Killashandra (39 page)

T
hey had just finished eating when the comunit blipped. Killashandra flicked open the channel. Mirbethan appeared, looking both annoyed and hesitant. Killashandra schooled her face to courteous inquiry.

“My apologies for disturbing you so early, Guildmember …” she did not continue until Killashandra had murmured reassurance, “but a citizen has been most persistent in trying to contact you … We have assured him that you are not to be disturbed by trivia. He insists on speaking with you personally and his attitude borders on the insolent.” Mirbethan closed her mouth primly on the verdict.

“Well, well, what’s his name?”

“Corish von Mittelstern. He says that he met you on board the
Athena.
” Mirbethan obviously doubted this.

“Indeed he did. A pleasant young man who knows nothing of my Guild affiliation. Put him through.”

Corish’s image immediately replaced Mirbethan’s.
He was frowning but his expression cleared into a broad smile once he saw Killashandra.

“Thank Krim I got you, Killashandra. I was beginning to doubt that you ever existed, with that Conservatory playing it so cosy. I never heard of a Conservatory monitoring the calls of a student.”

“They’re very careful and they prefer your complete dedication to your studies here.”

“You mean, you’ve been allowed to play on one of those special organs?”

Killashandra affected a girlish giggle. “Me? No. But I heard the most marvelous recital on the Conservatory’s two-manual sensory organ last night. You wouldn’t believe how versatile it is, how powerful, how stimulating. Corish, you’ve simply got to get to one of the concerts before you leave. The public ones will be starting soon, they tell me, but I could see if it’s possible to get you to one here at the Conservatory. You really have to hear the Optherian organ, Corish, before you can possibly understand what it’s like for me.” Someone pinched her arm. Well, maybe she was overdoing it a trifle but enthusiasm was not out of order. “Have you found your uncle yet?”

Corish’s expression altered from the skeptical to the dolorous. “Not yet.”

“Oh, dear, how very disappointing.”

“Yes, it is. And I’ve only two more weeks before I’m scheduled to leave. The family is going to be upset about my failure. Look, Killashandra, I know you’re studying hard, and this is a chance of a lifetime for you, but could you spare me an evening?” Killashandra gave Corish full marks for a fine performance.

“Oh, Corish, you sound so discouraged. Yes, I’m sure I can wangle an evening out. I don’t think there’s a concert tonight. I’ll find out. I’m not a prisoner here.”

“I should hope not,” Corish said stiffly.

“Look, where can I reach you?”

“The Piper Facility,” Corish replied as if there were no other suitable place in the City, “where you
said
,” and he emphasized the word, “that you’d leave a message for me. I was concerned when there’d been no word at all from you. Food’s not bad here but they won’t serve anything drinkable. Typical traveler hostel. I’ll see if they can recommend some place a little more Optherian. This isn’t a bad world, you know. I’ve met some sterling people, very helpful, very kind.” Then his expression brightened. “You check and leave word at the Facility only if you can’t make it. Otherwise, come here at seven thirty. You have enough funds for ground transport, don’t you?” Now he was the slightly condescending, well traveled adult, older sibling.

“Of course I do. You sound just like my brother,” she replied cheerfully. “See you!” And she broke the connection, turning to Trag and Lars. “That sort of solves one problem, doesn’t it?”

“Does it?” Trag asked darkly.

“I think so,” Lars replied. “Corish has an unlimited travel pass, issued by Elder Pentrom. His credentials must have come from very highly placed Federationists for that kind of assistance.”

“More likely, ‘his uncle’ is due to inherit a sizable hunk of credit of which the Optherian government will get its own share.” Killashandra suggested. Lars nodded. “And if his cover has been that good, it’s unlikely the Elders have tumbled to his true identity so he could get in touch with anyone we need, including Olav Dahl! Or Nahia or Hauness.”

“What concerns me,” Lars said, his eyes clouded with anxiety, “is why he’s getting in touch with you right now. He must have come back to the City from Ironwood—and Nahia and Hauness. Maybe they’re in jeopardy. So many people were picked up on the search and seize …”

Killashandra put a reassuring hand on Lars’s arm. “I think somehow Corish would have managed to intimate that.”

“I think he did by not admitting to finding his uncle.”

“If he admitted to having found his uncle,” Trag said, unexpectedly joining forces with Killashandra to reassure Lars, “he would no longer have any need to use that travel pass, and if he’s as good a Council agent as he seems to be, he wouldn’t surrender that option.”

Lars accepted that interpretation with a nod of his head and pretended to be reassured.

“We’ll know soon enough,” Killashandra said kindly.

“Well, when you meet Corish this evening,” Lars said, “walk to whichever restaurant he’s been recommended. That way you have some chance of open talk. The Piper is certain to recommend The Berry Bush or Frenshaw’s. Neither are far from the Piper, but both restaurants are run by Optherians, loyal and true to the Elders, so you’ll be under observation. The food’s pretty good.” Lars gave her an encouraging grin.

“Then I’m taking the jammer, too. Got to keep them thinking it’s me that causes the static. Well, they should have had enough time to digest Corish’s innocuous conversation.” So Killashandra tapped out a sequence on the comunit. “Mirbethan, is there a concert tonight? I shouldn’t want to miss any but von Mittelstern has invited me to dinner tonight, and I’ve accepted. I don’t want him to come charging up here and discover I’m more than the simple music student he thinks me, so I’ll settle his doubts.”

Whatever Mirbethan thought was disguised by her reassurances that no concert was scheduled.

“Then please arrange transport for me this evening. By the way, when is the next concert? I’m fascinated by the organ effects. Fabulous concert last night. The most unusual one I’ve ever attended.”

“Tomorrow evening, Guildmember.” Mirbethan’s reply was gracious, but Killashandra noticed the slightly smug turn to the woman’s faint smile.

“Good.” Killashandra broke the connection. “Offense is the best defense, Guildmember,” she added, turning to Trag. “You didn’t have to promise the Elders that you’d discipline me for my emotional aberration, did you? Well, then, it’s business as usual for me in a normal fashion which means I come and go, whether they trail me or not. Right? And since I’m disaffected with you,” and Killashandra kissed Lars’s cheek, “I’ll go alone. Unless, Trag, you want to come and meet Corish.”

“I might, at that,” Trag said, half-closing his eyes a moment.

“That gives me the chance to moon after Mirbethan,” Lars said slyly.

Killashandra guffawed and wished him luck.

“Now let us attend our duties,” Trag said, gesturing for Killashandra to precede them to the door.

When they reached the Festival Auditorium, a large contingent of security men was loosely scattered about the stage, concentrated near the organ console, which was open. Two men were fussing about the keyboard but Killashandra couldn’t tell whether they were dusting or adjusting, the keys. Suddenly Elder Ampris detached himself from the gaggle and took a few steps forward to meet them.

“Don’t overdo it, Killa,” Lars murmured at her, aiming a slightly fatuous grin at the Elder.

“After last night, Elder Ampris, I wonder at my audacity in suggesting that I play on any Optherian organ,” she said, and felt Lars’s admonitory pinch on the tender inside flesh of her arm. Unnecessary, she felt, since she had forced herself to employ a meek and sincere tone of voice.

“You enjoyed the concert?”

“I have never heard anything like it,” she said, which was no more than the truth. “Truly an experience. Mirbethan tells me there’ll be another one tomorrow evening. I do hope that we’ll be invited?”

“Of course you are, my dear Killashandra,” Elder Ampris replied, his eyes glittering almost benignly at her.

She limited herself to a happy smile and continued on to the organ loft door.

“A word with you, Elder Ampris,” Trag began, his anxious frown attracting the Elder’s instant attention.

Killashandra and Lars continued into the organ loft.

“You pinched far too hard!”

“You wouldn’t fool me, Killa!”

“Well, I did fool him,” and hiding her gesture from observation, she pointed to the hairless corner of the manual cabinet.

“Jammer on?” she asked.

“The moment I finished pinching.”

“Brackets, please!”

They had already positioned the first of the final slender crystals when Trag and Elder Ampris entered.

“Only five more crystals and this installation is complete,” Trag was saying to Ampris. “I know that Killashandra is well aware that these upper register notes require the finest tuning.” Killashandra nodded, receiving his tacit message. “I will check the brackets on that sour crystal in the Conservatory organ and be back here in time for the tune-up.”

Killashandra was hoping that Elder Ampris would leave them to the task but he elected to remain, observing every movement. Killashandra hated to be overseen under any circumstances, and to have Ampris’s gimlet eyes on her made the hairs on the back of her neck rise. She was annoyed, too, because Ampris’s
presence put the damper on any conversation between herself and Lars. She had enjoyed the bantering exchanges which relieved the tedium and tension of this highly precise work. So she felt doubly aggrieved to be denied a morning of matching wits with Lars Dahl. They would have so little time left to enjoy each other’s company.

Therefore, it gave her a great deal of vicarious pleasure to spin out the last final bracketings, giving Trag ample time to make his alterations on the Conservatory program. And deliberately irritating Elder Ampris with her persnickety manipulations. He was in a state of nervous twitch when she and Lars tightened the last bracket.

“There!” she said on a note of intense satisfaction. “All right and tight!” She picked up the hammer and, seized by a malicious whimsy, struck the first note of the Beethoven motif. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ampris start forward, one hand raised in protest, his face drained of all color. She went up the scale, and then, positioning the hammer on the side of the crystal shafts, descended the 44 notes in a glissando. “Clear as the proverbial bell and not a vibration off the true. A good installation, if I say so myself.”

Killashandra slid the hammer into its space in the toolbox and brushed her fingertips lightly together. She released the damper on the striking base of the crystals and replaced the top. “I don’t think we’ll fasten it just yet. Now, Elder Ampris, the moment of truth!”

“I would prefer that Guildmember Trag—”

“He can’t play! Doesn’t even read music,” Killashandra said, deliberately misinterpreting Elder Ampris. Lars pinched her left flank, his strong fingers nipping into the soft flesh of her waistline. She would have kicked back at him if she could have done so unobserved. “But I suppose you would feel more secure if
he was to vet the completed installation,” she added, giving Ampris a timorous smile more consonant to someone in the thrall of subliminal conditioning than her previous declaration.

Trag’s reappearance was fortuitous.

“Just as I suspected, Elder Ampris, a loose bracket on the middle
G
. I checked both manuals thoroughly.”

Ampris regarded Trag with a moment’s keen suspicion. “You don’t play,” he said.

“No.”

“Then how can you tune crystal?”

Killashandra laughed aloud. “Elder Ampris, every would-be crystal singer has perfect and absolute pitch or they can’t get into the Heptite Guild. Guildmember Trag doesn’t need to be a trained musician. Guildmaster Lanzecki isn’t either. One of the reasons I was chosen for this assignment is because I am—and trained in keyboard music. Now, Trag, if you will inspect the installation?” She and Lars lifted off the cover.

Trag was not above giving Ampris a second fright for he tapped out three of the Beethoven notes in the soprano register before altering the sequence to random notes. Then he did each note in turn, listening until the exquisite sound completely died before hitting the next crystal.

“Absolutely perfect,” he said, handing her the hammer.

“Now, with your permission, Elder Ampris,” Killashandra began, “I would like to use the organ keyboard.” When she saw his brief hesitancy, she added, “It would be such an honor for me and it would only be the sonics. After last night’s performance, I would be brash indeed to attempt any embellishments.”

Bowing stiffly to the inevitable, Elder Ampris gestured for her to proceed from the loft. Not that she could have done anything to damage the actual organ keyboard,
and live with so many security guards millimeters from her. As she took her seat, pretending to ignore the battery of eyes and sour expressions, she decided against any of the Beethoven pieces she remembered from her Fuertan days. That would be risking more than her personal satisfaction was worth. She began to power up the various systems of the organ, allowing the electronic circuits to warm up and stabilize. She also discarded a whimsical notion to use one of Lars’s themes. She flexed her fingers, pulled out the appropriate stops, and did a rapid dance on the foot pedals to test their reactions.

Diplomatically she began with the opening chords of a Fuertan love song, reminiscent of one of the folk tunes that she’d heard that first magical night on the beach with Lars. The keyboard had an exquisitely light touch and, knowing herself to be rather heavy handed, she tried to find the right balance, before she began the lilting melody. Even playing softly and delicately, she felt, rather than heard, the sound returning from the perfect acoustics of the auditorium. The phase shield around the organ protected her from the full response.

Playing this Festival organ was an incredible, purely musical experience as she switched to lowest manual for the bass line. For her as a singer, keyboards had been essential only as accompaniment, tolerated in place of orchestra and choral augmentation. She might have been supercilious about the Optherian contention that an organ was the ultimate instrument, but she was willing to revise her opinion of it upward. Even the simple folk song, embellished with color, scent and “the joy of spring,” she thought sardonically, was doubly effective as a mood setter when played on the Optherian organ. She was sorely tempted to reach up and pull out a few of the stops that ringed the console.