McCaffrey, Anne - Crystal 02 - Killashandra.pdf - Anne McCaffrey - aro164

Killashandra

Cover

KILLASHANDRA

by: Anne McCaffrey

VERSION 1.1 (Feb 16 00). If you find and correct errors in

the text, please update the version number by 0.1 and

redistribute.

Chapter 1

Winters on Ballybran were generally mild, so the fury of the first spring

storms as they howled across the land was ever unexpected. This first one

of the new season swept ferociously across the Milekey Ranges, bearing

before its westward course the fleeing sleds of crystal singers like so

much jetsam. Those laggard singers who had tarried too long at their claims

were barely able to hold their bucking sleds on course as they bolted for

the safety of the Heptite Guild Complex.

Inside the gigantic Hangar, its baffles raised against the mach

winds, ordered confusion reigned. Crystal singers lurched from their sleds.

half deafened by windscream, exhausted by their turbulent flights. The

Hangar crew, apparently possessed of eyes in the backs of their heads,

miraculously avoided injury as they concentrated on the primary task of

moving incoming sleds off the Hangar floor and into storage racks, clearing

the way for the erratic landings of the stream of incoming vehicles. The

crash claxon pierced even storm howl as two sleds collided, one to dip over

the baffle and land nose down on the plascrete while the other veered out

of control like a flat rock skipping across water, coming to a crumpling

halt against the far wall. A tractor zipped in to fasten grapples on the

upside-down sled, removing it only seconds before another sled skimmed over

the baffle.

That sled almost repeated the nose dive, pulling up at the last

second and skidding across the Hangar floor to stop just inches away from

the line of handlers carrying the precious cartons of crystal in to

Sorting. Only a near miss, the incident was disregarded even by those who

had barely escaped injury.

Killashandra Ree emerged from the sled, taking as a good omen the

fact that her sled had skidded to a halt so close to the Sorting Sheds. She

caught the arm of the next handler to pass her and firmly diverted him to

her cargo door, which she flung open. She didn´t have much crystal, so

every speck she had cut was precious to her. If she didn´t earn enough

credit to get off-planet this time . . . Killashandra ground her teeth as

she hurried her carton into the Sorting Shed.

As the man she had pressed into her service quite properly put her

carton down at the Hangar end of a line of ranked containers,

Killashandra´s patience evaporated. »No, over here!« she shouted. »Not

there! It´ll take all day to be sorted. Here.«

She waited until he had deposited her carton in the indicated row

before adding her own. Then she strode back to her sled for a second load,

commandeering two more unencumbered handlers on the way. Only after eight

cartons were unloaded did she permit herself to pause briefly, coping with

the multiple fatigues that assailed her. She had worked nonstop for two

days, desperate to cut enough crystal to get off Ballybran. Crystal pulsed

in her blood and bones, denying her rest in sleep, surcease by day, no

matter how she tried to tire her body. Her only respite was immersion in

the radiant fluid bath. But no one cut crystal from a bathcube! She had to

get off-planet to ease the disturbing thrum.

For over a year and a half, ever since the Passover storms had

shattered Keborgen´s old claim, she had searched unremittingly for a

workable site Killashandra was realist enough to admit to herself that the

probability of finding a new claim as important and valuable as Keborgen´s

black crystal was very low. Still, she had every right to expect to find

some useful, and reasonably lucrative, crystal in Ballybran´s Ranges. And,

with each fruitless trip into the Ranges, the credit balance she had

amassed from her original cutting of Keborgen´s site and from the

Trundomoux black crystal installation had eroded beneath the continuous

charges the Heptite Guild exacted for even the most minor services rendered

a crystal singer.

By fall, when everyone else she knew -- Rimbol, Jezerey and Mistra

-- had managed to get off-planet, she had labored on, unable to make a

worthwhile claim in any color. During the mild winter, she had doggedly

hunted in the Ranges, returning to the Complex only long enough to

replenish food packs and steep her crystal-weary body in the radiant fluid.

»You really ought to take a week or two up at Shanganagh Base,«

Lanzecki had said, intercepting her on one of her brief visits.

»What good would that really do?« she had replied, almost snarling

at him in her frustration. »I´d still feel crystal and I´d have to look at

Ballybran.«

Lanzecki had given her a searching look. »You´re in no mood to

believe me,« and he paused to be sure that he had her attention, »but you

will find black crystal again, Killashandra. Meanwhile, the Guild has

pressing needs in any shade you can find. Even the rose you so despise.« A

gleam shone in his black eyes and his voice turned lugubrious as he said,

»I am certain that you will be distressed to learn that the Passover storms

destroyed Moksoon´s site, too.«

Killashandra had stared at him a moment before her sense of the

ridiculous got the better of her and she laughed. »I am inconsolable!«

»I thought you might be.« His lips twitched with suppressed

amusement. Then he reached down and pulled the plug on the radiant fluid.

»You´ll find more crystal, Killa.«

It had been that calm and confident statement which had buoyed her

flagging morale all during the next trip. Nor had it been entirely

misplaced. The third week out, after disregarding two sites of rose and

blue, she discovered white crystal but very nearly missed the vein

entirely. If she had not been bolstering her spirits with arousing aria,

causing the pinnacle under her hand to resonate, she might have missed the

shy white crystal. Consistent with her long run of bad luck, the while

proved elusive, the vein first deteriorating in quality and then

disappearing entirely from the face at one point, resurfacing half a mile

away in fractured shards. It had taken her weeks to clear the fault,

digging away half the ridge before she got to usable crystal. Only the fact

that white crystal had such a variety of potentially lucrative uses kept

her going.

Forewarned of the spring storm by her symbiotic adaptation to

Ballybran´s spore, Killashandra had cut at a frenzied pace until she was

too hoarse to key the sonic cutter to the crystal. Only then had she

stopped to rest. She had continued to cut until the first of the winds

began to stroke the dangerous crystal sound from the Ranges. Recklessly,

she had taken the most direct route back to the Complex, counting on the

fact that she´d be the last singer in from the Ranges to protect her claim.

She had almost cut her retreat too fine: the hangar doors slammed

shut against the shrieking storm as soon as her sled had cleared the

baffles. She could expect a reprimand from the Flight Officer for her

recklessness. And probably one from the Guild Master for ignoring the storm

McCaffrey, Anne - Crystal 02 - Killashandra.pdf

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: