“Because if you make a mistake and one crystal blows up, but the surrounding unharvestable crystals have only been hit one time, you might not die. Only that single crystal you hit three times will explode. You might lose a limb or get a few bruises or a concussion, but you’d have a chance at surviving the blast.” He pressed his hands down on the table in front of me. “But if one crystal blows up and you’ve left a bunch of them very active—meaning two taps—it’ll set off a powerful chain reaction. I’ve seen a guy leave four crystals double-tapped and when he third-tapped one…” Carl shook his head and looked back at the vidscreen. “They didn’t bother to dig his body out of the avalanche.”

I sucked in a quick breath.

“So, unless you know without a doubt that it’s harvestable, don’t you dare hit any crystal a second time.”

“Okay. I won’t.” I had one hit to know if a crystal was harvestable or not. That was a lot of pressure.

“Once an unharvestable crystal is activated, it’ll take about a day for it to go back to normal from one tap. It’ll stay very active for a few days when it’s hit twice. No one’s been out there in weeks. So everything in that mine is—as of this moment—neutral.”

“That’s good to know.” At least I was starting with a clean slate out there.

“Good. A while back I started giving miners special markers to note which crystals are unharvestable crystals. Put the number one on any that you hit once. The number two on any that you hit twice. If you have twos, you keep them well spaced apart. Just in case. And you can use the marks from previous miners as a bit of a guide. Sometimes the crystals become harvestable later, so it’s always good to check, but if you think it might be a volatile crystal and it already has a mark on it, don’t hit it again.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

“Any more questions?”

My mind was trying to keep up with all the information that he’d given me. “I’m sure I will later, but I think I’m just trying to process what you’re telling me. I really need to grasp this before I go out there.”