Crystal Singer Quotes
"She'd be top in whatever she did or die in the attempt."
"I'd rather take a chance, no matter what it entails, in preference to dragging about forever."
"The decision is mine, and I'm holding you to your offer."
"Once you start cutting crystal, you can never stop."
"The storms that scramble the brain and reduce the mind to a vegetable existence?"
"You've only seen the glamorous side of crystal singing."
"I think that everyone's brains get scrambled one way or another."
"Good view," he told her, pointing to the two inner moons.
"I hear it often enough to begin to believe it's possible... but they say crystal gets into your blood."
"You've got the important ones," Andurs reminded her with a wry smile.
"How can they stand the intensity down there?"
"You weren't forced to come with him, were you?"
"I don't know where you come from, Captain Andurs, but on Fuerte privacy is respected."
"He's the first I've seen that bad," Andurs admitted.
"I've a mind to stay here and see how it goes."
"You don't understand. They are very different!"
"Forever, Killashandra thought, as Stellar performers when basking in the applause of adoring audiences."
"Exit Killashandra Ree softly and with no fanfare."
"When rape is inevitable, huh?" whispered the irrepressible Rimbol in Killashandra's ear.
"A restriction is only restricting because you know it exists," Killashandra said. "Nor iron bars a prison make," she added, dredging up an old quote unexpectedly.
"Prison? That's archaic," said Rimbol with a snort. "Tonight let's enjoy!"
"This facility has been programmed to responded to any change in your life signals," announced a pleasant voice, rather more human than mechanical.
"You never feel completely clean," Killashandra thought as she undressed, using the spray cabinets on ship and station. "You really needed to soak in the hot water of a full immersion bath."
"Small class though this be, your quarters are here. Kindly to leave what you have brought in any room of your choosing and join in food and drink. To begin the work tomorrow. To orient yourselves in this facility today."
"Every other human species in the galaxy, and some not so human," Carigana continued undeterred, "can manage interlingual except the Aurigan group. It's a delusion on their part. Anyone can learn interlingual properly."
"Is only to put thumb print in door lock to receive privacy."
"You may program the catering units and audiovisual units and change any furnishing not to your liking."
"I'll probably inform you," Killashandra muttered under her breath, and was pleased to hear no reply. Just as well she thought. She preferred the sanctity of quiet.
"We may never get off this planet again," he said to Killashandra as he joined her, "but they sure make it comfortably homelike."
"Tonight let's enjoy!" Rimbol's exuberance was hard to resist, and Killashandra didn't care to.
"Trapped us, haven't you? Good and truly trapped. And we walked so obligingly into it."
"Once trained, salary far above galactic average. Most indebtedness cleared by second year. Then -- every wish satisfy. Order any thing from any place in galaxy."
"You want what you can't or shouldn't have or are denied. Human nature."
"A fair day's wage for a fair day's work and then the best possible domestic conditions."
"Crystal does it. Even through gloves and with symbiosis."
"No flaws perceived. A fine shear edge and good point."
"An even pace makes light of the biggest load."
"Don't sweat your head remembering prices, m'dear. Change every day."
"Nothing really does matter until the adaptation, for none of the lectures and work had been specifically oriented toward the role of the Singer: nothing had been explained about the art of cutting crystal from the face, or how to tune a cutter, or where in the ranges to go."
"Who can sleep through the waking buzz? He's not in his room. It's -- too empty."
"Distress being noted by sensitive monitors, proper treatment immediately initiated,"
"Entirely normal are such manifestations of the adaptation,"
"Ballybraners had struck Killashandra as a humorless crew, and she wondered if the fever would wrest her sense of the ridiculous from her."
"Am I satisfactory?" she cried out, a wild exultation seizing her. "Is MY condition satisfactory?"
"You will be conducted to the infirmary to complete the symbiosis."
"I don't need a scanner. I have never felt so well!"
"Yes," Antona said, observing her pause, "I expect it'll take time for you to become accustomed to augmented olfactory senses."
"Satisfactory in our terms and experience, yes. There are degrees, you must understand, of severity with which the symbiont affects the host and with which the host rejects the symbiont."
"I work generally with self-treating patients, since I find the helpless depress me."
"Not you. You've had what's known as a Milekey transition. Practically no physical discomfort and the maximum adjustment."
"Avoiding restrictions and defying laws were completely in the human condition."
"It's not so much singing crystal then, as being sung to by crystal."
"I thought the precious symbiont healed -- " Killashandra blurted out before she knew she was going to speak.
"So, Killashandra Ree, you are sensitive to the blacks, and you have enjoyed a Milekey transition."
"If Keborgen was dead, who inherited the credit?"
"Those octagons were relatively new. They ought not need tuning yet. I object to carelessness in any form."
"How would beginners like me learn if someone didn't make such mistakes?"
"The radiant baths, the viscous liquid a gentle pressure on her tired body, its thick whirling like the most delicate of massages, did freshen after a morning's intense cutting drill."
"Privately, Killashandra decided the warnings were an overkill situation; after being banged at, rung out, and buzzed, your mind would turn off most of the noise."
"As she practiced, so she learned confidence in her vehicle."
"Killashandra had felt unequal to such an exercise, but Trag's inference that she could err with impunity stiffened her resolve."
"Sufficient beer and other intoxicants were consumed by the recruits to make it a convivial evening."
"Her flight instructor also pressed heavily on weather wise acumen."
"I'd always heard that Fuerte was a pacific planet," Lanzechi said. "Nevertheless, you take to cutting well, Killashandra Ree."
"She was going to cut crystal at last. At last? She was first out of Class 895."
"Use the replay whenever he falters. Your switch is rigged to activate his."
"A successful Crystal Singer must have transcended the need for the conscious performance of his art."
"Killashandra, you will find the black crystal!" Lanzecki's eyes took on an uncanny intensity, reinforcing his message and the strength of his conviction.
"Only if I'm bloody lucky." She laughed, recovering her equilibrium.
"How can I trust you, Moksoon? You've nearly killed me twice today."
"Just remind me when I'm cutting. It's crystal makes me forget. It sings, and I forget."
"I'll show you how to find song in the cliffs. I'll show you how to find crystal. Any fool can cut it. You've got to find it first."
"Crystal lies in planes, this way, that way, sometimes the way the fold goes, sometimes at right angles."
"I hadn't seen this before. Why didn't I see this before?"
"He did know how to cut crystal. He did know how to find it."
"Would just one trip to the Crystal Ranges alter her so much?"
"I'll have several clear days?" The certainty of her thought on that score astonished her.
"Habit," Concera had endlessly and rightly said, "is all that saves a Singer."
"You may come out of this affair better than you deserve to, Killashandra Ree."
"Crystal touches that way, too," she said when she could talk.
"Singers are notorious for their irritability," Jezerey said with an uncordial look.
"How could memory, even of such an ecstatic moment, dominate mind and body so?"
"The trick with crystal is to pack it away before the song gets to you in the sun."
"Coping with the unexpected must become automatic for a Singer."
"We always plan for the worst and generally are not disappointed."
"The challenge thus presented by each new Passover configuration is irresistible, forces that are changeless and changing, as unpredictable as such natural phenomena are."
"The discovery was by no means original with me, either. Yarran beer is as close to addictive as anything can be for us."
"I am not in a position to imply anything, merely venture an informed guess."
"That's the way to remember what's important."
"What is the matter with you, Rimbol? I've been having such a good time."
"Once I thought I'd have no trouble keeping up with you, Killa."
"Give my regards to Shillawn if you'd be so good as to remember."
"Not until Killashandra has cleared Shankill authority, Captain."
"Eat! You won't get a chance to eat while that cruiser is on interplanetary drive."
"It's not so much what you have to do as where and with what."
"We were not expecting the Trundimoux to arrive so soon, but that may be fortuitous with Passover not long away."
"It vibrated against her hands, and before she could fall in trance, she whirled and laid the crystal in its place."
"Each step took her farther from the crystal, and she twisted with the pain of that separation."
"Tic, if I am disturbed for any reason whatsoever before the next station, I'll dismember the person! Understood?"
"You're all right, Killashandra?" "Just tired. You've no idea how difficult it is to surrender crystal you've cut yourself. They cry when you leave them. Let me sleep."