"Thanks."Then Killa rose, having finished her meal."I've got black I might be able to cut out of that face.I've got to try."She waggled a finger at Donalla."Only today, you make bloody sure you take any cut right out of my hand the moment I've pulled it free.You wrench it from me, if necessary; and carefully, mind you, stow it in the carton."
Donalla stood ready all day to follow those orders, but they were never needed.The black had fractured right down into the base of the site.Killa swore, because she had cut so carefully the day before.She hadn't heard the fracture note as she finished cutting the third shaft.Usually a crack like that was not only audible but sensed even through the thick soles of her boots.
"Damn, damn, and double damn," she said, admitting defeat in midafternoon.She had even tried to find an outcropping somewhere else in the rock, but hadn't had so much as a murmur from crystal.
"What?"Donalla asked, rousing from a state of somnolence.She had been patiently watching Killa's explorations from a perch on the height.
"It's gone.No point in staying here."
"We're going back?"Donalla's face brightened.
"We shouldn't.We should look around."
"Lars only gave you these coordinates."
"Yes, but somewhere around here," and Killa waved her hand in a comprehensive sweep that took in the entire ravine, "there'll be more black crystal."
"How long will it take you to find it?"
"Ah…" Killa waggled her forefinger."That's the rub.I don't know where."
"Well, then, let's go back to the Cube and get coordinates to another known black-crystal site," Donalla said, pushing herself off her perch and brushing dust from her trousers.
"It'll take us three hours to get back," Killa heard herself protesting."Why, I could be-"
"Circling the area unprofitably for hours, days, more likely," Donalla said."Let's do it the easy way, with another set of coordinates.Huh?"
Killa considered this, sweeping aside all the arguments she was ranging against the common sense Donalla was speaking.She owed it to Lars.He had been right.She had some black to return with.She shouldn't waste time.She should cut where they knew there was more.
"You're right.Absolutely right.We go back.We do it Lars's way."
Chapter 10
Lars was pleased with the four she brought back, disappointed by Donalla's failure, and relieved that they had returned.He had other coordinates for Killa to use.
"I don't really like this," she told him."It still feels like claim jumping."
Lars grinned at her."You won't say that when you have to share the proceeds, Sunny."
"There's that, too, of course," she said, making a face at him.
She went out by herself within the hour, after getting a severe lecture from Lars about remembering to stow black the instant she cut it.
"If I find it!"
"You will."
She did, but whatever crystal there might have been there once was now buried under a mass of rubble and boulders too big to be shifted.She sang at the top of her excellent lungs and didn't hear so much as a squeak from the buried crystal.
So she returned to the Guild, arriving just before dark and, while Lars was willing to give her another set of coordinates, he wasn't willing for her to start until the next morning.
"Take a long bath, have a good meal, sleep in a good bed," he said with a wink and a leer."Missed you, Sunny," he added in a soft voice, and pulled her to him, to kiss her neck.He pulled a face as he licked his lips."Yugh!You need the bath."
"Thanks!"
"Look," he said, becoming serious, "I badly need your help, Sunny.Really, more your presence and a nod or two when necessary.If you seem to be going along with my scheme, the others're more apt to."
"Go along with what scheme?" she demanded, warily.Lars was wearing his Guild Master's face.
"I've got three other singers who I believe-I hope-are still flexible enough to go along with me in this."
"In what?"
"Easy, Killa."He grinned down at her, a twinkle returning to his eyes."Using coordinates from the inactives."
"Oh."She began to see both his problem and his scheme.
"I also want to see how they respond to that alternative Donalla's suggested."
"Which is?"She had slightly eased herself back from his embrace.
He scrubbed his head with his knuckles, a sure sign that he was uncertain and nervous."If singers didn't spend so much time trying to find claims they haven't worked in a while, if they could just go right back to them, they'd save a lot of time."
"So you want them to permit Donalla to hypnotize them and force memory of their coordinates?"Killa asked, cutting to the gist.
He nodded.
"I don't think they'll go for it," she said, shaking her head.
"You took mine and found the black.You took Rimbol's and got to his site."
"I know it can be done, and you might get some singers to use inactives' coordinates, but I don't think you'll get them to submit to hypnotic recall of their own sites.You know how paranoid we all are about claim locations."
"Paranoia doesn't have to enter the picture."
"Ha!"
"Look, Donalla's not a cutter and she's demonstrated her integrity as a medic.She's certainly not going to violate their trust."
"First she has to get it."
"All right, but she's not about to go mouthing off coordinates.Muhlah, but she could implant-in herself-a posthypnotic command to forget what she's just heard."
"She could?"Killashandra was surprised.
"Even better, she wants to give each singer who'll go for this a keyword.She may have to keep track of keywords, knowing the fragile memory of singers"-and Lars gave Killa a wry grin-"but that keyword would allow them to recall their own coordinates without any other further assist."
"I mean," Lars continued, beginning to pace the room in his enthusiasm, "this is the way it'd work, according to Donalla.She gives them a posthypnotic command to remember coordinates whenever they set down the sled.That's locked in their memories.Guild records show what they cut, if not where they cut.When they want to return to a site, they say the password, and that makes the information accessible again.To them, and them only, so their privacy hasn't been violated."
"It sounds feasible-for those who accept hypnosis."
"You seem to be one of the few who don't," he said, resignation in his voice.
"I've always marched to my own drumbeat," she said in a light tone that masked her own sense of failure.She really did want to help him."Count on me for support-for however much good it does you."
"Your support'll mean more than you imagine, Sunny," he said, and gave an emphatic nod of his head."Go on and get cleaned up.I've got a few more things to clear off my screens."And he gestured to a desk littered with pencil files."I'll meet you in the main dining hall in an hour, all right?"
When she had bathed and dressed with some care, she made her way to the dining hall she had not patronized at all in recent years.There weren't that many diners in the big room, and most of the alcoves were dark.It made her shiver a little.Was it just that all working singers happened to be out in the Ranges right now?That there wasn't a group of novices waiting around to be infected by the symbiont?That the large number of support staff had all decided to eat in their quarters this evening?
She looked around for Lars and then heard his distinctive whistle.He was just loading a tray with beakers of what looked like Yarran beer.Beside him were Donalla and Presnol and three singers, the same three she had recognized at the meeting at which Lars had officially opened inactive claims.
Now he nodded toward a banquet table off to one side of the huge low-ceilinged room, and she turned to meet them there.She managed to drag one singer's name to mind: Borton.Pushing harder, she remembered that he had been in the group she had "graduated" with.He didn't look much older than he had looked back then.But why should he, if his symbiont was doing its job?