“That’ll he the day,” Killashandra muttered under her breath, her voice cracking.
“Never about crystal.” Enthor shot her a glance from under his brows, blinking to adjust his eyes to normal vision. Killashandra idly wondered what Enthor’s eyes saw of human flesh and bone in the augmented mode. “I do believe, my dear Killa, that you’ve anticipated the market.”
“I have?” Killashandra pulled herself erect. “With white crystal?”
Enthor lifted out more of the slender sparkling crystal shafts. “Yes, especially if you have matched groupings. These are a good start. What else did you cut?” As one, they retraced their steps to the storage, each collecting another carton.
“Forty-four – ”
“Ranked in size?”
“Yes.” Enthor’s excitement triggered hope in Killashandra.
“Forty-four, from the half centimeter – ”
“By the centimeter?”
“Half centimeter.”
Enthor beamed on her with almost as much enthusiasm as if she had brought him more black crystal.
“Your instinct is remarkable, Killa, for you could not have known about the order from the Optherians.”
“An organ group?”
Enthor gestured for Killashandra to help him display the white shafts on the workbench.
“Yes, indeed. An entire manual was fractured.” Enthor awarded her another of his beams. “Where are the rest? Quickly. Get them. “If there’s so much as one with a cloud —
Killashandra obeyed, stumbling against the swinging door. By the time the crystal was sparkling on the table, she was shuddering and had to cling to the bench to keep upright. It took a century for Enthor to evaluate her cut.
“Not a single cloudy crystal, Killashandra.” Enthor patted her arm and, taking up his little hammer, cocked his ear to the pure sweet notes each delicate rap coaxed from the crystal.
“How much, Enthor? How much?” Killashandra was hanging onto the table, and consciousness, with difficulty.
“Not as much, I fear, as black.” Enthor tapped figures into his terminal. He pulled at his lower lip as he waited for the altered display. “Still, 10,054 credits is not to be sneezed at.” He raised his eyebrows, anticipating a pleased response.
“Only ten thousand . . .” Her knees were collapsing, the muscles in her calves spasming painfully. She tightened her grip on the table’s edge.
“Surely that’s enough to take you off-planet.”
“But not far enough or long enough away.” Blackness was creeping across her sight. Killashandra released one hand from the table to rub her eyes.
“Would Optheria be far enough?” a dry, amused voice asked from behind her.
“Lanzecki . . .” she began, turning toward the Guild Master, but her turn became a spin, down into the darkness which would no longer be evaded.
“She’s coming round, Lanzecki.”
Killashandra heard the words. She could not understand their sense. The sentence, and the voice, echoed in her mind as if spoken in a tunnel. At the softest repetition, comprehension returned.
The voice was Antona’s, the Chief Medical Officer of the Heptite Guild.
Sensation returned then, but sensation was limited to feeling something under her chin and a restraint about her shoulders. The rest of her body was deprived of feeling. Killashandra twitched convulsively and felt the viscous resistance of radiant fluid. She was immersed – that explained the need for chin support and the shoulder restraint.
Opening her eyes, she was not surprised to find herself in the tank room of the Infirmary. Beyond her were several more such tanks, two occupied. judging by the heads visible above the rims.
“So. you’ve rejoined us, Killashandra!”
“How long have you been soaking me, Antona?”
Antona glanced at a display on the tank. “Thirty-two hours and nineteen rinses.” Antona shook a warning finger at Killashandra. “Don’t push yourself like this, Killa. You’re stretching your symbiont’s resources. Abuses like this now can cause degeneration problems later on. And it’s later on you really need protection. Remember that!” A mirthless smile crossed Antona’s classic features. “If you can. Well, at least put it in your memory banks when you get back to your room,” she added, with a sigh for the vagaries of singer recall.
“When can I get up?” Killashandra began to writhe in the tank, testing her limbs and the general response of her body.
Antona shrugged, tapping out a code on the terminal of the tank. “Oh, anytime now. Pulse and pressure readout’s strong. Head clear?”
“Yes.”
Antona pressed a stud and the chin support and shoulder harness released Killashandra. She caught the side of the tank, and Antona handed her a long robe.
“Do I need to tell you to eat?”
Killashandra grinned wryly. “No. My stomach knows I’m awake and it’s rumbling.”
“You’ve lost nearly two kilos, you know. Can you remember when you last ate?” Antona’s voice and eyes were sharp with annoyance. “No use asking, is it?”
“Not the least bit.” Killashandra replied blithely as she climbed out of the tank, the radiant fluid sheeting off her body, leaving her skin smooth and soft. She pulled the robe on. Antona held up a hand to balance her down the five steps.
“How much crystal resonance do you experience now?” Antona poised her fingers above the tank’s small terminal.
Killashandra listened attentively to the noise between her ears. “only a faint trace!” Her breath escaped her lips in a sigh of relief.
“Lanzecki said that you cut enough to go off-world.”
Killashandra frowned. “He said something else, too. But I forget what.” Something important, though, Killashandra knew.
“He’ll probably tell you again in good time. Get up to your quarters and get some food into you.” Antona gave Killashandra’s shoulder an admonitory squeeze before she turned away to check on the other patients.
As Killashandra made her way up from the Infirmary level, deep in the bowels of the Guild Complex, she puzzled over the memory lapse. She had been reassured that most singers had several decades of unimpaired recall before memory deteriorated, but no fast rule determined the onset. She had been lucky enough to have a Milekey Transition ending in full adaptation to Ballybran’s spore, an adaptation that was necessary for those inhabiting thc planet Ballybran. That kind of Transition held many benefits. not the least of which was avoiding the rigors of Transition Fever, and was purported to include a longer span of unimpaired memory. In this one instance, she could, perhaps, legitimately blame fatigue.
As the lift door opened on the deserted lobby of the main singer level, not a singer was in sight. The storm had blown itself out. She paused to glance through to the dining area and saw only one lone diner. Pulling the robe more tightly about her, she hurried down the corridor to the blue quadrant and her apartment.
The first thing she did was call up her credit balance, and felt the knot that had been tightening in her belly dissolve as the figures 12,790 rippled onto the screen. She regarded the total for a long moment, then tapped out the all-important query: how far away from Ballybran would that sum take her?
The names of four systems were displayed. Her stomach rumbled. She shifted irritably in her chair and asked for details of the amenities in each system. The replies were not exciting. In each system the Terran-type planets were purely industrial or agricultural, having, at best, only conservative leisure facilities. From comments she had overheard, Killashandra gathered that because of their proximity the locals had seen quite enough of their neighbors from Ballybran and tended to be either credit crunchers or rude to the point of dueling offense.
“The only thing that’s good about any of them.” Killashandra said with disgust, “is that I haven’t been there yet.”
Killashandra had thought to take her long-overdue holiday on Maxim, the pleasure planet in the Barderi system. From all she’d heard, it would be very easy to forget crystal resonance in the sophisticated amusement parks and houses of hedonistic Maxim. But she hadn’t yet the credit to indulge that whimsy.