning to that blithe comment.

      Antona looked startled.  "Oh, nothing active.  Certainly less blatant than service programs.  The FSP definitely frowns on any sort of conditioning or coercion due to the specific adaptation, you see.  That's a direct contradiction of the freedom of movement in the FSP Charter.  Of course, when FSP recruits, no one dares complain but it's common knowledge what Service people do."  She emitted a sort of giggle.  "Freedom of movement, indeed.  Most good citizens of the FSP never leave or want to leave their home worlds, but they have to be able to do so according to FSP, and that forces us to use the Shankill clearing point."

      "Don't you mind being restricted to this planet?"

      "Why should I?"  Antona did not appear to be resigned.

      "Singers seem very keen to get off Ballybran," Killashandra said, but her mind was chaotic, remembering Carigana's intransigence, the farce of the Shankill Moon Recruitment, Rimbol's passing his "preliminaries," Carigana and her "trap," the way Killashandra found herself reacting to the suspicion that Antona had confirmed.

      "Singers should leave Ballybran whenever possible," she said, completely sincere and much at her ease.  "It's a tense, demanding profession, and one should be able to .  .  . escape .  .  .  from one's work to completely different surroundings."

      "Escape."  That was the verb Lanzecki had used.  "Do you escape your work Antona?"

      "Me?  Of course.  My work is in the infirmary and the labs.  I have the whole planet to roam and the moons if I wish a change of view."

      "Even at Passover?"

      Antona chuckled indulgently at Killashandra's jibe.  "Well, everyone holes up during Passover.  Or gets off the planet if possible."  She leaned over to touch Killashandra's arm.  "For your own sake, I wish you hadn't cut so near to Passover, but you can be sure I'll help you all I can."

      "Why should I need help?"  Killashandra had no trouble affecting innocent surprise.  "I've only cut once."

      "The most dangerous cut of them all.  I'm really surprised that Lanzecki permitted it.  He's so careful about his new Singers.  I had to pass you over to training, my dear.  No point at all in keeping you with sick people.  But this Passover is the most inconvenient one, and it will be ages before the weather settles and damage can be cleared.  I suppose Lanzecki wanted to get as much crystal cut as possible when he could.  Of course, repair won't concern you as a Singer.  You'll be sent out as soon as possible to check your claims for storm alteration."

      "What will happen because I have cut crystal once?"

      "Oh, dear."  Antona inhaled deeply and then exhaled on a short, exasperated breath.  "I will blather on.  Very well, then, I'd have to tell you soon, anyhow.  It's only I don't like to alarm people unnecessarily."

      "You have unless you come to the point."

      "You've been told that storms in the Crystal Ranges are lethal because the winds whip resonance out of the mountains that produce sensory overload.  During Passover, the entire place, right down to its core, I sometimes feel, quivers — a noise, a vibration, multiple sonics are formed and transmitted which cannot be" — Antona gave another shrug of helplessness — "escaped.  We'll sedate you, and you can be harnessed safely in a radiant tub in the infirmary, which has special shielding.  Every possible care will be taken."

      "I see."

      "No, you'll hear.  That's worse.  Now eat.  Actually, at your stage, a surfeit of food is the best cushion I could prescribe.  Think of the sedation as hibernation; the food is protection."

      Killashandra applied herself to the untouched dishes, while Antona silently and slowly finished her last portion.

      "Do the others go through this, too?"  Killashandra flicked her hand at the array of plates.

      "Oh, we all start eating quantities now."

      "Will the others have to be sedated and — "

      "They'll be uncomfortable, but so will anyone with hearing and quite a number who are in other respects clinically deaf hear storm resonance.  We provide maskers.  The white noise relieves the temporary tinnitus caused by turbulence.  We really do try to help."

      "I'm sure you do."

      "Small comfort, you may think, but all things are relative.  Just read the early history of the Guild and the members' comments.  Oh, dear, I don't want to be caught here."

      Antona's hasty rising caused Killashandra to look around.  People were streaming in from the lifts.  "I'll just slip out the back.  You finish your meal!"  She pointed imperatively at the remaining dishes and then retreated into a dimmer area of the Commons.

      Killashandra finished the milsi stalks and regarded the final dish of nut-covered cubes.  People were lining up at the catering areas, the first serving themselves with generous trays.  So she wasn't the only hungry one.

      "Here she is!" Rimbol's delighted cry startled her.  She twisted in the chair and saw the Scartine.  Mistra, Jezerey, Borton, and Celee were close behind him.  "I told you I saw her at the storm scan.  You get hungry or something?"  His eyes bright with mischief, Rimbol began to count the empty plates.

      "You must have cut a lot of crystal to afford all that," Jezerey commented.  Her eyes were unfriendly.

      "Antona's orders.  I didn't have a convalescence like you lot, so I'm eating for two now."

      "Yes, but you got out into the ranges, and we're stuck here!"  Jezerey was almost savage.  Borton shook her arm.

      "Cut that, Jez.  Killa didn't do it to spite you, you know."  Borton looked across to Killa, his eyes entreating.

      "Yes, you did get out into the ranges," Mistra said in her soft voice, "and I'd very much appreciate it, Killashandra, if you'd tell us what actually does happen when you cut.  I've got the awfulest notion that they don't tell us all, for all they do tell."

      "Here, get rid of the debris" — Rimbol was shoveling dishes and plates together — "and someone order beer and things.  Then Killashandra can divulge trade secrets."

      Killashandra was not in a confessional mood, but the mute appeal in Mistra's brown eyes, the wary concern in Rimbol's, and Borton's stiff, blank expression could not be denied by a classmate, no matter what doctrine of self preservation Lanzecki was preaching.  Jezerey would find her own level; that was certain.  Rimbol, Mistra, and Borton were a different matter.

      Celee returned then with pitchers and beakers.  "Look, since singing isn't my trade, why don't I just shuttle food for you?" he asked good-natured]y.  He winked at Killashandra to emphasize his indifference to the outcome of his adaptation.

      Orders were given him, and as he left, complaining that his back would be broken, the others settled at the table and looked expectantly at Killashandra.

      "Most of what happens is explained, Killashandra began, not knowing precisely how to describe the phenomenon.

      "Theory is one thing.  Where does it differ from practice?"  Mistra asked gently.

      "She doesn't say much but she gets to the point," Rimbol noted while raising his eyes in comic dismay.

      Killashandra smiled gratefully at Mistra.

      "Those storm simulation flights — the real thing can be worse.  I didn't cut squarely for all the practice I had retuning soured crystal.  I suppose your hands get stronger, but don't be surprised if your first block has a reptilian outline."  She was rewarded with a chuckle from Rimbol, who clowned with an exaggerated wriggle of his torso.  "You know you've got to be shepherded into the ranges by some experienced Singer?  Well, keep one fact perfectly clear:  he or she is liable to forget from moment to moment that you are legally supposed to be with him.  Mine damned near sliced my leg off.  Just keep the tape playing on repeat so he can't forget it.  Talk to him all the time, keep yourself in his sight, especially after he's just cut crystal .  .  ."

      "Yes, yes, we've been told that.  But when you find crystal .  .  ."  Jezerey interrupted abruptly.

      Killashandra looked at her coolly.  "When" the girl said.  "It's if, not when — "

      "But you found crystal.  Black crystal," Jezerey began indignantly.

      "Shut up, Jez."  Borton pressed his fingers warningly into her shoulder, but she shrugged off his hold.

      "The unexpected starts when you cut your own crystal.  You tap for the note on the face and then tune the cutter and then .  .  ."  Killashandra was back in the fault, the first black segment, uneven cut line and all, weighing in her palms, dazzling her with its slow change in sunlight from transparency to the black matte of the thermally responsive crystal, losing herself in the memory of that shimmering resonance, feeling the incredible music in her blood and bones .  .  .

      An insistent tugging on her sleeve finally broke her trance.

      "Killa, are you all right?  Shall I get Antona?  Killa?"  Rimbol's urgent and anxious questions brought her to dazed awareness of her present position.  "You've been away for — "

      "Six minutes, four seconds," Borton added, tipping his wrist to see the display.

      "What?"

      "What?  she says" — Rimbol turned to the others with a teasing manner — "when she's been visiting her claim on the sly.  Look, friends, no visible means of contact and yet our fair lady — Does it truly take that kind of a hold on you, Killa?"  He dropped his antic pose and touched her gently on the arm, his face concerned.

      "Well, I didn't think it could get me sitting here with my friends, but this advice I will freely give you, having just demonstrated.  Cut, and pack!  If you don't, you may stand there like I just was and commune with your crystal until the storm breaks over you."

      "Communing with crystal!"  Jezerey was impatient, skeptical.

      "Well, it might not happen to you."  Killashandra tried to speak mildly, but Jezerey aggravated her.  "Got your sled yet?" she asked Rimbol.

      "Yes .  .  ."  Rimbol said.

      "But we're not allowed to use them," Jezerey finished, glaring at Killashandra.

      "Which might be just as well, considering your performance on the simulator," Borton said.

      "So crystal singing is really addictive?  How fast is the habit formed?"  Rimbol was off in a seriocomic vein to lighten the tension that was developing.  "Can it be broken?  Is it profitable?"

      "Yes, fast, no, and yes," Killashandra responded.  "Don't let me inhibit your enjoyment of your meal."  She rose quickly, keeping Rimbol from rising by a restraining hand on his shoulder.  "See you tonight here?"

      She hardly waited for his answer, for she had seen a figure entering the Commons at the far end, moving with Lanzecki's unmistakable stride.  She walked to intercept him.

      He was Guild Master, she realized, as he scanned the faces in the lounge.  He barely paused as she reached him.

      "I'd like that assignment."

      "I thought you would."

      No more than that and they had passed each other, he for the catering area and she for the lifts.

CHAPTER 11

      It was a relief to be back in her quarters.  Somehow the absurdity of the bizarre, tri-atmospheric wall-screen restored to her a sense of the absurd.  Her attempt to verbalize her experience of crystal cutting to her friends and its aftermath disturbed her.  How could memory, even of such an ecstatic moment, dominate mind and body so?  She had broken that first communion with the crystal block by packing it.  Or had she?  And whom could she ask?  Was addiction why it was so easy for a Singer to lose the data retrieval function of the mind?

      Had she hesitated over Lanzecki's offer because she actually didn't want to be far from the ranges?  She remembered then the longing in Borella's voice to return to the ranges when her wound had healed.  On the other hand, Borella could now not wait to get off the planet.

      The ambivalence, Killashandra decided, could be explained.  Oddly enough, it was analogous to having the starring role in a large company.  The applause could be the crystal singing in your hand, fresh from the vein, stimulating, ecstatic.  The same emotional high every time you cut, until body and mind were exhausted by the clamor, the concentration.  The thrall of crystal confounded by the urgent need of rest and relief.

      She had seated herself by the computer keyboard, motivated to record some of her reflections.  The automatic time display winked the change of hour.  Even thinking about crystal took enormous hunks of time.  She'd been back in her room more than two hours.

      Briskly sitting upright, she keyed for the original entry she had made and listened dispassionately to her voice rehearsing the few facts she had entered.  Then she tapped the record tab.

      "I found an abandoned black crystal vein and cut with success.  The trick with crystal is to pack it away before the song gets to you in the sun.  I lost my sled trying to save old Moksoon.  A waste of a good sled.  Lanzecki is generous, and I shall be installing the five interlocking segments I cut in the Trundimoux System.  That way I avoid Passover storms which are expected to be unusually violent."

      She played back the terse synopsis of her last two weeks.  Would the bones of experience remind her of the degree and emotional heights at some later time?  She sniggered at her own pretentiousness.  Well, she never had considered herself any sort of a playwright.

      As she leaned back in the console chair, she became aware of rumbling in her belly.

      "Not again!"

      To deny the stimulus of hunger, she determinedly dialed a furniture catalog though she had nothing to put on tables or shelves since she had hung her lute on the wall.  She thought of playing the instrument which she hadn't done in a long time, but the E string broke the moment she turned the pin.  Very carefully, she replaced the lute.  Then, clenching her teeth, she made for the caterer in angry strides to assuage her unacceptable appetite.

      She was dialing vigorously when the communit buzzed.

      "Lanzecki here."

      "Are you linked to my catering dial?"

      "It is not coincidence.  Guild Masters are allowed to eat when their daily duties permit.  May I join you?"

      "Yes, of course."  She sounded as genuinely welcoming as she could after her facetious greeting.

      Lanzecki was, she supposed, as much a victim to pre-Passover appetite as anyone else.  Nor did she suppose him to be exploiting her by conveniently dispatching her off world.  Or .  .  .  taking the cup of protein broth she had dialed as Lanzecki's call came through, she went to the console and checked with Marketing.  The display confirmed that the Trundimoux order for a five-place communications system utilizing black-crystal components had been received five days before.  The order was priority rated by the FSP sector chief.  She returned to the caterer and dialed enticing food for a tired, hungry man.

      And it was Lanzecki the man who entered her apartments as she was vainly trying to squeeze plates, platters and pitchers onto the limited surface of her table.  She really ought to have got in more furniture.

      "I started," she said, waving her soup.  "I didn't think you'd mind."  She handed him a steaming cup.

      "Nor do I."  As he smiled, the tension lines around his eyes and mouth eased.

      "I had a morning snack with Antona after hunger over came me during the storm scan," she said as he seated himself, stretching out his legs.

      "She undoubtedly reassured you that we're all eating heartily at this moment."

      "She ate a lot, too."

      Lanzecki laughed.  "Don't worry.  You'll have no appetite during Passover."

      "But I won't be here."

      "The instinct operates independently of your physical where abouts.  Especially, I regret to inform you, when your transition was so recent."

      "So long as I'm not gorging like this while I'm installing the crystals."  Some planets, particularly new ones like the Trundimoux system with limited food supplies, might consider a hearty appetite unbecoming.

      "No, more likely you'll be sleeping it all off."  He finished his soup and seemed more interested in picking out his next item.  "Tomorrow, Trag will instruct you in installation procedures.  We had a secondary communication from the Trundimoux giving us the disposition of the five units.  I understand that the kindly call them Trundies; the informed style them the Moux."

      "The what?"  Killashandra demanded on a laugh, for she couldn't see herself using either nickname.

      "Two crystals will be installed on mobile mining stations.  Trundimoux has three asteroid belts.  That's how they can afford black crystal."  Lanzecki snorted.  "They've fortunes in ore whirling about, waiting to be grappled.  The third unit is to be on the one habitable planet and one each on the large satellites of the gas and the ice planets.  Trundimoux mining operations have been seriously hampered by lack of real-time communications, so they mortgaged half a belt and, I expect, will discharge that indebtedness in short order.  Originally, the system was exploited merely for the asteroid ores, with several multihulks hauling the metal to the nearest manufacturing system — Balisdel, I think it is.  The Balisdelians got greedy, Trundimoux miners rebelled, settled the better planet and one of the outer moons.  In less than seventy-five years, they're a going concern."

      "With money enough for black-crystal communications."

      "They'd already a linkage with Balisdel and two other systems, but this will be their own internal link.  Yarran beer?"  Lanzecki rose to dial the order.

      Killashandra laughed.  "Who drank Yarran beer before Rimbol got here?  Besides you."

      "The discovery was by no means original with me, either.  Yarran beer is as close to addictive as anything can be for us."

      There was a heaviness about Lanzecki this evening, Killashandra thought.  It wasn't fatigue, for he moved as easily as ever for a man of his build.

      "I'd forgotten how pleasant the taste is," he went on, returning with a pitcher and two beakers.

      "Is this Passover going to be that bad?" she asked.  Lanzecki took a long draught of the beer before he answered, but his eyes were twinkling, and his mouth fell into an easier line.

      "We always plan for the worst and generally are not disappointed.  The challenge thus presented by each new Passover configuration is irresistible, forces that are changeless and changing, as unpredictable as such natural phenomena are."

      Killashandra was startled by his unexpected philosophizing and wondered if she had been wrong about his mood.

      "You actually enjoy this!"

      "Hmmm.  No — 'enjoy' is not the appropriate word.  Stimulated, I think, would be more accurate."  He was teasing her.  His lips told her that.  Teasing, but something more, something deeper, the element that caused the heaviness about him.  "Stop thinking and eat.  I've ordered up a particular delicacy which I hope you'll enjoy, too.  Catering goes to great pains at this time of Ballybran's cycle, and we must respond."

      Tonight, his appetite equaled hers as they sampled the marvels of taste and texture that had been conjured from the cuisine's of all the elegant and exotic worlds in the Federation.  Lanzecki knew a great deal about food and promised her that one day he would personally prepare a meal for her from raw produce to finished dish.

      "When eating is not a necessity, as it is now, but can be enjoyed," and his eyes twinkled at the repetition of that word "in complete leisure."

      "We're not at leisure now?"

      "Not completely.  As soon as I have satisfied my symbiotic self, I must meet with the storm technicians again."

      She suppressed an irrational disappointment that their dinner was not a prelude to another loving night.

      "Thank you, dear heart," he said.

      "Thank me?  For what?"

      "For being .  .  .  aware."

      She stared at Lanzecki for a long moment.

      "You're certain telepathy is not in the symbiotic .  .  ."

      "Absolutely not!"  Lanzecki's assurance was solemn, but she wasn't sure about his mouth.

      Killashandra rapidly catalogued some of her responses to him and sighed.

      "Well, I am sorry you're not staying!"

      Lanzecki laughed as he reached for her hand and kissed it lightly.  Not light enough so that she didn't respond to his touch.

      "I have never intended to invade your privacy, Killashandra, by watching the shift and flow of your thoughts and emotions.  I enjoy them.  I enjoy you.  Now" — and he rose purposefully — "if it were anything but storm tactics .  .  ."  He kissed her palm again and then strode swiftly from the room.

      She let her hand fall back to her lap, Lanzecki's graceful compliment echoing through her mind.  Quite one of the nicest she had ever been paid.

      Oddly enough, that he had been invading a Fuertan's treasured privacy, once her most defended possession, did not distress Killashandra.  If Lanzecki continued to "enjoy" what he saw — She took a long swallow of beer.  How much she had changed since that aimless, aching ride on the pedestrian way to Fuerte's spaceport!  How much of the change was due to her "symbiotic self?"  That, too, had been an invasion of privacy to which she had, before officialdom of the FSP, agreed.

      Now that she had held crystal, vibrant in the palm of her hand, light and sound coruscating off the sun-warmed quartz, she felt no regrets for loss of privacy, no regrets for an invasion that had been entrance into a new dimension of experience.

      She laughed softly at her whimsy.  She finished the beer.  She was sleepy and satiated, and tomorrow would be a wearying day.  She hoped that Trag did not get reports from Enthor on the raggedness of her first cuttings.

      The next morning, after a sturdy breakfast, she reported to Trag in the cutting room.  Other members of Class 895 were already busy under the supervision of Concera and another Guild member.  Killashandra greeted Concera and smiled at the others.

      Trag jerked his head to a side door, and she followed him.  She experienced a double shock, for there on the work table amid installation brackets and pads were five black crystals.  And she didn't respond to their presence at all!

      "Don't worry!"  Trag picked up the nearest one and tossed it negligently at her.

      She opened her mouth to scald him with an oath when the object reached her hands and she knew it wasn't black crystal.

      "Don't you ever frighten me that way again!"  Fury was acid in her belly and throat.

      "Surely you didn't think we'd risk the black in practice."  Trag had enjoyed startling her.

      "I'm too new at this game to know what is risked," she replied, getting her anger under control.  She hefted the block in her hand, wanting more than anything else to loft it right back at Trag.

      "Easy now, Killashandra," he said, raising a protective hand.  "You knew it wasn't black crystal the moment you walked into the room!"

      The coolness in Trag's voice reminded her that he was a senior Guild member.

      "I've had enough surprises in the ranges without having to encounter them here, too, Trag."  As she controlled panic and rage, she also reminded herself that Trag had always been impersonal!  Her relations with Lanzecki were clouding other judgments.

      "Coping with the unexpected must become automatic for a Singer.  Some people never learn how."  Trag's eyes shifted slightly to indicate the room behind them.  "You proved just now that your instinct for the blacks is reliable.  Now" — and he reached out to take the block from her hand — "let us to the purpose for which these were simulated."  He put the block among its mates.

      Only then did she realize that the five mock crystals had been cast in the image of those she had cut, wiggles, improper angles and size.

      "This substance has the same tensile strength and expansion ratio as black crystal but no other of its properties.  You must learn today to install crystal properly in its bracketing with enough pressure to secure it against vibration but not enough to interfere with intermolecular flow."  He showed her a printed diagram.  "This will be the order and the configuration of the Trundimoux link."  He tapped the corresponding block as he pointed out its position, repeating what Lanzecki had rattled through.  "Number one and two, the smallest, will be on mining stations, number three on the gas planet satellite, number four on the ice planet satellite, and number five, the largest crystal, will be installed on the habitable planet.  You and you alone will handle the crystals."

      "Is that Guild policy?"  How much more did she have to learn about this complex profession?

      "Among other considerations, no one in the Trundimoux System is technically capable."  Trag's voice was heavy with disapproval.

      Killashandra wondered if he considered them "Trundies" or "Moux."

      "I would have thought Marketing would handle installation."

      "Generally."  His stiff tone warned her off further questions.

      "Well, I don't suppose I'd've been saddled with the job if I hadn't lost my sled and if Passover weren't so near."

      She got no visible reaction from her rueful comment.

      "Remember that," Trag advised, and added with an unexpected wryness, "if you can."

      Installing crystal in padded clamps was not as simple as it had sounded, but then, as Killashandra was learning, nothing in the Heptite Guild was as simple as it sounded.  Nevertheless, by evening, with arm, neck, and back muscles tense and hands that trembled from the effort of small, strong movements, eyes hot from concentration on surface tension readings, she believed she understood the process.

      She was philosophical when Trag said they would repeat the day's exercise on the morrow, for she knew she must be motion perfect during the actual installations.  Guild members had a reputation to maintain, and she would be up to Trag's standard of performance even if this was the only installation she ever made.  Since her notion tallied with Trag's, she was undaunted by his perfectionism.

      Lanzecki joined her again for her evening "gorge," but he excused himself as soon as he'd finished.  She didn't mind so much that night because she was very tired.

      By meal time the following day, she had secured Trag's grudging approval for a deft, quick, and competent installation within a time limit he had arbitrarily set.

      "Why not take more time?" she'd asked reasonably.  "Installing a link between people ought to be an occasion."

      "You won't have time," Trag said.  "You'll be on an inbound gravity deflection course.  There'll be no time to spare."

      He gave her no chance to query his emphasis on time.  With a curt nod, he left the room.  Maybe Lanzecki would be in an expansive mood.  If, she qualified to herself, he joined her for dinner.

      Dinner?  She was starving for her midday meal.  As she passed through the main training room, Rimbol had just finished making a diagonal cut under Concera's tutelage.

      "Are you eating soon?" she asked Rimbol and the Older Singer.

      "I'm always eating!"  Rimbol's reply was half groan, half belch, and Concera laughed.

      "Finish the last cut," Concera told him.

      "Go save us a table."  Rimbol shooed her off, then turned his attention to his cutting.

      Killashandra went directly to the Commons and found the dining area well occupied, tables stacked with a variety of dishes that bore witness to the problem of symbiotic instinct.  She was about to order something to sustain her during the search for a free table when a large group vacated one of the booths.  She ordered hastily, dialing for beer in a pitcher and beaker and setting them about the table to prevent occupation.  She had retrieved her first order and was already eating as Rimbol, Concera, and two others of Class 895 joined her.

      The meal became a convivial occasion, and all made suggestions of this or that favored delicacy they'd discovered during what Concera styled "the hunger."

      "It's so good to have new members," she said in a giddy voice, waving her beaker of beer, "to remind us of things we've forgotten.  I can't think, of course, who it was the last time, but Yarran beer is so satisfying."

      Rimbol rose, bowed to the entire table.  "Be upstanding all.  Let us toast to the brewers of Yarran beer.  May they always be remembered — by somebody!"

      As the company hastily stood, the table was knocked askew, and before the toast could be made, the surface had to be mopped and more beer dialed.

      Killashandra was suffused by a sense of camaraderie that she had often observed in the Music Center but had never been part of.  She supposed it was Rimbol's special gift that, given half a chance, he could make an occasion of any gathering.  She said little, smiled much, and ate with a heartier appetite for such good company.

      As she sat facing the dispensing area, she found herself identifying high-ranking Guild members as well as Singers obviously just in from the ranges, some of whom were gaunt, nervous, and confused by the throng of diners.  Others, despite the same noise-pollution discomfiture, appeared in very good spirits.  The nervous ones hadn't cut enough crystal to get off-planet, Killashandra thought, and the relaxed ones had.  Certainly, when Borella entered with Olin and another pair of Singers, they were a vivacious group.  Obstreperously so, Killashandra thought, for they would whisper among themselves, then burst into laughter as they looked with mock surreptitiousness at silent diners.

      Though Rimbol was joking with Concera and Celee, he had noticed Borella's table.

      "D'you know?" he said in an undertone to Killashandra, "she doesn't remember any of us."

      "I know.  She has been out in the ranges since we were recruited."  Killashandra knew she wasn't excusing Borella, and she didn't need to explain to Rimbol.

      "I know, I know, but that was only a few months ago."  Rimbol's blue eyes were clouded with worry.  "Do we lose our memories that quickly?"

      "Borella's sung a long time, Rimbol."  Killashandra could not reassure herself, either.  "Have you started your personal file?  Good.  That's the way to remember what's important."

      "I wonder what she considers important."  Rimbol looked at Borella with narrowed eyes.

      "Getting off this planet during Passover!"  Even to herself, Killashandra sounded sharp.  Rimbol threw her a startled look, and then he laughed.  "I only know because I heard her talking to that tall fellow, Olin."  Killashandra added in an easier manner.  "Say, have you been in contact with Shillawn at all?"

      "Sure have.  In fact, we're meeting here tomorrow.  Join us?"

      Killashandra met Rimbol's mildly challenging stare.

      "If I'm free.  I'm scheduled to take some crystals to the Trundimoux system.  Evidently, having cut crystal, I'd be particularly susceptible to Passover, so they're whipping me off the planet."

      "Once I thought I'd have no trouble keeping up with you, Killa."  Rimbol's expression was rueful.

      "What D'you mean by that?"  Killashandra was aware of a flurry of unexpected feelings:  anxiety, surprise, irritation, and a sense of loss.  She didn't want to lose her friendship with Rimbol.  She put her hand on his arm.  "We're friends, remember.  Class 895."

      "If we remember."

      "What is the matter with you, Rimbol?  I've been having such a good time."  Killashandra gestured at the others laughing and chatting, and the evidences of a hearty meal.  "I haven't had a chance to see much of anyone because of that wretched Milekey transition and being shepherded out by that sonic-shorted Moksoon — "

      "Not to mention finding black crystal."

      She took a deep breath against her seething reaction to Rimbol's implicit accusation.

      "When" — she began slowly and in a taut voice — "you have been in the ranges looking for crystal, then you will know what I can not possibly explain to you now."  She rose, the tenuous sensation of comradeship abruptly severed.  "Give my regards to Shillawn if you'd be so good as to remember."

      She excused herself and stalked past a startled Concera, who tried to protest Killashandra's exit.

      "Let her go, Concera.  She has matters of great importance to attend."

      Striding quickly into the main aisle, Killashandra nearly ran into Trag just entering the dining area

      "Killashandra?  Don't you ever watch the call display?"  Trag pointed to the moving line above the catering area, and she saw her name flashing.  Trag took her arm and hurried her toward the lifts.  "The Trundimoux ship is at Shankill.  We've been holding the shuttle for you."

      "The Trundimoux ship?  Leave?"  Killashandra glanced back at the table she had so hurriedly left.  Only Concera was looking in her direction.  She gave Killashandra a little wave for reassurance.

      "They made time around their last sun and are here ahead of schedule and can not hold at slow much longer or they'll lose momentum."

      "I'll only need a few things .  .  ."

      Trag shook his head impatiently and pushed her into a waiting lift.

      "A Carisak is being prepared for you on the Base.  Anything else you require, your accommodations and expenses are to be met by the Trundimoux.  There's no time to lose now!"

      Killashandra's protests waned.  Her initial confusion turned quickly to resentment.  Not only was she leaving without a chance to vindicate herself in Rimbol's opinion, she wasn't to see Lanzecki either.  Or perhaps he had planned so hasty a departure to prevent her from embarrassing him?  Soured as she was by Rimbol's accusations, it was easy to include Lanzecki.

      That Milekey transition might have appeared to be a blessing, but that bit of "luck" had alienated her from the few friends she had ever made and left her vulnerable to speculations and subtly accused of harsh and indefensible suspicions.

      "We were not expecting the Trundimoux to arrive so soon," Trag said, "but that may be fortuitous with Passover not long away."  He thrust a sheaf of print out at her as she was puzzling that cryptic remark.  "Antona said you were to read this.  Medical advice on symbiotic adjustment and replenishment, so examine it carefully.  The crystals are already on board the shuttle and locked in the supercargo's security hold.  This is your Guild identification" — he offered her a slim folder like the one Carrik had carried "and the Guild band," which he clasped around her right wrist.  "With these, you have access to planetary governing organizations, including the Session of the Federated Sentient Planets.  Though they're a boring lot, and I can not see this assignment leading to a meeting, it's wise to be prepared for all contingencies."

      Access to the Session of the Federated Sentient Planets?  Killashandra did not think Trag would joke about such a privilege.  The stimulation of such prestige and surprise lifted her depression.

      They had reached the hangar level, and Trag's hand under her arm propelled her forward at a good pace toward the waiting shuttle.  At the ramp, the boarding officer was gesturing them urgently to hurry.  Trag increased his pace, and every inch of Killashandra wanted to resist as she glanced around the immense hangar area for one glimpse of Lanzecki.

      "C'mon!  C'mon!"  the boarding officer exhorted.  "Stragglers can be left for tomorrow's shuttle!"

      "Quiet!"  Trag turned Killashandra just as she put her foot on the ramp.  "The Guild Master has considerable confidence in your abilities.  I do not think it is misplaced Lanzecki wishes you a good voyage and a safe return!  Remember!"

      With that, Trag whirled, leaving Killashandra staring after him, his last words echoing in her mind.

      "I can NOT close the ramp if you are standing on it," the boarding officer exclaimed petulantly.

      Obedient in her confusion, Killashandra hastened into the shuttle.  The ramp retracted, and the shuttle's door slid with a ponderous whoosh and hiss across the aperture.

      "Don't just stand there.  Get a seat."  The boarding officer gave Killashandra a little push toward the rear of the shuttle craft.

      She strapped herself into a seat without thinking, holding her identification folder and Antona's instructions with both hands resting on her thighs.  She let her body relax to the motion of the shuttle as it lifted on air cushions and glided from the hangar.  Having no viewport, she endured what seemed hours before she felt the power surge as the crystal drive was engaged.  She was thrust back into the cushioning of her seat as the shuttle took off.  The pressure was welcome as a source of minor discomfort.  She wished that the gravity drag pushing flesh and muscles against resisting bone might squeeze unwelcome thoughts from her head.

      Then the shuttle was free of Ballybran's pull, and the relief of weightlessness was accompanied by the return of common sense to Killashandra's tumultuous thoughts.  She had built into a personal tragedy two totally unrelated incidents:  Rimbol's curiously aggressive attitude during an otherwise convivial occasion when she had felt particularly relaxed, and Lanzecki's apparent dismissal.  She'd muddled these about with her tendency to dramatize and a subconscious guilt about her easy transition, the Keborgen incident, Lanzecki's unexpected friendship, her first over charged trip into the ranges, and pre-Passover sensitivity.

      So.  Deep breath and rationalize.  Rimbol was also feeling pre-Passover sensitivity.  Not only had Trag personally escorted her to the shuttle, but he had given her three different messages:  the Guild Master had confidence in her.  So, unexpectedly, had Trag, whom Killashandra knew to be harder to please than any other instructor she had ever studied with.  And Lanzecki wished her a good voyage and a safe return.

      Killashandra smiled to herself and began to relax.  With the unstated import as reassurance, she ceased to regard the precipitous departure as more than coincidence.  Still she'd been on the handy end of coincidence rather much recently.  From the moment the sorters recruited her class to help with crystal and Enthor had chosen her; her sensitivity to black crystal; a Milekey transition that, according to Antona, no one could predict.  Chance had been on Killashandra's side when she'd gone with the rescue team to Keborgen.  True, an application of deduction and fact had helped her determine Keborgen's flight path.  Her premature introduction to the ranges had occurred at Lanzecki's direction, governed by the Guild's necessity to keep Keborgen's claim operative.  She might not have found it, might have been deterred by the fresh claimer paint.  She wondered about the effect of Passover storms on paint.

      Then she remembered Antona's message, and shoving the Guild ident into a hip pocket, she unfolded the print sheet.

      Antona had researched the foods available in the Trundimoux system and listed the best for Killashandra's needs.  The list was ominously short.  Antona reminded the new Singer that her hunger would slacken but that she might also encounter considerable drowsiness as Passover point was reached.  This effect most frequently occurred when symbiont and host were adjusting.  Antona advised her to complete the installations as quickly as possible and gave her a mild stimulant to over come lethargy.  Antona ended by advising Killashandra not to return to Ballybran's surface until Passover was completed, and the farther away from the system she stayed, the better.

      The message, typed by voice-printer, sounded like Antona in a cheerful way, and Killashandra was extremely grateful for the thoughtfulness that prompted it.  Her uncertainties allayed, she mentally reviewed the installation procedures in which Trag had drilled her.  Both he and Lanzecki had confidence in her.  So be it.

      The retrodrive and the swaying, dropping motion of the shuttle indicated it was maneuvering to the base docks.  She felt the impact as the maneuver was successful.

      "Clumsy!"  a familiar voice commented several rows up from Killashandra.

      "No doubt, one of your recruits showing off," the drawling voice of Olin replied.

      She must really have been in a daze when she boarded the shuttle, Killashandra thought, if she hadn't noticed Borella and her companion.  Killashandra had just unstrapped when she was surprised to hear her own name in Borella's unmistakably scornful voice.

      "Killashandra Ree?  Now how should I know whether she's on board or not.  I don't know her."

      The calculated indifference to what must have been a courteous query infuriated Killashandra.  No wonder Crystal Singers had such bad reputations.

      She made her way to the shuttle door, coming to an abrupt halt as her augmented vision was assaulted by the garishly uniformed pair standing to one side of the dock port.  On the chests of each man, emblazoned in vivid, iridescent, and inharmonious colors, was a stylized symbol, a planet, two moons lined by three whirling asteroid belts.  The movement, Killashandra decided as she closed her eyes for a moment, must be due to the men's normal breathing and some special quality of the material.

      "I'm Killashandra Ree," she said politely, but she could almost understand Borella's curt arrogance.  To the more sensitive eyes of an altered human, the Trundimoux uniform was visually unbearable.

      "Star Captain Francu of the Trundimoux Navy, at your service, Guild Member Ree."  A stiff gesture introduced his companion.  Senior Lieutenant Engineer Tallaf."

      By narrowing her eyes, Killashandra could filter out the appalling color and appreciate that these were very attractive men, lean as most spacers were, and equally obvious, uncomfortable.  Nervous?

      The shuttle pilot, his casual coverall a complete contrast to the Trundimoux officers', emerged from the lock.

      "You're from the Trundy ship?  Cargo's unloaded on the lower deck."

      Killashandra noted Captain Francu's wince at the nickname and thought that the lieutenant was amused.

      "Senior Lieutenant Supercargo Pendel is attending to that matter, Captain .  .  ."

      "Senior Captain Amon, Francu.  Pendel has been thoroughly briefed on the crystal?"

      Francu stiffened.

      "Where's your ship docked?"  Amon continued, looking at his wrist-unit.

      "Our cruiser" — and Francu emphasized the type of vessel in such a pompous tone that Killashandra had a presentiment that her voyage companions might be very dull — "is in hyperbolic."

      "Oh, your system did get the 78 then."  Amon replied with such genial condescension that Killashandra nearly laughed aloud.  The two officers exchanged startled glances.

      "Well, you'd hardly have got here so fast in any of your old 59s.  Quite a compliment to you, Killa, for them to send their newest."

      To her knowledge, Killashandra had never met Amon, but she didn't miss the slight wink that accompanied the abbreviated form of her name.

      "I don't think the compliment is to me, Amon" — and she smiled understandingly at the officers — "but rather to the black crystals."

      "You Trundies are lucky to get the quintet," Amon went on; he, too, had caught Francu's disapproval of the nickname.

      "After all, there is an FSP priority for the Trundimoux system," Killashandra interjected diplomatically.  Amon might be getting some pleasure out of antagonizing Francu, but she was the one who had to travel with the man.

      "True," Amon replied, and smiled affably.  "Now, Killa, there are a few details .  .  ."  and he began to shepherd her toward the Guild exit.

      "Captain Amon, we were assured that there would be no delays as soon as the Guild — " Francu's wrist-unit blurted a noise.  "Yes?  They are?  Secured?  We'll be in the cutter — "

      "Not until Killashandra has cleared Shankill authority, Captain.  If you'll just wait at — which port is your cutter at?"

      "Level 4, port 18."  Francu yielded the information with a look compounded of anger and apprehension.  "We are hyperbolic."

      "This won't take long."

      Amon hustled her through the Guild door, and she smiled back reassuringly at the startled officers.

      "What's all this nonsense about?" she demanded, breaking Amon's grip as the panel slid behind them.  "If they're on hyperbolic, we've only so much time to catch up with their cruiser."

      "Over here!"  He grabbed her hand again and pulled her into a side room.  The odors of food that assailed her aroused an instant appetite.  She groaned.

      "Eat!"  Amon exhorted her.  "You've got to cram as much as you can into your belly."  He shoved some pepper fingers into her mouth.  "You won't get a chance to eat while that cruiser is on interplanetary drive.  Those 78s don't carry luxurious  catering devices, and the mess will be closed while they build speed.  You'd starve.  I got the ship to fix up a necessaries kit for you.  I know the Trundies have females on board, but it isn't right for a Singer to wear their uniforms.  Your eyes'd bleed.  There're lenses in this kit to filter the color intensities to the bearable level."  Amon rattled through the inventory as he checked the items in the small bag.  "Not much variety in clothing but good quality.  I'll put in some of this food, too.  We really have to hop if they're on hyperbolic.  Bells and bollux, they must be separating some expensive rocks in their asteroid belts if they could buy a 78."  He whistled.  "I saw the length of the drone string they brought.  However, if they traded with the Guild, I know who came out best.  Here, try these nut meats.  Heard you liked Yarran beer.  Have a gulp to wash the meats down.  Good.  Now, another word of advice.  Play Crystal Singer to the hilt with those belt knockers.  That captain's a bad print, and I've seen enough to know.  Eat!  I can't hold you up much longer."  He was covering the remaining uneaten dishes and stowing them in the kit.  His wrist-unit bleeped.  "Yes?  Yes, I know.  Mere formalities?  Fardles, she was starving to death, shaft head.  It is rising Passover and you know cruisers.  We'll be off in a pico."  Amon slung her kit bag over her shoulder, thrust a bowl of small crispy fried squares in one hand, took up another dish and her beer in the other.  "You can eat as we go, but Francu's cutting up stiff with Authority about the delay.  Bells and bollux!  Did anyone remember to warn you about the sleepies?"  Amon was guiding her down the corridor to the peripheral lifts.

      "Antona mentioned them.  I've instructions and a stimulant.

      "I put a strip of pink tablets in your stuff.  Bollux!  And you've only just been in the ranges.  It just isn't fair on you, you know."

      "Trag trained me on installations."

      "Trag?  Oh, Lanzecki's shadow," and Amon appeared impressed.  "It's not so much what you have to do as where and with what.  The Trundies being a prime example of Problem.  Here we go.  Take a deep breath, girl, and you're on stage as Heptite Guild Member from now on.  Good luck!"

      Amon whipped the dish from her hand as she faced the door panel, motioned for her to wipe her mouth, and then the door slid apart.

      Killashandra blinked as the raucous colors on the stiffly attentive escort of six men half blinded her.  The haste with which she was then propelled into the cutter was indicative of the tension she sensed in the atmosphere.  She barely had time to mumble thanks to Amon before the cutter airlock closed.  Killashandra nearly fell over the crystal container, cross-tied in the center of the narrow aisle.  She noticed the familiar Heptite dodecahedron and the rather astonishing large Trundimoux symbol.  Even the stamp radiated offensive color.  The captain indicated the seat she should take, and the lieutenant tested her seat webbing.

      Rather to her surprise, the captain took the control seat, Tallaf sitting second in the traditional left-hand place.  The release formalities were completed with Shankill Authority, and the lock coupling to the cutter was released.

      Francu was a competent driver, but Killashandra had the distinct notion that cruiser captains rarely lifted lowly cutters from moon bases.  Or was this a Trundie tradition?  She must NOT fall into the habit of their nickname.

      The cutter was equipped with external video cameras, so Killashandra rather enjoyed the spectacular views of Ballybran, little Shilmore, and the dazzling array of small and large merchant craft attached to the locks of the base or in synchronous orbit.  Probably everyone was getting in for what crystal was available before Passover.  She wondered if Andurs's ship was in a berth.  As the cutter wended its way through the orbiting traffic, she didn't see Rag Delta Blue Swan.

      The cruiser became visible early in the short trip.  It was planet lit on its long axis, which made it seem larger.  She had half expected it to be decorated in wild patterns, but the hull was the usual space orange.  The drones tethered to it were much patched and dented.  As the cutter was matching speed for contact, she could not judge the cruiser's forward motion, but it had that inevitable, inexorable, military look — "I am going in this direction, and nothing is stopping me."  Which, Killashandra mused, was fair enough since the vessel was traveling on a hyperbolic trajectory utilizing the gravitational pull of whatever suns or planets that deflected it.

      The captain made a clean insertion into the cruiser's dock, and a moment later the airlock bumped gently against the hull.  The crewmen jumped to their feet.  The captain, with Tallaf a half step behind, stopped abruptly at Killashandra's seat.  Hastily, she unbuckled her webbing, realizing that she was holding up the landing drill.

      With a hiss, the hatch swung open, and an incredibly high pitched whine pierced her skull.  The noise stopped as quickly as it had started.  Outside, two rows of stiffly attentive men formed an aisle from the cutter to a larger hatch.  There, more officers, including two whose outlines were female, awaited her.

      A snap and scuff behind her, and from the corner of her eye, Killashandra saw crewmen lifting the crystal container.  She felt another twinge of apprehension about this assignment.  Even if getting off-planet during Passover was vital to her, was this fuss and formality the right environment?

      She took a deep breath and moved forward, head high, and stepped on to the cruiser's deck with the dignity of a reigning queen of ancient times.

      The two female subordinate officers, Tic and Tac, for she never could get them to repeat their proper names above a mumble, escorted her to quarters, which made her student's cubicle at the Music Center seem spacious.  However, she told herself firmly as she was shown the ingenious disposition of the tiny cabin's conveniences, that Ballybran had given her delusions of grandeur.  The cramped accommodation would deflate her sense of self-importance to a manageable level.  Tic and Tac demonstrated how the bunk could be converted to a table, where the jug of water — one per cabin — was stored, the panel behind which the tri-d was located and the ship's library code; they reminded her five times about water rationing.  A toilet facility was cleverly tucked away but easily located by the chemical odor.

      The hum of crystal through the deck plates gave Killashandra a chance to suggest that they must have flight duties.  She waited to place the lenses in her aching eyes to tone down the revolting color around her.  Also, in the close confines of the room, the odors of her unfinished meal were apparent to her, if not to them, and she wasn't about to share.  The few mouthfuls she'd been able to bolt on Shankill had only sharpened her appetite.

      Tic and Tac did respond to another ear-piercing sound, promising to return to satisfy her smallest wish, once full drive had been established.

      Closing the cabin door with one hand and kicking down the bunk were simultaneously possible in her new accommodations.  As Killashandra stoked her symbiont's craving, she read the instructions on the lenses, pausing long enough in her eating to slip them over her irises.  The demonic shades of the cabin settled into a bland wash.  Ballybran had looked so dull to her at first!  She finished the food Amon had packed, then tried to calculate how long it would be before her next meal.

      She felt the drive taking hold, but the crystals were well tuned and caused her no twinges.  She could do nothing more at this stage of the cruiser's journey, so she made herself as comfortable as possible on the narrow bunk and fell asleep.

      Another ear-shattering whine brought her bolt upright on the bunk and very wide awake.  Would there be any way for her to block that dreadful noise in her quarters?

      "Journey speed achieved.  Cruising drill is effective as of — now!  All officers to the mess.  Will Guild Member Killashandra Ree do us the honor of joining the assembly?"

      She would also have to do something about receiving such ship-wide announcements.

      "Guild Member Ree?  Are you in hearing?"

      "Yes, yes, of course," the Guild Member replied, hastily depressing the toggle so quaintly placed at eye level by her bunk.  "Honored to join the officers' mess."

      She emptied the carisak on the bed, sorted through the tunics and caftans, found the "sleep!' pills Amon had mentioned, and secured them in the arm pocket of her coverall.  Then she changed into the more elaborately decorated caftan and was wondering where the officers' mess would be located on a 78 when a brief rap on her door was followed by its being opened by Tic or Tac.

      "Privacy, sub, privacy.  Never open my door until I have acknowledged."

      "Aye, aye, ma'am, sorry, ma'am, I mean — " The girl had recoiled at Killashandra's severity.

      "Isn't there a Privacy light on this cabin?"  Killashandra could not contemplate easy access to her quarters with any equanimity either as a Fuertan or a Guild Member.

      "No light, ma'am.  This is an official vessel."  The subordinate officer regarded her with anxious trepidation.

      "Yes, of the Trundimoux system.  But I am of the Heptite Guild and expect the courtesy of Privacy wherever I am."

      "I'll pass the word, ma'am.  None of us will forget."

      Killashandra did not doubt that, but she must contrive the same respect from the officers.  Francu would be no threat, but Tallaf .  .  .  As Killashandra followed Tic to the officers' mess, she decided that she would retrieve a deck plan from the library as soon as she had the opportunity.  The cruiser was obviously being refitted to Trundimoux requirements en route, for work parties were busy at various corridors and levels, all pausing to inspect her as she passed.

      The officers' mess might have been a pleasant room but was poorly furnished, its walls hung with diagrams and hard copy, suggesting that it served a dual purpose.  Francu formally introduced her to the numerous officers, some of whom immediately excused themselves to take up their watch duties.  Those who remained were served a tiny cup of an inferior wine that the captain enjoined them to take to the mess table.

      In Killashandra's estimation, the occasion rapidly deteriorated into a very bad comic opera in which no one had studied lines or recognized cues.  Francu and his executive officer would never have advanced past preliminary auditions.  The other flight deck officers seemed to take turns asking her conventionally stupid questions to which, piqued, she gave outrageous and contradictory answers.  Only Tallaf, seated at the other end of the table, appeared to have a sense of humor.  The supercargo, also placed at an inconvenient distance from her, was the only extraplanetarian.  Since he seemed as bored as she was, she made a note to cultivate him as soon as possible.

      The food served was dreadful, although from the appetites of the younger officers, it was evidently a feast.  Killashandra could find nothing on the table that matched the items on Antona's list and, with great difficulty, chewed and swallowed the unappealing stodge.

      Dinner ended with everyone's jumping to their feet and dedicating themselves to the further ambitions of Trundimoux System, against all natural obstacles and phenomena.

      Killashandra managed to keep her expression composed during this unexpected outburst, especially when she realized that the younger subs were emotionally involved in their statement.  When Killashandra considered that the system had managed to purchase a 78 as well as five black crystals, there might be some merit to unswerving dedication.  The Guild inspired its members, too, but toward selfish rather than selfless aims.  Well, the Trundimoux system's results were very good, but it was from the Guild that they made their most prestigious purchases.

      The table was cleared efficiently by the mess crew, and Killashandra watched them, there being nothing else to do.  She could think of nothing to say in the silence and dreaded the prospect of more evenings like this.

      "Would you care for a drink, Guild Member?" the supercargo asked as he appeared at her side.

      "Why, yes, a Yarran beer would top off that meal," she said with considerable irony, for beer would more likely bring the stodge back up.

      To her utter amazement, the super gave her a bright smile.

      "You" — and his emphasis implied that she should have been the last person in the galaxy to have such tastes "like Yarran beer!"

      "Yes, it's my favorite beverage.  Have you heard of it?"

      "Of course, I've heard of it," and the man's good humored chuckle included those standing nearby.  "I'm Yarran.  Pendel's the name, ma'am.  You shall have a beaker from my own keg!"  He signaled to one of the mess crew, mimed the careful pouring of beer into a beaker, and held up two fingers.

      "Guild Member," the captain said, stepping in, "we have wines — "

      "Actually, Captain Francu, the Heptite Guild is partial to Yarran beer," she said, knowing that she was irritating the man, yet unable to resist.  "If I'm not depriving you, super — "

      "Depriving me?"  Lieutenant Supercargo Pendel was enormously amused by the suggestion.  Nor did Killashandra miss his quick glance at Francu or Francu's displeasure.  "Not at all.  My pleasure, I assure you I keep telling 'em how satisfying a good Yarran brew is, far and above the ordinary since Terran malt and hops adapted well to our soil, but to each his own, I always say."

      The beakers were served, and Francu's disapproval grew as Killashandra sipped with overt delight, though the beer was slightly flat, and she wondered how long it had been in Pendel's keg.  Perhaps the Guild brewmasters excelled Yarra's own.

      Pendel chattered away to her about different brews from different planets.  Killashandra was relieved to find at least one traveled person among the Trundie belt-knockers.  As long as they could stay on the subject of food and drink, Killashandra could give Pendel the impression of being widely — traveled herself.

      "Do you remember much about Yarra?" he asked, as he signaled for another round of beer.

      The phrasing of that question startled Killashandra, though she wasn't certain why, since Pendel's manner posed no threat.

      "Of all the planets I have visited, it has the best brew and the most affable population.  I wonder if the two are related?  Have you been long away?"

      "Too long and not long enough," the Yarran replied, his jolly face lengthening into sadness.  He sighed heavily, taking the fresh beaker and sipping at it slowly.  How the man could become homesick on one glass of flat beer, Killashandra wasn't certain.  "However, it was of my choosing, and we Yarrans make the best of everything, and everything of the best."

      Unexpectedly the harsh buzzer that announced watch changes penetrated the room.  Killashandra took that opportunity to excuse herself from the mess.

      Tac, for she'd seen Tic go off with the duty crew, guided Killashandra through the maze of companionways to her cell.  As she slipped out of her caftan, she wondered how she was going to endure six days of this.  And how was she going to replenish her symbiont on the gundge that was served?  She was thinking that flat Yarran beer had a more soporific effect than the proper stuff as she fell asleep.

      The next morning, it abruptly occurred to her that if Pendel had Yarran beer in his private supplies, he might have other delicacies, so she asked Tic, then on duty, to lead her to the supercargo's office.

      She felt crystal as she passed a sealed and barred hatch, grinning over the useless precautions.  For who could steal crystal in space?  Or were the Trundies afraid of crystal's ensnaring the unwary?  She experienced a start of amazement as Tic, after merely rapping on the panel, pulled it aside and entered.  Presumably, Yarrans did not object to casual invasions of their privacy.  Pendel was on his feet and full of genial welcomes in a cabin only slighter larger than hers.  All three had to stand in close proximity to fit beside the bunk table.  There were, however, a basket of fruit and a half-finished beaker of Yarran beer on the shelf.

      "How may I serve you?"  Pendel asked, smiling at Tic as he waved her out and closed the panel behind her.

      Killashandra explained, giving him the list of Antona's suggested diet.

      "Ah, I can supply you with these and more.  What they choose to eat" — and he waved his hand in the general direction of the control section amidships — "is well enough if one is not used to better.  But you, Guild Member — "

      "Killashandra, please .  .  ."

      "Yes?  Well, thank you, Killashandra.  You have been accustomed to the very best that the galaxy has to offer — "

      "So long as my immediate dietary requirements are met" — and Killashandra pointed to Antona's list — "I will have no complaint."  She could not help eyeing the fruit basket wistfully.

      "Haven't you eaten yet this morning?"  Appalled, Pendel deposited the basket in her hands, turning past her to haul back the panel and roaring at Tic, standing on guard.  "Breakfast, immediately, and none of the glop."  He glanced at the list.  "Rations twenty-three and forty-eight and a second issue of fruit."

      Consternation at having to relay such an order warred with fear in Tic's face.

      "Go on, girl.  Go on.  I've given the order!"  Pendel assured her.

      "And I have seconded it!"  Killashandra added firmly.  Then she bit into a red fruit to ease the gnawing in her belly.

      Pendel slid the panel closed and smiled with anticipatory glee.  "Of course, we'll have Chasurt down in a pico .  .  ."  The super rubbed his hands together.  "Those rations are his.  He's the medic," Pendel grimaced as he added, "with far more experience in space-freeze and laser burn.  The rations contain just what your list specifies, high in trace minerals, potassium, calcium and such like."

      The food and the medic arrived at the same time.  But for Pendel's smooth intervention, Killashandra's breakfast would have been confiscated from Tic's nerveless hands by the irate Chasurt.

      "Who gave orders to release my rations?"  Chasurt, a stolidly built, blank-faced man of the late middle decades, reminded Killashandra of Maestro Valdi in his outraged indignation.

      "I did!"  said Pendel and Killashandra in chorus.  Pendel took the tray from Tic's shaking hands and smoothly transferred it to Killashandra, who, moving herself and Chasurt's rations to the farthest corner of the cabin, left Pendel to impede Chasurt's effort at retrieval.

      Eating with a speed not entirely generated by hunger, Killashandra consumed the hot cereal and nutmeat compound.  Pendel was trying to get Chasurt to examine Antona's list, and Chasurt was demanding to know what he was to do if a real emergency were to occur, one in which sick people would need the rations that this — this — obviously healthy woman was devouring.  The medic did not approve of Killashandra's haste.  That Pendel had the right to order such rations seemed to infuriate Chasurt even more, and by the time Killashandra had finished the second dish, she felt obliged to interfere. 

      "Lieutenant Chasurt — "

      "Captain!  Guild Member," and, puce with the added insult, the man pointed to the rank emblem at his neck.

      "All right, Captain."  Killashandra accorded him an apologetic inclination of her head, "Pendel is acting on my behalf, obeying my instructions, which were firmly impressed on me by Chief Medical Research Officer Antona of the Heptite Guild Ballybran.  It was understood by my Guild Master and myself that my requirements would be met on this voyage.  If I am physically unfit to complete the installations, all your efforts will have been an expensive waste, and your system still incommunicado.  I am given to understand that the journey to your system is not a long one, so I cannot think that my modest dietary needs will seriously deplete the resources of a newly commissioned 78.  Will they?"

      Chasurt's face had reflected several emotions as she spoke, and Killashandra, though not as adept as Lanzecki in reading body language, received the impression that Chasurt would have preferred the system to lose the interplanetary link.  But that was an irrational premise, and she decided that Chasurt must be one of those officious people who must constantly be deferred to and flattered.  She remembered Amon's advice and realized its merit with this sort of personality.

      "Not wishing to remind you, Captain Chasurt, that in the Federated Sentient Planets' hierarchy, as a Guild Member traveling on Heptite Guild business, I outrank everyone on this ship, including Captain Francu, I will suggest that you check your data retrieval under Crystal Singers and be thus reassured in your dealings with me on this journey.  Now, just pass me the fruit."

      Chasurt had intercepted that basket, delivered during Killashandra's reply.

      "Trace minerals are especially important for us!" she said, smoothly reaching out to take the basket.  She had to secure it with a bit of a jerk.  Chasurt was livid.  Killashandra nodded pleasantly at Tic and dismissed her before closing the panel on Chasurt's fury.

      Pendel raised his Yarran beer in salute to Killashandra as he leaned against the wall.

      "We'll have the captain next, you know."

      "You seem to manage them rather well," Killashandra said between bites of the tangy redfruit.

      "They can't get rid of me."  Pendel chuckled, pressing the side of his nose and winking at her.  "I'm employed by the Mining Consortium, not the Trundie Council.  The MC is still keying the priorities.  Oh, they're not bad sorts for parochial chaps with metal on the mind.  They'll change.  They'll change now for sure."  Pendel swept his beaker from her to the sealed cabin where the crystal was secured.

      "Do I have the suspicion that not all concerned wish to change?"

      Pendel gave a laugh.  "And when has that been news?"

      A peculiar squawk was emitted by the communit, and Pendel winked at Killashandra.

      "Captain here, super.  What's this about special rations being issued without consultation?"

      "Captain Francu" — Pendel's tone was a drawl, just short of insult — "I believe the orders read that Guild Member Ree's requirements are to be met by the — "

      "They told me she didn't require anything special."

      "Guild Member Ree doesn't require anything special, but as I've been telling you, the mess served on this ship isn't universally nourishing or satisfying.  Chasurt has more than enough in stores.  I should know.  I buy for him."

      There wasn't an audible click at the end of the exchange, but the captain's complaint had been dismissed.  Killashandra regarded Pendel with more respect.

      "Hard worker, that Francu.  Runs a tight ship.  Never lost a person.  Just the sort of man to trust the newest ship to."  Pendel rubbed the side of his nose, his broad grin implying all the negative facets of Captain Francu that he did not voice.

      "I appreciate your cooperation and support, Pendel, almost as much as the beer.  One more favor, if it's possible.  Do I have to listen to all the ship's business?"  Another harsh buzz punctuated her request.

      "Just leave it with me, Killashandra," Pendel said comfortably.  "I'll send round some handy rations for you in the meantime."  He gestured apologetically at the plates and chips piled on the printouts on his desk, and she took the hint.  She also took the second bowl of fruit, winking at Pendel as she left.

      The man contrived well and shortly after Tic led her back to her dinky cabin, the unnerving sounds of command were muted.

      Tic arrived, tapping politely and waiting for Killashandra's acknowledgment, with parcels of plain plastic in both hands.  One was a variety of the special rations, the other an array of food.  Tic kept her eyes averted from that luxury, but Killashandra perceived that any generosity from her would be ill advised.  She thanked Tic and dismissed her until evening mess.  Killashandra knew that she had to put in at least one appearance a day and sighed at the thought of such boredom.  While she munched on Chasurt's prized packages, she occupied herself by studying the deck plan of the 78.  Even as she watched, certain sections were updated and changed for purposes that escaped her.  Was this to be a cargo ship, a passenger liner, or a trading vessel?  Its specifications meant nothing to her, but the length of the numericals was impressive.

      She was duly escorted to the officers' mess, Chasurt and Prancu mercifully absent, so she chatted with Tallaf, an agreeable enough young man without his captain's presence to inhibit him, though when he got flustered, his neck had the tendency to puff out.  He admitted to being planet-bred, educated for his duties as executive in theoretics rather than the practical.  Most of the other officers and crew members were space or station born.  His tone was a shade wistful, as if he regretted the difference between himself and his shipmates.

      "I understand that your system has been isolated due to poor communications," Killashandra said conversationally.

      Tallaf looked anxiously around him.

      I also understand that a step forward is not generally popular."

      Tallaf regarded her with awe.

      "Oh, come now, Tallaf," Killashandra said in a teasing voice "that's been obvious to me since I boarded.  I assure you, it's not an unusual phenomenon."

      "Crystal Singers get to go everywhere, don't they?"  An ingenuous envy flickered across his face.

      "Not necessarily.  This is an unusual assignment for an unusual world and unusual circumstances."  Tallaf preened a little at the implied compliment to his system.  "Quite an achievement for an emergent political unit" — Killashandra was a little awed by her own eloquence — "to purchase a 78 and black crystals."

      She watched Tallaf keenly as she spoke and decided that the young engineer was evidently for instant interstellar communications.  She wondered briefly how the split of support went — spacers against planetaries or parochials against galactics.  She sighed, wishing someone had given her more data on the Trundies.  Perhaps there just wasn't much in the galactography.

      Pendel arrived, smiling pleasantly to the small groups of officers standing around.  It was then that Killashandra realized that she and Tallaf had formed a solitary pair.  She smiled more graciously at Tallaf for his fortitude as a crewman appeared from the galley with two beakers of Yarran ale.  Tallaf drifted away discreetly, and Killashandra toasted Pendel, whose jolly self evidently masked considerable prestige.

      Pendel chuckled.  "Good boy, that Tallaf."

      "He's for crystal?"

      "Oh, yes, indeed.  That's why he's exec this trip.  His first."  Pendel's affable smile was truly in place as he glanced around the messroom.  Killashandra was certain he knew exactly who should be there and who wasn't.  "Not bad at all for a shake down crew."  Killashandra wondered what the deficiencies were.  "A man looks for certain goals at certain times of his life," and his eyes caught hers over the rim of the Yarran beer glass.  "Adventure brought me to this system two and a half decades ago.  My timing was right.  They urgently needed an experienced supercargo.  They were being done out of their sockets on cargo rates."  Pendel's tone was laden with remembered indignation.  Then he smiled.  "Can't do business properly without proper communication."

      "Which is why crystal and this 78 are so important!"  She tilted her glass toward him as if Pendel had single-handedly accomplished all.  "You Yarrans are known for your perspicacity.  Quite a few from your system have become Crystal Singers .  .  ."  She was subtly aware of Pendel's reaction.  "Oh, come now, Pendel," she continued smoothly, for if she couldn't have this man's support, she might well be left in Chasurt's hands, and that wouldn't suit.  "Surely you don't believe the spaceflot about Crystal Singers?"  She contrived a very amused gurgle of laughter.

      "Of course not," and Pendel shrugged negligently, though his smile was not quite as assured.

      "Especially now you've met and talked with me and discovered a Crystal Singer is as human as anyone on board this ship.  Or" — and Killashandra glanced about the messroom and its subdued occupants — "perhaps a bit more so."

      Pendel surveyed his fellow officers and grimaced.

      "At least I can appreciate a proper brew," Killashandra continued, inwardly suppressing both apprehension and amusement.  Pendel was nowhere near as cosmopolitan as he liked to appear, though in contrast to the other Trundies, he was tolerably informed about the galaxy.  Somehow Killashandra must contrive to keep a friendly distance from him.  "I do give them credit," and she glanced around her with an air of compliment.

      "So evidently does the Heptite Guild."  Pendel had recovered his basic optimism.  "But none of us expected a Crystal Singer would install the things."

      "The Federated Sentient Planets have their own schedule of priorities.  Ours not to reason why."  Killashandra couldn't remember where that line came from, but it seemed to apply.

      Fortunately, the steaming platters and trays of their evening meal arrived, and Killashandra noted that only she and Pendel were served the one appetizing selection.

      Without the repressive presence of Captain Francu and Chasurt, Killashandra managed to draw into conversation most of the older officers.  Though the youngsters were far too shy to speak, she could sense that they were listening very closely and storing every word exchanged.  The subs were still malleable, and if she could influence them favorably and maintain Pendel's good will by judicious flattery, she'd have done more than she'd been contracted to do.  And the Trundies would need more crystal.

      That night, as she stretched out on the appallingly hard bunk, she reviewed her extravagant performance of that evening.  "Crystalline cuckoo" and "silicate spider," Maestro Valdi had called Crystal Singers.  She thought she knew why now:  the survival instincts of the symbiont.  And judging from Pendel's subconscious reaction to her, she knew why the symbiont remained a trade secret.  There were, she decided, more invidious threats than giving space and survival to a species that paid good value with the rent.

CHAPTER 12

      Killashandra made good use of her next five days, having Tic or Tac lead her on exercise walks about the cruiser, dropping hints about the exacting nature of her work and how she had to keep fit.  The silicate spider preparing its web for a Passover sleep.  She had a few uncomplimentary thoughts about the Guild, mainly Lanzecki, for sending her among the uninformed without a hint that the Trundimoux were so parochial.

      She did a great deal of listening to the subordinates when they relaxed enough to talk in her presence and to the general conversations, mostly good-natured slagging among work teams.  She learned a great deal about the short and awesome history of the Trundimoux system and stopped referring to them as Trundies in the privacy of her thoughts.

      As it had Pendel, the system had attracted many restless and adventurous people, a percentage of them either physically or temperamentally unsuited to the hazards.  The survivors bred quickly and hugely, and natural selection again discarded the weaknesses and the weaker, some of whom could usefully work in the relative safety of the larger mining units.  The second generation, who survived the rigors of knocking likely chunks of the suburanic metals out of orbit and jockeying their payloads into long drone strings, those hardy souls perpetuated their genes and became yet another variant of human.  This system was, in its own way, as unique as Ballybran's, its entrance requirements as stringent and its workers as rigorously trained.

      One night while juggling those elements in her mind the dangers of space as opposed to the physical tests on Shankill — Killashandra waxed philosophical.  The galaxy was not merely physical satellites circling flaming primaries but overlapping and intertwining metaphysical ones.  She was currently the bridge between two such star systems and two totally opposite mental attitudes.  She'd use the charm of one to survive in the other.

      The Trundimoux had already developed some strong traditions, the evening's solemn dedication of the officers to their system's survival, the worship of water, a callousness toward death, a curious distrust of out-system manufactured equipment.  This, Killashandra thought, was why they were so assiduously altering the 78's interior.  Then, after she'd seen some tri-di-s of the mining stations and the spacebuilt edifices themselves, she understood.  In a spatial sense, the Trundimoux were adapting constantly to the needs of their hostile environment.  In another, they were refusing to admit that any other system, hers included, had something worthwhile to offer them that couldn't be improved on.

      Killashandra listened, too, to subtler opinions on the wisdom of instant interstellar communications.  Some were skeptical that the crystals would work, due, it was claimed, to some peculiarity of the Trundimoux system that was designed to keep them isolated.  Others thought it a shocking waste of time, effort, and precious metal — credit.  The division of thought split age groups, first, and second generation representatives, and even contracted extraplanetaries on local assignment.

      Meanwhile, the cruiser was fast closing with its home system on its hyperbolic trajectory.  Killashandra's appetite had leveled off, a relief to herself as well as to Pendel's dwindling supply of her requirements.  Passover was occurring over Ballybran, and conjunction was as imminent as her first installation.  She judiciously kept the stimulant tabs on her person.

      The change in the crystal drive tone heralded her first unexpected nap.  Tic's insistent tapping on her door panel roused her.

      "Captain Francu's compliments, Killashandra Ree, and would you follow me to the bridge?"

      Tic was suddenly very formal, not so much as a shy answering smile to Killashandra's acknowledgment.  She followed the sub, much refreshed by her sleep, but she felt for the stimutabs in her sash pocket.

      The bridge, a misnamed cavern midship, was busy and full.  Tic found the captain among those circled about the dimension tank, caught his attention, presented Killashandra, and retreated.

      "If you will observe the tank, Guild Member," the captain began at his most overbearing.

      "I would if I could," Killashandra said, and smiling sweetly, inserted her hip between two male bodies and with a deft twist pushed the men sideways so that she occupied their previous vantage point.  She left one officer between her and Francu, consoling the startled man with a soothing glance.  "Ah, yes, fascinating."  She was fascinated, though she wanted to give the distinct impression that this was scarcely the first time she had been on a bridge or gazed at a dimension tank.  The cruiser was a very tiny blip, coasting inward, past the orbit of the outermost planet, toward the primary.  Blinking lights indicated major mining stations in the asteroid belts; two tiny solid lights, the two moon bases.  The bright planet, fourth from the primary, exuded a supercilious superiority despite being the last to be settled in the hard-working system.

      "We are coasting now, Guild Member, if you haven't noticed the change of the drive — "

      "A Crystal Singer is unusually sensitive to crystal drive, Captain — an occupational skill."

      Francu set his jaw, unused to being interrupted for any reason.

      "We are traveling on a hyperbolic course that will intersect the orbit of the two mining stations, which have deviated from their courses to meet us — "

      "Sometimes progress can be awkward — "

      Francu glared at her.  "The moon bases provide no problem on their relative planes, though Terris will require a longer shuttle flight — "

      "You will have a far more difficult maneuver in catching up with your planet, won't you?" and Killashandra pointed.

      "Not at all," and it was Francu's turn to be scornful.  "Merely a question of braking, using the planetary attraction, pick up the sun's gravitic pull marginally, deflect away and on to our next destination."

      "How very clever of you."  Killashandra winced inwardly, wondering why the man's simplest explanation evoked the worst side of her nature.

      "You must realize, Guild Member, how tight the schedule is.  I was informed that mounting the crystal takes no more than six minutes.  We shall need every spare second available to get you to and away from these installation points — particularly at the planet.  You do understand the spatial considerations?"

      "It has always seemed essentially simple when expertly and efficiently handled, Captain Francu.  I'm sure there'll be no problem."  Six minutes.  That gave her quite a safety margin, or had Trag in mind the lethargy that would soon over come her?  She gazed at the dimensional tank, smiling diffidently.  Problem was, if she took less than six minutes installing at one point, it still wouldn't affect her arrival at the next one.  "Thank you, Captain.  May I have updated printout as we near each installation point?"

      "Certainly.  You will be given eighteen minutes warning before each shuttle run."

      "As much as that?"  Again, Killashandra was reacting to Prancu's grating manner.

      "Ah, yes, I have to take the crystal from the super's locked room."

      "Really, Captain, no one will steal it in Trundimoux space and, until all the elements are installed, they are quite harmless.  The container can be webbed in at the shuttle lock for easier access now and give you that much more time to spare."

      Captain Francu's anxiety about crystal itself warred with his time factors.  He accorded her a stiff bow and turned resolutely back to contemplation of his dimensional tank.

      "Close to first objective and give me a deviation check."

      "How long before the first objective, Captain?"

      "Five hours, six minutes, and thirty-six seconds, Guild Member."

      Killashandra moved away from the tank, her place quickly taken by those she had ousted.  She nodded to Tic, and the subbie, with an air of intense relief, hurried to guide her away from the bridge.

      She would have liked to stay and watch the cruiser angle toward the first mining station, a delicate and tedious affair since four dimensions-five, really, if one considered the captain's obsession with the time factor — were involved.

      Six minutes in which to cement or change the attitudes of an entire system, six minutes five times gave her exactly one-half hour prime time Killashandra smiled to herself.  The Trundimoux system had traditions already.  She'd add to them an extra stellar treat.  She'd alter Francu's plan merely to slip in and slip out to a significant occasion that should be one of the greatest rejoicing for the Trundimoux — they could talk with each other:  surely a moment for ceremony rather than secrecy.  SIX minutes wasn't much time.  She would see to it that it was enough, and a whole new mass of rumor about Crystal Singers would circulate.

      Trundimoux clothing was wildly colored, and bits of metal were woven into the fabric to refract whatever light was available.  Even the life-support units blazed with color, shocking oranges and vibrant pinks.  Offensive as such hues were to Killashandra, they served a purpose for the Trundimoux space-bred population.

      While the cruiser jockeyed toward its first destination, the mining station named Copper, she created her costume.  Black for the crystal she would carry:  black and flowing to stand out against the gaudy Trundimoux in their tight-fitting garb.  She wished for some of the cosmetics she had abandoned in her student cubicle at Fuerte, but she was tall enough to stand out, in black, her hair loose to her shoulder blades, unusual enough in a society of space-goers with shaved or clipped hair.

      Six minutes!  That time bothered her even though she had mounted the mock crystals in far less.  Then she remembered.  Crystal was what she would be handling.  She could get lost in touching crystal.  She might, at that, be grateful to Francu and his neat slots of time.  She could count on him to break a crystal trance.  But she mustn't fall into one.  That would spoil the image she wished to create.

      She worried about that problem until Tallaf arrived to escort her.

      "Cutter's ready and waiting, ma'am," he said, alertly poised and very formal.

      "And the crystal?"

      Tallaf cleared his throat; his eyes avoided hers, although she rather thought that the young man was amused.

      "Supercargo Pendel has conveyed the container to the lock, awaiting your arrival.  All webbed and secure."

      Indeed the carton was, with a double row of alert guards standing as far from the crystal as they could in the confines of the lock.  The sides and bottom of the carton were webbed securely to the deck, but the top had been unsealed.  One of the guards carried a seal-gun on his belt.

      Killashandra strode forward, remembering to keep her full skirts clear of her toes.

      "Open it," she said to no one in particular.  There was a brief hesitation, then Pendel performed that office, winking at her surreptitiously.

      To her intense relief, the five crystals had been cocooned before shipment.  She did not need to handle raw crystal until she reached the actual installation point.  She picked up the small package, feeling the mild shock with a double sense of relief.  Crystal knew she was there and responded but bided its time.  And this was real crystal.  She'd had a sudden horrid thought that, in a crazy set of errors, the mock shafts had been sent instead.

      She held the package straight-armed before her as she walked to the cutter's entrance.  No sooner was she seated than everyone seemed to move at double speed, webbing her in, taking their own places as the hatch was sealed.  She was forced back into her cushions by the acceleration away from the cruiser.

      "Are we running behind time, Tallaf?" she asked.

      "No, ma'am, precisely on time."

      "How far from the station lock to the communications room?"

      "Exactly five minutes and twenty seconds."

      "In free-fall?"  Free-fall in this gown would be ridiculous.  She wished she'd thought of that aspect before.

      Tallaf looked surprised.

      "All but the very small detector units have gravity, ma'am."

      The cutter fired retrorockets, again pushing her into the cushions.

      "I thought we were on time."

      "We are, ma'am, but we're correcting to match velocities."

      A second spate of jockeying occurred, but the actual docking was no more than a cousinly kiss.  The deck crew was again working double time, and infected by their pace, she rose and entered the first of the mining stations.  The five minutes and twenty seconds of travel time within Copper was spent twisting down corridors and jumping over security frames.  She prided herself on managing all the awkward bits without stumbling or losing her balance, the cocoon of crystal held before her so that all could see.  And many people were gathered at intersections wanting a glimpse of the momentous occasion.

      It is a shame, Killashandra thought as she was ushered into the communications nerve center of the Copper Station, that this was not the linkage point.  Nothing really exciting would happen here or on the other stations until the final shaft was fitted and their bonding would produce the instantaneous link.

      Still, she was conscious of stares, hostile and thoughtful, as she was directed to the installation point.  It was on the raised outer level of the huge room, an excellent vantage.

      Killashandra mounted the shallow steps, her quick glance checking the brackets to be sure they were correct, and then turned to the center of the area.  She stripped the plastic from the cocoon and held up the dull, muddy shaft.  She heard the gasps as the assembled saw for the first time what they had mortgaged their system to buy.  Even as she heard their mumble, the crystal warmed in her hands, turning the matte black, which gave it its name.  It vibrated against her hands, and before she could fall in trance, she whirled and laid the crystal in its place.  The pressure arms moved silkily at her light touch.  She brought the upper brackets to bear and, one finger on the still darkening crystal, increased the pressure on each side carefully.  The crystal began to resonate along her finger, making her throat ache.  She fought the desire to caress the crystal and made her hands complete the installation.  As if burned, she snatched her hands back from the beautiful crystal mass.  She took the small hammer and tapped the mounted Crystal.  Its pure note sang through the room's sudden hush.

      Head high, she strode from the chamber, Tallaf running to get ahead of her, to lead her back to the cutter through the station's twists and turns.

      Each step took her farther from the crystal, and she twisted with the pain of that separation.  Another small matter no one had explained to her before:  that it would be so difficult to leave crystal she had herself cut.

      The brief ride to the cruiser did ease that pain.  And so did the lethargy that slowly over came her.  It couldn't she decided, be fatigue from that little bit of dramatization.  It must be the sleepies that she'd been warned about.  Conjunction was very near.  Fortunately, she managed to stay awake until she reached her quarters.

      "Tic, if I am disturbed for any reason whatsoever before the next station, I'll dismember the person!  Understood?  And pass that on to Pendel just to make sure."

      "Yes, ma'am."  Tic was trustworthy, and Pendel had authority.

      Killashandra slid sideways onto the hard bunk, pulled the thin cover over her, and slept.

      It seemed no time at all before a thumping and Tac's anxious voice called her politely but insistently.

      "I'm coming.  The next station has been reached!"  She swallowed the stimulant, forced her eyes wide in an attempt to appear alert as she opened the door.

      Tallaf was there with a tray of food, which she imperiously waved away.

      "You'll need some refreshment, Killashandra," the young officer said, concern overcoming his previous formality.

      "Are we at the next station?"

      "I thought you'd need something to eat first."

      She reached for the Yarran beer, trying not to exhibit the revulsion she felt at the smell of what once would have been a tempting meal.  Even the beer tasted wrong.

      "I'll just take this in my room," she said, closing the door panel and wondering if the nausea was due to the pill, the beer, her symbiont, or nerves.  She made illicit use of drinking water and splattered her face.  The effect was salutary.  Without a qualm, she poured the Yarran beer down the waste disposal.  Pendel would never know.

      Tallaf rapped at her door panel again.  This time, Killashandra was alert; the stimulant had taken effect.  She swept forward, secure in the false energy and aware that more of the cruiser's crew were in evidence as she made her way to the lock.

      Pendel was unlashing the top of the crystal carton, stepping back to give her space to extract the next crystal.  Holding it at arm's length in front of her, Killashandra was congratulating herself on her smooth routine when she tripped getting over the cutter's hatch.  She'd best raise the skirt a trifle in front before the first moon installation.  However, no one had noticed her slight gracelessness, and she settled down for the ride.

      Station Iron was larger than Station Copper but as haphazardly contrived as far as companionways, hatches, and corridors were concerned.

      "This is more than five minutes twenty seconds, Tallaf," she said in a stern voice of complaint, wondering how long the stimutab lasted.

      "Just in here, now."

      Communications obviously rated more unfragmented space than any other of the stations' functions.  And the larger station was reflected in the larger crowd that crammed into the area.  Killashandra stripped the cocoon from the black crystal, held it up for all to see, and deposited it deftly in its position before it could woo her from her duties.  Or maybe the stimulant helped counteract crystal's effect.  Nonetheless, Killashandra still experienced the pain of leaving behind her forever the shaft of darkening crystal.

      The stimulant kept her functioning on the slightly longer swing to catch up with the cruiser.  She graciously accepted Pendel's offer of Yarran beer but, once alone, poured it down the drain.  She squandered a day's water ration to quench her thirst and reached her bunk before sleep again overtook her.

      It was harder for her to wake up when Tic roused her at the first moon.  One stimulant kept her awake on the outbound trip, a second got her through the installation, but Tallaf had to wake her to disembark at the cruiser.  Pendel insisted she eat something though she could barely keep her eyes open.  She did have soup and some succulent fruit since her mouth was dry and her skin felt parched.  She ached for the crystal she had consigned forever to an airless moon.

      Three stimulants roused her sufficiently for the fourth installation, and she had to sneak one into her mouth as she set the crystal in its brackets.  She was doing her high priestess routine by reflex, only peripherally aware of the blur of faces that followed her every movement and the thrilled sigh as the crystals pure note sounded in the communications room.

      One thing she could say for the Trundimoux, when they found an efficient structure, they kept repeating it.  All the communications rooms were of the same design.  Blind, she could have found her way to the crystal mounting.  Walking back, she kept tripping on the skirt hem she'd not had time to alter.  Then Tallaf put one arm under hers.  She concentrated on smiling serenely at the assembled until she had reached the cutter.  She collapsed with relief into her seat.

      "You're all right, Killashandra?"  Tallaf was asking.

      "Just tired.  You've no idea how difficult it is to surrender crystal you've cut yourself.  They cry when you leave them.  Let me sleep."

      But for that chance remark to Tallaf, Killashandra might have been forced to endure the ministrations of Chasurt, for her alternate periods of intense vivacity and somnolence had not gone unremarked.  Nor were the opponents of the crystal communications purchase impressed by small unscintillating blocks received in exchange for massive drone loads of high-quality metals.

      The moment he had seen Killashandra safely to her cabin, Tallaf had a word with Pendel.  Pendel spoke quickly to others, and Chasurt was summoned to deal with a minor epidemic of food poisoning, investigate two other illnesses that required lengthy tests, and then was required to consult, at ordinary space-message exchange pauses, on a serious space-burn casualty.

      Killashandra was roused for the longer shuttle flight to the planet's surface for the final installation.  The extended sleep had been beneficial, and although she ran nervous fingers over the short length of stimulant tabs remaining, Killashandra thought she could defer their use.  She accepted the fruit and glucose drink Pendel offered her, though she would dearly have loved water, even the stale recycled water the cruiser supplied.

      She felt equal to this final scene until she saw the crystal container.  Abruptly, she realized that this largest piece would be the hardest to surrender.  She didn't dare have it on her lap all during the journey to the planet's surface.

      "Bring the container on board.  The king crystal will be safer that way," she said, curtly gesturing.  She entered the shuttle before anyone could countermand her instruction.

      Pendel and Tallaf hastily motioned the guard to comply, and the container was already aboard the shuttle, webbed tight, before Captain Francu arrived.  He stopped abruptly, stared with rage and shock at the carton, then at Killashandra who smiled pleasantly at him.

      "You carried the other crystals, Guild Member — "

      "Ah, but this is a longer journey, captain, and unless that crystal is safely installed in your main communications room, all the others are useless and this voyage of your cruiser an exercise in futility."

      "Captain, the time factors — " Tallaf stepped forward, his expression one of cautious concern.

      Francu set his jaw, edged past the crystal to the stern of the cutter.  She could hear the crack of metal tabs as he webbed himself in.  She supposed that she was lucky that, in his current frame of mind, Francu wasn't the pilot.

      The shuttle disengaged itself from the cruiser, seemed to hang suspended as the cruiser moved obliquely away from it.  Actually, before the view ports were closed, Killashandra realized that the shuttle had done all the moving:  the cruiser was inexorably set in its direction, and nothing would deter it.

      She had meant to stay awake, but the scream and heat of entry into the planet's atmosphere roused her from another irresistible snooze.  She stared about, momentarily startled by the unfamiliar surroundings.  Hastily, she swallowed two stimutabs, smiling serenely around as if she had only been conserving her energy.

      The shuttle had been brought to a complete halt before the medicine took effect, and she debated taking a third as the hatch was being opened.

      A landing platform appeared at once, and from her seat, she could see the vast crowd assembled on both sides of a wide aisle leading to the huge communications building with its roof clusters of dish antennas, tilted like caps to the sky, caps raised to salute their own obsolescence.

      "The crystal, Guild Member!"  Francu's acid voice reminded her, too, of this final surrender.

      She flipped open the carton and removed the king crystal, took a deep breath, and walked down the landing ramp, holding the crystal before her.  She always played best to a full house, she reminded herself.  The other installations were only rehearsals for this one.

      The fresh air of the planet was naturally scented and crisp.  She breathed in deeply and would not be hurried in this ceremonial walk.

      Francu appeared at one side, Tallaf at her other, both muttering about walking faster,

      "It's so good to breathe uncontaminated air.  My lungs have been stifled.  I must breathe."

      "You must walk faster," Francu said, a smile jiggling his checks as he responded nervously to the presence of a large crowd of people in an open space greater than his huge new cruiser.

      "If you can, Killashandra.  We've a time boggle," said Tallaf, his voice anxious.

      "They're all here to see the crystal,"  Killashandra noted, but she lengthened her stride, holding the cocoon above her head, hearing the surprise wave of exclamations, seeing the nearest drawing back.  Was the crowd here to see crystal succeed, she wondered, or fail?  This was not a receptive audience.  She'd faced enough to sense the animosity and fear.

      She strode on to the building's entrance, slightly outdistancing the two spacemen.

      "We will have to hurry this, Guild Member," a man said, taking her arm as she passed the doorway.

      "Yes, we will, or we can't be responsible for your safety."

      She heard heavy metal doors thud shut behind her and a muffled noise emanating from outside and becoming louder.

      "I've been given to understand that this project is not universally favored, gentlemen.  But one message sent and received will disperse that .  .  ."  and she indicated the crowd which had pressed in about the building.

      "This way, Guild Member."

      They were all almost running now, and she was annoyed that the urgency of the situation was going to ruin her performance.  Ridiculous!  How absurd to be put in such a position!  Especially when she was possessed of an overwhelming desire to go to sleep again.  She shoved the crystal into the crook of one arm — there was no one to impress with her theatrics in this hurry — and managed to stuff two more tabs into her mouth.

      Then she was whirled into the main chamber of the immense building, where nervous technicians were more interested in the outward-facing security scanners than the printouts and displays common to their business.

      "Do hurry with this one, Killashandra," Tallaf urged as she took the last few steps to the raised level and the empty niche where the king crystal would be mounted.

      She stripped the plastic away with nervous fingers and suddenly found serenity and surcease as the bared crystal caressed her skin.

      "Hurry!"  Francu exhorted her.  "If that thing won't give us a message from Copper — "

      Killashandra withered him with a glance, but her dislike of him broke the tenuous enchantment she had been hoping to enjoy.  Now she heard the noise of the crowd, the increasing pitch of its excitement and frustration.  She dare not delay the mounting.  Nor did she want to relinquish her black crystal to this system of ignorant savages, this society of metal-mongers, this —

      The black crystal was mounted, turning matte black as it responded to the heat of the room.

      "Hurry!"  "Has something gone wrong?"  "It won't work!"

      "Of course, crystal will sing," said Killashandra, raising the little hammer and striking the king block.

      The rich full A of the king crystal rang through the large room, silencing the irreverent babble.  Killashandra was transfixed.  The A became the louder note of the five-crystal chord, the two F and two E crystals singing back to her through the king.  The human voice cannot produce chords. With the pitch of the A dominant in her head, that was the note that burst from Killashandra as the shock of establishing the link between the five crystals enveloped her.  Sound like a shock wave, herself the sound and the sounding board, vision over vision, a fire in her bones, thunder in her veins, a heart-contracting experience of pain and pleasure so intense and so total that every nerve in her body and every convolution of her brain echoed.  The chord held Killashandra in a thrall more absolute than her first experience of crystal.  Sustaining the note despite the agony of the physical mechanics of breath, Killashandra was simultaneously in the communications rooms of the two mining stations and the two moons.  She splintered in sound from one crystal block to the next, apart and indissoluble, a fragment of the first message sent and instantly received and forever divorced from it.

      "Copper to home.  Copper to home base!"  She knew the message, for it passed through her as well as the crystal.  She heard the exultant reply and the incredulous response to its simultaneity.  She had cut the crystals for this purpose, she had borne them to their various sites, and she had condemned them to sing for others.  No one had told her they would cause her to sing through them in a space crossing chord!

      "Killashandra?"  Someone touched her, and she cried out.  Flesh upon flesh broke her awesome communion with the crystal link.  She fell to her knees, too bereft to cry, too stunned to resist.

      "Killashandra!"  Someone raised her to her feet.

      She could feel crystal power singing behind her through the king block, but she was forever excluded from its thrall.

      "Get her back to the shuttle."

      "Is it safe?"

      "Of course, it's safe.  The link works!  The whole system knows that now!"

      "Through this door, lieutenant.  You'll have to detour.  The crowd is blocking your way to the shuttle."

      "We don't have time to detour."

      "We'll break through the crowd.  Carry her first.  That'll make them give way!"

      "They can't be afraid of a woman!"

      "She's not a woman.  She's a Crystal Singer!"

      Killashandra was aware of being carried through a dense crowd.  She heard a rapid clattering, and loud but jubilant cries and, somewhere in the section of her brain that recorded impressions, she correlated sound and cheers with applause.  So many people in such proximity was an unexpected torture.

      "Get me out of here," she whispered hoarsely, clutching the man who carried her with desperate hands.

      He said nothing but quickened his pace, his breathing ragged with effort.  He could barely disentangle himself from her when a second man came to his assistance.

      "This delay may abort the whole intercept."

      "Captain, we'd no idea how feelings ran here.  No warning that there'd be such a crowd.  We're almost there now."

      "If we've lost the window — "

      "We'll have a frigate standing by ready to catch up — "

      "Do shut up and let me sleep.  Stop joggling me so."

      "Sleep?"  The indignation in Francu's voice roused her briefly from her torpor.  "Sleep she wants when — "

      "Just settle yourself in this seat, Killashandra.  I'll do the webbing."

      "Drink.  Need a drink.  Anything.  Water."

      "Not now.  Not now."

      "Yes, now!  I thirst."

      "Captain, you fly.  Here's water, Killashandra."

      She drank deeply, aware that the substance was water, real water, crisp, clear, cool water, used only this once, for her consumption.  Some of it spilled when she was jolted about, and she protested the loss, licking it from her hands.  She was shoved away from the water by a tremendous force and pleaded to be given more to drink.

      She was soothed, and then finally the weight was lifted, and she was given as much as she wanted to drink.

      "Are you all right now, Killashandra?"  She rather thought it was Tallaf asking.

      "Yes.  Now all I need is sleep.  Just let me sleep until I wake."

CHAPTER 13

      Waking up was a gradual and remarkably languorous process.  Killashandra felt that she was unfolding in sections, starting with her mind, which sent out sleepy messages to her extremities that movement was possible again.  She went through a long series of stretchings and yawnings, interspersed with rather wild and vivid flashes.  At first, she thought them picodreams but then realized that all were from one viewpoint:  hers!  And she was overwhelmed by faces and applause and light flashing from the blackening crystal.  An orgasmic sensation in her loins completed her unfolding and brought her to sharp consciousness and regret.

Those half dreams had been lovely echoes of the linkage with black crystal.

      Crystal!  She sat up in bed and nearly caught her head on the bedside shelf.  She was on the wretched cruiser!  She glanced at her wrist-unit, confirming it with the cabin time display.

      'Three days!  I've been asleep three days!"  Antona had warned her.

      Killashandra lay back, easing shoulder and tightening back muscles.  She must have slept all three days in one position to have such cramps.

      A soft scratching at her door panel caught her attention.

      "Yes?"

      "Are you awake, Guild Member?"

      There were several answers she would have given if she hadn't recognized Chasurt's voice.

      "You may enter."

      "Are you awake?"

      "I certainly wouldn't be answering you in my sleep.  Come in!''  As the door panel slid open, she added, "And would you ask Pendel if he can supply me with something decent to eat?"

      "I will ascertain if food is advisable," the man said, holding in her direction a diagnostic tool similar to Antona's.

      "Not the stodge that's served in the cruiser's mess but liquid and fruit — "

      "If you'll just be cooperative — "

      "I am!"  Killashandra felt that attitude rapidly changing.  "This sort of sleep phase is perfectly normal — "

      "We haven't been able to contact Ballybran for specific instructions — "

      "For what?"

      "Proper treatment of your prolonged coma — "

      "I wasn't in a coma.  Did you not check the printout in your own medical library?  I want something to drink.  And eat."

      "I am the cruisers meditech — "

      "Who has never met a Crystal Singer before and knows nothing of my occupational hazards."  Killashandra had pulled on the nearest piece of clothing, her Guild coverall.  Now she swung herself off the bunk and lurched past Chasurt, who made a vain attempt to grab her.  "Pendell" Killashandra started down the corridor.  She surprised herself that she could maneuver so readily after the exhaustion that had over taken her.  The symbiont might take, but it also gave.

      "Guild Member!"  Chasurt was in pursuit, but she had the head start and longer legs.

      She turned again, into the super's corridor, and saw Tic at Pendel's door, and then his head was visible.

      "Pendel"  I'm perishing for a glass of Yarran beer!"  Please say you have some fruit left?  And possibly a cup of that excellent soup you served me some time a hundred years ago?"

      By the time she reached his door, Pendel handed her a half-empty glass of Yarran beer for one hand and a fruit for the other.  She squeezed past him and Tic, leaving them to block Chasurt.

      "There you are, Killashandra," Pendel said, standing across the doorway so that Chasurt could not barge in.  Tic moved staunchly in front of Killashandra as the second line of defense.  "More fruit within hand.  Now, Chasurt, don't get yourself knotted.  Come with me, and you can add whatever nutrients and restoratives you feel are required to the soup I'm getting Killashandra.  Put those stupid sprays back into your pockets.  Crystal Singers don't ordinarily require any medication.  Don't you know anything beyond space-freeze and laser burn?"

      Pendel hurried Chasurt away, signaling Tic to close the door and stand guard.  Killashandra had finished the beer and started on the fruit.  She closed her eyes with relief as juice and pulp soothed her parched mouth.  She ate slowly, an instinct imposed on her by the symbiont, which knew very well what it required after fasting.  With distaste, she remembered the mad hungers of pre-Passover and was grateful that the affliction had waned.

      "Ma'am? .  .  ."

      Killashandra only heard the soft whisper because there was no other sound in the cabin but her chewing.

      "Tic?"  It was the first time the girl had addressed her.

      "Ma'am — thank you for the crystal!"  Tic blurted her words.  "Comofficer let me speak with my mother on Copper.  Right away.  No waiting.  No worrying that something's gone wrong and I wouldn't hear .  .  .  Comoff says with crystals I can call Copper any time I want!"  Tic's eyes were round and liquid.

      "I'm happy for you, Tic.  I'm happy for you."  Killashandra thought that response a little graceless on her part, but Tic's awed response embarrassed her.

      The panel was suddenly whipped aside, and Tic tried not to fall into Killashandra's lap as Captain Francu, radiating fury, stood in the opening.

      "My medic tells me that you have refused his assistance."  The cubicle was too small for his oppressive manner.

      "I do not need his assistance.  I am a Crystal Singer — "

      "While you are on board my vessel, you are under my orders — "

      Killashandra rose, pushing Tic into the seat she had vacated, facing the captain with a wrath far more profound than his.  From her thigh pouch, she produced the Guild ident and shoved it at the captain.

      "Even you must recognize this authority!"

      Pendel arrived at that moment, carrying a laden tray.

      "Federated Sentient Planet Sessions authority!"  Pendel gasped as he read, and the tray wavered in his grasp.  "I've only seen one other."

      "You are clearly suffering from aberrant behavior following a period of deprivation — " the captain began.

      "Nonsense.  Hand me that tray, Pendel.  Thank you."

      "Guild Member, attend me!"

      "I am, but I'm also eating, as my body needs sustenance after my long rest."

      "You were in coma — "

      "I was doing what all Crystal Singers do, resting after a difficult and exhausting assignment.  And that is all I wish to say until I've eaten."

      "You are mentally affected, shoving an FSP authority at me to obtain food."  Captain Francu was sputtering now.

      "That authority will be invoked as soon as I find out the nearest transfer station — "

      "You are to remain on this cruiser until the Five Systems' Satellite — "

      "I will remain on this cruiser only as long as it takes me to call up a shuttle or cutter or gig from the next system.  And my authority permits me to do so.  Right?"

      "Right," Pendel affirmed.

      The captain glared at him and stared for a moment longer at Killashandra, speechless with suppressed anger.  Then he turned on one heel and stamped down the corridor.

      Tic was regarding Killashandra in white-faced perturbation.

      "That's all right, now, girl," Pendel said to her soothingly.  "You will, of course, discuss this with no one no matter how you are pressed.  I don't think Captain Francu will care to remember the incident."

      "How soon can I get off this ship?  No offense to you and Tic, of course."

      Pendel edged himself in front of his keyboard and tapped a code.  It took longer than usual for the display to start rippling across the screen, and there were only four lines.

      "I wouldn't suggest that one.  Drone tanker and primitive food supplies."  Pendel tapped again.  The printout was denser.  "Ah.  We can arrange a transfer to a small but adequate change over station for a Selkite direct to Scoria.  Ordinarily, I wouldn't recommend Selkites for any reason, but you'd be the only passenger in their oxygen life-support section."

      "Grand!  I'll take it."

      "Means another three days aboard us."

      "I'll sleep a good deal of the time.  Light meals when I need 'em."

      "There's just one thing," and Pendel cleared his throat, ducking his head from her glance.  "The Selkite reaches Ballybran just toward the end of the Passover storms.  The original E.T.A. would land you well after they'd completed."

      "Oh, you've been doing some retrieving, have you?"  Killashandra grinned.

      Pendel winked, laying his finger along his nose.  "I did feel some objective information a wise precaution."

      "So Chasurt decided the storms produced my mental aberrations?"

      "Some such conclusion."

      "No fool goes out in Passover storms.  We leave the planet if at all possible.  If not, sleep through it!"

      "I had heard the rumor that Crystal Singers hibernated."

      "Something of the sort."

      "Well, well.  Have another Yarran beer, Killashandra."

      Whatever caused Pendel such satisfaction, he preferred to keep to himself, but they enjoyed several glasses until drowsiness over came her again.  Pendel escorted her back to her cabin where Tac stood very much on duty.  Small light meals were arranged, and Killashandra lay down to sleep, fervently blessing the fore thought that had provided her with the FSP authority.  And what had Francu intended to do with her if he had managed to over rule her?  Give her to Chasurt to find out why Crystal Singers are different?

      She wasn't well pleased to have to spend a few more days on the cruiser, but she could sleep and relax, now that the pressures of installation were behind her.  And she had completed those well.  Trag would be pleased with her.  Even if some percentage of the Trundimoux were not.  Pity about that!

      Still, they'd given her a big hand.  She'd knocked herself out to give them a new tradition.  Her performance at the planet installation had turned an angry mob into a jubilant throng.  Yes, she'd done well as a Crystal Singer.

      Would she ever again be able to experience that incredible surge of contact as black crystal segments linked?  That all-enveloping surge as if she were aligned with every black crystal in the galaxy?

      She shuddered with the aching desire.  She turned from that thought.  There would be other such times; of that she was now certain.  Meanwhile, once the storms of Ballybran were over, she could sing crystal.

      Sing crystal?  Sing?

      Killashandra began to laugh, recalling herself as she strode into the planetary communications building, stage center with a near riot occurring around her.  She, playing the high priestess, completing the ritual that linked the isolated elements of the Trundimoux!  A solo performance if ever there was one.  And she had played before an audience of an entire system.  What an opening note she had struck with crystal!  What an ovation!  Echoes from distant satellites.  She had done exactly as she had once boasted she'd do, had arrogantly proclaimed to her peers in Fuerte that she would do.  She had been the first Singer in this system and possibly the only Crystal Singer ever to appear in Trundimoux.

      Killashandra laughed at the twisted irony of circumstance.  She laughed and then cried because there was no one to know except herself that she had achieved an ambition.

      Killashandra Ree was a Singer, right enough.  Truly a Crystal Singer!

Reprise

      What are you doing back now?" the lock attendant demanded as she entered.

      "Wough?  What sort of transport were you on?  You reek."

      "Selkite," Killashandra said grimly.  She had become used to her own fragrance within the Selkite's O-breather quarters.

      "There s some ships no one will travel on.  Pity you weren't warned."  He was pinching his nostrils closed.

      "I'll remember, I assure you."

      She started for the Guild's transient quarters.

      "Hey, there's no vacancies.  Passover storms aren't over yet, you know."

      "I know, but getting here was more important than waiting the storms out."

      "Not if you had to travel Selkite.  But there's plenty of space in the regular quarters," and the man thumbed the archway that she had entered so naively a few months before.  "No travelers here yet.  Doesn't make any difference with your credit where you stay, you know."

      Killashandra thanked him and walked on through the blue-irised entrance toward the hostel, trying to remember the girl she'd been at that point and unable to credit how much had occurred since then.  Including the simultaneous realization of two ambitions.

      The aroma she exuded alerted Ford, still at his reception counter.

      "But you're a Singer.  You oughtn't to be here."  His nose wrinkled, and he shuddered, licking his lips.  "Singers have their own quarters."

      "Full up.  Just give me a room and let me fumigate myself."

      Killashandra advanced to the counter to put her wrist unit to the plate.

      "No, no, that won't be necessary!"  Ford handed her the key, his arm stretching out to keep as much distance from her as possible.

      "I know I'm bad, but am I that bad?"

      Ford tried to stammer an apology, but Killashandra let the key guide her to her quarters.

      "I've given you the biggest we have."  Ford's voice followed her through the hallway.

      The room was down a level, and assuming that the lock attendant had been correct — that there were no visitors at that time — Killashandra began ripping off her stinking clothes.  The key warmed at the appropriate room, and she shoved through the panel, shutting it and leaning against the door to shuck off her pants and footwear.  She looked at the carisak and decided there was no point in fumigating those things.  She stuffed everything into the disposal unit with a tremendous sense of relief.

      The Shankill accommodation had only shower facilities but a decent array of herb and fragrance washes.  She stood under the jets, as hot as the spray would come, then laved herself until her skin was raw.  She stepped out of the shower enclosure, smelling her hands and her shoulders, bending to sniff her knees, and decided that she was possibly close to decontaminated.

      It was only drying her hair that she realized she didn't have any fresh clothes to put on.  She dialed the commissary and ordered the first coverall that appeared on the fax then keyed for perfumes and ordered a large bottle of something spicy.  She needed some spice in her life after the Selkite vessel.  Well, Pendel had tried to warn her.  Come to consider, even the Selkites were better than remaining in the vicinity of Francu or that bonehead Chasurt.

      Then she remembered to take out her lenses and sighed with relief as color, decent soothing color, sprang up around the room.

      She ordered a Yarran beer and wondered how Lanzecki had weathered Passover.  Immured by herself in the Selkite ship, she had come to terms with lingering feelings of resentment for the Guild Master and wanted very much to continue in friendship with the man.  Solitude was a great leveler:  stinking solitude made one grateful for remembered favors and kindness.  She owed Lanzecki more of those than accusations.

      The beer was so good!  She lifted her beaker in a toast to Pendel.  She hoped that for every Francu she met, there would be at least one Pendel to be grateful for.

      The door chime sounded.  She wrapped a dry towel around her, wondering why her order was being delivered instead of sent by tube.  She released the door lock and was about to slide the panel back when it was moved from without.

      "What are you doing back here?"  Lanzecki stepped into the room, looming angrily above her in the narrow confines.  He closed the panel behind him and lobbed a parcel in the direction of the bed.

      "What are you doing on Shankill?"  She tried to tighten the towel above her breasts.

      He brought both hands to his belt and stared at her, his eyes glittering, his face set in the most uncompromising lines, his mouth still.

      "Shankill affords the most strategic point from which to assess the storm flows."

      "Then you do escape from the storms," she said with intense relief.

      "As I wanted you to escape them, but you're back here days early."  He swept an angry gesture with one arm as if he wanted to strike her.

      "Why not?"  Killashandra had to stand her ground before him.  "I'd finished the wretched installations.  Were the storms as bad as predicted?  I've heard nothing."

      "You were scheduled to return on a comfortable passenger frigate seven days from now."  He scrutinized her closely.  "The damage could have been worse," he added grudgingly.  She wasn't sure whether he referred to her or the storms.

      "I took the Selkite freighter."

      "I'm aware of that."  His nostrils flared with distaste.

      "I've tried to decontaminate.  It was awful.  Why wasn't I told about Selkites?  No, I was, but I wouldn't listen because I couldn't stay one more moment on that fardling Trundie cruiser."  The towel was coming loose as she remembered Francu.  "Why didn't you at least warn me about the Trundies?"

      Lanzecki shrugged.  "We didn't have much on them, but you at least had no preconceptions or the residue of partial memories of other isolated systems to prejudice your actions."

      "They may never deal with another Crystal Singer."

      "They'll deal with the Guild."  Lanzecki was smiling, his body relaxing, his eyes warming.

      "More important, Lanzecki" — and she tried to step back, away from him until she'd aired her grievances.  "Why didn't you tell me about link-shock?  I sang the king crystal, link and all, and they brought me to my knees."

      "Link-shock's about the only thing that would."  He put his warm hands on her shoulders and held her firmly, his eyes examining her face.  "No one can describe link-shock.  It's experienced on different levels by different personalities.  To warn is to inhibit."

      "I can certainly appreciate that!"

      He chuckled at her sarcastic comment and began to draw her to him, his embrace as much of an apology as he was ever likely to give her.

      "Some people feel nothing at all."

      "I'm sorry for them."  She was not sarcastic now.

      "For you, Killashandra, to link a set of crystals you yourself cut binds you closer to black crystal."  He spoke slowly, again with the hidden pain that she had once before heard in his voice.  She let herself be drawn against his strong body, realizing how keenly she had missed him even as she had damned him, grateful now to give and receive comfort.  "The Guild needs black-crystal Singers."

      "Is that why you've personally guided my career, Lanzecki?"  She reached her hand to his lips, feeling them curve in amusement.

      "My professional life is dedicated to the Guild, Killashandra.  Never forget that.  My personal life is another matter, entirely private."  His lips moved sensuously across her fingers as he spoke.

      "I like you, Lanzecki — damn your mouth."  She bubbled with laughter and the joy of being with him again.

      He took her hand and kissed the palm, the contact sending chills through her body.

      "In the decades ahead of us, Killashandra, try to keep that in mind?"