"What about one of the claims we cut? Aren't there any in the vicinity?"

Lars frowned thoughtfully. "Should be." Then he banged his fist on the console. "If only we could establish some method by which singers could register the location of sites . . ."

"Ha! And have renegades spend weeks trying to break into the program!"

"There are security measures available now that no singer could break."

"Ha! I don't believe you! I won't believe you."

"I know," he said, shrugging away her anger, and grinned over his shoulder at her. "But I'll win 'em over to my way of thinking!"

"That'll be the day!"

"It'll come, Sunny. The Guild has to reorganize. It can't continue to operate on guidelines that're centuries old, incredibly obsolete and damned naive."

"Naive?"

"It's a rough galaxy we live in. The business ethics that motivated the earliest Guild Masters simply don't exist, and modernization is long overdue."

"Modernization?" Killa swept her hand around the cabin, where sophisticated equipment was installed in small, discreet, and effective packages.

"I don't mean the hardware. I mean"—he jammed a finger to his temple—"the software. The thinking, the ethos, the management."

Killa made a disparaging noise in her throat. "This Guild Mastership has addled your software, that's for sure."

"Has it?" He cast her a sideways glance. "I think you'll come to agree that updates are essential."

"Hmmm. Hey, isn't that a marker of ours to starboard . . ."

It was, though nearly rubbed completely off the flat summit. They touched down, as much to refurbish the marker as to see if anything was familiar.

"Vaguely," was Killashandra's verdict. Something nagged at her, something quite insistent. "I think," she began hesitantly, "I think it's black."

"You don't sound sure . . ."

"I think you were also right to ask me if I was up to it." She fought the frisson that racked her.

"We can go back and cut more green."

"No, we're here to cut black and black we'll cut, if it kills me."

"I draw the line at suicide, no matter how badly the Guild needs black right now."

She gave him a wry grin.

What they found was a deep blue crystal, one of the loveliest colors either had ever cut. They got three cartons of it and were back at the sled, filling up their water bottles, when the first twinge of storm warning caught Killashandra. She sucked in her breath at the intensity of it. The crystal deprivation must have made her doubly vulnerable. She caught at the side of the cistern, and Lars reached out to support her.

"What's the matter? And don't you dare say 'nothing', Killa," he said, eyes piercing hers with his growing recognition of the probable cause. "Storm?" When she nodded, he cursed under his breath. Then he closed the water tap and covered his half-filled canteen, stowing it in place. He took hers from her limp hand and put it away, as well. " All right, let's get ready."

"But it's only the—"

"Fardles, Killa, I can tell just from your reaction that it's going to be a bad blow."

"It's only because—"

"I don't care what it's because," he cried, irritably chopping his hand downward to interrupt her. He took her arm and turned her toward the galley. "We're returning, and that's that. I'm not risking you to even the mildest blow. Your head's not on straight yet from deprivation."

Though she protested vehemently, she had to recognize the fact that he was absolutely correct in assessing her state. She wouldn't admit it to him—she argued out of habit. He refused to entertain her contention that they would have enough time to cut at least five, he agreed but discounted the fact that this was the best blue lode they had seen in decades.

"It isn't black," he said, his mouth and eyes angry. "Try not to forget that, Sunny, it's black we need!"

"Then why did we waste time cutting this blue?"

"You thought there was black here!" He was moving around his side of the sled, securing cabinets and stowing oddments away.

"We cut good blue . . ." she began, going meek on him, a tactic that had often worked. "I don't remember how many times you've told me that . . ."

The anger went out of him all at once, and reaching across the narrow space that separated them, he caressed her cheek briefly, his smile penitent. "Sorry, Sunny, no matter how you try to slice it, we're not cutting any more . . . here . . . today."

"It should be a partners' decision, not one way," she said, wondering if he were weakening. "You've never been this arbitrary before."

He gave a weary sigh. "I'm arbitrary now! As Guild Master, I have more than a partner's stake in keeping your brain unscrambled."

"I didn't want you to be Guild Master."

"You've made that clear," he said, and his eyes flashed at her before once again he relented. "We were the best duet the Guild ever had. I've seen the printout of our aggregate cuttings. Impressive!" The smile he gave her was suddenly boyish, and she felt her heart unseize as the Lars she knew so intimately surfaced briefly. "Now let's scramble. I'm not risking you, or me."

In far better charity with each other, they returned to the Guild. By then the storm warnings were far-flung, and sleds from all sectors began pouring into the Hangar. Lars was calling for assistance to unload their crystal just as the flight officer handed him a comunit with the message that the call had top priority.

"I'll take ours through Sorting," Killa told him when he looked expectantly at her.

For a moment she watched his tall figure stride to the nearest exit, his head bent as he listened to the priority call. Someone else needing black crystal?

Guild Master's cut also took priority in the Sorting Shed and Killa waved her cartons toward Clodine's stall. She ignored the Sorter's initial nervousness and did her best to be pleasant. It was the cut that helped restore Clodine to their previous easy relationship. The market price of the blues would have been enough to appease the most desperate singer.

Once assured of the hefty credit balance, Killashandra became aware of externals—like the crystal pong emanating from her person and her clothes. Jauntily she strode to her quarters. As she palmed open the door, she heard the radiant liquid ploshing into the tub and smiled. That was nice of Lars. A good long soak, something to eat, and she would be back to normal. Well, as normal as any crystal singer ever was. At least she had worked free of all that crystal cramp. Good cutting was what she had really needed to cure it.

The moment she toggled the food dispenser, the screen lit up to display Lars's face.

"Killa? That's a handy total on the blues," he said.

"Shards, I wanted to tell you myself," she said, feeling a surge of disgruntlement.

"I've ordered up a meal here, if you'd care to join me . . ." The hesitant tone of his invitation struck her as atypical, but it pleased her that this Guild Master was not as autocratic as Lanzecki had been.

"I think I might at that," Killa said graciously, and canceled the order she had just placed. Dinner with Lars, or for that matter, dinner with the Guild Master, tagged elusive wisps of memory, most of them pleasant.

Looking at the garments in her closet, she picked the one that suited a slightly smug mood and dressed carefully, spending time to comb out her snaggled hair and arrange it attractively. She ought to get it cut short again, she reflected. It had been a nuisance in the Ranges, sweating up and falling into her eyes when she wanted a clear view of her cuts. She peered at her face: she had a tan again, making her eyes brighter, canceling the yellow that had begun to tint the white. She pulled her hands down her cheeks: they were still gaunt, and were those age grooves from her nose to her mouth? She grimaced to smooth them away. Then she frowned. She did look older. She must be very careful not to tax her symbiont again as badly as she must have done to look this way.