"No flaws perceived. A fine shear edge and good point," Enthor rendered his opinion in a flat tone markedly different from his conversational style with Killashandra. With an almost finicky precision, he wiped and polished a tiny crystal hammer and tapped each pyramid delicately. The fourth one was a half note, instead of a whole, above the third, and thus a scale was not achieved.

"Market them in trios and save the imperfect one for a show piece. I recommend that you check your cutter for worn gaskets or fittings. You're too good a Singer to make such an obvious mistake. Probably the oncoming storm put you off the note."

The attempt at diplomacy did not mollify the Singer, whose eyes bulged as he gathered himself to bellow. Enthor appeared not to notice, but the other sorter had stepped backward hastily.

"Lanzecki!"

The angry shout produced more than the swift arrival of Lanzecki. A hush fell over the sorting room, and the Singer seemed unaware of it, his savage glance resting on Enthor, who blithely tapped figures into his terminal.

Killashandra felt a hand on her shoulder and stepped obediently aside to allow Lanzecki to take her place by Enthor. As if aware of the Guild Master's presence, Enthor again tapped the crystals, the soft tones falling into respectful silence.

Lanzecki was not listening: he was watching the dials on the scales. One eyebrow twitched as the half tone sounded and the corresponding digits appeared on the display.

"Not a large problem, Uyad," Lanzecki said, turning calmly to the flushed Singer. "You've been cutting that face long enough to fill in half tones. I'd suggest you store this set and fill it to octave. Always a good price for pyramids in scale."

"Lanzecki . . . I've got to get off-planet this time. I have got to get away! I won't survive another trip to the ranges. . . not until I've had time off this bloody planet!"

"This is but one carton, one set, Uyad-vuic-Holm. Your cargo has been very good according to the input here," for Lanzecki had made use of the terminal even as Uyad's manner changed from ire to entreaty. "Yes, I think it'll be sufficient to take you off-planet for a decent interval. Come, I'll supervise the sort myself."

Simultaneously, several things happened: working noises recommenced in the room; Lanzecki was guiding the distressed Singer to another sorting slide, his marker encouraging rather than condescending, which Killashandra could not help but admire in the Guild Master; the other sorter had returned to his position. Enthor swiftly packed the offending pyramids, marked their container, and dealt it to a little-used slide above his head, then, seeing her bemused, gave her a friendly dig in the ribs.

"An even pace makes light of the biggest load. Another box, m'dear."

Even pace or not, they didn't seem to be making much of an impression on the mound of containers waiting to be sorted. What made a repetitive day interesting was the tremendous input of information Enthor divulged on crystal, grading, sound, and disposition. When he noticed she was taking a keen interest in the valuations, he chided her.

"Don't sweat your head remembering prices, m'dear. Change every day. Value's computed by the Marketing Office before we start sorting, but tomorrow, values might be totally different. One aspect of crystal's enough for me to cope with: I leave the merchandising to others. Ah, now here's beauty in rose quartz! Just look at the shading, the cut. Dooth's work, or I miss my guess," and Enthor peered at the carton, blinking his eyes for a lens change. "I don't." I'd know his cut among the whole roster's."

"Why?" Killashandra leaned closer to inspect the octagon. It was beautiful, a deep pale pink with a purple tinge, but she couldn't understand Enthor's enthusiasm.

The sorter took a deep breath as if to explain and then exhaled sharply.

"Ah, but if you knew, you'd have my rating, wouldn't you?" He blinked again and regarded her with a shrewd narrowing of his eyes.

"Not necessarily," she replied. "I'd prefer to sing crystal . . ."

Enthor looked from her to the rose octagon. "Yes, perhaps you would at that. However, I recognize Dooth's cut when I see it. When - if - you cut crystal, you will know crystal that is so fine, so rare."

With both hands, he laid the heavy jewel on the scale plate, running two fingers over his lips as he watched the configurations change and settle.

"I thought you said there was a surplus of rose crystal . . ."

"Not of this weight, color, or octagonal," he said, his fingers tapping out a sequence. "I happen to have heard" and Enthor lowered his voice - " that someone very highly placed in the Federated Planets is looking for large pieces this hue." He lifted the octagon to the coating rack where the deep pink was swiftly cocooned from sight with plastic webbing, and at a touch of his finger on the terminal, an identifying code was stippled along the hardening surface.

At the close of the first day of sorting, Killashandra felt as tired as she had after unloading in the gale. She said as much as Shillawn and Rimbol joined her in a weary trudge to their lounge.

"We're getting paid for our efforts," Shillawn said by way of cheering them.

"Yesterday we got a danger bonus as well," Killashandra said, not to be outdone.

"Making use of the data banks, are you?" Rimbol asked, grinning at her with some malice. Killashandra hadn't admitted to him that she'd taken a skimmer out the evening before the storm, but he'd known.

"Told we were. Available to us is the data." Killashandra so aptly mimicked Tukolom's ponderous tones that she had the other two laughing. "I'm going for a shower. See you in the lounge later?"

Rimbol nodded, and so did Shillawn.

In the catering slot by her bed was another beaker of the lemon liquid. She drank it and had her shower, by the end of which she felt sufficiently revived to enjoy a quiet evening at dice with Rimbol and Shillawn.

Though no more peevish crystal cutters added excitement to the sorting routine during the next three days, Killashandra did have an unusual slice of luck. Halfway through the second day, Lanzecki and the handsome woman Killashandra guessed must be the chief marketing officer walked swiftly into the sorting room and marched right up to Enthor.

"Gorren's conscious. Muttering about black crystal. Have any of his cartons been released to you yet?"

"By my bones, no!" Enthor was shocked and amazed. Shocked, he later confided to Killashandra, that Gorren's cuttings had been stored separately and amazed because he hadn't known that Gorren had returned. He'd half expected to hear, Enthor continued solemnly, that Gorren had been one of the Singers trapped in the ranges by the storm. Gorren's black crystals were always entrusted to Enthor for evaluation.

A work force was hastily assembled in the sorting room, checking the labels of the many boxes still waiting evaluation. The group that had unloaded Gorren's ship - his had been the one to overturn - were identified and summoned. Fortunately, the handlers were regular hangar personnel, and since they had known the cartons were Gorren's and valuable, they had placed them on a top layer, fifth stack, with buffering layers on either side.

Reverently, the eleven valuable cartons were handed down. Since it had been impressed constantly on Killashandra that very little could damage these specially constructed boxes or their contents, and she'd seen some of these same men indifferently lobbing cartons through the air to one another, she reflected that the presence of Lanzecki and Chief Marketing Officer Heglana had a salutary effect.

She was more surprised to see the two officials each take up a carton and was delighted when Enthor, his expression severe, pressed one firmly into her body, waiting until she had grasped the handles tightly.

Killashandra was elated by Enthor's confidence in her and walked the short distance back to the sorting room with the black crystal crammed against her breasts. Unaccountably, she was trembling with tension when she deposited her burden safely beside the others.

Later, she remembered that Enthor had moved with his normal dispatch to unpack: it was probably just because so many important people were watching and she herself caught their suppressed excitement that Enthor appeared to be dawdling. Tension can be transferred, and the sorting room was certainly crackling despite the hush. Those at nearby sorting tables had managed to be in positions to observe the unpacking, while those not directly in the Guild Master's view had suspended work completely, watching.

As Enthor lifted the first black crystal from its protecting foam, a sigh rippled through the watchers.

"Flipped right over, didn't he?" Heglana remarked, and made a clicking sound in her throat. Lanzecki nodded, his eyes on Enthor's hands.

The second black was larger, and to Killashandra's surprise, Enthor did not place it safely apart from the first but against the first where it seemed to fit securely. She felt a tingle at the very base of her head that spread upward across her skull. She shook her head, and the sensation dissipated. Not for long. A third, the largest crystal, fit against the second, a fourth and a fifth. The tingle in her head became a tightening of the scalp. Or was it her head bones pressing out hard against her skin, stretching it?

"Five matched crystals. Gorren hadn't imagined it."

Lanzecki's voice was level, but Killashandra sensed his satisfaction with such a cut. "Quality?"

"High, Lanzecki," Enthor replied calmly. "Not his best cut, but I dare say the flaws, minute as they are, will not impair the function if the units are not too far separated."

"Five is a respectable link," Heglana said, "for an interplanetary network."

"Where are the flaws? In the king crystal?"

"No, Lanzecki" - Enthor's fingers caressed the largest of the five as if reassuring it - "in the first and fifth of the cut." He gestured to either side. "Marginal." He deftly transferred the interlocking quintet to the scales and ordered his sequence. The display rested at a figure that would have made Killashandra exclaim aloud had she not been in such company.

Whoever Gorren was, he had just made a fortune. She mentally deducted the requisite 30 percent tithe. So Gorren had a small fortune, and there were ten more cartons to unpack.

Enthor removed the contents of three containers while Lanzecki and Heglana observed. Killashandra was somewhat disappointed by these, though the two watching nodded in satisfaction. The smaller units were not as impressive, though one set contained twelve interlocking pieces, the "king" crystal no longer than her hand at octave stretch and no thicker than her finger.

"He may be down to the base of this cutting," Lanzecki said as the fourth container was emptied. "Proceed, Enthor, but transfer the total to my office for immediate display, will you?" With an inclination of his head to Enthor, he and Heglana swiftly left the sorting room.

A universal sigh ran about the room and activity picked up on all the other tables.

"I don't think we've come to the prize yet, Killashandra," Enthor said, frowning. "The hairs on the crest of m'neckio . . ."

"The what?" Killashandra stared at him, for he was describing exactly her sensation.

Enthor shot her a surprised glance. "Scalp itch! Spasm at the back of your head?"

"Am I coming down with symbiont fever?"

"How long have you been here?"

"Five days."

He shook his head. "No! No! Too soon for fever." He narrowed his eyes again, turning his head to one side as he squinted at her. Then he pointed to the seven remaining containers.

"Pick the next one."

"Me?"

"Why not? You might as well get used to handling - he paused, scrubbed at his close cropped hair - "crystal. Myself, I don't agree with Master Lanzecki. I don't think Gorren has come to the end of the black face he's been cutting. Gorren's clever. Just enough substantial stuff to get off-planet, and slivers now and then. That way he's got Lanzecki in a bind and a route off-planet any time he chooses. Pick a carton, girl."

Startled by the command, Killashandra reached for the nearest box, hesitated, and drawn by a curious compulsion, settled her hands on its neighbor. She picked it up and would have given it over to Enthor, but he gestured for her to place it on the table, its ident facing the scanner.

"So open it!"

"Me? Black crystal?"

"You chose it, didn't you? You must learn to handle it."

"If I should drop?"

"You won't. Your hands are very strong for a girl's, fingers short and supple. You won't drop things you want to hold."

Tension, like a frigid extra skin about her torso, crept down her thighs. She had felt this way, standing in the wings before an entrance in the Music Center, so she took three deep breaths, clearing her lungs and diaphragm as she would if she were about to sing a long musical phrase.

Indeed, when her questing fingers closed on the large soapy-soft object in the center of the plasfoam, she exhaled a long, low "ah" of surprise.

"NO!" Enthor turned to her in outrage. "No, no," and he darted forward, clapping his hand to her mouth. "Never sing around raw crystal! Especially" - and his tone intense with anger - "near black crystal!" He was so agitated that he blinked his lens on and off, and the red of his unprotected eyes effectively cowed Killashandra. Enthor looked about him in a frenzied survey to see if any one at the nearer tables had heard her. "Never!"

She didn't dare tell him at that juncture that the black crystal had vibrated in her hands at her spontaneous note and her finger bones had echoed the response of other segments still unpacked.

With an effort, Enthor regained his composure, but his nostrils flared, and his lips worked as he struggled for calm.

"Never sing or whistle or hum around raw crystal no matter what the color. I can only hope you haven't inhibited the magnetic induction of a whole ring linkage with that ill-advised - ah - exclamation. I'll say it was an exclamation if I should be asked." He let out one more unaspirated breath and then nodded for her to take out the crystal.

Killashandra closed her eyes as she freed the heavy block. Enthor was not going to like this if she had indeed blurred raw crystal. Told she had been and at some length and with considerable emphasis by Tukolom all about the subtle and delicate process by which segments of the black quartz crystal were subjected to synchronized magnetic induction, which resulted in the instantaneous resonance between segments as far apart as five hundred light years. The resonance provided the most effective and accurate communications network known in the galaxy. That she might have inadvertently damaged the thick block she now exposed to Enthor's startled gaze weighed heavily in her mind.

With an intake of breath for which she might have returned him his caution on sound, Enthor reverently took the dodecahedron from her.

"How many more are with it?" he asked in an uneven voice.

Killashandra already knew how many there should be.

Twelve and there were. She retrieved them from their webbing, handing them carefully to Enthor, though they were not as massive or tall as the king crystal. They fit as snugly to the central block as they had lived with it until Gorren had cut the crystals from the quartz face.

"Well!" Enthor regarded the matched set on the scale.

"Are - are they all right?" Killashandra finally found a contrite voice for the urgent question.

Enthor's little hammer evoked a clear tone that rippled from her ear bones to her heels, like an absolving benison. Even without Enthor's verbal reassurance, she knew the crystal had forgiven her.

"Luck, m'dear. You seem to have used the note on which they were cut. Fortunate for me."

Killashandra leaned against the sorting table to balance her shaky self.

"A set like this will provide a multiple linkage with thirty or forty other systems. "Magnificent!" By this time, Enthor was examining the thirteen crystals with his augmented vision. "He cut just under the flaw," he murmured, more to himself, then remembered the presence of Killashandra. "As one would expect Gorren to do."

Brusquely but with precise movements, he put the crystals on the scale. Killashandra allowed herself an unaspirated sigh at the size of the huge fortune in credits Gorren had just acquired.

"Magnificent!" Enthor said. Then he gave a chuckle, his glance back at Killashandra sly. "Only Lanzecki will have the devil's own time persuading Gorren to cut anything for the next two galactic years. There's not that much black being cut. Being found. Still in all, that's Lanzecki's problem, not mine. Not yours. Bring another carton, m'dear. You've the knack of picking them, it seems."

"Luck," Killashandra said, regarding the remaining boxes, none of which seemed to draw her as that other had done.

She would rather have been wrong but the rest of Gorren's cut was unexciting. The small clusters were unexciting. The small clusters, absolutely flawless, would be quite sufficient for the larger public entertainment units that provided realistic sensual effects, Enthor told her.

That night, most of the recruits insisted on her telling them about the black crystal, and Lanzecki and the chief marketing officer, for they had been unable to hear much and not permitted to stare. She obliged them, including a slightly exaggerated version of Enthor's dressing down that she felt would be salutary. Besides, the telling relieved the tension she still felt at how close she had come to buggering up enough credit to ransom a planet.

"What could they do to you if you had?" Shillawn asked, swallowing nervously as if he envisioned himself muffing it in a similar instance.

"I don't know."

"Something bizarre, I'm sure," Borton said. "Those Singers don't spare anyone if their cuttings are mishandled. I was lucky enough to be the sorter who did Uyad's cut." Borton grinned. "I hid in the storage behind enough cartons, so I didn't get much of the back blast."

"So that's where you were," Jezerey asked, teasing.

"Bloody well told. I'm not here to bucket someone else's bilge."

Conversation continued about the variety of cuts and sizes and colors of the crystals from the Brerrerton and Milekey Ranges. Killashandra added nothing else, considering it more discreet to remain silent. When she could do so without attracting attention, she rose and went to her room. She wanted to think and recall the sensation of handling that massive black crystal. It hadn't been really black, not black at all, nor clear the way the rose or indeed any of the other crystals had been. She had accepted the designation at the time, for surely Enthor knew his crystals, and certainly the black quartz was different.

She tapped data retrieval for all information on black quartz crystal and specimens there of. The data included black crystal in segmented units, none quite like the dodecahedron. Another display showed an octagon in its luminous, unchanged state, then the same form shading gradually to a matte black as it responded to thermal changes artificially induced. The data began to take up the lecture Tukolom had given, and she switched it off, lying back and recalling the sensation of her first contact with black crystal.

The next day, recovery teams brought in the cargo from sleds that had not reached the safety of the Guild Complex, and depression settled over the sorting room when the cartons, dinged, scarred, and discolored, were deposited on sorting tables. The mood was partially lightened when two containers disgorged some good triple and quadruple black crystal.

"What happens to them?" Killashandra asked Enthor in a low voice.

"To what?"

"The crystal of the Singer who didn't make it."

"Guild." Enthor's terse reply seemed to imply that this was only fair.