Killashandra (45 page)

“I guess you were pretty upset.”

At such a massive understatement of fact, she managed to nod, trying not to laugh at the absurdity, but she couldn’t stop weeping. It had built up quite a head
and it ought to prove conclusively to Lars, if he needed any, just how much she had missed him. She had waited so long to be in his arms, to hear his rich and pleasant tenor voice, and the sort of nonsense he was likely to speak. He could have been speaking gibberish and she’d have been content to listen. But he was also telling her the things she would have asked about him, what she needed to know to put some color in the past dreadful year.

“Then Father, Corish, and I spent two months processing material for the Council. Theach, Brassner, and Erutown had come out with Corish and they got assigned to the Revision Corps until someone in the Council took a closer look at the equations which Theach was idly calling up on his terminal.” Lars smiled tenderly as he delicately blotted tears from her cheeks, then kissed her forehead for such an un-Killashandraish display of sentimentality. “So he landed on his feet, as usual. Five more people, including the brewmaster of Gartertown, whom you might remember,” he added, tapping her nose as he teased, “got out on the next liner and are being resettled. What had worried Nahia and Hauness was what refugees would do once they got off Optheria, but there seems to be a resettlement policy. Not that Optherians have all that many skills to offer the advanced societies.

“Father and I got drafted to brief the actual Revision Force. You see, right after that infamous hearing, several more agents were sent in to play tourist during the Summer Festival. Good job we left some two-manuals intact. They came back, reporting that they were subjected to blatant subliminal conditioning at public concerts in Ironwood, Bailey, Everton, and Palamo. One thing Father and I emphasized was that the Revision Forces had better wait until after The Festival or they’d have a bankrupt planet as well as a disorganized one.
So Optheria got its annual chance to acquire revenue,” and Lars grinned with great satisfaction, “and the Elders hadn’t twigged to the fact that no subliminal messages were going out on either of the big Conservatory organs. Leaving the mainlanders quite willing to accept anything said about them.

“When we’ve spare time, I’ve got some tapes of the actual landing and the takeover. Four Elders had fatal seizures but Ampris, Torkes, and Pentrom will answer to the Supreme Judiciary for their infamous, felonious, malicious, premeditated, and illegal manipulation of Optherian loyalties.

“The Revision Forces are well installed now on Optheria.” He looked out with the unfocused gaze of someone imagining a scene and was briefly sad. He bent to kiss Killashandra again, noting that her tears had abated and her breath was no longer taken in ragged gasps.

“Why didn’t you go with them?”

“Oh, I was given many arguments why I should. Even a rather complimentary commission. Father returned, but I rather thought he wouldn’t leave Teradia for long. To my surprise, Corish went, and of course Erutown and Brassner. I had other plans.”

Killashandra shook her head in sad rebuke. “If I’d known what you planned to do …” Her gesture included all that his presence in the Infirmary signified.

Lars hugged her tightly to him. “That’s why I didn’t mention them. Besides,” and he gave her a raffish look, “I hadn’t really made up my mind.”

“How did Trag recruit you then?”

Lars raised his eyebrows in surprise. “He didn’t. It is illegal to recruit citizens for the highly dangerous Heptite Guild. Didn’t you know? Candidly, my beloved Sunny, I was much impressed by Trag’s integrity. It was refreshing to find an honorable and trustworthy man. It
was yourself who did the recruiting, Killa. You were the embodiment of the undeniable advantages of being a crystal singer. Your vibrant youth, charm, invulnerability, indefatigable energy, and resourcefulness. Then all those diversified assignments, space travel, credit, not to mention the chance to see a Galaxy I had been denied all my reckless youth—”

“You’re mad.” Vitality returned to Killashandra in the form of exasperation with his flamboyance, and such relief that she was once again in its presence. “Did you listen to one word I told you about the disadvantages? Didn’t you pay attention to any of the details in the Full Disclosure, and that isn’t the half of what does happen? As you’ll find out. How could you be so blind?”

“None so blind as will not see, eh, Killa, my lovely Sunny? My pale Sunny, my beloved. Is there no sun on this planet that you are so wan?” He began to kiss her in a leisurely fashion. “I admit I did hesitate. Briefly.” His eyes sparkled with his teasing. “Then I ran the entry on Ballybran itself. That decided me.”

“Ballybran? Ballybran decided you?” Killashandra wriggled about in his arms, astounded. Not that she understood why she had such ambivalent reactions to his decision in the first place. He was here! How had she, and that conniving symbiont of hers, known that he would come? Because she didn’t think that he wouldn’t? Long absent, she felt the caress of crystal along her bones.

“Of course, Sunny. Now if you’d thought to mention earlier on that Ballybran has seas—”

“Seas?” Killashandra put a hand on his forehead. He must be feverish. “Seas!”

“All I’ve ever needed for perfect contentment is a tall ship and a star to sail her by.” He held her as her temper began to rise, though she didn’t know if he was mauling that obscure quotation or not. “And then, too, Ballybran
has you, beloved Sunny!” His tenor voice dropped to an intense and passionate whisper, his eyes were an incredible brilliant blue, dominating her immediate vision. His arms encompassed her in a grip that reminded her of sun-warmed beaches and fragrant breezes and—“Show me, crystal singer, all that Ballybran has to offer me.”

“Right now?”

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