The Skies of Pern (16 page)

“Red Star? You don’t believe the Red Star was moved? But surely you saw it happen, here in the North?”

“Saw the light in the sky, but what did that mean to someone ground-tied?”

Haligon tried another tack.

“All right, usually a Pass is fifty years. This time Aivas definitely said it would be less. We know from our own Records that that has happened several times before. So there’re sixteen more Turns to go till the end of this Pass. If it ends in sixteen Turns, then grant that Aivas knew more than we ever could: that when he gave a definite answer, it’ll be proved truth. He said the dragonriders accomplished what he set them out to do—alter the Red Star’s orbit so it can never come close enough to Pern to drop Thread on us again.”

Haligon was rather surprised by his own intensity. He’d only been on the fringes of the massive effort that had occupied the planet for nearly five Turns. But, in his own heart, he’d believed in Aivas’s solution to Pern’s cyclical problem. He’d wanted—needed—to believe in it.

“I may live another sixteen Turns to the end of this Pass,” Torlo replied. “So will you, but it’ll take another two hundred to be sure that Aivas was right.”

“The point is, Stationmaster, there are so many smaller miracles available to us right now to give Aivas credibility.”

Torlo’s cynical smile was lopsided. “Like making dragons—and Runners—unnecessary? If dragons won’t be needed against Thread, they’ll be looking for other things to do. Runners’ll be unnecessary!”

“Runners unnecessary?” Haligon exclaimed, throwing up his hands in dismay. He knew the dragonriders were working hard on their own future but Runners
had
an assured one. “Why, your Craft started serving a need before the dragons had their first Weyr. Right now, Runners’re making traces and Stations in the south. Your Craft, like all the others, is expanding.”

Torlo leaned forward across the table, his eyes sparking with anger. “Not when there are dragonriders taking messages and packing people and parcels.”

Haligon countered quickly. “How many small halls and holds can afford to hire a dragon? Running a message costs only a thirty-second of a mark. There are currently six thousand two hundred and forty dragons, and half of them are brown, bronze, and gold who wouldn’t consider running messages. You’ve that many Runner families working all the hours of a Turn and using youngsters on the short runs to keep up with the demand, not to mention what’ll happen when the traces are laid in the south. The queens aren’t flying to mate as often or clutching as many, scaling down now that the end of this Pass is in sight, so I don’t really see greens and blues in competition with Runners. You’ve never been upset about fire-lizards.”

Torlo snorted. “Only a few of them can be trusted to deliver messages.”

“That’s true enough,” Haligon agreed, though his father’s queen, Merga, having been exceedingly well trained by Menolly, had always proven reliable. “And no Runner has ever failed to bring messages through.” His thought went to Tenna, out on the frozen traces at the moment.

Torlo regarded him thoughtfully. “Nor will we ever.”

“So what is
really
bothering you, Stationmaster?”

“Those SmithCraftHall thingummies …” Torlo made a cradle of his fingers, scowling as he tried to find the exact word.

“The comm units?”

“Them! Seen one myself. People’ll be able to ‘talk’ to anyone. Won’t need Runners to take messages then.”

Relief made Haligon laugh. “No, Torlo. Can’t happen.”

“Why not?” Torlo’s sharp question was tinged with a belligerence he rarely displayed.

“Too expensive,” Haligon blurted the words through his laughter. “Simple as that. Takes Master Bassage and his Hall months to make the things. Have to get the elements from several other Halls. And they have a short range here in the north because there isn’t a satellite relay.”

“A what?”

“Like the
Yoko
to relay the signal. Healer Hall has to put up the relay for this part of the west and one up at Tillek, possibly a third at Telgar. Two in the east, I heard. They’d work better on the southern continent because of the
Yoko
, but with so many starting out holds and halls down there, it’ll be a long time before they have marks for that sort of gadget. My father will use Runners for a long time. He trusts you. For all he’s forward looking on many issues, he trusts people more than machines. No, Stationmaster, Runners’ll be necessary for as long—as long as they’ve legs to run with. They were the first Craft Fort Hold supported. Turns before the first Weyr was established. We’ll never not need you, Master Torlo.”

Torlo’s expression had cleared as Haligon enumerated the problems to be surmounted by the new technology.

“Aivas is like that, isn’t it? Shows how to do things better and that takes time all in itself. Perhaps that’s the best way. No need to have things when we don’t know we really need ’em.” Torlo rose, tactfully bringing their dialogue to an end.

As he got to his feet, Haligon wasn’t sure whether or not the Stationmaster had agreed to help the Hold.

“We support healers road and trace, Haligon,” Torlo said with an emphatic nod of his head as he escorted the young Lord across the big long-ceilinged room. “Those as hears will give a word to the wise to them as is too badly informed to know what’s what!”

“That’s what’s needed, Torlo.”

“Myself, or Tenna, will tell you.” The Stationmaster tipped two fingers in a salute, leaving Haligon no option but to leave.

How could the Runners think, for even a moment, Haligon wondered, as he made haste in the cold weather to tell his father of this conversation, that their services would ever be redundant? But the Weyrs would be. His step faltered as his eyes went instinctively toward the distant Weyr in the hills above Fort Hold. Weyrs, but not dragons! There would be a reason for dragons to remain in Pern’s skies. Doing
something
! Why, it was ludicrous to think of Pern without dragons!

The air froze the hair in his nostrils. Was it warmer down near Boll where Tenna was running? He hoped so. His much-respected sire had been somewhat dubious about Haligon’s keen interest in Tenna, but it was proving a very useful connection. Haligon wished he could persuade Tenna to make it a lasting commitment. There were enough children of the Fort Bloodline to carry on, short of another plague. Maybe she’d like to go south, once he’d been released from his filial duties to Lord Groghe.

He should also tell Sebell about his interview with Torlo. The Masterharper should know about their fears. And so much to be done. So much! He had all those petitions to sort through, to find those that did merit his father’s particular attention. Well, today was a good one to stay inside and be warm. He took the steps to the Hold two at a time.

Tagetarl squeezed tired eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his long nose, wondering at the same time why he thought that would restore his eyesight. Sleep would help, but he had to get through the corrections to the dictionary; some old harpers with too little to do were challenging definitions and deploring the new technological ones, which were vital if young students were to understand the language in which manuals were written. Being able to print many copies of the same material was a vast
improvement on hand copying. Any Harper apprentice who had had to do his hours in the Archives Hall blessed the introduction of printing presses, but there must be a trick to finding
all
the mistakes that could creep into typeset lines. In his apprenticeship, if he made a mistake, he was able to scratch it out with a knife blade and rewrite, preferably before Master Arnor caught him at it.

It wasn’t as easy to correct a mistake
after
several hundred copies had been printed. So many printing runs were technical and had to be accurate: explanations and instructions crystal clear. Rosheen was particularly good at this, and her fast fingers could set up a page quicker than he could. But they were both learning how to manage the complexities of this new Hall, and Tagetarl was particularly determined to honor Master Robinton’s faith in him by making this project the most successful of all that had been initiated by his Master and Aivas.

The slight creak of the office door sounded overloud in the still night. He jumped to his feet. Night? A glance at his eastern-facing window told him that it was nearly morning.

“It’s me!” a whisper announced.

“The correct grammar is ‘It is I,’ or It’s I,’ ” Tagetarl told Pinch wearily. “How did you get in? The gate’s locked.”

There had been no more Abominator attacks after the spate at Turn’s End, but that didn’t mean there weren’t more being planned. Tagetarl had never figured out just how discards from the medical texts he’d printed a Turn ago had gotten into their hands. To be on the safe side, the Printer Hall now shredded all imperfect sheets.

“True, and it’s a fine strong gate,” Pinch said, coming forward into the pool of light from the desk lamp.

He was not tall and his angular face, blurred now with dirt and fatigue, had no distinguishing features. His present apparel was Keroon hill folk, and smelled it. His ability to blend into his surroundings, to imitate the accents and manners of speech in any quarter of Pern, north and south, along with his keen ears and sharp eyes made him the ideal observer. His very active, cynical mind allowed him to interpret what he heard. Pinch cocked his foot around a stool and pulled it to him, sitting
down as if he hadn’t a care in the world. An engaging smile showed very even teeth, and there was a clever twinkle in his brown eyes.

“I didn’t use the gate. Didn’t really expect you to be up at this hour so I came in—”

“Across the roof again? One day you’ll fall
through
the weaver’s roof.”

“Oh, it’s safe enough. Rosheen’s Ola came to investigate, by the bye, but when she saw it was me—”

“It was I,” Tagetarl mercilessly corrected.

“—and Bista, she went back to bed.” Pinch clicked his tongue. “Say hello to the MasterPrinter, Bista.” The little gold creature, who looked like an extra scarf around the harper’s neck, cocked her head and blinked her green gemstone eyes at the Printer. “So why are you up?”

Tagetarl jerked his thumb at the proofs he’d been correcting. “If you ever encounter someone in your travels who can spell and who recognizes proper sentence structure and syntax, I’ve a job for him, her, preferably them.”

Pinch gave a sharp nod. “I’ll keep my eyes open.”

“I know you will. So what brings you over my roof at this time of night?”

“It’s nearly day,” Pinch corrected kindly. “I’ve been checking a few things, snooping about isolated holds and trader sites, sitting in Runner stations. Keroon has all sorts of hill folk, you know, the kind that don’t want their kids Harper-taught or Healed. Then there’re the ones who aren’t really hill folk. Who get too many visitors and have had very interesting indoor occupations.”

He reached into his jacket and removed a square of much-folded paper. Carefully he opened it to reveal small sketches: full face and profile.

“Mind you, I wasn’t exactly an invited visitor, but I found me a spot to watch and make a few notes. I can flesh these out better with some decent paper and a carbon point.” He looked inquiringly at Tagetarl. “Paper, Master? Pencils? Aivas’s latest improvement on ink?”

“Hill folk?”

“No, people living in the hills. Paper? Pencil?” He hooked the stool closer to the desk.

Immediately, Tagetarl gathered up the pages he was working on, swiftly rearranging them into a neat stack out of Pinch’s way. From a drawer, he pulled fresh paper, as well as a collection of different drawing tools. “Sit! Sit! D’you need klah, food, wine?”

Pinch grabbed a sharp carbon stick with one hand as he turned the sheaf of paper to his right—he was left-handed—and began sketching. “Thanks, yes, yes, and yes. And something for Bista. We came straight here without a stop, using Runner traces. They let me, you know. Give me tips. Good folk, Runners. Get me some food and drink, man, just don’t stand there gawking.”

When Tagetarl returned, lugging a heavy tray along with a bowl of fresh meat for Bista, Pinch continued speaking as if the Printer hadn’t left the room.

“Told the Runners not to worry about mechanical things. Wouldn’t want one of those things squawking about my person, I can tell you. It’d make folks notice me, and I don’t need to be noticed. Anyway, I’ll always trust legs over spare parts.” He gave Tagetarl a sideways grin, full of malice. “Have a traditional outlook on life, you know.” And when the Masterprinter snorted at such a remark from such a source, he added, “Well, I do. It’s why I risk life and limb on Harper business.”

Bista finished her meal and curled up on a shelf. By then, Pinch had completed one sketch and tossed it to the side, making the first line of the next sketch even before Tagetarl could pick up the first one.

Tagetarl examined the drawing. It was economically drawn, but it vividly depicted a big man, his right shoulder cocked up, a high forehead, black brows, a zigzag scar from his right temple and down the side of his nose to a gouge on his cheek, a thick, wide-bridged nose, gaunt cheeks, a thin mouth, a narrow chin, and a scrawny throat with a pronounced larynx. The left hand, which he was holding up as if to warm at a fire, was missing the first joint of the index finger. His clothes—the usual heavy leather tunic and trousers—were worn and patched. Thongs just under his knee in typical hill-style tied leggings, and his boots were long
and thin, the leather cracked from wading through too many streams or bogs.

Using his right hand, Pinch pushed some bread and cheese into his mouth and washed that down with a long swallow of beer, while the left kept drawing. A real gift, Tagetarl thought, especially for someone involved in discreet surveillance. But then Master Robinton, the late MasterHarper, had had the ability to command the talents of many unusual men and women. Before the Present Pass and the awakening of Aivas, when dragonriders had been denigrated and even the Harper Hall in jeopardy, Master Robinton had made use of rare talents—harpers, men and women, who knew their way about most of the settled holds and halls, large and small. Tagetarl had met Nip, the first roving harper who had nonspecific assignments and rarely sang. What Nip’s real name was, no one remembered now. Nip had trained Tuck, another nonconformist, and had taken Sebell along for some projects as Sebell, in turn, had made use of Piemur’s unusually quick mind and abilities. Now Pinch had been added to the roster, along with two others Tagetarl knew about but was not sure that he had met.