Dragonseye

by Anne McCaffrey

  As if there was room, or facilities, for more than one teachers’ school. Or the private tutors some holders felt should be supplied them because of their positions. Ha! As it was, the peripatetic teachers were going all year long, trying to cover the basics with children in the far-flung settlements. Well, maybe one day they could site a second campus—was that the word?—on the eastern coast. Of course, with Threadfall coming, he’d have to revise all the schedules as well as instruct his travelers on how to avoid getting killed by the stuff. He had seen footage—when the projector still worked—of actual Threadfall. He shuddered. Accustomed as he had been all his life to the prospect of the menace, he still didn’t like the inevitability. The reality was nearly on them.

  The Weyrleaders could waffle on about how well-prepared hold and Weyr were, with dragon strength at max, and groundcrews and equipment organized, but did anyone really know what it would be like? He swore under his breath as he made his way to the rooms that still needed to be completed to receive occupants in five days. He’d work on the syllabus during his lunch break.

  A sudden thought struck him so that he halted, foot poised briefly above the next step. What they really needed was a totally new approach to education on Pern!

  What was the point of teaching students subjects now rendered useless here on Pern? Like computer programming and electronic maintenance? What good did it do the Pernese boys and girls to know old geographic and political subdivisions of Terra? Useless information. They’d never go there! Such matters did not impinge on their daily lives. What was needed was a complete revision of learning priorities, suitable to those who were firmly and irrevocably based on this planet. Why did anyone now need to know the underlying causes of the Nathi Space War? No one here was going to go into space—even the dragons were limited to distance that they could travel before they were in oxygen debt. Why not study the spatial maps of Pern and forget those of Earth and its colonies? Study the Charter and its provisions as applicable to the Pernese citizenry, rather than prehistoric governments and societies. Well, some of the more relevant facts could be covered in the course to show how the current governmental system, such as it was, had been developed. But there was so much trivia—no wonder his teachers couldn’t get through the lessons. Small wonder the students got bored. So little of what they were presently required to learn had any relevance to the life they lived and the planet they inhabited. History should really begin with Landing on Pern . . . well, some nodding acquaintance with the emergence of Homo sapiens, but why deal with the aliens that Earth’s exploratory branch had discovered when there was little chance of them arriving in the Rukbat system?

  And further, Clisser decided, taken up with the notion, we should encourage specialized training—raising agriculture and veterinary care to the prestige of computer sciences. Breeding to Pernese conditions and coping with Pernese parasites was far more important than knowing what had once bothered animals back on Earth. Teach the miners and metalworkers where the spatial maps showed deposits of ores and what they were good for; teach not the history of art—especially since many of the slides of Masterpieces had now deteriorated to muddy blurs—but how to use Pernese pigments, materials, design, and tailoring; teach the Great Currents, oceanography, fish-conservation, seamanship, naval engineering, and meteorology to those who fished the waters . . . As to that, why not separate the various disciplines so that each student would learn what he needed to know, not a lot of basically useless facts, figures, and theories?

  For instance, get Kalvi to take in . . . what was the old term—ah, apprentices—take in apprentices to learn fabrication and metalwork? And there’d have to be a discipline for mining, as well as metalworking. One for weaving, farming, fishing. And one for teaching, too. Of course, education in itself was designed to teach you how to solve the problems that cropped up in daily living, but for specialties, you could really slim down to the essential skills required by each. As it was, that sort of apprentice system was almost in place anyhow . . . with parents either instructing their kids in the family’s profession or getting a knowledgeable neighbor to do it. Kalvi had both sons now in supervisory capacities in his Telgar Works. And there should be provisions to save other kids, like Jemmy, and see that they were able to develop a potential not in keeping with their native hold’s main business. Administer a basic aptitude test to every child at six, and the more specific one at eleven or twelve, and be able to identify special abilities and place him or her where he or she could learn best from the people qualified to maximize the innate potential.

  Even in medicine, a new curriculum should be established, based on what was now available on Pern, rather than what the First Settlers had had. Mind you, Corey was constantly regretting the lack of this or that medicine, or equipment and procedures that would save lives but was no longer available. Clisser snorted: too much time was spent bitching about “what had been” and “if only we still had” instead of making the best of what was available in the here and now. What was that old saying?

  Ours not to wonder what were fair in life

  But finding what may be, make it fair up to our means?

  Well, he couldn’t remember who had said it or to what it applied. But the meaning definitely applied! Pern had great riches which were being ignored in the regret of the “what had been.” Even Corey had to admit that the indigenous pharmacopoeia was proving to be sufficient for most common ailments, and even better in some cases now that the last of the carefully hoarded Earth chemicals were depleted.

  Basic concepts of math, history, responsibility, duty could indeed be translated into music, easier to transmit and memorize. Why, anyone who could strum an instrument could give initial instruction in holds; teach kids to read, write, and do some figuring; and then let them apply themselves to the nitty-gritty of their life’s occupation. And music had always been important here!

  He put his foot down on the step, pleased with this moment’s revelation. A whole new way of looking at the education and training of the young, and entirely suitable to the planet and its needs. He must really sit down and think it all through . . . when he found the time.

  His laugh mocked his grandiose ideas, and yet they’d had to revise and reform so many old concepts here on Pern: Why not the method in which education was administered? Was that the word he wanted: administered? Like a medicine? He sighed. He did wish that learning was not considered an unavoidable dose. Certainly someone like Jemmy proved that learning was enjoyable. But then, insatiable appetites like his for knowledge, for its own sake, were rare.

  Clisser trotted up the last of that flight in considerably better humor. He’d find the time, by all that’s still holy, he would.

  CHAPTER III

  Late Fall at Telgar Weyr

  ZULAYA BEAMED at Paulin. “Yes, she rather outdid herself, didn’t she?” She turned to regard her queen fondly as the golden dragon hovered proprietarily over the fifty-one eggs which would, by all the signs, hatch sometime this day.

  All morning dragons had conveyed in guests and candidates.

  “Aren’t the Weyrs overproducing a trifle?” Paulin asked. Benden and Ista Weyrs had also had Hatchings in the past month. He had lost two very promising holder lads to the Weyrs: a felt loss, as riders would no longer be as free as they were during an Interval to journey easily between hold and Weyr, and to learn and practice other professions.

  “Frequent clutches are one of the surefire signs that there will be a Pass,” Zulaya said, obviously looking forward to the days when the dragons of Pern started the work for which they were engineered. “Have you heard that song the College sent out?”

  “Hmmm, yes, I have,” and Paulin grinned. “In fact, I can’t get it out of my mind.”

  “Clisser says they have several more to play for us tonight.”

  “Just music?” Paulin asked, scowling. “It’s a device we asked them for . . . something permanent so that no one can deny the imminence of a Pass.”

  Zu
laya patted his hand encouragingly. “You can ask what progress he’s made on that project.”

  K’vin, coming up behind them, casually laid a hand on his Weyrwoman’s shoulder, acting as proprietary of her as her dragon was of her clutch. Amused, Paulin coughed into his hand and hurriedly excused himself.

  “He’s worried about that fail-safe,” Zulaya said, almost amused by K’vin’s show of jealousy but not about to remark on it.

  “You’re looking very beautiful in that new dress,” he said, eyeing it.

  “Do I? Why, thank you, Key,” she said, twisting her hips to make the skirt whirl. “Which reminds me . . .” and she held out a fold of the rich crimson-patterned brocade that she had had made for this Hatching. “Fredig suggested tapestries, hanging in every Weyr and hold, depicting the return of the Red Star—with the formulae in the borders. Make an interesting design, certainly.”

  “Colors fade and fabrics certainly deteriorate . . .”

  “We’ve some that graced houses in Landing. That Earth-Moon scene . . .”

  “Which was made, as I’ve been told, out of synthetic yams which are more durable than what we have now—cotton, linen, and wool. And even they are looking worn and losing color.”

  “I’ll have them washed . . .”

  “You’ll have them thread-worn . . . oops,” and K’vin grinned at the pun.

  “. . . which is not what is wanted, but there’s no reason, Key, not to have a hundred different reminders.”

  “Something set in stone . . .” the Weyrleader said in a more sober tone.

  “Even stones move . . .”

  “Only prior to a Pass. Only how to perpetuate the critical information?”

  “I think everyone’s worrying too much. I mean, here we are,” and Zulaya gestured broadly to include the Hatching Ground and the Weyr around them. “Why else have dragons? And Weyrs set apart to preserve them, if not for a very, very good reason. They’re the planet’s only sure defense.”

  A sound, subliminal, more than a real noise, alerted them. It issued from Meranath, who reared to her hindquarters, spreading her broad wings, her eyes glowing brightly green and beginning to whirl with excitement.

  “Ah, it starts,” Zulaya said, smiling in anticipation. “Oh, I love Hatchings!”

  Hand in hand the two Weyrleaders raced to the entrance and called out the news, scarcely needed, for the Telgar dragons were already reacting to the queen’s maternal croon with their deep masculine humming.

  The Weyr Bowl became active with dragons a-wing in excitement, flipping here and there on seemingly unavoidable collision courses: with the Weyrlingmaster herding the candidates forward; with parents and friends of the lucky boys and girls rushing across the hot sands to take their places in the amphitheater: hustling to get the best seating for the Impression about to happen.

  K’vin sent Zulaya back to keep Meranath company as he urged people inside, checking the nervous white-clad candidates who had been halted in a clump near the entrance until the spectators were all seated.

  “You’ve long enough to wait on the hot sands as it is,” T’dam, the Weyrlingmaster, told them. “Singe your feet, you could, out there . . .”

  All this time the humming was rising in volume: Meranath joined by all the other dragons in a chorus of tones that Sheledon—and others—had tried to imitate without quite succeeding. Meranath’s throat was swollen with her sound, which continued unabated and seemingly without her needing to draw breath. Soon, as the volume increased, her chest and belly would begin to vibrate, too, with the intensity of her humming. K’vin was aware of the usual response in himself, a jumble of emotions; a joy that threatened to burst his heart through his chest, pride, hope, fear, yearning—oddly enough, hunger was part of it—and a sadness that, on some occasions, could make him weep. Zulaya always wept at Hatchings—at least, until Impressions began. Then she was jubilant, picking up on her queen’s acceptance of her clutch’s partnering.

  In Fort Hold’s storage there were file boxes full of early psychological profiles about the effect of Hatching on riders, dragons, and the new weyrlings. The bonding that occurred was of such complexity and depth that no other union could be compared to it: almost overwhelming in the initial moment of recognition, and certainly the most intense emotion the young candidates had ever experienced. Some youngsters had no trouble at all adapting to the intense and intrusive link: some suffered feelings of inadequacy and doubt. Every Weyr had its own compendium of information about what to do in such-and-such a situation. And every weyrling was assiduously trained and supported through the early months of the relationship until the Weyrleaders and Weyrlingmaster deemed he/she was stable enough to take responsibility for her/himself and her/his dragon.

  But then, a rider was the dragon, and the dragon the rider, in a partnership that was so unwavering, its cessation resulted in suicide for the dragon who lost his mate. The unfortunate rider was as apt to take his life as not. If he lived, he was only half a man, totally bereft by his loss. Female riders were less apt to suicide: they at least had the option of sublimating their loss by having children.

  When the little fire-lizards, who had supplied the genetic material to bioengineer the larger dragons, had still been available, a former male rider found some solace in such companionship. Only three fire-lizard clutches had been found in Ista in the last five decades; though it was thought more might be found in the Southern Continent, that quest had so far been futile. The vets had decided that some sort of odd disease had infected the creatures on northern warm beaches, reducing their numbers and/or their clutches. Whatever the reason, no one had fire-lizard companions anymore.

  As soon as most of the guests had crossed the hot sands, T’dam allowed the candidates to make a loose circle around the eggs. There was no golden egg in this clutch—a circumstance that had both relieved and worried the Weyrleaders. They had five junior queens, which was quite enough for Telgar’s low-flight wing. In fact, there was no dearth of queens in any of the Weyrs, but there was safety in having enough breeders.

  Five girls stood on the Hatching Ground. There should have been six, but the girl’s family had refused to give her up on Search since they claimed a union had been arranged and they could not go back on that pledge. As K’vin thought that a good third or even half of this clutch might be greens, he hoped there’d be enough suitable candidates to Impress all the green hatchings. Green dragons were valuable to a Weyr for their speed and agility, even if they didn’t have the stamina of the larger dragons. Still, they were perhaps the most problematic when it came to Threadfighting. Greens with male riders tended to be more volatile, apt to ignore their Weyrleaders’ orders in the excitement of a Fall—in short, they tended to unnecessarily show off their bravery to the rest of the Weyr. Female riders, on the other hand, while more stable, tended to get pregnant frequently, unless they were very careful, since the greens were usually very sexually active. Even spontaneous abortions due to the extreme cold of between required sensible convalescence, so female green riders were all too often off the duty roster for periods of time. “Taking a short dragon-ride” was now a euphemism for ending an unwanted pregnancy. Still, K’vin had fallen on the side of preferring females when Search provided them.

  The draconic humming—what Clisser called a prebirth lullaby—was reaching an almost unendurable level, climaxing when the first egg cracked open. The spectators were exhibiting the usual excitability, jumping about, weeping, singing along with the dragons. They’d calm down, too, once the Hatching had begun.

  And it did. Three shells burst outward simultaneously, fragments raining down on nearby eggs and causing them to crack, as well. K’vin counted nine dragons, six of them wetly green, and revised his “third” of greens closer to “half.”

  The hatchlings were so dangerous at this stage, ravenous from their encapsulation, and some of the nearer candidates hastily avoided the bumbling progress of the newborn. Two greens seemed headed for Weyrbred Jule, but the blonde
from Ista, already noted in the Weyr for her quick wits, stepped beside one and Impression was made for both. Three of the other greens made for lads who had demonstrated homosexual preferences in their holds. The remaining green, after lunging out of her shell, stood, weaving her head back and forth, crying piteously.

  T’dam called out to the remaining girls to converge on her. The brunette girl from Ista made for her and instantly the little green covered the intervening distance, squeaking with relief.

  K’vin swallowed against the emotional lump in his throat: that instant of recognition always brought back the moment he had experienced the shock of Impression with Charanth. And the glory of that incredibly loving mind linking with his: the knowledge that they were indissolubly one, heart, mind, and soul.

  We are, are we not? Charanth said, his tone rough with the memory of that rapture. Despite the fact that Charanth, like the rest of the Weyr ‘s dragons, was perched up along the ceiling, K’vin could “hear” the dragon’s sigh.

  Zulaya grinned up at K’vin, aware of what was taking place within him, tears flowing down her face as the high emotional level of the Hatching affected her.

  Absently K’vin thought that the glowing bulk of Meranath behind Zulaya made a great background for her beautiful new gown . . . red against gold.

  Then another dozen or so eggs split wide open and the raucous screeching of starving little dragonets reverberated back and forth on the Ground. There was a piercing quality to these screams like lost souls. As each hatchling met its rider, the scream broke off and a mellow croon began. That quickly segued into a piteous “hungry” appeal which was almost more devastating than the earliest screech the weyrlings made. K’vin’s stomach invariably went into empathetic hunger cramps.