"Someone could have come and had a look-see," Sheledon said.

"Oh, come now, Shel," said Bethany, as amused by his sudden switch for he had always derided the Tubberman Tube Theory. "Pern isn't rich enough for anyone to bother about."

"So the precious records said, but I think that was to save face."

"They should have checked on us to see how we were faring. They got awfully proprietary about the Shavian colonies that were the basic reason for the Nathi s.p.a.ce War."

"That was over three hundred years ago, Shel," Bethany said in her patient teacher-tone.

"And it is totally irrelevant to now," Sydra added. "Look, the loss of the computers is undeniably a blow to us, but not something we cannot overcome."

"But all that information..." cried Clisser, tears coming to his eyes.

"Clisser, dear," and Bethany leaned across to him, patting his hand gently, "we still have the best computers ever invented..." and she tapped her forehead, "and they're crammed full of information: more than we really need to operate - -"

"But... but, now we'll never find out how to preserve vital information-like early warning of the return of the Red Star."

"We'll think of something," she said in such a confident tone that it penetrated Clisser's distress. And briefly he looked a trifle brighter.

Then he slumped down in even deeper despair. "But we've failed the trust placed in us to keep the data available."

"Nonsense!" Sheledon said vehemently, crashing one fist down on the desk-top. "We've kept them going past their design optimum. I've read enough in the old manuals to appreciate that. Every year for the past fifty has been a miracle. And we haven't, as Bethany says, lost all. A gimmick from the past has failed, like so many of them have. And we're now going to have to bypa.s.s the easy access to data they provided and sweat through books! Books! Books that we have in quant.i.ty.

Clisser blinked. He shook his head as if mentally rejecting a thought.

"We have been planning to ignore much of the old data," Bethany said gently. "What was most important to us..." and her hand indicated the Pern of the present, has been copied well, most of it," she amended when Clisser opened his mouth. "If we haven't needed it up to now, we never will."

"But we've lost the sum total of human..." Clisser began..

"Ha!" Sydra said. "Ancient history, man. We've survived on Pern and it is PERN that's important. As Bethany said, if we haven't needed it up to now, we never will. So calm down."

Clisser scrubbed at his skull with both hands. "But how will I tell Paulin?"

"Didn't the lightning affect Fort, too?" asked Sheledon and answered himself. "I thought I saw a work force on the solar heights."

Clisser threw both hands up in the air. "I told him we were checking the damage."

"Which is total?" Sheledon asked.

"Total!" and Clisser dropped his head once again to his chest in resignation to the inevitable.

"It's not as if you caused the storm or anything, Cliss", Bethany said.

He gave her a burning look.

"Was the system being run at the time?" Sheledon asked.

"Of course not," Clisser said emphatically, scowling at Sheledon. "You know the rule. All electronics are turned off in any storm."

"And they were?"

"Of course they were."

Bethany exchanged a look with Sheledon as if they did not credit that a.s.surance. They both knew that Jemmy would work until he fell asleep over the keyboard.

"I tell you," and Clisser went on, "everything powered went down. It's just luck that the generators have all those surge protectors, but even those didn't save the computers. The surge came in on the data bus, not the power lines."

"Which were dying anyway. They were now dead, really, truly dead," Sheledon said firmly. "Rest in peace. I'll go and tell Paulin if he's who you're worried about."

"I am not," and Clisser banged his fist on the table, worried about Paulin. "And it's my duty to tell him."

"Then also tell him that our new teaching techniques are in place and that we've lost nothing that future generations will need to know," said Sydra.

"But... but how do we know what they might need to know?" Clisser asked, clearly still despairing with that rhetorical question.

"We don't know the half of what we should know."

Bethany rose and took the two steps to the beverage counter.

"it's not working either," Clisser said in a sharp disgusted tone, flicking one hand at it, insult on injury.

"I shall miss the convenience," she said.

"We all shall miss convenience," said Clisser and exhaled sharply, once again combing his hair back from his forehead with impatient fingers.

"So," said Sydra with a shrug of her shoulders, "we use the gas-ring instead. It heats water just as hot, if not as quickly."

"Now, let's all go and get a reviving cup, shall we?" She took Clisser by the hand, to tug him out of his chair. "You look as if you need reviving."

"You're all high on last night's success," he told them accusingly, but he got to his feet.

"As well we are," said Sheledon. "The better to console you, old friend."

"Clisser," Bethany began in her soft, persuasive voice, "we have known from our reading of the Second Crossing that the artificial intelligence, the AIVAS turned itself off. We know why. Because it wisely knew that people were beginning to think it was infallible: that it contained all the answers to all Mankind's problems. Not just its history. Mankind had begun not only to consider it an oracle but to depend on it far more than was wise. For us. So it went down.

"We have let ourselves be guided too long by what we could read and extract from the data left to us on computer. We have been too dependent. It is high time we stood squarely on our own two feet..." She paused, twisting her mouth wryly, to underscore her own uneven stance, "...and made our own decisions. Especially when what the computers tell us has less and less relevance to our current problems."

"You said it, Bethany," agreed Sheledon, nodding approval with a little quirk of his mouth.

Clisser smoothed back his hair again and smiled ruefully.

"It would have been better if this could all have happened just a little -" and he made a s.p.a.ce between thumb and forefinger, "later."

"When we found what we need for the dragon riders You mean, a fail-proof system to prove the Red Star's on a drop course?" Sheledon asked and then shrugged. "The best minds on the continent are working on that problem."

"We'll find a solution," said Bethany, again with the oddly calm resolution of hers. "Mankind generally does, you know."

"That's why we have dragons," Sydra said. "I could really murder a cup of klah."

Weyrling Barracks and Bitra Hold

An insistent, increasingly urgent sense of hunger nagged Debera out of so deep a sleep she was totally disoriented.

The bed was too soft, she was alone in it, and neither the sounds nor smells around her were familiar.

I really am most terribly hungry and I know that you were very tired but my stomach is empty, empty, empty. MORATH Debera shot bolt upright and cracked her poll on the underside of the dragonet's head because Morath had been leaning over her bed.

"Ouch! Oh, dearest, I didn't hurt you, did I?" Standing up in the bed, Debera wrapped apologetic arms about Morath, stroking her cheeks and ear k.n.o.bs rea.s.suring her with murmurs of regret and promises to never hurt her again.

The little dragon refocused her eyes, whirling lightly, but with only the faintest tinge of the red of pain and alarm which dissipated quickly with such ardent rea.s.surances.

Your head is much harder than it looks, she said, giving hers a little shake.

Debera rubbed underneath the jaw where the contact had been made.

"I'm so sorry, dearest," and then she heard a giggle behind her and swiveling around, half in anger, half in reflexive defense, she saw that she was not alone in the weyrling barracks. The blonde girl from Ista... Sarra, that was her name... was sitting on the edge of her bed, folding clothes into the chest. Her dragonet was still curled up in a tight mound from which a slight snore could be heard.

"Ooops, no offence intended." Sarra said, smiling with such good nature that Debera immediately relaxed. "You should have seen the looks on your faces. Morath's eyes nearly crossed when you cracked her."

Debera rubbed the top of her head, grimacing, as she descended from the bed.

"I was so deeply asleep... I couldn't think where I was at first."

"Morath's been as good as she could be," Sarra said. "T'dam said to dress for dirty work. We're supposed to bathe and oil them after their first nap of the day." That was when Debera remembered the pile of things she had not properly sorted the previous night.

Does dressing take long? Morath asked plaintively.

"No, it doesn't, love," and, turning her back in case Sarra might be embarra.s.sed, Debera hauled off the nightdress and threw on the garments on the top of the pile - not new, certainly, but suitable for rough work.

The socks were new, knitted of a st.u.r.dy cotton, and she was especially grateful for them since the pair she had had on yesterday had already been worn several days. She stamped her feet into her own boots and stood.

"I'm ready, dear," she said to the little green who stepped down off the raised platform and promptly fell on her nose.

Sarra jumped the intervening bed to help right Morath, struggling so hard to keep from laughing that she nearly choked. Once Debera saw that Morath had taken no hurt, she grinned back at the Istan.

"Are they always this?"

Sarra nodded. "So T'dam told us. You'll find a pail of meat just outside the door. We get a break this first morning," and she wrinkled her nose in a grimace, "but after today, it's up at the crack of dawn and carve up our darlings' breakfasts." There was a long snorting snore from Sarra's green and she whirled, waiting to see if the dragonet was waking up. But the snore trembled into a tiny soprano "ooooooh" and then resumed its rhythm.

"Did she do that all night long?" Debera asked.

I am SO hungry.

Debera was all apologies, and so was Sarra who sprinted ahead to fling open both leaves of the door, making a flourishing bow for their exit. Morath immediately crowded against Debera, pushing her to the right, her young nose detecting the enticing smell in the two covered pails on the rack outside the barracks.

Debera lifted the pail down while Morath impatiently nudged off the cover and seemed to inhale the gobbets.

Debera allowed her to fill her mouth and then started shielding the pail with her body.

"You will chew what you eat, Morath, you hear me? You could choke to death, and then where would I be?" Morath gave her such a look of pained astonishment and reproach that Debera couldn't remain stern.

"Chew," she said, popping a handful of pieces into Morath's open mouth. "Chew!" she repeated and Morath obediently exercised her jaws before spreading them wide again for another batch. Debera had not tended the orphaned young animals of her hold without learning some of the tricks.

Whoever had decided on the quant.i.ty, Debera thought, knew the precise size of a dragonet's belly. Morath's demands had slowed considerably as Debera reached the bottom of the pail and the dragonet sighed before she swallowed the last.

"I see she's had breakfast," said T'dam, appearing from behind so suddenly that Morath squawked in surprise and Debera struggled to get to her feet. T'dam's hand on her shoulder pushed her back down.

"We're not formal in the Weyr, Debera," he said kindly.

"Now, lead her over to the lake there," and he gestured to the right where Debera recognized the large mounds as sleeping dragonets "Then, when she wakes up from this feed she'll be just where you can bathe and oil her." T'dam grinned. "Before you can feed her again, though..." and then he motioned to his left. "Are you squeamish?" he asked.

Debera took a good look in the direction he pointed and saw six skinned carca.s.ses, swaying from butchering tripods.

Weyrlings were busy with knives carving flesh off the bones, or at the table chopping raw meat into dragonet morsels.

"Me?" Debera gave a cynical snort. "Not likely."

"Good," T'dam said approvingly. "Some of your peers are."

"Come now, Morath," he added in a totally altered tone, loving and kind and wheedling, you'll need a little rest and the sands by the lake are warm in the sun.

Morath lifted her head, her eyes glistening bluey-green as she regarded the Weyrlingmaster.

He is a nice man, she said and began to waddle towards the lake; her swaying belly bulged lumpily with her meal.

"When you've settled her, Debera, be sure to get your own breakfast in the kitchen. Good thing you're not squeamish" he said, turning away, but his chuckle drifted back to Debera's ears.

It's awfully far to the lake, isn't it, Debera? Morath said, puffing.

"Not really," Debera said. "Anyway, it's much too rocky underfoot right here to make a comfortable bed for your nap."

Morath looked down her long nose, her left fore knocking a stone out of her path. And she sighed. She kept going, Debera encouraging her with every slow step, until they reached the sandier ground surrounding the lake. It had recently been raked, the marks visible between the paw- and tail-prints of the dragonets Debera urged Morath further on to the sand, to an empty spot between two browns who were tightly curled with wings to shield their eyes from the autumn sun pouring down on them.

With a great sigh, Morath dropped her hindquarters to the sand, with an I'm not going a step further att.i.tude and sank slowly over to her right side. She curled her tail about her, curved her head around under her left wing and, with a sweet babyish croon rumbling in her throat, fell asleep.

Once again, Debera could barely bring herself to leave the dragonet, lost in the wonder of having been acceptable to such a marvelously lovable creature.

She'd been lonely and lacking in love for so long - ever since her mother had died and her oldest full brother had left the family Hold.

Now she had Morath, all her very own, and those long years of isolation faded into a trivial moment.

"She's perfectly safe here," Debera told herself finally, and forced herself to leave Morath and make her way across that quadrant of the Bowl to the kitchen caverns. Enticing smells of fresh bread and other viands made her quicken her steps.

She hoped she'd have enough restraint not to bolt her food like her dragonet.