He had no banter on the return trip, nor had anyone else. Killashandra wished she'd thought to ask the agronomist about the ground-cover plants and shrubs. And amused herself by wondering if he bothered with such common varieties.
Tension put an effective damper on recruit spirits that evening, a damper unrelieved even by some moderate drinking. Rimbol, who had been the class wit, was not disposed to resume that mantle.
“Are you all right?” Killashandra asked him as he stared into his half-empty beer.
“Me?” He raised his eyebrows in affected surprise at her question. “Sure. I'm tired. No more than the accumulation of more hard work in the past . . few days than I've had to do in years. Student living softens the muscles.”
He patted her arm, grinning reassuringly, and finished his beer, politely ending that subject. When she returned with a refill of her own beaker, he was gone. Well, she thought sadly, he has as much right to Privacy as I, and neither of us is good company tonight.
Sleep did not come easily that night for Killashandra. She doubted she was alone in her insomnia, though that was no consolation. Her mind continually reviewed the symptoms Borella had described for the onset of the adaptation. Fever? Would she recognize one, for she'd never had a severe systemic illness. Nausea? Well, she had had bad food now and again or drunk too much. Diarrhea? She'd experienced that from over eating the first sweet yellow melons as a girl. The thought of being completely helpless, weak in the thrall of an alien invasion – yes, that was an appropriate description of the process – was abhorrent to Killashandra. Cold swept across her body, the chill of fear and tension.
It had all seemed so easy to contemplate on Shankilclass="underline" symbiosis with an alien spore would enrich her innate abilities, endow her with miraculous recuperative powers, a much increased life span, the credit to travel luxuriously, the prestige of being a member of a truly elite Guild. The attractive parts of a felicitous out come of her adaptation to the spore had, until this dark and lengthy night, far out weighed the unemphasized alternatives. Deafness? She wouldn't have sung professionally anyhow, not after what the judges had said about her voice, but the choice not to sing had to be hers, not because she couldn't hear herself. To be a sorter, like Enthor, with his augmented vision? Could she endure that? She'd bloody have to, wouldn't she? Yet Enthor seemed content, even jealous of his ability to value crystal.
Had she not desired to be highly placed? To be first sorter of the exclusive Heptite Guild qualified. How long would it take to become first sorter? With lives as long as those the inhabitants of Ballybran could lead?
How long would it have taken her to become a Singer of stellar rank, much less solo performer anywhere, had her voice passed the jury? The thoughts mocked her, and Killashandra twisted into yet another position in which to find sleep.
She was well and truly caught and had no one to blame but herself. Caught? What was it the older Singer had asked Borella on the shuttle? “How was the catch?” No, “Much of a catch?” “The usual,” Borella had replied. “One can never tell at this time.”
Catch? Pools like herself, warned by Carrik and Maestro Valdi, not to mention the FSP officials, were the catch, those who would trade solid reality for illusion – the illusion of being wealthy and powerful, feared, and set apart by the tremendous burden that came with crystal singing.
And no guarantee that one would become a Singer! Carigana had been right. Nothing would matter until adaptation, for none of the lectures and work had been specifically oriented toward the role of the Singer: nothing had been explained about the art of cutting crystal from the face, or how to tune a cutter, or where in the ranges to go.
Tossing, Killashandra recalled the contorted features of Uyad, arguing for credit to take him off-planet: the stained Singers stumbling from their sleds across the wind-battered hangar – and the condition of those sleds that gave an all too brutal picture of the conditions that Singers endured to cut enough crystal to get off the planet.
Yet Borella's voice had held longing when she spoke of returning to the crystal ranges . . . as if she couldn't wait.
Would singing crystal be analogous to having the lead role in a top-rank interstellar company?
Killashandra flailed her arms, shaking her head from side to side. Anything was better than being classed as an anonymous chorus leader. Wasn't it?
She rearranged her limbs and body into the classic position for meditation, concentrated on breathing deeply and pushing back all extraneous and insidious conjectures.
Her head was heavy the next morning, and her eyes felt scratchy in their sockets. She'd no idea how long she had slept finally, but the brightness of the morning was an affront to her mental attitude; with a groan, she darkened the window. She was in no mood to admire hillsides.
Nor was anyone else in a much better state, ordering their breakfasts quietly and eating alone. Nonetheless, Killashandra was disgusted not to have noticed the absences. Especially Rimbol's. Later, in a wallow of private guilt, she rationalized that she had been groggy with lack of sleep and certainly not as observant as usual. People were straggling into the lounge. It was Shillawn, stammering badly, who first noticed.
“Killashandra, have you seen Rimbol yet? Or Mistra?” Mistra was the slender dark girl with whom Shillawn had been pairing.
“Overslept?” was her immediate irritated reaction.
«Who can sleep through the waking buzz? He's not in his room. It's – too empty.»
“Empty?”
“His gear. He had things when he came. Nothing's there now.”
Killashandra half ran to Rimbol's room. It was, as Shillawn had said, very empty, without the hint of a recent occupation, antiseptically clean.
“Where is Rimbol, former occupant of this room?” Killashandra asked.
“Infirmary,” a detached voice said after a negligible pause.
“Condition?”
“Satisfactory.”
“Mistra?” Shillawn managed to ask.
“Infirmary.”
“Condition?”
“Satisfactory!”
«Hey, look, you two» – and Borton diverted the attention of the group waiting in the corridor – «Carigana's gone, too.»
The forbidding red light on that door was off.
Shillawn gulped, glanced apologetically at Killashandra. Carigana's condition, too, was satisfactory.
“I wonder if dying is considered satisfactory,” Killashandra said, seething with frustration.
“Negative,” replied the computer.
"So we get whisked away in the night and never seen again? Jezerey asked, clinging to Borton's hand, her eyes dark and scared.
“Distress being noted by sensitive monitors, proper treatment immediately initiated,” Tukolom said. He had arrived without being noticed. “All proceeds properly.” He accorded them an almost paternal smile that faded quickly to an intense scrutiny of the faces before him. Apparently satisfied, he beckoned them to follow him to the lounge.
“He makes me feel as if I ought to have come down sick, too,” Jezerey murmured so that just Killashandra and Borton heard.
“I wish the hell I had,” Killashandra assured her. She tried not to imagine Rimbol tossing feverishly, or convulsed.
“Today concerns weather,” Tukolom announced portentously and frowned at the groans from his audience.
Killashandra hid her face and gripped her fingers into fists until her nails dug painfully into her palms. And he has to pick today to talk about weather.
Some of what he said on the subject of meteorology as that science applied to Ballybran and its moons penetrated her depression. In spite of herself, she learned of all the safety devices, warnings, visual evidences of imminent turbulence, and the storm duties of Guild members. All available personnel were marshaled to unload Singers' air sleds, not just unclassified recruits.