The Skies of Pern (43 page)

“Get off my face!” “You’re breaking my ribs!” “My face, my face
!” interspersed with pounding on the outer gate and anxious calls.

“
What’s happening in there? Open up! Tagetarl! MasterPrinter!
”

“
Master Tagetarl, it’s Venabil! What’s happening in there
?”

“
Watch out!
”

“Shards! Do you see what I see
?”

“Here! Back off! There now! Stand aside
!”

There was a clearance of perhaps a meter and a half between the top of the outer gates and the arch, and that space was filled with two whirling, orange eyes.

“Tagetarl! Get this gate open
!”

“
In a minute! In a minute
!” Pinch roared back. “Who has the hand lights? Torjus, Chenoa, douse those torches! Macy, help me unfasten the bar!”

The court was suddenly awash with light. Someone in the Hall had had the sense to turn on the main switch. The large gray object Tagetarl had been trying to avoid turned rainbow-colored eyes on him and Tagetarl stared back at the white dragon, Ruth. And then at the man dismounting.

“So it’s you Ruth wants me to rescue,” was Lord Jaxom’s slightly amused greeting.

“How did you
know
?” Not that Tagetarl wasn’t remarkably relieved to see him.

“Only to come, here and
now
.” Jaxom was unfastening his jacket and it could be seen that he was wearing casual clothing underneath, not full riding gear. “Ruth tells me Lioth and N’ton have also been summoned. Do I assume that you’ve had some intruders?” He pointed toward the broken doors and the wriggling mass hanging just above it. “Did you catch them all in the one net?”

Stunned by all that had happened so quickly, Tagetarl had not really noticed. So nets had been stuffed in those barrels? Hadn’t Pinch mentioned that some of his helpers were seafolk? How ingenious. He then saw that the fairs of fire-lizards that had come swooping and flaming in were attacking those captive in the nets, pecking and scratching at arms, legs, and various other parts that were protruding from the mesh. The anguished and pained protests were almost louder than the furor of the crowd outside, demanding to be let in.

“There’s one more,” Rosheen said, breathless with relief and pride. “He tried to get into the hold and we knocked him out and pushed him down into the cellar.”

“Clever of you,” Jaxom said, raising his voice to be heard, “but whatever did you do, Tag, to annoy the Abominators?”

“Why are you sure that’s who they are?” Rosheen asked.

“Who else would try to damage a Print Hall when most of Pern can’t wait to own real books? And why else are N’ton and I here, too? As witnesses to a midnight attack on defenseless premises.”

Just then, Pinch and Macy lifted the sky-broom bar and the outer gates were flung open to the considerable crowd waiting to enter, waving cudgels, knives, and more torches. They surged right up to the flattened leaves of the Hall’s doors, halted and stared up at the swinging net.

“
Jaxom? Are you all right
?” someone cried above the angry shouting. A tall figure in riding leathers came striding through the crowd to join them. “Lioth was told to bring me to Wide Bay immediately. Tagetarl? Isn’t this your Print Hall?” N’ton had rocked to a halt when he recognized those standing with Jaxom. Then his eyes went wide. He looked over his shoulder at the swinging net. “What’s the haul?”

“That’s what we must discover,” Pinch said, stepping forward and nodding courteously to the Lord Holder and the Weyrleader. “I may have acted hastily but I did hear that the Printer Hall might be vulnerable. So, since it is such a valuable asset to Pern, north and south, I thought to prevent any untoward impairment of its facilities. Had a—beauty—of a message yesterday.”

Tagetarl saw Jaxom and N’ton exchange glances but, Harper though he was, he could not read more than an odd regret on N’ton’s face and a sadness in Jaxom’s.

“There’s no question harm was meant?” N’ton asked Pinch who shook his head.

“Three sent in over the roofs,” and Pinch pointed, raising his voice to make himself heard over the tumult in the court, “to open the main gate, torches set to fire the paper stores, hauling the Printer Hall doors off their hinges.”

“But the gates weren’t opened,” N’ton said.

“Not for lack of trying,” Pinch said.

“One broke the glass and the door to the hold and Rosheen flattened him with her iron skillet,” Tagetarl said. His arm still felt the repercussion.

“And there’s the matter of the drugged wine, too,” Pinch added.

“Drugged wine?” Jaxom repeated.

“So you netted those entering the Hall?” N’ton asked.

“Only after they’d battered down the doors,” Pinch replied, eyes wide with injured innocence.

“Hey, the fire-lizards are having all the fun!
” someone shouted from the crowd ranged about the entrance of the Print Hall.

Since it was obvious that the fire-lizards were also preventing the crowd getting near enough to have a go at the captives, Jaxom turned to Ruth, patting the white shoulder. “Do dismiss them, Ruth, with our thanks. They’ve performed admirably.”

Ruth raised his head and emitted an unusual warble. Not only did it mute the noise of the crowd but also the fire-lizards departed in one final dramatic swoop, low enough to make the tallest onlookers duck. Gesturing to his friends to accompany him, Jaxom strode forward and the crowd parted to allow them to reach the battered doors on the cobbles, conversations dying down now that someone was taking charge.

“Lower the net!” Jaxom ordered and four of Pinch’s assistants jumped to obey.

“Belay that!” cried a voice from the right-hand side of the crowd and a big man, capped as a fisherman and showing a Master’s knot, stood apart. “If you leave ’em in the net, Lord Jaxom, we can just sling the whole lot of ’em aft of my ship and I’ll tow ’em out to the deep water! Save a lot of trouble!”

The crowd roared its approval of such rough justice.

“Ah, but, Captain, I am here,” Jaxom said and his expression was one of rueful regret, “and so is Weyrleader N’ton and the MasterPrinter. So we are obliged to follow established procedures.”

“Which are?” the captain demanded, not pleased with the rejection.

“According to the Charter,” and Jaxom swung slowly around to the audience, his eyes seeming to touch everyone in the front ranks, “by which we have been well governed for the past twenty-five hundred Turns, a Lord Holder, a Weyrleader, and a Master of any Craft may hold a trial.”

“Hold it then!” roared the captain and the crowd roared back an affirmative.

“You can’t do that!” one of the captives shouted, struggling in the net. “We’ve done nothing wrong.”

A lump hammer dropped free of the mesh and then Tagetarl saw that it was not the only tool that had tumbled to the ground.

The captain threw back his head to roar with laughter. “Only because you didn’t get the chance!”

The crowd howled with delight.

“Would you prefer the captain’s justice?” Jaxom demanded.

“
That isn’t justice!
” cried a woman’s voice. “Stop grabbing me!” she added angrily to someone beside her in the net. “
You’ve no right to do this to us
.”

Another heavy object dropped ringingly to the cobbles.

“Oh, clear all that hardware away, Pinch, and drop the net,” Jaxom said, utterly disgusted with his attempt to make this an orderly procedure. “Let’s see what sort of catch you’ve made. Black-faced iron fins? Did you get the whole school of ’em? D’you know the captain, Tag?” he asked in a quick aside.

“Captain Venabil,” Tagetarl replied. “He’s well known but no one would dare board his ship without permission.”

The net came down hard enough to rattle everyone in it, provoking a new spate of cries, curses, and pained exclamations. The captives were then as unceremoniously dumped out of the thick mesh as a load of fish: some sprawled facedown, others on all fours, groggy after their time in the swaying net.

“All right there.” It was Pinch who took charge. “Stand up! Make a line!” Roughly, he pulled one man up and signaled for his assistants to get the rest to their feet. “Search ’em, too.”

While that was being done, and knives, chisels, matches, and long spikes were added to the pile, he walked up and down the uneven line that was finally formed by the captives.

“Nothing else on them?” N’ton asked, remembering Fort Hold and the conspicuous absence of any personal identification.

“Clothes?” someone from the crowd suggested, laughing raucously.

“A bit worn, some of ’em,” another man replied derisively.

“What a sorry bunch!” Captain Venabil said, fists thrust against his hips, shaking his head. “It’s plain as the nose on my face this
lot were up to no good sneaking into the Print Hall, faces blackened and all. Not to mention pulling the doors down and heaving torches about. Wide Bay’s not a wild hold and we don’t want such louts hanging about. What’s this established procedure of yours, Lord Jaxom? I’d like to get back to my ship before dawn.”

Jaxom accorded him a little bow.

“Shouldn’t we send for Lord Kashman?” someone shouted from the crowd. “He’s our Holder and he’s supposed to deal with peace-breakers, thieves, burglars, and such.”

“For general Hold matters,” Pinch said quickly. “This is a Harper Hall matter. However, if any of you …” and he addressed the captives, “is from this Hold you may step forward and I’m sure Lord Kashman will keep you comfortably enough.”

He was interrupted by a derisive snort and the comment from the crowd that the net was more comfortable than where offenders of the peace were held at Keroon Hold.

“As I was saying,” Pinch continued with a faint grin, “if you are of this hold, you can be transferred to the Hold to await Lord Kashman’s judgment.”

None of the captives claimed that right.

“Name, hold, hall, and rank, if any,” N’ton said, stepping with authority beside Pinch.

There was no response and N’ton shrugged.

“Then, since they have been caught in an illegal entry and in the willful destruction of an authorized Crafthall, Master Tagetarl, Master Mekelroy, how will you deal with them?”

Surprised by the anger and the sense of violation that suddenly fueled him, Tagetarl surged to Pinch’s side, glaring at the captives. The false wineman he had already recognized by the ripped trousers—which hadn’t fit properly even before he’d been bounced about in a net—but he could not find Scar-face or the woman sketched by Pinch after his first foray to the suspected Abominators’ hill camp. Their absence from this line added worry to Tagetarl’s very mixed emotions.

“Why did you wish to damage this Hall?” he demanded in a harsh voice, his fury palpable enough to make those captives nearest him recoil uncertainly. “WHY?” He jammed his fists against his side to rein in the urge to tear the truth out of those
who would have destroyed what he had so painstakingly built. He took one more step.

“Lies!” Hands defensively raised, the man directly in front of him ducked back. “We have to destroy the lies!”

“What lies?” Tagetarl demanded, having expected no answer, certainly not this one.

“The lies Harpers are printing. Spreading all over Pern!” the man cried, gesturing wildly toward the Hall, to the wall where finished books were shelved.

“What’s this about lies?” demanded Captain Venabil, turning to Tagetarl for an answer.

“I don’t print lies!” Tagetarl cried, loudly.

“But you print books. You use the Abomination’s vile methods. You distribute abominations!”

Captain Venabil, big fist raised, leaped toward the speaker who cowered away.

“Ha! Abomination, huh? These’re Abominators!” He turned, eyes flaring with disgust, toward the crowd. “Nothing but a pack of cowardly Abominators, sneaking around in the night to destroy what they haven’t the wit to appreciate.”

“We must stop the lies. We must keep Pern pure!” cried a woman farther down the line of captives. “We have to keep Pern free of abominations.”

“Of all the daft ideas!” Captain Venabil’s contempt was echoed vociferously by many of the onlookers. “Pern needs all the help it can get right now!”

“Where would we’ve been if Aivas hadn’t warned us of the Fireball Flood?” a man in the crowd demanded loud enough to be heard, waving his fist at the captives. “Captain’s got the right idea. Drown ’em!”

Shouts of “drown ’em” quickly became a chant, rising in ominous volume!

“Back in the net with them! Take the school back to the sea.” “That’d pollute our harbor!”

Ruth bugled loud enough to deafen those in the court. Outside, Lioth answered him and a muttering silence returned to those in the Hall court.

“You are Abominators?” Jaxom said in an oddly controlled
voice. His eyes were on one of the taller captives who stared unseeingly ahead of him.

“We are!” the woman cried defiantly, just as the wineman shouted, “We admit nothing!”

“I think in this case,” Captain Venabil said in a wry tone that carried to the edges of the crowd, “I’ll believe the female.”

“They’re all together, ain’t they?” asked the fist-waver. “All pulling the doors down, trying to fire the sheds.”

“Yes, firing the sheds.” A thin, stoop-shouldered man pushed through the crowd, waving wildly at the sheds and the back of the court. “You could’ve burned my hold, too! I’m Colmin, Journeyman weaver, and all my winter work’s in the loft back there. I use only traditional patterns and you could have ruined me! Ruined me!”

“We don’t like arsonists in Wide Bay neither,” a woman shouted, cupping her hands to her mouth to be sure she was heard. “It’s your say, Harpers! It’s your Hall they attacked.”

“Known Abominators require different handling,” Pinch cried and turned to face Jaxom and N’ton. “Or at least being isolated,” he added in a low voice.

“Well, I’m glad to hear that,” Captain Venabil said and then frowned. “What d’you mean, Harper Mekelroy?”

The onlookers hushed to listen for Pinch’s answer.

“In offenses caused by those admitting to be Abominators, the Council recommends exile!”

It took another blast from Ruth and Lioth to still the clamor that was raised at that announcement.