The Dragonriders of Pern

by Anne McCaffrey

  “Didn’t they send dragons after them?”

  “Ramoth went after! With Mnementh but a breath behind her. Not that it did any good.”

  “Why not?”

  “The bronzes went between time.”

  “And not even Ramoth would know when.”

  “Exactly. Mnementh checked the Southern Weyr and Hold and half the hot beaches.”

  “Not even the Oldtimers could be stupid enough to take a queen egg straight back to Southern.”

  “But surely the Oldtimers would not know,” Finder added wearily, “that we know they took the egg.”

  By that time they had reached the outskirts of the crowd, where dragonriders from other Weyrs as well as Lords Holder and Craftmasters had gathered. Lessa stood on the ledge of her Weyr, F’lar beside her along with Fandarel and Robinton, who both looked extremely grim and anxious. N’ton stopped halfway down the steps, talking earnestly and with angry gestures to two other bronze riders. Slightly to one side were the three other Benden Weyrwomen, and several other women who must be queenriders from the other Weyrs. The atmosphere of outrage and frustration was oppressive. Dominating the entire scene was Ramoth, who paced up and down in front of the Hatching Ground, pausing now and again to peer in at the eggs remaining on the hot sands. Her tail started lashing and she let out angry buglings that obscured the discussions going on above her on the ledge.

  “It’s dangerous to take an egg between,” someone in front of Jaxom and Menolly said.

  “I suppose it could go a ways, so long as the egg was good and warm to start and took no hurt.”

  “We ought to just mount up and go down and sear those Oldtimers out of the Weyr.”

  “And have dragon fight dragon? You’re as bad as the Oldtimers.”

  “But we can’t have dragons stealing our queen eggs! This is the worst insult Benden’s ever taken from the Oldtimers. And I say, make them pay for it.”

  “The Southern Weyr is desperate,” Menolly said in an undertone to Jaxom. “None of their queens has risen to mate. The bronzes are dying, and they don’t even have any young greens.”

  Just then Ramoth gave a piteous cry, throwing her head up toward Lessa. Every dragon in the Weyr answered her call, deafening the humans. Jaxom could see Lessa leaning over the ledge, one hand outstretched toward the despairing queen. Then, because he was a good head above most of the crowd and looking that way, Jaxom saw something dark fluttering in the Hatching Ground. He heard a muffled cry of pain.

  “Look! What’s that? In the Hatching Ground!”

  Only those around him heard his exclamation or noticed him pointing. All Jaxom could think of was that if the Southern bronzes were indeed dying, the Oldtimers might use this confusion to try and steal a bronze egg as well.

  He took to his heels, followed by Menolly and Finder, but he was overcome by such a wave of weakness that he was forced to stop. Something seemed to be sapping his strength, but Jaxom had no idea what it could be.

  “What’s the matter, Jaxom?”

  “Nothing.” Jaxom pulled Menolly’s hands from his arm and all but pushed her toward the Ground. “The eggs. The eggs!”

  His injunction was drowned in Ramoth’s bellow of surprise and exultation.

  “The egg. The queen egg!”

  By the time Jaxom had recovered from his inexplicable vertigo and reached the Hatching Ground, everyone was staring with relief at the sight of the queen egg, now safely positioned once again between Ramoth’s forelegs.

  A fire-lizard, reckless with curiosity, got a scant winglength into the Ground before Ramoth’s bellow of fury sent it streaking away.

  In relief, people began to chatter, as they moved back out of the Hatching Ground to where the sand was not so uncomfortable underfoot. Someone suggested that perhaps the egg had merely rolled away and Ramoth only thought it had been taken. But too many had seen the empty place, where the queen egg had too obviously been missing. And what about the three strange bronzes streaking out of the high entrance to the Ground? More acceptable was the notion that the Oldtimers had had second thoughts about the theft, that they, too, were reluctant to pit dragon against dragon.

  Lessa had remained in the Ground, trying to persuade Ramoth to let her see if the egg had come to any harm. Soon she came hurrying out of the Ground to F’lar and Robinton.

  “That’s the same egg but it’s older and harder, ready to Hatch anytime now. The girls must be brought.”

  For the third time that morning, Benden Weyr was in a state of high excitement—happier fortunately, but still generating as much chaos. Jaxom and Menolly managed to keep out of the way but remained close enough to hear what was going on.

  “Whoever took that egg kept it at least ten days or more,” they heard Lessa saying angrily. “That demands action.”

  “The egg is back safely,” Robinton said, trying to calm her.

  “Are we cowards to ignore such an insult?” she asked the other dragonmen, turning away from Robinton’s calmer words.

  “If to be brave,” Robinton’s voice laid scorn on the quality, “means to pit dragon against dragon, I’d rather be a coward.”

  Lessa’s white-hot outrage noticeably cooled.

  Dragon against dragon. The words echoed through the crowd. The thought turned sickeningly in Jaxom’ s mind and he could feel Menolly beside him shutting off the implications of such a contest.

  “The egg was somewhen for long enough to be brought close to hatching hardness,” Lessa went on, her face set with her anger. “It’s probably been handled by their candidate. It could have been influenced enough so that the fledgling won’t Impress here.”

  “No one has ever proved how much an egg is influenced by pre-Hatching contact,” Robinton was saying in his most persuasive voice. “Or so you’ve had me understand any number of times. Short of dumping their candidate on top of the egg when it hatches, I can’t think their conniving can do them any good or the egg any more harm.”

  The assembled dragonfolk were still very tense but the initial impetus to rise in wings and destroy the Southern Weyr had cooled considerably with the return of the egg, however mysterious that return was.

  “Obviously, we can no longer be complacent,” said F’lar, glancing up at the watchdragons, “or secure in the delusion of the inviolability of the Hatching Ground. Any Hatching Ground.” Nervously he pushed the hair back from his forehead. “By the First Shell, they’ve a lot of gall, trying to steal one of Ramoth’s eggs.”

  “The first way to secure this Weyr is to ban those dratted fire-lizards,” Lessa said heatedly. “They’re little tattlers, worse than useless . . .”

  “Not all of them, Lessa,” Brekke said, stepping up beside the Weyrwoman. “Some of them come on legitimate errands and give us a lot of assistance.”

  “Two were playing that game,” Robinton said without humor.

  Menolly dug Jaxom in the ribs, reminding him that the Harperhall’s fire-lizards, hers included, did a lot of assisting.

  “I don’t care,” Lessa told Brekke and glared around at the assembled, looking for fire-lizards. “I don’t want to see them about here. Ramoth’s not to be pestered by those plaguey things. Something’s to be done to keep them where they belong.”

  “Mark ’em with their colors!” was Brekke’s quick reply. “Mark ’em and teach them to speak their name and origin the way dragons do. They’re quite capable of learning courtesy. At least the ones who come to Benden by order.”

  “Have them report to you, Brekke, or Mirrim,” Robinton suggested.

  “Just keep them away from Ramoth and me!” Lessa peered in at Ramoth and then whipped around. “And someone bring up that wherry that Ramoth didn’t eat. She’ll be the better for something in her belly right now. We’ll discuss this violation of our Weyr later. In detail.”

  F’lar ordered several dragonmen to get the wherry and then courteously thanked the rest of the assembled for their prompt reply to his summons. He gestured to several of the Weyrleaders an
d Robinton to join him in the weyr above.

  “There’s not a fire-lizard in sight,” Menolly said to Jaxom. “I told Beauty to stay away. She’s answered me scared to her bones.”

  “So’s Ruth,” Jaxom said as they crossed the Bowl to him. “He’s turned almost gray.”

  Ruth was more than scared, he was trembling with anxiety.

  Something is wrong. Something is not right, he told his rider, his eyes whirling erratically with gray tones.

  “Your wing was injured?”

  No. Not my wing. Something is wrong in my head. I don’t feel right. Ruth shifted from all four legs to his hindquarters, and then back again to all four, rustling his wings.

  “Is it because all the fire-lizards have gone? Or the excitement about Ramoth’s egg?”

  Ruth said it was both and neither. The fire-lizards were all frightened; they remembered something which frightened them.

  “Remembered? Huh!” Jaxom felt exasperated with fire-lizards and their associative memories, and their ridiculous images which were making his sensible Ruth miserable.

  “Jaxom?” Menolly had detoured to the Lower Caverns and shared with him the handful of meatrolls she’d cadged from the cooks. “Finder says Robinton wants me to go back to the Harpercrafthall and let them and Fort Hold know what’s been happening. I’m also to start marking my fire-lizards. Look!” She pointed to the Weyr rim and the Star Stones. “The watchdragon is chewing firestone. Oh, Jaxom!”

  “Dragon against dragon.” He shuddered violently.

  “Jaxom, it can’t come to that,” she said in a choked voice.

  Neither of them could finish their meatrolls. Silently they mounted Ruth, who took them aloft.

  As Robinton climbed the steps to the queen’s weyr, he was thinking faster than he had ever done. Too much was going to depend on what happened now—the whole future course of the planet, if he read reactions correctly. He knew more than he ought about conditions in the Southern Weyr but his knowledge had done him no service today. He berated himself for being so naive, as unseeingly obtuse as any dragonrider for assuming that the Weyrs were inviolable and a Hatching Ground untouchable. He had had warnings from Piemur, but he simply hadn’t correlated the information properly. Yet, in light of today’s occurrence, he ought to have arrived at the logical conclusion that the desperate Southerners would make this prodigious attempt to revive their failing Weyr with the blood of a new and viable queen. Even if he had reached the proper conclusion, Robinton thought ruefully, how ever would he have been able to persuade Lessa and F’lar that that was what the Southerners planned today. The Weyrleaders would have been properly scornful of such a ridiculous notion.

  No one was laughing today. No one at all.

  Strange that so many people had assumed that the Oldtimers would meekly accept their exile and remain docilely on their continent. They had not been cramped in their accommodation, merely in their hope of a future. T’kul must have been the motivating force—T’ron had lost all his vigor and initiative after that duel with F’lar. Robinton was reasonably certain that the two Weyrwomen, Merika and Mardra, had had no part in the plan; they wouldn’t wish to be deposed by a young queen and her rider. Had one of them returned the egg?

  No, thought Robinton, it had to be someone with an intimate knowledge of the Benden Weyr Hatching Ground . . . or someone possessed of the blindest good luck and skill to go between into and out of the cavern.

  Robinton relived briefly the compound terror he had experienced during the egg’s absence. He winced thinking of Lessa’s fury. She was still likely to arouse the Northern dragonriders. She was quite capable of sustaining the unthinking frenzy that had all but dominated the events of the morning. If she continued in her demand for vengeance against the guilty Southerners, it could be as much a disaster for Pern as the first Threadfall had been.

  The egg had been returned. Robinton clung to the comforting fact that it was apparently unharmed despite its ageing in that elapsed subjective time. Lessa could choose to make its condition an issue. And, if the egg did not hatch an unimpaired queen, there was no doubt in Robinton’s mind that Lessa would insist on retribution.

  But the egg had been returned! He must drum in that fact, must emphasize that obviously not all Southerners had been party to this heinous action. Some Oldtimers still honored the old codes of conduct. No doubt one of them had been perceptive enough to guess what punitive action would be launched against the criminals and wished, as fervently as Robinton, to avoid such a confrontation.

  “This is indeed a black moment,” someone with a deep sad voice said. The Harper turned, grateful for the sane support of the Mastersmith. Fandarel’s heavy features were etched with worry and, for the first time, Robinton noticed the puffiness of age blurring the man’s features, yellowing his eyes. “Such perfidy must be punished—and yet it cannot be!”

  The thought of dragon fighting dragon again seared Robinton’s mind with terror. “Too much would be lost!” he said to Fandarel.

  “They have already lost all they had, being sent into exile. I often wondered why they didn’t rebel before.”

  “They have now. With a vengeance.”

  “To be met with more vengeance. My friend, we must keep our wits today as never before. I fear Lessa may be unreasonable and unthinking. Already she has let emotion dominate common sense.” The Smith indicated the leather patch on Robinton’s shoulder where his fire-lizard, Zair, customarily perched. “Where is your little friend now?”

  “Brekke’s Weyr with Grail and Berd. I wanted him to return to the Harpercrafthall with Menolly, but he refused.”

  The Smith shook his great head again in sad slow sweeps as the two men entered the Council Chamber.

  “I do not have a fire-lizard myself but I know only good of the little creatures. It never occurred to me that they constituted any threat for anyone.”

  “You will support me in this then, Fandarel?” asked Brekke, who had entered behind them with F’nor. “Lessa is not herself. I do really understand her anxiety but she cannot be allowed to damn all fire-lizards for the mischief of a few.”

  “Mischief?” F’nor was perturbed. “Don’t let Lessa hear you call what happened mischief. Mischief? Stealing a queen egg?”

  “The fire-lizard’s part was only mischief . . . popping in to Ramoth’s cave like how many others have been doing since the eggs were laid.” Brekke spoke more sharply than she usually did, and the tightness about F’nor’s eyes and mouth indicated to Robinton that this couple were not in accord. “Fire-lizards have no sense of wrong or right.”

  “They’ll have to learn . . .” F’nor began with more heat than discretion.

  “I fear that we, who have no dragons,” said Robinton, quickly intervening—lest today’s event fracture the bond between the two lovers—“have been making too much of our little friends, carting them about with us wherever we go, doting as parents of a late child, permitting too many liberties of conduct. But a more restrained attitude toward fire-lizards in our midst is a very minor consideration in today’s affair.”

  F’nor had dampened his aggravation. He nodded now at the Harper. “Suppose that egg hadn’t been returned, Robinton . . .” His shoulders jerked in a convulsive shake and he pushed at his forehead as if trying to eliminate all memory of that scene.

  “If the egg hadn’t been returned,” Robinton said implacably, “dragon would have fought dragon!” He spaced out his words, putting as much force and distaste as he could in his tone.

  F’nor quickly shook his head, denying that outcome. “No, it would not have come to that, Robinton. You were wise . . .”

  “Wise?” Spat out by the infuriated Weyrwoman, the word cut like a knife. Lessa stood at the entrance to the Council Room, her slender frame taut with the emotions of the morning, her face livid with her anger. “Wise? To let them get away with such a crime? To let them plot even more base treacheries? Why did I ever think it necessary to bring them forward? When I remember that I p
leaded with that excrescence T’ron to come and help us. Help us? He helps himself! To my queen’s egg. If I could only undo my stupidity . . .”

  “Your stupidity is in carrying on in this fashion,” the Harper said coldly, knowing that what he had to say before the Weyrleaders and Craftmasters assembled in the Council Room might well alienate them all. “The egg has been returned—”

  “Yes, and when I—”

  “That was what you wanted half an hour, an hour ago, was it not?” Robinton demanded, raising his voice commandingly. “You wanted the egg returned. To achieve that end you were within your rights to send dragon against dragon, and no one to fault you. But the egg has been returned. To set dragon against dragon for revenge? Oh, no, Lessa. That you have no right to do. Not in revenge.

  “And if you must have revenge to satisfy your queen and your angry self, just think: They failed! They don’t have that egg. Their actions have put all the Weyrs on guard so they could never succeed a second time. They have lost their one chance, Lessa. Their one hope of reviving their dying bronzes has failed. They have been thwarted. And they face . . . nothing. No future, no hope.

  “You can do nothing worse to them, Lessa. So with the return of that egg, you have no right in the eyes of the rest of Pern to do anything more.”

  “I have the right to revenge that insult to me, to my queen, and to my Weyr!”

  “Insult?” Robinton gave a short bark of laughter. “My dear Lessa, that was no insult. That was a compliment of the highest order!”

  His unexpected laughter as well as his startling interpretation stunned Lessa into silence.

  “How many queen eggs have been laid this past Turn?” Robinton demanded of the other Weyrleaders. “And in Weyrs the Oldtimers would know more intimately than Benden. No, they wanted a queen of Ramoth’s clutch! Nothing but the best that Pern could produce for the Oldtimers!” Adroitly Robinton left that argument. “Come, Lessa,” he said with great sympathy and compassion, “we’re all overwrought by this terrible event. None of us is thinking clearly . . .” He passed his hand across his face, no sham gesture for he was perspiring with the effort to redirect the mood of so many. “Emotions are running far too high. And you’ve borne the brunt of it, Lessa.” He took her by the arm and led the shocked but unresisting Weyrwoman to her chair, seating her with great concern and deference. “You must have been half-crazed by Ramoth’s distress. She is calmer now, isn’t she?”