She was first out of the sled, running her fingers along the uneven rock walls of the canyon and hoping to catch a trace of crystal resonance. Or find the scars of a previous working.

Lars struck off in the opposite direction. They met on the far side, having seen nothing to indicate this canyon was the one they were looking for.

"Shall we go left or right?" Lars asked as they got back into the sled.

"Off the top of my head! Right!" Killashandra said after a moment's sober thought. "Not that that's any indication."

But she turned out to be correct—for in the narrow ravine to the right of their first landing they came across evidence of cutting.

"I'd know our style anywhere," Lars said.

"You mean yours," she replied, settling in to another of their long debates as they returned to the sled and unpacked their sonic cutters.

"We'd do better if we waited until the sun hits them," Lars said.

"No better or no worse. Hit a C."

Inhaling deeply, he sang a fine powerful true mid-C, his eyes sparkling at her, daring her as he so often did. She sang out a third above his note, as powerfully as he had. Sound bounced back at them, making them both flinch at the undertones.

"Some of it's cracked," Killa said but, as one, they both moved toward the resonating point. "Green, from the power in its echo."

"I told you I remembered where we'd cut green."

Once at the side of the ravine, they sang the pitch notes again and set their cutters to the sound. Killa indicated the cut she would make and set herself for the first wrenching scream of cut crystal. No sooner had she set the cutter than Lars set his a handspan to the right.

The first set cleared away the imperfect crystal to reveal a wide vein of fine green.

"Shards, but those Apharians are going to be furious when they hear about this," she said, slicing away additional marred quartz.

"What'll we try for?"

"Comunit sizes, of course," she said with a snort.

Once the debris cleared, they sang again in case they had to retune the cutters, but Lars's C and her E rang clearly back at them. Together they placed their cutter edges and, taking a simultaneous breath, turned on the power.

Darkness forced them to stop with twelve fine crystals cut and stored in the padded carrier case carefully strapped in the cargo bay. Quietly, from the ease of long practice, they made a meal and ate it. Then, continuing their rituals, they washed—there would come days when crystal song would override such habits. While Lars made entries in the sled's log, Killashandra pulled down their double bunk and got out the quilts. They were both ready to settle at the same time.

The morning sun, stroking the Ranges awake, provided an alarm no singer could resist: the insidious chiming of crystal as the first rays dispelled the chill of night. The notes were random, pure sound, for only perfect crystal could speak on sunlight. The ringing stirred senses and awoke desires as it grew louder and more insistent. Killashandra and Lars simultaneously turned to each other. She could see his smile in the shadowy cabin and answered it, lifting her arm to his shoulders, eager for the touch of his bare skin against hers. It seemed to Killashandra that as their lips met an arpeggio rippled through the air, excitingly sensual, deliciously caressing, ending on a clear high C that shivered over them just as their bodies joined.

This was the real reason men and women sang crystal together—to hear such music, to experience such sensations and such ecstasy as only crystal could awaken on bright clear mornings. Such unions made up for all the mundane squabbles and recriminations between partners when crystal cracked or splintered and a whole day's work might lie in shards at their feet. There was always the prospect of the incredible combination of sound and sensation in sunlit crystal to reanimate their relationship.

"We must get moving, Sunny," Lars murmured, making an effort to move. Too languorous with remembered passion, Killashandra murmured a throaty denial and shaded her eyes from the sun splashing into the cabin.

"C'mon now. Hell, we'll be having a spate of good clear weather," he said, pushing her toward the edge of the bunk. "We can afford to do a little work today. I'll start breakfast. Your turn in the head."

He used the light jocular tone that he knew Killashandra would accept. As she rose and stretched luxuriously, she glanced enticingly over her shoulder at him.

"That won't work on me today, Sunny," he said wryly and gave her a slap across the buttock. Sometimes the sight of her at full stretch was enough to tempt him, despite the fact that they both knew a repeat performance once the sun had risen would be less satisfying than the first.

She strutted sensually across to the head, flirting with him, but he only laughed and stuck his right leg into his coverall, pulling the garment up past his unresponsive member. She grabbed up her own clothes and slid open the door. As he took his turn, she finished making the substantial breakfast they would need to fuel them for working crystal all day. On clear days, singers rarely stopped to eat, cutting as long as there was light enough to see where to place their blades.

Killashandra recalled, without remembering when, that there had been a time or two when she had cut throughout a double-moon night: the times when she had struggled to cut enough to afford passage off the fardling planet to get some respite from crystal song.

They had been profitably working that vein for five days when Killashandra's weather sense began to pluck at her consciousness.

"Storm?" Lars knew her so well.

She nodded, and set her cutter for a new level. "Not to worry yet."

"Nardy hell, Killa, we've got eight crates of the stuff. No sense in taking a risk. And the marker's new enough to draw us right back here after the storm."

"We've time. Sing out," she told him in a tone that was half command, half plea. "Greens aren't easy to find, and I'm not about to quit when there's still time to cut. The storm could ruddy well splinter this vein to nothing good enough to spit at."

Lars regarded her levelly. "Just let's not cut it too fine!"

"I wouldn't let you get storm-crazed, lover."

"I'm counting on it. I think this tier's going to be minor key," he added, humming a B-flat and hearing the same tone murmur back at him.

"I'll make mine E, or would A be better?"

He nodded crisp agreement for the A, and they sang, cutting as soon as they heard the answering notes the crystal flung back at them, its own death knell.

But storm sense caught at Killashandra again, not long after they had crated the nine crystals of that cutting.

"I think we're going," she told him, hefting the cutter in one hand and bending her knees to take one handle of the crate. He did the same, and she set a rapid pace back to the sled. As Lars settled the crate into its strappings, Killa racked up both cutters and took the pilot's seat, closing hatches and starting up the engines.

Lars peered out of the window of the right-hand side and muttered a curse. "Angle of the wall's wrong. Can't see anything. Where's it coming from?"

"South." Just then the weather-alert klaxon cut in. It got one hoot out before her hand closed the toggle.

"You're ahead of the best technology the Guild can beg, borrow, or steal, aren't you?" Lars grinned at her, proud of her ability.

"Yup!"

"Don't get cocky."

"It's going to be a bad one, too." She shifted uneasily in the seat, her bones already responding to the distant stroking of the crystal. "I swear, the longer I cut, the more sensitive I get to the intensity of weather systems."

"Saves our skins, and our crystal."