Chap. 182 The Snow Tiger

Chap. 182 Snow Tiger

They flew for about half an hour. Below them, the forest rolled on and on, a dark green ocean that lapped at the feet of the mountains. He would have to research them, how they adapted to thread fall.

Motanith says we are to land in the clearing up ahead Raventh said.

He saw the break in the trees, a fairly substantial opening that offered plenty of room for dragons to land.

No boatheads, I hope?

Raventh growled.

I hope not. No. Motanith says she's been here before, no boatheads.

"Did Raventh tell you?" Francie called.

"Yes'm!" he called back.

"There's plenty of room, but please, you land first, he's bigger than my girl," she called.

K'ndar felt a wordless surge of pride flow from Raventh. So often he had to land last because he was 'small' for a brown, and they mostly flew with bronzes, like Kenth, or Corvuth, Raventh's sire, which were far bigger.

Kenth is too big. He's clumsy.

That he is.

He can't do this: and back winging, Raventh landed lightly, with a grace belying his size.

Thank you Raventh said.

??
Motanith complimented me on my landing. She says I land like I was green sized.

It WAS a very nice landing. Remember the first time we ever landed? In the Weyrling bowl?

Raventh laughed.
I didn't used to be able to remember. But now I can and I do remember that day.

Your memory has improved so much now that you no longer eat firestone.

Except that I can't breathe fire anymore.

True. But which would you prefer? Memories? Or fire breathing?

I will have to think that think for a while.
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"Pleased to meet you, K'ndar," said the old man.

"And you, sir," K'ndar replied.

They were in front of his rough cottage. Grass and senesced flowers grew from the roof. Vines of a sort he'd never seen before ran rampant over the stone walls. A cat, almost as ancient as the cottage itself, sat on the threshold, soaking up the sunlight.

Despite being far back in the wilderness, the cottage nevertheless had many modern comforts. A solar panel provided power to both the cottage and the well in the courtyard. A greenhouse-the first he'd ever seen, was still providing fresh vegetables. Next to the large paddock where a team of horses had their attention riveted on the dragons, was an orchard, fenced dragon high to "keep the wherries out".

As they approached the cottage, K'ndar saw an ancient man in a large wooden chair. The enormous dog at his side, of uncertain parentage but apparently part pony, jumped to its feet and woofed at their approach.

"Get by there, mate, it's alright, they're friends," the old man said to the dog, stroking the greying head. The dog sniffed them warily, then decided they were harmless, and sat next to the old man, pressing against his knee.

The man stood up at their approach and looked hard at Francie.

"Aye, and it's been a long time since you've been out to visit, Miss Francie, now that you're a dragon rider, what? And how is that man you married?"

"Raylan is fine, he sends his regards," she returned.

"Some klah? Have you eaten?" he asked, getting up from his hand hewn chair. K'ndar realized he was by far the oldest man he'd ever met, even older than the few Old Timers at the weyr.

"We've brought our meals, but I did bring something for you, I know you don't get this very often, this far out," Francie said, and she pulled a bottle of wine from her backpack.

Snowy eyebrows, arching over old man's deep set eyes, jumped in appreciation. He took the bottle, almost reverently, appreciating the gift.

"Aye, thankee, lassie, it's been a long time, indeed. Would this be a Benden?"

"Nay, sir, it's a Tillek, but it is still decent wine."

The old man spoke using old words, from a century ago. K'ndar noticed Francie fell right in with the same usage.

The old man laughed. "Aye, and for certain, the best wines are the free ones," he chuckled. "Will you have a goblet with me?"

"Nay, sir, please. It's for you, not to share. All for you," Francie said.

The old man laughed, grateful.

"What brings you to visit?" he asked.

"My friend, K'ndar, would like to see a snow tiger," she said.

"Ah ha! My lad, you would, eh? And has Miss Francie told you my story?"

"Nay, sir," K'ndar said, falling in with the words, "won't you tell me?"

"Follow me, then, and meet my friends," he said.
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It was by far the most beautiful beast he'd ever seen.

A giant tiger strolled up to what K'ndar thought seemed to be woefully inadequate wooden fence.

He was awestruck. He'd never been this close to any wild feline.

The tiger chuffed at the old man, and rubbed a massive head against the wooden bar. His eyes squeezed shut in what was obviously affection. The old man reached in and began to scratch the tiger's jaw.

The tiger dropped his lower jaw in a feline grin. K'ndar couldn’t help but stare at the tiger's fangs. Even worn down, they were impressive. The tiger's breath…"enough to knock a wherry off a gut pile," his uncle Fland would have said.

"By the egg, he's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," K'ndar said.

"He's that for certain, K'ndar. He and I, ah, we are old friends, we are. He's lived in these mountains forever. Fought battles, found mates, kept territory, and now he stays here, retired, like me."

"You..he's..a pet?"

The old man nodded. "He and I, we get along. He comes and goes, as he pleases," he said.

"He's…he's not confined? These bars?"

"Nay, lad, nay!" the man laughed, "Nay, they're to keep ME in! Keeps him out of my house, they do. He'd sleep in me bunk were I to let him. He got used to it, as a cub, you know, but now, he's over 300 kilos and he'd squash me like a bug," the man laughed.

The tiger rumbled in agreement.

"You raised him?"

"Him, his siblings, rescued them after poachers murdered his mother. Barely cut their milk tushes, no bigger than a puppy, so young were they! Don't know where the raiders came from, the criminals, they usually don't stray this far into our valley. His kin, they stay on their own, I've trained them to avoid humans at all costs, but this one, aye, he's my friend."

The dog, his tail wagging, sniffed at the tiger through the bars. K'ndar thought the dog had been big-but he was a runt in comparison.

"How is it you live so far out?" he asked.

The man nodded. "I choose to. I like it out here, quiet, nobody to bother me. No one to tell me how dangerous tigers are. There's some what would have exterminated them a thousand years ago. You know who Tubberman was, eh?"

"Yes, sir," K'ndar said. Tubberman was vilified in Pern's history for releasing wild felines into the wild.

K'ndar knew, now, it wasn't just felines, but he held his counsel.


"He gets a bad rap, he does. Aye, the felines, they'll go for cattle, not here of course. Not with the boatheads! Nay, but Tubberman, he knew…you don't introduce non-native animals into a world that hasn't seen anything like them, without predators to keep them under control. That's basic ecology. Know ecology, K'ndar?"

K'ndar nodded. "Aye, sir, I do. I've read several books, most about biology but one or two about the environment and ecology. I've seen lions and cheetahs on the steppe, sir, where I'm from, and they keep the horses, cattle and pronghorn at sustainable levels," he said.

"Ah, that's the word, my lad, sustainable. Were it not for these tigers, our valley, actually, all of Northern, would be overrun with a pestilence that the settlers brought with them."

"A disease?" K'ndar said, wondering if the man meant the epidemic that had killed off half of Pern's population, centuries ago. It had been blamed on a wild feline, but Aivas had informed them that the bacterium was native to Pern and had mutated to kill humans. They were all vaccinated for it, these days.

"Nay, at least, not a microbial disease, K'ndar, a four footed one. Porcines. Pigs."

"Pigs?"

"Pigs, K'ndar, and I mean the very same what provides your ham that goes with the eggs. Some fool, 2500 turns ago, when they were first bringing animals out of embryonic stage, the herd beasts, the runner beasts, some fool released porcines into the forest. Much easier to keep them, you see, no need to feed them, they do quite nicely on their own," he said, pulling his hand away from the tiger.

K'ndar had no experience with pigs other than the ones that lived in the pens far behind the stables at his weyr.

"They did well?"

"Aye," the man said. His tiger reached through the bars to pull the man's arm back in.

The paw was twice the size of his own hand. No claws were extended, but he had no doubt they were big.

"Ah, kitty, you daft fool. You'd have me scratching till sundown, wouldn't you?" the man said, affectionately. The tiger rumbled.

K'ndar didn't think of the big cat as being a 'kitty'. Oh, not at all.

"Aye, they did well, too well. In less than twenty turns, the handful of pigs he'd released was up to a hundred. Then more, and more. No predators, you see."

"But…you have wherries," K'ndar said. The dominant native land predator of Pern, a full grown wherry could reach 3 meters in height.

"Aye, and a wherry is dumb as a box of rocks in comparison to a pig, K'ndar. They're intelligent. They think. They reason. A full grown boar? He'll go the size of a pony, they have a hump behind the head that will easily reach your chest. The hide on a grown pig will turn a spear, it will.

You can shoot them through with a crossbow bolt and they'll still keep coming, long enough and fast enough to kill you before they die themselves. They grow tusks, K'ndar, sharp as razors. No wherry what wants to live will tackle a pig twice. One wherry has no chance against a pack of pigs. That, and the pigs will wait until they lay eggs and eat the eggs. AND the chicks. No, pigs are dangerous beasts and voracious. They've been known to kill children, K'ndar.

See this brute of a canine here? He's big to keep the pigs at bay. Only at bay, I'd never let him actually tackle one, though he thinks he can. A sow will lead a dog on, and whilst he's fighting with the sow, the boar will come up behind and kill the dog.

But they don't come down here, no, not now, because of my brother here, and his kind. Only a snow tiger is brave enough, big enough, and smart enough to tackle a pig. And even then, a youngster, a two year old fresh out on his own, can lose his life to a pig," he said, resuming the chin scratching.

The big cat's eyes squeezed shut in enjoyment. He rowled, the sound incongruous coming from such a large beast. He's just like my mum's cat, K'ndar thought, just…enormous.

"Once we got people to leave the tigers alone, the pig problem disappeared. Wherry numbers recovered, orchards and nut trees began to grow, farmland recovered, the forests regrew. You've never seen a forest ripped to shreds by a pack of pigs. They dig, they root, they destroy a forest, and most especially, one's garden!"

"That's true, K'ndar. I remember my parents relating stories they'd heard from their grandparents, about pigs entering the village after dark and just utterly destroying their gardens, the orchards, and the crops? Oh, my, what they do to cropland isn't pretty," Francie said. "And he's right about them killing little children. No, we love our tigers, we do. Even if they take a cow now and then," Francie said, "but that doesn't happen when the boatheads are on duty."

"I had envisioned them as being white, like snow," K'ndar said.

"Aye, I'm betting that's a common mistake people make," the man said. "They're no different colored than the tigers you have in the jungles. If you notice, they're a lighter shade than the jungle tigers. Their fur is much deeper. When they're in dried grass, or even a leaf strewn forest, they disappear. Camouflage! No, they're called snow tigers because they live up here, in snow country," he said.

He withdrew his hand again.

"Would you like to pet him, K'ndar?"

K'ndar quailed for a moment. Yes, the big cat was happy and friendly with the old man but a stranger? But…….the man wouldn't have asked if he'd not trusted the cat.

"Um, sure," he said.

"Reach forward then, let him sniff your hand, then, well, talk to him like you'd do a horse, or a dog," the man said.

He tentatively reached a hand through the bars. It was just a scant finger's width from those enormous teeth. He thought, he could bite it off with one go. He felt the tiger sniff his hand…then the cat licked it. The tongue felt like a bristle brush and easily covered his whole hand. And the breath? Whew…

"Say something to him," the man repeated.

"Sorry," K'ndar said, "I was…distracted…"

Then, "My goodness, but you're a beauty. I've never seen such a lovely beast as you," he said. The tiger eyed him. "Would you like a scratching, then? Here, under the chin? I bet it itches, there, what?"

The tiger thought that was a capital idea.

Then K'ndar reached, so gently, for the tiger's neck, half expecting the fur to feel like that of the boatheads.

It was not. It was wiry and yet soft. The neck fur formed a deep ruff of soft hair. He touched the cat's jawline and began to scratch. I am scratching a tiger, he thought, never taking his eyes off those of the cat.

But they were closed, again, squeezed shut, just like any cat who was enjoying a scratching.

How could anyone kill such a lovely beast, he wondered.

The tiger was perfectly happy to let him scratch forever, but after a very decent interval, the old man said, "I was just about to have my dinner, Francie, would you like to join me?"

K'ndar recovered his hand, relieved at the break.

"We haven't had time to eat our meals, so, I'd be glad to share with you," Francie said.

"Me, too," K'ndar said, realizing he was starving.

"Come on in, then, won't you, and I'll talk your hind legs off. I don't often get visitors, especially ones as pretty as you, Francie," he said.

She smiled. "Get on with you, you old goat, you know I'm young enough to be your great great granddaughter," she teased.

He laughed. "I know, I know. I may be old, my dear, but I’m not blind."
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"I'd like to meet your dragons, before you go," he said.

So they moved…slowly, to accommodate his pace, and he told the dragons how beautiful they were, and marveled at their fire lizards.

He is very old. Older than the mountains, I think. Raventh said.

I think so, too.

As they mounted to leave, K'ndar said,

"Sir, I am so sorry, I must apologize, I never asked you your name."

The man nodded, grinning.

"Aye, I know that. Truth be told, I don't remember it myself. But think, laddie, think. What do you think people call me now?"

Francie smirked, knowingly.

K'ndar thought.

"Tiger?"

"There it is, laddie. They call me Tiger. Because I am one."