Their current trip was to make an aerial reconnaissance of the location of several mineral deposits noted by the metallurgy probes. Iron, vanadium, manganese, and even germanium were to be found in the mountainous spine that Sallah was aiming at as they followed the course of a river to its source. She was also operating under the general directive that unusual sites should be recorded and photographed to offer the widest possible choice. Only a third of those with stake acreage had made their selection. There was a subtle pressure to keep everyone in the southern continent – at least in the first few generations – but there was no such directive in the charter. The broad, long river valley that lay to their right as they approached the precipice was, to Sallah’s mind, the most beautiful they had seen so far.
Rene Mallibeau, the colony’s most determined vintner, was still looking for the proper type of slope and soil for his vineyards, though to get his project started he had actually released some of his hoard of special soils from their sealed tanks for his experiments in viniculture. Quikal was not a universally accepted substitute for the traditional spirits. Despite being poured through a variety of filters with or without additives, nothing could completely reduce the raw after taste. Rene had been promised the use of ceramic-lined metal fuel tanks which, once thoroughly cleansed, would provide him with wine vats of superior quality. Of course, once the proper oak forests had reached adequate size for use as staves, his descendants could move back to the traditional wooden barrel.
“Rather spectacular, that precipice, isn’t it, Tarvi?” Sallah said, grinning rather foolishly, as if the view were a surprise that she herself had prepared for him.
“Indeed it is. ‘In Xanadu did Kublai Khan,’ “ he murmured in his rich deep voice.
“ ‘Caverns measureless to man’?” Sallah capped it, careful not to sound smug that she recognized his source. Tarvi often quoted obscure Sanskrit and Pushtu texts, leaving her groping for a suitable retort.
“Precisely, O moon of my delight.”
Sallah suppressed a grimace. Sometimes Tarvi’s phrases were ambiguous, and she knew that he did not mean what his phrase suggested. He would not be so obvious. Or would he? Had she penetrated that bland exterior after all? She forced herself to contemplate the immense stone bulwark. Its natural fluted columns appeared carved by an inexperienced or inattentive sculptor, yet the imperfection contributed to the overall beauty of the precipice.
“This valley is six or seven klicks long,” she said quietly, awed by the truly impressive natural site.
From the steep, right-angled fall of a spectacular diedre, the palisade led in a somewhat straight line for about three klicks before falling back into a less perfectly defined face that sloped down in the distance to meet the floor of the valley. She angled the sled to starboard facing upriver, and they were nearly blinded by the brilliant sunlight reflecting from the surface of the lake that had been charted by the probe.
“No, land here,” Tarvi said quickly, actually catching her arm to stress his urgency. He was not much given to personal contact, and Sallah tried not to misinterpret excitement for anything else. “I must see the caves.”
He released the safety harness and swiveled his seat around. Then he walked to the back of the sled, rummaging among the supplies.
“Lights, we’ll need lights, ropes, food, water, recording devices, specimen kit,” he muttered as his deft movements filled two backpacks. “Boots? Have you on proper boots . . ah, those will do, indeed they will. Sallah, you are always well prepared.” He compounded his inadvertent injury to her feelings by one of his more ingratiating smiles.
Once again, Sallah shook her head over her whimsical fancy, which had managed to settle on one of the most elusive males of her acquaintance. Of course, she consoled herself, anything easily had is rarely worth having. She landed the sled at the base of the towering precipice, as near to the long narrow mouth of the cave as she could.
“Pitons, grappling hook – that first slab looks about five meters above the scree. Here you are, Sallah!”
He handed her pack over, waiting only long enough to see her grab a strap before he released the canopy, jumped down, and was striding toward the towering buttress. With a resigned shrug, Sallah flipped on beacon, comm unit, and recorder for incoming messages, fastened her jacket, settled the rather hefty pack on her back, and followed him, closing the canopy behind her.
He scrambled up the scree and stood with one palm flat against the slab, looking up its imposing and awesome spread, his face rapt with wonder. Gently, as in a caress, he stroked the stone before he began to look right and left, assessing how best to climb to the cave. He dashed her an ingenuous smile, acknowledging her presence and assuming her willingness.
“Straight up. Not much of a climb with pitons.”
The climb proved strenuous. Sallah could have used a breather as she crawled onto the ledge, but there was the cave opening, and nothing was going to deter Tarvi from immediate entrance and a leisurely inspection. Ah, well, it was just 1300 hours. They had time in hand. She rolled to her feet, unlatching the handlight from her belt just a few seconds after he had done the same, and was at his side as he peered into the opening.
“Lords, gods, and minor deities!”
His invocation was a mere whisper, solemn and awed, a susurrous echo. The vast initial cavern was larger than the cargo hold of the Yokohama. Sallah made that instant comparison, remembering how eerie that immense barren space had seemed on her last trip, and in the next second, she wondered what the cavern would look like occupied. It would make a spectacular great hall, in the tradition of medieval times on Earth – only even more magnificent.
Tarvi held his breath, hesitantly extending his still-dark handlight, as if reluctant to illuminate the majesty of the cavern. She heard his intake of breath, in the manner of one steeling himself to commit sacrilege, and then the light came on.
Wings whirred as shadows made silent sinuous departures to the darker recesses. They both ducked as the winged denizens departed in flight lines just clearing their heads, though the cave entrance was at least four meters high. Ignoring the exodus, Tarvi moved reverently into the vast space.
“Amazing,” he murmured as he shined the light up and judged that the shell of the outer wall above them was barely two meters thick. “A very thin face.”
“Some bubble,” Sallah said, feeling impious and wanting to regain her equilibrium after her initial awe. “Look, you could carve a staircase in that,” she said, her light picking out a slanting foot of rock that rose to a ledge where a large darkness indicated yet another cave.
She spoke to inattentive ears, for Tarvi was already prowling about determining the width of the entrance and the dimensions of the cave. She hurried after him.
The first chamber of the cave complex measured an awesome fifty-seven meters deep at its widest, tapering at either end to forty-six meters on the left and forty-two meters on the right. Along the back wall, there were innumerable irregular openings at random levels some were on the ground level leading into apparent tunnel complexes, most of which were high enough to admit Tarvi’s tall frame with considerable head space; others, like great dead eyes, peered down from higher up the inside wall. Entranced as Tarvi was by their discovery, he was a trained scientific observer. With Sallah’s aid he began to draft an accurate plan of the main chamber, the openings of secondary ones, and the tunnel complexes leading inward. He penetrated each to a depth of a hundred meters, roped to a nervous Sallah who kept glancing back at the cave’s opening for the reassuring sight of the waning day.
His rough notes were refined by the light of the gas fire on which Sallah cooked their evening meal. Tarvi had elected to camp far enough into the cave to be protected from the stiff breeze that blew down the valley, and far enough to the left so as not to interfere with the habits of the cave’s natural residents. Later, a low flame from the protected gas fire would discourage most of Pern’s wildlife from investigating the intruders.
Tarvi had gone down to the sled to bring up more drafting tools and the folding table over which he had hunched almost immediately. With no comment, he had eaten the stew she had carefully prepared, absently handing back his plate for a second helping.
Sallah was of two minds about Tarvi’s concentration. On the one hand, she was a good cook and liked to have her skill acknowledged. On the other hand, she was as glad that Tarvi was distracted. One of the pharmacists had given her a pinch of what she swore was a potent indigenous aphrodisiac; Sallah had used it to season Tarvi’s share. She did not need it herself, not with her mind and body vibrating to his presence and their solitude. But she was beginning to wonder if the aphrodisiac was strong enough to overcome Tarvi’s enchantment with the cave. Just her luck to get him to herself for a night or two and then have him be totally enthralled by Dear Old Mother Earth in Pernese costume. But she had not bided her time to waste a sterling opportunity. She could wait. All night. And tomorrow. She had enough of the joy dust to use the next night, too. Maybe it just took a while to act.
“It is truly magnificent in its proportions, Sallah. Here, look!” He straightened his torso, arching his back against his cramped muscles, and Sallah came up behind him, knelt, and considerately began to knead his taut shoulder muscles as she peered over his shoulder.
The two-dimensional sketch had been deftly drawn with bold lines: he had added back, front, and side elevations, truthfully ending them where his measurements ended. But that only made the cavern more imposing and mysterious.
“What a fort it would have been in the olden days!” He looking toward the black interior, his wide liquid eyes shining, his face alight as imagination altered the chamber before him. “Why, it would have housed whole tribes. Kept them secure for years from invasion. There’s fresh water, you understand, down the third left-hand tunnel. Of course, the valley itself would be defensible and this the protected inner hold, with that daunting slab to defeat climbers. There are no less than eighteen different exits from the main chamber.”
She had worked her hands up the column of his neck, then across the trapezius muscles, and down to the deltoids, massaging firmly but letting her fingers linger in a movement that she had found immensely effective on other occasions when she had wished to relax a man.
“Ah, how kind you are, Sallah, to know where the muscles bind.” He twisted slightly, not to evade her seeking, kneading fingers but to guide them to the sorest points. He pushed the low table to one side so that his arms could fall naturally to his lap as he rotated his head. “There’s a point, eleventh vertebrae . . .” he suggested, and she dutifully found the knot of muscle and smoothed it expertly. He sighed like a lithe dark feline being stroked.
She said nothing, but moved ever so slightly forward so that her body touched his. As she walked her fingers back to his neck, she dared to press against him so that her breasts lightly touched his shoulder blades. She could feel her nipples harden at the contact, and her respiration quickened. Her fingers ceased to knead and began to caress, moving down over his chest in long slow motions. He caught her hands then, and she could feel the stillness of him, a stillness of mind and breath, as his body began to tremble slightly.
Perhaps this is the time,” he mused as if alone. “There will never be a better. And it must be done.”
With the suppleness that was as much a trademark of Tarvi Andiyar as his ineffable charm, he gathered her in his arms, pulling her across his lap. His expression, oddly detached as if examining her for the first time, was not yet quite the tender, loving expression she had so wished to evoke. His expressive and large brown eyes were almost sad, though his perfectly shaped lips curved in an infinitely gentle smile – as if, the thought intruded on Sallah’s delight in her progress, he did not wish to frighten her.
“So, Sallah,” he said in his rich low and sensual voice, “it is you.”
She knew she should interpret that cryptic remark, but then he began to kiss her, his hands suddenly displaying an exceedingly erotic mind of their own, and she no longer wished to interpret anything.
* * * * *
Four mares, three dolphins, and twelve cows produced their young at precisely the same moment, or so the records for that dawn hour stood. Sean had even agreed to allow Sorka to observe the birth of the foal designated for him by Pol and Bay. He had maintained a pose of skepticism over the color and sex of the creature although, three days previously, he had already witnessed that the first of the draft animals produced for his father’s group was exactly as requested, a sturdy bay mare with white socks and a face blaze who had weighed over seventy kilos at birth and would be the image of the long-dead Shire stallion whose sperm had begot her.
Some wit had quipped that Landing’s records were turning into the biblical begottens of Pern’s chronicle. In two years, the new generation was well begun and increasing daily. Human births were less minutely reported than the successes of animal kind, but at least as well celebrated.
Sheep and the Nubian strain of goats that had somehow adapted where other tough breeds had failed grazed Landing’s meadows and would soon go to farm-stake acres in the temperate belts of the southern continent. The growing herds and flocks were patrolled by such a proliferation of dragonets that the ecologists were becoming concerned that the animals would lose their natural abilities to fend for themselves. The tame dragonets were proving to be extraordinarily faithful to the humans who had impressed them at hatching, even after their voracious appetites abated with maturity and they were well able to forage on their own.
The biology department was learning more about the little creatures every day. Bay Harkenon and Pol Nietro had discovered a particularly surprising phenomenon. When Bay’s little queen mated with a bronze that Pol had impressed, the sensuality of their pets surprised them with its intensity. They found themselves responding to the exciting stimulus in a human fashion. After the initial shock, they came to a mutual conclusion and took a larger residence together. Awed by the empathic potential of the dragonets, Bay and Pol asked for, and got, Kitti Ping’s permission to try mentasynth enhancement on the fourteen eggs that Bay’s Mariah had conceived in her mating flight. They fussed considerably more over the little golden Mariah than was necessary, but neither the dragonet nor her clutch suffered. When Mariah produced her enhanced eggs in a specially constructed facsimile of a beach, Bay and Pol were smugly pleased.
Incorporation of mentasynth, which had originally been developed by the Beltrae, a reclusive Eridani hive culture, sparked latent empathic abilities. Dragonets had already demonstrated such an ability, amounting to an almost telepathic communication with a few people. The dragonets were clearly a remarkable evolutionary attempt which, like dolphins, had produced an animal that understood its environment – and controlled it. So, inspired by the success of the dolphins’ mentasynth enhancement, Bay and Pol hoped that the dragonets would come to an even closer empathy with people.
Initially, humans from Beltrae who had been “touched” were regarded with great suspicion, of course, but as soon as their remarkable empathic powers with animals and other people were realized, the technique became widespread. Many groups eventually had valued healers whose abilities had been amplified that way. Luckily, that all happened well before the Pure Human group became powerful.
From their studies of the tunnel snakes and wherries, Bay and Pol had come to an appreciation of the potential of the charming and useful dragonets. It had taken many experiments with dragonet tissues, and with several generations of the little tunnel snakes, to incorporate the mentasynth system successfully, but long time experience with such species as dolphins – and, of course, man – paid off.
Everyone in Landing had come to have a working knowledge of the habits of the dragonets, biological as well as psychological, for there was good cause to be gratef
ul to the creatures and to tolerate their few natural excesses. Theoretically, Bay had known that some of the owners seemed to feel the “primitive urges” of the creatures: hunger, fear, anger, and an intense mating imperative. She had simply never thought that she would be as vulnerable as her younger colleagues. It had been an exceedingly delightful surprise.
Red and Mairi Hanrahan were thankful that Sorka and Sean had impressed – the word, meaning the act of imprinting a dragonet, had somehow crept into the language – dragonets that would not want to mate with each other. They still did not approve of Sorka’s close attachment to the boy and felt that she was too young to be subjected to irresistible sensual urges.
On that morning, nearly twelve months after Landing, the mare Sean had chosen to produce his promised foal was laboring to give birth, there was no doubt that Sorka, who had turned thirteen, and Sean two years older, were in rapport with their eagerly anticipating dragonets. The two browns and the bronze had perched on the top rail of the stable partition, their eyes whirling with growing excitement as they crooned their birth song. The little chestnut mare dropped to the straw to deliver the forelegs and head of her foal. Above, the rafters of the barn seemed to ripple with its temporary adornment of the dragonet population of Landing, crooning and chirping continual encouragement.
Dragonets were sentimental about births and missed none in Landing, bugling in high-pitched tenor voices at each new arrival. Fortunately, they discreetly remained outside human habitations. The colony’s obstetricians had lately been working nonstop and had drafted the nurses and taken on apprentices. An array of dragonets on a roof became an irrefutable sign of impending birth: the dragonets were never wrong. The obstetricians could gauge the labour progress by the growing intensity of the dragonets’ welcoming song. The chorus might deprive neighbors of sleep, but most of the community took it in good humor. Even the most jaundiced had seen the dragonets protecting the flocks and herds, and had to appreciate their value.
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