The Skies of Pern

by Anne McCaffrey

  There had been no more Abominator attacks after the spate at Turn’s End, but that didn’t mean there weren’t more being planned. Tagetarl had never figured out just how discards from the medical texts he’d printed a Turn ago had gotten into their hands. To be on the safe side, the Printer Hall now shredded all imperfect sheets.

  “True, and it’s a fine strong gate,” Pinch said, coming forward into the pool of light from the desk lamp.

  He was not tall and his angular face, blurred now with dirt and fatigue, had no distinguishing features. His present apparel was Keroon hill folk, and smelled it. His ability to blend into his surroundings, to imitate the accents and manners of speech in any quarter of Pern, north and south, along with his keen ears and sharp eyes made him the ideal observer. His very active, cynical mind allowed him to interpret what he heard. Pinch cocked his foot around a stool and pulled it to him, sitting down as if he hadn’t a care in the world. An engaging smile showed very even teeth, and there was a clever twinkle in his brown eyes.

  “I didn’t use the gate. Didn’t really expect you to be up at this hour so I came in—”

  “Across the roof again? One day you’ll fall through the weaver’s roof.”

  “Oh, it’s safe enough. Rosheen’s Ola came to investigate, by the bye, but when she saw it was me—”

  “It was I,” Tagetarl mercilessly corrected.

  “—and Bista, she went back to bed.” Pinch clicked his tongue. “Say hello to the MasterPrinter, Bista.” The little gold creature, who looked like an extra scarf around the harper’s neck, cocked her head and blinked her green gemstone eyes at the Printer. “So why are you up?”

  Tagetarl jerked his thumb at the proofs he’d been correcting. “If you ever encounter someone in your travels who can spell and who recognizes proper sentence structure and syntax, I’ve a job for him, her, preferably them.”

  Pinch gave a sharp nod. “I’ll keep my eyes open.”

  “I know you will. So what brings you over my roof at this time of night?”

  “It’s nearly day,” Pinch corrected kindly. “I’ve been checking a few things, snooping about isolated holds and trader sites, sitting in Runner stations. Keroon has all sorts of hill folk, you know, the kind that don’t want their kids Harper-taught or Healed. Then there’re the ones who aren’t really hill folk. Who get too many visitors and have had very interesting indoor occupations.”

  He reached into his jacket and removed a square of much-folded paper. Carefully he opened it to reveal small sketches: full face and profile.

  “Mind you, I wasn’t exactly an invited visitor, but I found me a spot to watch and make a few notes. I can flesh these out better with some decent paper and a carbon point.” He looked inquiringly at Tagetarl. “Paper, Master? Pencils? Aivas’s latest improvement on ink?”

  “Hill folk?”

  “No, people living in the hills. Paper? Pencil?” He hooked the stool closer to the desk.

  Immediately, Tagetarl gathered up the pages he was working on, swiftly rearranging them into a neat stack out of Pinch’s way. From a drawer, he pulled fresh paper, as well as a collection of different drawing tools. “Sit! Sit! D’you need klah, food, wine?”

  Pinch grabbed a sharp carbon stick with one hand as he turned the sheaf of paper to his right—he was left-handed—and began sketching. “Thanks, yes, yes, and yes. And something for Bista. We came straight here without a stop, using Runner traces. They let me, you know. Give me tips. Good folk, Runners. Get me some food and drink, man, just don’t stand there gawking.”

  When Tagetarl returned, lugging a heavy tray along with a bowl of fresh meat for Bista, Pinch continued speaking as if the Printer hadn’t left the room.

  “Told the Runners not to worry about mechanical things. Wouldn’t want one of those things squawking about my person, I can tell you. It’d make folks notice me, and I don’t need to be noticed. Anyway, I’ll always trust legs over spare parts.” He gave Tagetarl a sideways grin, full of malice. “Have a traditional outlook on life, you know.” And when the Masterprinter snorted at such a remark from such a source, he added, “Well, I do. It’s why I risk life and limb on Harper business.”

  Bista finished her meal and curled up on a shelf. By then, Pinch had completed one sketch and tossed it to the side, making the first line of the next sketch even before Tagetarl could pick up the first one.

  Tagetarl examined the drawing. It was economically drawn, but it vividly depicted a big man, his right shoulder cocked up, a high forehead, black brows, a zigzag scar from his right temple and down the side of his nose to a gouge on his cheek, a thick, wide-bridged nose, gaunt cheeks, a thin mouth, a narrow chin, and a scrawny throat with a pronounced larynx. The left hand, which he was holding up as if to warm at a fire, was missing the first joint of the index finger. His clothes—the usual heavy leather tunic and trousers—were worn and patched. Thongs just under his knee in typical hill-style tied leggings, and his boots were long and thin, the leather cracked from wading through too many streams or bogs.

  Using his right hand, Pinch pushed some bread and cheese into his mouth and washed that down with a long swallow of beer, while the left kept drawing. A real gift, Tagetarl thought, especially for someone involved in discreet surveillance. But then Master Robinton, the late MasterHarper, had had the ability to command the talents of many unusual men and women. Before the Present Pass and the awakening of Aivas, when dragonriders had been denigrated and even the Harper Hall in jeopardy, Master Robinton had made use of rare talents—harpers, men and women, who knew their way about most of the settled holds and halls, large and small. Tagetarl had met Nip, the first roving harper who had nonspecific assignments and rarely sang. What Nip’s real name was, no one remembered now. Nip had trained Tuck, another nonconformist, and had taken Sebell along for some projects as Sebell, in turn, had made use of Piemur’s unusually quick mind and abilities. Now Pinch had been added to the roster, along with two others Tagetarl knew about but was not sure that he had met.

  Tagetarl concentrated on committing the first face to memory. Rather pugnacious all totaled, the Printer thought: the sort that would worry a crack in a cliff until it became a cave.

  The next one Pinch finished was of a man who looked vaguely familiar. Younger than the first man, he was taller and well-fleshed, with a darker but not weathered skin and short fair hair. A pinched mouth suggested selfishness and obstinacy, and the eyes had a sly cast to them. His expression was both amused and supercilious.

  A woman was the third: her stance—her left hand holding her right elbow—was awkward, her eyes wide and avid as if listening to instructions that she would strive to carry out. She, too, was clad as a hill woman, but the clothes did not fit either her body or her manner.

  “These three were visitors, received with much fuss and fawned over. Stayed several days and talked most earnestly in low voices. Plotting probably. What, I couldn’t hear, though I tried. I’d like these to get to Sebell as soon as possible. D’you think Ola would oblige? Bista’s exhausted.”

  “Of course,” Tagetarl said with gratification. Menolly had helped Rosheen train her queen. This wouldn’t be the first time Ola had flown discreet errands.

  “I’ll do the others when I’ve had a rest,” Pinch said. He popped more bread and cheese into his mouth as he rose to his feet. His abrupt movement startled a chirp out of sleeping Bista. Absently, his left hand stroked her. “Can I indulge in a bath? I have to keep to these clothes.” He held a fold away from his body with repugnance. “But I’d enjoy sleeping one night—or rather a full day—smelling clean.”

  “Yes, of course. I’ll see no one goes banging about under you,” Tagetarl said with a reassuring grin.

  Pinch often made use of the loft above the outbuildings where paper and other supplies were stored. When the Print Hall expanded, as Tagetarl earnestly hoped it would, apprentices would sleep up there, but right now, it made a handy lair when Pinch wished to make inconspicuous visits.

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nbsp; “That would be appreciated.” Pinch took another wedge of cheese and the last of the bread and left.

  Tagetarl prepared a message cylinder for Ola, saw her off, and went to his own room. Rosheen sighed when he lay down beside her and, sleepily, she turned toward him for comfort.

  Benden Weyr—midday—1.3.31

  With the other Wingleaders, F’lessan attended a pre-Fall meeting in one corner of the Lower Caverns.

  “It’s the Ten pattern, so we meet it over the Eastern Sea and Igen joins us for the last hour over south Lemos,” F’lar said, his eyes making a quick keen appraisal of each of the eighteen Wingleaders sitting around him. “Weather’s cold and dull, but the visibility is good.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, F’lessan noticed that everyone was trying to look as alert as possible. The entire Weyr had been turned out to search for the four men involved in wrecking Benden’s Healer Hall. The details the injured journeyman recalled about his attackers would have described half the male population of any hold; the only thing he was certain about was that they were not from Benden. Runners had agreed to spread word of the attack and ask isolated holds to report strangers. G’bol had scrupulously followed up one report, but the men had been honest traders.

  Two of the oldest Wingleaders had not been called to fly this Fall, and F’lessan wished that F’lar would take a Fall or two off now and then. While he was more apt to listen to G’bol than anyone else, F’lar ignored the merest hint of letting anyone else lead his Weyr. No one would fault him, but the Weyrleader made no exceptions for himself, bar the very few occasions each Turn when Mnementh had taken a score or strained a wing.

  F’lar assigned the levels and F’lessan jerked his attention back to the business at hand. His wing was high again: a measure of F’lar’s trust in his leadership.

  “Warn your younger riders that dull conditions can blur Thread in the higher reaches,” F’lar continued. “Measure the wind as soon as you can. We’ll know how the Thread falls, when it falls. We gather on the Rim in ten minutes. Good flying!”

  As they filed out, closing their jackets, settling their helmets, and pulling on their gloves, F’lessan felt the air of anticipation that always gripped him, speeding his pulse, deepening his breath.

  On the ledges of their weyrs, green and blue riders were already mounted, firestone sacks on either side of dragon necks; some brown and bronze riders were still collecting sacks, launching from the Bowl to the Weyr Rim. Wingleader bronzes were drifting down to meet their riders in an orderly confusion. Golanth hovered above the ground to his left. F’lessan, judging the distance neatly, ran and vaulted to his back.

  Golanth pumped his wings skillfully and circled, dropping down to his position on the Rim, between the wingseconds and in front of the twenty-two strong wing.

  The green reserves are ready and will bring us sacks when you call them, Golanth reported.

  As he fastened his safety straps and pulled up the fur-lined tops of his boots—his knees were always cold by the end of a Fall—F’lessan thought of Tai, wondering what it would be like to have her in his wing.

  Zaranth is bigger than any of the others, his dragon remarked, turning his head slightly so that the left many-faceted eye reflected a view of his rider in the mid-planes. Firestone, please! He twisted his head to his rider’s leg and dutifully F’lessan supplied him from the bulging sack.

  Deftly Golanth tipped his head back, positioning the rock on his thick grinders. Then, exercising great care not to bite the edge of his tongue, he began to chew—as did every other dragon on the Rim. Five pieces F’lessan fed his bronze, sufficient for Golanth to work up a proper flame.

  From the bowl rose the four Benden queens. As they circled up, all eyes on the Rim turned to the Weyrleader and Mnementh. F’lar’s arm was raised; F’lessan held his high. The queens completed their last circle up, above the Rim, heading north-northeast.

  You know where to go? F’lessan formally asked his dragon.

  We all know! Golanth answered.

  Mnementh roared and sprang forward just as F’lar’s arm came down in the command to take wing. As one, dragons leaped upward. Then, as every one of the four hundred and eighty-four Benden dragons was a-wing, they went between.

  They came out again in an air almost as cold as between. It hadn’t been bright at Benden, but here, above the Eastern Sea, the sky was grayer: a shade that would make the silvery strands of falling Thread more difficult to see. Benden Weyr faced the probable entry of Thread, glad to have the wind behind them as the wings sorted themselves to their assigned levels. Far below, F’lessan could make out the queens’ wings, small dots against the gray of snowy land and pewter sea. Ahead of him, almost motionless, was F’lar, he and Mnementh as ever leading them by several dragon-lengths.

  This was the worst part of a Fall, F’lessan felt, and, with a glove-thickened finger, he pushed the thick new scarf against his goggles. He tucked his left boot top against his inner leg, and then checked the firestone sacks dangling down Golanth’s withers before peering at the sky for any trace of Thread. Sometimes blinking helped.

  It comes! Golanth told him and stroked his wings forward.

  Mnementh’s flame spouted brilliant orange and accurately seared the first Thread to fall.

  There was nothing wrong with the Weyrleader’s eyesight, F’lessan thought as he squinted to see the first Threads slanting down. He felt a primitive surge of elation as he and his dragon once more attacked their ancient adversary.

  Monaco Bay Weyr—five days later—1.8.31

  Sunlight woke Tai—hot sunlight. She kept her eyes closed as her mind roused to awareness. If the sun was on her face, it was almost noon. She was in her hammock between two big frond trees whose great draping leaves usually shielded her very well. The sun must now be close to its zenith. As usual, her face was turned toward the wallow that Zaranth used as a weyr. The green dragon was in full sun—just as she liked it, head between her forelegs, wings slightly drooping from her backbone so that their folds would absorb the heat. Many dragonriders had pondered the question: did dragons store heat in their bodies for their forays into between? Zaranth had one eyelid open. By the gleam of the slit, she was watching something very carefully.

  One of the disadvantages of living in the open was the insect population, in myriad forms: some scratched, even burrowed in flesh if possible; some merely moved in straight lines, like the trundlebugs that were the object of Zaranth’s current inspection. A straight line for a trundlebug could also be perpendicular to the ground. They had been observed maneuvering up to the crown of a frond tree and down the other side. Right now, a very large trundlebug—the creatures could become quite large if no natural hazard ended their existence—was under intense draconic surveillance. This one had no fewer than five young still attached behind it, in various stages of maturation in the trundlebug’s peculiar reproductive process. Their bodies collected pollen from low-growing shrubs and vines—also the occasional tree—and shed it in their progress to whatever unknowable goal trundlebugs had. What other purpose they served Tai did not know, but they were less of a nuisance than some crawlies and rather curious to watch. Single-mindedness was exemplified in the trundlebug. It had been suggested there was only a female of the species.

  Trundlebugs were a good reason to sleep in a hammock. Humans used sticky-goo tapes around the trunks of hammock trees and the base of any living accommodation. Most buildings were on stilts as another deterrent to invading creepy-crawlies; in lowlying coastal areas, stilts also kept dwellings above high tide floods. Tai’s little house was just beyond her hammock: all its shutters were open to let in what wind there was, the fine-net screens preventing the entry of airborne insects. The afternoon breeze generally wafted away those clinging to the material. The diurnal ones departed at dusk; the nocturnal ones were noisier but photosensitive. A tall spire of solar panel provided Tai with what power she needed: for lights, the warmer plate, the cold box, and for the occasional hot air dur
ing the worst of the cold weather—which, to her, was never as cold as it had once been in Keroon’s foothills.

  In the Southern hemisphere, some dragonriders preferred to live in companionable clusters or with their mates, but Tai loved seclusion. She had handcrafted such furnishings as she had, shelves, bedstead, worktop, hooks, and the chest where she kept her clothing.

  Zaranth knew Tai was awake, but the green dragon was watching the trundlebug. Abruptly the inexorable path of the trundlebug—which would take it into Zaranth’s left nostril—ended. Tai blinked. Had Zaranth exhaled from the victim nostril, tumbling the trundlebug and her offspring away from her? Movement out of the corner of her eye showed her that the trundlebug was now marching in an easterly direction, an exact forty-five degrees from its original course and at least a full dragon-length from its previous path.

  How’d you do that? Tai asked, not sure she had seen what she had seen.

  I did not care for it to crawl into my nose. I moved it.

  Just like that?

  Just like that.

  Do you do it often?

  Now and then. That … and Zaranth moved her chin slightly toward the redirected trundlebug, does not belong where it was going. The dragon lost her pose of indolence; her eyes were wide open, and she was magically on her feet. Felines! We’re needed!

  Tai scrambled from the hammock, leaping into her quarters, pulling on trousers, stomping into boots, shrugging into her riding jacket—and bother a sleeved shirt—and carrying the dangling safety straps out to slip the harness over Zaranth’s eager head. It was as dangerous to hunt felines as to fly Thread. Zaranth shrugged the leathers to the base of her broad neck and lifted her leg for Tai to clip them together.

  Who sent for help?

  Cardiff. Fire-lizard message. T’gellan’s called half the wing.

  Tai vaulted between the last two neck ridges, and clipped the safety harness onto her broad belt.

  I know where, the green dragon said and took off so quickly Tai’s head snapped. They were barely above the trees when Zaranth went between.