Part 4 (2/2)

”And what if, by leaving it to the student body - who are, as most students, indifferent researchers - the best notion is missed?” Danja asked.

”That's why we're teachers, dear,” said Bethany. ”To be sure they don't miss an obvious solution. They can at least save us having to sort through pounds of material and present us with the most viable options. We can put Jemmy in charge; he reads the fastest and his eyes are younger.”

Just then, the instrumentalists on the stage wound up their last number and received an enthusiastic ovation from both the sweating dancers and the onlookers drinking at the tables.

They filed off the stage.

”All right, what set do we do, Clisser?” Sheledon asked, tossing off the last of his wine as he got to his feet.

”Those seniors did a lot of fast dance music,” Clisser said.

”Let's give everyone a chance to catch their breaths and do some slow stuff... the old traditionals, I think. Start with 'Long and Winding Road' - Put everyone in a sentimental mood.”

”Hmmm... then we can get some supper while the juniors do what they so erroneously call 'music',” said Danja, who had considerable contempt for the contemporary loud and diatonic musical fad.

”Can't please everyone all the time,” Clisser said, collecting his guitar. He drew back Bethany's chair for her and offered her an arm.

Smiling in her gentle way at the courtesy, she picked up the flute in its worn hard-case, her recorders in their leather sleeves and the little reed whistle that had won its maker a prize that year. It had a particularly sweet, clear tone that young Jemmy had been trying to reproduce with other reeds. Then she limped forward, seemingly oblivious to her clubbed foot and awkward gait, her head high, her gaze directed ahead of her.

Jemmy joined them from his table, automatically taking Bethany's flute case from her. He was drummer for their group, though he had been playing guitar with others. Unprepossessing in physical appearance, with pale hair and skin and oversized features, he was self-effacing, indifferent to his academic achievements. While not in the least athletic, he had won the long-distance races in the Summer Games for the last three years. He did not relate well, however, to his peer group.

”They don't think the same way I do,” was his diffident self-appraisal.

That was, of course, accurate since he had tested off the scale of the standard apt.i.tude tests given prospective scholars.

His family, fishers at Tillek Hold, didn't understand him at all and at one point thought him r.e.t.a.r.ded. At fourteen he had followed his siblings into training in the family occupation. He lasted three voyages. Though he had proven himself an able navigator, he had had such constant motion sickness - ”never acquiring sea legs” - that he had been useless as a deck-hand: a source of much embarra.s.sment to his family. Captain Kizan had interested himself in the lad and recommended the boy be trained as a teacher, and sent Jemmy to Fort Hold for evaluation. Clisser had joyfully accepted him - finding such an avid learner was a real boost to his morale. And, when Clisser had seen how Jemmy galloped through even the hardest lessons, he had set up an independent study program for him. Although Jemmy had perfect pitch, he couldn't sing and started playing instruments to make up for that lack in himself. There was nothing he couldn't play, given a few hours of basic training.

Although his family, and indeed the Lord Holder Bastom, too, had expected him to return to Tillek to teach, Clisser had argued hard that anyone could teach the basics to hold children: he would supply a suitably trained candidate. But Jemmy must be allowed to continue at the College Hall, benefiting the entire continent.

What no-one at the Hall mentioned beyond their most private sessions was that Jemmy seemed intuitively to know how to fill in the gaps left by improper copying or damaged records. His notations, short and concise, were models of lucidity. The College could not afford to do without his skills and intelligence. He wasn't a good teacher, being frustrated by mental processes slower than his own, but he could, and did, produce manuals and guides that enhanced the basic texts the settlers had brought with them. Jemmy translated 'Earth' into 'Pern' If his peer group did not enjoy his company, he enjoyed that of his mentors and was fast outstripping all of them in knowledge and practical applications. It was also well known if tacitly ignored, that he idolized Bethany. She was consistently kind and encouraging to everyone, but refused to accept any partner. She had long since decided never to inflict her deformity on offspring and refused any intimacy, even a childless one.

Clisser wondered, though, as he and Bethany made their sedate way to the stage, if Jemmy might not breach the wall of her virginity. He was certain that Bethany cared more for the Tillek lad than anyone else in the thirty years he had known her - student and teacher. She was a lovely, gentle woman; she deserved to be loved and love in return.

Since there were ways of preventing conception, her prime concern could be taken care of. Clisser thought the age difference was immaterial.

And Jemmy desperately needed the balance that a fully rounded life experience would give him.

Clisser and Jemmy provided support for Bethany to ascend the un railed steps to the stage and then, with a swirl of the long skirts that covered the built-up shoe she wore, she settled herself in her chair. She placed her flute case and the recorders where she wanted them, and the little reed flute in the music stand. Not that this group of musicians required printed sheets to read from, but the other groups did.

Danja lifted her fiddle to her chin, bow poised, and looked at Jemmy who hummed an A with his perfect pitch for her to tune her strings. Sheledon softly strummed his guitar to check its tuning and Lozell ran an arpeggio on his standing harp. The continent's one remaining piano - his preferred instrument - was undergoing repairs to the hammers: they had not yet managed to reproduce quite the same sort of felt that had been used originally.

Clisser nodded at Jemmy, who did a roll on his hand drum to attract attention and then, on Clisser's downbeat, they began their set.

It was several days before Clisser had a chance to discuss the project with Jemmy.

”I've wondered why we didn't use the balladic medium to teach history,” Jemmy replied.

”It isn't history we'll be setting to music.”

”Oh yes, it is,” Jemmy had contradicted him in the flat and tactless way he had. It had taken Clisser time to get used to it.

”Well, it will be when the next generation gets it - and the next one after that.”

”That's a point, of course.”

Jemmy hummed something, but broke off and sprang across to the table where he grabbed a sheet of paper, turning it to the unused side.

He slashed five lines across it, added a clef and immediately began to set notes down. Clisser was fascinated.

”Oh,” Jemmy said offhandedly as his fingers flew up and down the lines, ”I've had this tune bugging me for months now. It's almost a relief to put it down on paper now that I've a use for it.”

He marked off another measure, the pen hovering above the paper only briefly before he was off again. ”It can be a show piece anyhow. Start off with a soprano - boy, of course, setting the scene. Then the tenors come in - they'll be the dragon riders of course, and the baritones Lord Holders, with a few ba.s.ses to be the Professionals... each describing his duty to the... then a final chorus, s.a.t.b., a reprise of the first verse, all Pern confirming what they owe the dragons. Yes, that'll do nicely for one.”

Clisser knew when he wasn't needed and left the room, smiling to himself. Now, if Bethany was right and this term's students could perform the research satisfactorily, he could make good on his blithe promise to the Council. He did hope that the computers would last long enough for a comprehensive search. They had got so erratic lately that their performance was suspect at most times. Some material was definitely scrambled and lost among files. And no-one knew how to solve the problem of replacement parts. Of course, the pcs were so old and decrepit, it was truly a wonder that they had lasted as long as they had. Was there any point these days in holding a course on computer electronics?

Which thought reminded him that he had interviews with two sets of parents who were insisting that their offspring be put in the computer course since that was the most prestigious of those offered. And the one involving the least work, since there were so few computers left.

Where would they practice the skills they learned? Clisser wondered.

Furthermore, neither of the two students concerned had the apt.i.tude to work with mechanical objects; they just thought it was what they wanted. There were always a few cases like that in an academic year.

”And one set of Holder parents who did not like their daughter a.s.sociating with lesser breeds without the law” as Sheledon put it.

”As if there was room, or facilities, for more than one teachers' school. Or the private tutors some Holders felt should be supplied them because of their positions. Ha! As it was, the peripatetic teachers were going all year long, trying to cover the basics with children in the far-flung settlements.

Well, maybe one day they could site a second campus - was that the word? - on the eastern coast. Of course, with Threadfall coming, he'd have to revise all the schedules as well as instruct his travelers on how to avoid getting killed by the stuff. He had seen footage - when the projector still worked - of actual Threadfall. He shuddered.

Accustomed as he had been all his life to the prospect of the menace, he still didn't like the inevitability. The reality was nearly on them.

The Weyrleaders could waffle on about how well prepared Hold and Weyr were, with dragon strength at max, and ground crews and equipment organized, but did anyone really know what it would be like? He swore under his breath as he made his way to the rooms that still needed to be completed to receive occupants in five days. He'd work on the syllabus on his lunch break.

A sudden thought struck him so that he halted, foot poised briefly above the next step. What they really needed was a totally new approach to education on Pern!

What was the point of teaching students subjects now rendered useless here on Pern? Like computer programming and electronic maintenance? What good did it do the Pernese boys and girls to know the old geographic and political subdivisions of Terra? Useless information. They'd never go there! Such matters did not impinge on their daily lives. What was needed was a complete revision of learning priorities, suitable to those who were firmly and irrevocably based on this planet. Why did anyone NOW need to know the underlying causes of the Nathi s.p.a.ce War?

No-one here was going to get in s.p.a.ce - even the dragons were limited to distance which they could travel before they were in oxygen debt.

Why not study the spatial maps of Pern and forget those of Earth and its colonies? Study the Charter and its provisions as applicable to the Pernese citizenry, rather than prehistoric governments and societies? Well, some of the more relevant facts could be covered in the course to show how the current governmental system, such as it was, had been developed. But there was so much trivia - no wonder his teachers couldn't get through the lessons. Small wonder the students got bored.

So little of what they were presently required to learn had any relevance to the life they lived and the planet they inhabited.

History should really begin with Landing on Pern well, some nodding acquaintance with the emergence of h.o.m.o sapiens, but why deal with the aliens which Earth's exploratory branch had discovered when there was little chance of them arriving in the Rukbat system?

And further, Clisser decided, taken up with the notion, we should encourage specialized training - raising agriculture and veterinary care to the prestige of computer sciences. Breeding to Pernese conditions and coping with Pernese parasites was far more important than knowing what had once bothered animals back on Earth. Teach the miners and metal workers where the spatial maps showed deposits of ores and what they were good for; teach not the history of art - especially since many of the slides of Masterpieces had now deteriorated to muddy blurs - but how to use Pernese pigments, materials, design and tailoring; teach the Great Currents, oceanography, fish-conservation, seamans.h.i.+p, naval engineering and meteorology to those who fished the waters... As to that, why not separate the various disciplines so that each student would learn what he needed to know, not a lot of basically useless facts, figures and theories?

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