The Skies of Pern

by Anne McCaffrey

  Where do we go now?

  Where else, good friend? Landing.

  Sometimes it was as well to do the hardest thing first, F’nor thought as they went between to Landing.

  And some hard things, F’nor realized, tears blurring his eyes, his chest painful, were harder than others. Canth had come out above Landing, facing north, so he had too good a view of the watery plain that had been forested Monaco, sparkling in the afternoon sun. He had given Canth a time after the waves hit Monaco, but before they pounded the Jordan River mouth. Involuntarily F’nor covered his face, but he could block out neither the gleaming expanse of water that had boiled inland on the crest of the tsunami nor the smaller seiche waves that were sloshing back and forth in perpendicular movement across what had been Monaco’s crescent bay.

  The water will not stay. It will drain back. His dragon’s voice was so full of sympathy and understanding of the pain in his rider’s heart that F’nor dropped his hands, the wind in his face drying the tears on his cheeks. He forced himself to think of the red indentations on Idarolan’s chart and hoped that the tsunami had not penetrated as far as initial estimates. For partial reassurance, he could see blobs of green on the western side of Monaco Cape where stands of the big trees had survived the assault. And more, farther inland, on other hills.

  A rumble penetrated his grief for the stricken coast and he felt Canth tilt and turn. There were other dragons in the sky, all facing west, all carrying at least two passengers: he easily recognized Ramoth, Mnementh, and the other Benden queens with nine more bronzes, ten browns, and some greens in attendance. They hovered above the Jordan River inlet.

  Join them! Might as well twist the knife a little, F’nor thought with rare masochism.

  They were not in time to witness the initial heaving of the sea, like the shoulders of a great, headless, pewter-colored beast. They did see the white spume, outlining the leading edge. And they did see the gigantic wave—dragon-lengths of it—crash against the Jordan cliff, and the way the spray tried to curl over the massive basaltic precipice, the wind blowing back the sound of that assault! They saw the second wave lurching against the bulwark. They could see old Oslo Landing inundated, see the tsunami streaming along the sloping coastline to attack the stones of Kahrain Cape. Out of the corner of his left eye, F’nor saw that part of the tsunami now seemed to swell and race along the basalt walls lining the Jordan River, pushing it in its wake, back up the length of the deep chasm. At his altitude, he could see the tsunami race—it seemed to flow over the natural seaward current—splashing against the rocky sides, but powerless to rise to the forest above.

  The tightness in his chest eased as he understood that, powerful though the tsunami was, the land could survive.

  The other watchers suddenly disappeared, going between. F’nor had seen enough. He asked Canth to spiral down to Landing. Hard work was a good way to blunt difficult emotions.

  Landing—late afternoon—1.9.31

  F’lessan felt the tentative prod on his shoulder. Felt a second, harder one. Felt Golanth’s groan in the dragon’s deep chest. Smelled klah and an appetizing odor of something roasted, held under his nose.

  He opened one eye and saw a figure hunkered down in front of him, holding out a cup and a small plate, heaped with bite-sized food. He pushed himself against Golanth and straightened. He nearly fell back because his right arm was half asleep.

  “F’lessan? Drink! You need the liquid.”

  That sounded like Tai’s voice. He opened both eyes. She didn’t look any better than he felt; her face was dirty and haggard. Oddly, her hands were clean. She sat down cross-legged in front of him, without spilling the klah or scattering the food from the plate.

  “They let us sleep longer. I don’t know why, but I’m grateful.”

  “So am I!” F’lessan yawned mightily, holding the klah out in front lest it spill on himself or Tai.

  Then he realized that it was cloudy. Landing’s usually bright sun was visible as a hazy yellow orb in the forbidding sky.

  “Dust in the air, someone told me,” Tai said with no expression in her voice. She wasn’t a volatile personality, like Mirrim or Lessa, F’lessan thought. More like Brekke, quiet, self-contained; definitely reserved.

  “What’s happening now?” The bronze rider jerked his thumb to the three Benden queens, still on duty.

  “The tsunami keeps going,” she said, her head averted.

  “Did it destroy Cove Hold?” F’lessan blurted the question out. He could endure almost any other destruction but that.

  “Oh, no,” she said quickly, with a sudden magically reassuring smile. “Cove Hold has only a little bit of flooding in the gardens. They had nearly four hours to pack up everything portable, but the water never reached MasterHarper’s porch.”

  He felt tension in his midriff snap with relief. He closed his eyes, thinking of Cove Hold as he had last seen it. Gardens could be replaced. Whatever other things had been destroyed by the tsunami, he was deeply grateful Robinton’s last home had come through this disaster relatively unscathed. But Tai did not look happy. She paused, her eyes unfocused and her shoulders sagged again. The smile disappeared and she seemed sunk in depression. He caught her hand, thinking he knew what would trouble her more than Cove Hold.

  “The observatory?”

  “Not as badly damaged as it could have been. That dome is watertight. Kahrain Cape above it caught the brunt. There was a spectacularly high crest at Jordan Cliffs.” F’lessan shuddered, remembering the one he had so narrowly escaped. “I’m told a lot of people watched.”

  The brief animation in her face faded quickly.

  “I’m sorry, Tai. Not much of Monaco would have survived,” he murmured, squeezing her hand hard in sympathy.

  “There were five waves, you know,” she said flatly. “One after another. They sort of bounced off the nearer Ring island and then plowed into Monaco.” She raised one hand and smacked it slowly, five times, into the palm of the other, then her shoulders sagged and her hands dropped. “Pier went in the first one and all the cotholds on the beach. People saved a lot of the tools and supplies from the boatyard. The careening cradles are just splinters after the seiche waves. T’lion said those are the perpendicular waves, when the main ones subside. I don’t know how he could go and look except that he was trying to find the dolphin bell pylon. He said it’s made of an indestructible material.” She gave a heavy sigh as if she doubted anything could have survived the surge of five tsunami waves. “Portmaster Zewe took down the dolphin bell, you know. T’lion said he’d been out far enough to sea for Gadareth to land on the water and call Report. It was pretty choppy and cloudy but the dolphins reported.” That seemed to cheer her a bit. “No pods suffered casualties and they warned all the land people.”

  F’lessan stroked her hand soothingly. “I know. They warned Sunrise Cliff.” He hesitated. “Is Readis all right? At his Dolphin Hall?”

  “Yes.” She managed a weak grin. “T’lion checked. Readis was high on Rubicon Cliff.”

  He didn’t know what else to say. He knew that Monaco Weyr Center was probably bobbing with the splinters of the pier and the vegetation. Wherever she and Zaranth had weyred was deep under water.

  “Eat,” F’lessan said gently and held a bit to her lips because he hadn’t seen her take any of the roasted meat.

  She put a piece in her mouth, chewing it slowly, automatically, not tasting anything, and not looking at him, distraught. Why wouldn’t she be? he thought.

  “What news of other shoreline holds? Was everyone lifted to safety?” Would he always see the panic on Binness’s face when he realized he was trapped between a wave and a rock?

  Irritation made her flush. She stopped her chewing and looked up at him, a small outraged frown knotting her eyebrows. “I heard there were some who didn’t believe the dragonriders and …”

  “Crept back to get something they couldn’t live without and drowned,” he finished for her. “The Weyrs are not respo
nsible for arrant stupidity!”

  “But they’d been brought to where it was safe!” She gripped her fingers so hard her knuckles were white.

  “Like the dolphins, we can’t help it if people don’t listen to our warnings.” F’lessan caught both her hands in his and tugged them to get her to look at him. “Tai, how much time did you spend today warning, rescuing?”

  She blinked furiously, tears spattering onto his hand. “I … I can’t remember. The fireball was always there,” and she cast a frantic glance to her right, to the north.

  He massaged her taut hands and fingers, doing his best to soothe her, to relieve her inexpressible grief.

  “Every dragon here did what he or she could do. I’ll wager there’re hundreds of exhausted dragons here. We did all we could!” He thought of his son, barely fifteen Turns, taking his dragon on the longest trip between they’d yet made, to serve food and drink. “We didn’t lose a dragon, did we?” No, he would have known. Dragons made a terrible noise when one of them died.

  She shook her head. He continued to stroke her hands as he looked out over the resting dragons, most of them Monacan, though he recognized a few from Telgar and High Reaches Weyrs.

  “How much more do they expect of us?”

  “The fireball fell. And made tsunami,” she said, her tone utterly bereft. Zaranth crooned sympathetically, encouragingly.

  F’lessan reached out and pulled the dejected green rider into his arms. Her skin was cold beneath his hands. He snagged one of the feline pelts from the ground by Zaranth.

  “How in the name of the First Egg could dragons have stopped the fireball dropping or the tsunami from starting?” he demanded bitterly. “We did what we could!” Once again he used Golanth’s shoulder as a backrest and made Tai as comfortable against him as he could. He felt Golanth’s sympathetic rumbling and Zaranth shoved her nose over to give Tai’s arm a brief lick. F’lessan felt the reassurances of both dragons humming through him. Tai lay motionless, her breathing gradually easing from despairingly ragged to a calmer rhythm.

  “You’ll see, Tai. We’ll be more famous than Moreta and her ride. There were thousands of us doing it.”

  We mustn’t say that we timed it, F’lessan, Golanth whispered.

  “We’re not to say we timed it, F’lessan,” murmured Tai in the same breath.

  “Another little miracle of the day covered up, huh?” F’lessan felt rancor building in him. What did it matter if half the population of Pern knew dragons could go between time as well as place? It’s not as if people could learn how. On the other hand, he’d had enough timing it these last few hours—felt more like days—with that damned fireball hanging over his shoulder.

  Tai, who had begun to relax against him, now tensed again and struggled to sit upright.

  “Did you save these?” She held up one leg of spotted pelt.

  “Me? No. Are these the ones you skinned in Cardiff? Beauties.”

  “How did they get here?”

  Tai’s eyes widened, her mouth dropped open and she stared at Zaranth who now looked very uncomfortable and dropped her head from her rider’s arm, hiding her eyes.

  Zaranth said to Tai that she wanted them so much and there was no time to go get them, Golanth said very softly to F’lessan.

  “What does she mean by that?” F’lessan asked, seeing an unreadable expression on Tai’s face.

  Same time at Keroon Printer Hall—local time 11:15—1.9.31

  “Sir, Masterprinter, sir,” an uncertain young voice said at Tagetarl’s elbow.

  “Just a minute.” Annoyed, Tagetarl held up his hand so he could listen to the last of the drum message being passed. He didn’t want to miss a vital one; most had been seeking information. Telgar and Lemos had confirmed a fireball visible in their sky. Benden drums confirmed that it had fallen into the Eastern Sea.

  Roused from his bed early that morning, Tagetarl had gone to his office to find what reassurance he could from his maps. The Eastern Sea was a long way from Keroon. But he was awake so he went down to the kitchen level to make fresh klah. He had a hunch he’d need it before this day was done. Several hours later, when the shock wave rumbled over Wide Bay, he blithely told everyone that this was natural enough. Most believed Harpers, but not all. His spouse, Rosheen, gave him a skeptical stare.

  Drums rolling a message on to Keroon Hold informed him, and anyone else who could interpret drum messages, that “everything was under control.” A tag to it—that only a harper would know—was an urgent invitation for Lord Kashman to be conveyed to Landing.

  Nor was what “was now under control” explained. Situated in an old warehouse that had been converted to its new purpose, Tagetarl’s Printing Hall was on the north side of Wide Bay. He had a good view of ships entering and leaving the harbor but the Hall was not conveniently situated to see if a dragon had taken off from Keroon Hold. With his good long-range vision, he could make out frantic activity on the wharves as goods waiting to be shipped were taken back into warehouses. He didn’t need his prized collapsible far-seer to see colored sails being hoisted on the dozen or so ships, some of which he knew were waiting for cargo. All through the morning, a tension seemed to pulse in on every wave that splashed the seawalls. Gales whipping either east or west of Nerat’s tip often blustered up past Igen’s headland and up wide Keroon Bay. Tagetarl frequently found reasons to stop in his office for a few minutes and check what was happening in the bay. The ships were sailing south on a wide port tack, evidently heading up Keroon Bay. For safety.

  A shuffling reminded him that he’d nearly forgotten the messenger.

  “Sorry …” he caught back “son” because the person in front of him was a young girl. He was still not accustomed to girls as green riders. She looked very uncertain of herself, but somehow proud; he’d seen that combination when a young student managed to play a complicated score correctly. She had her riding helmet crushed in one hand and a thin message packet in the other. Hesitantly she held it out for him to take. She wore Monaco colors and a green weyrling’s knot on her flying jacket. “Sorry, green rider. Is all well at Monaco?”

  She stammered. “Very wet, Master. I am to deliver you this.” His polite inquiry produced fear and anxiety in her face. “For your urgent attention, Masterprinter. I must wait until you’ve done it.”

  “You must, must you?” Tagetarl smiled reassuringly. She couldn’t be more than sixteen Turns and he wondered if this was her first long journey as a weyrling. She also looked very tired. However, any news from Monaco might clarify and enlighten the tense situation—and explain why Lord Kashman had been called to Landing. Of course, the new Lord Holder may not be quite sure of procedure in what appeared to be a widespread emergency.

  “Yes, sir, and where may I wait?”

  “Sit, before you fall, girl,” Tagetarl said, pointing to a stool before he opened the message. “From F’lar?” he exclaimed, recognizing the handwriting—bad enough under any circumstances, though the bronze rider had obviously tried to be legible.

  “Tag, urgent notice to publish facts. Should get inland where sweepriders have not already given warnings. Runners have been asked to distribute. Give the messenger a hundred to take to Nerat. Please ask Keroon Stationmaster to distribute another hundred. Riders will be sent for the rest. Rush.” This last was underscored several times.

  Any irritation Tagetarl felt for the peremptory tone was discarded when he read the copy for printing. The body of the message was in another handwriting altogether, much easier to read.

  “Rosheen! Turn on the big press,” he shouted down the hall. He heard her answering “What?” and continued to call orders at what his spouse called his “harper volume,” audible inside and outside the hall. “Apprentices! I’ll need the big notice sheets. Check the toner cartridges.” He turned back to the green rider. “Where’s your dragon?”

  “Path’s in the court. F’lar told me we’d fit. That’s why I was chosen to bring the message. The Printer Hall wasn’t hard
to find once I got to Wide Bay. I’m Danegga. No one here seems to mind a dragon dropping in on them,” she added with a charming naïveté.

  “The Printer Hall is accustomed to visitors, Danegga, but you look tired and you may want to get something hot to eat. Between is cold.” He gave her an encouraging smile. “Your first assignment out of Monaco, Danegga? Good ride. Much damage at Monaco Weyr?”

  Her face twisted and tears came to her eyes but she pulled her shoulders up proudly. “They say the water will recede. We’ll rebuild, Masterprinter. We saved everybody and as much else as the dragons could carry.”

  “Then you did very well, Danegga. Very well indeed. Now, run down to the kitchen—just follow your nose. There’s always soup on the stove and there was fresh bread this morning. Might just be time for you to get a short nap while I print these. Monaco will be proud of you.”

  “Thank you, sir, thank you,” and as she turned to leave, she nearly ran Rosheen down, bobbing again to excuse herself.

  As Rosheen reached Tagetarl, he flourished F’lar’s message at her, not allowing her time to read it.

  “We’ll both need to set copy. Headline in the boldest print face we have, biggest letters,” he muttered, pulling her down the hall to the Print Hall proper.

  “FIREBALL WILL CAUSE COASTAL FLOODING!” he said, making a big bracket with his hands. Good time to try that 26-point they’d just added.

  She grabbed the message from his hand.

  “So this is what’s got the ships sailing away. A fireball? What’s that? Oh, the text explains. And they got Master Esselin to sign this, too?”

  She nearly tripped in surprise and Tagetarl grinned at her. They’d both done their stints of copying under his critical eye.

  “Makes it more official, though, doesn’t it?” Tagetarl grinned. “Apprentices, front and center! We’ll need to wrap in hundred-copy packets.”

  “Did I see Monaco colors on the girl?” Rosheen asked as they took the last few steps to the Hall floor.