Chap. 47 Place of Marvels

Chap. 47  Place of Marvels

K'ndar was spellbound. Landing wasn't just not quite what he had imagined, it was more than he could ever have imagined.

Rahman had introduced him to Shawn, a 'techician' who worked in 'administration.'

"I'll leave you in Shawn's capable hands, K'ndar, and Shawn, let me know if there's something he needs," the old man said.

"Yes, sir. Good to have you back," Shawn said. The elderly man walked away. 

"Does he live here?" K'ndar asked, feeling abandoned. 

"Off and on. He moves around, a lot. Whenever he can cadge a dragon ride, he does. He brings back reams of data. Too much, sometimes. Keeps the astronomers and the cartographers busy, he does."

'Reams of data" meant nothing to K'ndar, although the books he'd read mentioned data all the time. He was too shy, though, to ask what data WAS. Or how many was a ream.

"What is 'administration?" he asked. 

"Don't be too impressed, pun not intended," the young man said, "It's just a fancy word for working for the equivalent of the Weyrleader or the Headwoman. Landing is a strange beast, we're not a hold, nor a weyr and we're far more than 'just' a hall. We do a little of everything, except breed dragons. Yours, by the way, is a beauty, and where did you get that handsome fire lizard?"

"My brother, Sandriss," K'ndar said, hoping that Shawn would slow down his pace so that he could just gawk, "he's got a breeding pair, as does his business partner. They're traders. Well, they WERE, until Sand married and they had a baby."

"When did you Impress?"

"Just over a year ago, I graduated just before Turnover."

"I'm weyr bred, like you, but I never had any desire to be a dragon rider. Too scary, honestly."

K'ndar shook his head. "I’m not weyrbred, I was raised on a cothold on the steppe. What Weyr?"

"Benden, " Shawn said, immediately impressing K'ndar. It was the Pern equivalent of royalty. "But then I fostered at Ruatha. I was twelve when they found Aivas , and I was brought here because I had 'aptitude', so I've spent more time here than at either of them."

"Have you met…um.."

"Lord Jaxom? Of course. He and Ruth used to come here often, in fact that's how I got to be here. But now he's fairly tied up with being a Lord. And yes, Lessa and F'lar. But I was just a kid, didn't have much to do with any of them. Here we are, come on in."

Shawn stood in front of a low, convex roofed building and waved a hand at what appeared to be a solid wall.

An opening appeared with the whoosh of a panel sliding sideways. 

K'ndar stopped, transfixed. Shawn looked back at him, expectantly.

"Um, do you mind," K'ndar asked, "if we go a bit slower? I've never seen anything like this. How does this..this opening just open?"

Shawn laughed. "I'm sorry, I'm so used to it that I forget that a lot of you kids have never seen anything like Landing."

K'ndar felt a mix of emotions. He felt embarrassed at appearing to be an ignorant, naïve yokel,  and bridled at being thought of as 'just a kid'. It didn't feel as if Shawn was intentionally being condescending, but he still resented it. He just wanted to just stand and stare and absorb, and to ask a hundred questions. He felt as if he were being rushed, and he'd only been here a very little while.

"I've never seen anything like this. It's not at all what I expected. I read "The Aivas Report" but it didn't say anything about this…door?"

Shawn nodded.  "Yeah, again, I'm sorry, I'm rushing you, I guess. I haven't led too many tours, just yet, and you are probably the first dragonrider I've met that actually read the report. So, I'll slow down, take you around, and ask whatever questions might hit you. Some things I just don't know, like how the door works!"

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He lay in the bunk he'd been assigned. It was cool inside the room despite it being windowless. The walls were of something that wasn't rock, or wood, or any substance he had ever seen. 

Virtually all the buildings were the same size and shape, other than a tall, three story building, the purpose of which he knew nothing. It drew dragons like a magnet but the Landing staff insisted that dragons were not allowed  on it. 

His mind whirled with the things he'd seen.

 It was all too much, too complex. He'd been shown a  printing press, clanking and whirring, attended by a handful of people. They fed it paper and it spit out printed text. But it made such a loud noise he had to cover his ears. 

There were 'computers', with a dozen or more people sitting in front of lighted boxes. Letters appeared on the front of the box. That, he was told, was 'data'. But how could Rahman bring back reams of it if the letters weren't something one could hold, or carry? 

He'd seen classrooms, filled with people his age, and younger, and older, learning from an instructor. 

A team of men and women were in a smithy, creating a 'machine' that they claimed would halve the amount of time it took to cut a hayfield as long as you had several good draft horses to pull it.  They also were creating a machine that would pick up the hay and turn it into 'bales'. Having cut hay, turned, stacked and stored it in a barn for most of his childhood, he could appreciate the usefulness of the thing. 

He was rushed past the library, probably the one place he knew something about and wanted, desperately, to spend time in. "Maybe tomorrow, we'll have time," Shawn had said, more interested in showing K'ndar another amazing thing.

He felt…stupid. He felt as if somehow, he'd been cheated of something, but he couldn't put a name to it. The people here were unlike anyone he'd ever met, almost as if they were from another world. Maybe they were like the original settlers, from earth. 

The formal education he'd received had been enough to teach him to read and write, do math, understand physics, and appreciate biology, but it had been in a world where light came from glows or candles, and one wrote on slates or hides.  The room he was in had light emanating from some source he could not see. One waved a hand, or even, in some cases, said the world 'on' or 'off' and the light came on or went off as ordered. In fact, he'd played with that feature for at least five minutes, just amazed.  The writing materials he'd seen were paper and pens, or the lighted boxes where there was nothing at all to write ON, but still, the front of it had letters that appeared as if from the air itself. 

Where did the light come from? How was it that the air outside was hot and muggy, and yet here in this room, without a window, was cool and dry? 

He felt small. He felt insignificant. He felt…claustrophobic. 

Are you afraid?

He felt a surge of emotion for Raventh.

Yes. There is nothing to fear here but yes, I am afraid. I feel small. Like I just hatched.  Is Siskin with you?

He is now. There are lots of fire lizards here, he's been playing with them. He likes the greens. They like him even better.

K'ndar laughed. But then the flood of insecurity and low esteem returned, flooding his soul with despair. 

I am so stupid, he thought. No brighter than a wherry. These people are my superiors. 

Don't be silly. You are a dragon rider. MY dragon rider, and I am Raventh, the best brown ever.

Yes,  but…these people are not and they aren't like anyone I've ever met. I'm…lonely. Like I'm not even like them.

With a burst of clarity, he suddenly understood the Abominators, the people…like Jenmay, the Oldtimer, who violently resisted and  hated anything Aivas had ever introduced to Pern. They were still wrong, in his opinion, but he now could understand why they felt such antipathy towards 'modern' ways. They were afraid, like him. Because they did not understand any of it.

Come out. Come be with me. It's a warm night. I have a comfortable place to sleep. You can sleep with me and Siskin. Siskin will protect you from the little night creatures. He eats them. I will protect you from the big ones. 

That was the best thing he'd heard all day. He got up off the bunk, waved a hand at the wall. It obediently opened up, he found his way outside, and headed for his dragon.

He curled up between Raventh's strong forelegs, the dragon's head blotting out the night sky.  His back against Raventh's warm, broad chest allowed him to feel the brown's strong, slow heartbeat. Siskin chittered sleepily as he stretched out beside him. 

Raventh curled his neck around K'ndar, cradling him. 

You are mine. And I am yours. We love each other.

He looked at the familiar stars wheeling overhead, and slept.