Chap. 323 Fresh Scones

“Hello, the weyr! Hello, K’ndar here!” he called outside Shirae’s cavern door.

Funny, how Landing and the rest of Pern seem to be on different planets. At Landing I touch a panel, say my name and the door whisks open. Here, Shirae and her weyrmate finally built a real door, after the hurricane destroyed the original hanging woven one.

The lightwood door opened with a creak.

“K’ndar, come in! What a surprise! Oh, my, you’re looking well,” said Shirae, his sister’s foster mom.

He entered the cozy dwelling. It smelled of freshly baked bread and something tantalizing was bubbling in a cast iron pot, the lid heaped with glowing red coals.

Yet another difference in Landing and the rest of Pern, he thought. He had a ‘range’ powered by a solar panel in his quarters. Yet, even to this day, people everywhere on Pern were still cooking like they’d done for over two thousand years; over an open fire or baking in a brick oven.

But things were slowly changing. Shirae’s home was lit by solar powered lights, and a datalink sat, unused at the moment, on a stone work bench.

“Would you like some klah? It’s freshly brewed. And I have some scones, with the last of the berries we picked last autumn.”

“That would be nice, especially the scones. Glyena said they’re the best,” he said, smiling. He didn’t say Glyena had never mentioned them. Sometimes lying wasn’t lying. It never hurt to be civil.

“Sit, sit. Shoo, cat. Give the man your chair,” she ordered a large ginger cat curled up in the depths of a very comfortable looking chair. Shirae ignored his glare and unceremoniously evicted the cat. “Please, make yourself comfortable. Is this an official visit or are you on a break?”

“Official, ma’am, I’m courier today for Landing. I have the time, I think, so I thought I’d catch up with Glyena. Is she being good?” He sat in the cushions, still warm from the cat’s body heat.

Shirae handed him a hot mug and a trencher of scones. He balanced the trencher on his knee and took a bite.

“Oh, these are incredible,” he said, meaning it.

“Thank you. Glyena is Glyena. Yes, she’s being good. She’s a good kid, K’ndar, but there are times-oh, I don’t have to explain. I’m sure you remember she can be, um, headstrong.”

“You’ve done wonders with her, Shirae, I have no worries about her. Nor does my mum.”

“Thank you. Foster kids are like uncarved wood, to be turned into something useful with a patient, guiding hand. Glyena was good wood to begin with, you understand, K’ndar. Your mum did so very well, she had nothing to be ashamed of by fostering her out, considering the um, atmosphere your father, um,” Shirae faltered, not wanting to gossip.

“Who was an evil tempered, abusive asshole and a bully. You won’t hurt my feelings by saying the truth about my father. It was Glyena’s decision to live here, not Mum’s. Mum merely accepted it, not without a lot of guilt and anxiety.”

He sipped the klah. “This is very good, thank you.” He looked around. The cat pouted underneath the stone bench, giving him the stink eye.

“It’s so quiet, last time I was here I heard nothing but laughing and giggling.”

“Yes, and I must admit, I like the peace and quiet. The girls are all at work, same as my weyrmate,” Shirae said.

“Work?”

“Yes. Siena has made big changes, here at the Weyr. Now, children are obligated to be in school until noon. No excuses, unless, of course, they’re sick. Which is seldom. Then they have a lunch if desired, and are off to ‘work’, five days out of seven. They can choose whatever they want to do, within reason, but it must be something that contributes, either to the family, or the Weyr, or to Pern.”

The cat came out at her beckoning and she picked him up. She began to scratch his back and the cat’s eyes squeezed shut, enjoying the attention.

“Siena is adamant, now that Thread is gone, Kahrain must become as self supporting as possible. We won’t be farming, for instance, but dragons are providing transport, sweeps, heavy lifting, and, of course, we’ll be helping during harvest. While Lord Dorn has assured the Weyr that he will always support us, some of the weyrs up north are finding that the Holds are no longer interested in tithing or supporting, unless they pay. Pay!” she said.

Just like the last twenty five hundred years, he thought, remembering his history. When Thread stops, so does the support.

“I’ve heard things like that, Shirae. Landing is having the same sort of issues.”

She frowned. “Our world is changing so fast, K’ndar, and I’m not sure I like it. I’m too old to adapt, and happily, I don’t have to. But the Weyr’s kids, they’ll have to learn to navigate it. They need to learn a trade, so they’re prepared for when they’re emancipated.”

“What sorts of trade?”

“Just about anything, K’ndar. Fishing, weaving, building things. Farming. Gardening, forestry. My middle foster wants to be a ‘computer tech’, so she’s been working in the library with Rendel until she’s sixteen. Then she wants to go to Landing to work with the database.”

He nodded. “There’s room for her, Shirae. The staff is always happy to take on youngsters. If she goes there, you needn’t worry, they have a dorm for kids, it’s well chaperoned, and even there, she will have schooling-and tasks.”

“Good. Good. She’s a good girl but like most teenagers, she is easily distracted and right now, she’s boy crazy.” She looked at K’ndar and laughed. “Oh, the drama! Don’t you dare bring another young boy like that fisher, Harve. Oh, my word, every teenage girl in the Weyr was after him like a green dragon in heat.” She dissolved into giggles.

He grinned. “I think I saw your girl when I dropped off a load of books and a datalink for Rendel. Tall for her age, red hair?”

“That’s her.”

“Not to worry, Rendel had her working.”

“Great. Oh, poor Rendel. He’s caught, too, he’s lost with this new technology. The datalinks! He says the kids don’t want to learn the Songs anymore, they want to read the books and most especially, interact with the datalinks.”

“That’s a shame, but it’s not uncommon. I feel the same way, at times. What about your first foster? And Glyena?”

“My first wants to, get this, Impress a dragon!”

He realized that it was the first time he’d heard of a kid who WANTED to fly.

“That’s great! Was she Searched?”

“Not yet, she just turned fifteen. But Virgoth, my weyrmate’s dragon, says she’s telepathic. She just adores Reya’s green. So she’s been sitting in on the Weyrling classes, soaking up everything.”

“Wow. That will be advantageous. Weyrlingschool will be a snap for her. I am so surprised auditing hadn’t happened more often.”

“It had, K’ndar, you just never saw it because you’re not weyr bred. I was. I grew up in a Northern Weyr, I wanted to Impress but,” she tapped her head, mournfully, “I just don’t have that thing in my mind that makes one telepathic.”

“I’m sorry, Shirae. I’m certain you would have made a great rider.”

“Maybe. As I grew up, I realized that it wasn’t a bad thing, not being able to fly a dragon. I was happy to hide when Thread fell. Although it seems so much of my childhood task involved making numbweed. Phew! That’s a job I will NEVER ever miss.” She waved her hand in imitation of waving the fumes away.

“Threadfall always scared me spitless. It was even worse when Reya went out with the wings to flame Thread. She always pretended as if she weren’t afraid, but I know that she was. All of you were so brave! As bad as making numbweed was, I always felt that, even though I wasn’t fighting Thread, I was making a difference when the teams came back, scored, or injured. I’d think, ‘I made some of this numbweed.’ And do you know, in all that time, after every Fight, not once did I ever hear a dragonrider whine about being scored.”

He shivered. “It was a dragonrider thing, Shirae. We didn’t complain because, well, you just didn’t. It was a pride thing, it was a, um, sense of togetherness. You went up there and fought thread to protect your wingmates, your friends, your families. Everyone was scared, Shirae. B’rant used to say, the man who says he’s not afraid of Thread is a liar. Fighting Thread, at least for me, was always an exercise in controlled terror. I never got used to it. I was always afraid of it.”

“Aye. Every dragonrider I know says the same thing,” she said. “Another scone?”

“No, thank you, they’re very good but I think I’m full!”

“Now, about Glyena. As you know, she wants to be a dolphineer.”

“Yes, and I’ll support her in that, if need be.”

“Thank you, but we’ll take care of that. She has to wait until she’s sixteen to actually go to the Dolphineer Hall. She does her school work, goes to work and after dinner, she’s reading everything she can about dolphins. When she has a question the database can’t answer, she calls them with the bell. They’re the most amazing, oh, I can’t call them animals. They’re not animals if they can talk, right? No, they’re people, just not human people. Glyena even tries to imitate their clicks and squeals, which,apparently, amuses the dolphins no end. They’re such interesting, complex creatures. It’s astounding that they have their own language and yet can still speak Pernese.”

“Yes, I like them, a lot. They’re smarter than us, I’m convinced. If I hadn’t impressed Raventh, if I had been born somewhere other than the steppe where I was born a horseman, if, if! If I weren’t so afraid of deep water, I might have been a dolphineer, too,” he heard himself admit.

“So I’m fairly convinced that Glyena will at least start out as a dolphineer.”

“So she’s at work, now?”

“Yes. She’s working with Herdmaster Nyala. I know you can find the barns with your eyes closed. Once you finish your mug, why don’t you head to the barn? She’s sure to be there.”

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