All The Weyrs of Pern Page 4

  I listened, Ruth said, gliding from his perch to the mound on which Jaxom stood, to what this Aivas creature said. It is true that we were an experiment? Ruth moved forward until he was close enough to touch Jaxom and then leaned his head against his weyrmate. What is an experiment?

  Jaxom heard the indignation in Ruth's tone and stifled a chuckle at his friend's reaction.

  "A most felicitous happening, dear friend, not that it matters a lead mark how you and the other dragons came to be," Jaxom said stoutly. "Besides you've always known-better than anyone else on Pern-that dragons are cousins to the fire-lizards. So why should it bother you how you were created?"

  I don't know, Ruth replied in a strangely subdued, uncertain tone. Is this Aivas thing good?

  "I believe it is," Jaxom answered, briefly considering his reply. "I think it will depend on us, the use to which we put the information tire Aivas can give us. If it rids Pern of Thread. . ."

  If it can, that means dragons won't be needed anymore, doesn't it?

  "Nonsense," Jaxom said more sharply than he had intended. He threw his arm around his dragon's neck in quick reassurance, caressing Ruth's cheek and leaning into his shoulder. "Pern will always need dragons. You could do a lot more useful and much less dangerous things than sear Thread out of the skies, believe you me! Don't you fret for a single moment about our future, my friend!"

  Jaxom wondered if F'lar, Lessa, and F'nor had heard from their dragons on that score. But he knew that such a worry would not be the important issue to them. The dragonriders were totally committed to ridding Pern of Thread. Everyone knew that F'lar had set that as his life's task.

  "No, Ruth, don't you worry your heart out over that. Threadless skies are, I fear, a long way off in Pern's future! Aivas may know a great deal more than we do about Oort Clouds and planets and things, but it is only a machine that speaks. Talk's cheap."

  Still soothing Ruth's cheek, Jaxom looked out over the settlement that his ancestors had once inhabited. There were unsightly mounds in every direction where buildings had been greedily excavated only to prove disappointingly empty. How ironic that the real treasure should be nearly the last thing to be uncovered. Incredible that the treasure should prove to be the agency that unlocked the truth to their past. Would it be the key to their future? Despite his reassurances, Jaxom harbored some of the same doubts that made Ruth fretful.

  Maybe it was wrong for F'lar to wish an end to Thread, if it inevitably meant an end to usefulness for dragons. And yet, to see the last of Thread, in his own lifetime...More importantly, to be able to improve life on Pern with the vast store of knowledge Aivas said it had-surely that was for the good of all?

  Just then he saw lights coming up in some of the buildings that the excavation teams were using as dormitories. It was not yet dawn, but obviously there were many others who, like Jaxom, had slept little that night, restless with all the history and incredible moving images churning in their minds.

  And what of Aivas's promise of help? It? He? Referring to this-this entity-as an 'it' seemed impolite. The masculine voice was so rich and lively. Yet Aivas called it/himself a machine, the product of an advanced technological culture and, for all its knowledge, an inanimate device. Jaxom felt more comfortable thinking of Aivas as real, as real as his own flesh-and-blood self.

  It was then that Jaxom realized that he was going to have to revise many previously accepted concepts. That could be hard to do. The familiar was so comfortable. But the thought of the challenge brought a thrill to Jaxom -the incredible excitement of a future he could not have imagined just two days before, when he and Ruth had helped Piemur and Jancis excavate this one building out of the hundreds here. He didn't feel tired-he felt exhilarated.

  "It's going to be exciting, Ruth. Think of it that way, as an exciting challenge." He rubbed Ruth's eyeridge with his knuckles. "We could both use a challenge, something new. Life's been getting dull."

  You'd better not say that to Sharra, Ruth advised.

  Jaxom grinned." She'll be challenged, too, if I know my mate."

  Ramoth, Mnementh, Canth, Lioth, Golanth, and Monarth are coming, Ruth said, his tone brightening.

  "Reinforcements, huh?" Jaxom gave the eyeridge one more stiff drubbing. "Company for you certainly."

  Ramoth is grumpy, Ruth said, his tone suddenly wary. Canth said that lights were burning all night in Lessa's weyr, and Ramoth had long conversations with all the other queens. He sounded anxious.

  "Don't worry, Ruth, please. It's going to work out. This is just a new beginning, just as our Impression was! Though nothing could ever be better than that day was for me!"

  Ruth raised his head, his eyes altering from a murky shade to a happier blue-green.

  The incoming dragons were circling, their faceted eyes vivid green and blue points against the dawn-gray light. As they back-winged, their hind legs poised to take the impact of landing, Jaxom was just able to discern that each dragon carried extra passengers. Some of the dragons waited only long enough to let their passengers dismount before they launched themselves again, disappearing between when they had gained sufficient height. The others settled down to wait while their riders and passengers headed for the administration building.

  Jaxom sighed and gave Ruth an affectionate farewell slap before slipping back down the dusty slope to greet the new arrivals. When F'lar, Lessa, and Master Fandarel reached him in the doorway, Jaxom informed them that Aivas was resting.

  "Resting?" Lessa demanded, halting so abruptly in midstride that F'lar had to sidestep to avoid barging into his slender weyrmate.

  "The solar panels run out of power," Jaxom replied.

  Master Fandarel looked both aggrieved and incredulous.

  "But-but Aivas said that he could provide twelve different stations."

  "Lower your voice, please, Master Fandarel. Master Robinton's still asleep." Jaxom kept his own voice low as a hint to the others. "I brought Sebell and Menolly and the Records Master Robinton wanted Aivas to see. Jancis and I got as far as the sixth Turn before Aivas turned off. He says he'll be all right again after a few hours of sunlight."

  "So we get here in the middle of the night and it isn't working?" Lessa said, disgusted.

  "Now, there is much we can do while we await his revival," Fandarel said soothingly.

  "What?" Lessa demanded. "I don't want people bungling about in the dark caves, you know. And it's scarcely the time to start reassembling this facility. F'lar and I have questions for Aivas. It's one thing to be promised a miracle, quite another to produce it. In courtesy, we should allow the other Weyrleaders to see and hear this Aivas for themselves, for I assure you," she added at her drollest, "they didn't believe what had happened here. And if they come and there's nothing to see..." Her voice trailed off ominously.

  "I hardly believe it myself," F'lar remarked with a wry grin at Jaxom. "So I can't fault others."

  "There are more than enough glowbaskets to illuminate the caves," Master Fandarel said in his approximation of a whisper, "and the dawn is not far away now. My craftsmen can begin to assemble the items Aivas said it needs. Where are those sheets Aivas made? Bendarek is fascinated by my description of printed sheets emerging from a wall. He's just coming up the hill now." Clearly Master Fandarel entertained no reservations about accepting the Aivas's offer to restore his Records to legibility.

  "Where are Sebell and Menolly?" Lessa asked, peering down the corridor toward the Aivas chamber.

  Jaxom chuckled. "They're getting some rest. Aivas wouldn't even talk in front of them."

  "Why not?" Lessa asked, surprised. "We told him they were coming."

  "But they're not on the list. And while I'm a Lord Holder, and Piemur's a harper, we had no Weyrleader present."

  Lessa frowned.

  "That's exactly what we stipulated, Lessa," F'lar said. "I can trust someone that is scrupulous about obeying orders. Particularly something as potent as this Aivas."

  A bass rumble startled them, and it took a
moment to realize that the noise was Fandarel's chuckle. "It is the function of a machine to do what it is designed to do. I approve."

  "You approve of anything that's efficient," Lessa said. "Even if that isn't always sensible."

  "We've lived too long with dragons," F'lar said, grinning down at his diminutive weyrmate, "who understand what we mean, even when we haven't said it."

  "Hmmm," Lessa replied in a testy mumble as she gave him a sour glance.

  "We all will have new things to learn, I think," Fandarel said. "And it is time. Jaxom, I'll need those sheets Aivas made, so I can give them to Bendarek."

  Obediently, Jaxom collected them from the flat worktop where Piemur and Jancis had left them. "Jancis went to make fresh klah," he told Lessa. "She should be back any time now."

  "Then off you all go," Lessa said, flipping her hands at them in dismissal. "Jaxom, if you're all determined to get a start on the caves, take Fandarel on Ruth, will you? That way he won't break his neck stumbling about in the dark. I'll wait for Jancis and Aivas."

  2

  BY THE TIME the sun had risen, many had come to view Aivas-the tale had spread as fast as Thread burrows. Curiosity and disbelief are mighty movers, so men and women had come from every Hall, Hold, and Weyr. To the disgust of some, most of the fervor was prompted not by Aivas's vast store of new knowledge, but by the chance to glimpse the miraculous moving pictures that this marvel was purported to produce.

  Fandarel, supervising the acquisition of the material on Aivas's list, was busy in the Catherine Caves. Breide, overwhelmed with helpers, was making great strides in carefully clearing the ash and dirt from the roof to expose the remaining solar panels. Master Esselin was poring over Aivas's redesign plans, though he railed that Breide's men were not working fast enough for him to begin his job. Breide retorted that he hadn't even dismantled the buildings that were to provide the material for the extensions, so what was Esselin bleating about?

  Lessa, hearing the argument, told them to stop behaving like apprentices and go about their duties. Then she, with Menolly and Jancis, found willing helpers among the women to do the drudge work of washing down the walls of long-disused rooms and shoveling out the dirty ash that had seeped in around windows and doors. The largest room, which the women decided must have originally been intended for conferences, was prepared for that purpose again. Remembering what she had seen stored in the cave, Lessa sent for enough furnishings to make the room useful: tables, desks, and as many chairs as could be easily reached without getting in Fandarel's way. All these were washed down, revealing bright colors that made cheerful accents in the otherwise bare rooms. The room farthest from all the activity was turned into a private retreat for the Masterharper, complete with a comfortable bed, a well-cushioned chair, and a table.

  "The only problem will be in getting him to use it," Lessa said, giving the table a final swipe with her cleaning cloth. She had smudges on her cheeks, across her fine-bridged nose, and on her strong chin. Her long black hair was coming loose from its braids. Menolly and Jancis exchanged glances to decide who would tell her how dirty her face was. Jancis thought that the Weyrwoman's disarray, as well as her energetic cleaning, made her suddenly more accessible. The young Smithmaster had always been scared of the famous Weyrwoman.

  "Somehow I never thought that I'd see the Weyrwoman of Pern working like a drudge," Jancis murmured to Menolly. "She does it with a vengeance."

  "She had practice," Menolly said with a wry chuckle, "hiding herself away from Fax in Ruatha Hold before Impressing Ramoth."

  "But she looks as if she was enjoying this," Jancis said in faint surprise. Actually, she was, too. It gave her a sense of achievement to return a dirty room to cleanliness and order.

  The charts that Lessa had requisitioned from Esselin's archives arrived, and the Weyrwoman had the girls hold them up on the various walls to decide the best position.

  "Is it really right to put such precious artifacts to such a..." Jancis struggled to find the appropriate word.

  "Mundane use?" Menolly asked with a grin.

  "Exactly."

  "They were initially used in this way," Lessa said, quirking her lips and shrugging her shoulders. "So why not put them back up?"

  Applying herself to the task had restored the Weyrwoman's equilibrium; the discovery of Aivas and its promise to help F'lar achieve his deepest ambition had shaken her. She desperately wanted what was promised, almost as much as F'lar did, but she was fearful of the consequences. The morning's scrubbing attack had allowed her to expend some of her anxiety. Now she felt herself peculiarly revived.

  "Since the maps haven't deteriorated-amazing material the settlers used-I see no reason why we shouldn't use them for the purpose they were designed for," she went on briskly. She had decided that "settlers" was a less intimidating word than "ancestors." She studied one of the maps." The Southern Continent certainly does spread out, doesn't it?" And she smiled, half to herself. "Lift your corner a trifle, Jancis. There! Now it's straight!"

  She smoothed the map of the Southern Continent against the wall. Then, with considerable satisfaction, she sited a tack and hammered it in with a rectangular lump of rock she had found. Esselin had dithered so much about giving them two baskets and a shovel that she hadn't bothered to ask for a hammer. The rock did as well.

  She stood back with the girls to survey her handiwork. The lettering on the maps still took her moments to decipher. It was familiar and yet different, and certainly larger. She wondered how Aivas had fared reading the crabbed tight script that Master Arnor had used in writing up the Records. Poor Master Arnor.

  Not to mention poor Robinton, who had been so mortified to learn that there had been language shifts despite all the hard work that the Harper Hall had put into keeping it pure. Old Arnor's mind was notoriously inflexible, and the old fellow might have spasms when he heard that. Which was yet another aspect of this discovery: Its knowledge and its obvious intelligence put Aivas into the role of a Master of Masters in all disciplines except, perhaps, the dragons. She might have been reading things into its tone, but had there been a note of excitement in that otherwise level voice when it mentioned the dragons?

  "Yes, the maps are appropriate here, aren't they? Not merely decorative." She smiled at Jancis and Menolly. Working with Piemur's young woman had reassured her that the journeyman was well matched with Fandarel's granddaughter. Lessa had been dubious about including Jancis on Aivas's roster, but she had lost her reservations this morning. Jancis had earned a place, and not simply because she had been instrumental in finding the room and was proving to be a willing worker. She had the right attitude toward Aivas and the future.

  Jancis's eyes glowed as she studied the map. "They produced so many wonderful things. Things that could last for centuries; materials impervious to Thread. Things that will enrich our lives, too."

  "True enough, but how am I going to reduce this-" Menolly waved an arm in Aivas's direction "-into a ballad that will explain these events to people?"

  Lessa chuckled. "A change from your usual subjects, isn't it? You'll manage, Menolly dear. You always do, and splendidly. And don't bother to explain I doubt even Master Robinton could 'explain' a phenomenon, like Aivas. Present him as a challenge, to shake us all out of our mid-Pass doldrums." She pulled out a chair, absently gave it a flick of her rag, and sat down with a loud sigh. Then she cocked her head at the other two. "I don't know about you two, but I could certainly use a nice hot cup of klah."

  Jancis sprang to her feet. "And fruit and meatrolls. The cook was up before dawn, complaining about hordes to feed on short notice-but he was making enough food to feed a Gather. I'll be right back."

  Menolly turned to Lessa then, her expression serious. "Lessa, is Aivas going to be a good challenge? Jaxom told us such incredible things. Some people are simply not going to accept them, or even try to." She thought of her hidebound parents and others of similarly rigid minds whom she had not in her Turns as a harper.

 
Lessa gave a resigned flick of one hand. "It's been found. I don't want to deny it, even if its discovery means some painful reassessments. I found it fascinating to hear how the settlers got here-the pictures they had of Pern in the black heavens are truly awesome. I'd no idea it could look like that! And it was thrilling to hear how bravely our ancestors struggled to destroy Thread. We've been used to it-even if some thought we'd had our last Pass four hundred Turns ago." Her lips curled with remembered malice for those doubters. "But what a terrible shock it must have been for them." With an apologetic expression, she touched Menolly's hand lightly. "You are one of those who truly deserved to hear that history, Menolly, but we'd no idea what had been discovered when we were sent for. Maybe Aivas wouldn't mind repeating it for you, and the other Harper Masters, because that is something the Hall should circulate. It should be compulsory for children to learn our true origins. We'll need new Teaching Ballads. But that is for Sebell to decide, isn't it?" Then her expression altered again, first to a look of awe, and then to a grimace. "I can tell you that I had trouble believing my eyes and ears when Aivas said that the settlers actually created-'bi-o-en-gin-eered' was his word-our dragons." Her grin was tinged with rancor. "I'm almost relieved that there are so few Oldtimers left alive. They'd have found that very hard indeed to accept."

  "Do you find it hard to accept that dragons were engineered from fire-lizards?" Menolly asked teasingly. Lessa had made her dislike of the small draconic cousins very plain over the Turns, and Menolly was always careful to keep hers out of the Weyrwoman's way.

  Lessa made another face, more reflective than angry. "They are dreadful nuisances at times, Menolly. Did you leave yours behind in the Harper Hall today?"

  "No." Menolly's sideways glance challenged Lessa. "Only Beauty, Rocky, and Diver came along this morning. They're keeping Ruth company. They've always adored him."

  Lessa looked thoughtful." Aivas commented on Ruth, but he appeared to be quite surprised by Ramoth, Mnementh, and Canth. I must ask him why when I get the chance. Well, at least we have something we can explain to Aivas." She let out a gusty sigh. "And if he can help us end Thread forever... I only hope that he can!"