Anne McCaffrey
Killashandra—Coda and Finale
“SO the galaxy stands in dire need of more blue orthorhombics,” said Killashandra with savage glee. “Sorry, Lanzecki. The gyros on my flitter have had it. It’d be suicide to go before they’ve been changed and tuned, and you know how long that takes. Right now, I’ve enough credit to take me off this barfing world for a good long time. And I’m going!”
She’d turned to go but Lanzecki’s voice, never before so uncompromisingly authoritarian, and as emotionless as if his precious computer had developed a voice, stopped her midstride.
“No, Killashandra Ree, you are not going.”
Slowly, because she didn’t believe her ears, Killashandra turned back to Lanzecki.
“I’m not going?” Her voice was too quiet. Someone else, knowing Killashandra as long as Lanzecki had, would have demurred or made some attempt to placate her imminent anger.
Instead, Lanzecki’s fingers flew across the computer console, though his eyes never left hers. Involuntarily Killashandra looked up at the computer printout panel behind the Guildmaster.
“ ‘Section Forty-seven, Paragraph One,’ “ Lanzecki intoned without glancing at the panel. “ ‘In matters of galactic emergency, the Guildmaster may, at his discretion and with due and just cause, conscript the services of any or all active Members for the duration of that emergency.’ An emergency situation exists.” He tapped out another sequence and the Guild bylaw was replaced by a communication dot which enlarged dramatically to reveal its message. Blue Ballybran crystals in octagonal and dodecahedral shapes were in urgent, critical demand as replacements for the great interstellar laser communication devices and certain large drives units.
“They can’t all have soured at once,” Killashandra said in a voice more grating in snarl than tone.
“The slightest flaw in the crystal focusing coherent light can produce a distortion in communication units. A drive unit or a machine triad could operate without noticeable lapse of efficiency for some time. Not so with the blues. The crystals in the Garthane unit, for example, have been in service for two hundred and five standard years, carrying a total of. . . .”
“Abort your statistics, Lanzecki. Why me? Why must I forego a leave which you know narding well I need. . . .”
Lanzecki inclined his head in recognition of her crystal-soaked fatigue. “I’ve recalled Formeut, but he is in the Sirius section and even by direct GCS flight cannot be back in less than twenty days.”
GCS flight! This was an emergency, thought Killashandra, not one bit reconciled to losing her leave time.
“Ballivor is still in the Ranges but his blues are not first quality, nor can he cut in the higher registers. The cuttings you brought in three trips back were flawless and you sing the higher tones. Triads, fifths, octaves are critically needed.”
There was nothing in Lanzecki’s manner or tone to indicate sympathy with her and yet Killashandra fancied regret flickering in his eyes. She rebelled against the inevitable, as much because she was so desperately weary of crystal that the mere thought of another trip into the Ranges frightened her, as because Lanzecki’s arbitrary invocation of a Guild statute exacerbated her natural tendency to be perverse.
“Blue octagons and dodecahedrons, huh? Polyhedrons in blue!” She glared savagely at Lanzecki’s impassive face. Was the man human or were Guildmasters some sort of construct, programmed with only enough pseudoresponses to counterfeit human behavior? “Great! And how, pray tell, Guildmaster, do I get them without an operable ship because by all that’s holy, nothing in Guild laws can require me to take off in a gyro-soured flitter! That would be murder!”
She had the satisfaction of seeing Lanzecki wince. Maybe he was human? She knew, because she’d already checked, that there were no new gyros in Supply: like Ballybran blue polyhedrons, gyros rarely malfunctioned. Ordinarily the gyros could be adjusted and tuned in the course of an ordinary servicing, but some minute structural flaw had now manifested itself in Killashandra’s.
“I’ve got to rest, Lanzecki,” she said, pleading now. She shoved her hands at him. They were shaking with crystal fatigue. Lanzecki closed his eyes briefly, his mouth stern.
“Get into a radiant bath, Killashandra. I’ll send the medic. . . .”
“I don’t need a farding medic, Lanzecki. I need off-world!”
“I realize that, Killashandra, far better than you think.”
“Ha!”
The Guildmaster closed his eyes again, recoiling from her venomous rejoinder. Then she’d had enough of him, of crystal, of the Guild, of everything, and she flung herself at and through the door panel.
“Ha!” The hallway echoed back her explosively bitter syllable. She staggered with exhaustion, careering off the threshold of the grav-lift. It was such a relief to be weightless that she almost went past her dormitory level. Habit, probably, impelled her forward. And down the corridor in the right direction—her feet had been programmed for the route by how many years?—and stopped at the proper door panel. Her name was blazoned there and her right hand lifted, automatically, to the thumb lock. Again, with no direction from her crystal-sound soaked mind, she entered, and dialed for a radiant bath.
She was too weary to strip, not that it made a difference. She rolled into the tub, the viscous liquid slopping over her as the tank filled rapidly.
“Farding Guild! Them and their polyhedron blues!” She railed at a management that would let itself get into such a short supply state. Not only polyhedron blues but gyros. The Guild could narding well afford to keep a few spare gyros in Supply. . . . And yet, if they had. . . . She wiggled deeper into the warm thick liquid, impatient for the therapeutic soothing.
“I can’t go out into the Range again!” she cried in anguish and flailed her hands at the liquid. “I can’t. I’ve got to get off-world. I’ve got to get relief!”
The bath now enveloped her to her chin and the tingle of crystal sound began to drain from her abused body, lingering on the edge of her bones, on the tips of her nerves, but definitely easing. And with it some portion of her desperation.
Her arms and legs floated idly to the surface, slender but firmly muscled. Objectively she regarded her hands . . . blue dodecahedrons/orthorhombic blues. Cabalistic phrases. She’d have to write them down. In several places or she’d forget.
She brought her arms down in a rejecting smack against the radiant liquid; the smart adding fuel to her building fury. She was not going out again! Not until she’d been off-world for at least a twenty-day. She couldn’t face the isolation of the Milekeys again. Not again! Not so soon!
Ah, but she wouldn’t have to, would she? Not until her flitter had been repaired. Bless those gyros! Bless Supply for not having any. Not even the Guildmaster or the GCS Council President could force her into an inefficient craft. Not when it multiplied the chances of scrambling her brains if she got caught in a mach storm! Then where would they get high-register blues? Ha!
These reflections consoled her. She began to relax, letting the radiant ooze seep into her crystal-tired body. Blue orthorhombics . . .ha! She didn’t have to remember them now! She wouldn’t have to go get them. How unusual to be able to forget something you didn’t have to remember!
To remember!
Killashandra snorted. Her hands remembered all she really needed to know. How to cut crystal! She held them up, the viscous liquid sheeted from them and she noticed, bemusedly, that the skin was wrinkling into squares, rectangles and triangles, crepey. What had happened to her hands? She submerged them with a limp splash, oddly annoyed at the discovery. The rest of her skin was smooth.