“I understand that your system has been isolated due to poor communications,” Killashandra said conversationally.
Tallaf looked anxiously around him.
I also understand that a step forward is not generally popular."
Tallaf regarded her with awe.
“Oh, come now, Tallaf,” Killashandra said in a teasing voice “that's been obvious to me since I boarded. I assure you, it's not an unusual phenomenon.”
“Crystal Singers get to go everywhere, don't they?” An ingenuous envy flickered across his face.
«Not necessarily. This is an unusual assignment for an unusual world and unusual circumstances.» Tallaf preened a little at the implied compliment to his system. «Quite an achievement for an emergent political unit» – Killashandra was a little awed by her own eloquence – «to purchase a 78 and black crystals.»
She watched Tallaf keenly as she spoke and decided that the young engineer was evidently for instant interstellar communications. She wondered briefly how the split of support went – spacers against planetaries or parochials against galactics. She sighed, wishing someone had given her more data on the Trundies. Perhaps there just wasn't much in the galactography.
Pendel arrived, smiling pleasantly to the small groups of officers standing around. It was then that Killashandra realized that she and Tallaf had formed a solitary pair. She smiled more graciously at Tallaf for his fortitude as a crewman appeared from the galley with two beakers of Yarran ale. Tallaf drifted away discreetly, and Killashandra toasted Pendel, whose jolly self evidently masked considerable prestige.
Pendel chuckled. “Good boy, that Tallaf.”
“He's for crystal?”
“Oh, yes, indeed. That's why he's exec this trip. His first.” Pendel's affable smile was truly in place as he glanced around the messroom. Killashandra was certain he knew exactly who should be there and who wasn't. “Not bad at all for a shake down crew.” Killashandra wondered what the deficiencies were. “A man looks for certain goals at certain times of his life,” and his eyes caught hers over the rim of the Yarran beer glass. “Adventure brought me to this system two and a half decades ago. My timing was right. They urgently needed an experienced supercargo. They were being done out of their sockets on cargo rates.” Pendel's tone was laden with remembered indignation. Then he smiled. “Can't do business properly without proper communication.”
“Which is why crystal and this 78 are so important!” She tilted her glass toward him as if Pendel had single-handedly accomplished all. “You Yarrans are known for your perspicacity. Quite a few from your system have become Crystal Singers . . .” She was subtly aware of Pendel's reaction. “Oh, come now, Pendel,” she continued smoothly, for if she couldn't have this man's support, she might well be left in Chasurt's hands, and that wouldn't suit. “Surely you don't believe the spaceflot about Crystal Singers?” She contrived a very amused gurgle of laughter.
“Of course not,” and Pendel shrugged negligently, though his smile was not quite as assured.
«Especially now you've met and talked with me and discovered a Crystal Singer is as human as anyone on board this ship. Or» – and Killashandra glanced about the messroom and its subdued occupants – «perhaps a bit more so.»
Pendel surveyed his fellow officers and grimaced.
“At least I can appreciate a proper brew,” Killashandra continued, inwardly suppressing both apprehension and amusement. Pendel was nowhere near as cosmopolitan as he liked to appear, though in contrast to the other Trundies, he was tolerably informed about the galaxy. Somehow Killashandra must contrive to keep a friendly distance from him. “I do give them credit,” and she glanced around her with an air of compliment.
“So evidently does the Heptite Guild.” Pendel had recovered his basic optimism. “But none of us expected a Crystal Singer would install the things.”
“The Federated Sentient Planets have their own schedule of priorities. Ours not to reason why.” Killashandra couldn't remember where that line came from, but it seemed to apply.
Fortunately, the steaming platters and trays of their evening meal arrived, and Killashandra noted that only she and Pendel were served the one appetizing selection.
Without the repressive presence of Captain Francu and Chasurt, Killashandra managed to draw into conversation most of the older officers. Though the youngsters were far too shy to speak, she could sense that they were listening very closely and storing every word exchanged. The subs were still malleable, and if she could influence them favorably and maintain Pendel's good will by judicious flattery, she'd have done more than she'd been contracted to do. And the Trundies would need more crystal.
That night, as she stretched out on the appallingly hard bunk, she reviewed her extravagant performance of that evening. “Crystalline cuckoo” and “silicate spider,” Maestro Valdi had called Crystal Singers. She thought she knew why now: the survival instincts of the symbiont. And judging from Pendel's subconscious reaction to her, she knew why the symbiont remained a trade secret. There were, she decided, more invidious threats than giving space and survival to a species that paid good value with the rent.
CHAPTER 12
Killashandra made good use of her next five days, having Tic or Tac lead her on exercise walks about the cruiser, dropping hints about the exacting nature of her work and how she had to keep fit. The silicate spider preparing its web for a Passover sleep. She had a few uncomplimentary thoughts about the Guild, mainly Lanzecki, for sending her among the uninformed without a hint that the Trundimoux were so parochial.
She did a great deal of listening to the subordinates when they relaxed enough to talk in her presence and to the general conversations, mostly good-natured slagging among work teams. She learned a great deal about the short and awesome history of the Trundimoux system and stopped referring to them as Trundies in the privacy of her thoughts.
As it had Pendel, the system had attracted many restless and adventurous people, a percentage of them either physically or temperamentally unsuited to the hazards. The survivors bred quickly and hugely, and natural selection again discarded the weaknesses and the weaker, some of whom could usefully work in the relative safety of the larger mining units. The second generation, who survived the rigors of knocking likely chunks of the suburanic metals out of orbit and jockeying their payloads into long drone strings, those hardy souls perpetuated their genes and became yet another variant of human. This system was, in its own way, as unique as Ballybran's, its entrance requirements as stringent and its workers as rigorously trained.
One night while juggling those elements in her mind the dangers of space as opposed to the physical tests on Shankill – Killashandra waxed philosophical. The galaxy was not merely physical satellites circling flaming primaries but overlapping and intertwining metaphysical ones. She was currently the bridge between two such star systems and two totally opposite mental attitudes. She'd use the charm of one to survive in the other.
The Trundimoux had already developed some strong traditions, the evening's solemn dedication of the officers to their system's survival, the worship of water, a callousness toward death, a curious distrust of out-system manufactured equipment. This, Killashandra thought, was why they were so assiduously altering the 78's interior. Then, after she'd seen some tri-di-s of the mining stations and the spacebuilt edifices themselves, she understood. In a spatial sense, the Trundimoux were adapting constantly to the needs of their hostile environment. In another, they were refusing to admit that any other system, hers included, had something worthwhile to offer them that couldn't be improved on.