"I've been warned," she answered, grinning.
"Biyanco makes the best harmat this side of the canal.It's not a drink for the novice."
"I've been warned," she repeated, mildly amused at the half insult.Of course, the man couldn't know that she was a crystal singer.So his warning had been kindly meant.
A huge bronzed fist brushed past her left breast.Startled, she looked up into the brilliant blue eyes of the blond sailor, who gazed at her in an incurious appraisal that warmed briefly in the way a man will look at a woman, and then grew cautious.
Killashandra looked away first, oddly disturbed by the blue eyes, somehow familiar but not the same, and disappointed.This one was much too young for her.She turned back to Redbeard, who grinned as if he had watched the swift exchange of glances and was somehow amused by it.
"I'm Thursday, Orric Thursday, ma'am," the redbeard said.
"Killashandra Ree is my name," she replied, and extended her hand.
He couldn't have guessed her profession by her grip, but she could see that the strength of it surprised him.Killashandra was not a tall or heavily boned woman: cutting crystal does not need mass, only controlled energy, and that could be developed in any arm.
Thursday gestured to the blond."This is my good friend, Shad Tucker."
Thankful that the press of bodies made it impossible for her to do the courteous handshake, Killashandra nodded to Shad Tucker.
"And my old comrade of the wars, Tir Od Nell."Orric Thursday motioned to the blackbeard, who also contented himself with a nod and a grin at her."You'd be here for a rest, Killashandra?"Thursday asked.And when she nodded, he went on."Now, why would you pick such a dull fisherman's world as Armagh if you'd the galaxy to choose from?"
Killashandra had heard that sort of question before, how many times she couldn't remember.She had also heard the same charming invitation for confidences.
"Perhaps I like water sports," she replied, smiling back at him and not bothering to hide her appraisal.
To her surprise, he threw back his head and laughed.She could see where he had trimmed the hairs from his throat, leaving a narrow band of white flesh that never saw sun.His two friends said nothing, but their eyes were on her.
"Perhaps you do, ma'am.And this is the place.Did you want the long wave ride?There's a boat out every dawn."Orric looked at her questioningly."Then water skating?Submarining?Dolphin swimming?What is your pleasure, Killashandra Ree?"
"Rest!I'm tired!"
"Oh, I'd never think you'd ever known fatigue."The expression in his eyes invited her to edify him.
"For someone unfamiliar with the condition, how would you know it?"
Tir Od Nell roared.
"She's got you there, Orr," he said, clapping his friend on the shoulder.Shad Tucker smiled, a sort of shy, amused smile, as if he hadn't suspected her capable of caustic reply, and wasn't sure he should enjoy it at his friend's expense.
Orric grinned, shrugged, and eyed Killashandra with respect.Then he bawled to Biyanco that his glass had a hole in it.
When the edge of their thirst had been satisfied, most of the fishermen left."In search of other diversions," Orric said, but he, Tir Od Nell, and Shad Tucker merely settled stools around Killashandra and continued to drink.
She matched them, paid her rounds, and enjoyed Orric's attempts to pry personal information from her.
He was not, she discovered, easily put off, nor shy of giving facts about himself and his friends.They had all worked the same fishing boat five seasons back, leaving the sea as bad fishing turned them off temporarily.Orric had an interest in computers and often did wharfman's chores if the regular men were away when the ships came in.Tir Od Nell was working the lunk season to earn some ready credit, and would return to his regular job inland.Shad Tucker, the only off-worlder, had sailed the seas of four planets before he was landed on Armagh.
"Shad keeps saying he'll move on, but he's been here five years and more," Orric told Killashandra, "and no sign of applying for a ticket-off."
Tucker only smiled, the slight, tolerant smile playing at the corner of his mouth, as if he were chary of admitting even that much about himself.
"Don't let Shad's reticence mislead you, Killashandra Ree," Orric went on, laying a hand on his friend's shoulder."He's accredited for more than a lunk fisher.Indeed he is."Killashandra felt yet another tweak of pain that she masked with a smile for Orric."Shad's got first mate's tickets on four water worlds that make sailing Armagh look like tank bathing.Came here with a submarine rig one of the Anchorite companies was touting."He shrugged, eloquently indicating that the company's praise had fallen on deaf Armaghan ears.
"They're conservative here on Armagh," Tucker said, his accent a nice change, soft after Orric's near-bellow.She almost had to sharpen her hearing to catch what he said.
"How so?" she asked Shad.
"They feel there is one good way to catch lunk when it's in oil.By long line.That way you don't bruise the flesh so much and the lunk doesn't struggle the way it does in a net and sour the oil.The captains, they've a sense of location that doesn't need sonic gear.I've sailed with five, six of the best and they always know when and where lunk are running.And how many they can bring from that deep."
And, thought Killashandra, bemused by Shad's soft accent, you'd give your arm to develop that sense.
"You've fished on other worlds," she said out loud.
"Aye."
"Where, for instance?"
He was as unforthcoming as a fish-or herself.
"Oh, all over.Spiderfish, crackerjaw, bluefin, skaters and Welladay whales."
The young man spoke casually, as if encounters with aquatic monsters were of no account.And how, Killashandra wondered to herself, did she know that's what he'd named?Nervously, she glanced to one side and saw Orric's eyes light up, as if he had hoped that the catalog would impress her.
"A crackerjack opened his back for him on Spindrift," Orric said proudly."And he flew five miles with a skater and brought it down, the largest one ever recorded on Mandalay."
Killashandra wasn't sure why Orric Thursday wished to extol his friend.But it made him more acceptable in her eyes.Shad was too young, anyhow.Killashandra made no further attempt to draw Shad out but turned to Tir and Orric.
Despite a continued concern for her consumption of harmat, Orric kept ordering until full dark closed down abruptly on the planet and the artificial lights came on in the room.
"Mealtime," Biyanco announced in a loud, penetrating voice, and activated a barrier that dropped over the bar.He appeared through a side door and briskly gestured them to a table for four on the other side of the room.Killashandra made no resistance to Orric's suggestion that they all dine together, and she spent the rest of the evening-listening to fish stories-in their company.She spent her night alone-by choice.She had not made up her mind yet.
When the sun came up over the edge of the sea, she was down in the hotel's private lagoon, floating on the buoyant waters, just as the lunk ships, sails fat with dawn winds, slid out to open sea with incredible speed.
To her surprise, Orric appeared at midday and offered to show her Trefoil's few diversions.Nothing loath, she went and found him most agreeable company, conversant on every phase of Trefoil's domestic industry.He steered her from the usual tourist path, for which she was grateful.She abhorred that label, though tourist she was, on any world but Ballybran.Nor did she give Orric Thursday any hint of her profession, despite all his attempts to wheedle the information from her.
It wasn't that she liked being secretive, but few worlds understood the function of crystal singers, and some very odd habits and practices had been attributed to them.Killashandra's discretion and caution was instinctive now.