Piemur had no quarrel with that; with a mock-paternal kiss he settled her on a pallet in the room beyond Master Robinton's.
Despite his joke about not asking questions, when Piemur returned to the Aivas room he found that he couldn't immediately formulate a single intelligent query. Instead, with a cup in hand and the beaker beside him, Piemur sat, bereft of words, in the semigloom of the chamber.
"Aivas?" he began tentatively.
"Yes, Journeyman Piemur?" The room brightened enough for Piemur to see clearly.
"How do you do that?" Piemur asked, startled.
"The panels that you and Journeywoman Jancis exposed yesterday are capable of drawing energy from the sun: it is called solar power. When all the panels are exposed, an hour's bright illumination will power this unit for twelve hours."
"You're not going to have ordinary usage from now on;" Piemur said with a snort.
"A query: You apparently utilize the luminescent organism in handlights, but do you not have some sort of power generation, perhaps hydroelectric power?"
"Hydroelectric?" Piemur's quick ear allowed him to repeat the unfamiliar words accurately.
"The production of electric current by the energy of moving water."
"Master Fandarel uses water wheels in Telgar Smithcrafthold to drive the big hammers and the forge bellows, but 'electric' is an unfamiliar word. Unless that's what Fandarel does with those acid tanks of his."
"Acid tanks? Batteries?"
Piemur shrugged." I don't know what he calls them. I'm a harper. Whatever 'electric' is, so long as it is efficient, Master Fandarel will love it."
"Would Master Fandarel's equipment resemble this structure?" The screen suddenly lit up with a diagram of a water wheel.
"That's it. How did you know?"
"This is the most frequent primitive application. Have you explored the Landing site, Journeyman Piemur?"
"I don't need my title all the time, Aivas. Piemur is enough."
"No disrespect would be construed?"
"Not from me, Aivas. Some of the Lord Holders get a bit touchy, but Jaxom doesn't, nor Larad and Asgenar. Lessa can be sticky, but not F'lar, or F'nor, or N'ton. And yes, I've explored the Landing site. What should I be looking for?"
The screen displayed a complex mechanism, set at the base of the river hill.
"Nothing like that there now," Piemur said, shaking his head.
"As Mastersmith Fandarel already uses water wheels, a new installation can be erected so that this facility is not dependent on the solar panels, which will be inadequate for the projected demands just discussed."
"They didn't store away any of your panels in the caves?"
"No."
"How can you be sure?" Piemur found such didacticism irritating. It would be totally unfair if this-this intelligence was always right.
"The list of items in the Catherine Caves is available data and does not include spare panels."
"It must be nice to know everything," he said.
"Accuracy is required of an Aivas system-and a very large data base, what you would call 'knowledge.' You must not believe that the data base can contain 'everything.' But sufficient to realize the priorities of the programming."
A harper has to be accurate, too," Piemur said sourly. Master Fandarel's search for efficiency had always had, for Piemur, its humorous side. He wasn't sure if he could be as tolerant of Aivas's rectitude.
A harper -one who plays a harp, an instrument?" Aivas asked.
"I do that, too," Piemur replied, his capricious humor revived as he realized that Aivas did not know very much at all about present-day Pern." The primary function of the Harper Hall is, however, to teach, to communicate, and at need, to arbitrate."
"Not to entertain?"
"We do that, too-it's a good way to teach, as well-and there are many who only do that, but the more skilled of us have multiple duties. It would be presumptuous of me to usurp Master Robinton's right to enlighten you on that account. Although, in actual fact, he is no longer the Masterharper of Pern. Sebell is, because Master Robinton had a nearly fatal heart attack and was made to retire from active service to the Harper Hall. Not that he has retired, despite being in Cove Hold now, because of all that has happened since Jaxom discovered Landing and the Ship Meadow, and then the caves." Piemur halted, realizing that he was rattling on. It was just like him to want to impress Aivas with his knowledge; more than that, Piemur was experiencing an intense need to anchor his personal values in the presence of this superior intelligence.
"Sebell, who is now Masterharper of all Pern, is on his way with the Records," he went on. "And Menolly. They may look young to you, but they are the most important people in the Harper Hall." Then he added deferentially, "But you should know that Master Robinton is the most honored and respected man on Pern. The dragons kept him from dying. That's how important he is."
"The dragons then have been a successful experiment?" Aivas asked.
"Experiment?" Piemur was indignant and then subsided with a rueful chuckle. "I wouldn't let the Weyrleaders hear you calling their dragons 'experiments.'"
"The advice is appreciated."
Piemur eyed the screen for a moment." You mean that, don't you?"
"Yes. The culture and societies of your present-day Pern have evolved and altered considerably from the early days of the colony. It is incumbent on this facility to learn the new protocol and thus avoid giving unnecessary offense. The dragons have, therefore, become important above and beyond their initial role in the aerial defense of the planet?"
"They are the most important creatures on the planet. We couldn't survive without them." Piemur's voice rang with pride and gratitude.
"Without intending any offense, is it currently acceptable to maintain the sports of the breed?"
Piemur snorted." You mean Ruth? He and Jaxom are exceptions-to a lot of rules. He's a Lord Holder and shouldn't ever have Impressed a dragon. But he did, and because they thought Ruth wouldn't survive long, he was allowed to be raised."
"That is contradictory."
"I know, but Ruth's special. He always knows when he is in time.
The resultant pause did much to assuage Piemur's feelings of inferiority. He had stumped the Aivas.
"Your remark is unclear."
"You did know that dragons can move instantaneously between one place and another?"
"That was a basic ability of the fire-dragon from whose genetic material the dragons were originally bioengineered. It was similar to the teleportation ability demonstrated by some species on several other planets."
"Well, dragons can also move between one time end another. Lessa did, and Jaxom." Piemur grinned, being one of the few people to know exactly when and why Jaxom had moved between one time and another. "But it's an exceedingly dangerous ability and severely discouraged. Very few dragons have Ruth's sense of time and space. So, if a dragonrider times it without his Weyrleader's express permission, he gets royally reamed -if he hasn't come to grief messing around with timing, that is."
"Would you be good enough to explain in what circumstances timing is permissible?"
Piemur had already berated himself for mentioning Jaxom's little excursion. He should have kept it to Lessa's adventure, which was already part of the fabric of recent history. So he switched to a less sensitive subject and told Aivas in detail the tale of Lessa's heroic ride on Ramoth: how she had brought the five lost Weyrs of Pern forward in time to save those in the Present Pass from annihilation. Even if he said so himself, Piemur thought he recited it with considerable flair. Though Aivas no comment throughout, Piemur sensed that his unusual audience heard-and remembered-every word.
A Spectacularly brave and daring. exploit, clearly of epic proportions despite the considerable risk she ran in losing both herself and the queen Ramoth. The results clearly justified the journey," Aivas stated. It was more praise than Piemur had expected. He grinned with satisfaction that he had managed to impress the thing.