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"I don't know what I'm doing," Manotti complained at one point as he gutted the dispensable refrigerator unit.
"That is not at issue," Aivas reassured him. "You need only follow instructions, for there isn't time to teach you cryogenics or refrigeration engineering. Do as you are told."
"I will, I will." Manotti said, grimacing as he very carefully removed a coil of tubing from the back of the first refrigerator. "Now where does this go?"
Aivas explained. When the transfer was completed and the machinery purred into activity, Manotti gave a whoop of triumph. Next, several of the cold capsules were altered to provide additional three-degree-absolute temperature storage for their specimens. For they needed many more than the original Thread ovoid that Farn had caught. The ovoids, as they shortly learned, came in a variety of sizes and in many conditions and, surprisingly, temperatures.
"You'd think one would be enough," Mirrim muttered to Sharra.
"Humans are not duplicates of each other," Aivas replied, though she had not intended to be overheard. She rolled her eyes at Sharra. "Patently the Thread organisms will also exhibit anomalies-ordinary deviations and quite likely mutations. They are as much a life-form as humans are, and they are in a very stressful environment so near Rukbat."
"That puts us neatly in our place," Oldive said with a grin.
Over the next few days, each team member had to learn to cope with the binocular microscope. Tying knots in a strand of hair gave way to carving flowers from splinters of wood and making paper flowers one millimeter across. Sharra proved the deftest of all, with Brekke and Mirrim not far behind her.
Caselon and Manotti, aided by Sefal and Durack, assembled a microforge with a flame two millimeters long, in which they heated the special glass Aivas had had Master Morilton mix, a glass with such a high lead content that even the amenable Morilton had protested. After Aivas told him that he could make knives with the high-lead mix sharp enough to cut bread, Morilton was at least curious enough to wish to experiment. So Aivas and Caselon got the unusual material.
Working carefully, Caselon pulled glass in the tiny flame, then took the resultant tube down to the 3K absolute in which the finished product would be used. When the first rod shattered, he reflexively jumped back despite the fact that he wore protective face and body shields. He glanced around sheepishly.
"A good habit to acquire, Caselon," Aivas remarked approvingly. "Try again."
When the fourth rod had shattered, Caselon was disgusted.
"The glass may not have been blended well enough, Caselon. Master Morilton supplied you with several different mixes. Use the one with the highest lead content. The instruments must be flexible, bending rather than shattering," Aivas said, projecting such a reassurance of eventual success that Caselon took head"
The fifth attempt bent slightly in the extreme cold but it did not shatter or crack.
"Now, using that mix, make more rods, which you will then fashion into knobs, spikes, and blades. Each of you will work your own tools, with Caselon as your instructor. To further dissect Thread, you will need what are ordinary tools, hacksaw, chisel, mallet, scalpel, but in miniature. Carborundum stone will sharpen edges."
Caselon's set was much admired by the others, though Mirrim thought them stubby inelegant implements. Consequently, when she, on her competitive mettle, made her set longer, she discovered that the flexibility of the length proved a disadvantage when the instruments were used.
"There is so much to do before we do anything," she complained. "We've wasted weeks on all this!"
"And you will spend weeks on the next procedures, Mirrim," Aivas said in a tone that chided her for impatience. "You have worked with great diligence and achieved feats of expertise that two Turns ago you would not have been capable of performing. Do not despair. You are about to embark on the truly interesting phase."
"What?" Mirrim asked bluntly.
"Dissecting Thread."
"But haven't we?" Sharra exclaimed, pointing to the cold capsule where the sectioned Threads were housed.
"You have cut the ovoids apart, but you have not truly examined them as minutely as you shortly will. Now, let us see if the waldoes still operate."
Caselon had been fascinated by these devices, which would allow them to work in a chamber maintained at the very low temperatures at which the Thread specimens were kept. He volunteered to be first, but Aivas chose Sharra, as she had already done more microscopic work than the journeyman. The apparatus was powered up, the specimen and the glass tools placed inside the waldo chamber, and the binocular microscope swung into position.
Resolutely, Sharra put her hands into the gloves and gave a little shudder.
"Cold!" she said, and attempted to move her fingers. "I thought you said these waldoes would follow my movements."
"Meters show that current is being taken into the mechanism," Caselon said, looking at the dials. "Here, let me."
Sharra withdrew her hands, but Caselon had no more luck than she.
"All right, Aivas," she said. "What do we do now?"
There was one of the brief but noticeable pauses they had all come to expect whenever Aivas conducted an internal search.
"The mechanism has been unused for twenty-five hundred years. It is not unreasonable to assume that maintenance might be required. A lubrication of the finger joints with silicone fluid may restore mobility."
"Silicone fluid?" Caselon asked.
Manotti raised his hand. "I know what he means. Aivas, is there a smith journeyman or master available?"
"I can send Tolly down for it," Mirrim suggested.
Manotti gave her a sardonic look. "He'll have a day's wait."
She groaned. "Then I'm going down," she said. "I feel the need of a swim and fresh food and some time with my mate."
"If we really are out of action until the silicone fluid is prepared, I ought to take the day off, too," Sharra said, thinking it had been an age since she'd had any time with her sons, or Jaxom.
Caselon gri
Aivas gracefully gave permission for the departures, but to those who remained, he immediately assigned other tasks.
Jaxom was as absorbed in his current tasks as Sharra was in hers, but these days he managed to spend more time at Ruatha, with the two boys, than she was able to. When she was home, he would listen to her descriptions of her projects-the failures and small successes-and encourage her.
"Aivas knows what he's doing, even if he doesn't devote much time to explanations," he told Sharra on more than one occasion. "He's done so much for us already, we simply have to take the enigmatic on faith and follow his instructions." Jaxom reminded himself to take his own advice.
To the chagrin of Lessa and F'lar, Aivas had insisted that Jaxom and Ruth be involved in every aspect of training the dragons and riders in extravehicular activity. According to Aivas, Jaxom and Ruth would also be the ones to guide all future excursions to the surface of the Red Star.
"Ruth is the younger dragon," Aivas said at its most diplomatic, "and has not suffered the strains and stresses of Threadfall-"
"I ride Fall with Fort Weyr all the time," Jaxom protested, as much to soothe Lessa as to make clear that he and Ruth did not fail of their primary obligation.
"No offense intended," Aivas said deferentially. "Be all as it is, it is not recommended that such a long journey be made without good reason."
"It's certainly no gather site," Lessa said.
"I do propose one more investigative trip," F'lar said, "taking along an observer to record the abyss in a permanent form. Every dragon and rider who is to help bring those engines there must have a vivid picture in his mind of where he's going."