"D'you know what it's done?"Boira asked tentatively."Nothing new registers?"
"Sensory overload doesn't always produce measurable output," Brendan said.
"Is that your diagnosis, Bren?"Killa asked.
"Empiric only, Killa, since it's obvious by your comments and the need for supplemental medication that what you're experiencing is not corroborated by the med monitors."
"Well, maybe it's nothing more than a good night's sleep won't set right in next to no time, huh?"Killa kept her tone facetious because she could not discuss, even with such staunch friends as Boira and Brendan, what seemed to have happened to her during that sensory overload."I do feel as if I'd been turned inside out, back to front, and then wrung dry…"
The emotional and physical discharge of her first black-crystal installation had now paled to the insignificance of an insect sting.Lars was going to be furious with her, but there was no way she would ever again cut black crystal.Of that, if nothing else at this particular moment in time, she was certain.On the plus side, she would be able to tell him every single location where she had cut black.Indeed she now remembered every site she had ever cut, and the type, size, number and tuning note of every cutting she had ever made over the past one hundred and ninety-seven years.She remembered everything, and completely, to the last petty detail, and the weight of such total recall was worse than having it restored to her.
"Hungry?" asked Boira gently.
Killashandra considered this."Yes, I think I am."
"Then you must be on the road to complete recovery," Boira said, smiling as she rose."Any special requests?"
"Chicken soup?"
"The very thing," Brendan replied so heartily that Killa winced."I've an old family recipe that's supposed to cure anything from ingrown toenails to the worst degree of space fug."
Killa closed her eyes.Chicken soup, no matter how efficacious, was not going to cure what really ailed her.Who needed to remember everything?Everything except how Big Hungry Junk had done what it had done to her.
Being aboard the BB-lO66 had other advantages besides excellent nursing care and incredible food.Rudney could not get to her, though he demanded interviews on an hourly basis, insisting that she finish installing the crystal according to the contract he had made with the Guild Master.He threatened to sue her and the Guild for breach of contract.
"Tell him I installed the crystals as per the contract.Nothing in it said I had to do the old splinters, too.And I won't."
When Rudney exhorted the 1066 to turn the crystal singer over to him, Brendan informed him that he had no such authority over his passengers.
They remained on Opal's surface only long enough to be sure Killa had sufficiently recovered from the physical depletion to withstand the disorientation of a Singularity Jump.Then Brendan lifted his tail from the planet.
After the second of the three Jumps, curiosity got the better of Killashandra.She wanted to know what had happened to Big Hungry after it had gobbled the black crystal.Maybe that would distract her mind from a constant survey of memories she really didn't want to have on replay.
"Rudney's group haven't come to any conclusions," Brendan said, having discreetly continued to monitor all their transmissions and internal conversation."They're still examining their data.Thermoelectric emissions have gone off the scale of their instrumentation.Significant growth of all the FM units-"
"Jewels, please, Bren, or Junk," Boira interposed.
"They seem to be oozing into every available cave, crack, crevice, cranny.The planet's rotation has shifted erratically, and sunspot activity has also increased.All the crystals glow, and the static they emit is constant."
"Junk is using the crystals for communication then?"Killa asked.
"It would appear so," Brendan said, "though to what end, Rudney's group doesn't know.Their semanticist is analyzing the frequency and consistency of patterns, and the rhythm at which they flow, which varies."
"Klera was correct?"Killa asked, quite delighted at the thought.
"They won't commit themselves," Brendan said in a mildly snide tone of voice.
"Naturally.They don't deny the sentience of Junk, do they?"
"They can't when it is obviously altering its environment," Boira said, grinning broadly."Oh, by the way, Rudney sent off a request for another singer to install the splinters."
"For all the good it'll do him," Killa said caustically.
"Fifteen minutes to the last Jump," Brendan said, and Killa scurried to the radiant-fluid tank.
Lars was waiting for her at Shankill, his worried expression clearing when he saw her striding down the corridor toward him.He embraced her hungrily, burying his face in her hair, his fingers biting into her shoulder blades and then her waist.She leaned into him, grasping him as tightly as he did her.He was warm, strong, and just as lean as he had been when they first met so many years ago on Optheria.The essential Lars Dahl hadn't changed… she cut off the other memories that threatened to swamp her.She was getting the hang of censoring recall when she had all she needed.Otherwise all that memory could be overwhelming.
"Honest, Sunny, I had no idea what I was asking of you!" he murmured.
"You didn't ask anything," she said, surprised."I volunteered.Remember?"
He held her off, his expression wretched."Sunny, I maneuvered you into volunteering."
She reviewed the occasion quickly, laughed, and pulled him back to her."So you did, but I didn't resist much, did I?"
"How could you, crystal-mazed as you were?"He was so miserably repentant that she chuckled.
"At least you have the grace to apologize," she said."Lanzecki never did."
She felt the change in him, and this time when he held her away, he apprehensively searched her face.
"What happened, Sunny?"His anxiety was palpable; even the grip of his hands on her arms altered as if she had become noticeably fragile.
"It would appear-" She gave a breathless laugh."-that Big Hungry Junk reconnected all my memory circuits when it zapped me.The brain's electric, you know, and it got recharged, right back to my first conscious memory."
"Muhlah!"Lars stared at her, appalled.
"And I thought placing that Trundomoux King crystal was bad.The merest piffle in comparison.It's all right, love," she reassured him as she saw his eyes blink frantically."Now let's get back to Ballybran which, incidentally, I have never been more glad to see.By the way, did you get Rudney off your back?"
"I did, finally!I had to threaten to sue him for placing my best singer in jeopardy.And you got all your memories back?"She knew that he had briefly assumed his Guild Master's role."Maybe I should send another singer in…"
"Lars Dahl!"She stopped dead in her tracks, pulling him off balance."Don't you dare, Lars Dahl, don't you dare consider for one moment sending any member of the Guild to Opal for any reason!"
"Was it that bad, Sunny?"Lars was instantly solicitous.
"Was, is, and shall be, I suspect, my love, but I can handle it."She anticipated his next question."And yes, as a bonus, I can give you the coordinates of every single claim I ever cut.I can't wait to get that off my mind."She began to hurry him along to the airlock where his shuttle awaited them.
"All your coordinates?"
"That's right."
She would explain the other side of that coin to him later, and as gently as possible.Maybe out sailing in Angel II.Then she had to cope with a flood of memories, all associated with the word "angel": sailing to Island Angel's back, the storm, sheltering in the command post, meeting Nahia and Hauness, meeting his father, Olav, marrying Lars formally by island rites… Ruthlessly she cut off the stream; resolutely she closed down those reminiscences.