Chap. 126 Pern's TSA

Chap. 126  Pern's TSA

K'ndar was pulling off his riding gear when something odd about the room struck him.

He was in the quarters assigned to the team at the Observatory. They weren't fancy, but the room was warm and clean. They'd not had a chance to deliver the samples they'd collected earlier in the week, and had been storing them in a pile of collecting bags at one end of the room.

That pile looked as if it had been gone through.

As there was no official housekeeping staff, everyone at the Observatory had tasks to complete in addition to the jobs they were doing. These consisted of tasks like sweeping, cleaning the latrine, helping in the kitchen.  None of the team minded. Cleaning up after themselves came naturally to dragonriders, who lived in small weyrs, unlike Holders and Crafters who, in many cases, had entire houses in which to live, and staff and drudges to do the menial work. The Lord Holders, especially, had large homes  carved out of mountain sides,  or entire caverns to call home.

He looked over the jumble of collecting bags and crates. They contained things he and Greta had collected: rocks, soil samples, plants, bird and avian feathers and skins, even some unusual things such as animal scat in small bags. They usually transported them all at once to Landing. 

He checked the collecting bags that he knew were his.

Within seconds, he realized they had been opened by someone other than him.

"D'nis, D'mitran, Greta, you too. Come here. Someone's been tampering with our collection bags," he called.

Greta rushed over, immediately upset. 

"My rocks!!"

D'nis and D'mitran had no bags, their jobs were strictly data collection, and all their samples were stored as data in their devices. They came over as he knelt to check his collection bags.

"What do you mean, tampered?"

K'ndar looked behind them, to make sure no one was eavesdropping. Then he said, quietly, "I always tie my collection bags with a weyrling's knot," he said.

The others, dragonriders all, could see immediately the cord had been knotted in something other than a Weyrling knot.

Greta checked hers. "Same here, I use a different knot but this one, and the ones on yours, are all the same. Someone untied our bags, then knotted then back up using the same knot every time. This one looks like a knot a seaman uses," she said.

"Is anything missing?" D'mitran asked.

"I don't know, I've not checked yet." He opened the one bag he knew contained plants.

He pulled them out, carefully. They'd wilted, but were still in good condition. "I'll have to check my notes, but it looks like everything is here."

Greta had dumped her bags, sorting the rocks out into piles that only made sense to her.

The four looked at the samples strewn across the floor.

"I'm like K'ndar, I don't think anything's missing, but I'll have to check my notes."

"The permanent staff here, they wouldn't bother with looking through our collection bags. This was someone who ..who was sent here to search our bags, looking for.."

"Artifacts," everyone chimed in.

K'ndar laughed, but it was a bitter one.

"Whoever it was, he can't have been too impressed. Plants. Dirt. Rocks. Even feces-certainly nothing they can't get from wherever they came from."

"I smell T'ovar. Or Toric," Greta said.

"Or both. Or it could have been a common thief. But I doubt the last. There's only the staff, they're scientists themselves, or workers. Why do it NOW? We've been collecting for weeks."

"Yes, but we had T'ovar with us, before," Greta said. 

"What about notebooks?" D'mitran asked

K'ndar felt a note of fear, then remembered that all his field notebooks were in his backpack, which seldom left his back.

"I keep all my field notes on me," K'ndar said, "Jenmay taught me that."

"Me, too," Greta said, "but even had I left them here, anyone who reads them is going to be mightily confused. Geology has its own language that is a beast to learn. That, and I use a code for myself. Most of my notes are totally incomprehensible to anyone but another geologist."

D'mitran moved to his bunk and was in the process of shedding his backpack when he noticed that his blankets had been moved. One of the things weyrlings did in training was make their beds, every morning, without fail, and in a certain way. Every dragonrider he knew retained that habit. You could tell, immediately upon seeing someone's bunk or weyr if they were a dragonrider.

"Check your bunks, folks," he said, growing angry, "They searched them, too."

"What in the name of Pern do they think we keep in our beds?"

"Notebooks. Letters home. Money," D'nis said.

"Like I keep personal things in my…………ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh," Greta said, with a suddenly wicked grin.

K'ndar heard it. He looked at her, an eyebrow cocked. She shushed him. "Tell you later, K. 'K?"

"Well, whomever it was, they searched this room thoroughly," D'nis said. 

"This wasn't done by a dragonrider, or if it was, he wasn't very careful to cover his trail."

The only other dragon rider they'd seen at Observatory had been T'ovar. 

"He didn't strike me as someone who was all that careful." D'mitran said.

D'nis snapped. "That's it. I'm going to have a chat with Rahman, right now."

"No, sir," D'mitran said. 

"?" D'nis said, unaccustomed to that tone in D'mitran's voice.

"No, sir. Team leader you may be, but you need-we all need a good hot dinner in our stomachs, and THEN-and only then-you can go and find out from Rahman who and what is behind this, if he knows."

D'nis began to protest. K'ndar and Greta moved to flank D'mitran on either side.

"What he said," Greta said, adamant. "Sir."

D'nis grinned.

__________________________________________________________________________

He was grateful he'd obeyed the team. He was much happier now with a good meal in him.

Rahman was leaning over a drafting table with an engineer, discussing the telescope.

"Ah, D'nis! I hope you've found a site?" he asked, hopefully.

"Sorry, sir, but no. We've gotten about 2/3rds across the western island and quite honestly, haven't found a thing yet that could feasibly host a telescope."

Rahman's face fell. "I'm…getting worried, D'nis, this telescope must be sited somewhere on the western side. You told me about the caisson, I think, if you're willing, I'd like to go see it tomorrow."

"No problem with that, sir, but I must remind you it's on this side of the strait. And while I don't know how telescopes work, that wind is ferocious. Who, how and why they built it, I don't know."

The engineer looked at him. 

"I've not seen it, either, but I think I know what they had planned for it," she said.

"What?"

"I think it was put in long after the original colonists built the weyrs, but before the Second Pass. By then, a lot of machinery that the Ancients brought was broken or useless. But they still must have had enough lift capability-maybe one of their last sleds with fuel-to bring in a lot of concrete. After you showed us the pictures and the measurements on your datalink, I was thinking about it, and the only thing I can think of that would require that hefty a base, in that specific location, is a wind turbine, to generate power."

The engineer in D'nis gawped. By the stars, yes. That made sense. Why put in a bridge if you couldn't live there? Or even GET there? But it would be the perfect spot for a turbine.

Rahman said, "You mean, one that spanned the strait?"

"Yes," she said, "You did say it seemed to be the shortest gap between the two islands. I looked at the Yokohama's photo of it, and it's about 1.2 kilometers across, not the three you indicated. Suspend a giant wind turbine across it, send cables to it, and you have power, for as long as the wind blows."

"But…we've found nothing on the other side," D'nis said.

"Maybe they ran out of lift. Maybe the person who designed it died. Or they lost interest when they realized it couldn't be done. Maybe their dragons weren't big enough to move all the material and tools needed. Maybe Thread began to fall. Maybe it wasn't feasible. Or maybe…maybe they actually did get it built, only to have it torn apart by the winds," she said.

"By the egg, I think you're right," D'nis said, thinking of how hefty the caisson was, but couldn't forget how strong the winds were. "I wonder…do you think we could ask the dolphins to check at the base of the cliff for wreckage?"

"Would any wreckage have lasted, in the water, for over two thousand years?" Rahman asked.

"That water is cold, sir, COLD. But no, I don't think it could, but…we could ask an oceanographer. Devon is one, she's on the Sea Dragon right now," she said.

"She's a smart lass," Rahman said. 

 The engineer rolled up her blueprints. "If you'll excuse me, sirs, I'm going to go get some dinner," she said.

"The fish is excellent," D'nis said.

"It usually is, sir, the fishermen keep us well supplied,"

"So, D'nis, what did you discover today?"

Thinking of the opal cave, D'nis was careful. 

"Not much, sir.  An ephemeral lake, covered with avians, and mud up to your knees. And the bugs! It can't be considered even habitable, not by humans, at least. The dragons refused to land on the mudflats, our green almost got stuck," he said.

"So it's no, then, and if I am correct, it's very, very far from the coast." 

"Yes, sir, and no way, not that I can see, that a wagon can get there. There's no water that didn't fall from the sky, nothing for an ox to graze, just…bugs. And mud," he said, hoping he looked rueful. 

Rahman was looking distressed. "There's got to be a spot," he said, worried.

"We'll keep looking. We've just about covered the interior and are making steady progress to the western coastline."

"That's fine, D'nis," Rahman said, "I'm sure you're right, but Landing is pressing for a site."

"Can't be helped, sir, and I'm certain they understand that it's unwise to just pick a spot and hope for the best. Maybe we should have started from the coast and just forgot about doing a survey."

"No, sir, there were competing opinions about THAT. The coastline has been investigated from sea, but they wanted, a survey like the one you did on the steppe to find if there were alternatives to a coastline location. You can't find water from shipboard," he said.

"That's true. I'm certain we'll find something, sir, it's a big island," D'nis said, then changed the subject.

"Sir, if you please, I have something to discuss with you, in private," D'nis said. 

Rahman looked at him, then said, "Let us go into the observatory. Only the telescope can hear us there."

D'nis had never seen it. It was huge. "And the new one is bigger?"

"By half. Aye. It will be sensational, it will," Rahman said, rubbing his hands in anticipation. He dragged his attention from the new telescope's abilities to the dragonrider. 

"So what is the problem, D'nis, because I can see it weighing on your mind," Rahman said.

I hope he didn't see it in conjunction with the cave, D'nis thought.

He told Rahman what they'd discovered in their quarters.

"This is disturbing, D'nis," the astronomer said, "I find it impossible to believe the permanent staff here is responsible. They just aren't that sort."

"I agree, sir, and we think that T'ovar is somehow involved. It didn't happen until after he was fired." 

"Aye," the old man said. "I thought that, too. But he hasn't been back since he was run off."

"Any new folks here? Maybe the Sea Dragon?"

"Well, I can assure you, it wasn't someone from that ship. She was here, oh, last week, but I know her captain. Despite her being T'ovar's stepdaughter, Captain Sheila is honest and forthright. She'd never condone that sort of activity. No, I think it may have been…well, the observatory is supplied by many different ships. It's contracted out, by Landing, and whomever is available and willing to take on the job, is the ship that brings in supplies. While you were out, we were supplied by a ship named, um, oh, I can't remember, but it makes no difference. Her crew is still here, I think, they're supposed to leave on the tide tomorrow morning," Rahman said. 

"Does anyone keep track of the crew while they're here?" D'nis asked.

"No, not any more than anyone has kept track of you or your team. They're just…here, and expected to do their job and leave us to our work. When it's a supply ship, the crew usually stays aboard, and come ashore to unload and eat in the dining hall. Oh, of course, there's the usual interaction between the seamen and the staff, it's not like they're confined to their ship. They'll be walking on the beach, or swimming, or fishing from the shore.

 In my case, I seldom have any interaction with them. Most crews are eager to leave. This place is all business, there's not much in the way of '''entertainment'' for a seaman. We don't even have alcohol here. But I can say that in this particular case, the ship has been here, oh, two days, maybe three. I've been busy, you see," Rahman explained.

"I know, sir, and that information is helpful all in itself," D'nis said.

"D'nis, we don't have a steward here, but I will let the staff know that someone has been in your quarters where they have no business. I hope you let Landing know, and I will make an official report. We'll make sure this ship….oh, WHAT is her name, it will come to me-doesn't contract with Landing ever again."

"Thank you, sir. We plan on leaving for another day of surveying after breakfast. I'll meet you there, at the dining hall?"

"That will be fine, D'nis. If you please, I'd like to ride with K'ndar, if he's willing. He's a good lad, and has transported me in the past," Rahman said.

"I know. And you're right, he's a good lad. But now, he's a man."