ALL MEDICAL STAFF not on duty in the infirmary or on ground crew duty, the veterinarians, and the apprentices, Sean and Sorka included, worked shifts as Kitti Ping’s project was given top priority. Anyone with training in biology, chemistry, or laboratory procedures of any kind—sometimes even those with nimble fingers who could be put to work preparing slides, or those convalescing from Threadfall injuries who could watch monitors—were drafted into service. Kitti, Wind Blossom, Bay, and Pol extracted a genetic code from the chromosomes of the fire-dragonets. Although the creatures were not of Earth, their biology proved not too dissimilar to work with.
“We succeeded with the chiropteroids on Centauri,” Pol said, “and they had chains of silicons as their genetic material.”
A great deal of schedule-juggling was required in order to muster enough people to fight Fall over populated areas. The detailed sequence of Threadfall, established by the exhausted team of Boris Pahlevi and Dieter Clissmann, gave a structure to which even Kitti’s project had to bow. The resultant four-shift roster attempted to provide everyone with some time for themselves—both to relax and to care for their own stakes— though some of the specialists ignored such considerations and had to be ordered to sleep.
Everyone under the age of twelve was brought in when Thread fell. The hope that Kenjo, in the Mariposa, could deflect Thread pods in the upper reaches of the atmosphere turned out to be ineffective. The predicted double Fall—over Cardiff in mid-Jordan and Bordeaux in Kahrain, and over Seminole and Ierne Island—was patchy, but the gaps perversely did not include occupied sites.
More double Falls could be anticipated: on the thirty-first day after First Fall, Thread would sweep across Karachi camp and the tip of the Kahrain peninsula; three days later a single land corridor would range from Kahrain across Paradise River Stake, while a second Fall would pass harmlessly at sea well above the tip of Cibola Province. After another three days, a dangerous double would hit Boca Stake and the thick forests of lower Kabrain and Araby, stocks of the one real wood vitally needed to shore up mine pits at busy Karachi Camp and Drake’s Lake.
Ezra spent hours in the booth that housed the link with the Yokohama’s mainframe, scanning the naval and military histories to find some means of combating the menace. He also sought, with much less optimism, obscure equations or devices that might be able to alter the orbit of the planet. Then the next Fall could, perhaps, be avoided. Meanwhile, however, the present pass had seeded Pern’s orbit with spirals of the encapsulated Thread, a danger that the colonists would have to face no matter what. He also did comparisons with data from Kitti’s program, delving into science files, using his security ID to access secret or “need to know” information. He was waiting, too, for the probe’s findings to be relayed back to him. And because everyone knew where to find Ezra, he often intercepted complaints and minor problems that would have added unnecessary burdens to the admiral and the governor.
Kenjo was sent on three more missions, each time trying to find a more efficient way of destroying enough Thread in space to justify the expenditure of precious fuel. The gauges on the Mariposa dropped only slightly with each trip, and Kenjo was commended on his economy. Drake was openly envious of the space pilot’s skill.
“Jays, man,” Drake would say. “You’re driving it on the fumes!”
Kenjo would nod modestly and say nothing. He was, however, rather relieved that he had not managed to transfer all the fuel sacks to their hiding place at Honshu. All too soon, he would have to broach that supply to ensure continued trips into space. Only there did he feel totally aware and alive in every sense and nerve of his body.
But each time he brought back useful information. Thread, it turned out, traveled in a pod that burned away when it hit the atmosphere of Pern, leaving an inner capsule. About 15,000 feet above the surface, the inner capsule opened into ribbons, some of which were not thick enough to survive in the upper reaches. But, as everyone at Landing well knew, plenty fell to the surface.
Most of the sleds were unpressurized, so they had an effective ceiling of 10,000 feet. There was still only one way to clear the Thread from the skies: by flamethrowers.
With Thread due to fall on the Big Island Stake on Day 40, Paul Benden ordered Avril Bitra and Stev Kimmer to return to Landing. When Stev asked what Landing needed in the way of the ores mined at Big Island, Joel Lilienkamp was more than happy to supply a list. So when they arrived at Landing with four sleds crammed canopy-high with metal ingots, no one mentioned their long delinquency.
“I don’t see Avril,” Ongola commented as the sleds were being unloaded at the metals supply sheds.
Stev looked at him, slightly surprised. “She flew back weeks ago.” He peered back at the landing grid and saw the sun glint off the Mariposa’s hull. “Hasn’t she reported in?” Ongola shook his head slowly. “Well, now, fancy that!” Stev’s gaze lingered thoughtfully on the Mariposa just long enough for Ongola to notice. “Maybe Thread got her!”
“Maybe her, but not the sled,” Ongola replied, knowing that Avril Bitra was too adept at preserving her skin to be scored. “We’ll keep an eye out for her.”
Threadfall charts were displayed everywhere and constantly updated; previous Falls were deleted and future ones limited to the next three, so that people could plan a week ahead. Avril could not have stopped ten minutes in Landing without learning of the dangers of Thread. Ongola reminded himself that he must remove that guidance chip from the Mariposa as soon as Kenjo landed. He knew exactly how the space pilot had extended the fuel; he did not want anyone else, especially Avril Bitra, to discover how. Admiral Benden had been right about Kenjo. Ongola did not want to be right about Bitra!
“Where do you want me to work now I’m back, Ongola?” Stev asked with a wry grin.
“Find out where Fulmar Stone needs you most, Kimmer. Glad to see you in one piece.”
Avril had stayed around Landing that night just long enough to know that she did not wish to be conscripted into any of the several teams who could use her special skills. The only skill she preferred to employ—space navigation—was thwarted. So, before dawn broke on Landing and before anyone noticed the existence of a spare sled, she lifted it again, loaded with useful supplies, both food and materiel.
She touched down on the rocky height above the ravaged Milan Stake, where she had a clear view of Landing, and, more importantly, a good view of the busy, illuminated grid where the Mariposa would touch down. She spent the early morning hours using the metal sheets she had filched to arrange an umbrella over the sled’s siliplex canopy. She preferred to take every precaution against the deadly airborne stuff. By midmorning she had camouflaged her eyrie and tuned the sled’s scope on her objective. She was rewarded by a provocative view of Kenjo’s return.
By listening carefully to all the channels available on the sled’s comm unit, she managed to discover the facts of his mission and its limited success.
Over the next several days, she began to feel secure in her hideout. Because of the old volcanoes, most air traffic took corridors well to either side of her. During the morning the shadow of the biggest peak lurked over the retreat, like a broad digit pointing directly at her. It was enough to make her flesh creep. She had no real appreciation of views, although the fact that she could look up the Jordan to the bay, or down toward Bordeaux meant that she was unlikely to be surprised. She began to relax and wait. Considering the reward, she had trouble practicing patience.
“Have you any progress to report, Kitti?” Paul Benden asked the tiny geneticist.
He had never found that close surveillance improved performance, but he needed some morsel of encouragement to lighten the depression of his people. The psychologists reported a lowering of morale as the second month of Threadfall ground on. The initial enthusiasm and resolution was being eroded by fierce work schedules and few distractions. Landing’s facilities, once generous, were crowded with technicians drafted into the laboratories and stakeholders’ families returned to the dubious safety of the first settlement.
No one was idle. Mairi Hanrahan had made a game for the five- and six-year-olds with good motor control to assemble control panels by the colors of the chips. Even the most awkward ones could help gather fruits and vegetables from the undamaged lands, or compete with one another in collecting the unusual-colored seaweeds from the beaches after high tides or storms. The seven- and eight-year-olds were permitted to help fish with handlines under the watchful eyes of experienced fishermen. But even the youngest toddlers were beginning to react to mounting tensions.
There was considerable talk about allowing more holders to return to their stakes and fly out from their homes to meet Thread. But that would mean splitting up the supply depots and disarranging the work schedules of the more valuable technicians. Paul and Emily finally had to remain adamant on the centralization.
That night Kitti regarded Paul and Emily with a wise and compassionate smile. As she sat erect on the stool by the massive microbiological unit, its minute laser units pushed back from the manipulation chamber, she did not appear fatigued; only her bloodshot eyes showed the strain of her labors. A program was running with whispering clicks, flashing incomprehensible displays on its several monitors. Kitti paused briefly to regard a graph on one screen and a set of equations on another before she returned her gaze to the anxious people.
“There is no way, Admiral, to accelerate gestation, not if you wish a healthy, viable specimen. Not even the Beltrae managed to hasten that process. As I mentioned in my last reports, we pinpointed the cause of our original failures and made the necessary corrections. Time-consuming, I realize, but well worth the effort. The twenty-two bioengineered prototypes we now have are proceeding well into the first semester. We all”—her delicate hand made a graceful sweeping gesture that included all the technicians working in the huge laboratory block—“are immensely cheered by such a high rate of success.” She turned her head slightly to watch the flicker of a reading. “We constantly monitor the specimens. They show the same responses as the little tunnel snakes whose development we understand well. Let us earnestly hope that all proceeds without incident. We have been infinitely fortunate so far. Patience is required of you now.”
“Patience,” Paul echoed ruefully. “Patience is in very short supply.”
Kitti raised her hands in a gesture of impotence. “Day by day, the embryos grow. Wind Blossom and Bay continue to refine the program. In two days we shall start a second group. We shall continue to refine the manipulations. Always seeking to improve. We do not stand still. We move forward.
“Our task is great and full of responsibility. One does not irresponsibly change the nature and purpose of any creature. As it was said, the person of intellect is careful in the differentiation of things, so that each finds its place. Before completion, deliberation and caution are the prerequisites of success.”
Kitti then smiled a courtly dismissal of the two leaders and turned her complete attention to the rapidly shifting monitors. Paul and Emily executed equally courteous bows to her slender back and left the room.
“Well,” Paul began, shrugging off his frustration, “that’s that.”
“What city wasn’t built in a day, Paul?” Emily asked whimsically.
“Rome.” Paul grinned at Emily’s astonishment at his prompt reply. “Old Earth, first century, I think. Good land fighters and road builders.”
“Militarists.”
“Yes,” Paul said. “Hmm . . . They also had a way of keeping people content. They called it circus. I wonder . . .”
On the forty-second day after First Fall, with Thread crossing uninhabited parts of Araby and Cathay and falling harmlessly in the Northern Sea above Delta, missing Dorado’s western prong, Admiral Benden and Governor Boll decreed a day of rest and leisure for all. Governor Boll asked department heads to schedule work loads to allow everyone to participate in the afternoon feast and evening dancing. Even the most distant stakeholders were invited to come for whatever time they could spare. Admiral Benden asked for two squadrons of volunteers to fly Thread at 0930 over the eastern corridor, and another two to be ready in the early evening to check the western one.
The platform on Bonfire Square was gay with multicolored bunting, and a new planetary flag was hoisted on the pole to flap in the breeze. Tables, benches, and chairs were placed around the square, leaving its center clear for dancers. Vats of quikal were to be broached, and Hegelman would produce ale—no one wished to think that it might be the last made for a long while. Joel Lilienkamp released generous supplies without grudge. “Thank the kids that gathered them! Child labor can be efficient,” he said with a grin. The Monaco Bay fishermen brought in shining loads of fish and the more succulent seaweeds to be baked in the big, long-unused pits; twenty farm stakes donated as many steers to turn on spits; Pierre de Courci had worked all the previous night, baking cakes and making extravagant sweets. “Better to fatten humans than Thread!” He was always happiest when overseeing a large effort.
“It’s good to hear music and singing and laughter,” Paul murmured to Ongola as they wandered from one group to another.
“I think it would be a good custom to establish,” Ongola replied. “Something to look forward to. Reunites old friends, improves bonds, gives everyone a chance to air and compare.” He nodded to the group that included his wife, Sabra, Sallah Telgar-Andiyar, and Barr Hamil-Jessup, chatting and laughing together, each with a sleepy child on her lap. “We need to gather more often.”
Paul nodded, then glanced at his wrist chrono and, swearing softly under his breath, went off to lead the volunteers against the western Fall.
Ongola was not feeling exactly top of the mark the next morning when he arrived for his watch at the met tower. In fact, he had called in first at the infirmary, where the pharmacist had given him a hangover tablet and assured him that he was one of many. But her comment about disturbing casualties during that Threadfall had only made his headache worse.
The report that awaited him at the met tower was a shock and a surprise. One sled had been totaled and its crew of three killed; a second sled had been badly crumpled, the starboard gunner killed, and pilot and port gunner badly injured in the midair head-on collision. Someone had not been obeying the altitude restrictions. Ongola groaned involuntarily as he read the casualty list: Becky Nielson, mining apprentice just back from Big Island—she had been safer after all with Avril; Bart Nilwan, a very promising young mechanic; and Ben Jepson. Ongola rubbed his eyes to clear the blur. Bob Jepson was the other dead pilot. Two in the same family. Those twins! Farting around in break-ass fashion instead of following orders! Stinkin’ air! What could he say to their parents? A minor Fall with a party to come back to, and they died!
Ongola put his hand on the comm unit, about to dial administration. Then he heard someone tapping hesitantly at the door.
“Come!” he called.
Catherine Radelin-Doyle stood there, her eyes round, her face pale.
“Yes, Cathy?”
“Sir, Mr. Ongola . . .”
“Either will do.” He mustered an encouraging smile. Considering the amount of trouble Cathy could get into, from stumbling into caves at an early age, to marrying the most feckless joat on the planet, he wondered at her shy demeanor. She was, poor child, just one of those people to whom events tended to occur with no connivance from themselves at all.
“Sir, I’ve found a cave.”
“Yes?” he encouraged when she hesitated. She was constantly finding caves.
“It wasn’t empty.”
Ongola sat up straight. “It had a lot of fuel sacks in it?” he asked. If Catherine had found it, would Avril? No, Avril did not have the same sort of luck Catherine had.
“However did you know, Mr. Ongola?” She looked faint with relief.
“Possibly because I know they’re there.”
“You do? They are? I mean, they weren’t put there by ‘them’?”
“No, by us.” He wanted to make as little fuss about Kenjo’s hoard as possible. He had been counting the dwindling numbers and wondering why Kenjo seemed so complacent after each trip. Ongola flicked a glance at the corner of the shadowed shelving where the guidance chips were hidden in the dark-foam case.
Catherine suddenly sank to the nearest chair. “Oh, sir, you don’t know what a fright it gave me. Thinking that someone else was here, because everyone knows there’s so little fuel left. And then to see . . .”
“But you saw nothing, Catherine,” Ongola told her crisply. “Nothing whatever. There’s no cave worth noticing down that particular crevasse and you won’t say a thing about it to anyone else. I will personally tell the admiral. But you will tell no one.”
“Oh no, sir.”
“This information cannot—I repeat, cannot—be divulged to any other person.”
“That’s right, Mr. Ongola.” She nodded solemnly several times. Then she smiled winsomely. “Shall I keep on looking?”
“Yes, I think you’d better. And find something!”
“Oh, but I have, Mr. Ongola, and Joel Lilienkamp says they’re going to be excellent storage space.” Her face clouded briefly. “But he didn’t say for what.”
“Go, Cathy, and find something . . . else.”
She left, and Ongola had barely returned to brooding over the first serious losses to their defense when Tarvi came storming up the stairs.
“It’s been staring us in the face, Zi,” he said, swinging his arms in one of his expansive gestures. His face was alight with enthusiasm, although his skin looked a bit gray from the excesses of the night before.
“What?” Ongola was in no mood for puzzles.
“Them! There!” Tarvi gestured extravagantly out the northern windows. “All the time.”
It was probably the headache, Ongola thought, but he had no idea what Tarvi was talking about.
“What do you mean?”
“All this time we have been slavering away at mining ore, refining, molding it, adding weeks to our labors, when all the time we’ve had what we need in front of us.”
“No puzzles, Tarvi.”
Tarvi’s expressive eyes widened in surprise and consternation. “I give you no puzzles, Zi, my friend, but the source of much valuable metals and materials. The shuttles, Zi, the shuttles can be dismantled and their components used for our specific purposes here and now. Theirs is done. Why let them slowly decay on the meadow?” Tarvi emphasized each new sentence with a flick of long fingers out the window and then, exasperated with Ongola’s incomprehension, he hauled the man to his feet and pointed a very long, slightly dirty forefinger directly at the tail fins of the old shuttles. “There. We’ll use them. Hundreds of relays, miles of the proper flex and tubing, six small mountains of recyclable material. Have you any idea of how much is in them?” In an instant, all the exuberance drained from the volatile geologist. He put both hands on Ongola’s shoulders. “We can replace the sled we lost today even if we cannot replace those marvelous young lives or comfort their stricken families. The parts make a new whole.”
Work dulled the edge of the sorrow that hung over Landing at the loss of four young people. The two survivors reluctantly admitted that the Jepson twins, toward the end of that Fall, had indulged in some fatal foolery. Ben’s sled had been scheduled for servicing after the Fall because its previous pilot had reported a sluggish reaction on port side turns. The sled had been considered safe enough for what should have been a monitoring flight.
Rather than prevent other such collisions, the next few Falls saw a rash of them even as Tarvi’s crew began to strip the first shuttle and Fulmar’s teams began to service and replace from the bonanza of salvage.
The longest hours were still put in at Kitti Ping’s laboratory, monitoring the development of the specimens for any signs of aberration from the program.
“Patience,” was Kitti’s response to all queries. “All proceeds vigorously.”
Three days after the midair collision, Wind Blossom discovered her grandmother still at the electronic microscope, apparently peering at yet another slide. But when Wind Blossom touched Kitti’s arm, the movement produced an unexpected result. The dainty fingers slipped from their relaxed position on the keyboard, and the body slumped forward, only kept upright by the brace that held her to the stool for her long sessions at the microscope. Wind Blossom let out a moan and dropped to her knees, holding one tiny cold hand to her forehead.
Bay heard her disconsolate weeping and came to see what had happened. Instantly she called to Pol and Kwan, then phoned for a doctor. Once Wind Blossom had followed the gurney carrying her grandmother’s body out of the room, Bay straightened her plump shoulders and stood at the console. She asked the computer if it had finished its program.
PROGRAM COMPLETED flashed on the screen—almost indignantly, Bay thought in the portion of her mind that was not sorrowing. She tapped out an information query. The screen displayed a dazzling series of computations and ended with REMOVE UNIT! DANGER IF UNIT IS NOT IMMEDIATELY REMOVED!
Astonished, Bay recognized the paraphernalia on the workspace beside the electronic microscope. Kitti Ping had been manipulating gene patterns again, a complicated process that Bay found as daunting as Wind Blossom did, despite Kitti Ping’s encouragements. So Kitti had made those infinitesimal alterations in the chromosomes. Bay felt the chill of a terrible apprehension sweep through her plump body. She pressed her lips together. That moment was not the time to panic. They must not lose what Kitti Ping had been making of the raw material of Pern.
With hands that were not quite steady, she unlocked the microcylinder, removed the tiny gel-encapsulated unit, and placed it in the culture dish that Kitti had readied. An agony as severe as a knife stab almost doubled Bay up, but she fought the grief and the knowledge that Kit Ping Yung had died to produce that altered egg cell. The label was even prepared: Trial 2684/16/M: nucleus #22A, mentasynth Generation B2, boron/silicon system 4, size 2H; 16.204.8.
Walking as fast as her shaky legs would permit and gradually recovering her composure, Bay took the final legacy of the brilliant technician to the gestation chamber and put it carefully beside the forty-one similar units that held the hopes of Pern.
“That was the second probe to malfunction,” Ezra told Paul and Emily, his quiet voice ragged with disappointment. “When the first one blew up, or whatever, I thought it a mischance. Even vacuum isn’t perfect insulation against decay. Probe motors could misfire, their recording device clog somehow or other. So I refined the program for the second one. It got exactly as far as the first one, and then every light went red. Either that atmosphere is so corrosive even our probe enamels melt, or the garage on the Yokohama has somehow been damaged, and the probes, too. I dunno, guys.”
Ezra was not much given to agitated gestures but he paced up and down Paul’s office, strutting and waving his arms about him like a scarecrow in a high wind. The last few days had wearied and aged him. Paul and Emily exchanged concerned glances. Kitti Ping’s death had been such a shock, following so closely on the sled collision disaster. The geneticist had seemed so indestructible, despite the fact that everyone knew of her physical frailty. She had exuded a quality of immortality, however false that had proved.
“Whose theory was it that we were being bombarded from outer space to reduce us to submission?” Ezra asked, stopping suddenly in his tracks and staring at the two leaders.
“Ah, c’mon now, Ezra!” Paul was bluntly derisive. “Think a minute, man. We’re all under a strain, but not one that makes us lose our wits. We all know that there are atmospheres that can and have melted probes. Furthermore—” He halted, not certain what would suffice to reassure Ezra, and himself.
“Furthermore, the organism attacking us,” Emily went on with superb composure, “is hydrocarbon based, and if it comes from that planet, its atmosphere is not corrosive. I favor malfunction.”
“My opinion, too,” Paul said, nodding his head vigorously. “Fardles, Ezra, let’s not talk ourselves into more problems than we’ve got.”
“We’ve got”—Ezra brought both fists down on the desk—“to probe that planet, or we won’t know enough to combat the stuff. Half the settlers want to know the source and destroy it so we can get back to our lives. Rake up the debris and forget all this.”
“What aren’t you telling us, Ezra?” Emily asked, cocking her head slightly and regarding the captain with an unflinching gaze.
Ezra stared back at her for a very long moment, then straightened from his half crouch over the desk and began to smile wryly.
“You’ve been sitting in the interface booth long hours, Ezra, and you weren’t playing tiddlywinks while the programs were running,” Emily went on.
“My calculations are frightening,” he said in a low voice, glancing over each shoulder. “If the program is in any way accurate, and I’ve run it five times now from start to finish, we have to put up with Thread for long after that red planet crosses out of the inner system.”
“How long will that be?” Paul felt his fingers gripping the arm rests and made a conscious effort to relax them while he tried to recall some reassuring facet of planetary orbits.
“I get between forty and fifty years!”
Emily grimaced, her mouth forming an O of surprise be-fore she slowly exhaled. “Forty or fifty years, you say.”
“If,” Ezra added grimly, “the menace originated from that planet.”
Paul caught his eyes and saw the ineffably weary and discouraged look in them. “If? There is another alternative?”
“I have discerned a haze about the planet, irrespective of its atmospheric envelope. A haze that spreads backward in this system and swirls along the eccentric’s path. I cannot refine that telescope enough to tell more. It could be space debris, a nebulosity, the remnants of a cometary tail, a whole bunch of things that are harmless.”
“But if it should be harmful?” Emily asked.
“That tail would take nearly fifty years to diffuse out of Pern’s orbit, some into Rukbat—the rest, who knows?”
There was a long moment of silence.
“Any suggestions?” Paul asked finally.
“Yes,” Ezra said, straightening his shoulders with a wrench. He held up two fingers. “Take a trip to the Yokohama, find out what’s bugging the probes, and send two of ’em down to the planet to gather as much information as we can. Send the other two along the line of that cometary dust and use the Yoko’s more powerful space scope with no planetary interference to see if we can identify its source and components.” Ezra then locked his fingers together and cracked his knuckles, a habit that always made Emily shudder. “Sorry, Em.”
“At least you can recommend some positive action,” Paul went on.
“The big question is, Paul, is there enough fuel to get someone to the Yoko and back? Kenjo’s already made more trips than I thought possible.”
“Good pilot,” Paul said discreetly. “There’s enough for what we need now. Kenjo will pilot, and did you wish to go with him?”
Ezra shook his head slowly. “Avril Bitra has the training for the job.”
“Avril?” Paul gave a harsh bark and then shook his head, grinning sourly. “Avril’s the last person I’d put on the Mariposa for any reason. Even if we knew where she is.”
“Really?” Ezra looked at Emily for an explanation, but she shrugged. “Well, then, Kenjo can double. No,” he corrected himself. “If something’s wrong with the probes, we’d need a good technician. Stev Kimmer. He’s back, isn’t he?”
“Who else?” Paul jotted down names rather than worry Ezra with more suspicions.
“Kenjo is a very capable technician,” Emily insisted.
“There should be two on the mission, for safety’s sake,” Ezra said, furrowing his brow. “This mission has got to give us the results we need.”
“Zi Ongola,” Paul suggested.
“Yes, the very one,” Ezra agreed. “If he runs into any trouble, I can have Stev at the interface for expert advice.”
“Forty years, huh?” Emily said, watching Paul underline the two final choices on the pad. “Rather longer than we’d bargained for, my friend. Let’s start training replacements.”
Inevitably their thoughts went to Wind Blossom, so obviously a frail vessel to continue the work her grandmother had begun.
Avril’s suspicious nature was aroused not by anything she heard, although what she did not hear was as significant, but by what she saw in the weary hours she manned the sled’s scope. It was usually trained on the Mariposa, sitting at the far end of the landing grid. The night before every one of Kenjo’s jaunts he had done exterior and internal checks of the craft. Fussy Fusi! Her use of the nickname was not quite derisive, because she simply could not figure out how he had managed to stretch the small reserve of fuel on the Mariposa as far as he already had. She had seen some activity about it last night but no sign of Kenjo. In fact, with neither moon out, she had just barely seen the shifting of shadow that indicated activity about the craft. She had been quite agitated. The only thing that reassured her was that several figures were involved. But no one entered the gig. That perplexed her.
At first light, so early that no one was yet working the donks at the skeleton of the shuttle that had been the center of considerable activity all week, she was surprised to see Fulmar Stone and Zi Ongola approaching the vessel. Her apprehension, honed by weeks of waiting, spurred her to remove the protective cover from her sled in preparation for a quick departure. At full speed, she could reach the landing grid in less than fifteen minutes. Early morning traffic into Landing would be sufficient to give her cover.
She had a moment’s anxiety thinking that perhaps the Mariposa had developed a problem and they were scavenging replacement parts from the shuttle. Kenjo had flown a mission three days before with his usual economical takeoff and landing. She had to hand it to him—he was gliding in smoothly with no power at all. Only where was he getting the fuel to lift?
The three men, moving with almost stealthy speed, slipped inside the little spaceship and closed the airlock. Well, the access to the engines was through exterior panels, so she began to relax. They remained inside the ship for three hours, long enough for a full interior systems check. But that did not presage a usual flight. Maybe the Mariposa was bollixed. Scorch Kenjo for ineptitude. The Mariposa had to be space-worthy. Avril swore.
Or had something happened to Kenjo so that Ongola was taking the ship up? But how? There could not be much fuel left. So why were they checking internal systems? Why were they making yet another jaunt? Displeased, Avril finished her preparations to fly.
Sallah Telgar-Andiyar was feeding her daughter her breakfast in the shady covered porch of Mairi Hanrahan’s Asian Square house when she caught sight of a familiar figure striding down the path. It was covered by loose overalls, and a peaked cap was pulled well down over the face, but the walk was undeniably Avril’s, especially from the rear. Never mind the greasy hands, the exhaust pipe carried so ostentatiously in one hand, the clipboard in the other. That was Avril, who only sullied her hands for a good cause. No one had seen her since she had left Big Island. Sallah continued to watch until Avril mingled in with the crowd at the main depot, where technicians jostled one another for parts and materiel.
Ever since Sallah had overheard Avril’s conversation with Kimmer, she had known the woman would attempt to leave Pern. Did Avril know of Kenjo’s fuel dump? Irritably Sallah shook her head. Cara blinked her huge brown eyes and stared apprehensively at her mother.
“Sorry, love, your mother’s mind is klicks away.” Sallah gathered more puree on the spoon and deposited it into Cara’s obediently open mouth. No, Sallah told herself fiercely, because she wanted to believe it so badly, Avril could not have discovered that fuel: she had been too busy mining gemstones on Big Island. At least, up until three weeks before. And where has Avril been since then? Sallah asked herself. Watching while Kenjo flew the Mariposa? That would certainly set Avril Bitra to thinking hard.
Well, Sallah was due on her shift soon anyway, and as luck would have it, the sled she was servicing was on the grid. She would have a clear view of the Mariposa and those who approached it. If Avril came anywhere near, Sallah would set up an alarm.
There had been no talk of Kenjo making another attempt to clear Thread in the atmosphere. Then, too, Kenjo’s flights were usually plotted for the dawn window, and Sallah’s shift began well past that time.
It all happened rather quickly. Sallah was walking toward the sled she was servicing as Ongola and Kenjo, suited for space travel, left the tower with Ezra Keroon, Dieter Clissmann, and two other overalled figures whom Sallah was astonished to recognize by their postures as Paul and Emily. Ongola and Kenjo had the appearance of men listening to last-minute instructions. Then they continued on, almost at a stroll, toward the Mariposa, while the others turned back into the met tower. Suddenly another suited figure began to walk across the grid on a path that would intercept Ongola and Kenjo. Even in the baggy space gear the figure walked as only Avril did!
Sallah grabbed the nearest big spanner and started at a jogtrot across the grid. Ongola and Kenjo disappeared behind the pile of discarded sled parts at the edge of the field. Avril had begun to run, and Sallah increased her own pace. She lost sight of Ongola and Kenjo. Then she saw Avril pick up a short strut from the pile and disappear out of sight.
Rounding the pile, Sallah saw both Kenjo and Ongola flat on the ground. Blood covered the back of Kenjo’s head and Ongola’s shoulder and neck. Sallah ran flat out, ducking down to keep scrap heaps between her and the Mariposa. As it was, she just made it as the airlock was closing. She threw herself inside and felt something scrape her left foot; there was an immense hissing, and then she blacked out.