The Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey [434]
Robinton, almost shoving the Smith’s bulk to one side, bent his eye to the viewer, gasping.
“They are round. They do shine. As metal does. Not as stars do.”
“One thing sure,” Piemur said irreverently in the awed silence, “you have now found traces of our ancestors in the South, Master Robinton.”
“Your observation is eminently correct,” the Harper said in such a curiously muffled tone Jaxom wasn’t certain if the man was suppressing laughter or anger, “but not at all what I had in mind and you know it!”
Everyone was given a chance to peer through Wansor’s device, since Master Idarolan’s was not powerful enough. Everyone concurred with Fandarel’s verdict: the so-called Dawn Sisters were not stars. Equally indisputable was that they were round, metallic objects that apparently hung in a stationary position in the sky. Even the moons had been observed to turn a different side to Pern in the course of their regular cycles.
F’lar and Lessa as well as F’nor were asked to come with all urgency before the nightly appearance of the Dawn Sisters was over. Lessa’s irritation at such a summons evaporated when she saw the phenomenon. F’lar and F’nor monopolized the instrument for the short space of time that the peculiar objects remained visible in the slowly darkening sky.
When Wansor was seen trying to work equations in the sand, Jaxom and Piemur hurriedly brought out a table and some drawing tools. The Starsmith wrote furiously for some minutes and then studied the result he’d achieved as if this presented a more inscrutable puzzle. Bewildered, he asked Fandarel and N’ton to check his figures for error.
“If there’s no error, what is your conclusion, Master Wansor?” F’lar asked him.
“Those . . . those things are stationary. They stay in the same position over Pern all the time. As if they were following the planet.”
“That would prove, would it not,” Robinton said, unperturbed, “that they are manmade.”
“My conclusion precisely,” but Wansor did not appear to be reassured. “They were made to stay where they are all the time.”
“And we can’t get from here to there,” F’nor said in a regretful murmur.
“Don’t you dare, F’nor,” Brekke said with such fervor that F’lar and the Harper chuckled.
“They were made to stay there,” Piemur began, “but they couldn’t have been made here, could they, Master Fandarel?”
“I doubt it. The Records give us hints of many marvelous things made by men but no mention was ever made of stationary stars.”
“But the Records say that men came to Pern . . .” Piemur looked at the Harper for confirmation. “Perhaps they used those things to travel from some other place, some other world, to get here. To Pern!”
“With all the worlds in the heavens to choose from,” Brekke began, breaking the thoughtful silence that followed Piemur’s conclusion, “had they no better place to come to than Pern?”
“If you’d seen as much of it as I have lately,” Piemur said, his spirit undaunted for any appreciable length of time, “you’d know that Pern’s not all that bad a world . . . if you ignore the danger of Thread!”
“Some of us never can,” F’lar replied in a wry tone.
Menolly gave Piemur a sharp jab in the ribs, but F’lar only laughed when Piemur suddenly realized the tactlessness of his remark.
“This is a most amazing development,” Robinton said, his eyes sweeping the night sky as if more mysteries were to be revealed. “To see the very vehicles that brought our ancestors to this world.”
“A good topic for some quiet reflections, eh, Master Robinton?” Oldive asked, with a sly grin on his face and an emphasis on the quiet.
The Harper made an impatient dismissal of that suggestion.
“Well, sir, you could hardly go there,” the Healer said.
“I cannot,” Master Robinton agreed. Then startling everyone, he suddenly thrust his right arm in the direction of the Three Sisters. “Zair, the round objects in the sky? Can you go there?”
Jaxom held his breath, felt the rigidity of Menolly’s body beside him and knew she wasn’t breathing either. He heard Brekke’s sharp, quickly muffled