Chap. 47 Place of
Marvels
K'ndar was spellbound. Landing wasn't just not quite what he
had imagined, it was more than he could ever have imagined.
Rahman had introduced him to Shawn, a 'techician' who worked
in 'administration.'
"I'll leave you in Shawn's capable hands, K'ndar, and
Shawn, let me know if there's something he needs," the old man said.
"Yes, sir. Good to have you back," Shawn said. The
elderly man walked away.
"Does he live here?" K'ndar asked, feeling
abandoned.
"Off and on. He moves around, a lot. Whenever he can
cadge a dragon ride, he does. He brings back reams of data. Too much,
sometimes. Keeps the astronomers and the cartographers busy, he does."
'Reams of data" meant nothing to K'ndar, although the
books he'd read mentioned data all the time. He was too shy, though, to ask
what data WAS. Or how many was a ream.
"What is 'administration?" he asked.
"Don't be too impressed, pun not intended," the young
man said, "It's just a fancy word for working for the equivalent of the
Weyrleader or the Headwoman. Landing is a strange beast, we're not a hold, nor
a weyr and we're far more than 'just' a hall. We do a little of everything,
except breed dragons. Yours, by the way, is a beauty, and where did you get
that handsome fire lizard?"
"My brother, Sandriss," K'ndar said, hoping that
Shawn would slow down his pace so that he could just gawk, "he's got a
breeding pair, as does his business partner. They're traders. Well, they WERE,
until Sand married and they had a baby."
"When did you Impress?"
"Just over a year ago, I graduated just before
Turnover."
"I'm weyr bred, like you, but I never had any desire to
be a dragon rider. Too scary, honestly."
K'ndar shook his head. "I’m not weyrbred, I was raised
on a cothold on the steppe. What Weyr?"
"Benden, " Shawn said, immediately impressing
K'ndar. It was the Pern equivalent of royalty. "But then I fostered at
Ruatha. I was twelve when they found Aivas , and I was brought here because I
had 'aptitude', so I've spent more time here than at either of them."
"Have you met…um.."
"Lord Jaxom? Of course. He and Ruth used to come here
often, in fact that's how I got to be here. But now he's fairly tied up with
being a Lord. And yes, Lessa and F'lar. But I was just a kid, didn't have much
to do with any of them. Here we are, come on in."
Shawn stood in front of a low, convex roofed building and waved
a hand at what appeared to be a solid wall.
An opening appeared with the whoosh of a panel sliding
sideways.
K'ndar stopped, transfixed. Shawn looked back at him,
expectantly.
"Um, do you mind," K'ndar asked, "if we go a
bit slower? I've never seen anything like this. How does this..this opening
just open?"
Shawn laughed. "I'm sorry, I'm so used to it that I
forget that a lot of you kids have never seen anything like Landing."
K'ndar felt a mix of emotions. He felt embarrassed at
appearing to be an ignorant, naïve yokel, and bridled at being thought of as 'just a
kid'. It didn't feel as if Shawn was intentionally being condescending, but he
still resented it. He just wanted to just stand and stare and absorb, and to
ask a hundred questions. He felt as if he were being rushed, and he'd only been
here a very little while.
"I've never seen anything like this. It's not at all
what I expected. I read "The Aivas Report" but it didn't say anything
about this…door?"
Shawn nodded.
"Yeah, again, I'm sorry, I'm rushing you, I guess. I haven't led
too many tours, just yet, and you are probably the first dragonrider I've met
that actually read the report. So, I'll slow down, take you around, and ask
whatever questions might hit you. Some things I just don't know, like how the
door works!"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
He lay in the bunk he'd been assigned. It was cool inside
the room despite it being windowless. The walls were of something that wasn't rock,
or wood, or any substance he had ever seen.
Virtually all the buildings were
the same size and shape, other than a tall, three story building, the purpose
of which he knew nothing. It drew dragons like a magnet but the Landing staff insisted
that dragons were not allowed on it.
His mind whirled with the things he'd seen.
It was all too
much, too complex. He'd been shown a printing press, clanking and whirring,
attended by a handful of people. They fed it paper and it spit out printed
text. But it made such a loud noise he had to cover his ears.
There were
'computers', with a dozen or more people sitting in front of lighted boxes.
Letters appeared on the front of the box. That, he was told, was 'data'. But
how could Rahman bring back reams of it if the letters weren't something one could
hold, or carry?
He'd seen classrooms, filled with people his age, and younger,
and older, learning from an instructor.
A team of men and women were in a
smithy, creating a 'machine' that they claimed would halve the amount of time
it took to cut a hayfield as long as you had several good draft horses to pull
it. They also were creating a machine
that would pick up the hay and turn it into 'bales'. Having cut hay, turned,
stacked and stored it in a barn for most of his childhood, he could appreciate
the usefulness of the thing.
He was rushed past the library, probably the one place he
knew something about and wanted, desperately, to spend time in. "Maybe tomorrow,
we'll have time," Shawn had said, more interested in showing K'ndar
another amazing thing.
He felt…stupid. He felt as if somehow, he'd been cheated of
something, but he couldn't put a name to it. The people here were unlike anyone
he'd ever met, almost as if they were from another world. Maybe they were like
the original settlers, from earth.
The formal education he'd received had been
enough to teach him to read and write, do math, understand physics, and
appreciate biology, but it had been in a world where light came from glows or
candles, and one wrote on slates or hides. The room he was in had light emanating from
some source he could not see. One waved a hand, or even, in some cases, said
the world 'on' or 'off' and the light came on or went off as ordered. In fact,
he'd played with that feature for at least five minutes, just amazed. The writing materials he'd seen were paper and
pens, or the lighted boxes where there was nothing at all to write ON, but
still, the front of it had letters that appeared as if from the air itself.
Where did the light come from? How was it that the air
outside was hot and muggy, and yet here in this room, without a window, was
cool and dry?
He felt small. He felt insignificant. He felt…claustrophobic.
Are you afraid?
He felt a surge of emotion for Raventh.
Yes. There is nothing
to fear here but yes, I am afraid. I feel small. Like I just hatched. Is Siskin with you?
He is now. There are
lots of fire lizards here, he's been playing with them. He likes the greens. They like him even better.
K'ndar laughed. But then the flood of insecurity and low
esteem returned, flooding his soul with despair.
I am so stupid, he thought. No brighter than a wherry. These
people are my superiors.
Don't be silly. You
are a dragon rider. MY dragon rider, and I am Raventh, the best brown ever.
Yes, but…these people are not and they aren't like
anyone I've ever met. I'm…lonely. Like I'm not even like them.
With a burst of clarity, he suddenly understood the
Abominators, the people…like Jenmay, the Oldtimer, who violently resisted and hated anything Aivas had ever introduced to
Pern. They were still wrong, in his opinion, but he now could understand why
they felt such antipathy towards 'modern' ways. They were afraid, like him. Because
they did not understand any of it.
Come out. Come be with
me. It's a warm night. I have a comfortable place to sleep. You can sleep with
me and Siskin. Siskin will protect you from the little night creatures. He eats
them. I will protect you from the big ones.
That was the best thing he'd heard all day. He got up off
the bunk, waved a hand at the wall. It obediently opened up, he found his way
outside, and headed for his dragon.
He curled up between Raventh's strong forelegs, the dragon's
head blotting out the night sky. His
back against Raventh's warm, broad chest allowed him to feel the brown's
strong, slow heartbeat. Siskin chittered sleepily as he stretched out beside him.
Raventh curled his neck around K'ndar, cradling him.
You are mine. And I am yours. We love each other.
He looked at the familiar stars wheeling overhead, and
slept.
