The Best Military Science Fiction of the 20th Century (70 page)

A low moan sprang up around the weyr, like the torn, lonely cry of a keening wind. The dragons were uttering tribute.

“Is he…gone?” Lessa asked, although she knew.

Manora nodded slowly, tears streaming down her cheeks as she reached over to close C’gan’s dead eyes.

Lessa rose slowly to her feet, motioning to some of the women to remove the old rider’s body. Absently she rubbed her bloody hands dry on her skirts, trying to concentrate on what might be needed next.

Yet her mind turned back to what had just happened. A dragonrider had died. His dragon, too. The Threads had claimed one pair already. How many more would die this cruel Turn? How long could this one Weyr survive? Even after Ramoth’s forty had matured, and the ones she soon would conceive, and her queen-daughters, too?

Lessa walked apart to quiet her uncertainties and ease her grief. She saw Ramoth wheel and glide aloft, to land on the Peak. One day soon, would Lessa see those golden wings laced red and black from Thread marks? Would Ramoth…disappear?

No, Ramoth would not. Not while Lessa lived.

F’lar had told her long ago that she must learn to look beyond the narrow confines of Hold Ruatha and mere revenge. He was, as usual, right. As Weyrwoman under his tutelage, she had further learned that living
was
more than raising dragons and spring games. Living was struggling to do something impossible—to succeed, or die, knowing you had tried!

Lessa realized that she had, at last, fully accepted her role: as Weyrwoman and mate, to help F’lar shape men and events for many Turns to come—to secure Pern against the Threads.

Lessa threw her shoulders back and lifted her chin high.

Old C’gan had had the right of it.

Dragonmen
must
fly

When Threads are in the sky!

And yet—how long would there be dragonmen?

Worlds are lost or worlds are saved

By those dangers dragon-braved.

As F’lar had predicted, the attack ended by high noon, and weary dragons and riders were welcomed by Ramoth’s high-pitched trumpeting from the Peak.

Once Lessa assured herself that F’lar had no serious injury, that F’nor’s were superficial and that Manora was keeping Kylara busy in the kitchens, she applied herself to organizing the care of the injured and the comfort of the worried.

As dusk fell, an uneasy peace settled on the Weyr: the quiet of minds and bodies too tired, or too hurtful, to talk. Lessa’s own words mocked her as she made out the list of wounded men and beasts. Twenty-eight men or dragons were out of the air for the next Thread battle. C’gan was the only fatality but there had been four more seriously injured dragons at Keroon and seven badly scored men, out of action entirely for months to come.

Lessa crossed the Bowl to her weyr, reluctant but resigned to giving F’lar this unsettling news.

She expected to find him in the sleeping room but it was vacant. Ramoth was asleep already as Lessa passed her on the way to the Council Room, also empty. Puzzled and a little alarmed, Lessa half-ran down the steps to the Records Room, to find F’lar, haggard of face, poring over musty skins.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded, angrily. “You ought to be asleep.”

“So should you,” he drawled, amused.

“I was helping Manora settle the wounded—”

“Each to his own craft,” F’lar drawled. But he did lean back from the table, rubbing his neck and rotating the uninjured shoulder to ease stiffened muscles.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he admitted. “So I thought I’d see what answers I might turn up in the Records.”

“More answers? To what?” Lessa cried, exasperated with him. As if the Records ever answered anything. Obviously the tremendous responsibilities of Pern’s defense against the Threads were beginning to tell on the Weyrleader. After all, there had been the stress of the first battle; not to mention the drain of the traveling
between
times itself to get to Nerat to forestall the Threads.

F’lar grinned and beckoned Lessa to sit beside him on the wall bench.

“I need the answer to the very pressing question of how one understrength Weyr can do the fighting of six.”

Lessa fought the panic that rose.

“Oh, your time schedules will take care of that,” she replied gallantly. “You’ll be able to conserve the dragon power until the new forty can join the ranks.”

F’lar raised a mocking eyebrow.

“Let us be honest between ourselves, Lessa.”

“But there have been Long Intervals before,” she argued, “and since Pern survived them, Pern can again.”

“Before there were always six Weyrs. And twenty or so Turns before the Red Star was due to begin its Pass, the queens would start to produce enormous clutches. All the queens, not just one faithful golden Ramoth. Oh, how I curse Jora!” He slammed to his feet and started pacing, irritably brushing the lock of black hair that fell across his eyes.

Lessa was torn with the desire to comfort him and the sinking, choking fear that made it difficult to think at all.

“You were not so doubtful…”

He whirled back to her. “…Not until I had actually had an encounter with the Threads and reckoned up the numbers of injuries. That sets the odds against us. Even supposing we can mount other riders to uninjured dragons, we will be hard put to keep a continuously effective force in the air, and still maintain a ground guard.” He caught her puzzled frown. “There’s Nerat to be gone over on foot tomorrow. I’d be a fool indeed if I thought we’d caught and seared every Thread midair.”

“Get the Holders to do that. They can’t just immure themselves safely in their inner Holds and let us do all. If they hadn’t been so miserly and stupid…”

He cut off her complaint with an abrupt gesture. “They’ll do their part all right,” he assured her. “I’m sending for a full Council tomorrow, all Hold Lords and all Craftmasters. But there’s more to it than just marking where Threads fall. How do you destroy a burrow that’s gone deep under the surface? A dragon’s breath is fine for the air and surface work but no good three feet down.”

“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that aspect. But the fire pits…”

“…Are only on the heights and around human habitations, not on the meadowlands of Keroon or on Nerat’s so green rainforests.”

T
HIS CONSIDERATION WAS
daunting indeed. She gave a rueful little laugh.

“Shortsighted of me to suppose our dragons are all poor Pern needs to dispatch the Threads. Yet…” She shrugged expressively.

“There are other methods,” F’lar said, “or there were. There must have been. I have run across frequent mention of the Holds organizing ground groups and that they were armed with fire. What kind is never mentioned because it was so well known.” He threw up his hands in disgust and sagged back down on the bench. “Not even five hundred dragons could have seared all the Threads that fell today. Yet
they
managed to keep Pern Thread-free.”

“Pern, yes, but wasn’t the southern continent lost? Or did they just have their hands too full with Pern itself?”

“No one’s bothered with the southern continent in a hundred thousand Turns,” F’lar snorted.

“It’s on the maps,” Lessa reminded him.

He scowled, disgustedly, at the Records, piled in uncommunicative stacks on the long table.

“The answer must be there. Somewhere.”

There was an edge of desperation in his voice, the hint that he held himself to blame for not having discovered those elusive facts.

“Half those things couldn’t be read by the man who wrote them,” Lessa said tartly. “Besides that, it’s been your
own
ideas that have helped us the most so far. You compiled the timemaps and look how valuable they are already.”

“I’m getting too hidebound again, huh?” he asked, a half-smile tugging at one corner of his mouth.

“Undoubtedly,” she assured him with more confidence than she felt. “We both know the Records are guilty of the most ridiculous omissions.”

“Well said, Lessa. So, let us forget these misguiding and antiquated precepts and think up our own guides. First, we need more dragons. Second, we need them now. Third, we need something as effective as a flaming dragon to destroy Threads which have burrowed.”

“Fourth, we need sleep, or we won’t be able to think of anything,” she added with a touch of her usual asperity.

F’lar laughed outright, hugging her.

“You’ve got your mind on one thing, haven’t you?” he teased.

She pushed ineffectually at him, trying to escape. For a wounded, tired man, he was remarkably amorous. One with that Kylara. Imagine that woman’s presumption, dressing his wounds.

“My responsibility as Weyrwoman includes care of you, the Weyrleader.”

“But you spend hours with blue dragonriders and leave me to Kylara’s tender ministrations.”

“You didn’t look as if you objected.”

F’lar threw back his head and roared. “Should I open Fort Weyr and send Kylara on?” he taunted her.

“I’d as soon Kylara were Turns as well as miles away from here,” Lessa snapped, thoroughly irritated.

F’
LAR’S JAW DROPPED,
his eyes widened. He leaped to his feet with an astonished cry.

“You’ve said it!”

“Said what?”

“Turns away! That’s it. We’ll send Kylara back,
between
times, with her queen and the new dragonets.” F’lar excitedly paced the room while Lessa tried to follow his reasoning. “No, I’d better send at least one of the older bronzes. F’nor, too…I’d rather have F’nor in charge…Discreetly, of course.”

“Send Kylara back…where to? When to?” Lessa interrupted him.

“Good point,” and F’lar dragged out the ubiquitous charts. “Very good point. Where can we send them around here without causing anomalies by being present at one of the other Weyrs? The High Reaches are remote. No, we’ve found remains of fires there, you know, still warm, and no inkling as to who built them or why. And if we had already sent them back, they’d’ve been ready for today and they weren’t. So they can’t have been in two places already…” He shook his head, dazed by the paradoxes.

Lessa’s eyes were drawn to the blank outline of the neglected southern continent.

“Send them there,” she suggested sweetly, pointing.

“There’s nothing there.”

“They bring in what they need. There must be water, for Threads can’t devour that. We fly in whatever else is needed, fodder for the herdbeasts, grain…”

F’lar drew his brows together in concentration, his eyes sparkling with thought, the depression and defeat of a few moments ago forgotten.

“Threads wouldn’t be there ten Turns ago. And haven’t been there for close to four hundred. Ten Turns would give Pridith time to mature and have several clutches. Maybe more queens.”

Then he frowned and shook his head. “No, there’s no Weyr there. No Hatching Ground, no…”

“How do we know that?” Lessa caught him up sharply, too delighted with many aspects of this project to give it up easily. “The Records don’t mention the southern continent, true, but they omit a great deal. How do we know it isn’t green again in the four hundred Turns since the Threads last spun? We do know that Threads can’t last long unless there is something organic on which to feed and that once they’ve devoured all, they dry up and blow away.”

F’lar looked at her admiringly. “Now, why hasn’t someone wondered about that before?”

“Too hidebound.” Lessa wagged her finger at him, dedicated completely to this venture. “And there’s been no need to bother with it.”

“Necessity…or is it jealousy…hatches many a tough shell.” There was a smile of pure malice on his face and Lessa whirled away as he reached for her.

“The good of the Weyr,” she retorted.

“Furthermore, I’ll send you along with F’nor tomorrow to look. Only fair, since it is your idea.”

Lessa stood still. “You’re not going?”

“I feel confident I can leave this project in your very capable, interested hands,” he laughed and caught her against his uninjured side, smiling down at her, his eyes glowing. “I must play ruthless Weyrleader and keep the Hold Lords from slamming shut their Inner Doors. And I’m hoping,” he raised his head, frowning slightly, “one of the Craftmasters may know the solution to the third problem…getting rid of Thread burrows.”

“But…”

“The trip will give Ramoth something to stop her fuming.” He pressed the girl’s slender body more closely to him, his full attention at last on her odd, delicate face. “Lessa, you are my fourth problem.” He bent to kiss her.

At the sound of hurried steps in the passageway, F’lar scowled irritably, releasing her.

“At this hour?” he muttered, ready to reprove the intruder scathingly. “Who goes there?”

“F’lar?” It was F’nor’s voice, anxious, hoarse.

The look on F’lar’s face told Lessa that not even his half brother would be spared a reprimand and it pleased her irrationally. But the moment F’nor burst into the room, both Weyrleader and Weyrwoman were stunned silent. There was something subtly wrong with the brown rider. And, as the man blurted out his incoherent message, the difference suddenly registered in Lessa’s mind. He was tanned! He wore no bandages and hadn’t the slightest trace of the Thread mark along his cheek that she had tended this evening!

“F’lar, it’s not working out! You can’t be alive in two times at once!” F’nor was exclaiming distractedly. He staggered against the wall, grabbing the sheer rock to hold himself upright. There were deep circles under his eyes, visible despite the tan. “I don’t know how much longer we can last like this. We’re all affected. Some days not as badly as others.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Your dragons are all right,” F’nor assured the Weyrleader with a bitter laugh. “It doesn’t bother them. They keep all their wits about them. But their riders…all the weyrfolk. We’re shadows, half-alive, like dragonless men, part of us gone forever. Except Kylara.” His face contorted with intense dislike. “All she wants to do is go back and watch herself. The woman’s egomania will destroy us all, I’m afraid.”

His eyes suddenly lost focus and he swayed wildly. His eyes widened and his mouth fell open. “I can’t stay. I’m here already. Too close. Makes it twice as bad. But I had to warn you. I promise, F’lar, we’ll stay as long as we can but it won’t be much longer…so it won’t be long enough, but we tried. We tried!”

Before F’lar could move, the brown rider whirled and ran, half-crouched, from the room.

“But he hasn’t gone yet!” Lessa gasped. “He hasn’t even gone yet!”

F’
LAR STARED AFTER
his half brother, his brows contracting with the keen anxiety he felt.

“What can have happened?” Lessa demanded of the Weyrleader. “We haven’t even told F’nor. We ourselves just finished considering the idea of exploring the southern continent; to see if we could send dragons back and give Pridith a chance to lay a few clutches. And he looked so tanned and healthy.” Her hand flew to her own cheek. “And the Threadmark—I dressed it myself tonight—it’s gone. Gone. So he’s been gone a long while.” She sank down to the bench.

“However, he has come back. So he did go,” F’lar remarked slowly in a reflective tone of voice. “Yet we now know the venture is not entirely successful even before it begins. And knowing this we have sent him back ten Turns, for whatever good it is doing.” F’lar paused thoughtfully. “Consequently we have no alternative but to continue with the experiment.”

“But what could be going wrong?”

“I think I know and there is no remedy.” He sat down beside her, his eyes intent on hers. “Lessa, you were very upset when you got back from going
between
to Ruatha that first time. But I think now it was more than just the shock of seeing Fax’s men invading your own Hold or in thinking your return might have been responsible for that disaster. I think it has to do with being in two times at once.” He hesitated again, trying to understand this immense new concept even as he voiced it.

Lessa regarded him with such awe that he found himself laughing with embarrassment.

“It’s unnerving under any conditions,” he went on, “to think of returning and seeing a younger self.”

“That must be what he meant about Kylara,” Lessa gasped, “about her wanting to go back and watch herself…as a child. Oh, that wretched girl!” Lessa was filled with anger for Kylara’s self-absorption. “Wretched selfish creature. She’ll ruin everything.”

“Not yet,” F’lar reminded her. “Look, although F’nor warned us that the situation in his time is getting desperate, he didn’t tell us how much he was able to accomplish. But you noticed that his scar had healed to invisibility, consequently some Turns must have elapsed. Even if Pridith lays only one good-sized clutch, even if just the forty of Ramoth’s are mature enough to fight in three days’ time, we have accomplished something. Therefore, Weyrwoman,” and he noticed how she straightened up at the sound of her title, “we must disregard F’nor’s return. When you fly to the southern continent tomorrow, make no allusion to it. Do you understand?”

Lessa nodded gravely and then gave a little sigh. “I don’t know if I’m happy or disappointed to realize, even before we get there tomorrow, that the southern continent obviously will support a Weyr,” she said with dismay. “It was kind of exciting to wonder.”

“Either way,” F’lar told her with a sardonic smile, “we have found only part of the answers to problems one and two.”

“Well, you’d better answer number four right now!” Lessa suggested. “Decisively!”

Weaver, Miner, Harper, Smith,

Tanner, Farmer, Herdsman, Lord,

Gather wingspeed, listen well

To the Weyrman’s urgent word.

They both managed to guard against any reference to his premature return when they spoke to F’nor the next morning. F’lar asked brown Canth to send his rider to the queen’s weyr as soon as he awoke and was pleased to see F’nor almost immediately. If the brown rider noticed the curiously intent stare Lessa gave his bandaged face, he gave no sign of it. As a matter of fact, the moment F’lar outlined the bold venture of scouting the southern continent with the possibility of starting a weyr ten Turns back in time, F’nor forgot all about his wounds.

“I’ll go willingly only if you send T’bor along with Kylara. I’m not waiting till N’ton and his bronze are big enough to take her on. T’bor and she are as…” F’nor broke off with a grimace in Lessa’s direction, “…well, they’re as near a pair as can be. I don’t object to being…importuned, but there are limits to what a man is willing to do out of loyalty to dragonkind.”

F’lar barely managed to restrain the amusement he felt over F’nor’s reluctance. Kylara tried her wiles on every rider and, because F’nor had not been amenable, she was determined to succeed with him.

“I hope two bronzes are enough. Pridith may have a mind of her own, come mating time.”

“You can’t turn a brown into a bronze!” F’nor exclaimed with such dismay F’lar could no longer restrain himself. “Oh, stop it!” And that touched off Lessa’s laughter. “You’re as bad a pair,” he snapped, getting to his feet. “If we’re going south, Weyrwoman, we’d better get started. Particularly if we’re going to give this laughing maniac a chance to compose himself before the solemn Lords descend. I’ll get provisions from Manora. Well, Lessa?
Are
you coming with me?”

Muffling her laughter, Lessa grabbed up her furred flying cloak and followed him. At least the adventure was starting off well.

F’lar grabbed the pitcher of
klah
and his cup and adjourned to the Council Room, debating whether to tell the Lords and Craftmasters of this southern venture or not. The dragon’s ability to fly
between
times as well as places was not yet well known. The Lords might not yet realize it had been used the previous day to forestall the Threads. If he could be sure that project was going to be successful, well, it would add an optimistic note to the meeting.

Let the charts, with the waves and times of the Thread attacks clearly visible, reassure the Lords.

T
HE VISITORS WERE
not long in assembling. Nor were they all successful in hiding their apprehension and the shock they had received now that Threads had again spun down from the Red Star to menace all life on Pern. This was going to be a difficult session, F’lar decided grimly. He had a fleeting wish, which he quickly suppressed, that he had gone with F’nor and Lessa to the southern continent. Instead, he bent with apparent industry to the charts before him.