Authors: Anne McCaffrey
“We’ll have to plan to swing round the holds’ borders and rediscourage the carnivores,” he said, breaking off a piece of bread and offering it to her before taking some for himself. “You’ve about finished curing the last pelts we got, haven’t you?”
“Just about. Someone else must have pegged skins on the wall I’m using,” she said.
“Probably. Hold records suggest they were self-sufficient.” He shook his head. “I’ve never understood what happened to the people who were doing so well here. Why they simply …” he spread out his hands in bewilderment, “… left?”
She felt gravy on the corner of her mouth and used a bit of the bread to remove it, right past her lips. “Plague?” Disease had wiped out so many holdings it was always the first guess.
He shook his head. “No, no skeletons.”
“Vermin would have scavenged the remains.”
“Their effects were all neatly put away.”
“As if they meant to return?” she asked, surprised, but then F’lessan had been researching the history of this weyrhold of his.
“No, as if that was the way they took care of tools and equipment.” He gestured to the kitchen and the utensils visible on the work surfaces.
“As they did in the workshop.” All the shelves and drawers fascinated Tai, the contents neatly packed away in oil or grease
and the airless plastic envelopes that the Ancients had had. Even the flying machine—a sled, F’lessan called it—had been cocooned. She’d never had the opportunity to visit the Catherine Caves as F’lessan had, but he’d said that these weren’t thoroughly explored or emptied of treasures. Samples of the things the Ancients had used were on display at Landing, some still encased in the packing used for the voyage to the Rukbat system. She—and others—had puzzled over the use of some items. “Why would they leave such a beautiful place?”
“Once this Pass is over, you may be sure I won’t leave,” he said resolutely. “As it is, I’m here more than I should be,” he added with that irrepressibly engaging grin she so enjoyed. “Eat up, my dear green.”
“Shouldn’t have eaten so much,” he remarked twenty minutes later as she trudged behind him up the steep stairs to the observation room. He was panting, too, she noticed. “As well we don’t have to lug things all the way up these stairs. Only down one level when we get where we’re going.”
F’lessan had explained the almost secretive design of Honshu’s observatory; not all the secrets, he’d said, grinning with a boyish delight, but Kenjo had made sure it was not readily accessible. The first challenge were the stairs that went up six levels inside Honshu’s cliff.
“Does Golanth watch stars with you, too?” she asked. Zaranth affected to and never objected when Tai spent long hours on her green back, studying the night sky.
“He pretends to be interested,” F’lessan said in a mock-soft voice, turning to grin down the metal spiral at her.
I hope I will not hurt these things when I bring them to you so high up
, Golanth said facetiously.
“Golanth, you will carry them as carefully as fire-lizard eggs,” F’lessan said, his voice stern as he winked down at Tai. “When I found the place, it was a mess and outside most of the solar panels were fouled or missing. Worse than the Admin building.” He took a deep breath before the next step. “Golanth was very good about helping me repair and reinstall them. He doesn’t fit in the observatory, of course, but he’s good at encouraging me to work hard.” He chuckled as he plodded up several more steps, boots
clanking on the metal. She could feel the climb pulling at her muscles. He went on. “Good thing the cylinder had been vacuum-wrapped—another point in my theory that they intended to come back!” She could see that he was using the handrail to pull him upward. Good idea! She followed his example. “So we cleaned and repaired the vents and solar panels, and let power build up. I’d the finder scope to use to see if the instrument still worked. It did.” He gave a deep sigh of satisfaction. “We’ll have to run a pointing recalibration but I’ve got the files for the stars we use. Once we’ve hooked up the computer and are sure it’s pointing accurately, we can proceed to search whatever part of the sky Erragon wants us to scan. The program makes it possible to shift the primary mirror. We’ll get pictures on the monitor and decide what to save.”
He paused, taking in deep breaths before he started upward again. She wondered that he didn’t save his breath for the climb but F’lessan loved to talk and, since his voice was very pleasant to listen to, she didn’t mind. She didn’t usually have much to say.
“Got the generator working, too, so we don’t have to limit solar panel use.” He had breath enough for a chuckle. “Mighty clever those Ancients were in harnessing renewable energy. When we told Aivas that we’d found the old machinery, I swear he almost laughed.”
“Laughed?” It would never have occurred to Tai that Aivas had been endowed with a sense of humor. She nearly stumbled on the steps but caught herself on the handrail.
“Oh, Aivas had a powerful sense of humor. You know the kind of pause that means someone’s laughing inside? Well, Aivas would pause, wait a beat, and go on with what he was saying. Piemur was sure Aivas laughed to himself in such beats, but Jancis was horrified by the mere suggestion of a machine that could laugh.”
Tai couldn’t see his face but, though sometimes he made jokes about his Turns under Aivas’s supervision, his voice was tinged with a respect that he didn’t accord even his Weyrleaders. She’d been so young, fresh from Keroonian hills when her mother and father had come south to work at Landing, and painfully naïve. Told over and over what a splendid chance she was getting in a
Landing education, she had concentrated on learning as much as she could to avoid disappointing anyone, including Aivas. She had never questioned anything
then
. Now, and in the presence of F’lessan, she felt able to ask.
“Why would Aivas be amused that you had discovered this valuable instrument and a power generator?”
“I suspect,” and F’lessan climbed a few more steps before answering, “because Kenjo had been very clever about so many things. Like saving fuel in sacks each trip down from the
Yoko
so he could fly the little plane he built. And using the stone-cutters far more extensively than any other colonist. Yet what a beautiful place he designed—although, come to think of it, his wife, Ita, was artistic and it’s likely she did the murals in the Hall and some of the tapestries.”
“Here we are,” he said and she could hear the relief in his voice. Dragonriders were more accustomed to flying heights than climbing them.
She didn’t mind showing that the narrow winding stairs had winded her. Her thighs felt heavy, and she had an ache in the calf of her left leg. She gave it a quick massage as he fiddled a key into the locked door they had climbed so high to reach.
At first, Tai saw nothing but the smooth sides of the vertical shaft’s creamy rock, eerily lit from small guide lights. She could feel a light breeze sweeping upward, cooling legs, body, and even the sweat on her forehead, and then a door opened just above her eye level. F’lessan lifted himself through, for a moment blocking her view. He moved to one side and, in the light from the shaft, she saw more creamy rock. She clattered up the last few steps and walked into such a splendid space that she just stood, looking around in amazement. A large dark brooding mass dominated the center of a wooden floor.
F’lessan pressed plates on one side of the door and lights blinked on, one by one, girdling the room about F’lessan’s height from the floor. She could also feel more fresh air circulating.
As the lights came up, she saw the long barrel of Honshu’s telescope, thicker in circumference than she could have put her arms about, longer than F’lessan was tall. A U-shaped fork structure
held the barrel and, as she got closer, she could see that the fork was itself supported by a heavy metal plate, attached to a metal turntable. This tilted arrangement was an equatorial mount entirely different from the up-down, left-right, alt-azimuth mounting that was appropriate for Cove Hold’s larger, skeletal type scope and its position near the equator. Honshu’s scope was a dull cream of a composite material, slightly longer at the front, with a blunt rear end that she knew sleekly enclosed the 620-millimeter reflecting mirror. Unlike the Cove Hold scope, where the mirror was clearly visible inside the supporting skeleton, this mirror was hidden within the opaque cylinder. Only the services connecting to the telescope revealed what else was inside. She could see cooling pipes and electrical cables feeding through the cylinder at its midpoint, which she knew led to the camera at the heart of the telescope. What she could identify as the finder scope was attached to the upper surface beside two other anonymous cylinders. The Cove’s instrument—one of the Ancients’ classical Cassegrains—was half again as long as this one, having a one-meter lens, its optics based entirely around mirrors and enclosed in a light gray composite of some ancient material. Here, too, was a raised wooden floor, to keep vibrations from being transmitted to the telescope and to allow people to walk safely around while observing. Not that the sheer cliff to which the scope was attached would move: Cove Hold had a cement base on its rocky promontory, high above the sea.
Tentatively, she approached the cylinder, saw the cover at the top and controlled her impatience to see it. She did, however, appreciate F’lessan’s proprietary feeling for the scope. That he was willing to share it with her was yet one more unexpected boon.
“Now watch!” he said, holding up his left hand, grinning with anticipation. With the fingers of his right, he pressed more plates, diverting her from a closer inspection of telescope and mounting.
She was startled when a crack appeared in the ceiling. She stepped back, close to him, as what had seemed to be solid rock shifted. Gears whirred and the halves dropped and spread slowly apart, continuing to sink down, out of the way, against the observatory dome, stopping just above the girdle of lights.
“Full range,” F’lessan cried in a proud tone, gesturing to the opening created by the sliding roof. “Golly found the seam in the rock when we were repairing the solar panels. No rock has straight seams,” he said with a snort. “Took Jancis, Piemur, and me days to oil, repair, and get this working again.”
Tai knew that she was gawking idiotically at the superb view of the southern night sky now visible. She gasped then, when two dark shadows stealthily loomed down into the opening.
Us
, said Zaranth and gave an audible chirp, well pleased with herself for scaring her rider. She had kept her eyes shut and now opened them, happily whirling green.
You meant to scare me
, she accused her dragon, hand still at her throat.
Golanth thought it would be all right
, Zaranth said in a meek tone, cocking her head slightly at her rider, eliciting pardon.
Golanth made amused sounds of his own, showing his white teeth.
“They’re a right pair of Gather fools,” F’lessan said, giving her a reassuring squeeze before he walked over to where Golanth was peering down. Then, in one of those abrupt changes of his, F’lessan turned almost brusque. “Golly, take care not to step on those solar panels when you swing those controls down. Tai, can you manage the one Zaranth has for you? I’d like to get this system up and running before dawn.”
He reached up, tall enough to grasp the boxes that Golanth dutifully lowered one by one to him through the open roof. Tai shook off the moment of panic—too astonished by the open sky to feel her dragon’s presence—and took hold of the well-padded square that Zaranth dangled down to her.
“We’ll unpack up here, Tai. More space. The control room’s just down that short staircase.” He pointed to the far wall where she now saw the well of the other stairs.
Did I really scare you, Tai
? Zaranth asked penitently, drawing one set of her eyelids across in apology.
“Of course you did,” Tai replied and then relented.
Is Golanth teaching you bad habits
?
None I don’t like
, her dragon answered with a flirt of her eyelids.
Tai cleared her throat. “What do I have here, F’lessan?” she asked, changing the subject.
He spared a look from what he was unpacking. “The monitor!” he replied and he sprang toward her. “I’ll just turn the lights up down there,” he said and strode to the stairwell, tapping the keypad. “Kenjo must have been a security freak the way he designed this observatory. As if someone could steal this or the stars.”
With lighting, Tai had no trouble taking the ten straight steps down into the control room. The worktops had been cleaned recently and the shelving above them fitted with jacks for the controls. Two wheeled half-chairs had been pushed back under the stairs. An enclosed panel ran slantwise from the jack in the direction of the base of the telescope on the floor above. She settled the flat-screened monitor on a mounting that was an exact fit. Well, no doubt the long-dead Kenjo had used a similar unit to view the images she devoutly hoped the scope would still mirror.
F’lessan clattered down with the keypad, decoder box, and storage disks. His eyes gleamed with anticipation. With no wasted effort he arranged his burdens on the worktop and put the storage disks on the shelf where he could read the labels. He hauled connectors out of his thigh pocket and began plugging them in, murmuring as he did so, reminding himself which went where until he had the system connected. Standing with his hands on his belt, he let out a long breath. Then he reached toward the rank of storage disks, found the one he needed for the calibration, and slipped it into the operating slot.
“Shall we see if it’ll light up? Ooops,” and he was halfway up the stairs, “got to uncover its eye, first.”
She heard the thump of his footsteps on the wooden flooring and his admonition to the two dragons to find themselves comfortable places to stay and not to step on the solar panels.
He ran back down, rubbing his hands, grabbed both seating units from under the stairs, swinging one over to her while he planted himself on the second and, for one long moment, poised his hands over the controls.