Exasperated, she rubbed her palms together, noticing that the thick calluses from cutter vibrations had been softened by her long immersion. The numerous small nicks and cuts that were a singer’s occupational hazard had healed to thin white scars. Well, that function of her symbiont worked efficiently. And the white crystal would assure her some sort of an off-planet holiday.
White crystal! Enthor has said something about a fractured manual! Optherian sense organs used white Ballybran crystals and she had cut forty-four from the half centimeter on up in half-centimeter gradients.
Lanzecki had asked her a question.
“Would Optheria be far enough?” The words, remembered in his deep voice, sprang to mind.
She grinned with tremendous relief at retrieving that question and turned to the viewscreen to punch up his code.
“ – Killa?” Lanzecki’s hands were poised over his own terminal, surprise manifested by his raised eyebrows. “You haven’t used the catering unit.” He frowned.
“Oh, programmed to monitor that, did you?” she replied with a genuine smile at that reminder of their amorous alliance before her first trip into the Ranges. On her return from the Trundomoux System, they had had only a few days together before Lanzecki was swamped with work and she had to venture back into the Ranges. Since then, she had returned to the Complex only to replenish supplies or wait out a storm. Their reunions had consequently been brief. It was reassuring to realize that he wished to know when she was back.
“It seemed the ideal way to make contact. After thirty-two hours in a tank, you should be ravenous. I’ll just join you. if I may . . .” When she nodded assent, he typed a quick message on his console and pushed his chair back, smiling up at her. “I’m hungry, too.”
As further reassurance of her unimpaired memory. Killashandra had no trouble remembering Lanzecki’s tastes. She grinned as she ordered Yarran beer. Though her stomach gurgled impatiently, she’d had no desire for food in so long that she was as glad to be guided by Lanzecki’s preferences.
She was just slipping a brilliantly striped robe over her head when her door chimed an entry request. “Enter!” she called. On the same voice cue, the catering slot disgorged her order. The aroma of the dishes aroused her already voracious appetite.
She wasted no time in taking the steaming platters from the dispenser, grinning a welcome at Lanzecki as he joined her.
“The Commissary has asked me to relay a few well-chosen words of complaint about the sudden fad for Yarran beer,” he said, taking the pitcher and the beakers to the table. He seated himself before filling the two glasses. “To your restoration!” Lanzecki lifted his glass in toast, his expression obliquely chiding her for that necessity.
“Antona’s already scolded me. but I had to cut enough marketable crystal to get off-planet this time.”
“You’ve certainly succeeded with that white.”
“Don’t I remember you saying something about Optheria just as I passed out?”
Lanzecki took a swallow of the Yarran beer before he replied. “Quite likely.” He served himself a generous helping of fried Malva beans.
“Don’t the Optherians utilize white crystal in that multi-sense organ of theirs?”
“They do.”
So Lanzecki chose to be uncommunicative. Well, she could be persistent. “Enthor said that an entire manual was fractured.” Lanzecki nodded. She continued. “And you did ask me would Optheria be far enough?”
“I did?”
“You know you did.” Killashandra hung on to her patience. “You never forget anything. And the impression I got from your cryptic comment was that someone, and the inference was me” – she pressed her thumb into her chest – “would have to go there. Am I correct?”
He regarded her steadily, his expression unreadable. “Not long ago you gave me to understand that you would not undertake another off-world assignment – ”
“That was before I’d been stuck on this fardling planet – ” She noticed the wicked gleam in his eyes. “So, I’m right. A crystal singer does have to make the installation!”
It was a shocking incident,” Lanzecki said diffidently as he served himself more Malva beans. “The performer who damaged the organ was killed by the flying shards. He was also the only person on the planet who could handle such a major repair. As is so often the case with such sensitive and expensive equipment, it is a matter of planetary urgency to repair the instrument. It’s the largest on the planet and is essential to the observances of Optheria’s prestigious Summer Festival. We are contracted to supply technicians as well as crystal.” He paused for a mouthful of the crisp white beans. He was definitely baiting her, Killashandra knew. She held her tongue. “While the list of those qualified does include your name . . .”
“The catch can’t be the crystal this time,” she said as he purposefully let his sentence dangle unfinished. She watched his face for any reaction. “White crystal’s active, reflecting sound . . .”
“ – Among other things,” Lanzecki added when she paused.
“If it isn’t the crystal, what’s the matter with the Optherians, then?”
“My dear Killashandra, the assignment has not yet been awarded.”
“Awarded? I like the sound of that. Or do I? I wouldn’t put it past you, Lanzecki, to sucker me into another job like that Trundomoux installation.”
He caught the finger she was indignantly shaking at him, pulling her hand across the laden table to his lips. The familiar caress evoked familiar responses deep in her groin and she tried to use her irritation with his methods to neutralize its effect on her.
Just then a communit bleep startled her. With a fleeting expression of annoyance, Lanzecki lifted his wrist unit to acknowledge the summons.
A tinny version of Trag’s bass voice issued from the device. “I was to inform you when the preliminary testing stations reported,” the Administration Officer said.
“Any interesting applicants?”
Although Lanzecki sounded diffident, even slightly bored, the curious tension about his lips and eyes alerted Killashandra. She pretended to continue eating in a courteous disregard of the exchange, but she didn’t lose a syllable of Trag’s reply.
“Four agronomists, an endocrinologist from Theta, two xenobiologists, an atmospheric physicist, three former spacers” – Killashandra noted the slight widening of Lanzecki’s eyes which she interpreted as satisfaction – “and the usual flotsam who have no recommendations from Testing.”
“Thank you, Trag.”
Lanzecki nodded his head at Killashandra to indicate the interruption was concluded and finished off the dish of fried Malva beans.
“So what is the glitch in the Optherian assignment? A lousy fee?”
“On the contrary, such an installation is set at twenty thousand credits.”
“And I’d be off-world as well.” Killashandra was quite impressed with the latitude such a credit balance would give her to forget crystal.
“You have not been awarded the contract, Killa. I appreciate your willingness to entertain the assignment but there are certain aspects which must be considered by the Guild as well as the individual. Don’t commit yourself rashly.” Lanzecki was being sincere. His eyes held hers steadily and a worried crease to his brows emphasized his warning. “It’s a long haul to the Optherian system. You’d be gone from Ballybran nearly a full year . . .”
“All the better . . .”
“You say that now when you’re full of crystal resonance. You can’t have forgotten Carrik yet.”
His reminder conjured flashing scenes of the first crystal singer she had met: Carrik laughing as they swam in Fuerte’s seas, then Carrik wracked by withdrawal fever and finally the passive hulk of the man, shattered by sonic resonance.
“You will in time, I’ve no doubt, experience that phenomenon,” Lanzecki said. “I’ve never known a singer who didn’t try to push himself and his symbiont to their limits. A major disadvantage to the Optherian contract is that you would lose any resonance to your existing claims.”