Crystal Singer (12 page)

“Where are you from?” Rimbol asked guilelessly.

“Privacy.” She snapped the qualification curtly.

“As you will, citizen,” Rimbol replied, and turned his back on her.

That was also an insult but not an invasion of Privacy, so Carigana had to be content with glaring about her. Class 895 averted its eyes, and with a noise of disgust, Carigana took her leave. The space worker had had a dampening effect on the entire group because suddenly everyone began to talk. It was Rimbol who dialed the first drink, letting out a whoop.

“They’ve got Yarran beer! Hey, come try a real drink!” He exhorted all to join him and before long had everyone served, if not with the Yarran beer he touted, at least with some mild intoxicant. “We may never get off this planet again,” he said to Killashandra as he joined her, “but they sure make it comfortably homelike.”

“A restriction is only restricting because you know it exists,” Killashandra said. “ ‘Nor iron bars a prison make’,” she added, dredging up an old quote unexpectedly.

“Prison? That’s archaic,” said Rimbol with a snort. “Tonight let’s enjoy!”

Rimbol’s exuberance was hard to resist, and Killashandra didn’t care to. She wanted to abandon her skeptical mood, as much because she didn’t want to echo Carigana as to purge her mind of its depressions. There had been some small truth in the space worker’s complaints, but blunt though Killashandra knew herself to be, even she could have made points more tactfully. Of course, the girl was probably on a psych-twist, from what Rimbol had learned of her. How had she passed that part of the Guild preliminary exams? More importantly, if Carigana was so contemptuous of the Guild, why had she applied for admission?

Conversations swirled pleasantly all around her, and she began to listen. The recruits came from varied backgrounds and training disciplines, but each and every one of them, geared to succeed in highly skilled work, had been denied their goals at the last moment. Was it not highly coincidental that all of them had hit upon the Heptite Guild as an alternative career?

Killashandra found that conclusion invalid. There were hundreds of human planets, moon bases, and space facilities offering alternative employment to everyone, that is, except herself and Rimbol. In fact, the two musicians could probably have taken on temporary assignments in their original fields. A second objection was that, thirty-three people were an infinitesimal factor among the vast multitudes who might not have jobs waiting for them in their immediate vicinities. Colonial quotas were always absorbing specialists, and one could always work a ship one-way to get to a better employment market. She found the reflections a trifle unsettling, yet how could such a subtle recruitment be accomplished? Certainly no probability curve could have anticipated her crossing Carrik’s path in the Fuertan space port. His decision had been whimsical, and there could have been no way of knowing that her aimless wandering would take her to the space port. No, the coincidence factor was just too enormous.

She sat for a few moments longer, finishing the Yarran beer that Rimbol had talked her into trying. He was telling some involved joke to half a dozen listeners. By no means as shy with drink in him and lacking his stammer, Shillawn was talking earnestly to one of the girls. Jezerey was half asleep, though trying to keep her eyes open as Borton argued some point with the oldest recruit, a swarthy faced man from Amodeus VII. He had his second mate’s deep space ticket as well as radiology qualifications. Maybe the Guild needed another shuttle pilot more than they needed crystal miners

Killashandra wished she could gracefully retire. She did not intend making the same mistakes with this group that she had in the Music Center. Carigana had already provoked dislike by her unacceptable behavior, so Killashandra had a prime example she was not going to emulate. Then she caught Jezerey’s eyes as the girl yawned broadly. Killashandra grinned and jerked her head in the direction of the rooms.

“You can talk all night if you want to,” the girl said, rising, “but I’m going to bed, and so is Killashandra. See you in the morning.” Then she added as the two reached the corridor, “Shards, was I glad of an excuse. G’night.”

Killashandra repeated the salute and, once in her room, gratefully gave the verbal order to secure her privacy until morning.

A curious glow at the window attracted her attention, and she darkened the room light that had come on at her entrance. She caught her breath then at the sight of the two moons: golden Shankill, large and appearing far nearer than it actually was; just above it, hanging as if from a different radius altogether, the tiny, faintly green luminescence of Shilmore, the innermost and smallest moon. She was accustomed to night skies with several satellites, but somehow these were unusual. Though Killashandra had never been off Fuerte before she met Carrik, she had had every intention of traveling extensively throughout the galaxy, as a performing soloist of any rank would have done. Perhaps it was because she might be seeing only these moons for the rest of her life that they now had a special radiance for her. She sat on the edge of her bed, watching their graceful ascent until Shilmore had outrun her larger companion and disappeared beyond Killashandra’s view.

Then she went to bed and slept.

The next morning, she and the other recruits learned the organization of the Guild Complex and were obliquely informed that the higher the level, the lower the status. They were introduced rapidly to the geology of Ballybran and made a beginning with its complex meteorology.

Trouble started about midafternoon as the students were viewing the details of the Charter of the Heptite Guild as a diversion after meta-maths. Rimbol muttered that the Guild was damned autocratic for a member of the Federated Planets. Shillawn, swallowing first, mumbled about data retrieval and briefing.

It took a few moments before the import of the section dealing with tithes, fee, and charges was fully understood. With a growing sense of indignation, Killashandra learned that from the moment she had been sworn in at the moon base as a recruit, the Guild could charge her for any and all services rendered, including a fee of transfer from the satellite to the planet.

“Do they charge, too, for the damn spores in the air we’re breathing?” Carigana demanded, characteristically the first to find voice after the initial shock. For once, she had the total support of the others. With a fine display of vituperation, she vented her anger on Tukolom, the visible representative of the Guild that she vehemently declared had exploited the unsuspecting.

“Told you were,” Tukolom replied, unexpectedly raising his voice to top hers. “Available to you was that data at Shankill. The charter in the data is.”

“How would we have known to ask?” Carigana retorted, her anger fueled by his answer. “This narding Guild keeps its secrets so well, you’re not led to expect a straight answer to a direct question!”

“Thinking surely you would,” Tukolom said, unruffled and with an irony that surprised Killashandra. “Maintenance charges only at cost are—”

“No where else in the galaxy do students have to pay for subsistence—”

“Students you are not.” Tukolom was firm. “Guild members are you!”

Not even Carigana could find a quick answer to that. She glared around her, her flashing eyes begging someone to have a rejoinder.

“Trapped us, haven’t you?” She spat the words at the man. “Good and truly trapped. And we walked so obligingly into it.” She flung herself down on the seating unit, her hands flopping uselessly about her thighs.

“Once trained, salary far above galactic average,” Tukolom announced diplomatically into the silence. “Most indebtedness cleared by second year. Then—every wish satisfy. Order any thing from any place in galaxy.” He tendered a thin smile of encouragement. “Guild credit good anywhere for anything.”

“That’s not much consolation for being stuck on this planet for the rest of your life,” Carigana replied with a snarl.

Once she had absorbed the initial shock, Killashandra was willing to admit that the Guild method was fair. Its members must be furnished with private quarters, food, clothing, personal necessities, and medical care. Some of the specialists, the Singers especially, had a further initial outlay for equipment. The cost of the flitter craft used by Crystal Singers in the ranges was staggering, the sonic cutting gear that had to be tuned to the user was also expensive and a variety of other items whose purpose was not yet known to her were basic Singer’s tools.

Obviously, the best job to have on Ballybran was that of a Crystal Singer even if the Guild did “tithe” 30 percent of the crystal cut and brought in. She duly noted the phrase,
brought in
, and wondered if she could find a vocabulary section in the data bank that would define words in precisely the nuance meant on Ballybran. Interlingual was accurate enough, but every profession has terms that sound familiar, seem innocuous, and are dangerous to the incompletely initiated.

A wide variety of supporting skills put the Singers into the ranges, maintained the vehicles, buildings, space station, research, medical facilities, and the administration of it all. Twenty thousand technicians, essential to keep the four thousand or so Singers working, and this very elite group was somehow recruited from the galaxy.

The argument over entrapment, as Carigana vehemently insisted on calling it, continued long after Tukolom left. Killashandra noticed him as he gradually worked his way from the center of the explosion, almost encouraging Carigana to become the focus, then adroitly slipped down a corridor. He’s pulled the fade-away act before, Killashandra thought. Perversely, she then became annoyed because she and her group were reacting predictably; it was one thing to have a stage director prescribe your moves on stage, quite another to be manipulated in one’s living. She had thought to be free of overt management, so she experienced a surge of anger. To rant as Carigana was doing solved nothing except the immediate release of an energy and purpose that could be used to better advantage.

Ignoring Carigana’s continuing harangue, Killashandra quietly moved to a small terminal and asked for a review of the Charter. After a few moment’s study, she left the machine. There was no legal way in which one could relinquish membership in the Heptite Guild except by dying. Even in sickness, mental or physical, the Guild had complete protective authority over every member so sworn, averred, and affirmed. Now she appreciated the FSP officials and the elaborate rigmarole. On the other hand, she had been
told
; she could have withdrawn after full disclosure if she hadn’t been so eager to flaunt Maestro Valdi and prove to Andurs that she’d be right as a Crystal Singer. The section on the Guild’s responsibilities to the individual member was clear. Killashandra could see definite advantages, including the ones that had lured her to Ballybran. If she became a Crystal Singer . . . She preferred “Singer” to the Guild’s dull job description, “Cutter.”

“Ever the optimist, Killa?” Rimbol asked. He must have been standing behind her a while.

“Well, I prefer that role to hers.” She inclined her head sharply in Carigana’s direction. “She’s beating her gums over ways to break a contract that we were warned was irrevocable.”

“D’you suppose they count on our being obstinate by nature?”

“Obviously, they have psychologists among the membership.” Killashandra laughed. “You want what you can’t or shouldn’t have or are denied. Human nature.”

“Will we still be human after symbiosis?” Rimbol wondered aloud, cocking his head to one side, his eyes narrow with speculation.

“I can’t say as I’d like Borella for an intimate friend,” Killashandra began.

“Nor I.” Rimbol’s laugh was infectious.

“I did hear her come out with a very human, snide comment on the shuttle.”

“About us?”

“In general. But I
liked
Carrik. He knew how to enjoy things, even silly things, and—”

Rimbol touched her arm, and the glint of his blue eyes reminded her of the look in Carrik’s when they’d first met.

“Comparisons are invidious but . . . join me?”

Killashandra gave him a longer, speculative look. His gaiety and ingenuous appearance, his gregariousness, were carefully cultivated to counterbalance his unusual coloring.

The expression on his face, the warmth of his eyes and smile, and the gentle stroking of his hand on her arm effected a distinct change in her attitude toward him.

“Guaranteed Privacy between members of equal rank.” His voice was teasing and she had no desire to resist his temptation.

With Carigana’s strident voice in their ears, they slipped down the corridor to her room and enjoyed complete Privacy.

The next morning Tukolom marshaled Class 895, some of whom were decidedly the worse for a night’s drinking.

“Borton, Jezerey, also Falanog, qualified are you already on surface and shuttle craft. To take your pilot cards to Flight Control on first level. Follow gray strip down, turn right twice, Guild Member Danin see. All others of this class with me are coming.”

Tukolom led without turning to discover if he was being followed, but the class, sullen or just resigned, obeyed. Shillawn stepped in behind Killashandra and Rimbol.

“I figured it out,” he said with his characteristic gulp. His anxiety to please was so intense that Killashandra asked him what had he figured out. “How much it will all cost until we start earning credits. And . . . and what the lowest credit rating is. It’s not too bad, really. Guild charges at cost and doesn’t add a tariff for transport or special orders.”

“Having done us to get us here, they’re not out to do us further, huh?”

“Well”—and Shillawn had to shuffle awkwardly to keep a position where his words would be audible only to Rimbol and Killashandra—“it
is
fair.”

Rimbol shrugged. “So, what is the lowest Guild wage? And how long will it take to pay off what we’re racking up just by breathing?”

“Well”—Shillawn held up his jotter—“the lowest wage is for a caterer’s assistant and that brings in three thousand five hundred credits plus Class three accommodations, clothing allowance and two hundred luxury units per standard year. We’re charged at the base-level accommodations, shuttle passage was only fifteen cr, but any unusual item from catering—except two beakers of beverages up to Grade four—is charged against the individual’s account. So, if you don’t eat exotic, or drink heavy, you’d clear off the initial levies at a c.a.’s pay in”— Shillawn had to skip after them as he glanced down at his jotter and lost his stride—“in seven months, two weeks and five days’ standard.”