Actually, she did have a pain at the base of her neck. He was right, too, about the dryness of her throat – and about her shrewish temper. But he had modified his criticism by stroking her hand.
“I must apologize for my bad manners,” he began with no display of genuine remorse but with a charming smile. “Those shuttle drive-harmonics can be unnerving. It brings out the worst in us.”
She nodded agreement as she sipped the wine. It was a fine vintage. She looked up with delight and pleasure. He patted her arm and gestured her to drink up.
“Who are you, Carrik of the Heptite Guild, that port authorities listen and control towers order exorbitant delicacies in gratitude?”
“You really don't know?”
“I wouldn't ask if I did!”
“Where have you been all your life that you've never heard of the Heptite Guild?”
“I've been a music student on Fuerte,” she replied, spitting out the words.
“You wouldn't, by any chance, have perfect pitch?” The question, unexpected and too casually put forth, caught her halfway into a foul temper.
"Yes, I do, but I don't – "
"What fantastic luck!" His face, which was not unattractive, became radiant. "I shall have to tip the agent who ticketed me here! Why, our meeting is unbelievable luck – "
"Luck? If you knew why I'm here – "
“I don't care why. You are here, and so am I.” He took her hands and seemed to devour her face with his eyes grinning with such intense joy she found herself smiling back with embarrassment.
“Oh, luck indeed, my dear girl. Fate. Destiny. Karma. Lequoal. Pidalkoram. Whatever you care to name the coincidence of our life lines, I should order magnums of this fine wine for that lousy shuttle pilot for endangering this port terminal, in general, and us, in particular.”
“I don't understand what you're ranting about, Carrik of Heptite,” Killashandra said, but she was not impervious to his compliments or the charm he exuded. She knew that her self-assurance tended to put off men, but here a well-traveled off-worlder, a man of obvious rank and position, was inexplicably taken with her.
“You don't?” He teased her for the banality of her protest, and she closed her mouth on the rest of her rebuff. “Seriously,” he went on, stroking the palms of her hands with his fingers as if to soothe the anger from her, “have you never heard of Crystal Singers?”
“Crystal Singers? No. Crystal tuners, yes.”
He dismissed the mention of tuners with a contemptuous flick of his fingers. “Imagine singing a note, a pure, clear middle C, and hearing it answered across an entire mountain range?”
She stared at him.
"Go up a third or down; it makes no difference. Sing out and hear the harmony return to you. A whole mountainside pitched to a C and another sheer wall of pink quartz echoing back in a dominant. Night brings out the minors, like an ache in your chest. the most beautiful pain in the world because the music of the crystal is in your bones, Is your blood – "
“You're mad!” Killashandra dug her fingers into his hands to shut off his words. They conjured too many painful associations. She had to forget all that, “I hate music. I hate anything to do with music.”
He regarded her with disbelief for a moment, but then, with an unexpected tenderness and concern reflected in his expression, he moved an arm around her shoulders and, despite her initial resistance, drew himself against her.
“My dear girl, what happened to you today?”
A moment before, she would have swallowed glass shards rather than confide in anyone. But the warmth in his voice, his solicitude, were so timely and unexpected that the whole of her personal disaster came tumbling out. He listened to every word, occasionally squeezing her hand in sympathy. But at the end of the recital, she was amazed to see the fullness in his eyes as tears threatened to embarrass her.
"My dear Killashandra, what can I say? There's no possible consolation for such a personal catastrophe as that! And there you were" – his eyes shone with what Killashandra chose to interpret as admiration – "having a bottle of wine as coolly as a queen. Or" – and he leaned over her, grinning maliciously – "were you just gathering enough courage to step under a shuttle?" He kept hold of her hand which, at his outrageous suggestion, she tried to free. "No, I can see that suicide was furthest from your mind." She subsided at the implicit compliment. "Although" – and his expression altered thoughtfully – "you might inadvertently have succeeded if that shuttle had been allowed to take off again. If I hadn't been here to stop it – " He flashed her his charmingly reprehensible smile.
“You're full of yourself, aren't you?” Her accusation was said in jest, for she found his autocratic manner an irresistible contrast to anyone of her previous acquaintance.
He grinned unrepentantly and nodded toward the remains of their exotic snack. “Not without justification, dear girl. But look, you're free of commitments right now, aren't you?” She hesitantly nodded. “Or is there someone you've been seeing?” He asked that question almost savagely, as if he'd eliminate any rival.
Later, Killashandra might remember how adroitly Carrik had handled her, preying on her unsettled state of mind, on her essential femininity, but that tinge of jealousy was highly complimentary, and the eagerness in his eyes, in his hands, was not feigned.
“No one to matter or miss me.”
Carrik looked so skeptical that she reminded him that she'd devoted all her energies to singing.
“Surely not all?” He mocked her dedication.
“No one to matter,” she repeated firmly.
«Then I will make an honest invitation to you. I'm an off-worlder on holiday. I don't have to be back to the Guild till – well» – and he gave a nonchalant shrug – «when I wish. I've all the credits I need. Help me spend them. It'll purge you of the music college.»
She looked squarely at him, for their acquaintanceship was so brief and hectic that she simply hadn't had time to consider him a possible companion. Nor did she quite trust him. She was both attracted to and repelled by his domineering, high-handed manner, and yet he represented a challenge to her. He was certainly the exact opposite of the young men she had thus far encountered on Fuerte.
“We don't have to stay on this mudball, either.”
“Then why did you come?”
He laughed. “I'm told I haven't been on Fuerte before. I can't say that it lives up to its name, or maybe you'll live up to the name for it? Oh come now, Killashandra,” he said when she bridled. “Surely you've been flirted with before? Or have music students changed so much since my day?”
“You studied music?”
An odd shadow flickered through his eyes. “Probably. I don't rightly remember. Another time, another life perhaps.” Then his charming smile deepened, and a warmth entered his expression that she found rather unsettling. “Tell me, what's on this planet that's fun to do?”
Killashandra considered for a moment and then blinked. “You know, I haven't an earthly?”
“Then we'll find out together.”
What with the wine, his adept cajolery, and her own recklessness, Killashandra could not withstand the temptation. She ought to do many things, she knew, but “ought” had been exiled someplace during the second bottle of that classic vintage. After spending the rest of the night nestled in Carrik's arms in the most expensive accommodation of the spaceport hostelry, Killashandra decided she would suspend duty for a few days and be kind to the charming visitor.
The vidifax printout chattered as it popped out dozens of cards on the resorts of Fuerte, more than she had ever suspected. She had never water skied, so Carrik decided they'd both try that. He ordered a private skimmer to be ready within the hour. As he sang cheerily at the top of a good, rich bass voice, floundering about in the elegant sunken bathtub of the suite, Killashandra recalled some vestige of self-preserving shrewdness and tapped out a few discreet inquiries on the console.