All the Weyrs of Pern (41 page)

“You and your queen Ramoth traveled backward in time . . .”

“And nearly died,” F’lar said, his tone as bitter as the look he gave his weyrmate for the anguish he had suffered then.

“The riders will all have oxygen—which is doubtless what you lacked, Weyrwoman—to breathe, and protective suits.”

“There aren’t that many!” D’ram protested.

“Not yet,” Piemur said, his eyes glinting, “but Hamian’s turning out the plastic-coated fabric faster than Master Nicat’s men can glue the pieces together.”

“From what has been said by every rider interviewed, only eight seconds elapse to reach most destinations here on Pern,” Aivas went on. “Of those eight seconds, the dragons seem to use a basic five or so to assimilate their coordinates, and the rest of the time for the actual transfer. Using this premise and adapting it to a logarithmic computation, assume that travel takes 1 second for 1,600 kilometers, 2 seconds for 10,000, 3.6 seconds for 100,000, and 4.8 for 1 million and 7 to 10 seconds for 10 million. While this method of transference is still incomprehensible to this facility, it does appear to work. Therefore, knowing the approximate distance from Pern to the Red Star, it is easy to compute an interplanetary jump. It has also been established that dragons are able to function for fifteen minutes before their systems are in oxygen debt—more than enough time to make the journey, position the engines in the chasm, and return. The dragons are accurate fliers.”

“I’d want to try that journey,” F’lar said. Lessa turned on him, but before she could speak, he went on. “Love, if we believe in our dragons, we can believe in our own abilities, as well. Before I ask the Weyrs to undertake such a trip, I must be sure it is feasible, and I won’t risk anyone. Not this time!” Everyone knew he was alluding to F’nor’s nearly fatal attempt to reach the Red Star so many Turns before. “Is there any air to breathe on the Red Star?”

“No,” Aivas replied. “Certainly not breathable atmosphere, but there is some, mostly noble gases and nitrogen. Whatever denser atmosphere it once had would have been lost when it escaped from its original system. There is no water, as repeated circuits past Rukbat have boiled off much of its volatiles, too. F’nor has seen this in process. Gravity on the surface would be not much more than one-tenth of Pern’s, so the atmosphere is much less dense than what you are accustomed to.”

“You will not take such a perilous expedition by yourself, F’lar,” D’ram said, rising to his feet, his expression resolute.

“D’ram . . .” Robinton reached for the old dragonrider’s arm, while Lytol’s expression was both pitying and approving.

“D’ram, this is a young man’s duty,” the ex-warder said, shaking his head sadly. “You have long since done yours.”

“F’lar?” Lessa’s face was screwed up in an anxious grimace, as if she couldn’t deny him but wanted desperately to do so. She shook her head, her gray eyes wide with fright, as she realized that nothing she could say would dissuade him.

“I will go,” the Weyrleader repeated.

“Not by yourself,” Jaxom said, shaking his head. “I’ll go with you.” He held his hands up to silence the others, but had little effect. He raised his voice over the uproar. “Ruth always knows where he is and when he is. No other dragon has that ability, and you all know it. I’ll go without permission if you keep on at me like this!” He allowed his anger to be seen as he glared at Lytol, Robinton, and D’ram. Lessa glared back, but she didn’t join in the arguments.

“Jaxom, you may not come with me,” F’lar stated. “You’ve responsibilities—”

“I’m going, and that’s that. I trust Ruth as you trust Mnementh. Let’s keep this expedition down to as few as possible. Right?”

“What happens, though,” Robinton said, his composure recovered, “if the one man”—and he gestured to F’lar—“who can keep this planet united and the young Lord Holder who has earned the respect of Hall, Hold, and Weyr should be lost to Pern at this very critical stage?”

F’lar gave a rueful laugh. “I don’t intend to be lost, and if I will not go where I expect the Weyrs to follow, how can I ask them to go?” He took Lessa by the arms, appealing to her. “I must go, Lessa. Surely you see that.”

“I do,” she snapped. “But I don’t have to like it. Furthermore, I’ll go with you two fools!” She laughed at the startled reactions. “Why not? There’re plenty of queens now to continue dragonkind. Ramoth’s still the largest dragon on the planet and the bravest, going where no one dared go before. I think we three deserve the right!” She lifted her chin, haughtily oblivious to persuasions. “When do we go?”

Piemur let go a bark of laughter. “Just like that?”

“Why not? We don’t have Threadfall for another two days. Jaxom?”

Three dragons bugled from the mounds beyond the building. Lessa, F’lar, and Jaxom smiled.

“I won’t tell Sharra.” He paused while Jancis savagely muttered something to the effect that Sharra wouldn’t let him go. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that, Jancis,” he said, giving her a quelling look. “But there
are
a few things I must put in order. And to be perfectly candid, I’d like a good night’s sleep. It’s been a busy day!”

“Tomorrow then?” Lessa said, pinning him with a fierce stare.

“Certainly! I’ll send Meer to Ruatha with a message that I’m staying over at Cove Hold.”

“A good idea,” F’lar said, quirking one eyebrow in amusement. “Mnementh is pretty excited . . .”

“Ramoth, too,” Lessa said, and frowned. “We can’t risk some other dragon sensing what we plan. There are fortunately no other dragons at Landing right now.”

The three riders discussed with Aivas and the others every aspect of their unprecedented leap
between
. As the riders became more and more confident of success, the others began to cease their opposition, lapsing into nearly morose silence.

“If we do not leave soon,” Robinton said into a pause as the three dragonriders were studying their landing site at the highest magnification Aivas could produce, “some of our more perceptive students will start speculating about the length of this meeting.”

“A good point,” F’lar said cheerfully. “Aivas, can you print out a copy of what’s on the screen right now? We can study it further at Cove Hold.”

“I’d’ve thought it was burned in your brains already,” Lytol remarked caustically.

“Nearly,” Jaxom replied gaily. He was buoyed by the confidence that F’lar and Lessa exuded, not realizing that each was infecting the other. Jaxom had not missed Lytol’s frequent brooding looks, but after those first protests, his old guardian had only been silently reproachful.

Aivas printed three copies.

“This facility would not recommend such an exploration if any foreseeable danger was involved,” Aivas said to reassure the skeptics.

“Foreseeable is the important word,” Lytol said, and walked out.

15

“I’
VE NEVER SEEN
so many fire-lizards!” Jancis exclaimed as she helped Piemur and Jaxom wash Ruth in Cove Hold’s lagoon.

Lessa, F’lar, and D’ram were similarly occupied, assisted by other members of the Cove Hold research staff. Lytol and Robinton had gone to oversee the preparation of the evening meal. The atmosphere was tense with anticipation, and Jaxom hoped that the stress would not be communicated to the Hold people; fortunately it was not unusual for the Benden Weyrleaders and the Ruathan Holder to enjoy Cove’s hospitality.

Ruth, have the fire-lizards twigged tomorrow’s journey?
Jaxom asked. He refused to think of it as an “attempt,” which implied the possibility of failure.

They’re excited because I am. Ramoth and Mnementh are, too. Look at their eyes! But the little ones don’t know why they’re excited.

Jaxom put some extra effort into scrubbing Ruth’s left wing. There were hundreds of questions rattling about in his brain, but to settle on any one of them and find an answer was beyond him. This was not at all like the day that he and Ruth had gone hunting for Ramoth’s queen egg. He had been a boy then, struggling to achieve manhood, to be both Lord Holder and dragonrider and to avert a major confrontation between the Southern Oldtimers and Benden Weyr. This also wasn’t as spontaneous an acceptance of challenge as that morning’s EVA had been. This was a planned expedition to be made in the company of two of the most important people on Pern.

And the three best dragons,
Ruth added.

Aware that his roiling thoughts might also leak to the fire-lizards, Jaxom earnestly pulled soothing images to the fore in his mind. Just then a fire-lizard arrived from
between
with the faint pop of reentry. It was Meer—in all the excitement, Jaxom hadn’t even noticed that he had disappeared.

So it did not exactly surprise him when Sharra strode into the Hold while they were finishing their dinner. Still, he had no idea what Meer might have conveyed to her, so he decided he would be best off playing innocent.

“Darling, what an unexpected surprise,” he said, rising to greet her with an embrace. “There’s nothing the matter at Ruatha, is there?” he added with a fair pretense of alarm. He ignored Piemur, who was rolling his eyes.

“No, nothing’s wrong at Ruatha,” Sharra said in the tone that always made him wary. But she smiled with genuine warmth at the others. “It’s just that the biology team is starting the dissection tomorrow. Mirrim said she’d convey me up. G’lanar point-blank refused. I hope I’m not interrupting . . .”

She was disabused of that notion by offers of klah from Lessa, wine from Robinton, and sweet breads from Jancis, while Piemur hastily drew another chair up to the table.

“G’lanar bring you?” D’ram asked.

As she nodded, Jaxom left Piemur to settle his wife and strode out to the porch to offer hospitality to the Oldtimer. But Lamoth and his rider were already airborne, circling to the east above the lagoon, disappearing into the night sky.

“I didn’t catch him,” Jaxom said. “He ought to have at least joined us for a cup.”

D’ram brushed away Jaxom’s discontent. “G’lanar was always a surly one. How does he happen to be at Ruatha these days?”

Jaxom grinned. “The weyrling we had was judged old enough to fight and was sent to join K’van’s wings. He asked us to accommodate G’lanar and Lamoth in their stead. The old bronze sleeps almost as much as G’lanar does.”

“It does them both good to feel needed,” Sharra said, her eyes glittering at Jaxom although her tone was social.

Jaxom wondered what on earth Meer had conveyed to her that had brought her to Cove Hold. His own message had been innocuous enough: the Egg knew staying over at Cove Hold was nothing out of the ordinary. But he was glad to see her.

It was also very like Sharra to say nothing to the point in company. But he began to worry about how to dissemble when they were alone in their sleeping quarters. As the dragonriders whiled away the after-dinner hours, no hint of their morning’s plans was raised—partly because the young men and women of the Archive were present, but especially because Sharra was there.

“I’ve a new song from Menolly,” Master Robinton said, gesturing for Piemur to bring him his gitar and to get his own. He unrolled the score, passing a copy to Jancis to put on the rack for Piemur. “An odd tune, unusual for our Masterharper Menolly. She says the words were written by young Harper Elimona,” he went on, plucking a string to tune the instrument. Piemur corrected the pitch of his and, reading the music, soundlessly fingered through the chords. “But a lovely haunting melody and words to lift hearts at this point in a Pass.”

Then he nodded to Piemur and they began. Having sung and played so often together, they interwove and harmonized as if they had rehearsed the brand-new song a hundred times already.

A heart that’s true in harper blue

makes song from heart’s own fire,

and though betrayed, is not afraid:

in danger, leaps up higher.

Jaxom suppressed the start of surprise the words gave him, and dared not look at either Lessa or F’lar.

No world is free of minstrelsy,

nor noise, nor rage, nor sorrow.

A harper must discharge his trust

before he asks to borrow.

My Harper Hall is free to all

who serve with song and playing.

But you who’d hide your song inside

are very sadly straying.

At those words, Jaxom wondered what cryptic message Menolly and Elimona were giving, and to whom. The next verse was even more germane to the problem of those who considered Aivas to be “the Abomination.”

Will you withdraw beyond the law,

lie safely in your slumber,

while dangers shake your world awake

and Death makes up his number?

Did harper here betray those dear

he’d feel more than my tongue.

If place you’d earn, you’d better learn

more music than you’ve sung.

For if you die, while safe you lie

halled in your selfish bone,

no chant will come, no harper drum,

and you’ll lie long alone.

Jaxom, watching Robinton’s face as he sang, wondered if the words could possibly have been prompted by Robinton or Sebell, who so often suggested themes to their harpers. But then, Menolly had such an uncanny knack of catching exactly the mood of the moment that this could have been merely serendipitous. The two harpers played a bridging passage; then their voices, which had been light and almost taunting, deepened for the final verse.

Get up, take heart—go, make a start,

sing out the truth you came for.

Then when you die, your heart may fly

to halls we have no name for.

As the last chord died away there was a respectful silence before the audience burst into loud applause. Robinton and Piemur disclaimed humbly, Robinton saying that with such music any harper would find himself doing his very best.

“Who’s next?” Piemur asked, strumming his gitar into a complicated alteration, minor to major.

The next hour was spent happily enough so that Jaxom relaxed, holding Sharra’s hand and playing with her long fingers—and trying to ignore the distance she had put between them. Talla was coiled up on her shoulder, but he saw nothing of Meer.

Ruth, did Meer tattle on us?
he asked when Sharra was occupied in singing descant for one of her favorite songs.

He has curled up on the beach and pretends to be asleep. What could he tell her that would make sense?

Sharra’s perceptive, Ruth. She could guess.

She knows you are always safe with me.

But she also doesn’t want me risking my neck . . . more than I already do.

She will not refuse you,
Ruth added encouragingly, though his tone held a nuance of doubt.

At last Lessa called an end to the evening’s entertainment, murmuring something about never quite becoming accustomed to double-ended days. Robinton acted the perfect host, making certain, with Jancis’s help, that all the guests were comfortably installed; his behavior was so calm and ordinary that when Sharra and Jaxom were alone in their usual corner room, she frowned in puzzlement.

“Why was Meer so agitated, Jaxom?”

“He was? Not much happened today.” He began to pull his shirt off, which served to muffle his voice and hide his face lest his expression give him away. Sharra had become adept at reading him, a skill that usually smoothed matters between them, but this time he really didn’t want to risk upsetting her unnecessarily. He had written notes for Brand and for her and given them to Piemur—not that he expected that Piemur would have to deliver them, but he had to plan for contingencies. “Anyone at Ruatha got a randy green or gold?” he continued as nonchalantly as possible.

He could see her considering that possibility. “I don’t think so,” she said finally. “Are you all going up to the
Yokohama
tomorrow?”

“Yes.” Jaxom gave her his best grin, which he expanded into a yawn as he gestured for her to climb in first. When she was settled, he lay down and put his arm around her, cushioning her head on his shoulder as he so often did—only now he did it consciously, not merely in response to the habits of five Turns.

“What’s the schedule?” she asked.

“More of the same. Getting accustomed to free-fall.”

“Why?”

“Well, Aivas let us in on that today,” Jaxom said, choosing his words carefully. “Seems like all the Weyrs of Pern are going to be needed to hoist the engine part of the ships to that big rift on the Red Star.”

“What?”

He pushed her back down in the bed, grinning at her astonished expression, clearly visible in the moonlight flooding the room. “That’s what I said. He’s going to call our bluff that dragons can lift anything they
think
they can.”

“But—but—why?”

“Those engines will be made to blow up, and the force of the explosion will nudge the Red Star into a new orbit.”

“Oh, my!”

Jaxom grinned. It took something as fantastic as that to reduce his beloved to an incredulous whisper. He pulled her close enough to lay a kiss on her forehead, meaning only to reassure her. But as his lips touched her soft skin and his nostrils inhaled the spicy fragrance she used, he felt desire well up inside of him. And, though at first her response was reflexive while she was still mulling over his news, he had no trouble in getting her complete attention.

Later, he was awakened by the scratch of a fire-lizard claw on his cheek. It was Meer, his sense of smell told him—and a Meer who was worried and puzzled.

Jaxom!
Ruth’s anxious tone reinforced Meer’s warning.
There is someone in the hall by your door. Meer senses danger. I’m coming!

For the love of the egg that hatched you, keep him quiet right now,
Jaxom told Ruth.
And be as quiet as you can.

You know how quietly I can move,
Ruth replied, slightly aggrieved.

I want this one alive—and identifiable!

Carefully, so as not to disturb Sharra or alert the intruder, Jaxon rolled out of the bed and went for his belt and the knife sheathed there. In the darkness, Meer blinked orange-red eyes that were whirling in a gradually increasing speed, but the little bronze made no move.

An alteration in the shadows of the room told Jaxom that the door was being stealthily opened. He stayed where he was crouched, muscles relaxed but every fiber of him ready to move.

The door shadows separated into a crouching figure, knife-holding hand raised in a strike position as the intruder crept toward the bed—then paused. Realizing that the man had discerned that only Sharra lay in the bed, Jaxom sprang, encircling the figure with his arms.

“Oh no you don’t!” he cried in a hoarse whisper, still not wanting to wake Sharra. But there was no hope of that.

Meer, swooping at the man’s face while Jaxom struggled to hold him, bugled with no regard for sleeping folk. Outside, Ruth bellowed, and half the fire-lizard population of the Cove tried to fly in through the open window.

Though the man struggled, breathing hoarsely in his desperation, Jaxom was the victor of far too many wrestling matches to have his hold broken easily. But he didn’t quite avoid the slashing blade, which scored his bare shoulder. Cursing, Jaxom grabbed the dagger hand and, twisting it in a move F’lessan had taught him, broke the man’s wrist. The attacker crumpled, crying aloud in pain just as F’lar, Piemur, Lytol, and D’ram came bursting into the room. Someone behind them was carrying an open glowbasket, and light spilled past the reinforcements to fall on the face of the man Jaxom had downed.

“G’lanar!” Jaxom fell back in surprise and shock.

The old bronze rider snarled up at him, batting at the shrieking fire-lizards who were still swooping at him, claws extended.

“G’lanar?” D’ram grabbed the man by the arm and, with F’lar’s help, hauled him to his feet.

Jaxom told Ruth to call the fire-lizards off and, still screaming their challenge, the fair swooped back out the window.

Sharra stared from the bed as Jancis and Lessa crowded into the room, each holding a bright basket.

“What did you intend, G’lanar” F’lar demanded, his voice coldly implacable.

“He’s to blame . . .” G’lanar cried, spitting in his fury, cradling his broken wrist to his chest.

Jaxom stared down at the old rider. “Blame?”

“You! I know who it was now! It was you—and that white runt that ought to have died the moment it was born!” Outside, Ruth roared exception to the insult, then thrust his head through the window. “If it hadn’t been for you, we’d’ve had our own fertile queen! We’d’ve had a chance!”