Crystal Line

Killashandra was the most gifted Crystal Singer on Ballybran.With her partner, Lars Dahl, she held the record for cutting the terrible, fascinating, and infinitely rare black crystals - crystals that could destroy the brain of a Singer if they were not properly controlled.Killashandra and Lars Dahl together were an invincible pair.

So when, on the distant planet of Opal, a new, beautiful, unfathomable manifestation was discovered, Lars and Killashandra were the team asked to explore the 'Jewel Junk'.All those who had previously encountered it had died.Only the Crystal Singers, with the immune system of Ballybran in their blood, were thought to stand a chance of survival.The 'Jewel Junk' was brilliant and mysterious, and became even more so when fed with some of Ballybran's precious crystals.But it was to be twenty-five years before the planet Opal released one of its secrets - a secret that was to prove the salvation of Ballybran and the Crystal Singers.

When Killashandra Ree first joined the mysterious Heptite Guild to become a crystal singer, she knew that she would be forever tied to the planet Ballybran. She could leave ... but she would always have to come back, drawn like a magnet by the song of crystal that pulsed through her veins. Crystal singing brought ecstasy and pain, near-eternal life ... and an increasing loss of memory that bit by bit would erase the parts of that long, long life that lay behind her. Over the years, Killashandra had accumulated a multitude of painful memories she could easily afford to forget. She didn't even really mind the little annoyances, like forgetting the names and faces of her colleagues, or needing a locator to find her way back to her own apartment. But she hadn't counted on the loneliness and emptiness a person could feel when the heart could still remember what the mind had forgotten ... Fortunately for Killashandra, someone still cared enough to try to salvage what was left of her memory and her talents. And for the first time it had become possible to access the damaged minds of experienced crystal singers. But in order to avail herself of the new technique, Killashandra would have to learn to open herself up ... to another person, and to all the unpleasant memories she had so willingly relinquished. Killashandra Ree was trapped in the unceasing present of the crystal singer. Only by reclaiming her past could she step forward into the future. Crystal had destroyed her memory ... and only crystal could restore it ... if she dared!