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.

Chap. 180 Sweet Grass Commune

Chap. 180 Sweet Grass Commune

The mountains forming the Northern Barrier Range were awe inspiring.

K'ndar couldn't tear his eyes from them. Yes, there were mountains bordering the steppe he'd grown up on. They were ancient, though, their heights truncated and their outlines smoothed by eons of rain and wind.

These mountains were youngsters in comparison, their fanged peaks softened only by mantles of snow. Trees grew dark and thick below the snow line. He knew, from seeing them from dragonback, that the mountains went on and on to the north in dark, forbidding ranks, clear to the horizon.

Sweet Grass Hold seemed an insignificant speck in their shadows.

They'd landed in a meadow, the knee high grass turning brown but still rich and lush for the free ranging livestock that had bolted at their approach. He could hear the horses, watching them from safe distance, snorting in alarm.

The air, while cool and fresh, seemed to be lacking something. Ah. That was it. Not a hint of salt spray. He was many kilometers from the sea. Despite his heavy flight jacket, the wind found its way inside, chilling him.

Francie stood by, respectful of his silence.

"How in the world did anybody find this place? What is its history?" he asked, finally.


"I don't know, K'ndar. Our history here goes back a thousand years. If you fly high enough, you'll see that the valley is closed at both ends. At the north end, a large waterfall creates the river. There's a turbine there that provides us some power. No one can remember when it was installed. At the south end, there are rapids that, when the river is low in the summer, are ferocious. Believe it or not, we have folks who have special boats, called kaks, to ride them-for sport! Someone a very long time ago built a bridge across it below the southern pass, but it is routinely washed out by heavy meltwater floods, or destroyed by trees being brought down by the river.

There are fords in many spots, but, again, it all depends on the river. The Lochsa has her moods,you see," Francie laughed, loving her birthplace deeply. I miss it, sometimes, but I am glad I don't live here anymore, she thought. Too cold.

"There are several trails, in some places no better than game trails, into the valley, but most of them entail crossing the mountains. There are two fairly level passes, conveniently, one on the south end and one on the north, which can accommodate wagons and draft beasts. I believe they were intentionally created by the first settlers. Sometimes, in the winter, an avalanche will close them for weeks, or until snowmelt! They're in deep ravines, so they have steep sides and are heavily forested. They are our main form of defense," she said.

"Avalanche? What's an avalanche? And, it's not winter now?" he asked, eyeing the snow on the mountain tops.

She laughed. "No, this is late summer here, K'ndar. The snows are there year round."

He shivered involuntarily. "Brrrrrrrrrrr".

"As for avalanches-it's like a mudslide, but of snow, and far more dangerous," she said.

He shook his head. "I'm not even certain what a mudslide is. The steppe is flatland, FLAT," he said.

"I'll show you a video of an avalanche, someday," she said.

She sat down in the deep grass. Her three fire lizards and Siskin were coursing over the grass half-heartedly hunting.

"Sounds to me as if your village was fairly self-sufficient," he said.

"Indeed, although that's not to say we don't have regular transactions with other holds and halls. There are some resources we just don't have here.

We keep to ourselves, normally. We have just about everything we need.

Sweet Grass was established by people who could be termed "Wanderers" but weren't. They were, um, escapees, misfits and dreamers, rebels from a Pernese culture they didn't or couldn't agree with. They were people who had no desire to kneel to a lord, or pay a tithe, or be constrained by what had become a very stratified society. Some were women who wanted to be scientists, not just breeders, some were men on the run after pissing off their lord, and some were craftsmen who just wanted to do their craft without having to worry about where their next meal was coming from.

The recluses of the world seem to gravitate here. No one bothers you as long as you mind your manners, do your part to keep the village going, meaning doing tasks as we did in Weyrlingschool, and share what you have if someone is short. Those who don't want to go by our 'laws' are 'invited' to leave. Most of the time they finally come around, but I know there are many who left and have never returned. Some come and go; some are born and die here. I'm betting my boots that there are people here who've never seen a dragon, although today they can see TWO!"

She glanced fondly at her green Motanith, who was watching something in the distance. She wasn't hungry, Francie knew that.

"We're a commune. We're the last remnant of what the first settlers called an 'egalitarian' society, with science and industry as the cultural basis. I learned early on about the settlers, about the starships, how Terra was rendered unlivable, there was even, at one time, a telescope, until if fell apart just from age.

Everyone is expected to read, to write-we have paper, for instance, although not as good as the stuff they're making now. Everyone is expected to teach their skill to children and as many adults as want to learn. Once a month we have a village get together where problems are brought out and discussed and, to the best of our ability, rectified.

One is expected to be productive. It doesn't matter HOW. Even digging up rocks and piling them into fence rows is a respected craft. We're so far off the maps that I'm the first person in years to have been selected for Impression. Because we never reported Thread fall, the Weyrs seldom came this far north."

Far over their head, skeins of avians called, lending a plaintive note to the wind.

"This isn't to say that we're all inbred yokels. Plenty of folks found their way out and moved to Lemos, or Telgar or further. But many of them come back to raise their two kids, bringing in fresh blood and fresh knowledge," she said.

"You never had Thread here?" he said, thinking of his thread maps. Surely they had thread fall here.

"Oh, yes, we had thread fall. It would die in the snow, which never melts on the mountain tops, and the grubs took care of what hit down here. Unlike so many of the old timers, well, remember, farmers were told to 'watch for grubs' and they all thought that meant to exterminate them! But not here. We may be backwoods, but we're not backward. A thousand years ago, a wise man observed the grubs eating thread, and so we were raised knowing that the grubs were our protectors. We may have lost the technology of the Ancients, but we didn't forget the Charter. We kept up on the events of the rest of Pern, mostly through immigrants. Oh, and from refugees, who found their way here when raiders terrorized their cot holds. Fax was just the most recent. Oh, the stories they told!"

"Fax! Is that what you meant by 'defense'? K'ndar asked.

"In more ways than one. We practiced with weapons and tactics; we kept up on protecting ourselves, even though people thought it was unnecessary. We'd gone ages and ages without as much as a frown from someone outside. Oh, it's not to say people didn't argue, and even fight, but it wasn't the same as that when Fax found our valley. You remember your history, I'm certain. Fax tried to add us to his list of conquered Holds," she said.

"Tried," K'ndar repeated.

Fax, a warlord on a planet that had no words for war, had attacked and absorbed seven Holds, murdered their leaders and rightful heirs of those holds and halls, even held Harpers hostage. Only dragon riders evaded him. He'd eradicated anyone of bloodlines that had held Holds for over two thousand years, to include everyone at Ruatha, save for Lessa, Benden's Weyrwoman and Ramoth's rider.

"Tried. We'd never kept our commune a secret, so it's no surprise that Fax learned of us. We must have appeared, well, we DO appear to be a flock of sleepy eyed sheep. He also learned how rich we are, in terms of what we produce. Furs. Woolen goods. Wood. Livestock! Wait until you see our livestock! He believed that we were just another cot hold, one seemingly unwilling to fight. I'm still amazed that he was able to subjugate so many other holds. It may be that ours was his first attempt at conquest. Whatever the case was, he badly misjudged us," she said.

"Was it actually Fax? Before he took Ruatha and the other holds?" K'ndar asked.

"No one knows. We'd never seen or heard of him and it was only long after the fact, long after Lessa brought Old Timers forward, that we began to understand what had happened. One day, seven men found their way through the Southern Pass into our valley. They claimed to be traders, but no one was fooled by that. Traders don't come bearing swords and no goods.

We didn't pay the swords any mind," she said, "we trained from childhood with our own. We just didn't swagger with them at our belts, displaying them as if they were giant penises."

K'ndar roared.

She sat down and pulled a seed head from the grass. She absentmindedly opened it, unconsciously judging its maturity and whether it was time to harvest. Not yet. Maybe another week, if it doesn't rain? Her three fire lizards returned and settled on Motanith's back. Siskin roosted on Raventh. They chittered to each other.

She saw something flit by, out the corner of her eye, but all she'd caught was the motion. The grass was alive with all sorts of creatures, so she dismissed it.

"They'd been in the village for about a week. We took them in as guests, each one lodged in someone's cottage, where they were fed and treated with respect. They asked all sorts of questions, how many adult males were in the home? Who was our Holder, how wealthy were we, how ready were we prepared to defend ourselves. They got noncommittal answers. No one wanted to boast of his or her wealth, and our leadership was…and still is a nebulous thing. We don't have a Holder. It's shared. We have a headman or woman who is chosen by the rest of the village, anyone over the age of 18 has a say. If everyone agrees on the same person, and he or she is willing to serve, for whatever length of time they choose, then…that's who the "head" is. And it's not always one person. If, say, someone knows more than everyone else on when it's time to, for instance, harvest these oats, well, then he or she is the leader of the harvest. Even the "headman" defers to that person in the harvest. It's a shared task, just like just about everything else. Many Pernese can't deal with that sort of freedom, but it works for us."

K'ndar nodded. It sounded…nice.

"The headman at that time was Andray. The marauders forced their way into his cottage, although, if they'd asked nicely, he would have let them in. They demanded he call the villagers together NOW, to inform the community that Fax was now our lord, and if we didn't obey them or him, we would suffer the consequences.

Andray was quite amused. He realized they were serious only after they stuck a dagger next to his throat.

Then he rang the community bell to summon as many villagers as wanted or were available, to hear him out. He began to tell the crowd that the men had lied to us; they were there to conquer us. He fully expected to have his throat cut then and there, but one of the raiders pushed him aside and told the assembled crowd that the village would be 'wiped out' if we didn't submit.

Someone in the crowd said that she'd had enough of the 'pig' she'd hosted and that they must all leave.

They began to threaten us, and we laughed.

Andray told them flat out, you are no longer welcome. Get on your horses. Now. Leave.

And within moments, their horses were brought out, all tacked up.

Because we outnumbered them, they didn't attack then. I think they left because they had no idea how to handle a village full of people who weren't afraid. One of them said, "You have cut your own throats. We will be back, this time in force," and they mounted and rode away…but not all the way.

There was an old couple who lived on the outskirts of the village. They were both in their 80's, I believe. The two were at their well when the men dismounted. The old man asked them, did they want water for their horses? They grabbed the old man and twisted his arm and said, "Swear fealty to Fax!"

"Whoever he is, he's a pig who I'll do nothing but swear at," he said. That was the excuse the raiders were looking for, any reason they could dream up in order to abuse and intimidate us into submission. Not a one of them had even a single redeeming characteristic. They were rough, cruel men, used to killing people," she said. She shook her head.

"Such brave men, attacking an old couple! "How dare you doubt Fax! We'll make an example of you," they said. They roughed the old man up, threw him to the ground, and shouted at the old woman that she would submit or watch her man be beaten to death. Instead, she ran away, into their barn. They laughed at that.

The old man asked them why, when we'd treated them with respect, they were hurting him, and they laughed. "Your woman ran away!" they jeered. But they'd made a fatal mistake, that of turning their backs on the woman. She was up in the hay mow.

Within seconds, she shot arrows into the backs of four of them. They had armor on their chests, but not the back!! Hee heee! Four of them, dead as hammers as fast as the woman could draw her bow!

The rest were so surprised at the sudden turn of events, they turned to see where the arrows had come from, and the old man-from the ground, mind you-grabbed one of the dead men's swords and stabbed the one closest to him in the back of his knee, severing the artery. No, he almost completely cut off the leg at the knee! THAT one fell down and squawked until he bled out…which didn't take long.

By that time, the entire village had arrived, every one of them mad enough to boil eggs. The two survivors put their backs together and began to threaten our people. But they were surrounded, and now they were the ones who were afraid.

Andray walked up to them, just beyond reach of their swords, and gave them a choice. Put down their swords or fall on them, because we weren't going to submit to anyone. He said, we will let one of you go. One of you will stay here, in chains, until he is ransomed. You choose. The other goes back to Fax. Tell him to go shaff himself," she said.

"Then they did something that shook us to the core. One turned to the other and without hesitation, ran him through with his sword," she said.

K'ndar gulped. "Just like that?"

Francie nodded. "Just like that. THAT is when we realized we were dealing with monsters that had no mercy whatsoever. We suddenly understood what we were up against," she said.

"The remaining raider got on his horse, spat at us and said "You will not be forgiven," or something like that, and rode off."

She stood up, brushing the grass off her butt.

"To this day, there are people who wish they'd killed him, too. But we aren't people to kill without reason."

"Did they come back?" K'ndar asked, hoping to delay wherever she was preparing to go and afraid he'd not hear the rest of the tale.

Francie laughed.

"Oh, they did. They came through the same pass. They didn't know we had many lesser trails into the valley, and we keep that to ourselves, to this day. Remember I told you the southern pass is through a narrow, steep walled ravine?"

K'ndar nodded.

"One day one of our village's Runners came in. She'd been on her way back when she sighted a 'host of armed men, riding toward the entrance to the southern pass, heading for our valley."

"And?"

"Well, the village had been prepared for such attacks for as long as anyone could remember," she said, grinning.

"We were prepared, when and who concocted the plan is lost to history. Long ago, the villagers pre-positioned boulders and limbed logs, on the slopes above the pass, piled up, held back only by bulwarks. We'd clear paths below the bulwarks, on those steep slopes, taking out plants and saplings. They'd been there forever, it seemed to me. The ropes were routinely inspected and replaced as they'd weather.

One of the jobs I had as a kid, like the rest, was to maintain the ridgeline trails to the deadfalls, as they're called; making sure it's easy to get to them in a hurry. You didn't go to a bulwark without inspecting it, making sure the bulwarks were still solid and ready to be dropped at a moment's notice. And four times a year, we'd have drills. When the headman rang the bell in a certain sequence, everyone dropped what they were doing and prepared for attack. Some ran to the deadfalls, some drew weapons, that sort of thing. We thought the drills were a nuisance, just busywork…until that day. Now? No one here will ever think that again.

"When they heard that attackers were coming, everyone ran to their stations, with bows and crossbows, and waited. Kids served as runners, tasked to keep the archers supplied. Teens were runners, too, tasked with maintaining communication between the two sides of the valley. That was a dangerous job, because it meant crossing in front or behind the attackers. But the boys, especially, they wanted that job. It was a challenge, you know? Who was the bravest?

The oldest folks, who couldn't manage the steep trails anymore, barred the doors of the cottages and waited, too.

Not long afterwards, here came the marauders. Legend has it there were about a hundred, give or take a few. As we'd trained for generations, we let the entire host enter the valley. They never looked up!

Andray's whistle was the signal to cut the ropes holding the piles back. WHACK!" she cried, imitating someone with a big axe, severing a cable, "and dozens of cables all cut at the same moment! Whooosh! Two hillsides, suddenly pouring down boulders the size of a pony, rocks, logs, roaring downhill FAST, both sides right at YOU, and you have NO where to hide from them!

It took out the entire column of raiders, blocked both ends of the ravine, trapping them. The ones who survived the original slide were then hit with arrows and bolts. They never knew what hit them. Some of them tried to escape,but the horses, the ones who could still move, poor things, couldn't clamber over log piles and boulders, and the raiders who tried to climb up the side were filled with arrows."

She exalted in the totality of victory.

"Then it was just a matter of shooting them all down, like shooting fish in a barrel. Only one escaped, he'd been at the back on a particularly fast horse, and it seems, the moment he heard Andray's signal, he bolted back the way he came. I guess he made it back and reported to Fax because we were never bothered again. We got some really nice horses and a lot more weapons in the bargain," she said, in a hugely satisfied tone of voice.

"The only regrets we had was that a lot of innocent horses had been hurt or killed, and some believe that one survivor was Fax. Too bad we didn't kill him then, our world would have been better off," she said.

"Wow, that's incredible! Is Andray still alive? I'd love to meet him," K'ndar said.

"No, he died about …" but she was interrupted by Coora, her bronze fire lizard, who leaped from his perch on Motanith with a loud screech. Siskin was right behind him, and the two males arrowed into the sky.

"What in the world?" he shouted.

Francie shouted, "Look! A gold! They're after a gold fire lizard!"

The gold fire lizard circled overhead, screeching, and then shot off, flying straight up.

"SISKIN!" K'ndar shouted, knowing it was useless.

"What in the world! We don't HAVE fire lizards here!" Francie cried, astonished. "They're chasing a gold! A queen! Here? This isn't fire lizard habitat, I've never heard of one here!" she said, equally confused.

He will be alright. Siskin and Coora are chasing Zeta Raventh said.

ZETA? Lindea's gold?

Yes. She followed us here. She's in heat.

You're joking.

No

K'ndar looked at Francie.

"Did Motanith tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"That gold fire lizard, it's Zeta, Lindea's queen," he said. "Raventh told me she followed us here," he said.

Francie looked troubled.
"She must be in heat, the way Coora and Siskin are after her."

"That's what Raventh said," he said, all sorts of explanations sparring in his head.

"Yes. Motanith just confirmed it. That's a mating flight," she said.

They could see the three fire lizards in the sky overhead. The gold stabbed her head at Siskin with a loud hiss, making the blue back off. But Coora was flying after Zeta with fierce determination.

"Francie! That's LINDEA's gold! Why would she be here??" he wondered, and then suspicion hit him. "Why would she follow our dragons all the way here, when there's plenty of males, wild and tamed both, close to home?"

"Maybe…to spy on us?" Francie said, shaking her head. "Ah, K'ndar. This is a tougher nut than I expected," she said.

Chap. 152 The Gatha at Ruatha's Lizard Show

Chap. 152 The Gatha at Ruatha's Lizard show

The air was redolent with the scent of roasting meat and fresh baked pies. The lanes between booths were crowded with people, their accents telling K'ndar they were from all over the planet.

They stopped in front of a magician, a young man semi-circled by children and adults.

"Pick a card, any card," he said, flourishing a spread hand of cards. A young boy hesitantly pulled a card from the spread deck in his hand.

"Like this?" the boy cried, showing the card to the man. The magician laughed and accepted the card. "No, laddie, next time, DON'T let me see the card, aye? But show it to everyone else. Just not me," he said, as he shuffled the deck. "Now let's try again," he said.

The child pulled a card from the proffered deck and showed it to the crowd behind him.

"The five of hammers," K'ndar thought.

"Now put it back into the deck, lad, anywhere, I'm not going to watch," the magician said, closing his eyes. He shuffled the deck after the card had been replaced and compacted it. Making a dramatic show of running his free hand over the back of the deck, he pulled out…the five of hammers.

"Is this your card?" he asked. The boy cried yes, yes! and the crowd clapped.

"How did he do that?" Glyena asked.

"I don't know, Glyena," K'ndar said, just as amazed. Something whispered in his mind, don't ever play cards with this man.

"Come on, let's see more!" she said, tugging on his arm.

They heard children laughing, and K'ndar caught a glimpse of a fire lizard hovering in the air.

It was Francie's lizard show. She was in costume, of course. He could see she'd added several tricks to her performance.

Her three fire lizards wore bells with Landing's colors and their names on them. They were lined up perpendicular to a slalom course of tall, regularly spaced pegs.

"Now, children, Keeso, Sisi and Coora are going to race each other on the pole bending race, just like we do on horseback. Ready to see them race?" she asked.

"Yes!" the children cried.

"Okay then…are you ready, my lizards?"

Coora and Keeso chittered. Sisi looked grumpy.

"Ready, set…go!" Francie cried. Coora and Keeso flew through slalom course. Sisi didn't budge from her platform.

Keeso, having completed first, landed atop the winner's platform. Francie slipped her a treat as she turned to the other green.

"What? Sisi! Why didn't you race?"

Sisi snorted.

Francie cocked her head as if hearing a tiny voice.

"What? You're HUNGRY?"

Sisi nodded.

The children watched, enthralled.

"Mebbe give her a treat!" one cried.

"But she didn't race!" another child protested, "She just sat there!"

"Now, Sisi, you must race, the WINNER of the race gets a treat. Do you understand?" Francie said to the green.
Sisi raised her wings and shook them.

"Does she understand you?" a child asked, enchanted.

"Yes, she does, fire lizards are very intelligent," Francie said.

"Now then, we're going to try this again. Line up, and this time you must race, Sisi," Francie admonished.

Turning to the children, she said, "You know what? I might need your help. I'm going to count to three, on three, I want you all to shout, "go!" Can you do that?"

One child cried, "Go!"

"Not yet, not yet, lassie!" a man cried, laughing along with the rest of the crowd.

"You hafta wait 'til she says "three"," chided the girls' older brother. The girl blushed.

The laughter quieted.

"Okay, now, the winner is the one who flies the course twice and lands here first. So, are you all ready to help?"

The kids all shouted, Yes!

Francie, working hard to keep from grinning, called, "One---two…THREE!"

The children shouted "GO!"

Coora and Keeso dutifully flew through the slalom course.

Sisi arrowed straight past the course, turned at the end and flew back even faster to land on the winner's platform. She raised her wings in triumph as the others returned.

The adults in the crowd roared, the children shouting "She cheated! Ma'am, she didn't go through the course, she just flew right past!"

Francie put her hands on her hips. "Sisi?"

Sisi wheedled.

"What do you mean, where's your treat? Yes, I KNOW you got here first but you didn't go through the course! That wasn't fair."

Sisi popped up into the air, then flew the course by herself. She then returned to the winner's platform and looked expectantly for her treat.

"What am I going to do with you, you naughty little green?"

Sisi popped into the air, chortling at her cleverness.

Francie looked at the crowd.

"Well, now I'm perplexed, children. What should I do? Does Sisi deserve a treat?"

The children were dumbfounded. They chattered to each other and called out solutions.

"No! She didn't do it right!"

"Make 'em race again!"

"But…Keeso and Coora are tired now," Francie said, "and Sisi didn't race fairly."

"Hold the green back, like a handicap," a man yelled.

"That's a good idea," Francie said, smiling at the man. She'd planned on saying it herself but it was always better when a member of the audience brought it up.

"Okay, we're going to try this one more time," she said to her fire lizards.

She held onto Sisi, and said, "Okay, children, you know what to do, now. One. Two. Three!"

The children shouted "Go!"

Coora and Keeso flew through the course. Francie released Sisi, who flew straight up. She vanished, going between and just as suddenly, reappeared and landed on the platform.

The crowd could not contain themselves. They roared, K'ndar and Glyena with them.

So clever, Francie, so clever, K'ndar thought.

Francie shook her head.

Sisi crowed, proud of herself. Treat?

"Okay, I give up. Sisi, you go sit on your platform. No treats for cheats. We'll go on to something else," she said, as Coora and Keeso returned to their platforms.

"That were right clever of her, ma'am, she's smarter than she looks," a woman called out.

Francie nodded her head in agreement.

"They're like kids, you know," she said.

Chap. 131 Turn In

Chap. 131  Turn In

"Good to see you, K'ndar," Raylan said. 

"And you, Raylan. I didn't think the survey of Western would take so long, but..it did. I've brought you a number of specimen bags. I need some more time to transcribe my field notes, though," K'ndar said.

"We're still processing Greta's samples, but D'mitran just needed to download, so he's already gone home to your weyr. Bet you're eager to do the same," he said.

"Yes, I am. But while I'm waiting, tell me about the paladen skeleton recovery."

"Ah," said the tech, "You can leave your sample bags there, I'll show you what the team did."

K'ndar tucked all the sacks alongside the reception desk. "Siskin…stay with the sacks. On watch."

The blue fire lizard hissed and curled up on the sacks, eyes whirling amber. 

Raylan cocked an eyebrow.

"Um…that's really not necessary," he said.

"Perhaps not, but while at the Observatory, someone went through all our sacks while we were out in the field."

Raylan gasped. "What…what…did they take anything?  Who did it, do you know?"

"I have no idea who, but whoever it was, they didn't take anything. I think it's probably because it was just rocks in Greta's sacks, and plants in mine. We think it was someone who knew we were out surveying, and thought we might have found artifacts and stored them in the sacks." he said.

"Noooo, oh, I hope it wasn't one of the staff. I can't believe it would be, there's only limited access to the site and everyone is vetted beforehand.  It's not like here, where anybody can come," Raylan said, distressed.

"As far as I know, the person who did the searching isn't a staff member. In fact, D'nis told me that Rahman and the rest of the staff were pretty upset by the idea. We have a good idea it was someone off the supply ship Stella Maris, and I can give you a good description of the man."

"Let's go into the drafting shop, then, we have software that can generate a picture. The supply ships are usually contracted with captains we know and have certified, but they come from all over Pern, so we don't always see them face to face.  The ship, that name is familiar to me, although I don't have anything to do with the contracting. But I'll pass this on to the Council, and let them get to the bottom of it," Raylan said. 

"So now I put Siskin on guard on the sacks, just out of a sense of precaution," K'ndar said.

Once again, K'ndar was glad of his fire lizard's memory. When the artist asked him to describe the spy, all he had to do to get the fine details exactly right was by asking Siskin to  show the man's face.

"That's amazing," the girl said, smoothing out an eyebrow on the face she'd generated on her monitor screen. "To have that sort of memory, and you can call on it? It must be like having two sets of memory."

"Three," K'ndar said, "My dragon's is here in my brain, too."

Plenty of room in here Raventh snarked.

K'ndar roared.

Raylan and the girl looked at him.

"My dragon just made a snide little comment about my having a lot of room in my brain," he said, laughing.

Raylan nodded. The girl was amazed.

"Dragons have a sense of humor?"

"Well, mine does. He's like a kid brother to me. Especially now, now that we no longer are stuffing them full of firestone, Raventh's mind has developed in big leaps. It's almost as if the firestone was a potion that numbs them to the danger of thread, but it also numbed their intelligence," he said. 

"That's what my wife says about her dragon," Raylan said, "but I thought it was just Motanith being a scamp. To add to the 'fun', her fire lizards are incredibly quick to pick up on things."

The girl sighed. "I always wanted to ride a dragon, and now I think I want a fire lizard." She spun the monitor around. "Is this your man?"

K'ndar was astonished. It was almost perfect.  "That's him, aye, it's him," he said, pushing the image to Siskin. Siskin yeeped an affirmative. "My fire lizard recognizes him. Even so, check with Greta, her fire lizard, Roany, saw him, too. You have a lot of talent, ma'am, that's amazing." 

She blushed, and smiled. 

"Should I send this to the Council?" she said, looking at Raylan for approval. 

He nodded. "You know what you're doing, you needn't ask for my permission. You're here because you're good at your job." 

She smiled again, proud of her talent.

"Come on, K'ndar, let's go look at the paladen," he said.

It was in another shelter, a big one. 

The skeleton was laid out neatly on the floor.

"We've got it all scanned into the database. It's 95% complete, the only parts missing are the last little bits of tail bone, a toe bone or two, and, oddly, the atlas, the part of the neck that connects the skull to the spinal column. We're creating a copy of the entire skeleton, so that we can store the original for further study, and will still be able to display it  in the museum…which still has to be built, so it will be here for a while."

K'ndar wondered if he should relate where the atlas bone went.

"Can you, um, regenerate the atlas bone?"

"You mean, recreate it  without seeing it? Yes, we can, just by conjecturing how it fit into the spine end and the foramen magnum, the part of the skull where it attached.  Judging from the structure of the entire skeleton, the atlas probably didn't serve much more than support for the skull. The paladen couldn't turn its head side to side, for instance, and had very little range in up and down. It's really not that big a problem, it's just odd that it's missing," Raylan said.

Being that B'rost and Lindea, both of whom knew where the bone was and still had neglected to tell him, K'ndar kept his knowledge to himself. 

"It looks a lot bigger, here in a building where we're not out in the open," he said.

"Aye," Raylan said, stroking the enormous skull, "It was quite a find, it was." 

"Can I come back and take a longer look, later?" K'ndar asked, suddenly wanting to get things turned in so that he could go home.

"Of course, just ask one of us to escort you. Now, I believe that the intake team has cleared Greta, and so I would like to see what YOU have brought in those sacks of yours," he said.

_____________________________________________________________________

"Oh, this is great," Raylan said, enthused. They were back in the reception area. K'ndar relieved Siskin of his guard duty. The blue fire lizard was on the examination table, watching K'ndar empty sacks with great interest. 

Raylan sorted through the plants carefully. "These, I'll send to the botany lab right now. Our taxonomist should be able to ID them. You did a fine job in keeping them whole, this one looks as if you picked it this morning," he said.

K'ndar grinned. His mind grappled with the concept that it was this morning but they'd been picked a month ago…do I say it that way? No. He didn't want anyone to know he'd gone back in time to get them. Unwittingly, but still…

"I had to get some more, a crawler'd gotten into the sack and ate the first batch," he said. 

"Arrrggh," Raylan said, aggravated.

"But Siskin caught and ate it. That's probably why he's so interested in unpacking the sacks…maybe there's another tasty crawler in it? Eh, little friend?" K'ndar said.

Siskin chittered in agreement. 

He pulled the skeleton out of the sack, laying the bones in a semblance of order. 

"Oh, this is in BEAUTIFUL condition. How lucky to find it cleaned but otherwise undamaged!" Raylan said.

Siskin chipped, proudly. "Siskin found it," K'ndar said, giving his intelligent blue the credit he was due.

"WELL DONE, Siskin, YOU found this, good lad, smart boy!" Raylan grinned, reaching out  unconsciously to give the blue fire lizard a scratching. 

Siskin backed up, hissing softly and spreading his wings in alarm. 

Raylan snapped his hand back.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm so used to Francie's lizards," Raylan said-to Siskin.

"Siskin. He belongs to Coora. And Keeso and Sisi," K'ndar told the blue.

Siskin sighed, drawing in his wings. He thought about it for a moment, then he bent his head to Raylan's fingers. 

"Sorry, K'ndar, I wasn't thinking," he said.

"That's okay. I don't think he'd hurt you," K'ndar said.

"Me neither, but I'm so used to that trio of pranksters of Francie's, I'm just one of the weyr, to them. Maybe it's because I saw them hatch, though they all impressed on her," Raylan said. 

Then he returned to the skeleton.

"Beautiful. Just beautiful. It looks complete, it's all here," he said.

"Do you know what it is? We saw an animal that had the same teeth, we saw it twice, and I got a drawing of it. If it's the same animal, the thing can FLY."

"Fly? Like a dragon? Or like a wherry?"

"No, it glides. No wings. It had a flap of skin, in between fore and hind legs, stretched it out like a sail. It ran right between me and Rahman and jumped off the cliff without a moment's hesitation and sailed, it even gained altitude in the wind, all the way across the strait. It's not a native, it had to have been brought here, like the horses and other Terran animals. But I've never seen anything like it in the book, or even heard a thing about it. Right now, I am guessing it is only on the Western continent," K'ndar said.

 He dug out the pertinent notebook from his backpack and showed him the sketch. 

"Huh. I've never heard of such a creature. Please tell me you got…"

"A sample?" K'ndar grinned, "I did. I have a tuft of its fur. Right…here," and pulling the precious tuft out of a pouch.

Raylan took it, carefully, feeling how fine it was, as light and insubstantial as gossamer. 

"Wow. This is fine, fine fur. It's even softer than mink. It's soft, and…shiny?" He twisted it in the light, but got only a bit of shine, as the sample was fairly small.

"Yes. It looked silver, like metal to me, but it can change color, because Rahman saw it but said it looked black, to him."

He pulled out another sack. "This might have some of its scat, too. It was on top of the caisson, in with a bunch of avian guano, but is obviously NOT from an avian." K'ndar added.

"OK. This goes to Miklos, right now," Raylan said, delighted. 

It was as if the DNA technician had never left his microscope. Scraps of half eaten meals were at his elbows, and his clothing looked as if he'd slept in them. He was a bit…rank, too. The man gave out the same monosyllabic grunt of acknowledgement, and stretched out the same hand for the sample without removing his eyes from his scope. 

K'ndar shook his head, wondering. How could someone live like this, he wondered. The man had no life, it seems, but no matter, he hoped that soon, he'd know what the flying animal was. 

"Any other goodies for me?" Raylan asked, as they returned to the reception desk.

"I have to transcribe my scribbles into new notebooks, for you, that will take a day or two," K'ndar said.

"Need blank notebooks?"

"I'm ALWAYS needing blank notebooks, but I do have enough, I think, to turn over to you," K'ndar said.

"Let's keep you ahead of the game. We're starting to churn 'em out, now, due to a lot of demand, and we're always happy to have them brought back in full of data." Raylan reached under the desk and pulled out several notebooks.

K'ndar took them with a feeling of gratefulness.

 
"Funny," he said, "Something as simple as a notebook, but so valuable to me."

Raylan nodded. "Think of it, in a generation, the kids growing up now, they won't understand how precious something like paper was to us."

K'ndar felt odd, thinking of that. He wasn't much beyond being a kid himself, but suddenly he was feeling like…an old man.

"You go on, now, K'ndar, go home, relax and hopefully by the time you've transcribed the data, we'll know just what that creature is. That, and Francie's been itching to talk horses with you, and I bet you'd like to ride Donal again," Raylan said.

"I will, I hope so, and I want to," K'ndar said.