Chap. 188 They Want a WHAT?

Chap.188 They want a WHAT?

“Are they joking? Have they had a bit too much fellis? Those things nearly killed my fire lizard,” K’ndar said, shocked.

M’rvin shook his head.

“No, they’re apparently in their right minds,” he said. “Folks at Landing don’t seem to have much of a sense of humor.”

K’ndar, unbidden, sat down on the bench before his Weyrleader’s desk.

He shook his head, too.

“That’s...well, sir, I’ve heard a lot of strange things coming out of Landing, but this? “Capturing a live smanda”? And I wish they wouldn’t expect us to take on every nitnoid task that their dragonriders don’t want to take on,” he said, testy.

“I know it looks like that to you, and probably to every other Kahrain dragonrider...or Weyrleader,” M’rvin said with just a touch of tone that said, I can’t go any further, “but we do get a lot of ’perks’, let’s say, from Landing, that the other weyr's don’t. We don’t tell the other weyrs that, of course, and I’d appreciate it if you’d keep it to yourself.”

Something in his wording told K’ndar to back down. “Yes, sir.”

He sighed. “Sir, I’d rather tackle a wild wher than handle one of those smandas. At least a wher has the decency to let’s you know he’s coming.”

M’rvin grinned. “You’re a biologist, K’ndar. What IS a ‘smanda’?

K’ndar shook his head. “Sir, I haven’t the faintest idea. It resembles a tunnel snake in a general form, but there is NOTHING in “Natural History of Pern” that even comes close to the things I saw. I would like to do deeper research using the database at Landing, but...it’s not easy to get ‘time’ on the computer, so I’m told, and the friends I have there, they’re always busy. I’d need some help ‘accessing’ the database. And I’ve not had a chance to use the datalink in our library. I am confused by N’orald knowing what it was, how could his grandfather have known? That spot is so far out from who knows where, did he swim there? Who built that hut? It’s solid, sir, solid as this hunk of basalt you use as a desk. Poor N’orald, we’re lucky that he remembered the antidote to the venom,” he said, remembering how scared he was that he would lose the blue fire lizard. Siskin had grown into his heart...and Raventh’s.

“That’s the same information that Landing told me, meaning none. That’s why they’re so eager to get a live one. They analyzed the samples that were scraped off your jacket. They even managed to separate the venom from the saliva. The venom itself is fairly toxic to native Pern creatures, especially wherries and birds, although it’s harmless to fish...and mammals. For instance, that wound on your cheek, did Billek find venom in the wound?

“Um, sir, I’ve not had a chance to ask him. Considering that Siskins hind feet were almost encased in the netting, I’d be surprised if there wasn’t. But, while Siskin was saying that it hurt him, to me, it was only, oh, irritating. It stung, for a while, like iodine, then it went away. It didn’t ‘hurt’ until my sister and Salish pointed it out, so that, I attribute to mentally expecting it to hurt. Billek took a sample, said he was going to culture it, then treated the wound with a phage. The bacteria in the water is the same stuff all over Pern, so that was an easy matter, the phage took care of it. It didn’t get infected. The itching as it healed, that’s about the worst part of it,” he said, unconsciously reaching up to touch the healed wound. “Billek was surprised at how quickly it healed, but he said that I’d always have a scar.”

“And ruin your good looks?” M’rvin said, smirking.

K’ndar roared. “I don’t think I’ve ever been complimented on my looks!”

“Me neither. See this scar over my right eyebrow? I forget how it happened, I was, oh, five years old, I think, and apparently, while my Mum was treating it, I must have said I was worried about how it would affect my appearance. My mum said, “Don’t you worry, Marvin, girls think scars are sexy,” M’rvin said.

K’ndar laughed. “It does give you a rakish look, sir, kind of like the fierce eye our dragons have. My sister took Raventh’s picture, said she wanted him to look ‘fierce’, but Raventh’s blue eye ruined that!”

He felt, somehow, proud that his Weyrleader was treating him not as a weyrling, but as a dragonrider, speaking to him as an equal, rather than his boss.

“Mind you, K’ndar, I am no scientist. But from what I can get out of Landing, the venom has properties that lend itself to being a powerful pain killer. Better than numbweed, and, if a way can be found, easier to mass produce,” he said.

“THAT would be wonderful, sir! I remember my mum and the women who lived at our cothold, oh, and Hariko and her crew, here, brewing pots of numbweed. Stink? Gets in your hair, your nose, you didn’t dare stand downwind of the boiling pots. I admire the women, that’s a dreadful job, and the females always seemed to get stuck with it, well, except here! I’m so very glad that of all the tasks I had to do as a Weyrling, somehow I never had to make numbweed salve,” he said, wondering if he’d made an error in revealing that fact.

“And now that there’s no Thread, we don’t have to make so much of it,” M’rvin said.

They both stopped for a moment, both reflecting on how life had improved so much without the constant battle with Thread.

“That’s not all, though, K’ndar. The netting, from the smanda’s saliva. As you know far too well, it coagulates into sticky ropes, that expand and harden. But not when it’s dried, and they’ve found that it dries out not only ‘between’ but any time it’s out of water, in hot, dry conditions, like next to a fire, or even in the strong sunlight. It turns into a powder that is then easily handled. If it gets wet, the stickiness returns. THAT has Landing even more excited than the possibility of a better pain killer,” he said.

“Why?”

“The fishermen, boat builders, seafolk-they’re always fighting leaks in their ships. Oakum just doesn’t last long in water. If they can figure a way to mass produce the elements in saliva that make it sticky, they can apply the powder to the hull of a boat. When it gets wet, it expands to fill the cracks between the wood panels-and it’s sealed. Forever. It’s waterproof!
Can you imagine the uses that stuff can be turned to?”

K’ndar gawped.

“Whoa. That’s amazing. Give me a few minutes, I bet I can come up with a dozen different uses. Not just for ships! But sir, the venom is IN the saliva, as far as I know,” K’ndar said.

“That’s why they want a live smanda. To see how it makes the venom without it killing the smanda. Is it a gland, like in a tunnel snake? They want to keep a smanda, probably a bunch, to research and study,” M’rvin said.

“Let me guess...they want to RAISE these things?” K’ndar said, shivering at the thought.

“I don’t think they’ve thought that far ahead, K’ndar. I haven’t, but I know how folks raise mink, for their furs. Those little beasts are free range, to a degree, I’ve seen them, they play together like puppies and fight like whers. I think the only reason they’re still on Pern is due to their fur. But, if the only way to mass produce the saliva and the venom is to farm raise smandas, welllllll, why not?”

The ecologist in K’ndar bellowed an alarm. “Sir, I’ve never seen a mink farm, but I know that when one gets loose, it raises all sorts of trouble in our waterways. Lucky for us, actually, lucky for Pern that fire lizards are such good hunters. They’ll tackle a mink without hesitation, although the mink can put up one shaff of a fight. I can’t believe that a smanda would be any different. Just the idea of them getting loose in our waterways, that’s...scary. They’re nasty creatures, sir, and I...I’m not sure I want to go back to Far Nowhere and try to actually CATCH one. I’d sooner kill it,” he said.

M’rvin nodded. “I understand your reticence at going back there, but, K’ndar, you needn’t do anything more than lead the riders that Landing IS sending to that location. They can’t find it on the map, there is virtually NO mention of it in the database or anyone’s records...and strangest of all, the Yokohama can’t find it, either. It’s called the “Far Nowhere”, if N’orald’s account can be trusted, for a good reason,” he said. “Right now, you’re the only one who knows the coordinates. I seriously doubt N’orald would remember them. Once you get there, they’ll take a reading off the Yokohama and we’ll know for sure, WHERE you were.”

K’ndar raised his face to the ceiling, thinking. Did he want to go back there?

Of course you do. That’s what we do best..explore, Raventh said, Don’t worry about Siskin. He won’t make the same mistake twice. He never does.

M’rvin saw K’ndar vacillating. Come on, K’ndar, don’t make me order you. I don’t want to do that, a person always does a job best when he or she chooses to do so, he thought.

“Matter of fact,” he said, knowing, now, just how to get K’ndar to agree, “I’d love to go out and see it. But I’m fairly well chained to my desk,” he said, ruefully.

“Oh, come on, sir, you’d love it, getting out in the field. I’m sure our Weyrwoman can manage dragonriders for a day,” K’ndar said, smiling.

“I’m SURE of it, K’ndar, but if she figures out how easy it is, I’ll be out of a job!”