Chap. 320 The Money Problem

Chap. 320 The Money Problem

“Thank you for the slippers,” K’ndar said.

“You’re welcome,” Raylan said. “We’ve had them in a crate ever since I broke my ankle jumping off Motanith. They might be a little big-I have big feet.”

“I don’t care, sir, at least they’re not pink,” he said, happy that they were gray. “It’s a little bit sloppy, but that’s okay, it won’t interfere with healing. And, sir, one should NEVER jump off a dragon,” he chided. “That’s one of the first things a weyrling learns, some of us the hard way.”

“That’s what Francie said-after the fact. I was showing off, K’ndar. Despite never having been on a dragon in my life, I was going to show this pretty dragonriding girl that I knew exactly what I was doing. Snap! Instead I showed her I was a dumbass.” He rolled his eyes, ruefully. “As for the slippers, the pink ones have been in Marl’s clinic for about as long as Landing’s been a going concern. Poor Marl, he can’t justify getting rid of them, because they’re hardly used. No one wants to be seen in them, so they find a reason to return them. The gray or black ones that the Tannercrafthall provides go quickly, and, as this pair demonstrates, people keep them.”

“What would happen if I were to, you know, somehow accidentally destroy the pink ones?”

“Officially? Nothing. They’re considered ‘consumable medical equipment’, like needle thorns and alcohol prep solution. Unofficially, Marl and half of Landing’s staff would congratulate you,” he said.

K’ndar grinned. “Thank Francie for her dinner. My stomach thought my throat had been cut.”

“I will. She considers you a kid brother, you know. How was Jansen’s’ pie?”

“Filling. Wonderful. I had the rest of it this morning. I’m afraid I was too rough on her yesterday. I had no patience left.”

“She’ll be okay. She’s my right arm, K’ndar, she’s an incredibly adept technician. Her mindset, though, causes her to think she must work twice as hard just to stay even with the males who, in many cases, can’t, or won’t, meet her level of competence. She can’t bring herself to believe she’s the best. So many women are like that.”

“Except Weyrwomen.”

“Yes, I’ve learned that from being married to a dragonrider, even if Motie is a green.” His heart thrummed, thinking of his wife. Francie was very like her green dragon Motanith-courageous, kind, with a sense of humor-but in no way a pushover. There was steel in their spines.

Raylan sat. “So. Brief me on your very busy day yesterday. I have to say I’ve seen the preliminary data you collected yesterday. You didn’t use the matrix?”

“I had a very hard time working with the datalink. It’s me, Raylan, I just can’t make that intuitive leap it seems to expect. Rand, who’d never handled one in his life, had it purring for him in a few minutes.”

“I saw your data, though. It’s very thorough, K’ndar, although not quite what we had in mind. Where did you find the time to create all those transects and count all those trees? How did you get it to identify individual species in all those transects?”

“It wasn’t me, Raylan. The datalink talked to the starship and between them created the transects and located the trees. Rand told the datalink what the tree was called and whoosh, the transects popped up, all dotted with locations, distances from us and between trees. It did that after touching the molecular camera to the datalink. It shares its data with the datalink.”

“Really! I had no idea! Can you demonstrate?”

K’ndar retrieved his datalink and the camera.

“Let’s see. What to take a photo of?”

“Siskin, up there on his ledge,” Raylan pointed. K’ndar obliged.

“Now I press the camera against the datalink and…”

Beedleep! the datalink said.

Subject identified as Draco perni, n., common name Fire Lizard. A small Pernese saurian, first tamed shortly after humans colonized Pern. Fire lizards are oviparous, endothermic carnivores. The fore and rear limbs function as legs with clawed feet. The middle pair have evolved into functional wings, arising from the scapulars. The eyes are…

K’ndar hit the stop icon. “See, this is what I mean. I didn’t ask the datalink what a fire lizard is. It’s just filling in information on it’s own.”

Raylan whistled. “I’ll be switched, K’ndar. No one knew it could do that! What a time saver!”

“Yes, sir, and that’s what I’ll need, because, as Rand says, there’s hundreds of species of trees, just in the rain forest and jungle alone. Stars knows how many are in Northern’s forests, or the coastal areas. It will take me forever, I’m afraid.”

“Are you interested in doing it?” he asked, sensing K’ndar’s reluctance.

How do I say no without sounding like I’m whinging? he thought, but I don’t. He grappled for an alternative-and found one.

“I’d be lying if I said yes, sir. I’m not. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life doing it. I am wondering, wouldn’t a study like this be something for school aged kids to do? If we could coordinate with the Harpers, perhaps they’d be willing to fold it into their curriculum.“

“Hmmm,” Raylan said.

“I know that the Weyr’s Harper feels under employed because so many of the kids now are using datalinks. He said the kids aren’t interested in learning the old Teaching Songs, because the datalinks, and the books we’re printing, are far more effective in teaching subjects beyond cultural history. I can attest to that. Until I began to read books, I was frustrated because the Songs didn’t address the stars, or dolphins, or even horses. They taught me how to address my Lord Holder, how much of what to tithe, what was expected of a boy beholden to his Lord, but they couldn’t answer my constant “why”. I found it so much easier, more gratifying, to read a book on how stars die, or how dolphins can sleep and still breathe, or how fast a horse can run.”

“You’re right. “Teaching Songs never taught me how to manage people,” Raylan said. “There are times I believe I still haven’t learned.”

K’ndar pressed his case. “I would have loved this sort of thing when I was a kid, even without a datalink. My home cothold is so remote that a Harper would only visit once every six months, for a week. It was like pouring fifteen buckets of water into a one liter cup. I just couldn’t absorb the songs and the stories in one big lump. I failed a lot of tests, not through stupidity but just from too much information. The math, especially, confused me. The songs would tell me that two times two equals four but then the Harper expects me to solve two ex plus negative four equals zero. And I’m wondering, what is ex?”

“Two,” Raylan said without hesitation.

“See? That’s what I mean. So much of it is intuitive, and my mind just doesn’t make that leap. Ex is a letter, not a number! The Harper didn’t have the time to answer the questions I had and she had just a finite amount of time, and a number of subjects to test me on, before she had to move on to the next cothold.

My mum and Uncle Fland knew that I learn best by doing. Mum taught me to cook, to sew, to treat minor wounds, my Uncle Fland, how to shoe a horse, build a rock fence, rope a steer. I taught myself how the plants grow, and animals behave. Then Rahman gave me four books, all on science, and it was a revelation, sir. I devoured them.” He sighed, remembering the epiphanies those first books had inspired. “So that’s why I think, using datalinks to do science, and reading books to answer questions, is a better way of learning, of teaching not just kids, but everybody. Even adults.”

He paused, the idea unfolding without prompting. “Sir, would it be possible to provide Pern’s harpers, or at least Harper Hall, with datalinks? That way, Jansen could teach the Harpers how to use them, and then the Harpers can use that knowledge to teach the kids.”

“Chain teaching,” Raylan muttered. “Lord Cecilia is the Council Harper. If I present this idea to her, maybe call for a conference, she can get with Master Harper Piemur and see what he thinks of it. If they approve, I’ll send Jansen out to teach the use of datalinks at Harper Hall. I think we can spare her for a few weeks. She does have young Tylan, her apprentice. He’s not at her level, yet, but he’s eager and as long as it doesn’t include amending code, I think he can handle small problems that crop up.”

He looked at K’ndar’s hopeful face. He definitely doesn’t want the job, and I’ve pushed several on him already.

“You’re not just trying to pawn the project off like it’s a pink, ugly slipper?”

For one breath, K’ndar wondered if Raylan was peeved. The man’s expression told him otherwise.

He laughed. “Wouldn’t YOU?”

“Shards, yes,” Raylan agreed. “Alright then. I’ll present to Lord Cecilia. Consider the project on hold, for now. Sending you out with such a nebulous objective wasn’t quite fair, but, I’m finding my way with it, too. It’s very much an idea that needs a lot of tweaking.”

“Sir, I suggest you hire Rand to do his forest. He knows every tree, every one. He even has names for his favorites.”

Raylan nodded. “I will definitely give it thought. I’d like to meet him, too.”

“He’s a good man. He’d need a datalink and a camera. He’s responsible for ultimately catching Scar and Vika.”

“Not you?”

“No sir, although I did positively identify Scar and transported the packs. I wish you could have seen Vika’s face when she opened the pack and it was full of old junk!!”

“That was Jansen’s idea,” Raylan chortled. “She laughed the entire time she was scrounging for the ‘stuff’. It didn’t take her fifteen minutes to find enough to fill the pack. Everyone had something they had that was broken or worn out. She could have filled five packs, not just one.”

He stood up and stretched. “Well, then, K’ndar, consider today and tomorrow your recuperation days. I’m sure you can fill it with reports, I’ve kept you busy. If you need to go anywhere, don’t walk-call Francie and she can bring the horses around.”

“I’m always up for riding, sir. But honestly, I’ve not needed to put the smanda salve on my feet more than twice. It works fast. I think by tomorrow I’ll be able to walk normally, in boots.”

“Don’t push it, K’ndar, Marl will eat you alive if he catches you overdoing it.

Thank you for the briefing. I would like to have your written report, if you please.”

He headed for the door.

“Sir, you said you had something to discuss that couldn’t be translated into the database?”

Raylan froze, puzzled. “I did, didn’t I! But, damn, it’s gone right out of my head!” He looked up at the ceiling, hoping it had the answers. It didn’t.

“Before you start, there’s something I need to tell you.”

Raylan’s eyebrows rose. “Go on.”

“Sir, after Vika was shot, I repacked the pack and Raventh carried it back to the clearing near Rand’s cottage. I wanted to help Rand clear the dead horse from the trail and do something with dead Scar before returning to Landing.”

“On blistered feet,”

“Yes sir.”

“His body is still up there?”

“Yes, sir. We didn’t know what to do with it. So we stripped it and pulled it deeper into the forest for the scavengers. Rand said they’d clean up the horse in a few days, I can’t imagine a human body would take longer.”

“I know D’mitran took Vika’s body to Lord Dorn. You didn’t take Scar’s body to Lord Toric’s Hold?”

“No, sir. The rain forest isn’t his Hold. I know that because, well, I did just finish surveying Lord Dorn’s and Lord Toric’s Holdings. The forest and jungle, the savannah on the other side of the hills, that’s all dragonrider land.”

“Hmm. Convenient that you have first hand knowledge of that.”

“Thanks to you, sir, and I am glad I have that knowledge in my head! The thing is, Scar had, um, a pouch, full of money. And a copy of the wanted poster. I have it here, if you want to see it.”

“I don’t need to see it, I can call it up on the datalink. We produced it, after all. How much money?”

“A lot. I didn’t count it. It was from all over Pern.”

“Where is it?”

“I gave it to Rand. I told him it was his reward.” K’ndar watched Raylan’s face closely, waiting for condemnation.

Raylan paused, thinking the thing through. Half a dozen points began to argue in his mind.

“Hmmm. Did it occur to you that you might not have that authority?”

K’ndar swallowed, hard. “I did, sir,” he said, his guts tightening. “And I concluded that, well, I took the initiative, sir. I was the only dragonrider left in the vicinity. I figured that one, the poster said a reward was for information leading to the apprehension of Scar, it said that the finder should report to Landing, or ‘any’ hold, weyr or craft hall. But it didn’t say who would pay the reward.

Two, Scar was killed on dragonrider land, three, nothing that I know of has been decided as to who, what weyr? Which weyrleader, any dragonrider or all of us? makes the decision as to what part of the land belongs to what weyr. I was confused, sir, and maybe I made a rash decision, but I believed, after the things Vika and Scar had done on dragonrider lands, that Rand, at least, deserved rewarding.”

Relief flooded his mind, releasing the anxiety he’d been plagued with. If I’m punished, or wrong, at least I’ve unburdened myself, he thought.

“I didn’t get much sleep, sir. I kept thinking about the money. It nagged me all night.”

“Hmmm,” Raylan said. He was silent for a very long time. K’ndar’s anxiety began to rebuild.

“All that went through your head, just like that?”

“Um-yes. I guess.”

Raylan shrugged. “That is indeed a tough nut to crack, K’ndar. I honestly cannot think of what should have been done.

You’re right, the Council tries to work out the concept of dragonrider lands WHEN they have the time, but for now, far more pressing things keep shoving it off their plate. I cannot speak for the Council, of course, but I suspect that a definition of dragonlands will be discussed and dissected a very long time before any decision is made.

Nor do I think anyone actually believed Scar and Vika would be caught. They’d slipped through Holder’s fingers too many times. And Landing’s bean counters, the ones who handle the money, weren’t very receptive to the idea of a ‘reward’.

I wasn’t in on the decision, the Council came up with the idea. They felt as if they had to do SOMETHING different, some way of enlisting the many eyes on Pern. Holders and Crafters have been complaining about raiders for millennia. The money men, though, haven’t had to deal with thieves, just coins. They always ask, where will the money come from? Sometimes I think they believe the money is theirs, not Landing’s. Or Holders.

They thought that people would inform on Scar and Vika out of the goodness of their hearts. Money managers don’t understand the fear that brigands can instill. It’s easy for them to make decisions that don’t affect them. They’re not the ones trembling in their cottage, dreading the clatter of hoofbeats in the dead of night. They’ve never experienced the retaliation raiders inflict if they believe you’ve reported them.”

K’ndar nodded. “T’ovar did just that, sir. He torched Rand’s hut when Rand failed to pay extortion money. Only because I witnessed the destruction do I know that. He’d never have reported it to Lord Toric. He’s a brave man, sir, but Rand is so afraid of Lord Toric that he’d rather do without the money than have to explain how he got it. And sir, I shouldn’t say this, but I’d bet my boots that Lord Toric, um, pays for things like unregistered datalinks. Vika told F’mart that she knew how to get more ‘assets’. And I know for a fact T’ovar was one of his suppliers.”

“As was Shawn. If you said that about any Holder anywhere other than here at Landing or in your Weyr, you’d be in trouble. But this is Landing, and I happen to agree with you.”

Raylan looked up at Siskin without seeing him. Money. It causes so much trouble, so many thorny, complicated situations. It brings out the evil in so many people. I wish we could go back to pure barter and boring old tithing. But, then, how would Landing function? Aivas changed so many things. That, and the eradication of Thread. So many fundamental changes to our feudal society, how long before it changes completely? What will it look like?

He dragged his attention back to K’ndar.

“How would I have handled the money? I suppose I would have approached D’nis and T’balt and asked for their input, as they’re the ranking dragonriders on Perm-but then the Council would have to be involved in the very thing I mentioned earlier, who owns the dragonrider lands? What laws have been set, for that matter, who has jurisdiction and enforcement?”

He shook his head. “And then, comes the matter of where did Scar get the money in the first place, was it legally, or, maybe it was payment for the stolen electronics, or perhaps theft? As far as I know, the Holders have always eaten the cost of thefts from their cotholders. Which explains their willingness to punish the criminals by relieving them of their freedom-or their heads. Nor do we know who did the thefts, from who and where and when and how?”

“Yes sir. All those. I didn’t think it through, I just thought, oh, shabash, I don’t care and gave it to Rand.”

Raylan sighed. Such an easy decision, really, he thought. You could have kept it for yourself, K’ndar, or shared it with Rand, and no one would have been the wiser. Your honesty is what makes my job easier. You haven’t even asked if you should get some of the reward money.

“And, sir, I don’t mean to tell you how to do your job, but if I’d brought in all that money, I would have immediately dropped in into your lap. What would YOU have done with it?”

Raylan’s jaw dropped. The ramifications were daunting. I’m not a money man, he thought.

“Shards, K’ndar, you’re right. Bean counting is very precise, it takes an anal retentive mind to keep track. The people who do it don’t like it when money is missing, and they don’t like it when one drops a lot of it on their desk without a history. They’re very quick to make one feel guilty. I’m sure they would have demanded I track down every last coin, where did it come from and why do you have it? Shaff!”

He shook his head. “K’ndar, you have a knack of making my brains work til they overheat. You discover that Shawn stole electronics right under our noses.

Then you bring him in, dead as a hammer, and I have to figure out what to do with the body, and no one has a clue if he had any family to notify. You bring in an animal that almost killed your fire lizard and it turns out to be a valuable beast that is making money for Landing. You rescue a boy from an island and discover his abductor was not only a murderer who’d managed to escape banishment, but who had something to do with the abduction that ultimately killed Robinton and the attack on the Printers Hall. Now this.”

“Um..I’m sorry? I think?” K’ndar gulped.

Raylan made a decision. He slapped his thighs.

“Thank you for bringing this to my attention, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s a done deal. I think you did the right thing, K’ndar. Trying to figure out where the money came from would probably have taken longer than it was worth.” He wagged a finger at K’ndar. “You know, K’ndar, you’re too humble. You pretend to not think things through, but you do.”

Relief flooded him. “You give me too much credit, sir. I didn’t go through all those steps, I just said, here, Rand, take it.”

“Don’t worry about it any more, okay? You did the right thing.” He turned to go.

“Sir? I have to repeat, didn’t you say you wanted to discuss something with me?”

He stopped again. What in the world was I here to discuss? I’ve forgotten AGAIN? I’m losing my mind!

“You kicked me right off my line of thinking and now I can’t remember what it was about!” he grimaced. “Wait. I believe Jansen taught me a trick.”

He walked backwards through the doorway leading to the outdoors, then came back in.

K’ndar laughed. I taught Jansen that, he thought.

“Yes, it works! I was going to tell you that I have to take you off special projects for a while. I’m sure you remember G’aryk and Leana? Brown and green riders?”

“Yes sir, of course. I’ve flown with them and Leana is our Acquisition officer!”

“Not anymore, I’m sorry to say, because she’s very competent. They’re leaving Landing. They’re going to homestead a claim, on dragonrider land! on the west coast. So we’ll be shorthanded for dragonriders for a while, it’ll be just you and Francie. I can’t see the Council dragonriders dropping everything to bring in a cask of vinegar. I’m going to have to task you with mundane things like that, transporting personnel and fresh fish, etc. In between tasks, you can work on all the biological things you’ve piled up while I’ve monopolized you and Raventh. I hope you don’t mind?”

K’ndar heaved a big sigh.

“That would be fine, sir. I’ve missed being a delivery dragon.”