Dragons Dawn

by Anne McCaffrey

  PART TWO. Thread

  4.5.08 Pern

  .

  Perhaps it was because people were so accustomed to dragonets after nearly eight years of close association that they no longer paid much attention to the creatures’ behavior. Those who noticed their unusual antics thought that the dragonets were merely playing some sort of a new game, for they were inventively amusing. Later people would remember that the dragonets attempted to herd the flocks and herds back to the barns. Later marine rangers would remember that the bottlenoses Bessie, Lottie, and Maximilian had urgently tried to explain to their human friends why the indigenous marine life was rushing eastward to a food source.

  At her home in Europe Square, Sabra Ongola-Stein actually thought that Fancy, the family dragonet, was attacking her three-year-old son at play in the yard. The little gold was grabbing at Shuvin’s shirt, attempting to haul him from his sandpile and his favorite toy truck. As soon as Sabra had rescued the boy, batting at Fancy, the dragonet had hovered over her, cheeping with relief. It was puzzling behavior to be sure, but, though the fabric of the shirt was torn, Sabra could see no marks on Shuvin’s flesh from the dragonet talons. Nor was Shuvin crying. He merely wanted to go back to his truck while Sabra wanted to change his shirt.

  To her utter surprise, Fancy tried to duck into the house with them, but Sabra got the door closed in time. As she leaned against it catching her breath, she noticed through the rear window that other dragonets were acting in the most peculiar fashion. She was some-what reassured by the fact that there had never been reports of dragonets hurting people, even in the ardor of mating, but that did not seem to be what was agitating them, because greens were wheeling as frantically as the other colors. Greens always got out of the way when a gold was mating. And it was certainly the wrong time for Fancy to be in season.

  As Sabra changed Shuvin’s shirt, deftly handling the little boy’s squirms, she realized that the cries that penetrated the thick plastic walls of the house sounded frightened. Sabra knew the usual dragonets sounds as well as anyone in Landing. What could they be frightened of?

  The large flying creature – perhaps a very big wherry – that had been occasionally spotted soaring near the Western Barrier Range would be unlikely to range so far east. What other danger could there be on a fine early spring morning? That smudge of gray cloud far off on the horizon suggested rain later on in the day, but that would be good for the crops already sprouting in the grain fields. Maybe she should get the clothes in off the line. Sometimes she missed the push-button conveniences that back on old Earth had eliminated the drudgery of monotonous household tasks. Too bad that the council never considered requiring miscreants to do domestic duties as punishment for disorderly conduct. She pulled Shuvin’s shirt down over his trousers, and he gave her a moist, loving kiss.

  “Truck, Mommie, truck? Now?”

  His wistful question made her aware, suddenly, of the silence, of the absence of the usual cheerful cacophony of dragonet choruses which was the background to daily life in Landing and in nearly every settlement across the southern continent. Such a complete silence was frightening. Startled, restraining Shuvin who wanted urgently to get back out and play in the sand, Sabra peered out the back window, then through the plasglas behind her. She saw not a dragonet in sight. Not even on Betty Musgrave-Blake’s house where there had been the usual natal congregation. Betty was expecting her second child; and Sabra had seen Basil, the obstetrician, arriving with Greta, his very capable apprentice midwife.

  Where were the dragonets? They never missed a birth.

  As well established as Landing was, one was still supposed to report anything unusual on Pern. She tried Ongola’s number on the comm unit, but it was engaged. While she was using the handset, Shuvin reached his grubby hand up to the door pull and slid it open, with a mischievous grin over his shoulder at his mother as he performed that new skill. She smiled her acquiescence as she tapped out Bay s number. The zoologist might know what was amiss with her favorite critters.

  Well east and slightly south of Landing, Sean and Sorka were hunting wherry for Restday meals. As the human settlements spread, foragers were having to go farther afield for game.

  “They’re not even trying to hunt, Sorka,” Sean said, scowling. “They’ve spent half the morning arguing. Fardling fools.” He lifted one muscular brown arm in an angry gesture to his eight dragonets. “Shape up, you winged wimps. We’re here to hunt!”

  He was ignored as his veteran browns seemed to be arguing with the mentasynths, most aggressively with Sean’s queen, Blazer. That was extraordinary behavior: Blazer, who had been genetically improved by Bay Harkenon’s tinkering, was usually accorded the obedience that any of the lesser colors granted the fertile gold females.

  “Mine, too,” Sorka said, nodding as her own five joined Sean’s. “Oh, jays, they’re coming for us! “Slackening her reins, she began to tighten her legs around her bay mare but stopped when she saw Sean, wheeling Cricket to face the oncoming dragonets, hold up an imperious hand. She was even more startled to see the dragonets assume an attack formation, their cries clamors of unspeakable fright and danger.

  “Danger? Where?” Sean spun Cricket around on his haunches, a trick that Sorka had never been able to teach Doove despite Sean’s assistance and her own endless patience. He searched the skies and stayed Cricket as the dragonets solidly turned their heads to the east.

  Blazer landed on his shoulder, swirling her tail about his neck and left bicep, and shrieked to the others. Sean was amazed at the interaction he sensed. A queen taking orders from browns? But he was distracted as her thoughts became vividly apprehensive.

  “Landing in danger?” he asked. “Shelter?”

  Once Sean had spoken, Sorka understood what her bronzes were trying to convey to her. Sean was always quicker to read the mental images of his enhanced dragonets, especially those of Blazer, who was the most coherent. Sorka had often wished for a golden female, but she loved her bronzes and brown too much to voice a complaint.

  “That’s what they all give me, too,” Sorka said, as her five began to tug various parts of her clothing. Though Sean could hunt bare to the waist, she bobbled too much to ride topless comfortably; her sleeveless leather vest provided support, as well as protection from the claw holds of the dragonets. Bronze Emmett settled on Doove’s poll long enough to secure a grip on one ear and the forelock, trying to pull the mare’s head around.

  “Something big, something dangerous, and shelter!” Sean said, shaking his head. “It’s only a thunderstorm, fellas. Look, just a cloud!”

  Sorka frowned as she looked eastward. They were high enough, on the plateau to have just a glimpse of the sea.

  “That’s a funny-looking cloud formation, Sean. I’ve never seen anything like it. More like the snowclouds we’d have now and again in Ireland.”

  Sean scowled and tightened his legs. Cricket, picking up on the dragonets’ urgent fears, pranced tensely in place in the piaffe he had been taught, but it was clear that he would break into a mad gallop the minute Sean gave him his head. The stallion’s eyes were rolling white in distress as he snorted. Doove, too, was fretting, spurred by Emmett’s peculiar urgency.

  “Doesn’t snow here, Sorka, but you’re right about the color and shape. By jays, whatever it’s raining, it’s damned near visible. Rain here doesn’t fall like that.”

  Duke and Sean’s original two browns saw it and shrieked in utter frustration and terror. Blazer trumpeted a fierce command. The next thing Sean and Sorka knew, both horses had been spurred by well placed dragonet stabs across their rumps into a headlong stampede which the massed fair of dragonets aimed north and west. Rein, leg, seat, or voice had no effect on the two pain-crazed horses, for when ever they tried to obey their riders, they got another slash from the vigilant dragonets.

  “Whatinell’s got into them?” Sean cried, hauling on the hackamore that he used in place of a bit in Cricket’s soft mouth. “I’ll break his bloody nose for
him, I will.”

  “No, Sean,” Sorka cried, leaning into her mare’s forward plunge. “Duke’s terrified of that cloud. All of mine are. They’d never hurt the horses! We’d be fools to ignore them.”

  “As if we could!”

  The horses were diving headlong down a ravine. Sean needed all his skill to stay on Cricket, but his mind sensed Blazer’s relief that she had succeeded in moving them toward safety.

  “Safety from what?” he muttered in a savage growl, hating the feeling of impotence on an animal that had never disobeyed him in its seven years, an animal that he had thought he understood better than any human on the whole planet.

  The headlong pace did not falter, even when Sean felt the gray stallion, fit as he was, begin to tire. The dragonets drove both horses onward, straight toward one of the small lakes that dotted that part of the continent.

  “Why water, Sean?” Sorka cried, sitting back and hauling on Doove’s mouth. When the mare willingly slowed, Duke and the other two bronzes screamed a protest and once again gouged her bleeding rump.

  Neighing and white-eyed with fear, the mare leapt into the water nearly unseating her rider. The stallion plunged beside her, galled by the spurred talons of Sean’s dragonets.

  The lake, a deep basin collecting the runoff from the nearby hills, had little beach and the horses were soon swimming, determinedly herded by the dragonets toward the rocky overhang on the far side. Sean and Sorka had often sunbathed on that ledge; they enjoyed diving from their high perch into the deep water below.

  “The ledge? They want us under the ledge? The water’s fardling deep there.”

  “Why?” Sorka still asked. “It’s only rain coming.” She was swimming beside Doove, one hand on the pommel of her saddle, the other holding the reins, letting the mare’s efforts drag her forward. “Where’d they all go?”

  Sean, swimming alongside Cricket, turned on his side to look back the way they had come. His eyes widened. “That’s not rain. Swim for it, Sorka! Swim for the ledge!”

  She cast a glance over her shoulder and saw what had startled the usually imperturbable young man. Terror lent strength to her arm; tugging on the reins, she urged Doove to greater efforts. They were nearly to the ledge, nearly to what little safety that offered from the hissing silver fall that splatted so ominously across the woods they had only just left.

  “Where are the dragonets?” Sorka wailed as she crossed into the shadow of the ledge. She tugged at Doove, trying to drag the mare in behind her.

  “Safer where they are, no doubt!” Sean sounded bitterly angry as he forced Cricket under the ledge. There was just room enough for the horses’ heads to remain above the level of the water, but there was no purchase for their flailing legs.

  Suddenly both horses ceased resisting their riders and began to press Sean and Sorka against the inner wall, whinnying in abject terror.

  “Jack your legs up, Sorka! Balance against the inside wall!” Sean shouted, demonstrating.

  Then they heard the hiss on the water. Peering around the frightened horses’ heads, they could actually see the long, thin threads plunging into the water. The lake was suddenly roiling and cut every which way with the fins of the minnows that had been seeded in the streams.

  “Jays! Look at that!” Sean pointed excitedly to a small jet of flame just above the lake’s surface that charred a large tangle of the stuff before it landed in the water.

  “Over there, too!” Sorka said, and then they heard the agitated but exultant chatter of dragonets. Crowded back under the ledge, they caught only fleeting glimpses of dragonets and the unexpected flames.

  All at once Sorka remembered that long-ago day when she had first witnessed the dragonets defending the poultry flocks. She had been certain then that Duke had flamed at a wherry. “That happened before, Sean,” Sorka said, her fingers slipping on his wet shoulder as she grabbed at it to get his attention. “Somehow they breathe fire. Maybe that’s what the second stomach is for.”

  “Well, I’m glad they weren’t cowards,” Sean muttered, cautiously propelling himself to the opening. “No,” he said in a relieved voice, expelling a big sigh. “They’re by no means cowards. C’mere, Sorka.

  Glancing anxiously at Doove, Sorka joined Sean and cried out with surprised elation. Their fair of dragonets had been augmented by a mass of others. The little warriors seemed to take turns diving at the evil rainfall, their spouts of flame reducing the terror to char, which fell as ashes to the surface of the lake, where quick fish mouths gobbled it up.

  “See, Sorka, the dragonets are protecting this ledge.”

  Sorka could see the menacing rain falling unimpeded to the lake on either side of the dragonet fire zone.

  “Jays, Sean, look what it does to the bushes!” She pointed to the shoreline. The thick clumps of tough bushes they had ridden through only moments before were no longer visible, covered by a writhing mass of “things” that seemed to enlarge as they watched. Sorka felt sick to her stomach, and only intense concentration prevented her from heaving her breakfast up. Sean had gone white about the mouth. His hands, moving rhythmically to keep him in position in the water, clenched into fists.

  “No bleeding wonder the dragonets were scared.” He smashed impotent fists into the water, sending ripples out. Sorka’s Duke appeared instantly, hovering just outside and peering in. He waited just long enough to squeak a reassurance, and then literally disappeared. “Well, now,” Sean said. “If I were Pol Nietro, I’d call that instantaneous flit of theirs the best defense mechanism a species could develop.” A long thread slithered from the ledge and hung a moment in front of their horrified eyes before a flame charred it.

  Revolted, Sean splashed water on the remains, whisking the floating motes away from Sorka and himself. Behind them the horses breathing showed signs of real distress.

  “How long?” Sean said, gliding over to Cricket’s head and soothing the horse with his hands. “How long?”

  It is not mating activity,” Bay told Sabra when she called, “and it is a totally irrational pattern of behavior.” Her mind riding through all she knew and had observed about the dragonets, Bay continued to peer out her window. As she watched, a sled lifted from a parking spot near the met tower, and it headed at full speed toward the storm. “Let me check my behavioral files and have a word with Pol. I’ll call you back. It really is most unusual.”

  Pol was working on the vegetable patch behind their home. He saw her coming and waved cheerfully, tipping back his visored cap and mopping his brow. The garden soil had been carefully enriched and enhanced by a variety of Terran beetles and worms that were as happy to aerate the soil of Pern as of Earth and augmented the local, lazier kinds. Bay saw Pol stop, his hand in midwipe, and stare about him; she guessed he had only then noticed the absence of the dragonets.

  “Where’ve they all gone?” He glanced toward other residential squares and Betty’s empty roof. “That was sudden, wasn’t it?”

  “Sabra’s just been on to me. She said their Fancy appeared to attack little Shuvin. For no reason, although her claws did not pierce the skin. Fancy then attempted to enter the house with them. Sabra said she sounded frightened.”

  Pol raised his eyebrows in surprise and continued to wipe his brow and then the hat band before recovering his head. Leaning on his hoe, he glanced all around. It was then that he saw the gray cloud.

  “Don’t like the look of that, m’luv,” he said. “I’ll take a bit of a break until it blows over.” He smiled at her. “While we access your notes on the menta-breed. Fancy’s a menta, not a native.”

  Suddenly the air was full of shrieking, screaming, bugling, and very frightened dragonets.

  “Where have they been, the little pests?” Pol demanded, snatching off his cap to wave it furiously in front of his face. “Faugh! They stink!”

  Bay pinched her nostrils, hurrying toward the refuge of the house. “They do, indeed. Positively sulfurous.”

  Six dragonets detached themselves
from the swirling hundreds and dove for Bay and Pol, battering at their backs and screeching to hurry them forward.

  “I do believe they’re driving us into the house, Pol,” Bay said. When she stopped to study the eccentric behavior, her queen grabbed a lock of her hair, and the two bronzes secured holds on the front of her tunic, pulling her forward. Their cries grew more frantic. “I believe you’re correct. And they’re doing it to others, too.”

  “I’ve never seen so many dragonets. We don’t normally have such a concentration here,” Bay went on, cooperating to the point of a lumbering jog trot. “Most of them are wilds! Look how much smaller some queens are. A preponderance of greens as well. Fascinating.”

  “Extremely,” Pol remarked, mildly amused that the dragonets who were their particular friends had entered the house and were cooperating in a joint effort to close the door behind the humans. “Most remarkable.”

  Bay was already sitting down at the terminal. “Patently, it’s something harmful to them as well as to us.”

  “I’d prefer them to settle,” Pol said. Their dragonets were flitting about the lounge and into the bedroom, the bathroom, and even the addition to the house that had been made into a small but well equipped home laboratory for the two scientists. “This is a bit much. Bay, tell your queen to settle, and the others will follow suit.”

  “Tell her yourself, Pol, while I access the behavioral program. She’ll obey you as well as me.”

  Pol attempted to coax Mariah to land on his arm. But the moment she touched down she was off again, and the others after her. A tidbit of her favorite fish was ignored. Pol was no longer amused. He looked out the window to see if others were experiencing the same mass hysteria and noticed that the squares had been cleared of people. He could see clouds of dust over by the veterinary barns, and the dark dashes of dragonets attempting to herd the animals. He could also hear the distant discord of frightened beasts.