The Dragonriders of Pern

by Anne McCaffrey

Lessa eyed her Weyrmate thoughtfully. “Yes, he does, which is why I chose him to substitute for F’nor.”

  That seemed to relieve F’lar, for he leaned back against the pillows with a deep sigh and closed his eyes. “He’s a good choice. For more than Fort Weyrleadership. He’d carry on. That’s what we need the most, Lessa. Men who think, who can carry on. That’s what happened before.” His eyes flew open, shadowed with a vague fear and a definite worry. “What time is it at Fort Weyr now?”

  Lessa made a rapid calculation. “Dawn’s about four hours away.”

  “Oh. I want N’ton here as soon as possible.”

  “No wait a minute, F’lar, he’s a Fort rider . . .”

  F’lar grabbed for her hand, pulling her down to him. “Don’t you see,” he demanded, his voice hoarse, his urgency frightening, “he’s got to know. Know everything I plan. Then, if something happens . . .”

  Lessa stared at him, not comprehending. Then she was both furious with him for frightening her, irritated with his self-pity, and terrified that he might indeed be fatally ill.

  “F’lar, get a grip on yourself, man,” she said, half-angry, half-teasing; he felt so hot.

  He flung himself back down on the bed, tossing his head from side to side.

  “This is what happened before. I know it I don’t care what he says, get F’nor here.”

  Lioth is coming and a green from Telgar Mnementh announced.

  Lessa took consolation from the fact that Mnementh didn’t seem the least bit distressed by F’lar’s ravings.

  F’lar gave a startled cry, glaring accusingly at Lessa.

  “Don’t look at me. I didn’t send for N’ton. It isn’t even dawn there yet.”

  The green is a messenger and the man he bears is very excited, Mnementh reported, and he sounded mildly curious.

  Ramoth, who had taken herself to the Hatching Ground after Lessa awakened, rumbled a challenge to bronze Lioth.

  N’ton came striding down the passageway, accompanied by Wansor, certainly the last person Lessa expected to see. The rotund little man’s face was flushed with excitement, his eyes sparkling despite red rims and bloodshot whites.

  “Oh, Weyrlady, this is the most exciting news imaginable. Really exciting!” Wansor babbled, shaking the large leaf under her nose. She had an impression of circles. Then Wansor saw F’lar. All the excitement drained out of his face as he realized that the Weyrleader was a very sick man. “Sir, I had no idea—I wouldn’t have presumed . . .”

  “Nonsense, man,” F’lar said irritably. “What brings you? What have you there? Let me see. You’ve found a coordinate for the dragons?”

  Wansor seemed so uncertain about proceeding that Lessa took charge, guiding the man to the bed.

  “What’s this leaf mean? Ah, this is Pern, and that is the Red Star, but what are these other circles you’ve marked?”

  “I’m not certain I know, my lady, but I discovered them while scanning the heavens last night—or this morning. The Red Star is not the only globe above us. There is this one, too, which became visible toward morning, didn’t it, N’ton?” The young bronze rider nodded solemnly but there was a gleam of amusement in his blue eyes for the glassman’s manner of exposition. “And very faintly, but still visible as a sphere, is this third heavenly neighbor, to our northeast, low on the horizon. Then, directly south—it was N’ton’s notion to look all around—we found this larger globe with the most unusual cluster of objects moving with visible speed about it. Why, the skies around Pern are crowded!” Wansor’s dismay was so ludicrous that Lessa had to stifle her giggle.

  F’lar took the leaf from the glassman and began to study it while Lessa pushed Wansor onto the stool by the sick man. F’lar tapped the circles thoughtfully as though this tactile contact made them more real.

  “And there are four stars in the skies?”

  “Indeed there are many more, Weyrleader,” Wansor replied. “But only these,” and his stained forefinger pointed to the three newly discovered neighbors, “appear so far as globes in the distance-viewer. The others are merely bright points of light as stars have always been. One must assume, then, that these three are also controlled by our sun, and pass around it, even as we do. For I do not see how they could escape the force that tethers us and the Red Star to the sun—a force we know to be tremendous . . .”

  F’lar looked up from the rude sketches, a terrible expression on his face.

  “If these are so near, then does Thread really come from the Red Star?”

  “Oh dear, oh dear,” moaned Wansor softly and began caressing his fingertips with his thumbs in little fluttery gestures.

  “Nonsense,” said Lessa so confidently that the three men glanced at her in surprise. “Let’s not make more complications than we already have. The ancients who knew enough to make that distance-viewer definitely stipulate the Red Star as the origin of Thread. If it were one of these others, they’d have said so. It is when the Red Star approaches Pern that we have Thread.”

  “In that drawing in the Council Room at Fort Weyr there is a diagram of globes on circular routes,” N’ton said thoughtfully. “Only there are six circles and,” his eyes widened suddenly; he glanced quickly down at the sheet in Wansor’s hand, “. . . one of them, the next to the last, has clusters of smaller satellites.”

  “Well, then, except that we’ve seen it with our own eyes, what’s all the worry?” demanded Lessa, grabbing up the klah pitcher and mugs to serve the newcomers. “We’ve only just discovered for ourselves what the ancients knew and inscribed on that wall.”

  “Only now,” N’ton said softly, “we know what that design means.”

  Lessa shot him a long look and nearly flooded Wansor’s cup.

  “Indeed. The actual experience is the knowing, N’ton.”

  “I gather you have both spent the night at that distance-viewer?” asked F’lar. When they nodded, he asked, “What of the Red Star? Did you see anything that could guide us in?”

  “As to that, sir,” N’ton answered after a questioning glance at Wansor, “there is an odd-shaped protuberance which puts me in mind of the tip of Nerat, only pointed east instead of west—” His voice trailed off and he gave a different shrug of his shoulders.

  F’lar sighed and leaned back again, all the eagerness gone from his face.

  “Insufficient detail, huh?”

  “Last night,” N’ton added in hurried qualification.

  “I doubt the following nights will alter the view.”

  “On the contrary, Weyrleader,” said Wansor, his eyes wide, “the Red Star turns on its own axis much as Pern does.”

  “But it is still too far away to make out any details,” Lessa said firmly.

  F’lar shot her an annoyed look “If I could only see for myself . . .”

  Wansor looked up brightly. “Well, now, you know, I had about figured out how to utilize the lenses from the magnifier. Of course, there’d be no such maneuverability as one can achieve with the ancient device, but the advantage is that I could set up those lenses on your own Star Stones. It’s rather interesting, too, because if I put one lens in the Eye Rock and set the other on the Finger Rock, you will see—or, but then you won’t see, will you?” And the little man seemed to deflate.

  “Won’t see what?”

  “Well, those rocks are situated to catch the Red Star only at winter solstice, so of course the angles are wrong for any other time of year. But then, I could—no,” Wansor’s face was puckered with his intense frown. Only his eyes moved, restlessly, as the myriad thoughts he was undoubtedly sifting were reflected briefly. “I will think about it. But I am sure that I can devise a means of your seeing the Red Star, Weyrleader, without moving from Benden.”

  “You must be exhausted, Wansor,” Lessa said, before F’lar could ask another question.

  “Oh, not to mention,” Wansor replied, blinking hard to focus on her.

  “Enough to mention,” Lessa said firmly and took the cup from his hand, half-liftin
g him from the stool. “I think, Master Wansor, that you had better sleep here at Benden a little while.”

  “Oh, could I? I’d the most fearful notion that I might fall off the dragon between. But that couldn’t happen, could it? Oh, I can’t stay. I have the Craft’s dragon. Really, perhaps I’d just better . . .”

  His voice trailed off as Lessa led him down the corridor.

  “He was up all last night too,” N’ton said, grinning affectionately after Wansor

  “There is no way to go between to the Red Star?” N’ton shook his head slowly. “Not that we could see tonight—last night. The same features of dark, reddish masses were turned toward us most of the time we watched. Just before we decided you should know about the other planets, I took a final look and that Nerat-like promontory had disappeared, leaving only the dullish gray-red coloration.”

  “There must be some way to get to the Red Star.”

  “I’m sure you’ll find it, sir, when you’re feeling better.”

  F’lar grimaced, thinking that “unobtrusive” was an apt description of this young man. He had deftly expressed confidence in his superior, that only ill-health prevented immediate action, and that the ill-health was a passing thing.

  “Since that’s the way matters stand in that direction, let us proceed in another. Lessa said that you procured Thread for us. Did you see how those swampgrubs dealt with Thread?”

  N’ton nodded slowly, his eyes glittering.

  “If we hadn’t had to cede the dissidents the continent, I’d’ve had a straight-flown Search discover the boundaries of the southern lands. We still don’t know its extent. Exploration was stopped on the west by the deserts, and on the east by the sea. But it can’t be just the swampy area that is infested with these grubs.” F’lar shook his head. He sounded querulous to himself. He took a breath, forcing himself to speak more slowly and therefore less emotionally. “There’s been Threadfall in the Southern Weyr for seven Turns and not a single burrow. The ground crews have never had to flame out anything. Now, even with the most careful, most experienced, sharpest-eyed riders, some Thread gets to the ground. T’bor insists there were never any burrows to be found anywhere after a Threadfall.” F’lar grimaced. “His wings are efficient and Threadfall is light in the south, but I wish I’d known.”

  “And what would you have thought?” asked Lessa with her usual asperity as she rejoined them. “Nothing. Because until Thread started falling out of phase, and you had been at the swampfall, you’d never have correlated the information.”

  She was right, of course, but N’ton didn’t have to look so torn between agreement with her and sympathy for him. Silently F’lar railed at this infuriating debility. He ought to be up and around, not forced to rely on the observations of others at a crucial time like this.

  “Sir, in the Turns I’ve been a dragonrider,” said N’ton, considering his words even as he spoke, “I’ve learned that nothing is done without purpose. I used to call my sire foolish to insist that one tanned leather in just one way, or stretched hide only a little at a time, well-soaked, but I’ve realized recently that there is an order, a reason, a rhyme for it” He paused, but F’lar urged him to go on. “I’ve been most interested in the methods of the Mastersmith. That man thinks constantly.” The young man’s eyes shone with such intense admiration that F’lar grinned. “I’m afraid I may be making a nuisance of myself but I learned so much from him. Enough to realize that there’re gaps in the knowledge that’s been transmitted down to us. Enough to understand that perhaps the southern continent was abandoned to let the grubs grow in strength there . . .”

  “You mean, that if the ancients knew they couldn’t get to the Red Star,” Lessa exclaimed, “they developed the grubs to protect growing fields?”

  “They developed the dragons from fire lizards, didn’t they? Why not grubs as ground crews?” And N’ton grinned at the whimsy of his thesis.

  “That makes sense,” Lessa said, looking hopefully at F’lar. “Certainly that explains why the dragons haven’t jumped between to the red star. They didn’t need to. Protection was being provided.”

  “Then why don’t we have grubs here in the north?” asked F’lar contentiously.

  “Ha! Someone didn’t live long enough to transmit the news, or sow the grubs, or cultivate them, or something. Who can tell?” Lessa threw wide her arms. It was obvious to F’lar that she preferred this theory, subtle as she may have been in trying to block his desire to go to the Red Star.

  He was willing to believe that the grubs were the answer, but the Red Star had to be visited. If only to reassure the Lord Holders that the dragonmen were trustworthy.

  “We still don’t know if the grubs exist beyond the swamps,” F’lar reminded her.

  “I don’t mind sneaking in and finding out,” N’ton said. “I know Southern very well, sir. Probably as well as anyone, even F’nor. I’d like permission to go south and check” When N’ton saw F’lar hesitate and Lessa frown, he went on hurriedly. “I can evade T’kul. That man’s so obvious, he’s pathetic.”

  “All right, all right N’ton. Go. It’s the truth I’ve no one else to send,” and F’lar tried not to feel bitter that F’nor was involved with a woman; he was a dragonrider first, wasn’t he? Then F’lar suppressed such uncharitable thoughts. Brekke had been a Weyrwoman; through no fault of hers (and F’lar still berated himself that he had not thought of keeping a closer check on Kylara’s activities—he’d been warned), Brekke was deprived of her dragon. If she found some comfort in F’nor’s presence, it was unforgivable to deprive her of his company. “Go, N’ton. Spot-check. And bring back samples of those grubs from every location. I wish Wansor had not dismantled that other contraption. We could look closely at the grubs. That Masterherder was a fool. The grubs might not be the same in every spot.”

  “Grubs are grubs,” Lessa mumbled.

  “Landbeasts raised in the mountains are different from landbeasts raised on the plains,” N’ton said. “Fellis trees grown south are larger with better fruit than Nerat’s best.”

  “You know too much,” Lessa replied, grinning to take the sting from her words.

  N’ton grinned. “I’m a bronze rider, Weyrwoman.”

  “You’d best be off. No, wait Are you sure Fort is not going to need you and Lioth for Thread?” F’lar asked, wanting to be rid of this very healthy youngster who only emphasized his illness.

  “Not for a while, sir. It’s full night there still.”

  That underscored his youthfulness and F’lar waved him out, trying to suppress jealousy with gratitude. The moment he’d gone, F’lar let out a sudden exasperated oath that brought Lessa, all consideration, to his side.

  “I’ll get well, I’ll get well,” he fumed. He held her hand against his cheek, grateful, too, for the cool of her fingers as they curved to fit against his face.

  “Of course you’ll get well. You’re never sick,” she murmured softly, stroking his forehead with her free hand. Then her voice took on a teasing note. “You’re just stupid. Otherwise you wouldn’t have gone between, let cold into a wound, and developed fever.”

  F’lar, reassured as much by her caustic jibe as her cool and loving caresses, lay back and willed himself to sleep, to health.

  CHAPTER XIV

  Early Morning at Ruatha Hold

  Midday at Benden Weyr

  When word came that the Hatching was likely to occur that bright spring day, Jaxom didn’t know whether he was glad or not. Ever since the two queens had killed each other ten days before, Lytol had been sunk in such a deep gloom that Jaxom had tiptoed around the Hold. His guardian had always been a somber man, never given to joking or teasing, but this new silence unnerved the entire Hold. Even the new baby didn’t cry.

  It was bad, very bad, to lose one queen, Jaxom knew, but to lose two, in such a horrible way! It was almost as if things were pointing toward even direr events. Jaxom was scared, a deep voiceless feeling in his bones. He almost dreaded seeing Felessan.
He had never shaken off his sense of blasphemy for invading the Hatching Ground, and wondered if this were his punishment. But he was a logical boy and the death of the two queens had not occurred at Ruatha, not over Fort Weyr to which Ruatha Hold was bound. He’d never met Kylara or Brekke. He did know F’nor and felt sorry for him if half what he’d heard was true—that F’nor had taken Brekke into his weyr and had abandoned his duties as a Wing-second to care for her. She was very sick. Funny, everyone was sorry for Brekke but no one mentioned Kylara, and she’d lost a queen, too.

  Jaxom wondered about that but knew he couldn’t ask. Just as he couldn’t ask if he and Lytol were really going to the Hatching. Why else would the Weyrleader send them word? And wasn’t Talina a Ruathan candidate for the queen egg? Ruatha ought to be represented at the Hatching. Benden Weyr always had open Impressions, even when the other Weyrs didn’t. And he hadn’t seen Felessan in ages. Not that anyone had done much more than Thread-watch since the wedding at Telgar.

  Jaxom sighed. That had been some day. He shivered, remembered how sick, cold and—yes—how scared he’d been. (Lytol said a man wasn’t afraid to admit to fear.) All the time he’d watched F’lar fighting T’ron, he’d been scared. He shuddered again, his spine rippling with reaction to that memory. Everything was going wrong on Pern. Dragon queens killing each other, Weyrleaders dueling in public, Thread falling here and there, with no rhyme or reason. Order had slipped away from life; the constants that made his routine were dissolving, and he was powerless to stop the inexorable slide. It wasn’t fair. Everything had been going so well. Everyone had been saying how Ruatha Hold had improved. Now, this past six days, they’d lost that northeastern farmhold and, if things kept up, there wouldn’t be much left of all Lytol’s hard work. Maybe that’s why he was acting so—so odd. But it wasn’t fair. Lytol had worked so hard. And now, it looked as though Jaxom was going to miss the Hatching and see who Impressed that littlest egg. It wasn’t at all fair.

  “Lord Jaxom,” gasped a breathless drudge from the doorway, “Lord Lytol said for you to change to your best. The Hatching’s to start. Oh, sir, do you think Talina has a chance?”