Continuum 1, page 14
part #1 of Continuum Series
Which, in the pursuit of the pleasure of herself and Fuerte, he was patently able to do until the night he awakened her with his groans and writhings.
“Carrik, what’s the matter? Those shell fish from dinner? Shall I get the medic?”
“No, no!” He twisted about frantically and caught her hand from the comunit. “Don’t leave me. It’ll pass.”
She held him in her arms as he cried out, clenching his teeth against an internal agony. Sweat oozed from his pores and yet he steadfastly refused to let her get competent help. The spasms racked him for almost an hour before they passed, leaving him spent and weak in her arms. Somehow, in that hour, she realized how much he had come to mean to her, how much fun he was to be with, how much she had missed by denying herself any such intimate relationships before.
After he’d slept, she ventured to ask what had possessed him.
“Crystal, my girl, crystal.” His manner, terse to sullen, and the haggard expression on his face — he suddenly looked very old — made her drop the subject.
He was himself… almost… by the afternoon. But some of his spontaneity of spirit was missing. He seemed to go through the motions of enjoying himself, of egging her on to more daring exercises on the waterskis while he only splashed in the shallows.
They were finishing a leisurely meal at their favorite seaside restaurant when he broke the news that he must return to work.
“I can’t say ‘so soon?’” Killashandra said with a light laugh. “But isn’t the decision sudden?”
He gave her an odd smile. “Yes, but most of my decisions are, aren’t they? Like showing you another side of fusty fogey Fuerte.”
“And now our idyll is over?” She tried to sound nonchalant but an edge crept into her voice.
“I must return to Ballybran. Ha, that sounds like one of those fisherfolk songs, doesn’t it?” He hummed a banal tune, the melody so predictable she could join in firm harmony.
“We do make beautiful music together,” he said, his eyes mocking her. “I suppose you’ll go back to music now.”
“Doing what?” she asked. “Lead soprano for the chorus of some annotated, orchestrated grunts and groans by Fififididipidi of the planet Grnch?”
“You could tune crystals. They obviously need a competent one at your spaceport.”
She made a rude noise in her throat and looked at him expectantly.
He smiled back, turning his head politely awaiting her verbal answer.
“Or,” she said in a drawl, watching him obliquely, “I could apply to the Heptite Guild as a crystal singer.”
His expression went blank. “You don’t want to be a crystal singer.”
“How do you know what I want?” She flared up in spite of herself, in spite of a gnawing uncertainty about his feelings for her. She might be fine to loll about on a sandy beach, but as a constant companion in a dangerous profession?
He smiled sadly. “You don’t want to be a crystal singer.”
“Oh, fardles with that nonsense in the print out!”
“They mean what they say.”
“Then if I’ve perfect pitch, I can apply.”
“You don’t know what you’re getting in for.” He said that in a flat, toneless voice, his expression at once wary and forbidding. “Singing crystal is a terrible, lonely life. You can’t always find someone to sing with you, the tones don’t always strike the right vibes for the crystals. You do make terrific cuts singing duo.” He seemed to vacillate.
“How do you find out?”
He gave an unamused snort. “The hard way, of course. But you don’t want to be a crystal singer.”
There was an almost frightening sadness in his voice. “Once you sing crystal, you don’t stop. That’s why I urge you not to consider it.”
“So you’ve urged me not to consider it.”
He caught her hand. “You’ve never been in a mach storm in the Milekeys,” he said, his voice rough with remembered anxiety. “They blow up out of nowhere,” he gestured vigorously, “and crash down on you like all hell let loose.” She felt the tremor through his body into her hand. “That’s what that phrase means, “the Guild maintains its own.” A mach storm can reduce a man to a vegetable in one sonic crescendo.”
“There are other — albeit less violent — ways of reducing a man to a vegetable,” she said, thinking of the attendant in the restaurant, of the bustling supercargo worrying over drone-pod weights, of teachers apathetically reviewing the scales of novice students. “Surely there are instruments that warn you of approaching storms, even mach ones in a crystal range.”
He nodded. “But you get to cutting crystal, and you’re halfway through, you know the pitches will be changed once the storm has passed and you’re cutting your safety margin fine but that last crystal might mean you get off-world…”
“You don’t get off-world with every trip to the ranges?”
He shook his head. “You don’t always clear the costs of the trip, particularly if you cut the wrong shape or tone.”
“As you said, you have to pay attention to the news and outguess what’ll be needed.” She was serenely confident that she could master that facet of the new profession.
“You have to remember the news,” he said, oddly emphasizing the change of verb.
Killashandra was contemptuous of such a lapse. Memory was only a matter of habit, of training, of handy mnemonic phrases which easily triggered vital information.
“You wouldn’t by any chance let me go back to Ballybran with you to see if I can join that chorus?”
His hand on hers, his body, even his breath, seemed to halt for a moment. “You asked. Remember that!”
“Well, if my company is so —”
“Kiss me and don’t say anything you’ll regret,” he said, abruptly pulling her with rough urgency into his arms and kissing her so thoroughly she couldn’t speak.
The second convulsion caught him so soon after the climax of their love-making that she thought, guiltily, that overstimulation was the cause. The spasms were even more severe and he dropped into an exhausted sleep when they finally eased.
He looked old and drawn when he woke some fourteen hours later. And he moved like an advanced geriatric case.
“I’ve got to get back to Ballybran, Killa.”
“For treatment?”
He hesitated and then nodded. “Get the spaceport on the comunit and book us.”
“Us?”
“You may come with me,” he said, nodding, though she was piqued at the phrasing and the invitation was more plea than permission. “I don’t care how often we have to reroute. Get us there as fast as possible.”
She got the spaceport and routing, and, after what seemed an age and considerable ineptitude on the part of the ticketing clerk, they were confirmed passengers on a shuttle flight leaving Fuerte in four hours, with a four hour satellite wait before the first liner due to relay in their direction.
There were a good deal of oddments to pack and Killashandra was for just walking out and leaving everything.
“You don’t get such goods on Ballybran, Killa,” Carrik told her, and began, slowly, to fold the bright gaudy shirts of a pounded tree fibre. The stimulus of confirmed passage had given him a surge of energy. But Killashandra had been rather unnerved by the transformation of a charming, vital, if domineering man, into a frail shadow. “Sometimes, something as flimsy as a shirt helps you remember so much.”
She was touched by the sentiment, and vowed to be kinder to him.
“There are hazards to every profession. And the hazards to crystal singing —”
“It depends on what you’re willing to consider a hazard,” Killashandra replied, soothingly. She was glad to take along the filmy wraparounds in luminous dyes. They were a far cry from coarse durable student issue. Any hazard seemed a fair price for these bouts of high living. And only four hundred twenty-five in the Guild.
“Do you really understand what you’d be giving up, Killashandra?” His voice had a guilty edge.
She looked at his lined, aging face and did experience a twinge of honest apprehension. Anyone would look appalling after the convulsions which had racked him. She didn’t much care for Carrik in a philosophical vein and hoped he wasn’t so dreary all the time back on Ballybran. Was that what he meant? A man on holiday was often a different personality to a man at work?
“What have I to look forward to on Fuerte?” She asked with a shrug of her shoulders. She wouldn’t necessarily have to team up with Carrik once she got to Ballybran. “I’d rather take a chance no matter what it entails in preference to dragging about on Fuerte!”
He stroked her palm with his thumb and, for the first time, the caress didn’t send thrills up her spine but then, he was scarcely in a condition to make love and the gesture reflected that.
“You’ve only seen the glamorous side of crystal singing…”
“You’ve told me of the dangers, Carrik, as you’re supposed to. The decision is mine. And I’m holding you to it.”
He gripped her hand tightly and there was a sort of gladness in his eyes that reassured her more thoroughly than any glib phrase.
“It’s also one of the smallest Guilds in the world,” she went on, freeing her hand to finish packing the last bits. “I prefer those odds.”
He raised his eyebrows, giving her a sardonic look more like the old Carrik. “A two-cell in a one-cell pond?”
“If you please. I won’t be second-rate anything.”
“A dead hero in preference to a live coward?” He taunted her.
“If you prefer. There! That’s all our clothes. We’d better skim back to the spaceport. I’ve got to check with planetary regulations if I’m going off-world. I might even have some credit left.”
She did the flying back as Carrik dozed in the passenger seat. The rest did him some good, or he was mindful of his public image. Either way, Killashandra’s doubts about him as a partner faded as he began ordering the port officials about imperiously, badgering the routing agent to be certain the man hadn’t overlooked a more direct flight, or a more advantageous connection.
Killashandra left him to it and began to clear her own records with Fuerte Central. The moment she placed her credit card in the plate, the console began to chatter wildly. She was startled. She’d programmed a credit check and the information that she was going off-world and wanted to know what immunization shots would comply with the worlds they’d touch. But the supervisor came leaping down the ramp from his desk, all boredom erased from his flushed face, and two port officials converged on her. The exits of the reception hall flashed warning red as holdlocks were applied to the consternation of people trying to enter and leave. Killashandra was too stunned to move and stared at the men who charged up to her.
“Killashandra Ree?” asked the supervisor, panting.
“Yes?”
“You are to be detained.*
“Why?” Now she was angry. She could conceive of no crime she’d committed, no infringement on anyone’s liberties. Nonregistration was no offense so long as she didn’t use planetary resources without credit.
“Please come with us,” the port officials said in chorus.
“Why?”
“Ah, hmm,” muttered the supervisor as both officials turned to him. “There’s hold out for you.”
“I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Here, what’s going on?” Carrik was indeed his old self as he pushed through to place a protesting arm around Killashandra. “This young lady is under my protection.”
At which the supervisor and the officials looked suddenly stern and determined.
“The young lady is under the protection of her planet of origin,” said the supervisor in a stuffy tone. “There is some doubt as to her mental health.”
“What? Because she accepted an honest invitation from a visitor? Do you know who I am?”
The man flushed. “Indeed I do, sir,” and he was considerably more respectful suddenly.
“Well then, take my assurances that Miss Ree is in excellent mental health.”
The supervisor was adamant. “Please come this way.”
There was nothing for it but to comply, although Carrik reminded their escorts that they’d booked a shuttle flight due to lift off in one hour and he had every intention of keeping that schedule — and with Killashandra Ree. She got the distinct impression that this ambition might be thwarted and rather than give rise to any speculation about her mental health, she remained uncharacteristically quiet.
“I know,” she said sotto voce to Carrik as they waited in the small office. “The Music School may’ve thought me suicidal.” She giggled and suppressed it behind her hand when the supervisor glanced up at her nervously. “I did just walk out of the Center and my digs, and I saw no one on my way here. So they did miss me! Well, that’s gratifying.” She was inordinately pleased but Carrik wasn’t. She’d only to reassure the authorities and she was certain she could. “I think it’s rather complimentary, actually. I’m going to leave Fuerte dramatically after all.”
Carrik snorted but the wait plainly irritated him.
Killashandra half expected to see her father though she couldn’t have imagined him bestirring himself on her behalf. She didn’t expect Maestro Esmond Valdi to enter, acting the outraged parent. Nor was she prepared for the attack he immediately launched on Carrik.
“You! You! I know what you are! A silicate spider paralyzing its prey, a crystal cuckoo taking the promising fledglings from their maternal nest.”
As stunned as everyone else was at the almost physical attack on the Heptite Guildman, Killashandra stared at the usually dignified and imperturbable Maestro and wondered what operatic role he was playing. He had to be. His dialogue was so… so extravagant. “Silicate spider.” “Crystal cuckoo.” And he had the analogy wrong anyhow.
“Play on the emotions of a young, innocent girl. Shower her with unaccustomed luxuries and pervert her until she’s spoiled as a decent contributing citizen. Until she’s so besotted she has to go to that den of addled brains and sonic-soured nerves!”
Carrik made no attempt to divert the flow of vituperation or counter the accusations. He stood, head up, smiling tolerantly down at the stalky figure of Valdi.
“What lies has he been feeding you about crystal singing? What extravagant tales has he used to lure you there?” Valdi whirled to Killashandra.
“I asked to go.”
Valdi”s wild expression hardened into disbelief at her calm reply.
“You asked to go?”
“Yes. He didn’t ask me.” Killashandra saw Carrik smile with relief.
“You heard her, Valdi,” Carrik said and glanced at the officials taking in that admission.
The Maestro’s shoulders sagged. “He’s done his recruiting work well,” he said in a defeated tone, even managing an effective slight break in his voice.
“I don’t think so,” Killashandra said.
Maestro Valdi took a breath, obviously going to make one last final attempt to dissuade the poor misguided girl. “Did he tell you about the mach storms?”
She nodded.
“That scramble your brains and reduce you to a vegetable?”
She nodded dutifully.
“Did he fill your mind with a lot of garbage about mountains giving back symphonies of sound? Crystalline choruses? Valleys that echo arpeggios?”
“No,” she replied in an acid tone, bored with the scene. “And he also didn’t feed me pap that all I needed was hard work and time.”
Esmond Valdi drew himself up, more than ever an exaggeration of a classical operatic pose.
“Did he tell you that once you start cutting crystal you can never stop? And too long away from Ballybran produces convulsions?”
“I know that.”
“That something in the water, the soil, the crystals affects your mind? You don’t remember anything?”
“That could be an advantage,” Killashandra replied, staring at the little man until he had to drop his glance.
She felt it first of the three, an itch behind her ears in the mastoid bone, an itch that rapidly became a wrenching nauseating pain. She grabbed Carrik by the arm just as the subsonic noise touched him. As Esmond Valdi lifted protecting hands to his ears.
“The fools!” cried Carrik, panic in his face and voice. He threw aside the door panel, running as fast as he could toward the control tower, Killashandra behind him. Anything to shut off that agonizing pain in her skull.
Carrik vaulted the decorative barrier into the restricted area, to be stopped by the force curtain.
“Stop it! Stop it!” he screamed, rocking in anguish.
The pain was no less supportable for Killashandra but she’d presence enough of mind left to bang on the nearest comunit, to strike the fire buttons, press the emergency signals.
“The shuttle coming in… the crystals are defective… it’s going to blow,” she yelled at the top of operatically trained lungs. She was barely conscious of the panic in the vast reception hall resulting from her all too audible warning.
But the wild stampede of an hysterical mob was evident to the control tower personnel and automatically someone slapped on the abort signal to all incoming and outgoing shuttles and craft. Moments later, while the comunit was demanding an explanation from Killashandra, from anyone who could make themselves heard over the bedlam in the reception area, a fireball blossomed in the sky, raining hot molten fragments on the spaceport below. The exploding shuttle spewed bits and pieces over a radius of several kilometers, several larger hunks burned craters in the heavy plastic dome of the port facility. Had the shuttle exploded any closer, the damage would have been disastrous.
Apart from bumps, bruises, lacerations and a broken arm sustained in the crush to leave the hall, there were only two serious casualties. The shuttle pilot was dead and Carrik would have been better off so. The final sonic blast knocked him out and he never did recover his senses with consciousness. After consultation with the Heptite Guild medics it was decided to return him to Ballybran for treatment and care.
