"You will sleep and you will not resist.You will answer my questions as best you can.You will remember where you were when you cut black crystal.You will remember what the landscape was like, if there were any prominent landmarks.You will also tell me the coordinates, because you do remember them.And you do remember this particular site because you cut black crystal there, four fine crystals in the key of E Major.You made enough credits to leave Ballybran for over a year.Records show that you went to your homeworld on that occasion.Do you remember that time, Rimbol?Do remember the landmarks about that site, Rimbol?"
"Ah, the E majors?Best I ever cut.I 'member."The words were slurred, but both medic and singer listened hard."I 'member.Two peaks, like cones, and then the flat part…" The words became more distinct, the voice even sounded younger, more vibrant."Narrow ravine, winds like an S, had to tip the sled and damned near lost her but I knew there was black around.Fardling steep slope up to the peaks, sharp to climb, slipped often but crystal's there… feel it in my knees and hands…"
"The coordinates, Rimbol.What are the coordinates?You saw them when you finally set the sled down.You know you did.So put yourself back then, when you're looking down at your console.Now, you can see the figures on the scope, can't you?"
"See 'em…"
"What do you see, Rimbol?Look closely.The numbers are very clear, aren't they?"
"Clear."
"What numbers do you see?"
"Ah…" And another sigh escaped the old man."Longitude, one fifty-two degrees twenty-two, latitude sixteen degrees fifteen.Didn't think I'd 'member that.I did!"He smiled contentedly and his closed eyelids trembled.
Killashandra had jotted down the coordinates and then looked at the figures, still uneasy about obtaining such information.
"He'll never make it there again, Killa," Donalla said softly."He doesn't need them.The Guild which cares for him does."
"Someone else could probably find the claim without scouring it out of his mind," Killashandra said, resisting the intrusion for Rimbol's sake.His name sounded familiar, but he had altered far too much for her to recall what he had looked like as a young and vigorous man.
"There isn't time for random chance."Then Donalla turned back to her patient."Thanks, Rimbol.You have been marvelously helpful."
"Have?"
Killashandra was astounded to see a smile return to tremble on the wasted lips, a smile that remained even after Donalla ended the hypnotic session.She said nothing when she noted that Killashandra had seen that smile.She turned up the music, a lilting, merry tune, and, as the two women left, Killashandra turned back and saw a distorted finger lift in time to the rhythm.
When they had finished their snack, Killashandra checked their flight path and estimated that they were nearly there.They overflew the black-and-yellow chevrons ten minutes later, and she circled, mentally chanting Lars's choosing rhyme-eeny meeny-as she looked for the landmarks he had told her marked the exact location of the black crystal.
She had turned 160 degrees before she recognized the configuration of ravines: three, one rising behind the other, in frozen waves of stone.At the base of the third, she should find signs of workings.She did: recent workings because sunlit sparkles caught her eye.
"Here we are," she caroled out to Donalla."Behold!"She gestured expansively out of the front window."An actual crystal site!"
Donalla's lips parted and then a slight frown marred her high forehead.
"No, it's not much to look at," Killa said, lightly teasing."A place known only to few and treasured by many."She locked down the controls, noting as she did so, as she always did whether she had realized it before or not, the coordinates on the screen before she shut the engines off.She had to admit that such an automatic scan was as much a part of a landing routine as turning off the engine-so automatic that she wouldn't remember she had done it three seconds after she had.There would be hundreds of such flashes for Donalla to probe…
She reached for her cutter and gave the lined carrier for cut crystal to Donalla to tote and opened the sled door.Through the soles of her heavy workboots, she could feel the ripple of the nearby black.She swallowed hard.The call of black was strong.Maybe Lars had been right: she wasn't ready for black yet.But they hadn't much choice, had they?
She led the way to the face, visible because of the regular steps where crystal had been recently cut.Nothing looked familiar.She knew from checking files that he had cut alone for nearly a decade-a decade she hadn't even known had passed while they were estranged.But, and she shook her head in surprise, the claim bore their chevron markings.Lars was a bundle of contradictions, wasn't he?He was too sentimental to be a good Guild Master, she thought; then, thinking of recent examples of his ruthlessness, she reversed her opinion.
As she narrowed the distance, she explained once more to Donalla exactly how a singer proceeded on site: finding a clear side of crystal, sounding a tuning note, setting the cutter, and then excising the crystal.
"The dangerous part is when I hold the crystal up.If sun hits it, I'll go up into thrall."Wryly she glanced up to check the position of the sun, trying to ignore the hard, cold knot developing in her stomach."Well," she said, exhaling a deep breath, "here goes!"She motioned for Donalla to step back a bit, farther away from the business edge of the cutter.
Killashandra eyed the crystal face.Yes, these were Lars's cuttings.She would know them anywhere.Recent storms hadn't damaged his distinctive style.She brushed some loose splinters away and felt the crystal resonance just a note away.She pressed her hand flat against the surface and, setting her diaphragm, sang a clear mid-C.The crystal vibrated almost excitedly to the sound.She set the cutter.Putting the blade perpendicular to the face, she rammed it in, disengaged the blade, sliced from the top to her lower cut, then quickly shifted position to make the second downward cut, freeing the shaft.She turned off the cutter, letting it slip down the harness that held it to her shoulder.
"Now, Donalla," she said.She lifted the black crystal high, high enough to catch the sun and felt the beginnings of thrall paralyze her.She could no more have evaded that than Rimbol had been able to evade Donalla.
Hard grit dug into her face, irregular hard objects poked her the length of her body, and her ears rang with an unpleasant dissonance that would soon split her skull.Abruptly the unendurable noise quit.
"Killa!Killa!Are you all right?"
A hand on her shoulder shook her, tentatively at first, then more urgently.But the voice was female.She had never cut with a woman!She propped herself up, one hand automatically feeling for the cutter.Her cutter?Where was it?She couldn't have lost her cutter?Dazed, she looked about, patting the ground.Her eyes were dry in their sockets and ached.
"Killa?"
Boots scrabbled on the litter and someone's face peered anxiously at her.But the someone held her precious cutter in one hand and a black-crystal shaft in the other.
"I didn't drop it…" Killa was weak with relief.
"I was about to shatter it if the cutter noise hadn't worked," the woman said.
Killa peered at her anxious face.It was familiar.She forced a tired mind to put name to face.Ah!"Donalla!"
"Who did you expect?"Relief made Donalla's voice sharp.
Killa eased herself to a sitting position.She couldn't trust her legs yet.Her right shoulder ached, and her arm was riddled with sharp needles of renewed circulation.She massaged her shoulder, gradually becoming aware that darkness was rapidly shadowing the narrow ravine.