Chap. 267 Name Day

Chap. 267 Name Day

Raylan called the room to attention.

“I’d like to welcome you all to this, Landings’ first ever...well, first in our lifetimes, at least, conclave of scientists who all had something to do with this very strange and unusual beast before us. I don’t know how the Ancients did such symposiums, nor do I much care. It’s the end result, not the process, that is important, in my opinion. So, in that light, rather than just drop us into the middle of a series of reports, I think I’ll change up the schedule and have K’ndar report first. He’ll be telling us all how the animal came to us. K’ndar?”

K’ndar froze. Without knowing, his eyes darted back and forth, looking for an escape route. Me? First? Just like that?

Lefsa, sitting right next to him, elbowed him back to reality. “Yay, K’ndar!”

“Um”, he said as he got to his feet, unsteadily, his heart racing. He resisted the urge to bolt.

“Yes, K’ndar. I know, this is probably scary, but trust me, most of us here are scared to tears about speaking in public,” Raylan said, drawing K’ndar’s eyes, “why don’t you just tell me, and everyone here can listen in? And if there are any questions, people, please hold them until after K’ndar’s completed his report.”

I’m with you. Be dragon brave Raventh said, his confidence reassuring.

Siskin appeared and settled on his shoulder. Several people gasped. So many still had no experience with or had ever had any contact with either dragons or fire lizards, he thought. How odd.

Siskin was unusually subdued, perhaps cowed by the many people in the room.

“Is it okay, my fire lizard being here?” he said.

Raylan smiled. “I don’t mind, if it helps, by all means, he’s welcome as long as he minds his manners.”

Siskin says he feels your fear. He says he will protect you.

Ask him to be very quiet

He will be. Fafhrd is there.

It took him a moment to remember who Fafhrd was. Ah. Grafton’s bronze fire lizard, so alpha he was the equivalent of a Weyrleader’s bronze dragon. No one misbehaved in the presence of an alpha.

Focusing on Raylan, he stammered out the beginnings, stealing looks at his notes. I’m forgetting things, I’m repeating myself.

Lefsa, sitting next to where he was standing slapped his leg. That broke his concentration and he looked at her. “You’re doing great, K’ndar!” she said, softly.

He backed up, unconsciously, to escape her. Raylan’s expression was one of interest, settling him. He related Rand’s bringing the beast in, the arduous climb through the steam bath lowlands before reaching the rain forest. He described the rain forest’s pristine and primeval beauty, and the amazing athleticism of the beast. He stole a glance at the folks around the table. They are helping me, he thought, they’re looking PAST me, not at me. They’re looking at the beast, not me.

When he told them about his contact with the beast’s tail gland, and Siskin’s reaction to it, their roars of laughter chased off the last of his fears.

The fire lizard cheeped, proud to be the center of attention.That made everyone laugh even harder.

He finished rather abruptly, having run out of notes and words.

Raylan nodded.

“Are there any questions?”

There were several. They were intelligent and well thought through. He relaxed, feeling as if he was finally in amongst like thinking people.

Until Fleming waved an imperious hand to be heard. He was at the side of the room, not having had anything to do with the research and thus, not having a seat at the table.

“Why did you kill it?”

“Whaaaat?”

“Wouldn’t it have made more sense to bring it in alive? We could have kept in it a cave, maybe, see if it actually did bear live eggs.”

“I didn’t kill it. Rand brought it to me already dead. And, um, eggs? What eggs? I don’t know what you mean by live eggs.”

“Come on, lad, you should have pulled the eggs out, maybe set them under a chicken? You mishandled it, maybe? And you didn’t say it was dead,” Fleming accused.

Is this man for real, he wondered? And what is this ‘lad’ shit? I’m not a boy anymore.

Siskin, sensing the man’s disdain, tightened his tail around K’ndar’s neck. He reached up to stroke it into relaxation.

“I DID say it was dead. I said at the very beginning that Rand brought it in, dead. He’d killed it.”

“No, you didn’t.”

Before he could protest, Raylan waved a hand at him.

“Fleming, if you have something scientific to ask, please do. But you are a shipping analyst, not a scientist. And K’ndar DID relate, right at the start, that the animal was brought in dead.”

Several of the group echoed it.

“Well, I didn’t hear it. He didn’t say it was dead.”

“He did so,” someone said.

Raylan sighed and pressed his datalink.

“Jansen? Jansen, would you please replay the first portion of K’ndar’s report?”

There was a brief wait, then K’ndar’s voice came from all their datalinks:

“...on that morning, Leana, the Acquisition officer, called me to her office. Rand, a cotholder from Lord Toric’s Southern Hold, had brought in this dead animal, the one you see before you. He’d killed it the night before when it raided his boma.”

Oh, shards, he thought, I sound like such a dweeb. Do I really sound so strange?

Fleming was silent for a moment. “Well, I heard a different report, then.”

“K’ndar’s is the very first report., Fleming,” someone said.

The crowd muttered, softly.

“Fleming, if you have nothing more to ask, please, give someone else a turn.”

“I DO have another and it’s relative. Why didn’t he pull the eggs out and let them hatch?”

“Eggs?” someone repeated.

“There were no eggs, weren’t you listening?”

Leana, who was not only the Acquisition officer, but a green dragon rider as well, said, “Fleming, do you know ANYTHING about saurian or reptilian reproduction?”

Fleming whirled to face her.

“No, but I know about chickens and if you take their eggs and keep them warm and turn them over, they can sometimes hatch.”

“This beast is nothing like a chicken,” someone else said.

Their support was heartening. What a weird question, he thought.

“But it can’t be live bearing if the EGGS AREN’T ALIVE,” Fleming shouted.

His comment was so illogical, every scientist, and even those who weren’t were momentarily stumped.

Someone snickered. It was contagious. Soon everyone was repressing laughs. It was about to erupt in full out laughter when Raylan said, “Thank you, Fleming, perhaps that’s an avenue of research we can pursue in the future. For now, we have a lot of reports to get through, so if you please, K’ndar, if there are no more questions, what would you suggest we name this odd beast?”

Fleming turned on his heel and left the room.

K’ndar paused. Is my choice of name relevant, or should I wait until I have more data?

“Maybe I should wait until all the reports are in?”

Raylan shook his head. “That’s not necessary. Nothing says it’s carved in stone, K’ndar. What we’ll do is collect everyone’s suggestions and look at them all, then make a decision based on science and accuracy.”

“Yes, sir, that makes sense. Okay, then, I suggest the scientific name be Moschusaur arboreal. Moschus is Latin for ‘musk’, with the suffix of -saur as it appears to be saurian, and finally, arboreal as it appears to be almost completely tree dwelling. The common name could be musk lizard.”

“Musk lizard, that was what I came up with!” Nangela, the anatomist, cried.

The crowd laughed. Raylan nodded. Moschusaur arboreal popped up in italics on the datalinks under the topic “Names”.

“Thank you, K’ndar. That’s two names, but that’s okay, let’s continue. Nangela, as you were so quick to volunteer to go next, stand up, please, and tell us about this beast’s anatomy.”

Gratefully, he sat down, his shirt damp with sweat. Siskin wheeked, gently.

Thank you, little blue, he pushed to the lizard.

And you he said to Raventh.

Lefsa slapped his thigh. “You did GOOD!” she crowed.

He gave her a look, but she seemingly failed to grasp its significance. Purposefully?

The meeting continued.

He was grateful in retrospect that his trial was over and done with. Now I can listen and learn, he thought. I expected to be bored, but even that DNA report was fascinating..what I understood of it. It WAS its own beast!

But he had a problem. Whenever something the person doing their report said that piqued her interest, Lefsa slapped his thigh and whispered her opinion.

It got to the point where he was waiting for the next slap rather than absorb what had been said. Finally, he had enough. In between reports, he hissed, “Lefsa, please. Be quiet and let me listen.”

She looked surprised. “I was just commenting..”

“I know. But you’re interrupting my concentration. And PLEASE stop slapping my leg. Please.”

She flushed red. For an instant he saw anger in her eyes, as if she were about to deny doing it, then, crestfallen, said, “I’m sorry, K’ndar. I don’t even know I’m doing it.”

“I know. I don’t like it. Stop.”

He held her eye, trying hard to look determined without being mean. I really am beginning to dislike you, he thought.

“Okay. I’m sorry,” she said.

He squashed a twinge of regret. No. I want it to stop.

Raylan thanked the on deck speaker and looked at his list. “Jomoke?”

A man stepped out from the folks standing on the edges, behind those seated.

Raylan looked at him. “You’ve been penciled in. You have a report?

“Yes, sir, and no, sir. I’d like to report on my work on creating this replica. But first, I’d like to say something unrelated.”

Question marks on everyone’s faces.

Ah. So that’s the joker, K’ndar thought, disdainfully.

“Unrelated?” Raylan said, unsuccessfully hiding the fact that he had a good idea what was about to occur.

“Yes, sir. I’d like to get this off my chest before I go into the details.”

“By all means, sir.”

“Yes, sir.” Jomoke cleared his throat. He shot a quick glance at a spot way up behind the crowd before returning his gaze to eye level.

K’ndar, along with a few others, turned to look. Only because he had experience with fire lizards did he see Fafhrd, Grafton’s bronze. The fire lizard was tucked so deeply into an unseen crevice in what appeared to be an unbroken, curved ceiling that he was virtually invisible.

“K’ndar?”

“Yes?” he responded, dragging his gaze back to Jomoke.

Jomoke l cleared his throat again. “I owe you an apology, K’ndar. I’m sorry-and I’m ashamed-for tricking you. It was wrong. I will never do it again.”

Caught completely unawares, K’ndar stammered, “Um...um, of course, I um, accept.”

Jomoke flushed. Everyone in the room looked at him, waiting for an explanation of his very public apology.

“Thank you.” Jomoke said. Several strained moments of silence ensued. K’ndar was grateful that apparently, no explanation would be forthcoming.

Raylan broke the silence with a cough and then said, “Right, then. Jomoke, please report on this beautifully created replica.”

Jomoke’s voice changed to normal and he began to report. K’ndar heard none of it. What had just happened? Jomoke apologizing? That took balls, he thought. Was it character, this apology, or was it Grafton’s punishment? Was Jomoke being honest in his apology, or was he doing it because he’d been told to?

He looked back up to Fafhrd’s perch.

The fire lizard was gone. That was telling.

Jomoke had been told to apologize. So it may not have been heartfelt. But an apology was an apology, especially one made in front of so many witnesses.

Accept it, K’ndar, and carry on, he thought, his mind whirling with the ramifications.

Slapping his thigh, Lefsa whispered, “What was that all about? What happened…”

Startled, he almost snarled.

“Oops, sorry,” she said, snatching her hand back as if it had a mind of its own. Still, she looked avidly for an explanation.

He glared. “Lefsa. It’s none of your business. If you slap me again, I’ll move to another spot. Now let’s just listen.”