"She sang quite a few octaves in various keys and decided that there were worse audiences than apparently receptive audition judges. She hadn't used her voice since the day she met Carrik; she was sore in the gut from supporting tone and aware the sound was harsh.
When Concera glided into the room, Killashandra was overwhelmingly relieved.
“Back tomorrow, same time. I'll do casts of your good ten fingers.” And the man sent an arch glance at Concera.
Concera hurried Killashandra out of the workshop and the office.
«He does like his little jokes,» she said, leading the way down one corridor and left at the next. «I only wanted a little favor so I could go back into the ranges without wasting so much time.» She entered a room labeled «Training,» sighing as she closed the door and flicked on the privacy light. «Still» – and she gave Killashandra a bright smile, her eyes sliding from a direct contact – «we have your training to take in hand.» She waved Killashandra to one of the half-dozen chairs in the room facing a large hologram projector. She picked up a remote control unit from a shelf, darkening the room and activating the projector. The outsized lettering of the Guild's rules, regulations, and precepts hovered before them. «You may have had a Milekey transition, but there's no easy way to get over this.»
"Tukolom – "
“Tukolom handles only basic information, suitable for anyone joining the Guild in any capacity.” Concera's voice had a note of rancor. “Now you must specialize and repeat and repeat.” Concera sighed. “We all have to,” she added, her voice expressing patient resignation. “If it's any consolation to you, I'd be doing this by myself and I've always found it much easier to explain than memorize.” Her voice lightened. “You'll hear even the oldest singers muttering regs and restricts any night in the Commons Hall. Of course, you'll never appreciate this drill until it's vital! When you reach that point, you won't remember how you know what you do. Because that's when you really know nothing else.”
Despite Concera's persuasive tone, Killashandra found the reasoning specious. Having no choice in study program or teacher, Killashandra set herself to memorize regulations about working claims, claiming faces, interference with claims, reparations and retributions, fines and a clutter of other rules for which she could see no need since they were obvious to anyone with any sense.
When she returned to the privacy of her quarters and the anomalies of her wall-screens, she checked with the infirmary and was told that Rimbol was weak but had retained all his senses. Shillawn, Borton, and Jezerey were satisfactory, in the proper use of that word. Killashandra also managed to extract from data retrieval the fact that injured Singers like Concera and Borella undertook the role of preceptor because of the bonus involved. That explained the spiteful remarks and ambivalent poses.
The next morning, when Concera drilled her on her understanding of each section of the previous day's subjects, Killashandra had the notion that Concera silently recited paragraph and section just one step ahead of her pupil.
The afternoon was spent uncomfortably, in the workshop of the fisherman, where casts were made of her hands. The Fisher maundered on about having to make hundreds of casts during a Singer's lifetime. He told her she wasn't to complain to him about blisters from hand grips an affliction that he alleged was really caused by a muscling up that wasn't any fault of his. Killashandra spent that evening redecorating her room.
She had a morning drill with Concera, spent a half hour with the Fisher, who grumbled incessantly about a bad morning's fishing, the inferiority of the plastic he had to work with, and the privileges of rank. Killashandra decided that if she were to ruffle at every cryptic remark tossed her way, she'd be in a state of constant agitation. The remainder of the afternoon, Concera reviewed her on crystal shapes, tones, and the combinations that were marketable at the moment: black crystals in any form always having the highest value. Killashandra was to review the catalog, commit to memory which shape was used for what end product, the range in price, and the parameters of value variation in each color. She was taken through the research departments, which sought new uses for Ballybran crystal. There she noticed several people with the eye adjustment of Enthor.
In the days that followed, she was given instruction in the sled-simulator, “flying” against mach storm winds. By the end of the first lesson, she was as battered, sweaty, and trembling as if the flight had been genuine.
“You'll have to do better than that,” the instructor commented unsympathetically as she reeled out of the simulator. “Take a half hour in the tank and come back this afternoon.”
“Tank?”
“Yeah, the tank. The radiant fluid. Left-hand taps. Go on! I'll expect you back at 1500.”
Killashandra muttered the terse instructions all the way back to her rooms, shedding her clothes as she made her way to the tank. She turned on the left-hand taps, and a viscous liquid oozed out. She got the temperature she wanted and dubiously lowered herself into the tank. In minutes, tension and stress left her muscles, and she lay, buoyed by the radiant bath, until the stuff cooled. That afternoon, her instructor grudgingly admitted that she had improved.
A few days later, half a morning through a solo training flight across the White Sea where thermal patterns made good practice, every visual warning device on the controls turned red, and a variety of sirens, klaxons, bells, and nerve-tinglers was activated. Killashandra immediately veered northeast to the Guild Complex and was relieved when half the monitors desisted. The rest blared or blinked until she had landed the sled on its rack and turned off the power. When she complained to her instructor about the warning overload, he gave her a long, scathing look.
“You can't be warned too often about the approach of turbulence,” he said. “You Singers might be as deaf as some of us no matter how we rig cautions. While you remember advice, remember this: a mach storm won't give you a second chance. We do our fardling best to insure that you have at least one. Now change your gear for cargo handling. A blow's on the way!”
He strode off, waving to attract attention from a cluster of hangar personnel.
The storm was not rated Severe and only the southeast section of the continent had been alerted. Forty Singers had logged out in that general area, and thirty-nine straggled in. The flight and hangar officers were conferring together as Killashandra passed them.
“Keborgen's missing. He'll get himself killed!”
“He's been bragging he was out for black. If he managed to remember where the claim is . . .”
Killashandra had no excuse to linger near the two at that point, but when the other ships had been cleared and racked, she stayed on after the rest of the unloaders had been dismissed.
The wind was not strong enough at the complex to require the erection of the baffles, so Killashandra stationed herself where she could watch the southern quadrant. She also kept an eye on the two officers and saw them abandon their watch with a shrug of shoulders and shakes of the head.
If Keborgen had actually cut black crystal, she would've liked to have unloaded it. She wasn't needed on the sorting floor. She consoled herself with the knowledge that she had racked up some danger credit already, and wasn't much in the red for decorating her room and days of uncredited instruction. Being a recruit had had advantages.
She was crossing the hangar to return to her quarters when she heard the sound, or rather felt it, like a thread dragged across exposed nerve ends. She wasn't yet accustomed to her improved vision, so she shook her head and blinked, expecting to clear the spot on the right retina. It stayed in position in the lower right-hand quadrant, dipping and swaying. Not a shadow in her own eye but a sled, obviously on course for the complex. She was wondering if she should inform anyone when wrecker personnel began to scramble for the heavy hoist sled. In the hustle, no one noticed that Killashandra had joined the team.