The Skies of Pern

by Anne McCaffrey

  F’lessan had brought a pouch of sweetsand. Tai looked forward to a quick wash, even in cold river water. Cove Hold had been warm and she’d been in a nervous sweat there, worked up another in the crowded control room while showing off the fine clear sky view that the Honshu scope was capable of. They soaped each other, still with enough energy to make it playful. But fatigue settled on both of them soon enough, and the dragons splashed in gratefully to take their turn. Their antics sent sprays of water high up the bank. Laughing, F’lessan moved their things up on to the highest of the terraces and, throwing Tai her towel, began to dry himself. They dressed, since the dawn air could be chill, spread one blanket down, and pulled the other over them, using the towels as pillows against the rough ground cover.

  Tai smiled, listening to the dragons’ happy noises, and was at peace with herself in a fashion she had rarely experienced.

  “I don’t know if they sound more like fire-lizards or dolphins when they ‘talk’ like that,” F’lessan said, cocking one arm under his head and reaching for her hand with the other.

  “They’re related, after all,” she said, somewhat drowsily, quite content to lie there, next to him, letting his fingers twine in hers.

  She heard him sigh.

  “There are so many things to talk about,” he murmured, “but I think they can wait until tomorrow, don’t you?”

  He turned his head toward her, though she couldn’t see but a blur of his face and the whiteness of his teeth in one of his so charming smiles.

  “It is tomorrow, you know.”

  “Well, a little further into the morning, then.”

  He lifted his head just enough to kiss her lightly.

  Why was it that the tenderest of his kisses affected her more than the passionate ones—which she enjoyed, too? It was his tenderness toward her that undid her most.

  She woke, sitting bolt upright, a second before everything happened, before Golanth roared, before Zaranth reacted to what she was staring at so intensely in the underbrush. That moment was graven on the back of her eyes as surely as the Fireball’s explosion: she and F’lessan on the uppermost terrace, Zaranth just below them, her body taut for something Tai could not see and Golanth, head toward the river, sprawled lengthwise on the lowest level, his tail half propped against a thick bush.

  Whether it was his tail which had enticed them or not would always be moot. Many felines were hunting that dawn. The sun had risen and sun-warm dragon hide exuded a scent all its own. Dragons generally sought heights for sunbathing. This morning, with all four deeply asleep, the dragons were accessible.

  The felines had arrived stealthily. Perhaps thirst had initially drawn them to the river, only to find the sleeping dragons. Perhaps Golanth’s tail had twitched in his sleep, attracting attention. Whatever Zaranth was staring at suddenly was flung backward at incredible speed and that was the signal for an orange-striped feline to clamp its teeth on Golanth’s tail. At his roar the rest of the considerable hunting party attacked. Spotted, striped, and tawny hides, assaulting him from three directions, abruptly covered the bronze.

  He reared to his full height, front legs clawing the air to remove the one that had sunk teeth in his left eye ridge. He tried to whip free of the one on his tail and kick off the third which had bitten into the fold of his flesh between rib cage and hip, to buck against the others racing in from the thick shrubs that bordered the river. Feline jaws clamped harder, determined to retain their hold.

  Then others used Golanth’s body as stairs to attack Zaranth, talons outstretched, heads angled to sink fangs in whatever flesh they could reach.

  F’lessan moved so quickly that, in throwing the blanket from his legs, he entangled Tai in its folds. Springing forward and then vaulting over Zaranth’s hindquarters, he launched himself at the nearest feline, brandishing the knife a rider always carried, though it was a blade that was shorter than the fangs of the nearest beast. Zaranth, too, reared, sending the one attacking her head spinning through the air.

  These are NOT trundlebugs, Zaranth cried. THROW them away!

  Golanth had torn the one off his face with one forepaw, but it turned in midair, legs at full stretch, and its right front paw raked down F’lessan’s back. Its momentum took it to the ground where it instantly gathered and leaped toward the rider. F’lessan ducked, plunged his knife into the chest of the beast, and rolled away, the feline snarling with rage and trying to get rid of the knife lodged in it. F’lessan grabbed a loose rock and, with it as a weapon, ran to help his dragon, despite the blood flowing from the claw marks on his back.

  Trapped on one side by the terrace, Golanth had no way to unfurl his right wing. With his rider in peril, he would not go between where he could have shed the felines in the great black cold. Nor, in such close quarters, for fear of searing their beloved riders, could either dragon summon residual flame to deter their attackers. One feline was attempting to shred Golanth’s left inner wing sail and others, sinking talons deeply into tough dragon hide, climbed all over him.

  Not just over Golanth, Tai realized, frantic to get free of the blanket. Tawny bodies were flinging themselves at Zaranth as well but didn’t seem able to do more than leave long bleeding furrows. The beast biting the soft part of Golanth’s flank was flung into the river where it sank instantly. Zaranth howled, shaking her head as if ridding it of a burden, kicking out with a hind leg though Tai saw nothing but a darker green liquid oozing down the green leg. A tawny streak came at her from behind and disappeared. The one trying to run up Golanth’s back was suddenly in midair, all limbs spread as if something had picked it up by the belly and punched it violently away. The one with jaws sunk into Golanth’s left hind leg was similarly torn from him. Ripping at the blanket, Tai got to her feet, clutching it in one hand, wishing it had been any sort of a hard-edged weapon, wondering how she could get to F’lessan who now had two large felines circling him. Blood poured down his back.

  The next thing she knew, she was beside F’lessan, the blanket billowing in the air behind her from the force of her arrival. Cracking the blanket like a beast whip, she hit the face of one of the felines who retreated, snarling, before she flung the blanket over the next one, catching the folds on its claws. F’lessan pushed her down and the second beast leaped on him. During the split second before the animal reached him, Tai could only think one thing: I’ve lost him! I’ve lost him!

  Suddenly the air was full of dragons, wings spread, and flame spouting from their mouths. Tai was horrified lest the dragon fire sear them. Human flesh would shrivel—that powerful fire could char through dragon flesh.

  WATCH ME! Zaranth’s voice was like a thunder in the innermost part of Tai’s skull. FLING THEM! was answered by even more powerful external shrieks. Beset by fear and terror, by the horror of losing F’lessan and Golanth, she was utterly unable to absorb the strange things that were happening. Why was Zaranth telling the other dragons to watch her, to fling them? Zaranth never hurt the trundlebugs she moved! Now felines were spinning through the air without dragons touching them. Why had that one exploded into fragments?

  Abruptly the creature struggling out of the blanket at Tai’s feet was no longer there, just the blanket sinking emptily to the ground. The predator who had been positioning its hind legs to disembowel F’lessan was gone. Badly wounded, F’lessan turned toward Golanth, his body stretching out, yearning, but unable to rise and go to the bronze. Over the sound of dragon and feline roars and snarls, Tai could hear him calling Golanth’s name!

  Tai staggered to F’lessan, to help him to reach Golanth, staggered again as her eyes were blurred. Or was it because her legs buckled under her?

  That was when she saw the predators launching themselves—all four at full stretch—from the terrace on which she and F’lessan had been sleeping. They must have crept around behind, concealed in the thick vegetation. Zaranth lifted her torso at precisely the right moment—as if she’d seen them from one facet of her red whirling eyes—and reacted. Three crash
ed into her body and were deflected away. The fourth was still in midair: it would land right on Golanth’s shoulders, by the last neck ridge, where there was nothing to protect the dragon’s spine. If jaws or talons connected, a single tear could end Golanth’s life.

  NO! NO! Later Tai would wonder why her throat was raw. She knew she pointed, unable to do more than that, aghast at what would happen if that predator made it to Golanth’s back. The bronze dragon would die! F’lessan would die! She would die! “NO! NO! NO!” She’d lose them both! A blur of gold across bronze.

  TIME IT! cried Golanth.

  That shriek seemed to course along her bones, in her blood until her body trembled violently, and her head seemed ready to burst. Certainly her heart did. A huge blur of gold again rippled across bronze. She had one second to see its claws hooking briefly into Golanth’s withers, tearing strips away. Then the feline burst into pieces, gore, entrails, shards of bone and pieces of hide splattering as far away as she stood, across F’lessan’s inert, bloodied body. She saw Golanth staggering. Golanth dying? F’lessan would surely wish to die, too!

  She dropped to her knees, bereft with the realization, staring at the green ichor staining Golanth’s body. He was still swaying with the impact, his left eye oozing a green mixed with red beast blood. Yet he wasn’t falling. Did a dragon fall down dead? Too shocked in that moment to go between? Somehow the predator had missed the vital spot. Golanth’s head was hanging, canting to the left to favor the damaged eye. Could she cushion his fall? She couldn’t even get her knees to work.

  Then there were only dragons hovering! Bewildered she gazed up at the wrathful semicircle hovering, wing tip to tip, just above the uppermost terrace: huge golden Ramoth, Arwith, Mnementh, Monarth, Gadareth, Heth, Path, Ruth, and other dragons she did not recognize. She stared at Zaranth, stretched high on her hindquarters, wings spread glistening with smears of ichor—Tai felt the pain in her green’s mind. As one, the dragons stretched their heads and bugled in fierce triumph at something she did not understand.

  They live! A chorus assured her with such conviction that the devastated Tai collapsed, wondering and grieving at that response, crawling toward F’lessan before she lost consciousness.

  She drifted in and out, aware of men and women, conversing in urgent whispers, of the coolness of numbweed easing the pain in her legs and other parts of her that had just started to be sore.

  “No, leave him here until he’s been seen by Oldive as well as Wyzall.”

  “Then the green won’t leave. But we should move her rider.”

  “It’s not far to a proper bed in Honshu after all.”

  “How many dragons will we need to shift him? He cannot be dumped on bare rock, you know!”

  “Do we need all these people here?” Tai recognized the Benden Weyrwoman’s caustic tones. “At least the dragons have the good sense to stay out of the way until they’re needed.”

  When they lifted her, to bandage her clawed legs, pain roused her.

  “No, no, Tai, don’t thrash about. An artery must be repaired.”

  She thought it was Sharra who spoke.

  “Golanth’s dead! F’lessan?”

  “No, no, they live.”

  “HOW?”

  “They do live. Zaranth, tell her!”

  They live, said her green in a whispery voice. They live! You live! We live!

  She felt a prick in her arm and lost consciousness again.

  When she woke, the chant—they live! they live!—was still in her head and she wanted so to believe it. And yes, there was Zaranth’s mind, as close to hers as skin.

  They live. The green sounded so very tired.

  Rest, Zaranth. You can rest now, too.

  Yes, Zaranth, another voice said. You may rest now, too.

  A cool cloth gently bathed Tai’s face and someone was holding her hand.

  “Now, listen to me, Tai.” The green rider was astonished to see it was Benden’s Weyrwoman who sat beside her bed, holding her hand. “F’lessan has been badly wounded. Oldive, Crivellan, Keita, and two of his best surgeons have put him rather neatly back together. Golanth is actually …” Lessa’s hands tightened briefly on Tai’s fingers and she gave a sort of hiccup before she continued, “worse off. He’ll need more repair work when he’s stronger. He will live! Oldive and our best Healers have promised that much.”

  A memory of the bronze dragon, scored and oozing with thick green ichor, hunks torn out of tail and leg, his faceted eye blanked, weeping ichor, and that final leap to his most vulnerable spot flashed through Tai’s mind.

  “But he will never be the same,” Tai said, her voice breaking.

  Lessa tightened her hold. “Who could be the same after that mauling? But he’ll fly again. With F’lessan.”

  Tai struggled up on one elbow to look directly into the gray eyes that were so like F’lessan’s. “You wouldn’t lie to me?” She was startled to see the fullness of tears in Lessa’s eyes; the Weyrwoman irritably blinked them away. “No, green rider, I would not lie to you. Nor would that incredible dragon of yours. Nor will Ramoth or any other dragon on Pern. F’lessan and Golanth will require a great deal of care but Master Oldive is confident that they are physically strong enough to overcome their injuries.”

  There was something in Lessa’s voice that fueled the fear in Tai. She tried to swing her legs to the side of the bed—she had to see F’lessan—but her legs wouldn’t work and she relived that hideous moment when she couldn’t get free of the blanket to help F’lessan.

  She was pushed back, flat against the pillows. “You’ve wounds of your own that must heal before you go bouncing out of bed.”

  That was Sharra’s voice.

  What were they all doing here? Where was she?

  You are in Honshu, and this time it was Ruth speaking to her. Where else would you be?

  “And you said she was a biddable girl,” Lessa said with characteristic testiness. She gripped Tai’s face in both hands and forced her to meet her eyes. “F’lessan’s in a fellis sleep. Zaranth, by the way, won’t leave Golanth’s side. It’s as well. She wouldn’t fit in this room or she might be tempted to leave her weyrmate.”

  “Where are they then?” Tai demanded. Honshu’s main Hall would not be big enough for two dragons.

  “The terrace,” Lessa replied calmly. “There’s no rain in this season, you know.” She turned to one side for a glass. “Sharra will lift you so you can drink this.”

  “What is it?” Tai asked, suspicious. She didn’t want to be put back to sleep. She wanted to check her brave Zaranth, to see F’lessan and Golanth no matter how badly wounded they were.

  “Tell me, my dear green rider, how will you be able to care for F’lessan and Golanth if you jeopardize your own recovery?”

  It was the phrase “my dear green rider” and the very kind tone in which Lessa spoke that so stunned Tai that she drank down the potion without further struggle.

  “I think she did believe me,” Tai heard Lessa murmuring as she felt the fellis juice easing the rawness of her throat, radiating through her body and mind.

  “I knew she’d believe you,” Sharra answered and that was all she heard before she fell into a deep sleep that was therapeutic.

  Lessa had told Tai the truth about the other three injured in the felines’ attack, but not the whole truth. F’lessan and Golanth were critically injured: the survival of one depended on the other. The experienced Weyrhealer Wyzall had been entirely honest about Golanth’s ghastly wounds: the eye, with so many facets pierced by claws, might never function. He’d had fair results with a gel, which healed thread-char in dragon eyes, and he had used this heavily on Golanth’s eye, more to provide surface relief than with any real hope of tissue repair or regeneration. He had repaired the wing joint as well as he could and, of course, the sail membrane would, in time, regenerate most, if not all, the torn tissue. There was the possibility that the joint, with judicious exercise and manipulation, might regain partial flexion but “no
rmal” flight was unlikely.

  Oldive and Crivellan could be more sanguine about F’lessan. Physically he would recover from his wounds; the intestinal puncture had been repaired although the loss of flesh in the left calf, the tearing of the tendon and cartilage would almost certainly impair the full use of the leg. Right now, suffering from shock and loss of blood, they doubted he would survive the death of his dragon.

  “Neither would I,” Lessa thought, grieving within the calm and confidence she projected publicly.

  Both F’lessan and Golanth must be encouraged that the other, though wounded, would survive. Before F’lessan had lost consciousness, he—as Tai briefly had—may well have thought that Golanth was dying of his wounds and, had he taken that morbid thought with him into his fevered state, it was possible that he would slip away from them! They must also reassure Golanth, drifting in and out of consciousness from shock and weakness, that his rider was not mortally injured. Despite her own distress (numbweed deadened any pain), Zaranth kept assuring Golanth that F’lessan was alive, that his rider was only deeply asleep from pain and the exhaustion of their fight. Ramoth had given the bronze dragon the same reassurances and been a trifle testy when it seemed that Golanth put more reliance on what green Zaranth told him—when he was conscious enough to hear anything.

  “So long as he understands that F’lessan lives,” Wyzall told Lessa, “it doesn’t matter who he believes so long as he does.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” she agreed, but it took a little rearrangement in her mind that her Ramoth should take second place to a green.