Dragons Dawn

by Anne McCaffrey

  “Once we’ve fulfilled our commitment here,” Sean said, “we concentrate on that, and that alone. I mean to see us all teleporting by the time we reach Seminole.”

  “To places we’ve never seen?” asked the practical Otto.

  “No, to the places we’ve just been. Look on our flight to Seminole as a chance to see the most important stakes in the south,” Sean replied in a bracing tone. He was surprised to find himself believing it. “We’ll need such reference points to teleport when we’re fighting Thread.” Sorka’s face was glowing with pride as he managed not only to turn around his own anger but to restate the dignity of their future. Above their heads, the yellow was fading from dragon eyes. “I can smell food. I’m hungry. Let’s go eat. We’ve earned it.”

  “We’re going to have to hunt the dragons before we go skiting across the continent,” Peter said, jerking his chin toward the animal enclosures.

  Sean shook his head, smiling as he remembered Emily’s oblique warning. “Can’t go to that well twice, Pete. Tomorrow, we’ll hunt the critters that got through the roundup in the Landing area.” He began to push through the ring of dragons. “Food tomorrow, Carenath,” he said, affectionately clouting the bronze as he passed him.

  Fish? Carenath queried in a tone that carried dismay.

  “Meat. Red meat,” Sean said. He laughed when some of the dragons bugled gratefully. “But this time we won’t kidnap it for you.” Then he put an arm around Sorka and started up the beach to the cooking fires.

  The next day, as the three wings of dragonriders crossed the Jordan River, they spread out in three different directions, bypassing the ash-covered settlement and heading south and east at low levels.

  Faranth says that she has found running meat, Carenath reported to her rider. Have we?

  Sean had his binoculars trained on a little valley. They were north of the path of the two Threadfalls that had dropped on that area, so there was vegetation to attract grazers.

  “Tell her we’ve hit pay dirt, too.”

  Not meat? Carenath asked wistfully.

  Sean grinned, and slapped his dragon’s shoulder. “Yes, meat, by another name. And all you can eat this time,” he added as the small mixed herd of sheep and cattle stampeded to escape the danger above them. He signaled to the rest of his wing in the exaggerated arm gestures that they had been rehearsing. Since the dragons could communicate with one another, the riders had chosen not to use handsets. But Sean had retained those Pol had scrounged. Although too valuable to risk dropping from a height, the handsets were too useful to be surrendered. “Land me on that ridge, Carenath. There’s enough room there for the others.”

  Porth says they’ve enough for all of us, Carenath reported as he touched down gracefully and dipped his shoulder for Sean to dismount.

  “Tell Porth we’re grateful, but you’d better hurry to catch that lot,” Sean advised. The herd was making all possible speed down the valley. He had to shield his face from the gravel and omnipresent thrown up by Carenath’s abrupt departure. Bright streaks followed the bronze. “Welcome back,” Sean said derisively as he distinguished blue and greens among the small colorful fire-lizard bodies following Blazer as she led the way.

  The rest of his wing soon joined him. Even Nora Sejby managed a creditable landing on Tenneth; she was improving all the time. He worried more about Catherine Radelin-Doyle: she had not giggled with Singlath since the tragedy. Nyassa, Otto, and Jerry Mercer completed his wing. Once their dragons followed the hunt, Sean turned his glasses on Carenath in time to see the bronze swoop and grab a steer neatly without slowing his forward motion.

  “Nice catch, Carenath!” Sean passed the binoculars to Nyassa to check on Milath.

  “Seemed to me there were quite a lot of cattle in that bunch,” Jerry said, pulling off his helmet and ruffling his sweat-damp hair. “What’ll happen to them?”

  Sean shrugged. “The best stock went north. These’ll survive, or they won’t.”

  “Sean, look who’s come to dinner!” Nyassa pointed northward at the unmistakable outline of five wherries. “Go to it!” she added as she caught a glimpse of fire-dragonets launching an attack on the intruders. “Wait your turn!”

  “I brought some lunch,” Catherine said, twisting out of her backpack. “We might as well take a meal break, too.”

  Sean called a halt to the hunt when each dragon had consumed two animals. Carenath complained that he had eaten only one big one and he needed two of the smaller kind. Sean replied that Carenath’s belly would be so full that he would be unable to fly, and they still had work to do. The dragons grumbled, Carenath ingenuously remarking that Faranth wanted another meal, too, but Sean was adamant, and the dragons obeyed.

  Sean re-formed the wing once they were aloft.

  “All right, Carenath,” he said, thinking ahead with relief to the last loads at Landing. “Let’s get back to the tower as fast as we can and get this over with!”

  He raised his arm and dropped it.

  The next instant he and Carenath were enveloped in a blackness that was so absolute that Sean was certain his heart had stopped. I will not panic! he thought fiercely, pushing the memory of Marco and Duluth to the back of his mind. His heart raced, and he was aware of the stunning cold of the black nothingness.

  I am here!

  Where are we, Carenath? But Sean already knew. They were between. He focused intense thoughts on their destination, remembering the curious ash-filtered light around Landing, the shape of the meteorology tower, the flatness of the grid beyond it, and the bundles awaiting them there.

  We are at the tower, Carenath said, somewhat surprised. And in that instant, they were. Sean cried aloud with relief.

  Then he went wide-eyed with sudden terror. “Jays! What have I done?” he shrieked. “Where are the others, Carenath? Speak to them!”

  They’re coming, Carenath replied with the utmost calm and confidence, hovering above the tower.

  Before Sean’s unbelieving eyes, his wing suddenly materialized behind him, still in formation.

  “Land, Carenath, please, before I fall off you,” Sean said in a whisper made weak by the unutterable relief he felt.

  As the others circled in to land, Sean remained seated on Carenath, reviewing everything, half in wonder, half in remembered terror at the unthinkable risk that had just been unaccountably survived.

  “Keeeeyoooo!” Nyassa’s yodel of triumph brought him up short. She was swinging her riding helmet above her head as Milath landed beside Carenath. Catherine and Singlath came in on the other side, Jerry Mercer and Manooth beyond them, and Otto and Shoth beside Tenneth and Nora.

  “Hip, hip, hooray! “ Jerry led the cheer while Sean stared at them, not knowing what to say.

  It was easy, you know. You thought me where to go, and I went. You did tell me to go as fast as possible. Carenath’s tone was mildly reproving.

  “If that is all there is to it, what took us so long?” Otto asked.

  “Anyone got a spare pair of pants?” Nora ask plaintively. “I was so scared I wet myself. But we did it!”

  Catherine giggled. The sound brought Sean to his senses, and he allowed himself to smile.

  “We were ready to try!” he said, shrugging nonchalantly as he unbuckled his riding straps. Then he realized that he, too, would need to find a clean pair of pants.

  * * * * *

  “I said, we’ll maintain silence about Emily’s condition,” Paul said sternly, glaring at Ongola, Ezra Keroon, and the scowling Joel Lilienkamp. He did not want Lilienkamp taking book on whether or not Emily Boll would recover from her multiple fractures. He moderated his expression as his eyes rested on the bent head of Fulmar Stone, who kept pulling with agitated fingers at a wad of grease stained rag. “As far as Fort Hold is concerned, she’s resting comfortably. That is the truth, according to the doctor and all the support systems monitoring her condition. For outside inquiries, she’s busy – shunt the call to Ezra.”

  Abruptly Paul pushed
himself to his feet and began to pace his new office, the first apartment on the level above the Great Hall. Its windows gave an unimpeded view of the ordered rows of cargo and supplies that filled that end of the valley. Eventually all those goods would be stored in the vast subterranean caverns of Fort. So much had to be done, and he sorely missed Emily’s supportive presence.

  He caught himself fingering the prosthetic fingers and jammed both hands into his pockets. His position had required him to contain his distress in order to avoid alarming people already under considerable tension. But before his close and trusted friends, he could give vent to the anxieties that they all shared.

  The disastrous failure of the big sled’s gyros and its subsequent crash had been visible to the inhabitants of Fort Hold, but few had known that the governor had been a passenger that night. They could be honest about the severity of the pilot’s injuries, for he would recover easily from two broken arms and numerous lacerations. None of the other passengers had been severely hurt, and those who rescued the injured had not recognized Emily, her face bloodied by the head wound. At least until she was convalescing, Paul would not allow the facts to be common knowledge. Following so closely after the exodus from Landing, that crash, with the loss of some irreplaceable medical supplies as well as the sled itself, had to be minimized to sustain morale.

  “Pierre agrees,” Paul went on. He could feel the resistance from the others, the unspoken opinion that suppression would undermine his credibility. “Even insists on it. It’s what Emily would want.” In his pacing, Paul inadvertently glanced out the deep-set window and averted his eyes from the view of the scar that the sled had gouged two days ago. “Ezra, get someone to smooth that over, will you? I see it every time I look out the window.”

  Ezra murmured a response and made a note.

  “How long can we expect Emily’s state to be kept a secret?” Ongola asked, his face craven with new worry lines.

  “As long as we have to, dammit, Ongola! We can at least spare people one more worry, especially when we haven’t got a positive prognosis.” Paul drew in a deep breath. “The head wound wasn’t serious – no skull fracture – but it was a while before she was removed from the sled. The trauma wasn’t treated quickly enough, and we don’t have the sophisticated equipment to relieve the shock of multiple fracture. She must be given time and rest. Fulmar – ” Paul swung to the engineer. “There will be a transport sled ready to go south today, won’t there? I can’t keep stalling Desi.”

  “All that orange-coded stuff is irreplaceable,” Joel added, rearranging himself in the chair. “Not that we’ve got half the stuff moved inside here yet, but it’d be a sight more protectable in our front yard than on some frigging beach half a world away. Otherwise you’re going to have to send Keroon back for it. And I’ll figure out a new schedule of priorities. You couldn’t make that two sleds today could you, Fulmar?”

  Fulmar looked up at him with eyes so reddened by strain and grief that even the doughty storesman recoiled in dismay. He knew that Stone’s crew had been working impossible hours to service the big transport sleds. Joel would admit only to himself that more of the blame of that crash could be attributed to Stores than to maintenance. But what could he do with one emergency after another dumping on him?

  “Whenever you can, Fulmar,” Joel said in a gentler tone. “Whenever they’re ready.” He walked out of the room without a backward glance.

  “We’re doing our best, Admiral,” Fulmar said wearily, struggling to his feet. He looked at the rag in his hands, perplexed to see it in tatters, and then jammed it into his hip pocket.

  “I know, man, I know.” Placing his arm across Fulmar’s hunched shoulders, Paul guided the man to the door, giving him a final appreciative squeeze. “In all that spare time you have, Fulmar, run up a list of servicing dates on the smaller craft. I’ve got to know how many we have for this Fall.

  “The accident was no one’s fault,” Paul said, returning to his desk and slumping down into his chair. “There’s Fulmar, blaming himself for not insisting on servicing earlier. For that matter, I shouldn’t have urged Emily to come north. The cargo was inadequately secured in the cabin. However, gentlemen, it is folly to read more into such an accident than bad timing and a lousy concatenation of circumstances. We evacuated Landing in reasonable order. A place had been prepared for us, and we’ve got to mobilize enough personnel and machines to fight Thread.” He no longer hoped for support from either dragonets or dragons.

  “You did what?” Sorka cried, her skin blanching then flushing brightly in fury. Faranth, her eyes whirling orange in sympathy with her rider, lowered her head. Carenath bugled alarm.

  Sean grabbed Sorka by the arms, obscurely irritated by her reaction. He had managed to get the others to wait until Sorka’s wing had landed before broadcasting their feat.

  “Look, it wasn’t something I planned, Sorka! Jays, it was the last thing in my head. I just told Carenath to get back to Landing as fast as possible. He did!”

  It was really very simple, Carenath said modestly. I’ve told Faranth. She believes me. He swiveled his head to cast a reproachful look on Sorka.

  “How . . . how . . . did the others know?” Fear returned to shadow her eyes. She ignored the general carry-on about her as Sean’s wing cavorted with her riders, babbling the good news and going into specific detail at the top of their lungs.

  He told them, Faranth replied, an edge to her tone.

  “We’ve spent two hours figuring that out.” Sean smiled, hoping to coax a smile from Sorka. Putting his arm about her shoulders he drew her back to the others. “I think,” he said, choosing his words carefully, we were all scared shitless by Marco and Duluth dying like that. Now we know, first hand, why Marco panicked. Sorka, it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen, and you can’t feel anything, even your dragon between your legs. Otto called it total sensory deprivation.”

  It is between, Carenath said in an almost didactic tone. He and Faranth followed their riders back to the mass of netted bundles which would be their final load. The dragons of Sean’s wing were sitting on their haunches in a loose circle, occasionally shaking themselves to dislodge wind blown ash. Faranth made a noise low in her throat, which made Sean grin. The golden queen was as skeptical as her rider.

  “Can Faranth tell me how far away Dave’s wing is?” he asked.

  They are in sight now, Carenath said just as Sorka replied, “Faranth says they’re in sight now.” She pointed northeast. “Polenth says that they hunted well. Meat!” Sorka gave a brief smile, and Sean decided that she was halfway to forgiving him.

  There was of course renewed astonishment and rueful congratulations when Dave and his wing riders heard the news.

  “Okay then,” Sean said, mounting a carton to address them all. “This is what we do, riders. We teleport to Kahrain Cove. We know its aerial aspect as well as we know Landing’s. So it’s the perfect test. Carenath insists that he told the other dragons where they were going, but I’d prefer that you riders tell your own dragons where to go. I think that has to be as much part of our preflight drill as strapping on and checking the immediate airspace.” He grinned at them.

  “What’re we going to tell them?” Dave asked, jerking a thumb in a northerly direction.

  “Emily’s gone to join the admiral. Pol and Bay were supposed to get the first sled back.” Sean paused, looking around again, and then gave Sorka a long look. She nodded slowly in approval. “I think we will keep this to ourselves for the time being. We’ll spring the finished product on them, fighting-ready dragons! It’s one thing to send a fire-lizard north on the strength of fax, but I sure wouldn’t want to risk Carenath going someplace I’ve never been.” Sean took another deep breath, having gauged the favorable reaction. “Desi said we’re to make our way along the coast to Seminole. That’ll give us time to practice teleporting between where we are and where we’ve been. That way we’ll know exactly how to get back to any of the major stakes when we need to fight T
hread over them.”

  “Yeah, but the dragons don’t flame yet,” Peter Semling pointed out.

  “There’s phosphine-bearing rock all along the coast. We’ve all watched the fire-lizards chew rock. That’s the easiest part of this whole thing,” Sean replied dismissively.

  “It’s one thing to go from one place to another,” Jerry began slowly. “We’ve done it now. We go from here – ” He stabbed his left index finger. “ – to there.” He held up his right finger. “And the dragons do the work. But dodging Thread, or a sled – ” He broke off.

  “Duluth caught Marco off-balance. He panicked.” Sean spoke quickly and confidently. “Frankly, Jerry, that place between scared me, and I’ll lay book the rest of us were scared. But now we know, we adapt. We’ll plan emergency evasive tactics.” Sean pulled the knife out of his boot cuff and hunkered down. “Most of us have flown sleds or skimmers in Threadfall, so we’ve seen how the junk drops . . . most of the time.” He drew a series of long diagonal stripes in the ash. “A rider sees he’s on a collision course with Thread . . . here – ” He dug his point in. “ – and thinks a beat forward.” He jumped the point ahead. “We’ll have to practice skipping like that. It’s going to take quick reflexes. We see fire-lizards using such tactics all the time – wink in, wink out – when they’re fighting Thread with the ground crews. If they can, dragons can!”

  The dragons bugled in answer to the challenge, and Sean grinned broadly.

  “Right?” Sean’s question dared the riders

  “Right!” They all replied enthusiastically, and fists were brandished to show staunch determination.

  “Well, then.” Sean stood up, bringing his hands together with an audible smack. Ash sifted off his shoulders. “Let’s load up and teleport ourselves back to Kahrain.”

  “What if someone sees us, Sean?” Tarrie asked anxiously.

  “What? The flying donks doing what they were designed to do?” he asked sarcastically.