Chap. 243 Puzzles Unsolvable

 

Chap. 243 Puzzles unsolvable

K'ndar stood up to stretch his back. He'd groomed Raventh this morning, in order to spend the afternoon working. It was almost quitting time.

I'm not used to sitting so much, he thought. This can't be good for one's body.

But I have to admit, I am getting the hang of doing research. There's so much information in the database, it's like I'm just stirring the surface of a vast ocean. I've never been capable of such focus, where is this coming from?

He stretched and yawned. He felt as if he'd awakened from a deep sleep, having concentrated on trying to reconstruct the creature the jaw had been attached to. Sketches scattered his desktop.

Someone..probably Miklos, the geneticist, had extracted DNA from the scant amount of tissue remaining on the jaw, and done an assay on the sample. He had also written a brief description of the tissue.

A worm, most likely, his terse report said. An annelid, specifically, a segmented worm. But a worm with a jaw like that? A worm that had to be at least ten meters long, judging from the size of the cone and scant bit of tissue at its base. The report mentioned that the collar of tissue at the base of the jaw had spicules in a ring around each segment. The spicules could be moved up and down, but not laterally. Some had small particles of sand in them.

In addition the bristles at the top of the cone contained bio luminescent chemicals.

K'ndar had tried to imagine what it would do with such structures. With that jaw, it's not very aqua dynamic. It had to be a burrower, lurking in the sand with only the jaw and the traps exposed. That would make sense. This thing must live deep, deep in the ocean, for even the dolphins to not know what it is. Bioluminescent bristles at the top? He tried to imagine why.

He rummaged through the sketches he'd made. How could this beast actually function? How is this creature put together if all you have is the mouth parts? Suddenly they all seemed to fall into place.

Ah. I know how a worm is built. A gigantic worm, with a jaw out of nightmares. It lays in wait in the Stygian darkness of the abyss. It is in a burrow, a vertical tube. The bristles at the top of the cone are the triggers, but they're fairly stiff. They don't wave around. They have to attract attract prey with the light. Everyone is familiar with nocturnal flutters, those insects that are attracted to light sources. And I'll never forget seeing the blue glow in the sea, that one night when the ocean lit up. It has to be the same thing. Some fish in the dark depths, seeing the lighted bristles, thinks it's something to eat...and snap! it's dinner.

Do the lights move? One flashes, then the next, then the next and the next, creating a line of moving lights? Or is it lit up all at once?

"Arrrggg," he said, frustrated. How can I find that out? I don't know the first thing about the mechanics of bioluminescence. How can one ever see the entire worm?

It's not possible. Unless someone figures out how to dive so deep in the ocean that even light is gone, I'll never really know what this creature looks like.

He sat back down and pulled the datalink towards him.

"K'ndar of Landing", it said, as if in response.

Feeling a bit of pride in now being able to manage the electronic gizmo, he said, "This is K'ndar, who calls?" The thought struck him, wouldn't it be nice if the thing used the caller's voice?

"Risal in Flight Ops," said a familiar voice.

"Hello, Risal!! How was your Turnover?"

"Quiet. I stayed here. Ops has to have someone 24/7 and I didn't mind pulling other people's shifts, so they could be with family. How was yours?"

Feeling guilty that he had been one of the 'other people, he said, "Oh, you know. Boring. I love my family but after two days I was ready to come back."

She laughed. It was the infectious sort, where, even if the joke was on you, you couldn't help but join in.

"I hear you. I have family, of course, but I wasn't interested in going to visit. They're fairly stodgy, you know? Farmers. They're still not quite comfortable with the idea of a girl scientist. Anyway, I'm calling with a request for transport. It's not your turn, yet, but the person asked for you specifically. He wants to leave tomorrow at the break of day."

"No problem," he said. "I'm neck deep in research but I'll be happy to take someone. I have to get the kinks out of my butt."

"Wanna know the details?"

"Um, sure."

"Rahman, our starsmith. Astronomer. He asked specifically for you," she said.

"OK!! Rahman is my mentor, I'll always be happy to take him where he wants to go. I bet it's to the new telescope on Western?"

"Yes, indeed. I had someone else scheduled for transport, but he said going now wouldn't be worthwhile, being they're 12 hours behind us. Are you okay with the time change? Because he might want to keep you there a few days," she said.

He hated the time change. The last time they'd been there, it'd taken days for his brain fog to clear. Sometimes there were disadvantages at being able to teleport clear across the planet in matter of seconds.

But this was Rahman, a very kind and wise man who'd mentored him from the very start.

"I'll manage the time change, Risal. Let him know I'll be in the dragon meadow at 0600 sharp."

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"I have to wait until dark before I can use the new telescope, K'ndar," Rahman said as K'ndar helped him dismount. "I have been gradually training myself to the time change, but you have not."

"I admit the time change does mess my mind up," he said. "But I'm glad I had notice that I'd be bringing you here, so I stayed up very late last night, to try and adapt to the time here," K'ndar said.

"Unfortunately, our bodies don't work that fast, as you probably already know. The time change can be deleterious to one's health. I try not to move too often for it. But this time, K'ndar, I can release you, if need be. If you need to return to Landing, I'll be fine. Now that the telescope is up and operational, we have the ability to link to the Yokohama. I can call you when I require transport back to Landing," the elderly astronomer said.

K'ndar decided. Now that he was here, there were things about Western that he'd not been able to fully research the last time he'd been there. That time he'd been with D'nis, D'mitran and Greta on a survey. This time, he was free to explore as he wished.

"No, sir, one, I'm officially tasked to transport, although I'm always willing to take you wherever. You've been good to me, sir, and I feel honored that you ask for me specifically. But this time, I have a datalink, too, and I brought some work with me. I would like to go inland, return to some of the areas we surveyed the last time I was here," K'ndar said.

"Whatever you decide, then, K'ndar, is fine with me. I suggest you take a nap; I usually do, to offset the time change, and I'll be making some observations through the new scope. Would you like to look through it?"

"By the stars, yes! Just looking at the shelter you built for it, it must be enormously powerful."

Rahman smiled. "Oh, it is, K'ndar, it is a dandy. Let's go get ourselves settled into our quarters, and I'll acquaint you with the facilities. They're not extensive, not even as much as Observatory #1, but I'm happy to say we don't have some of the ne'er-do-wells as last time. Remember Tovar? Toric's man? Have you heard anything about him?"

"No sir, but it's not as if I keep up on other dragonriders, especially now that I'm working and living at Landing," K'ndar said. "But I have a feeling he crossed Toric...and one doesn't cross that Holder without repercussions."

Rahman nodded. "That is for certain. So, be at the door of the observatory in two hours, that's when we'll start doing the observations, and I'll show you around the galaxy."

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Observatory 2's telescope was in a small building built atop a sturdy basalt outcropping. The administration, support, dining hall buildings and dorms for the staff were surrounded it, set in such a manner that they blocked the wind to the observatory. They'd been built with the plentiful rocks that littered the entire coast.

"I'm always amazed at how stonemasons can fit round rocks so tightly together," K'ndar said, admiring the stoutness of the buildings. "These look as if they could withstand a hurricane."

"Or its storm surge, but Western just doesn't see hurricanes," Rahman said. "This really was an outstanding site, K'ndar," Rahman said, "If you discount the fact that the observatory base is native rock, the site is almost as if it had been planned out for us."

"By who, sir? The Ancients?"

The old man nodded. "Someone back then, K'ndar, had plans for Western. It may not have been for a telescope, but...I'm certain you remember that bulwark you discovered on the northern island. I'm still trying to understand what its purpose was. There are few clues. The most intriguing being what the dolphins say about the Strait, that seaway that splits Western in two. You know how fast the current runs through it, as well as the winds. I've talked to the dolphins and while they have no memory of any sort of construction, they do say there is 'something made by humans on the seabed of the Strait."

Excitement flashed in K'ndar's mind. "Something? Something? Like, oh, something?" his words stumbling. He laughed at his repetition.

Rahman laughed, too. "They say it is not rock, nor wood or anything organic. It has deteriorated, I imagine, perhaps rusted away if its metal, but they 'see' a structure to it. They can't describe it better than that, and they do not want to go through the Strait unless absolutely necessary. The current is so treacherous that they forbid their youngsters to go through it. Despite that, there have been occasions when a young dolphin has attempted to transit the Strait on a dare. Kids! Human or dolphins, young males seem to have this need to push the limits of common sense, or parental restrictions. So far, it seems, not a young one has survived the Strait," Rahman said. "Their bodies have exited the Strait much the worse for wear."

K'ndar nodded, remembering times when he was dared to do something risky or stupid in order to 'show his balls', as Uncle Fland would say.

"Killed? How?"

"Smashed into the cliff sides lining the Strait. Even expert seafolk avoid it, despite the fact that transiting the Strait would cut days off their trip around Western."

"How do the dolphins know, then?"

"There are adult dolphins who have made it from end to end, but only accidentally. Sucked into the maw of the beast, you could say, so any observations they've made have been short and quick glimpses, snatched in the few seconds they could spare as they tried to survive the trip. I doubt they'd be able to stop and look, no matter how strong a swimmer one might be."

K'ndar sighed, realizing that any chance of getting a better look at the 'thing' would be impossible.

"I remember seeing entire trees being tossed like matchsticks in the Strait," K'ndar said, "I'd be terrified to try to go through it. A dragon could manage the winds, I think, as long as he was going with the wind."

Not this dragon. I'm a good flier but those winds are too fast

K'ndar laughed. "Raventh respectfully declines to try," he said.

"He's a smart dragon, K'ndar, don't doubt his wisdom."

"I never have, sir."

__________________________________________________________________________

Rahman was poring over star charts as several other staff members were adjusting the telescope for the evening's observations. The elderly man seemed as chipper and bright as if he'd just had a good breakfast.

The telescope loomed over them all. It was enormous. It poked its snout out through a large opening in the ceiling. Through the gap, he could see the stars beginning to glimmer. They were different than his familiar constellations at home in Southern. He'd tried to learn them, but Weyrlingschool and subsequent duties had kept him from committing them to memory, although he could identify some of the major stars.

"Do you know your Northern constellations, sir?" one of the staff members asked.

"I'm sorry to say no, ma'am," he said to the woman. "I was born and raised on Southern, I know the southern hemisphere's almost by heart. When I was a kid, I'd go exploring on the steppe, I'd go out for a week on my horse. You had to be able to navigate by the stars," he said.

"Don't you learn them in Weyrlingschool?"

"Not really, ma'am. Dragons are diurnal. They can fly after dark, but don't really care to."

"That makes sense," she said. "You're from the steppe? I didn't know there was a steppe on Southern," she said.

"Yes, ma'am, in fact most of the southeastern part of Southern is steppe, right to the southern coastline."

"Huh. I thought it was all forest and jungle," she said, "And you'd ride out all by yourself? For a week?"

"Yes, ma'am. I liked to explore, to see the animals that the Ancients brought, there's lions, horses, cattle, pronghorns, a very fast cat called a cheetah. And there's our whers, and snakes and wherries, and lots and lots of birds. There are insects, called locusts, that come in their millions. They're ravenous, eat everything, even the boots off your feet. But I've only seen the locusts once in my entire life, so I think they're not very common."

"Brrr," she said, then her face turned to wistful. "Even so, I'd love to see it, someday," she said. Her eyes had more than just a question in them.

It sounded like she was hoping for an invitation.

He declined it. She was his mother's age.

She waited for several embarassing moments for his response. Maybe the cliche she'd heard, that all dragonriders were horny, was wrong. Or maybe he was gay?

"Weren't you afraid?" she asked.

K'ndar laughed. "Well, I was a kid. I was too overconfident to be afraid. But honestly, the animals left me alone. The biggest fear was getting lost. It was easy to get lost out there, because most of the steppe is featureless, it's flat, for the most part, and there are no forests, very few trees, except along water courses. One time I did get lost, but my horse proved smarter than me. I gave him his head and he went in the one direction I would never have gone and took me home."

The woman laughed. "I had a horse like that, she was smarter than me."

"Ssssssssssshhhhhhhhh, " someone said, "We're starting the observation."

Rahman was atop a lift, looking through the telescope. As he spoke, a staff member was taking dictation. "I am observing Nebula Messier 16, known as the Eagle Nebula," he said. He turned his head to look down at K'ndar.

"Before I get too involved, K'ndar, would you like to take a look?"

"Um, yes, please," K'ndar said. He refrained from saying that what he really wanted was to go back to his room and get some more sleep. But one didn't often get a chance to look through such a giant telescope, and this was, after all, Rahman acting as his guide.

Rahman lowered the lift and beckoned for K'ndar to get on. It raised back up with a sigh.

"Linked with Yokohama, sir," one of the assistants said.

"The beauty of this telescope, K'ndar, is now we can link with the scopes on the starship. So it's as if we have not one relatively small telescope, but one enormous one, that stretches from here to the starship. It allows us to see so much deeper, so further back in time. For instance, this beautiful Eagle Nebula."

Rahman called up a picture of the nebula.

"Now this, K'ndar, is a picture of what Messier 16 looked like when the Terran astronomers discovered it. That was well over 2500 years ago, and it's changed since then. That, and our view from Pern is much different. We are a long ways from Earth's viewpoint," he said.

"Whoa," K'ndar said, "It's...beautiful. It looks like this now?"

"Well, no. This picture is enhanced with half a dozen filters, for instance, you'll be seeing it tonight in the infrared. I can say that the gasses forming the pillars have dissipated in almost three millennia. I just wanted you to see it as the Earthers saw it, and how we can see it from here."

"It is how far from us?"

"About 5200 light years.

"This is..wonderful," he said, struck almost speechless. "This is the remnants of a supernova?"

"We theorize, and I am proud of you for knowing it. You read the astronomy book I lent you!" the star smith said.

"Yes, sir, but I've only looked through our scope at my Weyr. This is incredible."

"It is. It's what makes my job so worthwhile," the astronomer said.

"Now, look through the aperture, and see the difference time and distance have done," the man said. "This is the view of the nebula from Pern's point in space."

"It's not so awe inspiring," he said.

"No. But it is certainly important from an astronomer's point of view." Rahman said.

K'ndar could have spent an hour looking. But he could hear someone on the floor beneath their perch sighing impatiently.

"Now, K'ndar, I must apologize, because I have to run you off. I've a full night of work to accomplish. I won't be needing you tomorrow, so you're free to do as you please for the next few days," Rahman said. The lift lowered slowly.

“No need, sir, I understand. By the way, what does ‘eagle’ mean?”

“If I recall correctly, it’s a Terran bird.”

“Oh. It didn’t look like a bird to me,” he said.

“That’s astronomy for you. We’re not very creative. We run out of names very quickly,”Rahman said.

"No need, sir, I understand," The lift dropped him off at ground level. He wasn't disappointed. K'ndar knew what he wanted to do. And where.