All the Weyrs of Pern by Anne McCaffrey Read Free Book Online

to see and hear this Aivas for themselves, for I assure you,” she added at her drollest, “they didn’t believe what had happened here. And if they come and there’s nothing to see . . .” Her voice trailed off ominously.
    “I hardly believe it myself,” F’lar remarked with a wry grin at Jaxom. “So I can’t fault others.”
    “There are more than enough glowbaskets to illuminate the caves,” Master Fandarel said in his approximation of a whisper, “and the dawn is not far away now. My craftsmen can begin to assemble the items Aivas said it needs. Where are those sheets Aivas made? Bendarek is fascinated by my description of printed sheets emerging from a wall. He’s just coming up the hill now.” Clearly Master Fandarel entertained no reservations about accepting the Aivas’s offer to restore his Records to legibility.
    “Where are Sebell and Menolly?” Lessa asked, peering down the corridor toward the Aivas chamber.
    Jaxom chuckled. “They’re getting some rest. Aivas wouldn’t even talk in front of them.”
    “Why not?” Lessa asked, surprised. “We told him they were coming.”
    “But they’re not on the list. And while I’m a Lord Holder, and Piemur’s a harper, we had no Weyrleader present.”
    Lessa frowned.
    “That’s exactly what we stipulated, Lessa,” F’lar said. “I can trust someone that is scrupulous about obeying orders. Particularly something as potent as this Aivas.”
    A bass rumble startled them, and it took a moment to realize that the noise was Fandarel’s chuckle. “It is the function of a machine to do what it is designed to do. I approve.”
    “You approve of anything that’s efficient,” Lessa said. “Even if that isn’t always sensible.”
    “We’ve lived too long with dragons,” F’lar said, grinning down at his diminutive weyrmate, “who understand what we mean, even when we haven’t said it.”
    “Hmmm,” Lessa replied in a testy mumble as she gave him a sour glance.
    “We all will have new things to learn, I think,” Fandarel said. “And it is time. Jaxom, I’ll need those sheets Aivas made, so I can give them to Bendarek.”
    Obediently, Jaxom collected them from the flat worktop where Piemur and Jancis had left them. “Jancis went to make fresh klah,” he told Lessa. “She should be back any time now.”
    “Then off you all go,” Lessa said, flipping her hands at them in dismissal. “Jaxom, if you’re all determined to get a start on the caves, take Fandarel on Ruth, will you? That way he won’t break his neck stumbling about in the dark. I’ll wait for Jancis and Aivas.”

2
     
     
    B Y THE TIME the sun had risen, many had come to view Aivas—the tale had spread as fast as Thread burrows. Curiosity and disbelief are mighty movers, so men and women had come from every Hall, Hold, and Weyr. To the disgust of some, most of the fervor was prompted not by Aivas’s vast store of new knowledge, but by the chance to glimpse the miraculous moving pictures that this marvel was purported to produce.
    Fandarel, supervising the acquisition of the material on Aivas’s list, was busy in the Catherine Caves. Breide, overwhelmed with helpers, was making great strides in carefully clearing the ash and dirt from the roof to expose the remaining solar panels. Master Esselin was poring over Aivas’s redesign plans, though he railed that Breide’s men were not working fast enough for him to begin his job. Breide retorted that he hadn’t even dismantled the buildings that were to provide the material for the extensions, so what was Esselin bleating about?
    Lessa, hearing the argument, told them to stop behaving like apprentices and go about their duties. Then she, with Menolly and Jancis, found willing helpers among the women to do the drudge work of washing down the walls of long-disused rooms and shoveling out the dirty ash that had seeped in around windows and doors. The largest room, which the women decided must have originally been