The Crystal Singer

Reprise

What are you doing back now?" the lock attendant demanded as she entered.

“Wough? What sort of transport were you on? You reek.”

“Selkite,” Killashandra said grimly. She had become used to her own fragrance within the Selkite's O-breather quarters.

“There s some ships no one will travel on. Pity you weren't warned.” He was pinching his nostrils closed.

“I'll remember, I assure you.”

She started for the Guild's transient quarters.

“Hey, there's no vacancies. Passover storms aren't over yet, you know.”

“I know, but getting here was more important than waiting the storms out.”

“Not if you had to travel Selkite. But there's plenty of space in the regular quarters,” and the man thumbed the archway that she had entered so naively a few months before. “No travelers here yet. Doesn't make any difference with your credit where you stay, you know.”

Killashandra thanked him and walked on through the blue-irised entrance toward the hostel, trying to remember the girl she'd been at that point and unable to credit how much had occurred since then. Including the simultaneous realization of two ambitions.

The aroma she exuded alerted Ford, still at his reception counter.

“But you're a Singer. You oughtn't to be here.” His nose wrinkled, and he shuddered, licking his lips. “Singers have their own quarters.”

“Full up. Just give me a room and let me fumigate myself.”

Killashandra advanced to the counter to put her wrist unit to the plate.

“No, no, that won't be necessary!” Ford handed her the key, his arm stretching out to keep as much distance from her as possible.

“I know I'm bad, but am I that bad?”

Ford tried to stammer an apology, but Killashandra let the key guide her to her quarters.

“I've given you the biggest we have.” Ford's voice followed her through the hallway.

The room was down a level, and assuming that the lock attendant had been correct – that there were no visitors at that time – Killashandra began ripping off her stinking clothes. The key warmed at the appropriate room, and she shoved through the panel, shutting it and leaning against the door to shuck off her pants and footwear. She looked at the carisak and decided there was no point in fumigating those things. She stuffed everything into the disposal unit with a tremendous sense of relief.

The Shankill accommodation had only shower facilities but a decent array of herb and fragrance washes. She stood under the jets, as hot as the spray would come, then laved herself until her skin was raw. She stepped out of the shower enclosure, smelling her hands and her shoulders, bending to sniff her knees, and decided that she was possibly close to decontaminated.

It was only drying her hair that she realized she didn't have any fresh clothes to put on. She dialed the commissary and ordered the first coverall that appeared on the fax then keyed for perfumes and ordered a large bottle of something spicy. She needed some spice in her life after the Selkite vessel. Well, Pendel had tried to warn her. Come to consider, even the Selkites were better than remaining in the vicinity of Francu or that bonehead Chasurt.

Then she remembered to take out her lenses and sighed with relief as color, decent soothing color, sprang up around the room.

She ordered a Yarran beer and wondered how Lanzecki had weathered Passover. Immured by herself in the Selkite ship, she had come to terms with lingering feelings of resentment for the Guild Master and wanted very much to continue in friendship with the man. Solitude was a great leveler: stinking solitude made one grateful for remembered favors and kindness. She owed Lanzecki more of those than accusations.

The beer was so good! She lifted her beaker in a toast to Pendel. She hoped that for every Francu she met, there would be at least one Pendel to be grateful for.

The door chime sounded. She wrapped a dry towel around her, wondering why her order was being delivered instead of sent by tube. She released the door lock and was about to slide the panel back when it was moved from without.

“What are you doing back here?” Lanzecki stepped into the room, looming angrily above her in the narrow confines. He closed the panel behind him and lobbed a parcel in the direction of the bed.

“What are you doing on Shankill?” She tried to tighten the towel above her breasts.

He brought both hands to his belt and stared at her, his eyes glittering, his face set in the most uncompromising lines, his mouth still.

“Shankill affords the most strategic point from which to assess the storm flows.”

“Then you do escape from the storms,” she said with intense relief.

“As I wanted you to escape them, but you're back here days early.” He swept an angry gesture with one arm as if he wanted to strike her.

“Why not?” Killashandra had to stand her ground before him. “I'd finished the wretched installations. Were the storms as bad as predicted? I've heard nothing.”

“You were scheduled to return on a comfortable passenger frigate seven days from now.” He scrutinized her closely. “The damage could have been worse,” he added grudgingly. She wasn't sure whether he referred to her or the storms.

“I took the Selkite freighter.”

“I'm aware of that.” His nostrils flared with distaste.

“I've tried to decontaminate. It was awful. Why wasn't I told about Selkites? No, I was, but I wouldn't listen because I couldn't stay one more moment on that fardling Trundie cruiser.” The towel was coming loose as she remembered Francu. “Why didn't you at least warn me about the Trundies?”

Lanzecki shrugged. “We didn't have much on them, but you at least had no preconceptions or the residue of partial memories of other isolated systems to prejudice your actions.”

“They may never deal with another Crystal Singer.”

“They'll deal with the Guild.” Lanzecki was smiling, his body relaxing, his eyes warming.

«More important, Lanzecki» – and she tried to step back, away from him until she'd aired her grievances. «Why didn't you tell me about link-shock? I sang the king crystal, link and all, and they brought me to my knees.»

“Link-shock's about the only thing that would.” He put his warm hands on her shoulders and held her firmly, his eyes examining her face. “No one can describe link-shock. It's experienced on different levels by different personalities. To warn is to inhibit.”

“I can certainly appreciate that!”

He chuckled at her sarcastic comment and began to draw her to him, his embrace as much of an apology as he was ever likely to give her.

“Some people feel nothing at all.”

“I'm sorry for them.” She was not sarcastic now.

“For you, Killashandra, to link a set of crystals you yourself cut binds you closer to black crystal.” He spoke slowly, again with the hidden pain that she had once before heard in his voice. She let herself be drawn against his strong body, realizing how keenly she had missed him even as she had damned him, grateful now to give and receive comfort. “The Guild needs black-crystal Singers.”

“Is that why you've personally guided my career, Lanzecki?” She reached her hand to his lips, feeling them curve in amusement.

“My professional life is dedicated to the Guild, Killashandra. Never forget that. My personal life is another matter, entirely private.” His lips moved sensuously across her fingers as he spoke.

«I like you, Lanzecki – damn your mouth.» She bubbled with laughter and the joy of being with him again.

He took her hand and kissed the palm, the contact sending chills through her body.

“In the decades ahead of us, Killashandra, try to keep that in mind?”