Killashandra - Coda and Finale

“SO the galaxy stands in dire need of more blue orthorhombics,” said Killashandra with savage glee. “Sorry, Lanzecki. The gyros on my flitter have had it. It’d be suicide to go before they’ve been changed and tuned, and you know how long that takes. Right now, I’ve enough credit to take me off this barfing world for a good long time. And I’m going!”

She’d turned to go but Lanzecki’s voice, never before so uncompromisingly authoritarian, and as emotionless as if his precious computer had developed a voice, stopped her midstride.

“No, Killashandra Ree, you are not going.”

Slowly, because she didn’t believe her ears, Killashandra turned back to Lanzecki.

“I’m not going?” Her voice was too quiet. Someone else, knowing Killashandra as long as Lanzecki had, would have demurred or made some attempt to placate her imminent anger.

Instead, Lanzecki’s fingers flew across the computer console, though his eyes never left hers. Involuntarily Killashandra looked up at the computer printout panel behind the Guildmaster.

“ ‘Section Forty-seven, Paragraph One,’ “ Lanzecki intoned without glancing at the panel. “ ‘In matters of galactic emergency, the Guildmaster may, at his discretion and with due and just cause, conscript the services of any or all active Members for the duration of that emergency.’ An emergency situation exists.” He tapped out another sequence and the Guild bylaw was replaced by a communication dot which enlarged dramatically to reveal its message. Blue Ballybran crystals in octagonal and dodecahedral shapes were in urgent, critical demand as replacements for the great interstellar laser communication devices and certain large drives units.

“They can’t all have soured at once,” Killashandra said in a voice more grating in snarl than tone.

“The slightest flaw in the crystal focusing coherent light can produce a distortion in communication units. A drive unit or a machine triad could operate without noticeable lapse of efficiency for some time. Not so with the blues. The crystals in the Garthane unit, for example, have been in service for two hundred and five standard years, carrying a total of. . . .”

“Abort your statistics, Lanzecki. Why me? Why must I forego a leave which you know narding well I need. . . .”

Lanzecki inclined his head in recognition of her crystal-soaked fatigue. “I’ve recalled Formeut, but he is in the Sirius section and even by direct GCS flight cannot be back in less than twenty days.”

GCS flight! This was an emergency, thought Killashandra, not one bit reconciled to losing her leave time.

“Ballivor is still in the Ranges but his blues are not first quality, nor can he cut in the higher registers. The cuttings you brought in three trips back were flawless and you sing the higher tones. Triads, fifths, octaves are critically needed.”

There was nothing in Lanzecki’s manner or tone to indicate sympathy with her and yet Killashandra fancied regret flickering in his eyes. She rebelled against the inevitable, as much because she was so desperately weary of crystal that the mere thought of another trip into the Ranges frightened her, as because Lanzecki’s arbitrary invocation of a Guild statute exacerbated her natural tendency to be perverse.

“Blue octagons and dodecahedrons, huh? Polyhedrons in blue!” She glared savagely at Lanzecki’s impassive face. Was the man human or were Guildmasters some sort of construct, programmed with only enough pseudoresponses to counterfeit human behavior? “Great! And how, pray tell, Guildmaster, do I get them without an operable ship because by all that’s holy, nothing in Guild laws can require me to take off in a gyro-soured flitter! That would be murder!”

She had the satisfaction of seeing Lanzecki wince. Maybe he was human? She knew, because she’d already checked, that there were no new gyros in Supply: like Ballybran blue polyhedrons, gyros rarely malfunctioned. Ordinarily the gyros could be adjusted and tuned in the course of an ordinary servicing, but some minute structural flaw had now manifested itself in Killashandra’s.

“I’ve got to rest, Lanzecki,” she said, pleading now. She shoved her hands at him. They were shaking with crystal fatigue. Lanzecki closed his eyes briefly, his mouth stern.

“Get into a radiant bath, Killashandra. I’ll send the medic. . . .”

“I don’t need a farding medic, Lanzecki. I need off-world!”

“I realize that, Killashandra, far better than you think.”

“Ha!”

The Guildmaster closed his eyes again, recoiling from her venomous rejoinder. Then she’d had enough of him, of crystal, of the Guild, of everything, and she flung herself at and through the door panel.

“Ha!” The hallway echoed back her explosively bitter syllable. She staggered with exhaustion, careering off the threshold of the grav-lift. It was such a relief to be weightless that she almost went past her dormitory level. Habit, probably, impelled her forward. And down the corridor in the right direction—her feet had been programmed for the route by how many years?—and stopped at the proper door panel. Her name was blazoned there and her right hand lifted, automatically, to the thumb lock. Again, with no direction from her crystal-sound soaked mind, she entered, and dialed for a radiant bath.

She was too weary to strip, not that it made a difference. She rolled into the tub, the viscous liquid slopping over her as the tank filled rapidly.

“Farding Guild! Them and their polyhedron blues!” She railed at a management that would let itself get into such a short supply state. Not only polyhedron blues but gyros. The Guild could narding well afford to keep a few spare gyros in Supply. . . . And yet, if they had. . . . She wiggled deeper into the warm thick liquid, impatient for the therapeutic soothing.

“I can’t go out into the Range again!” she cried in anguish and flailed her hands at the liquid. “I can’t. I’ve got to get off-world. I’ve got to get relief!”

The bath now enveloped her to her chin and the tingle of crystal sound began to drain from her abused body, lingering on the edge of her bones, on the tips of her nerves, but definitely easing. And with it some portion of her desperation.

Her arms and legs floated idly to the surface, slender but firmly muscled. Objectively she regarded her hands . . . blue dodecahedrons/orthorhombic blues. Cabalistic phrases. She’d have to write them down. In several places or she’d forget.

She brought her arms down in a rejecting smack against the radiant liquid; the smart adding fuel to her building fury. She was not going out again! Not until she’d been off-world for at least a twenty-day. She couldn’t face the isolation of the Milekeys again. Not again! Not so soon!

Ah, but she wouldn’t have to, would she? Not until her flitter had been repaired. Bless those gyros! Bless Supply for not having any. Not even the Guildmaster or the GCS Council President could force her into an inefficient craft. Not when it multiplied the chances of scrambling her brains if she got caught in a mach storm! Then where would they get high-register blues? Ha!

These reflections consoled her. She began to relax, letting the radiant ooze seep into her crystal-tired body. Blue orthorhombics . . .ha! She didn’t have to remember them now! She wouldn’t have to go get them. How unusual to be able to forget something you didn’t have to remember!

To remember!

Killashandra snorted. Her hands remembered all she really needed to know. How to cut crystal! She held them up, the viscous liquid sheeted from them and she noticed, bemusedly, that the skin was wrinkling into squares, rectangles and triangles, crepey. What had happened to her hands? She submerged them with a limp splash, oddly annoyed at the discovery. The rest of her skin was smooth.

Hands take a lot of abuse in the Range: It wasn’t wrinkles at all. Lots of small crystal scars, that’s what. She always got good sharp edges to her cuts, sharp enough to slice anything, particularly flesh.

She was too thin again. Well, you forgot to eat at regular intervals when you worked crystals. Eating wasn’t a habit of hands; it was metabolic custom.

She’d have time to eat now, wouldn’t she?

The bath was cold. She evacuated it and dialed for a second, this time stripping off the remnants of her range suit. Why weren’t the radiants eliminating that nardy tingle along her bones, the marrow-deep ache? Once she got rid of that ache. . . . She wouldn’t, not until she got off-world. She had to have a chance to think! Without crystal impinging. How could anyone think with that low-constant, bone-conducted ripple distracting you all the time?

Before the third immersion had quite cooled, the medic arrived, and despite her curses, pumped her full of restoratives.

“I don’t want energy; I want sleep. I want to get off this farding fool planet and away from you mutes!”

It did her good to scream, but the therapy would have been more beneficial if the deaf medic had been able to react to her vilification. Frustrated, she grabbed his arm, shaking him so that he looked up at her inquiringly.

“I don’t want restoratives. I want to sleep. Sleep!”

He nodded, inserted another vial in the barrel of the air gun, shot it, and before she could suitably catalog his antecedents, she’d slipped into deep slumber.

She woke abruptly, knowing by the manner of waking that she’d been sedated into sleep. She looked at the bed chromo and twenty-six hours had elapsed since she’d been laid there. She wondered what had gone wrong. . . but only briefly, because too many memories flooded back. She cursed viciously because the medic had obviously activated her recall playback. She railed against the Guild for that, too. There were some things, by all that’s holy, you don’t have to remember! You don’t need to remember! You don’t want to remember!

Food popped out of the catering slot, giving rise to another flood of Killashandran vituperation. But the choice dishes were her favorites, printed long ago into her private program and guaranteed to stimulate her appetite. She was ravenous. With each mouthful she macerated, she chewed out curses for Lanzecki, the Guild, everything.

The playback of recent events, some of which she couldn’t imagine why she’d kept, revived perfect recollection of her present dilemma. Twenty-six hours of retrieved data forced back into her crystal-soaked mind. There’d been a time, presumably, when twenty-six hours would’ve replaced every lost memory. Now it only served to remind her how long she’d sung crystal. Well, the next trip into the Milekeys would erase most of it. Ha! She couldn’t take another long trip into the Milekeys, could she, even under Lanzecki’s emergency directive, not until her flitter was refitted with operating gyros.

Sated and somewhat mollified by a clear recollection of her recent past, she rose to dress. And stared at the wealth of garments in the closets. The first group were all too familiar, bought at Taliesin and Rommell, and on that dull trip to Buckwell’s Star. She pushed them along the slide to the back, out of sight. Now the gaudy gauze of a brilliant purple and fuchsia surtout. . . . The feel of the soft springy fiber in her hand touched a respondent chord, but the memory was elusive. Something pleasurable. To the good. Well then, why hadn’t she programmed that into her review?

And this blue-striped affair must reach her ankles, the sleeves hiding her fingers. On what earth had she acquired such a monstrosity? Not her usual choice, certainly, for there’d be no freedom of movement in that constricting thing. It must have been molded to her body. How had she walked? Had she walked in it? And where? The faint whiff of perfume stirred an exciting memory. Now why had she edited that from the tape?

Disused memories, exanimate clothing and defunct odors!

She took the gauze from the press and threw its folds around her body. The set was good, she tossed her thick black locks away from her face, and her hair whispered sensuously against the fabric. She found some footwear in purple, obviously bought to match the gown. One cabinet held perfumes in curious flagons and containers, some marked in unfamiliar alphabets with galactic lingua translations in small printing beneath. None of the fragrances matched that clinging to the blue-striped affair. But fragrance dries up . . . like memories! She shrugged, daubed herself with a spicy mixture that seemed to go with the purple surtout. Her toilet complete, she adjourned to the Guild general hall.

The large, low-ceilinged chamber could have accommodated double the number of active crystal singers and none of the half dozen scattered about the hall looked familiar to her. Not that that actually bothered. The roster of Guild members was subject to change without notice. At one time or another she’d probably met everyone and they, her.

She took a seat in a quiet alcove and dialed the fourth beverage down the caterer, designated a strong euphoric. She recognized the taste as the liquid rapidly dispensed a pleasant lethargy within her. Now, slightly anesthetized to the crystal-echo in other singers’ bones, she could contemplate contact.

She wondered who else of the gradually increasing population in the hall were being summarily forced back into the Ranges to work blues. Should she attempt a revolution and the hell with the fecking blue crystals? She was, unfortunately, aware that crystal singers had never struck. The initial part of the recent playback had been a review of Guild Law and history—Lanzecki-inspired, no doubt. He had the advantage of her in this. If she refused to go back out, she could be disbarred from all member privileges and exiled from Ballybran . . . which amounted to slow death. If she weren’t a crystal singer, she’d’ve opted for exile. She might anyhow, just to be difficult. She physically and mentally couldn’t face another trip into the Ranges without some respite. But she also knew that however much she might crave surcease from crystal song, she couldn’t endure more than a few months away from Ballybran. Crystal was in her blood, her bone, and she required it—symbiotically or parasitically, she had to return to crystal.

However, she could delay as long as possible, with the legitimate excuse of faulty gyros. And the price of blue orthorhombic would rise. Of course, if she delayed too long, Lanzecki could exact a penalty that might whittle down her premiums. She checked through the newly reimpressed knowledge of Guild law and realized that here she did have an advantage. Lanzecki couldn’t deduct any penalties, despite the emergency, unless he could prove she was fit and able to perform her Guild duties. And furthermore. . . . “Killashandra!”

She looked up at the glad exclamation and saw a man in an orange tunic, the shade of which was almost an assault on the eyes, hurrying across the room towards her. His manner was that of an acquaintance of long— and, when he had saluted her with an embrace and kiss, evidently intimate—standing. “Who the hell are you?”

“Fergil! Don’t you remember me?” he replied in a tone that suggested she couldn’t possibly have forgotten him.

“No, I don’t.”

Instantly his attractive face evinced surprise, hurt, embarrassment and then tolerant understanding. “Now, Killashandra, you haven’t been out in the Range that long this trip. And what brought you back so soon? You swore you’d make enough to go off-world.” He’d seated himself as if her invitation were a foregone conclusion. His assurance amused more than it irritated her.

“My gyros are wheezing,” she replied in a daunting tone that ought to send him on his way.

He grinned—he had an engaging one, she admitted— and took her hand, stroking her palm in an experienced caress—the sort of caress which she happened to enjoy. She did know him? That recall playback had covered nearly ten standard years . . . and there had been no Fergil.

“You really ought to break down and invest in a new flitter,” he said briskly, “but you never listen to me.”

“Don’t I now?”

His fingers ran excitingly up her forearm, where the skin is soft and tender ... no crystal scars there to deaden sensitivity. Then just as she began to anticipate that stroking, he leaned away from her to dial beverages.

“You’re abstemious for someone just in,” he remarked. “Try your usual. If your gyros are off, you’ll be in for a while.”

Well, he knew her favorite form of liquid poison. She raised the goblet in a toast, but she was positive she’d never met this orange man before. Positive. And yet. . . .

“What brings you back in?” she asked, hoping for a lead. “There’s no storm warning up.”

“You have forgotten. I’ve been on leave.”

“Did Lanzecki call you back?”

“No,” he said, in a jocular fashion as if she ought to have known his movements. “As you said, there’s nothing on this planet, and I hadn’t made enough to go off-world. I just needed”—and he gritted his teeth—”to get away from the ranges...” That glowing smile for her again. “And you—” Suddenly he was very serious, a light hand on her arm but a hand which nevertheless warmed into her flesh in a loverly way. “I know you are the top crystal singer in the Guild, Killa, but I just don’t think we’d last as a duet.”

Killashandra stared at him in utter astonishment.

“Duet?”

He waved aside her startled exclamation, turning his head slightly from her in regret. “I’ve thought a lot about it, Killa. And you’re wrong, I’m afraid. Something happens to a man, and a woman, out in the Ranges: something that can set up antagonistic frequencies in your body—as if your very bones hated each other. No”—and his smile was tender and full of remorse—”I’d rather we stayed friends . . . loving friends, if you will. You’ve meant too much to me already to have the memory soured by hatred.”

Killashandra snorted at his notion of acrimonious memories: of any memories!

“Here, your drink’s empty,” he said solicitously, taking no notice of her diffident response.

Well, she needed another drink; it went on his tab. And he was rather an incredible personality. How could she have forgotten him? And in presumably a relatively short time. She forced her mind back through the replay to which she’d only a few hours before been subjected. Granted that she had dictated that playback and could have been disenchanted with him at that moment. She could recall descriptions of half a dozen other men but no Fergil with the compelling gray eyes, crisp curling brown hair, and the sure touch of a man who knows how to give pleasure and wants to receive it. More importantly, surely she’d have remembered a man with whom she’d considered doubling. Or maybe that presumption alone had sufficed to censor him. Yes, that was possible. She shook her head, because Fergil had begun to stroke her arm again and she could not ignore the fact that she was positively attracted to him . . . and that she needed relief badly.

He gave it—completely and outrageously—disastrously certain of his ability to arouse and satisfy her. She must have known him!

She would have liked to sleep alone after they made love so that she’d play back the review tape. If she’d censored the Fergil chapter of her life, there’d be a large chronological lapse. . . .

“How long has Fergil been singing crystal, Lanzecki?” Killashandra asked the next day when Fergil had finally quit her side to see to the servicing of his own craft.

“Not too long,” Lanzecki replied, in an unusually judicious tone.

“Doesn’t he sing well?”

“Yes. Sings well in the higher registers, in fact.” Abruptly Lanzecki’s face changed and he glanced hopefully at her. “Then you’d consider. . . .”

“Dueting with him?” Killashandra gave a snort of laughter. “Evidently I offered and he . . . refused.”

“Really?” Lanzecki stared off into a middle distance. “I must speak to that young man. Supply,” he went on in his characteristically neutral manner, “has ordered new gyros for your vehicle on a top priority-emergency basis. They should be here in seven days, plus four to install and tune. ...”

“Ha! When you need me, Supply hustles, doesn’t it?”

“It is not my need, Killashandra Ree. Two GCS drive units have been retuned, but the cuts lowered the range and efficiency by a factor of four. As all the blues used in those drive units were quarries from the Ghange Range at the same time, it is not hard to understand the perturbation which exists over the Guild’s inability to furnish immediate replacements.”

“I’ve brought in blues from time to time.”

Lanzecki’s eyes closed briefly in recognition. “There are very few blue cuttings in the Ranges.”

“Nothing more in Ghanges?”

He shook his head. “We’ve examined that possibility thoroughly.”

“I’ll just bet you have.”

“You must go back to your claim as soon as it is possible.” Lanzecki said. “Believe me, I wouldn’t risk sending you out if the situation were not so critical.”

Though he spoke in his customary neutral tone, something in his manner stopped the sarcastic rejoinder Killashandra was going to make.

“I could almost believe you, Lanzecki,” she did say and left.

Out in the hall, she wondered where she could go for eleven days. Nowhere useful. Taliesin was a good four travel days off and she didn’t have to check her review tape to know she’d been there often enough to be too well known. Despite Taliesin’s proximity, the natives subscribed to the galactic myth that crystal singers seduced people into the Guild. The two main planets of the system were musically inclined civilizations so perfect pitch was not uncommon. And since perfect pitch was a requisite of crystal singing, a good many young people, dissatisfied with Taliesin’s limited opportunities, endured the initiation hassle to reap the benefit of high pay and unlimited travel. Taliesin, in her circumstances, was both too far and not far enough.

“Killashandra!” Fergil’s delighted greeting was more suitable to an absence of days, not hours. “Where have you been?”

“Getting Lanzecki’s bad news.”

“What do you mean?” Fergil’s pleasure was replaced by concern.

“Eleven days before I’m thrust back into the Range again.”

“That’s speed!”

“Ha! I can’t even get to Taliesin in that time.”

“Why would you want to go to Taliesin? If you’ve eleven days, you can just take off and he can come after you. I know those engineers. ...”

Killashandra shook her head and answered grimly. “He’s invoked Section forty-seven. . . .”

“Section. . . .” Fergil’s eyes went blank with the effort to associate. His recall was fresh for he whistled appreciatively in a matter of seconds. “Don’t tell me you’ve got blue cuttings?”

She agreed.

He whistled again, his eyes widening with envy. “Do you know what blues are bringing?”

“There are some things, like scrambled brains, not worth any price.”

“Aw, c’mon, Killashandra. A couple crates of those blues...”

“Aw, c’mon, Fergil, you’ve obviously never cut blues. One of the reasons they bring in such top prices is they’re so farding hard to cut. Crack, chip, flaw while you’re working. You’ve got to get deep into the vein before you find any pure stuff. Could take you days and then, up blows a mach storm and shatters the whole face before you can get any real benefit. That is, if you’re unfortunate enough to find blues to begin with.”

Fergil waved aside these considerations. “Even octagon blues are bringing in a small fortune. I’m going to try prospecting for blues this trip out. There’s a bonus posted for any new veins discovered. A good haul of blues and I’m off to Parnell’s World.”

Killashandra snorted. She could use a trip to Parnell’s World; she’d been there before, because it offered the widest variety of pleasure and vice in the galaxy. It was naturally a favorite destination of crystal singers.

“You could be a rich woman in eleven days, Killa,” he said with a rueful grin.

“Yeah, rich with addled brains. I’m so farding tired of singing crystal. . . .” her vehemence startled Fergil. “I’m as close to crystalizing bone and blood as makes no never mind.” She rubbed at her arms, unnervingly reassured by the warm flesh she touched.

“Oh, Killa! You’re far from crystallized,” Fergil said, an intense gleam in his eyes as he embraced her sensuously.

She pushed away from him, both aroused and annoyed.

“There, there, lover,” Fergil said, soothingly. He kept hold of one hand. “Okay, so you’ve had too much. Just go off-world. How can he stop you?”

“He can and has, and I’d be twice the fool to risk suspension or expulsion.”

Fergil let out a surprised laugh. “Heptite Guild doesn’t expel. ...”

“They don’t have to. They know we can’t last without crystal. I remember what happens.” She gritted her teeth against the memories that flooded, all too unwelcome, into her mind—the ache and throb of crystal-hungry flesh and blood, the excruciating spinal agony that rippled and wrenched you apart. . . . Equally unendurable was the thought of returning to the Ranges, of being submerged so soon again in crystal noise. “I can’t go back, Fergil. I can’t go back,” she cried in a voice that was close to a scream.

He gathered her into his arms gently, holding her head into his shoulder to muffle her hysterical sobs.

“It’s too much.” Killashandra wasn’t certain if she was vocalizing the terror or not. She couldn’t go back into the Ranges, not until she’d had some rest, some time away from them. She was sobbing uncontrollably now as Fergil carried her. That was good of him because she didn’t have to expend any effort. She hadn’t any strength left. Maybe if she collapsed completely. . . .

She was being inserted into a warm radiant bath, the soothing liquid relaxing the taut hysteria of her body.

“You can’t send her out in this kind of state, Lanzecki,” Fergil was saying at the top of his voice. “She’d crack. She couldn’t sing!”

“I’ve no choice but to send her, Fergil.”

“She’s got to have some rest.”

“Rest she can have. Eleven days of it, but then she has to go out.”

“In this condition? Eleven days won’t give her enough of a respite, not this close to crystal. You know that.”

“I know it, but the situation does not permit exceptions. We must have blues. Of course”—and despite her desperate condition, Killashandra caught the change in Lanzecki’s voice—”if she will detail the location of her workings. . . .”

With a scream of protest, Killashandra tried to rise from the tub to get at Lanzecki.

“By all that’s holy,” Fergil was bellowing, “give over her claim? Why, I’d sooner double with her to protect it...”

“By all means do so.”

Killashandra had enough strength left to fight off Fergil’s hands but she slipped back into the radiant, shrieking curses.

“You won’t have to go out alone, Killa. I won’t let you go out alone. I’m going with you!”

“You’re going with me?” Killashandra desisted in her feeble efforts to loosen his hands.

Gently he pulled her into a more comfortable position in the tub, stroking her hair back from her face, deftly wiping some of the liquid from her cheeks and mouth.

“Yes, dear girl, I’m going with you. And we’ll cut every barfing blue the GCS could use for a thousand years. And then we’ll do Parnell’s World like it’s never been done before! Won’t we?”

Compelled by the exultation in those gray eyes, too weary to resist the strength in the comforting hands, Killashandra nodded assent. Before she could gainsay it, a medic had pushed his way to the tub edge and pumped her full of sedatives.

She was kept tranquilized for four days, aired full of high-potency vitamin compounds and anabolics to overcome her pernicious exhaustion. Fergil apparently never left her side for whenever she roused briefly from the euphoric haze, he was there, murmuring soft reassurances, patting her, until the touch of his deft hands became a corollary to her drugged equanimity.

How could she have censored someone like Fergil from her life? Possibly because he was so compatible. And he hadn’t wanted to give up his independence, had he? That would have infuriated her. So that would have been why she hadn’t wanted to remember the man: her own bruised ego.

She was still bemused when they took off in Fergil’s flitter five days later. There’d been an argument between Fergil and Lanzecki: Fergil insisting that she had the right to the eleven full days, with Lanzecki replying that three more of the great interstellar drives had gone sour and that the Guild was under heavy pressure from GCS to get blue dodecahedrons or suffer tremendous penalties. Every singer able to walk was out in the Ranges, trying to find more blues.

“All right, we’ll cut your damned dodecs, and then don’t try to call us back,” Fergil had roared.

“Don’t let Killa turn off the storm warnings, Fergil!” was Lanzecki’s parting advice.

The first touch of crystal sound as they entered the Ranges brought Killashandra completely out of the thrall of sedation. Her mind was suddenly too clear, like the Milekey’s humpy outline against the green sky.

“I’d better fly now, Fergil,” she said.

“Now, look, Killa, you’re barely. . . .”

“Now, look, Fergil, if you think you’re going to track back to my blue cuttings when I’ve scrambled up, think again,” she said, laughing at the shock in his eyes. “I’ve sung crystal too long, young man, not to appreciate your strategy. Well, we’ll duet. This time, because I’ve no guts for the Ranges by myself. But I’ll do the piloting.”

Judging by the way he recoiled from her accusation, by the hurt in his darkened gray eyes, maybe she’d done him an injustice. Fergil didn’t protest, but he shook his head from side to side as he backed into the furthest corner of the flitter, out of line of sight with any of the directional dials. As a further mute refutation of her indictment, he studied the meteorological charts intently.

Fergil’s craft was new, but somewhat sluggish in maneuvering and she tended to compensate, out of habit, for the idiosyncrasies of her ancient flitter. Neither was Fergil accustomed to flying in the Milekeys, to judge by his taut expression as she angled through passes, all but scraping the belly of the vessel on the rocky sides. She dipped low in some canyons, flying their length where speed kept individual markings from being obvious to Fergil. She was feeling much better than she’d expected. True, she was aware of crystal hum along her bones, in her blood, but it wasn’t by any means acute.

“Did they pump me full of depressants?” she asked Fergil.

“Some. Not enough to worry. Lanzecki and the medics were pretty thick, but I watched and most of what they gave you were standard B complexes and anabolics, plus sedatives to keep you asleep.” He gave her a cocky grin. “Must’ve worked. You’re more yourself today, my girl. How’s the ship handling? She’s packed with stores.”

Killashandra grunted noncommittally and kept her mind on the flying. Occasionally she caught a glint of other flitters in deep canyons as she flew deeper north into the Range.

“Will we have time to cut today?” he asked casually after they were two hours in flight.

“Should do.”

They were nearly to the place, she realized, feeling the answering resonance in her body. She wondered how she could tune her body so selectively: one time to the yellows, another to the rose quartz, and now to the elusive blues. Once a singer had worked a cutting several times, he could always find his way back.

So she flew up and west, to confuse Fergil. There was a long low canyon, one of the major fissures of the range, leading up to her cutting. She’d fly over it, swing around and come back at the furthest end, where the black crag cut off the rest of the trough. Of course, let him mark the black cliff, a seemingly distinctive landmark. Milekey had hundreds such. He’d learn soon enough.

She glided in, right over the crag, observing him glance up. Then he also saw where she intended to touch the flitter down and he blanched noticeably.

“Easy as she goes,” Killashandra said, having neatly aligned the craft with the marks left by her own flitter.

“I didn’t think you’d manage that,” Fergil said, his eyes dancing with admiration though his voice was full of relief.

Killashandra laughed, pleased with her expertise. “A few surprises in the old gal yet, aren’t there?” But suddenly, her doubts and fancies about him dissipated and she felt comfortable again with him. She unlatched her sonic cutter, motioned for him to do the same. “Grab a container,” she added, as she undogged the hatch and stepped, carefully, onto the narrow ledge. The inadequate landing space was one of the reasons she’d not worked this cutting more often.

Fergil gave the nauseating drop a passing glance and followed, hefting crate and cutter easily.

Sun glinted off the blue crystal rock laid bare of its encrustment of machstorm-driven debris and abrasions. Fergil whistled appreciatively, leaned closer and ran a speculative hand down the obvious axial flaws.

“Polyhedron blues! A mountain of them.”

“Let’s see can we carve a few triads out of this face,” Killashandra suggested and sang out an A. She gestured for him to sing a third above or below. He’d a good strong voice—not a vibe off pitch—and then the chord answered them from the mountain. Both had their cutters tuned when Killashandra’s hand found the resonating section of crystal. She was still singing her note as she made the first cut but he hadn’t her breath support. He’d learn.

They cut quickly; he was good and his sonic cutter was not a fraction of an inch behind hers as they sliced blue crystal from parent rock. She finished the outer edge cuts and turned off her cutter before she realized that his was still on. . . . He stood, transfigured by the feel of vibrating crystal in his hand. She knew the sensation. Knew too well the insidious, mind-sapping joy of it. How long had Fergil been singing crystal? She snatched the orthorhombic from his hand and watched him snap out of the trance, snarling with anger.

“You can do that as long as you want on your own time, Fergil. We’re here to cut crystal, not be seduced by it. Finish off the shape.”

He shook his head. “Sorry, Killa. I forgot.”

She felt his crystal pulsing in her hand, in harmony with the one she’d just cut. She handed it back to him before she was entranced. “Shape it. Now! I’m watching.” He all but wrenched the polyhedron from her. “You haven’t been out that often, have you?”

“That much, too much! What does it matter? I sing well, don’t I?” He spun on her angrily, the cutter raised almost threateningly. He completed the cuts in a savage way and then placed the dodecahedron carefully in the crate. “Where now?” There was no expression at all in his face and suddenly Killashandra was afraid that she’d alienated him. She was desperate for the reassurance of his smile. Then he relaxed and grinned sheepishly. She took a deep breath and sang out a C sharp. He belted out a respectable F sharp and they touched the resonating area at the same instant. They were cutting well when suddenly the sound distorted on her blade as the blue shattered down its longest axis. She switched off her cutter just in time to prevent his crystal from cracking with the dissonance. He was as unnerved by the break but kept to his cut, finishing deftly.

“Now what?” he asked her as he laid the F sharp in the protective foam sheath. “That’s only happened to me once before.”

They both regarded the long fracture with disgust.

“It happens most frequently cutting blues,” she said, glaring angrily at the half won C sharp. “We can cut further down the face”—and she gestured to the dull, pitted face—”but we’ve got to cut away a lot of junk first. Or we can suffer the noise and take this out down below the flaw.”

Fergil rubbed the side of his face by his ear, as if in anticipation of the aural distress. “How good’s this face? Worth wasting the effort if it fractures again?”

Killashandra shrugged. They weren’t really far enough past the surface to tell. “You get the largest percentage of defects on the outside, of course. ...”

“Let’s try once more to cut here.” Fergil raised his tool.

They did and got a good triad before a vertical flaw developed.

“I’ve a hunch we should keep on at this face, though,” Killashandra said, strewing the shattered fragments of the imperfect crystal down the precipice.

“I’ve not sung crystal long enough to argue,” Fergil said, grinning cheerfully at her as he wiped the sweat from his forehead.

His candor reassured her as much as his subtle compliment.

“We’ll play my hunch, at least for today, then.”

They ran across one other short fissure which ruined a tonic octave. Once past that, she could tell from the ring, mountain deep, that they were on to a fine, pure vein.

“Enough to buy Parnell’s World at current prices,” she told Fergil and laughed at the anticipatory gleam in his eyes. “The trouble is we wouldn’t live long enough to cut it all.”

“Why not?” Fergil demanded with a bark of exultant laughter. “Singers can last forever if they’re good. . . .”

“If they’re lucky...”

He swung on her. “You’re good, one of the best, and you’ve been singing for. ...”

“Enough!” Suddenly she didn’t want to know, and it angered her to think that he knew. “I’m still singing. And let’s stop chattering and start cutting. That’s what we’re here for.”

She belted out a G and they cut a five note dominant before crystal began to murmur evening song.

That night, Killashandra would have preferred solitude to ponder some of the contradictions in Fergil but, as if he sensed her disquiet, he distracted her with loverly nonsense and skillful lovemaking. It was one thing to listen to night crystal song by yourself: quite another to hear the same serenade over the roar of the blood at climax. And very flattering to hear a man’s voice crying out his pleasure in you. Killashandra’d forgotten that facet of singing duet.

By high noon the next day, they had to work with blinder-slits, but the cuttings were fabulous. No partner could have been as good as Fergil now he’d hit his stride. Whatever her reservations had been the previous day, his performance now dispelled them. His voice and hers blended, caught resonances that could be heard echoing four canyons beyond: his cutter worked as swiftly and surely as hers, instinctively finding the axes of the octagons and dodecahedrons, producing symmetrical sets as neatly as she did. She was quite ready to concede that they two might well level the blue mountain when the alarms began.

“Hey, that’s the dew bell!”

“In weather like this!” Killashandra swung around to the northwest. No storm sign there at all. “Keep cutting. It’s only a dew bell.”

He finished the cut he was on, but when she started to sing another he yanked her cutter from her.

“Lanzecki warned me specifically about you and storm signals.”

“Look, I’ve sung crystal long enough to know safety margins. Something in here tells me when to go. That’s why I’ve kept my wits.” She glanced at the half-full container. “The dew bell only means alert. And we can finish that out.”

He shook his head and motioned her to the flitter.

“You nardy fool! Give me back my cutter!” She made a grab for it. He stepped into the flitter with the cutters just as another warning sounded.

“Several hours, huh?” he taunted, keeping his body between her and the narrow path to the flitter’s portal as he heaved the half-full crate into the lock. “We’ve four crates and no more time, Killashandra. That mountain’s not going anywhere.”

“The storm’ll change the frequencies, flaw the surface,” she shrieked. “We’ve cut deep. It could fissure and crack the mother rock.” She flung a protective arm against the face they’d been working so successfully. “We’ve thirds and fifths. Two full octaves. Please, Fergil? Just one more. I’ve got to get off this barfing world! I’ve got to!”

He hesitated for a fraction, twisting his head at the siren gleam of resonating blue crystal. If she could just edge past him to the flitter. . . .

He caught her shoulder full with a narcotic blash, and she hadn’t time to curse him before unconsciousness overwhelmed her.

“I had to do it, Killa,” someone was saying. “Lanzecki told me how you’d act. Killa! Killa?”

She tried to strike out at him as consciousness returned but she was strangely hampered. And woke completely to find herself up to the neck in a hot radiant bath, Fergil crouched by the tub edge, holding her head out of the liquid.

“You misbegotten, sterile offshoot of degenerate perverts with blurred chromosomes from an outcasts’ planet... if you don’t leave me alone, I’ll warp you into early senility.”

“Killa! I had to. The storm was a variant. We nearly didn’t get out of the Milekeys at all. If you’d been in your flitter...”

“Leave the boy alone, Killashandra. He’s settled an old account of yours.” Lanzecki’s face appeared beyond Fergil’s shoulder. “There are nine scrambled singers lost in the Milekeys in this storm. If you hadn’t been paired with Fergil, you’d’ve been one, too.”

“And you’d’ve lost your blues, wouldn’t you? That’s all you care about really, Lanzecki! Isn’t it?”

She was screaming the last words because the crystal pain in her bones began to grab at her spine. She had gone back into the Ranges too soon.

“Where’s the barfing medic?” she shrieked, writhing.

“What’s the matter with her, Lanzecki?” cried Fergil.

The concern in his voice, the way he swung accusingly at the Guildmaster was balm to Killashandra’s soul. But the expression on Lanzecki’s face, almost pitying, was the final outrage.

“Get out of here, Lanzecki!” She grabbed at his hand at the same time, so he’d feel the crystal shock coursing through her body, so he’d have a taste experientially of what the farding Guild was demanding of her. “You forced me back too soon. How d’you like a taste of it?” To her surprise, Lanzecki stoically endured her grasp. It was Fergil who broke her hold and then dropped her hand as if it had burned him.

“What’s wrong with her?” Fergil demanded.

“Sometimes,” Lanzecki said in a soft distant tone, “a singer seems to be keyed into the last crystal he’d cut before a storm, and experiences the storm, too.”

“Where’s that medic, Lanzecki?”

The man appeared suddenly and Killashandra felt the coolness of air pressure and the merciful oblivion.

“You can’t ask her to go out again, Lanzecki. You can’t!” Fergil’s voice was stern. He was a good man, Killashandra thought, standing up against Lanzecki, against his own Guildmaster. She wasn’t really concerned, though, with the argument going on over her limp body.

When Lanzecki answered, also from a distance, his voice was dull and lifeless. “She’s the only one cutting blues, Fergil.”

“We brought in close to four crates. . . .”

Lanzecki gave a mirthless snort. “When we need forty to ease the emergency?”

“Forty?” Fergil’s voice strangled on the repetition.

Killashandra let herself slip back into oblivion. Fergil was her champion. She could rest. She had to rest. For some reason that escaped her. . . .

She was conscious first of the ache in her bones and the soreness that tenanted her entire body. She tried to ignore that, thinking beyond herself to externals and felt . . . the warmth of another body. The warmth . . . the comfort . . . the sensation of an arm around her waist, limp-handed, but the fingers loosely laced through hers. Puzzled, she moved slightly to peer at the face, but the room was dark. Carefully, she inched her free arm forward, pressed the bedlight and saw the ugly-attractive face of the man sleeping beside her. Strange.

She must have been out in the Ranges a long time for the ache to be still with her. Usually, three or four radiant baths sufficed to remove the worst of it. Who was this man? It was undeniably comfortable in his arms, and she felt protected. A nice, unusual feeling. Obviously he was no stranger to her, or her bed. They fitted too comfortably together.

She wriggled closer . . . and he roused.

He had gray eyes. That was right, but something in her look must have alerted him.

“Have you forgotten me again, Killashandra? I’m Fergil. And really, my dear girl, if you keep on forgetting me like this I shall be hurt.”

“Fergil?” The name did have a familiar taste in her mouth. “Oh, Fergil!” And she burrowed into the safe, remembered arms as all too painful memories surged back at his cues.

He held her, comforting her and she knew now why she ached so and what was in store for her. And Fergil. And she dreaded the Ranges and then suddenly, did not. Fergil would be with her, and memories that were pleasant reviewed themselves. As long as she had Fergil with her she could remember things easily. Memory now was far more preferable to blank ignorance.

The storm had blown itself out finally the morning Lanzecki came by to inquire about her progress.

“I’m the only one singing blues, aren’t I?” Killashandra asked the Guildmaster.

He nodded.

“Lanzecki, she’s not well enough to sing crystal yet,” Fergil said, throwing a protective arm about her shoulders.

“She is the only one singing blues. . . .”

“You said you’d mobilized every singer to prospect. . . .”

“So I have. Anyone who can handle a cutter is out in the Ranges now and Killa. ...”

“Haven’t you recalled Formeut. . . ?” Fergil sounded desperate.

“He’s en route, but the situation worsens. . . .”

“Killashandra brought you in three and a third crates. ...”

“As I told you then, we require forty at the bare minimum. . . .”

“She can’t possibly cut forty crates. ...”

The Guildmaster drew himself up. “Unless Killashandra operates her own claim, I am empowered to obtain its direction so that. ...”

“No one works my claim but me!” Killashandra struggled to her feet, shaking now with anger rather than crystal shock.

Fergil thrust his body between her and Lanzecki. “How the flaming hell can you rationalize that in Guild Law?” Fergil was furious, too. “It’s her right. . . .”

“Which can be set aside with due cause....” Lanzecki held out a plastic flimsy on which were impregnated the GCS seals.

With a sinking terror, Killashandra knew she had no alternative now.

“He’s bluffing,” Fergil cried. “He’s trying to murder you.”

“He’s not bluffing,” Killashandra said, dully staring at the flimsy, but she didn’t refute the second charge.

“I’m not trying to murder her either, Fergil,” Lanzecki said in a weary tone, “because I am within my authority to insist that you double with her again. The sooner you two can cut the required quota the sooner this,” and he shook the flimsy, “can be destroyed and . . . forgotten.”

“Easily forgotten!” said Killashandra in a barking sneer. “But you overlook one factor, Lanzecki. What if the storm has split the mountain to shards?” and she devoutly wished it true.

The Guildmaster shuddered, his eyes closing as if fearful that the mere mention of such a possibility could bring it about.

“From what Fergil said, the mountain is pure crystal. It won’t have been affected by the storm as much as a thinner vein might.”

“What if it is, Lanzecki?” Killashandra could not resist taunting him. “What does GCS do then?”

“Then”—and Lanzecki called her bluff—”every singer concentrates on your claim until they recover the pure vein if they have to dig to plasma.” His manner was implacable. “Spare me further puerile divagations. Killashandra has the only blue workings: She is to cut there as long as she is able. Otherwise other singers will be sent to the claim.”

“And how could you bloody well find that claim, I want to know?”

“There are ways,” Lanzecki told Fergil, “tedious but ultimately successful. And you are to guard her life with yours, Fergil. You will obey, instantly, any storm warning and leave from the Range. But”—and there was no doubting Lanzecki’s meaning—”do not leave the Range without due cause or you both suffer expulsion.”

“Death either way, Lanzecki!” cried Fergil, but Lanzecki had gone. Fergil grabbed Killashandra into the protective circle of his body. “You can’t go!”

She pushed him away and reached for a Range suit. “He means it, Fergil. I’ve no choice but by all that’s holy on every planet in this galaxy, I’m the only one who will cut my claim as long as I can keep my wits!” A deep abiding fury strengthened Killashandra now and Fergil noted the change in her with reluctant approval.

“And I’ll make sure you keep your wits for years to come,” he cried, responding to the challenge. Then, as if he could not bear their separation any longer, he grabbed her back into his arms. “You’re the most fantastic woman. ...” His voice was shaking with pride, admiration . . . and love.

Although Killashandra’s flitter had been repaired, they took off again in his. The false energy of wrath deserted her once they were airborne, and at the moment Fergil turned expectantly to her.

“You’d better take the controls now, Killa.”

“Why? You flew her back!” That small snake of doubt nipped at the heels of her trust in Fergil. All the long moment he stared at her incredulously, she realized that he hadn’t been at her claim long enough, nor had he sung crystal long enough, to be drawn back by a familiar resonance.

“There was a storm blowing up, Killa,” he said, gently, ruefully. “I turned on the homer and pushed the ship as fast as she’d move. In fact”—and he shrugged regretfully—”I had to dump all our stores to lighten her for additional speed. I sure as hell had no spare time to mark the way.”

Since she’d seen Supply loading stores and yet they’d been full four days before on their first trip out, she had to concede that point and slowly took the pilot chair. Ingrained caution dictated another route into the Range, coming down a different trough, up over the ridge separating it from the major fissure and the black crag. Only there wasn’t much left of it. She didn’t mention its loss nor, apparently, was Fergil aware of the alteration in the landscape.

And there had been several. For one moment, as she got an unobstructed view of her mountain, Killashandra experienced a moment of pure terror—that the blue crystal lode had been storm-blasted: That her wish had become fact. But the answering note in her bones was clear and unsullied despite the fact that half the adjoining promontory had fallen atop the narrow ledge by the cutting and generously enlarged it. The face they’d been working was blackened and pitted by the storm’s violence: no one in passing would have known what lay behind that scarred rock.

“How do you know this is the right place?” Fergil asked, completely disoriented.

“You feel it,” she replied with the abrupt rudeness of experience in the face of ignorance.

“Feel it?”

“In your bones!” She laid her hand on his and this time he didn’t jerk it away. He blinked, frowned, and then recognition widened his eyes with astonishment.

“Is that how you know?”

“You haven’t cut crystal long enough.”

“No, Killashandra, I haven’t. You”—and he caressed her cheek gently, his eyes soft—”shepherded me my first time into the Ranges. Oh, I know you’ve forgotten,” he said with a half-apologetic grin, “probably because I was such a right dolt.”

“Well, you learned in a helluva hurry then, because you cut damned good duet with me,” she replied. “Speaking of which, let’s cut Lanzecki’s fecking blues.”

“Right! The more we do the sooner we can get off this crazy-cracked ball of sound, to Parnell’s World together and then. . . .” His voice dropped to a vibrant suggestive note that made her laugh.

“Then let’s sing crystal and cut the agony short!”

And how they sang the blues. The pure mountain had held. Once they cut away the storm-blasted layer, the crystal sang true, resounding across the storm-widened canyon, until the ache of the faultless sound reached the limits of the bearable. But Killashandra endured because she had to, and because somehow Fergil made it supportable.

They cut three crates the first day: working until the ping of crystal cooling in the twilight made tuning impossible. And then they lay in each other’s arms, too weary for loving, too keyed to the mountain to sleep until it, too, had hushed.

As long as she was actively cutting, the crystal pain was neutralized. Nonetheless by the third day, Killashandra asked Fergil what he’d brought in the way of depressants. With pity in his eyes, he gave her a dose. The fifth day she injured herself badly, slicing away the fleshy part of her thumb. Fergil mouthed requisite reassurances, but she could see that he was annoyed because they’d lost both of the huge dodecahedrons they’d been cutting.

She insisted that he permaflesh her hand, and dose her with pain-relievers so she could continue working. Perversely she was irritated because he tacitly accepted her sacrifice.

The sixth day he wouldn’t give her any more depressants because he said that was why she’d cut herself: Her reactions were too slow. She screamed that she couldn’t stand the pain until he did give her a half dose. She didn’t cut as well and bollixed four small cuttings. That night she tried to find out where he hid the drugs and moaned through a sleepless night without surcease while he snored with exhaustion.

The seventh day dawned with a stifling heat, the sort that precedes a break in weather. She began to cut with a frantic intensity, seemingly able to avoid all kinds of minor disasters through speed alone. But the pace told on Fergil and she blasted him for the novice he was; taunting him that a really experienced singer could keep up with her, crippled and crystal-crazed as she was.

“Crazy, is right,” he shouted back at her. “No sane person cuts as fast as you do.”

“I’ve got to cut fast. There’s storm coming!”

Immediately alert, Fergil cocked his head for the flitter’s alarms. “Did you short ‘em off? Did you?” he cried, shaking her when she didn’t answer him. When she denied turning the alarms off, he wouldn’t believe her and, despite her curses and threats, he dashed into the flitter to check..

“It’s the weather. I know! I can feel the storm coming. I don’t need alarms, you stupid twit! I’ve cut crystal long enough!”

“The charts say we’ve twelve clear days ...” he bellowed from the flitter, brandishing the meteorology flimsies at her.

“The variant storm, you numskull, changes any pattern,” she yelled back. “Those nardy charts aren’t worth the plastic they’re printed on. Move yourself out here and cut! Damn you! Cut!”

He came and worked grimly beside her until his voice was ragged and harsh when they pitched a cut. But with each crystal they cut, Killashandra reckoned that she was that much closer to peace, to tranquillity in blood and bone, to a long, long journey away from crystal.

The next octagons cut were flecked with bloodstains: Fergil’s and hers. She wouldn’t even give him time to get permaflesh from the flitter. He cursed once the cutters were tuned, cursed in tempo to the diabolical pace she was setting. They had just carved a match double fifths which finished off a crate when Fergil took her by the arm.

“Nothing’s worth this pace, Killa. Slack off! We’ll kill ourselves.”

She wrenched free, her sweeping glance of him deriding his weakness. “I’ve only today. The storm’ll be here soon.”

Before she could inhale to sing the cutting note, the dew bell clanged.

“Impossible!” Fergil said it like a prayer, dashing to the skimmer.

“Come back here and cut, you fool. It’s only the dew bell. We’ve time.”

“You said the variant storm changed everything,” Fergil replied, heaving the first crate into the lock. “I just got us out of here last time because I made you come at the dew bell.”

“Come back here and cut!”

“Forget the nardy cutting! Help me load.”

“There aren’t enough yet,” she cried, counting the crates as she passed them to him. How many had they already stored in the cargo bay? She couldn’t rightly remember. “There aren’t enough yet. I’ve got to cut enough this time.” She picked up her cutter again and dashed back to the cliff. She cleared her throat and reached for a high G. Her voice gave before she could tune the cutter. Startled, because her voice had never betrayed her, she swallowed several times, took a good deep breath, pressed against her diaphragm and sang out. Again her voice wavered and cracked. “Fergil. Sing it for me!”

The high clear D was almost drowned out by additional klaxons from the skimmer. But she caught the pitch and tuned her cutter.

“C’mon, Fergil,” she yelled over the piercing cry of crystal. “We’ve time for one more!”

“That’s the girl, Killa,” Fergil called back merrily. “Cut the next one for me. Your voice’ll recover. Just keep cutting. Lanzecki said to leave at the dew bell. Remember? I’ll be back. Yes, indeed. I’ll be back.”

His farewell suddenly penetrated the fogs of her fatigued mind. She turned and stared at the flitter.

“Wait for me, will you, Killashandra?” he cried, waving. His mocking laugh and his words made sudden, horrible sense.

She threw aside the cutter with a snarl and raced down the track they’d worn, but the skimmer’s hatch closed before she could reach it. The suction of takeoff pushed her back, almost to the edge of the precipice. She fell to her knees in the rubble, unable to believe that Fergil was abandoning her! And abruptly as certain that that had been in his mind all along. Weeping, she acknowledged both betrayal and abandonment. With an awful clarity she knew what she had tried to rationalize, that she never had met Fergil until the day he had insinuated himself into her presence in the hall. He’d banked, and accurately, on the fact that someone who’d sung crystal as long as she would have erratic recall, even with the help of a playback. He must’ve known of the emergency before he approached her, counting on Lanzecki’s unwilling cooperation. Had Lanzecki betrayed her, too, for the Guild’s need?

She didn’t feel the wind rising, the enormity of the double treachery dulling her sensation of physical buffets. It was the moan of crystal all around that roused her. The moan and the cessation of pain within her.

Utterly calm, she rose to her feet, incuriously noticed the roiling blackness of the swiftly descending storm. Why had she never appreciated the beauty of a mach storm? She became fascinated by its incredible speed, the look of unlimited power in the billowing multiplicity of black, ochre, and gray clouds. The moan intensified into a low shriek, then broke into chords, dissonances, harmonies as the storm winds caressed music from the living rock.

Her body arched with the sonic ecstasy which engulfed her. She began to sing, as her ear remembered melodies composed by the infinite chords around her. Arias seemed to crash into the canyons and symphonies leaped across peaks, bombarding her with ever more diabolically increased tempi, with rhythms that made her sway and whirl in time. She sang, and the whole blue crystal mountain answered her in a magnificently throated chorale.

The blue mountain! That was all Lanzecki had wanted of her. And Fergil. And Lanzecki had sent Fergil with her: certain that the traitor would get enough of the blue resonances on this second trip to bring him unerringly back to the parent sound. And for good measure, Fergil would have her dead body to mark the spot. For she’d never last the storm alive.

So she was to mark the spot? Not if she could prevent it.

The mountain was singing such a fortissimo that she didn’t need to pitch the cutter: She’d only to turn it on.

At the top of her lungs, playing her voice up and down an incredible span, she attacked the crystal face with the cutter, slicing irrespective of axes: hearing the satisfactory scream of the abused crystal as she hacked a way into the mountain.

“Abuse me, would he?” she chanted. “Use me, would he?”

She’d alter the frequencies for him so he’d never find his way back to her pure-hearted mountain. The storm-stroked crystal obligingly fell away in great rectangles from her ruthless assault. With an hysterical strength, she pushed aside, knocked over, crawled past crystal spires and spikes, and made herself a tomb deep in the heart of sound.

The mach storm seduced ever louder, weirder symphonies from the willing rock as it rolled over her blue sepulcher. And Killashandra, bone and blood vibrating to the phenomenon, willing, delivered her soul to the sound of death.