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"It's really working, Piemur?" Jancis looked up hopefully.
"Green and go!" Piemur chortled, rubbing his hands together, ignoring Benelek's sour looks. "All right, Aivas, now what do I do? "
"Using the letters on the keys in front of you, tap out README."
Hunting out the various letters, Piemur tapped out the phrase. Instantly the screen in front of him blossomed with words, numbers, and letters.
"Hey, look, you two. Words! My own screen full of words!"
Benelek spared only an irritated glance, but Jancis rose to stand behind him and admire the result. She gave him an approving pat and then returned to her task.
"Read carefully and absorb the information on the screen," Aivas said, "and you will learn how to access the programs you need to reach the information you desire. First you must become familiar with the terms. Being comfortable with these terms increases your efficiency as an operator."
By the time Piemur had read through the instructions several times, he wasn't much wiser, for it appeared to him that familiar words no longer meant what they should. He sighed and started at the begi
"I've got it, too!" Jancis cried elatedly. "I've got a green light, too!"
"That makes three of us then," Benelek said smugly. "And I tap Out README, Aivas? "
"The initial lesson is the same for all, Benelek. You are to be congratulated! Have more students been enlisted in this project? There is much to be done."
"Patience, Aivas," Piemur said, imitating the machine's tone and gri
"The rider of the white dragon, Lord Jaxom? Will he be one?"
"Jaxom?" Piemur asked, mildly surprised."I wonder where he got to."
4
For most of that day, Jaxom had been as thoroughly thwarted as Piemur could have wished. He and Ruth had transported five loads of cartons from the caves to the Aivas building, then just when the last had been off-loaded, Master Fandarel had urgently requested the two of them to convey Bendarek back to Lemos and his crafthall. The woodsmith couldn't wait to initiate Aivas's plans to redesign his paper-making machinery and to improve the quality of the product by adding a rag content to the wood pulp.
When Jaxom and Ruth returned to Landing, Master Terry had needed help in locating cables and wires which, after much scrambling about, were found in an almost-overlooked alcove in the caves. Jaxom and Ruth naturally obliged Master Terry by transporting him and the coils back to the Aivas building. Jaxom tried not to care, reminding himself that he was assisting the overall effort, except that he had had rather different notions of how he and Ruth would spend the day.
The white dragon had looked forward to basking in the hot Southern sun. The winter in the North had been cold and clammy, with little sunshine. And Jaxom had especially wanted to work on Aivas's contraptions with Piemur, Jancis, and Benelek.
But Jaxom had made a habit of being accessible, amiable, and helpful. People found it much easier to ask him to oblige than they did other dragons and riders. As Ruth never objected, Jaxom felt constrained to assist whenever they could. Sharra thought it was because he was so determined to be the opposite of his despotic sire, Fax. She felt Jaxom carried this second-generation atonement too far sometimes, and she was quick to interfere if she felt his willingness was being abused. But she was back in Ruatha, and this was rapidly becoming one of those times when amiability was a bloody nuisance.
By the time Terry had off-loaded his coils of wires, Jaxom became aware of a rumbling in his stomach-not surprising, since he had had nothing but klah and a meatroll with Menolly and Sebell in the early morning. Sharra always worried about him remembering to take time to eat, and Jaxom tried to remember her injunctions. He wished that her gravid condition had not prevented her from accompanying him here, but she couldn't risk going between right now. So he walked over to the kitchen building, unaware that F'lar was holding the extraordinary meeting, or he would have been there to lend his support. Jaxom had to help himself to food, because the cook and the drudges were busy dealing with an apprentice who had badly burned his hand do a hot spit-which reminded him that he had promised to convey Master Oldive to Landing. Maybe when that chore was done, he and Ruth could do as they wished.
When Jaxom and Ruth came out of between above the great courtyard of the combined Harper and Healer Halls in Fort Hold, Ruth was suddenly surrounded by a chittering fair of fire-lizards, their demands shrill with warning.
"What's the matter with them, Ruth?" Jaxom asked.
Master Oldive doesn't want you to land in the courtyard, Ruth replied. He says the harpers will latch on to you and he'll never get to Landing. Ruth sounded puzzled, but Jaxom laughed.
"I should've thought of that myself. So what does Master Oldive suggest we do?"
I don't know. They've gone to tell him we're here. Ruth glided to the far side of the big Harper Hall complex, where they would not be so easily seen from either the Hall or the adjacent Fort Hold.
He comes, Ruth said, just as they were once again surrounded try now happily chirping fairs of fire-lizards, doing one of their intricate aerial displays of delight. They see us from the Hold, he added, as another full fair of fire-lizards came zooming in on them, shrieking urgently. No, we have more important things to do than stop at the Hold right now, Ruth said, and added a warning bugle that sent the newcomers whizzing back, their voices thin with distress at his reprimand.
"Lord Groghe's at Landing," Jaxom said, trying not to feel guilty about ignoring the request. "He'll tell them all he wants them to know when he gets back."
His queen fire-lizard has been in and out of the Hold with messages. They know all they need to know about this Aivas, Ruth rumbled in subtle discontent.
Jaxom slapped the white dragon's neck affectionately. "You wouldn't fit in the room, dear friend. Piemur said his Farli went to sleep, totally uninterested in Aivas."
Ruth rumbled again. Here comes the Masterhealer. He veered sharply, descending at such an angle that Jaxom reflexively grabbed the riding straps and arched backward against the steep
"You could have warned me," Jaxom remonstrated mildly. Ruth had a habit of sharpening up his rider's reflexes with unexpected maneuvers. The white dragon grunted with satisfaction at the success of his trick as he back-winged to land neatly a length from Master Oldive, who shambled up to them at a surprisingly rapid rate for a man with legs of unequal length and a humped back. He had a large satchel thumping behind his normal shoulder, but he waved a greeting, a huge grin on his face.
"Ho, there, Jaxom! I feared that you'd forgotten me in all the furor." He leaned against Ruth for a moment to recover his breath. "I'm not as fit as I think I am," he said. They both heard the shouts and saw folk in harper blue charging out of the courtyard archway. "Quickly. If they catch you, we'll never leave."
Ruth crouched down on his forequarters, crooking his left foreleg as a step for the Masterhealer. Jaxom leaned down to grasp Oldive's arm. Winded the man might be, but he exerted a powerful pull as he hauled himself to Ruth's back and settled behind Jaxom.
Immediately Ruth sprang aloft, his white wings taking the first important downstroke and beating upward so that the disappointed cries were quickly lost.
"When you're ready, Ruth," Jaxom said, picturing the Aivas building and being very careful to detail the alteration of the mounds in front of it so as not to have Ruth land out of time. Since the initial excavation, enough space had been cleared there for several dragons to land.