Concurrent with the laboratory discoveries and proposed applications of the new crystals came the first of several problems to be solved in the mining of this rich source. The first E and E team had only gathered up loose chips of the various types of crystal, or such larger chunks as had already been fractured from the mother lode. In attempts to cut with ordinary carbon-10 blades, the crystal had shattered. Laser cutters were tried, but they shattered, melted, or damaged the crystal.
The habit of one of the crystallographers of singing as he worked led to an unexpected solution. The man noticed that some crystal faces would resonate to his voice, and he suggested the use of a subsonic cutter. Though not completely successful, experiments along this line finally produced the sophisticated audio pickup that resonated, amplified, and reduced the required note to set the sub-sonic diamond blade.
Once the problem of wresting unblemished crystals from the face was solved, Ballybran was opened to private miners. During the next spate of storms, those miners who heeded the warnings promptly and reached the sheltered valley sustained no injury. The imprudent were discovered in the storm's wake, dead or mad. Storm winds blowing across the resonant crystal range coaxed enough sonics from the sensitive rock to shatter unprotected minds.
Keenly aware of the unexplained deaths of the nine miners, everyone became conscious of previously ignored physical discomforts. The meditechs began filing reports of disorientation, hypo– and hyperthermic spells, erratic sense perceptions, muscular spasm and weakness. No one in the several base camps escaped the minor ailments. Most symptoms passed, but some victims found one sense or another – in most cases hearing – to be affected. The medical team was hastily augmented, and everyone was put through exhaustive tests. At first, crystal was suspected of inducing the symptoms. However, those handling the crystal off-planet appeared unharmed by contact, while meteorologists and support technicians who never touched the stuff on Ballybran, were also affected. Crystal was absolved. The planet's ecology then became the prime target for intensive examination, and this area of investigation proved positive. The spore producing the symptoms was soon isolated, and the planet Ballybran was placed on Code 4 as a preventive measure.
Killashandra turned off the display to ponder that. Anything below Code 15 was a stern prohibition against landing. Ballybran's spore produced complicated reactions sometimes fatal – in the human body. Yet the culprit had been isolated, but the planet was still on a Code 41
Evasion! Killashandra thought, irritated. She started the display again, but the text now cited the formation of the Heptite Guild. She halted it.
What was it Andurs had said? “Only Singers leave the planet?” Obviously, the handicapped remained on Ballybran. Twenty-thousand-odd staff and technicians as opposed to Singers. Killashandra snorted. Those were better odds, actually, than the ones against achieving stellar rank in the performing arts. She rather liked that. Yes, but what happened if you weren't one of the one-in-five? What sort of technical workers were employed?
She queried the vidifax.
“Technicians: Ballybran crystal workers, tuners, artificers of crystal drive components and interstellar resonating units, meditechs, programmers, mechanics, therapists, agronomists, caterers . . .” the list continued down to menial functions.
So, once committed to Ballybran, only Singers left. Well, she'd be a Singer. Killashandra pushed aside the console and, knitting her fingers behind her head, leaned back on the narrow bolster.
What contributed to that subtle difference between Singer and support staff? Particularly if perfect pitch was a prerequisite to leaving the planet. If infrasonic cutters were used to extract the crystal from the rock face, sheer strength wasn't the second requisite. Attitude? Aptitude?
The spore disease? Killashandra drew the console back to her and tapped out a recall.
“This area of investigation proved positive, and the spore producing the illness was isolated . . .”
“Isolated,” Killashandra muttered under her breath. “Isolated but not negated, or cured, and the planet Code 4.”
So it had to be immunity to the spore itself that determined who sang crystal?
Nothing ventured, nothing gained, she thought, and tapped out a query on the spore. She chuckled as the display announced a restricted subject. Only so much information then was vouchsafed the candidate. Fair enough. Privacy was as much the right of a Guild as an individual, and the FSP required full disclosure before a candidate took the final irrevocable plunge.
She pushed back the console and swung off the bed. Pausing just long enough to brush her hair and check the fall of her tunic, she slid aside the door panel. It closed quietly behind her.
When she reached the ramp connecting levels, she studied the wall map mounted there. She was two levels below and to one side of the Guild and there was but one access to that part of the base. She hurried up the ramp with an aggressive stride. It felt good to walk about. After confinement for nine days in shuttles and spaceships, even a moon base seemed spacious. The amenities of Shankill reflected its use as a commercial as well as resident scientific facility. Considerable thought and care had been taken to approximate planetary surroundings, to make residents and transients forget the hostile conditions outside. Holograms on the outside of the ramp-way depicted a pleasant mountain scene that, Killashandra was sure, would change in lighting to coincide with the base's diurnal pattern. It was close to midday “outside,” but she ignored the faint complaints from her stomach.
Through a lock, past the red-hatched area she had promised herself to seek out, the corridor widened into a broad foyer. Set around the wall were holograms of trees and flowers, nodding and dipping among the banked bright leafed shrubs. She thought the decorator had mixed the flora of several planets in the display, but with holograms that scarcely caused botanical problems. Besides, the effect was colorful.
The catering facility below her was set out on several levels, the first one a wide corridor between two beverage areas, one with a human attendant. She bore left, entering another short corridor that bridged the catering and Guild areas.
Though it crossed her mind that the Guild offices were closed for midday meals, she was surprised to gain instant admission to the reception area. There, she stopped in wonder.
Moon base or not, the twelve-sided hall was immense, the ceiling at least 5, possibly 6 meters high. An immense crystal art form, multicolored and faintly luminous, hung from the center of the arches that supported the ceiling. A curved console was the only furnishing in the open chamber, but Killashandra noted the lights of display niches set at random levels on the sidewalls.
“Well,” she uttered in soft amazement, then heard the chandelier chime in response. It was not, as she'd initially thought, a lighting fixture. It also seemed to incorporate a variety of crystal forms and colors: some masterpieces of crystal artifice. Surely a waste. Suddenly she realized the mass was slowly rotating, its luminous ends sending motes of light about the room, changing patterns as it turned and always accompanied by the soft, almost subliminal chiming.
If the noise didn't twist you, thought Killashandra, the light would mesmerize. She declined the subtle hypnosis and began to prowl about the enormous reception hall. The first niche held a fan of minute shards of a pale-pink crystal, the sort probably utilized as computer chips or transducers. She wondered how sharp their edges might be. The next display provided magnification to show crystal line threads of various hues and diameters. Surely, one didn't “cut” those. Perhaps the yellowish crystal fractured into such strands.