Chap. 85 Tree Huggers

Chap. 85  Tree Huggers

Surveying the steppe was put on hold for the time being.

It was harvest season, and everyone who could do work was out in the fields and forests, harvesting crops, hay, fruit and grains, to put away for the coming winter season.

K'ndar was grateful for the fact that Raventh was a brown.

The green and blue riders were out in the orchards and the fields, harvesting by hand. It was tedious work and no one liked doing it. Especially now, that there was no longer a need to fight thread, they were no longer excused from the tasks. But, as Siena, the Weyrwoman, in charge of delegating teams said, "If you want to eat, you have to earn the meal."

Raventh, being a brown, was to work alongside other browns and bronzes, doing heavy lifting.

The hurricane had deposited huge trees on the beaches. Most of the lighter stuff had been picked up, but the big trees remained. It had taken a long, hot summer to dry them out sufficiently to be handled. Despite their size, the ocean had effortlessly piled them like so many withies.  

"I've been itching to get this beach cleared," M'rvin said, surveying the tree trunks. 

Siena, the Weyrwoman, was alongside. "I can understand that, but note, please, that we HAVE a beach precisely because earlier hurricanes deposited dead trees," she swept her hand behind her, "which trapped sand, which allowed for grasses to grow, which held more sand, which allowed trees to grow. Plus, it adds food sources for insects, and the little things in the sand, giving the birds something to eat, and then it…."

M'rvin grinned, hugging Siena, loving her greatly. "I know, I know my dear oceanographer fisher girl, but …we need a new dock for the boats. We might end up having to build more beach weyrs, but so far, we haven't had the influx of dragonriders that I expected. I promise, we'll leave some of the smaller trees, and you know as well as I do that the tides will shift them around. But these BIG ones, we can make something useful out of them."

He turned to speak to his brown and bronze dragonriders. "This is going to be new work, for me," he said. "Our weyr is so new that none of my predecessors had to deal with clearing these trees off the beach, but now we have something to do with them."

"What's that, sir?" K'ndar and several others asked.

"Lord Dorn has built a sawmill on the rapids of the Lay River. We're going to dragonlift these big ones to the mill. Lord Dorn intends to make 'lumber' out of the trees."

"What's a sawmill?" asked one.

"And what does a river do with it?"

"I'll explain it in detail later, but in a nutshell, the water flow drives a big paddlewheel that moves a giant saw, much like the one our woodworkers use, only much bigger, to cut the tree into slices. Then they make things like tables out of the wood."

"Okay. I'd like to see how that's done," the man said.

"So I propose to lift and carry the trees via dragons to the Lay River upstream of the paddlewheel. It's one of the reasons I sent the blues and the greens to do the picking, leaving the big boys to do the lifting," he said. 

"Suits me, sir, I didn't want to be out in the jungle getting bug bit," one said, and the men laughed.

"Just as long as they harvest enough hops and barley for your ale, sir!"

M'rvin laughed. "Aye, you see, there was a method to my madness."

Siena said, "The golds can help." Rondair, the other mature gold rider, nodded her head in agreement.

The men frowned at that. Gold dragons were more valued than any other.

"Nay, ma'am, nay. Please." one man protested. Even M'rvin looked dismayed.

Siena bridled. "Mirth and Rondair's Moth are both larger than any bronze here. They can do it."

"But ma'am,"

"I understand, sir. I understand. But…let them prove their worth. They are eager. Neither one is in egg at the moment. Let them help. Trust me, neither I nor Rondair are willing to risk losing our golds-but they can do it. They WANT to do it."

Resignedly, the men submitted. Secretly, they wanted to see the golds do it, too.

K'ndar looked doubtfully at the size of the treetrunks. The rootwads had been cut off and put to good use, but there was no saw in the weyr big enough to cut through trees that were, in some cases, as big around as a dragon. It impressed him, all over again, just how powerful the sea was. The ocean was master of the world, he reflected, she is the queen dragon of the planet. 

But, he reminded himself, it was the wind that tore them up by the roots to begin with. Which was stronger? Which the master?

Maybe…both. Like dragon and rider..one worked with the other. 

Behind them all were the new Weyrlings. B'rant, the Weyrlingmaster,  had thought this would be an excellent, if unscheduled training lesson. None of their dragons were old enough to be able to do such work, although their dragons insisted they could, they could!

K'ndar felt odd. He felt a bit pompous. I was like you, he thought, what seemed a lifetime ago, but wasn't more than a year since graduation. Now you see me in the light I saw the men around me, the men I am standing in amongst, being treated as a full-fledged dragonrider.

M'rvin felt nervous. No one had ever done this before, none of them had been involved in moving the starships engines, and no one had ever used dragons for this task before. He wished B'rant hadn't brought the kids, because now the pressure, he felt, was on him to perform a task in which he, nor anyone else, had experience doing.

But he was not arrogant man. There were people with brains around him, why not utilize them?

"I admit, to all of you, that this job has me stumped. I'm not quite sure how to go at it. Does anyone have any ideas?"

To the amazement of all of them, F'mart spoke up. 

"Sir, while we've been standing here, I've been thinking about how to do this. We get some rope, thick stuff. No. Wait. Chains. Measure the trunks to find the center of…center of weight, run a loop of chain around each end of a tree trunk, then have a pair of dragons take hold of the chains, and fly it to the sawmill. Maybe even go between?"

"Gravity. Center of gravity." D'mitran said, thinking hard, "and make sure that the load is balanced. Don't want one end higher than the other."

D'nis said, "That makes sense. I'd thought of just one dragon, but no, you're right, two would make it easier."

"Two in tandem, sir, like a trundle bug, so that no one gets wings entangled," F'mart said.

"Use rope for the dragon's hold. I don't want claws tangled in the links of chain. Tell our dragons to LET GO if for any reason they lose control of their end or it comes unbalanced. I'd rather lose a tree than a talon," Siena said. 

M'rvin was a good enough leader that, when someone rose to the occasion, he allowed it. 

F'mart, despite being heartily disliked for his arrogance and braggadocio, was sounding like an excellent construction engineer. 

He and F'mart went between to the sawmill, to get the coordinates and to get an appreciation of where to drop the logs. 

It took most of the day, for, like most such tasks, it took time to figure out the rigging. Each tree trunk was a puzzle. The riders troubleshot every situation they could think of, made contingency plans for all the things they thought could go wrong. F'mart seemed to have all the things figured out, and walked about, advising, gauging, thinking out loud.  If a load was too heavy, or unbalanced, the dragons were to release it immediately. No one would be standing underneath any lift. Teams would go between only when it was determined it was advisable. Once they got to the river, the dragons were to release the ropes, dropping the logs into the pond upstream of the mill. The weyr didn't have enough chainage to handle all the trees. It would have to wait for  sawmill workers to eventually return them.

The weyrlings insisted on doing SOMETHING, so they were assigned the dirty, hard task of crawling underneath some of the trees, carrying chains behind them. The girls were the best, being able to squeeze in between gaps. Everyone held their breath, trusting that the trees, which hadn't moved a jot since the hurricane, were stabilized enough that they wouldn't shift and crush a girl, but everyone worried and watched, even so.

The dragons were teamed in relation to their size. 

It was a blow to K'ndar and Raventh.

Not only were they odd man out, in that there were an odd number of dragons, but Raventh was the smallest of them all. All the other browns were larger than him. 

I can do it. I can! Make them let me! Raventh said, embarrassed and ashamed.

I can't. I am not happy about it either. I feel like we're being punished but it's not that way, it's for safety. 

But they don't know I can do it. I'm big enough! I'm strong enough!

I know. I'm sorry.

Arcturuth says I am not to try. He says I mustn't.  

He's leader. We have to listen to him. 

But I can.

 

Despairing, feeling for his dragon, K'ndar felt so bad for Raventh. He'd never heard him  expressing petulance. His feelings and his pride were wounded.

F'mart approached him, weaving his way in amongst the dragons, their riders, and the weyrlings, all waiting for the first ever lift. That would be accomplished by the two largest bronzes, F'mart's, and D'nis's Corvuth, lifting a small tree. Once the logistics were figured out in practice, they'd start ferrying the biggest by the biggest.

K'ndar mentally prepared himself for F'mart's usual sarcasm and demeaning remarks. The bronze rider had never let an opportunity pass to sneer at Raventh's size in comparison to F'mart's enormous bronze. 

F'mart, looking as if he wanted a clipboard, said, "K'ndar, since you're unteamed, you are going to be a spotter. We need someone in the air right behind the lift team, to make sure the log is absolutely balanced and level before they go between. If you see anything wrong; unbalanced load, one dragon higher or lower than the other, you shout DROP!! Got it?"

K'ndar had to say it. 

"No smartass remarks about how small Raventh is?"

F'mart looked at him with an odd expression. This, his first ever experience at being allowed a leadership position, using a talent he had no idea he'd possessed, and also, being in a position to take the cheapest of shots, seemed to have made a change in him. 

He rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"I've been a jerk, haven't I." It wasn't a question.

"Yeah."

"Sorry. Won't happen again. You understand being a spotter?"

"Yeah."

"It's important. It's heavy lifting all on its own. It's a big responsibility, and I know you can do it."

K'ndar swallowed his pride. "Thanks. I'll do my best."

"OK." _________________________________________________________________________

The dragonriders were in the dining hall, meeting, as they used to do after fighting thread, to hash out the day's work, and relive hairy moments. All of them were tired, but it had been, they had to admit, something new, something unusual, and something they hoped they wouldn't have to do again.

"I'm so proud of my girls," Siena said. She and Rondair clinked goblets. "Mirth kept saying, this is so fun, this is MUCH better than watching over a clutch of eggs!" She laughed. 

"Moth kept laughing, I thought she'd forget what she was doing. But no, she was terrific!"

One of the bronze riders said, 'When that log slipped,I thought it was all over for us! But it went woosh, right from underneath us, and splash, into the water!"

"We'd just released ours and had just turned around. I wouldn't have wanted to be under that thing, it were huge."

"Got the men on shore all wet, it did!"

His teammate said, "Good thing you yelled, K'ndar, if you hadn't, it might have been really bad. As it was, we just got a big yank. My boy will be a bit sore, but otherwise he's fine."

"Raventh saw it before I did. He shouted to the dragons before I could yell to the riders. He's quick. It seems to me that, since he's no longer having to eat firestone, that his mind is sharper. He's gotten smart. His vocabulary has gotten huge and best of all his memory is improving."

The others thought about that. "Y'know, you're right." 

 "Now that I think of it, I see it, too." 

"My boy says he feels better now. He says his mind is clearer."

"It was fun and interesting, but I don't think I want to do that sort of thing too often," one said, "at least not without a lot more practice."

"Well, it may come to that, my friend, because we dragonriders have to make a living now, and, as we saw today, dragons do well at lifting," M'rvin said. "Although, I've been talking to Lord Dorn, and he's of the mind that he liked the situation we had before, when we had thread, when no money changed hands. As far as HE is concerned, we can still barter and exchange, just as we have in the past."

The riders cheered. The problems of making money had been weighing on them all.

"That's not to say all Holders are of the same mind, nor Crafters. Or, for that matter, other Weyrs. But for now, Singing Waters Hold and Kahrain Steppe Weyr are partners."

"They're good ones, Lord Dorn, he's a good man."

D'nis reflected on how some people rise to the occasion, persons one would never have dreamed capable of such abilities.

That F'mart was that sort astonished the entire leadership staff. Something had changed in him, and they hoped, would stay that way.

He raised his tankard of M'rvins Most Marvelous Ale.

"F'mart, congratulations. Thanks to you, we got a big job done with no one injured. Well done, sir!!"

The others raised their mugs and goblets and cheered.

F'mart blushed, looking positively humble.

I hope you stay that way, D'nis thought, because we need that talent of yours, in so many ways, and it's so much easier to deal with you when you're not a pompous jerk.

"So, my lord," said one, after the cheers had died, "and I hope you say no, because I and my dragon are both bone tired, do we go get those last dozen trees?'

M'rvin shook his head. "No, I think not. They're too deeply mired in the sand, they're probably so heavy with sand and water that they'll be too heavy, even for the golds, who did a TREMENDOUS job, by the way.  I don't want the kids digging tunnels underneath them to get a chain around them, at the risk of a cave in that would kill them before we dug them out. And I really don't want to do any more, either. It was interesting, I agree, but I think the risk isn't worth it. We've cleared most of the trees off, enough to keep the sawmill busy for a while, and still leave enough tree trunks to grow more beach and please my Weyrwoman. Right, my lady?"

Siena smiled. 

"Right, my lord."