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sonic blast knocked him unconscious, and he never did fully recover his senses. After subspace consultation with Heptite Guild medics, it was decided to return him to Ballybran for treatment and care.
    “He won’t recover,” the medic told Killashandra, whereupon Maestro Valdi instantly assumed the role of her comforter. His manner provided Killashandra with a fine counterirritant to her shock over Carrik’s condition.
    She chose to disbelieve the medic’s verdict. Surely, Carrik could be restored to mental health once he was returned to Ballybran. He had been away from crystal too long; he was weakened by the seizures. There’d been no mach storm to scramble his mind. She’d escort him back to Ballybran. She owed him that in any reckoning for showing her how to live fully.
    She took a good look at the posturing Valdi and thanked her luck that Carrik had been there to awaken her senses. How could she have believed that such an artificial life as found in the theater was suitable for her? Just look at Valdi! Present him with a situation, hand him the cue, and he was “on,” in the appropriate role. None existed for these circumstances, so Valdi was endeavoring to come up with a suitable one.
    “What will you do now, Killashandra?” he asked somberly, obviously settling for Dignified Elder Gentleman Consoling the Bereaved Innocent.
    “I’ll go with him to Ballybran, of course.”
    Valdi nodded solemnly. “I mean, after you return.”
    “I don’t intend to return.”
    Valdi stared at her, dropping out of character, and then gestured theatrically as the air-cushion stretcher to which Carrik was strapped drifted past them to the shuttle gate.
    “After that?” Valdi cried, full of dramatic plight.
    “That won’t happen to me,” she said confidently.
    “But it could! You, too, could be reduced to a thing with no mind and no memories.”
    “I think,” Killashandra said slowly, regarding the posturing little man with thinly veiled contempt, “that everyone’s brains get scrambled one way or another.”
    “You’ll rue this day—” Valdi began, raising his left arm in a classical gesture of rejection, fingers gracefully spread.
    “That is, if I
remember
it!” she said. Her mocking laughter cut him off midscene.
    Still laughing, Killashandra made her exit, stage center, through the shuttle gate.

 
    CHAPTER 3
    C aptain Andurs alerted Killashandra when the ship emerged from hyperspace and Ballybran was fully visible.
    “Good view,” he told her, pointing to the two inner moons, positioned at 10 and 5, but Killashandra only had eyes for the mysterious planet.
    She had heard enough to expect just about anything from her first glimpse. Consequently she experienced an initial disappointment—until she caught sight of the first crystal flare: a piercing stab of light as the sun’s rays reflected from an open crystal on one of the three visible continents. Cloud cover swirled across most of the ocean area, occluded two subcontinents in the Southern Hemisphere, but where the sun shone, occasional pinpoints of blinding light were visible—light that was all color, yet white and clear.
    “How can they stand the intensity down there?” she demanded, squinting to reduce the keen glare.
    “According to what I hear, you don’t notice it on the surface.”
    “According to what I hear” had prefaced most of Captain Andurs’ statements about Ballybran, a sour comment on the restriction against his landing on one of the richest planets in the galaxy.
    From fellow passengers and garrulous crew members, Killashandra had gleaned additional information about Crystal Singers and Ballybran, a lot of which she discounted since most merely paraphrased Maestro Valdi’s comments. Andurs, despite his limited first-hand knowledge, had proved to be the most informative. He had been on the space run from Regulus to Ballybran for nine standard years and was always listening, so he had heard more than anyone else—certainly