"That's a relief," Killashandra muttered as the report concluded. The storm had been one of those quick squalls, fierce in its brief life, its only damage that of taking Lanzecki's life in its fury. "We can be back out in the Ranges by tomorrow evening."

"Fardles! Killa." Lars rounded on her. "Lanzecki's not even found and—"

Her livid expression stopped his words. "The sooner I'm in the Ranges, the sooner I'll forget."

"Forget Lanzecki?" Lars was stunned.

"Forget! Forget!" The lift door opened, and she ran down the hall to their apartment. She heard him following her and wasn't even grateful.

As she slammed into their quarters, she heard the radiant fluid slopping into the tub. Pulling off her coverall and boots, she stumbled into the room and clambered into the bath. The fluid was no more than calf-deep, so she stood under the spigot and let it roll down her back and shoulders. Dimly she heard Lars's voice, updating his records. She began to curse, so she couldn't possibly hear a word he said.

All the resident staff of the Cube were quiet and depressed the next noon when Killashandra and Lars reached the dining room. While Killa filled her tray from the alcohol-drinks dispenser, Lars kept looking around, peering at the faces of those sitting in alcoves. Seeing his discreet search for Bollam recharged her vexation.

"Lanzecki opted out, Lars," she said in an intense, low voice, jerking him to her side. "What're you drinking?"

"Yarran!" His voice was flat.

"Yarran? This is no time for beer! This is the time to get paralytic drunk!"

He gave her a bitterly amused look. "I thought you wanted to be back in the Ranges tomorrow morning. With a hangover?"

"With the most massive hangover I can acquire between now and then," she told him savagely, and downed the first of the many triple-measure glasses on her tray, pressing for a refill as she tossed the empty glass into the recycler.

"You may just go out alone, then," he said. Taking the Yarran beer from the slot, he left her standing there.

Surprised, she watched him maneuver among the tables, heading for the far alcove where the two Hangar officers were sitting. She hadn't thought Lars had a masochistic streak in him. Or maybe he just had to find out if Bollam had somehow managed to get Lanzecki into the sled and back to the Cube.

The dork couldn't have managed it, or the nonsingers of the Guild wouldn't be so deep in drink. Now that she had looked around, she could see that most of them were as badly gone as she would like to be. She downed another triple and, moving carefully so as not to slosh a drop of liquid anesthesia, made her way toward Lars. The stench of ketones was almost overpowering. These people must have been drinking steadily since the news got out.

"Oh, he'll live," Cargo was saying as Killashandra approached the table. "That's not saying how much good he'll be." She glanced up at Killashandra and, with a brief inclination of her head, indicated that the singer could join them. The flight officer clearly did not agree with that invitation. "Oh, leave it, Murr. You haven't been here long enough to know. You did as you should, Killa," she added and patted the cushion beside her. Her eyebrows did lift at the sight of so much liquor on the tray. She raised her mug of coffee. "Happy hangover!"

Suddenly Killashandra lost any taste for the boozing she had planned. Her stomach roiled and growled. She sat down, hands limp in her lap, and stared across at Lars, wanting his reassurance and understanding even more than she had ever wanted to cut black crystal. He pointedly ignored her, and the tears began to stream down her face.

"You did right, Killa. You did," Cargo said softly, and clasped her fingers on the singer's forearm, squeezing briefly with a gentling firmness before releasing. "Didn't she, Lars Dahl?" she added sternly.

Lars looked at Cargo, unable not to avoid his partner's tear-streaked face. He closed his eyes, exhaling in defeat. "Yes, if you say so, she did."

"Look here, Dahl." Cargo leaned across the table, her face fierce. "I do say so. If you want, you can ask Medical. They could see." And she waved her hand in the general direction of the infirmary wing where damaged singers were tended until such time as hearts in crippled bodies stopped and empty minds went dark. " I could see!" And her tone was fierce. "Murr here didn't know Lanzecki in his prime as I did, and Killa did! And Killa knew him better than most. Face it, Murr, Lars, she did the right thing. Don't know why that ass Bollam even qualified—except he was probably too craven, or too shitless scared to step back after Disclosure, when he heard all the risks he'd be taking on Ballybran. He had a lousy Transition, as if the symbiont working into his bloodstream also discovered it hadn't made a great choice of a home body, and we'd never though he'd end up a singer!" The scorn in her voice gave unexpected ease to Killashandra's anguish. "Certainly not as Lanzecki's partner!"

"Lanzecki was shepherding him . . ." Lars said, trying to find some perverse justification.

Cargo snorted bitterly. "When Lanzecki said he'd shepherd the geek, I knew I wouldn't ever see Lanzecki back in the Hangar, Lars. And I told you that, didn't I, Murr?"

"I just don't understand why," Murr said. "Everyone's saying he was the best Guild Master we've ever had . . ."

"There've only been four," Cargo replied.

"Four?" Murr was staggered. "But the Guild's been going close to seven hundred years!"

"Hmmm, so it has, and I've been Cargo for nearly two and a half hundred."

That silenced Murr completely—he stared at the woman as if he expected her active body and attractive face to crumple into dust if he so much as blinked. Despite her grief, Killashandra was amused.

"What did Medical know about Lanzecki?" Lars asked, his expression as bleak as ever. Somehow, though, Killa sensed that his antagonism toward her had eased.

Cargo shrugged. "What happens to all of us eventually? The symbiont is weakened past restoration, and degeneration finally starts. All a fast downhill ride then." That was when she noticed Murr's expression and grinned. "Never fear, Murr, you're stuck with me a while yet. Me and my symbiont are in great shape."

"It doesn't say in Rules and Regs," Lars began after watching Murr try to assume a normal attitude, "how a new Guild Master is elected."

"No, it doesn't," Cargo agreed, frowning slightly. "But, like I say, the problem doesn't come up very often."

Killashandra sent a fierce glare at Lars. The slight grin that tugged at one corner of his mouth did not reassure her.

"It'll take time," Cargo added indifferently. "Politics is involved. What else is new? They have to choose someone acceptable to the majority of the long-term customers."

"Who's 'they'?" Lars asked.

"I dunno." Cargo shrugged again. "Maybe one of the Instructors knows." She looked around the big room. "None of them appears to be sober enough to ask. I gotta get back to work. Do I put your sled into a ready slot? That storm's cleared off."

Killashandra didn't dare look at Lars.

"Yes, we'll be out again tomorrow," he said, and she sagged against the cushions with relief. But her relief that was very short-lived as she remembered that Cargo estimated it would be a long time before the new Guild Master would be chosen.

So she didn't get drunk to blunt her acute sense of loss at Lanzecki's death. She endured it as Cargo and Lars did, as Murr couldn't. But she drank glass for glass of Yarran beer with them. A singer could drink Yarran for days and barely blunt sensitivities. She heard that Bollam had survived with what wits he originally possessed intact. He had been badly crystal-cut when the rescue ship had found his crashed sled, but he had made it past the storm zone before losing control. What she hated Bollam for was that crystal had wiped all his memories of Lanzecki. She couldn't wait to get out in the Ranges and hope for the same respite. A few days cutting in the Ranges, and one could forget just about anything.