Lights had come up at their entry and illuminated a large, low-ceilinged chamber. Taking up the floor space in front of the innocuous interlinked cabinets that made up the electronic guts of the Optherian organ were the prominent sealed crates containing the white crystal. Overhead harnesses of color-coded cables formed a ceiling design before they disappeared through conduits to unknown destinations.
Thyrol led the way to the large rectangle containing the shattered remains of the crystal manual.
“How, in the name of all that’s holy, did he manage that?” Killashandra demanded after surveying the damage. Some of the smaller crystals had been reduced to thin splinters. In idle wonder she picked up a handful of the shards, letting them trickle through her fingers, ignoring Thyrol’s cry of alarm as he grabbed her wrists and pulled her hands back. The tiny cuts inflicted by the scalpel-sharp crystal briefly oozed droplets of blood then closed over while Thyrol watched in fascinated horror.
“As you can see, the merest caress of crystal.” She twisted her hands free of Thyrol’s unexpectedly strong grasp. “Now,” and she spoke more briskly, looking down at the mess in the bottom of the cabinet, “I’ll need some tools, some stout fellows, and stouter baskets to remove the debris.”
“An extractor?” Thyrol suggested.
“There isn’t an extractor built on Ballybran or anywhere else that wouldn’t be sliced to ribbons by crystal shards in suction. No, this has to be cleaned in a time honored fashion – by hand.”
“But you . . .”
Killashandra drew herself up. “As a Guildmember, I am not averse to performing necessary manual tasks.” She paused to let Thyrol appreciate the difference. She had done more than enough shard-scrapping on Ballybran to undertake it here on Optheria.
“It is only that security measures – ”
“I would, of course, accept your assistance in the interests of security.”
Thyrol hastily adjourned to a communication console. “What exactly do you require, Guildmember?”
She gauged the volume of broken crystal in the cabinet. “Three strong men with impervometallic bins of approximately ten-kilo volume, triple-strength face masks, durogloves, fine-wire brushes, and the sort of small, disposable extractor used by archeologists. We have to be sure to glean every particle of crystal dust.”
Thyrol’s eyes bugged out a bit over the more bizarre items, but he repeated her requirements, and then turned up very stiff indeed when he was subjected to questions by the staff. “Of course, they have to be cleared by Security, but they are to be here immediately, properly geared to assist the Guildmember!” He broke off the connection and, his face blotched with displeasure, turned to Killashandra. “With so much at stake, Guildmember, you can appreciate our wish to protect you and the organ from further depredations. If something should happen to the replacement crystal . . .”
Killashandra shrugged. From what she had seen of Optherians, ‘once bitten, twice shy” described their philosophy. She ran her hand across the instrument nearest her, glancing around at the rest of the anonymous equipment. “This is a more complex device than I’d been led to believe.” She turned and presented a politely inquiring expression to Thyrol.
“Well, ah, that is . . .”
“Come now, Thyrol, I am scarcely connected with the subversives.”
“No, of course not.”
Killashandra diverted Thyrol’s attention from realizing that he had covertly admitted the existence of an underground organization by turning, once again, toward the front of the chamber and pointing at the access panel to the keyboard. “Now the actual keyboard is beyond that panel, so the right-hand box houses the stops and voicing circuitry. And is that,” she pointed to the largest unit, “the CPU? The induction modulator and mixer must be in that left-hand cabinet.”
“You are knowledgeable about organ technology?” Thyrol’s expression assumed a wary blankness. For the second time since her arrival, Killashandra perceived empathic emanations from an Optherian: this time a strong sense of indefinable apprehension and alarm.
“Not as much about organs as I do about interface techniques, sensory simulators, and synthesizer modulators. Crystal singing requires a considerably wide range of experience with sophisticated electronic equipment, you know.”
He obviously didn’t or he wouldn’t have nodded so readily. Killashandra blessed her foresight in utilizing the sleep-teaching tapes she had copied from the Athena’s comprehensive data retrieval system. Her answer reassured Thyrol and the shadow of his fear slowly dissipated.
“Of course there is a double handshake between the program,” and he tapped the black case by him, “and the composition memory banks. Composition,” and he walked from one to the other, his hand lightly brushing the surfaces, “of course leads directly into the recall excitor stimulator, for that uses the memory symbology of the median individual member of any audience so that a composition is translated into terms which have meaning to the auditors. Naturally the subjective experience of a program for Optherians would differ greatly from the experience a nonhuman would have.”
“Of course,” Killashandra murmured encouragingly. “And the information from the crystal manual goes? . . .”
Assuming the pose of a pompous lecturer, Thyrol pointed to the various units in flow sequence. “Into the synapse carrier encoder and demodulator multiplexer, both of which feed into the mixer for the sensory transducer terminal network.” Beaming with pride, he continued, “While the composition memory bank primarily programs the sensory synthesizer, the feedback loop controls the sensory attenuator for maximum effectiveness.”
“I see. Keyboard to CPU, direct interface with manual and synapse carrier encoder, plus the double handshakes.” Killashandra hid her shock – this emotion manipulator made the equipment at Fuerte look like preschool toys Talk about a captive audience! Optherian concertgoers hadn’t a chance. The Optherian organ could produce a total emotional override with a conditional response unequaled anywhere. And a sufficient gauge of the audiences’ basic profile could be ascertained by matching ID plates and census data. Killashandra wondered that FSP permitted any of its citizens to visit the planet, much less to expose themselves to full-scale emotional overload at Festival time. “I can see why you’d need many soloists. They’d be emotionally drained after each performance.”
“We recognized that problem early on-the performer is shielded from the full effect of the organ in order to retain a degree of objectivity. And, of course, in rehearsal the transducer system is completely bypassed and the signals inserted into a systems analyzer. Only the best compositions are played on the full organ system.”
“Naturally. Tell me, are the smaller organs amplified in this fashion?”
“The two-manual organs are. We have five of them, the rest are all single manual with relatively primitive synthesizer attentuator and excitor capability.”
“Remarkable. Truly remarkable.”
Thyrol was not blind to the implied compliment and looked about to smile as the outside door opened to admit the work party. Behind them came three more men, their stance and costume identifying them as security. The work party stopped along the wall while the security trio tramped stolidly down to where Thyrol and Killashandra stood by the sensory feedback transponder.
“Elder Thyrol, Security Leader Blaz needs to know what disposition is to be made of the debris.” He saluted, ignoring Killashandra’s presence.