Dragons Dawn

by Anne McCaffrey

  “. . . and make each cylinder last as long as possible,” Drake was saying. “Conserve agenothree and power, and you’ll last longer in the flight line. Which is where you’re needed. Now, most of you have had experience with turbulence. Don‘t shuck your safety harness until you’re on the ground. The lighter sleds can be flipped on landing if the wind suddenly gusts, because they’re nose-heavy with the flame-thrower mounts.”

  With Tarvi on such a schedule, it was just as well that she had work of her own to do, Sallah thought. He had little enough time for her, and she would not even have the comfort of sleeping beside him – or be able to rouse him to a dawn lusting when he was too drowsy to resist her caresses.

  What was wrong with her? she wondered for the millionth time. She had not trapped Tarvi. The mutual need and passion that day in the cave could not have been faked. When the chance union had resulted in pregnancy, he had immediately offered to make a formal arrangement. She had not insisted, but she had been much relieved that the initiative had been his. He had been considerate, tender, and solicitous through out the gestation, and sincerely over joyed when his firstborn was a strong, healthy boy. He adored all his children, rejoicing at their birth and in their development. It was his wife he avoided, dismissed, ignored.

  Sallah sighed, and her old friend Barr shot her a quizzical glance. Sallah smiled and gave a shrug, intimating that Drake had caused her reaction. What would her life have been like with Drake Bonneau, happily ensconced on his lake? Svenda looked complacent, boasting about limiting her childbearing to two. Drake might act the confident flyboy in public, but the previous night he had been noticeably dancing attendance on his imperious wife. Sallah had always thought that Drake was more “show” than “do.” Yet for all Tarvi’s eccentricities, Sallah preferred the geologist and treasured those ever more rare occasions when she could rouse him to passion. Perhaps that was the problem: Tarvi should be allowed the initiative. No, she had tried that tack, and had gone through a miserable year before she thought of her “dawn attacks.”

  She had learned some Pushtu phrases from Jivan and artlessly she had inquired about feminine names. Whomever Tarvi called for at the height of passion, it was not another woman. Or another man from all she could discover.

  “So,” Drake said, “here is the roster for the next Fall. Remember, it’s a double hit, at Jordan and at Dorado. We’re going to send you Dorado squadrons on ahead so you can be well rested by the time you have to fight.” Again Drake’s eagle gaze swept his adoring students. “Now, back to your sleds to lend the technicians what assistance you can. House lights’ll go out at midnight. We all need our rest,” he concluded cheerfully as he waved their dismissal.

  Svenda quickly moved to his side, her scowl a deterrent to those who approached Drake with private questions.

  “When did you get in, Sallah?” Barr asked, turning with her usual friendly grin. “I only arrived in from our stake around noon. No one of the old group knew when you’d make it. I didn’t realize this thing was so serious until I saw what it had done on my way up.”

  Sallah laughed. Barr’s bubbling personality had not changed a micro, though her figure had rounded. “How many kids do you have now, Barr?” Sallah asked. “We’ve sort of lost track of each other with you on the other side of the continent.”

  “Five!” Barr managed a girlish giggle, glancing slyly at Sallah. “The last was a set of twins, which I’d never have expected. Then Jess told me that he was a twin, and twin births were common in his family. I could have strangled him.”

  “You didn’t, though.”

  “Naw! He’s a good man, a loving father, and a hard worker.” Barr gave a sharp nod of her head at each virtue, grinning at Sallah again. Then her mobile face changed to one of concern. “Are you all right, Sallah?”

  “Me, certainly. I’ve four kids. Brought Cara with me. She’s only three months old.”

  “Is she at Mairi’s or Chris MacArdle-Cooney’s?”

  “At Mairi’s. We’d better check that roster and see when we’re on duty. Where’s Sorka these days?” Sallah had also lost track of the redheaded Hanrahan girl. “I saw all the others.”

  “Oh, she’s living with another vet. Over on Irish Square.”

  “How appropriate!” Suddenly Sallah felt a surge of resentment, something to do with the freedom young people had and her frustration with Tarvi’s diffidence, along with the sudden realization that she had relatively few responsibilities at that moment and that her professional skills were once again in demand. “C’mon, let’s go find a drink and catch up on our lives!”

  Sorka and Sean arrived at their quarters from different directions. Sean from an unexpected meeting with Admiral Benden, Sorka from the barn. She knew by his jarring stride that Sean was barely containing a fine fit of rage. He held it back until they were inside the house.

  “Damn fool, hell’n’damned fool,” he said, slamming the door behind him. “That pompous, pig-headed, butt-stupid git.”

  “Admiral Benden?” she inquired, surprised. Sean had never had reason to criticize the admiral, and he had been proud to be called to a special interview.

  “That stupid admiral wants a cavalry unit!”

  “Cavalry?” Sorka paused as she picked their evening meal out of the freezer compartment.

  “To charge about the countryside with flame-throwers, no less!

  “Doesn’t he realize horses hate fire?”

  “He does now.” Sean went past her to the small cabinet, hauled out a bottle of quikal, and held it up suggestively.

  “Yes, please. If I don’t unwind, too, my food won’t do me any good at all.” She curtailed her anxiety. The need for a drink indicated how tense he was, for Sean was not a drinking man.

  “We don’t have to eat up above, do we?” he asked, jerking his head over his shoulder in the direction of the reestablished community kitchen.

  “No, I raided Mother’s freezer.” She set the container in the warming unit and dialed the appropriate time.

  Sean handed over her glass and raised his in a toast. “To idiot admirals who are very good in space and real dumb washout stupid about animals. As if we had enough horses to waste in such an asinine caper. He also envisions me training squadrons of fire-lizards” – Sean had persisted in using his own name for them – “swooping down on Thread at command. He even feels that he should have one, too. He doesn’t effing know they won’t be hatching till summer! That is, if those flyboys don’t flame ‘em all down.”

  Sorka had never seen Sean so infuriated. He paced about, his face flushed, throwing his left arm out in extravagant gestures, sipping at his drink between phrases as he vented his anger. He flicked his head to flip the sun-lightened hair out of his eyes. A grimace made him appear inscrutable, almost frightening in his anger. On one level she listened to his words, agreeing with his anxieties and opinions; on another, she reveled in the fact that beneath the contained, almost coldly detached impression he gave most people, there was such a passionate, intelligent, critical, rational, and dedicated personality.

  Sorka did not quite know when she had realized that she loved him – it seemed that she always had – but she remembered the day she realized that he loved her: the first time he had exploded in her presence over a minor incident. Sean would never have permitted himself that luxury if he had not felt totally secure in her presence, if he had not unconsciously needed her soothing affection and reassurance. Watching him work off his aggravation, Sorka permitted herself a small smile which she tactfully hid behind her glass.

  “Now, Sean, the admiral paid you a compliment, too,” she remarked. She caught his surprised glance and smiled. “By consulting you. I noticed, even if you didn’t, that he watched us out there on the Malay corridor, saw how well our fair behaved. And I’m sure that he knows that you’re more likely than anyone else to discover where the queens are hiding their eggs.”

  “Humph. Yes, I guess that’s true enough.” Somewhat mollified, Sean continue
d to pace, but with less agitation.

  Sorka loved Sean in every mood, but his infrequent explosions fascinated her. His anger had never been directed at her; he rarely criticized, and then only in a crisp impersonal tone. Some of her girlfriends had wondered how she could stand his taciturn, almost sullen moodiness, but Sorka had never found him sullen in her company. Generally he was thoughtful, unwilling to offend even in a complete disagreement, and certainly a man who kept his own counsel – unless horses were at risk. His lithe figure was graceful even as he thudded back and forth, his heels pounding and leaving dents in the thick wool carpet she had woven for their home. She let his tirade continue, amused by the language in which he described the probable antecedents of the admiral, whom he usually respected, and the idiocy of the entire biological team who tampered with creatures whose natures they had not the wit to understand.

  “Well, did you offer to find the admiral a dragonet egg when the time’s right?” she asked when he paused for breath after another elaboration of the stupidity of brass asses.

  “Ha! I will if I can.” He spun on his heel and sprawled beside her on the couch, his face suddenly still, rage and frustration dissipated, his eyes on the amber liquid in his glass. From his expression, she knew that something else was worrying him deeply. She waited for him to continue. “You know as well as I do that we haven’t caught a glimmer of any of the wild ones around here. They’ve made themselves scarce since the Sadrid Fall. Jays, if there were anywhere safe on this planet, they’d find it!”

  “There were a lot helping us at the Malay corridor.”

  “Up until some idiots started flaming them, too!” Sean finished the last of his drink to drown his disgust. “We won’t get the wild ones to help at all if that gets about.” He poured himself another drink. “Say, where’re yours?” he asked suddenly noticing that the usual perches were vacant.

  “Same place yours are, out and about,” she answered in a mild tone.

  Then Sean began to laugh, as much at himself as at the fact that he had only just realized that his fire-lizards had made themselves scarce the moment he left the admin building.

  “Not surprising, is it?” she teased, grinning back at him. He shoved one arm behind her shoulders and pulled her, unresisting, closer to him. “When Emmett told me Blazer was in a tizzy over your righteous wrath, I told mine they’d have to find their own food tonight. They don’t like cheesy things anyway.”

  “It’s not often we get a night alone,” Sean said softly, his voice a seductive whisper in her ear. “Finish your drink, redheaded gal.” He ruffled her fringe, then his hand traveled in a caress down her cheek to her chin. “And turn off the cooker,” he added just before he kissed her.

  Sorka did as she was told, well pleased. It was awkward having to invent excuses to send the dragonets off on specious errands. But even when they were not in season, the creatures delighted in strong emotions, and with thirteen in a chorus of encouragement, the entire neighborhood would know what was happening in the Hanrahan-Connell quarters.

  Later that night, when the sounds of Landing’s industry were muted, Sorka wondered if she had conceived. Sean slept neatly and quietly beside her, his fingers lightly encircling her upper arm. Sorka had never mentioned a formal arrangement to Sean, or ever pointed out the common assumption of Landing’s population that they were a tempered team. She and Sean were of one mind in nearly everything they did, utilizing their veterinary apprenticeship to breed strong horses, finding the very best among the genetic stock available from either the banks or the live stallions. They were soon to sit their final exams in veterinary medicine and they had located the perfect spot for a home – a valley halfway down the Eastern Barrier Range. Sean had taken Red to see the proposed Killarney Stake, and her father had approved emphatically of their choice. Sorka took that as a tacit approval of their still informal union.

  Although Sorka’s parents had acquiesced, Porrig Connell still treated her formally as a guest he wished to see less often. His wife had never ceased in her efforts to bring her son back to his proper hearth. She had chosen another daughter-in-law for Sean and sometimes embarrassed all concerned by pushing the girl at Sean on every opportunity.

  “I won’t breed so close, Mam,” Sean had informed her when she had nagged him once too often. “It’s bad for the blood. Lally Moorhouse’s father was your first cousin. We need to spread the gene pool not enclose it.”

  Sorka had overheard, but she knew Sean well enough by then not to be hurt that he had said no more about choosing. Perhaps he had not known then that he loved fifteen-year-old Sorka Hanrahan, who was already certain where her heart had been given.

  She had been seventeen before he had touched her with any kind of passion, and that had been a night to remember. Their roles had become reversed: she, the wanton; he, the hesitant, tender lover. Her ardent response to his gentle overtures had surprised and pleased them both, but they had not moved to separate quarters until she had passed her eighteenth birthday. It had become a custom in their generation to have a trial period prior to a formal declaration before the magistrate.

  Sorka wanted Sean’s child badly. Ever since that hideous half hour treading water under a stone ledge, she had been aware of their mortality. She wanted something of Sean – just in case. Not that he was wild or incautious, but the Lilienkamp boys had not been reckless, and certainly poor Lucy Tubberman had not. So many people had been wiped out in that First Fall.

  Sorka did not want to be left with nothing of Sean. She had not tried before to conceive, because pregnancy would have interfered with their plans for Killarney Stake: they needed the work credits for every acre they could purchase. She worried that there was something wrong with her that she had not gotten pregnant before, with all the incautious fooling around that she and Sean had enjoyed. But she was no longer fooling. That night she had meant business.

  Wind Blossom opened the door to Paul Benden, Emily Bol, Ongola, and Pol and Bay Harkenon-Nietro. Gracefully inclining her head in welcome, she held the door wide for them to enter.

  Kitti Ping was seated on a padded chair that, Paul decided, must be raised off the ground under its cover, giving it the semblance of an archaic throne. She looked imposing, a feat for someone half his height. A beautiful soft woven rug had been tucked about a frail body, and a long-sleeved tunic with elaborate embroideries also increased her general look of substance and authority. She raised one delicate hand, no larger than his oldest daughter’s, and indicated that they were to be seated on the stools set in an irregular circle in front of her.

  As Paul doubled his long legs to sit, he realized that she had achieved a subtle advantage over her visitors. Amused by the tactic, he smiled up at her and thought he could detect the merest hint of acknowledgment.

  Only a few strong ethnic traditions had survived the Age of Religions, but the Chinese, Japanese, Maori, and Amazon-Kapayan were four that had retained some of their ancient ways. In Kitti’s Pernese house, which was exquisitely furnished with heirlooms from her family, Paul knew better than to disrupt a hospitality ritual. Wind Blossom served the visitors fragrant tea in delicate porcelain cups. The little plantation of tea bushes, grown to sustain the lovely ceremony had been a casualty in the First Fall. Paul was poignantly aware that the cup of tea he sipped might be the last he would ever taste.

  “Has Mar Dook had a chance to inform you, Kitti Ping, that he has several tea bushes in reserve in the conservatory?” Paul asked when everyone had had time to savor the beverage.

  Kitti Ping inclined her head in a deep bow of gratitude and smiled. “It is a great reassurance.”

  Such a bland reply gave him no opening wedge. Paul moved restlessly, trying to find a comfortable position on the stool, and he knew that Pol and Bay were bursting to discuss the reason for the interview.

  “All of us would be more reassured, Kit Ping Yung” – Abruptly he modulated his voice which sounded so much louder after her delicate response. – “If we had . . . some
form of reliable assistance in combating this menace.”

  “Ah?” Her pencil-thin eyebrows rose, and then her tiny hand made a vague gesture about the armrests.

  “Yes.” Paul cleared his throat, annoyed at himself for being so gauche, and more annoyed that he could be so disconcerted by a trivial seating arrangement. She must know why he had arranged the private conference. “The truth is we are very badly positioned to defend ourselves against Thread. Bluntly, we will run out of resources in five years. We do not have the equipment to manufacture either sleds or power packs when what we brought are worn out. Kenjo’s attempt to destroy Thread in space was only partially successful and there isn’t much fuel left for the Mariposa.

  “As you know, none of the colony ships carried any defensive or destructive weaponry. Even if we could construct laser sweep beams, there isn’t fuel enough to move even one ship into an effective position to annihilate the pods. Nevertheless the best way to protect the surface is to destroy this menace in the air.

  “Boris and Dieter have confirmed our worst fears: Thread will sweep across Pern in a pattern that will denude the planet unless we can stop it. We cannot entertain much hope that Ezra Keroon’s probe will bring us any useful information.” Paul spread his hands with the hopelessness that threatened to overwhelm him.

  Kitti raised her delicate eyebrows in unfeigned surprise. “The morning star is the source?”

  Paul sighed heavily. “That is the current theory. We’ll know more when the probe returns its survey.”

  Kitti Ping nodded thoughtfully, her willow-slender fingers tightening on the armrests.

  “We are, Kit Ping Yung,” Emily said, sitting even more erect on her stool, “in a desperate situation.”