Milekey Mountain

AS A planet, thought Killashandra, Ballybran rated the parenthesized question mark in the Galactic Guidebook. It made even fusty Fuerte, her birthworld and one she’d previously maligned, seem a pleasure planet in comparison. Fuerte at least looked interesting from space, which Ballybran with its lowish rounded hills and monotonous plains didn’t.

“There’s not much on Ballybran,” she’d been told repeatedly as she shepherded the mindless Carrik back to the tender loving care of the Heptite Guild after his brain-blowing supersonic overload.

She’d been tremendously impressed by the Guild’s omnipotence: high-rank medicorps men had awaited her inert charge at every intermediary port and she herself had been accorded the most deferential treatment. She’d been required to do very little more than check the life support cradle which carried Carrik; i.v. feeding, therapy, bathing, etc., had all been expertly managed by appropriately trained personnel. Nothing, apparently, was too good for a Heptite Guild member. Or his escort. She had open credit in the ships’ stores and preferential treatment when they transferred ships. She was at every captain’s table. Except for the fact that she was left strictly alone she thoroughly enjoyed her position.

She did learn a good deal about crystal singing and Ballybran: not all of it encouraging but certainly nothing that Carrik hadn’t warned her about previously. Crystal singers did, indeed, have tremendous credit when they went off-world. They whooped it up, big spenders, fun people. Until the shakes started.

“I hear tell,” one transport captain told her while deep in his puce-colored wine, “that crystal gets into your blood. Keeps you young, but you gotta sing it again. You sure you want that? There’re lots of other professions that don’t have inherent addiction.”

Killashandra had smiled and led him to expand. He was young and virile and he’d’ve been willing if Carrik hadn’t been witless down the corridor. There were disadvantages to her present occupation.

“I’ve done this journey-leg nineteen times now,” the captain went on after a gulp of wine, “and I’ve had quite a few crystal singers on board, both in and out. Out they can’t wait to get to civilization.” He snorted. “Can’t blame ‘em. There’s nothing but ploddy dull-witted clods on Ballybran. Their conversation is limited to the size of their crop and who could grow the largest what-ever-you-call the long green thin things they pickle in vats down there. The only item they can export is crystals. And singers.”

“D’you see many coming back like Carrik?” she asked.

He shook his head, uncomfortably glancing down the corridor that led to the master cabin assigned to Killashandra and Carrik.

“He’s the first like that. They’re usually awfully shaky, though. What happened to him? He wait too long?”

“No, but when we were about to ship out, a shuttle came in with sour crystals ready to explode. He got caught in the sensory overload.”

“Good of you to come back with him.”

“I owed him that.” Killashandra meant it. She was in Carrik’s debt for introducing her to the notion of being a crystal singer. She might have a flawed voice, too grating for the career of a solo singer, but she had perfect pitch, which was the first requirement for singing crystal. Taking any risk involved in this profession was more preferable to Killashandra than being a second-rate chanter with neither prestige nor the chance to make Stellar rating.

“Are you certain”—and the captain was dubious and uneasy—”you want to be a crystal singer, too? I mean, I’ve seen enough of ‘em to know the crazy rumors are space-drek, but. . . ,” and he shook his head.

She shrugged. “We’ll see. I’ll analyze the situation when I reach Ballybran.”

He turned the conversation to other matters then, such as what would Killashandra do after she’d safely delivered Carrik to his Guild’s care. There was no doubt in her mind what he had on his mind, so she’d smiled enigmatically.

Whatever reception she’d subconsciously hoped to receive was vastly different from the one she got from Lanzecki, the Resident Master of the Heptite Guild. He was at the space portal when the ship opened its airlock: a dour-faced man with a swarthy complexion and a squat figure, clothed in dull colors. The only things bright and active about him were his wide-set piercing brown eyes. They seemed to move incessantly, seeing more in one darting glance than they ought.

He gestured to the two men with him (they were dun-colored, too), who silently paced down the corridor to Carrik’s cabin.

“Thank you, Killashandra Ree. You have an open ticket to whatever destination you desire and a credit of 1,000 galactic units.” He proffered her two vouchers, each emblazoned with the Heptite Guild crest of a quartz crystal. He accorded her a deferential bow and then, as the men conducting the air-cushion stretcher with Carrik returned, he preceded them back through the portal and down the accordioned entrance maw.

For a long stunned moment, Killashandra stared after him, the two metallic slips limp in her fingers.

“Guildmaster? Lanzecki, sir? Wait. . . .”

The stately progress continued without pause.

“Of all the ungrateful. . . .”

“I’d not call them ungrateful,” said the captain, stopping beside her and craning his neck to glance at the vouchers.

“I didn’t expect a brass band,” exclaimed Killashandra, “but a word or two. . . .”

“The important words are there,” the captain said, pointing to the slips. “But they are an odd lot,” he went on, staring at the retreating figures. “You hear all kinds of rumors about that Guild, like I said. But I see lots of strange things in my profession and I don’t believe the half of it.” Suddenly he slid an arm around her shoulders. “Now that the dead meat’s gone, how about you and me. . . .”

“Later, later,” Killashandra said, irritably pushing his hand away. “I want a word or two with that Guildmaster.” And she strode rapidly after the trio guiding Carrik.

She never did see Carrik again, though his name appeared on the membership rolls as inactive for a good many years. Not that she remembered the name past the first four. Eventually the only face she could recognize and name was Lanzecki’s. And that was for a variety of curious reasons, most of which were credit-oriented.

Right now she had tremendous difficulty getting an interview with Lanzecki. Though she arrived at the Guildhall a mere quarter of an hour after he did, he was “occupied.” Well, she could understand that. She waited two hours in the prism-like reception chamber of the Guildhall. Hunger got the better of her then.

“They don’t want you,” said the captain after her third try. “Leave. That travel voucher’ll take you anywhere. There’s sure nothing on this planet to hang around for.” He looked around the public house where they were dining—the food was superb—at the dull faces.

“I’ve never met such sullen, rude, disinterested people in my life,” Killashandra said, thoroughly piqued, “but I’m not leaving until I see Lanzecki and that’s that!”

It nearly was, but at the sixth refusal she lost her temper.

“I’ve got perfect pitch,” she said on a clear B-flat, the characteristic grating of her voice thrown back at her from the multisided reception hall. “I’ve been informed of all the hazards, including indifference, ingratitude, and rudeness. I’m going to join!”

The poor receptionist cringed away from the operatic announcement.

“I can’t help you,” the woman said piteously. “You have to see Guildmaster Lanzecki.”

“Then let me see him! And don’t”—Valkyries had chanted in whispers in comparison to Killashandra’s projection—”come back without him.” She dropped to a conversational pitch. “I’ve been informed that I’ve a voice that can shatter glass. Shall I try?” And she waved at the hall with its crystal mirrors and chandeliers.

The pace at which the woman scurried from the room soothed Killashandra’s ego, and she stared around the hall, idly wondering if her voice could crack Ballybran crystal.

“You don’t give up, do you?” said Lanzecki as he glided into the hall, the receptionist hovering about anxiously.

“No, I don’t.” One didn’t antagonize the Master of the Guild one wished to join. At least not face to face.

“That’s as well.” He seemed pleased by her obduracy. “You’ve perfect pitch all right, according to the Fuertan report.”

So Lanzecki’d been checking up on her.

He nodded. “And you’ve seen what supersonic overloads do to a crystal singer.” He gestured toward the back of the building where the infirmary wing was situated. “Members of the Heptite Guild,” and he gave a sour smile, “are prone to sensory overload. Sooner or later it will happen to you. But you insist on joining?” He waited until she nodded. “Despite repeated warnings and attempts to dissuade you?” She nodded more vigorously. “Will you swear that there have been no attempts to coerce you against your will to become an apprentice in the Heptite Guild?”

“Of course!” Killashandra’s irritation returned, doubled.

To her surprise, Lanzecki strode past her, beckoning her to follow him out of the Guildhall and down the main street of the city into the communications building, where they were instantly ushered into the Spaceport Commissioner’s office.

“This young woman insists on becoming an apprentice to the Heptite Guild,” Lanzecki said. He then stepped out of the room.

“Now what. . . ,” began Killashandra, whirling at his exit.

“Your name, rank and planet of origin, young woman,” asked the Commissioner in a stern forbidding voice.

She gave it to him, startled by his unaccountable attitude. After all, his bloody planet was Mudball #1 if it weren’t for the crystals. . . .

She was then subjected to an intensive physical examination, and a series of mental-health routines. She had to recite her life’s history, up to and including her reasons for leaving the Arts Center on Fuerte.

Two intensive attempts were made to dissuade her, one including an hour-long documented film of the condition of storm-maddened victims. Finally Lanzecki was recalled and she was permitted—permitted!—to announce her official intention of becoming an apprentice to the Heptite Guild.

“I’ve never been through such a rigmarole in my life,” she said, fuming, to her new Guildmaster on their way back to the Hall.

“You won’t be again,” Lanzecki said in a droll fashion but his manner was subtly altered. He seemed less austere, but not happy.

“Well, that’s something.”

“As you’ve been reminded, there are certain advantages to being a crystal singer, Killashandra. Very few, however. But then, there are some advantages to every situation ... if you care to look on the positive side of events. Take myself.” He gave her an odd smile. “I’m totally deaf.”

“I’d never’ve guessed.”

He inclined his head, smiling again. “An advantage, I assure you. I need only turn my back and I can hear nothing.” His smile was tinged with a certain malice. “You’ll find, however, that the inhabitants of Ballybran, save only the singers, are either tone-deaf or have some serious impairment of that sensory faculty. In fact, these past few generations of babies are now born with impaired hearing.” That seemed to please him. “You may wish you had been, too.”

“In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king,” she said, and he nodded, humorlessly. “That accounts for everyone seeming so rude, then,” she added.

“Probably.”

“Here, you’d better have these back,” she said, suddenly remembering the vouchers and thrusting them at him.

He glanced indifferently at the chits, and waved aside her offer.

“The Guild was grateful, a signal event I assure you in this profession. Make the most of it. Such opportunities will soon be beyond you.”

They had reached the Guildhall and Lanzecki directed her to what was obviously a training room.

“Enough time has been wasted,” he said. “Now, some of the necessary reeducation will be done by an aural teacher, for I am useless but I am your principal instructor. Initiation lasts until you have completed your first solo trip into the crystal-bearing ranges and return.” He smiled sourly. “The ranges are not, by the way, mountains in the upward sense of the word, but deeps.”

Lanzecki had gestured her to a seat at a small desk that bore writing materials and a taper. He pulled down a tri-d screen and took a pointer.

“Ballybran,” and he indicated the fourth planet of the system on the tri-d visualization, “has a low volcanic action, being an old planet and well settled down. As you are aware from primary school galactology, quartz structures take eons to produce and occur where volcanic action is negligible, as it is on Ballybran. This planet has achieved an almost circular orbit so there are few changes of season such as you might have experienced on Fuerte or other planets you’ve visited.”

He went on in detail about Ballybran’s discovery on a routine survey and how its potential was overlooked until a vacationing engineer escaped from the crystal canyons only seconds before a mach storm. He’d been nearly driven mad by the sounds stroked by the freak high winds from the quartz hills and had returned later to investigate the phenomen. Since there was always a dearth of usable quartz crystal to focus the coherent light needed by lasers and communication devices, his discovery made him a wealthy man. One day he didn’t outrun a mach storm. He and fifty other crystal prospectors.

Galactic Overgovernment had interdicted the planet until the hazard had been thoroughly assessed, and proper precautions could be specified. The Heptite Guild was formed to recruit (“Ha, dissuade,” Killashandra thought to herself), train and maintain quartz prospectors. The Guild very properly tithed active members throughout their working lives and then cared for those incapacitated. Since humans with perfect pitch were in a minority and since the Guild was required to explain the hazards of the profession in detail, the active membership remained small and the price of crystal high. No research disclosed a reliable substitute for Ballybran-mined crystal and blackmarket mining was notably unsuccessful for the improperly equipped pirates.

By constant handling, Killashandra learned the various marketable shapes. She had intensive drill on her pitch, which remained accurate to the machine-oriented vibrations: a simple matter with her background as a musical student. Easy, too, for her to sound a pitch and then key the polydiamond supersonic cutter to that exact note. She learned to tune soured crystal as an exercise preparatory to the actual cutting of quartz from the living hills. She studied thousands of diagrams and slides of crystal walls until she was able to discern at a glance where major fractures had been caused by alignment and realignment as the crystal was “born” from the tremendous pressures of volcanic action in the planet’s surface. She began to appreciate micro-errors, those impure molecules that might, at a later date, cause a seemingly perfect crystal to fracture and explode, just as the shuttle’s crystal had blown apart at Fuerte. Sometimes one could “hear” the micro-errors when one sounded a note and cut a “good” crystal above or below the error. But she wasn’t to learn that trick until she got out into the ranges.

Though she fumed about the delay, she was forced to endure equally boring rehearsals of Guild rules, precepts and regulations until she’d wake herself up chanting Section and Paragraph. She was held in training for excessively long drills on the dangers, spotting and evasion of mach storms.

Because Ballybran was an old world, with few respectable mountain ranges, a storm literally raced around the planet, gathering terrific speed—often exceeding the sound barrier (hence the designation “mach storm”). The other three small planets in the system had asymmetrical orbits, occasionally exerting a malefic pull on the largest sibling of their sun. And the primary of Ballybran was given to spectacular gaseous eruptions. The resultant “sunspots” exerted undue gravitational effects on poor Ballybran: any and all combinations of the above contributed to the birth of the mach storms.

Warning devices were numerous and, Killashandra decided privately, it was a case of crying wolf in such chorus that the warnee mentally tuned out the claxons. She determined to keep only one monitor operative and thus more effective. She was also warned against considering this.

“You can’t be warned too much about a mach storm,” she was told repeatedly by Lanzecki, by the various technicians, by her only undeaf instructor. The woman had briefly been a crystal singer. She’d inadvertently cut off most of her right hand.

The day came when Killashandra could tolerate no further classroom antics. In theory she knew all there was to know about cutting crystal. She’d returned half the planet’s crystals in practice and the mere thought of tracking another mach storm or reciting a Guild rule made her apoplectic.

“Lanzecki, if you remind me once more that I asked to join this benighted Guild, I’ll rearrange your face,” Killashandra told the Guildmaster when he declined, again, to let her solo.

“There isn’t a singer available to shepherd you, Killashandra,” he said, sighing heavily. He was as weary of her complaints as she was of making them.

“I thought I was to solo.”

He shook his head. “Not your first time out in the ranges. And don’t remind me how well versed you are in theory. What you have in your mind is not reliable in the crystal hills. Theoretical knowledge must be transmuted into reflex actions along with instinctive reactions in the successful crystal singer, not conscious considerations.”

Killashandra made a rude noise and started to comment on her eidetic memory.

“Memory distortion,” Lanzecki was saying. “Well now, Killashandra, most of our active members, and inactive ones too had that eidetic faculty at one time. It is as if that is a corollary of perfect pitch. . . . But memory distortion is one of the cruel facts of crystal singing, girl. Sensory overload is no joke and no crystal singer is immune to it. I wish to the gods one of you was. But I can’t permit you to venture forth the first time without a seasoned singer along. Oh, you’ll be in your own flitter and you’ll undoubtedly be sent off on your own in a few days but you will have had the benefit of watching the actual work in the ranges. And we have to wait until a reliable singer is available. Ah, speaking of which. . . .”

A panel behind them was flashing brilliant red/ orange/white. All warning devices on Ballybran activated color as well as sound. Lanzecki turned in his chair, gesturing Killashandra to attend. The panel blanked briefly and then a meteorological chart was superimposed on a blow-up of the Milekey Mountain Range, showing the incredibly fast spread of a high-intensity mach storm.

“They’ll be coming in from this. Mach 4, at that.” Lanzecki’s dour face reflected both concern and satisfaction. “I hope someone remembered to cut subtonic cylinders. You may help me compute their cargoes. Nineteen singers are signed out to the Milekeys at the moment.”

Killashandra had, in the course of her training, assisted Lanzecki before. In fact, she had met most of the current active members who were not off-planet. There were two hundred forty-three members capable of singing crystal, but of that number almost half were off-world on leave.

Those who had come in with partial loads immediately got as drunk as possible and stayed drunk until their flitters were serviced and refueled, at which point they went straight back into the crystal ranges. Those who had caught the market at a good price got as drunk as possible until they could catch a ship off-world for leave.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me that I had to have a guide my first time out?” Killashandra asked, remembering that there were one or two men who could make passable partners.

“You hadn’t been sufficiently saturated with theory which they wouldn’t remember to tell you.”

So she sat with Lanzecki as the flitters came in and precious crystal was duly weighed, assessed and the market price established. Twelve made small fortunes. Of the remainder, only two singers were considered possible guides for her: a rather striking brunette with wild hair and eyes to whom Killashandra took an instant dislike. (The woman reminded her of a Stellar contralto in the Trans-Romantic Repertoire company.) And an intensely sullen yellow-skinned Coombsite with whom Killashandra had previously had a long drunken argument.

“He’s good in the upper registers, which would be an asset for you,” Lanzecki told her, but he wasn’t keen on Ardlor Bart at all. “Ibray is really less disoriented despite her appearance.”

“I’d rather pair with the man.”

“You could wait another. . . . No, I see you couldn’t. I’ll speak to Bart.”

Bart had no great desire to double with her his next trip out, Lanzecki reported. The man was determined to make enough crystal to get off-world and he didn’t want anyone around.

“He says the fee’s only a drop in the bucket of what he needs,” Lanzecki went on, when Killashandra pointed out that aspect, Section 14, Paragraph 9. “I’d forget him and go with Ibray. She cuts well in the Tortugal Hills and she’s much more reliable.”

Killashandra was adamant.

“Then you’ll have to convince Ardlor yourself,” Lanzecki told her, shrugging off further responsibility.

Killashandra found such convincing rather elementary although Ardlor had a marked tendency to call her by any name other than her own.

Three days later as she was in her flitter, checking it and her gear, the special ear-padded helmet that offered some protection against the worst of the sensory overload, the eye-lenses that filtered the blinding light refractions from open-face quartz mining, Lanzecki made a final attempt to persuade her to go with Ibray.

“Then don’t trust Ardlor’s memory about anything,” Lanzecki warned her. “He’s cut crystal too long and sung too long alone now.”

“Then why must I go with him or anyone?”

“His hands will remember. Watch what he does, not what he says. If he’s difficult, you can switch on the Playback. That’ll be official recall. And don’t—for the sake of your sanity—turn off any of the mach storm alarms. Remember that!”

Then to her surprise, Lanzecki gave her a warm and hearty handshake and said that she’d been one of his keenest students.

Ardlor had shown her on the range charts where he intended to take her.

“That storm will have bared some rose quartz. Lanzecki told me to remember about rose quartz. In octagon.” Ardlor’s face twisted with the effort of implanting that fact in his spongy mind. “It was octagons, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was.”

“No sunspot activity,” he told her, riffling through the pre-flight reports in his hand. “That last storm was planetary conjunction stuff. So long as there’s no sun-spot activity there’ll be clear days of cutting.” He winced. “I gotta remember rose quartz.” He tapped a scrawled note to that effect on the top of the p-f flimsies. “Not everyone can cut it. But you’ve a good upper register, haven’t you? I remember that.” He pulled nervously at his fringe of hair saying, “Now you follow me. Remember,” and then darted off to his craft.

Killashandra experienced a certain rush of elation as she guided her flitter up over the Guild field, dipping eastward to follow Ardlor’s brightly striped flyer.

There were five crystal-bearing areas on Ballybran, the largest of which was whimsically named Milekey Mountains. Various theories circulated as to why: the most popular was ascribed to the discoverer of the Ballybran crystal (whose name no one ever remembered). It was bruited about that he’d ventured a mile into the range before he’d notice the crystal, the planet’s unsuspected treasure.

Now, Ardlor and Killashandra penetrated a hundred and fifty kilometers into the Milekeys. Then Ardlor turned, speeding suddenly as if trying to lose her. One good look at the ripples of apparently identical deep troughs and canyons, and Killashandra wanted to be nearer him, who knew, presumably, where he was going.

“Stupid twit’s forgotten I’m supposed to be with him,” she muttered grimly and steeled herself for a chase.

Ardlor was a wild flitter-pilot and she was hard pressed to keep him in her viewplate as he swerved and tumbled deep into this canyon, zooming up, out and over into a still darker gorge so that she almost lost sight of him a couple of times in the shadows. Only the sun’s telltale refraction on his bumble-bee striped flitter cued her as to his whereabouts.

At length he settled to a ledge, barely big enough for the two flitters.

“Why are you following me? Claim-jumpers are fined to the fullest extent, Section 2, Paragraph 3. You’ll not get credit from my hard work!” He was jumping up and down in rage as she emerged exhausted from her flitter.

With a desperate and totally uncharacteristic display of diplomacy, she got Ardlor to switch on the Playback. She soothed him further with an exceptional feast from her own galley.

“Well, you’ve got to remember that you can’t stay here all the time,” Ardlor finally said, demurring, once the Playback proved to him he’d agreed to shepherd her. “Two days and then you’ll have to go the next range over. And if you ever. . . .”

“Section 2, Paragraph 3. I won’t claim-jump,” she vowed earnestly. “Not that I’d ever be able to find my way back here anyhow. I was so busy keeping you in my sights, how could I remember directional changes?”

Ardlor grumbled but that admission pacified him as much as the well-cooked food.

Flitters were equipped with tracking devices and homing signals. Traditional compasses, excellent guides on most Earth-type planets, tended to be unreliable on Ballybran: something to do with the storms and the crystal and the absence of much heavy metal in the planet’s crust. A directional finder could have been further developed to surmount such problems, but the crystal singers raised such a fuss about how that would facilitate claim-jumping that the research was abandoned. After all, the singer could get home on the directional finder and if he were “gone,” the Guild Cruiser could locate him.

As Killashandra was to discover, instinct caused something to blossom in the inner ear that enabled a singer to find his or her way back to a lode they’d once cut . . . some familiar note in the special crystalline chorus.

For the hills did sing back at you, in harmony, counterpoint or descant. Sing out a note and the whole side of a canyon answered you, ringing up and down the valley; velvet in the unseen shadowy depths that the sun might never lighten; high, clear, sweet on the crest of the ridges.

Nighttime was an exquisite pain of beautiful sound as the crystal sang and cried in the cooling air, diminishing to pianissimo multiple-part harmonies, so gentle the whisper was a mere caress in the blood.

“Crystal song is addictive and exhausting,” Killashandra announced (softly—so as not to start echoes) to herself on the fourth morning. She’d managed to sleep that night by wearing the padded helmet and closing the flitter’s ports.

She’d stayed beside Ardlor the first two days, watching him closely and noticing his mistakes, too, though he didn’t appear to note his errors in judgment. She did remind him about rose quartz in octagons and he thanked her gratefully the first nineteen times. After that he’d sullenly told her as he’d obstinately cut another tetrahedron that he’d been cutting crystal for longer than she’d been alive and she’d better mind her own business.

The third day she took his advice and hopped her flitter over not one but two ridges. Someone had worked this mountain before. She could see the old cuts, now wind-beveled and roughened by bombardment of shard and dirt.

Despite her self-confidence, Killashandra could not keep her hand from shaking as she held the supersonic cutter, preparatory to making her debut as a crystal singer. She took a good deep breath or two, pressed against her diaphragm and let an A-sharp above middle C emerge from her throat.

Instantly she was bombarded with echoes. It was one thing to listen to Ardlor making crystal sing, another to hear your own note bounce back at you from all sides. Slightly sour to the left, her ear told her, but true and pure directly in front of her where the rock face was scarred by old cuttings.

“Octagons,” she told herself firmly and made the first cut.

Crystal cries! A dissonance like no other, a complaint of an agony so primitive that it shook Killashandra to the roots of her teeth. She was so startled by the unexpected “pain” that she froze, and the agony turned to pure sound, as clear as the note she then hurriedly tuned on the cutter.

As she’d been forewarned, it was different cutting live crystal and different when your hand was guiding the cutter, and your bones echoed the sound. She excised the octagon from the quartz face, pared the outer sides and turned off the cutter. Almost reverently she held the finished prism in her hands. Reverberations from the cut-echoes vibrated against her flesh and she experienced a genuine awe for the dazzling object she had wrested from such a dull womb. Sunlight coruscated from all faces. The last thrum of sound was absorbed in her skin and yet Killashandra could not part with this, her first crystal song.

How long she stood musing over her handiwork she never knew, but a cloud passing over the sun roused her to sensations of cold and hunger. As much because she was yearning to repeat this magical rapport with her victims, Killashandra forced herself instead to eat and find a heavier jacket. She remembered the storm alarms. They were comfortably inactive.

She approached her second cut with more confidence, working about the first incision. This crystal sounded true, a third higher, and the finished octagon was smaller. But the experience of cutting, of holding the finished crystal like a warm pulsing rock-heart in her hand, was as exquisitely beautiful.

She’d cut only four crystals by the time the range began its night song. She puzzled over this phenomenon, having watched Ardlor cut thirty and more crystals as large or larger in a single day. She wondered if she was working too slowly, though she had no sense of slacking, knowing herself to be manually dextrous.

She was forced to the conclusion that she must be spending an inordinate amount of time communing with the finished prism. She took herself sternly to task the second morning and determinedly placed each crystal in the protective casing as soon as she made the final slice.

Obviously she’d lost hours of time in the sensual contemplation of her handiwork for that day she cut 19 rose quartz octagons in A-sharp or higher, triumphantly finishing the day with a five-tone dominant of matched rose crystal.

She woke in the night, suddenly, an odd apprehension driving sleep from her mind. Uneasily she checked the crystal, wondering if something might be causing them to sing, but the smooth sides were silent when she flicked back the protective sheathings.

Outside the night was clear and cold and the range somnolent. Only the faintest whisper of their lullabies was audible. She glanced at the storm alarms and thought she detected a flicker on the DEW, but it might have been her imagination for nothing else blurped in a space of five minutes.

She gained some uneasy sleep for the remainder of the night, but by the first crack of light she was wide awake and doubly apprehensive. Two widely spaced flickers marred the dull face of the DEW. If there were a storm in the making, she would have plenty of other warning. She buried herself in work, but despite the involvement with crystal song, she was continually aware of something being not quite right. She was storing the first full crate of the day in the hold when she heard more alarms singing out.

Mach storm! She knew the drill and computed its arrival in approximately three hours, building from the northwest and due to sweep her relative area in the southeast. She had two hours leeway to escape the consequences.

She cleared away her equipment, grav-locked the precious cargo and strapped herself in. Not that she’d need the storm fastenings. She took off, activating the homing device as she’d not worked out where she actually was, thanks to Ardlor’s evasive tactics. Ardlor!

She veered left, over his working, and saw him busily chewing out a large tetrahedron. She wondered if he’d remembered octagons at all.

He was furious when he saw her, screaming vituperative curses and chanting Section 2, Paragraph 3. He’d report her to Lanzecki. Infringement! She’d not have any of his tetrahedrons. When she tried to leave her flitter, he attacked her with his cutter. She evaded him and moving swiftly got into his flitter and snapped up the Remind toggle.

“I’m supposed to be with you, you addle-pated baritone,” she roared at him as the replay intoned the original orders. “Listen! It’s Lanzecki’s voice.”

The crystal singer paused in his efforts to slice her up. And she took advantage of his momentary armistice to flick on the storm warnings. They blared forth, above Lanzecki’s recital, at top, urgent volume.

“There’s a mach storm coming. We’ve got to leave.”

“Leave?” Panic replaced anger in Ardlor’s wizened face. “I can’t leave. I’ve struck a pure vein. . . . I’ve. . . .” He clamped his mouth shut with remembered caution and was about to renew his attack on her when the storm klaxons hit a new dissonance. “I’ll just cut one more. Just one more,” he pleaded with her piteously. “I’ve got to get off-world this time. I’ve got to get crystal out of my blood.”

Killashandra snagged the cutter from his relaxed grip.

“You can’t cut crystal with a mach storm coming, you fool.”

“Crystal really sings when a storm’s coming. Can’t you hear it? Are you deaf?”

Now she fell for his ploy, stepping to the flitter entrance and hearing the distant thrumming as the ranges began to echo the stroking of approaching winds. Ardlor wrenched his cutter from her hand and leapt from the flitter. Cursing, Killashandra followed him, caught his tunic and, applying pressure, swung him toward her, lashing out with a sure fist to the side of his jaw. He collapsed.

She caught the cutter from his lax hand, let him easily to the ground. She put the cutter carefully in its cradle before she struggled to get him aboard and into his couch. The storm warnings added their wild obbligato to her exertions, reaching a well-nigh unendurable wail.

“Oh, shut up. Shut up!” she cried, exasperated in her efforts to save Ardlor, his crystals and his ship.

It was then she caught sight of her own craft and realized her dilemma. Two ships and one conscious pilot. She tried to rouse Ardlor but he was impervious to stimulus.

Killashandra searched her memory for a Section and Paragraph covering rescue and salvage, but she simply couldn’t think what it was. She did remember the two vouchers for escorting Carrik back and decided that there’d be something and she’d recall it later. After all, she owed Ardlor something for shepherding her when he didn’t want to and he did want to get off-world this trip, so it was up to her to preserve his everlasting unwanted tetrahedrons. A quick glance told her that his cargo space wasn’t full. She might be able to save something herself. She raced to her ship and scurried back with the dominant fifths. They’d be worth something. Would she have time for more?

The warning systems had climbed several deafening decibels toward the supersonic. She could now see the darkening of the horizon and the storm’s approach. She risked one more trip, almost stumbling in her haste to get the crate aboard. She took care to secure them, vowing that she was going to exorcise her conscience as soon as possible for the nuisancy thing it was.

All flitters had similar control panels, though Ardlor’s was somewhat the worse for wear and, despite a recent servicing, dirt engrained.

She lifted off, slamming on the homing device and veering upward as fast as she dared. His craft was sluggish. Didn’t Ardlor believe in maintenance? And he all ready to cut again with the storm speeding down on them? He took ridiculous risks.

She cast one last look at her own trim flitter, wondering if she’d ever see it again, wondering how much damage the storm would wreak on it. She’d have to pay for the repairs, Sections 9, 10, 11 ... all paragraphs. Funny she couldn’t think what the salvage rule was.

She was glad she’d secured Ardlor, because he came to before they’d quite cleared the Milekeys and he turned into a raving maniac. She could appreciate his agony because she felt the mach-tuned dissonances herself, jabbing her nerve ends, scoring her eardrums despite the buffering helmet.

He finally knocked himself out again, throwing his head against the duralloy wall so the last few hours into Ballybran City gave her the requisite quiet to restore her own nerves. Nonetheless she was feeling rather pleased with herself as she landed Ardlor’s flitter and reported to field control that she had Ardlor with her.

She stood and watched the medics take the man’s limp body off, even though she was told to report instantly to Lanzecki.

“He’ll probably be all right,” the medics told her diffidently.

She was miffed that they didn’t seem to care about him or comment on her self-sacrifice. She’d not expected bouquets but a remark somehow seemed in order. If anything, the ground crew was uncomplimentarily annoyed with her for rescuing the older flitter.

Despite that prelude, she was hardly prepared for Lanzecki’s castigations.

“Lost your flitter first time out? And a new one at that! How did you contrive to be so careless?” he demanded.

“I wasn’t careless. I had to rescue Ardlor and I couldn’t transfer everything to my flitter. Not with a storm ranging down on us.”

“You rescued Ardlor?” Lanzecki was astounded. “I gave you more credit than that.”

Killashandra gagged. “But... he wouldn’t listen. He even tried to slice me as a claim-jumper. . . .” She couldn’t believe Lanzecki’s reaction. “I had to knock him out to save his neck. What’d you expect me to do?”

“Leave him there, of course.”

She stared, aghast, at the Guildmaster.

“He’d’ve shown no compunction about leaving you in similar circumstances, I assure you. You did all that could be required of you by apprising him of the storm’s approach. Then you should have taken off and saved your own nerves . .. and cuttings. As it is,” and Lanzecki made a few passes at his computer, “you’re now in debt to the Guild to the tune of 8,000 credits.” He looked at her sternly. “You’re responsible for the repairs ... if any can be effected when your flitter is recovered. . . .”

“But the crystals I’d already cut. . . .”

Lanzecki shrugged. “The containers are designed to keep the crystal safe through the normal hazards of air travel, not being bucked down mile-deep canyons. I doubt any will survive.

“I got two crates of rose quartz octagons out of my ship before I lifted off.”

“You did?” Lanzecki’s sour expression lightened and he seemed less forbidding. “What did you salvage?” His fingers poised over the computer keys.

“It’s on the docket. . . .” She pointed.

“On Ardlor’s?”

“Well, certainly. . . .”

“Then it’s to his credit.”

“Oh, come now. How else could I get mine back? And no one told me I had to sort cargo, too.” She was mad now.

Lanzecki continued obdurate. “The rules which govern the members of this Guild were clearly explained to you, Killashandra Ree. This is covered. . . .”

“I can’t remember all of your forsaken rules for the gods’ sakes!”

‘“Ah!” Lanzecki’s face brightened suddenly. “Fair enough. In the emergency you did not remember the need to personalize your crates.”

“I had rose quartz, cut in octagons, one set is five octagons in a dominant A-major chord.”

“Ah, very good. Very good indeed.” Lanzecki nodded approvingly as he jabbed computer buttons. The computer chattered back at him and he beamed up at her. “Even better. Six crates of octagons . . . two rose quartz, four black. . . .” “Ah. . . .”

“Ardlor is screaming that if you claim any tetrahedrons, you’re stealing his cuttings.”

“But I. . . .”

“Therefore the octagons are undeniably yours.” Lanzecki eyed her so sternly that her attempts to be honest caught in her throat. “Now,” and he made another pass at the keyboard, glanced at the print-out, “you are only 5,750 credits in the Guild’s debt. Rose quartz octagons bring a premium market price. Especially that chord!”

“There’s the voucher from you for bringing Carrik back, too.”

“Why so there is.” He tallied that in as well and then beamed at her. “Well, you haven’t done badly your first trip out. Now if the flitter can be salvaged. . . .”

“Speaking of salvage, do I get nothing for Ardlor and his cargo?”

Lanzecki looked her straight in the eye. “I think, my dear Killashandra, you’ve realized more than your due out of this affair. I wouldn’t push my luck any further. Or Ardlor may remember that you returned, unasked to his claim. He might even file a charge against you____”

Lanzecki held his hand up against her protest. “I accept your version unconditionally because you’re too new in the Guild to be disoriented. However, you’ve had a valuable lesson, which I hope you’ll never forget. Don’t worry about another man’s ears in the crystal ranges. Keep your own clear. Gratitude is dependent on memory. That’s one thing that you can’t count on anymore.”

“I’ll remember that,” Killashandra said grimly.