“Any objectors?” Borella asked, looking straight at the space worker.
When no other voice was raised, she asked them to file before the screen she then activated, giving their name and stating their willingness to comply with erasure. The process didn’t take long, but Killashandra felt that she had taken an irrevocable step as her acceptance was officially and indisputably recorded.
Borella then led them down a short hall to a door, Carigana the first to follow. Her gasp and half halt as she passed the entrance forewarned the others but in no way prepared anyone for the display in that short corridor. On either side were bodies in clear fluid—all but one glinted as if coated with a silicon. The planes of the faces looked rock hard; limbs, fingers, and toes were extended as if solidified, and not by the rigor of death. The crystalline sheen couldn’t be some trick of the light, Killashandra thought, for her own skin showed no change. What roiled her stomach were the facial expressions: three looked as if death had overtaken them in a state of insanity; two appeared mildly surprised, and the sixth angry, her hands raised toward some object she had been trying to grasp. The last was the most grisly: a charred body forever in the position of a runner, consumed by a conflagration that had melted flesh from bone.
“This is what happens to the unprotected on Ballybran. It could also happen to you, though every effort is made to reduce such risks to a minimum. If you wish to retire now, you are completely at liberty to do so.”
“External danger does not constitute a Code 4 classification,” Carigana said, her tone accusatory.
“No, it doesn’t. But these are representative of two of the dangers of Ballybran which the Heptite Guild is required by Federated Sentient Planets to reveal to you.”
“Is that the worst that can happen?” Carigana asked scornfully.
“Isn’t being dead enough?” someone asked from the group.
“Dead’s dead—crystal, char, or carrion,” Carigana replied, shrugging her shoulders, her tone so subtly offensive that Killashandra was not the only one who frowned with irritation.
“Yes, but it is the manner of dying that can be the worst,” said Borella in such a thoughtful way that she had everyone’s attention. She accorded them the slightest smile. “Follow me.”
The grim corridor opened on to a small semicircular lecture hall. Borella proceeded to a small raised platform, gesturing for the group to take the seats, which would have accommodated three times their number. As she turned to face them, a large hologram lit behind her, a view of the Scorian system, homing quickly on Ballybran and its three moons. The planet and its satellites moved with sufficient velocity to demonstrate the peculiar Passover of the moons, when all three briefly synchronized orbits—a synchronization that evidently took place over different parts of the parent world.
“The crystallization displayed in the corridor is the most prevalent danger on Ballybran. It occurs when the spore symbiont, a carbon silicate occurring in an unorthodox environment peculiar to Ballybran, does not form a proper bridge between our own carbon-based biological system and the silicon-based ecology of this planet. Such a bridge is essential for working on Ballybran. If the human host adapts properly to the spore symbiont, and I assure you it is not the other way round, the human experiences a significant improvement in visual acuity, tactile perceptions, nerve conduction, and cellular adaptation. The first adaptations are of immense importance to those who become miners of crystal, the Crystal Singers. Yes, Carigana?”
“What part of the body does the symbiont invade? Is it crystalline or biological?”
“Neither, and the symbiont invades cellular nuclei in successful adaptations—”
“What happens to the unsuccessful ones?”
“I shall discuss that shortly if you will be patient. As part of the cell
When no other voice was raised, she asked them to file before the screen she then activated, giving their name and stating their willingness to comply with erasure. The process didn’t take long, but Killashandra felt that she had taken an irrevocable step as her acceptance was officially and indisputably recorded.
Borella then led them down a short hall to a door, Carigana the first to follow. Her gasp and half halt as she passed the entrance forewarned the others but in no way prepared anyone for the display in that short corridor. On either side were bodies in clear fluid—all but one glinted as if coated with a silicon. The planes of the faces looked rock hard; limbs, fingers, and toes were extended as if solidified, and not by the rigor of death. The crystalline sheen couldn’t be some trick of the light, Killashandra thought, for her own skin showed no change. What roiled her stomach were the facial expressions: three looked as if death had overtaken them in a state of insanity; two appeared mildly surprised, and the sixth angry, her hands raised toward some object she had been trying to grasp. The last was the most grisly: a charred body forever in the position of a runner, consumed by a conflagration that had melted flesh from bone.
“This is what happens to the unprotected on Ballybran. It could also happen to you, though every effort is made to reduce such risks to a minimum. If you wish to retire now, you are completely at liberty to do so.”
“External danger does not constitute a Code 4 classification,” Carigana said, her tone accusatory.
“No, it doesn’t. But these are representative of two of the dangers of Ballybran which the Heptite Guild is required by Federated Sentient Planets to reveal to you.”
“Is that the worst that can happen?” Carigana asked scornfully.
“Isn’t being dead enough?” someone asked from the group.
“Dead’s dead—crystal, char, or carrion,” Carigana replied, shrugging her shoulders, her tone so subtly offensive that Killashandra was not the only one who frowned with irritation.
“Yes, but it is the manner of dying that can be the worst,” said Borella in such a thoughtful way that she had everyone’s attention. She accorded them the slightest smile. “Follow me.”
The grim corridor opened on to a small semicircular lecture hall. Borella proceeded to a small raised platform, gesturing for the group to take the seats, which would have accommodated three times their number. As she turned to face them, a large hologram lit behind her, a view of the Scorian system, homing quickly on Ballybran and its three moons. The planet and its satellites moved with sufficient velocity to demonstrate the peculiar Passover of the moons, when all three briefly synchronized orbits—a synchronization that evidently took place over different parts of the parent world.
“The crystallization displayed in the corridor is the most prevalent danger on Ballybran. It occurs when the spore symbiont, a carbon silicate occurring in an unorthodox environment peculiar to Ballybran, does not form a proper bridge between our own carbon-based biological system and the silicon-based ecology of this planet. Such a bridge is essential for working on Ballybran. If the human host adapts properly to the spore symbiont, and I assure you it is not the other way round, the human experiences a significant improvement in visual acuity, tactile perceptions, nerve conduction, and cellular adaptation. The first adaptations are of immense importance to those who become miners of crystal, the Crystal Singers. Yes, Carigana?”
“What part of the body does the symbiont invade? Is it crystalline or biological?”
“Neither, and the symbiont invades cellular nuclei in successful adaptations—”
“What happens to the unsuccessful ones?”
“I shall discuss that shortly if you will be patient. As part of the cell
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