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 assurance. 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 space 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 knobs reassuring 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 reassurances.
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 embarrassed, 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 sturdy 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.