11.18.08 Pern

“HOLIEST OF HOLIES,” Telgar murmured respectfully as he held his torch high and still could not illuminate the ceiling. His voice started echoes in the vast chamber, repeating and repeating down side corridors until finally the noise was absorbed by the sheer distance from its source.

“Oh, I say, mate, this is one big bonzo cave,” Ozzie Munson said, keeping his voice to a whisper. His eyes were white and wide in his tanned, wind-seared face.

Cobber Alhinwa, who was rarely impressed with anything, was equally awed. “A bleeding beaut!” His whisper matched Ozzie’s.

“There are hundreds of ready-made chambers in this complex alone,” Telgar said. He was unfolding the plassheet on which he and his beloved Sallah had recorded their investigations of eight years earlier. “There are at least four openings to the cliff top which could be used for air circulation. Channel down to water level and install pumps and pipe—I came across big reservoirs of artesian water. Core down to the thermal layer and, big as it is, the whole complex could be warmed in the winter months.” He turned back to the opening. “Block that up with native stone and this would be an impregnable fort. No safer place on this world during Threadfall. Further along the valley, there are surface-level caves near that pasture land. Of course, it would have to be seeded, but we still have the alfalfa grass propagators that were brought for the first year.

“At the time there was no need to investigate thoroughly, but the facilities exist. As I recall when we overflew the range above us, we discovered a medium-size caldera, well pocked with small cliffs, about a half-hour’s flight from here. We didn’t think to mark whether it was accessible at ground level. It might be ideal for dragon quarters, so accessibility isn’t a problem, provided they do fly as well as dragonets,”

“We seen a couple old craters like that,” Ozzie said, consulting the battered notebook that habitually lived in his top pocket. “One on the east coast, and one in the mountains above the three drop lakes, when we was prospecting for metal ores.”

“So,” Cobber began, having recovered from his awe, “the first thing is cut steps to this here level.” He walked to the edge of the cave and looked down critically at the stone face. “Maybe a ramp, like, to move stuff up here easy like. That incline over there’s nearly a staircase already.” He pointed to the left-hand side. “Steps neat as you please up to the next level.”

Ozzie dismissed those notions. “Naw, those Landingers will want their smart-ass engineers and arki-tects to fancify it for them with the proper mod cons.”

Cobber settled a helmet on his head and switched on its light. “Yeah, else some poor buggers get all closet-phobic.”

“Claustrophic, you iggerant digger,” Ozzie corrected him.

“Whatever. Inside’s safest with that farking stuff dropping on ya alla time. C’mon, Oz, let’s go walkabout. The admiral and the governor are counting on our expertise, y’know.” He gave an involuntary grunt as he settled the heavy cutter on his shoulder and strode purposefully toward the first tunnel.

Ozzie put on his own helmet and picked up a coil of rope, pitons, and a rock hammer. Thermal and ultraviolet recorders, comm unit, and other mining hand-units were attached to hooks on his belts. Lastly, he slung one of the smaller rock cutters over his shoulder. “Let’s go test some claustrophia. We’ll start left, right? I’ll give ya a holler in a bit, Telgar.”

Cobber had already disappeared in the first of the left-hand openings as Ozzie followed him. Alone, Telgar stood for a long moment, eyes closed, head back, arms slightly away from his body, his palms turned outward in supplication. He could hear the slight noises of disturbed creatures and the distorted murmur of low conversations from Ozzie and Cobber as they made their way past the first bend in the tunnel.

There was nothing of Sallah in that cave. Even the place where they had built a tiny campfire had been swept bare to the fire-darkened stone. Yet there she had offered herself to him, and he had not known what a gift he had received that night!

The sudden high-pitched keening of the stone cutter shattered all thought and sent Telgar about the urgent business of making the natural fort into a human habitation.

 

The hum roused Sorka and she tried to find a more comfortable position for her cumbersome body. Fardles, but she would be grateful when she could finally sleep on her stomach again. The humming persisted, a subliminal sound that made a return to sleep impossible. She resented the noise, because she had not been sleeping at all well during the past few weeks and she needed all the rest she could get. Irritably she stretched out and twitched aside the curtain. It could not be day already. Then, startled, she clutched the edge of the curtain because there was light outside her house—the light of many dragon eyes, sparkling in the predawn gloom.

Her exclamation disturbed Sean, who stirred beside her, one hand reaching for her. She shook his shoulder urgently.

“Wake up, Sean. Look!” Whichever way she turned, she felt a sudden stab of pain in her groin so unexpected that she hissed.

Sean sat bolt upright beside her, his arms around her. “What is it, love? The baby?”

“It can’t be anything else,” she said, laughter bubbling out of her as she pointed out the window. “I’ve been warned!” She could not stop giggling. “Go look, Sean. Tell me if the fire-dragonets are roosting! I wouldn’t want them to miss this, any of them.”

Grinding sleep out of his eyes, Sean struggled to alertness. He half glared at her for her ill-timed levity, but annoyance was replaced by concern when her laughter turned abruptly into another hissing intake of breath as a second painful spasm rippled across her distended belly.

“It’s time?” He ran one hand caressingly across her stomach, his fingers instinctively settling on the band of contracting muscle. “Yes, it is. What’s so funny?” he added. She could not quite see his face in the dim light, but he sounded solemn, almost indignant.

“The welcoming committee, of course! All of them. Faranth, love, are all present and accounted for?”

We are here, Faranth said, where we should be. You are amused.

“I am very amused,” Sorka said, but then another contraction caught her, and she clutched at Sean. “But that was not at all amusing. You’d better call Greta.”

“Jays, we don’t need her. I’m as good a midwife as she is,” he muttered, shoving feet into the shoes under their bed.

“For horses, cows, and nanny goats, yes, Sean, but it is expected for humans to assist humans . . . oooooh, Sean, these are very close together.”

He rose to his feet, pausing to throw the top blanket across his bare shoulders against the early morning’s chill, when there was a discreet knock at the door. He cursed.

“Who is it?” he roared, not at all pleased at the idea that someone might have come to summon him for a veterinary emergency right then.

“Greta!”

Sorka started to laugh again, but that became very difficult to do all of a sudden, and she switched to the breathing she had been taught, clutching at her great belly.

“How under the suns did you know, Greta?” she heard Sean ask, his voice reflecting his astonishment.

“I was called,” Greta said with great dignity, gently pushing him to one side.

“By whom? Sorka only just woke up,” Sean replied, following Greta back to their room. “She’s the one who’s having the baby.”

“Not always the first to know when labor commences,” Greta said in a very calm, almost detached manner. “Not in Landing. And certainly not with a queen dragon listening in on your mind.” She flicked on the lights as she entered the room and deposited her midwifery bag on the dresser. She had been a gangly girl who had turned into a rangy woman with hair and skin the same coffee color and a dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Her eyes, very brown in her kindly face, missed few details.

“Faranth told you?” Sorka was astonished. A dragon speaking to someone outside of their group was unheard of.

“Not exactly,” Greta replied with a chuckle. “A fair of fire-dragonets flew in my window and made it remarkably plain that I was needed. Once I got outside, it wasn’t hard to figure out whose baby was coming. Now, let me see what’s going on here.”

I told them to get her, Faranth told Sorka in a smugly complacent tone of voice. You like her.

As Sorka lay back for Greta’s examination, she tried to figure that out. She liked her doctor, too, and had no qualms about him attending her delivery. How had Faranth sensed that she really had wanted Greta in attendance? Could Faranth possibly have sensed that she had always been friendly with Greta? Or was it some connection the golden dragon had made because Sorka had assisted Greta in the birth of Mairi Hanrahan’s latest, Sorka’s newest baby brother? But for Faranth to recognize an unconscious preference . . .

Sean slid cautiously onto the other side of the bed and reached for her hand. Sorka gave him a squeeze, laughter still bubbling up in her. She had so hated the last few weeks when her body had not seemed to be her own, when all its controls seemed to have been assumed by the bouncing, kicking, impertinent, restless fetus that gave her no rest at all. Her laughter was sheer elation that all of that was nearly over.

“Now, let me have a look . . . another contraction?”

Sorka concentrated on her breathing, but the spasm was far more painful than she had anticipated. Then it was gone, pain and all. She felt sweat on her forehead. Sean blotted it gently.

You are hurting? Faranth’s voice became shrill.

“No, no, Faranth. I’m fine. Don’t worry!” Sorka cried.

“Faranth’s upset?” Keeping her hand tight in his, Sean crouched to see out the window to the dragons waiting there. “Yes, she is! Her eyes are gaining speed and orange.”

“I was afraid of that!” Mutely Sorka appealed to Sean. Expressions flitted across his face. If she read them correctly, he was annoyed with Faranth, indecisive—for once—about what to do, and anxious for her. Then tender concern dominated his face as he looked down at her, and she felt that she had never loved him more than at that moment.

“A pity we can’t have your dragon heat a kettle of water to keep her out of mischief,” Greta remarked, her strong capable hands finishing the examination. She gave Sorka’s distended belly a gentle pat. “We’ll take care of her fussing you right now. Can you turn on one side? Sean, help her.”

“I feel like an immense flounder,” Sorka complained as she struggled to turn. Then Sean, deftly and with hands gentler than she had ever known, helped her complete the maneuver. She had just reached the new position when another mighty spasm caught her, and she exhaled in astonishment. Outside, Faranth trumpeted a challenge. “Don’t you dare wake everyone up, Faranth. I’m only having a baby!”

You hurt! You are in distress! Faranth was indignant.

Sorka felt a slight push against the base of her spine, the coolness of the air gun, and Then a blessed numbness that spread rapidly over her nether region.

“Oh, blessed Greta, how marvelous!”

You don’t hurt. That is better. Faranth’s alarm subsided back into that curious thrumming of dragons, and Sorka could identify her voice in the hum as clearly as she heard the noise intensify. Oddly enough, the humming was soothing—or was it simply that she no longer had to anticipate that painful clutching of uterine muscles?

“Now, let’s get you to your feet for a little walking, Sorka,” Greta said. “You’re already fairly well dilated. I don’t think you’re going to be any time delivering this baby, even if you are a primipara.”

“I’m numb,” Sorka said by way of apology as Greta got her to her feet. Then Sean was on her other side.

He had gotten dressed, but Sorka, trying to watch where her nerveless feet were going, noticed that he did not have his socks on. She thought that endearing of him. Odd the difference between his hands and Greta’s—both caring, both gentle, but Sean’s loving and worried.

“That’s a girl,” Greta said encouragingly. “You’re doing just fine, three fingers dilated already. No wonder the fairs were alerted. And you’re not the only one exciting them tonight.” Greta chuckled as they began to retrace their steps across the lounge, up the short hall, and into the bedroom. “It’s the walking that’s important . . . ah, another contraction. Very good. Your breathing’s fine.”

“Who else is delivering?” Sorka asked because it helped to concentrate on things other than what her muscles were doing to her.

“Fortunately, Elizabeth Jepson. A new baby will help her get over the loss of the twins.”

Sorka felt a pang of grief. She remembered the two boys as mischievous youngsters on the Yoko, and recalled how she had envied her brother, Brian, for having friends his own age.

“It’s funny that, isn’t it?” Sorka said, speaking quickly. “People having two complete families, almost two separate generations. I mean, this baby will have an uncle only six months older. And be part of an entirely different generation . . . really.”

“One reason why we have to keep very careful birth records,” Greta said.

Sean grunted. “We’re all Pernese, that’s what matters!”

Sorka’s water burst then, and outside the humming went up a few notes and deepened in intensity.

“I think I’d better check you, Sorka,” Greta said.

Sean stared at her. “Do you deliver to dragonsong?”

Greta gave a low chuckle. “They’ve an instinct for birth, Sean, and I know you vets have been aware of it, too. Let’s get her back to the bed.”

Sorka, involved in the second phase of childbirth, found the dragonsong both comforting and soothing; it was like a blanket of sound shimmering about her, enfolding and uplifting and comforting. The sound suddenly increased in tempo, rising to a climax. Sean’s hands grasped hers, giving her his strength and encouragement. Every time she felt the contractions, painless because of the drug, he helped her push down. The spasms were becoming more rapid, almost constant, as if matters had been taken entirely out of her control. She let the instinctive movements take over, relaxing when she could, assisting because she had no other option.

Then she felt her body writhe in a massive effort, and when it had been expended, she felt a tremendous relief of all pressures and pullings. For one moment, there was complete silence outside, then she heard a new sound. Sean’s cry of triumph was lost in the trumpeting of eighteen dragons and who knew how many fire-dragonets! Oh dear, she thought distractedly. They’ll wake up the whole of Landing!

“You have a fine son, my dears,” Greta said, her voice ringing with satisfaction. “With a crop of thick red hair.”

“A son?” Sean asked, sounding immensely surprised.

“Now, don’t tell me, after all my hard work, Sean Connell, that you wanted a daughter?” Sorka demanded.

Sean just hugged her ecstatically.

 

“Sometimes I feel as if everyone’s forgotten all about us,” Dave Catarel said to Sean as they watched their two bronzes hunting. Sean, his eyes on Carenath, did not reply.

Although all the dragons were well able to fly short distances and had proved capable of hunting down wild wherries, their human partners grew anxious if they flew out of sight. Nor was it always possible to use a sled or a skimmer to accompany them. As a compromise, Sean had talked Red into giving them the culls or injured animals from the main herds. He and the others had rigged a Threadfall shelter for the mixed herd in one of the caves, and each took turns on the succession trays that supplied their fodder.

The young dragons were strong and flew well. But, erring on the side of caution, the veterinary experts had decided that riding should not be attempted until the full year had passed. Sean had railed privately to Sorka about such timidity, but she had talked him out of defiance, reminding him how much they stood to lose in forcing the young dragons. Fortunately the decision had been reached without consultation with Wind Blossom, which made it easier for Sean to accept what he called ‘sheer procrastination.’ He did not like her proprietary attitude toward the dragons. She continued to exercise Kitti Ping’s program, though without the same success. Her first four batches had not produced any viable eggs, but seven new sacs in the incubator looked promising.

The odds in Joel Lilienkamp’s book favored the success of the first Hatching, but only marginally. Sean was privately determined to upset such odds, but he also would not risk official censure or jeopardize the young dragons.

“I really cannot repose the same confidence in Wind Blossom as I did in Kitti Ping,” Paul had told Sean and Sorka in a private conference, “but we would all breathe more easily if we could see some progress. Your dragons eat, grow, even fly to hunt. Will they also chew rock?” Paul began to tick off the points on his left hand. “Carry a rider? And preserve their valuable hides during Threadfall? The power pack situation is getting tight, Sean, very tight indeed.”

“I know, Admiral,” Sean had replied, feeling grim and defensive. “And eighteen fully functional dragons are not going to make fighting Thread all that much easier.”

“But self-reproducing, self-sustaining Thread fighters will make one helluva lot of difference in the long run. And it’s the long run, frankly, Sean, Sorka, that worries me.”

Sean kept his opinion about Wind Blossom to himself. Part of it was loyalty to Carenath, Faranth, and the others of the first Hatching; a good deal stemmed from his lack of confidence in Wind Blossom, where he had had every faith in her grandmother. After all, Kit Ping had been trained at the source, with the Eridani.

As he watched the grace of Carenath, swooping to snatch a fat wether from the stampeding flock, his faith in these amazing creatures was reinforced.

“He really got some altitude there,” David said with ungrudging praise. “Look, Polenth’s dropped his wings now. He’s going for that one!”

“Got it, too,” Sean replied in a return of compliment.

Maybe they were all being too cautious, afraid of pushing down the throttle and seeing the result. Carenath flew strongly and well. The bronze was nearly the same height in the shoulder as Cricket, though the conformation was entirely different, Carenath being much longer in the body, deeper in the barrel, and. stronger in the hindquarters, in fact, the dragons already were much stronger than similar equines, their basic structure much more durable, utilizing carborundums for strength and resilience. Pol and Bay had gone on about the design features of dragons as if they had new sleds, which indeed, Sean thought wryly, was what they were intended to replace. According to the program, dragons would gradually increase in size over many generations until they reached the optimum. But in Sean’s eyes, Carenath was just right.

“At least they eat neatly,” Dave said, averting his eyes from the two dragons who were rending flesh from the carcasses of their kills. “Though I wish they didn’t look like they enjoyed it so much.”

Sean laughed. “City-bred, were you?”

Dave nodded and smiled weakly. “Not that I wouldn’t do anything for Polenth. It’s just that it’s one thing on three-D, another to watch it live and know that your best friend prefers to hunt living animals. What did you say, Polenth?” Dave’s eyes took on that curious unfocused look that people had when being addressed by their dragons. Then he gave a rueful laugh.

“Well?” Sean prompted him.

“He says anything’s better than fish. He’s meant to fly, not swim.”

“Good thing he has two bellies,” Sean remarked, seeing Polenth devouring the sheep, horns, hooves, fleece, and all. “The way he’s squaffing down the wool, he could start a premature blaze when he starts chewing firestone.”

“He will, won’t he, Sean?” Dave’s earnest plea for reassurance worried Sean. The dragonmates could not doubt their beasts for a moment, not on any score.

“Of course, he will,” Sean said, standing up. “That’s enough, Carenath. Two fills your belly. Don’t get greedy. There are more to be fed here today.”

The bronze had been about to launch himself into the air again, aiming toward the rise into the next valley where the terrified flock had stampeded.

I would really like another one. So tasty. So much better than fish. I like to hunt. Carenath sounded a trifle petulant.

“The queens hunt next, Carenath.”

With a peevish swing of his head, Carenath began to amble back down to Sean, spreading his wings to balance himself. Dragons looked odd when they walked, since they had to crouch to their shorter forelegs; some of them fell more easily into a hop-skip gait, dropping to the forequarters every few steps or using their wings to provide frontal lift. Sean disliked seeing the dragons appear so ungainly and unbalanced.

“See you later,” he said to David as he and Carenath turned to walk back to the cave they inhabited.

The dragons had quickly outgrown the backyard shelters and, in many cases, the patience of neighbors, some of whom worked night shifts and slept during daylight hours. Dragons were a vocal lot for a species that could not speak aloud. So dragons and partners had explored the Catherine Caves for less public accommodations. Sorka had at first worried about living underground with their baby son, Michael, but the cavesite Sean had chosen was spacious, with several large chambers—their new home actually had far more space than did the house in Irish Square. Faranth and Carenath were delighted. There was even a shelf of bare earth above the cave entrance where dragons could sunbathe, the leisure activity they enjoyed even above swimming.

“We are all much better suited here,” Sorka had exclaimed in capitulation, and had set about making their living quarters bright with lamps, her handwoven rugs, fabrics, and pictures that she had cadged from Joel.

But the new quarters had proved to be more than just a physical separation, Sean realized as he and Carenath trudged along. Dave Catarel had put his finger on it in his wistful comment about being forgotten.

This walk is long. I would rather fly on ahead, Carenath said, doing his little hop-skip beside Sean. Once again Sean thought that his brave and lovely Carenath looked like a bad cross between a rabbit and kangaroo.

“You were designed to fly. I’ll be happy when we both fly.”

Why do you not fly on me, then? I would be easier to ride than that scared creature. Carenath did not think much of Cricket as a mount for his partner.

Scared creature, Sean thought with a chuckle. Poor Cricket. How easy it would be to swing up to Carenath’s back and just take off! The notion made the breath catch in his throat. To fly on Carenath, instead of shuffling along on the dusty track. The adolescent year for the dragons was nearly over. Sean looked about in deep speculation. Let Carenath drop off the highest point, and he would have enough space to make that first, all-important downsweep of his wings . . .

Sean had spent as much time watching how fire-lizards and dragons handled themselves in the air as he once had patiently observed horses. Yes, a drop off a height would be the trick.

“C’mon, Carenath. I’m glad I. didn’t let you fill your belly. C’mon, right up to the top.”

The top? The ridge? Sean heard comprehension color the dragon’s mind, and Carenath scrambled to the height in a burst of speed that left Sean coughing in the dust. Quickly! The wind is right.

Rubbing dust particles out of his eyes, Sean laughed aloud, feeling elation and the racing pulse of apprehension. This is the sort of thing you do now, at the right time, in the right place, he thought. And the moment was right for him to ride Carenath!

There was no saddle to vault to, no stirrup to assist Sean to the high shoulder. Carenath dipped politely, and Sean, lightly stepping on the proferred forearm, caught the two neck ridges firmly and swung over, fitting his body between them.

“Jays, you were designed for me,” he said with a triumphant laugh, and slapped Carenath’s neck in affection. Then he grabbed at the ridge in front of him.

Carenath was perched on the very edge of the ridge, and Sean had an awesome view of the bottom of the rockstrewn gorge. He swallowed hastily. Flying Carenath was not at all the same thing as riding Cricket. He took a deep breath. It was also not the time for second thoughts. He took a compulsive hold with legs made strong from years of riding and shoved his buttocks as deeply into the natural saddle as he could.

“Let’s fly, Carenath. Let’s do it now!”

We will fly, Carenath said with ineffable calm. He tilted forward off the ridge.

Despite years of staying astride bucking horses, sliding horses, and jumping horses, the sensation that Sean Connell experienced in that seemingly endless moment was totally different and completely new. A brief memory of a girl’s voice urging him to think of Spacer Yves flitted through his mind. He was falling through space again. A very short space. What sort of a nerd-brain was he to have attempted this?

Faranth wants to know what we are doing, Carenath said calmly.

Before Sean’s staggered mind registered the query, Carenath’s wings had finished their downstroke and they were rising. Sean felt the sudden return of gravity, felt Carenath’s neck under him, felt the weight and a return of the confidence that had been totally in abeyance during the endless-seeming initial drop. The power in those wing sweeps drove his seat deeper between the neck ridges as Carenath continued to beat upward. They were level with the next ridge, the floor of the gorge no longer an imminent crash site.

“Tell Faranth that we’re flying, of course,” Sean replied. He would never admit it to Sorka—he could barely admit it to himself—but for one moment he had been totally and utterly terrified.

I will not let you fall, Carenath’s tone chided him.

“I never thought you would.” Sean forced his body to relax, forced his long legs down and around Carenath’s smooth neck, but he took a firmer grip on the neck ridge. “I just didn’t think I’d stay aboard you for a minute there.”

Carenath’s wings swept up and down, just behind Sean’s peripheral vision. He felt their strong and steady beat even if he did not see them. He could feel the air pressure against his face and his chest. There was nothing around him but air, open, empty, and absolutely marvelous.

Yes, once he got the hang of it, flying his dragon was the most marvelous sensation he had ever had.

I like it, too. I like flying you. You fit on me. This goes well. Where shall we go? The sky is ours.

“Look, we better not do much of this right now, Carenath. You just ate, and we’re going to have to think this thing through. It’s not enough to fall off a ridge, Oooooooh—” he cried inadvertently as Carenath banked and he saw the wide-open, dusty, Thread-barren ground far, far beneath him. “Straighten up!”

I wouldn’t let you fall! Carenath sounded nearly indignant, and Sean freed one hand to give him a reassuring slap. But he quickly replaced his hand on the ridge. Jays, a rider can’t fly Thread hanging on for dear life!

“You wouldn’t let me fall, my friend, but I might let me!”

Trying to quell his rising sense of panic, Sean hazarded a glance at the ground. They were nearly to the rank of caves that had become their home. Sean could see Faranth on the height where she must have been sunning herself. She was sitting on her haunches, her wings half-spread. In a few sweeps of Carenath’s powerful wings, they had covered a distance that ordinarily took a half hour of up-hill-down-dale slogging.

Faranth says that Sorka says that we had better come down right away. Right away! Carenath’s tone was defiant, begging Sean to contradict the golden dragon and anything that shortened their new experience. We are flying together. It is the right thing to do for dragons and riders.

“It’s a fantastic thing to do, Carenath, but as we are now home, can you land us, say, by Faranth? Then you can tell her just how we did it!”

Sean did not care if Sorka had hysterics over his spontaneous and totally unplanned flight. He had done it, they had succeeded, and all was well that ended well. The dragons of Pern finally had riders! That would change the odds on Joel’s book!

 

The other seventeen riders, including Sorka, once Faranth had reassured her about Carenath’s prowess, were delighted at their tremendous advance. Dave wanted to know why Sean had been so precipitous.

“Couldn’t you have waited for me? Polenth and I were just behind you. You scared the living wits out of me for a moment, you know.”

Sean clasped Dave’s arm in tacit apology. “It was what you’d said about being forgotten, Dave. I just had to try, but I didn’t want to endanger anyone else in case I was wrong.” Sean caught Sorka frowning at him and pretended to flinch. “I was all right, love. You know that! But—” He glared warningly at the others seated on the rugs around him. “We’ve got to go about this in a logical and sensible way, folks. Flying a dragon’s not like riding a horse.”

His glance held Nora Sejby’s. She certainly was not the sort of person he would have said would Impress a dragon, but Tenneth had chosen her, and they would have to make the best of it. Nora was accident-prone, and Tenneth had already hauled her partner out of the land and prevented her from falling into the crevices and holes that pitted the hills around the Catherine Caves. On the other hand, Nora had been sailing across Monaco Bay since she was strong enough to manage a tiller and she had checked out on both sleds and skimmers.

“For one thing, there’s all this open air around you. Falling is down onto a hard and injurious surface,” Sean made appropriate gestures, smacking one hand into the palm of the other and startling Nora with the noise.

“So?” Peter Semling said. “We use a saddle.”

“A dragon’s back is full of wing,” Sorka replied dryly.

“You ride forward, sitting your butt in the hollow between the last two ridges,” Sean went on, grabbing for a sheet of opaque film and a marker. He made a quick sketch of a dragon’s neck and shoulders, and the disposition of two straps. “The rider wears a stout belt, wide like a tool belt. You strap yourself in on either side, and the safety harness goes over your thigh for added security. And we’re going to need special flying gear and protective glasses—the wind made my eyes water, and I wasn’t even aloft all that long.”

“What did it really feel like, Sean?” Catherine Radelin asked, her eyes shining in anticipation.

Sean smiled. “The most incredible sensation I’ve ever had. Beats flying a mechanical all hollow, I mean . . .” He raised his fists, tensing his arms into his chest and giving his hands an upward thrusting turn of indescribable experience. “It’s . . . it’s between you and your dragon and . . .” He swung his arms out. “And the whole damned wide world.”

He made a less dramatic presentation at the impromptu meeting where he was asked to account for such risk-taking. He would rather have reported privately, to maybe Admiral Benden or Pol or Red, but he found himself facing the entire council.

“Look, sir, the risk was justified,” he said, looking quickly from the admiral to Red Hanrahan. His father-in-law had been both furious and hurt by what he considered a betrayal. Sean had not anticipated that. “We were almost to the ridge when I suddenly knew I had to prove that dragons could fly us. Sir, all the planning in the world sometimes doesn’t get you to the right point at the right time.”

Admiral Benden nodded wisely, but the startled expression on Jim Tillek’s blunt face and Ongola’s sudden attention told Sean that he had said something wrong.

“I could risk my own neck, sir, but no one else’s,” he went on, “so we’ve got to take our time getting some of the other riders ready to fly. I’ve done a lot of riding and sled-driving, but flying a dragon’s not the same thing, and I’m not about to go out again until Carenath’s got some safety harness on him. And me.”

Joel Lilienkamp leaned forward across the table. “And what will that require, Council?”

Sean grinned, more out of relief than amusement. “Don’t worry, Lili, what I need is what Pern’s got plenty of—hide. I found a use for all that tanned wher skin you’ve got in Stores. It’s plenty tough enough and it’ll be easier on dragons’ necks than the synthetic webbing used in sled harnesses. I’ve made some sketches.” He unfolded the diagrams, much improved on by his discussions with the other dragonmates. “These show the arrangement of straps and the belts we’ll need, the flying suits, and we can use some of those work goggles plastics turns out.”

“Flying suits and plastic goggles,” Joel repeated, reaching for the drawings. He examined them with a gradually less jaundiced attitude.

“As soon as I can rig the flying harness for Carenath, Admiral, Governor, sirs,” Sean said, politely including all assembled and adding a tentative grin at Cherry Duff’s deep scowl, “you can see just how well my dragon flies me.”

“You were informed, weren’t you,” Paul Benden said, and Sean saw him rubbing the knuckles of his left hand, “that there’re new eggs on the Hatching Sands?”

Sean nodded. “Like I told you, Admiral, eighteen are not enough to take up much slack. And it’ll be generations before there’s enough.”

“Generations?” Cherry Duff exclaimed in her raspy voice, swinging in accusation on the veterinary team. “Why weren’t we told it’d take generations?”

“Dragon generations,” Pol answered, smiling slightly at her misinterpretation. “Not human.”

“Well, how long’s a dragon generation?” she demanded, still affronted. She shot a disgusted scowl at Sean.

“The females should produce their first independent clutches at three. Sean has proved that a male dragon can fly at just under a year—”

Cherry brought both hands down on the table, making a sharp, loud noise. “Give me facts, damn it, Pol.”

“Then, four to five years?”

Cherry pursed her lips in annoyance, a habit that made her look even more like a dried prune, Sean thought idly.

“Humph, then I’m not likely to see squadrons of dragons in the sky, am I? Four to five years. And when will they start flaming Thread? That was their design function,, wasn’t it? When will they start being useful?”

Sean was fed up, “Sooner than you think, Cherry Duff. Open a book on it, Joel.” With that he strode from the office. It galled him to the bone to have to take a skimmer back to Sorka and the others who waited to hear what had happened.

Ten days later, when Joel Lilienkamp himself brought them the requisitioned belts, straps, flying kit, and goggles, flight training on the Dragons of Pern began in earnest.

 

Landing had grown accustomed over the past year and a half to the grumblings and rumblings underfoot. On the morning of the second day of the fourth month of their ninth spring on Pern, early risers sleepily noted the curl of smoke, and the significance did not register.

Sean and Sorka, emerging from their cave with Carenath and Faranth, also noticed it.

Why does the mountain smoke? Faranth wanted to know.

“The mountain what?” Sorka demanded, waking up enough to absorb her dragon’s words. “Jays, Sean, look!”

Sean gave a long hard look. “It’s not Garben. It’s Picchu Peak. Patrice de Brogue was wrong! Or was he?”

“What on earth do you mean, Sean?” Sorka stared at him in amazement.

“I mean, there’s been all this talk of basement rock, and shifting Landing to a more practical base, with a special accommodation for dragons and us . . .” Sean kept his eyes on the plume curling languidly up from the peak, dwarfed beside the mightier Garben but certainly as ominous. He shrugged. “Not even Paul Benden can make a volcano erupt on cue. Come, we can get breakfast at your mother’s. Let’s stuff Mick in his flying suit and go. Maybe your dad will have received some official word.” He scowled. “We’re always the last ones to get news. I’ve got to convince Joel to release at least one comm unit for the caves.”

Sorka got their wriggling son into his fleece-lined carrying sack before she shrugged into her jacket and crammed helmet and goggles onto her head. Sean carried Mick out to Faranth. With an ease grown of practice, Sorka ran the two steps to her dragon’s politely positioned foreleg and vaulted astride. Sean handed her a protesting bundle to sling over her back and then turned to mount the obliging Carenath.

The dragons leapt upward from the ledge before the cave, giving themselves enough airway to take the first full sweep. Over the last few weeks, dragon backs had strengthened and muscled up. They had managed flights of several hours’ duration. Riders, even Nora Sejby—Sean had contrived a special harness that made her feel securely fastened to Tenneth—were improving. Long discussions with Drake Bonneau and some of the other pilots who had both fighter experience in the old Nathi War and plenty fighting Thread had improved the dragonriders’ basic understanding of the skills needed. And practice had encouraged them.

Three weeks before, Wind Blossom’s latest attempt had hatched. The four creatures who had survived had not been Impressed by the candidates awaiting them, although the creatures ate the food presented. Indeed, the poor beasts turned out to be photophobic, but Blossom, much to the disgust of Pol and Bay and against their advice, had insisted on special darkened quarters for the beasts, for the purpose of continued examination of that variant.

Even the fire-lizards were more useful, Sean thought, as the two fairs erupted into the air about them, bugling a morning welcome in their high, sweet voices. Now, if the dragons could only prove capable of that, Sean thought enviously. But how do you teach a dragon to do something you do not yourself understand? The dragons got smarter every day and they were fast learners, but it was impossible to explain telekinesis to them or ask them to teleport the way the fire-lizards did. Kitti Ping had called it an instinctive action. Nowhere in the genetics program that Sean had memorized did he find any words of wisdom on how to instruct a dragon to use his innate instinct.

And it was not the sort of exercise one did on a spontaneous basis. First, they would try to chew firestone and make flame. They knew where the fire-lizards got the phosphinebearing rock; Sean had even watched the browns and Sorka’s Duke selecting the pieces to chew and the careful way they concentrated while they chewed. The fire-lizards had learned to produce flame on demand, so Sean felt easy about teaching the dragons that. But going between one place and another . . . that was scary.

 

Flame of a different kind obsessed Landing’s counselors three days later.

“What people want to know, Paul, Emily,” Cherry Duff said, turning her penetrating stare from admiral to governor, “is how much warning you bad of Picchu’s activity.”

“None,” Paul said firmly. Emily nodded. “Patrice de Broglie’s reports have not been altered. There’s been a lot of volcanic activity all along the ring, as well as the new volcano. You’ve felt the same shakes I have. Landing and all stakeholders have been apprised of every technical detail. This is as much of an unpleasant surprise to us as it is to you!” Then Paul’s stern expression altered. “By all that’s holy, Cherry, all that black ash gave me as much a fright yesterday as it did everyone else.”

“So?” Cherry demanded, her attitude unsoftened.

“Picchu is officially an active volcano!” Paul spread his hands, looking past Cherry to Cabot Francis Carter and Rudi Shwartz. “And officially, it’s likely to continue to spout smoke and ash. Patrice and his crew are up at the crater now. He’ll give a full public report this evening at Bonfire Square.”

Cherry gave him a long hard stare, her black eyes piercing, her face expressionless. Then she snorted. “I believe him, but that doesn’t mean I like it—or the obvious prognosis. Landing moves, doesn’t it?”

Emily Boll nodded solemnly.

“And your next statement,” Cherry went on in her hard voice, “is that you have prepared a place for us!”

Paul burst into guffaws, though Emily muffled her laughter when she saw how such levity affronted Rudi Shwartz.

“You had no right,” Paul said, controlling his laughter, “to steal that line from Emily, Cherry Duff! Damn it, we were working on the official announcement when you barged in. And you fardling well know we’ve been rushing to complete the northern fort. Landing couldn’t continue much longer as a viable settlement even if Picchu hadn’t started showering us with ash. That doesn’t, of course, mean,” he put in quickly, holding up his hand to forestall Cabot’s explosion, “that stake-holders will be asked to leave their lands. But the administration of this planet will have to be in the most protected situation we can contrive. Plainly Landing has outlived its usefulness. It was never intended as a permanent installation.”

Emily took up the discussion then, passing to each of the delegation copies of the directive she and Paul had been drafting. “The transfer is being organized much as our space journey here. We have the technicians and the equipment to make a northern crossing as easy as possible. We have enough fuel to power two of the shuttles to transport equipment too bulky to fit on any of Jim’s ships. It’ll be a one-way trip for the shuttles: they’ll be dismantled for parts. When there’s time, we can send a crew back to scavenge the other three. Joel Lilienthal has been working on priority shipments for the big sleds, taking as few as possible from the fighting strength.”

“Speaking of fighting strength, has that young upstart taught them any new tricks?” Cherry demanded imperiously, looking down her long nose at Paul. “Speaking of eruptions, as we were, how are those beasts of Kitti Ping’s progressing? I see them flitting around all the time. Mighty pretty they look in formation, but are they any good in battle?”

“So far,” Paul began cautiously, “they’ve matured well beyond the projections. The young Connells have proved splendid leaders.”

“They were the best ground-crew leaders I had,” Cabot Carter said, disgruntled.

“They’ll be superior as aerial fighters,” Paul went on, overriding the legist’s unspoken criticism. “Self-perpetuating, too, unlike sleds and skimmers.”

“D’you know that for sure?” Cherry demanded in her raspy voice. “Blossom’s experiments aren’t all that successful.”

“Her grandmother’s are,” Paul replied with a firm confidence he hoped would reassure Cherry. “According to Pol and Bay, the males are producing their equivalent to sperm. Genetic analysis has started but will take months. We might have direct proof of dragon fertility by then, as the gold females mature later.” Paul tried not to sound defensive, but he wanted to counter the very bad publicity surrounding Wind Blossom’s brutes. Especially when the young dragonriders were trying so very hard to perfect themselves for combat against Thread. Though it was not public knowledge, Sean and his group had already served as messengers and had transported light loads efficiently.

Paul had a report on his desk from Telgar and his group. They had done a survey of the old crater above the fort hold, with its myriad bubble caves and twisting passages, and had pronounced it a suitable accommodation for the dragons and their riders. Telgar had a team working to make the place habitable, while they still had power in the heavy equipment. A stream was being dammed up for a dragon-sized bathing lake, water piped into the largest of the ground-level caverns for kitchen use, and a chimney hole had been bored for a large hearth complex.

Obviously, that would be the pattern for future human habitation on Pern, and for some, accustomed to sprawling living space, it would take some getting used to. But it was the best way to survive!