Chap. 48 The computer

Chap. 48  The computer

K'ndar was overwhelmed. He was in Landing's library. Elene, the head librarian, knowing  a bibliophile the moment he walked in, latched onto him.

"We've so many more books, now. The printers have been working hammer and tongs to fill the shelves. Whenever they print a book, they print several copies, two here: one for us, here at library and another in the Harper Hall; Ruatha, and Lemos.  LOOK at what we have, now."

K'ndar was. He felt as if he'd walked into a vault full of  treasures. So many books! So many things to learn about!

"Do they only print four, then?"

"Oh, no. But usually, if they print more, it's for sale."

"Oh."

"How do they know what to print?"

"K'ndar, there is so much, so much that they want to print. There is such a hunger out there, many people want to read books. The problem is, they don't know WHAT they want to read."

"That's ME. I don't know where to start. Rahman sent me four books and I realize that I want more, and more. I want to read about everything, I think. What do people do here? If they want to read about something and there's no book?"

"That's what's nice about Landing. We have power, and thus, computers. And while computers can be a bit…complicated…to learn how to use, once you do, why….well, let me show  you."

She took him by the arm and led him to a desk with one of the lighted boxes on it. "Now watch," she said.

She sat down in front of the computer. In front of her waist was a blank board. She waved her hand over it-K'ndar was beginning to get used to seeing a handwave accomplish many wonderous things-and the 'box',the computer monitor awakened.

The board to it did, too. Letters and numbers appeared as if by magic.

"This is the 'keyboard'. No, there is no key, no lock. I don't know why it's called a keyboard, but I know how to find out. This board sends a message to the computer. You type in the words you want to know about and the computer finds it in the database."

Not bothering to ask what database was, K'ndar watched in fascination.

"Now the nice thing about the computer is, is you can ask it anything and it will have an answer.

For instance, let's ask the computer, where is K'ndar from. Where are you from, K'ndar?"

"I was born in a cothold on the steppe, but now I live at Kahrain Steppe Weyr."

"OK. So I'm going to type, I'm going to ask the computer where is Kahrain Steppe Weyr?"

She touched the keyboard with the question. He understood immediately that she was typing in the question using the letters on the board.

The computer took a moment, then a map of Pern opened on the screen. A bright red star showed the position of the Weyr.

K'ndar was astonished.

"Does it…does it show anything more?"

Elene laughed in delight. She adored opening minds, she loved allowing her library to flex its muscles.

"Watch this, dear lad. Now you must understand that, as intelligent as the computer may seem, it is really quite stupid. You must explain to it in tiny little words what you want. So I will tell the computer, "show Weyr"

She typed in the words and a picture of the weyr, as seen from space, opened on the screen.

K'ndar had never seen a picture in his life.  But there was the weyr, as seen as if from dragonback. He could see the bowl. He could see the colors, the grassy slope alongside the lake, the shadows thrown by the smaller buildings.

"Want a closer look?" she asked, and without prompting, asked the computer to zoom in.

The view zoomed in. One could see dragons in the dragon lake, even people walking about.

"Can you move it around?"

"I can. Is there something you want to see specifically?"

"I live in a beach weyr."

Elene, chortled. She knew she had him hooked. She typed in 'Kahrain Steppe Weyr beach weyrs'.

And there they were. There were ten of them. K'ndar saw his, the one at the far end.

"This is a 'live' view, by the way. Live meaning, what you are seeing is happening right now."

"How………."

"The computer talks to the Yokohama. Remember, the starship was the first to see the fireball.

Those eyes in the sky are still open. The starship can see everywhere on Pern. And so the computer can see it, too."

He shook his head. If the concept was confusing, the execution was mind blowing.

"Do you have to know a name, does a place have to have a name?"

"Um…what do you mean?"

"Could I see, for instance, what my family cothold looks like?"

"Certainly! You move this little pointer there on the screen on the map. Point to me where your cothold is."

"It's too…too close,"

"Oh, yes, pardon me." She zoomed out.

He watched, knowing his cothold's position by heart. He looked for the small river that tumbled from the foothills into the cothold's pastures. The cothold was nestled in a small valley in the foothills of the southern edge of the Southern Range. It looked out upon hundreds of kilometers of steppe.

He looked hard, and saw the river. He pointed at it. Elene zoomed in. She searched and found a small cluster of stone buildings surrounded by rock walls. She zoomed in closer.

"Is it the only one in this area?" she asked.

He nodded. The next closest cothold was twelve kilometers further east.

She zoomed in on the cluster. It took K'ndar a moment to recognize the configuration of buildings-and there was his cothold.

His jaw dropped.

"That's it." He could not stop shaking his head in amazement.

"It's remote, looks like."

"Aye, ma'am, it is but it's beautiful."

"Now, before we go any further, there's two more things you might want to know about the computer. Just because we don't have the books printed, there's a library as big as Pern in the computer. So, you don't have to confine yourself to just reading books we have printed. You can read them…ON THE COMPUTER."

"And," she continued, "you can ask it whatever you want. Any question."

"Any?"

"Any."

He thought. Not for long.

"OK. Ask it, "Who is McDuff?"

The screen blinked and showed:

Lord Macduff, the Thane of Fife, is a character in William Shakespeare's Macbeth (c.1603–1607 Earth Years). Macduff plays a pivotal role in the play: he suspects Macbeth of regicide and eventually kills Macbeth in the final act. He can be seen as the avenging hero who helps save Scotland from Macbeth's tyranny in the play.

Further link:  see: Macbeth, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.

"Wow." It told him something, but not much.

"You can see the problem here, can't you, K'ndar?"

He looked at her quizzically.

"Meaning?"

"Think it through, my dear, think it through."

"Well, I can see that in my mind I misspelled MacDuff. But what is a thane, where is Fife, who is William Shakespeare? What is Macbeth, those years are ours, no wait it says Earth years, what does regicide mean and…"

Elene burst into peals of laughter.

"PRECISELY my point, K'ndar. Once you open your mind, it never stops wanting to know more."

He wanted to know more. He wanted to know more NOW.

Then he remembered there was no computer at the Weyr.

He deflated, visibly.

"What's wrong, K'ndar?"

"We don't have a computer at the Weyr."

"So?"

"So. I can't read the computer."

"Um…do you have a dragon, by any chance?"

He looked at her with what could only be described as mortification.

"Anytime you want, you can come here. Bring your friends. Anytime you want, you can access the computer, you can read the books on it or the ones on our shelves. It's what Aivas wanted. It's what Pern needs. Young minds…and old, like mine! can always learn. Someday every hold, every weyr, every hall, will have computers…and libraries. But for now, you, my dear lad, are so lucky in that you have a dragon to bring you here, anytime you like. All you need do is ask."

His future brightened. So much, so much and finally a way to learn!

"I can see, ma'am, that I will be spending a great deal of my free time here," he said.

"That's my lad."