All The Weyrs of Pern

by Anne McCaffrey

  Jaxom managed a suitably appreciative grin for her enthusiasm. "Who are we to protest an Aivas pronouncement? What next?"

  "Well, he's got all the fire-lizards searching the ovoid streams for the springs. Sometimes they're embedded right on the surface of an ovoid. We've had to start up nine more cold capsules to contain the things and infect them with the zebedee-makers."

  "Zebedees, the Thread fleas!" Jaxom said, teasingly.

  "Well, fleas are parasites, and I could wish we were able to disimprove some of them quickly! As it is, the time we have is nowhere near long enough for the work we have to do."

  She had been disgusted to discover canine fleas on Jarrol, who was incurably attached to one of the kitchen-spit animals. "Fleas!" She shook her head. "That will be my priority project, as soon as we're finished with Aivas's: to disimprove fleas."

  "Whenever that'll be," Jaxom added. There were so many Aivas endeavors, at various stages of completion, that he wondered if any of them would get finished on time now that the deadline drew nearer.

  "Would you and Ruth have time to get me back to the Yokohama tomorrow before you fly Fall?" Sharra asked.

  Jaxom groaned. "I thought you'd be here a few days."

  Sharra looked properly repentant. "I've been over everything for the Gather with Brand and the other Stewards, and all's ready for our guests. But this is an especially critical time, Jaxom..." Her eyes pleaded for his understanding.

  "You'll be exhausted. You won't enjoy the Gather..." he heard himself saying, and then he pulled her into his arms, savoring the feel of her body against his, and the spicy fragrance of her hair. Gathers were always special times for them.

  "Please, Jaxom?" Her lips brushed his neck.

  "I'm just griping, love. I could never keep you where you didn't wish to be."

  "Won't it be wonderful, when this is all over, to be just us again?" she asked. "I want a daughter, too, you know."

  That earnest wish elicited a response he was glad to make.

  Threadfall was uneventful, though it was not one in which the spaceships' shields had carved tunnels of Threadfree air. Then Hamian sent a message that he had a new glove for Ruth to test on an EVA. So, after Ruth had tested it and found it comfortable as well as a good shield with an easy buckle attachment to hold it in place, Jaxom reported the success to Aivas to pass on to Hamian. For a change, Jaxom and Ruth were alone on the bridge: Ruth was spread across the big window as usual, devouring his favorite view.

  "Aivas, just why are you so obsessed with this zebedee project?" Jaxom asked when he had delivered his message to Hamian. "Sharra says you call it Overkill. Why isn't blowing the Red Star out of orbit sufficient?"

  "You are alone?" Aivas asked.

  That was an unusual question, as Aivas usually unerringly sensed additional presences.

  "Yes, I'm alone. Are you going to come clean?" Jaxom asked, half joking.

  "This is as good a time as any," Aivas replied, startling the young Holder.

  "That doesn't sound good."

  "On the contrary, it is all to the good to know what has been expected of you since this facility learned of Ruth's unusual abilities."

  "His knowing when and where he is?" Jaxom asked slyly.

  "Precisely. An explanation is needed."

  "They usually are, with you!"

  "Flippancy has always covered apprehension. Candor is required. There are three engines that must be exploded to push the Red Star out of an of hazardous to Pern. Two of those explosions have already taken place."

  "What?" Jaxom sat upright in the comfortable chair and stared at the screen in front of him.

  "As you are aware, records from every Weyr, Hall, and Hold were presented and analyzed. Two small entries illuminate an anomaly.

  "Based on the position of the Red Star when Mankind first landed on Pern, that planet is not now in the orbit it should be tracking at this point in time. Repeated calculations were made during the First Fall by captains Keroon and Tillek. Eccentric it might be, but its current position differs from an extrapolation of those original calculations. Its path shows that it has suffered a perturbation of nine-point-three degrees off its original elliptical orbit. That is not consistent with the extrapolated position. Therefore, something has already altered its path. Substantiation occurs in two minor references found in Istan and Keroonian records in the Fourth and Eighth Passes, which were each prior to a long Interval. During each Pass, bright flashes were observed when the Red Star was at apogee in reference to Pern. Bright enough to be remembered and noted."

  Stunned, Jaxom blinked, as if closing and opening his eyes would help him focus his thoughts on what Aivas was saying. "Those two craters?"

  "Your perception is acute."

  "My fear is also, Aivas!"

  "Man is wise to fear: it sharpens the sense of self preservation."

  "But what I felt when I saw the first crater was not fear. It was-it had to be-it was as if I knew it had to be there! I discounted such a ridiculous notion at the time. And you, Aivas, would not have me believe that I have been there before?"

  "The time paradox has bewildered many. Your presentiment of involvement with the crater is unusual, but similar incidents are reported in the annals of psychic phenomena."

  "Are they?" Jaxom asked facetiously. "I'm not at all sure I appreciate the position you've put me in-that is, if I understand you correctly."

  "How do you understand what has been said?"

  "That somehow I, on Ruth, with enough dragonriders to perform the task, took an engine back in time and deposited it in that Rift? Where it blew up to form the crater I find on my initial trip to the Red Star some eighteen hundred Turns in the later?"

  "You have done it twice. The second time was six hundred Turns ago. It is the only explanation. Furthermore, you know that you've done it."

  "I don't want to do it," Jaxom protested, thinking how far back he would have to ask Ruth to take him and the others. Yet Aivas had been accurate in so many other unlikely things. "What if something went wrong?"

  "True to the time paradox, if something had, you wouldn't be here, and there would be some thirty or forty dragons missing from this time."

  "No, that's wrong," Jaxom said, struggling to understand. "We wouldn't have gone yet. So wed still be here. We won't be here if we fail when we try it. No, no!" He waved one hand irritably at his confusion.

  "You have gone. You have been successful, and each of those previous explosions has caused Long Intervals-which are inexplicable by any other rationale-thus setting up the planet for the final orbital dislocation."

  "Now wait a minute," Jaxom said, waggling his finger at the screen in an aggravated fashion. "We've done a lot of queer things to propitiate you, Aivas, and we've done them because you've proved to be right..."

  "This facility is correct in its findings and conclusions in this matter, as well, Lord Jaxom."

  "Don't try that tact on me, friend. It doesn't work! The dragonriders are not going to go along with this. Timing it has always been extremely tricky. You know that Lessa nearly died going back four hundred Turns. You want us to go back eighteen hundred?"

  "You will be carrying your own oxygen supplies, so you will not suffer from asphyxia as she did. You are aware of the sensory deprivation syndrome and will not be disturbed by the disorientation..."

  Jaxom kept shaking his head. "You can't ask bronzes to do that, even if they are able to. I don't think F'lar times it. In fact, the only one I do know who has is Lessa."

  "And your Ruth. Furthermore, you have been proud of the fact that the white dragon always knows where and when he is going."

  "You have said that Ruth always knows where and when he is going."

  "I have, but-"

  "If Ruth knows where and when he is going-and specific guides are available-he can supply the necessary visual coordinates."

  "But I know that the other riders won't stand for this..."

  "They will not know!"

  J
axom stared straight at the screen for another long moment.

  "How;" he asked at last in a very patient, saccharine tone, 'will they not know'?"

  "Because you will not tell them. And since you now have been to the Red Star on several occasions, and since the distance in terms of travel between will not be appreciably longer than what they would expect, they will not know that they have been transported back in time and to the Red Star in the position required by the equations that cover the two disparate explosions."

  Jaxom mulled that over and, inhaling deeply, realized that in his state of shock he had not been breathing regularly.

  I think we can do it, Ruth remarked with more confidence than Jaxom was feeling at that moment.

  Jaxom turned toward his beloved friend. "You may think we can, but I'm going to be bloody sure we can. Now, Aivas, let's go through this again... The other riders are not to know the time of our destination. But there are to be three teams of us, taking the three engines..."

  "Harman will not have sufficient space suits for the three hundred beasts required to shift all three engines at the same time. You will lead two of the three groups. F'lar will, as planned, head the third. He will be the only one depositing an engine in this time. As you know," Aivas went on, overriding Jaxom's protest, "the locations chosen are not in sight of each other. Since F'lar will think that you are at one end of the Rift, Mon at the other, he will not know what you are doing."

  "The timing's wrong, Aivas. I cannot be in two places at once. Nor doing that kind of timing without a respite. Ruth doesn't have auxiliary oxygen."

  "You missed the point about insufficient space suits. Your team will have to get out of their suits and turn them over to the members of the second unit. That should allow Ruth sufficient time to regain energy. You will, of course, be certain that he eats well beforehand and can feed immediately afterward to restore himself."

  I could do it the way Aivas suggests, Ruth said amiably.

  "I haven't said I'll risk us!" Jaxom roared, bringing both fists down on the console with such force that he hurt his hands. Rubbing them, he grumbled to himself.

  "You already have, or there would not be two craters on the Rift, and there would not have been records of bright flashes."

  "You're inveigling me, Aivas. And I'm not going to let you."

  "You already have, Lord Jaxom. You are the only one who can, could, would, has. Think this proposal over carefully and you will see that the project is not only within the capabilities of yourself and Ruth, but feasible. And essential! Three explosions at this point in time will not have the desired effect on the future path of the Red Star."

  Jaxom sighed deeply, almost as if he already felt it needful to fill his lungs for a jump timed eighteen hundred Turns away. His mind refused to settle into a logical examination of the affair.

  "Since this is a confessional moment, tell me why you are so obsessed with this project you've involved Sharra in? Especially," he added with an ironic laugh, "if you say you know I've already succeeded even before I've begun."

  "You do succeed, and there is an easy way to prove it," Aivas said, his tone not quite ingratiating but as close to that as Jaxom had ever heard.

  "No, first explain to me about these zebedee things."

  "It is extrapolated by the closer examination of the Thread ovoids that there is life, not as you know it, and not even as we see it brought here by the Red Star, but a whole ecology of life forms throughout the Oort Cloud. Some of them are probably quite intelligent, judging by the complexity of their nervous systems; but when they arrive here, they have lost most of their liquid helium and so can be termed only 'rude mechanicals.' It is these degenerate, warmth-tolerating forms that make it to the surface of Pern; they don't live long enough to replicate themselves there, of course, or on the Red Planet. It is only these 'mechanicals' that can reproduce without helium in Pern's orbit. But if these mechanicals could be contaminated, infected with our disimproved parasite, they would carry it with them to destroy all similar life-forms in the Oort Cloud itself, probably including the more intelligent ones, too. Then, no matter what happens, Pern will forever be freed of this menace. That is why there were Long Intervals: The disimproved zebedees that you will establish-have established long ago-on the surface of the Red Planet, twice in the past and once in the future will infect the Cloud when the Red Star cuts through it twice in every orbit."

  "I'm also to be a disease carrier?" Jaxom was not sure which he felt more keenly: indignation, fury, or incredulity at the audacity of Aivas's scheme.

  "You will seed the Red Star three times. That is why it is so important to breed up the disimproved zebedees. A triple thrust in two different areas."

  "But if I'm to blow the planet out of orbit..."

  "The perturbation will be slight, and you can seed the zebedees at a sufficient distance from the Rift to insure their safety. There will be plenty of host ovoids on the planet's surface as well as in orbit around it."

  "We saw them on the surface, not in orbit."

  "Were you looking for them?"

  "Not in space. Now, tell me how you can prove to me that all these incredible designs of yours will work-have worked!"

  "It is very simple. Access the file that gives you a graph of the Red Star's current orbit."

  Jaxom had no trouble doing that. The all-too-familiar diagram filled the screen.

  "Hold that on the monitor," Aivas instructed.

  Jaxom pressed out that command.

  "Now, if you will mount Ruth, you can go forward in time fifty years-Turns-using the digital timepiece as your reference."

  "No one goes forward in time, that's the most dangerous..."

  "Only if alterations will have taken place," Aivas replied. "There will be no changes on the bridge of Yokohama. That will be your responsibility. Today you will go forward in time, call up the orbit. Print it out. Then, with that hard copy, return here after a safe interval and compare the two graphs. The doors have been locked. No one is likely to come to this bridge at this moment, or until you have returned."

  Every ounce of common sense Jaxom possessed shouted resistance to a timing forward. And yet... to have done so would be a feat no one else could possibly manage successfully. For he had Ruth.

  "Did you hear what Aivas said, Ruth?"

  I did. Given his assurances, and I know that he would not risk you, Jaxom

  "Or you," Jaxom put in.

  I would like to see what Pern looks like in the future. I would like to know that the future is going to be a good one.

  And so would I, Jaxom thought.

  Then, before he could come up with too many arguments against this rash, foolhardy, reckless endeavor, he signaled for Ruth to float over to him.

  "You will, of course," Aivas said drolly, "be very sure to keep oxygen tanks full on the bridge for fifty Turns to come."

  Jaxom gave a grim smile. "I'm not going to take any chances, Aivas. I'll just get into my suit." He was becoming quite adept at inserting himself into the space gear. He mounted Ruth and buckled on the riding straps, just to be very sure, in case they emerged in nothingness. He also knew that Ruth would have no trouble anywhere-or anywhen-finding his way back to Ruatha Hold.

  He read the date exposed on the digital and added fifty to the year displayed: 2579. With that legend firmly in his mind, he told Ruth to transfer to that time.

  I know when I'm going, Ruth said cheerfully, and they were abruptly between.

  Jaxom counted the breaths he was taking and was rather pleased that they were slow and steady. At fifteen, they were back on the bridge-which had not, apparently, altered.

  The view hasn't changed, Ruth said disconsolately.

  "No, it hasn't," Jaxom said, surprised to see the diagram still up on the screen. The digital clock, however, definitely registered fifty full Turns past his last view of it. He unhooked his straps and floated down from Ruth's back to the screen.

  "I suppose I could have put this back up in
preparation for my coming," he told himself. "I'll remember. I hope. Is there sir up here, Ruth?"

  Yes, but it's not very fresh.

  Jaxom pulled off his gloves and put them down on the console. He didn't bother to unsuit, since he had no intention of remaining longer than this errand required. He tapped out the appropriate code and saw the cursor outline a second orbit, deviating by several degrees from the earlier one and with the return path intersecting the orbit of the fifth planet and spiraling in! With trembling fingers, he pressed the print command and a sheet obediently emerged-a sheet that felt subtly different from the paper he had become accustomed to. Much whiter, softer! Bendarek had really improved the quality of paper over the intervening Turns. Then he compared its diagram to the one on the screen.

  "Shards! Aivas, the path of the Red Star has shifted. Aivas?" An iciness flowed across Jaxom's midsections. "Aivas?"

  How can he hear you fifty Turns into the future, Jaxom? Ruth said in some amusement.

  "Oh, right... I suppose. Except he'd know when we were going..." Jaxom was still uneasy about Aivas's silence. "I guess I have got so that I rely on him too much. But he was right. So we're stuck with this new madness of his, aren't we, Ruth?"

  I do not think it is madness to be certain we never have Thread again.

  "We're not out of this Pass yet, even if it is possibly the last one we'll have," Jaxom said, pushing himself off the deck to grab at Ruth's neck and swing his leg into the saddle. "The old bridge hasn't changed... and yet, it feels awful still and unused!"

  I thought the view would have changed, Ruth said, clearly disappointed.

  Jaxom thought vividly of the digital in his correct present, added thirty seconds to prevent an overlap, and Ruth took them between. Exactly fifteen breaths later he was looking straight at the digital advanced the thirty seconds. He did, however, feel very tired, and as he looked at Ruth's neck, he noticed a definite tinge of gray exhaustion in the usually lustrous hide.