Crystal Healer (17 page)

"Reever is meeting me for the evening meal interval," I told him. "Would you walk with me there?"

As we made our way to the galley, I told Qonja a little of what it had been like leaving Akkabarr behind.

"I disliked the ways of the Iisleg, especially in how they treated females, so I felt eager to leave them behind. Then I found myself surrounded by you Jorenians, and your smiles and laughter and friendliness. And the touching." I grimaced. "All you people do is touch. It is as if you cannot keep your twelve fingers to yourselves."

That startled a laugh out of him. "I suppose we do."

"In my eyes, all of you were too loud, too boisterous, and far too familiar. You did nothing properly. By the end of my first week on the
Sunlace
, I became convinced that I had made a terrible mistake, casting my fortunes in with what had to be the most annoying, insufferable ensleg species in existence." I waited for his laughter to end, and added, "You terrified me."

His mirth subsided. "We are nothing like the Iisleg, but why would we frighten you?"

"I disliked my people, but I knew their ways. Even while I was made to live as an outcast among them, the skela followed the customs and practices they had brought with them from their iiskar. With your people, I was welcomed and made free, but I never knew what next to expect." I halted outside the galley. "You and Hawk can return to Joren and find a way to live among your people. Your bond may forever make you an outcast among them, but you know what to expect from them. Out here, among those who are your ensleg, it will be different. Perhaps you will find them annoying and even aggravating. But among them, you will be free."

He sighed. "That is the truth of it."

"I will tell you a secret." I leaned close and lowered my voice. "Every time I think of returning to Akkabarr, and everything known to me, I imagine Marel growing to womanhood there, and the desire dies at once. For they would do to her what was done to me. When you miss Joren, when you think of the Adan, imagine what they could do to Hawk."

He nodded slowly, and made an elaborate gesture of gratitude before he glanced into the galley. "Reever is not here yet. That is strange. He told me before I left the lab that he was meeting you in a few minutes."

I used my wristcom to signal my husband, but there was no response. I went to the wall panel and requested Reever's location.

"He's still in the lab." I frowned. "He never forgets to meet me."

The first time my husband had seen the black crystal on Trellus, the dangerous refractive qualities had mesmerized him and nearly caused him to walk into a crater. Despite the assurances both Reever and Qonja had made about how well the crystal was guarded, I didn't like my husband being left alone with it.

I used the wall panel to signal the terminal in the lab. "Duncan? Please respond."

"Jarn," his voice said at last, although some sort of static crackled over the sound of it. "Would you signal Qonja and ask him to come back to the lab? I'm having trouble with the com units."

A deep, resonant vibration accompanying the static interference made my ears ache, but Qonja didn't seem to react.

"What trouble?" I waited for a reply, but the resonant static increased, blocking out the sound of Reever's voice before the relay terminated. "Did you hear that, beneath the static? That thrumming sound?"

"I cannot say that I did." Qonja touched my forearm."I will go. I am sure it is only an equipment malfunction."

Just as I had the feeling it wasn't. "I'll come with you."

I didn't hear the resonant sound again until Qonja and I entered the survey lab. There we found Reever on his back under the main control panel. I rushed over, only to stop as my husband's hand appeared and groped for a tool from the repair kit sitting beside the console.

I knelt down. "What do you need?"

"The smallest impact wrench." When I placed it in his hand, he took it and said, "Thank you. What are you doing here? I thought you were working an extra shift."

"No, I left at shift change and went with Qonja to the galley to meet you." I frowned. "Why did you think that I was working late?"

"That is what I was told when I signaled medical to tell you I would be delayed." He hammered on something, and then eased out from under the console and stood.

"I will check with the staff to see who wishes to overwork me." The thrumming sound made my ears itch. "What is making that noise?"

Reever stood up and turned to me. "What noise?"

"Never mind. Qonja couldn't hear it, either." I glanced at the plas-sided chamber, and the black crystal in its shielded specimen container. Although the opaque housing muted its dark glitter, its presence still made me feel uneasy. It looked larger, too, which alarmed me. "Is that thing growing?"

"It cannot," Qonja assured me. "The interior of the chamber is a vacuum that is kept at absolute zero."

"It looks bigger to me." I turned to my husband. "Have you the means to measure the size of it?"

"I can run a comparison scan, but it is as Qonja says. There is nothing it can use to add to its matrix and expand its dimensions." He switched on the console and tapped a few controls.

I walked closer to the chamber and studied the crystal from all angles. Although the men didn't hear the resonant sound, and the crystal hung motionless in its vacuum, I felt convinced that it was responsible for the sonic interference.

"You are correct, Wife." Reever said, his voice tight. "The crystal's matrix has increased in size. It is growing."

Eight

"This cannot be." Qonja went to the console to examine the readings. "There must be an error in the original readings."

"The atoms in the crystal matrix are active," Reever said. "They are vibrating about their equilibrium positions with amplitudes comparable to low-temperature plasma phasing."

The Jorenian muttered something under his breath. "That sort of thermal agitation is not possible, not at absolute zero."

"It is bigger than it was," I put in, "so it has to be doing something."

"It may be displacive restructuring," Qonja said. "Stable silica has a rhombohedral structure in low-temperature form. Heat it above five hundred seventy-three degrees Celsius, and the atoms interconvert into hexagonal symmetry." He saw my blank look, and explained, "That would mean it is changing shape because of the temperature, not growing."

"I would agree, but we still haven't identified the interatomic forces responsible for the black crystal's cohesion and stability," my husband said. "Until we do, we cannot assume it is restructuring."

"We can if we look at the cause instead of the effect," Qonja insisted. "Shifts in temperature and pressure are the most common factors involved in an enantiotropic polymorphic transformation. We have placed the black crystal in a zero vacuum. It is not unreasonable or unusual to observe a structural response to the change in environment."

Reever shook his head. "Its atoms are neither ionic nor covalent. They're not intercompositional, and don't resemble any known matrix. It may look like a crystal, but I assure you, it is something else entirely."

I left them to debate their theories and drew closer to the plas chamber. The impact crater we discovered on Trellus had been solidly paved with black crystal, I recalled. Trellus was a dead, frozen, airless rock of a planet; nothing could live on its surface without protection. I had assumed that the crystal in the crater had been deposited there, carried by some ancient meteor that had slammed into the surface.

What if it had not landed, but instead had
grown
there?

I turned around to face the men. "How fast is it growing?"

Qonja consulted the console. "According to the scans, its matrix increases one millimeter every thirty hours."

I did some calculations. "If it continues to grow at this rate, it will breach the specimen container in ten days. Do you agree?" He nodded reluctantly. "Duncan, can you enable this failsafe of yours manually?"

"We have an override," he said. "Before you tell me to eject it from the ship, I want you to think about something. We have never observed the crystal in a state of change. This may be the only opportunity we have to do so under controlled conditions, and what we learn could help us combat the threat it poses to all life."

"Your controlled conditions will be useless in a few days." I knew he was right, but I didn't have to like it. "It will have to be closely watched, Duncan, in the event this restructuring or growth or whatever it is becomes more rapid. You and Qonja cannot do that by yourselves."

"I'll ask the captain to assign a security officer to the lab during our off-duty hours." He came to stand with me and held my hand. "Thank you."

"You are welcome." I tugged him toward the console. "Now show me how to engage the manual override. I want to know exactly how to feed this wretched thing to the stars."

We arrived on the edge of oKia's solar system and assumed a stationary position, from which Xonea planned to send a remote signal requesting permission to enter oKiaf space. Reever and I joined him in communications in the event the authorities needed more information about the nature of the expedition.

My ClanBrother never had the chance to send the signal, for an alert came from the command center indicating that the
Sunlace
had been intercepted by two well-armed patrol vessels.

"This does not bode well," Xonea said as we relocated to command. "Duncan, were you able to locate one of your allies in the area?"

My husband nodded. "Last night. Uorwlan should be arriving shortly to meet us."

Xonea took the helm and studied the scans of the patrol vessels. "Both of these ships are scout-class vessels, but they're outfitted like attack strafers. They're also carrying drop mines and have large cryotanks attached to both sides of the fuselage."

"Drop mines are only used for short-range air-to-surface bombardment," I said. "Why would they use them out here?"

"To blow large holes in a vessel," Reever said. "Once they breached the hull, they'd drop the cryotanks inside and trigger them to flood the ship."

I knew of only one species whose troop carriers would be susceptible to such a bizarre attack. "They're armed to fight League and Hsktskt invasion forces. But why? Peace has been declared."

"Declared by the Hsktskt and the League," Reever amended. "The oKiaf obviously think otherwise." He turned to Xonea. "If they have stopped using League technology, they may no longer use signal translators. Without direct contact with the oKiaf, my ability to interpret will be limited."

"We already have a native interpreter," Xonea said, nodding toward Jylyj, who at some point had come into command and now stood to one side.

Xonea sent a standard greeting to the patrol ships, adding a phrase in universal at the end they could easily understand. One of them responded almost immediately, but thankfully used a translation-enabled signal.

"This is Sentinel Wilnas of oKia," the patrol commander said. "You have entered restricted flight space. State your reasons for doing so."

The image of a pilot appeared on the console display. For a moment the face seemed so familiar I thought it Jylyj, until I noticed the lighter fur color and longer, narrower features. The eyes, too, appeared different; with light-colored irises containing a central oblong pupil. Colorful polished beads and small pieces of carved wood hung from the pilot's intricately woven mane, through which many streaks of white hair were scattered.

The pilot wore a flight suit, but this, too, had been altered in unique ways. What appeared to be a length of spotted skin had been sewn to the shoulders; gleaming dark green and brown stone beads had been arranged on the stiff collar in what I guessed was his rank insignia.

"I am Captain Xonea Torin from Joren. My crew and I are conducting geological surveys of inhabited planets in this region. We collect data only and intend no harm or intrusion."

As Xonea gave the oKiaf official a carefully worded version of the truth, I noted that he didn't mention me or Reever, which I thought a prudent decision. The oKiaf might have been able to keep offworlder ships out of their space, but offworld signals had to be detected before they could be jammed. If they didn't care to have contact with outsiders, they probably wouldn't hesitate to hand two of them over to a bounty hunter.

After Xonea had finished explaining our mission, Sentinel Wilnas did not respond. Xonea didn't seem troubled by this.

"A patrol officer has only a limited amount of authority under specific conditions," he said. "We are not League, and we are not here to conduct trade or deliver passengers. Our mission does not require us to come in direct contact with the oKiaf. He is likely signaling his command to request new orders."

"If we detect black crystal on their planet," I said, "I will need to examine some of the natives."

"We will do as much as they will permit, Jarn." Xonea turned back to the console as a new signal came over the channel.

"Captain Torin, you will take your vessel to these coordinates," Wilnas said, and relayed the data. "When you reach the security station there, dock at the off-loading bay. There your ship will be boarded, and you will be questioned."