“In weather like this!” Killashandra swung around to the northwest. No storm sign there at all. “Keep cutting. It’s only a dew bell.”
He finished the cut he was on, but when she started to sing another he yanked her cutter from her.
“Lanzecki warned me specifically about you and storm signals.”
“Look, I’ve sung crystal long enough to know safety margins. Something in here tells me when to go. That’s why I’ve kept my wits.” She glanced at the half-full container. “The dew bell only means alert. And we can finish that out.”
He shook his head and motioned her to the flitter.
“You nardy fool! Give me back my cutter!” She made a grab for it. He stepped into the flitter with the cutters just as another warning sounded.
“Several hours, huh?” he taunted, keeping his body between her and the narrow path to the flitter’s portal as he heaved the half-full crate into the lock. “We’ve four crates and no more time, Killashandra. That mountain’s not going anywhere.”
“The storm’ll change the frequencies, flaw the surface,” she shrieked. “We’ve cut deep. It could fissure and crack the mother rock.” She flung a protective arm against the face they’d been working so successfully. “We’ve thirds and fifths. Two full octaves. Please, Fergil? Just one more. I’ve got to get off this barfing world! I’ve got to!”
He hesitated for a fraction, twisting his head at the siren gleam of resonating blue crystal. If she could just edge past him to the flitter. . . .
He caught her shoulder full with a narcotic blash, and she hadn’t time to curse him before unconsciousness overwhelmed her.
“I had to do it, Killa,” someone was saying. “Lanzecki told me how you’d act. Killa! Killa?”
She tried to strike out at him as consciousness returned but she was strangely hampered. And woke completely to find herself up to the neck in a hot radiant bath, Fergil crouched by the tub edge, holding her head out of the liquid.
“You misbegotten, sterile offshoot of degenerate perverts with blurred chromosomes from an outcasts’ planet... if you don’t leave me alone, I’ll warp you into early senility.”
“Killa! I had to. The storm was a variant. We nearly didn’t get out of the Milekeys at all. If you’d been in your flitter...”
“Leave the boy alone, Killashandra. He’s settled an old account of yours.” Lanzecki’s face appeared beyond Fergil’s shoulder. “There are nine scrambled singers lost in the Milekeys in this storm. If you hadn’t been paired with Fergil, you’d’ve been one, too.”
“And you’d’ve lost your blues, wouldn’t you? That’s all you care about really, Lanzecki! Isn’t it?”
She was screaming the last words because the crystal pain in her bones began to grab at her spine. She had gone back into the Ranges too soon.
“Where’s the barfing medic?” she shrieked, writhing.
“What’s the matter with her, Lanzecki?” cried Fergil.
The concern in his voice, the way he swung accusingly at the Guildmaster was balm to Killashandra’s soul. But the expression on Lanzecki’s face, almost pitying, was the final outrage.
“Get out of here, Lanzecki!” She grabbed at his hand at the same time, so he’d feel the crystal shock coursing through her body, so he’d have a taste experientially of what the farding Guild was demanding of her. “You forced me back too soon. How d’you like a taste of it?” To her surprise, Lanzecki stoically endured her grasp. It was Fergil who broke her hold and then dropped her hand as if it had burned him.
“What’s wrong with her?” Fergil demanded.
“Sometimes,” Lanzecki said in a soft distant tone, “a singer seems to be keyed into the last crystal he’d cut before a storm, and experiences the storm, too.”
“Where’s that medic, Lanzecki?”
The man appeared suddenly and Killashandra felt the coolness of air pressure and the merciful oblivion.
“You can’t ask her to go out again, Lanzecki. You can’t!” Fergil’s voice was stern. He was a good man, Killashandra thought, standing up against Lanzecki, against his own Guildmaster. She wasn’t really concerned, though, with the argument going on over her limp body.
When Lanzecki answered, also from a distance, his voice was dull and lifeless. “She’s the only one cutting blues, Fergil.”
“We brought in close to four crates. . . .”
Lanzecki gave a mirthless snort. “When we need forty to ease the emergency?”
“Forty?” Fergil’s voice strangled on the repetition.
Killashandra let herself slip back into oblivion. Fergil was her champion. She could rest. She had to rest. For some reason that escaped her. . . .
She was conscious first of the ache in her bones and the soreness that tenanted her entire body. She tried to ignore that, thinking beyond herself to externals and felt . . . the warmth of another body. The warmth . . . the comfort . . . the sensation of an arm around her waist, limp-handed, but the fingers loosely laced through hers. Puzzled, she moved slightly to peer at the face, but the room was dark. Carefully, she inched her free arm forward, pressed the bedlight and saw the ugly-attractive face of the man sleeping beside her. Strange.
She must have been out in the Ranges a long time for the ache to be still with her. Usually, three or four radiant baths sufficed to remove the worst of it. Who was this man? It was undeniably comfortable in his arms, and she felt protected. A nice, unusual feeling. Obviously he was no stranger to her, or her bed. They fitted too comfortably together.
She wriggled closer . . . and he roused.
He had gray eyes. That was right, but something in her look must have alerted him.
“Have you forgotten me again, Killashandra? I’m Fergil. And really, my dear girl, if you keep on forgetting me like this I shall be hurt.”
“Fergil?” The name did have a familiar taste in her mouth. “Oh, Fergil!” And she burrowed into the safe, remembered arms as all too painful memories surged back at his cues.
He held her, comforting her and she knew now why she ached so and what was in store for her. And Fergil. And she dreaded the Ranges and then suddenly, did not. Fergil would be with her, and memories that were pleasant reviewed themselves. As long as she had Fergil with her she could remember things easily. Memory now was far more preferable to blank ignorance.
The storm had blown itself out finally the morning Lanzecki came by to inquire about her progress.
“I’m the only one singing blues, aren’t I?” Killashandra asked the Guildmaster.
He nodded.
“Lanzecki, she’s not well enough to sing crystal yet,” Fergil said, throwing a protective arm about her shoulders.
“She is the only one singing blues. . . .”
“You said you’d mobilized every singer to prospect. . . .”
“So I have. Anyone who can handle a cutter is out in the Ranges now and Killa. ...”
“Haven’t you recalled Formeut. . . ?” Fergil sounded desperate.
“He’s en route, but the situation worsens. . . .”
“Killashandra brought you in three and a third crates. ...”
“As I told you then, we require forty at the bare minimum. . . .”
“She can’t possibly cut forty crates. ...”
The Guildmaster drew himself up. “Unless Killashandra operates her own claim, I am empowered to obtain its direction so that. ...”
“No one works my claim but me!” Killashandra struggled to her feet, shaking now with anger rather than crystal shock.
Fergil thrust his body between her and Lanzecki. “How the flaming hell can you rationalize that in Guild Law?” Fergil was furious, too. “It’s her right. . . .”
“Which can be set aside with due cause....” Lanzecki held out a plastic flimsy on which were impregnated the GCS seals.