"I don't intend to die," Killashandra replied. and ordered a double beaker of Yarran beer for herself and Rimbol.

They had quite a few refills before they went to bed together. As Killashandra woke in her own room, she assumed they'd ended up there, but Rimbol was gone. The light was far too brilliant for her eyes, and she dimmed the plasglas on the unshuttered windows. After the storm and its attendant hard labor, it was pleasant to look out on the hills. She scoffed at herself for missing 'a view.' The rain must have encouraged growth, for vivid reddish-purple blooms tinged the slopes, and the gray-green vegetation was brighter. Doubtless she would grow to love the seasonal changes of Ballybran. Until she'd gone with Carrik to see the sights of Fuerte, she hadn't quite appreciated natural scenery, too accustomed to the holograms used in performances.

Carigana was the first person she saw as she entered the lounge. Killashandra hoped the day would improve from that point. The space worker had an ability to ignore people, so that Killashandra was not obliged to acknowledge her presence. The woman's obstinacy annoyed her. No one had forced her to apply to the Heptite Guild.

The recruits were laggard, and by the time all had assembled, Tukolom was clearly impatient.

"Much to be done is this day," he said. "Basic lessons delayed have been - "

"Well, it will be a relief to sit and relax," someone said from the center of the group.

"Relax is not thinking, and thought must earnest be," Tukolom replied, his eyes trying to find the irreverent. "Geography today's study is. All of Ballybran. When adjusted you are, another continent may you be sent to."

Carigana's exaggerated sigh of resignation was echoed by others, though Tukolom stared only at her for such a public display of insolence. Carigana's vocabulary of monosyllables punctuated Tukolom's fluid explanations throughout the morning until someone hissed at her to stop it.

Whoever had organized the lecture material had had a sense of humor, and though Killashandra wagered with herself that Tukolom could not have been aware of the amusing portions of his rote discourse, she, and others, waited for these leavening phrases. The humor often emphasized the more important aspects of the lessons. Tukolom might be reciting what he had patiently learned or switching mental frames in an eidetic review, but he had also learned to pace his delivery. Knowing the strain of uninterrupted speaking, Killashandra was also impressed by his endurance.

"I wouldn't mind farming in North Ballinteer," Rimbol confided in her as they ate lunch during the midday break. "Nice productive life, snow sports in the winter . . ."

Killashandra stared at him. "Farmer?"

"Sure, why not? That'd be meters ahead of being a supplier! Or a sorter. Out in the open . . ."

"In mach storms?"

"You heard your geography lesson. The produce areas are 'carefully situated at the edge of the general storm belts or can be shielded at need'." Rimbol imitated Tukolom's voice and delivery well, and Killashandra had to laugh.

That was when she saw a group moving together with a menacing deliberation, closing off one corner and its lone occupant. Noting her preoccupation, Rimbol swiveled and cursed under his breath.

"I knew it." He swung out of his chair.

"Why bother, Rimbol? She deserves it."

"She can t help being the way she is. And I thought you were so big on Privacy on your world. On mine, we don't permit those odds."

Killashandra had to accede to the merit of that reply and joined him.

"What do I care about that?" Carigana's strident voice rose above the discreet murmur addressed to her by the group's leader. "And why should you? Any of you? They're only biding their time until we get sick. Nothing matters until then, not all your cooperation or attention or good manners or volunteering" - and her scorn intensified - to clean up messes in sleds. Not me! I had a pleasant day - What?" She snapped her head about to the questioner. "Debit?" She tossed her head back and laugher raucously. "They can take it out of my hide - later. Right now, I can get anything I want from stores. If you had any intelligence, you'd do the same thing and forget that stuffed mudhead - "

"You helped unload crystal . . ." Killashandra heard Jezerey's voice.

"Sure I did. I wanted to see this crystal, just like everyone else . . . Only" - and her tone taunted them - "I also got wise. They'll work you at every mean, disagreeable, dirty grind they've got until the spore gets you. Nothing will matter after that except what you're good for."

"And what do you expect to be good for?" Jezerey demanded.

"Crystal Singer, like everyone else!" Carigana's expression mocked them for the ambition. "One thing sure. I won't be sorting or supplying or mucking in mud or . . . You play along like good cooperative contributing citizens. I'll do what I choose while I still have eyes and ears and a mind that functions properly."

She rose quickly, pushing herself through the unsympathetic crowd, then pounded down the corridor to her room. The red light flashed on.

"You said something about Privacy?" Killashandra couldn't refrain from asking Rimbol as they turned desultorily away from the silent group.

"She does prove the exception," he replied, unruffled.

"What did she mean about a mind that functions properly?" Jezerey asked, joining them. She was no longer as confident as she had been when confronting Carigana.

"I told you not to worry about it, Jez," Borton said, coming behind her. "Carigana's got space rot, anyhow. And I told you that the first time I saw her."

"She's right about one thing," Shillawn added, almost unable to pronounce the 'th'. "Nothing really does matter until the symbiont spore works."

"I wish she hadn't said 'sick'," and Jezerey emphasized her distaste with a shudder. "That's one thing they haven't shown us . . . the medical facilities . . ."

"You saw Borella's scar," Shillawn said.

"True, but she's got full adaptation, hasn't she?"

"Anyone got headache, bellyache, chills, fever?" Rimbol asked with brightly false curiosity.

"Not time yet." Jezerey pouted.

"Soon. Soon." Rimbol's tone became sepulchral. Then he waved his hand in a silencing gesture and jerked his thumb to indicate Tukolom's return. He gave a heavy sigh and then grinned because he inadvertently echoed Carigana. "I'd rather pass time doing something . . ."

That was the unanimous mood as the recruits turned to their instructor. The ordeal of symbiotic adaptation was no longer an explanation delivered in a remote and antiseptic hall on a moon base: it was imminent and palpable. The spore was in the air they breathed, the food they ate, possibly in the contact of everyone they'd worked with over the past ten days.

Ten days, was it? Killashandra thought. Who would be first? She looked about her, shrugged, and forced her mind to follow Tukolom's words.

Who would be first? The question was in everyone's eyes the following morning when the recruits, with the exception of the obdurate Carigana, assembled for the morning meal. They sought each other's company for reassurance as well as curiosity. It was a bright clear day, the colors of the hills mellower, deeper, and no one raised any objection when Tukolom announced that they would visit the succession houses on the Joslin plateau where delicacies were grown.

When they arrived in the hangar for transport, they witnessed the return of a heavy-duty wrecker, a twisted knot of sled dangling from its hoist. The only portion of the air sled that resembled the original shape was the storage area, though the under and right hatch were buckled.

"Do they plan all this?" Rimbol quietly asked Killashandra in a troubled voice.

"The recovered sled? Perhaps. But the storm - C'mon now, Rimbol. Besides, what function would such a display serve? We're stuck here, and we'll be Singers. . . or whatever." Killashandra spoke severely, as much to reassure herself as Rimbol.

He grunted as if he had divined her anxiety; then jauntily he swung up the ramp to their transport vehicle without another glance at the wreck.

They sat together, but neither spoke on the trip, although Killashandra began several times to point out beautiful clusters of flowering shrubs with vivid, often clashing, shades of red and pink. The gray had completely disappeared from the ground cover, and its rich deep green was now tinged with brown. Rimbol was remote, in thought, and she felt that fancies about flora would be an invasion of his privacy.

The moist humidity and lush aromas of the huge hothouses reminded Killashandra of Fuerte's tropical area, and Carrik. The agronomist demonstrated the baffles that deflected the mach winds from the plasroofs as well as the hydroponics system that could be continued without human assistance. He also lectured on the variety and diversity of fruits, vegetables, grasses, lichens, fungi and exotics available to the Guild caterers. When he went on to explain that research was a part of the Agronomy Department, improving on nature wherever possible in sweetness texture, or size, he led them outside the controlled-climate units.

"We must also improve on nature's whimsy," he added just as the recruits noticed the work crews and the damage to the next building.

Killashandra exchanged glances with Rimbol, who was grinning. They both shrugged and joined the agronomists in finishing the storm repairs.

"At least, it's only finishing," Rimbol muttered as he pressed a trigger on a screw gun. "What do they do when they haven't got three decades of recruits to fill up work gangs?"

"Probably draft suppliers and sorters and anyone else unoccupied. At least, here everyone takes a turn," she added, noticing that both Tukolom and the chief agronomist were heaving plastic as willingly as Borton and Jezerey.

"There, now, you can let go, Killa." He stood back to survey the panel they had just secured. "That ought to hold . . . until another boulder gets casually bounced off the corner.

Shielding her eyes from the glare of the sun to her left, Killashandra peered northerly, toward the crystal ranges.

"Don't even think about it," Rimbol said, taking her hand down and turning her. He gathered up his tools. "I wonder what's in store for us tomorrow?"

He had no banter on the return trip, nor had anyone else. Killashandra wished she'd thought to ask the agronomist about the ground-cover plants and shrubs. And amused herself by wondering if he bothered with such common varieties.

Tension put an effective damper on recruit spirits that evening, a damper unrelieved even by some moderate drinking. Rimbol, who had been the class wit, was not disposed to resume that mantle.

"Are you all right?" Killashandra asked him as he stared into his half-empty beer.

"Me?" He raised his eyebrows in affected surprise at her question. "Sure. I'm tired. No more than the accumulation of more hard work in the past . . few days than I've had to do in years. Student living softens the muscles."

He patted her arm, grinning reassuringly, and finished his beer, politely ending that subject. When she returned with a refill of her own beaker, he was gone. Well, she thought sadly, he has as much right to Privacy as I, and neither of us is good company tonight.

Sleep did not come easily that night for Killashandra. She doubted she was alone in her insomnia, though that was no consolation. Her mind continually reviewed the symptoms Borella had described for the onset of the adaptation. Fever? Would she recognize one, for she'd never had a severe systemic illness. Nausea? Well, she had had bad food now and again or drunk too much. Diarrhea? She'd experienced that from over eating the first sweet yellow melons as a girl. The thought of being completely helpless, weak in the thrall of an alien invasion - yes, that was an appropriate description of the process - was abhorrent to Killashandra. Cold swept across her body, the chill of fear and tension.

It had all seemed so easy to contemplate on Shankill: symbiosis with an alien spore would enrich her innate abilities, endow her with miraculous recuperative powers, a much increased life span, the credit to travel luxuriously, the prestige of being a member of a truly elite Guild. The attractive parts of a felicitous out come of her adaptation to the spore had, until this dark and lengthy night, far out weighed the unemphasized alternatives. Deafness? She wouldn't have sung professionally anyhow, not after what the judges had said about her voice, but the choice not to sing had to be hers, not because she couldn't hear herself. To be a sorter, like Enthor, with his augmented vision? Could she endure that? She'd bloody have to, wouldn't she? Yet Enthor seemed content, even jealous of his ability to value crystal.

Had she not desired to be highly placed? To be first sorter of the exclusive Heptite Guild qualified. How long would it take to become first sorter? With lives as long as those the inhabitants of Ballybran could lead?

How long would it have taken her to become a Singer of stellar rank, much less solo performer anywhere, had her voice passed the jury? The thoughts mocked her, and Killashandra twisted into yet another position in which to find sleep.

She was well and truly caught and had no one to blame but herself. Caught? What was it the older Singer had asked Borella on the shuttle? "How was the catch?" No, "Much of a catch?" "The usual," Borella had replied. "One can never tell at this time."

Catch? Pools like herself, warned by Carrik and Maestro Valdi, not to mention the FSP officials, were the catch, those who would trade solid reality for illusion - the illusion of being wealthy and powerful, feared, and set apart by the tremendous burden that came with crystal singing.

And no guarantee that one would become a Singer! Carigana had been right. Nothing would matter until adaptation, for none of the lectures and work had been specifically oriented toward the role of the Singer: nothing had been explained about the art of cutting crystal from the face, or how to tune a cutter, or where in the ranges to go.

Tossing, Killashandra recalled the contorted features of Uyad, arguing for credit to take him off-planet: the stained Singers stumbling from their sleds across the wind-battered hangar - and the condition of those sleds that gave an all too brutal picture of the conditions that Singers endured to cut enough crystal to get off the planet.

Yet Borella's voice had held longing when she spoke of returning to the crystal ranges . . . as if she couldn't wait.

Would singing crystal be analogous to having the lead role in a top-rank interstellar company?

Killashandra flailed her arms, shaking her head from side to side. Anything was better than being classed as an anonymous chorus leader. Wasn't it?

She rearranged her limbs and body into the classic position for meditation, concentrated on breathing deeply and pushing back all extraneous and insidious conjectures.

Her head was heavy the next morning, and her eyes felt scratchy in their sockets. She'd no idea how long she had slept finally, but the brightness of the morning was an affront to her mental attitude; with a groan, she darkened the window. She was in no mood to admire hillsides.

Nor was anyone else in a much better state, ordering their breakfasts quietly and eating alone. Nonetheless, Killashandra was disgusted not to have noticed the absences. Especially Rimbol's. Later, in a wallow of private guilt, she rationalized that she had been groggy with lack of sleep and certainly not as observant as usual. People were straggling into the lounge. It was Shillawn, stammering badly, who first noticed.

"Killashandra, have you seen Rimbol yet? Or Mistra?" Mistra was the slender dark girl with whom Shillawn had been pairing.

"Overslept?" was her immediate irritated reaction.

"Who can sleep through the waking buzz? He's not in his room. It's - too empty."

"Empty?"

"His gear. He had things when he came. Nothing's there now."

Killashandra half ran to Rimbol's room. It was, as Shillawn had said, very empty, without the hint of a recent occupation, antiseptically clean.

"Where is Rimbol, former occupant of this room?" Killashandra asked.

"Infirmary," a detached voice said after a negligible pause.

"Condition?"

"Satisfactory."

"Mistra?" Shillawn managed to ask.

"Infirmary."

"Condition?"

"Satisfactory!"

"Hey, look, you two" - and Borton diverted the attention of the group waiting in the corridor - "Carigana's gone, too."

The forbidding red light on that door was off.

Shillawn gulped, glanced apologetically at Killashandra. Carigana's condition, too, was satisfactory.

"I wonder if dying is considered satisfactory," Killashandra said, seething with frustration.

"Negative," replied the computer.

"So we get whisked away in the night and never seen again? Jezerey asked, clinging to Borton's hand, her eyes dark and scared.

"Distress being noted by sensitive monitors, proper treatment immediately initiated," Tukolom said. He had arrived without being noticed. "All proceeds properly." He accorded them an almost paternal smile that faded quickly to an intense scrutiny of the faces before him. Apparently satisfied, he beckoned them to follow him to the lounge.

"He makes me feel as if I ought to have come down sick, too," Jezerey murmured so that just Killashandra and Borton heard.

"I wish the hell I had," Killashandra assured her. She tried not to imagine Rimbol tossing feverishly, or convulsed.

"Today concerns weather," Tukolom announced portentously and frowned at the groans from his audience.

Killashandra hid her face and gripped her fingers into fists until her nails dug painfully into her palms. And he has to pick today to talk about weather.

Some of what he said on the subject of meteorology as that science applied to Ballybran and its moons penetrated her depression. In spite of herself, she learned of all the safety devices, warnings, visual evidences of imminent turbulence, and the storm duties of Guild members. All available personnel were marshaled to unload Singers' air sleds, not just unclassified recruits.

Tukolom then guided his meek students to the met section of the Guild control rooms, and there they were able to watch other people watching satellite pictures, moon relays, and the printout of the diverse and sensitive instrumentation recording temperatures, suspended particles, wind speed and direction from the sensor network on the planet.

Killashandra didn't think much of herself as a met worker. The swirling clouds mesmerized her, and she found it difficult to remember which moon view she was supposed to observe. The computer translated the data into forecasts, constantly updated, compared, overseen by both human and machine. Another sort of symbiosis. One she didn't particularly care to achieve.

Tukolom shepherded them down to the hangar again, to accompany a maintenance crew to one of the nearby sensor units. They were filing aboard the transport when Jezerey went into a spasm, dropping to the plascrete, her face flushed. She moaned as a convulsion seized her.