“Do you mean, how far in the future do I think those fire-lizards came from?” Wind Blossom asked.
M’hall nodded.
Wind Blossom shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“But sooner in the future rather than later,” M’hall suggested. “I can’t see fire-lizards jumping far between times.”
“They were sick, disoriented,” Wind Blossom pointed out. “I know too little of the breed to say whether they’d jump farther or shorter in such circumstances.”
“Well, they must have been here before: To return here they must have had a good visual image of the place.”
“Perhaps,” Wind Blossom said. At M’hall’s probing look, she expounded, “I recall that fire-lizards can sometimes locate a person they know in an unfamiliar setting.”
M’hall nodded. “Yes, I’ve heard that, too. But usually they go where they’ve been before, looking for someone they already know. Given that they were sick—”
Wind Blossom raised an eyebrow reproachfully. M’hall caught the look and laughed.
“Very well,” he said, “I’ll leave the diagnosing to you. Are you saying they might have gone back in time to a familiar person?”
“I was saying that I don’t know,” Wind Blossom responded.
M’hall nodded and resumed a thoughtful expression. After a moment he stirred. “Is there anything you can do? Is this talk just conjectural?”
“Perhaps I can do something,” Wind Blossom said. “I would need to know more about the problem.”
“And there’s no way to do that,” M’hall said. “Not unless another fire-lizard or”—his voice dropped—“a dragon falls out of the sky.”
“I have considered that, yes,” Wind Blossom replied.
M’hall gave her a startled look. “Is that why you ordered all that agenothree?”
“Do you mean nitric acid, HNO3?” Wind Blossom asked primly.
The redheaded dragonrider blushed. “Yes, I do,” he said, looking chagrinned. “When you’re flying Threadfall, you tend to slur words, so it becomes agenothree.”
“Mmm,” Wind Blossom murmured noncommittally.
“You’re teasing me!” M’hall exclaimed suddenly with a startled laugh. “I don’t believe it! You’re actually teasing me.”
Wind Blossom lowered her eyes shamefully for a moment and then raised them again to meet his. “It is very rude of me, I know,” she said sheepishly.
“I never even knew you had a sense of humor.”
“My mother would berate me for it,” Wind Blossom agreed. “However, it has kept me company in trying times. I had hoped to keep it under control but apparently it got away from me again.”
“Oh, you enjoyed that all right,” M’hall said, wagging a finger at her. “Don’t deny it, you enjoyed it.”
Wind Blossom nodded. “I do not deny it.”
M’hall sobered suddenly. “You say that your humor surfaces in trying times? Are these trying times?”
“Every day is a trying time,” Wind Blossom answered evasively. M’hall pinned her with his gaze and the old lady accepted his chiding with a nod of her head.
“We have embarked on a great experiment in ecological engineering,” she explained. “Every ecosystem is resilient and conservative in nature. It will always try to maintain the status quo. Adding dragons, watch-whers, Tubberman’s grubs, and, most importantly, all our Terran ecosystem has altered the status quo. It is inevitable that there will be repercussions.”
“And it’s your job to guard against those repercussions,” M’hall said firmly.
“It’s my job for this generation,” Wind Blossom corrected. “I am eighty-one years old, M’hall. I might possibly live to see ninety, but certainly not one hundred.”
“Did you ever determine the cause of the early dementia?” M’hall asked choosing his words carefully.
“No,” Wind Blossom replied softly. “The emergency with the fire-lizard came before I could complete my analysis.”
M’hall shifted uncomfortably.
Wind Blossom noted his unease. “Janir and I have talked about this,” she told him. “We agree that my short-term memory is fading, but my long-term memory, particularly of events in my youth, remains strong.”
“Is there anything we can do?” M’hall asked softly, relieved that Wind Blossom had answered the question he could not bring himself to ask.
“Janir knows to keep an eye on me,” Wind Blossom said. “And now, so do you.”
“And Emorra?”
“I have not told her myself, but I believe she has made her own diagnosis,” Wind Blossom said after a moment. She looked the dragonrider squarely in the eyes. “You know how difficult it is to lose a parent.”
M’hall nodded swiftly in agreement.
“Janir and I have agreed that whatever is reducing mental capacity in the elderly will probably not be a factor in the future,” Wind Blossom continued.
M’hall thought that over for a moment. He could think of no one still alive near Wind Blossom’s age. His own mother had been only seventy when she died, and his father, Sean, had been sixty-two. He did not need Wind Blossom to tell him that the harder life on Pern would mean reduced life expectancies.
He sought a new subject. “What happens after you, Wind Blossom?”
“In the Eridani Way there should be others for the succeeding generations.”
“Do you mean Emorra and Tieran?” M’hall asked. “That smacks of slavery, to expect them to continue blindly in the tradition.”
“It is more of a genetic destiny,” Wind Blossom said. The look in her eyes made M’hall realize that she herself was an example of that “genetic destiny.” “The Eridani Way involves a discipline transcending generations and millennia, a dedication to the good of the ecosystem.”
“I can appreciate their goals, but I don’t like their methods,” M’hall replied.
Wind Blossom nodded. “Neither do I,” she agreed. “And I have better reason than most to appreciate their goals and question their methods. In fact, if we were in contact with the EEC, I’d have some comments to make to the Eridani Council itself.”
M’hall’s eyebrows rose as he considered the image of this tiny old lady berating the prestigious Eridani Council. He imagined the Eridani Council would soon see the error of its ways.
“What would your comments be?” he asked, his eyes dancing humorously.
“I would say that I consider it a mistake to engage an aristocracy in maintaining ecologies—that it should be something that is the inheritance of every sentient being living in the ecosystem,” Wind Blossom told him.
“I see,” M’hall said. “And how would you implement that here, on Pern?”
Wind Blossom shook her head. “I don’t know,” she replied. “With an adequate technology base and a larger population, there would be time to teach everyone. But this is a world built on agriculture—we don’t have the tools required to do delicate genetic testing. There are not enough people and not enough food for our expanding population.”
“It would seem that here,” M’hall said, waving his hand around to indicate the College, “would be the place to retain that knowledge.”
“We’re already losing that knowledge,” Wind Blossom said. “Shortly we’ll be unable to perform any invasive surgery. We haven’t got the equipment to monitor the effect of an anesthetic on a person, let alone the people trained to administer it.”
“What about genetics?”
“Genetics is even worse,” Wind Blossom said. “Fortunately the base population is pretty healthy, but there will be mutations—there are about six to seven hundred mutations in every newborn—and some of those will be malevolent.
“We could teach something about basic genetics, plant breeding and so on, but nothing about genome manipulation—how to detect and repair defective genes.”
M’hall grimaced. “So do you see no hope?”
“I didn’t say that. There’s a chance that at some future date—perh
aps a thousand years or more—our society will advance to the point where it will be possible to recover what was lost at Landing and re-establish contact with the Yokohama or the other ships in orbit. When that happens, all the knowledge we had will be made available to our descendants,” she said. “What they do with it will be up to them, of course.”
“So you’re worried about the short-term only?”
Wind Blossom shook her head. “My training leaves me worried about our world.”
M’hall nodded sympathetically. “I share your worries, you know,” he told her. He rose and stretched. “I must get back to my Weyr.”
Wind Blossom nodded understandingly.
“There is less to do now, but more than I’d realized,” he added with a rueful grin. “Still, if anything else happens to fall out of the sky—let me know. And if you come up with any ideas on how to solve these problems you worry about, let me know and I’ll do all I can to help.”
“Thank you, M’hall, that’s all I could hope for,” Wind Blossom answered.
As they walked back out through the courtyard to where Brianth was waiting, M’hall looked down at the dimunitive old-timer and said conversationally, “You know, Wind Blossom, you need a break from all this.”
He wagged a finger in response to her shocked expression. “Some time off will do you a world of good. If you want to go someplace, like a warm seaside cottage, you send word and I’ll get you there.”
Wind Blossom opened her mouth to protest, but her expression changed before she could utter a response. A thoughtful gleam entered her eyes.
“Why thank you, M’hall. I think I will.”
THIRTEEN
Dragon, turn
Dragon, climb
Dragonrider, watch for sign
Firestone, chew
Dragon, flame
Char the Thread, make it tame.
Benden Weyr, Third Pass, 4th day, AL 508
Today we’ll drill with mixed wings,” M’tal announced the next morning. It had been a long, hard night for the entire Weyr. The evening and early hours of the morning had been punctuated with the sorrowful cries of injured riders and dragons. Two more dragons had gone between before dawn.
M’tal had called the Wingleaders together at first light.
“Not only do we need the training,” M’tal told the group, “but it will keep us focused on our duties.”
“What about the sick dragons, M’tal?” someone called from the back.
“They won’t fly, J’ken,” M’tal said, recognizing the speaker’s voice. “I learned my lesson yesterday. We’ll let them rest.”
There was a murmur of agreement and some muttering about being a day late.
M’tal raised a hand for silence. “Yesterday none of us had fought Thread before,” he said. “Today we know better. In two days, we’ll be able to handle any losses in our flights. It’s vital that we practice today and tomorrow as hard as we can to handle losses during Threadfall.
“I’ve asked Lorana and Kindan to call out dragons as ‘casualties’ from time to time, so that we can really learn how to cope,” he told them. He saw the other riders looking at each other, nodding as they digested the idea and found they liked it.
“But what about the sickness, M’tal?” J’ken called from the back of the group. “I lost two good riders yesterday because they were too sick to fly. What if more get sick?”
“Lorana and Kindan will also be in the Records Room searching for any hints they can find,” M’tal assured them. “I’ve sent word to Masterharper Zist to search the Records at the Harper Hall, too.”
“Do they keep dragon Records at the Harper Hall?” J’tol, B’nik’s wingsecond asked, frowning.
“We’ll find out soon enough,” M’tal said.
“Sounds like Kindan and Lorana are working too hard,” L’tor muttered. He looked up at M’tal. “Let’s hope they aren’t so tired that they miss something vital.”
“Could we get someone else to help?” J’tol wondered.
“Traditionally, it’s been the duty of the Weyrwoman to examine the Records,” J’ken noted.
M’tal raised a hand placatingly. “I’m afraid that Salina is still recovering from her loss,” he told the group regretfully. “I’m sure—”
“I wasn’t talking about her, M’tal,” J’ken interjected. “I was talking about Tullea.”
He shot a glance at B’nik’s wingsecond. “What about it, J’tol? Where’s Tullea? And where’s B’nik for that matter? Late again?”
“B’nik is setting up a surprise for us,” M’tal assured the others. “I asked him to.”
“What about Tullea?” J’ken persisted. From the grumbling of the group, it was obvious that he was not the only rider who was displeased by their new Weyrwoman’s behavior.
“What matters now, dragonriders,” M’tal called in a voice pitched to carry over the grumbling, “is that Thread falls in two more days’ time and we need practice. To your dragons!”
The first two hours of practice were dismal. B’nik’s surprise was that half his wing was aloft with the ropes used for practice in the Games. They popped in and out of between well above the riders, and threw down handfuls of the ropes, to simulate clumps of Thread.
After two hours, J’tol took the other half of B’nik’s wing high aloft to throw ropes, while B’nik and the others practiced flaming it along with the rest of the Weyr.
Slowly, with many false starts and restarts, the dragonriders began to learn to become more flexible in their formations, to quickly regroup when a dragon became a casualty. And both the dragons and their riders grew more confident and adept.
When the dragonriders returned to the Weyr for a lunchtime break, M’tal felt cautiously confident that they would be ready for the next Threadfall.
“How far back do you think we should go?” Kindan asked, wheezing as some dust from the latest pile of Records flew into his face. “Some of these are disintegrating.”
“Shouldn’t we get them copied, then?” Lorana asked, carefully leafing through another pile of musty records.
“Spoken like someone who never spent days copying old Records,” Kindan responded. “Do you know how boring it is, day in, day out, copying musty old Records?”
Lorana allowed herself a slight smile. “I imagine there would be a lot to be learned,” she said.
Kindan shook his head. “No, not really,” he said. “Most of the Records are repetitious. There are only so many ways you can record crop yields and rainfall. Occasionally there’s a note of a wedding or a birth but—honestly—you’d think whoever wrote those Records was numb! Not a single joke, no songs, nothing but dull, dry facts, Record after Record.”
“Well, it’s dull, dry facts we’re after,” Lorana responded. “No joke or song is going to help us here.”
Kindan paused mid-search and looked up at Lorana. She looked back at him quizzically until he shook his head and gave her a dismissive hand gesture. “Nothing,” he told her. “I thought I remembered a song . . . but it was nothing.”
Lorana glanced over at the sandglass they’d brought up with them. “Ooops, our time’s up! Name another dragon,” she told him.
“Mmm, Ganth,” Kindan said. “T’mac’s brown. That’ll leave J’ken without a wingsecond.”
Lorana raised her eyebrows in appreciation of the choice. “Very well,” she said, and gave the order to Ganth. She smiled as the brown dragon thanked her and asked if he could take a swim in the lake.
I think that’s up to your rider, don’t you? she replied.
Lorana looked back down at her stack of Records and then threw her hands up in disgust. “You know, we’re going at this the wrong way,” she said.
“I’ve been saying that for hours,” Kindan agreed. He looked over at her. “What is your plan?”
“Well, I was thinking that anything that happened to the dragons recently, we’d remember,” she said. “So why work our way back through the Records? Why not start with
the oldest Records and work forward?”
“The oldest Records!” Kindan groaned. “Queen rider, you certainly know how to darken a day.”
Lorana started to protest but Kindan raised a hand, silencing her.
“I didn’t say you weren’t right,” he told her. “I just dread the prospect.” He stood up and went back to the stacks of Records, searching. “You know, I’m going to have to move the newer stacks first.”
“I’ll order more klah, then,” Lorana suggested.
Kindan turned back to her with a grin. “Ah ha! This is just a plot to take a break.”
Lorana laughed and went to the shaft to order more food.
By the time they broke for the evening meal, Lorana’s good humor had frayed.
“Musty old, useless Records!” she swore.
Kindan gave her a shocked look.
“I’m sorry I ever suggested we start with the oldest ones,” she apologized, stifling a sneeze. “My nose is running and my eyes are watering with all this dust. The writing’s barely legible and I’ve probably missed something important because it’s buried in a mass of gibberish!”
“Maybe I can help.”
Lorana looked over to see Salina standing in the doorway.
“You should be feeding your dragon, anyway,” Salina said.
“After you’ve done that, you can feed yourself,” Kindan added. “You haven’t had anything since you took a break to help K’tan with that injured wing tip—if you call that a break.”
“But there’s so much to do!” Lorana protested, waving a hand toward the high stacks of unread Records.
Salina entered the room and sat at the table. Catching Lorana’s eyes, she jerked her head toward the door.
“I’ll do it while you do your other chores,” Salina said. “I’ve heard someone say that this is the Weyrwoman’s job, anyway.”
Kindan couldn’t bring himself to point out that the Weyrwoman being referred to was Tullea, not Salina.
“Ask Mikkala to send up some fresh glows, please,” Salina told Lorana as she was leaving. She looked over at Kindan. “Now, Harper, what should we be looking for?”
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