Chap. 222 The Messy Desk

 

Chap. 222 The Messy Desk

"This looks like...I mean, it seems..I'm overwhelmed with all the things expected of me," K'ndar said. "I'm beginning to wonder if I've made a mistake? Because this looks like nothing what I expected the job to be like. It looks like I'll be stuck inside every day, doing data?" He felt what could only be called foreboding.

Lefsa, the woman whose place he was taking as Field Biologist, laughed.

"I know. It IS a lot of stuff, but, K'ndar, much of the tasks I've discussed are ones that have to be done only now and then. When I took the job, I had no idea that I'd be doing, either. When Aivas changed the world, most of the people here at Landing just started Doing Stuff. They didn't know if it was the right way, or if it was going to be useful, it was a case of 'just get started'."

She moved through the small office. Now that he had a better view, perhaps the piles of books and ledgers weren't as daunting.

"I have to tell you, it looks insurmountable to me. Do you ever get out in the field?"

She laughed.

"Yes and no. I don't have to go by a schedule. I can go out anytime I want, honestly, but the problem I had was transportation. I don't have a dragon, as you probably can see, I don't even have a lovely fire lizard, like that handsome blue on your shoulder."

Siskin perked up, realizing he was being admired.

"So I have to sign out a horse, but since field biologists take tools and collecting bags, I'd need TWO, and if it were something big, for instance, I've been studying whers, wild ones, not the poor, malformed things in Holds and Weyrs, I'd need a wagon, which means MORE horses or oxen. I'm sure you see the problem. I know how to handle horses, but still, you never know what beast is available, and so I spend half the morning getting to know the horse, and then there's half the day lost. It was maddening!".

She started to tidy the stacks of books on her desk. "Then, understand that I took the job when the old man who'd originally created the position retired. The problem with him was he did good science, or at least he tried, but he never wrote up his findings. He usually was out puttering, netting insects and stuffing them, alive, into mugs he'd collected from the dining hall. THAT drove Grafton and the cooks insane. Of course, the insects would escape. We'd find them everywhere. He was always bringing in crawlers. They were his favorite, and he was always finding new species. He'd bring them in and they'd get loose, too. The worse time was when he brought in a dead fish he'd found on the riverbank and stuffed it on that shelf, intending to 'dissect it later'. Of course, dead fish tell you immediately that they're dead.

The man never kept a notebook or a ledger. He'd write on a slate and then, later, forget why he'd done so, and erase it. He had a phenomenal memory for the details of a creature but not a jot of common sense. I'd pick up half a jaw, missing every tooth and ask, what is jaw from and where did it come from, and he'd begin to tell me, then his mind wandered into minutiae. It was so frustrating, K'ndar, I wondered if I'd ever get ANYTHING done!

Once he left, I gathered a handful of people- let's be honest, I BEGGED for help in making the place organized and cleaned up. He'd left a small mountain of stuff. It took us a week to clean up in the office, not this one, mind you, we were in another building before Reorganization.

Once we had clarified the indescribable and threw out the completely decayed-it took weeks to rid the building of the stench-we took stock of what we had. It wasn't much, K'ndar. A few skulls, shells, packets of seeds, that sort of thing. In the desk I found little bits and scraps of hide, all insect eaten. He never did take to paper. Despite his avocation, he was a bit of an Abominator. Not passionate enough to get him kicked out of the job, but enough that he wouldn't use pencil and paper. I'd find his scraps of hide with notes like "55 cm wide, calcareous".

She laughed. Putting her head down, she said, "You can probably still see bare patches from where I pulled my hair out."

K'ndar laughed.

"I don't see any bare spots. What I DO see, ma'am, is a stack of books, paperwork everywhere, and it makes me wonder if I'll be spending my entire time inside! I see a microscope, something I've never used, so I'll need some training. I see a couple nets, what looks to be a trap for small animals, and oh! Now that I recognize, it's a smanda nest!"

Lefsa stopped, gobsmacked. "You're..it's YOU! You're THAT dragonrider! K'ndar! I didn't make the connection! You're the one who discovered the smandas!""

"Well, I 're-discovered' them. There's an Oldtimer at my Weyr who knew their name," he said.

She smiled. "They're fascinating beasts, K'ndar, and later on this week we'll go take a look at them. But anyway, what I want to say is, this is just the office I use for doing data research. I had such a job cleaning up after the old man that I didn't get much chance to get into the field and do what I love, turning over rocks and snaring what goes skittering from under it," she said. "So a great deal of what you see here is the end result of my going through his stuff, organizing, writing things up. Please don't worry, I understand your dismay. Unless Raylan...you'll be working directly under him as we don't really have an entire division devoted solely to biology..unless Raylan has some task for you, you'll be pretty much on your own."

He felt relief, but still. "Tasks?"

"Aye, tasks. Just because you're a staff scientist now, we still have tasks to do, just like when we were in Hold or Weyr," she said.

He shrugged. Tasks were nothing new.

"I have another building dedicated to keeping specimens, live critters, dead ones, that sort of thing. I don't mean to boast, but I don't spend as much time in this office now that I've got things organized. K'ndar, I wouldn't leave this place, but, apparently I'm pregnant, and my mate wants us to move back to his home Hold to raise the kids," she said, rather mournfully.

He heard her despair. Even more, it was in her eyes.

"You..this is none of my business, but is it what YOU want?"

Her eyes downcast, she sighed. "It's okay, K'ndar. I..I love my man. If making him happy means I give up living here at Landing, well, I'll deal with it. Maybe someday I can come back."

I am so lucky to have been born male, he thought. I wouldn't ever have to make that sort of compromise.

She shook her head and forced herself back to business. "Right. So what I intend to do for the next week or so, is show you how to make reports, how to write up your findings, that sort of thing. I've got things running smoothly, now, and honestly, once you get a schedule going, you'll be able to go out in the field and turn rocks over," she said. "I know it looks daunting. I have a messy desk, I admit, but there IS a system to my organizing. I think you'll do just fine, I've seen your work."

"You've seen my work? I don't understand."

"K'ndar, you've turned in notebooks and journals. Elene-what a gift she is! Landing is so lucky to have her. She had them printed and I have a copy of your notes from the expeditions. You're an accomplished artist, K'ndar, your drawings are clear and detailed. You take good notes and your work is legible. You made my work so much easier. What you'll be doing in here is not much different."

His jaw dropped. It had never occurred to him that his journals would actually be put into the library.

"Don't give me too much credit, Lefsa," he said, "The ones I turn in have been re-written, I tried to make them neat and organized. The originals? I keep them, and sometimes I have trouble reading my own writing. I've even had to go back to a site, sometimes, to see what the shaff it was I sketched."

She nodded, smiling.

"I think every biologist is like that, K'ndar. Re-writing something allows us to clarify what we logged in after the excitement of the day has quieted. You have the distinct advantage of having a dragon on whom you CAN go back to see what you missed. I would have loved to have that transportation. In a way, I felt a bit cheated, taking on this job and not getting to do precisely what I'd been hired to do. But, I'm a big girl, now. I have learned to take the good with the bad," she said. He felt an unspoken something from her.

"You...you really don't want to leave here, do you."

She turned to him, and he was frightened to see tears come to her eyes.

"I'm...I'm sorry. I didn't meant to intrude, or hurt you," he said, stricken.

They were alone, but she instinctively looked left and right to see if anyone was eavesdropping.

"No, I don't, K'ndar, and please don't tell my mate. No, I don't want to leave and I don't want this baby, but..." she sighed. "I'm not even sure I AM pregnant, but...I think I am."

This was getting too deep for him. There were many ways a woman could manage a pregnancy, he knew, but he had no experience, and furthermore, he wanted only to back out of the topic.

"I'm sorry," was all he could manage. Why did he feel as if he was stealing the job from her?

She straightened up. "Let's show you where specimens are kept," she said, a bit too briskly.

__________________________________________________________________________

He was sharing lunch with Lefsa when Francie came in, for once, without her fire lizards.

"Hello, K'ndar!! Lefsa, how ARE you?" she said.

"Fine." Lefsa said, and the tone in her voice struck a chord in Francie's heart.

The two women met eyes. No words were needed. She turned to K'ndar.

"So, what do you think so far, K'ndar?"

"I think I've jumped into the deep end of the dragon lake and am about to go under," he said.

"Why?" Francie said, shocked.

"He's seen my desk," Lefsa said.

Francie laughed. It made K'ndar feel better. She gave him a friendly clout on the shoulder.

"Silly lad, don't worry. ALL our workstations look that way. Trust me, Lefsa's got a good hold on the entire situation, she'll be leaving it in your hands all shipshape. You should have seen it when the old man retired-it was a mess," she said.

Lefsa grinned. "I mentioned it to him," she said.

"Mention! You couldn't miss it, the stink? Ooowee! But K'ndar, don't worry. Please. You already keep journals, correct? You make reports after flying a mission, right? You've always tracked your manhours, correct? It's the same thing, K'ndar, only this is more in the vein of science. I think you'll find that, here, you won't be so distracted with Weyr business, like sweeps. I know that there were times, before Raylan and I left my first weyr, that I'd be eyeball deep in research and had to drop it to go transport some Lord Holder to some far flung cothold to discuss important stuff, like how much dung to put on his lands. I'd never get back to it," she said. "Here? Oh, I agree, we all have things to do that aren't, strictly, science, but "no one eats for free". And, mind you, K'ndar, us dragonriders have a privilege that most staff, like dear Lefsa here, don't. We have time allotted to us, every day, to care for our most precious asset, our dragons."

"We do?" That was another worry that had lain deep in his subconscious. Dragons needed care every day, like a horse. When would he find the time to take care of Raventh?

"Yes, we do, and I'd be lying if there weren't some folks here that have already forgotten how vital a dragon is to the running of this planet! Fortunately, the council hasn't-and as long as Lord Lytol is alive, won't. He made certain that the charter for Landing had a big section devoted solely to dragonriders and the time they need to care for their dragons," she said.

He looked at Francie. "That had to have been painful for him," he said.

Francie nodded, somberly. "Yeah."

Then she shook her head to dispel the reverie.

"K'ndar, you're allowed a lot of time, set on your own schedule, to care for Raventh. In fact, if Lefsa is okay with it, I'd like you and I to go and care for our dragons. That is, if you're done with lunch," she said.

"I am!" He stood up and noticed Lefsa was finished, too. "Lefsa, can I take your tray?" he asked.

"Please! Thank you, K'ndar," she said. He collected her utensils and mug and carried the trays to the 'return' table.

On his return, he saw the two women in deep conversation.

"K'ndar, Lefsa would like to accompany us? She wants to meet our dragons," Francie said.

"More's the merrier!" he said.

_________________________________________________________________________

I like it here Raventh said.

Why?

It's just browns and blues and greens. No bronzes, no golds.

Less competition?

Not that. Bronzes and golds are so dominating. It's them all the time. I remember how F'mart was always laughing at me, because I'm smaller than Kenth. Even though ALL bronzes are big! But it doesn't matter here. And here, I may get a chance to mate.

Um...NOT..

I know. I won't mate with Motanith. I know you don't want to mate with Francie.

For CERTAIN not with Francie. And I have no idea how many other greens are here.

There's only six dragons here, counting me. There's another brown, another green, and two blues.

He stroked Raventh's jaw, appreciating all over again, as he did every day, how lucky he was to have the brown. A ways from him he could see Lefsa and Francie were still chatting as Francie harnessed Motanith. They were on the edge of the dragon meadow that paralleled his building.

She's harnessing Motanith?

Yes. Let's go flying with her.

Good idea, I'll go get the harness.

"Francie, are you going flying?" he called.

"I am! Lefsa's never been on a dragon, can you believe it? I'm going to take her for a ride! Want to go with?"

"Oh, yes!! I'm going for my harness now!"

Her fire lizards appeared. Siskin chittered a welcome and launched from his shoulder to go meet them. That helped, he thought, as he trotted towards his quarters. Fire lizards weren't especially heavy but didn't appreciate riding a running human.

There were two men at his building, with the bay door wide open. They were kneeling in the opening with a bag of tools at their feet.

He stopped, shocked. He knew he'd shut it after letting Raventh out.

"Hello, there, K'nard, is it?" one said.

"K'ndar, rider of brown Raventh," he corrected.

The other snickered. "So formal, he is," scathingly.

"Stow it, arsehole, the place'd be a better 'un if more folks had the civility they was raised with," the first snapped at the second man. "I'm Orlon, Grafton sent me and this uncultured yob here to fix the door opener. Is this the only one that isn't working?"

K'ndar shook his head. He turned and pointed at the one next to the entrance into his quarters.

"That one didn't work, either. But the one inside does."

"Aye, that's what's on the ticket. No matter, we'll have it set to rights here, soon enough. 'Tis an easy fix. How's things inside the quarters? Everything working?"

He thought of how hard he'd found it to make the toilet work, but that hadn't been a mechanical problem.

"Is there a way you can make it so that the toilet must be manually flushed?"

"Isn't the automatic flush working?"

"Yes...too well," he said.

?????

"My fire lizard. He knows how to open doors by flying in front of the lighted panel."

The two men laughed. "They're clever, aren't they? Where's your lizard?"

"He's with my dragon. He's the problem, though, if he learns how to operate the toilet..."

" "E'll be flushing 'er all night, what?" Orlon laughed. "I've seen it before, I've got a cat what does the same thing. Loves to see the water go away and taught hisself to flush it. Iffen I'd not rigged it, he'd have flushed half the river by now. And the Council'd be in my arse for wasting water. It 'll take a special switch, but I'll get her fixed, sure enough. Sometime later this week, okay?"

"Yes, sir, that would be fine, thank you."

Orlon elbowed the second man in the ribs.

" "Ear that, you knuckledragger? He calls me 'sir', me, just a mechanic. You'd be a better man if you were to remember the manners you were raised with. Or was you raised by a lout such as yourself?" he said the second man.

"Ah, go on with you, 'SIR". Me mum raised me right. You should know, she was your'n, too."