The Skies of Pern (50 page)

It isn’t theory
, Ramoth said, her mental tone tart,
I timed it to the exact moment. Golanth showed me just how he had saved F’lessan and himself from being crushed by the tsunami wave. He was most resourceful to act on his own initiative. He learned something important that day and was too tired when he got back to Landing to tell even me. Today, Zaranth showed us how to push without touching. I admit that I had never thought greens could do something so unusual. I saw how she did it. Very clever of her. We two taught the others. But it was I who timed it to save Golanth from that last feline. Only I could have done that
.

Lessa managed a shaky little laugh.
Only you, my dearest
.

I do admit that today I learned something from a green dragon
. Ramoth sounded as chagrined as her rider had ever heard her.
I have told the others what Zaranth showed me how to do, how she pushed felines away
, she added calmly.
It is a useful skill for all to know
.

Stunned by her dragon’s attitude toward this new ability, Lessa turned to F’lar, whose expression was probably as incredulous as hers. Lessa gave one last hiccup.

“In case you’re wondering,” he said, with a little smile on his face, “Mnementh agrees. And Aivas was right.”

She twitched her mouth and drew her brows together in a scowl. “Right again and, while I’m glad he is, I’m annoyed, too. He has complicated life.”

“Maybe,” F’lar said softly. “Maybe not. D’you remember Aivas trying to understand the abilities of our dragons?”

Lessa scowled, perplexed. “He knew—we told him—that they had always communicated with us mentally.”

“Telepathy he called it. And teleportation is the ability of dragons to go
between
from one place to another. Or, however briefly, one time to another.” He finger-combed his hair back from his forehead. “Today they practiced the third of those special talents—telekinesis. Aivas could not understand why they could not do
that
if they telepath and teleport. Now they can. I wonder how he would have used this new ability to physically move other things without contact.”

“They moved felines who would have killed Golanth, F’lessan, Tai, and Zaranth,” Lessa said in a soft pensive voice.

They were both silent in consideration of these startling new concepts.

“As long as they think they can,” she said, tightening her fingers on his.

“That’s the requisite,” he agreed, nodding, a smile twitching at one side of his mouth.

“Then that means there
is
something dragons can do about things in space.”

He jerked straight up, hand gripping hers tightly. “Let’s take this one slowly, shall we, my love?”

She swung her head back and forth. “Very slowly.”

Someone tapped on the door and called her name.

She took a deep breath, felt F’lar do the same.

“Yes?”

“It’s Manora. I just arrived to help. G’bol brought me on Mirreth.”

“We’ll be right there,” Lessa called. When she turned her shining eyes to F’lar, they were no longer full of tears, but hope. He embraced her, cheek on her head, trying by the language of his body to tell her the words in his heart.

Calm and mutually supportive, they emerged from their brief respite to greet Manora.

M
anora, headwoman of Benden’s Lower Cavern, was seated beside the bed when Tai next woke, an honor that had Tai reeling until she felt Zaranth’s mental touch, initially anxious and then relieved.
You are better! I am, too
.

“Ah, good,” Manora said, examining Tai’s face. “Your eyes are clearer and your fever is gone.”

“F’lessan?” Tai tried to sit and wished she hadn’t: she ached all over. This was much worse than the mauling she’d had from the men at Landing Healer Hall. She made no resistance when Manora pushed her back down.

“His fever has lessened, yes. His injuries were extensive. There was some internal damage, you see,” and Manora’s serious face made no light of that, “but Oldive and that clever-fingered Crivellan stopped the bleeding, repaired the damage the claws did, and he will heal.”

Tai heard a note in her voice. “What else is wrong?”

She gave Tai’s hand a reassuring clasp, her expression approving. “You’re very quick, Green Rider Tai. Muscle was torn from F’lessan’s left leg and not all the new skills that the Healer Hall has developed can replace that.” She paused. “He’ll have a few scars on his face but I do believe that once the wounds have healed they won’t be so noticeable.”

“F’lessan is not a vain man,” Tai said, after a moment’s consideration, “but he will hate a limp.”

“You are quite right. How do your legs feel?”

Tai had to think because she felt awfully heavy below her knees.

“There should be little feeling,” Manora added quickly. “I have
only just finished dressing them with numbweed. You’ll have scars.”

Tai dismissed that with a snort. “How badly was Zaranth hurt and when may I see her?”

Manora gave her a slow look. “As I’m sure Zaranth has told you, she is better: not so stiff today. She was clawed and bitten, not as extensively as Golanth or in any way crippling to her. She is slathered with numbweed the moment she so much as twitches. She has been fed a plump and tender herdbeast, which Gadareth chose and brought for her. She is able to move and to fly if she should wish to.”

Tai closed her eyes, all too keenly aware of how much worse the bronze’s injuries must be. The predators had
savaged
him. She could
see
him struggling, Zaranth trying to defend them both. Oddly Tai felt no resentment that her dragon’s primary concern had been for her weyrmate. Golanth had, after all, taken the brunt of the attack.

“G-G-Golanth?”

Manora’s expression altered for a brief instant and then she smiled with gentle reassurance.

“He, too, is improving, but it will take much longer for him to heal. His injuries were—dreadful.”

“They all went for him …” Tai’s voice broke.

“The predators attacked both dragons. Zaranth has many claw marks on her; they are just not as deep as those on Golanth. Do you know—” and here Manora hesitated, “
how
she defended herself and Golanth?”

Vividly Tai remembered Zaranth staring intensely at something in the underbrush. She thought of deflected trundlebugs, such minor nuisances. She thought of the pelts that Zaranth had somehow retrieved. That night, she hadn’t moved anything to prove to F’lessan that she could—until he threw the bowl at her. Nothing could have been more threatening than the felines! Neither dragon had hesitated in pushing them away. But Zaranth had had more practice with that technique while Golanth had had ever so many more to deal with. Until the other dragons came to help. She remembered now, too, something that Aivas had said in her hearing, when she was working in Admin. “The white one
leads the way but why is it that they do not use telekinesis if they can telepath and teleport?”

As that incident had been prior to her unexpected Impression of Zaranth, she hadn’t understood what he meant and certainly wouldn’t have dared to raise a question then. She had puzzled over the remark from time to time. Aivas had been very interested in draconic abilities. He had also been somewhat disappointed, even after the incredible feat dragons and riders had performed to alter the orbit of the Red Star; no one had ever understood why, for the plan Aivas had devised had been impeccably carried out. Everyone had seen the explosion of the antimatter engines placed on the Red Star.

“It’s something she learned on her own, to keep trundlebugs from bothering her.”

“Trundlebugs?” Manora asked in amazement.

“As far as I know, the species is limited to the southern continent,” she said. “They’re only a nuisance.”

“And Zaranth would move them out of her way? So it is conceivable that she also moved the felines in the same fashion.”

“There were so many.” Tai could not stem the tears that flowed down her cheeks. Manora cradled her hand and stroked it soothingly, a tacit permission to cry as much as Tai needed to ease her distress. “She tried to help Golanth. There were more attacking him. Then more dragons arrived. They took care of the others. Except that last one. And Golanth told Ramoth to time it?” Brushing tears from her face with her hand, she looked up at Manora. “But what good could that have done? Only it seemed to. Golanth was not killed.” With her eyes she begged some explanation of Manora.

Manora soothed her with a gentle stroke. “I believe that is the paradox of timing it. F’lar said something about causality. The beast had aimed, jumped, and even by timing back, Ramoth could only make the most infinitesimal alteration in the second she had, but she deflected a lethal blow. I gather that there was so much going on at that moment it is miraculous she managed what she did. And this started with a dislike of trundlebugs?”

Tai managed a little smile. “They’ve scratchy feet and if you swat at them, the female lets off the most incredible stink. So you
have to move them carefully and before they know what’s happened. So it takes a certain amount of skill.” She paused, allowing the amusement of Golly’s first attempt to flicker across her face. “F’lessan and Golanth saw her do it at Benini Hold. It wasn’t anything much.” Tai started to shrug one shoulder but it was painful. “Just Zaranth avoiding an inconvenience.” Tai hesitated. “And then there was the problem with pelts.”

“Oh, yes, the pelts. Mirrim mentioned those,” and somehow Manora implied that, although Mirrim might have been talking a lot, Manora was not the sort of person who heeded gossip. Tai felt a surge of gratitude for Manora.

“I—think—” and Tai hesitated, trying to pick her words carefully; she didn’t wish to lose Manora’s good opinion of her. “I think—now—that’s how Zaranth got the skins before the Flood reached our hold.”

“Got them?” Manora repeated, miming her fingers picking something up and flicking it away.

“Without her being there.”

“I think I understood that, Rider Tai. You were very busy helping to evacuate the children just then.” Manora clasped her hands on her forearms and settled to consider what she understood. “I know what Weyrwoman Lessa said must have happened.” She inclined her head respectfully. “An example of how pure blind instinct will react to the right stimulus. As Zaranth did yesterday.”

“Yesterday?” Tai jerked upright, despite the discomfort, and was firmly subdued by Manora who, though everyone said she must be the oldest woman in Benden Weyr, displayed considerable strength.

“Yesterday.”

“But today? We were supposed to go to the Council meeting.” She struggled briefly. “To support Masters Wansor and Erragon.”

The twinkle in Manora’s eyes and her gentle and unusually broad smile surprised Tai by their unexpectedness.

“Yesterday, Rider Tai, you did more than you may yet understand to support the Masters. And the Weyrs. That is why I am here, with you, in the Weyrwoman’s stead, overseeing your recovery.” She leaned forward to pat Tai’s shoulder gently. “Thanks to Zaranth and you, this will be an immensely interesting meeting,
with broad repercussions and, I hope, changes. For the good of us all.”

T
he Weyrleaders remained at Honshu overnight: Lessa looked in on F’lessan from time to time.

“I never have been much of a mothering person,” Lessa admitted quietly to Manora when they shared a pot of klah.

“Why should you have been?” Manora asked mildly. “With you neck deep in Weyr business that only you could manage and every woman quite happy to take care of him? A much more sensible custom than what goes on in holds, Lady Lessa,” Manora replied, “especially for as lively a lad as F’lessan.”

F’lar spent time sitting between Golanth and Zaranth, Mnementh and Ramoth on guard on the terrace above. There seemed to be a plethora of dragons resting at Honshu.

Why aren’t they at their own weyrs, Mnementh?

We are waiting until Golanth and Zaranth improve
.

F’lar was flummoxed by the tinge of reverence in his bronze’s tone.

All of you?
And he indicated the many in attendance.

Yes
. The affirmative seemed to echo throughout the valley below.

While it was true that the dragons were always solicitous about any injured by Thread or ill of the few ailments that could sicken one of them, this vigil was unusual.

Zaranth and Golanth have done the unusual. We wait with you, too
.

So F’lar found himself content to sit, companionably silent with so many of the creatures who were keeping watch with him. Such a moment was rare.

When Lessa joined him later, murmuring that he should get some food into him, she took his place.

They sleep. They need it
, Ramoth said so very, very softly, as if she did not wish even that intimate exchange to disturb the silence.

Tell me again, Ramoth, how it all happened. From the beginning
.

I have been thinking of nothing else. I will speak softly. These here know what happened and yet—they don’t know. I am not sure I do
.

Lessa nodded her head.
Tell me. We will study it together
.

I am asleep. I am awakened by the most urgent cry for assistance. Mnementh wakes, too. It is Golanth who is in trouble. It is Zaranth who calls, fears for Golanth’s life. She calls everyone. Everyone she knows. I got there first, Mnementh a breath behind. Then come Heth, Gadareth, Monarth, Path, Arwith, Ruth, and others. I see Zaranth tearing the felines from Golanth without touching them. Her mind has the fury of firestone as it comes from the mouth: never have I seen a dragon so angry. I see how she does it. Golanth does it, too. Ruth learns quickly. All who came learned. We remove the furry killing things. We think only of removing the furry killing things. We do so. No other creature has ever attacked a dragon!

She paused.
It is not the same thing as searing Thread from the sky. I feel good when a Fall is over and no Thread has reached the ground. This was very different. I saw the leaping furries, coming from behind. Zaranth lifts as high as she can stand, to take their leaping—bravely done, the bravest thing a green has ever done—but one is aiming for Golanth’s back where a rider could fend it off but there is no rider to help protect that place. The beast will not fail of its target
.