Killashandra ran down the hall. The door of the room was open, and half a dozen technicians could be seen bent over the bed. Antona wasn't among them, but Killashandra caught a glimpse of Carigana's wide-eyed face.
Whirling, she stormed into the chief medic's office. Antona was hunching over an elaborate console, her hands graceful even in rapid motion on the keys.
“Why did Carigana die?” Killashandra demanded.
Without looking up from the shifting lights of the display, Antona spoke. “You have privileges in this Guild, Killashandra Ree, but not one gives you the right to disturb a chief of any rank. Nor me at this time. I want to know why she died more than you possibly could!”
Rightly abashed, Killashandra left the office. She hurried back to her room, averting her eyes as she passed the open door to Carigana's. She was ashamed of herself, for she didn't genuinely care that Carigana was dead, only that she had died. The space worker had really been an irritant, Killashandra thought candidly. Death had been a concept dealt with dramatically in the Music Center, but Carigana was Killashandra's first contact with that reality. Death could also happen to her, to Rimbol, and she would be very upset if he died. Even if Shillawn died.
How long Killashandra sat watching the life-signs' graphs, trying to ignore the discontinued one, she did not know. A courteous rap on the door was immediately followed by Antona's entrance, and her weary expression told Killashandra that quite a few hours must have passed. Antona leaned against the door frame, expelling a long sigh.
"To answer your question – ''
"I apologize for my behavior – "
“We don't know why Carigana died,” Antona went on, inclining her head to accept the apology. “I have a private theory with no fact to support it. An intuition, if you will that the desire to be acceptable, to surrender to the symbiont is as necessary to the process of adjustment as the physical stamina, which Carigana had, and those chromosomes which we have established as most liable to produce a favorable adaptation. You did want to become a Crystal Singer very much, didn't you?”
“Yes, but so do the others.”
“Do they? Do they really?” Antona's tone was curiously wistful.
Killashandra hesitated, only too aware of the inception of her own desire to become a Crystal Singer. If Antona's theory held any merit, Killashandra should also be dead, certainly not so blatantly healthy.
“Carigana didn't like anything. She questioned everything,” Killashandra said, drawn to give Antona what comfort she could. “She didn't have to become a Crystal Singer.”
«No, she could have stayed in space.» Antona smiled thinly, pushed herself away from the wall, and then saw the graphs on the display. «So that's how you knew. Well» – and she tapped the active graph in the left-hand corner – «that's your friend, Rimbol. He's more than just satisfactory now. The others are proceeding nicely. You can pack your things. I've no medical reason to keep you here longer. You'll be far better off learning the techniques of staying alive in your profession, my dear, than sitting death watch here. Officially, you're Lanzecki's problem now. Someone's coming for you.»
“I'm not going to get sick?”
“Not you. You've had what's known as a Milekey transition. Practically no physical discomfort and the maximum adjustment. I wish you luck, Killashandra Ree. You'll need it.” Antona was not smiling. Just then, the door opened wider. “Trag?” The chief meditech was surprised, but her affability returned, that moment of severity so brief that Killashandra wondered if she had imagined it. “I shall undoubtedly be seeing you again, Killashandra.”
She slipped out of the room as an unsmiling man of medium build entered. His first look at her was intent, but she'd survived the scrutiny of too many conductors to be daunted.
“I don't have much to pack,” she said, unsmiling. She slid off the bed and swiftly gathered her belongings. He saw the lute before she picked it up, and something flickered across his face. Had he once played one? She stood before him, carisak over her shoulder, aware that her heart was thumping. She glanced at the screen, her eyes going to Rimbol's graph. How much longer before he was released? She nodded to Trag and followed him from the room.
Killashandra was soon to learn that Trag was reticent by nature, but as they made their way down the infirmary corridors, she was relieved to be conducted in silence. Too much had happened to her too fast. She realized now that she had feared her own life-signs would suddenly appear on the medical display. The sudden reprieve from that worry and her promotion out of the infirmary dazed her. She did not appreciate until later that Trag, chief assistant to the Guild Master in charge of training Crystal Singers, did not normally escort them.
As the lift panel closed an the infirmary level, Trag took her right hand and fastened a thin metal band around her wrist
“You must wear this to identify you until you've been in the ranges.”
“Identify me?” The band fitted without hindering wrist movement, but the alloy felt oddly harsh on her skin. The sensation disappeared in seconds, so that Killashandra wondered if she had imagined the roughness.
“Identify you to your colleagues. And admit you to Singer privacies.”
Some inflection in his voice made the blood run hot to her cheeks but his expression was diffident. At that point, the lift panels opened.
“And it permits you to enter the Singer levels. There are three. This is the main one with all the general facilities.” She stepped with him into the vast, vaulted, subtly lit lobby. She felt nerves that had been strung taut in the infirmary begin to relax in moments. Massive pillars separated the level into sections and hallways. “The lift shaft,” Trag continued, “is the center of these levels of the complex Catering, large-screen viewing, private dining, and assembly rooms are immediately about the shaft. Individual apartments are arranged in color quadrants, with additional smaller lifts to all other levels at convenient points on the outer arc. Your rooms are in the blue quadrant. This way.” He turned to the left and she followed.
“Are these my permanent quarters?” she asked, thinking how many she had had since meeting Carrik.
“With the Guild, yes.”
Once again, she caught the odd inflection in his voice. She supposed it must have something to do with her being out of the infirmary before any of the others of her class. She was curiously disjointed. She had experienced that phenomenon before, at the Music Center, on days when no one could remember lines or entrances or sing in correct tempi. One simply got through such times as best one could. And on this, certainly a momentous one in her life, acquiescence was difficult to achieve.
She nearly ran into Trag, who had halted before a door on the right-hand side of the hall. She was belatedly aware that they had passed recesses at intervals.
“This apartment is assigned to you.” Trag pointed to the lock plate.
Killashandra pressed her thumb to the sensitized area. The panel slid back.
“Use what is left of the morning to settle in and initiate your personal program. Use whatever code you wish: personal data is always voice coded. At 1400 hours, Concera will escort you to the cutter technician. He'll have no excuse not to outfit you quickly.”
Killashandra noted the cryptic remark and wondered if everyone would address her comments she couldn't understand yet apparently ought to. As she mused on what “ought to” had accomplished for her, Trag was striding back down the hall.
She closed the panel, flicked on the privacy light, and surveyed her permanent Guild quarters. Size might denote rank here as on other worlds. The main room here was twice the size of her ample recruit accommodation. To one side was a sleeping chamber that was apparently all bed. A door on one wall was open to a mirrored dressing area that, in turn, led into a hygiene unit with a sunken tank sprouting an unusual number of taps and dials. On the other side of the main room was a storage closet larger than her student room on Fuerte and a compact dining and self-catering area.