"Are you sure that Moksoon is the right - "

"For your purpose, Killashandra, the only one." Lanzecki's tone allowed no argument. "Just don't trust him about anything. He's cut crystal too long and sung too long alone."

"Then why - " Now Killashandra was totally exasperated.

Lanzecki cupped her elbow and half lifted her into her sled.

"His hands will automatically do what you need to see. Watch how he cuts, what he does, not what he says. Heed your inner warnings. Watch your met report as often as you think of it. Fortunately, you'll think of it often enough the first trip out. Passover's in seven weeks. Storms can blow up days before the actual conjunction. Yes, I know you know all this, but it bears repeating. He's in and belted. No time now. Follow him. The charts of the Bay area have been put on instant review. Be sure to pack crystal as soon as you have cut, Killashandra!"

He had smoothly engineered her departure, Killashandra thought, giving her no time for regrets and none for personal farewell. Yesterday, she reminded herself, he had been Lanzecki the man. Today he was Guild Master. Fair enough.

Moksoon took off just as she switched on her sled's drive. His craft canted even in the air, a distinctive silhouette, like that of a person with one shoulder higher than the other. Despite her severe doubts about Moksoon, Killashandra experienced a rush of elation as she drifted her sled from the hangar. She was going to cut crystal at last. At last? She was first out of Class 895. She thought of Rimbol and grimaced. She ought at least to have left a call for him, explaining her absence. Then she remembered that she had placed a call to him that hadn't been answered. That could suffice!

Bollux, but that fool Moksoon was running like a scared mushman! She increased the speed of her sled, closing to a proper following distance. In a peculiar change of direction, Moksoon now headed due north and dropped to a lower altitude, skimming the first folds of the Milekey Range. As she was above him, she caught his second, easterly shift, and then he disappeared over a high fold. She decelerated to a near hover, scanning both ends of the drop as she approached it. He was hovering on the north end of the fault. She caught the merest glint of sunlight on the orange of his sled, then flew on to the next ravine as if she hadn't spotted him and mimicked his tactics until he showed at the southern edge, just as she'd expected.

"Twithead's forgotten I'm supposed to follow him," she said, and slapped on the replay. The one in his sled would project its message. She sighed deeply, resigned to a long and difficult day, but suddenly his sled popped up into sight, and Moksoon made no immediate attempt to evade her.

She checked his new heading, south at four, which was an honest direction for Moksoon's eventual destination. She wondered how long she could trust the reinforcement of the replay. A direct flight would get them to the Bay area in two hours at the reasonable speed Moksoon was maintaining. She might not know where he was leading her, but she had the advantage over him in a new sled capable of speed and maneuverability.

Even on a direct course, Moksoon was an erratic flyer. There shouldn't have been thermals or violent air currents at his level, but his sled bounced and lolled. Was he trying to make her air sick following?

Why had Lanzecki chosen this man? Because of his faulty memory! Because, once Moksoon had achieved his desired trip off-planet, he would not, in the fashion of Crystal Singers of long service, remember that he had shepherded one Killashandra Ree into the Bay's range. Well, that was logical of Lanzecki, provided she could also find Keborgen's claim. Before the others who were looking for it. Patently, Lanzecki was backing her.

"Once a Singer has cut a certain face, she only needs to be in its general area and she'll feel the pull of the sound," Concera had said. "Your augmented vision will assist in distinguishing the color of crystal beneath storm film, base rock, and flaw. Catch the sun at the right angle and crystal cuttings are blindingly clear."

Phrases and advice flooded through Killashandra's mind, but as she looked down at the undulating folds of the Milekey Ranges, she entertained serious doubts that she would ever find anything in such a homogeneous land. Kilometers in all directions flowed in similar patterns of fold, ridge, valley, gorge.

A sudden stab of piercing light made her clutch the yoke of the sled to steady herself. She peered down and saw an orange slice of sled top, half hidden by an overhang and deep in the ravine, only its luminescent paint and her altitude disclosing it. On the highest of the surrounding ridges was the splash of paint indicating a claim.

That crystal flash, as unlikely as everything else that had been happening to her recently, confirmed that some of the other improbables might also be true on Ballybran.

Fardles! Where had Moksoon got to? During her brief inattention, the old Singer's orange sled had slipped from view. She speeded up and caught a glimpse of the orange stern winding through a deep ravine. Without changing altitude, she matched pace with his cautious forward movement, her view screen on magnify. Since she had his sled well in view, she did not reactivate the tape. He might just as easily slam into one of the odd stone buttresses that lined the canyon if she startled him.

She checked the heading; Moksoon had gone north by 11. Suddenly, he oozed up and over a ridge, down into a deeper, shadowed valley. She dove, noting quickly that the deep went south. Unless he flipped over the intervening fold, Moksoon would have to follow the southerly course. That gorge continued in its erratic fashion stubbornly south by 4. She couldn't see Moksoon in the shadows, but there was no place else he could be.

The long winding of the gorge ended in a blockage of debris, the erosion of a higher anticline. There was no sign of Moksoon. He had to be in the gorge, hiding in shadow. Then she saw the faded claim blaze on a ridge. Even in Ballybran's climate, the stuff was supposed to take decades to deteriorate so much. A released claim always had the piss-green countermark - not that she'd seen any of those during her pursuit of Moksoon.

Cautiously, she guided her sled down the rock slide and into the gorge. In some places, the sides nearly met; in others, she had a view of ranges folding beyond. Something glinted in the little sunlight that penetrated. She increased the magnification and was surprised to see a thin stream meandering the base of the gorge. There had been no lake at the blocked point, so she assumed that the little stream went underground in its search for an outlet to the Bay.

She was beginning to feel anxious when an oxbend revealed a wider valley; the orange sled was parked on the right, on a shadowed ledge that would have been invisible from all except a direct search of this particular canyon.

She keyed the replay and turned up the volume so that Lanzecki's voice was echoing off the rock walls as Moksoon slipped and slid toward her, the crystal cutter held safely above his head.

"Claim jumper! Claim jumper!" he shrieked, stumbling to the ledge on which she had rested her sled. He turned on the cutter, held it well in front of him, as he approached her sled door.

"In accordance with Section 53, Paragraphs 1 through 5 . . ." the replay roared.

"Lanzecki!" He's with you?" Moksoon glanced wildly around and above him, searching for another sled.

"Playback," Killashandra yelled through Lanzecki's amplified words. "I'm not claim jumping. You're shepherding me. You get a bonus." She used her voice training to shoot her message through the pauses in the recording.

"That's me?" Moksoon pointed accusingly at her sled from which his own hesitant voice emanated.

"Yes, you made the tape this morning. You promised to shepherd me for the bonus."

"Bonus!" Moksoon lowered the cutter, though Killashandra adroitly maneuvered herself farther from its point.

"Yes, bonus, according to Section 53, Paragraphs 1 through 5. Remember?''

"Yes, I do." Moksoon didn't sound all that certain. "That's you speaking now."

"Yes, promising to abide by Section 49, Paragraphs 7, 9 and 14. I'm to stay with you two days only, to watch an expert cut crystal. Lanzecki recommended you so highly. One of the best."

"That Lanzecki! All he wants is cut crystal." Moksoon snorted in sulky condemnation.

"This time you'll have a bonus to get you off-world."

The cutter pointed down now, the fingers of the tired old man so slack on the grip, Killashandra hoped he wouldn't drop it. She'd been told often enough how easily the wretchedly expensive things damaged.

"I gotta get off Ballybran. I gotta. That's why I said I'd shepherd." Head bent, Moksoon was talking to himself now, ignoring the replayed affirmations.

Suddenly, he swung the tip of his cutter up and advanced towards her menacingly. Killashandra scooted back as far as she could on the ledge.

"How do I know you won't pop right back in here when I'm off-world and cut my claim?"

"I couldn't find the bloody place again," she said, exploding, discretion no advantage in dealing with the fanatic. "I haven't a clue where I am. I had to keep my eyes on you, zipping here and dropping there. Have you forgotten how to pilot a sled? You sure have forgotten a perfectly valid agreement you made only five hours ago!"

Moksoon, his eyes little slits of suspicion, lowered the cutter fractionally. "You know where you are."

"South at four is all I bloody know, and for all the twists and turns in this ruddy gorge, we could be north at ten. What in damnation does it matter? Show me how to cut crystal and I'll leave in an hour."

"You can't cut crystal in an hour. Not properly." Moksoon was scathingly contemptuous. "You don't know the first thing about cutting crystal."

"You're quite right. I don't. And you'll get a huge bonus for showing me. Show me, Moksoon."

With a combination of cajolery, outrageous flattery, constant repetition of words like "bonus," "Lanzecki expects," "off-world," and "brilliant Cutter," she pacified Moksoon. She suggested that he eat something before showing her how to cut and let him think she was fooled into offering from her own supplies. For a slight man, he had a very hearty appetite.

Well fed, rested, and having filled her with what she knew must be a lot of nonsense about angles of the sun, dawn, and sunset excursions down dark ravines to hear crystal wake or go to sleep, Moksoon showed no inclination to pick up his cutter and get on with his end of the bargain. She was trying to think of a tactful way of suggesting it when he suddenly jumped to his feet, throwing both arms up to greet a shaft of sunlight that had angled down the ravine to strike their side just beyond the bow of his sled.

A peculiar tone vibrated through the rock on which Killashandra was sitting. Moksoon grabbed up his cutter and scrambled emitting a joyous cackle that turned into a fine, clear ringing A sharp below middle C. Moksoon sang in the tenor ranges.

And part of the ravine answered!

By the time she had reached him, he was already slicing at the pink quartz face his sled had obscured. Why the old - Then she heard crystal crying. For all his other failings, Moksoon had an astonishing lung capacity for so old a man. He held the accurate note even after his pitched cutter was excising a pentagon from the uneven extrusion of quartz, which flashed from different facets as the sunlight shifted. The dissonance that began as he got deeper into the face was an agony so basic that it shook Killashandra to her teeth. It was much worse than retuning crystal. She froze at the unexpected pain, instinctively letting loose with a cry of masking sound. The agony turned into two notes, pure and clear.

"Sing on!" Moksoon cried. "Hold that note!" He reset his infrasonic cutter and made a second slice, cropped it, sang again, tuned the cutter, and dug the blade in six neat slashes downward. His thin body shook, but his hands were amazingly steady as he cut and cut until he reached the edge. With an exultant note, he jumped to a new position and made the bottom cut for the four matched crystals. "My beauties. My beauties!" he crooned and, laying the cutter carefully down, dashed off to his sled, reemerging seconds later with a carton. He was still crooning as he packed the pieces. There was a curious ambivalence in his motions, of haste and reluctance, for his fingers caressed the sides of the octagons as he put them away.

Killashandra hadn't moved, as stunned by the experience of crystal as she was by his agile performance. When she did sigh to release her tensions, he gave an inarticulate shout and reached for his cutter. He might have sliced her arm off, but he tripped over the carton, giving her a head start as she raced back to his sled, stumbled into it, and hit the replay button before she slid the door closed. It caught the tip of the cutter.

And Lanzecki had suggested she go with this raving maniac? Lanzecki's voice rolled out, reverberated back, and made a section of the rock face above the sled resonate.

"I'm sorry, Killashandra Ree," Moksoon said, a truly repentant note in his voice. "Don't break my cutter. Don't close that door."

"How can I trust you, Moksoon? You've nearly killed me twice today."

"I forget. I forget." Moksoon's tone was a sob. "Just remind me when I'm cutting. It's crystal makes me forget. It sings, and I forget."

Killashandra closed her eyes and tried to catch her breath. The man was so pitiful.

"I'll show you how to cut. Truly I will."

Moksoon's recorded voice was duly affirming his willingness to shepherd her, Section 53. She could break his cutter with one more centimeter of leverage on the door. Her own voice dinned into her ears, affirming and averring to abide by section and paragraph.

"You'd better be able to show me something about cutting crystal that I couldn't learn at the Complex."

"I'll show you. I'll show you how to find song in the cliffs. I'll show you how to find crystal. Any fool can cut it. You've got to find it first. Just don't close that door!"

"How do I keep you from trying to kill me?"

"Just talk to me. Keep that replay on. Just talk to me as I'm cutting. Give me back my cutter!"

"I'm talking to you, Moksoon, and I'm opening the door. I haven't damaged the cutter." The first thing he did when she eased up the pressure was examine the tip. "Now, Moksoon, show me how to find song in the cliffs."

"This way, this way." He scrabbled to the outcropping. "See . . ." and his finger traced the faultline, barely discernible. "And here." Now a glint of crystal shone clearly through the covering dirt. He rubbed at it, and sunlight sparkled from the crystal. "Mostly sunlight tells you where, but you gotta see. Look and see! Crystal lies in planes, this way, that way, sometimes the way the fold goes, sometimes at right angles. You sure you can't find your way back here?" He shot her a nervous glance.

"Positive!"

"Rose always drops south. Depend on it." He ran his finger tips lightly down the precipice. "I hadn't seen this before. Why didn't I see this before?"

"You didn't look, did you, Moksoon?"

He ignored her. At first, Killashandra thought a breeze had sprung up, highly unlikely though that was in this deep gorge. Then she heard the faint echo and realized that Moksoon was humming. He had one ear to the rock wall.

"Ah, here. I can cut here!"

He did so. This time, the crystal cry was expected and not as searing an experience. She also kept herself in Moksoon's view, especially when he had completed his cuts. She got a carton for him, carried it back and stored it, all the time talking or making him talk to her. He did know how to cut crystal. He did know how to find it. The gorge was layered in southerly strips of rose quartz. Moksoon could probably cut his claim for the rest of his Guild life.

When the sun dropped beyond the eastern lip of the gorge, he abruptly stopped work and said he was hungry. Killashandra fed him and listened as he rambled on about flaw lines and cuts and intruders, by which he meant noncrystal rock that generally shattered the crystal vein.

Since she recalled Enthor's poor opinion of rose quartz, she asked Moksoon if he cut other colors. It was an unwise question, for Moksoon had a tantrum, announcing that he'd cut rose quartz all his working life, which was far longer than she'd drawn breath, or her parents, or her grandparents for that matter, and she was to mind her own business. He stalked off to his sled.

Taking the precaution of locking her door panel, she made herself comfortable. She wasn't sure that she could endure, or survive, another day with the paranoid Moksoon. She didn't doubt for a moment that the uneasy rapport she had finally achieved would fade overnight in his crystallized brain pan.

In the cool darkness of the gorge, where night made the rocks crack and tzing, she thought of Lanzecki. He had wished to know her, he said, before she sang crystal. Now that phrase had both an overtone of benediction and a decided implication of curse. Would just one trip to the Crystal Ranges alter her so much? Or had their night, and day together occurred to form some bond between them? If so, Lanzecki was going to be very busy over the next few weeks, cementing links between Jezerey, Rimbol - and then Killashandra's sense of humor over ruled vile whimsies. Lanzecki might be devious but not that damned devious!

Besides, none of the others had made Milekey transitions or appeared sensitive to black crystal. It was a concatenation of circumstances. And he had said that he liked her company. He, Lanzecki, liked her company. But Lanzecki the Guild Master had sent her out with crazed Moksoon.

Killashandra set her waking buzz for sunrise so that she'd be out of the gorge before Moksoon woke.

CHAPTER 9.

She woke to darkness and a curious pinging. Cautiously, she put her head out the sled door, checking first in Moksoon's direction. Not a sign of life there. She looked upward, between the steep walls of the gorge, to a lightening sky. After her hide-and-seek with Moksoon the day before, she appreciated the navigational hazards of semidark. She also didn't wish to be around when the old Crystal Singer roused.

She checked that all her lockers were closed and secure, an automatic action learned during her simulated-flight instruction. Fortunately, she had made "dark" landings and take offs in imaginary shallow canyons and deep valleys, though she wished she'd paid more attention to the terrain just beyond Moksoon's claim. She couldn't risk retracing yesterday's circuit to the avalanche.

She strapped into her seat, turned the drive to minimum power, easing up half a meter by the vertical and out ten horizontal, then activated the top scanner to be sure of her clearances.

The sky was light enough for her purposes but not as yet touched with the rising sun. She lifted slowly, carefully, her eyes on the scanner to be sure she didn't bounce off an unexpected outcropping.

Abruptly, she was above the gorge and hovered, quickly switching the scan to under-hull and magnify. Her departure had not aroused Moksoon. With luck, he would have forgotten that she'd been there until he received his bonus. And how she had worked for that!

The notion that one day she might be as Moksoon now was crossed her mind, but that, she firmly assured herself, was a long time in the future. She'd make it as future as possible.

She proceeded with fair haste to the F42NW-43NW where five old paint splashes made an irregular pattern on Lanzecki's aerial map. The sun was rising, an awesome sight at any time, but as it gilded the western folds and heights of the Milekey Range, it was truly magnificent. She settled the sled on a flattened, eroded syncline to enjoy the spectacle of morning breaking as she ate breakfast. It was a lovely clear morning, the light breeze tainted with sea, for the Bay was not far. She checked meteorology, which indicated that the clear, dry weather was confirmed for the next six hours.

She would come in over F42NW at altitude and proceed to F43NW, just to get an overall picture. If her hunch was right, and Lanzecki's privileged information had only confirmed it, one of those five claims had to be Keborgen's black crystal.

From height, the area looked desolate - valleys and ravines, blind canyons, few with water, and not so much as a glint of crystal shine in the morning sun. Furthermore, one of the painted claim marks was newer than the others. The sun reflected off the mark. Had one of the other Singers actually found Keborgen's claim? She reminded herself sternly that none of the others had come this far north. One new claim mark among five. But Lanzecki's original aerial scan had displayed five old marks.

Killashandra caught her breath. Keborgen had not been to this claim in nine years. Because he couldn't remember where it was? He had garnered useful shards and splinters and a triad, worth a fortune of credit. Might he not have used up his margin of time between storm warning and escape to repaint his claim so he could find it more easily after the storm?

Killashandra searched her mind about claims and claim jumping. Nothing prevented her from checking the circumscribed area. Lifting or cutting crystal was the felony.

She reduced her altitude and swept round the claim in a circle roughly five kicks in diameter from the brightly painted ridge mark. She could see no other sled, though she hovered over several shadowed ledges and overhanging cliffs to be sure. She also noted no spark or glint of sun struck crystal. After the initial survey, she landed on the ridge. The paint was new, only scored here and there by the last storm. She could see edges of the old where the new had been applied in haste. Then she found the paint container, wedged in some rocks where it had been thrown or wind-swept. She hefted it, smiling in exultation. Yes, Keborgen didn't want to forget this claim. He'd wasted time to preserve it.

She looked out across the ridges and nearest gullies and wondered where. From this vantage point, she could see the five klicks in every direction.

Since Keborgen had obviously cleared the crystal shards from his site, there'd be none to indicate where he'd worked. But he would have had to hide his sled from aerial observation, as Moksoon had done.

So Killashandra spent the rest of the morning flying search patterns over the circle. She found five locations; two partial hides in the south on 7 quadrant, an undercut in west 10, a very narrow blind valley in 4, and two shadowed gorges in north 2. On her master chart, she noted each location by some distinguishing contour or rock and the angle at which she had been flying to discern it.

She had no further support from the weather, for a drizzle began mid afternoon. There'd be no sunset flashes to lead her, no sun-warmed crystal to speak. She saw no advantage in sitting on the claim ridge, either. There were other Singers looking for Keborgen's claim, No sense being so visible.

"Eena, meena, pitsa teena," she chanted, pointing at one site on each syllable. "Alloo bumbarina, isha gosha, bumbarosha, nineteen hundred and one!"

"One" was the west 4 undercut.

As she approached from the south, she noticed that the ridge was curiously slanted. Since it was protected on all sides by higher folds, the erosion had not been caused by wind. She landed the sled as well as she could on uneven ground beside the over hang. She would inspect first. As she pulled on wet-weather gear, she noticed that debris had showered on either side of the ledge, which was, in fact, just the right length for a sled.

Much heartened, she went out and prowled around. The rock falls were of long residence, well chinked with grit and dirt. The ledge was solid, but at one end heterogeneous rocks had been tamped in for critical reinforcement. A little scrape of orange paint along the inside wall was her final reassurance. A sled had parked there. She parked hers with a sense of accomplishment.

She was not so happy after she had climbed to the highest point above the blind valley. She stared about her in the drizzling gloom. The valley was in the form of a blunted crescent, any part of which was an easy hike from the undercut. Crystal Singers exerted themselves only to cut crystal, not heft it any distance. Keborgen's claim had to be somewhere in the valley.