The Skies of Pern

by Anne McCaffrey

  Impactor Summary

  Probable cometary origin

  Impact velocity 58.51km/sec

  Dimensions 597 times 361 times 452 meter ellipsoid

  Volume 51 million cubic meters

  Average Density 0.33 (+ –0.11)

  Total Mass 17 million tons

  Derived Impact Energy 29.7 Exajoules

  Explosive Equivalent 7.4 gigatons

  15° northern latitude, 12° east longitude.

  “It came down in the sea!” Stinar’s sigh of relief held a triumphant note.

  Ramoth saw this, too, Golanth told his rider in a muted tone. That’s when F’lessan recalled that Erragon had said that the Benden Weyrleaders and Wansor had been watching this on the conference room screen.

  They weren’t all that lucky, after all, that the comet had missed the volcanic islands. A huge mass like that hitting open sea would cause a great deal of trouble. There’d be a shock wave, wouldn’t there? In how many more minutes? How much damage would that cause? Was Landing far enough away? Monaco Bay was at sea level. It’d be flooded to the hills and they were a long way up the sloping beachfront.

  He tried to calm these thoughts, to resurrect the necessary information from lessons long past. He started to recall sentences, paragraphs, and irrelevant details.

  A cold fear in his guts increasing with every second, F’lessan peered at the screen as the cloud boiled, red-brown, to occlude what was actually happening. They ought to know what was happening at sea level, the bronze rider thought; there was something—. Everyone in the office had now recovered their wits and their tongues. If everyone around him would only stop babbling excitedly about this spectacular event, he could think. Where was Tai? She might know. She should be here. So should T’gellan. The coast of the southern continent was not going to escape the effects of something so big dropping at that speed!

  Suddenly the view on the screen altered, not only dropping the infrared screen but also presenting a new perspective, well back from the impact site. A discernible wave, a darkness of water, was moving outward, just faster than the flat-topped clouds boiling up and out. More data was being presented in margins. F’lessan blinked, unable to decipher the critical messages given.

  F’lessan kept his eyes on the screen. The Yoko adjusted its viewpoint by pulling back at speed, back beyond the hump of one of the big rainforest islands just north of the impact point. It was burning! Burning? Oh, yes, memory informed F’lessan, the thermal flare of the comet would cause flash fires with the heat of its passing.

  “We’re very, very lucky,” someone muttered. “It didn’t hit any landmass.”

  “No, we’re not lucky,” F’lessan said savagely, watching the dark watery circle expand. “That island’s on fire!” Then he pointed to the map in the right-hand corner. “The one due south will be burning, too. And look at that gap between them! There’ll be sea pouring through that gap, circling out, spreading, and coming straight down to the southern coastline in a wall of water …” He paused, uncertainly, trying to recall the specific term.

  “Tsunami!”

  Tai’s soft shocked voice behind him in the silence of the Interface office gave F’lessan the word he had been trying to remember. She stood with T’gellan and Mirrim against the wall. He hadn’t even seen them arrive. She stared with awed fear and fascination at what the monitor depicted.

  The distant cloud expanded sideways and skyward, and the surface of sea was reacting in its depths and sending ominous black undulations out in all directions. And something swirled up and over the rainforest island. Then the view retreated to show a new aspect; the island had been subsumed! And a thick line of debris: the lush huge trees, some thirty meters tall, were now just sea wrack, bobbing until finally they would be tossed up on beaches as jetsam. The dark circle continued to spread outward, westward. East, too, F’lessan now realized, though the cloud obscured that fact. He checked with the radar screen and yes, the rings were heading east and south, right at unprotected lowlands, possibly as far as the Hook Islands, and certainly speeding right toward the lovely little bays that dotted the Monaco coast, and Monaco Bay itself, the Harbor, the busy boatyard with sheds, pier, and cotholds. And Cove Hold? Would the Kahrain Cape protect it?

  “That’s what a tsunami does to what’s in its way,” F’lessan said, pointing to the wreckage, the shocking disappearance of two substantial islands. A shaft of cold, deep fear engulfed his bones. He urgently signaled Tai to join him.

  “Tsunami?” Mirrim echoed in a surprise tinged with denial, fear, and resentment. She lifted her hand to stop Tai but F’lessan scowled at her as he waved the green rider to his side.

  “I thought tsunami occurred with sea or earthquakes,” T’gellan said, stunned.

  “Tsunami can also occur when something very hot and heavy falls out of the sky,” Erragon said in the tone of someone who wishes he did not have to announce such news. “And a comet just did!” He pointed to the grim Impactor Summary figures.

  F’lessan shook his head, unable to deal with such incredible quantities as a mass of 17 million tons and a derived impact energy of 29.7 exajoules. Now that was a typically esoteric Aivas word. He was almost relieved to see Erragon and Stinar were also struggling to put such terms into Pernese contexts.

  “What does all that mean?” Mirrim asked, her tanned skin pale. In all the Turns he had known her, F’lessan had never seen this confident woman so scared.

  Erragon swiveled on his heel, giving her such a piercing look that she recoiled slightly against T’gellan. He gave his head a final shake, took a deep breath, and regarded the Monaco Weyrleader.

  “I don’t know how big the tsunami will be. That depends on the shoreline and what might deflect or diffract it, but Monaco—” He pointed to the map still up in the right-hand corner of the big screen. “—will be inundated, flooded.” He gestured with his fingers, west, north, and east. “The force of the impact will send the tsunami in every direction.” He shook his head again as much in denial as emphasis. Then he took F’lessan by the sleeve with one hand as he reached out for T’gellan with the other, giving the Weyrleader’s shoulder a resolute shake, his expression was filled with compassion. “You must evacuate the coastal holds to the hills, to high ground. The harbor, too!” He put a hand to his forehead, obviously marshalling his thoughts. “Stinar, are there maps of the coastlines we can access?”

  “There are,” said a gruff new voice, rising above the stutter of printers and the low anxious murmuring of frightened people in the office, “and I have them.” Master Idarolan stood in the doorway.

  Mirrim wasn’t the only one to stare blankly at him. F’lessan felt a sense of relief. They’d need the retired Masterfishman more right now than at any time in his resourceful life. Fleetingly he realized that the captain had probably been taking his usual morning weather scan: the deck of his hold in Nerat was above the sea, facing east, and he might well have seen the comet. If it had been visible at Benden Weyr, it had probably been visible to anyone looking in the right direction. Master Idarolan could have seen it from Nerat’s Ankle.

  “But how …” F’lessan stammered.

  “The Weyrleaders required my presence,” and Idarolan winked at F’lessan before turning to T’gellan. “You’ve a lot to do, Weyrleader, and we won’t stand in your way. You, bronze riders—.” He paused significantly. “You will need to make good time,” and he stressed that word, “to get all accomplished or so the Benden Weyrleaders inform me and you!” He made a sweeping gesture for the dragonriders to make their exits. As they started to move, he added, “Warn Portmaster Zewe to ring the Dolphin Bell and get any ships in harbor out to sea. It won’t be as dangerous offshore.”

  They were out the door by then, hearing his gruff voice saying, “And I need your best mathematician and the use of a computer that isn’t talking to the Yokohama!”

  “Does that mean we’re to time it?” Mirrim asked T’gellan in a hushed tone as soon as they were past Tunge, who h
ad not recovered from the multiple shocks.

  “What else?” F’lessan asked, right behind her, hauling Tai along beside him.

  “How else could we do what is to be done?” T’gellan added as he dragged his weyrmate into a near run. “Yes, Ramoth just confirmed it to Monarth.”

  “But what do we do first?” Mirrim demanded in a scared voice.

  “Monarth’s bespeaking Talina’s Arwith. I’ve told her to take four wings at once to Monaco Bay, to warn Portmaster Zewe and to start moving people to safety.”

  “The dolphins will be safe?” Tai asked.

  Mirrim shot her a furious look. “We have to think about the Weyr. It’s spread out all over!” Despair made her flush. “So many people.”

  “The dolphins will know what to do,” F’lessan said, taking a firmer grip on Tai’s arm, hurrying her along. “If we can time it,” and he couldn’t resist grinning at the permission, “we will make the time we need.”

  “But our Weyr’s no more than fifty meters from the sea,” and Mirrim’s voice rose with anxiety, her face pale under her tan. “On low-lying ground.”

  “Weyrfolk are a lot better at taking orders than holders or crafters,” Tai said, for once the one to reassure.

  “And all those seaholders?” Mirrim gasped at the enormity of the task ahead of them.

  “I’ve maps in my office of every holding that looks to Monaco,” T’gellan said as they strode, ever faster under the impetus of their anxieties, toward the back door. The guards at the front entrance were now shouting that there was an emergency: specialists to stand right, other volunteers muster to the left. Landing itself was completely safe here in the foothills. Except from the shock wave. When would that be hitting them? “We’ll warn them all.”

  “How long ago did you leave?” F’lessan asked as T’gellan straight-armed the door open, holding it for the others to exit. “We can go back as soon as you’ve left. Get a bit of a head start.”

  “I don’t know,” T’gellan said, startled. “When we finally made it into the office, Time Remaining stood at 4870. I remember that!”

  “An hour and a half ago? As well as the time we wasted talking,” F’lessan said. Had so little time elapsed? And yet it had seemed so long—watching the stunning visuals as mere curiosity in a bright point in Benden’s morning sky turned into a planetary disaster at midday in Landing.

  Ramoth says only bronze riders are to manage the timings, Golanth said, his tone awed.

  T’gellan gave a sharp bark of laughter, glancing over his shoulder at the Benden Wingleader. “So which of us has more experience timing?”

  “Not a point to argue,” F’lessan said. “Let’s do it. All we need are our dragons.”

  There wasn’t enough room for four dragons, even if two were green, to land on the area outside the rear door, and the guard was goggle-eyed at the flurry of so many wings.

  Next avenue over, F’lessan told his bronze. Tell Zaranth. “This way, Tai, between the buildings. Meetcha there!” He raised his voice so T’gellan would hear over the noise of Monarth’s descent. Path crammed herself against one wall to drop as close as she could to Mirrim. He glanced at his watch before he drove his fist into the sleeve of his flying jacket. “Golanth! See the comet as we saw it coming in to land.”

  F’lessan and Tai ran through the space between buildings that had become classrooms for the many youngsters studying at Landing. Golanth was in the act of putting his feet down when F’lessan leaped to his forearm and vaulted astride. As the bronze immediately began to ascend, F’lessan caught sight of Tai astride Zaranth’s back.

  Golanth, tell Zaranth to take her coordinates from you, F’lessan said, not even bothering to close his flying jacket or jam his helmet on his head. Maybe the seconds between would cool him down from the heat that he hadn’t even noticed in the Interface office. He concentrated on timing it and Golanth took them between.

  In the Conference Room at Landing—1.9.31

  Once again Landing had become a command center, Lessa thought. Though she could wish it otherwise, she would be happier, as well as more useful, here than at Benden Weyr. It had been Ruth’s query to her through Ramoth that made her wonder if perhaps that bright spark in the sky, still hanging overhead at Benden, was dangerous. Tiroth had already brought Wansor, Lytol, and D’ram to Landing. Maybe the Benden Weyrleaders should join them, if only to see what the old Star Master had to say about this intruder. Stinar was quite willing to turn on the screen in the conference room so that Lytol and D’ram could describe what was happening to Wansor. He could still distinguish light from dark but no details. Despite his blindness, he had cultivated an uncanny ability to locate other people in the same room with him, sometimes calling them by name when they came near.

  His round face with its opaque eyes had lit up with an extraordinary smile when Lessa and F’ar entered. “Lessa!”

  “How did you know?” Lessa asked, swiftly moving to take both his hands in hers. She had half a mind to give him a kiss for his unqualified welcome.

  “My dear Lessa, wherever you go there is a vibrancy that is unmistakable. And then,” he chuckled, “you wear a fragrance that is unique.” He held out his right hand toward F’lar and returned the strong grip.

  Craggy-faced Lytol and D’ram, whose weathered skin was nearly the color of his bronze’s hide, had risen at their entry and now Lytol was holding a chair for her, one facing the screen with its view of what the Yoko was seeing.

  “Is all this serious?” Lessa asked, taking the seat and noting a bewildering amount of information scrolling down one side of the monitor. The fireball that had seemed almost directly overhead was now coming straight at them, even from Yoko’s altitude above the surface.

  “It could be,” Wansor said. “Erragon is watching with Stinar—and, of course, we now have you here.” He smiled. “Do go on, Lytol. Any new information on that error ellipse?”

  “Some of this will be very technical, Lessa,” Lytol said courteously, reseating himself before he leaned close to Wansor to describe the scene and recite the numbers that were flowing down the side of the monitor.

  Beside her, F’lar gave it his attention, though he, too, she noticed, scowled subtly; the complicated astronomical data was beyond him. Someone brought in a tray of klah and meatrolls and, eyeing the screen warily, departed as quickly as possible. There was a degree of fear in the girl’s manner that troubled Lessa. She was accustomed to listen to her instincts. As she served D’ram a cup of klah, she bent close to his ear.

  “What would happen if that fireball came down anywhere?”

  Clearly that possibility had occurred to the old bronze rider.

  “It could be a miss,” he whispered softly.

  “A near one?” Lessa said, hazarding her opinion.

  “We can hope so,” he replied, shifting his position in his chair. “Yoko hasn’t displayed any information about its size, but it’s clearly a large object.”

  “Flaming,” she said sardonically. “So it will make a large hole and shake the surface.”

  D’ram gave her a startled glance. “We don’t know that it will impact, Lady Lessa.”

  “Let’s think of the worst that could happen and then we can be pleasantly surprised.”

  “Fortunately there’s a lot of sea for it to cross,” he murmured.

  “Then it’s best if it falls into water and does no harm.”

  His eyes widened. “It will cause harm! If it falls, there will be tidal waves of tremendous force, flooding all low coastal areas and surging inland. You remember the high waves caused by the last eruption of Piemur’s volcano?”

  “Indeed, but the hurricane of two Turns ago caused a great deal more havoc.”

  D’ram thinned his lips. “This would cause more widespread damage, believe me. That is,” he amended hastily, “if the worst should happen.” He paused, frowning and twisting his lower lip between two fingers. Looking her full in the eyes, he added. “But if we know about it, we could
prepare, evacuate.”

  “We—meaning dragonriders?”

  He nodded quickly. “People could be lifted to higher ground before the wall of waves reaches them.”

  Maps hung on the conference room walls behind them. She skewed herself around and saw the big map that Aivas had called a Mercator projection. “Faulty,” she remembered him saying, “in that the polar areas are larger than their actual size but it gives you a coherent grasp of the disposition of land and sea masses.” She wished with all her being that somehow Aivas’s deep quiet voice would issue from the speakers, informing them how to deal with this crisis. But Aivas was gone! Whatever problem this fireball presented was theirs and D’ram had suggested a way in which they could—in an emergency—reduce the potential damage. Master Idarolan had once told her about seeing a huge wall of water drowning an island; a tsunami, he called it.

  “If it’s coastline we need to protect, we will need Master Idarolan’s experience and knowledge,” she murmured to D’ram. “He still has his charts of deep harbors and shallow moorings.”

  “What are you two whispering about, Lessa?” F’lar asked as quiet-spoken as they.

  “If that thing,”—she gestured to the fireball and it suddenly looked a lot less amusing—“falls on us, we need to be prepared.”

  “But …” F’lar began.

  “Besides,” she went on, intensifying her glance at him and giving an indolent shrug, “even if it misses, this is a phenomenon that would fascinate Idarolan. He’ll see it better from here than from his deck at Nerat’s Ankle.”

  “You say,” and Wansor’s light voice turned excited, “that the probability reads fifty-eight percent?”

  “Go, F’lar. And give Idarolan enough time,” she said, stressing the word, “to bring all the records he might need.”