The Skies of Pern

by Anne McCaffrey

  “You know, I’ve often wondered why there are four more telescopes in the Catherine Caves,” F’lessan said one night on the terrace as they lay comfortably beside each other on a wide mattress.

  “I didn’t know you knew that,” she exclaimed, lowering the binoculars to her chest and looking at him.

  He chuckled. “You forget, I was in Landing almost from the beginning and I certainly took every opportunity I could to poke about in those Caves. I even made up outrageous treasures for the sealed cartons—that is, before I learned to read the bar codes and ancient invoice words. Speaking of outrageous, how does Zaranth move trundlebugs? And for that matter, how did she rescue those hides of yours? The ones Mirrim got so upset about the day after the Fireball.”

  F’lessan silently berated himself for startling her with those questions. Hurriedly he went on, “I mean, I don’t doubt it was Zaranth who saved them but how? All the while I was there helping clear Monaco Weyr, you were too busy loading Zaranth with personal things, you couldn’t even have timed it to your place.” He rose to one elbow, turning his body against hers, and running a caressing finger down her face, which had turned all stiff and uncommunicative. “Zaranth told me she got them. I know her. I know you.”

  Tai’s taut body relaxed and she turned her face, inviting his touch.

  “All I know is she got them. Sometime before we had to leave Monaco ahead of the first tsunami wave and before we got to Landing.” She shook her head back and forth on the mattress, vaguely waving one hand. “I was so tired by then. I don’t know how long T’lion kept us timing it, back and forth—” Her voice trailed off.

  He kissed the side of her mouth and nibbled at her lips. “Did you ever ask her? I mean, later, when all the furor had died down and we could start thinking again?”

  “No.”

  “Could we ask her now?”

  “I don’t think she knows. But I’ll ask her.” Her eyes took on the unfocused look of a rider speaking to a dragon. She blinked and gave a little laugh. “She says she knew I’d want them before they floated away so she just brought them to me.”

  F’lessan thought that over, not much the wiser.

  “Well, does she know how she moves the trundlebugs? The ones at Benini Hold?”

  “Oh,” Tai said, her voice less taut, “she does that with any that get close to her. She just points them in another direction.”

  “How?”

  This time Tai closed her eyes to speak to Zaranth. “She says she used to do it to tunnel snakes who got close to my weyr, too.”

  “What could she do it to here? Now! Tonight!”

  “There aren’t that many trundlebugs around here and snakes would all be holed up.”

  F’lessan sat up and looked around the terrace. “Ask her to move that bench,” and he pointed to one against the wall, “here.” He patted the ground beside him.

  “The bench is not threatening you and it won’t climb into your nose or your bed.”

  “So, something has to be harmful for her to shift it?” F’lessan asked, a little vexed with Zaranth’s lack of comprehension. Then he remembered how patient Aivas had been when trying to get the fire-lizard, Farli, to go to the Yoko’s bridge, so far above Landing.

  “No, just aggravating. The bench is not aggravating her.”

  Swiftly, F’lessan took a bowl from the tray of refreshments they had brought out to eat while stargazing. He aimed it at Zaranth, lounging beside Golanth on the upper terrace.

  “What—” was all Tai had time to say before the bowl reappeared on the tray.

  Glaring at him, her fists clenched, Tai turned on her lover with more anger than he had ever seen her display.

  “You may not throw things at my dragon!”

  “It was aggravating of me but look how she reacted!”

  It took him time and much coaxing to calm Tai down, a pleasurable enough activity since her body responded to his deft caresses even if she did not wish it to. When she did see what he had been trying to prove, she herself made a suggestion: a cover from their bed since the night wind was proving chill.

  “Maybe Golanth could bring us some wine?” she proposed.

  Golanth peered down from the terrace above, his eyes whirling with some anxiety. I don’t know how Zaranth brings things you want.

  “Maybe we should try him with trundlebugs in his way,” Tai said, giving her lover a sly grin. “If he does it Zaranth’s way, they don’t get upset and spread that stink of theirs.”

  We don’t have trundlebugs in Benden, Golanth told his rider but he was plainly curious about how Zaranth had managed to move things around. Dragons moved themselves and their riders across great distances all the time; and recently Golanth had moved between times, but this moving something else was another matter altogether—one he had never attempted and could not do.

  “We’ll find some then,” F’lessan said aloud as well as mentally to his bemused bronze. Some stray memory—associated with the time Farli and Ruth had gone to the Yoko—hovered at the back of his mind. “Will you have time tomorrow to help us locate some?” he asked Tai.

  “In the afternoon, perhaps, but I did volunteer to help Erragon calculate orbits.”

  “Well, if you should see any trundlebugs at Cove Hold, give us a shout.”

  “Why not come help me calculate orbits?”

  “A splendid notion since you know very well that I need the practice. Speaking of practice—” Carefully he lifted the thong of the binoculars from her neck and put them to one side and practiced making love to her. That was the most important reason he had brought the mattress out to the terrace and suggested they lie down and challenge each other at identifying stars.

  When they met the next afternoon on the west side of Cove Hold where Tai had already spotted trundlebugs, they landed. Golanth was still dubious about arranging himself in the direct path of a mother trundlebug and two offspring, and Zaranth crouched behind a nearby thicket to encourage him. F’lessan and Tai stood in the shadow of a large frond tree as spectators.

  Sublimely unaware of the obstacle set in its path, the trundlebug continued.

  “Zaranth is telling Golanth that it’s just a matter of turning it.”

  With a wide and mischievous grin, F’lessan closed his fingers around Tai’s hand.

  “My very dear green, I can hear everything she says.”

  “Can you?” Tai shot him a surprised glance. She knew that Ramoth and Mnementh, even Monarth and Path, spoke to each other’s people.

  The unmistakable stink of trundlebug interrupted this revelation.

  What did you do? both riders cried, holding their noses as they ran for their dragons to mount and leave the clearing before they were actively ill.

  I turned it, Golanth said as he leaped into the air, hoping between would absorb the awful reek.

  Into mush, Zaranth said with some disgust.

  They came out, so high above Cove Hold that they could see the whole of it spread out before them and the observatory sitting on its hill.

  I can’t smell me, Golanth said in an unusually meek voice.

  I hope no one visits that clearing in the next day or two, F’lessan told Zaranth.

  Tai says she sees another clearing and that Golanth must try again. I think I know what he didn’t do, Zaranth said.

  Riding at Golanth’s right wing tip, Tai grinned across at his rider and gestured down. F’lessan nodded vigorously. Zaranth and Tai veered left and let the following wind ease them down until both dragons circled the new clearing of the thick young growth that was springing up after the tsunami flooding.

  Again Golanth sat himself down in the path of the trundlebug, one with five offspring, the last nearly big enough to go off by itself.

  Now, you want to turn them just enough so they go in another direction, Zaranth was saying calmly. Not grind them into the sand at the same time. Just point to the east and give them a gentle … I SAID GENTLE … Where’d you send them?

  East, G
olanth said very softly.

  The green dragon and both riders looked to the east. There was a noticeable passage, trundlebug-wide, in a straight line through the grasses as far as they could see to the very waters of Cove Hold.

  “Didn’t you say they can tread water?” F’lessan asked, almost as chagrined as his dragon.

  “If they don’t already, they’ll learn today,” Tai replied. “Trundlebugs are survivors.”

  He does understand what to do, Zaranth said. He was—well, maybe, too enthusiastic?

  “I think,” F’lessan said, making good use of a chance to put his arm around Tai, “that more practice will determine exactly how much—energy? enthusiasm?—is enough to do the trick.”

  Fort Hold—2.13.31

  When Tenna came in from her run and handed Torlo her packet of letters from the Southern Boll stations, he leaned close, on the pretext of making a notation of her arrival on his schedule pad.

  “Need to see your friend—” The old man paused so that Tenna would appreciate which friend. “—tonight. You, too. Side bench. Ten-thirty.”

  Tenna was becoming accustomed now to arranging meetings with Haligon for Torlo.

  “You’ve a run uphill tomorrow, Tenna,” he said more audibly.

  She made an amused grimace. “Then I’m for the baths and a good long soak.”

  “As well, things considered,” was his reply and she went off, pausing first in the dormitory she shared with other girls. It faced the main street and she pulled the curtain across to the exact center of the window. Haligon, who knew she was back at the Station, would now realize that she wished to see him. She didn’t know which hold child ran his messages but they always got to him. She gathered up clean clothes, and then had a long soak and a brisk leg massage before the evening meal.

  It was a fair evening, if cold, and a wind always blew down the main road from the hills so she had her lined jacket ready when Haligon appeared at the door. Everyone expected the two to be together when she was in Station so she smiled him a welcome and was glad to see his expression lighten at the sight of her. He’d had a lot of responsibility laid on him by Lord Groghe this Turn, being what Haligon privately described as “the Lord Holder’s Runner,” and had remained cheerful and accommodating. Or such was the impression she had from Torlo, as much because of what the Stationmanager didn’t say as what he did.

  “Walk, Tenna?” Haligon asked, nodding courteously to Torlo and his wife, and extending the acknowledgment to the others in the main room.

  The usual jibes of “a walk will do her good after the run” and “don’t walk her legs off” followed them out. Such impudent comments were better than disapproving silence.

  The new electric lights, fashioned like glowbaskets, were positioned on poles up and down the main road so, despite the chill, they weren’t the only ones taking an evening stroll. They walked beyond the fixed lights and off to the side, near a shed by the beastholds. In the shadows there, she and Haligon could embrace without being overseen and with considerable enthusiasm. She’d been away a sevenday and she had missed him. Considering the ardor with which he kissed and nuzzled her, the feeling was mutual.

  They had not really—not in so many precise words—discussed their association. She knew that he knew she felt that she wasn’t good enough for a son of one of the oldest Bloodlines on Pern. He felt she would miss the freedom of her profession and did not wish to constrain her. He had other, older brothers so his father might not be so particular about whom he espoused. With the problems caused by the Fireball—which Haligon called the Comet—and Flood, they had both been extremely busy. Fort Hold had taken no damage but Lord Groghe had sent Haligon to arrange assistance in Southern Boll, which had had bad flooding. Tenna wondered if perhaps that was Lord Groghe’s way of suggesting that Haligon favor Lady Janissian. That would have been an acceptable alliance to Tenna’s way of thinking. Haligon’s only comment was that the young woman would make a good Holder and he liked her.

  They were both conscious, though no one in Fort mentioned the fact, that Lord Groghe was losing some measure of his phenomenal vigor. Not surprising, considering he was eighty-nine. The vandalism at Turn’s End had so shocked the old Lord that he was determined to prevent a repetition in his Hold and to identify who was behind this “resurgence of all that Abomination nonsense.” He had managed to enlist the support of Torlo and many other Stationmasters, but not all Runners; there were those who still did not understand that it would be many, many Turns before the “abominable” hand units significantly affected their profession. Nevertheless, most would follow Station policy: they abhorred the violence displayed by the Abominators and their callous attack on the Healer Halls. Tenna might be one voice but she did her part, when she could, repeating what Lady Lessa had said—that Runners had long served Pern and would continue to do so.

  Held passionately in Haligon’s arms, she could forget duty, responsibility, and anything but the sensual contact she was enjoying. Tenna did nothing by halves and neither did Haligon.

  With the innate sense of time that most Runners possessed, she reluctantly wriggled out of his arms and started pulling her clothing straight. She smiled when she heard his deep exasperated sigh.

  He finger-combed his hair—which he hadn’t had time to have trimmed—into a neat club at the back of his neck, fixed the collar of his jacket and lengthened his stride to match hers. Tenna certainly could set a brisk pace.

  Torlo, or rather a shadow that could be a man, was already seated on the side bench, where the corner of the Station jutted out from the line of its neighbors. She and Haligon often sat there, out of sight. Without a word, they sat on either side of him.

  “Runners finally traced all those messages to Keroon,” Torlo said without preamble. “Wide Bay and two inland holds, both isolated. Another reason it took so long to confirm Lord Groghe’s request was because sometimes the messages were handed to Runners already on the trace.”

  “They were?” Tenna was astonished.

  “Runners were paid, so it was permissible. ’Cept it happened quite a few times in Keroon, and Chesmic got suspicious and asked Runners and other Stationmasters, sort of quiet-like, how often that happened. That’s why we got a network for Runners—never too far for someone to bring a message, proper-like, to the Station and have it logged in from source. Then it took time to catch up with the Runners who logged in such messages at their next Station. Seems odd to have it happen in sort of bunches, like in twelfth and thirteen month last Turn.”

  He paused. “Then I got confirmation that sort of thing had happened elsewhere, too. Same time. Only now—” and he paused again, “same thing’s happening and all down Keroon way. Three times in the past two sevendays, man twice and woman t’other, stopped Runners to take on messages. Chesmic may be old, but he doesn’t forget a face. Seen one too often, in different clothes, garbling words, too, saying he was picking up for Apprentice-this or Holder-that. Sent some off, too. Recently. We’re still tracing where they were collected. We,” and putting his thumb to his chest indicated he was referring to all other Stationmasters, “think it’s how those abominator fellows are passing messages. Make sure that Pinch fellow knows, too.”

  Only the dark prevented Haligon from betraying surprise that Torlo would know Pinch by name and could hint at his discreet function within the Hall. Since Turn’s End, Haligon had developed a healthy respect for Torlo’s discretion and judgment. Son of a Lord Holder though he was, and allowed into many conferences his father held, he was surprised at how much more Torlo knew and understood about matters in Fort Hold and all across the two continents.

  “Tell that Master Printer to be especially on his guard. It was his Hall printed that paper that’s got folks so worried. I’d send a firelizard soon as I could, Lord Haligon.”

  “I will.”

  “Like right now,” Torlo added at his driest. “See Tenna back. She’s got a hard run tomorrow.”

  So dismissed, both rose. As they stro
lled around the corner to the Station door, Haligon circled her shoulders with one arm, wishing they didn’t have to separate quite so soon. In front of the Station, Haligon gave her a quick hug and let her go. He didn’t know how many eyes followed him up the steps to the Court, but no one would have seen that he made for a narrow side staircase on the far left of the Court that led to the Harper Hall. Later, on that moonless night, the departure of a fire-lizard, from an upper window in the Hall, was seen only by the vigilant watch dragon who wished Menolly’s Beauty a safe flight.

  Printer Hall at Wide Bay—same night

  If Beauty woke the Masterprinter by picking delicately at his ear, he had the good sense not to thrash about in surprise. In fact, the fire-lizard’s unexpected arrival merely confirmed the presentiment of trouble that Rosheen had confided in him three days ago. To cap her uneasiness, Stationmaster Arminet had sauntered into the Hall the day before, ostensibly to get a fresh notice of Runner fees printed. He had seemed far more interested in prowling the big Print Hall, asking if the glass were Morilton-made or the original. It was now a joke that the impact from the Comet had smashed glass that had come from old Norist’s Hall while Morilton’s remained intact.

  “Morilton, of course,” Tagetarl had replied with a grin.

  “Good locks on the windows,” Arminet had closed one eye with slow significance. “Sky-broom wood in gates and the Hall doors, too.”

  Tagetarl raised his eyebrows but Arminet had gone straight on to discuss his printing needs. That night Tagetarl had checked the gates, Hall doors, and windows himself, and slid into the brackets of the outer gate the heavy bar of sky-broom tree wood, which the former owner of the warehouse had used to dissuade pilferage. At both ends, the bar had ingenious fastenings that made removing it difficult if one didn’t know how to release the latches. Sky-broom wood was too dense to break or chip so he felt safe enough.