The Dragonriders of Pern

by Anne McCaffrey

  Kylara, born to a high degree in one Hold, knew exactly the tone to take with lesser beings, and was, in fact, so much the female counterpart of her own irascible Lord that the woman scurried to her bidding without waiting for Meron’s consent.

  “Fire-lizard eggs? What on earth are you babbling about, woman?”

  “They’re Impressionable. Catch their minds at their hatching, just like dragons, feed ’em into stupidity and they’re yours, for life.” Kylara was carefully laying the eggs down on the warm stones of the great fireplace. “And I’ve got them here just in time,” she said in triumph. “Assemble your men, quickly. We’ll want to Impress as many as possible.”

  “I’m trying,” Meron said through gritted teeth as he watched her performance with some skepticism and much malice, “to apprehend exactly how this will benefit anyone.”

  “Use your wits, man?” Kylara replied, oblivious to the Lord Holder’s sour reaction to her imperiousness. “Fire lizards are the ancestors of dragons and they have all their abilities.”

  It took only a moment longer for Meron to grasp the significance. Even as he shouted orders for his men to be roused, he was beside Kylara, helping her to lay the eggs out before the fire.

  “They go between? They communicate with their owners?”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  “That’s a gold egg,” Meron cried, reaching for it, his small eyes glittering with cupidity.

  She slapped his hand away, her eyes flashing. “Gold is for me. Bronze for you. I’m fairly sure that that second one—no, that one—is a bronze.”

  The hot sands were brought and shoveled onto the hearth stones. Meron’s men came clattering down the steps from the Inner Hold, dressed for Threadfall. Peremptorily Kylara ordered them to put aside their paraphernalia and began to lecture them on how to Impress a fire lizard.

  “No one can catch a fire lizard,” someone muttered, well back in the ranks.

  “I have but I doubt you will, whoever you are,” Kylara snapped.

  There was something, she decided, in what the Oldtimers said: Holders were getting far too arrogant and aggressive. No one would have dared speak up in her father’s Hold when he was giving instructions. No one in the Weyrs interrupted a Weyrwoman.

  “You’ll have to be quick,” she said. “They hatch ravenous and eat anything in reach. They turn cannibal if you don’t stop them.”

  “I want to hold mine till it hatches,” Meron told Kylara in an undertone. He’d been stroking the three eggs whose mottled shells he fancied contained bronzes.

  “Hands aren’t warm enough,” Kylara replied in a loud, flat voice. “We’ll need red meat, plenty of it. Fresh-slaughtered is the best.”

  The platter which was subsequently brought in was contemptuously dismissed as inadequate. Two additional loads were prepared, still steamy from the body heat of the slaughtered animals. The smell of the bloody raw meat was another odor to mingle with the sweat of men, the overheated, crowded hall and the general tension.

  “I’m thirsty, Meron. I require bread and fruit and some chilled wine,” Kylara said.

  She ate daintily when the food was brought, eyeing Lord Meron’s sloppy table habits with veiled amusement. Someone passed bread and sourwine to the men, who had to eat standing about the room. Time passed slowly.

  “I thought you said they were about to hatch,” Meron said in an aggrieved voice. He was as restless as his men and beginning to have second thoughts about this ridiculous project of Kylara’s.

  Kylara awarded him a slightly contemptuous smile. “They are, I assure you. You Holders ought to learn patience. It’s needed in dealing with dragonkind. You can’t beat dragons, you know, or fire lizards, as you do a landbeast. But it’ll be worth it.”

  “You’re sure?” Meron’s eyes glittered with unconcealed irritation.

  “Think of the effect on dragonmen when you arrive at Telgar Hold in a few days with a fire lizard clinging to your arm.”

  The slight smile on Meron’s face told Kylara that her suggestion appealed to him. Yes, Meron could be patient if it gave him any advantage over dragonmen.

  “It will be at my beck and call?” Meron asked, his gaze avidly caressing his trio.

  Kylara didn’t hesitate to reassure him, though she wasn’t at all sure a fire lizard would be faithful, or intelligent. Still, Meron didn’t require intelligence, just obedience. Or compliance. And if the fire lizards did not live up to his expectation, she could always say the lack was in him.

  “With such messengers, I’d have the advantage,” Meron said so softly that she barely caught the words.

  “More than mere advantage, Lord Meron,” she said, her voice an insinuating purr. “Control.”

  “Yes, to have solid, dependable communications would mean I’d have control. I could tell that wherry-blooded High Reaches Weyrleader T’kul to . . .”

  One of the eggs rocked on its long axis and Meron started from his chair. Hoarsely he ordered his men to come closer, swearing as they halted at the normal distance from him.

  “Tell them again, Weyrwoman, tell them exactly how they are to capture these fire lizards.”

  It never troubled Kylara that even after nine Turns in a Weyr and seven Turns as a Weyrwoman herself, she could not have given the criteria by which one candidate was accepted by a dragon and another, discernibly as worthy, was rejected by an entire Hatching. Nor why the queens invariably chose women raised outside the Weyr. (For instance, at the time that boy-thing Brekke had Impressed Wirenth, there had been three other girls, any of whom Kylara would have thought considerably more interesting to a dragonette queen. But Wirenth had made a skyline directly to the craftbred girl. The three rejected candidates had remained at Southern Weyr—any girl in her right mind would—and one of them. Varena, had been presented at the next queen Impression and taken. One simply couldn’t judge.) Generally speaking, weyrbred lads were always acceptable at one Hatching or another, for a weyrboy could attend Hatchings until he was in his twentieth Turn. No one was ever required to leave his Weyr, but those few who did not become riders usually left, finding places in one of the crafts.

  Now, of course, with Benden and Southern Weyrs producing more dragons’ eggs than the weyrwomen bore babies, it was necessary to range Pern to find enough candidates to stand on the Hatching Grounds. Evidently a commoner simply couldn’t realize that the dragons, usually the browns or bronzes, did the choosing, not their riders.

  There seemed to be no accounting for draconic tastes. A well-favored commoner might find himself passed over for the skinny, the unattractive.

  Kylara looked around the hall at the variety of anxious expressions on the rough men assembled. It could be hoped that fire lizards weren’t as discriminating as dragons for there wasn’t much to offer them in this motley group. Then Kylara remembered that that brat of Brekke’s had Impressed three. In that case, anything on two legs in this room would stand a chance. It had been handed them, their one big opportunity to prove that dragonkind did not need special qualities for Impression, that common Pernese of Holds and Crafts need only be exposed to dragons to have the same chance as the elite of the Weyrs.

  “You don’t capture them,” Kylara corrected Meron with a malicious smile. Let these Holders see that there is far more to being chosen by a dragon than physical presence at the moment of Hatching. “You lure them to you with thoughts of affection. A dragon cannot be possessed.”

  “We have fire lizards here, not dragons.”

  “They are the same for our purposes,” Kylara said sharply.

  “Now heed me or you’ll lose the lot of them.” She wondered why she’d bothered to sweat and toil and bring him a gift, an opportunity which he was obviously unable to accept or appreciate. And yet, if she had a gold and he a bronze, when they mated it ought to be worth her troubles. “Shut out any thought of fear or profit,” she told the listening circle. “The first puts a dragon off, the second he can’t understand. As soon as one will approach you, feed it. Keep f
eeding it. Get it on your hand, if possible, and move to a quiet corner and keep feeding it. Think how much you love it, want it to stay with you, how happy its presence makes you. Think of nothing else or the fire lizard will go between. There’s just the short time between its hatching and its first big meal in which to make Impression. You succeed or you don’t. It’s up to you.”

  “You heard what she said. Now do it. Do it right. The man who fails—” Meron’s voice trailed off threateningly.

  Kylara laughed, breaking the ominous silence that followed. She laughed at the black look on Meron’s face, laughed until the Lord Holder, angered beyond caution, shook her arm roughly, pointing to the eggs which were now indulging in wild maneuvers as their occupants tried to break out.

  “Stop that cackling, Weyrwoman. It’ll prejudice the hatchlings.”

  “Laughter is better than threats, Lord Meron. Even you can’t order the preference of dragonkind. And tell me, good Lord Meron, will you be subject to the same dire unspeakable punishment if you fail?”

  Meron grabbed her arm in a painful grip, his eyes riveted on the cracks now showing in one of his chosen eggs. He snapped his fingers for meat. Blood oozed from the raw handful as he knelt by the eggs, his body bowed tautly in his effort to effect an Impression.

  Trying to show no concern, Kylara rose languidly from her chair. She strolled to the table and picked over the meaty gobbets until she had a satisfactory heap on the trencher. She signaled the tense guardsmen to supply themselves as she moved sedately back to the hearth.

  She could not suppress her own excitement and heard Prideth warbling from the heights above the Hold. Ever since Kylara had seen the tiny fledglings F’nor and Brekke had Impressed, she had craved one of these dainty creatures. She would never understand that her imperious nature had subconsciously fought against the emotional symbiosis of her dragon queen. Instinctively Kylara had known that only as a Weyrwoman, a queen’s rider, could she achieve the unparalleled power, privilege and unchallenged freedom as a woman on Pern. Skilled at ignoring what she didn’t wish to admit, Kylara never realized that Prideth was the only living creature who could dominate her and whose good opinion she had to have. In the fire lizard, Kylara saw a miniature dragon which she could control—easily control—and physically dominate in a way she could not dominate Prideth.

  And in presenting these fire-lizard eggs to a Holder, particularly the most despised Holder of all, Meron of Nabol, Kylara struck back at all the ignominies and imagined slights she had endured at the hands of both dragonmen and Pernese. The most recent insult—that the dishfaced fosterling of Brekke’s had Impressed three, rejecting Kylara—would be completely avenged.

  Well, Kylara would not be rejected here. She knew the way of it and, whatever else, she would be a winner.

  The golden egg rocked violently, and a massive crack split it lengthwise. A tiny golden beak appeared.

  “Feed her. Don’t waste time,” Meron whispered to her hoarsely.

  “Don’t tell me bow to hatch eggs, you fool. Tend to your own.”

  The head had emerged, the body struggled to right itself, claws scrabbling against the wet shell. Kylara concentrated on thoughts of welcoming affection, of joy and admiration, ignoring the cries and exhortations around her.

  The little queen, no bigger than her hand, staggered free of its casing and instantly looked around for something to eat. Kylara laid a glob of meat in its path and the beast swooped on it. Kylara placed a second a few inches from the first, leading the fire lizard toward her. Squawking ferociously, the fire lizard pounced, her steps less awkward, the wings spread and drying rapidly. Hunger, hunger, hunger was the pulse of the creature’s thoughts and Kylara, reassured by receipt of this broadcast, intensified her thoughts of love and welcome.

  She had the fire-lizard queen on her hand by the fifth lure. She rose carefully to her feet, popping food into the wide maw every time it opened, and moved away from the hearth and the chaos there.

  For it was chaos, with the overanxious men making every mistake in the Record, despite her advice. Meron’s three eggs cracked almost at once. Two hatchlings immediately set upon each other while Meron was awkwardly trying to imitate Kylara’s actions. In his greed, he’d probably lose all three, she thought with malicious pleasure. Then she saw that there were other bronzes emerging. Well, all was not lost when her queen needed to mate.

  Two men had managed to coax fire lizards to their hands and had followed Kylara’s example by removing themselves from the confused cannibalism on the hearth.

  “How much do we feed them, Weyrwoman?” one asked her, his eyes shining with incredulous joy and astonishment.

  “Let them eat themselves insensible. They’ll sleep and they’ll stay by you. As soon as they wake, feed them again. And if they complain about itchy skin, bathe and rub them with oil. A patchy skin breaks between and the awful cold can kill even a fire lizard or dragon.” How often she’d told that to weyrlings when she’d had to lecture them as Weyrwoman. Well, Brekke did that now, thank the First Egg.

  “But what happens if they go between? How do we keep them?”

  “You can’t keep a dragon. He stays with you. You don’t chain a dragon like a watch-wher, you know.”

  She became bored with her role as instructor and replenished her supply of meat. Then, disgustedly observing the waste of creatures dying on the hearth, she mounted the steps to the Inner Hold. She’d wait in Meron’s chambers—there’d better be no one else there now—to see if he had, after all, managed to Impress a fire lizard.

  Prideth told her that she wasn’t happy that she had transported the clutch to death on a cold, alien hearth.

  “They lost more than this at Southern, silly one,” Kylara told her dragon. “This time we’ve a pretty darling of our own.”

  Prideth grumbled on the fire ridge, but not about the lizard so Kylara paid her no heed.

  CHAPTER VII

  Midmorning at Benden Weyr

  Early Morning at the Mastersmithcrafthall,

  Telgar Hold

  F’lar received F’nor’s message, five leaves of notes, just as he was about to set out to the Smithcrafthall to see Fandarel’s distance-writing mechanism. Lessa was already aloft and waiting.

  “F’nor said it was urgent. It’s about the—” G’nag said.

  “I’ll read it as soon as I can,” F’lar interrupted him. The man would talk your ear off. “My thanks and my apologies.”

  “But, F’lar . . .”The rest of the man’s sentence was lost as Mnementh’s claws rattled against the stone of the ledge and the bronze dragon began to beat his way up.

  It didn’t help F’lar’s temper to realize that Mnementh was making a gentle ascent. Lessa had been so right when she had teased him about staying up drinking and talking with Robinton. The man was a sieve for wine. Around midnight Fandarel had left, taking his treasure of a contraption. Lessa had wagered that he’d never go to bed, and likely no one in his Hall would either. After extracting a promise from F’lar that he’d get some rest soon, too, she’d retired.

  He had meant to, but Robinton knew so much about the different Holds, which minor Holders were important in swaying their Lords’ mind—essential information if F’lar was going to effect a revolution.

  Reverence for the older rider was part of weyrlife, and respect for the able Threadfighter. Seven Turns back, when F’lar had realized humbly how inadequate was Pern’s one Weyr, Benden, and how ill-prepared for actual Threadfighting conditions, he had ascribed many virtues to the Oldtimers which were difficult—now—for him arbitrarily to sweep away. He—and all Benden’s dragonriders—had learned the root of Threadfighting from the Oldtimers. Had learned the many tricks of dodging Thread, gauging the varieties of Fall, of conserving the strength of beast and rider, of turning the mind from the horrors of a full scoring or a phosphine emission too close. What F’lar didn’t realize was how his Weyr and the Southerners had improved on the teaching; improved and surpassed, as they could on
the larger, stronger, more intelligent contemporary dragons. F’lar had been able, in the name of gratitude and loyalty to his peers, to ignore, forget, rationalize the Oldtimers’ shortcomings. He could do so no longer as the weight of their insecurity and insularity forced him to reevaluate the results of their actions. In spite of this disillusionment, some part of F’lar, that inner soul of a man which requires a hero, a model against which to measure his own accomplishments, wanted to unite all the dragonmen; to sweep away the Oldtimers’ intractable resistance to change, their tenacious hold on the outmoded.

  Such a feat rivaled his other goal—and yet, the distance separating Pern and the Red Star was only a different sort of step between. And one man had to take if he was ever to free himself of the yoke of Thread.

  The cool air—the sun was not full on the Bowl yet—reminded him of his face scores but it felt good against his aching forehead. As he bent forward to brace himself against Mnementh’s neck, the leaves of the message pressed into his ribs. Well, he’d find out what Kylara was doing later.

  He glanced below, squeezing his lids shut briefly as the dizzying speed affected his unfocusing eyes. Yes, N’ton was already directing a crew of men and dragons in the removal of the sealed entrance. With more light and fresher air flooding the abandoned corridors, exploration could go on effectively. They’d keep Ramoth out of the way so she’d not complain that men were coming too close to her maturing clutch.

  She knows, Mnementh informed his rider.

  “And?”

  She is curious.

  They were now poised above the Star Rocks, above and beyond the watchrider, who saluted them. F’lar frowned at the Finger Rock. Now, if a man had a proper lens, fitted into the Eye Rock, would he be able to see the Red Star? No, because at this time of year you did not see the Red Star at that angle. Well . . .

  F’lar glanced down at the panorama, the immense cup of rock at the top of the mountain, the tail-like road starting at a mysterious point on the right face, leading down to the lake on the plateau below the Weyr. The water glittered like a gigantic dragon eye. He worried briefly about baring off on this project with Thread falling so erratically. He had set up sweep patrols and sent the diplomatic N’ton (again he regretted F’nor’s absence) to explain the necessary new measures to those Holds for which Benden Weyr was responsible. Raid had sent a stiff reply in acknowledgment, Sifer a contentious rebuke, although that old fool would come round after a night’s thought on the alternatives.