Tales from the Fair
Chapter 4: …But It Is Up Far
I am the smartest, best-trained, and most beautiful fire lizard on Pern. Please do not think me vain – I do not claim these titles for myself. My human says these things to me, so they must be true.
Ever since I hatched, my human and I have had adventures that are different from most others of my kind. The majority of us live in the wild, in groups that the humans call fairs. We fly together, we feed together, and we welcome our young together. A bare handful pair off with humans when we hatch. Those humans dwell with other humans, and their flying friends stay with them in those human places. But I paired off with my human in the wilderness, and the two of us (and his four-footed friend whom he calls Stupid) lived our lives apart from all others for a long time. We made our slow way through the deep forests and the grassy plains and the rocky lands, finding food when we needed it, hiding from the silver threads when they fell, and trusting each other for everything. We eventually joined the other humans, but sometimes my own human still longs for the days when we were surrounded by trees instead of walls, with leaves overhead instead of ceilings, and when we had no companions except each other.
My current life is very different from that life. We live among the humans, and among their friends who look like our kind, but are much, much larger. "Dragons," the humans call them. The humans who are considered important keep coming and going. Some of them are kind to my human, and some of them merely order him about. Also, there is a voice called AIVAS to whom all the humans listen intently, even though none of us have ever seen him. He speaks the humans' language, but I cannot touch his mind or see his mind-pictures.
AIVAS seems to give more orders and instructions than the others. He tells my human to learn new skills. I have mixed feelings about that. The learning process often frustrates my human, but when he masters the skill, then he is happy for a while. I do not like my human to be frustrated, but I like it when he is happy. I must think of a way for him to master these new skills at the very beginning, so he will not have to be frustrated and can go straight to being happy.
My human is also teaching me a new skill. I do not know why he wants me to learn this, but it makes him happy when I face a colorful board full of shining lights and things that I can move with my foreclaws. He wants me to perform a certain set of actions on this board. None of the actions is difficult, but he does not reward me unless I do them in a specific order. That order never changes, so he is not testing my intelligence or my ability to learn, the way some of the humans test some of my kind. The actions serve no purpose; depressing buttons does not attract prey, and pushing switches does not attract a handsome bronze. If it makes Piemur happy, then I will push the switches and depress the buttons as often as he wishes.
Today, something is different. There is an air of expectancy in all the humans. Is something important going to happen today? My human and his friends enter the room where the AIVAS voice speaks. We see a flat-picture on the wall like one I have often seen. It shows a human place, but it is only an image. Then part of the picture becomes clearer. It is my colorful board with its switches and buttons. What does this mean? Surely they know that I cannot push the switches and depress the buttons on the flat-picture!
My human extends his arm. He wants me to go somewhere, probably to take something to one of his friends. I walk along his arm with my claws turned in, and face him. He will now give me a mind-picture of the place he wants me to go.
He shows me the flat-picture on the wall. I look at it. Now I am confused. How can he send me to that place when I am already here? I fold my wings and say to him, "I see the picture; I do not need to fly to it."
He shows me the flat-picture again. He emphasizes my colorful board. "I already know about that!" I tell him. He is getting upset. I know what will make him happy! I go between and fly to my board. I push the switches and depress the buttons in the way that he likes. Then I fly back to him and go right up to the flat-picture. I bump the image of my colorful board with my nose; I want to show him that I have done exactly what he wants me to do.
He strokes me and says kind things to me. I sense that I have done the right thing, and at the same time, I have failed somehow. I very much do not understand.
The man called F'nor and his very large dragon Canth are here now. Canth asks me a few simple questions. He is trying to help me understand something, but it is a difficult thing. He cannot put it into a clear mind-picture. He wants me to push my switches and depress my buttons, but I must do it in a different place. That place looks exactly like my colorful board, but it is different in a way that is difficult for him to explain. I cannot understand what he wants of me.
I want to understand! I want to make my human happy! He is still thinking good things about me, and yet he is unhappy. The others are also unhappy. I have done everything they asked of me. This does not make any sense.
The human called Jaxom is talking to his dragon, the nice white one whose name is Ruth. They are talking about what I ought to do. Ruth seems to understand it. If he could tell me what the others want me to know, then would that solve my problem for them?
Ruth does not answer. He goes between.
Suddenly, all the humans are very afraid, except for the ones called Lessa and F'lar, who are very angry. What are they afraid of? Why are they angry? A dragon always knows where he is going, unless he is flying to a mind-picture from his human. I try to talk to Ruth, but he has not reappeared yet. It is a very long time for a dragon to stay between.
He is back in our world now. He is a very, very long distance away. None of my kind has ever gone that far, ever. I am sure of this; there are no shared mind-pictures of any long flight like that. Ruth is surprised at where he is. No, he went exactly where he wanted to go; he is surprised by how things are in that place. He seems to be floating in air, the way he might float in water.
I cannot figure out more than that. Most of the humans are happy and cheering now. Even the AIVAS-voice sounds happy somehow. There is so much shouting, I do not know where to look or whom to listen to. This day is becoming more confusing by the moment. I want to fly away and hide until the humans make up their minds.
And then my own human finally tells me something that makes sense. He makes me face toward the flat-picture that now shows Ruth in it. "Go to Ruth!" he tells me.
Ruth is not on that flat-picture, of course. Ruth would barely fit in this room. But Ruth is in that faraway place that looks like the flat-picture, and my human wants me to go to him. Ruth is there, so I can see the place in his mind-picture. "Go to Ruth? I can do that!" I exclaim, and I go.
It is a very long, dark, cold passage. It really is farther than any other flight that any of my kind have taken. I am worrying that I might have somehow misunderstood where Ruth is, and that I might be going to nowhere, when I finally emerge.
Oh, my.
When I go for a flight every day, my wings move me, and I have a clear sense of which way is "up" and which way is "down." When I am between, it is cold and dark, and my wings do not control where I am going. This place is a little like both. It is cold, like between, and I have no clear sense of "up" and "down." But, like flying, there is light, and my wings move me. This is a very strange place. I am surely the first of my kind to ever visit a place like this. The others of my kind will be very curious about the mind-pictures I will form while I am here.
Ruth is here. He is not fearful or angry or upset. At last, someone is acting normal around me. He seems curious to learn how to move in this strange place. It feels very odd. Is this why my human wanted me to come here? I can tell that he is happy now,, even though he is very far away. I look all around. This place is a human place, with no trees or rocks or water. There are chairs and steps, and other things that humans make for themselves. There are no humans here, though.
And now I see it. My colorful panel! No, it is very much like my panel, but the colors are slightly faded. Still, I know what to do with it. This must be why my human sent me here!
Flying here is not like the flying I know. I have to be very careful, and I try to move slowly. I reach the panel, but when I reach out to touch it, I slide away from it. I have come too far to be stopped by strange motions now. I use one set of foreclaws to hold onto the edge of the panel, and the other to work the controls that are so familiar to me.
Push that switch, then wait until the dark button next to it turns yellow. Now it glows golden, like me when I am ready to mate. Next, push the second switch, then wait for the three lights on top to light up. They turn red like the eyes of my kind when we are angry, then change to yellow, and finally to flashing green. Now depress three buttons in a row… first this one… then that one… and the third one. Dark buttons begin to shine in red, yellow, and green all over my panel. This is the sign that I have done it correctly. My human would reward me and praise me if he was here. He is a very, very long distance away, but I can tell that he approves without any reservation. I have finally done what he wanted me to do. We are both happy. It's about time.
My work here is done. Now what shall I do?
Ruth says I should let go and learn to move here. It is difficult at first; I find myself turning over and bumping into things. Ruth gives me a nudge, which I would find humiliating if it was from any other dragon. It is a novel sensation, to move and keep moving without effort. I do not need to use my wings to glide through the air. Why, even a human could fly in this place!
I suddenly recall a mind-picture. I was very young, not long out of my shell, and I was learning to fly. Once I had mastered the basics of balance, speed, and how to turn, it became fun. I met some wild members of our kind, and one or two of them tried to play games with me in the air. But their mother scolded us severely. "You must always keep your eyes and your minds on what you are doing! You are young, small, and inexperienced. What if one of the big feathered flyers tried to sneak up behind you while you were playing your silly games? You would never know that you were in danger until it bit down on you."
"But I have seen adults of our kind playing games in the sky," my friend protested.
"The adults do play games, but they stay in a large group with many eyes, and they are always looking around for danger," his mother said. "That is the safe way to play games in the air." I learned that lesson, and I also learned the greater lesson that it is good to play games in the air, as long as it is safe. And here, in this cold human place where "up" is not "up" and where there is no one around except Ruth, it is safe. So I will play!
I experiment with turning over and spinning around. I approach a wall, reach out, and bounce away in the other direction. Ruth must keep his wings folded and be very careful where he goes, because he is so big and this room is so small. He cannot have as much fun as I can, but he is still enjoying himself very much. I sense that my human is enjoying the sight of me spinning and tumbling head over tail, even though I do not know how he can see me. It will be a shame when we have to return. But there is nothing to breathe here, so we cannot stay for long.
With regret, Ruth tells me that his human wants him to go home. I am sure that my human also wants me back. I take a last look at this strange place, so my mind-pictures will be complete, and go between to return to the place where I belong.
As soon as we arrive, the humans run at us. None of them are angry or frightened anymore. They laugh and cheer, and they rub our eye ridges over and over. I have no complaints about this! What I did was not difficult, and I still do not understand its value. But, judging by the humans' reaction, we have done something very, very important.
I am the smartest, best-trained, and most beautiful fire lizard on Pern. My human says these things to me. Perhaps he is right.