Meteorology were bang on the money – sunrise arrived with clear skies and bright sunshine. The narrow slot of blue visible through the open hangar doors looked particularly inviting: since symbiosis, Zyan had been too busy to venture outdoors.

He turned up early, dressed in his singer's coveralls with his cutter slung over his back and a toolbelt around his waist: if the That'll Do required some field maintenance, he didn't want to be without the means to carry it out. His sled had been moved out onto the main hangar floor, alongside Marin's decidedly more reputable-looking sled and a larger, longer one that was, presumably, Dane and Jolinda's.

His tool belt also contained the stripped down stunner. He'd told himself repeatedly that he wouldn't need it. It was just a precaution, to be used only in the event of something insanely unlikely like an altercation with a posse of violent, crystal-mad claim jumpers. He still felt a tad disloyal to Dane and Jolinda for bringing it, though.

The Flight Officer surprised Zyan by coming over to speak to him with a smile. "I have to admit, you've surprised me." He said. "I came down early to double check your sled – don't judge me, if you knew the complete disrespect most singers have for their sleds you'd've checked too. I freely admit I expected to find numerous and dangerous omissions and mistakes, but I'm glad to be wrong. She might not be pretty, but she's solid. Good job – and I'm sorry we didn't have one ready for you."

"Thank you, um, sir." Zyan responded. "And it's not a problem."

"First time anyone's ever named their sled, too, by the way." He observed.

"That bit wasn't my idea, but I have to admit it's kinda grown on me." Zyan admitted.

The Flight Officer smiled. "Well, any time you decide you want to pad out your earnings from singing crystal by fixing up a sled or two, comm me. For real: you wouldn't believe the backlog we've got."

"Thank you again, Flight Officer." Zyan said, inwardly quite happy at the implied compliment.

"The name's Murr." Murr said. "Have a good trip and try not to put any more dents in that thing." He gave him a thumbs up before heading off towards flight control.

"Wonders never cease." Came Dane's drawl. "You actually managed to raise a smile from Murr. I don't think I've ever seen him crack his face."

Jolinda shushed her partner, for Murr wasn't that far away, but it didn't appear the man had heard. Marin made his appearance shortly thereafter.

"So, um, shall we?" Zyan asked, keen to get underway.

Jolinda shook her head. "There's few formalities to run through before we can go – we'll have to wait for a guy from Legal."

"And if you thought Flight was humourless, he ain't got nothin' on them." Dane grumbled. Jolinda shot him a look, and he subsided.

"It's just to run through and record our consent to shepherd you, before we head out." Jolinda explained.

"Used to be it was just really desperate singers who'd agree to shepherd new recruits, just for the bonus – usually they were so crystal mazed they could barely remember their own names. They'd take recruits to their crappiest claims and maybe, maybe, remember that the recruit was there to learn and not claim jump. Guildmaster Dahl's changed that a bit, now – it's usually partners who shepherd rather than singers on their own, and usually someone he trusts not to freak out. Also, we go to an inactive singer's co-ordinates which is specially set aside as a training area, held by the guild rather than an individual singer – we call them sandboxes. They are, generally speaking, fairly low value claims: pink or light blue in the main. We're all of us entitled to what we cut there for two days – not that it'll be much, in the current market. Then you two go off to another pair of inactive's co-ordinates: those become your first claims, and we head off to cut where we'd usually cut. Much better all round – the guy who shepherded me was a total lost-it case name of Gobbain Tekla, looked about 500 years old, he didn't remember who I was – hadda keep the legal agreement on constant replay just to keep him from taking my sharding head off with his cutter." Dane shook his head.

"The chap who shepherded me was much worse." Jolinda said. "I could barely understand a single word he said, he spoke in such a weird accent. He was from some backwater planet that barely anyone travels to anymore. Wouldn't leave me alone for a single minute and insisted on following me around for the next twenty years. Terrible ordeal."

Zyan laughed. Marin frowned. "This is completely unacceptable behaviour! Surely an FSP citizen's rights are protected even on Ballybran?"

Dane sighed. "Every time, Jo. Same joke. Every time."

"Oh!" Marin twigged. "Dane was the singer who shepherded you, and this was the beginning of your relationship. You are intentionally representing this in a humourously misleading fashion! Haha!"

"Marin." Jolinda said. "Don't ever change. Promise."

"I shall undertake to remain as I am, ma'am." Marin promised.

"Pretty sure he means that." Zyan agreed.

They were interrupted by a delicate cough. "Morning, Jolinda." A woman interrupted. The guy from Legal was, in fact, a girl from Legal. Far from being the diminutive, bookish sort that Zyan had been half-expecting, she was tall, slender and frankly beautiful. She also carried a white stick equipped with a package of proximity sensors. She was blind, Zyan realised, although without the stick as a clue you would not have known it: her eyes were a startling ice-blue colour. Combined with her pale complexion and silvery blonde hair it gave her an imposing, ice-maidenish presence, but that was offset by her smile, which was warm and genuine.

"Oh, hi Alenda!" Jolinda greeted her with familiarity – she seemed to know her. "Why are you down here?"

Alenda's smile turned somewhat wan. "I'll be honest – I needed a break from the current business. When I heard it was you playing shepherd I flagrantly abused my lofty position in order to nip out for a bit. Sorry to have kept you waiting."

"Don't worry. You haven't met Dane, have you? Dane, this is Alenda, the Guild's Senior Counsel. Alenda, this is Dane, my partner." Jolinda introduced them.

"Hey." Dane and Alenda shook hands. "Pleased to meet ya."

Zyan riffled through his brain a bit. The Senior Counsel would be the Guild's highest ranking lawyer – equal to a Chief. Going through the formalities of shepherding was presumably well below her pay grade.

"Likewise." Alenda said with a smile. "And you must be Zyan Jarvis and Marin K'Tar Janso?"

"Ma'am." Marin – and Zyan – both responded. Alenda favoured them with a smile.

"The 'current business' is still not resolved, then?" Jolinda asked, looking concerned.

Alenda shook her head. "No. Best not discussed out here, though."

"Of course." Jolinda said. Zyan's internal radar pinged loudly. This was hardly the first hint that all was not well in the Guild.

"Somewhat miffed with you, by the way, when I found out all of your 'catch' had made satisfactory transitions." Alenda told Jolinda.

Zyan braced himself internally.

Even Jolinda looked slightly apprehensive. "Why's that?"

"It's more of a who. Hollin Langtry." Alenda answered – to almost everyone's surprise. Then Zyan remembered that Hollin had been a lawyer.

"Hollin?" Dane asked, amazed. "The quiet guy? Wouldn't say boo to a goose?"

"He may be quiet, but he's also one of the best intergalactic contract lawyers currently practicing. I was – completely selfishly, I confess – hoping that he'd make only a tolerable transition so I could poach him for the Contracts team." Alenda smiled again.

Jolinda laughed. "I had no idea. Sorry – he's ours, now."

"Such is life." Alenda joked. "Well, let's not keep you waiting any longer. We'll start with CS Danelaw." Alenda said, turning a bit more formal. "If you'll repeat after me?"

They then launched into a series of legal scripts that Alenda copied onto all their sleds' onboard computers, so they could be replayed at any time, in all sleds, from any of the other sleds. This seemed like a truly ridiculous level of overkill to Zyan, and he made a mental note to ask Hollin if this was a common practice anywhere else in the galaxy. It seemed to take forever, but in reality it was probably only fifteen minutes or so.

Alenda ran her fingers over her wrist unit when they'd finished. "It's so much quicker, now, without all the repetitions and promptings and worrying if they even knew why they were there." She remarked.

"Hallelujah to that." Dane agreed.

"Best of luck, singers. May you cut well and profitably. Jolinda, Dane, I'll see you around, I'm sure." Alenda said, then went back the way she came. She walked, Zyan noted, with complete assurance and no trace of hesitancy – easily avoiding any obstacles in her path and even stopping to allow a heavily-laden hangar hand to walk past her.

Then she paused, and turned her head. "It's rude to stare, Zyan Jarvis." She said, with a slight smile.

"I wasn't! I mean, I was. Not in that way, though. Sorry. I was just admiring the way you walked away. No, wait, not that either." Zyan stammered, then swore under his breath: "Shard it!"

Dane laughed – as did Alenda. "Apology accepted." She said, and went on her way.

"How did she even know I was looking?" Zyan asked, mostly, really, to himself.

"The answer to that question, Zyan Jarvis, will cost you a drink in the common room. Message me when you get back." Alenda answered – from even farther away.

Zyan blushed. Dane laughed even more.

Jolinda restrained herself to a slight smile. "Now we can get going." She stated. "The co-ordinates are loaded into your sleds' nav systems, although we'll be keeping company the whole way. Flight time should be approximately two hours. We have decent weather forecast for the next several days – although as you should know by now, you can never trust the weather on Ballybran. Let's go."

They all got into their sleds. Zyan powered up the That'll Do, noting with satisfaction that everything was in the green.

"Flight, this is Jarvis. Clearance for takeoff please." Zyan sent over the comm.

"Clearance granted for immediate takeoff, CS Jarvis." Murr sent back after a moment. Zyan's second CS Jarvis: from a more welcome source than the first.

Dane and Jolinda's sled took off, followed by Marin. Zyan eased the That'll Do gently off the deck and out of the hangar door into the bright sunshine. The trio of sleds rose into the sky, came around to face southwest, then gradually increased their height and speed until they were at a respectable cruising speed. Sleds could, Zyan knew, go almost suborbital if required – and in the thinner upper atmosphere they were capable of up to mach three. This meant you could take a spin round Ballybran's equator in just a shade over 9 hours, if you were of a mind to – this would be largely pointless except for fun, but the implication was this: in a sled, a singer could reach almost any point on Ballybran from the guild cube in a few hours, tops. Today, though, they were going to a site relatively close to the guild cube, in the Milekey range.

For the first half hour of the trip, Zyan was drinking in the views of the terrain that passed below. It took mere minutes for them to pass beyond the skimmer boundary, so with the exception of what he'd seen from orbit, this was his first good look at Ballybran.

Even with his newly enhanced senses, though, Zyan had to admit that once the thrill of being in the air had worn off it all looked a little bit bland and heterogenous. There was very little in the way of flat, level ground: Ballybran was rumpled and creased like an old map, with the occasional rounded peak to break the monopoly of valleys and ridges. The violent geological history that had created her hidden treasure of crystal was still there for the trained eye to see, but Ballybran was an old planet, worn by wind and the elements. What life there was kept it's head down: tufts of tough grasses were all that could be seen, even on magnify. Paint markers – some new, some worn – could be seen from time to time: Zyan saw no sign of any other singers or their sleds. He gave up sightseeing, after a while.

Dane checked in over the radio when they were about halfway there, but otherwise they did not speak. The rigmarole of recording their mutual consent seemed to have been just as unnecessary as Zyan had supposed it to be. He wondered if it was going to be necessary at any point – he hoped not, as that would mean either Dane or Jolinda had become so affected by crystal that they did not remember their own students. He respected and liked them both and hoped this was reciprocated – the thought that this could be wiped away filled him with sadness and dread.

To counter this, Zyan pulled up Donalla's notes on singers on the sled console. The version written for non-medics was very sparse - the entire document had the air of a work-in-progress - but a few of her observations gave him cause for optimism. Chief among them was this:

Singers who cut in moderation – an hour at a time, with breaks of a few minutes in between – suffer markedly less memory loss than singers who cut for several hours at a time.

Similarly, singers who make short visits to the ranges, of two weeks or less, interspersed with breaks in the guild cube, another sheltered facility or orbit of at least a day, suffer almost no memory loss

Singers who leave their claims before high winds have started to cause them to resonate suffer markedly less memory loss than singers who cut until the very last minute.

These three working practices (referred to in this lab as the Holy Trinity), if adhered to stringently, can reduce memory loss to almost zero. In one study, fourteen out of seventeen subjects following these working practices over one intra-passover period suffered no appreciable memory remaining three suffered only minor aberration and were able to reconstruct the missing memories from their personal recordings.

Donalla was of the very firm opinion that these working practices should be written into the Rules and Regs, and Zyan imagined that she bent the Guildmaster's ear about it whenever she got a chance. She also noted that singers who had joined the Guild recently (she didn't specify what qualified as recently in Heptite Guild terms) were already working in ways similar to this, and were 'much nicer people for it' – which wasn't very empirical but certainly cheering.

They arrived at the sandbox claim somewhat ahead of schedule. It was a small triangular valley, with a large upthrust of rock at one corner. A large yellow square had been painted on it near the top, with a single diagonal line through the middle: from his mandatory study of the Rules and Regs, Zyan knew this to be the marker that indicated a claim held by the Guild rather than an individual singer.

"Are Guild claims common?" Zyan asked over the radio.

"Nope." Dane answered. "Some singers get a bit uppity about it, so the Guildmaster limits it to sandbox claims only. Set down near us, but not too near - leave room so there's easy access to your cargo bay doors. When you land, always check your co-ordinates. You'll need them if you have to radio for assistance. Also check your weather readouts every time you think of it - one day bein' in that habit could save your life."

Zyan followed Marin down after the double sled had landed, and dutifully memorised the co-ordinates on the control panel and checked the weather forecast - clear - before powering the drive down. He untied his cutter from it's bodged rack, slung it over his back, and stepped out onto the valley floor.

"Welcome to the ranges." Jolinda said, outside. It was quite hot, despite the earliness of the hour.

"First off," Dane said, "the basics: eat something and make sure you're hydrated. Finding and cutting crystal is hard, physically demanding work. And for you two right now that goes double: your symbiotes will still be in the process of multiplyin' throughout your bodies."

"Why are you carrying your cutters?" Jolinda asked them. Marin had also brought his out, along with a crate. Neither Dane nor Jolinda had theirs.

"To cut crystal." Marin replied, a little puzzled.

"Okay. Zyan?" She prompted him.

Zyan sensed a rhetorical trick, here, and he wasn't above a minor prevarication in order to not look foolish: "I don't trust the bracket not to fail and dump it on the floor. Seemed more sensible to have it with me."

"Hmmm. I have my doubts as to your veracity, Zyan Jarvis." Jolinda narrowed her eyes.

"That's posh talk for 'liar, liar, pants on fire', in case you were wonderin'." Dane clarified, with a grin.

"Fine. To be honest I just grabbed it on general principles, didn't give it any thought. Let's assume I actually also answered 'so I can cut crystal with it'. And then you say...?"

"Okay, where?" Jolinda asked him.

Zyan had no idea. He couldn't see any exposed crystal, and he couldn't feel any either. Marin looked genuinely ashamed that he had not thought of this.

"You got me. So how do we find it?" Zyan asked.

"We get high." Dane answered, then laughed at his own quip.

Jolinda sighed. "And he has the temerity to accuse me of recycling my jokes. He means we climb up to higher ground. Stow your cutters, grab some rations, and follow me."

They ate at the top of the rocky outcrop. Finding crystal was easier from up there: the sun was reflected and refracted through the face, revealing what dirt had covered - a vein of crystal close to one of the other corners of the small valley. Zyan thought it would be too far away to make the colour out, but when he looked he found, to his surprise, that he could see it was rose quartz. The symbiote really was a wonderful thing.

This was one method of finding crystal. Another was to sing out and see if it answered, which Dane and Jolinda demonstrated when they all headed back down and geared up with cutters and crates. Zyan and Marin also tried.

Zyan could feel the crystal, too, as they drew closer to it: but it was a hollow echo of the sensation black woke in him.

Dane and Jolinda then demonstrated how to check the face for pitch and set their cutters - A, this time. They cut a matched set of four shafts each, watched attentively by their students. When it came time for the learners to put blade to rock, Zyan let Marin go first, although he was itching to finally cut some crystal and really earn the CS in front of his name.

Marin sang and cut, producing a three shaft set that Jolinda pronounced to be a decent first try.

"As soon as you've cut, pack." Dane said forcefully. "Crystal - even crappy rose like this - wants to be held, stared at and admired. If you give it a chance, it will thrall you. Don't give it that chance. If you see your partner lingering over their crystal, shout at them to pack it. If they don't listen, pull it out of their hands and pack it for them. If you can avoid it, never handle crystal in direct sunlight: cut in shade if you can. Always wear gloves – crystal cuts clean and you'll heal quickly – but if you've got gloves on, there's something between your skin and the crystal, and you're that much less likely to give in to it's wiles and hold onto it for too long."

"You make it sound as if crystal is sentient – and malicious." Marin observed.

"It's not alive, but malicious is exactly what it is." Jolinda said. "Always think of it as being out to get you, and constantly looking for ways to trick you. Make no mistake – crystal is your nemesis."

"Nem what?" Zyan asked.

"Nemesis: a creature from ancient legends of my planet, but a completely spot on perfect term for crystal." Dane translated. "It's your own personal worst enemy, out to get you any way it can, lookin' at all times to make your life a sharding misery and to end it if it gets half a chance. It will never let up, and it will never give you a moment's peace."

Jolinda nodded, pointing at the crystal face. "The minute you don't respect this, it kills you."

Marin nodded and packed his first cut with all the due alacrity this information warranted.

"Zyan - you're up." Dane said.

"Sing clearly, cut steadily, and not too fast." Jolinda advised.

Zyan fired up both his lungs and his cutter and set to work. The sensation as his blade cut into the crystal was intense: waves of sound washed over and through him as the crystal cried out: it was all he could do to finish the cut. The second cut wasn't as traumatic, subsequent cuts became more bearable. After what seemed like an hour, but was actually just a few moments, he had excised a matched set of four crystals.

"Not bad. Now pack them." Jolinda told him.

When he picked up his first crystal he immediately knew that self-discipline was key to cutting safely. Dane was right: it did invite attention, seeking to captivate with it's soapy smooth texture and sparkling refraction in the sun.

Zyan ruthlessly made himself put it into the crate, then did the same with the remaining three.

It was done. He was a crystal singer.

They spent the rest of that day learning their trade from Dane and Jolinda - not just how to find crystal and cut it, but the dangers they would face and how to deal with them. Zyan was unsurprised their mentors' idea of how long a singer should cut crystal, stay in the ranges and stay away from the ranges tallied closely with Donalla's, a fact which he mentioned during a rest break.

"We were part of that study." Jolinda admitted. "Donalla is, of course, quite right. If only more singers could be persuaded to work that way, half the guild's problems could be solved overnight."

"If they were the sort that could be swayed by little things like evidence, the Guild wouldn't'a had those problems in the first sharding place." Dane grumbled.

"Some singers have changed." Jolinda countered her partner's pessimism. "Even old hands like Borton can see the benefits of the Guildmaster's new working practices. He's a changed man since he's been cutting from coordinates - he's quite pleasant company now."

Zyan didn't remember the guy being that pleasant, but didn't comment.

Dane gave a shrug: he didn't seem to have as much faith in human nature as his partner. "Well, they don't do themselves any favours working the way they do. Take it from me, cut moderately, no matter how much you might want to fill your sled with crystal. Cutting too much for too long and barely spending any time out of the ranges is a surefire way to get dead, sooner or later - and sooner or later it'll catch up with them." He paused. "In fact, now I think on it a piece, this problem'll probably sort itself out in time."

"Dane!" Jolinda scolded him. "That's an awful thing to say! They're still people."

"Yeah, I know. Dumb as a box of rocks, but still people." Dane conceded. "Do an old man a favour," he addressed Marin and Zyan, "and don't go down that path."

"Don't you worry." Zyan replied. "I won't."

"I too have no desire to suffer from undue mental aberration." Marin confirmed.

As daylight faded, they had all filled a half dozen crates with rose crystal. Dane and Jolinda pronounced them both proficient.

"I wouldn't advise you to get your hopes up regarding the price, however. Rose is rarely, if ever, in short supply: often it has to be stored until a buyer can be found. The co-ordinates you've each been given should have something more worth your while, though." Jolinda told them, handing them each a sealed envelope.

"Up to you if you want to hightail it over there at first light tomorrow or have another day here. If you want to get some more practice in we'd be more than happy to stick around to help. If not, we get our bonus whether you have one day with us or two." Dane said.

Marin indicated that he was ready to strike out on his own.

Zyan was in two minds about it, if truth be told. Donalla's warnings about not cutting alone weighed heavily on his mind. He set that aside, though. He'd always been self-disciplined, and decided that he would just have to be extra careful to pack as soon as he'd cut.

"Not that you're not good company, guys, but I'm ready to head off on my own, too." Zyan said.

Dane nodded, then grinned. "Not that you ain't either: but I've about had enough of cutting pink. Useless waste of breath. Anyway, it's been a pleasure teaching you two, and the rest of your class. Put it there."

Dane stuck his hand out and they both shook, then Jolinda - usually quite a reserved person - surprised them both with hugs.

"Likewise." She said.

"Let's get packed up and squared away, then. Weather permitting, I got a little surprise. Mark the moment, kinda." Dane said.

The weather continued to behave itself. Dane's surprise turned out to be a bundle of firewood - or at least compacted vegetable waste, formed into loglike sections - with which he built a campfire. An empty crate each made a convenient camp stool. Jolinda handed round beers, which, she said, she brewed herself. She must have been quite good at it, because it tasted nice. After they'd eaten some rations, Dane produced a bag of peculiar squishy pink and white objects. He impaled three of these on skewers and handed one each to Zyan and Marin.

"Marshmallows." Dane explained. "Traditional earth delicacy. Hold 'em near the fire until they melt a bit, then eat them. They're lovely."

"They're little balls of overly sugary nastiness." Jolinda corrected him, wrinkling her nose.

"Jo's not a fan." Dane apologised.

It was a very pleasant evening by the fire, with the stars overhead – light years away from the paranoia and desperation of the shepherding experience Dane had described. He dug a guitar out of his sled, and Marin surprised everyone by performing a rendition of an old Aurigan folk song with it. He had a very good singing voice, much better than Zyan had ever been able to boast. He also lost any trace of his emotionlessly literal manner of speech when singing, too, filling the simple tune with pathos and meaning. Zyan actually applauded at the end.

"Do you do this regularly?" Zyan asked Dane and Jolinda, afterwards.

"Not often, but when we can." Jolinda replied. "Here's the last thing I shall teach you, and I hope you take it to heart since it's the most important lesson I have for you. You have to stay human on this planet. Make campfires. Sing songs. Eat horrible half-burned bits of sugary squidge off the end of sticks like this weirdo." She indicated Dane, who smiled. "Fall in love. Argue. Make up. Read books and write books and paint awful watercolours and do daft things because they're fun. Smile. Laugh. Make sure you stay friends with people. Don't let this stuff-" she jerked her thumb at the crystal face "-define you. It can get in your blood if you let it."

"I shall strive to do so. I hope this is just the first of many such evenings with friends." Marin said.

"Yeah." Zyan said, raising his beer bottle. "Here's to staying human."

They said their goodbyes and wished each other good luck that night rather than the next morning, as Jolinda advised a very early start. Zyan's co-ordinates were an hour or so away according to the sled's nav computer- privately he reckoned it was actually only forty-five minutes or so. He set his alarm to wake him in enough time to take off and get into the general area at first light.

He was actually woken by the muffled sound of a sled taking off – Marin, he supposed, although Dane and Jolinda had said they were also leaving: they had a claim in the Brerrerton ranges that was cutting very well. The fact they'd both sustained crippling injuries there seemed not to bother them at all.

There was only a quarter of an hour or so left until his alarm, so Zyan got out of bed, folded it away, had a quick wash, double-checked he had his cutter and the crates of rose were secured in the back, did his pre-flights and then took off. He would eat on the way.

Since Marin's early takeoff had given him an extra few minutes to get there, Zyan set a slightly lower cruising speed than he had planned and then checked the weather report. It was no longer as optimistic as it had been last night – there was a weather pattern brewing up off the western shore of the continent that certainly rated some attention, but even a worst-case estimate put it eighteen to twenty-four hours away from his target area. Certainly enough time to get there, check the area out and hopefully spend a day cutting. The co-ordinates also came with some notes, which Zyan re-read:

Claim to be found at end of zig-zagging ravine which leads off to the west from a large circular steep-sided depression. Subject identified colour only as 'dark', but brought in mostly green during the period it is most probable the memory relates to. Cut black twice in career but probably not from this claim. Please note claim marker almost certainly erased by wind and weather in intervening time.

No indication as to how much time had passed, Zyan noted. It wasn't a massive amount to go on, Zyan thought, although to be fair he'd been given worse mission briefings in his time. Certainly it was better than just 'go and find crystal', which he supposed would have been how it was done before Guildmaster Dahl's time.

Thinking of that worthy, who, if Dane and Jolinda were to be believed had insisted he have his chance to repair a sled, reminded him that he should update his personal recording – well, actually start it, if truth be told. They had been insistent that it was a good idea, and he intended to follow their advice very closely.

On a whim, he elected to dispense with a normal narrative and be honest about what this was: he was talking to himself.

"Hello there Future Zyan. Welcome to the story of our life." He began, smiling to himself.

He recorded only the bare minimum of detail on Djiel – he would go back and flesh that out later. He spent most of the time on his experiences post-Shankill, and was making sure he had all the information on finding and cutting crystal recorded when the sled pinged to let him know he was entering the target area.

"Hello – looks like we're nearly over the objective. Better wrap this spent the evening around a campfire – Dane provided the wood and Jolinda brewed the beer – not then, obviously, back at the cube presumably – and it was nice. Him and Jolinda are good people. Jolinda made the point quite forcefully that you have to hold on to your humanity here, but you already know that, right? Cut sensibly, hold onto your memories and personality, don't be a right wossname to people like some singers are. Seriously, I mean it. Don't let me down, Zyan of days to come. What else? Basically went to sleep, got woke up by Marin's loud takeoff, took off ourselves and now here we are, you and I. It's nearly light out there, so let's go see what we've got. Talk to me later, future me." He cut the recording and turned his attention to the sensors.

Nearly light was not daylight, so Zyan flipped on the ground scanning radar and descended to a few dozen metres above the ground, flying a spiral pattern. The topography of what was below started to assemble itself on the sled's main screen, chunk by chunk. He was currently flying above what looked like a wide curve – the edge of the large circular depression. Depression didn't really do it justice – the walls were a good ten metres high. Zyan followed it until he came to a gap in it's western quadrant. Figuring this had a good chance of being the ravine he was after, Zyan decided it was time to deck the sled and continue on foot. Buzzing around a large, well-defined geographical feature like the depression on instruments alone was one thing – navigating a relatively narrow ravine was quite another, and he'd do it if he absolutely had to and not before. The perimeter of the inactive claim extended out a short distance into the depression, and there was no other claim nearby in any case.

Zyan set his sled down a safe distance from the depression wall, made himself check the co-ordinates and take another look at the weather report, and then broke out the worklight from the sled's equipment store. It would be daylight soon, and yes, his eyesight had undergone an upgrade recently but it never paid to be underprepared.

No, it didn't. Some habits died hard, and maybe they should be kept on life-support in case they were needed. Zyan assembled the stunner, checked it's charge, and evicted a power driver from it's holster on his toolbelt to make room for it.

Thus becoming, presumably, the most well-armed person on the planet, he opened the hatch and ventured forth.

It was cold outside in the early morning air, with a slight breeze ghosting in from the west bringing no extra warmth with it. The floor of the depression was mostly level and flat – Zyan sealed the sled behind him and headed for the ravine entrance, twenty metres away.

It was dim and gloomy in the ravine, which was barely wider, at it's entrance, than a sled. Zyan's instincts were telling him to shut off the torch, which would make a handy beacon for any sniper or artillery observer in visual range, and to get the stunner out instead. He suppressed this, reminded himself that the dangers on Ballybran were natural rather than artificial, and entered the ravine.

Should he go to high ground and wait for daylight, to better see where the crystal was? No – it was too narrow to afford good visibility anyway. The notes had specified the end of the ravine, so he would start there and look for the crystal with his voice rather than his eyes.

The ravine floor was anything but flat and level – Zyan started to reconsider his decision to not bring the sled into it. Forward progress was made mostly by jumping from boulder to boulder – an anti-grav harness or, even better, a one-man recon skimmer would have been a great asset. Zyan had progressed no more than a hundred metres or so before there was enough light to make the torch unnecessary – he should just have waited a little longer. He secured it to his belt and continued.

Zyan's hand was halfway to his stunner before he realised why – a soft scrabbling noise from his left, which revealed itself to be Ballybran's apex predator: a rock 'crab', eight inches or so across. Zyan laughed and calmed down.

There had only been an hour or so devoted to Ballybran's fauna in the entirety of orientation, but Zyan had been interested and remembered it. The crab was quite unperturbed by his approach, seeming to know he was no threat despite his relatively brobdingnagian proportions.

"Morning." Zyan said to it.

After a cursory flick of it's antennae in Zyan's direction, the crab ignored him, absorbed instead in it's business of examining every nook and cranny it could for what really interested it: burrow worms. Zyan left it to it's morning hunt and continued in pursuit of his own quarry.

After a couple of zig-zag turns, the ravine did widen out and the going became somewhat easier, at least in places.

The crystal face was almost laughably easy to find, as it panned out. The ravine came to an end in a triangular area shaped as if a giant had carved an arrow onto the end of the meandering line of the ravine. The space was liberally scattered with boulders everywhere except in one place- just in front of a suspiciously square-sided hole in the ravine wall. The singer, whoever he or she had been, had done the bare minimum of landscaping necessary to permit easy access to the face. There was no room to land a sled: Zyan predicted a lot of lifting and carrying in his future.

He sang a C. The answering call came from the crystal face.

"Well hello there." Zyan said, and received a sussurating echo in response: but it was wrong, somehow. Fuzzy. Sharp around the edges. He frowned, and went to examine the face.

The mystery of the crystal's colour was resolved when Zyan switched the torch on again to have a good look: when he scrubbed an area free of dust and dirt with his sleeve it was a dark green in colour. The problem with the sound could be ascribed to the myriad cracks running through it: flaw.

This was, to say the least, a bit of a let down.

It wasn't uncommon, Zyan had been told – far from it, it was a perennial problem. Dane and Jolinda had said it needed to be cut away to reveal the unflawed crystal beneath. Fine: except that it could be deep beneath. Or off to one side, or it could dip underground and re-emerge somewhere else – or it may be completely shattered all the way through.

"Only one way to find out." Zyan said to himself. He took a spraycan from his belt and made a large 'Z' on a nearby boulder to mark his claim – he could do a better job later, but again he was following advice from Dane – and turned back to his sled.

He returned with his cutter, some rations, and a pair of crates: he'd lashed them together with spare webbing and even managed a pair of crude shoulder straps, but it was going to be hard going on the way back even so. In Zyan's mind, a design for a small one-person skimmer with room to store a couple of crates was already taking shape.

Cutting away the flawed crystal was a thankless task – it had all the enervating, eardrum-ripping qualities of cutting unflawed crystal and more, since the pitch was soured. Zyan was happy to tolerate this in return for nice cuts of crystal which could be sold for large amounts of money, but he was less enamoured of it when what he cut was simply tossed aside.

When something dripped off his nose, he assumed it was just sweat and wiped it away. His glove came away stained with blood – holding a rag to his forehead for a second revealed that there was quite a lot of it. His wrist unit had the capability to become mirrored on demand: this showed him a large gash in his forehead. It was a clean cut that knit together, somewhat disconcertingly, even as he watched. Bits of soured crystal had been flying off as he cut it away – he hadn't given it any consideration and apparently the crystal hadn't been giving him any either. How often had this happened since he'd started cutting, and he simply hadn't noticed? He was starting to understand why Donalla was concerned over his pain threshold results.

Sleds, he knew, came equipped with a pair of work goggles. He didn't know how long the spore took to heal an eye or two, and he didn't particularly want to find out. His wrist unit chose that moment to vibrate against his skin, reminding him he was due a break.

"Decision kinda makes itself, really." Zyan murmured, slung his cutter (it seemed contra-indicated to leave the valuable item unattended, even in a deserted ravine) and headed back down the path again. He chomped an energy bar as he went, figuring he might aswell make use of the otherwise wasted time to keep his energy levels up.

After the last turning, he spotted the rock crab again. It was probing a gap in the rocks with it's pincers. After a moment, it gave up. Clearly whatever had taken shelter within was beyond it's reach. The crab waved it's pincers in an endearing display of vexation which drew a smile and a soft laugh from Zyan, despite his own frustration.

"You and me both, mate." He said to the creature, and, breaking off a small chunk of energy bar, he crouched down and offered it to the crab.

Despite centuries on the surface, man was clearly not well known to the locals yet. The crab sampled the air, picking up the scent of the bar, and then scuttled over towards Zyan's outstretched hand without fear. It made clicking sounds as it moved over the ground on it's armoured legs: click click click CLINK click click.

Zyan frowned. That sounded wrong. He let the crab have it's treat, which it tore apart and nibbled with gusto, and stepped over it to better examine where it had just walked.

What Zyan had taken for an unremarkable slab of rock was actually a chunk of metal. It had, at some point, been driven into the side of a boulder with such force that it had been wedged there and then bent flat to the ground. This mute evidence of the fury of mach storms was enough to make Zyan shudder in a way watching a storm on a screen was unable to. A few remaining iotas of orange paint hinted that this was sled wreckage – a cursory examination of the surrounding area was enough to be positive the rest of the sled was not nearby.

So where had it come from?

The sled fragment looked to have been driven into the boulder at a fairly level angle, so it seemed safe to assume it had not blown in from above. It had blown in from the ravine entrance, then. Had the previous owner of this claim come to grief, having landed their sled at the ravine mouth as Zyan had done? No: they'd lived long enough to lose their mind over the years and then be regressed by Donalla or one of her medics, so it wasn't that. It had blown in from somewhere farther out, then.

"Interesting." Zyan said.

Back in the That'll Do, he dug out the goggles and shoved them into a pocket, then double checked the claims registry for the local area. There was nothing for miles around, except the single entry for 'Jarvis, Z: inactive coordinates reassigned'. No claims had been made then released, either by the singer's death or guild decree: it didn't seem this was a popular neighbourhood. No data on crashed sleds was made available to singers, so he couldn't check to see if this was old wreckage that had long since been accounted for.

The weather was still holding clear for at least a day, and Zyan liked a mystery. He racked his cutter and closed the hatch.

Sleds had limited sensor packages: radar and nightvision were about their limit. Zyan knew how to bodge together a crude magnetometer by playing a few games with the onboard compass, though. Ballybran wasn't rich in ferrous minerals so there wasn't a lot of background interference - a couple of passes over the depression revealed there was a likely source of something metallic on the far side of the bowl. The sole distinguishing feature of the area containing the reading was a rockfall that spilled out from the edge into the bowl's floor. From a few metres up in the air it didn't look like a recent event: the rocks were scoured and weathered. It all looked very natural until Zyan caught a brief glint of something shiny. He decked the That'll Do as near as he could to the rockfall, got out and started scrambling towards the source of the glint.

As he got closer, he started to experience a familiar feeling. An itch in the back of his head, and a funny feeling up and down his spine.

The glint he'd seen came from a triangle of exposed metal around a dark opening, blasted flat along with the rocks that surrounded it as if God had been busy with his celestial belt sander. Zyan crouched down on his haunches and pointed his light inside - there was just enough room to peer in.

His beam illuminated what certainly looked like the cabin of some sort of craft: he could make out a smashed console, the bent and twisted remains of a pilot's chair and a hatch at the rear, buckled open. Plasglas fragments from the viewport were scattered everywhere. There was no sign of a body. He was looking down into the cabin from the top portside corner, he realised. It certainly looked like a sled, but, as far as he could tell given that it was badly damaged, it wasn't the same model as his. It was on the level, give or take a few degrees, and completely buried save for this one corner that must, at some point, have been exposed by wind and then ripped away to embed itself in the boulder near the ravine mouth.

And, if Zyan's sensitivity was to be relied on, it was absolutely humming with black crystal.

"Shard the green." Zyan said to himself. "Reckon I'll start cutting right here."

He mentally reviewed the rules and regs on claims: you weren't allowed to just randomly claim areas on the off chance there might be crystal in the vicinity, you had to find it first. What the rules and regs didn't say, though, was whether the crystal you found had to be in a crystal face or in a crate in a crashed sled.

Zyan sprayed another Z onto a nearby boulder, then went to get his cutter. While he was in his sled he sent a preliminary signal via satellite uplink, staking his claim to this area. He'd have to ratify it when he got back, but that was just a formality.

A blade designed to cut through some of the hardest material known to man didn't have any problem slicing up ordinary rock, but it wasn't a big tool. Breaking down the boulders on top of the sled into hunks small enough for Zyan to manhandle out of the way was a bit like slicing up watermelons with a craft knife: the blade was up to the job but a lot of cuts were required. Even without the necessity of singing while he cut, it was hard exhausting work. It was a shame the guild didn't issue singers any earthmoving equipment. Half the day was gone by the time Zyan had shifted enough rock to expose the corner of a topside hatch, and then it took another two hours to clear it.

The hatch was stiff, but opened with an ungodly screech of protesting hinges after a little persuasion from a wrench, which was the closest thing to a crowbar that Zyan had equipped himself with. He was just about to shine his light downwards when his sled gave vent to a sudden piercing hoot, which caused him to jump and nearly sent him forward down the hatch. His wrist unit buzzed in sympathy as the sled relayed the signal to it: an early weather warning. The sled hooted again: it wouldn't shut up until Zyan checked the weather report in person. This he did: the storm was moving in off the sea and towards his position. He still had a good four hours before it would officially become a Bad Idea to be in the vicinity, however. Jolinda had been right: you could never completely trust the weather forecast on Ballybran.

Zyan threw some water down his neck and headed back to the other sled with a new sense of urgency. He shone his light down the hatchway to reveal crystal crates, neatly stacked and webbed into place. They hadn't been dislodged by the crash and seemed undamaged.

"Once more into the breach." Zyan muttered to himself.

He lowered his cutter down first. Even though there didn't seem to be any boulders that could roll back to block the hatchway, he didn't relish the prospect of being sealed inside this wreck without a means to cut his way out. Then – a little gingerly – he clambered down into the sled.

He met the owner almost at once, and learnt his name moments afterwards.

Zyan had seen more than his share of dead bodies, and had rationally been expecting to find one, but even so it came as a bit of a shock. In the midst of the crates, a skeleton was curled in a foetal position around a sonic cutter. It was of a different design to Zyan's, larger and more unwieldy to look at, but it still bore it's owner's name on the casing: Vortran Yanikov.

"Sorry to drop in unannounced, CS Yanikov." Zyan said, then, because this sounded unfunny and in poor taste the moment he said it, added: "May you rest in peace."

There wasn't a lot left of Yanikov – just bones and a few scraps of cloth. Zyan guessed that rock crabs had got in from the shattered cabin, through the buckled inner hatch, because there was no sign of any decayed soft tissue.

The inner hatch opened with a couple of kicks – Zyan hunted around under the smashed console and located the sled's black box. If the man had family, somewhere, it might tell them how he died.

Some of Yanikov's crates were empty. Because it seemed utterly disrespectful to raid his cargo but leave the man's remains behind, Zyan used one as a makeshift coffin. He put the man's sonic cutter in there with him: he had clung onto it right to the end, so it seemed wrong to separate him from it now. The black box went in with it, then he wrestled the crate up and out of the sled and back to the That'll Do.

It took Zyan most of his four hours to transfer all the crates from the wrecked sled, by which time the wind had risen from a breeze to a stiff blow, it was nearly dark and a couple more weather alarms had started sounding. These could only be silenced by firing up the sled and getting it airborne. Zyan dropped down into the cabin one last time, to retrieve his cutter. He'd definitely got all the crystal, but, for some reason, still felt it's presence. He double checked the remaining crates: all empty.

Well, there was nothing to be done about it now. If the lode that had produced Yanikov's final haul was out there someplace, it was where he had cut, not where he'd crashed.

But.

Zyan stopped stock still. Yanikov's body had been curled up in the hold: not at the controls. He hadn't died suddenly. None of his bones had been broken – that had been quite plain. The cabin was an absolute wreck, that was true – Zyan had assumed from the impact of a crash – but what if there hadn't been a crash? What if Yanikov had cut that crystal right here, then been unable to take off? The hold of a sled was better protected than the cabin. If you were trapped in a powerless sled, facing the prospect of a mach storm, wouldn't you hole up in there, surrounded by your crates for whatever extra protection they might offer, rather than stay in the relatively exposed cabin? Then, at some point, maybe in that hypothetical storm or maybe in a later one, the rocks had come down and turned the sled into a tomb.

A third alarm started up – his wrist unit started buzzing at him, too, flashing return to base in red. This was no time for lengthy theorising. Zyan slung his cutter on his back and practically leapt up and out of the wreck, but he didn't run for his sled. Instead, he found himself scrambling further up the rockfall. This is lunacy, he thought. I should be airborne by now. But he carried on. He had to know.

He was nearly up to the wall when the feeling overtook him, intense and...pure. The contents of the sled were nothing compared to this. There was black under that rockfall, a lot of it, and he'd wager it was unflawed, too. It was coming up through the concealing rockfall in waves.

The That'll Do gave vent to a fourth alarm. The windspeed had increased, pelting Zyan with sand and gravel. He turned and hastened down the rockfall, across the floor of the depression towards his sled. The pile of empty crates outside it – there hadn't been room for all of his as well as Yanikov's – had already blown over. A lid came flying through the air and glanced off Zyan's shoulder – fortunately it wasn't heavy, and he ignored the impact. Moments later an actual crate came after it, which Zyan was able to dodge, but the wind by now was so strong that it nearly blew him over and it was getting hard to see through the lash of high-speed grit.

Zyan staggered up to his sled and pulled himself through the hatch, then slammed it shut behind him. Out of the viewport, he saw the remainder of the crates picked up and thrown around like insubstantial leaves – except that a couple of them made loud, very substantial thumps as they slammed into the That'll Do's flank. The storm had descended quicker than Zyan had thought possible. The sled had already brought it's flight systems online in response to the alarms, which was just as well because it was rocking from side to side very alarmingly. If Zyan didn't take off soon, the storm was going to do it for him, and that was guaranteed to be a very short flight.

He didn't rack his cutter, just moved it to the side of his body as he strapped himself in. Zyan slammed the That'll Do to full power, and blasted up and out of the depression. Even with the thrust on maximum he was very nearly dashed against the wall – the proximity alarm blared alongside the weather alarms for a few milliseconds – but then he was up in the air with plenty of space around him. He pointed his nose toward the guild cube and let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding.

Too close, Zyan told himself. Too close by far. He'd come within a hair's breadth of joining Yanikov in death.

The That'll Do told him that his ETA at the guild cube was two hours forty eight minutes. The meteorological readouts told him that he'd be chased by the storm the whole way.