“I'm not going to get sick?”

“Not you. You've had what's known as a Milekey transition. Practically no physical discomfort and the maximum adjustment. I wish you luck, Killashandra Ree. You'll need it.” Antona was not smiling. Just then, the door opened wider. “Trag?” The chief meditech was surprised, but her affability returned, that moment of severity so brief that Killashandra wondered if she had imagined it. “I shall undoubtedly be seeing you again, Killashandra.”

She slipped out of the room as an unsmiling man of medium build entered. His first look at her was intent, but she'd survived the scrutiny of too many conductors to be daunted.

“I don't have much to pack,” she said, unsmiling. She slid off the bed and swiftly gathered her belongings. He saw the lute before she picked it up, and something flickered across his face. Had he once played one? She stood before him, carisak over her shoulder, aware that her heart was thumping. She glanced at the screen, her eyes going to Rimbol's graph. How much longer before he was released? She nodded to Trag and followed him from the room.

Killashandra was soon to learn that Trag was reticent by nature, but as they made their way down the infirmary corridors, she was relieved to be conducted in silence. Too much had happened to her too fast. She realized now that she had feared her own life-signs would suddenly appear on the medical display. The sudden reprieve from that worry and her promotion out of the infirmary dazed her. She did not appreciate until later that Trag, chief assistant to the Guild Master in charge of training Crystal Singers, did not normally escort them.

As the lift panel closed an the infirmary level, Trag took her right hand and fastened a thin metal band around her wrist

“You must wear this to identify you until you've been in the ranges.”

“Identify me?” The band fitted without hindering wrist movement, but the alloy felt oddly harsh on her skin. The sensation disappeared in seconds, so that Killashandra wondered if she had imagined the roughness.

“Identify you to your colleagues. And admit you to Singer privacies.”

Some inflection in his voice made the blood run hot to her cheeks but his expression was diffident. At that point, the lift panels opened.

“And it permits you to enter the Singer levels. There are three. This is the main one with all the general facilities.” She stepped with him into the vast, vaulted, subtly lit lobby. She felt nerves that had been strung taut in the infirmary begin to relax in moments. Massive pillars separated the level into sections and hallways. “The lift shaft,” Trag continued, “is the center of these levels of the complex Catering, large-screen viewing, private dining, and assembly rooms are immediately about the shaft. Individual apartments are arranged in color quadrants, with additional smaller lifts to all other levels at convenient points on the outer arc. Your rooms are in the blue quadrant. This way.” He turned to the left and she followed.

“Are these my permanent quarters?” she asked, thinking how many she had had since meeting Carrik.

“With the Guild, yes.”

Once again, she caught the odd inflection in his voice. She supposed it must have something to do with her being out of the infirmary before any of the others of her class. She was curiously disjointed. She had experienced that phenomenon before, at the Music Center, on days when no one could remember lines or entrances or sing in correct tempi. One simply got through such times as best one could. And on this, certainly a momentous one in her life, acquiescence was difficult to achieve.

She nearly ran into Trag, who had halted before a door on the right-hand side of the hall. She was belatedly aware that they had passed recesses at intervals.

“This apartment is assigned to you.” Trag pointed to the lock plate.

Killashandra pressed her thumb to the sensitized area. The panel slid back.

“Use what is left of the morning to settle in and initiate your personal program. Use whatever code you wish: personal data is always voice coded. At 1400 hours, Concera will escort you to the cutter technician. He'll have no excuse not to outfit you quickly.”

Killashandra noted the cryptic remark and wondered if everyone would address her comments she couldn't understand yet apparently ought to. As she mused on what “ought to” had accomplished for her, Trag was striding back down the hall.

She closed the panel, flicked on the privacy light, and surveyed her permanent Guild quarters. Size might denote rank here as on other worlds. The main room here was twice the size of her ample recruit accommodation. To one side was a sleeping chamber that was apparently all bed. A door on one wall was open to a mirrored dressing area that, in turn, led into a hygiene unit with a sunken tank sprouting an unusual number of taps and dials. On the other side of the main room was a storage closet larger than her student room on Fuerte and a compact dining and self-catering area.

“Yarran beer, please.” She spoke more to make noise in the sterile and ringingly quiet place. The catering slot opened to present a beaker of the distinctive ruddy beer.

She took the drink to the main room, sipping as she frowned at the utilitarian furnishings. Laying her lute carefully on a chair, she let her carisak slip off her shoulder and onto the floor, seized by an urge to throw her possessions around the stark apartment, just to make it look lived in.

Here she was, Killashandra Ree, installed in spacious grandeur, achieving status as a Crystal Singer, that fearsome and awful being, a silicate spider, a crystal cuckoo with a luxurious nest. This very afternoon, she was to be tuned to a Cutter that would permit her to slice Ballybran crystal, earn stunning totals of galactic credits, and she would cheerfully have traded the whole mess for the sound of a friendly voice.

“Not that I'm certain I have a friend anywhere,” she said.

“Recording?”

The impersonal voice, neither tenor nor contralto, startled her. The full beaker of beer trembled in her hand.

“Personal program.” That was what Trag had meant. She was to record those facts of her life that she wished to remember in those future times when singing crystal would have scrambled her memory circuits.

“Recording?”

“Yes, record and store to voice print only.”

As she gave such facts as her date and place of birth, the names of her parents, grandparents, sisters, and brothers, the extent and scope of her education, she stalked about the main room, trying to find exactly the right spot in which to display her lute.

“On being awarded a grant, I entered the Music Center.” She paused to laugh. How soon did one begin to forget what one wished to forget?

“Right now!”

“Recording?”

“End of recording. Store.” And that was that. She knew she could reconsider, but she didn't want to remember those ten years. She could now wipe them out. She would. As far as she would be ever after, hence forth, and forever more concerned, nothing of moment happened after the grant award until she encountered Carrik. Those ten years of unremitting labor and dedication to ambition had never occurred to Killashandra Ree, Cutter in the Heptite Guild.

To celebrate her emancipation from an inglorious past, Killashandra dialed another beer. The digital indicated an hour remained before Concera was to take her to the appointment. She ordered what was described as a hearty, nourishing soup of assorted legumes. She checked her credit, something she must not forget to do regularly, and found herself still in the black. If she were to enter the rest of the Guild voucher and her open ticket, she would have quite a healthy balance. To be consumed by the equipment of a Crystal Singer. She'd keep those credits free.

That reminded her of Shillawn, and of other credit-debit discussions. She keyed the Guild's commissary, ordered additional furnishings, rugs of the Ghni weavers, and by 1400, when Concera touched her door chime, Killashandra had wall-screens that mixed the most unlikely elements from an ice-world to the raving flora of the voracious Eobaron planets. Startling, but a complete change from sterility.