“What concerns me,” Lars said, his eyes clouded with anxiety, “is why he’s getting in touch with you right now. He must have come back to the City from Ironwood – and Nahia and Hauness. Maybe they’re in Jeopardy. So many people were picked up on the search and seize . . .”
Killashandra put a reassuring hand on Lars’s arm. “I think somehow Corish would have managed to intimate that.”
“I think he did by not admitting to finding his uncle.”
“If he admitted to having found his uncle,” Trag said, unexpectedly joining forces with Killashandra to reassure Lars, “he would no longer have any need to use that travel pass, and if he’s as good a Council agent as he seems to be, he wouldn’t surrender that option.”
Lars accepted that interpretation with a nod of his head and pretended to be reassured.
“We’ll know soon enough,” Killashandra said kindly.
“Well, when you meet Corish this evening,” Lars said, “walk to whichever restaurant he’s been recommended. That way you have some chance of open talk. The Piper is certain to recommend The Berry Bush or Frenshaw’s. Neither are far from the Piper, but both restaurants are run by Optherians, loyal and true to the Elders, so you’ll be under observation. The food’s pretty good.” Lars gave her an encouraging grin.
“Then I’m taking the jammer, too. Got to keep them thinking it’s me that causes the static. Well, they should have had enough time to digest Corish’s innocuous conversation.” So Killashandra tapped out a sequence on the comunit. “Mirbethan, is there a concert tonight? I shouldn’t want to miss any but von Mittelstern has invited me to dinner tonight, and I’ve accepted. I don’t want him to come charging up here and discover I’m more than the simple music student he thinks me, so I’ll settle his doubts.”
Whatever Mirbethan thought was disguised by her reassurances that no concert was scheduled.
“Then please arrange transport for me this evening. By the way, when is the next concert? I’m fascinated by the organ effects. Fabulous concert last night. The most unusual one I’ve ever attended.”
“Tomorrow evening, Guildmember.” Mirbethan’s reply was gracious, but Killashandra noticed the slightly smug turn to the woman’s faint smile.
“Good.” Killashandra broke the connection. “Offense is the best defense, Guildmember,” she added, turning to Trag. “You didn’t have to promise the Elders that you’d discipline me for my emotional aberration, did you? Well, then, it’s business as usual for me in a normal fashion which means I come and go, whether they trail me or not. Right? And since I’m disaffected with you,” and Killashandra kissed Lars’s cheek, “I’ll go alone. Unless, Trag, you want to come and meet Corish.”
“I might, at that,” Trag said, half-closing his eyes a moment.
“That gives me the chance to moon after Mirbethan,” Lars said slyly.
Killashandra guffawed and wished him luck.
“Now let us attend our duties,” Trag said, gesturing for Killashandra to precede them to the door.
When they reached the Festival Auditorium, a large contingent of security men was loosely scattered about the stage, concentrated near the organ console, which was open. Two men were fussing about the keyboard but Killashandra couldn’t tell whether they were dusting or adjusting the keys. Suddenly Elder Ampris detached himself from the gaggle and took a few steps forward to meet them.
“Don’t overdo it, Killa,” Lars murmured at her, aiming a slightly fatuous grin at the Elder.
“After last night, Elder Ampris, I wonder at my audacity in suggesting that I play on any Optherian organ,” she said, and felt Lars’s admonitory pinch on the tender inside flesh of her arm. Unnecessary, she felt, since she had forced herself to employ a meek and sincere tone of voice.
“You enjoyed the concert?”
“I have never heard anything like it,” she said, which was no more than the truth. “Truly an experience. Mirbethan tells me there’ll be another one tomorrow evening. I do hope that we’ll be invited?”
“Of course you are, my dear Killashandra,” Elder Ampris replied, his eyes glittering almost benignly at her.
She limited herself to a happy smile and continued on to the organ loft door.
“A word with you, Elder Ampris,” Trag began, his anxious frown attracting the Elder’s instant attention.
Killashandra and Lars continued into the organ loft.
“You pinched far too hard!”
“You wouldn’t fool me, Killa!”
“Well, I did fool him,” and hiding her gesture from observation, she pointed to the hairless corner of the manual cabinet.
“Jammer on?” she asked.
“The moment I finished pinching.”
“Brackets, please!”
They had already positioned the first of the final slender crystals when Trag and Elder Ampris entered.
“Only five more crystals and this installation is complete.” Trag was saying to Ampris. “I know that Killashandra is well aware that these upper register notes require the finest tuning.” Killashandra nodded, receiving his tacit message. “I will check the brackets on that sour crystal in the Conservatory organ and be back here in time for the tune-up.”
Killashandra was hoping that Elder Ampris would leave them to the task but he elected to remain, observing every movement. Killashandra hated to be overseen under any circumstances, and to have Ampris’s gimlet eyes on her made the hairs on the back of her neck rise. She was annoyed, too, because Ampris’s presence put the damper on any conversation between herself and Lars. She had enjoyed the bantering exchanges which relieved the tedium and tension of this highly precise work. So she felt doubly aggrieved to be denied a morning of matching wits with Lars Dahl. They would have so little time left to enjoy each other’s company.
Therefore, it gave her a great deal of vicarious pleasure to spin out the last final bracketings, giving Trag ample time to make his alterations on the Conservatory program. And deliberately irritating Elder Ampris with her persnickety manipulations. He was in a state of nervous twitch when she and Lars tightened the last bracket.
“There!” she said on a note of intense satisfaction. “All right and tight!” She picked up the hammer and, seized by a malicious whimsy, struck the first note of the Beethoven motif. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ampris start forward, one hand raised in protest, his face drained of all color. She went up the scale, and then, positioning the hammer on the side of the crystal shafts, descended the 44 notes in a glissando. “Clear as the proverbial bell and not a vibration off the tune. A good installation, if I say so myself.”
Killashandra slid the hammer into its space in the tool-box and brushed her fingertips lightly together. She released the damper on the striking base of the crystals and replaced the top. “I don’t think we’ll fasten it just yet. Now, Elder Ampris, the moment of truth!”
“I would prefer that Guildmember Trag – ”
“He can’t play! Doesn’t even read music,” Killashandra said, deliberately misinterpreting Elder Ampris. Lars pinched her left flank, his strong fingers nipping into the soft flesh of her waistline. She would have kicked back at him if she could have done so unobserved. “But I suppose you would feel more secure if he was to vet the completed installation,” she added, giving Ampris a timorous smile more consonant to someone in the thrall of subliminal conditioning than her previous declaration.
Trag’s reappearance was fortuitous.
“Just as I suspected, Elder Ampris, a loose bracket on the middle G. I checked both manuals thoroughly.”
Ampris regarded Trag with a moment’s keen suspicion. “You don’t play,” he said.
“No.”
“Then how can you tune crystal?”
Killashandra laughed aloud. “Elder Ampris, every would-be crystal singer has perfect and absolute pitch or they can’t get into the Heptite Guild. Guildmember Trag doesn’t need to be a trained musician. Guildmaster Lanzecki isn’t either. One of the reasons I was chosen for this assignment is because I am – and trained in keyboard music. Now, Trag, if you will inspect the installation?” She and Lars lifted off the cover.