Anne McCaffrey - The White Dragon

Jaxom grinned with delight at the response to his discovery. Menolly's arms gripped him more tightly and she cried out an intricate arpeggio in her excitement. He could see the Harper gesticulating wildly, and hoped he had a good grip on F'nor's belt. Canth, never taking his eyes from the hole in the hill, veered to land as close to it as possible. They settled the Harper in the nearest spot of shade and had Jaxom ask Ruth to get the local fire lizards to image things for himself and Zair while he admired their labors.

To the chirping conversation of fire lizards, the others began to dig, Ruth standing to one side since Canth could move far more earth than he and there was only room for one dragon. Jaxom was keenly aware of an internal excitement that had been utterly lacking at the Plateau.

They dug perpendicularly now, for Jaxom had unearthed the top of the vehicle. Canth's enthusiasm often showered the Harper with clods of dirt as they worked down to the door area, but they'd been digging only a short time before the seam of the doorway, a fine crack in the otherwise smooth surface, came to light. F'nor had Canth shift the angle of excavation slightly to the right and very shortly the entire upper edge of the opening was uncovered.

Much encouraged, fire lizards joined Canth and the riders, and dirt flew everywhere. When the opening was all but clear, they had also uncovered the rounded, leading edge of one of the stubby wings as well, proving, as the Harper was quick to point out, that the fire lizards did recall accurately what their ancestors had seen. Once you could get them to remember, of course.

When the whole doorway had been cleared, the workers stood aside for the Harper to approach and examine it.

«I think we really had better contact Lessa and F'lar now. And it would be unkind in the extreme to exclude Master Fandarel. He might even be able to tell us what they constructed this ship of.»

«That's enough people to know of this,» F'nor said before the Harper could include any other names. «I'll go for the Master Smith myself. It'll spare time and prevent gossip. Canth will tell Ramoth.» He rubbed sweat from his face and neck and the worst of the mud stains from his hands before he shrugged into his flying gear. «Don't any of you do anything while I'm gone!» he added, glaring at each one in turn and most fiercely at the Harper.

«I wouldn't know what to do,» the Harper said in a reproving tone. «We shall take refreshment,» he said, reaching for the wineskin, and gesturing the others to sit around him.

The diggers welcomed a respite and a chance to contemplate the marvel they were unearthing.

«If they flew in those things…»

«If, my dear Piemur. No doubt obtains. They did. The fire lizards saw those vehicles land,» Master Robinton said.

«I started to say that if they flew in those things, why didn't they fly them away from the Plateau after the explosion?»

«A very good point.»

«Well?»

«Perhaps Fandarel can answer, for I certainly can't,» Robinton said truthfully, regarding the door with some chagrin.

«Maybe they'd need to take off from a height, the way a lazy dragon does,» Menolly said, casting a sly glance at Jaxom.

«How long does it take F'nor to go between?» the Harper asked with a wistful sigh, squinting up at the bright sky for any sign of returning dragons.

«Takes longer to take off and land.»

The Benden Weyrleaders arrived first, Canth with F'nor and Fandarel only a few seconds behind them so that all three dragons landed together. The Smith was first off Canth, rushing to the new wonder to run reverent hands over the curious surface, murmuring under his breath. F'lar and Lessa came striding through the long grasses, picking their way past dragon strewn dirt; neither took their eyes from the softly shining doorway.

«Aha!» the Smith cried in sudden triumph, startling everyone. He'd been examining the rim of the doorway minutely. «Perhaps this is meant to move!» He dropped to his knees to the exposed right hand corner. «Yes, if one excavated the entire vessel, this would probably be man height! I think I ought to press.» He put action to words and a small panel slid open to one side of the main door. It displayed a depression occupied by several colored circles.

Everyone crowded about him as his big fingers wiggled preparatorily and then hovered first over the upper rank of green circles. The bottom ones were red.

«Red has always meant danger, a convention we undoubtedly learned from the ancients,» he said. «Green we will therefore try first!» His thick forefinger hesitated a moment longer and then stabbed at the green button.

At first nothing happened. Jaxom felt a clenching, like a cold hand on his guts, the prelude to intense disappointment.

«No, look, it's opening!» Piemur's keen eyes caught the first barely perceptible widening of the crack.

«It's old,» the Smith said reverently. «A very old mechanism,» he added as they all heard the faint protest of movement.

Slowly the door moved inward and then, astonishingly, it moved sideways, into the hull of the ship. A whoosh of rank air sent them reeling and gasping backward. When they looked again, the door was fully retracted, sunlight streaming onto flooring, darker than the ship's hull but, when the Smith rapped it with his knuckles, apparently made of the same peculiar material.

«Wait!» Fandarel restrained the others from entering. «Give fresh air a chance to circulate. Did anyone think to bring glows?»

«There're some at the Cove,» Jaxom said, reaching for his flying gear and jamming his helmet on his head as he raced to Ruth. He never did bother to belt up and the frigid moment of between was a shocking cooler after the exertions of digging. He got as many glow baskets as he could carry. On his return, he realized no one seemed to have moved in his brief absence. Awe of the unknown beyond that great entrance had restrained them. Awe and perhaps, Jaxom decided, a reluctance to repeat the disappointment of the Plateau.

«Well, we will never know anything standing out here like numbwits,» Robinton said, taking a glow basket from Jaxom and unshielding it as he strode forward into the ship.

It was mete, Jaxom thought, as he passed out the other baskets, that the Master Harper should have the honor of entering first. Fandarel, F'lar, F'nor and Lessa walked abreast through the opening. Jaxom grinned at Piemur and Menolly as they fell in behind.

Another great door, with circular wheel for locking thick bars ceiling and floor, lay open and inviting. Master Fandarel was making inarticulate noises of praise and awe as he touched the walls and peered at what looked to be control levers and more colored circles. As they penetrated further, they came upon two more doors, an open one on the left and one closed on their right which would lead, Fandarel was certain, to the rear, tube encircled end of the vehicle. How could tubes make a cumbersome, snub winged thing like this fly? He simply had to bring Benelek here, if no one else was to see it.

They all turned to the left and entered a long narrow corridor, their boots making muffled noises on the nonmetallic floor.

«More of the substance they used for pit supports, I think,» Fandarel said, kneeling and pressing his fingers against the floor. «Ha, what was in these?» he asked, fingering brackets which were empty now. «Fascinating. And no dust.»

«No air or wind to carry it in here for who knows how long,» F'lar remarked in a quiet tone. «As in those rooms we discovered in Benden Weyr.»

They moved along a corridor of doors, some open, some closed. None locked, for Piemur and Jaxom were able to peer into the emptied cubicles. Holes in the flooring and on the inside walls proved that there had been fittings.