“There’s another aspect of this affair that is nagging at the back of my overactive imagination,” Robinton said. “The matter has brought Southern to everyone’s attention.”
“Why is that a problem?” Lytol asked.
Robinton took a sip of his wine, delaying his answer as he savored the taste. “Just this: these recent events have made everyone realize that that huge continent is occupied by a mere-handful of people.”
“So?”
“I know some restless Lord Holders whose halls are crowded, whose cots are jammed. And the Weyrs, instead of protecting the inviolability of the Southern Continent, were half-set to force their way in. What’s to prevent the Lord Holders from taking the initiative and claiming whole portions of it?”
“There wouldn’t be dragons enough to protect that much area, that’s what,” Lytol said. “The Oldtimers surely wouldn’t.”
“They don’t really need dragonriders in the South,” Robinton said slowly.
Lytol stared at him, aghast at such a statement.
“It’s true,” he said. “The land is thoroughly sowed by grubs. Traders have told me that they more or less ignore Falls; Holder Toric just makes certain everyone’s safe and all stock is under cover.”
“There will come a time when no dragonriders will be needed in the North either,” N’ton said, slowly, compounding Lytol’s shock.
“Dragonriders will always be needed on Pern while there is Thread!” Lytol emphasized his conviction by banging the table with his fist.
“At least in our lifetimes,” Robinton said soothingly. “But I could have wished less interest in Southern. Think it over, Lytol.”
“More of your thinking ahead, Robinton?” Lytol asked, a sour note in his voice and a jaundiced expression on his face.
“Looking ahead is far more constructive than looking behind,” said Robinton. He held his clenched fist up. “I’d all the facts in my grasp and I couldn’t see the water for the waves.”
“You’ve been down to the Southern Continent often, Masterharper?”
Robinton gave Lytol a long considering look. “I have. Discreetly, I assure you. There are some things that must be seen to be believed.”
“Such as?”
Robinton idly stroked Zair as he gazed out, over Lytol’s head, at some distant view.
“Mind you, there are times when looking back can be helpful,” he said and then turned back to the Lord Warder. “Are you aware that we originally, all of us, came from the Southern Continent?”
Lytol’s first surprise at such a sudden turn of the conversation melded into a thoughtful frown. “Yes, that was implicit in the oldest Records.”
“I’ve often wondered if there aren’t older Records, moldering somewhere in the South.”
Lytol snorted at the notion. “Moldering is right. There’d be nothing left after so many thousands of Turns.”
“They had ways of tempering metal, those ancestors of ours, ways that made it impervious to rust and wear. Those plates found at Fort Weyr, the instruments, like the long-distance viewer that fascinates Wansor and Fandarel. I don’t believe that time can have erased all traces of such clever people.”
Jaxom glanced at Menolly, recalling hints that she’d let slip. Her eyes were sparkling with suppressed excitement. She knew something that the Harper wasn’t saying. Jaxom looked then at the Fort Weyrleader and realized that N’ton knew all about this.
“The Southern Continent was ceded to the dissident Oldtimers,” Lytol said heavily.
“And they have already broken their side of the agreement,” N’ton said.
“Is that any reason for us to break ours?” Lytol asked, drawing his shoulders back and scowling at both Weyrleader and Harper.
“They occupy only a small tongue of land, jutting out into the Southern Sea,” said Robinton in his smooth way. “They have been unaware of any activity elsewhere.”
“You’ve already been exploring in the South?”
“Judiciously. Judiciously.”
“And you’d not have your … judicious intrusions discovered?”
“No,” answered Robinton slowly. “I shall make the knowledge public soon enough. I don’t want every disgruntled apprentice and evicted small holder running about indiscriminately, destroying what should be preserved because they haven’t the wit to understand it.”
“What have you discovered so far?”
“Old mine workings, shored up with lightweight but so durable a material that it is as unscratched today as when it was put in place in the shaft. Tools, powered by who can guess-bits and pieces that not even young Benelek can assemble.”