Chap. 199 The Explorer's Journal

Chap. 199 The Explorer's Journal

Siskin chirped in joyous recognition.

Three fire lizards, two greens and a bronze, all bearing collars with Landing's insignia on it, popped out of between over his head. Raventh was bathing in the dragon lake, along with several other dragons.

Francie's fire lizards! "Hello, Coora! Sisi, Keeso! Where's your mum?" he said.

They swirled over his head as Siskin joined them.


Green Motanith is here, she's going to land, please make way for her Raventh said.

Looking up, he saw Francie riding her green. She signaled where she intended to land and he moved far enough away for her to do so safely.

Francie dismounted and immediately began to unharness her dragon.

"Hold on, hold on, you'll get a bath just as soon as I get my harness off you," she said, laughing at her dragon's impatience.

Motanith fidgeted until she felt the harness slide over her withers, then, with a snort, she made a short flight-almost a winged hop-to splash into the lake. Raventh bugled a welcome.

Francie approached K'ndar, stripping off her riding gear.

"Dragons! I swear, you'd think she'd not had a bath in a month!"

Before he could respond, she said, "Whoa, it's hot here! I don't blame my girl for wanting the lake!"

Her fire lizards landed on her arms, all three pleading to have their badges removed. She took them off and the three fire lizards sped to the lake to join the dragons.

Siskin warbled, begging.

"Of course, Siskin...go have fun," K'ndar said.

The blue fire lizard whirred away, chittering.

"He's that obedient?" Francie asked, "Mine hardly pay attention to me," she said, grinning.

"Right, and there's eight moons in the sky," K'ndar said, "You have those lizards trained to do tricks? My boot, Francie. Siskin, I think, was just scoping out which of your greens to flirt with, Sisi or Keeso. Anyway, how have you been! Haven't seen you in a while!"


She gave him a hug. "You've been a stranger, yourself, K'ndar, you haven't been to Landing to ride Donal."

"Oh, but I have been to Landing, I was there, um, right during the reorganization. What a mess!"


"No doubt, but it's done, now, and things really are working far smoother. Raylan got a promotion, I'm betting you heard?"

"I did, and congratulations! Did you..." he was about to ask whether Shawn was still there. He wasn't sure how to broach the trouble he'd had with Shawn, Landing's 'former' Acquisition officer.


But Francie cut him off. "Got something for my dry throat? Flying gives one a thirst in this heat," she said.

K'ndar laughed. "Aye, it does, come on, we'll get something cold for you at the dining hall."

The dining cavern was cool and dim after the bright afternoon sunshine. Few people were there at this time of day.

"What brings you to Kahrain?" he asked, after she'd taken a long sip of D'mitran's ale.

Her eyes widened in appreciation. She examined her mug closely.

"This is excellent ale," she said, "who made it?"

"My wingleader, D'mitran. He's gaining a reputation for his ales," K'ndar said.

"D'mitran! I remember him, such a good man. Is he selling it? A small cask, maybe? I need to take some home. Raylan will enjoy it, too."

"I'm not sure...I don't drink it," he said.

"What? What's that you're drinking, just plain water?" she asked.

He flushed. He hesitated to reveal his decidedly unorthodox 'failing', then decided she wouldn't tease him as others had. Or if she did, it wouldn't be the type that hurt.

"I don't let everyone know this, but I can't drink anything alcoholic. It makes me sick, enough that I want to die," he said.

She shook her head. "That's a pity, then, as this ale is perfection. Can't drink alcohol! I've never heard of such a thing. It's okay, although it must have made things difficult for you after Thread fall," she said, " at least when I was flying it, the best way to relax after a fight was over a cold draft, or even wine, and shoot the breeze with the other riders," she said.

"It was," he agreed, ''but I learned a long time ago to maintain a low profile. If you keep a cold mug in your hand, no one checks to see what's in it. That, and I always avoided drinking contests," he said, remembering the times he was sneered at for not wanting to drink.

"So did I, but sidestepping it was easy, being female. No testosterone, you know, or at least not enough to make us women do stupid things like see how many mugs one could drink before passing out. And the aftermath! No thanks!" she said.

She put down her mug.

"You're probably wondering what brings me here?"

"I did ask," he said.

"Right. Sorry, I was distracted by this ale. My compliments to D'mitran, by the way!"

She pulled a book out of her backpack and handed it to him.

It felt cool and relatively heavy in his hands. He loved the smell of a newly published book. He looked at her, questions in his eyes.

She merely met his gaze.

He flipped through it, again, appreciating the quality of paper. Page after page of words, along with maps, drawings, sketches. He shut it, intending to go through it more thoroughly after she left.

"Thank you, Francie, I'm sure I'll enjoy it," he said.

"You haven't even read the title page, K'ndar!" she said. He could see she was waiting, anticipating some reaction from him.

"Go on, read the title page," she insisted.

He opened it to read the title.

Transcription of the personal journal of Jason Harmon of Fort Hold. Harmon's detailed account of his exploration of the then uninhabited Southern Continent , encompassing the dates 1-12-507 to 17-5-508, 3rd Pass.

Harmon's notebook recovered from the Southern Continent steppe by the 1st Expeditionary Team from Kahrain Steppe Weyr.

Team members: D'nis, bronze Corvuth; D'mitran, brown Careth; K'ndar, brown Raventh; B'rost, blue Rath

He looked at her, realization dawning in his eyes.

"You...they finally got the notebook printed?"

"They did. It was tedious work, let me tell you. Raylan said the restoration team spent hours and HOURS dissecting it. That's the only word that can adequately describe the process. The pages were of a substance not quite paper, nor was it hide, and it wasn't the indestructible stuff the Ancients had. The closest thing we could make of it was leaves from a fellis tree! Which may, honestly, have prevented further deterioration. They think it was a last gasp attempt to make something akin to paper before the supply ran out, and before the discovery of papergrass, which, as you know, only grows here on Southern. After that, our forebears were stuck with keeping records on hides. Which we all know were horrible for long term archiving," she said. "If there's only one thing I can thank Aivas for, it's paper. I will never in my life forget the stench of rotting hides," she said, rolling her eyes.

She pulled at her ale, then continued.

"When you brought that vacuum tube in, with all the artifacts inside, remember, Raylan pulled the notebook out and he told me later, could feel it beginning to crumble in his hands. So, he had Jansen-by the egg, that girl is clever! return it to vacuum immediately. Raylan said that was the only thing that kept it from disintegrating completely. They had to put the book into the waldo chamber...you know, the box Aivas had us make so as to dissect Thread? Have you seen it?"

K'ndar shook his head, not quite sure what a 'waldo chamber' was, but he'd look it up later on the datalink in the library.

"Anyway, they had to separate each page, and usually it shattered into a hundred little pieces. Sometimes just touching it turned the fragment into dust. The writing on pages was almost gone, although the further into the book, the better the ink was preserved. Then, because it couldn't be scanned into the computer as one page, the restoration team had to take a picture of each fragment, enter it into the database, and get the computer to put all the little pieces together into a page that made sense. Fortunately, even if the ink was missing or the 'paper' so deteriorated that WE couldn't read it, the scanning computter can see down to the molecular level and identify the letter. So relatively few words are missing, and context can usually supply a fairly good guess," she said.

"Whew, that sounds like a lot of boring work," he said, shaking his head.

"It's why it's taken so long to get it printed," she said, 'but once they had the process down, and mind you, this was in the middle of the re-org!! it went fairly quickly once the team settled into the flow. Printing it from the reproductions was no problem, of course, and everyone on the team insisted that you, K'ndar, get the very first copy," she said, smiling gently.

He flushed, embarrassed. Deep in his soul, he was thrilled to see his name on the title page. As if he were a real scientist! The book felt good in his hands. But it felt, also, as if it bore a large responsibility.

"That was-that was nice of them, " he said, ''but hardly necessary," he said. He tried to hand it back to her. "I can read the library copy, or buy one from Elene," he said.

She bridled, refusing the book.

"Don't be silly, K'ndar! This is an honor you've earned. Had it not been for your discovery of the tube, we wouldn't have datalinks, or the field solar panel, or that marvelous camera. And the memory discs! K'ndar, they have so much information on them! Much of it was in the database already, but there's some data that we don't even have questions for.

Landing is making serious money from the vacuum tubes, and kids-and adults! all over the planet are accessing the computer database from the datalinks. The kids, especially, are using the camera, and the binoculars. K'ndar, your donating the artifacts has cleared up so many questions about our past...and posed hundreds more for our future. Not many people would have donated those things to Pern. It was noble of you, K'ndar," she said.

He mumbled a thank you, not sure how to respond.

She grinned, then said, "Did you see the second page, the one after the title?"

"Um...no."

"Go on, you wherry, LOOK at it," she said, fondly.

The second page bore many signatures; those of the current Council, and the restoration teams, to include those of Raylan and Jansen.

Elene, Landing's Chief Librarian, had written, "Thank you so much, K'ndar! There's a clean notebook waiting for you!"

Lytol, quite possibly the most revered man on Pern, had written in a shaky hand, "Thank you, K'ndar, rider of Brown Raventh, for your magnanimous and generous gift to the people of Pern."

He met Francie's eyes, his mouth open, unable to find the words. He felt humbled, yet there was a satisfaction of being recognized.

She laughed. Then sobered.

"Harmon's account of his 'exploration'-it makes for some interesting and sometimes painful reading, K'ndar. I confess I read the book on the computer before it was printed. This Jason Harmon-his name is in two parts, that's how they did it back then, this lad, not much older than you, I think..he was a tough kid. You know how he ended up, of course, dying on the steppe of a broken pelvis. One hopes the wherries finished him off rather than him dying of thirst and pain. I suspect not, wherries are pretty skittish, especially when they're not sure what a human is or how we can defend ourselves. He went through a lot, all on his own volition, all by himself and his horses. He was an explorer, no doubt. I wouldn't have done it, even with a dragon and plenty of support. I would have turned back after the first setback, and he suffered several. I don't know if that's courage or stupidity," she said.

K'ndar thought of the steppe, and how he wanted it to never end. Oh, how he loved it, no matter how beautiful other places on Pern were.

"I think it's neither, Francie. It's not a question of bravery. It's, um, a drive, almost, a never ending wonder of what's over the horizon. It's curiosity. It's very easy to feel it on the steppe, you want to keep going, no matter how hot or cold or tired you might be. Just when you're about to give up, and decide to turn around to go home, you find something interesting. You think, oh, just another kilometer and I'll find something extraordinary. Sometimes it's just the joy of being out in the wilderness. The lure, the fascination of it. You begin to understand what it might have looked like before we got here. The animals, they know nothing of humans so they react as if you were just another animal, if, as Raventh once said, a rather ugly one."

I didn't mean it to be a bad thing Raventh said.

He laughed.