Chap. 195 The Shuttle

 

Chap. 195 The Shuttle

There was nothing else like it on Pern.

The shuttle Eujisan was bathed in the subdued light entering via the cavern entrance.

K'ndar's docent, this time a teenage girl, stood by respectfully, giving him all the time he needed to just stare at the machine.

He walked around it, noting how high it was. Now he understood the perspective seen in the murals. A ramp lowered from its belly to allow one access. It was about 18 meters long, he judged, and half that wide. There were no windows other than the cupola atop it, where, he assumed, the pilot sat.

"What made it go? It had 'fuel'? he asked.

The girl nodded. "It had two means of propulsion. One was something called a 'ramjet'. Once the shuttle left the starship, it fell to Pern until it reached atmosphere. Then they started the ramjet to maneuver in the air and land. It was used only in atmosphere. It burned oxygen and propelled the shuttle by squeezing air down a funnel. I'm sorry, but I have a hard time understanding it. The other fuel was some sort of mineral that's 'radioactive'. That's something I'm not to sure how to explain, either. There's a part of the craft, inside, that has heavy metal surrounding it. You can't get to it and there are signs that say "danger" around it. It used the radioactive fuel to take off and head back to space, and to maneuver while in space. We're warned to avoid certain areas of the shuttle due to 'radioactive' exposure," she said. "I'm sorry, but that's the extent of my knowledge. You're the first person to ever ask me how it moved," she said.

K'ndar smiled. She was the complete antithesis of his earlier docent.

The ramp beckoned.

"Can I go in it?"

The girl smiled. "Yes, as long as you don't touch anything," she said. "Follow me," and she led the way up the ramp.

It smelled ancient. It was a mix of technology that was so far beyond his experience that he couldn't even begin to describe it, and things like a chair, that was familiar.

It was largely empty.

"This is the main hold," the girl said. The metal floor and ceiling had hooks and eyes everywhere. Along the sides were vertical tubes, with large windows. A ramp, smaller than the one reaching the floor, led up to the cupola he'd seen outside the shuttle.

"What are all these attachments for?" he asked.

"When the settlers started moving stuff down to the planet, they would tie the things in place. Have you ever been on a ship?"

He looked at her, for a brief moment wondering if his reputation as the Dragonrider Who Got Seasick On The Dock had preceded him. Mentally shrugging, he decided he didn't care.

"Only once. I was at the dock in Tillek Sea Hold. I got on a ship and it hadn't even left the dock when I got seasick," he admitted.

She bit her lip, then let the laugh out. "Oh, I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh, but.."

"I know. It's okay. I just wondered how you knew?"

She shook her head. "I didn't. But I think I know the feeling. I rode on a dragon, once. I got 'airsick'. I'd just eaten lunch? I'll never do that again, so don't bother Searching me, I'll never be a dragonrider," she said.

"Airsick! I never heard of such a thing!" he said, laughing, " but I have an idea of how it felt. Dragons-especially the blues can be pretty agile in midair," he said.

"It was a blue," she said. "And I think it knew I was afraid, or it was showing off. It went so fast and made some moves that left my stomach behind. When it caught up...it didn't quite stop where it should have," she said, sheepishly. "Anyway, these attachments were to lash things down, secure them so they wouldn't shift around and hurt someone. Just like on a ship, you have to tie things down so they won't move," she said, " and of course, in space, things are weightless, so they float around."

"That makes sense," he said. He wondered what weightlessness was like. "What are these tubes for?" he asked. They looked like thermoses.

"We think they had harnesses in them. Some had tables and could be turned horizontally. We think people were sealed into the tubes for the ride down from the starship. They were pressurized, meaning they had air in them when this main hold here had none. They wouldn't always put air in the entire hold, here, because most things, like machines, didn't need it. They'd only put oxygen in the tubes. Do you want to go into one?"

He hesitated.

"We have one we let people go inside to see how it felt," she said, and he felt a sudden embarrassment, looking cowardly in front of a teenage girl.

"Um..."

"Don't worry, I'll be right here," she encouraged.

"Okay," he said. She led the way to one and opened the door. "Step inside and turn around, there's no harness, of course, but still, just stand up straight," she said.

He stepped into it, gingerly, and turned around. She gently shut the door and he felt the air pressure change. He heard her dog the lock and suddenly felt a thrill of fear grasp his heart.

The walls of the tube seemed to shrink to his skin. Suddenly his lungs felt as if there was no air.  Too close! Panicking, he shouted, "Let me out!!"

She saw his face change and immediately opened the door. He jumped out, his heart thundering in his chest.

"What, what..." he gasped. Her eyes were round in dismay.

"Are you okay?"

"I..I think so. What was that? I've never felt anything like it," he said.

"I don't remember the scientific word for it, but it's 'fear of being in enclosed spaces'. You're not the only one to feel it, it's just I've never personally had it happen on my shift. I'm sorry, will you be okay?"

His heart slowed.

What was that, are you hurt? Raventh asked, his voice tinged with concern.

No, just...scared. I'm alright now, don't worry.

Don't go in there again. Siskin is upset. Should I send him?

No

Too late

Siskin appeared from between, and dove for his shoulder. He wheeped.

"Oh, a fire lizard! He's so pretty! Is he..his eyes are orange, is he angry?"

K'ndar reached up to stroke Siskin's head to hide the shaking of his hand. He'd never been so frightened of something so insignificant in his life.

"He's not angry, he's worried. He and my dragon caught my f..fear, and reacted," he said.

"Hmmm. I don't know much about fire lizards. Oh, his eyes are changing to green now," she said.

"He's calming down, now that he's with me," he said, "Although his tail is so tight around my neck,  he might just throttle me." Siskin chipped, and loosened his tail. He pushed calming thoughts to the lizard.

The girl saw the exchange in his glazed eye.

"They're really intelligent, aren't they?" she said.

"Oh, lass, they most certainly are. Raventh, my dragon, gets smarter every day. Siskin, here, is smart, too, but he can't communicate like a big dragon can. I could go on, but I'd like to continue, please?"

"Certainly. Want to see the control pod?"

"Of course," he said, "unless it's like that tube."

She laughed. "No, it's not. Trust me."

The control room had a 360 ° view from the top of the craft. The top of the shuttle bristled with antennas, handholds, anchor points, parabolic dishes and other protuberances that meant nothing to him. Conveniently, there were large metal mirrors showing the entire ship below on the outside.

"This was the control room," she said. "The pilots...the people who made this thing go, sat in chairs, but they've since deteriorated and now all that's left is these metal frames. See these arms? Those flat panels with buttons at the front ends, we think those were used to make adjustments to the 'attitude' of the craft while it was flying. That bank of panels in front are computers. Off to the side, that's the navigation bay. Because there's no power to the craft, I can't show you how they worked," she said.

"This wasn't the same thing as a 'sled', is it?"

"Oh, no. If you get a chance to look at the murals, you'll see the sleds pictured," she said.

Yeah, I wish I'd been able to. I'll definitely call them up on the datalink, now, he thought.

"The sleds were smaller machines that people used to move around here on Pern. The sleds couldn't go into space, not like this shuttle," she said.

"The word on the side, "Eujisan"? Is that this things name?"

"Yes. Each starship had three, maybe four shuttles. This one came from the Yokohama, along with two others, the Moth and the Mayfly. One of the pilots, Nabol, tried to go to the Red Star in the Moth, we don't know if he actually got there or not. It crashed somewhere in the ocean when he re-entered Pern airspace. No one knows what happened to the other shuttles, but this one, the Eujisan, was left here. I like to think they left it to remind us of their journey here. Or, maybe, just to honor the vehicles, if that doesn't sound too strange," she said.

"Not at all! If they were like our seafarers, ships always have names, and their crew considers their ship to be a member of the family," K'ndar said, only half listening. Once again, there was something tingling in the depths of his mind, something about the shuttle.

"The shuttles did exactly that: shuttle people and equipment from the starships to Pern. They gutted-the term they used was 'cannibalize'-the Bahrain and the Buenos Aires (she pronounced it 'byoonosairs') and we know what became of those two starships," she said.

"Didn't Aivas decide to crash them into the sun?" he asked, his memory fuzzy.

"Yes. Aivas said he'd detected that the orbits of the two were deteriorating and the ships would eventually crash into Pern, so they were sent into the sun," she said. She looked unhappy.

"How did they do that without engines?"

She was stumped.

"I don't know. There's so much we don't know, the history is so fragmented," she said.

He nodded. "Thank you. I must say you're a far better docent than that kid I had in the mural hall," he said.

She brightened, and rolled her eyes. "That's Sima. He's spoiled rotten by his mum, doesn't want to work but has finally been convinced that if he doesn't, he's going to have to leave. Just like any other Weyr or Hold, you have to earn your keep here at Honshu," she said.

Once again, he wondered what craft or skill he could perform that would justify his being fed and housed at Kahrain. For the moment he was kept busy 'transporting', as D'mitran had dejectedly called it, but he wondered how long that would last. Especially as Kahrain was expecting a new Weyrling class to begin in the very near future, when Mirth's eggs hatched.

One of the advantages he'd appreciated was the relative paucity of adult dragonriders at Kahrain Steppe. So many had left, to include several of his classmates, some of whom had gravitated to Honshu. It resulted in Kahrain's dragonriders being tasked with the traditional jobs and missions that only a dragonrider could perform, leaving the many other 'menial' or physical tasks and jobs to the landsmen.

The thought worried him. He was a 'nomad', as the kids called it, a wanderer who didn't have to worry about where he was going to sleep tonight. He was someone who was able to wander and do interesting things, like survey the vast unknown that was Southern Continent, or go exploring. But for skills? Other than the everyday skills he'd learned as a child or as a Weyrling: how to cook, how to repair clothing, how to foal out a mare, how to dig a well, how to clean a latrine; his skills seemed embarrassingly few. He could draw, and make good notes. He could rope a running bull from horseback, being a horseman from birth. He could make pretty things out of horsehair. Other than that, what skills did he have?

"Seen enough?" she asked, forcing his thoughts back to the present.

The shuttle didn't hold the same level of fascination for him that the murals had inspired, and now he didn't have that much time left before he had to return to Kahrain. Chatting with Rondair had taken up much of the day.

"I think so," he said, and followed her down the ramp.

The pinging in his mind grew louder, but obstinately refused to explain itself.

He turned to look at the shuttle, wondering how it landed.

"I'd like to see the...um, the feet?"

" 'Landing gear' " she said. They were eight pairs of flat runners. "Right now, the landing gear is fairly low, but these legs, here? They rise up to accommodate tall cargo. The floor of the hold drops down, they put the cargo on the bed and up it went, woosh! into the main hold," she explained.

"Clever," he thought, but the reason, oh, the plagueing tingle, was right there in his mind. He looked hard at the landing gear. He just about had it....

The thought vanished. "ARRRRRRRRRRRG!" he shouted, wanting to bludgeon his head.

"What!!!!" The girl cried, alarmed.

"I keep trying to remember something, but every time I just about have it, it vanishes. It drives me crazy! It's been bothering me all day. Sometimes I wish I could take my brain out my head and give it a hearty slap," he sighed.

"I do that, sometimes. Especially when I think of how Aivas cheated us," she said, frowning.

"I beg your pardon?" he asked, shocked. "You're not an Abominator, are you?"

"Oh, stars no. Just the opposite," she said.

"Then you mean what?"

She looked at him.

"I mean, Aivas cheated us. How could he do so unknowingly? He had the three engines removed from the starships and dropped them on the Red Star, and they blew up and pushed it just enough to stop thread from falling on Pern. That's the good part of his plan. There's no more thread, ever. But why THREE engines? Why did he have the Yokohama's engine blown up, too?"

He'd never heard such a question, or even the concept.

"I don't know, I don't. Maybe two engines wasn't enough. Why is that such a bad thing?"

"This shuttle. I want to fly it. It can still go, its radioactive fuel lasts for thousands of years, I'm told. And the 'ramjet' is mechanical. I am convinced there's something in the database that teaches one how to pilot it. Then I want to go to the Yokohama and learn how to pilot her," she said.

His jaw dropped.

"Wow. That's amazing," he said, fumbling for the right word.

She shook her head. "No one understands me," she complained, "Mum thinks I'm crazy. "Why can't you just be normal, like your sister?" she says. I AM normal. I just dream of the stars, all the time," she said. "It's why I love it here, I can go into the observatory, with the big telescope, and look at the galaxy with it. But without a working starship, I'll never GO out there to see the stars," she said, her disappointment palpable.

"Wow," he said. "That's...that's a big dream. I don't think you're crazy. I think it's, well, again, amazing. Why do you want this?"

"Not just because I want to SEE the stars, close up, but...we're going to have to go the stars, someday, just like our ancestors did. It's in our DNA. It's what humans do. We explore. We wander. We go to new places, and change them around til they fit us, then we fill it up, tear it down, wear it out, and have to move.

Aivas cut out the one thing that could make the starships go. The anti-matter engines! What in the name of Pern is 'anti-matter'? We don't have the capacity to make such a thing. Can we ever replace the engines? I doubt it. Without an engine, the Yokohama is a ship without sails. Without engines, we're stuck here, on Pern, maybe to end up like the Ancients did on Earth. They left Earth because it was no longer habitable. Will we do the same? Destroy our only home? Aivas seemed to have complete confidence in our ability to avoid Earth's end, but I don't. I'm afraid we'll end up in the very same mess the settlers did. Only this time around, there's no way to escape," she said.

He was astounded at her farsightedness, and discouraged at her pessimism. She was right, of course. He'd felt some of the same things.

"I know. I'm sorry," he said, softly.

She sighed. "I have this big glorious dream. Every night, the stars call me. I know their names, but I'll never get to meet them. Aivas gave us many things, but he took away the biggest thing of all...a way out."