What's a Runner to Do? Chapter 3

As Hanna left the AIVAS facility, she almost bumped into Doria in the crowd. "How did your audience with AIVAS go?" the healer asked.

"It was..." Hanna said, and then stopped. How should she describe it? It wasn't like meeting an impressive, powerful person like Robinton or Master-runner Hoca. It certainly wasn't like meeting a friend or a relative. "I guess it was like meeting a very knowledgeable Harper who can answer my questions about almost anything," she finally decided. "He didn't have any Teaching Ballads, of course, but he seemed to know as much about the Runners as I do. It was definitely a worthwhile visit. He gave me some good ideas."

"That's good news," Doria nodded. "Are you going to be leaving Southern now?"

"I'll have to arrange a ride home," Hanna said, "and I guess I'll have to go to the Admin building for that. I think that means I'm not going anywhere in a hurry."

"You're learning how Southern works," Doria said with a smile. "Very little happens in a hurry here. That means you've got time to visit me one more time and let me examine that knee."

"Yes, I suppose I do," the Runner agreed reluctantly. "After lunch?"

"Sure, I always save the time right after lunch for emergencies and personal business, so I can fit you in," the Healer said. "I'll see you then."

The dining area was crowded. Hanna could find only one empty seat, and it was next to Abbilee, who was finishing her meal. "So, we meet again!" the Smith apprentice smiled.

"It's probably for the last time," Hanna told her. "I'm going home this afternoon."

"I hope you enjoyed it here," Abbilee said. "It's a much more pleasant place to live than the Northern continent."

"I have to agree with you there," Hanna said between bites. "The climate is wonderful! This would be the perfect place to be a Runner, except there aren't any Runners here."

"We had one for a few days, at least," Abbilee decided. "I'm glad you came. I got the chance to talk to someone about something other than boring Smith grunt-work."

"You gave me the chance to talk to someone, period, which isn't something I get to do very often," Hanna replied. "A Runner's life is mostly spent on the traces, with no one to talk to except the occasional wherry overhead. It was nice to have someone to work with, even if the work wasn't very exciting to you."

"Work is work," the Smith shrugged. "It's the people that make it interesting. I hope you have a nice trip home, and whatever AIVAS told you, I hope it works out well."

After lunch, Doria examined Hanna's knee and shook her head. "Have you been running?" she asked.

"Short distances, yes," Hanna answered. "The knee hasn't been bothering me." She paused. "Well, to be honest, it's a little sore, just below the kneecap."

Doria shook her head. "As a Healer, my advice is to stop running immediately, and walk slowly until the pain is completely gone. I'm not your Craft Healer, so I can't order you off the traces, but if I could, I would."

"It's that serious?" Hanna asked.

"That's my professional judgement," the Healer replied. "I suspect that the Healers in Fort will tell you the same thing, once they've examined you. Have you been using the ointment I gave you?"

"Yes, and it's about halfway gone."

Doria gave her another jar. "Use this up, and then ask your Healer at home for one more when it's gone. If that doesn't make the swelling and the pain go away, then I'm afraid nothing will." She rose. "You're not like a lot of my patients, Hanna. You do what the Healer tells you to do, and you don't lie about your condition to make me leave you alone. I wish I could deal with people like you all day."

As she left, Hanna was suddenly reminded that, when she returned home, it might well be the last thing she ever did as a Runner. Her Craft had little use for someone who could not run. True, there were non-running jobs like Station personnel, but those were reserved, by tradition, for veteran Runners who had done their time on the traces. The Master-runner would probably receive her report, send her to the Craft Healer, and privately dismiss her when she got the Healer's report. She would have no way of making a living. The shame would be unendurable. How could she ever tell her mother? What would become of her future?

For half a moment, she considered staying in Southern and finding some way to make a living here. Perhaps the Smithcraft would take her; she could be a general-purpose worker like Abbilee. That would not be the most pleasant way to get by, but it would be better than being Holdless, or being forced into a marriage she didn't feel ready for. Maybe they would assign her and Abbilee to the same tasks, so they could talk while they worked. "It's the people that make it interesting," Abbilee had said. She realized that she was beginning to like the apprentice Smith. They had worked well together on that thorn bush; maybe they would work well together on other projects as well.

But that could not happen. She had an honor-bound obligation to return to Master-runner Hoca and relate what she had learned from AIVAS. Her honor as a Runner was supremely important to her; she had made a promise and so she would keep it. What happened after that... she'd cross that trace when she came to it.

She cleaned up her borrowed brush-cutting tools and returned them to the warehouse, then wandered out into the forest that surrounded the town and came back with a bag full of huge ripe redfruits for Cansa and Lady Benoria. Then she waited for half the afternoon until a familiar brown dragon spiraled down and landed in front of her. "Rudolth, H'mee, good afternoon," she said politely. "I'm glad to see you again."

The feeling is mutual. Please climb aboard.

The flight home was uneventful, if a trip between could ever be called "uneventful." When she landed in Fort, the sun was just appearing over the horizon, due to the time difference between Fort and Landing. She left word with the Runner Hall that she had returned and was ready to see the Master-runner, delivered her bag of redfruits to Headwoman Cansa, and then went home to visit her parents. They both wanted to hear all about Southern, her mother wanted to hear about Doria and Abbilee, and her father wanted to hear about AIVAS. Her storytelling was interrupted by another Runner apprentice who knocked at the door and told her that the Master-runner wanted to see her immediately.

She gave her Master the papers from AIVAS and explained what they meant. Hoca asked questions, and Hanna answered them as best she could. The master nodded a lot, and seemed encouraged by what she heard. At last, she put down the papers and leaned back in her chair.

"Hanna, you have done good work for your Craft, very good work. I think AIVAS' advice about promoting our services makes a great deal of sense. We'll take that advice, starting immediately; we'll talk about it at the Craft meeting in three days. Also, I'll designate one of my journeymen to contact Fort Weyr and start discussing the Dragon Delivery system. I can see good things coming out of this. I think the craft of Runner is in no danger of extinction now.

"But that leads me to another subject, and that, Apprentice Hanna, is your future in this Craft." Hanna went rigid.

Hoca casually held up two small slips of paper. "I've been in touch with the Healers who have treated you, and they all agree that your knee is probably not going to get any better. They kept this from you on my orders as your Master. I didn't want to discourage you while you were healing, because you have legs like your mother and we all hoped you would recover fully, just as she recovered from her sticklebush injury. But the facts of the matter are clear. I think you know what that means." Hanna forced herself to nod.

"Just out of curiosity," she said quietly, "was one of those Healers named Doria?"

Hoca shook her head. "You meeting Doria was a matter of luck; I didn't arrange that. Her curiosity about your case was genuine. But she sent me a summary of her findings, because I had notified the Healer Hall that I wanted to know everything about your knee injury. Her findings agree with Fort's Healers, by the way. It doesn't look good for your future on the traces.

"But there is more to being a Runner than just running," she went on. "We need trainers, we need trace maintainers, we need station agents... there are a great many things you can do with an imperfect knee and still serve the Runnercraft. But I cannot see you in any of those roles. No, Hanna, I see you in a very different role, thanks to some interesting reports that I've been getting." She glanced through the open doorway and called, "Oh, good, you made it just in time! Please come in." A few moments later, a tall young woman strode into the room with a blue fire lizard on her shoulder.

"Abbilee?" Hanna burst out, astonished.

Hoca smiled. "Abbilee is one of the names she uses when she's doing field research for me, and I'll thank you to call her that and nothing else in public. Her real name is Ewa, and she's my special apprentice."

"I thought you were kind of slim for the Smithcraft," Hanna said shakily.

"Thank you," Ewa smiled as she took the other chair in the room. Her fire lizard chittered and wrapped its tail around her neck. "I hated to deceive you by pretending to be something I'm not. I mean, I do it all the time in my line of work, but it doesn't bother me when I'm deceiving people who deserve to be deceived. You're not one of those people. I told you no lies about me doing lots of different things, though. I do a little of everything, as the Master requires. This time, she wanted me to keep an eye on you."

"Master, you sent a spy after me?!" Hanna was both surprised and hurt.

"More of a guardian than a spy," Ewa tried to reassure her.

"It wasn't about mistrust, Hanna!" Hoca explained quickly. "The truth is, I was worried about you. You knew the state of your own injuries, and you knew what it would mean if you couldn't fully recover. I was concerned that you might think about quitting on us, abandoning your Craft, and running away to find some kind of substitute existence. We've invested too much in you to let that happen, and to be honest, we like you too much to let that happen. Ewa had just finished a rather exhaustive survey of the northern traces, and she needed a low-intensity project like this to help her unwind. When she reported to me via her fire-lizard that you were continuing your running exercises, that was reassuring.

"But then I got a report that I didn't expect. Ewa told me about how you improved your running trace by removing a large thorn bush and rerouting the trace. That's not something that ever happens here in the Northern continent, because the traces were all laid out hundreds, if not thousands, of Turns ago. You had no example, no role model to follow. And yet you took initiative, you made a good plan and followed through on it, you took on a helper and did a fine job of communicating your plan and your wishes to her..."

"...and you did a really good trace-engineering job, too," Ewa finished. "I tried running on your improved trace after you were finished, and aside from some soil that wasn't hard-packed yet, it was as good as any Northern trace."

Hanna wasn't ready for that part. "You liked it?"

"I liked it very much," Abbilee replied. "I wound up liking you, too, which is something I try to avoid in my line of work. I didn't know what to expect when I first made contact with you, but you're clearly honest, pleasant, and fun to work with. I'm sorry that our paths aren't going to intersect very often, because I think we could be good friends. As for the work you did on your trace, it was completely professional. I've done some running, I know a good trace from a bad one, and you left a good one just outside Landing."

"So the long and the short of it, Hanna, is that you surprised me in a good way," the Master-runner said. "You've shown an aptitude for trace design, a skill that we completely lack because we haven't needed it for hundreds of Turns. Now, that skill is needed again. It's likely that you can no longer serve your Craft as a Runner, but how would you feel about becoming a trace engineer?"

"A... a trace engineer?" She ran the unfamiliar phrase over her tongue. "Where would I engineer traces?"

Hoca smiled broadly. "You've got an entire continent to play with, Hanna. Southern needs Runners just as much as Northern does. Actually, they need them more, because their settlements are much more spread-out, and drum signals don't travel well over forest. At present, they have no Runners at all, as I'm sure you noticed. I want to change that, and I want you to be my change agent. I want you to lay out Southern's first Runner traces. Consult the people in Southern to find out where the biggest demand is; consult some maps to find a good general route... and then head out into the country with a party of assistants who will do the hard work. You'll do surveying, you'll do route improvement, you'll decide where the stations ought to be, and you'll organize your work crew as they move rocks, cut down trees, and build bridges across small streams. And when you're done, the Southern Continent will have its first running trace. I'll assign some Runners there, to put your work to the test. As soon as a trace is vetted, you'll move on to another route. Southern is so big that you won't be able to finish the task in your lifetime... but you'll certainly make a good start. While you're at it, I expect that you'll pass your skills on to others, so I'll have more than one trace engineer. Judging by Ewa's reports, you're already both willing and able to do that.

"So what do you think, Hanna? Will you take on a long-term career choice that could affect an entire continent?"

Hanna was struggling for words, which was unusual for her. The Master's offer was extraordinary, unprecedented... and scary. Did the removal of one thorn bush qualify her to lay out traces across all of the Southern Continent? Her Master seemed to think so, and it was the Master's job to know such things. Just the thought of staying in the Crafthall, bad knee or no bad knee, was a powerful enticement to agree. She recalled how good it felt to finish the job of removing the thorn bush and altering her trail. The Master-runner was offering her the chance to enjoy that satisfaction on a daily basis! But...

"Before you answer that," Ewa cut in, "I've got a question about this whole scheme. Southern is known to have a population of large, clever, aggressive felines. Those cats would probably love to take down a lone Runner when he's in the middle of nowhere, far from any help. Who's going to protect the Runners on the Southern traces?"

"That's a valid question," Hoca nodded slowly. "I hadn't considered that."

Hanna's mind was whirling, but to her surprise, she came up with something. "If we set up the Dragon Delivery system, then we'll be contracting with the Weyrs anyway. How about if we contract with them to patrol the traces? A few big, high-flying dragons could look out for felines, and if they see any, they could call for a strike force of small, nimble dragons with catch-nets and firestone. From what I've seen, that's the kind of work that the dragons would love to do."

Hoca smiled. "Hanna, you're a problem-solver! I think that's a good plan... and I think you're confirming my judgement that you're the right person for the job."

"I do have one concern," Hanna said hesitantly. "You said I'd have assistants? I'm just a brand-new apprentice. Would those assistants listen to me or obey me if I don't outrank them?"

Hoca's face fell for a moment. "Oh. That's something else I didn't think about. You're quite right – this is definitely not apprentice-grade work that I'm asking of you. I'll have to rethink this." Now it was Hanna's face that fell.

"Well, please be at the Craft meeting, Hanna. Three days," the Master-runner said. "I'll need you to present AIVAS' ideas to the rest of the Runners."

"I'll be there," Hanna promised with a heavy heart. The meeting was over.

She slumped out of the Hall. The usual temptation to run instead of walk had no appeal to her now, even if running hadn't been a bad idea. She'd been offered a second chance at life in her Craft, and then, thanks to her own big mouth, that chance had been taken away. Now she was really out of options. The Master cared enough about her to keep tabs on her, but not enough to give her a life with meaningful work to do. Should she apply to become a Station attendant, massaging the legs of tired Runners and providing them with food and drink, knowing that such jobs never went to young Runner rejects? Should she tell her father to contact Holder Garlet and ask if his marriage offer to Garlatto was still on the table? Should she try to find some other Craft that might let her transfer to them as an unskilled apprentice? None of her possibilities sounded good.

She didn't say much to her parents, but they knew what was happening with her and they guessed the truth. They gave her space, knowing that she'd talk to them when she was ready. By the time of the meeting, that hadn't happened yet. Mother and daughter walked to the Craft Hall in silence, then parted ways – Tenna sat with the journeymen, while Hanna joined the other apprentices who happened to be at Fort this evening. They enjoyed their meal, waited for the tables to be cleared, then began their meeting.

Most of the time was taken up with Hanna's presentation of AIVAS' ideas. She hadn't worked out any kind of presentation, but simply told them what AIVAS had told her. There were questions; there were suggestions to improve on the ideas; there were comments of all kinds about the proposed Dragon Delivery system. The most frequent statements were variations on "But we already know all this!"

"Yes, we know it," Master-runner Hoca reminded them, "but we have to spread the word to all the people who don't know it, and to remind the ones who have forgotten."

"What will happen if we don't do these things?" an older apprentice asked.

"Our Craft will be in danger if we don't train people to think of the Runners as their first resource for communicating at a distance," Hanna replied.

"New inventions like the Smith's writing-wires could put us out of business if we don't do something," Hoca reminded them. "You don't need to make some kind of long-winded propaganda speech to everyone you meet. Just casually remind people about what the Runners can do for them. I'm working on some simple ways to do that, and I'll share them with you when I've got something concrete."

At last, no one had any more questions. It looked like it would be a short meeting, which relieved everyone; Runners tended to be high-energy types who hated to sit still. But the Master-runner had one last item of business.

"We're a small Craft, compared to most of the others," she began. "We don't have eight or nine Masters and half a hundred Journeymen. In fact, at this time, we have only two Masters, myself and Binarkis, the Master Trainer. That makes it easy for me to do something out of the ordinary; I don't have to get approval from half-a-dozen hide-bound traditionalists who turn pale at the thought of doing something different. I believe in tradition, but I don't believe that our great-grandsires knew everything. Sometimes we have to set aside the time-honored way of doing things and sieze the moment.

"Thanks to the colonization of the Southern continent, there's a big opportunity for us to expand. That calls for someone with special abilities, and I thought I'd found that special someone. Alas, rank intervened and made that impossible. But I'm a Craftmaster and, like most Masters, I don't take kindly to being told 'no' by anyone, even myself. So here's my solution."

She turned to the journeymen's table. "Tenna, my predecessor once told me that, when you became a Journeyman, you made a special request of him. He couldn't fulfill that request, but he passed it on to me, and tonight, it's time."

Tenna sat still, not comprehending.

"Well, get up!" Hoca ordered. "Don't tell me you've forgotten what you asked of the previous Master-runner!"

"No, of course I remember," Tenna stammered, "but... what about her knee?"

"Her knee no longer matters," the Master-runner stated flatly. "We can find more runners, or we can make them. But we can't make a trace engineer; either you have the talent and the understanding or you don't. And I can't make a trace engineer out of an apprentice. So..."

Tenna shrugged, stood, and then began to smile. She strode over to where her daughter was sitting; Hanna wasn't comprehending this, either. But the other Journeymen suddenly grasped where this might be going, and they began to thump the table and chant,

"Walk, Hanna, walk!
"Into your new life!
"Walk, Hanna, walk!"

Hanna looked up at her mother. "Me?"

Tenna beamed back at her. "When I made Journeyman, I asked the Master-runner if I could walk the first of my children who followed in my footsteps. At the time, I hoped that all five of you would follow me. I've had to cross all of your brothers and sisters off of my dream list. But you're still here, one is better than none, and even though you're taking a different trace than I took, I could not be more proud of you. Now get up and walk... Journeyman!"

Hanna sprang to her feet so quickly, she banged her leg on the table, winced, and flopped down on the bench again. Tenna turned back to the other apprentices. "If she's going to keep injuring her knees, then I may need one of you to help me carry her."

"No!" Hanna nearly shouted. "I can walk. In fact, I think I can fly!" She got to her feet more carefully this time, took her mother's arm, and took the shortest, most important walk of her life. It was hard to maintain a dignified pace. Walking felt too slow, and running was off her menu now. But she would soon be enabling future generations of Pernese Runners to run in places where they'd never gone before.

She'd gotten her second chance at life after all. Not bad for a Runner who couldn't run.

The End

o

A/N
This story started out with the ideas AIVAS had for preserving the Runnercraft, and nothing more. I had no plot, no characters, no story line, no intended goal, no beginning or ending, nothing. I just started writing for the fun of it, and word by word, the story took on a life of its own. New characters suggested themselves; plot points appeared in my head out of nowhere, and began to interleave themselves with each other; the original idea of helping the Runnercraft was slowly eclipsed by Hanna's own problem. And when I was about two-thirds finished, the solution suggested itself, and just like that, I had an actual story. I know that's not how they teach you to write in English class, but this time, it worked. I hope you liked it.

I think I might have been subconsciously influenced by the Fraggle Rock episode "All Work and All Play," in which Cotterpin the Doozer rejects the traditional role of builder, but instead, she winds up apprenticed to the Architect (which was a much better fit for her).

The one problem I faced was that I wrote the story as a direct sequel to "Runner of Pern," with Tenna as the protagonist. When I was nearly done, I learned that "Runner" was set in the beginning of the Ninth Pass, while my story was set near the end of it, which made my timeline for Tenna impossible. So I did a frantic rewrite, changing the protagonist to Tenna's daughter and changing her injuries from sticklebush spines to a kick from a horse. I hope I didn't miss any details.

Hanna gets her name from the Pernese tradition of merging the names of father and mother (in this case, Haligon and Tenna). Master-runner Hoca is named after Hoka running shoes. (When I started writing, she was a man named Nykee, but I decided that Ninth-Pass Pern ought to have at least one female Craftmaster.) Brown Rudolth, with his reddish nose, is a play on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer; his rider, H'mee, is a play on Rudolph's friend Hermie, the Christmas elf who wants to be a dentist. The other characters' names were picked from various sources because they sounded good to me.