"So, dark and mysterious lady, when you get to know me better . . ."

"Let me get to know you better first."

They flitted back to Trefoil, circling over quays empty of any fishing craft.

"Lunk is moving offshore," Orric said. "Season's about over, I'd say."

"Does Tucker really have enough for a ticket-off?"

"Probably." Orric was busy setting the little craft down in dim light. "But Tir needs one more good haul. And so, I suspect, does Skipper Garnish. They'll track school as far as there's trace before they head in."

Which was the substance of the message left for Orric at the Golden Dolphin. So Killashandra, Orric, and Biyanco talked most of the evening with few other drinkers at the bar.

That was why Killashandra got an invitation to go with Biyanco fruit-harvesting. "Land fruit for harmat," Biyanco said with an odd shudder.

Orric laughed and called him an incorrigible lubber. "Biyanco swears he's never touched sea fruit in his life."

"Never been that poor," Biyanco said with some dignity.

The brewman roused her before dawn, his tractor-float purring outside her veranda. She dressed in the overall he had advised and the combi-boots, and braided her hair tightly to her skull. On the outward leg of their trip, Trefoil nestled on the curved sands of a giant horseshoe bay, foothills at its back. Rain forests that were all but impenetrable swept up the hills, sending rank streamers across the acid road in vain attempts to cover that man-made tunnel to the drier interior.

Biyanco was amiable company, quiet at times, garrulous but interesting at others. He stopped off on the far side of the first range of foothills for lorries and climbers. None of the small boys and girls waiting there looked old enough to be absent from schooling, Killashandra thought. All carried knives half again as long as their legs from sheaths thong-tied to their backs. All wore the coveralls and combi-boots with spurred clamp-ons for tree-climbing.

They chattered and sang, dangling their legs from the lorries as the tractor hovered above the acid road. Occasionally one of them would wield a knife, chopping an impertinent streamer that clasped itself to a lorry.

Biyanco climbed farther above sea level by the winding acid road until he finally slowed down, peering at the roadside. Five kilometers later he let out an exclamation and veered the tractor-float to the left, his hands busy with dials and switches. A warning hoot brought every climber's legs back into the lorries. Flanges, tilting downward, appeared along the lorry load beds and acid began to drop from them. It sprayed out, arcing well past the tractor-float's leading edge, dissolving vegetation. Suddenly the float halted, as if trying to push against an impenetrable barrier. Biyanco pushed a few toggles, closed a switch, and suddenly the tractor-float moved smoothly in a new direction.

"Own this side of the mountain, you know," Biyanco said, glancing at Killashandra to see the effect of his announcement. "Ah, you thought I was only a bar brewman, didn't you? Surprised you, didn't I? Ha!" The little man was pleased.

"You did."

"I'll surprise you more before the day is out."

At last they reached their destination, a permaformed clearing with acid-proofed buildings that housed his processing unit and temporary living quarters. The climbers he had escorted went further on, sending the lorries off on automated tracks, six climbers to each lorry. They had evidently climbed for him before and in the same teams, for he gave them a minimum of instruction before dismissing them to pick.

Then he showed Killashandra into the processing plant and explained the works succinctly.

Each of the teams worked a different fruit, he told her. The secret of good harmat lay in the careful proportions and the blending of dead ripe fruit. There were as many blends of harmat as there were fish in the sea. His had made the Golden Dolphin famous; that's why so many Armaghans patronized his hostelry. No vapid, innocuous stuff came from his stills. Harmat took months to bring to perfection: the fruit he'd process today would be fermented for nine months and would not be offered for sale for six years. Then he took her below ground, to the cool dark storage area, deep in the permaform. He showed her the automatic alarms that would go off if the vicious digger roots of the jungle ever penetrated the permaform. He wore a bleeper on his belt at all times (he never did remove the belt, but it was made of a soft, tough fiber). He let her sample the brews, and it amused her that he would sip abstemiously while filling her cup full. Because she liked him and she learned about harmat from him, she gradually imitated drunk.

And Biyanco did indeed surprise her, sprier than she had ever thought him and elated with his success. She was glad for his sake and somewhat puzzled on her own account. He was adept enough that she ought to have enjoyed it, too. He had tried his damnedest to bring her to pitch but the frequency was wrong, as it had been with Tir, would have been with Orric, and this badly puzzled Killashandra. She ought not to have such trouble off-world. Was there crystal in her soul, after all? Was she too old to love?

While Biyanco slept, before the full lorries glided back to the clearing, she probed her patchy memory again and again, stopped each time by the Guild Master's cynical laugh. Damn the man! He was haunting her even on Armagh. He had no right to taint everything she touched, every association she tried to enjoy. She could remember, too, enough snatches to know that her previous break had been as disastrous. Probably other journeys, too. In the quiet cool dark of the sleeping room, Biyanco motionless with exhaustion beside her, Killashandra bleakly cursed Lars Dahl. Why was it she found so little fulfillment with other lovers? How could he have spoiled her for everyone else when she could barely remember him or his lovemaking? She had refused to stay with him, sure then of herself where she was completely unsure now. Crystal in her soul?

Experimentally, she ran her hand down her bare body, to the hard flesh of her thighs, the softness of her belly, her firm breasts. A woman never conceived once she had sang crystal. Small loss, she thought, and then, suddenly, wasn't sure.

Damn! Damn! Damn Lars Dahl. How could he have left her? What was rank to singing black crystal? They had been the most productive duo ever paired in the annals of the Heptite Guild. And he had given that up for power. What good did power do him now? It did her none whatsoever. Without him, black eluded her.

The sound of the returning lorries and the singing of the climbers roused Biyanco. He blinked at her, having forgotten in his sleeping that he had taken a woman again. With solemn courtesy, he thanked her for their intercourse and, having dressed, excused himself with grave ceremony. At least a man had found pleasure in her body, she thought.

She bathed, dressed, and joined him as the full fruit bins began spilling their colorful contents into the washing pool. Biyanco was seated at the controls, his nimble fingers darting here and there as he weighed each bin, computed the price, and awarded each chief his crew's chit. It was evidently a good pick, judging by the grins on every face, including Biyanco's.

As each lorry emptied, it swiveled around and joined the line on the tract-float that was also headed homeward. All were shortly in place, and the second part of the processing began. The climbers took themselves off under the shade of the encroaching jungle and ate their lunches.

Abruptly, noise pierced Killashandra's ears. She let out a scream, stifling a repetition against her hand but not soon enough to escape Biyanco's notice. The noise ceased. Trembling with relief, Killashandra looked around, astonished that no one else seemed affected by that appalling shriek.