Страница 75 из 114
Jaxom set D'ram's screen at its highest magnification and called up the appropriate sector. As D'ram's screen refocused, the old bronze rider reared back in his chair, his expression blank with shock as the ragged begi
"It's not that close to us yet, D'ram. I just gave you an enhanced image. Here, I'll give you the actual perspective." Jaxom altered the magnitude so that the incoming stream was merely a sunlit smudge dropping toward them from the fourth quadrant.
"How near is it?" D'ram asked, his voice dry and cracking.
"Proximity monitor suggests we've a good ten minutes before contact," Jaxom said.
F'lar cautiously made his way to D'ram and hung on to the chair back, his legs almost horizontal to the floor. Then he levered himself into the other station and strapped in.
Are you all right down there? Jaxom asked Ruth as privately as he could so as not to be overheard by Ramoth.
She's far too busy enjoying free fall, Ruth replied, his tone amused. She's better at it then Mnementh and Tiroth, for all she's bigger. She's not using as much shove. I think they are doing much better without their riders watching. Watch your wings, Ramoth! Not much room in here!
Jaxom gri
"Who'm I taking to the Bahrain?" she asked, gri
"Whoever will go with you," Jaxom said. "Lessa? F'lar?"
Lessa made an injudiciously sharp movement of her head and flattened herself against the window. "I'll go with you, Mirrim." No, Ramoth, it's perfectly all right. I assure you that you would not fit on the bridge here, much less on the Bahrain's. You learn to keep your balance down there in the bay where you have some space to maneuver.
Jaxom asked Ruth to oblige F'lar, and the white dragon jumped between to the bridge.
"You know the drill?" Jaxom asked the Benden Weyrleaders.
Lessa gave him a hard stare as she floated across to Path, but F'lar chuckled and replied meekly, "I assure you, we've been practicing hard, Jaxom. My thanks, Ruth, " he added as he glided up to the white dragon's back and settled himself.
"Bit easier to bestride than that great hulk of yours, isn't he?" Jaxom replied, gri
"Where do I sit, Jaxom?" Robinton asked eagerly, pushing himself off from the window.
"Where F'lar was."
Much as Jaxom's fingers itched to insert the command, he found it equally gratifying to watch the expression on the Harper's face as he performed the task. As the smiths had on the previous occasion, Robinton and D'ram both recoiled as the ovoids hurtled toward the window. D'ram grunted as the first puffs signaled the destruction, then sat with arms folded across his chest, eyes narrowed, a look of deep satisfaction on his face.
"You know, D'ram, we really ought to get Lytol to come here one time," Robinton said. "It might ease his heart to destroy Thread. He never had the chance as a rider."
"Might do him some good at that," D'ram remarked thoughtfully.
"Aivas?" Jaxom opened the cha
"Yes, Jaxom, and the density is up by seven percent or more on the previous Fall."
"Then this predestruction will be welcome."
Jaxom turned his attention to the coldsleep laboratory, where the two healers were having trouble penetrating the shell of the Thread with the instruments they had brought with them.
"We've pounded, we've chipped, we've scraped-and we've not so much as scratched the surface," Sharra told Jaxom in disgust, waving a chisel in frustration.
"So much for those who fear it would leak out and devour us," Oldive said. He sounded more amused than frustrated. "Amazing envelope. Impervious to everything we thought would easily cut through it."
"Diamond cutters?" Jaxom suggested.
"You know, that might be just the thing," Oldive said, pleased. "Well, I certainly won't mind coming up here again. I've never felt so mobile." Although he generally paid no attention to his physical handicaps, his hunched back and crushed pelvis had given him uneven leg lengths and a crabbed gait. In weightlessness those problems were neutralized.
"This is an instance," Aivas said blandly, "when the teleportational abilities of the fire-lizards would come in exceedingly useful."
"Meer and Talla wouldn't know a diamond cutter if it bit them, " Sharra said ruefully. Then Jaxom heard her ruffled breath of a sigh. "I doubt if even that sort of an edge will have any effect on this thing. Its casing is impervious."
"Not to heat," Jaxom reminded her.
"There is no way, Lord Jaxom of Ruatha," Sharra said, settling her hands on her hips in a characteristic posture, "that you will get us to heat that thing up to simulate the friction of an ovoid's passage through atmospheric levels! Not that one could use a flamethrower in such a confined space as this lab."
"You do not have the technology necessary to produce a narrow heat beam such as a laser that would be effective on such a casing," Aivas added. "Another area in which you will have to make great progress over the next Turn."
"Oh? Why?" Jaxom asked, noting the quick interest of both Robinton and D'ram.
"There is no point, at this juncture, to elaborate on device or need," Aivas replied. "It is a matter that has been placed in the Mastersmith's hands but does not have priority over other, more essential, projects."
"Haven't you any helpful suggestions for us?" Sharra asked Aivas caustically.
"The diamond-cutter edge will be effective."
"Then why on earth didn't you suggest that we bring one along on this trip?" she demanded.
"The question was not put to this facility."
"The trouble with you, Aivas," Sharra continued with some asperity, "is that you only tell us what you think we should know: not necessarily all we need to know or what we want to know."
A long silence ensued, during which she and Oldive left the laboratory, sealing the door behind them.
"Sharra's right, you know," D'ram remarked at last.
"Indeed," Robinton said.
"But would we have thought that a diamond cutter would be necessary, considering the selection of edged tools Sharra and Oldive did bring with them?" Jaxom asked, though he agreed completely with his mate and was rather proud of her for speaking so bluntly. It was significant, too, that Aivas had not refuted the accusation.
Robinton shrugged in answer to Jaxom's question. D'ram, however, pulled at his lower lip.
"Diamond cutters are used for gemstones and glass etching. Why would we think to use them to cut open a Thread capsule?" the old Weyrleader asked. He lifted his hands, expressing inadequacy.
"Master Fandarel would have," Robinton remarked. Then he sighed. "We have so much still to understand, to learn, to appreciate. Is there ever an end, Aivas?"
"To what?"
Master Robinton turned a wry smile to Jaxom. "The question was rhetorical, Aivas."
From Aivas, there was silence.
Later, when the group returned to Cove Hold, the consensus was that the sojourn on the Yokohama had been eminently successful. The dragons had become comfortable in free-fall; the humans had had the gratifying experience of cutting ship-shaped tu