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"Good morning," Aivas said at his most polite and noncommittal. "If you will seat yourselves, I shall explain today's project." He waited until they had taken their places and their excited murmurs had dwindled into respectful silence.
Then the screen displayed a clear picture of the view with which they had all become familiar: the bridge of the Yokohama. Only this time there was an addition: a space-suited figure slumped over one of the control panels. There was an almost simultaneous intake of breath at the realization that the body was that of Sallah Telgar, who had died so valiantly to save the colony. This, then, was the actual bridge of the Yokohama-not the image that Aivas had supplied during their training. Then the focus of the picture slid across the consoles beyond the figure to rest on the board marked LIFE-SUPPORT SYSTEM.
Jaxom saw Piemur reach up to stroke Farli, whose gaze was fixed on the screen. She gave a little chirp, for she, too, recognized the board. She had been working for a month on a mockup, pushing at two toggles and depressing three keys in a certain sequence. She could now perform those movements in less than thirty seconds.
Over the past two Turns, Aivas had subtly collected many facts about both fire-lizards and dragons. The most relevant fact was that both creatures were able to maintain the oxygen levels in their systems for almost ten minutes without suffering undue discomfort or harm. That time could be pushed to fifteen minutes, but after that amount of time, both fire-lizards and dragons would need several hours to recover from the effects of oxygen deprivation.
One of the exercises with fire-lizards and dragons in which there had been no success had been getting them to take an object from one place and bring it to another. Telekinesis, Aivas had called it, but the concept-patiently explained-confused the dragons as thoroughly as it did the fire-lizards. They would go between to get the required object, but they could not bring it without physically collecting it. Aivas had explained that if the dragons and fire-lizards could transport themselves telekinetically, it logically followed that they ought to be able to use their abilities to lift distant items to them.
"Today, Piemur, you are asked to send Farli to the Yokohama to manipulate the switches as she had been taught to do. There is no oxygen at present on the bridge, and it is essential that the life-support system be activated before we can take the next step. Another of the toggles will transmit a report on the general condition of the Yokohama.
"Oh!" Piemur murmured very softly, then sighed gustily. He stroked Farli, who chirped again, her unblinking eyes still on the screen. "Somehow I thought that's what you'd say."
"She has been an excellent pupil, Piemur. There should be no problem, as she is well accustomed to obeying you."
Piemur took a deep breath. "All right, Farli," he said. He unwrapped her tail from his neck and held up his arm in the position that indicated she was to take a message.
Carefully walking along his bare arm with her talons sheathed, Farli reached his forearm and turned about to face him, her eyes whirling alertly.
"Now-" Piemur held up his right hand. "This is going to be slightly different, Farli. I want you to go up in the sky, to the place you see in my mind." He closed his eyes and focused his thoughts tightly on the scene of the bridge and the particular console she was to activate.
Farli chirruped queryingly, looked over her shoulder at the picture on the screen, and burbled once, reclosing her wings on her back.
"No, Farli, not into the screen. Get the 'where' from my mind." Piemur closed his eyes again, concentrating on the exact place he wanted her to go, emphasizing the life-support console next to the slumped corpse. When she chirruped again, this time almost impatiently, he sighed and turned to the others in defeat.
"She just doesn't understand," he said, trying not to let his disappointment color his voice. Not that he blamed her. She had been to most of the places he sent her. How could he get across the difference between traveling around the planet and going into space above it? Especially as he could not quite grasp the concept himself.
Farli emphasized this by flitting from his arm to the room in which she had been trained, moments later coming back and trying to fly into the picture on the screen.
Piemur's grin was weak. "What do you bet she's gone and done her exercises again? That much she understands!"
Disappointment was palpable in the room. Piemur kept his eyes straight ahead, on the tantalizingly unreachable view on the screen.
"So?" F'lar asked. "What do we do now, Aivas?"
There was a long pause before Aivas spoke. "The mind of the fire-lizard does not function in recorded animal behavioral patterns."
"That's not surprising. Your records only cover Terran types," Piemur remarked, trying not to feel so depressed about his little queen's failure. She was the best of the whole fair, better even than Menolly's Beauty, who was certainly very well trained. But he had hoped that she would be able to make this strange variation of flight. "It's also a long way to ask her to go when no one's been there before."
Another silence hung on the room.
"There's only one dragon in fact," F'lar said slowly and thoughtfully, breaking the pause, "who's ever been off the planet."
"Canth!" Lessa exclaimed.
"F'nor's brown Canth is too large," Aivas said.
"It wasn't his size I was thinking of," Lessa replied. "It's his experience in going above this planet. He's done it, so perhaps he can explain to Farli so that she'll understand what's wanted of her." Her eyes lost their focus as she sought for Canth.
Yes, we can come immediately, Canth replied to Lessa's request.
There was a stir of anticipation among those waiting in Aivas's room. Piemur kept stroking Farli, who had returned to her position on his arm. He murmured softly that she was a marvelous fire-lizard, the best in the world, but that the toggles she was to pull and the buttons she was to press were really not the ones in the next room but, rather, identical ones up on the Yokohama, far above their heads in the dark sky. She kept cocking her head this way and that, her throat pulsing as she tried her very best to understand what was wanted of her.
"Ah, they're here," Lessa said. "F'nor's on his way in."
Looking as if he had dressed in a hurry, F'nor came ru
"Aivas needs Farli to get to the bridge on the Yokohama," she explained. "Farli doesn't understand her directions. You and Canth are the only two on Pern who have left the planet. We thought Canth might be able to clarify the instructions so Farli will know what she is expected to do."
As she spoke, F'nor pulled off his flight cap and shucked off his heavy riding gear. When she had finished, his expression turned humorously quizzical.
"Well, now, Lessa, that's a problem. I've never been exactly sure how Canth and I managed that abortive flight in the first place-"
"Do you remember what you were thinking?" F'lar asked.
F'nor chuckled. "I was thinking I had to do something to keep you from trying to get to the Red Star." Then he frowned. "Come to think of it, Meron was there, and he tried to make his fire-lizard go. She disappeared in a flash, and I don't know if she ever returned to him."
"Farli's not afraid," Piemur said staunchly. "She just doesn't understand where she's supposed to perform what she's been trained to do."
F'nor spread his hands in a gesture of appeal. "If Farli can't get the hang of it, I don't think any of them could."
"But could Canth explain to her that he went off the planet? Into space?" Lessa asked.