Dragonseye

by Anne McCaffrey

  “Too good for him, really,” someone said.

  “Ah, but he’s lord of all he surveys, ain’t he? Suit him!”

  “No one was hurt?”

  “Who’s going to take hold there now, with so much to do so close to Fall?”

  Iantine answered as circumspectly as he could, though he was amazed at how accurately the Weyrfolk had guessed what had happened. They also seemed to know a great deal about a hold that was not beholden to Telgar Weyr. He didn’t think he’d talked much about his uncomfortable stay at Bitra, so they must have had their information from other sources. Weyrfolk did get to travel more than holders, so perhaps their level of information was more comprehensive.

  Riders drifted in, early for the noontime meal and just as interested in what had happened at Bitra Hold. Some of the older ones remembered the wager that had cost Vergerin the holding, and knew other details about that Bloodline that certainly showed them well informed.

  Iantine was grateful for the klah and cookies Tisha had brought and equally pleased to have Leopol bring him bread, cheese, and the sliced wherry meat that was being served for lunch. He did have a moment’s anxiety when he saw K’vin, at the edge of the crowd, gesturing for his attention. Maybe he shouldn’t have said a thing.

  He told Leopol to take the notorious portrait to his quarters, bundled his pad under his arm—because he knew nothing would keep Leopol from looking at it—and then made his way to K’vin. Since he had obviously told all he was going to tell, he was allowed to pass, with good-natured mauling on his way.

  “I’m sorry, Weyrleader, if I was speaking out of turn . . .” K’vin regarded him with widened eyes. “Speaking out of turn? Ha, they probably had figured out everything on their own. What could you possibly tell them that they didn’t know?”

  “How many people Chalkin had in those appalling cells,” Iantine said, blurting out the words before he realized what he was saying.

  K’vin put a sympathetic arm around his shoulders. “I think I’ll have a few bad dreams over that myself,” and he gave a deep shudder. “Perhaps you’d best get some rest . . .”

  “No, I’d rather not, if you’ve something else for me to do,” Iantine said truthfully. He didn’t even need to stop off at his quarters, as his tubes of oil and brushes were already in the Weyrleaders’ quarters.

  K’vin’s solicitous expression brightened. “I’ve some time now, and you’ve the painting to finish of me unless you’d rather redo Chalkin . . . but Bridgely made it very plain to me that he’d like you at Benden to do his commissions by Turn’s End. You’re much sought after, you know.”

  Iantine made a disparaging noise in his throat, embarrassed by his notoriety. K’vin, grinning at his reaction, slapped his back lightly in affection.

  “So what’s it to be?” the Weyrleader asked.

  “You, of course. Did you . . .” He hesitated, not wanting to be thought pushy. “Did you like Zulaya’s portrait?”

  K’vin gave a low laugh and turned his face away. “You’ve done her proud, Iantine. Proud.”

  “She’s easy. She’s beautiful,” Iantine said.

  “Yes, isn’t she?”

  Something about the tone of his voice made Iantine wonder at such a response. They were Weyrleaders, together, weren’t they? They always made such a stance of a good partnership. But Iantine was getting as good at hearing things that weren’t expressed as he was at seeing all that could be seen. Not his place to comment, though, despite a growing admiration for K’vin as Weyrleader. Zulaya was a bit reserved, he knew from having spent so much time painting her, but she was much older than Iantine. And older than K’vin, too, for that matter.

  “That gown was perfect for her,” Iantine said to break an awkward silence.

  “Yes, she had it made for the last Hatching,” K’vin said, and the smile he turned toward Iantine was easy, relaxed.

  Iantine wondered if all he’d seen that morning hadn’t skewed his judgment. They were at the weyr stairs now and climbed up. At the top of the steep flight Iantine was glad he wasn’t even out of breath.

  “You’re in good shape,” K’vin said, with another friendly slap to his back to push him on into the high-ceilinged entrance to the weyr.

  “I’d need to be, wouldn’t I?” Iantine replied with a droll laugh. He paused briefly, his eyes seeking the weyrlings at the lake. Yes, Debera was there, oiling Morath. He’d have a chance to talk to her later: maybe even take dinner with her and show her Chalkin’s portrait before he made the changes. Could he add to Chalkin’s face what went on in that man’s miserable soul? he wondered as he watched K’vin change into the Gather clothes he wore for his portrait. Was he good enough to attempt such a portrayal?

  Amid all the frantic preparations for Turn’s End, Clisser braved S’nan’s displeasure to request transport to the Telgar Engineering Hall to discuss the feasibility of the Stonehenge installation for Pern’s purposes. All he told S’nan, however, was that he needed to discuss something vital with Kalvi; S’nan would not approve, believing that such bells, whistles, and signals should be unnecessary if the Weyrs were kept on their toes during Intervals.

  Jemmy had meticulously drawn a replica of the prehistoric stone circle, plus another of a reconstruction of what it had originally looked like, and such description as might be valuable to Kalvi and his team.

  Kalvi took one quick, almost derisive glance at the drawings, and then a second more respectful one.

  “Eye Rock? Finger Rock? Solstice?” He gave Clisser a broad smile. “I do believe it will suffice, and rather neatly.” Then he frowned. “Couldn’t you have given me a little more time? Solstice is only two weeks off!”

  “I—” Clisser began.

  “Sorry, friend,” Kalvi said with a self-deprecating smile, “you’d be busy with rehearsing and all that. Hmmm. Just leave it with me. I think we can contrive something . . .” He riffled through Jemmy’s sketches. “Hmm, yes, the lad has real talent.”

  “Don’t you dare seduce him away from the College,” Clisser said, assembling as fierce a frown on his face as he gave to wayward students.

  Kalvi grinned, pretending to recoil in terror, but his eyes were on the drawings. “We’ll manage.” He gave an exaggerated sigh. “It’s what we’re good at.”

  Clisser left, reassured that he would not fail the Conclave on this matter.

  CHAPTER XIV

  Turn’s End at Fort Hold and Telgar Weyr

  TRADITIONALLY, THE LORD Holders and the Weyrleaders—and the invited heads of the various professions—met in Conclave the day before Turn’s End—the Winter Solstice—to discuss what matters should be brought to those who would assemble for the festivities. Should a referendum figure on the agenda, its details would have been previously circulated. It would also be read out that evening in every main hold and Hall. If voting was required, votes were cast the morning of the first day of Turn’s End, the results counted and returned to the second traditional sitting of the Conclave on the day after Turn’s End, when the new year started.

  The tradition was even more important in this 258th year after Landing with the Pass so imminent. Although Vergerin had been in charge but twenty days before the Conclave, it was obvious that he was taking a firm but just hold on Bitra. He was also working his assistants hard but fairly. None of them had any complaint to register when adroitly queried by their fathers or mothers. Vergerin’s first official act had been to send riders to every single known holding and announce Chalkin’s removal and that as many as could attend Turn’s End at Bitra Hold would be made welcome. Vergerin paid for additional supplies out of his own funds. (No one had found Chalkin’s treasury: nor had he taken it with him into exile. Nadona had denied any knowledge of its whereabouts and moaned that he had left her without a mark to her name.)

  Altering a previously made decision, the Teachers’ College planned now to supply a Turn’s End concert to Bitra. They would bring copies of the Charter, which Vergerin had requested, to be given to e
ach small holder. That would deplete to a few dozen the printed copies left in the College Library, but Clisser felt it to be in a very good cause. Since the Turn’s End music featured Sheledon’s ambitious “Landing Suite”—which made mention of the Charter—the audience would have a better understanding of what the music, and indeed the printed Charter, was all about. Bitran holders would no longer be kept in abysmal ignorance of their Charter-given rights.

  Consequently, when the Conclave sat, the first business was to confirm Vergerin as Lord Holder of Bitra. He was not abjured to train his young relatives, Chalkin’s sons, to succession, although he was in conscience bound to see them well taken care of, educated, and prepared to make their own living as adults. He was relieved of his promise to forgo having legitimate heirs and promptly installed at Bitra a nine-year-old son and a five-year-old daughter. No one knew who their mother had been. Vergerin made it plain that he was interested in acquiring a spouse suitable to hold as his Lady.

  Clisser was called on to report on the matter of an indestructible and unambiguous method of confirming a Pass, and he said that Kalvi and he had agreed on the device and it would be installed on the eastern face of every Weyr. Kalvi, looking suitably smug, nodded wisely, so Paulin allowed himself to be reassured. He wanted no more problems like Chalkin to arise again! Ever! And now was the moment to prevent them.

  The matter of a new hold being established and named Crom came up and there was considerable discussion.

  “Look, they are entitled to use their Charter-granted acres, and that amounts to a fair whack of land,” Bastom said, coming unexpectedly down on the side of the applicants. “Let ’em call it a hold . . .”

  “Yes, but they want autonomy, and besides, they’re too far from any other hold up there in the hills,” Azury put in.

  “It’ll have to prove it’s self-sufficient . . .” Tashvi said, looking reluctant to admit that much. Which was understandable since Telgar was also a mining hold.

  “They have to follow the rules, same as everyone else,” Paulin said in a neutral manner. “And supply basic needs to Contract workers.”

  “They’re in good shape to do so,” Azury remarked dryly, “what with the profit they can expect from supplying high-grade ore at the start of a Fall.”

  “Consider them on probation,” was Bridgely’s suggestion, and that motion was carried.

  There were a few more minor details to be discussed, but they were carried as well. This year there was no referendum to be presented to the population.

  “However, I want every one of you to give a full report of the trials and Chalkin’s impeachment to the assembled,” Paulin reminded the Lord Holders. “We want the truth circulated and believed: not a mess of rumors.”

  “Like the cannibalism!” Bridgely had been highly indignant over that one. “Sadistic Chalkin was, but let’s squash that one now!”

  “How under the sun did such a rumor ever get started?” Paulin asked, appalled. S’nan looked in a state of shock, staring incredulous at the Benden Lord Holder.

  “The ‘cold storage’ I suspect,” Bridgely said, disgusted.

  “We didn’t coin the term,” Azury said with a shrug.

  “Well, we don’t want it circulated,” M’shall said angrily. “Bad enough having to live with the facts without having to debunk the fantasies.”

  “We do want the swift justice meted out to the rapists and the murderers to be well publicized, though,” Richud said.

  “That, yes! Speculation, no,” Paulin said. He rose, tapped the gavel on its block. “I declare this session of the Conclave dismissed. Enjoy Turn’s End and we’ll meet in three days’ time.”

  He intended to enjoy every moment of it for the year he’d put in. He noticed a similar determination on other faces, especially young Gallian’s. Apart from the Chalkin affair, Jamson had no need to fault his son’s management of High Reaches. Though maybe that bit about “cannibalism” could be whispered in Jamson’s presence. That would certainly alter his opinion about impeachment. Somehow Thea was still “ailing” and had persuaded her spouse to stay on in Lsta for Turn’s End. That gave more opportunity for the Chalkin affair to die a natural death.

  Turn’s End was a holiday for everyone except those involved in the ambitious “Landing Suite” debut at all the Weyrs and the major holds. Clisser was run ragged with rehearsals and last-minute assignments, and understudies for those with winter colds. Then he had the extra burden of preparing for the precise calculations needed to set up the fail-safe mechanism to predict a Pass. Clisser, torn between the musical rehearsals and observing the installation of a permanent Threadfall warning device, opted for the latter. Of course, his role was supervisory, as the more precise location had to be conducted by teams of astronomers, engineers, and Weyrleaders on the eastern rim of all six facilities. He, Jemmy, and Kalvi were to set the apparatus at Benden, the first Weyr to “see” the phenomenon, then they would skedaddle on dragonback to each of the other five Weyrs to install the others.

  It was imperative that the first installation, at Benden, had to be accurate in case there might be a distortion at any other. Though Clisser doubted it, not with Kalvi fussing and fussing over the components. Clisser’d been over and over the requisite steps to pinpoint the rise of the Red Star. Once that circular “eye” was set on the rim, they could install the pointer, the finger. But the eye had to be right on it! The teams had been in place for the past week, with predawn checks on the Red Planet’s position at dawn. All that was necessary now was a clear morning, and that seemed to be possible across the continent, which had enjoyed some bright, clear, if wintry, skies. Fine weather was critically important at Benden, for the other Weyrs could take adjusted measurements from that reading if necessary.

  Kalvi was still fiddling with the design of what he was calling the Eye Rock, which would bracket the Red Planet at dawn on Winter Solstice. His main problem was adjusting the pointer . . . the position at a distance from the eye itself at which the viewer would stand to see the planet. The pointer had to accommodate different physical heights. Old diagrams of Stonehenge and other prehistoric rings had surfaced. Actually, Bethany’s students had found them after an intensive search of long unused documents. Fortunately, for Clisser’s peace, Sallisha had gone to Nerat for the Turn’s End celebration, ready to start her next year’s teaching contract. He was spared any reminder from her of how important it was to keep such ancient knowledge viable. He had rehearsed arguments, in case he had a letter from her, about the fact that, in the crunch, someone had remembered.

  He was quite excited—if freezing—to be on Benden Weyr’s rim with the others, telescopes set up, aimed in the appropriate direction while Kalvi and Jemmy fiddled with their components. Kalvi had put up a cone for the pointer. The notion being that a person, resting their chin on the cone’s tip, would see the Red Planet bracketed just as it cleared the horizon. They’d have to try it with folks of various statures to be sure the device worked, but technically, Clisser thought it would work. Kalvi was the shortest, he was tallest, M’shall was a half head shorter, and Jemmy between the Weyrleader and Kalvi. If all could see the Red Planet in the eye, the device would be proven.

  Well, it would really be proven in another 250 years or so with the Third Pass.

  But this moment was exciting. Clisser slapped his body with his arms, trying to warm himself. His feet, despite the extra lining, were frozen: he could barely feel his toes, and his breath was so visible he worried that it might cloud his chance to see the phenomenon.

  “Here it comes,” Kalvi said, though Clisser could see nothing in the crepuscular dawn light. Kalvi was looking at his instrument, not the sky.

  A tip of red appeared just over the bottom of the Eye a breath or two later. A redness that seemed to pulsate. It wasn’t a very large planet—from this distance, it wouldn’t be, Clisser thought, though they had the measurements of it from the Yokohama observations. It was approximately the same size as Earth’s old sister, Ven
us. And about as hospitable.

  Somehow, Clisser thought—and told himself to breathe—as he watched, the wanderer managed to look baleful in its redness. Hadn’t one of the other Sol satellites been called the “red planet”? Oh, yes, Mars. Suitable, too, since it had been named after a war god.

  And equally a suitable color for a planet about to wreak havoc on them. How could such an avaricious organism develop on a planet that spent most of its orbit too far away from Rukbat’s warmth to generate any life form? Of’course, he was aware that very odd “life” forms had been found by the early space explorers. Who had blundered into the Nathi, to name another vicious species!

  But the reports on this mycorrhizoid gave it no intelligence whatsoever. A menace without malice. Clisser sighed. Well, that was some consolation: it didn’t really mean to eat everything in sight—people, animals, plants, trees—but that was all it could do.

  Which was more than enough, Clisser thought grimly, remembering the visuals of recorded incidents. That’s another thing he ought to have done—a graphic record—even a still picture would make vividly plain how devastating Thread could be. Iantine’s sketches done at the Bitran borders had impressed the teacher immensely.

  Though it was a shame to waste Iantine’s talents on a copy job. Anyone could copy: few could originate.

  Meanwhile, the red edge crept up over the rim of Benden Weyr.

  “THAT’S IT!” Kalvi cried. He made a final twitch to the iron circle on its pedestal. “I got it. Cement it in place now. Quickly. You there at the finger rock. Eyeball the phenomenon. All of you should see it bracketed by this circle.”

  The viewers had lined themselves up, and each took a turn even as Kalvi raced back to grab a look from this vantage point.