"How do we know that Donalla can't unhypnotize herself and consciously know our claim locations?"

"She can't," Presnol said flatly, his tone brooking no argument.

"I wouldn't want to," Donalla said. "It would be pointless since I don't sing crystal, and the cutter is always paid on what he or she brings in. I couldn't count on you to remember to give me a bribe, now could I?"

Jaygrin laughed, showing narrow, almost feral teeth. "So the deal is, Lars Dahl, that we'll get inactive singer sites plus this hypnotic business to remember where we cut?"

Lars nodded.

"And no share out of the cut?" Borton asked.

"On the first cut of an inactive, you pay the twenty-five percent, but only the Guild tithe on any subsequent cuttings."

Even Tiagana looked interested now.

"It works," Killa said, deciding to enter the discussion. "I've flown out and cut as long as the claim was good. Came back in, got another set, and flew directly to it, ready to cut again. Of course, one claim was buried too far to be reached, but the coordinates were accurate. Saves a lot of time and wasted effort."

"You've been doing what Lars described?" Tiagana asked.

"I have," Killa replied, nodding and managing a slightly smug curl to her smile. "A snap." She snapped her fingers to match her words. "I think it's a lot easier on a body, too," she added, indolently easing her buttocks down in her chair. "Muhlah, when I think of the days I've spent trying to find a site, trying to remember if it was still workable. Sure saves a lot of stress." She debated putting a word or two about loyalty to the Guild but knew that wouldn't cut much with singers. Only credit did. And Lars's new scheme was indeed the key to larger credit balances and fewer dry runs in the Ranges. "No more dry runs," she reminded the three singers as they mulled over what had been said.

Presnol slipped away from the table and returned with more Yarran beer. Wisely Lars switched to a discussion of the dinner they had just eaten, criticizing the preparation of one or two dishes and asking if anyone else had found them wanting.

Singers would talk food till the galaxy grew cold, and Presnol and Donalla kept the beer circulating until only Lars and Killa, who had been more abstemious than her custom, were able to walk straight.

"Do you think it'll work?" she asked him as they made their way to their quarters.

"We'll know tomorrow. But that Jaygrin's going to try it." Lars chuckled. "Avaricious bastard! But then he's never come in with any of the darker colors on his own."

Which, in crystal-singer parlance, was the most insulting thing one could say about another cutter.

As Killa was setting off for the next set of coordinates Donalla had obtained for her, she saw the other three singers readying their sleds in the Hangar. When she came back two days later, she had a full carton of deep amethyst crystals in fifths and thirds. They were not, of course, the black she had been after. But she had remembered that Clodine had said the darker shades were in short supply, so she had stayed to cut rather than return empty-handed.

Before she had lifted from the site, she had jotted down the coordinates and slipped the notation under the sheet of liberated markers taped to her console. In plain sight and yet hidden. Now if she could only remember that! She ought to think of some sort of code, something she would twig to the moment she saw it. She began to regret that she wasn't a good subject for hypnosis. She wondered how Tiagana, Borton, and Jaygrin were getting on. She was pleased that she could recall their names so easily. If she wanted to remember something, she really could!

She was in rare good spirits when she brought the cartons in to Clodine.

"Haven't I seen you here a lot lately?" the Sorter asked, grinning because Killa was.

"Sure! I'm enjoying an excellent streak of luck. It was bound to happen," Killashandra said blithely, "given the probabilities. Even if these aren't blacks."

Clodine held up the heaviest of the fifths, adjusting her eyesight to scrutinize the crystal. She put it on the scales and made minute adjustments, nodding all the while.

"Well, you remembered amethyst, and there's a good market for them right now. Two space stations are being constructed, and the big Altairian waystation is expanding, so darks are needed for their life-support systems. Lars'll be real pleased to know these have come in."

"I'll tell him myself, hear?" Killa winked at Clodine.

"It's nice to see you like this, Killa," Clodine said, and gave Killa's arm a tentative pat. "And you're not even buzzing."

"No, I'm not. I feel as if I could cut forever these days."

"I'd heard you already had!" Clodine said with rare flippancy.

In great good humor, Killashandra laughed, then chuckled more heartily from her gut when she saw the final figure on two days' work. Many were the times in her past when she would have killed for such totals. Yes, Lars's idea of getting coordinates out of inactives was brilliant.

Before she went down to her quarters, she stopped in the Hangar office to ask for her sled to be ready for the morning.

"Why don't you just stay out, like you usually do, Killa?" Murr asked. "You're like an overnight homer, in one day and out the next."

"I find what the Guild needs, I cut, I bring it in. Much more efficient that way, isn't it?"

"You're using a lot of fuel," he cautioned.

"I've the credit to pay for it, Murr. Humor me."

She left him there, but his morose attitude brought her down a bit. The moment she entered her quarters, the comunit buzzed.

"Muhlah! Can't I even have a bath first?"

"Killa?" Lars's image came up on the screen. "Glad you're in, C.S. Ree. Would you join me as soon as possible in my office?"

She started to say something snide about his formality, but before she could speak he stepped to one side and she saw that he had visitors in his office: visitors who were wearing the clear plastic suits and breathing masks that meant their errand was urgent enough for them to risk possible contamination by the Ballybran symbiont.

"Permit me time to become presentable, Guild Master Lars Dahl," she said in a similar manner, and waved the comunit off.

Curiosity moved her to shower and change quickly. Very few people would take the chance these were. Urgent was almost always interesting. As she strode into the office, there was a new person at Trag's desk who looked up, seemed about to challenge her presence, hesitated, and then looked quickly back to the screen. She palmed the door and entered Lars's office.

"Ah, Crystal Singer Ree, I appreciate your alacrity. These are Klera and Rudney Saplinson-Trill. Klera, Rudney, this is the other member of the original Guild survey team." He gestured for Killashandra to be seated.

She noticed that there were snacks on the table beside her and blessed him for such thoughtfulness. He had even managed drinkers for the suited Saplinson-Trills. But he hadn't managed to indicate why they were braving the dangers of Ballybran.

"I'm not sure if you can recall the planet we visited some years back . . ." Lars began.

"Twenty-four years, five months and two weeks to be precise," Rudney Saplinson-Trill said with the quick humorless smile of someone to whom accuracy is more important than courtesy. The tinny and nasal quality the helmet speakers gave his voice increased the impudence of that unnecessary correction.

"Yes, the one with the opalescence which we investigated for the late Guild Master," Lars continued. "It was posited at the time that Heptite Guild members, protected by their symbiont, would be safe from the infection which had killed the original exploratory team exposed to the opalescence—"