She had a morning drill with Concera, spent a half hour with the Fisher, who grumbled incessantly about a bad morning's fishing, the inferiority of the plastic he had to work with, and the privileges of rank. Killashandra decided that if she were to ruffle at every cryptic remark tossed her way, she'd be in a state of constant agitation. The remainder of the afternoon, Concera reviewed her on crystal shapes, tones, and the combinations that were marketable at the moment: black crystals in any form always having the highest value. Killashandra was to review the catalog, commit to memory which shape was used for what end product, the range in price, and the parameters of value variation in each color. She was taken through the research departments, which sought new uses for Ballybran crystal. There she noticed several people with the eye adjustment of Enthor.

In the days that followed, she was given instruction in the sled-simulator, “flying” against mach storm winds. By the end of the first lesson, she was as battered, sweaty, and trembling as if the flight had been genuine.

“You'll have to do better than that,” the instructor commented unsympathetically as she reeled out of the simulator. “Take a half hour in the tank and come back this afternoon.”

“Tank?”

“Yeah, the tank. The radiant fluid. Left-hand taps. Go on! I'll expect you back at 1500.”

Killashandra muttered the terse instructions all the way back to her rooms, shedding her clothes as she made her way to the tank. She turned on the left-hand taps, and a viscous liquid oozed out. She got the temperature she wanted and dubiously lowered herself into the tank. In minutes, tension and stress left her muscles, and she lay, buoyed by the radiant bath, until the stuff cooled. That afternoon, her instructor grudgingly admitted that she had improved.

A few days later, half a morning through a solo training flight across the White Sea where thermal patterns made good practice, every visual warning device on the controls turned red, and a variety of sirens, klaxons, bells, and nerve-tinglers was activated. Killashandra immediately veered northeast to the Guild Complex and was relieved when half the monitors desisted. The rest blared or blinked until she had landed the sled on its rack and turned off the power. When she complained to her instructor about the warning overload, he gave her a long, scathing look.

“You can't be warned too often about the approach of turbulence,” he said. “You Singers might be as deaf as some of us no matter how we rig cautions. While you remember advice, remember this: a mach storm won't give you a second chance. We do our fardling best to insure that you have at least one. Now change your gear for cargo handling. A blow's on the way!”

He strode off, waving to attract attention from a cluster of hangar personnel.

The storm was not rated Severe and only the southeast section of the continent had been alerted. Forty Singers had logged out in that general area, and thirty-nine straggled in. The flight and hangar officers were conferring together as Killashandra passed them.

“Keborgen's missing. He'll get himself killed!”

“He's been bragging he was out for black. If he managed to remember where the claim is . . .”

Killashandra had no excuse to linger near the two at that point, but when the other ships had been cleared and racked, she stayed on after the rest of the unloaders had been dismissed.

The wind was not strong enough at the complex to require the erection of the baffles, so Killashandra stationed herself where she could watch the southern quadrant. She also kept an eye on the two officers and saw them abandon their watch with a shrug of shoulders and shakes of the head.

If Keborgen had actually cut black crystal, she would've liked to have unloaded it. She wasn't needed on the sorting floor. She consoled herself with the knowledge that she had racked up some danger credit already, and wasn't much in the red for decorating her room and days of uncredited instruction. Being a recruit had had advantages.

She was crossing the hangar to return to her quarters when she heard the sound, or rather felt it, like a thread dragged across exposed nerve ends. She wasn't yet accustomed to her improved vision, so she shook her head and blinked, expecting to clear the spot on the right retina. It stayed in position in the lower right-hand quadrant, dipping and swaying. Not a shadow in her own eye but a sled, obviously on course for the complex. She was wondering if she should inform anyone when wrecker personnel began to scramble for the heavy hoist sled. In the hustle, no one noticed that Killashandra had joined the team.

The wrecker didn't have far to go for the sled plowed into the hills forty klicks from the complex. The comtech could get no response from the sled's pilot.

"Bloody fool waited too long," the flight officer said, nervously slapping his fingers against his thigh. "Warned him when he went out, not to wait too long. But they never listen. He repeated variations of those sentiments becoming more agitated as the wrecker neared the sled and the damage was visible.

The wrecker pilot set his craft down four long strides from the Singer's sled.

“You others get the crystal,” the flight officer shouted as he plunged toward the crumbled bow of the sled, which was half buried in loose dirt.

As Killashandra obeyed his order, she glanced back on the sled's path. She could see, in the distance, two other slide marks before the crashing sled had bounced to a stop.

The storage compartment had withstood impact. Killashandra watched with interest as the three men released the nearest hatch. As soon as they emerged with cartons, she darted in. Then she heard the moans of the injured Crystal Singer and the drone of curses from the flight officer and medic attending him.

The moment she touched the nearest carton, she forgot the injured man, for a shock, mild but definite, ran along her bones from head to heel to head. She gripped the carrier firmly, but the sensation dissipated.

“Move along. Gotta get that guy back to the infirmary,” she was told by returning crewmen.

She picked the carton up, minding her steps, ignoring the exhortation of the crewmen who passed her out. She crouched by the carton as the cocoon of the injured Singer was deftly angled into the wrecker.

During the short trip back to the complex, she wondered why there was such a fuss. Surely the symbiont would repair the man's injuries, given the time to do so. She supposed that the symbiont relieved pain. Borella hadn't appeared uncomfortable with her awful thigh wound, and Concera, given to complaints, had said nothing about pain in her regenerating fingers.

As soon as the wrecker landed, the Singer was hurried to waiting meditechs. Hugging the carton that she devoutly hoped contained black crystal, Killashandra walked straight through the storage area into the sorting room. She had no problem finding Enthor, for the man almost bumped into her.

“Enthor,” she said, planting herself and pushing the carton at him, “I think this has black crystal.”

"Black crystal?" Enthor was startled; he blinked and peered frowningly at her. "Oh, it's you. You?" His lensed eyes widened in surprise. "You? What are you doing here?" He half turned in the direction of the infirmary and then up to the recruits' level. "No one's been cutting black crystal – "

“Keborgen might have been. He crashed. This is from his sled.” She gave the carton an urgent shove against his chest. “The flight officer said he had been out to cut blacks.”

Out of habit, Enthor took hold of the carton, quite unable to assimilate either her explanation or her sudden appearance. Killashandra was impatient with Enthor's hesitation. She did not want to admit to the contact shock she had felt in Keborgen's sled. Deftly, she propelled Enthor at his table, and though still perplexed, he presented the ident to the scan. His hands hovered briefly but dropped away as he twisted toward Killashandra.