Chap. 190 Return to Far Nowhere

Chap. 190 Return to Far Nowhere

Once again, he had the most disturbing feeling of being lost. Except that, no, he had been here before. The hut was still there, and the sedges. There was, however, a fundamental change that astonished him.

G’alin stood, hands on hips, his expression a mix of puzzlement and doubt.

This is the same place, right? K’ndar asked Raventh, doubting his own eyes.

Of course. I have the coordinates, this is the exact same place. There’s the hut. Over my left wing is where Siskin was netted.

Siskin chittered his dismay. He, too, recognized it.

This was The Point of Far Nowhere.

The water was gone.

The sedges were dried up and brown, rustling in the wind. White waterlines showed where the water had been. The birds were gone. Only the insects were still present,, and they were showing signs that they were hungry.

The water. It’s gone. It’s GONE? I look like a fool. I didn’t imagine it, no, this cannot be.

G’alin gave a questioning look at K’ndar.

“Didn’t you say water?” he said.

“G’alin, I swear, this place was knee deep in water, only this peninsula was dry. There were thousands of birds and wherries out there, clouds of them. My fire lizard flew out into the sedges there, tried to catch a smanda, and landed in a net the smanda makes. It swelled up, covered him...the smandas came swimming for him...”

He heard himself babbling, completely unnerved by the drastic change.

G’alin’s face went blank, the expression telling him he was listening to his dragon.

“Okay, Pascarth tells me your Raventh says the same thing. And he’s sending me images of what your fire lizard went through. That was nasty, and I haven’t seen the thing in the flesh yet,” G’alin said.

Thank you he said to Raventh.

He didn’t believe you. Now he sees it.

“Sorry to doubt you, K’ndar, but it IS strange, but I know what happened here,” G’alin said.

“Obviously, this is what is called a ‘floodplain’. They are usually ‘vernal’, meaning during the monsoon season, that’s what we called the rainy season where I’m from, this entire area floods. The water must be coming from mountains, somewhere, it can go for thousands of kilometers. Then, when summer hits, it dries up,” G’alin said.

K’ndar sighed in relief. “Thanks. I thought for a moment I’d lost my mind,” he said.

G’alin walked to the edge of the stone terrace. Dead sedges crowded the edge, their panicles reaching over his head.

“I’ll bet my boots there’s still some water, just under the surface of this muck,” he said. He knelt down, shoving sedges aside. Their panicles sprinkled seeds all over his head and back. Reaching down, he dug a finger into the soil. It came up brown and muddy. The tiny creatures he’d disturbed wriggled their way deeper into the mud.

“Yup. The surface water has evaporated. But it’s still wet underneath the surface, see? See how the vegetation has seed heads atop them? They’ll drop their seeds into the mud and in the spring, when the water returns, they’ll be ready to grow. Right now it looks solid but it’s not. Not even a webfooted wherry can make it through that mud, it’d be stuck in minutes,” G’alin said, brushing the seeds off his head.

“That means, no smandas,” K'ndar said. In a way he wasn’t too unhappy. This place was one of splendid solitude, a place he was loathe to see exploited by ambitious men like Shawn. That, and he had no real desire to handle a smanda.

“Not necessarily, K’ndar, most creatures that live in this sort of environment don’t move very far. They ‘estivate’, and they’re probably all snugged in tight, just underneath the mud, for the winter. Down here, winter doesn’t mean snow, it means drought,” he said.

“You sound...well, like me..a biologist?”

“Ecologist, K’ndar, and while I’m not an expert, it makes sense to me,” G’alin said.

“Thanks,” K’ndar said. Trying to salvage his self respect, he said, “Okay, first off, WHERE are we?”

“Oops, I forgot,” G’alin said. He pulled a datalink out of his backpack.

“Come on, link up, link up..” he said under his breath.“I’ve been told by Raylen that you found the original one of this thing?” he asked.

K’ndar shrugged and nodded. “I did,” not wanting to boast.

“Well, it’s a versatile tool and the bright sparks in R & D are cranking them out as fast as they can. Fairly soon, every weyr will have one...that and those binos you’re wearing. That was a decent thing to do, K’ndar, donate them to Pern. There are people on Pern who would have paid you a great deal of money for them,” he said.

“I know that, for certain, and I’ve a good idea who...but I couldn’t,” he said.

G’alin nodded.

“Yokohama is taking her time," he said, “barely a signal, no wonder, considering we are I have no idea where..wait,she’s searching…”

Ah, she’s found us. Huh! I’ll be switched, we’re on Southern!”

“Southern?” K’ndar said. “Southern? For some reason, I thought we were on Northern. After all, Pernese weren’t down here in N’orald’s time,” he said.

“Someone was. This N’orald, you say? Think he built that hut?”

“An Oldtimer at my weyr. He’s the one who not only told us the smandas name, but also the antidote for the venom,” he said, “and he never did say a thing about building the hut. He was here skyhooting with a couple weyrling class mates, without permission or even telling someone where they were going,"K’ndar said, laughing, “once his Weyrlingmaster found out they’d snuck out, wow, did they pay a price!”

G’alin laughed. “No doubt! I’ll have to sit down with you and find out more. For now, it looks like, yes, definitely Southern, this looks like this goes for, oh, several hundred kilometers to the coast. Behind us are….hmm, the Western Barrier Mountains. Huh, I thought there would be nothing but snowy wastes south of those mountains, but no!

Okay, it’s filling in, she’s getting more data. Ah. I can see why it’s unknown, the last time anyone looked at this site it was covered with water and Yokohama’s cameras, I think, couldn’t differentiate, maybe she couldn’t see the vegetation, or maybe it was still underwater. Or maybe no one til now has actually called up this particular spot. I think the date on the last image is, um, four years ago, in the spring time.”

“Does it show it now, being dry?”

G’alin turned it to K’ndar. “It does NOW, see, I’ll zoom in, see? There’s us, our dragons and that hut, there, from a few minutes ago. It shows dry land all the way to the coast. See these channels here, right here? Those are waterways, the streams that in spring time flood, but now, they’re retreated to their beds, because the water has dried up,” he said. “We could put a kak in the streams, here, we wouldn’t have to walk on the mud. I bet you wouldn’t get five meters in it without getting stuck.”

K’ndar always felt a weird sense of displacement when he saw himself in a camera or a datalink.

Siskin tells me there are smandas here. I can smell them, too.

G’alin stopped again.

“Pascarth says your fire lizard can smell the smandas,” he said.

“I doubt he’ll ever forget a smanda,” K’ndar said.

Any idea where they are? He asked Raventh.

Raventh was quiet for a few moments.

I smell mud.

Well, it IS muddy…

Inspired, he called to Siskin, “Siskin-smanda? FIND smanda?”

Perched atop Raventh’s head, Siskin hissed, his eyes roiling an angry red.

“Not to hunt, Siskin. Stay high. Don’t get close. Find smanda?”

Siskin’s eyes changed color to a more agreeable, if unsettled, green. He dropped down to K’ndar’s shoulder.

“Does he really understand you?” G’alin asked, “I have no experience with them at all.”

“Oh, yes, he’s quite intelligent, far more than a dog. He can’t communicate like we do with our dragons, but he does send me images and has a phenomenal memory. They can even remember things their parents learned or saw,” K’ndar said, proudly. “You can’t order them but you can train them, and for Siskin at least, it’s always a request, and he usually..usually obeys. But I don’t know, this time, he might not. He was hurt quite badly, and they will hold a grudge.”

Siskin chittered, and launched.

“Excuse me, G’alin, but I need to concentrate on what he’s showing me,” K’ndar said.

“No problem, I think I’ll look in this hut. By the egg, it looks solid,” G’alin said.

K’ndar ‘watched’ what Siskin showed him. It was always hard to do, as the ‘picture’ moved around, giving him vertigo. The fire lizard flew a searching pattern over the marsh for several minutes. Ah...

Siskin hovered. There was a clearing of sorts below Siskin, a spot about a meter across, where the sedges had been pulled down, even broken off in some cases, and, it appeared, had been knitted together into...“a NEST!” he said, out loud.

Siskin dropped down lower. He sent images of a circular dome, completely encased in sedges. It looked about the right size for a smanda, one curled up.

G’alin came out.

“A nest? Oh, wait,” he said, and again, his dragon was passing on the images that Siskin was broadcasting.

“That looks,yeah, I think it’s a nest, K’ndar.”

“YOU can see it?”

“Your fire lizard is sending it to Raventh and Pascarth, too. That looks right, K’ndar, and I think..hmm, I’ll have to think about how to get one Do you think it’s a smanda nest?”

“G’alin, I have no idea. Until a month ago, I’d never heard of one, never mind seen one. And they’re NOT in “Natural History of Pern,” he said. “But, if this a nest? Will this mud dry out completely? Because, if they can survive without being wet, it might be easier to wait until everything is dried out, then go and dig them up.”

G’alin nodded. “I think so, enough that someone could walk out there with mud shoes on, they spread one’s weight out, we used them as kids to go hunting in the marshes. Now that I have the sight picture, it shouldn’t be too hard, fly over it with a dragon, or a fire lizard! Mark the spots and later come back and dig ‘em up. I don’t dare boast, I don’t want to tempt fate, but this might just be easier than I thought.”

K’ndar, through Siskin, began to see dozens of the nests. “Whoa. There’s dozens of nests. They’re everywhere out there,” he said.

He whistled for Siskin, who immediately returned. He stroked the blue’s head. “Good lad, thank you. That was well done,” he said. Siskin chipped. Then he pushed an image of one of the domes right next to the side of the terrace.

“Lead me, Siskin,” he said. Siskin looked back, away from the hut, and K’ndar forced himself to watch where he was going THROUGH Siskin’s eyes. He looked down at the sedges that pushed up against the terrace. There!

“G’alin? There’s a nest, right here. It’s close, right here,” he called.

G’alin came to him and knelt. “By the egg, you’re right. Let me try something.” Laying down on his belly, he reached down and gave a tentative poke at the sedge covered dome. K’ndar half expected a smanda to erupt from it, but there was no reaction.

“This thing, it’s almost all sedge,” he said. He unsheathed his knife and began to probe the mud circling it.

“I might be able to separate it from the mud,” he said, concentrating on his actions. He didn’t want to pierce the sedge. He carefully edged all around the domed mass.

“It’s like a round egg, a flat one, really, I can feel it goes underneath..whew, this stuff stinks,” G’alin said.

“Careful, if it’s awake…,”

“I’ll be careful, you bet,but it’s a small one, shouldn’t, gads, my gloves will be a mess. My partner will be pissed..aha. Here, K’ndar, take it, I have to get off my belly,” G’alin said. He lifted the mass and held it out for K’ndar to take from him.

Appalled, still, K’ndar reluctantly knelt down and took the mass from G’alin’s hands, expecting it to be wet. What if the thing..if there WAS anything inside, was awake?

It was heavy. Through small gaps in the sedges, K’ndar could see mud. Atop the dome was a tiny, almost invisible hole. For breathing? He put the nest down on the stones and unlimbered his binocular and switched it to microscope. He examined the sedge dome. It took him a few moments to realize what he was seeing. “I’ll be switched, M’rvin was right,” he said.

“What’s that? I’ve never used the binocular,” G’alin said.

“With this, I can see, this hole here? It’s just barely visible, but whoa, this is fabulous. This outer layer of sedge? It’s lined with mud. That, in turn, is lined with smanda netting! I can’t see it, but it has to be a smanda in there. It HAS to be, and there must be water in there, because the netting turns to powder when it’s dried...and it’s not dried!”

G’alin picked up the nest. “You’re right. Look at the sedging. Whatever is inside wove the sedges together, see the edges? “Sedges have edges, and rushes are round,” he began the ancient rhyme, “and it looks as if the edges interlock. Only the sedges are dry, the insides look to be contact with the mud. Clever beast!” and without thinking, he gave it a gentle shake.

K’ndar gasped. “It sloshed! I heard it slosh!! That is amazing. No WONDER Landing wants these things. There’s water INSIDE, the netting? The netting stays wet and seals the outside of this nest. It’s like a thermos!! Amazing!”

G’alin looked at it, admiringly.

“Okay, now, what are you going to do with it? Because if it’s awake in there, we’re about to get a big surprise,” K’ndar said.

“Hold on, I have a sack for it,” G’alin said, and produced a large bag from his backpack. They carefully placed it in the sack.

“Tie it up TIGHT, G’alin, you do NOT want to find out if it’s awake,”K’ndar said.

G’alin was elated. He laughed. “I understand, K’ndar, Don’t worry. Oh, but the folks at Landing are going to be tickled,” he said.

“DON’T give it to Shawn,” K’ndar ordered.

G’alin nodded. “Not a chance, K’ndar, he’s a shyster and a con man.”



After packing the nest, G’alin said, “I almost forgot to ask, K’ndar, where are the coordinates for this place? Or is it a dragon stone?”

“Runes,” K’ndar said, “up on top. Come on, it’s easy to climb, and don’t worry, it’s solid. We were tree-d up here for a few moments, by the smandas.”

Once atop the hut, K’ndar brushed the dirt and bits of vegetation that had accumulated on the flat stone from the last time.

“See? They’re so weathered, and the rock itself is all bumpy, but you can the runes, here, here, and here, and that little angle there,” he said, running his fingers along the faint lines.

“You’ve got a huge imagination, K’ndar, and I’m amazed you found this place at all. Those are almost illegible. But let’s record them, anyway,” G’alin said, aiming the datalink at them.

After several moments, he gasped.

“What? Something wrong?” K’ndar said.

“Yokohama...she can’t be wrong. It can’t be wrong. This is coming from the Yokohama and the computers at Landing,” he said, his face registering shock.

“WHAT?”

“The coordinates, the runes Raventh pushed to Pascarth? K’ndar, you’re looking at the runes upside down. Come over here, the Yokohama has filled in the eroded spots,” he said.

K’ndar moved to look at the runes alongside G’alin. Then he looked at the datalink, which showed the complete markings, blue lines glowing on the screen where the actual lines were invisible.

“They’re..not runes.”

“No. It’s a date! Look, below it, you can’t see it on the rock itself but there’s enough left for Yokohama, it says “Fort”. And these marks? This is a DATE, K’ndar. Year nine eighty two! This hut is well over fifteen hundred years old!