Lars handed her into the cabin of the shuttle and would have fastened her harness; but, laughing, she slapped at his hands, saying she could do it herself.
"Oddest thing, Lars," she said in a low tone so that Flicken, the pilot, wouldn't hear.She was going to freak a lot of folk out by suddenly remembering their names, she thought, amused.She forced her errant mind back to what she had to tell Lars."Big Junk recognized me.I remembered that little bit during the last Singularity Jump.I don't mean it said 'hello', but I think I was aware of its recognition when I got to its cavern the first time.That's why I panicked and did Three first."
"Hmmm.Interesting."
"Yeah."She smiled in a somewhat maudlin fashion."I'm glad we put its piece back."
"Is that what it remembered?"
She shrugged."Who knows what passes for memory with Junk?Rudney certainly doesn't and we decided-"
"We who?"
"Brendan, Boira, and me… decided that Klera had the right idea about the patterns being part of the communication effort."
"Pattern and rhythm?"
"Pattern, rhythm, and color."
"Hmmm.Complex."
"Too much for this back-planet girl."
"You remember everything?" he asked, dismayed for her sake.
She nodded."But I'm learning to chop 'em off before they overwhelm me.Too much is not a good thing."
"Hmmm."
He laced his fingers in hers, and she let her head roll to rest on his shoulder.She had been exceedingly lucky to have been kidnapped by Lars Dahl.She hadn't really had any guide by which to measure that serendipity or realize how truly Donalla had spoken when she said that Lars was devoted to her.She could see it now, in the tapestry of their years together-all hundred and twenty-three of them, incredible as that total was-that he had been more than friend, lover, partner, and alter ego.She remembered how devastated, how lost, she had been when he had been falsely disciplined for the Optherian affair… She remembered, with great relish, their first sexual encounter on the beach at Angel-and, more importantly, how the mutual attraction had only strengthened and deepened throughout the years."Everlasting love" took on a new dimension when applied to what she and Lars shared.
And now, she could share even more with him: his duties as Guild Master.She would be Trag to his Lanzecki.Muhlah!Had Lanzecki and Trag… She stifled a giggle.Lanzecki had been quite willing, but she had never known if Trag had had any liaisons with Guild members.Lack of memory, a fear of displaying the gaps and embarrassing herself, and Lars, had been behind her resistance to his offers.She couldn't be less than the best for Lars, and now she could take on those responsibilities with a clear conscience-and an infallible memory.
Odd how so many things worked out-if one waited long enough.That initial humiliation back on Fuerte when she had been refused solo status by the bombastic little Maestro Valdi had resulted in her meeting Carrick, and discovering the covert Heptite Guild."Silicate spider", "crystal cuckoo"-Valdi's accusations rang in her head.Foolish little man.Singing crystal had been so much more rewarding than being a mere concert singer, who could expect only three or four decades of a "good" voice!She was still "singing" after a hundred and ninety-seven years.
She turned her head and caught her reflection in the porthole.Well, a quadruple thickness of plasglas might blur lines, but she really didn't have many, thanks to the Ballybran symbiont.She certainly didn't look any two hundred and fifteen years.She smiled at her image.She wasn't much changed from the girl who had left Fuerte with a mind-damaged crystal singer.She gripped Lars's fingers tightly.
Now, if she could manage to cushion his shock that she could never again cut black crystal, she was good for another couple of hundred years.
"You won't mind letting Presnol and Donalla give you a good checkup, will you, Sunny?" he asked, his eyes dark and anxious.
"Not at all," she replied blithely."Though I'm sure Bren and Boira sent a report on ahead, didn't they?"
"That was hardly reassuring," he remarked dryly."Especially the part where you were sure you were dead.I don't exaggerate when I say that the heart went out of me."
She stroked his hand."But as it was me saying it, you had no cause to worry."
He gave her a long and trenchant look."By any chance, among your newly revived memories, do you have the one of our first night together?"
She ducked her head: the recall was instant, and almost embarrassing in its intensity.
"Did I not tell you then," he said, his voice intimately low and rich with emotion, "that you gave me the most incredible love experience of my life?"
"Lars!You don't remember that?"
He smiled at her, his eyes so filled with passion that she could feel the blood rising to suffuse her face.
"It's one of my fondest recollections, Sunny, and it is so wonderful that you remember it now, too."
He kept gazing into her eyes, stroking her hand, so that she felt like a giddy youngling.Which, she remembered, she had never been, for even at that age she had already been dedicated to the notion of herself as a singer.
"Ah, ahem…" Flicken, standing by the open shuttle door, was clearing his throat.
"Thanks, Flick," Lars said, suavely recovering.He reached across Killashandra to release her harness and then handed her out as regally as if she were indeed a queen.
"The courier's scheduled for an oh-eight-thirty docking at Bay Forty-three, Guild Master.Shall I be ready at oh-seven-hundred?"
"That'll be fine," Lars said, and hurried Killa out, obviously wishing that Flicken had not spoken.
"Who's going where tomorrow in a courier, Lars?"Killa demanded as he guided her toward the lift.As they entered, he ran his hand through his crisp blond hair.
"I've put it off as long as I could, Killa," he said apologetically."Presnol said he'd sit in for me.I shouldn't be gone long."
"Where?"She felt a definite sinking feeling.
He scratched the back of his neck."I've been putting it off because you were away, and I wasn't leaving until you got back after what Big Hungry did to you…"
"Out with it!"
"I'm not sure if you'd remember…"
She quirked an eyebrow at him, grinning."Try me."
He jabbed an impatient finger on the control pad, and she didn't take her eyes off his face.
"All right."He grinned, his eyes sparkling with the challenge."Recruitment."
"You've got permission for overt recruitment," she replied without hesitating, precisely remembering the scene and where they had stood in his office in relation to each other, "and the courier's taking you where there're some live ones."
"My, my, we are vastly improved," he said, slightly mocking, but his fingers were wrapped tenderly about her forearm.
The lift stopped, and he tugged her out.She stopped in the foyer.
"This is not the medical level."
"No, it is not.It is our level, and you can spend tomorrow with Presnol and Donalla, but you are spending the next hours with me, your Guild Master, and your ardent lover who is overjoyed to have his Sunny compos mentis, hale, whole, and hearty, back again."With a deft twist of his wrist, he pulled her into his arms and demonstrated his overjoy!
Sometime during the loverly reenactment of their first night together, he spoke of his trip to three overpopulated city-planets where he hoped to find recruits.He also had permission to enlist specific technicians to fill the empty positions or to train up in the specialist support skills.
"We desperately need more medical staff," he told her, stroking her hair as they lay entwined on the sleeping platform."Too many singers are so long in their craft that they get arrogant about their abilities and lose all common sense and any caution they might have once possessed."
"And a one-way trip to the Infirmary."She thought of Rimbol, poignantly remembering the bright gay chap he had been when they had both first come to Ballybran.That was not a comfortable memory when contrasted with his current condition.She shuddered.