DESPITE HER PARENTS’ tacit disapproval of Sean Connell as a friend for their daughter, Sorka found many reasons to continue seeing him, once he had relaxed his natural suspicions of her. Curiously enough, Sorka also noticed that his family was no keener on his friendship with her than her own was. That added a certain fillip.
They were bound together by their fascination with their creature and her clutch of eggs. Sorka was watching the nest with Sean, as much to be sure that he did not succeed in his efforts to snare her as to be present when the eggs hatched.
That morning—a rest day—Sorka had come prepared for a long vigil with sandwiches in her pack. She had brought enough to share with Sean. The two children had hidden; bellies down, in the underbrush that bordered the headland rock, in a spot where they- could keep the nest in sight. The little gold animal sunned herself on the seaside; they could see her eyes glittering as she maintained her watch over her eggs.
“Just like a lizard,” Sean murmured, his breath tickling Sorka’s ear.
“Not at all,” Sorka protested, recalling illustrations in a book of fairy tales. “More like a little dragon. A dragonet,” she said almost aggressively. She did not think that “lizard” was at all appropriate for such a gorgeous being.
She carefully waved away another one of the many-legged bugs that was urgently trundling its three-sectioned body through the underbrush. Felicia Grant, the children’s botany teacher, had called them a form of millipede and was happy to see them. She had explained their reproductive cycle to the class: the adult produced young, which remained attached to the parent until it reached the same size, whereupon it was dropped off. Two maturing offspring were often in tow.
Sean was idly building a dam of leaves to turn the bug away from him. “Snakes eat a lot of these, and wherries eat snakes.”
“Wherries also eat wherries,” Sorka said in a disgusted tone of voice, recalling the scavengers at work.
A subtle crooning alerted them as they sprawled, half-drowsing in the midday heat. The little golden dragonet spread her wings.
“Protecting them,” Sorka said.
“Nope. Welcoming them.”
Sean had a habit of taking exactly the opposite line in any discussions they had. Sorka had grown used to it, even expected it.
“It could be both,” she suggested tolerantly.
Sean only snorted. “I’ll bet that trundle-bug was running from snakes.”
Sorka suppressed a shudder. She would not let Sean see how much she detested the slithery things. “You’re right. She’s welcoming them.” Sorka’s eyes widened. “She’s singing!”
Sean smiled at the sound that was growing more lyrical. The little creature tilted her head so that they could see her throat vibrating.
Suddenly the air about the rock was busy with dragonets. Sean grasped Sorka’s arm, as much in surprise as to command her to silence. Openmouthed in astonishment, Sorka could not have uttered a sound; she was too delighted with the assembly to do more than stare. Blue, brown, and bronze dragonets hovered in the air, blending their voices with that of the little gold.
“There must be hundreds of the dragonets, Sean.” The way they were wheeling and darting about, the air seemed overladen with them.
“Only twelve lizards,” Sean replied, impervious. “No, sixteen.”
“Dragonets,” Sorka said firmly.
Sean ignored her interruption. “I wonder why.”
“Look!” She pointed to a new flight of dragonets that appeared suddenly, trailing large branches of dripping seaweeds. More arrived, each with something wiggling in its mouth, the burden deposited on the seaweeds that made an uneven circle about the nest. “Like a dam,” Sorka murmured wonderingly. More avians, or perhaps the same ones on a return trip, brought trundle-bugs and sandworms, which flopped or burrowed in the weeds.
Then, as they saw the first of the eggs crack and a little wet head poke through, Sorka and Sean clung to each other in order to contain their excitement. Pausing in their harvesting, the airborne creatures warbled an intricate pattern of sound.
“See, it is welcome!” Sean knew that he had been right all along.
“No! Protection!” Sorka pointed to the blunt snouts of two huge mottled snakes at the far side of the underbrush.
The intruders were spotted by the flyers, and half a dozen dove at the protruding heads. Four of the dragonets sustained the attack right into the vegetation, and there was considerable agitation of branches until the attackers emerged, chittering loudly. In that brief interval, four more eggs had cracked open. The adult avians were a living chain of supply as the first arrival shed its shell and staggered about, keening woefully. Its dam herded it, with wing motion and encouraging chirps, toward a nearby dragonet that was holding a flopping fishling for the hatching to devour.
A bolder snake, emerging from the sand where it had hidden itself, attempted a rush up the rock face toward another hatchling. It braced its middle limbs as it raised its head, its turtlelike mouth agape, to grab its prey. Instantly the snake was attacked by the airborne dragonets. With a good sense of preservation, the hatchling lurched over the damlike ramparts of seaweed, toward the bush under which Sorka and Sean hid.
“Go away,” Sean muttered between clenched teeth. He waved his hand at the keening juvenile, shooing it away from them. He had no wish to be attacked by its adult kin.
“It’s starving, Sean,” Sorka said, fumbling for the packet of sandwiches. “Can’t you feel the hunger in it?”
“Don’t you dare mother it!” he muttered, though he, too, sensed the little thing’s craving. But he had seen the flyers rend fish with their sharp talons. He would prefer not to be their next victim.
Before he could stop her, Sorka tossed a corner of her sandwich out onto the rock. It landed right in front of the weaving, crying hatchling, who pounced and seemed to inhale the bit. Its cry became urgently demanding, and it hobbled more purposefully toward the source. Two more of the little creatures raised their heads and turned in that direction, despite their dam’s efforts to shoo them to the adults holding out succulent marine life.
Sean groaned. “Now you’ve done it.”
“But it’s hungry.” Sorka broke off more bits and lobbed them at the three hatchlings.
The other two scurried to secure a share of the bounty. To Sean’s dismay, Sorka had crawled out of their hiding place and was offering the foremost hatchling a piece directly from her fingers. Sean made a grab for her but missed, bruising his chin on the rock.
Sorka’s creature took the offered piece and then climbed into her hand, snuffling piteously.
“Oh, Sean, it’s a perfect darling. And it can’t be a lizard. It’s warm and feels soft. Oh, do take a sandwich and feed the others. They’re starving of the hunger.”
Sean spared a glance at the dam and realized with intense relief that she was far more concerned with getting the others fed than with coming after the three renegades. His fascination with the creatures overcame caution. He grabbed a sandwich and, kneeling beside Sorka, coaxed the nearer brown dragonet to him. The second brown, hearing the change in its sibling’s cries, spread its wet wings and, with a screech, joined it in a frantic dive. Sean found that Sorka was right: the critters had pliant skins and were warm to the touch. They did not feel at all lizardlike.
In short order, the sandwiches had been reduced to bulges in lizard bellies, and Sorka and Sean had unwittingly made lifelong friends. They had been so preoccupied with their three that they had failed to note the disappearance of the others. Only the empty shards of discarded eggs in a hollow of the rock bore witness to the recent event.
“We can’t just leave them here. Their mother’s gone,” Sorka said, surprised by the abandonment of dragonet kin.
“I wasn’t going to leave mine any road,” Sean said, slightly derisive of her quandary. “I’m keeping ’em. I’ll keep yours, too, if you don’t want to bring it back to Landing. Your mother won’t let you have a wild thing.”
“This one’s not wild,” Sorka replied, taking offense. With her forefinger, she stroked the back of the tiny bronze lizard curled in the crook of her arm. It stirred and snuggled closer, exhaling on something remarkably like a purr. “My mother’s great with babies. She used to save lambs that even my father thought might die.”
Sean was pacified. He had put the browns in his shirt, one on either side, and tightened the leather belt he had dared requisition. The ease with which he had accomplished that at the Stores building had encouraged him to trust Sorka. It had also proved to his father that the “others” were fairly distributing the wealth of matériel carried to Pern in the spaceships. Two days after getting his belt, Sean began to see proper new pots replacing discarded tins over the campfire, and his mother and three sisters were wearing new shirts and shoes.
The brown dragonets felt warm against his skin and a bit prickly where their tiny spikes pressed, but he was more than pleased with his success. They only had three toes, the front one folded against the back two. Everyone in his father’s camp had been hunting for lizard—well, dragonet—nests and snake holes along the coast. They looked for signs of the legendary lizards for fun, and hunted the snakes for safety. The scavenging reptiles were dangerous to people who camped in rough shelters of woven branches and broad-leaf fronds. Reptiles had eaten their way into the shelters and had bitten sleeping children in their blankets. Nothing was safe from their predatory habits. And they were not good eating.
Sean’s father had caught, skinned, and grilled several snakes. He had sampled a tiny bite of each variety and instantly had to wash his mouth out, as the snake flesh stung and caused his mouth to swell. So the order had gone to everyone in the camp: snare and kill the vermin. Of course, as soon as they had terriers or ferrets to go down the holes, they could make short work of the menace. Porrig Connell had been upset because the other members of the expedition seemed not to understand how urgent it was for his people to have dogs. The animals were not pets—they were necessary adjuncts of his folk’s life-style. It was proving the same on Pern as on Earth: the Connells were the last to get anything useful and the first to be given the back of the hand. But he had had each of his five families put in for a dog.
“Your dad’ll be pleased,” Sorka said, expansive in her own pleasure. “Won’t he, Sean? Bet they’ll be better even than dogs at going after snakes. Look at the way they attacked the mottleds.”
Sean snorted. “Only because the hatchlings were being attacked.”
“I doubt it was just that. I could almost feel the way they hated the snakes.” She wanted to believe that the flying lizards were unusual, just as she had always believed that their marmalade tom, Duke, was the best hunter in the valley, and old Chip the best cattle dog in Tipperary. Doubt suddenly assailed her. “But maybe we should leave them here for their dam.”
Sean frowned. “She was shooing the others off to the sea fast enough.”
Of one mind, they rose and, walking carefully so as not to disturb their sleeping burdens, headed for the summit of the headland.
“Oh, look!” Sorka cried, pointing wildly just as something pulled the tattered body of a hatchling under the water. “Oh, oh, oh.” Sean watched impassively. Sorka turned away, clenching her fists. “She’s not a very good mother after all.”
“Only the best survive,” Sean said. “our three are safe. They were smart enough to come to us!” Then he turned, cocking his head and peering at her through narrowed eyes. “Will yours be safe at Landing? They’ve been after us to bring ’em specimens, you know. ’Cause my dad’s special at trapping and snaring.”
Sorka hugged her sleeping charge closer to her body. “My father wouldn’t let anything happen to this lad. I know he wouldn’t.”
Sean was cynical. “Yeah, but he’s not head of his group, is he? He has to obey orders, doesn’t he?”
“They just want to look at life-forms. They don’t want to cut ’em up or anything.”
Sean was unconvinced, but he followed Sorka as she moved away from the sea and made her way through the undergrowth to the edge of the plateau.
“See ya tomorra?” Sean asked, suddenly loath to give up their meetings now that their mutual vigil had come to an end.
“Well, tomorrow’s a workday, but I’ll see you in the evening?” Sorka didn’t even pause a moment to think about her reply. She was no longer hampered by the stern tenets of Earth restrictions on her comings and goings. She was beginning to accept her safety on Pern as easily as she accepted her responsibility to work for her future there. Sean was also part of that sense of personal safety, despite his innate distrust of all but his own people. Even if Sean was unaware of it, a special link had been forged between Sean and her after their momentous experience on the rock head.
“Are you sure these creatures will hunt the snake?” Porrig Connell asked as he examined one of Sean’s sleeping acquisitions. It remained motionless when he extended one of the limp wings.
“If they’re hungry,” Sean replied, holding his breath lest his father inadvertently hurt his little lizard.
Porrig snorted. “We’ll see. At least it’s a creature of this place. Anything’s better than being eaten alive. One of the blue mottled ones took a huge chunk out of Sinead’s babee last night.”
“Sorka says the snakes can’t get in their house. Plastic keeps ’em out.”
Porrig gave another of his skeptical grunts, then nodded toward the sleeping hatchling. “Watch ’em now. They’re your problem.”
At Residence Fourteen in Asian Square, there was considerably more enthusiasm about Sorka’s creature. Mairi dispatched Brian to bring his father from the veterinary shed. Then she made a little nest in one of the baskets she had been weaving from the tough Pernese reeds, lining it with dried plant fiber. Tenderly she transferred the creature from Sorka’s arm to its new bed, where it immediately curled itself into a ball and, with a tremendous sigh that inflated its torso to the size of its engorged belly, fell deeper into sleep.
“It’s not really a lizard, is it?” she said, softly striking the warm skin. “It feels like good suede. Lizards are dry and hard to the touch. And it’s smiling. See?”
Obediently Sorka peered down and smiled in response. “You should have seen it wolf down the sandwiches.”
“You mean, you’ve had no lunch?” Aghast, Mairi immediately bustled about to remedy that situation.
Though the communal kitchens catered for most of the six thousand regular inhabitants of Landing, more and more of the family units were beginning to cook for themselves for all but the evening meal. The Hanrahan’s home was a typical accommodation for a family: one medium-sized bedroom, two small, a larger room for general purposes, and a sanitary unit; all the furnishings but the treasured rosewood dower chest were salvaged from the colony ships or made by Red in his infrequent spare time. At one end of the largest room was a food preparation unit, compact but adequate. Mairi prided herself on her culinary skills and was enjoying a chance to experiment with new foods.
Sorka was halfway through her third sandwich when Red Hanrahan arrived with zoologist Pol Nietro and microbiologist Bay Harkenon.
“Don’t wake the little thing,” Mairi instantly cautioned them.
Almost reverently the three peered at the sleeping lizard. Red Hanrahan let the specialists monopolize it while he gave his daughter a hug and a kiss, ruffling her hair with affectionate pride. “Who’s the clever girl!” he exclaimed.
He sat down at the table, stretching his long legs underneath, and slid his hands into his pockets as he watched the two tut-tutting over a genuine Pernese native.
“A most amazing specimen,” Pol remarked to Bay as they straightened.
“So like a lizard,” she replied, smiling with wonder at Sorka. “Will you please tell us exactly how you enticed the creature to you?”
Sorka hesitated only briefly, then, at her father’s reassuring nod, she told them all she knew about the lizards, from her first sight of the little gold beast guarding her eggs, to the point where she had coaxed the bronze one to eat from her hand. She did not, however, mention Sean Connell, though she knew from the glances her parents exchanged that they surmised that he had been with her.
“Were you the only lucky one?” her father asked her in a low voice while the two biologists were engrossed in photographing the sleeping creature.
“Sean took two brown ones home. They have an awful time with snakes in their camp.”
“There’re homes waiting for them on Canadian Square,” her father reminded her. “And they’d have the place to themselves.”
All the ethnic nomads in the colony’s complement had been duly allotted living quarters, thoughtfully set to the edge of Landing, where they might not feel so enclosed. But after a few nights, they had all gone, melting into the unexplored lands beyond the settlement. Sorka shrugged.
Then Pol and Bay began a second round of questions, to clarify her account.
“Now, Sorka, we’d like to borrow your new acquisition for a few hours.” Bay emphasized the word “borrow.” “I assure you we won’t harm a—well, a patch of its hide. There’s a lot we can determine about it simply from observation and a judicious bit of hands-on examination.”
Sorka looked anxiously at her parents.
“Why don’t we let it get used to Sorka first?” Red said easily, one hand resting lightly on his daughter’s clenched fists. “Sorka’s very good with animals; they seem to trust her. And I think it’s far more important right now to reassure this bitty fellow than find out what makes it tick.” Sorka remembered to breathe and let her body relax. She knew she could count on her father. “We wouldn’t want to scare it away. It only hatched this morning.”
“Zeal motivates me,” Bay Harkenon said with a rueful smile. “But I know you’re right, Red. We’ll just have to leave it in Sorka’s capable care.” The woman gathered herself to rise when her associate cleared his throat.
“But if Sorka would keep track of how much it eats, how often, what it prefers—” Pol began.
“Besides bread and sandwich spread,” Mairi said with a laugh.
“That would improve our understanding.” Pol had a charming grin that made him appear less gray and frowzy. “And you say that all you had to do was entice it with food?”
Sorka had a sudden mental image of the rather stooped and unathletic Pol Nietro lurking in bushes with a basket of goodies, luring lizards to him.
“I think it had something to do with its being so dreadfully hungry after it hatched,” she replied thoughtfully. “I mean, I’ve had sandwiches in my pockets every morning this week on the beach, and the dam never came near me for food.”
“Hmmm. A good point. The newly hatched are voracious.” Pol continued to mumble to himself, mentally correlating the information.
“And the adults actually held food for the hatchlings?” Bay murmured. “Fish and insects? Hmm. Sort of an imprinting ritual, perhaps? The juveniles could fly as soon as the wings dried? Hmmm. Yes. Fascinating. The sea would be the nearest source of food.” She gathered up her notes and thanked Sorka and her parents. Then the two specialists left the house.
“I’d best go back myself, loves,” Red said. “Good work, Sorka. Just shows what old Irish know-how can achieve.”
“Peter Oliver Plunkett Hanrahan,” his wife immediately chided him. “Start thinking Pernese. Pernese. Pernese.” With each repetition she raised her voice in mock emphasis.
“Pernese, not Irish. We’re Pernese,” Red obediently chanted. Grinning unrepentantly, he did a dance step out of the house to the tempo of “Pernese, Pernese.”
That night, to Sorka’s intense and embarrassed surprise, and to the total disgust of her envious brother, she was called upon to light the evening bonfire. When Pol Nietro announced why, there were cheers and vigorous applause. Sorka was astonished to see that Admiral Benden and Governor Boll, who had made a point of attending that little evening ceremony, were shouting and clapping like everyone else.
“It wasn’t just me,” Sorka said in a loud clear voice as she was formally presented with the torch by the acting mayor of Landing. “Sean Connell got two brown lizards, only he isn’t here tonight. But you should know that he found the nest first, and both of us watched it.”
She knew that Sean Connell would not care if he was given due credit or not, but she did. With that thought, she plunged the burning brand into the heart of the bonfire. She jumped back quickly as the dry material caught and flared brightly.
“Well done, Sorka,” her father said, lightly resting his hands on her shoulders. “Well done.”
Sorka and Sean remained the only proud owners of the pretty lizards for nearly a full week, even though there was an evening rush to the beaches and headlands. But bit by bit, nests were staked and vigilantly guarded. Guided by the routine that Sorka had accurately reported, several more of the little creatures were finally acquired. And her name for the creatures—“dragonets”—was adopted popularly.
The acquisition, as Sorka soon discovered, had two sides. Her little dragonet, whom she nostalgically named Duke after her old marmalade tomcat, was voracious. It ate anything at three-hour intervals, the first night disturbing the entire square with its hungry keening. Between feedings, it slept. When Sorka noticed that its skin was cracking, her father prescribed a salve, prudently concocted of local fish oils, with the help of a pediatrician and a biologist. The pediatrician was so pleased with the result that she had the pharmacist make up more as an ointment for dry skin in general.
“Duke is growing, and his skin is stretching,” was Red’s diagnosis.
The male designation was arbitrary, since no one had been able to examine the creature closely enough to discover its sex, or even if it had any. The golden dragonets had demonstrated a generally more feminine role in egg-laying, though one of the biologists qualified that by reminding people that the males of some species on Earth were the egg-tenders. The dead skin flakes were assiduously collected for analysis. The eager zoologists had not been able to X-ray Duke, for he seemed to know the moment someone had designs on him. On the second day of his advent, the zoologists had attempted to place him under the scope, while Sorka waited nervously in the next room.
“My word!”
“What?”
Sorka heard the startled exclamations from Pol and Bay at the same moment that Duke reappeared above her head, considerably agitated. Dropping to her shoulder with cries of relief and anger, he wrapped his tail firmly about her neck and hooked his talons into her hair, scolding furiously, his many-faceted eyes rippling with angry reds and oranges.
The door behind Sorka opened suddenly, and Pol and Bay burst into the room, their eyes wide with amazement.
“He just appeared,” the girl told the two scientists.
Recovering their composure, the two exchanged glances. Pol’s broad face became wreathed in a smile, and Bay looked remarkably pleased.
“So the Amigs do not have a monopoly on telekinetic abilities,” Bay said with a smug smile. “I always maintained, Pol, that they could not be unique in the galaxy.”
“How did he do that?” Sorka asked, not quite certain as she remembered other instances of perplexingly rapid departures.
“Duke must have been frightened by the scope. He is rather small, and it does look menacing.” Bay said. “So he teleported himself away. Fortunately back to you, whom he considers his protector. The Amigs use teleportation when threatened. A very useful capability.”
“I wonder if we can discover how the little creatures do it?” Pol mused.
“We could try the Eridani equations,” Bay suggested.
Pol looked at Duke. The lizard’s eyes were still red with anger, and he continued to cling tenaciously to Sorka, but he had folded his wings to his back.
“To try them, we need to know more about this chap and his species. Perhaps if you held him, Sorka?” Pol suggested.
Even with Sorka’s gentle reassurance, Duke would not permit himself to be placed under the scope. After a half hour, Pol and Bay reluctantly allowed their unwilling subject to be taken away. Reassuring him every step, Sorka carried her still-outraged lizard to his birthplace. Sean was there, stretched out in the shade cast by the bushes, his two browns curled up against his neck. They heard Sorka coming and peered up at her, their eyes whirling a mild blue-green. Duke chirped a greeting to which they replied in kind.
“I was just getting some sleep,” Sean muttered petulantly, not bothering to open his eyes to see who had arrived. “M’da made me bunk in with the babees to see if these fellers would scare off the snakes.”
“Well, did they?” Sorka asked when he seemed to be falling asleep again.
“Yup.” Sean yawned hugely and swatted idly at an insect. One of the browns immediately snapped it out of the air and swallowed it.
“They do eat anything.” Sorka’s tone was admiring. “Omnivorous, Dr. Marceau called them.” She sat down on the rock beside Sean. “And they can go between places when they’re scared. Dr. Nietro tried to scope Duke and made me leave the room. The next thing I knew Duke was clinging to me like he’d never let go. They said he can teleport. He uses telekinesis.” She was proud that she had gotten the words out without stumbling over them.
Sean opened one eye and cocked his head to stare up at her. “What does that mean?”
“He can project himself out of danger instantly.”
Sean gave a huge yawn. “Yeah? We’ve both seen them do their disappearing act. And they don’t do it always because of danger.” He yawned again. “You were smart to take only one. If one isn’t eating, the other is. What with that and guarding the babees, I’m fair knackered.” He closed his eye again, settled his hands across his chest, and went back to sleep.
“I shall play gold then and guard you, lest a big nasty mottled blunt-nose comes and takes a bite out of you!”
She did not rouse him even when she saw a flight of the lizards in the sky, looping and diving in an aerial display that left her breathless. Duke watched with her, crooning softly to himself, but despite her initial consternation that he might choose to join them, he did not even ease his tailhold about her neck. Before she returned home, Sorka left Sean a jar of the ointment that had been made for Duke’s skin.
Sorka was not the only person on Pern watching aerial acrobatics that day. Half a continent to the south and west, Sallah Telgar’s heart was in her mouth as she watched Drake Bonneau pull the little air sled out of a thermal elevator above the vast inland lake that he was campaigning to call Drake’s Lake. No member of their small mining expedition would deny him that privilege, but Drake had a tendency to beat a subject to death. Similarly, he would not stop showing off; he seemed bent on stunning everyone with his professional skill. His antics were a foolish waste of power, Sallah thought, and certainly not the way to her heart and esteem. He had taken to hanging around her quarters, but so far he had met with no great success.
Ozzie Munson and Cobber Alhinwa emerged from the shelter where they had just stored their gear and paused to see what Sallah was staring at.
“Oh, my word, he’s at it again,” Ozzie said, grinning maliciously at Sallah.
“He’ll crash hisself,” Cobber added, shaking his head, “and that bleeding lake’s so deep we’d never find ’im. Or the sled. And we need that.”
Seeing Svenda Olubushtu coming to join them, Sallah hastily turned and headed for the main shelter of the small prospecting camp. She did not care to listen to Svenda’s snide, jealous remarks. It was not as if Sallah encouraged Drake Bonneau. On the contrary, she had emphatically, publicly, and frequently made her disinterest plain enough.
Maybe I’m going about discouraging him the wrong way, she thought. Maybe if I’d run after him, hang on his every word, and ambush him every chance I get, the way Svenda’s doing, he’d leave me alone, too.
In the main shelter, she found Tarvi Andiyar already marking the day’s findings on the big screen, muttering to himself as he did so, his spidery fingers flicking at the terminal keys so fast that even the word processor had trouble keeping up with him. No one understood him when he talked to himself like that; he was speaking in his first language, an obscure Indic dialect. When asked about his eccentricity, he would respond with one of his heart-melting smiles.
“For other ears to hear this beautiful liquid language, so it will be spoken even here on Pern, so that there will be one person alive who still speaks it fluently, even after all these centuries,” he always told those who asked. “Is it not a lovely language, lilting, melodic, a joy to the ear?”
An intuitive, highly trained mining engineer, Tarvi had a reputation of being able to trace elusive veins through many subterranean shifts and faults. He had joined the Pern expedition because all the glorious hidden “blood and tears of Mother Earth,” as he chose to describe the products of mining, had been pried from her bosom. He had prospected on First, too, but the alien metals had eluded his perceptions and so he had traveled across a galaxy to ply his trade in what he called his “declining years.”
As Tarvi Andiyar had only reached his sixth decade, that remark generally brought the reassurances he required from the kindly, or hoots of derision from those who knew his ploys. Sallah liked him for his wry and subtle wit, which he generally turned on his own shortcomings, and would never think to use to offend anyone else.
Since Sallah had first encountered him after coldsleep, he had not put even so much as an ounce more on his long, almost emaciated frame. “My family has had generations of gurus and mahatmas, all intent on fasting for the purification of their souls and bowels, until it has become a genetic imperative for all Andiyars to be of the thinness of a lathe. But I am strong. I do not need bulk and thews and bulging muscles. I am every bit as strong as the strongest sumo wrestler.” Everyone who had seen him work all day without respite beside Ozzie and Cobber knew that his claim was no idle boast.
Sallah found herself more attracted to the lanky engineer than to any of the other men in the colony. But if she could not impress on Drake Bonneau how little she cared for him, she was equally unable to get closer to Tarvi.
“What’s the tally, Tarvi?” she asked, nodding to Valli Lieb, who was already relaxing with a quikal drink.
One of the first things human settlers seemed to do on any new world was to make an immediate and intensive search for fermentables, and to devise an alcoholic beverage in the quickest possible time. Every lab at Landing, no matter what its basic function, had experimented with distilling or fermenting local fruits into potable beverages. The quikal still had been the first piece of equipment assembled when the mining expedition had set up its base camp, and no one had objected when Cobber and Ozzie had spent the first day producing imbibables from the fermented juices they had brought along. Svenda had berated them fiercely, while Tarvi and Sallah had merely carried on with the surveying. That first evening in the camp the drink had been more than a tradition: it was an achievement.
As Svenda entered the shelter, Sallah poured herself a glass of quikal. Valli moved over on the bench to make room for her. Valli looked freshly washed and in far better shape than when she had emerged from the brush that afternoon, covered with slime but bearing some very interesting samples for assay.
At that moment they heard the sound of the sled landing outside the shelter. Svenda craned her neck to watch Drake’s progress up from the pad; she barely moved as Ozzie and Cobber brushed past her to enter the room.
“What was the assay, Valli?” Sallah asked.
“Promising, promising,” the geologist said, her face glowing with achievement. “Bauxite has so many uses! This strike alone makes this expedition profitable.”
“However, your find—” Cobber bowed formally to Valli. “—will be far easier to work in an open pit.”
“Ha! We have enough to mine both,” Ozzie said. “High-grade ore’s always needed.”
“And,” Tarvi put in, joining them at the table though he refused the drink Svenda always offered him, “there is copper and tin enough within reasonable distance so that a mining town could profitably be established by this beautiful lake, with hydroelectric from the falls to power refineries, and a good waterway to transport the finished products to the coast, and thence to Landing.”
“So,” Svenda asked, “this site is viable?” She looked about her with an air of possession that struck Sallah as slightly premature. Charterers had first choice, before contract specialists.
“I shall certainly recommend it,” Tarvi said, smiling in the avuncular way he had that always annoyed Sallah. He was not old. He was very attractive, but if he kept thinking of himself as everyone’s uncle, how could she get him to really look at her? “I have recommended it,” he went on. “Especially as that slime into which you fell today, Valli, is high-yield mineral oil.” When the cheers had subsided, he shook his head. “Metals, yes. Petroleum, no. You all know that. To establish this as an effective colony, we must learn how to function efficiently at a lower technological level. That’s where the skill comes in, and how skills are remembered.”
“Not everyone agrees with our leaders on that score,” Svenda said, scowling.
“We signed the charter and we all agreed to honor it,” Valli said, quickly glancing at the others to see if anyone else concurred with Svenda.
“Fools,” was the blond girl’s derisive rejoinder. Slopping more quikal into her beaker, Svenda left the shelter.
Tarvi looked after her, his mobile face anxious.
“She’s all wind and piss,” Sallah said softly to him.
He raised his eyebrows, his dark eyes regarding her expressionlessly for a moment. Then his usual smile reappeared, and he patted her shoulder—unfortunately just as one would pat an obedient child. “Ah, and here is Drake with our supplies and news of our comrades.”
“Hey, where is everyone?” Drake demanded the moment he entered, well laden with bundles. “There’s more in the sled, too.”
Sallah dropped her head to hide her expression. “We’re celebrating, Drake,” Valli said, taking him a glass of quikal. “Two new finds, both of them rich and easily worked. We’re in business.”
“So, the Drake’s Lake Mining and Refinery is in business?”
Everyone laughed and, when he raised his glass in a toast, no one refuted the title.
“And I’ve news for you,” he said after he drank. “We’re all to go back to Landing three days from now.”
His announcement was met with great consternation. Grinning with anticipated pleasure, Drake raised his free hand for silence. “For a Thanksgiving.”
“For this? How’d they know?” Valli asked.
“That should be in the fall, after harvest,” Sallah said.
“Why?” was Tarvi’s simple response.
“For this auspicious start to our new life. The last load from the starships has reached Landing. We are officially landed.”
“Why make a fuss over that?” Sallah asked.
“Not everyone is a workaholic like you, my lovely Sallah,” Drake said, pinching her chin affectionately. Seeing that he meant to kiss her, Sallah ducked away, grinning to take away the sting of her rejection. He pouted. “Our gracious leaders have so decided, and it is to be the occasion of many marvelous announcements. All the exploratory teams are being called back, and a grand time will be had by all.”
Sallah was almost resentful. “We only got here last week!”
As an escape from several unpalatable but unprovable conclusions, she had taken on the assignment of flying the geologists and miners to the immense inland lake where the EEC survey had reported ore concentrations. She had hoped that distance might provide some objective answers to the events she had witnessed.
A week before, returning one evening to the Mariposa to look for a tape she had left on board during one of her early stints as Admiral Benden’s pilot, she had seen Kenjo emerging from the small rear service hatch, a brace of sacks in each hand. Curious, she had followed him as he hurried off into the shadows. Then he had seemed to disappear. She hid behind a bush and waited until he had reemerged empty-handed. Then she retraced his steps, and tried to find out where he had put his burden.
After some scrambling about, a couple of bruised shins, and a scraped hand, she had stumbled into a cave—and she was appalled to see the amount of fuel he had purloined. Tons of it, she judged, checking a tag for the quantity, all stashed in easily handled plasacks. The rock fissure was well hidden at the extreme end of the landing grid behind a clump of the tough thorny bushes that the farmers were clearing from the arable acres.
Two nights later, she had overheard a disturbing conversation between Avril and Stev Kimmer, the mining engineer whom Sallah had seen her with the day the landing site had been announced.
“Look, this island is stuffed with gemstones,” Avril was saying, and Sallah, dropping into the shadow of the delta wing of the shuttle, could hear the sound of plasfilm being unrolled. “Here’s the copy of the original survey report, and I don’t need to be a mining specialist to figure out what these cryptic symbols mean.” The plasfilm rippled as Avril jabbed her finger at various points. “A fortune for the taking!” There was a ring of triumph in her wheedling voice. “And I intend to take it.”
“Well, I grant you that copper, gold, and platinum are useful on any civilized world,” Stev began.
“I’m not talking industrial, Kimmer,” Avril said sharply. “And I don’t mean little stones. That ruby was a small sample. Here, read Shavva’s notes.”
Kimmer snorted in dismissal. “Exaggerations to improve her bonus!”
“Well, I have forty-five carats of exaggeration, man, and you saw it. If you’re not in this with me, I’ll find someone who can take a challenge.”
Avril certainly knew how to play her hook, Sallah thought grimly.
“That island’s not on the schedule for years,” Stev pointed out.
Avril gave a low laugh. “I can navigate more than spaceships, Stev. I’m checked out on a sled and I’m as free as everyone else on this mudball to look for the measly amount of stake acres I’m entitled to as a contractor. But you’re charter, and if we pool our allotments, we could own the entire island.”
Sallah heard Kimmer’s intake of breath. “I thought the fishers wanted the island for that harbor.”
“They only want a harbor, not an island. They’re fishermen, dolphineers. The land’s no use to them.”
He muttered, shifting his feet uneasily.
“Who’d know anyhow?” Avril demanded silkily. “We could go in, on the weekends, begin on the most accessible stuff, stash it in a cave. There’re so many that you could search for years and never find the right one. And we wouldn’t have to draw attention to our activities by staking it officially, unless we’re forced to.”
“But you said there was stuff in the Great Western Range.”
“And so there is,” Avril agreed with a little chuckle. “I also know where. A short hop from the island.”
“You’ve got it all worked out, haven’t you?” Kimmer’s voice had an edge of sarcasm.
“Of course,” Avril agreed easily. “I’m not going to live out the rest of my life in this backwater, not when I’ve discovered the means to live the style of life I very much prefer.” Again there was that rippling laugh and then a long silence, broken by the sound of moist lips parting. “But while I’m here, and you’re here, Kimmer, let’s make the most of it. Here and now, under the stars.”
Sallah had slipped away, both embarrassed and disgusted by Avril’s blatant sexuality. Small wonder Paul Benden had not kept the woman in his bed. He was a sensual man, Sallah thought, but unlikely to appreciate Avril’s crude abandon for long. Ju Adjai, elegant and serene, was far more suitable, even if neither appeared to be rushing a noticeable alliance.
But Avril’s voice had dripped with an insatiable greed. Had Stev Kimmer heard what Sallah had? Or had her enticement clouded his thinking? Sallah had always been aware of Pern’s gemstone wealth. The Shavva Ruby had been as much part of the legend of Pern as the Liu Nugget. Pern’s distance from the Federated Sentient Planets outweighed any major temptation its gem deposits might have held for the greedy. But if a person did manage to return to Earth with a shipload of gems, he or she would undoubtedly be able to retire to a sybaritic lifestyle.
Avril’s plot would hardly deplete Pern’s resources. What worried Sallah was how Avril would contrive the fuel for such a journey. Sallah knew that there was fuel left in the Admiral’s gig, the Mariposa. That was not common knowledge, but as a pilot, Avril would have access to that information. Judging by the computations Avril had made during her time on the Yokohama, Sallah knew that the woman could actually make it to an uninhabited system. But then what?
Sallah had liked surveying with Ozzie, Cobber, and the others, and she had been kept too tired to think of her dilemma. But with return to Landing imminent, her questions came flooding back. While she had no compunction about reporting Avril, she realized that she would also have to mention Kenjo’s activities. She wished she knew why Kenjo had held back fuel. Did he have some crazy notion about exploring the two moons? Or the wayward planet which was expected to cross Pern’s orbit in roughly eight years?
It was impossible to imagine Kenjo being involved with someone like Avril Bitra. Sallah was certain that the obvious animosity between the two was not feigned. She suspected that to Kenjo flying was both a religion and an incurable disease. But he did have all of Pern to fly over, and the packs that powered the colony’s air sleds would, if used circumspectly, allow for several decades of such flight.
What worried Sallah most was the possibility, however remote, of Avril’s discovering Kenjo’s cache. She had thought of confiding in one of the other pilots, but Barr Hamil could not handle such a problem, Drake would not take it seriously, and Jiro, Kenjo’s copilot, would never betray his superior. She did not know the others well enough to judge their reactions to such a disclosure. Go to the top, she told herself. This sort of thing is safest there. She was sure that Ongola would listen to her. And he would know whether or not to burden Paul and Emily with her suspicions.
Damn! Sallah’s fists clenched at her sides. Pern was supposed to be above petty schemes and intrigues. We’re all working to a common goal, she thought. A secure, bountiful future, without prejudice. Why must someone like Avril touch that beautiful vision with her sour egocentricity?
Then Ozzie touched her arm, bringing her out of her depressing thoughts.
“You’ll gimme a dance, Sallah?” he asked in his slightly nasal twang, his eyes twinkling with a challenge.
Sallah grinned and accepted. As soon as she returned to Landing, she would find Ongola and tell him. Then she would be able to trip the light fantastic with an easy conscience.
“And then,” Ozzie went on irrepressibly, “Tarvi can dance with you and give me time to rest my sore toes.”
Tarvi gave her a look of rueful assent, not having much choice, Sallah realized, with so many witnesses and without a chance to prepare an excuse. But she was grateful to sly old Ozzie.
By the time the mining party returned to Landing, the fire was well started in Bonfire Square and the party was gathering momentum. From her high vantage point as she swung the sled to the perimeter and down to the strip, Sallah almost did not recognize the utilitarian settlement. Lights were on in almost every window, and every lamp standard glowed. A dais had been erected across one side of Bonfire Square, and colored spotlights strung on a frame about it. Drake had said that there was a call out for anyone who could play an instrument to take a turn that evening. The white cubes of old plastic packers dotted the dais to serve as stools for the musicians.
Tables and chairs had been brought from residences and set up in a freshly mowed space beyond the square. Firepits had been dug to roast huge wherries; on smaller spits the last of the frozen meats brought from Earth browned along with several other carcasses. The aroma of roasting meat and grilling fish was mouth-watering. The colonists were all dressed in their best clothes. Everyone was bustling around, helping, toting, arranging, and fixing the last of the delicacies brought from the old worlds and saved for one last gorge on the new.
Sallah parked her sled crosswise on the landing grid, thinking that if more were set down at random along the straightaway, the Mariposa parked at the other end of the field would not have sufficient space for takeoff. But how long would there be that many sleds at Landing?
“Hey, hurry up, Sallah,” Ozzie called as he and Cobber jumped out of the sled.
“Gotta check in at the tower,” she said, waving cheerfully at them to go on.
“Oh, leave it the once,” Cobber suggested, but she waved them on again.
Ongola was just leaving the meteorology tower as she reached it. He gave her a resigned nod and opened the door again, noticing as he did so the position of her sled. “Wise to leave it like that, Sallah?”
“Yes. A precautionary measure, Commander,” she said in a, tone intended to warn him that she had come on a serious errand.
He did not seat himself until she was halfway through her suspicions, and then he lowered himself into the chair with such weariness that she hated herself for speaking out.
“Forewarned is forearmed, sir,” she said in conclusion.
“It is, indeed, Mister Telgar.” His deep sigh stressed the return of doubt. He motioned her to be seated. “How much fuel?”
When she reluctantly gave him the precise figures, he was surprised and concerned.
“Could Avril know of Kenjo’s hoard?” Ongola sat up so quickly that she realized he found her suspicions of the astrogator far more worrying than Kenjo’s theft. “No, no,” he corrected himself with a quick wave of his hand. “Their dislike of each other is genuine. I will inform the admiral and the governor.”
“Not tonight, sir,” Sallah said, inadvertently raising her hand to protest. “It’s only because this was the first chance I’ve had to approach you . . .”
“Forewarned is forearmed, Sallah. Have you mentioned these suspicions to anyone else?”
She shook her head vigorously. “No, sir! It’s bad enough suspecting there are maggots in the meat without offering anyone else a bite.”
“True! Eden is once again corrupted by human greed.”
“Only one human,” Sallah felt obliged to remind him.
He held up two fingers significantly. “Two, Kimmer. And who else was she speaking to on board?”
“Kimmer, Bart Lemos, and Nabhi Nabol, and two other men I’ve never met.”
Ongola did not seem surprised. He took a deep breath and sighed before he put both hands on his thighs and rose to his full height. “I am grateful, and I know that the admiral and the governor will also be grateful.”
“Grateful?” Sallah stood, feeling none of the relief she had hoped to gain from telling her superior.
“We had actually anticipated some problems as people began to realize that they are here,” Ongola said, stabbing one long finger downward, “and cannot go anywhere else. The euphoria of the crossing is over; tonight’s celebration is planned to defuse a rebound as that realization sinks in. Well-fed, well-oiled people who have tired themselves with dancing are unlikely to plot sedition.”
Ongola opened the door, gesturing courteously for her to precede him. No one locked doors on Pern, even doors to official administrative offices. Sallah had been proud of that fact, but now she was worried.
“We’re not that stupid, Sallah,” Ongola said, as if he had read her mind. He tapped his forehead. “This is still the best memory bank ever invented.”
She gave a sigh of relief and managed a more cheerful expression.
“We still have a great deal to be thankful for on Pern, you know,” he reminded her.
“Indeed I do!” she replied, thinking of her dance with Tarvi.
By the time she had washed, changed into her own finery, and reached Bonfire Square, the party was in full swing and the impromptu orchestra was playing a polka. Halting in the darkness beyond all that light and sound, Sallah was astonished at the number of unexpected musicians who were stomping time as they waited their turns.
The music changed constantly as new musicians replaced those who had already played. To Sallah’s utter amazement, even Tarvi Andiyar produced pan pipes and played an eerie little melody, quite haunting and a quiet change after the more raucous sets.
The informal group went from dance tunes to solos, calling on the audience to sing old favorites. Emily Boll took a turn on the keyboard, and Ezra Keroon enthusiastically fiddled a medley of hornpipes that had everyone foot-tapping while several couples did hilarious imitations of the traditional seamen’s dance.
Sallah had enjoyed not one dance with Tarvi, but two. In the middle of the second, as they swayed to an ancient tune in three-quarter time, there came a heart-stopping moment when it seemed as if Pern, too, had decided to dance to the new tunes it heard. Every dish on the trestle tables rattled, dancers were thrown off balance, and those seated felt their chairs rock.
The quake lasted less than the time between two heartbeats and was followed by complete and utter silence.
“So Pern wants to dance, does it?” Paul Benden’s amused voice rang out. He jumped to the musicians’ platform, arms outspread as if he considered the quake an oblique sign of welcome. His comment caused whispers and murmurs, but it eased the tension. Even as Paul signaled the musicians to resume their music, he was scanning the audience, looking for certain faces.
Beside Sallah, Tarvi gave an almost imperceptible nod of his head and dropped his arms away from her. “Come, we must go check the rhythm of this dance.”
Sallah tried to hide her intense disappointment at having her dance with Tarvi cut short. The quake had to be given precedence. She had never felt an earth tremor before, but that had not prevented her from instantly understanding what had just occurred. Even as she and Tarvi made their way from the dancing square, she moved warily, as if to forestall the surprise of another shock.
Jim Tillek gathered his mariners to see that the boats were moored well within the newly reinforced breakwater, and hoped that if there were a tsunami, it would dissipate its force against the intervening islands. The dolphineers, with the exception of Gus, who was coerced into remaining behind to play his accordion, went to the harbor to speak to the marine mammals. They could signal the arrival of the tsunami and estimate its destructiveness.
Patrice de Broglie took a group to go set seismic cores, but in his professional opinion the shock had been a very gentle one, originating from a far-distant epicenter.
Sallah got to finish her dance with Tarvi, but only because he was told that the absence of too many specialists might cause alarm.
By morning, the epicenter had been located, east by northeast, far out in the ocean, where volcanism had been mentioned by the EEC team. As there were no further shocks penetrating to the mainland, the geologists were able to dispel the ripple of uncertainty that had marred the Thanksgiving festivities.
When Tarvi wanted to join Patrice to investigate the epicenter, Sallah volunteered to pilot the big sled. She did not even mind that the sled was crowded with curious geologists and packed with equipment. She saw to it that Tarvi occupied the right hand driving seat.