Chap. 426 The Broken Hub

That was a good drill, Raventh said, I like to tell the bronzes what to do

K’ndar laughed out loud. What do they think? Or say?

It was Raventh’s turn to laugh. They say, yes, Wingleader. But it doesn’t sound as if they mean it. It sounds like they’re doing what their rider tells them to do.

I like it, too, he thought, as he finished grooming Raventh. At first, I was so nervous, leading drill and ordering two bronze rider who also happen to be former Weyrleaders AND are Councilmen. But they are really good about obeying when I or even Francie! are leading the drill. They say I need to know how to do this, as if I’ll ever be a Weyrleader. Or ever have to fight Thread again.

And now I see drill from the other side of the wing. It’s not just movements, it’s having a strategy against Thread, which had no brains but was nevertheless a deadly opponent, one that supposedly moved by the wind but seemed to aim for us dragonriders. It was like a chess game, but that does require brains. Except I don’t play chess.

Siskin, perched in his usual position just behind Raventh’s ears, suddenly spat like an angry cat.  

“What’s going on?” he asked the blue fire lizard.

He sees Batu. The trader’s bronze just appeared from between Raventh said.

A thrill of what was just barely controlled fear ran up his spine. The last time Batu came here, he thought, it was to alert me that Lizard had been badly wounded by a gang of raiders.

But this time it was benign.

The bronze hovered momentarily in front of an angrily displaying Siskin, as if daring the blue to take his best shot. Then he recalled his mission. He was wearing a message pouch.

K’ndar could read their body language. Batu was saying, okay, little blue, this time you win. But don’t push your luck he said to Raventh.

“A subordinate blue fire lizard you might be, Siskin, but when it comes to Raventh, you’re alpha,” he reassured the blue.

Siskin folded his wings after seeing Batu submit, but, if fire lizards had hackles, they would have been standing on end. He relaxed, but kept his position on Raventh’s head.

The bronze landed on Raventh’s foreleg, almost deferentially.

“Hello, Batu. May I check your message pouch?” K’ndar said. The bronze instinctively backed up at his approach, then allowed K’ndar to open the pouch.

He pulled out two pieces of paper and two new marks. The message was written in colored pencil. K’ndar chuckled. He’d given Lizard’s apprentice, Kim, several pads of drawing and writing paper as well as a box of colored pencils.  He unfolded the paper to see the writing was in a hideous chartreus green. Gads, this is a horrid color, he thought. I don’t recall seeing that color in the box I have. Only in desperation would anyone use it, so I bet it’s their last pencil. I’ll have to bring him more. It read:

Hello, K’ndar, and forgive the message being in bilious green. We have no regular pencils left.

Yup. I’m right.

I’m in a bit of a fix. My caravan has broken down and I’m in the middle of nowhere, on my way to Honshu Weyrhold. I can just barely see the Western Barrier Range so I’m thinking I’m a week out from Honshu.  One of the hubs has broken, and this time it’s not repairable, not even a field expedient will get me any further. We’re okay, have plenty of food-the game is everywhere, here! But water is pretty scarce.

Would you please be so kind as to contact the wheelwright at Coastal Weyr and see if he has a hub that will fit my caravan?  Remind him that I bartered the exact same hub from him a few months ago. Still, I’m including a drawing of the hub, where it’s broken and the dimensions. I usually carry a spare but we are fully loaded with trade goods, and I used the spare two months ago when the other hub broke in the very same way.  Common sense should have told me to buy another spare, but I kept putting it off. Lesson learned, again.

I’m on good terms with the Weyr, so have them put it on my tab and I will compensate them. If you would, please, take the payment  to the wheelwright on your way back to Landing.

I am also including two marks for unscheduled transport with cargo.

He pocketed the marks. I would give them back to him, but he insists that business is business and needs to be kept separate from friendship. As if Lizard is just a friend? He’s family, despite not being blood.

“Batu, please wait. I will give you a message to take back to your master,” he said to the bronze. He went to his quarters to get paper and pencil.

He returned with a handful of meat for the bronze-and, of course, Siskin. 

K’ndar wrote the note-in plain pencil lead gray-I’ll be leaving here in about an hour to go to Coastal. If I run into problems, I’ll send Siskin letting you know. I’ll also bring a canvas bag of fresh water, so have a barrel ready.

Sometimes I wish he would use a datalink, K’ndar thought, as he tucked the paper into Batu’s pouch. But I don’t ever resent helping Lizard out.  And I know how tightly Landing is managing and issuing datalinks now. Jansen says it’s to keep people from using them for stupid things, but I wonder if it’s not a parts issue.

“There you go, Batu. You are a good lad. Go, now.”

The bronze chipped and launched. He swirled twice over Raventh’s head, as if to get his bearings. Then, with a battle cry, he dove at Siskin in a clearly feigned attack. Siskin toppled off Raventh’s head, totally surprised. Batu then shot straight up. K’ndar heard the bronze’s equivalent of a raucous taunt of ‘take that, blue!’ and vanished before the blue could take up the challenge. 

K’ndar laughed. Siskin fluttered backup to Raventh’s head, muttering imprecations. He began to groom, as if he wasn’t bothered in the slightest.

“Yeah, Batu’s an arsehole, isn’t he?” he said to the nettled Siskin.

Are we going to help the trader? Raventh asked, his tone amused.

Yes. But first I have to go to Coastal Weyr to see about getting the part for his caravan. And I’m going to take a load of water for them. We’ll fly over the Lake and fill it.

He planned his tasks. First, I should let Raylan know. My work’s all caught up, I’m not on transport duty until day after tomorrow, and I do have some time coming to me. Something tells me this isn’t a one and done fix. I have to sign out at Ops and while I don’t mind at all, Risal will want to know what’s going on. She’d love to go, I think. But in this case, I don’t want her tagging along. We’ll be weighted down with the hub and the water. I have to get the bag and I have to get drawing materials for Kim.

——————————————————————————–

“Three notebooks, two drawing pads and two boxes of pencils, one colored and one plain,” the Library apprentice said, pushing them across the desk. “Oh, and a sharpener. Sign please?”

K’ndar sighed as he signed the chit for the goods. No money would change hands, not here at Landing. It would be taken out of his pay. It was still a very new procedure. The database had proposed a thing called a ‘credit account’ and Finance insisted it would make their lives easier. They didn’t like handling money, the stamping, the managing of old mark coins, the sorting out marks from every Weyr and Hold that created them. Typing names and numbers into the database ‘is so much time saving,’ one had said.

But I want a real coin, he thought, something I KNOW exists, not a number kept in electrons in the database.  Something I can feel in my pocket, something I can hand over to someone else when I buy something at the market. I don’t have any idea how much money I have now. It’s just numbers.  I guess I should find out how much is in the account.

“You’re going where?” Orlon, the Maintenance Chief asked, as he brushed the dust off a very large and heavy canvas bag.

“South, for the Western Barrier Range. A friend of mine’s caravan broke down, and I’m going to take a new hub for it. He said, too, that there is no water where he’s stranded, so I’ll take some.” He reached to pull it off the table. Orlon shook his head. 

“It’s far too heavy and cumbersome to carry. We’ll take it out to the commons and hold up the center ring for Raventh to grab.”

K’ndar sneezed. The canvas smelled of old age and new rope.

“Where in the world did you get this? WHY do you have it?”

“It was used to dump water on Thread that the dragons missed, or the ground crews couldn’t reach, like on steep hillsides or on high mountain ridges. I think it came from High Reaches Weyr. I’m fairly certain it was made after the Weyrs came forward, so it must be about fifty years old. Canvas doesn’t last twenty five hundred years, no matter how well kept it is. The plans are undoubtedly in the data base.”

The man tested the ropes. “Ever use one of these?” 

“Um, no. I remember my Weyrling Master discussing it, but we never had one to train with. I think you just fly over the surface of the lake and scoop the water up?”

“Nay, nay. It’ll just skip over the surface and maybe get half a liter max. No. See this rope? It controls the valve at the bottom. Right now it’s closed. You hover over the water, drop the bag into the water, let it fill up from the open top and then carefully fly away with it.  Mind you, K’ndar, I’ve never done it myself, I don’t have a dragon, but I have seen it work. The chains at the bottom are to make the bucket sink. Once it’s full-and I think that takes some tricky flying, you fly away with it.  

The tricky part is dumping the water. I hope you have little if any wind, wind will make it tricky to hit your target. You will need a spotter, K’ndar, and that person will be the one to open the valve. Drop the valve rope to him, it’s  got a good long length on it, have him direct you. Hover over the dumping point. The spotter has to be the one to open the valve, you can’t see it from Raventh’s back. Tell him he has to really pull, and don’t stand underneath the valve when it opens, unless he wants a shower. He could be hurt, that water comes out woooosh all at once.  Tell Raventh the bag will bounce up when it’s empty, too. It takes some team work, K’ndar, I sort of wish you’d practice before hand.”

“We’ll see, maybe this is learning by doing thing. I can always go back for more water. Even so, I’m going to propose to Kahrain’s Weyrlingmaster that this is training his weyrlings need. How much does this carry?”

“A thousand liters. That much water, will weigh about, oh, almost a thousand kilograms. Can Raventh handle that weight?

K’ndar smiled. “He’ll insist he can. Dragons will carry a weight if they think they can, although I’ve never seen a weight lifting contest.”

Of course I can carry it. I’m a DRAGON Raventh said.

Orlon didn’t need to hear it, even if he had been able to. “I’m sure you’re right, K’ndar. It was designed and built specifically for dragon transport.”

“It doesn’t leak, does it?”

“Nay, K’ndar, it’s old but I take care of my equipment. The ropes are new, for instance.  The originals weren’t bad, but rope likes to be used, if it’s not, it deteriorates. Darnell made them. He’s a dab hand at weaving rope. Once he splices, it STAYS spliced. Where is this mate of yours, anyway?”

“He’s, quote, “Halfway between Coastal Weyr and Honshu Weyrhold. He said there’s no water where he’s at, so I planned on drawing the water from the Lake and take it to him.”

“He’s halfway to nowhere, K’ndar. My guess is there’s not a wheelwright for a thousand klicks ‘tween the two,” Orlon said. “I hope he gets rolling soon. That’s some pretty wild country down there, and I don’t mean animals. My gut tells me it’s probably infested with raiders. Take a bow or something, K’ndar. Stay high up until you actually scoop the water. Tell Raventh it will drag like a dead wherry as it fills, and then it will swing back and forth a couple times once he gets it out of the water, so be ready. Once it settles, it should be fairly easy to transport.”

I hear him. I will be ready for it to swing Raventh said.

“I’m serious about watching for people shooting at you,” Orlon continued, “Lord Toric insists the whole bloody Lake is his and you know better than I that he won’t tolerate dragonriders in his airspace. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone takes a crossbow shot at you. And that’s just from the air. Who knows how many raiders are out there on the ground where the caravan is. Maybe take a sword, too?”

K’ndar shook his head. “Chief, I’d probably cut my leg off with a sword. I was never any good with them. I’ll take a bolo for the possibility of a ground attack. I’m not too worried, though. Lizard’s cagey as any susi. He knows how to defend himself. Even with his shoulder all buggered up, no one on Pern is deadlier with a dagger. Never mind that we both have fire lizards and I, of course, have a dragon.”

And he has that dog, it’s as big as a pony with teeth like a susi Raventh said.

I forgot about Crunch. You’re right.

“Who won’t harm a human for love or money,” Orlon was saying, not seeing that K’ndar was talking to Raventh, “I know enough about dragons to know that.”

“Aye, but amazingly, there’s plenty of people who don’t know that. And Raventh can be very convincing when he’s worked up.”

Orlon laughed.

Next, he ducked into Flight Ops to check the weather both at Coastal and ‘half way between Coastal and Honshu Weyr’.

“WHERE are you going?” Risal asked.

I’m getting a bit repetitive, he thought. “I don’t know, honestly, I’ve never been there. I’m going, quote, “Half way between Honshu Weyrhold and Coastal Weyr,” he said. “My friend, Lizard the Trader, is stranded, his caravan has a broken hub.”

She came out from behind her desk to look at the large map of Southern Continent. She held her pointer half way ‘between’.

“Half way is wilderness, K’ndar. What am I saying? The wilderness starts twenty klicks from Coastal Weyr! The weather looks fairly good there, as of this morning’s report from the Yokohama, but even the starship can provide only so much to this forecast. There’s NOTHING there.  How are you going to find him?”

“He has a dragon stone, well, not a stone, a marker that is as good as any dragonstone. It’s in my head, it’s in Raventh’s, even in Siskin’s. All I have to do is push the image and we’ll be there in eight seconds.”

“Oh,” she said, plaintively, “I would have loved to have Impressed a dragon. To be able to go anywhere on Pern at the drop of a boot. I would love to go with you now, but I’m on duty.”

I wouldn’t have been able to take you even had I wanted to, he thought. Not that I dislike you, but passengers always divert a lot of my attention.

“I’m sorry, Risal, but I’ll be carrying a heavy load to begin with. He has no water, so I’m taking a water bag out to him. I don’t know how big the replacement hub is but I guarantee it’s going to make for an interesting balancing act between the two.  And I don’t really know if the parts are available. I might have to make two or even three trips.”

That thought was dismaying.

“Okay,” Risal said, “Clear skies and safe flight. You might want to take a lunch, by the way. It’s a long way between cotholds.”

————————————————————————————————–

Raylan wasn’t in. It’s none of my business where he is, he thought. Jansen is as much the Chief as Raylan.

“You’re going now?” she said. He was grateful he didn’t have to say ‘halfway between’.

“Yes and no. I have to stop at Coastal and see if they have a hub. If they have to build the hub from scratch, I’ll go just to drop water for him and his team. It may mean I have to make more than one trip, Jan, but Lizard’s family. I guess I should have tried to contact Coastal’s wheelwright first, but I’m not sure he or she has a datalink.”

“I’ll ping the Weyr to see if they have a hub. It should save you a lot of time. How are you going to transport water?”

“Chief Orlon lent me a water bucket meant specifically for this sort of mission. I’ll take on water on the southern side of the Lake. But, do you mean to say you can find out if Coastal has a hub?”

“Yes. It’s a new program Data is testing. It’s meant primarily for Supply and Logistics, and they eventually want to have all the Halls, the Holds, all the Crafters submit what they specialize in for the main database. Rather than having a dragonrider go to a Crafter for a cheese they didn’t make this year, or a Fisher go to a port only to find they don’t have a mainmast available, this database will catalog who has what and save time and transport. Data came up with the concept after Healer Hall created a vaccine for the tumblebug virus, then had no way of getting it out to everyone on Pern quickly.”

She turned to her keyboard, and while typing, said, “When you get back I’ll tell you the project I’ve been working on for almost a year, in between time traveling artifact thieves, monsters from outer space hunting us for their dinner, organizing my museum, dealing with Fleming and his mother counterfeiting marks, opening up DR Plank’s Museum of Pern Natural History and trying to piece together bones from all the beasts you’ve brought me. It’s taken me a year and it’s still not done, but I do have the structure and format working. What does the hub look like?”

“I have a drawing of it,” he said, handing it to her.

“Oh, GOOD. That was smart.” She scanned it. “Turing is sending it now. Data is trying very hard to get the various Holds and Crafthalls to list the stuff they have and what they make, but it’s like pulling hen’s teeth from most of them. They don’t want anyone know their special little trade secrets, what Data calls their “intellectual property.”

“Hens don’t have teeth,” K’ndar said.

“That’s the idea, silly wherry. I’m being sarcastic,” she said. “OUR chickens don’t. But chickens are direct descendants of Tyrannosaurus rex, who, if you look at the skull in the Plank museum, had teeth longer than a fighting dagger and knew how to use them.”

He laughed. “You and your Terran dinosaurs!”

She grinned. “Yes, like I needed yet another hobby? But it’s the most fascinating period of any planet, in my mind, Pern or Earth. I have a new passion, and it’s yet another obstacle to my project.” I wonder why no one has found Pern dinosaurs, she thought. Maybe they’re not looking in the right spot? I’ll ask Risal. Maybe she can show me how to look for fossils, she thought.

“Would you do me a favor?” she asked, “When you get to the caravan, make a cairn, photo or draw it, maybe even ping the starship for the lat long at the spot, please? It’s going to be part of my project.”

“I will. I would anyway. Now you have me interested, if I had the time, Jansen, which at the moment I don’t. When I get back, tell me how this project works.”

Her computer pinged. “Oh, good news, Turing says their wheelwright says that yes, he has one on hand, a trader had one built for him just a few months ago, and says he made a second one ‘just in case’. He asks is it for the same caravan?”

“Tell him yes, yes, it’s Fire Lizard Man’s caravan. Does he have a datalink? Is that who you’re corresponding with?”

“Who, the wheelwright?”

“Yes, does he have a datalink?” he asked, knowing that Landing’s current policy was to send datalinks to Weyrleaders, Holders and Crafters, but had to refrain from the average citizen from owning one. Too many people had used them for other than ‘official business’.

“Well, in this case, yes. But not just as their wheelwright. He’s also Coastal’s Weyrleader.”

“Oh, my word!!” he gasped. “That’s A’garn. He’s also Harbormaster of Coastal’s seaport. After Thread was nullified, we dragonriders were advised to have skills other than fighting Thread. Wheelwright! Harbormaster and Weyrleader! Where does he find the time?”

“That’s one thing no one can create enough of.”

Her computer pinged. She read the message and laughed.

She laughed. “He says, “Tell the trader I said, “Told you so. I knew the minute I saw the hubs on that caravan that he’d be back for a second one soon.”

K’ndar nodded ruefully. “Tell him I’ll be there shortly, and does he need payment now?”

I can pay for it, he thought. Although I haven’t any idea how much a hub costs. Good thing I have some real money in my quarters.

She typed. Again, a short period was spent waiting for the electrons to travel.

She snorted.

“He says, don’t be a dumbarse. I know he’s good for the money. I get enough satisfaction just being right.”