"Vagaries?" she repeated indignantly. " Vagaries?" His choice of word infuriated her.

"Yes, singers are permitted far too much leeway—"

"Too much? When we risk our sanity every time we go into the Ranges?"

"That's the most haphazard part of the whole operation," Lars said scornfully. "Most singers—and you are not in that category, Sunny, so relax and listen up—cut just enough to get off-planet. They leave viable sites long before they need to quit because of an approaching storm. They don't remember from one time to the next where they've profitably cut and waste a lot of time trying to locate old ones or find new ones. This paranoia that keeps a singer from noting coordinates of claims is absurd. It's easy enough to use codes."

"If you can remember it later," Killa put in.

"Numbers aren't that hard to remember," he said, "and something has to be done to make such invaluable information available to the individual. It'd cut out the guesswork and make every trip into the Ranges far more profitable. Our friend Terasolli's another example of wasted time. He gets top price to set that octave, and he won't come back to Ballybran until crystal itch drives him back. That'll be a year or so—a year or so of unproductivity. That's got to stop."

"Stop?" She sputtered the word in her amazement at his uncompromising attitude.

"Two, maybe three months, should be respite enough for a singer."

"How the fardles would you know?" Killa demanded. "You've never set black crystal. You don't know . . ." She tried to stop, she was trembling so badly. "Set this thing down. I'm not going any further with you. I'd rather walk back to the Guild than stay another minute . . ."

Lars did set the vehicle down, but he also shoved in the door lock and swung his back against it so she couldn't reach it. His face was set and his eyes flashing with anger. He took her by the shoulders.

"You'll stay and you'll listen! If I can persuade a mind as closed as yours against any change in wasteful habits and stupid archaic perks, maybe I have a chance of pulling the Guild out of the hole it's in." He gave her a little shake, his fingers digging into the flesh of her upper arms. He ignored her squirming. "I'm trying my damnedest to save this Guild. Its position in communications is no longer as secure as it used to be because people have got tired of waiting for Ballybran crystals and have developed alternatives. Not as good as our crystal but performing much the same functions and . . . always . . . available . . . for replacement . . ." He spaced the last words for emphasis. "I've got nine orders for black crystal I can not fill because my singers can not relocate the sites where they've found black. So they go wandering about in the Ranges, looking, trying to remember. I want them to remember. I've been patient long enough—just as Lanzecki was patient—but there's an end to patience and I've reached it. I'll do anything I can to supply black crystal, to build up a backlog of the stuff, to reinstate the Guild to its former prominence. And if it means I have to plumb the depths of crazed minds to find out where black crystal is, I will. But it'd be much easier to have a live singer willing, and able, to cooperate with me."

His bitter gaze held hers, and she could see his deep anxiety, his frustration, his fears in the dark agony of his clouded eyes. His voice was harsh with desperation.

"How could I cooperate any more than I have?" she asked in a low voice, shivering internally with fear of what this compliance might do to her.

"Oh, Sunny . . ." He embraced her tightly, holding her head under his chin with one hand, stroking her body as if contact would express his gratitude and relief. Then he held her slightly away, her face in his hands, stroking her cheeks with gentle thumbs, looking deep into her eyes. "You know where you cut blacks. It's there in your memory." One hand cupped her head tenderly. "We just have to access those memories . . . it'll all come back. Donalla says that with the proper clues, you could remember everything . . ."

Killashandra stiffened, regretting her impulse, pulling herself free. "I don't need to remember everything, Lars. I don't want to remember everything. Get that straight now."

"Honey, all I'm asking is landmarks for the black-crystal sites you've cut. I've remembered only two and I know there were more. I have got to have black crystal," and he pounded his fist into the plas above the control panel with such force that it left a dent.

She reached for his hand, to prevent him repeating the blow. Immediately he covered hers with both of his.

"If we could only"—and his voice was low now, his frustration vented—"get singers to note down landmarks so they can get themselves back to the best sites . . ."

Killa gave a snort, not as derisive as she might have been because she was not going to exacerbate Lars's despair. "Now that's asking a lot, love," she said wryly. "You know how paranoid singers are. Put something down that another singer could find and locate?" She shook her head. "Not to mention roping singers back to Ballybran before they absolutely have to return."

Lars looked deeply in her eyes. "That's why your cooperation is so vital, Sunny. You're senior among the working singers. If you can be seen to accede to executive orders," he said with a bitter smile, "the others will accept them. Especially if you start bringing in more crystal, better crystal, because you know exactly how to get back to workable sites."

"I've already cut more crystal than any other singer . . ."

"You have that enviable reputation, Sunny," he said with a hint of his customary ebullience.

"So how does this regression process work?"

He straightened up, his eyes losing their grimness. "Under hypnosis. Donalla's become expert. She found the coordinates I needed to access one of our old claims the last time I went out."

"You—by yourself?" The notion that he had risked himself like that made her choke with fear.

"As Guild Master, I had to set the example, despite my partner's illness. I can't ask singers to do what I won't do myself, you know."

"And you talk about capricious singers!"

"Don't shout, Killa. I cut, I got back and at least filled another order."

"Order? Order!" She was indignant.

"An order that's been unfilled for twenty years, Killa! It's no wonder the Guild's reputation has been suffering. I've finally got permission to inaugurate a more active recruitment campaign, but it's experienced singers I need and right now—and out in the Ranges, not carousing on Maxim's or Baliol and spread out across the galaxy."

The bleak expression of a man who was not given to desperation, the flat, despairing edge to a voice that had always been rich with humor and optimism, moved her more deeply than any other moment in a basically egocentric and selfish life. She owed Lars Dahl, and now was the time to repay him in the only coin that mattered.

"So, let's get back to the Cube and let Donalla beguile me, or whatever it is she needs to do."

"Regress your memory."

"I can't, and that's that," Donalla said, swinging her stool around and projecting herself off it. She paced angrily about the room. "You don't trust me, Killa. It's as simple as that. Until you can trust me, hypnosis can't happen."

"But I do trust you, Donalla," Killa insisted, as she had over the past few days and the increasingly frustrating sessions she had had with the medic.

"Look, ladies," Presnol said, coming out of the corner of the room where he had been as unobtrusive as possible, "there are some folk who are psychologically unable to release control of their minds to anyone, no matter how they trust the operator. Killa's been a singer a very long time now . . ."