The Renegades of Pern (40 page)

The red lights, which read
panels charging,
stopped blinking and settled to a firm color that gradually changed to green as the lighting—from whatever mysterious source it emanated—continued to brighten. Suddenly a quiet
blip
startled all of them, and a new message blazed from the left-hand corner:
AIVAS FUNCTION RESUMED
.

“That corner says ‘
AIVAS
,’ ” Piemur said excitedly, pointing to the obvious.

Robinton had turned to view the corridor walls and recognized familiar artifacts. “Charts,” he said.

“Please state ID and access code! Your voiceprints are not on record.”

The voice startled all of them, and Jancis clutched at Piemur.

“Who said that?” Fandarel demanded, his voice booming in the confines of the room.

“State ID and access code, please!”
The voice repeated, sounding slightly louder.

“That’s not a human voice,” Master Robinton said. “It has no real resonance, no inflection, no timbre.”

“State the reason for this intrusion.”

“Do you understand what he’s saying, Master Robinton?” Piemur asked. The words sounded familiar, but the accent was too strange for him to comprehend the meaning.

“I have the feeling that I ought to,” the Harper admitted ruefully.

“Unless ID and access codes are given, this facility will close down. Its use is restricted to Admiral Paul Benden
. . .”

“Benden, it said Benden!” Piemur cried excitedly.

“. . . Governor Emily Boll
 . . .
”

“Boll, that’s another recognizable word,” Robinton said. “We recognize the words ‘Benden’ and ‘Boll.’ We do not understand what you are trying to tell us.”

“. . .
Captain Ezra Keroon
. . .”

“Keroon. It knows Keroon. Do you know Telgar?” The Smith could not contain himself any longer. “Surely it must know Telgar.”

“Telgar, Sallah, married to Tarvi Andivar, later known as Telgar in memory of his wife’s sacrifice
. . .”

“All I understand is ‘Telgar,’ ” Fandarel said. He raised his voice unthinkingly, in a frustrated attempt to encourage comprehension. “Telgar, we understand. Keroon we understand—that’s another big hold. Boll is a Hold; Benden is a Hold. Do you understand us?”

There was a long pause and they all watched with complete fascination as a range of symbols and, occasionally, letters rippled across the panel in front of them, accompanied by a variety of sounds, mainly blips and beeps and odd whirrings.

“Did I say something wrong, Robinton?” Fandarel asked, his voice an awed whisper again.

“Are you all right down there?” Master Esselin’s plaintive query reached them where, they stood bunched together in the doorway.

“Of course we are,” Fandarel bellowed back to the Master-miner. “Clear those windows. Let some light in. Glammie has my diagrams. Work from that and leave us alone!”

“New letters,” Piemur said, digging the Mastersmith in the ribs to attract his attention. “Running . . . Running? E . . . M . . . E . . . R . . . G . . . E . . . N . . .”

“Emergency,” the harper guessed before the C and Y appeared. He grinned with pleasure.

“P-R-O-G-R-A-M—program? The words we understand, but what do they mean?” Piemur asked.

“The lights are quite bright now,” Fandarel said cheerfully. “Very curious.” He stepped inside the room, his initial surprise having worn off, and the others followed hastily. “There are buttons on the wall.” He flicked one, and a soft whirring noise began. The fine film of dust on the floor began to shift: the closeness of the air freshened. Fandarel flicked the button again, and both the noise and the stirring of air ceased. He flicked it on again, murmuring happily to himself. “Well, this aivas of yours is an ingenious creature,” he commented, smiling down at Jancis. “And efficient.”

“We still don’t know what an aivas is!” Piemur remarked.

“AIVAS is an acronym for Artificial Intelligence Voice Address System,”
the voice intoned.
“To be precise, a Mark 47A, programmed to interface the main computer storage banks of the
Yokohama
and the settlement on Pern.”

“Pern—I understood Pern,” Robinton said. Then, enunciating very clearly and projecting his rich baritone voice, he added, “From where are you speaking, aivas?”

“This system is programmed for voice address. State your name. Please.”

“It sounds testy, but I think I’m getting the hang of its accent. My name is Robinton. I am Masterharper of Pern. This is Fandarel, who is Mastersmith in Telgar Hold. With us are Journeywoman Jancis and Journeyman Piemur. Do you understand me?”

“Lingual shifts have occurred, Robinton. Modification of the language program is now required. Please continue to speak.”

“Continue to speak?”

“Your speech patterns will be the basis for the modification. Please continue to speak.”

“Well, Masterharper, you heard it,” Piemur said, rapidly recovering his composure. “Here, sit down.” He pulled the chair from under the desk, brushed the seat off, and made a flamboyant gesture.

Master Robinton looked aggrieved as he sat. “I always thought the Harper Hall had succeeded very well in keeping the language pure and unadulterated.”

“Oh, aivas just doesn’t understand us!” Piemur murmured reassuringly. “Everyone understands you. That thing,” he said, airily dismissing the aivas, “doesn’t even use words we know.”

“This is all very interesting,” Fandarel said, peering at every surface, poking a finger into the slots, and cautiously touching the various knobs, buttons, and toggles. “Very interesting. Much less dust has filtered into this room. No doubt due to the tile layer.”

“Please do not attempt to use the touch-screen controls. That function is now deactivated.”

Fandarel pulled his hands back like a small boy caught reaching for bubbly pies. The slanting board, which had been glowing amber, went dark again. Jancis had gingerly settled on one of the stools, rolling her eyes around the room and trying not to look at the screen.

“What’s happening down there?” Breide called.

“A modification of the language program has been necessary,” Piemur called back. “Master Fandarel has it all well in hand, Breide.”

“Four persons are observed to occupy this room, but only three voices have been registered. Will the fourth person speak?”

Jancis looked around apprehensively. “Me?”

“You are requested to speak a full sentence.”

“Go on, Jancis,” Piemur urged. “I don’t think it will bite you, and a feminine voice will give it a new perspective on life here.”

“But I haven’t the faintest idea what one says to . . . a disembodied voice.”

“Any speech will suffice. The difference in resonance and timbre has been noted. To assist the program, question: You are a female person.”

“Yes, she is a female person,” Piemur repeated.

“The female person is asked to answer for a voiceprint reading.”

Jancis burst out laughing at the surprise on Piemur’s face, for the reproof, despite the uninflected tone, was unmistakable.

“You should see your face, Piemur.”

“Well, at least you can laugh about it,” Piemur said. “Thank you . . . sir, whatever. How should you be addressed?”

“This is an artificial intelligence voice address system. It does not require personification.”

“Does artificial mean man-made?” Robinton asked.

“That is correct.”

“The men who built the Dawn Sisters?”

“Reference to Dawn Sisters is unknown. Please explain.”

“The three metallic objects in the sky overhead are known as the Dawn Sisters.”

“You refer to the spaceships
Yokohama, Buenos Aires,
and
Bahrain.”

“Spaceships?” Fandarel asked, turning to stare at the panel with its green blinking legend.

“Spaceships, life-supported vehicles that travel in the vacuum inaccurately referred to as ‘space.’ ”

“Do the spaceships still support life?” Fandarel’s eyes were wide, his usually expressionless face betraying a passionate avidity that surprised even Robinton.

“Not at the present reading. All systems are on hold. Bridge pressure is .001 standard atmosphere, or 0.1 KP. Interior temperature reads minus twenty-five degrees Celsius.”

“I don’t know what it’s talking about,” Fandarel said, collapsing onto the other stool, his face a study of terrible disappointment.

“Hey!” Jaxom came running down the hall. “No, that’s all right, Breide, I’ll just go right in. I’m expected.” He entered the room, slightly breathless. “I thought you’d wait for me, Piemur. Excuse me, Master Fandarel, Master Robinton. What is this?” He began to assimilate the oddities of the room, the lights, the ventilation, and the expressions of his friends.

“This is an artificial intelligence voice address system
. . .”

“Here we go again,” Piemur said irreverently. “You do realize, Master, that here is the key you’ve been hoping to find. A talking key. I think if you can just ask it the right questions, you’ll find out all the answers. Even some you didn’t know you needed to know.”

“Aivas,” Master Robinton said, straightening his shoulders and directing his next remark to the green light. “Can you answer my questions?”

“That is the function of this apparatus.”

“Let us begin at the beginning then, shall we?” Master Robinton asked.

“That is a correct procedure,”
Aivas replied, and what had been a dark panel suddenly became illuminated with a diagram that those in the room identified as similar to one found in the flying ship Jaxom had discovered. Only this diagram had such depth and perspective that it appeared three-dimensional, giving the awed, observers the feeling that they were hovering in space, an unthinkable distance away from their sun.
“When Mankind first discovered the third planet of the sun Rukbat in the Sagittarian Sector of space
. . .

Anne McCaffrey
was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She graduated cum laude from Radcliffe College, majoring in Slavonic Languages and Literatures. Before her success as a writer, she was involved in theater. She directed the American premiere of Carl Orff’s
Ludus de Nato Infante Mirificus
, in which she also played a witch. Her first novel,
Restoree
, was written as a protest against the absurd and unrealistic portrayals of women in science fiction novels in the 50s and early 60s. Ms. McCaffrey is best known, however, for her handling of broader themes and the worlds of her imagination, particularly in her tales of the Talents and the fourteen novels about the Dragonriders of Pern.

McCaffrey lives in a house of her own design, Dragonhold-Underhill, in County Wicklow, Ireland. Visit the author online at www.annemccaffrey.org.

Books by Anne McCaffrey

Decision at Doona

Dinosaur Planet

Dinosaur Planet Survivors

Get Off the Unicorn

The Lady

Pegasus in Flight

Restorree

The Ship Who Sang

To Ride Pegasus

Nimisha’s Ship

Pegasus in Space

THE CRYSTAL SINGER BOOKS

Crystal Singer

Killashandra

Crystal Line

THE DRAGONRIDERS OF PERN
^®
BOOKS

Dragonflight

Dragonquest

The White Dragon

Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern

Nerilka’s Story

Dragonsdawn

The Renegades of Pern

All the Weyrs of Pern

The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall

The Dolphins of Pern

Dragonseye

The Masterharper of Pern

The Skies of Pern

By Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough:

Powers that Be

Power Lines

Power Play

With Jody Lynn Nye:

The Dragonlover’s Guide to Pern

Edited by Anne McCaffrey:

Alchemy and Academe

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A Del Rey Book

Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group

Copyright © 1989 by Anne McCaffrey

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Ballantine Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

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Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 89-6694

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