Chap. 150 The White Dragon

Chap. 150 The White Dragon

K'ndar wondered if he'd ever seen a more beautiful dragon.

They'd come out from between on the other side of the valley where Ruatha's Gather was being held.

The first thing he saw was the large meadow full of dragons and their riders. In the same manner of horsemen, the crowd of riders were examining other's dragons from all over the planet. 

In the middle of a large crowed was the famous Ruth. Even from height, he was unmistakable.

They landed on the edge of the large group of dragons.

"Thank you for the ride, K'ndar, and I insist on repaying you for the favor," Terilyn said, after dismounting.

K'ndar grinned. "You'll have to work hard, then, because it was my pleasure," he said. 

"Well, I will, because otherwise I would have been stuck for transportation. I probably would have been able to find another dragon, but my rental agreement says I have about an hour to set up before the official opening of the Gather, and I wouldn't have made it without you…and Raventh." She patted Raventh's leg.

"How are you going to manage without a canopy?"

"I rented one. I contracted to rent one several months ago, when I decided I was going to come here for the Gather. Ruatha's gotten so big they decided to go in all the way, so they rent canopies, chairs, that sort of thing.  Someone has supposedly set it up and I HOPE my crates were delivered," she said. "It's fairly expensive to do it this way, but cheaper than sending my canopy  by ship. If it works out as agreed,  all I need do is set my wares out," she said.

He fought hard to keep his attention focused on her. He was itching to talk dragons with the many riders swirling around the meadow.

She could see it.

"Why don't I leave you, then, so I can set up in time?" she offered.

K'ndar was relieved. Then, in a big brother tone of voice, said, "Glyena, why don't you go help her. I'll catch up with you in a little while."

Glyena looked a bit disappointed, but the look in her brother's eye suggested she obey.

"I could use the help, Glyena, and once it's done, then you can have fun in the Gather, besides, nothing will really start, until the opening ceremony," Terylin said.

"Okay," Glyena said, resigned to her fate. K'ndar looked her in the eye.

"This is just another task, a little one, sis.  You will have plenty of time to run without heel ropes. Now go. I'll be there in a little while."

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Glyena helped Terilyn set up her booth.  She'd shipped two large crates, one held personal items along with a stool, a disassembled table and easels from which to hang the tapestries her partner had made. 

"No wheel?" Glyena said, "I remember the game Putzu played with it, the last time I was at a Gather, remember?"

Terilyn grinned. "That was fun, wasn't it?"

"It was! So why didn't you bring it this time?"

"Too heavy! It's one thing to cadge room on a wagon going to a Gather on Southern, but sending it by ship costs more than I can hope to make. That, and I didn't trust seamen to handle it with the care it demands. It's almost two hundred years old, they don't make them like that anymore. Instead," she said, opening the other crate, "I brought my pots, of course-they always sell, and I'm trying to make a go of these." 

Packed gently as eggs, the crate had dozens of courier bells nestled in amongst a rainbow of  pots. There were also harnesses for fire lizards, with badges, a few select ones already painted with the colors of the major Holds, Weyrs and Crafthalls. 

"Why are most of them unpainted?" Glyena asked, gently touching one of the bells.

"So that someone can order his or her particular pattern, or color scheme, a name, or as your weyr has done, numbers for each fire lizard," she said, a little worried about Glyena handling the bell. She'd packed plenty enough, taking into account the possibility of some breaking, but still…

Once someone pays for a bell, I'll paint it up for them."

"Maybe I shouldn't touch them,"Glyena said, withdrawing her hand, "Mum used to say I could be clumsy." 

Her words soothed Terilyn's worries. "Perhaps, and thank you for not touching them, but if you can braid leather like you did on the bridle, I wouldn't call you clumsy-just young."

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Siskin, perched on his shoulder, made whimpering noises.

It's Ruth. He wants to meet Ruth. I don't know how he does it, but Ruth attracts fire lizards.

How about you? Do you want to meet Ruth?

Maybe. Right now he's got a bunch of humans around him. As it is, he's got a dozen dragons already trying to chat with him. I see Motanith, she is here  Raventh said. 

I'm not surprised. In fact, I bet we'll see a lot of dragons we already know.

 Francie is here! he thought, I bet that she has going to have her fire lizard show. It will be a hit with the kids.

He joined the crowd of riders grouped around Ruth. Most were in deep conversation. He saw badges on several riders, indicating their weyrs. Most of them were from North, but a few, like him, were from the Southern Continent. 

The conversations swirled about him as thickly as the fire lizards. He began to eavesdrop, mostly because he didn't know a soul. Dragonriders were like any other specialty, a gathering within a Gathering.  He'd heard a lot of 'There-I-Was" gossip in his short career as a rider, but had never really done any himself. He was too introverted to boast. 

"Then he swooped almost straight down, me hangin' on for dear life, busted buckle flapping around fit to break my goggles."

"We came out between and for a minute I thought, what? But right there, it was right underneath us."

"She said what? That's insane!"

"He makes the best ale, my man, the best on Pern."

"Big. BIG. Biggest wherry I ever saw."

"Yeah, Benden is good wine, but…I still think Tillek's has more substance, you know?"

"She said I'll always have a scar, but scars show that you've lived, man, lived."

"Don't know about that, but white? I know, I know, he's more than proven himself, but I dunno. There's just something odd, about a white dragon."

"This is the tenth or twelfth time I've seen him."

"Too small for me, but…"

K'ndar moved gently through the crowd.  He just wanted to SEE the famous white dragon, Ruth, up close.

Then he was there.

Ruth. The white dragon. Festooned with adoring fire lizards, his eyes whirled a contented blue, which only accentuated his unusual color.

"Okay, Siskin, but don't be a nuisance," he said, and the blue whirred away to join the other fire lizards.

 The first thing that surprised K'ndar was how small Ruth was. 

Not much bigger than a good sized draft horse, he thought. But his color!

Ruth wasn't white, as in a piebald horse, nor was he albino. Ruth, as he'd matured, had changed to a deep ivory, with subtle undertones of all the dragon colors. They gave the ivory color a depth that looked almost iridescent.

"By the egg, he's beautiful," K'ndar said, aloud.

"You think so?" said the man next to him.

"I do. I know, there's some that think he's a freak, a mutation, but I don't care, to me, he's gorgeous," he sighed. 

"You're right about that, he garners a lot of comments, most of them unkind ones."

"To this day? That's strange. I don't understand some people, I'd heard that there were some that doubted he'd ever amount to anything, now the whole planet knows who he is and what he can do. Nasty comments about one's dragon? That's just bad manners, especially if they're coming from riders."

"You don't hear them very often, anymore, not after Aivas. You are…okay with Aivas?"

"Okay? I think it was the best thing that ever happened to Pern. No more Thread! 

Technology coming to us, making life better? I mean, come on! paper instead of hides! Solar panels providing electricity!  I have books, now, books! What's wrong with that? But-I know what you mean. Abominators would still have us walking around on our knuckles," he said, heated.

"Yes. Abominators, some are even dragonriders. Most who feel that way don't come here," the man said. 

"That's fine with me. If nothing else, Ruth, Aivas, Lord Jaxom, the weyrs-kicking the Red Star into a different orbit has meant I no longer have to fight Thread. I can have a LIFE, now. And it's been nothing but good for my dragon. Since he quit eating firestone, his memory, cognition, even his personality, has improved a thousand fold. He makes jokes, now. He wants to know more, more. Every day, he's 'why' 'how' 'what'. It's like his mind has opened and he works every day to stuff more in," he said. 

"I've found the very same thing! All that noise, about a dragon having only a three day long memory? That's nonsense, it was always nonsense. Fire lizards have memories generations long, dragons should have them, too," the man said.

"By the egg, he's well put together," K'ndar said, shaking his head in admiration, "'ll bet he's fun to ride." 

"He is that. Is this the first time you've ever seen him?"

"Yes. Now I wish I'd seen him earlier, but this just adds to my enjoyment of the Gather."

"Where are you from?"

"Kahrain Steppe Weyr, Southern," K'ndar said, appreciating Ruth's fine lines. Small and a mutation he might be, but in all other aspects he was virtually perfectly conformed.

"That's the newest one, on Southern's East coast?"

"Yes. Hurricane Weyr, as we sometimes call it," K'ndar laughed.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh, I heard about your hurricane. I've been down there, by the way. Nice, nice place."

K'ndar tore his eyes from Ruth and extended his hand.

"I'm K'ndar, rider of brown Raventh," he said.

"Pleased to meet you," the other man said, returning the hand shake, "I'm Jaxom, rider of white Ruth. Some call me Lord Jaxom-but I'm still a rider, first and foremost."

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.