Sky Dragons Dragonriders of Pern

by Anne McCaffrey

  Xhinna joined in: “—to correct them!”

  EIGHTEEN

  A Fall Through Nothing

  As expected, the riders were tired and a bit sleepy after their rich meal, so although they grumbled, they were rather relieved to learn that they wouldn’t be expected to go all the way to the Dawn Sisters on their first flight.

  “Remember, the Dawn Sisters are always following the dawn,” Xhinna said to her riders as they gathered into their assigned pairs. “We’ll start with the first watch at dawn over Eastern’s farthest shore.”

  She held her arms above her head to quell the expected uproar.

  “The first group will pass off the watch to the next group, and so on until we’ve followed the Dawn Sisters all the way around Pern,” Xhinna continued.

  “But we’ll only see dawn, then!” Avarra said.

  “Yes,” Lorana said, moving to stand by Xhinna. “The group that gets dawn at Benden needs to pay special attention. The same for the Telgar group and the High Reaches group.”

  “Why High Reaches, why not Fort?”

  “Because the Isles are more in line with High Reaches than with Fort,” Xhinna explained. “What we’ll do next is we’ll keep coordinated watches over Benden, Telgar, and High Reaches—from our height, we’re certain to spot any Threadfall that occurs during daylight.”

  “So the groups will let the Dawn Sisters pass out of sight?” Jerilli said.

  “Yes, we’ll set it up so that each of the three groups over the Northern Continent watches for eight hours—split into eight pairs each—and we’ll set up a twenty-four-hour watch here, plus we’ll have an all-day guard set at the easternmost tip of the Eastern Isle in case Thread comes at night.”

  “And if Thread does come at night?” someone asked. “We’ve no watch-whers here.”

  “T’mar and the other Weyrleaders are working on that,” Lorana told them.

  “Our mission is to find the Thread when it falls on the Northern Continent at the same time as it’s falling here,” Xhinna told them.

  “Why can’t we go up now?” Jirana asked, her question receiving enthusiastic murmurs.

  “Because to go to the Dawn Sisters now would require us to time it,” Xhinna told them. “And that we can no longer do.”

  “What?” came a stunned chorus.

  “It’s too dangerous,” Xhinna said. “We’re too near the time when D’gan and Fiona—”

  “Oh!” Jirana exclaimed, her voice matched by sounds of understanding from the rest.

  “We’d get trapped—”

  “But Lorana would save us—”

  “Only if she could find us,” Danirry reminded them. “And she only barely found Fiona.”

  Her words prompted a thoughtful silence among the riders.

  “Which is why it’s vital to get good images from the riders already in place,” Xhinna said. “In the meantime, I’d like us to practice going as high as we can—beyond where we can breathe.”

  “What?”

  “It’s been done before,” Xhinna said, raising her voice to quell the protests. “Lorana did it when she went to the Dawn Sisters.”

  All heads turned to the ex-dragonrider. Lorana smiled.

  “Minith and I took extra air with us,” she said. Seeing the puzzled looks of the others, she explained, “When you go between your dragon brings a bubble of air around it.”

  “How will we know when we’re out of air?” Avarra asked.

  “Well, some of you might not know Weyrleader T’mar too well, but those of you who do will not be surprised to hear that he’s come up with an experiment he’d like us to try,” Xhinna told them. “It’ll be important and it will fill the rest of our day—”

  “Then the sooner you tell us, the sooner we can get on with it,” Jepara interjected.

  “We’ll go up in our assigned pairs with the assigned queens keeping watch, but we’ll each bring a sack of firestone—”

  “Firestone!”

  “Some of our dragons haven’t chewed firestone yet!”

  “Which is also part of T’mar’s plan,” Xhinna said, raising her voice once more to be heard. “We’ll start low and get everyone flaming, then we’ll go above the usual levels to see how well and long we can flame there, too. Slowly, we’ll work our way up to the point where the stars come out—”

  “The stars!” Jirana cried excitedly. “Xhinna, please, please, can we get up there, too?”

  “Maybe at the end, little one, when we can have others watch for you—”

  “What are we watching for?” Jerilli asked.

  “We’re watching for when we run out of breathable air,” Xhinna said.

  “It’s not as easy as you might guess,” Bekka chimed in before either Jepara or anyone else could object. “For some, it’s rather like being drunk; for others it’s quite different.”

  “Color starts to go from your sight and you get really sleepy,” Lorana recalled. “That’s the danger: not recognizing the signs in time.”

  “And that’s why we go in pairs and we have a queen keeping tabs,” Xhinna said. She glanced toward Avarra. “No matter what some may think, we haven’t enough blues and greens to be losing any.” She turned toward Seban and said to the ex-dragonrider, “Seban, I’d like you to ride with me on Tazith.”

  Seban’s eyes brightened and he nodded.

  “You could come with me, Daddy,” Bekka offered shyly.

  “I’d like that very much,” Seban told her.

  “Lady Lorana, would you care for a view from the back of a magnificent brown?” R’ney asked with a regal bow toward the ex-dragonrider. Lorana accepted with a polite nod.

  “I’ve already arranged for us to draw firestone,” Xhinna said. “We’ll each take a sack.” She gestured toward the other stone building at the far end of the Meeyu Plateau. “I’ve got a detail of weyrlings standing by.”

  “We get our firestone and then what?” Avarra asked.

  “We’ll meet on the beach, southside below the last clutch of eggs,” Xhinna said. “K’dan has offered to help instruct in chewing and flaming before we take to the skies.”

  “Can we get all this done before dark?” Jerilli wondered.

  “If not, we’ll flame on through the dark,” Xhinna replied. “In fact, T’mar has another experiment—”

  “Why are we not surprised?” Avarra muttered, getting a laugh from the others.

  “There’s a notion that the good air, as it gets colder, gets lower to the ground—”

  “Everyone knows that!” Avarra protested.

  “—the question is how low,” Xhinna continued, ignoring the interruption. “K’dan will start with the wingleaders and wingseconds, then we’ll train the rest of the flight.”

  There were unhappy murmurs from the queen riders who would, by necessity, be excluded from teaching their queens to chew firestone lest they become sterile. Xhinna smiled at Lorana, who took her cue and told them, “While K’dan is teaching them to flame, brown rider R’ney and I will be teaching the queens how to use the agenothree throwers.”

  The queen’s wing flew low, near the ground to catch any Thread that the higher-flying fighting wings might miss. Because queens couldn’t chew firestone and remain fertile, the queen riders used agenothree throwers. The throwers were bulky back-mounted cylinders filled with the agenothree acid and rigged with nozzles that directed the acid spray to burn Thread out of the sky.

  “Excellent!” Bekka and Jepara cried in unison.

  It took over an hour to get all the dragons in the three wings flaming efficiently. By then they’d consumed slightly more than a quarter of the sack of firestone they’d each been issued.

  Xhinna, relaying through Tazith, had the wings separate into their working pairs. With the queens divvied up amongst the groups, they rose to the very highest levels at which dragons normally flew. Xhinna ordered them to confirm that their dragons could still flame and all had the chance to find out how difficult it was for their dragons to cli
mb higher—R’ney’s brown and all the larger queens found they could still climb feebly, but the blues and greens were at their limit.

  Then, with Lorana relaying, they went between to emerge a thousand meters farther up, the dragons flapping their wings frantically.

  Stop, Lorana’s voice echoed calmly through the group. Slowly, one by one, the dragons stopped flapping—and discovered that they were falling no faster than when they had been flapping. Flame.

  With some surprise, the dragons discovered that they could still flame, which calmed them.

  Again they went between and up another thousand meters. When they’d climbed four thousand meters above their normal height—nearly seven thousand meters above the ground—the dragons found they couldn’t flame and their riders complained of the cold.

  Back! Lorana sent, accompanied by the image of the warm sands of the beach.

  The blessed warmth engulfed them and Xhinna took a deep breath, only to let it out in a rush.

  Where’s Mirressa? Tazith, where’s Valcanth?

  I see her! Lorana’s mental voice called, and before Xhinna could react, R’ney’s brown Rowerth, Bekka’s Pinorth, and Jepara’s Sarurth were all arcing skyward heading toward—

  —a small dark shape, limply plummeting from the sky above them.

  The two queens and one brown were suddenly joined by a burst of brilliant bronze dragons moving toward them, forming a large canopy beneath the dot, which resolved into the shape of a small green with a rider flopping about—Xhinna was glad that she’d insisted on full fighting straps for everyone.

  The queens and the brown edged under the falling shape and the bronzes made a stairway beneath them. The green was caught by the queens and the brown, then passed from one pair of bronzes to the next until finally the limp pair were reverently lowered to the soft sand.

  Xhinna and Seban were off of Tazith’s back and rushing across the sands to the limp green and her rider before anyone else could move.

  “Mirressa! Mirressa!” Xhinna shouted. Oh, don’t be dead! she cried to herself. Please don’t be dead! She pulled her belt knife and started to hack at the straps that tied the motionless form onto her green’s neck.

  “She’s not breathing!” Seban shouted. How could he know that? Xhinna wondered dimly even as she pulled the green rider off her mount—and then she realized: Seban was talking about green Valcanth.

  Lorana! Fiona! Help Valcanth! Xhinna cried, knowing that Tazith would relay her plea without urging.

  “I’m here!” a small voice piped up. It was Jirana, racing up to join them.

  What could one little—Xhinna cut the thought off as she saw the cold, pale, blue skin of Mirressa. “No!”

  She pulled Mirressa down and laid her on the ground.

  “No time, now, Xhinna, you’ve got to breathe for her,” someone else ordered. Taria. And suddenly she was beside her. “You know what to do.” Taria turned over her shoulder to shout, “Someone get a board, something we can put under her!”

  “I’m here.”

  Xhinna hardly heard Bekka’s voice. She was already leaning forward, opening Mirressa’s mouth, and ensuring that she hadn’t swallowed her tongue. She leaned down and gave Mirressa two quick breaths as she’d been taught, then turned aside, gasping in breath for the both of them and listening to the air coming out of Mirressa’s still body.

  “Stand aside, we’ve got the board!” a strong male voice cried. Recognizing M’gel, Xhinna stood and moved back. A crowd had gathered. She turned to see Lorana and Jirana standing by Valcanth’s head, their eyes closed, their bodies taut, expressions strained.

  Tazith! Xhinna called. Valcanth must breathe! She reached out to the rest of her wing. Help Valcanth breathe!

  She moved over to Lorana and stood behind her and Jirana. For one startled moment, she noticed that the two were breathing in unison and then she closed her eyes, reached out, and joined in. She felt others come join her, bound in by the will of their dragons, even as she felt Taria position herself with Mirressa.

  And slowly, the cold, still shape of the dragon changed. A twitch, a judder, and then—

  “She’s breathing!” Jirana’s cry was marked by sobs and a heaving chest. “She’s breathing!”

  “They’re both breathing!” Taria exclaimed.

  Xhinna opened her eyes just in time to see Lorana rushing toward the green’s head. Valcanth’s eyelids were fluttering.

  You’re fine, Lorana assured the dragon. Mirressa is fine. You’ll both do fine.

  Xhinna’s attention returned to the small form in front of her: Jirana, shoulders shaking miserably, bawling quietly to herself. Xhinna moved around to kneel before the small queen rider.

  Quietly she said, “You knew, didn’t you?” She gestured toward Mirressa. “You knew that was going to happen.”

  Jirana’s brown eyes opened and met Xhinna’s dark blue ones. Xhinna pulled the girl tight against her. “It’s over,” she said soothingly, “you did it, it’s over.”

  “You can’t tell anyone,” Jirana whispered into Xhinna’s hair. “It’s the Sight.”

  Xhinna stiffened as she heard the words. Jirana added, “It’s not over. It’s going to get worse.”

  Xhinna pulled back and, with all the tenderness of a big sister, kissed Jirana’s tears away before hugging her once more and whispering back, “Thank you for trusting me.”

  Jirana sniffed and slowly got herself back under control. With one final grateful nod, she pulled away from Xhinna, saying, “I’m all right now.”

  Xhinna gave her a half-smile and stood up. “Of course you are.”

  “Okay, now explain it again,” Lorana said calmly to Mirressa after they’d fortified the green rider with warm klah and food.

  “I was cold,” Mirressa said. “And Valcanth was cold, too, and then—all of a sudden—I was toasty warm, all dreamy and nice. And we were falling, but it didn’t matter because we were so warm—”

  “Did your cheeks tingle?” Lorana asked.

  Mirressa’s brows puckered and her hands rose involuntarily to her face. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe.”

  “That’s the danger,” Bekka said, turning to face the rest of the gathered wings. “The danger is that this creeps up unnoticed and then—” She gestured to Mirressa.

  “So the moment you feel the slightest bit strange,” Lorana said, pointing a finger to the ground, “come back down.”

  “But—” Avarra started in protest.

  “No matter what, come down,” Lorana told her. “We can’t afford to lose you.”

  “But what if coming down means missing Thread?” Avarra blurted.

  “We can always send up replacements,” Xhinna said. “We lose less time sending up a replacement early than trying to catch a falling dragon.”

  “Shards, that’s too true!” Jepara murmured from where she sat next to Mirressa. Mirressa looked up at her and made a face, but Jepara, to Xhinna’s surprise, merely shushed the green rider and stroked her hair while, on the other side of her, Meeya patted the green rider’s shoulder.

  “We should have seen it,” Devon said with a frown. “We should have noticed—”

  “We were all coming back,” Xhinna said. “We only noticed when we started to count heads.”

  “Something you do instinctively,” Lorana said, casting an approving look at her.

  “I should have seen it,” Danirry said in a very small voice. “I’m sorry, Mirressa, I should have noticed—”

  “You were a dragonlength away, how could you?” Mirressa replied. “No, I should have realized—”

  “The thing is, this will be different for everyone,” Bekka said, cutting across the growing recriminations. She turned to Lorana and Xhinna. “What we really need to do is set it up so that everyone gets a chance to know what it feels like for them.”

  “You want to risk every one of us?” Avarra cried in surprise. She was backed by a tumult of agreeing murmurs.

  “It’s the only way to k
now for certain,” Bekka retorted firmly. She gestured toward Mirressa. “Unless you want to hope we’ll catch you when we’re not even looking.”

  Jerilli protested, “How can we hope to take watch when—”

  “I think we’ll do what Bekka says,” Xhinna said.

  “If only we could do it without all the risk,” Avarra said. “If only we could find out while still here on the ground.”

  “You can,” Jirana piped up. “Just hold your breath.”

  “What?” several riders cried.

  “No offense, little rider,” Avarra said, careful to remain respectful of a queen rider, “but—”

  “She’s right,” Bekka said. She held up a hand. “Oh, it won’t be quite the same, but it would give you an idea, a starting point as it were.”

  “I wish we’d thought of it sooner,” Lorana said. Then she shrugged. “They do say that the burnt hand learns best about fire.”

  She turned to Xhinna, passing the job on to her.

  Xhinna smiled at her in acknowledgment, took a deep breath, and then said, “Here’s what we’ll do: We’ll break into our pairs and each will hold their breath until they can’t, while the other will count the time. We’ll mark it and switch off.” She turned to Mirressa. “You and Danirry will sit this out, I’ll have you two recording—”

  “But—” Danirry started in protest only to be cut off by Xhinna’s look. “Very well.”

  It took close to an hour for everyone to complete the drill satisfactorily and mark the times. At Avarra’s suggestion, they tried twice.

  The longest anyone could hold their breath was just a bit more than a slow count of seventy—an honor split between R’ney and Avarra. The young queen riders insisted on being included and had the shortest times, being still in their growth, while the smaller riders, surprisingly, had mixed results. Xhinna was pleased with her count of sixty-seven and worried by Taria’s count of fifty-three.

  “Okay, now it’s time to learn Lorana’s trick,” Xhinna said when she and the other two wingleaders were satisfied.

  “I don’t know if it’s a trick, really,” Lorana said. “It’s easiest to try if we go up way high.”