“Well, it doesn't surprise me that you have,” Enthor said, taking the box from her.
Lanzecki's eyes never left hers as he advanced. She let the sorting table support her shaking body and clutched its edge with nerveless fingers. Regulations and restrictions that could be levied against a disobedient member by the Guild Master sprang to her mind far more vividly than the elusive ones about rescue and salvage. His lips were set in a thin, hard line. The slight flare of his nostrils and the quick lift of his chest under the subtle gleam of his shirt confirmed that he had appeared through effort, not magic.
“You could improve on your acute angles,” Enthor was saying as he unpacked her triad. “However, the credit is good.” Enthor blinked before he peered approvingly at Killashandra. He noticed her immobility, looked around, not unsurprised to see the Guild Master, and back to Killashandra, aware now of the reason for her tension.
“Which is as well for Killashandra Ree,” Lanzecki said with deep sarcasm, “since she has not returned in her new sled.”
“Moksoon is all right?” Killashandra asked, anything to be able to speak in the face of Lanzecki's fury.
“His head will heal, and he will doubtless cut more rose quartz!”
That Lanzecki's tone was not derisory did not signify. Killashandra understood what was implied. Nor could she break from his piercing stare.
“I couldn't very well leave him,” she said, the solace of indignation replacing fear. After all, Lanzecki had arranged for Moksoon to shepherd her.
“Why not? He would have shown no compunction in leaving you had the circumstances been reversed.”
“But . . . but he was cutting. All the storm warnings were on in his sled. He wouldn't listen. He tried to slice me with his cutter. I had to knock him out before he . . .”
“You could be subject to claim-jumping, Section 49, Paragraph 14,” Lanzecki went on irreconcilably.
“What about the section dealing with rescue and salvage?”
Lanzecki's eyelids dropped slightly, but it was Enthor who answered her in a startled voice.
“There are none, my dear. Salvage is always done by the Guild, not a Singer. I would have thought you'd been taught to know what exactly is in rules and regs. Ah, now these . . . these are very good indeed. Two a trifle on the thin side.”
Enthor had unpacked the quintet. For the first time, Lanzecki's attention was diverted. He shifted his body slightly so that he could see the weighplate. He lifted one eyebrow in surprise, but his lips did not soften with appeasement.
“You may come out of this affair better than you deserve to, Killashandra Ree,” Lanzecki said. His eyes still glinted with anger. “Unless, of course, you left behind your cutter.”
“I could carry that, and these,” she retorted, stung more by his amusement than his anger.
“Let us hope then that Moksoon can be persuaded not to charge you with claim-jumping since you preserved his wreck of a ship, his skin, and his crystal. Gratitude is dependent on memory, Killashandra Ree, a function of the mind that deteriorates on Ballybran. Learn that lesson now!”
Lanzecki swept away from Enthor's table and walked down the long room to the farthest exit, thus emphasizing that he had come on discipline,
CHAPTER 10
Killashandra stayed with Enthor while he tallied her four cartons, though she was hardly aware of what the old Sorter was saying to her. She kept glancing toward the far door where Lanzecki had made his dramatic exit, aware of the surreptitious looks in her direction from other Sorters, aware of an emotion more intense than hatred, emptier than fear.
“Now that'll buy you your two sleds.” Enthor's words penetrated her self-absorption.
“What?”
“Those black crystals brought you a total of twenty-three thousand credits.”
“How much?” Killashandra stared incredulously at the displayed figures, blinking green. “But a sled only costs eight thousand.”
“There's the tithe, my dear. Thirty percent does eat a hole in the total. Actually, you have to pay for two sleds, the one you lost and the replacement. Still, 16,100 clear does help.”
“Yes, it does.” Killashandra tried to sound grateful.
Enthor patted her arm. “You'd best take a good long radiant bath, m'dear. Always helps. And eat.” Then he began to package her beautiful black crystal.
She turned away, unexpectedly feeling the separation from her first experience of crystal. The weight of the cutter made her sag as she slung it to her back. She would take it to be checked in the morning. She estimated she had just enough strength left to get her body back to her quarters and into the radiant bath. She took the nearest door out of the Sorting room, aware marginally that people were still rushing cartons in to Storage, that the howl of the wind was loud at this level even inside the complex. She should be grateful! She was too weary to laugh or snort at her inappropriate choice of word. She got into the lift and its descent, though smooth, made her sink toward the floor. She was able to prevent complete collapse only by hanging on to the support rail.
She wobbled to her room, oblivious to the gaze of those in the Commons. As she walked, the drag of the cutter pulled her to the right, and once she caromed numbly from a doorway.
When she finally raised her hand to her own door plate, she realized that she still wore the ident wristband. She wouldn't need that anymore, but she hadn't the strength to remove it. As she passed a chair, she dropped her right shoulder, and the cutter slid onto the cushioning. She continued to the tankroom where she stared in dazed surprise at the filling tank. Did her entry into the room trigger the thing? No, it was almost full. Someone must have programmed it. Enthor? Rimbol? Her mind refused to work. She tore at her coverall, then her sweat liner, pulling her boots off with the legs of her coverall, and crawled up the three steps to the platform around the tank. She slid gratefully – that word again – into the viscous liquid, right up to her throat, her weight supported by the radiant fluid. Fatigue and the ache of crystal drained from her body and nerves. In that suspension, she remained, her mind withdrawn, her body buoyed.
Sometime later, the room announced a visitor, and she roused sufficiently to deny entrance. She didn't want to see Rimbol. But the intrusion and the necessity of making a decision aroused her from her passivity. The fluid had provided the necessary anodyne, and she was acutely aware of hunger. She had pulled herself from the tank, the radiant liquid dripping from her body, and was reaching for a wrap when a hand extended the garment to her. Lanzecki stood there.
“I will not be denied twice!” he said, “though I will allow you couldn't know that it was I at your door.”
Surprised at his presence, Killashandra wavered on the edge of the tank, and he immediately held out a steadying hand.
“You can fill tanks and open doors?”
“One can be programmed, and the other was not locked.”
“It is now!”
“It is,” he said smoothly; his mouth, she quickly noticed, was amused. “But that can be changed.”
For a picosecond, she wanted to call his bluff. Then she remembered that he had said she might he luckier than she deserved as Enthor tallied her cut. He had implied she had enough credit not only to buy a new sled but pay off what she already owed the Guild. Lanzecki had remembered the vouchers she still held. With those, she would have just enough. What mattered was that Lanzecki had remembered that margin at a time when he was rightfully infuriated by her disregard of her Guild Master's summons.
''I'm much too tired to change anything." She gathered the toweling about her and extended her hand to him, palm up, summoning a weary smile.
He looked from her smile to her palm, and his lips curved upward. Now he took a step forward. Placing both hands on her slender waist, he swung her down from the tank platform. She expected to be set on her feet. Instead Lanzecki carried her into the lounge. The spicy aroma of a freshly cooked meal was heady, and she exclaimed with pleasure at the steaming dishes on the table.