"I'm not your Sunny," she said, needing to rant and rave herself back to a more normal humor than the limp and nauseating lug she knew she had been.
"Well, then, it's a good deep green, and I cut around you, in case you didn't hear, locked in that thrall."
She both hated and admired Lars in this sort of a mood: far too amenable, far too effective, far too… right!Shard his soul!
Glaring at him, she sang out a high C, lost it for lack of support in her weakened condition, set her diaphragm muscles, and sang it again.She could hear his A an octave below.The green resonated, and their blades touched its bright surface as one.
When they had excised five shafts, Lars refused to let her pitch for more.He even refused to let her help him carry the carton back to the sled.When they got back and had racked their cutters, he insisted that she needed to wash, however briefly, and when she was obviously unable to stand up under the dribble coming from the shower head, he undressed, too, and supported her.
He made her lie down under the quilt while, buff naked, he made a quick meal for them both.She managed to spoon it into her, but the effort was all she had left and he caught the sagging plate before it tipped over on to the quilt.
"Can't mess it up.It's the only one we've got."
She tried to think of a smart reply to that.Honor demanded that she not let Lars get away with the last word today, but she fell asleep before she could think of something appropriately scathing.
Crystal song woke her and, aware of the warmth of the body beside her, she turned, eager for the benison of relief.She matched the eagerness of her partner, accepting and returning the passion she found.The gentleness and tenderness he displayed reminded her of Shad, and yet, as she opened her eyes, it wasn't Shad's engagingly innocent face that she saw.It was Lars Dahl's.
He gazed down at her for a long moment, his blue eyes dark with unspoken words as he searched her face.When she gave a little impatient twitch, he moved away.
"A better day today, isn't it, Sunny?" he said noncommittally.
"Yes, it is," she said with an equal lack of emphasis as she snagged her clothes from the floor.
It was easy to fall into the old habits.She might rail silently at finding herself accepting their former routine, but it helped.They didn't have much to discuss.Except the cutting.
"We shouldn't stay here," she said after they had finished eating."Green's not black, and that's what we're after."
"Feeling up to it?" he asked offhandedly.
She shrugged."I'd rather waste time on looking than on cutting."
"Green's easier to cut to get back into the swing of it."
"Ha!I'm back already."
He cocked an eyebrow at her."When thrall can hold you for hours?"
"That," she said, snapping her words out, "was your fault.I wouldn't have needed more than an hour."
"Ha!"He mimicked her.
But they were already, out of long habit, setting the cabin of the sled to rights to take off.
They bickered with some heat and contempt for the first hour in the air.Some equity was reached when they came across another worn paint mark that bore enough resemblance to one of the released ones for them to land.But as they were surveying the canyons, they caught sight of a sled in one of the gorges and quickly left the area, Killa swearing under her breath.
"What about one of the claims we cut?Aren't there any in the vicinity?"
Lars frowned thoughtfully."Should be."Then he banged his fist on the console."If only we could establish some method by which singers could register the location of sites…"
"Ha!And have renegades spend weeks trying to break into the program!"
"There are security measures available now that no singer could break."
"Ha!I don't believe you!I won't believe you."
"I know," he said, shrugging away her anger, and grinned over his shoulder at her."But I'll win 'em over to my way of thinking!"
"That'll be the day!"
"It'll come, Sunny.The Guild has to reorganize.It can't continue to operate on guidelines that're centuries old, incredibly obsolete and damned naive."
"Naive?"
"It's a rough galaxy we live in.The business ethics that motivated the earliest Guild Masters simply don't exist, and modernization is long overdue."
"Modernization?"Killa swept her hand around the cabin, where sophisticated equipment was installed in small, discreet, and effective packages.
"I don't mean the hardware.I mean"-he jammed a finger to his temple-"the software.The thinking, the ethos, the management."
Killa made a disparaging noise in her throat."This Guild Mastership has addled your software, that's for sure."
"Has it?"He cast her a sideways glance."I think you'll come to agree that updates are essential."
"Hmmm.Hey, isn't that a marker of ours to starboard…"
It was, though nearly rubbed completely off the flat summit.They touched down, as much to refurbish the marker as to see if anything was familiar.
"Vaguely," was Killashandra's verdict.Something nagged at her, something quite insistent."I think," she began hesitantly, "I think it's black."
"You don't sound sure…"
"I think you were also right to ask me if I was up to it."She fought the frisson that racked her.
"We can go back and cut more green."
"No, we're here to cut black and black we'll cut, if it kills me."
"I draw the line at suicide, no matter how badly the Guild needs black right now."
She gave him a wry grin.
What they found was a deep blue crystal, one of the loveliest colors either had ever cut.They got three cartons of it and were back at the sled, filling up their water bottles, when the first twinge of storm warning caught Killashandra.She sucked in her breath at the intensity of it.The crystal deprivation must have made her doubly vulnerable.She caught at the side of the cistern, and Lars reached out to support her.
"What's the matter?And don't you dare say 'nothing', Killa," he said, eyes piercing hers with his growing recognition of the probable cause."Storm?"When she nodded, he cursed under his breath.Then he closed the water tap and covered his half-filled canteen, stowing it in place.He took hers from her limp hand and put it away, as well." All right, let's get ready."
"But it's only the-"
"Fardles, Killa, I can tell just from your reaction that it's going to be a bad blow."
"It's only because-"
"I don't care what it's because," he cried, irritably chopping his hand downward to interrupt her.He took her arm and turned her toward the galley."We're returning, and that's that.I'm not risking you to even the mildest blow.Your head's not on straight yet from deprivation."
Though she protested vehemently, she had to recognize the fact that he was absolutely correct in assessing her state.She wouldn't admit it to him-she argued out of habit.He refused to entertain her contention that they would have enough time to cut at least five, he agreed but discounted the fact that this was the best blue lode they had seen in decades.
"It isn't black," he said, his mouth and eyes angry."Try not to forget that, Sunny, it's black we need!"
"Then why did we waste time cutting this blue?"
"You thought there was black here!"He was moving around his side of the sled, securing cabinets and stowing oddments away.
"We cut good blue…" she began, going meek on him, a tactic that had often worked."I don't remember how many times you've told me that…"
The anger went out of him all at once, and reaching across the narrow space that separated them, he caressed her cheek briefly, his smile penitent."Sorry, Sunny, no matter how you try to slice it, we're not cutting any more… here… today."
"It should be a partners' decision, not one way," she said, wondering if he were weakening."You've never been this arbitrary before."