Dragons Dawn

by Anne McCaffrey

  “There had better be an explanation for this,” he murmured, pausing behind Bay to read the screen. “My word, look at Betty’s house!” He pointed over the screen and out the window toward a structure fully clothed in dragonets. “My God, should I call them to see if they need help?”

  When he put his hand out to reach for the door pull, Mariah, screaming with anger, dove at his hand and pushed it away, scratching him.

  “Don’t go, Pol. Don’t go out, Pol! Look!”

  Bay had half risen from her chair and remained frozen in the semicrouch, a look of utter horror on her face. As Pol threw a protective arm about her shoulders, they both heard the hiss of the terrible rain that fell on Landing. They could see the individual elongated raindrops” strike the surface, sometimes meeting only dust, other times writhing about the shrubs and grasses, which disappeared, leaving behind engorged sluglike forms that rapidly attacked anything green in their way. Pol’s nicely sprouting garden became a waste of squirming grayish “things,” bloating larger within seconds on each new feast.

  Mariah let out a raucous call and disappeared from the house. The other five dragonets followed instantly.

  “I don’t believe what I saw,” Pol said in an amazed whisper. “They’re teleporting in droves, almost formations. So the telekinesis was developed as a survival technique first. Hmm.”

  The hideous rain had advanced, spreading its mindless burden behind and inexorably falling across Pol’s neatly patterned stone-work patio toward the house.

  “They can’t devour stone,” Pol remarked with clinical detachment. “I trust our silicon plastic roof provides a similar deterrent.”

  “The dragonets have more than one unexplored skill, Pol, my dear,” Bay said proudly and pointed.

  Outside, their dragonets were swooping and soaring, breathing flame to incinerate the attacking life-form before it could reach the house.

  “I would be happier if I knew the things could not penetrate plastic,” Pol repeated with a slight tremor in his voice, looking up at the opaque roof. He winced and hunched in self-protection as he heard a slithering impact, then another, then saw the flame spurt briefly in gouts across the dark roof material.

  “Well, that’s a relief,” he said, straightening his shoulders.

  “They did strike the roof, however, until the dragonets, bless their little hearts, set them ablaze.” Bay peered out the window facing Betty Musgrave-Blake’s house. “My word! Look at that!”

  The house seemed to be ringed by fiery whirls and gouts as an umbrella of dragonets frantically made certain that not a single piece of the grotesque rain reached the home of a woman in labor.

  Pol had the presence of mind to collect his binoculars from the clutter on a shelf. He turned them on the fields and the veterinary sheds. “I wonder if they’ll protect our livestock. There’re too many animals to get all safely under shelter. But dragonets do seem to be massing in that area.”

  Keenly interested in the safety of the herds and flocks they had helped to create, Pol and Bay took turns watching. Bay suddenly dropped the glasses, shuddering as she passed them wordlessly to Pol . She had been shocked by the sight of a full-grown cow reduced in a few moments to a seared corpse covered by masses of writhing strings. Pol altered the focus and then groaned in helpless dismay, dropping the binoculars.

  “Deadly, they are. Voracious, insatiable. It would appear they consume anything organic,” he murmured. Taking a deep, resolute breath, he raised the binoculars again. “And, unfortunately, to judge by the marks on the roofs of some of those shelters we put up first, carbon-based plastics, too.”

  “Oh, dear. That could be terrible. Could this be a regional phenomenon?” Bay asked, her voice still trembling. “There were those odd circles on the vegetated areas, the ones in the original survey fax . . . Turning away from the disaster, she sat down at the keyboard and, clearing the screen, began to call up files.

  “I hope no one is foolish enough to go out after those last few cows and sheep, Pol said, an edge to his voice. “I hope they got all the horses in safely. The new equine strain is too promising to lose, even to a ravening disaster.”

  Almost as an afterthought the alarm klaxon on the meteorology tower began to bleat.

  “Now that’s a bit after the fact, old fellow,” Pol said, turning to focus the binoculars on the tower. He could see Ongola in the tower holding a rag against his cheek. The sled that had gone out to investigate the storm was parked so close to the tower entrance that Pol guessed that Ongola had probably dived directly from sled to the tower door.

  “No, the sound carries and sets off the relays,” Bay said absently as her fingers flew over the keys.

  “Ah, yes, I’d forgot that. Quite a few people went out on hunting parties this morning, you know.”

  Bay’s quick fingers stilled, and she turned slowly in the swivel chair to stare at Pol, her face ashen.

  “There now, old dear, so many people have dragonets now, and at least one of the smarter mentas you developed.” He crossed to her and gave her a reassuring pat on the head. “They’ve done a first-class job of warning and protecting us. Ah! Listen!”

  There was no mistaking the exultant warble of the dragonets that always heralded a birth. Despite the bizarre disaster occurring on Pern at that moment, a new life had entered it. The welcome did not however, interfere with the protective net of flame about the house.

  “The poor baby! To be born now!” Bay mourned. Her plump cheeks were drawn, her eyes sunken in her face.

  Heedless of the stinging pain on the left side of his face, Ongola kept one finger on the klaxon even as he began calling out to the other stations on the network.

  “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday at Landing! Take shelter! Get livestock under cover! Extreme danger. Shelter all living things.” He shuddered, recalling the horrific sight of two wayward sheep consumed in an eye-blink by the descending vileness. “Shelter under rock, metal, in water! An unnatural rain heading westward in uneven fall. Deadly! Deadly! Shelter. Mayday from Landing. Mayday from Landing. Mayday from Landing!” Drops of blood from his head and neck dripped in punctuation to his terse phrases. “Cloud unnatural. Rainfall deadly. Mayday from Landing! Take shelter! Mayday. Mayday.”

  His own home was barely visible through the sheeting fall, but he did see the gouts of flame above those houses in Landing still occupied. He accepted the amazing reality of the thousands of dragonets massing to assist their human friends, of the living, flaming shield over Betty Musgrave-Blake’s home, of the multitude swirling above the veterinary sheds and the pastures, and he remembered that Fancy had tried to fly into the window where he had been sitting out his watch. When he had suddenly realized that none of the meteorological devices were registering the cloud mass approaching steadily from the east, he had phoned Emily at her home.

  “Go have a look, Ongola. Looks like just a good stiff equinoctial squall, but if the water-vapor instruments are not registering, you’ better check the wind speed and see if there’s hail or sleet in the clouds. There’re hunters and fishers out today, as well as farmers.”

  Ongola had gotten close enough to the cloud to register its unusual composition – and to see the damage it did. He tried to raise Emily on the sled’s comm unit. When that did not work, he tried to reach Jim Tillek at Harbor Control. But he had taken the nearest sled, a small fast one that did not have the sophisticated equipment the bigger ones did. He tried every number he could think of and only reached Kitti, who generally stayed in her home, frail in her tenth decade despite prostheses that gave her some mobility.

  “Thank you for the warning, Ongola. A prudent person is well advised. I will contact the veterinary sheds for them to get the livestock under cover. A hungry rain?”

  Ongola had thrown the little sled to its maximum speed, hoping that there was enough power in the packs to withstand such a drain. The sled responded, but he only just made it back to the tower, the engine dying just as he touched ground.

  The
stuff pelted down on the sled canopy. He had not managed to outrun the leading edge. He grabbed the flight-plan board, an inadequate shield from the deadly rain but better than nothing. Taking a deep breath, he punched auto-close, then ducked out. He took three long strides, more jump than run, and made it to the tower door just as a tangle descended. The tilted edge of the board deflected the stuff right onto the unprotected left side of his head. Screaming with pain, Ongola batted the stuff from his ear just as a dragonet came flaming up to his assistance. Ongola shouted a “Thanks” for the dragonet’s aid as he threw himself inside and slammed the door. Automatically he threw the bolt, snorting at useless instinct, and took the steps to the tower in twos and threes.

  The stinging pain continued, and he felt something oozing down his neck. Blood! He blotted at the injury with his handkerchief, noticing that the blood was mixed with black fragments, and he became aware of the stench of burned wool. The dragonet’s breath had scorched his sweater.

  The warning delivered, he was flipping on the recording when a second stinging pain on his left shoulder made him glance down. He saw the front end of a waving strand that did not look at all like wool. The pain seemed to accompany the strand. He had never undressed as fast as he did then. And he was just fast enough: the strand had become thicker and was moving with more rapidity and purpose. Even as he watched in horror at his close escape, the wool was ingested, and the grotesque, quivering segment left in its place filled him with revulsion.

  Water! He reached for both the water pitcher and the klah thermos and emptied them over the . . . the thing. Writhing and bubbling, it slowly subsided into a soggy inert mass. He stamped on it with as much satisfaction as he had felt destroying Nathi surface positions.

  Then he looked at his shoulder and saw the thin bloodied line scored in his flesh by his close encounter with that deadly piece of thread. A convulsive shudder took hold of his body, and he had to grab a chair to keep from falling to his knees.

  The comm unit began to bleat at him. Taking several deep breaths he got to his feet and back on duty.

  Thanks for the klaxon, Ongola. We had just time enough to batten down the hatches. Knew the critters were telling us something but howinell could we guess that?” Jim Tillek reported from the bridge of the Southern Star. “Thank the powers that be, our ships are all siliplex.”

  Monaco Bay harbor office reported overturned small craft and was instigating rescues.

  The infirmary reported that human casualties in and about Landing had been minimal: mainly dragonet scratches. They had the dragonets to thank for saving lives.

  Red Hanrahan at Vet said that they had lost fifty to sixty assorted livestock of the breeding herds pastured about Landing, thanking the good fortune of having just shipped out three hundred calves, lambs, kids, and piglets to new homes the previous month. There were however, large numbers at nearby stakes that did not have stabling facilities and were in the path of the abominable rain. Red added that all of the animals left loose to graze could be considered lost.

  Two of the larger fishing vessels reported severe burn injuries for those who had not made it under cover in time. One of the Hegelman boys had jumped overboard and drowned when the things landed in a clump on his face. Maximilian, escorting the Perseus, had been unable to save him. The dolphin had added that native marine life was swarming to the surface, fighting over the drowning wrigglers. He himself did not much like the things: no substance.

  Messages were rapidly stacking up on Ongola’s board; he rang Emily to send him some assistance.

  The captain of Maid of the Sea, fishing to the north, wanted to know what was happening. The skies about him were clear to the southern horizon. Patrice de Broglie, stationed out at Young Mountain with the seismic team, asked if he should send his crew back. There had been only a few rumbles in the past weeks, though there were some interesting changes in the gravity meter graphs. Ongola told him to send back as many as he could, not wanting to think what might have happened to homesteads in the path of that malevolent Threadfall.

  Bonneau phoned in from Drake’s Lake, where it was still night and very clear. He offered to send a contingent.

  Sallah Telgar-Andiyar got through from Karachi Camp and said that assistance was already on its way. How widespread was the rain? she wanted to know.

  Ongola shunted all those calls when the first of the nearby settlements reported.

  “If it hadn’t been for those dragonets,” said Aisling Hempenstahl of Bordeaux, “we’d all be – have been eaten alive.” Her swallow was audible. “Not a green thing to be seen, and all the livestock gone. Except the cow the dragonets drove into the river, and she’s a mess.”

  “Any casualties?”

  “None I can’t take care of myself, but we’ve little fresh food. Oh, and Kwan wants to know do you need him at Landing?”

  “I’d say yes, indeed we do,” Ongola replied fervently. Then he tried again to raise the Du Vieux, the Radelins, the Grant van Toorns, the Ciottis, and the Holstroms. “Keep trying these, Jacob.” He passed the list over to Jacob Chernoff, who had brought three young apprentices to help. “Kurt, Heinrich, try the River numbers, Calusa, Cambridge, and Vienna.” Ongola called Lilienkamp at Stores. “Joel, how many checked out for hunting today?”

  “Too many, Ongola, too many.” The tough Joel was weeping.

  “Including your boys?”

  Joel’s response was the barest whisper. “Yes.”

  “I am sorry to hear that, Joel. We’ve organized searches. And the boys have dragonets.”

  “Sure, but look how many it took the protect Landing!’’ His voice rose shrilly.

  “Sir.” Kurt tugged urgently at Ongola’s bare elbow. “One of the sleds – ”

  “I’ll get back to you, Joel.” Ongola took the call from the sled.

  “Yes?”

  “Whaddya do to kill this stuff, Ongola?” Ziv Marchane’s anguished cry sent a stab of pure terror and fury to Ongola’s guts.

  “Cautery, Ziv. Who is it?”

  “What’s left of young Joel Lilienkamp.”

  “Bad?”

  “Very.”

  Ongola paused and closed his eyes tightly for a moment, remembering the two sheep. “Then give him mercy!”

  Ziv broke the connection, and Ongola stared at the console, paralyzed. He had given mercy several times, too many times, during the Nathi War when his men had been blown apart after Nathi hits on his destroyer. The practice was standard procedure in surface engagement. One never left one’s wounded to Nathi mercy. Mercy, yes, it was mercy to do so. Ongola had never thought that necessity would ever arise again.

  Paul Benden’s vibrant voice broke through his pained trance. “What in hell’s happening, Ongola?”

  “Wish the hell I knew, Admiral.” Ongola shook his head and then gave him a precise report and a list of casualties, known or suspected.

  “I’m coming in.” Paul had staked his claim on the heights above the delta on the Boca River. It would soon be dawn there. “I’ll check other stakes on the way in.”

  “Pol and Kitti want samples if they can be safely got – of the stuff in the air. It scores holes through thin materials, so be sure to use heavy gauge metal or siliplex. We’ve got enough of what ate our fields bare. I’ve sent all our big sleds out to track the frigging Fall. Kenjo’s flying in from Honshu in that augmented speeder of his. The stuff just came out of nowhere, Paul, nowhere!”

  “Didn’t register on anything? No? Well, we’ll check it all out.”

  The absolute confidence in Paul Benden’s voice was a tonic for Ongola. He had heard that same note all through the Cygnus Battle and he took heart.

  He needed it. Before Paul Benden arrived late that afternoon, the casualties had mounted to a frightening total. Only three of the twenty who had gone hunting that morning had returned: Sorka Hanrahan, Sean Connell, and David Catarel, who had watched, helpless, from the water as his companion, Lucy Tubberman, dissolved under the rain on the riverbank d
espite the frantic efforts of their dragonets. He had deep scores on his scalp, left cheek, arms, and shoulders, and he was suffering from shock and grief.

  Two babies, obviously thrust at the last moment into a small metal cabinet, were the only survivors of the main Tuareg camp on the plains west of the big bend in the Paradise River. Sean and Sorka had gone to find the Connells, who had last been reported on the eastern spur of Kahrain Province. No one answered from the northern stakes on the Jordan River. It looked bad.

  Porrig Connell had, for once, listened to the warnings of the dragonets and had taken shelter in a cave. It had not been large enough to accommodate all his horses, and four of the mares had died. When they screamed outside, the stallion had gone berserk in the confines of the cave, and Porrig had had to cut his throat. There was no fodder for the remaining mares, so Sean and Sorka returned with hay and food rations. Then they went off to search for other survivors.

  The Du Vieux and Holstroms at Amsterdam Stake, the Radelins and Duquesnes at Bavaria, and the Ciottis at Milan Stake were dead; no trace remained of them or their livestock. The metals and heavy gauge, silicon-based plastic roofing, though it was heavily pocked, remained as the only evidence of their once thriving settlement. They had used the newly pressed vegetable-fiber slabs for their homes. No one on Pern ever would use such building material again.

  From the air, the swath of destruction cut by the falling threadlike rain was obvious, the fringes seething with bloated wormlike excrescences which squadrons of dragonets attacked with flaming breath. The path ended seventy-five klicks beyond the narrow Paradise River, where it had annihilated the Tuareg camps.

  By evening, the exhausted settlers fed their dragonets first, and left out mounds of cooked grain for the wild ones that would not approach near enough to be hand-fed.

  “Nothing was said about this sort of thing in the EEC report,” Mar Dook muttered in a bitter tone.

  “Those wretched polka dots no one ever explained,” Aisling Hempenstahl said, her voice just loud enough to be heard.