Chap. 165 The Island Scan

Chap. 165 The Scan

"A three day pass? How do you intend to spend it?" Rahman, the astronomer, asked.

K'ndar helped the elderly man board an obliging Raventh. Siskin chittered, ready to go.

"Um…I'm not sure. I'd intended to go exploring until your request came in, but had no idea where to go. It's, well, it feels strange, honestly, to suddenly have all this free time," he said.

"Why don't you spend those three days at Landing?" Rahman said, settling the straps around himself. He knew how powerful Raventh's takeoffs could be.

"I might as well. I packed my backpack for it, and brought some books, too,"K'ndar said.

"Never a bad idea to go prepared for sleeping somewhere other than your own weyr," Rahman said. He wriggled until he was comfortably between two of Raventh's spinal ridges.

"What you might want to do is what I used to do, when I was your age. I'd close my eyes over a map of Pern and make a big circle with my fingers over it for a few moments, then touch the map. Wherever it landed, that's where I'd go, if I could get a dragon to take me. Sometimes I'd board the first ship that would take me. I even went horseback, and sometimes, just walked. It was always fun, interesting," Rahman said. "I was and am forever taking readings from all points on the planet. That and making observations of weather patterns, the tides, the moons, I always had a way to 'pay my way'. The Council at Landing always made sure of that. That's important, it's why I like to think I'm welcome wherever I go."

K'ndar settled into his spot and made sure the harness was securely fastened. "I'll try that. I feel, well, a bit at odds with myself right now. So many of my classmates are settling down with partners or spouses, some have even started families. And I'm…well, I'm ambivalent about it. I don't think I'm ready to settle down. Not just yet, anyway," he said.

"There's a lot to be said for the nomadic life, K'ndar, I've done it for years. But there are downsides to it, too."

K'ndar turned to look at the old man behind him with a raised eyebrow.

"Logistics, K'ndar. Fancy word for food and shelter," the man said.

K'ndar nodded, thinking of how thin B'rost was.

"If you don't mind, sir, in the next few days, I'd like to ask you about being a 'nomad'. But for now, let's head for Landing. All secured?"

"Aye, young man. All secured. Lead on," and K'ndar, knowing well the last line, chimed in, "MacDuff."
____________________________________________________________________________

The chief of Landing's Flight Ops was a pleasant young woman, the antithesis of Pattis.

"You want to go where?"

"I don't know. I'd going to use Rahman's method of choosing," K'ndar said.

She laughed. "He's so nice. We are always happy to have him here. He's like a grandfather to the kids,and, well, to me," she said, unrolling a large flight map of the planet.

"He's like that to me. More like a father, really," K'ndar said.

She looked hard at him, hearing something in his voice.

"Let me guess. Your father wasn't the best of people?" she asked,warily.

He looked at her.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry," she said, backing off.

"No, not to worry. You're spot on. He was an evil man, and I am glad he's gone. Rahman and my weyrleaders gave me a lot of support when I needed it."

She nodded.

"I understand, I had something similar, but in my case it was my mother. Only fostering saved me, I think."

They shared eye contact for several moments, each lost in their memories.

He shook his head to scatter the dark memories of Hanliss.

"Right then, let me do the Rahman Method of Exploration," he said. He shut his eyes and made a circle in the air.

"No, not that way. Horizontally," the girl said, giggling, "there's no map in the air."

He opened his eyes and laughed, then shut them again and spun his hand horizontally.

"Three times. No less," she said.

"Sheesh," he said, eyes still close, but obeyed.

"Now, touch," she said.

He plunked a finger down onto the map and opened his eyes.

"Huh. The Eastern Archipelago," he said.

That's where you really wanted to go anyway Raventh said.

It is, isn't it!

It was true. The moment B'rost had said that the islands were empty of humans and beautiful, he'd wanted to see them.

"Good choice!" Ops said, "but we'll have to get a view of them from the Yokohama before I can let you go."

"Why?"

"You know why, K'ndar, you're a dragonrider. It's because some of them have been used to,um, maroon bad people. Like the Abominators who destroyed things at Harper Hall and the Printers Hall, when they kidnapped Robinton, remember? Poor Robinton, I am convinced they were the cause of his death. And they tried to destroy Aivas. After Council tried them, one of the dragonriders took them out to some of the islands and deposited them, as a way of punishing them without hurting them," she said, looking troubled.

"You're right. I'd forgotten," he said, abashed. Having done that duty himself, he knew exactly what she meant.

"So we'll look at the islands through the starship's eye, see if there's any that inhabited, and that way you can avoid those. Most of them have no dragonstones or logged coordinates," she said. She turned to a computer terminal at her elbow.

What a wonderful thing, he thought, the computer and the starship's eye in the sky, and Aivas's information, still providing knowledge.

She called up a live view of the archipelago. The islands were scattered across the entire screen.

"Whoa," he said, "there's…hundreds of them," he said, awed.

"Yes. Some of them are just tiny little specks of coral no bigger than a dragon. The map can't show them all. But there are plenty that are large enough, and have sources like water, to live on. Those are the ones I can sort through to see if it's okay to land on," she said.

"And…you can do that, right now?"

"Well, the easiest and most reliable way is to back up to last night, let's say about just after sundown, to see if there's human activity," she said.

"After dark?" he asked, "how can you do that?"

She giggled, enjoying the chance to show off.

"What do people do after dark?"

Mate Raventh snarked.

He laughed out loud.

She recognized the reason.

"Let me guess, your dragon said something funny," she said.

"Yes, …he said we mate," he said, laughing.

She roared.

He was beginning to like her, a lot. He stuffed that thought into his mind before Raventh could remark on it…

"ANYWAY, let's get our minds back to business. What do people do that's NOT MATING, dragon! after dark?" she said, knowing Raventh would hear.

"Um……well, we sit around a fire, or take walks, or…"

"Right. We move around. We're always putting out heat, and the Yokohama has cameras that see in the infrared and also has 'thermal imaging," she said. "For instance, you're from?"

"Kahrain Steppe Weyr" he said, now hooked.

She typed in the data and said, "Okay, I see that your weyr has a…a building? Oh, it's a pavilion. Nice! See that red spot? That's a firepit. This is from just at dawn this morning, before the sun warmed everything up. Look. You can see the heat signature from the fire, it's fairly low, it means there's no flame, just hot coals. Now, see, there are two people entering it. The pavilion must be thatched instead of stone roof because you can still see their heat signature, although it's muted. One of them….it looks like he stirs up a fire, because see? Suddenly there's a big spot of heat, right in front of the two people," she said. "That's the fire, putting out more heat than that of a human," she said.

A chill ran up his spine. That was him and B'rost, talking in the pavilion. It was eerie, seeing himself from this height. It felt..well, almost a violation of his privacy. As if there was privacy from the starship??

"By the egg, that's ME. And B'rost," he said.

"Hm! Well, anyway, if I back out, if I zoom out, like this, look, you can see heat signatures from dragons, ones that are out on their ledges rather than inside in their weyrs. See over here? That's livestock out in their pastures. Anything that puts out heat, I can see. You won't see people right now, because everyone is still in their weyrs. There's your watch dragon, up on that ridgeline.

Oh, did did you see that? A night wherry, flying over your heads. There's a cat, I think. Too small to see from this resolution.

But it's only effective after dark. It can't see through rock or deep water. Once the sun comes up, thermal imaging is useless. Too much 'background radiation'. We have other ways of seeing activity during the day, but this is easiest and reliable. Soooooooooooo, that's why I want to look at the islands, if I see that there's NO sign of heat signatures, those are islands safe for you to explore on," she said, smugly.

I love this job, she thought, it's so much fun, so interesting, I meet so many interesting people.. just wish I could go SEE some of these places.

She scrolled over the island chains, the dark screen showing the occasional sea creature breaking the surface of the water. Small dots of seabirds looked like snow. I didn't know they flew after dark, he thought. That's something no one knew…well, maybe the sailors did, but they probably never reported it.

There were spots on what he knew were islands that had obvious heat signatures. As the tech zoomed in, he saw firepits, he saw human figures walking around.

"Whoa. That's incredible," he said, utterly transfixed.

"It IS. Of course, there are times when you see people, um………"

"Yeah, I know. Don’t' say it too loud, my dragon will make a comment," he said.

Too late

He laughed. She giggled.

"Ah, here we go. This is a good sized one, way down here, near the equator. I don't see a sign of anything," she said.

She toggled the daylight scan.

"Here is a live view of it, as it is right now. I'm going to zoom in, scan the island…it's not too big, and..I don't see anything, really, that makes me think there's someone living there,"

He looked, too. "If I remember correctly, when the criminals were put on the islands, the dragonrider didn't tell anyone which islands he put them on," he said.

"Correct. He kept that information secret, because they were bad people. And he didn't group them, every one was put on his own island. As you can see, there's a LOT of them. But…I can see them. I know which ones are inhabited and which are not. So take a good look at this one, here, and memorize it, because there's no coordinates," she said.

He did. Raventh, look at this island. Siskin, you too. Memorize.

Got it, Raventh said, a few moments later. Siskin has it, too. There's that rock formation at the northern edge, it's distinctive

He could see trees bending down over the surf's edge. Old palm leaves littered the strand. I think those are palms, he thought, brought here by the colonists. I'm glad I brought my marine biology book.

"Got it. So does Raventh. Thank you," he said. "Do you want me to report on it when I return?"

"Yes, please. We're always wanting data like this. I have to report you as going there, it's just regular procedure, you know. It looks nice, I…I think I'd like to see it someday," she said, wistfully.

He heard it. He almost asked her to go with him, but the words died when he realized he really didn't want to have company, this time. But she could see it in his face.