The Dragonriders of Pern

by Anne McCaffrey

  “You make a good champion, Masterharper.”

  “You have a noble cause, Weyrleader,” and then Robinton’s eyes glinted maliciously. “I’ve been begging the Egg for an opportunity to speak out to so noble an audience.”

  “A cup of wine first?”

  “Benden grapes are the envy of Pern.”

  “If one has the palate for such a delicate bouquet.”

  “It is carefully cultivated by the knowledgeable.”

  F’lar wondered when the man would stop playing with words. He had more on his mind than studying the time-charts.

  “I have in mind a ballad which, for lack of explanation, I had set aside when I became the Master of my crafthall,” he said judiciously after an appreciative savoring of his wine. “It is an uneasy song both the tune and the words. One develops, as a harper must, a certain sensitivity for what will be received and what will be rejected . . . forcefully,” and he winced in retrospect. “I found that this ballad unsettled singer as well as audience and retired it from use. Now, like that tapestry, it bears rediscovery.”

  After his death C’gan’s instrument had been hung on the Council Room wall till a new Weyrsinger could be chosen. The guitar was very old, its wood thin. Old C’gan had kept it well-tuned and covered. The Masterharper handled it now with reverence, lightly stroking the strings to hear the tone, raising his eyebrows at the fine voice of the instrument.

  He plucked a chord, a dissonance. F’lar wondered if the instrument was out of tune or if the harper had, by some chance, struck the wrong string. But Robinton repeated the odd discord, then modulating into a weird minor that was somehow more disturbing than the first notes.

  “I told you it was an uneasy song. And I wonder if you know the answers to the questions it asks. For I’ve turned the puzzle over in my mind many times of late.”

  Then abruptly he shifted from the spoken to the sung tone.

  Gone away, gone ahead,

  Echoes away, die unanswered.

  Empty, open, dusty, dead,

  Why have all the Weyrfolk fled?

  Where have dragons gone together?

  Leaving Weyrs to wind and weather?

  Setting herdbeasts free of tether?

  Gone, our safeguards, gone but whither?

  Have they flown to some new Weyr

  Where cruel Threads some others fear?

  Are they worlds away from here?

  Why, oh, why, the empty Weyr?

  The last plaintive chord reverberated.

  “Of course, you realize that the song was first recorded in the craft annals some four hundred Turns ago,” Robinton said lightly, cradling the guitar in both arms. “The Red Star had just passed beyond attack-proximity. The people had ample reason to be stunned and worried over the sudden loss of the populations of five Weyrs. Oh, I imagine at the time they had any one of a number of explanations, but none . . . not one explanation . . . is recorded.” Robinton paused significantly.

  “I have found none recorded, either,” F’lar replied. “As a matter of fact, I had all the Records brought here from the other Weyrs . . . in order to compile accurate attack timetables. And those other Weyr Records simply end—” F’lar made a chopping gesture with one hand. “In Benden’s Records there is no mention of sickness, death, fire, disaster—not one word of explanation for the sudden lapse of the usual intercourse between the Weyrs. Benden’s Records continue blithely, but only for Benden. There is one entry that pertains to the mass disappearance . . . the initiation of a Pern-wide patrol routing, not just Benden’s immediate responsibility. And that is all.”

  “Strange,” Robinton mused. “Once the danger from the Red Star was past, the dragons and riders may have gone between to ease the drain on the Holds. But I simply cannot believe that. Our craft Records do mention that harvests were bad and that there had been several natural catastrophes . . . other than the Threads. Men may be gallant and your breed the most gallant of all, but mass suicide? I simply do not accept that explanation . . . not for dragonmen.”

  “My thanks,” F’lar said with mild irony.

  “Don’t mention it,” Robinton replied with a gracious nod.

  F’lar chucked appreciatively. “I see we have been too weyrbound as well as too hidebound.”

  Robinton drained his cup and looked at it mournfully until F’lar refilled it.

  “Well, your isolation served some purpose, you know, and you handled that uprising of the Lords magnificently. I nearly choked to death laughing,” Robinton remarked, grinning broadly. “Stealing their women in the flash of a dragon’s breath!” He chuckled again, then suddenly sobered, looking F’lar straight in the eye. “Accustomed as I am to hearing what a man does not say aloud, I suspect there is much you glossed over in that Council meeting. You may be sure of my discretion . . . and . . . you may be sure of my wholehearted support and that of my not ineffectual craft. To be blunt, how may my harpers aid you?” and he strummed a vigorous marching air. “Stir men’s pulses with ballads of past glories and success?” The tune, under his flashing fingers, changed abruptly to a stern but determined rhythm. “Strengthen their mental and physical sinews for hardship?”

  “If all your harpers could stir men as you yourself do, I should have no worries that, five hundred or so additional dragons would not immediately end.”

  “Oh, then despite your brave words and marked charts, the situation is”—a dissonant twang on the guitar accented his final words—“more desperate than you carefully did not say.”

  “It may be.”

  “The flamethrowers old Zurg remembered and Fandarel must reconstruct—will they tip the scales?”

  F’lar regarded this clever man thoughtfully and made a quick decision.

  “Even Igen’s sandworms will help, but as the world turns and the Red Star nears, the interval between daily attacks shortens and we have only seventy-two new dragons to add to those we had yesterday. One is now dead and several will not fly for several weeks.”

  “Seventy-two?” Robinton caught him up sharply. “Ramoth hatched but forty, and they are still too young to eat firestone.”

  F’lar outlined F’nor and Lessa’s expedition, taking place at that moment. He went on to F’nor’s reappearance and warning, as well as the fact that the experiment had been successful in part with the hatching of thirty-two new dragons from Pridith’s first clutch. Robinton caught him up.

  “How can F’nor already have returned when you haven’t heard from Lessa and him that there is a breeding place on the Southern Continent?”

  “Dragons can go between times as well as places. They go as easily to a when as to a where.”

  Robinton’s eyes widened as he digested this astonishing news.

  “That is how we forestalled the attack on Nerat yesterday morning. We jumped back two hours between time to meet the Threads as they fell.”

  “You can actually jump backward? How far back?”

  “I don’t know. Lessa, when I was teaching her to fly Ramoth, inadvertently returned to Ruath Hold, to the dawn thirteen Turns ago when Fax’s men invaded from the heights. When she returned to the present, I attempted a between times jump of some ten Turns. To the dragons it is a simple matter to go between times or spaces, but there appears to be a terrific drain on the rider. Yesterday, by the time we returned from Nerat and had to go on to Keroon, I felt as though I had been pounded flat and left to dry for a summer on Igen Plain.” F’lar shook his head. “We have obviously succeeded in sending Kylara, Pridith, and the others ten Turns between, because F’nor has already reported to me that he has been there several Turns. The drain on humans, however, is becoming more and more marked. But even seventy-two more mature dragons will be a help.”

  “Send a rider ahead in time to see if it is sufficient,” Robinton suggested helpfully. “Save you a few days’ worrying.”

  “I don’t know how to get to a when that has not yet happened. You must give your dragon reference points, you know. How can you refer hi
m to times that have not yet occurred?”

  “You’ve got an imagination. Project it.”

  “And perhaps lose a dragon when I have none to spare? No, I must continue . . . because obviously I have, judging by F’nor’s returns . . . as I decided to start. Which reminds me, I must give orders to start packing. Then I shall go over the time-charts with you.”

  It wasn’t until after the noon meal, which Robinton took with the Weyrleader, that the Masterharper was confident that he understood the charts and left to begin their copying.

  Across a waste of lonely tossing sea,

  Where no dragonwings had lately spread,

  Flew a gold and a sturdy brown in spring,

  Searching if a land be dead.

  As Ramoth and Canth bore Lessa and F’nor up to the Star Stone, they saw the first of the Hold Lords and Craftmasters arriving for the Council.

  In order to get back to the Southern Continent of ten Turns ago, Lessa and F’nor had decided it was easiest to transfer first between times to the Weyr of ten Turns back which F’nor remembered. Then they would go between places to a seapoint just off the coast of the neglected Southern Continent which was as close to it as the Records gave any references.

  F’nor put Canth in mind of a particular day he remembered ten Turns back, and Ramoth picked up the references from the brown’s mind. The awesome cold of between times took Lessa’s breath away, and it was with intense relief that she caught a glimpse of the normal weyr activity before the dragons took them between places to hover over the turgid sea.

  Beyond them, smudged purple on this overcast and gloomy day, lurked the Southern Continent. Lessa felt a new anxiety replace the uncertainty of the temporal displacement. Ramoth beat forward with great sweeps of her wings, making for the distant coast. Canth gallantly tried to maintain a matching speed.

  He’s only a brown, Lessa scolded her golden queen.

  If he is flying with me, Ramoth replied coolly, he must stretch his wings a little.

  Lessa grinned, thinking very privately that Ramoth was still piqued that she had not been able to fight with her weyrmates. All the males would have a hard time with her for a while.

  They saw the flock of wherries first and realized that there would have to be some vegetation on the Continent. Wherries needed greens to live, although they could subsist on little else besides occasional grubs if necessary.

  Lessa had Canth relay questions to his rider. If the Southern Continent was rendered barren by the Threads, how did new growth start? Where did the wherries come from?

  Ever notice the seed pods split open and the flakes carried away by the winds? Ever notice that wherries fly south after the autumn solstice?

  Yes, but . . .

  Yes, but!

  But the land was Thread-bared!

  In less than four hundred Turns even the scorched hilltops of our Continent begin to sprout in the springtime, F’nor replied by way of Canth, so it is easy to assume the Southern Continent could revive, too.

  Even at the pace Ramoth set, it took time to reach the jagged shoreline with its forbidding cliffs, stark stone in the sullen light. Lessa groaned inwardly but urged Ramoth higher to see over the masking highlands. All seemed gray and desolate from that altitude.

  Suddenly the sun broke through the cloud cover and the gray dissolved into dense greens and browns, living colors, the live greens of lush tropical growth, the browns of vigorous trees and vines. Lessa’s cry of triumph was echoed by F’nor’s hurrah and the brass voices of the dragons. Wherries, startled by the unusual sound, rose in squeaking alarm from their perches.

  Beyond the headland, the land sloped away to jungle and grassy plateau, similar to mid-Boll. Though they searched all morning, they found no hospitable cliffs wherein to found a new Weyr. Was that a contributing factor in the southern venture’s failure, Lessa wondered.

  Discouraged, they landed on a high plateau by a small lake. The weather was warm but not oppressive, and while F’nor and Lessa ate their noonday meal, the two dragons wallowed in the water, refreshing themselves.

  Lessa felt uneasy and had little appetite for the meat and bread. She noticed that F’nor was restless, too, shooting surreptitious glances around the lake and the jungle verge.

  “What under the sun are we expecting? Wherries don’t charge, and wild whers would come nowhere near a dragon. We’re ten Turns before the Red Star, so there can’t be any Threads.”

  F’nor shrugged, grimacing sheepishly as he tossed his unfinished bread back into the food pouch.

  “Place feels so empty, I guess,” he tendered, glancing around. He spotted ripe fruit hanging from a moonflower vine. “Now that looks familiar and good enough to eat, without tasting like dust in the mouth.”

  He climbed nimbly and snagged the orange-red fruit.

  “Smells right, feels ripe, looks ripe,” he announced and deftly sliced the fruit open. Grinning, he handed Lessa the first slice, carving another for himself. He lifted it challengingly. “Let us eat and die together!”

  She couldn’t help but laugh and saluted him back. They bit into the succulent flesh simultaneously. Sweet juices dribbled from the corners of her mouth, and Lessa hurriedly licked her lips to capture the least drop of the delicious liquid.

  “Die happy—I will,” F’nor cried, cutting more fruit. Both were subtly reassured by the experiment and were able to discuss their discomposure.

  “I think,” F’nor suggested, “it is the lack of cliff and cavern and the still, still quality of the place, the knowing that there are no other men or beasts about but us.”

  Lessa nodded her head in agreement. “Ramoth, Canth, would having no Weyr upset you?”

  We didn’t always live in caves, Ramoth replied, somewhat haughtily as she rolled over in the lake. Sizable waves rushed up the shore almost to where Lessa and F’nor were seated on a fallen tree trunk. The sun here is warm and pleasant, the water cooling. I would enjoy it here, but I am not to come.

  “She is out of sorts,” Lessa whispered to F’nor. “Let Pridith have it, dear one,” she called soothingly to the golden queen. “You’ve the Weyr and all!”

  Ramoth ducked under the water, blowing up a froth in disgruntled reply.

  Canth admitted that he had no reservations at all about living Weyrless. The dry earth would be warmer than stone to sleep on, once a suitably comfortable hollow had been achieved. No, he couldn’t object to the lack of the cave as long as there was enough to eat.

  “Well have to bring herdbeasts in,” F’nor mused. “Enough to start a good-sized herd. Of course, the wherries here are huge. Come to think of it, I believe this plateau has no exits. We wouldn’t need to pasture it off. I’d better check. Otherwise, this plateau with the lake and enough clear space for Holds seems ideal. Walk out and pick breakfast from the tree.”

  “It might be wise to choose those who were not Hold-reared,” Lessa added. “They would not feel so uneasy away from protecting heights and stone-security.” She gave a short laugh. “I’m more a creature of habit than I suspected. All these open spaces, untenanted and quiet, seem . . . indecent.” She gave a delicate shudder, scanning the broad and open plain beyond the lake.

  “Fruitful and lovely,” F’nor amended, leaping up to secure more of the orange-red succulents. “This tastes uncommonly good to me. Can’t remember anything this sweet and juicy from Nerat, and yet it’s the same variety.”

  “Undeniably superior to what the Weyr gets. I suspect Nerat serves home first, Weyr last.”

  They both stuffed themselves greedily.

  Further investigation proved that the plateau was isolated, and ample to pasture a huge herd of food-beasts for the dragons. It ended in a sheer drop of several dragonlengths into denser jungle on one side, the sea-side escarpment on the other. The timber stands would provide raw material from which dwellings could be made for the Weyrfolk. Ramoth and Canth stoutly agreed dragonkind would be comfortable enough under the heavy foliage of the dense jungle. As this pa
rt of the continent was similar, weatherwise, to Upper Nerat, there would be neither intense heat nor cold to give distress.

  However, if Lessa was glad enough to leave, F’nor seemed reluctant to start back.

  “We can go between time and place on the way back,” Lessa insisted finally, “and be in the Weyr by late afternoon. The Lords will surely be gone by then.”

  F’nor concurred, and Lessa steeled herself for the trip between. She wondered why the when between bothered her more than the where, for it had no effect on the dragons at all. Ramoth, sensing Lessa’s depression, crooned encouragingly. The long, long black suspension of the utter cold of between where and when ended suddenly in sunlight above the Weyr.

  Somewhat startled, Lessa saw bundles and sacks spread out before the Lower Caverns as dragonriders supervised the loading of their beasts.

  “What has been happening?” F’nor exclaimed.

  “Oh, F’lar’s been anticipating success,” she assured him glibly.

  Mnementh, who was watching the bustle from the ledge of the queen’s weyr, sent a greeting to the travelers and the information that F’lar wished them to join him in the weyr as soon as they returned.

  They found F’lar, as usual, bent over some of the oldest and least legible Record skins that he had had brought to the Council Room.

  “And?” he asked, grinning a broad welcome at them.

  “Green, lush, and livable,” Lessa declared, watching him intently. He knew something else, too. Well, she hoped he’d watch his words. F’nor was no fool, and this foreknowledge was dangerous.

  “That is what I had so hoped to hear you say,” F’lar went on smoothly. “Come tell me in detail what you observed and discovered. It’ll be good to fill in the blank spaces on the chart.”

  Lessa let F’nor give most of the account, to which F’lar listened with sincere attention, making notes.

  “On the chance that it would be practical, I started packing supplies and alerting the riders to go with you,” he told F’nor when the account was finished. “Remember, we’ve only three days in this time in which to start you back ten Turns ago. We have no moments to spare. And we must have many more mature dragons ready to fight at Telgar in three days’ time. So, though ten Turns will have passed for you, three days only will elapse here. Lessa, your thought that the farm-bred might do better is well-taken. We’re lucky that our recent Search for rider candidates for the dragons Pridith will have come mainly from the crafts and farms. No problem there. And most of the thirty-two are in their early teens.”