Dragon Quest

by Anne McCaffrey

The outburst was so uncharacteristic that F'nor stared at the Weyrleader. F'lar passed his hand over his eyes, rubbing his temples. The cold of between had started his headache again. The talk at the Crafthall had been unsettling. He gripped his half-brother's arm in apology.

  "That was inexcusable of me, F'nor. I beg your pardon."

  "Accepted, of course. That's Orth wheeling in right now." F'nor decided to wait before asking F'lar what was really bothering him. He could just imagine what Raid of Benden Hold or Sifer of Bitra Hold had had to say about new levies of manpower. Probably felt that the change of Threadfall was a personal insult, dreamed up by Benden Weyr to annoy the faithful Holds of Pern.

  T'bor landed and strode toward the waiting men.

  Perhaps Brekke was not so far off in her heretical doctrine, F'nor thought. T'bor had made Southern Weyr self-sufficient and productive, no small task. He'd obviously have made a good Holder.

  "Orth said you were here, F'lar. What brings you to Southern? You heard our news about the fire lizards?" T'bor called, brushing the sand from his clothes as he walked.

  "Yes, I did," replied F'lar in so formal a tone that T'bor's welcoming smile faded. "And I thought you'd heard ours, that Thread is dropping out of pattern."

  "There's a rider along every inch of coastline, F'lar, so don't accuse me of negligence," T'bor said, his smile returning. "Dragons don't need to be a-wing to spot Thread. Shells, man, you can hear it hissing across the water."

  "I assume you were looking for fire lizard eggs?" F'lar sounded testy and not completely reassured by T'bor's report. "Have you found any?"

  T'bor shook his head. "There's evidence, far to the west, of another clutch, but there isn't a sign of shell or corpse. The wherries can make fast work of anything edible."

  "Were I you, T'bor, I'd not release an entire Weyr to search for lizard eggs. There's no guarantee Thread will move in on this continent from the ocean."

  "But it always has. What little we get."

  "Thread fell ten hours before schedule across Lemos north when it should have fallen on Lemos south and Telgar southeast," F'lar told him in a hard voice. "I have since heard that Thread fell, unchecked," and he paused to let that sink in to T'bor's mind, "in Telgar Hold and Crom Hold, both times out of phase with the tables, though we do not yet know the time differential. We can't rely on any previous performance."

  "I'll mount guards immediately and send the wings to sweep as far south as we've penetrated," T'bor said briskly and, shrugging into his riding jacket, trotted back to Orth. They were aloft in one great leap.

  "Orth looks well," F'lar said and then eyed his half-brother closely before he smiled, jabbing a fist affectionately at F'nor's good shoulder. "You do, too. How's the arm healing?"

  "I'm at Southern," F'nor replied in oblique explanation. "Are Threadfalls really that erratic?"

  "I don't know," F'lar said with an irritable shrug. "Tell me about these fire lizards if you please. Are they worth the time of every able-bodied rider in this Weyr? Where's yours? I'd like to see it for myself before I go back to Benden." He glanced northeast, frowning.

  "Shells, can't I leave Benden Weyr for a week without everything falling apart?" F'nor demanded so vehemently that F'lar stared at him in momentary surprise before he chuckled and seemed to relax. "That's better," F'nor said, echoing the grin. "Come. There are a couple of the lizards in the Weyrhall and I need some klah. I was out hunting clutches all morning myself, you know. Or would you prefer to sample some of Southern's wine?"

  "Ha!" F'lar made the exclamation a challenge.

  When they entered the Weyrhall, Mirrim was there alone stirring the stew in the big kettles. The two greens were watching her from the long, wide mantel. She gave the appearance of having an odd deformity of chest until F'nor realized that she had rigged a sling around her shoulders in which the wounded brown was suspended, his little eyes pinpoints of light. At the sound of their boots on the paving, she swung round, her eyes wide with an apprehension which turned to surprise as she glanced from F'nor to F'lar. Her mouth made an "o" of astonishment as she recognized the Benden Weyrleader by his resemblance to F'nor.

  "And you're the, the young lady who Impressed three?" F'lar asked, crossing the big room to her.

  Mirrim bobbed a series of nervous curtsies, causing the brown to squawk in protest to such bouncing.

  "May I see him?" F'lar asked and deftly stroked a tiny eye ridge. "He's a real beauty! Canth in miniature," and F'lar glanced slyly at his half-brother to see if the jibe registered. "Will he recover from his wounds, ah ..."

  "Mirrim is her name," F'nor prompted in a bland tone that implied his brother's memory was failing him.

  "Oh, no, Weyrleader, he's healing nicely," the girl said with another bob.

  "Full stomach, I see," F'lar commented approvingly. He glanced at the pair huddled together on the mantel and crooned soft encouragement. They began to preen, stretching fragile, translucent green wings, arching their backs and emitting an echoing hum in pleasure. "You'll have your hands full with this trio."

  "I'll manage them, sir. I promise. And I won't forget my duties, either," she said breathlessly, her eyes still wide. With a gasp, she turned to give a splashing stir to the contents of the nearest pot, then whirled back again before the men could turn. "Brekke's not here. Would you like some klah? Or the stew? Or some ..."

  "We'll serve ourselves," F'nor assured her, picking up two mugs.

  "Oh, I ought to do that, sir ..."

  "You ought to watch your kettles, Mirrim. We'll manage," F'lar told her kindly, mentally contrasting the state of domestic affairs at the Crafthall to the order and the cooking of good rich food at this hall.

  He motioned the brown rider to take the table furthest from the kitchen hearth.

  "Can you hear anything from the lizards?" he asked in a low voice.

  "From hers, you mean? No, but I can easily see what they must be thinking from their reactions. Why?"

  "Idle question. But she's not from a Search, is she?"

  "No, of course not. She's Brekke's fosterling."

  "Hmmm. Then she's not exactly proof, is she?"

  "Proof of what, F'lar? I've suffered no head injury but I can't follow your thought."

  F'lar gave his brother an absent smile and then exhaled wearily.

  "We're going to have trouble with the Lord Holders, they're disillusioned and dissatisfied with the Oldtime Weyrs and are going to balk at any more expeditious measures against Thread."

  "Raid and Sifer give you a hard time?"

  "I wish it were only that, F'nor. They'd come round." F'lar gave his half-brother a terse account of what he'd learned from Lytol, Robinton and Fandarel the day before.

  "Brekke was right when she said something really important had come up,' F'nor said afterward. "But ..."

  "Yes, that news's a hard roll to eat, all right, but our ever efficient Craftsmith's got what might be an answer, not only to the watch on Thread but to establishing decent communications with every Hold and Hall on Pern. Especially since we can't get the Old-timers to assign riders outside the Weyrs. I saw a demonstration of the device today and we're going to rig one for the Lord Holders at Telgar's wedding ..."

  "And the Threads will wait for that?"

  F'lar snorted. "They may be the lesser evil, frankly. The Threads prove to be more flexible in their ways than the Oldtimers and less trouble than the Lord Holders."

  "One of the basic troubles between Lord Holders and Weyrmen are dragons, F'lar, and those fire lizards might just ease matters."

  "That's what I was thinking earlier, considering that young Mirrim had Impressed three. That's really astonishing, even if she is weyrbred."

  "Brekke would like to see her Impress a fighting dragon," F'nor said in a casual way, watching his half-brother's face closely.

  F'lar gave him a startled stare and then threw back his head and laughed.

  "Can you ... imagine ... T'ron's reaction?" ... he managed to say.

&nbs
p; "Well enough to spare myself your version, but the fire lizard may do the trick! And, have the added talent of keeping Hold in contact with Weyr if these creatures prove amenable to training."

  "If, if! Just how similar to dragons are fire lizards?"

  F'nor shrugged. "As I told you, they are Impressionable, if rather undiscriminating," he pointed to Mirrim at the Hearth and then grinned maliciously, "although they detested Kylara on sight. They're slaves to their stomachs, though after Hatching that's very definitely draconic. They respond to affection and flattery. The dragons themselves admit the relationship, seem totally free of jealousy of the creatures. I can detect basic emotions in the thoughts of mine and they generally inspire affection in those who handle them."

  "And they can go between?"

  "Grall, my little queen, did. About chewing firestone I couldn't hazard a guess. We'll have to wait and see."

  "And we don't have time," F'lar said, clenching his fists, his eyes restless with the current of his thoughts.

  "If we could find a hardened clutch, all set to Hatch, in time for that wedding, that, combined with Fandarel's gadget, " F'nor let his sentence trail off.

  F'lar got up in a single decisive movement. "I'd like to see your queen. You named her Grall?"

  "You're solid dragonman, F'lar," F'nor chuckled, remembering what Brekke had said. "You had no trouble remembering the lizard's name but the girls? Never mind, F'lar. Grall's with Canth."

  "Any chance you could call her, here?"

  F'nor considered the intriguing possibility but shook his head.

  "She's asleep, full up to the jawline."

  She was and daintily curled in the hollow by Canth's left ear. Her belly was distended from the morning's meal and F'nor dabbed it with sweet oil. She condescended to lift two lids but her eye was so dull she did not take notice of the additional visitor, nor Mnementh peering down at her. He thought her a very interesting creature.

  "Charming. Lessa'll want one, I'm sure," F'lar murmured, a delighted half-smile on his face as he jumped down from Canth's forearm on which he'd stood to observe her. "Hope she grows a little. Canth could yawn and inadvertently inhale her."

  "Never," and the brown's comment did not need to be passed to the bronze rider.

  "If we'd only an estimate of how long it would take to train them, if they are trainable. But time's as inflexible as an Oldtimer." F'lar looked his half-brother squarely in the eye, no longer hiding the deep worry that gnawed at him.

  "Not entirely, F'lar," the brown rider said, returning his gaze steadily. "As you said, the greater evil is the sickness in our own ..."

  A dragon's brassy scream, the klaxon of Thread attack, stopped F'nor mid-sentence. The brown rider had swung toward his dragon, instinctively reacting to the alert, when F'lar caught him by the arm.

  "You can't fight thread with an unhealed wound, man. Where do they keep firestone here?"

  Whatever criticism F'lar might have had of T'bor's permissiveness at Southern, he could not fault the instant response of the Weyr's fighting complement. Dragons swarmed in the skies before the alert had faded. Dragons swooped to weyrs while riders fetched fighting gear and firestone. The Weyr's women and children were at the supply shed, stuffing sacks. A message had been sent to the seahold where fishermen from Tillek and Ista had established a settlement. They acted as ground crew. By the time F'lar was equipped and aloft, T'bor was issuing the coordinates.

  Thread was falling in the west, at the edge of the desert where the terrain was swampy, where sharp broad-edged grasses were interspersed with dwarfed spongewoods and low berry bushes. For Thread, the muddy swamp was superb burrowing ground, with sufficient organisms on which to feed as the burrow proliferated and spread.

  The wings, fully manned and in good order, went between at T'bor's command. And, in a breath, the dragons hung again in sultry air and began to flame at the thick patches of Thread.

  T'bor had signaled a low altitude entry, of which F'lar approved. But the wing movement was upward, seeking Thread at ever higher levels as they eliminated the immediate airborne danger. Weyrfolk and convalescents swelled the seahold group as ground crew but F'lar thought they'd need low ground support here. There were only three fighting queens, and where was Kylara?

  F'lar directed Mnementh to fly a skim pattern just as the ground crews arrived, piling off the transport dragons, and flaming any patch of grass that seemed to move. They kept shouting to know where the leading Edge of the Fall was and F'lar directed Mnementh east by north. Mnementh complied, and abruptly turned due north, his head barely skimming the vegetation. He backwinged so abruptly that he nearly offset his rider. He hovered, peering so intently at the ground, that F'lar leaned over the great neck to see what attracted him. Dragons could adjust the focus of their eyes to either great distances or close inspection.

  "Something moved, away," the dragon said.

  The gusts of his backwinging flattened grasses. Then F'lar saw the pin-sized, black-rimmed punctures of Thread on the leaves of the berry bushes. He stared hard, trying to discern the telltale evidence of burrows, the upheaval of soil, the consumption of the lush swamp greenery. The bush, the grass, the soil stood still.

  "What moved?"

  "Something bright. It's gone."

  Mnementh landed, his feet sinking into the oozing terrain. F'lar jumped off and peered closely at the bush. Had the holes been made by droplets of hot Thread during a previous Fall? No. The leaves would long since have dropped off. He examined every nearby hummock of grass. Not a sign of burrows. Yet Thread had fallen, and it had to be this Fall, had pierced leaves, grass and tree over a widespread area, and vanished without a trace. No, that was impossible! Gingerly, for viable Thread could eat through wher-hide gloves, F'lar dug around the berry bush. Mnementh helpfully scooped out a deep trench nearby. The displaced soil teamed with grub life, writhing in among the thick tough grass roots. The unexpectedly gray, gnarly taproots of the bush were thick with the black earth but not a sign of Thread.

  Mystified, F'lar raised his eyes in answer to a summons from the hovering weyrlings.

  "They wish to know if this is the Edge of Threadfall," Mnementh reported to his rider.

  "It must be further south," F'lar replied and waved the weyrlings in that direction. He stood looking down at the overturned earth, at the grubs burrowing frantically away from sunlight. He picked up a stout barkless branch and jabbed the earth of the trench Mnementh had made, prodding for the cavities that meant Thread infestations. "It has to be further south. I don't understand this." He ripped a handful of the leaves from a berry bush and sifted them through his gloves. "If this happened some time ago, rain would have washed the char from the punctures. The damaged leaves would have dropped."

  He began to work his way south, and slightly east, trying to ascertain exactly where Thread had started. Foliage on every side gave evidence of its passage but he found no burrows.

  When he located drowned Thread in the brackish water of a swamp pool, he had to consider that as the leading Edge. But he wasn't satisfied and bogged himself down in serious muds investigating, so that Mnementh had to pull him free.

  So intent was he on the anomalies of this Fall, that he did not notice the passage of time. He was somewhat startled, then, to have T'bor appear overhead, announcing the end of Fall. And both men were alarmed when the ground-crew chief, a young fisherman from Ista named Toric, verified that the Fall had lasted a scant two hours since discovery.

  "A short Fall, I know, but there's nothing above, and Toric here says the ground crews are mopping up the few patches that got through," T'bor said, rather pleased with the efficient performance of his Weyr.

  Every instinct told F'lar that something was wrong. Could Thread have changed its habits that drastically? He had no precedent. It always fell in four-hour spans, yet clearly the sky was bare.

  "I need your counsel, T'bor," he said and there was that edge of concern in his voice that brought the other to his side instantly.
>
  F'lar scooped up a handful of the brackish water, showing him the filaments of drowned Thread.

  "Ever notice this before?"

  "Yes, indeed," T'bor replied in a hearty voice, obviously relieved. "Happens all the time here. Not many fish to eat Thread in these foot-sized pools."

  "Then there's something in the swamp waters that does for them?"

  "What do you mean?"

  Wordlessly, F'lar tipped back the scarred foliage nearest him. He warily turned down the broad saw-edged swamp grasses. Catching T'bor's stunned eyes, he gestured back the way he had come, where ground crews moved without one belch of flame from their throwers.

  "You mean, it's like that? How far back?"

  "To Threadfall Edge, an hour's fast walk," F'lar replied grimly. "Or rather. that's where I assume Thread Edge is."

  "I've seen bushes and grasses marked like that in these swampy deltas closer to the Weyr," T'bor admitted slowly his face blanched under the tan, "but I thought it was char. We mark so few infestations, and there've been no burrows."

  T'bor was shaken.

  "Orth says there have been no infestations," Mnementh reported quietly and Orth briefly turned glowing eyes toward the Benden Weyrleader.

  "And Thread was always short-timed?" F'lar wanted to know.

  "Orth says this is the first, but then the alarm came late."

  T'bor turned haunted eyes to F'lar.

  "It wasn't a short Fall, then," he said, half-hoping to be contradicted.

  Just then Canth veered in to land. F'lar suppressed a reprimand when he saw the flame thrower on his half-brother's back.

  "That was the most unusual Fall I've ever attended," F'nor cried as he saluted the two bronze riders. "We can't have got it all airborne, but there's not a trace of burrow. And dead Thread in every water pocket. I suppose we should be grateful. But I don't understand it."

  "I don't like it, F'lar," T'bor said, shaking his head. "I don't like it. Thread wasn't due here for another few weeks, and then, not in this area."

  "Thread apparently is falling when and where it chooses."

  "How can Thread choose?" T'bor demanded with the anger of a frightened man. "It's mindless!"