The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall

by Anne McCaffrey

  That announcement met with a stunned silence, which was broken by quiet murmuring. Torene was even more surprised than most. She didn’t know which other queens had been assigned along with her, but she was suddenly very sure that somehow the draw had been arranged so that she, and Alaranth, would go east. For Alaranth, of all the twenty fertile queens, would undoubtedly be the next one to rise to mate. Was that what Sean had meant when he had said Torene’s ability to hear all dragons was an asset? How long had he been planning to form new Weyrs?

  She shot a quick glance at the Weyrleaders, but they were not looking in her direction.

  Am I right, Faranth? Torene asked, breaking her self-imposed rule never to initiate a conversation with another’s dragon.

  You can hear all of us, Faranth said. It would be wise to have you over there. You will be a very good Weyrwoman. Sorka thinks so, and so do Carenath and Sean. Be easy!

  As if she possibly could at a moment like this! Chance, indeed! Torene stared fiercely at Sorka, wanting to catch the Weyrwoman’s eye, but Sorka was leaning across the table to talk to Tarrie and Nora.

  “So, those of you who have to remain here with Sorka and myself can be excused. I think the new Weyrfolk ought to have a bit of a gather and find out who goes where. Big Islanders, assemble at the far right tables; Telgar, these in the middle; and east coast on my left.”

  As Sean pointed, his eyes at last met Torene’s. His expression did not change—except for the slight tilt of one eyebrow. So she could read more into this public exhibition of “random choice”? But how could he have arranged it? The odds against were four to one.

  She was startled out of her reverie when F’mar leaned down, lips to her ear.

  “I would have liked to have you as my Weyrwoman, ’Rene,” he murmured. Before she could remark on his arrogance, being so sure that he would end up Telgar’s Weyrleader, he had moved to the center tables.

  “Sour grapes?” N’klas asked, jerking his thumb at F’mar’s retreating back.

  “No, no sour grapes,” she said, with a not too saccharine smile. “He’s got as good a chance as anyone to make Weyrleader at Telgar. See—” She pointed at Arna, Nya, and Sigurd already seated at the head of one of the Telgar tables.

  She welcomed Uloa with a happy cry, and then Jean, Greteth’s rider, only to be overcome with chagrin. Uloa and Jean would know that Alaranth would be the first queen assigned there to rise to mate. So did Julie, for her queen had just clutched and wouldn’t rise for months. Torene’s thoughts must have been transparent, for Uloa leaned close to her.

  “And why not Alaranth?” Uloa murmured. “Better you than me. You’re young enough to cope.”

  “My sentiments entirely,” Jean added quietly, then raised her voice. “N’klas, pass the beer pitcher, will you? Who else have we got for Wingleaders?” She looked about as riders shifted to the appropriate tables. “Besides you, N’klas. Hello, there, Jess. You’re one of us? Great.”

  Torene glanced shyly at the older bronze Wingleader. She hadn’t had the chance to get to know him, but she’d never heard unfavorable reports. She saw David Caterel making his way to them. He and Polenth were of the original seventeen dragonriders. He had always been pleasant to her, but the look he gave her now made her blush. He knew. Young Boris Pahlevi, who had risen quickly to the rank of Wingleader on Gesilith, was also on his way over. And behind him . . . Torene blinked, but the lithe redheaded figure was still that of Mihall, Brianth’s rider, and the Weyrleaders’ oldest son.

  Well, she thought, an odd numbing sensation running over her, he was one of the best Wingleaders. Why should she resent him being in her Weyr? Silly! It’s not your Weyr, yet, m’girl. He gave her a sharp nod as he stopped a little behind N’klas, reversed a chair, and sat, leaning his arms on the back of it. He took the mug of beer passed to him but only sipped politely.

  Wingseconds and some of the other wingriders ranged casually near their leaders, chatting among themselves.

  “Well, well, and well,” Uloa said, grinning, her black eyes snapping with wry amusement. “David, your Polenth is the oldest dragon—do you wish to take charge of this first meeting of us new Weyrmates?”

  “Why should I, when you’re doing so well, Uloa?” he replied good-humoredly and endured a bit of teasing from his wingmates. “Anyway, you’ve seen more of our new Weyr than I have.”

  “Shouldn’t all of us go there now, to see what needs doing?” asked Jess Kaiden, whose bronze, Hallath, came from the same hatching as Uloa’s queen.

  “Not now,” Uloa said, amused, “as it’s past midnight there and we wouldn’t see much.”

  “We go when it’s daylight then,” Jess said with a shrug.

  “All of us?” asked one of the blue riders seated near David. Torene didn’t know his name. That was one detail she’d have to remedy.

  Martin, who rides Dagmath, Alaranth said.

  “Yes, all of us,” David replied, “since all of us will share the making of this Weyr.”

  “Does it have to stay known as the east coast Weyr?” Boris asked in some disgust. “What a mouthful!”

  “See it first, name it later,” Jean said. “I’ve only been there once myself.”

  “Just how much help will we get from the settlers?” N’klas asked, shooting Torene a quick look. Both were aware of how much work would be required to make the place livable.

  “I think we’ll have to ask Sean that,” David replied. “ ’Rene, you got that film on you?” N’klas asked, turning to her.

  Torene felt herself flush. She ducked her head on the pretext of opening the thigh pocket where she kept the plasfilm and recovered her composure somewhat by the time she could spread it out on the table in front of her. Everyone began to press in to have a look. David, who was tallest of those nearby, took it and held it up high enough for more to see.

  “Shaded areas show the echo spaces inside,” N’klas said. “Some only need to be broken out. And Torene spotted where we can put a ground-level access tunnel.” Craning his head and stretching out one arm, he pointed out the various features. “Hatching ground, bigger’n Fort’s—plenty of ground-level caverns for support staff, kitchens, weyrling barracks, queens’ quarters, and there’re tunnels underground. One to a cavern big enough for us to put hydroponics . . .”

  “If we do our job properly, we’ll get supplied by the holders we protect,” David Caterel said. N’klas was not the only one whose mouth dropped open in surprise. “That’s the plan which has just now been accepted by all holders.” David grinned. “That’s what allows us to decentralize the fighting force. The Holds we protect will tithe to support the local Weyr. That way Fort won’t be overburdened. We won’t always be able to sneak south for food, especially after Ierne is abandoned. Their fire-lizards have done a great job to help the wings we’ve sent there. But they’ll be leaving, too. We’ve got to let the grubs dig in and spread. A good start’s been made at Key Largo, Seminole, and Ierne, but it’s a long-term process.”

  There were a few wry smiles at the understatement. Everyone knew that it would take several hundred years for grubs—the anti-Thread organism that Ted Tubberman had bioengineered—to spread across the Southern Continent in sufficient density to make ordinary vegetation less vulnerable to destruction by those deadly spores. And only once the new life-form was well-enough established in the south could colonies of it be transferred north.

  “So that’s what all this coming and going’s been about,” Uloa said, propping her fists on her hips and glaring at David. “And you never gave us so much as a hint.”

  David recoiled slightly. “I never had so much as a hint myself until this evening. You know how closemouthed Sean can be.”

  “That’s true enough,” Jean said with a wry laugh.

  “What he dislikes is that the dragons’ll have to do a lot of hauling.”

  Jean made a real grimace this time and sighed deeply. “Then it’s only fair that the holders help us dig!”

  “That w
as Sean’s point.”

  Jean couldn’t see the diagram, so she pulled it down. “So this is how we’ll be spending our free time?”

  “What free time?” half a dozen voices chorused around her.

  “The free time tomorrow when we’ll all go over and formally take possession of our Weyr,” David said firmly. He glanced around, looking for acknowledgment. “Go easy on the beer. We’ll make a daylight start.”

  “Our daylight, of course!” said an anonymous voice from the back.

  “He’s got more sense than to interfere with your beering by making us start at daylight on the east coast,” Jean said tartly.

  From the middle of the room a roar went up: “Telgar! Telgar Weyr!”

  “As if they had any choice,” Jean said at her drollest, “though I’d like to suggest a name now for ours and let you think about it.”

  “What name?”

  “Benden!” she said in a proud quiet tone, lifting her chin. There was a long moment of respectful silence.

  “What’s to think about?” asked a firm baritone voice from the rear.

  “Could there be any other name that would be more fitting?” David Caterel asked, and Torene could see that his eyes had filled.

  The murmur grew quickly as the name was repeated throughout their small gathering. Jean touched her glass to David’s, and suddenly the others all got to their feet, glasses raised.

  “To Benden Weyr!” David Caterel said, though “Weyr” came out raggedly.

  “To Benden Weyr!” And mugs, cups, and glasses were raised high and then drained.

  Torene had to sniff and dash the tears from her eyes, but she felt uplifted by that little ceremony. Hers had been the last Hatching that the ailing admiral had attended. She remembered that he had sought her out and wished her and her new queen the very best. Though he still walked with an erect back, his step was short and jerky. One of his sons and Mihall had escorted him.

  Many riders began to circulate then, some to get more beer, some to drift off, but Torene was more or less hemmed in by the other queen riders and Wingleaders.

  “You got this copy from your mother?” David asked, spreading it carefully out on the table. When she nodded, he asked, “Any chance we can get more? And at least one set of enlargements for each elevation?” Torene nodded again. Her parents would be extremely proud of her assignment and willing to cooperate in any way they could. “And you’ve been there recently?” His manner was kindly, as if she were much younger than she actually was and needed to be led. She was twenty-two, but she didn’t resent that from David as much as she would have from one of her peers.

  “A whole bunch of us went the day you and Sean went down to Ierne to eat,” Uloa said, with a put-you-in-your-place tone.

  Grinning back at her, David said, “If I’d known Sean was going to pull it off, I’d’ve come with you. What I need to establish is how recent your visit was.”

  “Very.”

  “And where is this access tunnel you found, Torene?”

  N’klas was closer and jammed his index finger down on the spot. “Here.”

  David kept looking at Torene for his answer.

  She nodded. “This echo reads as two meters high, ground to ceiling.” She indicated with a fingertip. “Here and here Ozzie says there’re tunnels that can be enlarged, with an entrance into the—into Benden Weyr—” She was interrupted by a chorus of approval: “Sounds good.” “Paul’d be pleased.” “Perfect name!” “Has a ring to it, doesn’t it?” She went on: “—and an exit on high ground above the river, here.”

  Comments and suggestions flew too thick and fast for her to identify the speakers.

  “That would be the priority project, so we can get materials and people in and out easily.”

  “We still have to shift by dragonback. Couldn’t send a land expedition when we don’t know the overnighting places.”

  “Kaarvan wouldn’t mind a good long sail. He’s bored with fishing the Bay.”

  “Iernans can bring in a lot of their own gear on their ships.”

  Other riders, eager to contribute, began to crowd in, and Torene, courteously letting people past her, suddenly found herself excluded.

  “It’s my map,” she said under her breath, trying to suppress a surge of bitterness as she took a further step back, nearly stepping on the feet of someone seated behind her.

  “It’ll be your Weyr, ’Rene,” said a soft, amused tenor voice. She looked down into Mihall Connell’s slightly mocking gray-blue eyes. She’d never been close enough to see their color before. “Come the time. Alaranth flies,” he went on. “She’ll fly soon—but you know that, don’t you?”

  There was no mockery in his tone, and he’d made more of a statement than a question.

  “Well, if you intend to be Weyrleader, why aren’t you in there, mapping your space?” The moment the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them and bit her lip. “I’m sorry, Mihall.”

  “Why?” His very regular eyebrows quirked briefly, and his gray-blue eyes, not a trace of mockery in them, met hers once more, his head tilted up at her. “I should like to be Weyrleader. I intend to be Weyrleader. Everyone knows that.” The mockery was back. “The question is, how does Alaranth feel about Brianth?”

  “Isn’t it more how I feel about you?” The words tumbled out before she could stop them, and she shook her head and stamped her foot in annoyance: That wasn’t at all what she had intended to say.

  Mihall rose slowly until he was looking down at her, an intense expression on his face. “No, it’s ultimately the dragons who decide: the one who decides how to fly this queen, and the one who decides who she’ll let catch her.”

  Torene knew now why she hadn’t been in his company much. He wasn’t at all like the other bronze and brown riders in her “bunch.” And knowing the reputation he and Brianth had in “catching” queens, she had deliberately, if unconsciously, avoided being in his company. She also knew the opinions the other queen riders had of him, and those only confused her more. “Polite”? “Quick”? “Deft and considerate”? “Too controlled”? None of those comments fit what she sensed of him.

  He knows he is the son of his parents, Alaranth said.

  “Yes, he would know that,” she said almost sadly, for that couldn’t be easy on him. When Mihall politely raised his eyebrows in query, she realized she had spoken aloud. “Brianth,” she added, and gave Mihall what she hoped was an understanding smile. From his stunned expression, she found she had only compounded her blunder and he had jumped to the logical conclusion. “Oh, lord, both feet are in my mouth tonight. Do you want a copy of your own when I ask Mother for them tomorrow?” She tried to keep her voice even and pleasant, but to her own ears she sounded irritated.

  Mihall inclined toward her. “I’d appreciate it,” he said, but all the warmth she had seen—so briefly—in his eyes was gone and they were coldly gray. He stood clear of the chair, and before she could walk away from her embarrassment, he left her.

  I could just scream, she told Alaranth. It all came out so wrong, Allie. How could I possibly have said the things I did to him? And the way I said them! Oh, how could I!

  There was a long pause when she thought that her dragon was too sleepy to answer.

  Don’t worry. The voice was not Alaranth’s.

  Brianth?

  He’s right. Too late now was Alaranth’s not too reassuring reply.

  “Where did Torene go?” David’s voice rose above the other conversations.

  “I’m here,” she said, and allowed the alacrity with which the riders parted to let her back in soothe her frustration and self-accusation.

  The next morning, having asked the watchdragon to wake her at daybreak, Telgar time, Torene arrived at her parents’ cavern just as Sonja was pouring klah. To her daughter’s astonishment, she was pouring it into three cups, and there was a third bowl of steaming porridge set at the table.

  “How did you know I was coming?”

  “
How could we not know?” Sonja said, clasping her daughter to her ample bust and joyfully, proudly, embracing her with arms well muscled from a lifetime of mining. “Telgar announces to us there will be four Weyrs, and one of them here.”

  “Up there,” Volodya corrected his wife, pointing northeast, but he rose from his seat and kissed his daughter, hugging her nearly as enthusiastically as his wife had but with some consideration for Torene’s ribs. “And you are named to be at the east coast one.”

  “At Benden Weyr,” she said, hoping that at least the name would be a surprise.

  “Ah!” Her mother’s face lit up and she embraced her daughter again before she mopped a tear from each eye.

  “As it should be. As it should be,” Volodya said, sitting down at the table and beginning to spoon his porridge into his mouth. “Sit! Eat! You will need it.”

  “So, how many copies do you come for me to make for you?” Sonja asked slyly, giving Torene a little push toward the spare place.

  “Oh, Mother!”

  “And why shouldn’t you, dushka?” Sonja was unperturbed. “Always you are putting yourself behind. And where else is there a replicating machine that works? You will want enlargements, too, of each elevation? How many in all?”

  “Mother . . .” Torene began in protest, and then burst out laughing.

  “Sit! Eat!” her father repeated and gestured firmly for her to take her seat. “Copies we can talk of later. Now you will have breakfast with us and tell us news we don’t get to hear at Telgar.”

  When she finally left, stuffed with two bowls of porridge and more klah than she liked to have swirling in her belly going between, she was carrying a plastic tube full of copies and enlargements—more than she would have had the nerve to request. Sonja had blithely replicated four copies of each and every possible angle of the original and secondary surveys of Benden Weyr. Torene reckoned that one reason they were so willing to go over the top was because they were so pleased with that naming.