The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall

by Anne McCaffrey

  “I know, I know, I know!” she cried, resenting each and every one of them for the way they were looking at her. No one had told her about this part of a queen’s mating—especially this flight, when the reward of Weyrleadership went to the winner. She backed up until she was leaning against the stone of the Weyr, her mouth gone dry, even as sweat began to ooze from her pores and a strange sensation enveloped her guts.

  At her final shout, Alaranth woke completely and Torene made the mental linkage. The rock wall supported her. Not even the calm explicit recital Sorka had given her covered the depth or intensity of the emotions the dragon was feeling, much less Torene’s reluctant but inexorable response to the lust. A blood lust, first, with Alaranth aware of an insatiable hunger.

  Glittering in the summer sunshine, Alaranth extended her wings and bellowed a challenge. Aware that the male dragons were watching, she turned to display her proud strong body, throwing her head back and stretching out her long neck. She retracted in the blink of an eye, arching herself, and with a graceful, powerful motion, leaped into the air. Three long sweeps of her gleaming wings, and then she was gliding down to the lake, scattering the beasts—her prey—with her hungry cries.

  Blood it, Alaranth. Blood it! Don’t eat! The instructions Torene had been drilled in jumped to mind as Alaranth landed on the bullock. Blood it only! Torene kept her voice firm, stern, putting every ounce of authority into her tone.

  Alaranth snarled back at the distant tense circle of humans before she tore the throat and sucked greedily at the blood.

  Blood it! Hear me now! Alaranth! Torene could not give her any leeway in this. Blooding gave the mating queen the quick energy she needed: flesh would only weigh her down and she would not achieve the height required in a truly successful mating flight. Height meant safety, for dragons locked in conjugation could plummet to the ground before finishing if insufficient altitude had not been attained.

  Blood only, Alaranth! Torene repeated as her queen leaped on a second large bullock. You must fly the highest you can. You must not eat to do that! Blood it only!

  Though they were the length of the Weyr apart, Torene felt as if she were right there beside her ravenous queen; the hot blood was running down her throat, and she wondered why it wasn’t choking her. With another part of her consciousness, she felt hands touching her and realized that she was surrounded by many sweaty male bodies, but her immediate concern was not for herself, but for Alaranth. The queen seemed to pulse goldenly even from this distance.

  The terrified herd beasts were stampeding about, but they had nowhere to go, and as their circling took them too close to the blooding queen again, she casually made a little hop and landed on one of the smaller creatures.

  Blood it! Don’t you dare take the flesh, Alaranth. Don’t you dare!

  Torene was in her queen’s mind with an immediacy she had never experienced since Impression. Still, she gasped at the suddenness with which Alaranth flung aside the last kill and, with a gigantic push from her hind legs, surged aloft. The male dragons on the Rim were equally surprised. They all sprang up; two or three dropped off the Rim and were somehow airborne and rising faster than their rivals. To Torene, they were just a blur of wings behind her, for she was Alaranth more than she was Torene, increasing the distance between herself and the males with every beat of her broader, longer wings.

  The peaks were falling fast below, and the air cooled a body heated by blooding and by sexual drive at its most potent point. Alaranth reveled in her speed, in the height she was gaining so effortlessly. She caught a thermal and soared on it, attaining more altitude. This was higher than she had ever ventured, and she felt strong, felt the powerful lift of air under her wings, caressing her body, stoking the fires already consuming her.

  Far below her sparkled the sea, blues shading to green and aqua. She felt, rather than saw, the shadow: sensed the proximity of another. Craning her head around, she saw the cluster of males below and some distance behind her. They would not catch her so easily. They hadn’t her wings, her strength, her . . .

  Strong talons gripped her shoulder joints, a powerful neck twined with hers, and wrenching herself about to meet her attacker, only too late did Alaranth realize she had done exactly as the bronze had hoped and she was well and truly caught. As he made sure of his conquest of her, wing to wing, necks twined, talons locked, Alaranth realized that only one had ever been in contention for her, and she abandoned all restraint.

  “Now! Torene, now!”

  Torene was no longer aloft with Alaranth in the throes of the dragons’ mating passion; she was naked in the arms of the bronze’s rider—naked, and her body demanding the same glorious orgasm that her dragon had just experienced.

  “Damn it, Torene,” that rider was saying as he attempted to penetrate her body, “did you have to wait until now?”

  She gripped him to her, her nails digging into the muscular flesh of his back. The hurt was a mere moment’s discomfort, immediately forgotten in the powerful surging of lust that rose from some unexpected, limitless depth within her.

  “Toreeeeeeeene!”

  The cry of her name produced mild astonishment in her: the tone held more than triumph, more than surprise, more than intense pleasure. So she opened her eyes to see whose dragon had flown hers so skillfully, which rider had taken her.

  His face was still buried in her neck; his body, limp with repletion, leaned heavily against hers. He smelled of sweat, as she did. Even his hair was damp. They were both dripping, but as she wrapped slippery arms about his slippery back, she knew him, and knew him more intimately now than she had known any other man.

  “Polite”? “Considerate”? Her errant mind went through the comments of the other queen riders about this man. “Deft”? Well, he had certainly been that, both with his bronze’s tactics and with herself. “Controlled”? Oh, no, not a bit controlled. Not polite, and more angry with her virginity than considerate. But then, had she been all that wise, leaving her first experience until her queen’s first flight? Well, it had been her option, and she was glad she had. That way she had been sure that it was her dragon who would choose, not some silly preference of hers.

  “Mihall?” She spoke his name softly. His breathing had slowed, and she didn’t know if he had fallen asleep where he lay on her. He wasn’t that heavy, and she’d better get accustomed to it anyway, since he was now indisputably the Weyrleader—and her weyrmate.

  He gathered himself to move away, and she held him fast. She liked his body. Indeed, she liked it very much for the way it had made her feel, the way it had completed her.

  “You made for the thermal current right off?” she asked, having figured out just how he had managed to achieve his goal.

  “Hmmm.” He moved his head to emphasize the agreement.

  Vividly blue eyes regarded her with solemn appraisal. His short hair was dark red with sweat, but it curled as much as hers did. She expected that they’d have curly, redheaded children and smiled to be thinking that far ahead right now.

  “Only way,” he murmured. Then, almost as if he expected her to resist, he ran a wondering finger down her cheek.

  “Alaranth hadn’t a chance against that technique,” she said.

  “I didn’t intend that she should, ’Rene,” he said with a slow smile, and stroked her cheek again. It was the warm smile she liked so much. “I couldn’t let any other rider have you.”

  She looked up at him quizzically: not “dragon,” but “rider” and “you.” He meant her, not just what she brought to this union, her dragon and the Weyrleadership.

  “Rider?”

  He raised himself on his elbows, looking down at her face as if he had to memorize every detail. “You are exceptionally beautiful, you know, and those eyelashes are totally unfair!” That marvelous smile of his again curved his firm mouth.

  “But you said you were going to be Weyrleader.”

  “Oh, I’d’ve been that one way or another, sooner or later,” he said in a
blithe tone. He gave her very tender kisses on the edges of her lips.

  “Polite”? “Restrained”? She couldn’t help smiling up at him, thinking of how very wrong the other women had been and how very glad she was that they were.

  “It was always you I ached to have,” he said, still memorizing the planes of her face, kissing her cheekbones. “From the moment I saw you Impress Alaranth. But my father had warned me off the queen riders. I had to shadow Admiral Benden in order to get anywhere near you then without having my backside flayed.”

  “That long ago?” Who had been avoiding whom since? She raised her eyelashes then and swept them teasingly across his forehead. His arms tightened, and there was nothing polite or considerate about his response: a response that had nothing to do with his dragon.

  We both have what we wanted, said a dragon in a sleepy satisfied tone.

  Try though she would in all the years she and M’hall were the Weyrleaders of Benden, Torene was never sure which dragon had spoken. Or to whom.

  Rescue Run

  “MA’AM?” ROSS VACLAV Benden said in a surprised tone. “There’s an orange flag on the Rukbat system.” He swiveled around toward the Amherst’s command chair and the battle cruiser’s captain, Anise Fargoe.

  The Amherst had been assigned to conduct a determined search of the Sagittarian Sector for any evidence of new incursions by the Nasties. The punitive war of six decades earlier had proved insufficient to dissuade those intruders from continuing to annex remote elements of the Federation. A massive seek-and-destroy operation was now five years in progress; mercifully, only minor infiltrations had been discovered—a few outposts and two space stations, which had been obliterated. But not until all adjoining space and every peripheral system had been investigated and warning devices strategically strewn would the Federation enjoy any sense of security. A second prolonged Nasties Campaign would ruin the already depleted Federation. Quick sharp thrusts now, the Combined Joint Staffs had wisely decided, should suffice.

  As the Amherst had so far had a very boring swing through their sector, Lieutenant Benden’s unexpected comment roused everyone on the bridge.

  “Orange? This far out?” Captain Fargoe asked, her eyes widening in a flare of excitement. “Didn’t know we had colonies in this sector.”

  “Orange” signified that an investigation should be initiated by any vessel close enough to the flagged system to do so.

  “I’m accessing files, ma’am.” And Benden, suddenly remembering family history, breathlessly awaited the entry. He tapped his thumbs restlessly on the edge of the keyboard and got a quick repressive glance from old Rezmar Dooley Zane, the duty navigator. “Oh,” he added, his eagerness deflated as the file header informed him that a distress message had been received from the colony on Pern, Rukbat’s only inhabitable planet.

  “Well, let’s see the message,” Captain Fargoe said. Anything to relieve the tedium of the fruitless search through this deserted—almost deserted—sphere of space. “Screen it.”

  Benden transferred the message to the main screen.

  MAYDAY! PERN COLONY IN DESPERATE CONDITION FOLLOWING REPEATED ATTACKS OF AN UNCONTACTED ENEMY INVASION FORCE EMPLOYING UNKNOWN ORGANISM

  “Nasties don’t need germ warfare,” muttered brash Ensign Cahill Bralin Nev. Someone else snickered.

  . . . WHICH CONSUMES ALL ORGANIC MATTER. MUST HAVE TECHNICAL AND NAVAL SUPPORT OR COLONY FACES TOTAL ANNIHILATION. THERE IS WEALTH HERE. SAVE OUR SOULS.

  THEODORE TUBBERMAN, COLONY BOTANIST.

  There was an almost embarrassed silence.

  “Hardly the Nasties then,” the captain said dryly. “Probably some old weapon system has been triggered. Perhaps one of the Sifty units we ran into in the Red Sector. I thought only survivor types were chosen to be colonists. Mister Benden, what does Library say about this Pern expedition?”

  Ross didn’t need to search for the official documentation on the Expedition—he knew most of the tale by heart. But he keyed up the file anyway.

  “Captain, a low-tech, agrarian colony was chartered for the third planet of the Rukbat system, under the joint leadership of Admiral Paul Benden and—”

  “Your uncle, I believe.”

  “Yes, Captain,” Ross replied, keeping his tone level. Proud though his entire family was of Paul Benden’s most honorable service record, Ross had taken a lot of gibing during his first cadet year, when his uncle’s victory at Cygnus was telecast as a documentary, and in his third year, when Admiral Benden’s strategy was discussed in Tactics.

  “A most able strategist and a fine commander.” Fargoe’s voice registered approval, but her sideways glance warned Benden not to presume on his uncle’s sterling record. “Continue, mister.”

  “Governor Emily Boll of Altair was the other leader. Six thousand—plus colonists, chartered and contracted, were transported in three ships, Yokohama, Buenos Aires, and Bahrain. The only other communication was the regulation report of a successful landing. No further contact was expected.”

  “Humph. Idealists, were they? Isolating themselves and then screaming for help at the slightest sign of trouble.”

  Ross Benden gritted his teeth, searching for some polite way to assert that Admiral Benden would not have “screamed for help” and bloody well hadn’t sent that craven message.

  Fortunately, after a moment’s thought, the captain went on. “Not Admiral Benden’s style to send a distress message of any kind. So, who’s this Theodore Tubberman, Botanist, who affixed his name to the plea? A Mayday should have been authorized by the colony leaders.”

  “It wasn’t a standard capsule,” Benden replied, having noted that emendation. “But expertly contrapted. It was also sent to Federation headquarters.”

  “Federation headquarters?” Fargoe sat forward, frowning. “Why HQ? Why not the Colonial Authority? Or the Fleet? No, if it wasn’t signed by Admiral Benden, the Fleet would have shifted it to the CA.” Then she sat, chin on one hand, studying the report, scrolling it forward from her armrest keypad. “A nonstandard homing device sent to Federation HQ indicating that the colony was under attack . . . hmm. And nine years after a successful landing, forty-nine years ago.

  “How far are we from the Rukbat system, Mister Benden?”

  “Point-oh-four-five from the heliopause, ma’am. Science Officer Ni Morgana wanted a closer look at that Oort cloud. She’s interested in cometary reservoirs. That’s when I noticed the orange flag on the system.”

  “They wanted squadrons then?” The captain gave a short bark of laughter. “Nearly fifty years ago? Hmmm. No Nastie activity was noticed that soon after the War. This Tubberman fellow doesn’t specify. Maybe that’s what he intended. Big unknown alien life-form attack might have stirred Federation.” She gave a dubious sniff. “What sort of resources does this Pern have, Mister Benden?”

  Benden had anticipated that request and inserted a smaller window on the main screen with the initial survey report. “Pern evidently only had minimal resources, enough to supply the needs of a low-tech colony.”

  “No, that sort of ore and mineral potential wouldn’t have interested any of the syndicates,” the captain mused. “Too costly to use an orbiting refinery or to transport the ores to the nearest facility. Nine years after touchdown? Long enough for those agrarian types to settle in and accumulate reserves. And the EEC doesn’t list any predators.” She paused in her review of the data and made a slight grimace. “Have Lieutenant Ni Morgana report to the bridge,” she ordered the communications officer.

  The captain tapped her fingers on her armrest. “Doesn’t compute that Paul Benden would send any distress message,” she went on. “So where was he when this Tubberman sent off his contraption? Had the menace from outer space done for everyone in authority?”

  “Internal conflict?” Benden suggested, not able to believe his resourceful uncle would have been destroyed by a mere organism after surviving all that the Nastie fleet had thrown at him. That would be ironic. The EEC report listed
no hostile organism on the planet. Of course, no one could completely rule out the admittedly bizarre possibility of an attack by a remnant weapon system. Sections of the galaxy were strewn with the unexploded minefields from ancient wars—and not necessarily of Nastie origin.

  The grav shaft whooshed open and Lieutenant Ni Morgana entered, stood to attention, and snapped off a salute. “Captain?” She tilted her head, awaiting her orders.

  “Ah, Lieutenant, there is not only an Oort cloud surrounding the Rukbat system, but it appears to be an orange-tagged, distress message,” the captain said, gesturing for Ni Morgana to read the data covering several windows on the big screen.

  “Coming on a bit thick, weren’t they? Alien invasion!” Ni Morgana gave a snort of disgust after a quick perusal. “Although . . .” She paused, pursing her mouth. “It’s just possible that the ‘unknown organism’ has been seeded into the cometary cloud to camouflage it.”

  “What are the chances of it containing some engineered organism that attacked the planet fifty years ago?” Captain Fargoe was clearly skeptical.

  “I am hoping that we can obtain samples of the cloud as we pass it, ma’am,” Ni Morgana replied. “It is unusually close in to the system for an Oort cloud.”

  “Have Oort clouds ever been found to harbor natural viruses or an organism that could threaten a planet?”

  “I know of several cases where it’s always been assumed that inimical mechanisms have been launched from one stellar system to another—’berserkers,’ they were called.”

  “Could the organism this Tubberman mentions be a Nastie softening agent? Destroying all organic matter seems like a weapon of some kind, doesn’t it?”