The Best Military Science Fiction of the 20th Century

by Harry Turtledove

  “I’d as soon Kylara were Turns as well as miles away from here,” Lessa snapped, thoroughly irritated.

  F’LAR’S JAW DROPPED, his eyes widened. He leaped to his feet with an astonished cry.

  “You’ve said it!”

  “Said what?”

  “Turns away! That’s it. We’ll send Kylara back, between times, with her queen and the new dragonets.” F’lar excitedly paced the room while Lessa tried to follow his reasoning. “No, I’d better send at least one of the older bronzes. F’nor, too…I’d rather have F’nor in charge…Discreetly, of course.”

  “Send Kylara back…where to? When to?” Lessa interrupted him.

  “Good point,” and F’lar dragged out the ubiquitous charts. “Very good point. Where can we send them around here without causing anomalies by being present at one of the other Weyrs? The High Reaches are remote. No, we’ve found remains of fires there, you know, still warm, and no inkling as to who built them or why. And if we had already sent them back, they’d’ve been ready for today and they weren’t. So they can’t have been in two places already…” He shook his head, dazed by the paradoxes.

  Lessa’s eyes were drawn to the blank outline of the neglected southern continent.

  “Send them there,” she suggested sweetly, pointing.

  “There’s nothing there.”

  “They bring in what they need. There must be water, for Threads can’t devour that. We fly in whatever else is needed, fodder for the herdbeasts, grain…”

  F’lar drew his brows together in concentration, his eyes sparkling with thought, the depression and defeat of a few moments ago forgotten.

  “Threads wouldn’t be there ten Turns ago. And haven’t been there for close to four hundred. Ten Turns would give Pridith time to mature and have several clutches. Maybe more queens.”

  Then he frowned and shook his head. “No, there’s no Weyr there. No Hatching Ground, no…”

  “How do we know that?” Lessa caught him up sharply, too delighted with many aspects of this project to give it up easily. “The Records don’t mention the southern continent, true, but they omit a great deal. How do we know it isn’t green again in the four hundred Turns since the Threads last spun? We do know that Threads can’t last long unless there is something organic on which to feed and that once they’ve devoured all, they dry up and blow away.”

  F’lar looked at her admiringly. “Now, why hasn’t someone wondered about that before?”

  “Too hidebound.” Lessa wagged her finger at him, dedicated completely to this venture. “And there’s been no need to bother with it.”

  “Necessity…or is it jealousy…hatches many a tough shell.” There was a smile of pure malice on his face and Lessa whirled away as he reached for her.

  “The good of the Weyr,” she retorted.

  “Furthermore, I’ll send you along with F’nor tomorrow to look. Only fair, since it is your idea.”

  Lessa stood still. “You’re not going?”

  “I feel confident I can leave this project in your very capable, interested hands,” he laughed and caught her against his uninjured side, smiling down at her, his eyes glowing. “I must play ruthless Weyrleader and keep the Hold Lords from slamming shut their Inner Doors. And I’m hoping,” he raised his head, frowning slightly, “one of the Craftmasters may know the solution to the third problem…getting rid of Thread burrows.”

  “But…”

  “The trip will give Ramoth something to stop her fuming.” He pressed the girl’s slender body more closely to him, his full attention at last on her odd, delicate face. “Lessa, you are my fourth problem.” He bent to kiss her.

  At the sound of hurried steps in the passageway, F’lar scowled irritably, releasing her.

  “At this hour?” he muttered, ready to reprove the intruder scathingly. “Who goes there?”

  “F’lar?” It was F’nor’s voice, anxious, hoarse.

  The look on F’lar’s face told Lessa that not even his half brother would be spared a reprimand and it pleased her irrationally. But the moment F’nor burst into the room, both Weyrleader and Weyrwoman were stunned silent. There was something subtly wrong with the brown rider. And, as the man blurted out his incoherent message, the difference suddenly registered in Lessa’s mind. He was tanned! He wore no bandages and hadn’t the slightest trace of the Thread mark along his cheek that she had tended this evening!

  “F’lar, it’s not working out! You can’t be alive in two times at once!” F’nor was exclaiming distractedly. He staggered against the wall, grabbing the sheer rock to hold himself upright. There were deep circles under his eyes, visible despite the tan. “I don’t know how much longer we can last like this. We’re all affected. Some days not as badly as others.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Your dragons are all right,” F’nor assured the Weyrleader with a bitter laugh. “It doesn’t bother them. They keep all their wits about them. But their riders…all the weyrfolk. We’re shadows, half-alive, like dragonless men, part of us gone forever. Except Kylara.” His face contorted with intense dislike. “All she wants to do is go back and watch herself. The woman’s egomania will destroy us all, I’m afraid.”

  His eyes suddenly lost focus and he swayed wildly. His eyes widened and his mouth fell open. “I can’t stay. I’m here already. Too close. Makes it twice as bad. But I had to warn you. I promise, F’lar, we’ll stay as long as we can but it won’t be much longer…so it won’t be long enough, but we tried. We tried!”

  Before F’lar could move, the brown rider whirled and ran, half-crouched, from the room.

  “But he hasn’t gone yet!” Lessa gasped. “He hasn’t even gone yet!”

  F’LAR STARED AFTER his half brother, his brows contracting with the keen anxiety he felt.

  “What can have happened?” Lessa demanded of the Weyrleader. “We haven’t even told F’nor. We ourselves just finished considering the idea of exploring the southern continent; to see if we could send dragons back and give Pridith a chance to lay a few clutches. And he looked so tanned and healthy.” Her hand flew to her own cheek. “And the Threadmark—I dressed it myself tonight—it’s gone. Gone. So he’s been gone a long while.” She sank down to the bench.

  “However, he has come back. So he did go,” F’lar remarked slowly in a reflective tone of voice. “Yet we now know the venture is not entirely successful even before it begins. And knowing this we have sent him back ten Turns, for whatever good it is doing.” F’lar paused thoughtfully. “Consequently we have no alternative but to continue with the experiment.”

  “But what could be going wrong?”

  “I think I know and there is no remedy.” He sat down beside her, his eyes intent on hers. “Lessa, you were very upset when you got back from going between to Ruatha that first time. But I think now it was more than just the shock of seeing Fax’s men invading your own Hold or in thinking your return might have been responsible for that disaster. I think it has to do with being in two times at once.” He hesitated again, trying to understand this immense new concept even as he voiced it.

  Lessa regarded him with such awe that he found himself laughing with embarrassment.

  “It’s unnerving under any conditions,” he went on, “to think of returning and seeing a younger self.”

  “That must be what he meant about Kylara,” Lessa gasped, “about her wanting to go back and watch herself…as a child. Oh, that wretched girl!” Lessa was filled with anger for Kylara’s self-absorption. “Wretched selfish creature. She’ll ruin everything.”

  “Not yet,” F’lar reminded her. “Look, although F’nor warned us that the situation in his time is getting desperate, he didn’t tell us how much he was able to accomplish. But you noticed that his scar had healed to invisibility, consequently some Turns must have elapsed. Even if Pridith lays only one good-sized clutch, even if just the forty of Ramoth’s are mature enough to fight in three days’ time, we have accomplished something. Therefore,
Weyrwoman,” and he noticed how she straightened up at the sound of her title, “we must disregard F’nor’s return. When you fly to the southern continent tomorrow, make no allusion to it. Do you understand?”

  Lessa nodded gravely and then gave a little sigh. “I don’t know if I’m happy or disappointed to realize, even before we get there tomorrow, that the southern continent obviously will support a Weyr,” she said with dismay. “It was kind of exciting to wonder.”

  “Either way,” F’lar told her with a sardonic smile, “we have found only part of the answers to problems one and two.”

  “Well, you’d better answer number four right now!” Lessa suggested. “Decisively!”

  Weaver, Miner, Harper, Smith,

  Tanner, Farmer, Herdsman, Lord,

  Gather wingspeed, listen well

  To the Weyrman’s urgent word.

  They both managed to guard against any reference to his premature return when they spoke to F’nor the next morning. F’lar asked brown Canth to send his rider to the queen’s weyr as soon as he awoke and was pleased to see F’nor almost immediately. If the brown rider noticed the curiously intent stare Lessa gave his bandaged face, he gave no sign of it. As a matter of fact, the moment F’lar outlined the bold venture of scouting the southern continent with the possibility of starting a weyr ten Turns back in time, F’nor forgot all about his wounds.

  “I’ll go willingly only if you send T’bor along with Kylara. I’m not waiting till N’ton and his bronze are big enough to take her on. T’bor and she are as…” F’nor broke off with a grimace in Lessa’s direction, “…well, they’re as near a pair as can be. I don’t object to being…importuned, but there are limits to what a man is willing to do out of loyalty to dragonkind.”

  F’lar barely managed to restrain the amusement he felt over F’nor’s reluctance. Kylara tried her wiles on every rider and, because F’nor had not been amenable, she was determined to succeed with him.

  “I hope two bronzes are enough. Pridith may have a mind of her own, come mating time.”

  “You can’t turn a brown into a bronze!” F’nor exclaimed with such dismay F’lar could no longer restrain himself. “Oh, stop it!” And that touched off Lessa’s laughter. “You’re as bad a pair,” he snapped, getting to his feet. “If we’re going south, Weyrwoman, we’d better get started. Particularly if we’re going to give this laughing maniac a chance to compose himself before the solemn Lords descend. I’ll get provisions from Manora. Well, Lessa? Are you coming with me?”

  Muffling her laughter, Lessa grabbed up her furred flying cloak and followed him. At least the adventure was starting off well.

  F’lar grabbed the pitcher of klah and his cup and adjourned to the Council Room, debating whether to tell the Lords and Craftmasters of this southern venture or not. The dragon’s ability to fly between times as well as places was not yet well known. The Lords might not yet realize it had been used the previous day to forestall the Threads. If he could be sure that project was going to be successful, well, it would add an optimistic note to the meeting.

  Let the charts, with the waves and times of the Thread attacks clearly visible, reassure the Lords.

  THE VISITORS WERE not long in assembling. Nor were they all successful in hiding their apprehension and the shock they had received now that Threads had again spun down from the Red Star to menace all life on Pern. This was going to be a difficult session, F’lar decided grimly. He had a fleeting wish, which he quickly suppressed, that he had gone with F’nor and Lessa to the southern continent. Instead, he bent with apparent industry to the charts before him.

  Soon there were but two more to come, Meron of Nabol (whom he would have liked not to include for the man was a troublemaker) and Lytol of Ruatha. He had sent for Lytol last because he did not wish Lessa to encounter the man. She was still overly, and, to his mind, foolishly, sensitive over resigning her claim to Ruatha Hold for Lady Gemma’s posthumous son. Lytol as Warder of Ruatha had a place in this conference. The man was also an ex-dragonman, and his return to the Weyr was painful enough without Lessa compounding it with her resentment. Lytol had turned to the Weaver’s craft after his dragon’s death and his compulsory exile from the Weyr. He was, with the exception of young Larad of Telgar, the Weyr’s most valuable ally.

  S’lel came in with Meron a step behind him. The Holder was furious at this summons; it showed in his walk, in his eyes, in his haughty bearing. But he was also as inquisitive as he was devious. He nodded only to Larad among the Lords and took the seat left vacant for him by Larad’s side. Meron’s manner made it obvious that that place was too close to F’lar by half a room.

  The Weyrleader acknowledged S’lel’s salute and indicated the bronze rider should be seated. F’lar had given thought to the seating arrangements in the Council Room, carefully interspersing brown and bronze dragonriders with Holders and Craftsmen. There was now barely room to move in the generously proportioned cavern, but there was also no room in which to draw daggers if tempers got hot.

  A hush fell on the gathering and F’lar looked up to see that the stocky, glowering ex-dragonman from Ruatha had stopped at the threshold of the Council. He slowly brought his hand up in a respectful salute to the Weyrleader. As F’lar returned the salute, he noticed that the tic in Lytol’s left cheek jumped almost continuously.

  Lytol’s eyes, dark with pain and inner unquiet, ranged the room. He nodded to the members of his former wing, to Larad and Zurg, head of his own Weaver’s Craft. Stiff-legged he walked to the remaining seat, murmuring a greeting to T’sum on his left.

  F’LAR ROSE.

  “I appreciate your coming, good Lords and Craftmasters. The Threads spin once again. The first attack has been met and seared from the sky. Lord Vincet,” and the worried Holder of Nerat looked up in alarm, “we have dispatched a patrol to the rainforest to do a low-flight sweep to make certain there are no burrows.”

  Vincet swallowed nervously, his face paling at the thought of what Threads could do to his fertile, lush holdings.

  “We shall need your best junglemen to help…”

  “Help…but you said…the Threads were seared in the sky?”

  “There is no point in taking the slightest chance,” F’lar replied, implying the patrol was only a precaution instead of the necessity he knew it would be.

  Vincet gulped, glancing anxiously around the room for sympathy—and found none. Everyone would soon be in his position.

  “There is a patrol due at Keroon and at Igen,” and F’lar looked first at Lord Corman, then Lord Banger, who gravely nodded. “Let me say, by way of reassurance, that there will be no further attacks for three days and four hours.” F’lar tapped the appropriate chart. “The Threads will begin approximately here on Telgar, drift westward through the southernmost portion of Crom, which is mountainous, and on, through Ruatha and the southern end of Nabol.”

  “How can you be so certain of that?”

  F’lar recognized the contemptuous voice of Meron of Nabol.

  “The Threads do not fall like a child’s tumble-sticks, Lord Meron,” F’lar replied. “They fall in a definitely predictable pattern; the attacks last exactly six hours. The intervals between attacks will gradually shorten over the next few Turns as the Red Star draws closer. Then, for about forty full Turns, as the Red Star swings past and around us, the attacks occur every fourteen hours, marching across our world in a timetable fashion.”

  “So you say,” Meron sneered and there was a low mumble of support.

  “So the Teaching Ballads say,” Larad put in firmly.

  Meron glared at Telgar’s Lord and went on, “I recall another of your predictions about how the Threads were supposed to begin falling right after Solstice.”

  “Which they did,” F’lar interrupted him. “As black dust in the Northern Holds. For the reprieve we’ve had, we can thank our lucky stars that we have had an unusually hard and long Cold Turn.”

  “Dust?” demanded Nessel of Crom. “That dust
was Threads?” The man was one of Fax’s blood connections and under Meron’s influence: an older man who had learned lessons from his conquering relative’s bloody ways and had not the wit to improve on or alter the original. “My Hold is still blowing with them. They’re dangerous?”

  F’lar shook his head emphatically. “How long has the black dust been blowing in your Hold? Weeks? Done any harm yet?”

  Nessel frowned.

  “I’m interested in your charts, Weyrleader,” Larad of Telgar said smoothly. “Will they give us an accurate idea of how often we may expect Threads to fall in our own Holds?”

  “Yes. You may also anticipate that the dragonmen will arrive shortly before the invasion is due,” F’lar went on. “However, additional measures of your own are necessary and it is for this that I called the Council.”

  “Wait a minute,” Corman of Keroon growled. “I want a copy of those fancy charts of yours for my own. I want to know what those bands and wavy lines really mean. I want…”

  “Naturally you’ll have a timetable of your own. I mean to impose on Masterharper Robinton,” and F’lar nodded respectfully towards that Craftmaster, “to oversee the copying and make sure everyone understands the timing involved.”

  Robinton, a tall, gaunt man with a lined, saturnine face, bowed deeply. A slight smile curved his wide lips at the now hopeful glances favored him by the Hold Lords. His craft, like that of the dragonman, had been much mocked and this new respect amused him. He was a man with a keen eye for the ridiculous, and an active imagination. The circumstances in which doubting Pern found itself were too ironic not to appeal to his innate sense of justice. He now contented himself with a deep bow and a mild phrase.

  “Truly all shall pay heed to the master.” His voice was deep, his words enunciated with no provincial slurring.

  F’lar, about to speak, looked sharply at Robinton as he caught the double barb of that single line. Larad, too, looked around at the Masterharper, clearing his throat hastily.