Empty, Open, Dusty, Dead - 7. Creline's Advice

Zalna had been to Half Circle Sea Hold many times over the Turns. It was traditional for the Lower Caverns workers to go on foraging expeditions there, to gather reeds and withies, or berries depending on the season. Zalna and T’san always made sure to drop in at the Sea Hold itself to pay their respects to Udean, the Holder and his wife, Geava . The cavern, where boats could safely moor out of the weather, or in times of Threadfall, was large enough for dragons to fly in and land, too.

It was a bright and blustery day when they went to visit the former Masterharper. The wind held far less of a bite than it had when they took to the skies at Benden. Pleasant flying weather, all in all.

There were only two boats inside the cavern, evidently undergoing repairs. When the dragons landed, they were warmly greeted and taken to Geava’s quarters, where she offered them klah and a selection of cakes. Zalna sipped her klah cautiously. Everything at the Sea Hold tasted slightly of fish. It couldn’t be helped, of course and she doubted the inhabitants even noticed, but she preferred her klah to taste like, well, klah. She took a small piece of cake, so as not to offend, but didn’t really enjoy eating it.

‘So, what brings you here, so early in the season?’ Geava asked pleasantly.

‘We’d like to see Creline, if he’s about?’ T’san said.

‘I don’t think he went out with the men this time. He often does, you know. Reminds him of his boyhood, although he went to the Harper Hall at a fairly young age. Such an honour for us, that one of our own ended up as Masterharper, you know.’

Zalna remembered that Geava talked a lot. Isolated as Half Circle was, she didn’t see visitors often. She nodded agreement. ‘Of course. How is he settling down?’

‘He loves it here, so he says. He never had much chance to get out and about when he was in charge of the Hall, you know, but now he walks every day and goes out to sea as often as he can. Plus, he’s started training up a few of the lads and girls with good voices. You should hear them singing in the evenings. Entertains us all, it does.’

‘That’s wonderful,’ Zalna said. She took a mouthful of klah, trying not to taste it too much. ‘So, er, is he here?’

‘I can take you to his rooms, if you like. But do finish your cake, first.’ She offered the plate to T’san. ‘Another piece? I know you men are always hungry.’

Having finished their klah and cake, they went back out to the cavern, where Geava admired the two dragons before showing them into a corridor, with many doorways leading off. It was a little like the maze of tunnels off the Lower Caverns at Benden or Fort Weyr. Zalna was glad someone was leading the way. It would be all too easy to become lost.

Eventually they reached Creline’s quarters. It was obvious he must be in there, as the sound of a gitar echoed down the corridor. Geava knocked politely, even though the door was ajar.

The playing stopped and Creline opened the door fully. He must be around seventy Turns by now, Zalna reckoned, although he appeared fit and well. ‘Come in, come in,’ he beckoned. ‘It’s always good to see the Weyrwoman and Weyrleader. What brings you to Half Circle?’

‘Benden winter weather drove us here,’ T’san said, with a smile. ‘Seriously though, we came to ask your advice on a certain matter.’

‘Well, I’ll leave you to it,’ Geava said. ‘Do call in on your way out. Udean may be returned by then and he’d be pleased to see you, you know.’

‘Thank you. We will.’ Zalna hoped it wouldn’t involve more cake.

Creline led them to a couch, then seated himself in a well-stuffed chair close to the hearth. Beside him, on a small table, were several wax tablets. He’d obviously been composing something. Zalna supposed that even when retired, the urge to make music never went away.

‘I’m wondering what kind of advice I can possibly offer to you both,’ he said. ‘Or whether you might prefer to speak to my successor at the Harper Hall.’

‘No, it has to be you.’ Zalna decided to get to the point. ‘You were Masterharper when the events we need to discuss took place.’

‘The Disappearance,’ T’san added.

Creline gazed into the flames. ‘That was half a lifetime ago. My memory may not be as sharp as it once was…’

‘It’s all right,’ Zalna said. ‘We wouldn’t dream of asking you to reveal any secrets. But it’s not what happened back then that concerns us. It’s more recent events we need to talk about.’ She glanced over to T’san and he began to recount the story of what had occurred at High Reaches and Ista Weyrs; the basic facts only, not what they had deduced from it.

When he had finished, Creline sat for a while, with steepled fingers. ‘Have you any idea where these dragons and riders may have come from?’ he asked at last.

T’san replied. ‘We’ve talked about it and come to the only conclusion that seemed at all likely. Given the last fully manned Weyr on Pern right now is Benden and it wasn’t us, then it can only have been the original inhabitants of those Weyrs.’

‘The ones who vanished, twenty-five Turns ago.’ Zalna watched him carefully as she spoke, but saw no reaction. Not that she really expected to; he’d had a lifetime of experience in diplomacy to give himself away so easily. ‘Several of them were identified by a reliable observer.’

‘Interesting,’ he said slowly. ‘But surely impossible? I mean, everyone knows dragons can jump between places, but to travel through time…?’

‘It’s possible, I assure you,’ T’san said. ‘Not done often, because of the dangers, though.’

‘Although, I suspect you already knew that.’ Zalna appreciated she was pushing him a little there, but if he thought they knew more than they actually did, he might be more open with his answers.

Creline looked at her sharply. ‘If you suspect that, then perhaps you could tell me exactly how much you know. Then we both have our cards on the table.’

He’d called her bluff, there. ’N’rax never revealed what was discussed at those meetings,’ she admitted. ‘He carried that secret with him when he went between.’

T’san continued with her theme. ‘And it’s because we don’t know the full story that we’re worried. Two nights ago, those folk reappeared to find the Weyrs they expected to be empty, occupied. For all they knew, full of dragons. Now, we all heard the stories that went around at the time; speculation that they’d travelled to another world menaced by Thread and they would return to their Weyrs to fight Thread again when the next Pass loomed. What if our actions to try and re-populate the five empty Weyrs means they don’t think it necessary to return, after all?’

He’d put it very well. Zalna felt she ought to point out something else that might not occur to a non-dragonrider. ‘Even after two hundred Turns, Ista and High Reaches won’t be fully manned. We just can’t breed sufficient numbers of dragons during an Interval. Plus, Telgar, Fort and Igen will remain empty. So if they don’t return, we’ll struggle to keep Pern Thread free.’

‘I see.’

The room was very quiet; only the crackle of the fire punctuated the silence until Zalna broke it. ‘We don’t need to know everything; in fact based on how heavily the secret weighed on N’rax, I wouldn’t want to. All we need is some reassurance that what we’re doing won’t imperil Pern, one hundred and seventy-five Turns hence, when the Red Star commences its next Pass.’

Creline spoke at last. He took his time, as if choosing his words carefully. ‘Time follows certain rules, just like everything else. The tides turn, the sun and the moons rise and set and seasons follow each other as they have always done.’ He met Zalna’s eyes, then T’san’s. ‘Now let me ask you a question. Suppose both of you got on your dragons after leaving here and went back to a specific day in your own past to try and change an event. What do you think would happen?’

Zalna had considered the possibility many times in the months following K’torl’s death, all those Turns ago. Could she go back to warn him; to save him? She’d finally come to the conclusion it couldn’t be done. If she had gone back and succeeded, he would still be alive and she wouldn’t be sitting there mourning. ‘I don’t reckon we could. If something has already happened, then we can’t change it.’

‘Exactly. Let us cast our minds forward, to the start of the next Pass. People of that time know that the other five Weyrs disappeared in the past and have been empty ever since. Now, could someone from that future go back and tell them to stay where they are, instead?’

‘No,’ T’san said. ‘Because you can’t alter what’s already happened, as Zalna said.’

‘Correct.’

‘But now that we’re trying to repopulate two of the Weyrs, they won’t be empty in the future,’ Zalna said.

Creline looked at her with a shrewd expression. ‘How can you be so certain of that? Could you, shortly before the end of the last Pass, have predicted the five Weyrs would be deserted just a Turn later?’

That was very true. Although she and T’san had made certain their plan was well known, anything might happen during one hundred and seventy five Turns.

‘So what you’re saying is that whatever we do is futile?’ T’san didn’t sound happy about that. ‘That despite all our efforts, those Weyrs will be empty once again?’

‘Not exactly,’ Creline corrected. ‘But whatever you do, or don’t do you can’t change the future.’

‘So why is it the other Weyrs decided they needed to go forward?’ Something about it nagged at Zalna.

Creline looked inscrutable, not giving away anything.

‘I agree,’ T’san said. ‘Neither Zalna or I woke up suddenly one morning after the Pass had ended and thought “we need to travel ahead in time.” We just assumed the Weyrs would stay as they were and would be ready to fight again when the time came. So what suddenly made the Weyrleaders of the other five think they shouldn’t do the same?’

‘Well, that’s the mystery, isn’t it?’ Creline knew exactly what had happened. Yet, like N’rax, he wasn’t going to give anything away. And he hadn’t exactly been helpful, so far.

‘At least we’ve managed to figure out the first line of your Question Song now. They did go ahead.’

‘Let’s just hope they reached - will reach - their destination safely,’ T’san said grimly. ‘Jumping between places isn’t one hundred percent safe. Between times…’ he shrugged. ‘All because they vanished from here doesn’t mean they’ll end up there.’

Creline said nothing. Zalna cast her mind back over the conversation. Back! That was it! ‘You said if someone from the future tried to go back and tell all the Weyrs to stay put, it wouldn’t work because the past is unchangeable. So that means someone from the future must already have come back, to tell them they had to leave. That’s the reason they decided to go.’

T’san caught on and bounced his own ideas back at her. ‘Yes! Someone travelled back because the Weyrs were empty and persuaded them to come with him, thus creating the situation he had to go back to rectify in the first place. That’s it, isn’t it?’

Zalna felt dizzy, thinking of a remote future she’d never see; all those Turns stretching out in an unbroken line which couldn’t be altered. ‘It has to be. And like Morna said, they couldn’t do it all at once because they’d be between too long, so they’re doing it it in smaller twenty-five Turn jumps.’

Creline watched them both. ‘I can’t say if you’re right. In fact I would advise you to stop thinking about it and certainly not to start bandying these theories around with others.’

They must have guessed correctly, otherwise he wouldn’t have cared whether they’d told everyone or not. Zalna figured that out almost right away, but then something else came to mind. ‘But if whatever we do doesn’t affect the future, then it wouldn’t matter, would it? Because even if we’ve solved the riddle now, it will be forgotten, just as all the other Weyrs will be empty again by the time the Red Star returns.’

Creline bowed his head. ‘Time isn’t changeable,’ he stated again.

And that was all he’d say on the matter. They left soon afterwards, although not before having to sit through another fish-flavoured klah with Geava and Udean. Zalna kept count of how many times Geava said ‘you know’. Thirty-six, she reckoned, although she might have missed a few.

Back at the Weyr, she sat with T’san. They’d ordered more klah to take the fishy taste away and she sipped on it gratefully. ‘So, to summarise Creline’s advice, whatever we do doesn’t matter, but we shouldn’t tell anyone about it.’

‘That’s about it,’ he agreed. ‘So long as we ask those who saw the dragons to keep quiet, then the event will gradually be forgotten.’

‘Until, in twenty-five or so Turns, they’ll drop by again. Maybe someone will make the connection, if Ista and High Reaches are still occupied. I mean, it didn’t take us too long to figure it out.’

‘That’s the issue.’ He sighed. ‘Whatever night they next arrive, there will be a watch dragon on the heights who’ll spot them. I doubt it’ll be precisely the same day every twenty-five Turns and even if we left written instructions for those Weyrs not to have someone on watch for, say, a sevenday before and after a particular date, they’re going to wonder why. I can see why so few people were let in on the secret in the first place. Once a few facts slip out, then rumours will spread like a fever.’

‘And how can he be so certain we haven’t changed anything? What if time isn’t like a long straight ribbon, but more like a braid unravelling. One thing we do now results in a hundred possible futures…’

‘Don’t…’ T’san shook his head. ‘I’m still trying to get my head around the whole concept. I mean, we’re here now and everything behind us is past. But if someone came back from the future - and if all those dragons are going forward into it - it must mean all times exist simultaneously.’

Zalna couldn’t quite grasp that. ‘So, somewhere, baby Zalna is being born, nineteen Turn old Zalna is Impressing Gemalth, we’re kissing for the first time… it can’t be. Can it?’

‘I just don’t know. It’s one of those things that seems increasingly complicated the more you think about it. I don’t reckon our minds were meant to cope with ideas like that, in the same way we don’t really know what between is, but we use it.’

‘I could ask Gemalth.’

‘You could. But I’ve tried before with Huylonth and he doesn’t have the words to describe what he does when he goes between. He just just knows how to do it. I reckon he’d have even less concept of time.’

‘Yes, dragons live very much in the here and now.’ Zalna sighed. ‘I just don’t like this feeling of not being able to do anything. Not knowing…’

‘Me neither.’ T’san sipped his klah. ‘Maybe… no.’

‘Maybe what?’

‘Maybe we could jump forward another twenty-five Turns to see if they reappear again.’

‘And what will that do?’

‘Confirm our theory, for one.’

Zalna thought about that. ‘But if we don’t know exactly which day they’ll arrive, we might miss them. And anyway, we never figured out how to jump forward by a precise amount of time. Stars return to their positions in the sky once a Turn, but that’s the same every Turn. It doesn’t help.’

T’san sat for a while, evidently mulling over what she’d said, then he abruptly jumped up, almost spilling what was left of his klah. ‘That’s it! Which star only returns to the same position every two hundred and fifty Turns?

‘Well… ?’

‘Give you a clue. It’s moving away from us now.’

‘Oh! The Red Star, you mean.’

‘Exactly. They must have worked out its course and used it for coordinates. And twenty-five Turns is a regular amount of time, which makes it easier still. That must be why they decided to travel at night.’

‘That and not being spotted,’ Zalna agreed. ‘Clever you. I’d never have thought of that so quickly.’

‘So, all we have to do is work it out for ourselves. I’m sure Cassaru has something on the topic in those dusty archives.’ His enthusiasm made him jump around like an excited child.

‘Well, then. Let’s do it.’

Cassaru was surprised to see them. Not many people disturbed her in her small office; fewer still in the archives themselves. ‘Is everything all right?’ she asked.

‘Fine,’ T’san smiled. ‘Now, I expect you’ll know exactly where to find references to the orbit of the Red Star.’

She twiddled the stylus she was holding and her eyes flicked toward the ceiling. ‘Hmm. Let me think. Would that be records showing observations of when a Pass will begin?’

‘Possibly.’

‘“The finger points at an eye blood-red,”’ she quoted. ‘So, dates when the Red Star was bracketed in the Eye Rock at the beginning of each Pass…’

‘Not exactly.’

Cassaru ignored him and carried on. ‘Because, you know, each Pass isn’t exactly fifty Turns long. Neither is each Interval exactly two hundred. In fact, some very old records tell of an extra long Interval, when the Red Star came close to Pern, but not close enough to drop Thread.’

‘What?’ Zalna hadn’t heard of that.

‘Oh, yes. I can find the records easily enough.’

‘No need. Fascinating though it might be, we’ve need of something different. We’d like to find out where the Red Star is positioned in the sky at the beginning and end of each Pass, then during the subsequent Interval.’

Cassaru thought for a few moments. ‘You’ll probably want to take a look at F’mon’s charts. He was a blue rider, nearly two hundred Turns ago, who had a hobby of watching the skies and mapping the positions of the stars. Follow me.’

She led the way into the archives, knowing exactly where to go to find the records she’d mentioned. Carefully, she removed the rolled hides from their niche, then carried them over to the table. Untying the thong, she separated and flattened them out. ‘There you are.’