Sky Dragons: Dragonriders of Pern

by Anne McCaffrey

  A few moments later, the green rider helped her snag the errant cloth and passed it back to her. “Doing stinky duty again, I see!”

  “Someone’s got to do it.”

  “And you don’t mind.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” Xhinna protested. “But as Mirressa was watching the baby, it seemed a fair trade.”

  “Fair trade” was a phrase borrowed from the traders who had grown in importance and meaning as the inhabitants had outgrown Sky Weyr and overflowed throughout the Western Isle. It was all the result of Xhinna’s simple message, left nearly three Turns back at the Red Butte, by the grave of Tenniz, Jirana’s father and the Seer who had glimpsed this strange island future. It seemed more than fitting to Fiona, Lorana, and Xhinna that the dragonriders saved by the vision of the trader be willing to borrow from his people’s customs and his bequests—particularly the strange Sights that his daughter, Jirana, had provided.

  “You’re thinking about her again,” Taria said suddenly. “She and her queen were back in the trees just now.”

  “Did she send you here?”

  Taria’s silence was answer enough. A moment later, she sighed. “Her queen will be old enough soon.”

  “That doesn’t worry her,” Xhinna said, recalling a recent conversation with Jirana. “She’ll rise when we’re ready,” Jirana had assured her. Laspanth, the first of six “green queens” was still small for a gold and clearly growing, so perhaps there was no reason to doubt Jirana on this. That hadn’t stopped Fiona from bringing the matter up with Xhinna, nor Xhinna from worrying about it.

  “So what does?” Taria asked. Confidentially, she added, “She’s always sending me to you when you get worried about her, you know.”

  “Trying to distract me?” Xhinna guessed.

  “Hmph!” Taria said. “One, you’re impossible to distract when you’ve your mind on something; and two, if I wanted to distract you, I wouldn’t be talking about it.”

  Xhinna chuckled, rinsed another diaper, and placed it back into the bag. She motioned to Taria who, with a wrinkle of her nose, gamely pulled out a few diapers and joined in the cleansing.

  The dark-haired rider was right on both counts: Xhinna would not let herself be distracted when she thought something was important; and regardless, no matter how important her thoughts, Taria could always distract her if she really desired.

  In the past two Turns their relationship had grown both stronger and freer than Xhinna could possibly have imagined. They no longer needed to be in sight of each other or constantly touching; in fact, they now took joy in being able to recount separate adventures, to revel in the strength of their bonds rather than railing against them.

  Xhinna could feel that special connection with Taria, that increased joy in her presence, the knowledge that they were free enough to go their separate ways without fear of hurting each other, and the greater joy that, when they could, they preferred each other’s company above all others. Not that they were exclusive—they couldn’t quite be, because of the nature of their bonds with their dragons. Taria was willing to cheer when Tazith outflew browns to catch other greens; Xhinna was willing to stand in honor as Coranth was caught by another blue. But Xhinna and Taria had learned to adjust and thrive in those situations. What mattered most was what they chose—not what dragon passion compelled.

  As it was with them, so it was with the other greens and blues throughout the Western Isle.

  “So what is it?” Taria asked, bringing Xhinna’s focus back to the present—and to the pleasant surprise that, in her reverie, she’d finished rinsing the last of the diapers. Taria passed her back her handful and Xhinna put them into the wet-bag, gladly sealing it and trudging out of the surf to the dry shore.

  “Something’s bothering her,” Xhinna said grumpily.

  “Not her scar?”

  “No,” Xhinna said with a quick shake of her head. “You can hardly see that, and it’s not as though she’s worried about the looks she gets from the boys.”

  “I like scars,” Taria said slyly, tracing the line of Xhinna’s scar through the shirt on her back.

  “Whatever it is,” Xhinna said, accepting the oblique apology for the scar that J’keran’s knife had left, and continuing single-mindedly on the question at hand, “it’s not going to happen for a while.”

  “How can you say?”

  “Because she’s not that desperate,” Xhinna said. “She’d be angry with me, fighting with me, if this were something coming soon.”

  “She could be wrong, you know,” Taria said.

  “Well, even if she is, it’s getting me quite fit,” Xhinna replied, grinning as she caught the look of pleasure that spread across her partner’s face. Xhinna shook her head and trudged farther back up the sands. “I’ve got to drop these off and pick up Xelinan.”

  “I’ll get Xelinan,” Taria offered.

  “Or you could take these,” Xhinna countered.

  “Oh, let’s see—cute, adorable boy or bag of smelly diapers? What a hard choice!” Taria said, racing to leap upon Coranth’s neck and urging the green skyward before Xhinna could utter another word. She waved down from above, a wicked grin spreading across her face.

  Xhinna chuckled, shaking her head ruefully.

  The Meeyu Plateau most clearly showed the industry that had occurred since Fiona, T’mar, and the others had come back in time to join Xhinna in response to the simple polyhedral marker she’d left at Red Butte, inscribed on all three upright sides with the same one word: Come.

  She remembered the evening—nearly two Turns ago—when she got Fiona’s description of the events that led them there:

  “So, there’s D’gan, all high and mighty right up until his Kaloth collapses from the injection of the dragon sickness cure, and then he starts bellowing and raging all over the place until we could calm him down and get him to his weyr,” Fiona had said as she brought Xhinna up to date on the several days they’d spent back in Telgar Weyr. She shook her head trying to shake her anger out of it. “And then, that last night, acting like he was the Weyrleader …”

  “Well, he was,” Xhinna said.

  “Half a Turn ago before he and all his dragons were lost between,” Fiona agreed. “But not now.”

  “He has over three hundred riders who think otherwise,” Lorana disagreed from where she sat nearby. “And they’re planning on riding Fall with High Reaches today.”

  Fiona made a sour face. “You should have heard him go on about the new firestone,” she said. “He practically accused me of sabotage for ordering the old stuff removed, and then one of his bronze riders nearly jumped out of his skin when one of our weyrlings dropped a rock in a bucket of water by accident.” She brightened. “After that, he changed his tune, but he never said anything to me.”

  “He’d hoped to ignore us,” Jeila said.

  “He might still succeed,” T’mar said. Fiona shot him an angry look and the bronze rider raised his hands defensively.

  “He’s got almost more dragons than all the other Weyrs put together,” he pointed out. “We’re all exhausted, and his riders are still in their prime, ready for anything. We really can’t reject his aid.”

  “And the blues and greens we brought back would have needed a sevenday at least to learn to chew firestone,” Fiona said in agreement. “So D’gan can ignore us, leave us out of the Fall, and we have nothing to do about it,” she ended bitterly. She sighed and sat back dejectedly in her chair. Xhinna threw her a questioning look.

  “And another thing,” Fiona said, gesturing toward Shaneese, who sat nearby. “Remember how the weyrfolk were when we first arrived?”

  Xhinna nodded, her stomach clenching in anger. The weyrfolk were used to D’gan: He demanded their instant respect and was not very caring when it came to women.

  “Well, Shaneese’s L’rat is now alive and well,” Fiona said, her lips curled in anger, “and he believes that T’mar is a poacher.” She shook her head. “He even told T’mar: ‘As you�
�ve a woman already, I want mine back.’ ”

  “Shaneese tried to deal with it diplomatically,” Jeila said with a sour look, “but that didn’t work.”

  “We were like a Weyr within a Weyr,” Fiona said with an expression that was alarming both for its ferocity and its resignation. “When we found your first message, it was nothing to find enough volunteers—”

  Xhinna coughed and gave the Weyrwoman a reproving look.

  “Really it wasn’t,” T’mar added in agreement. He glanced around the strange plateau and the dragon-filled broom trees in the distance. “We hadn’t quite realized what you’d been planning, I must admit.”

  “Well, once we found the second marker—wise of you to set them far apart—we realized just how much we wanted to see our children,” Fiona said, reaching for Lorana, “and our bronzes’ riders.”

  “Particularly K’dan,” T’mar opined with a grin. Fiona started a hot retort, but then gave him a second, more probing look and just nodded.

  “If only to relieve him of nonstop parental duties,” she agreed. A moment later she returned to her story. “And then D’gan came up to us, saying that there was a Fall at High Reaches and wanting to know how many of our riders could haul firestone for his fighting dragons.”

  She changed her voice to a mocking imitation of the old Telgar Weyrleader: “ ‘I don’t allow shirkers in my Weyr.’ ”

  “Uh oh!” Xhinna said.

  “I told him: ‘This is my Weyr, bronze rider’ and he said, ‘We’ve no need for impertinence’ and then, can you believe it? He turned to T’mar and said, ‘If you can’t control your women—and you have far too many of them if you ask me—’ ”

  “He didn’t!” Xhinna and Taria exclaimed in unison.

  Fiona nodded solemnly and then looked up at them, eyes blazing, but it was Jeila who, with awe in her voice, said, “And then she said, ‘Enough. You will be silent now.’ ”

  H’nez, Jeila, and T’mar all broke into laughter.

  “I thought he was going to burst, the way his eyes bulged,” Jeila continued. “Shards, I didn’t think he could even speak, but just as he was about to, all three of our queens bellowed as one. The old queen called back, but she didn’t sound like she was angry, only resigned.” She glanced toward

  Fiona, continuing, “So the Weyrwoman said—”

  “ ‘We’re leaving. We’ll be back when we’re needed,’ ” Fiona said. “And then, would you believe, our old Mekiar comes along and says—” She turned to the old potter to let him speak.

  “Well …” Mekiar, glad to be invited to participate, smiled as he said, “I merely said, ‘Would you perhaps need a potter where you’re going?’ ”

  “But—” Xhinna gestured at all the riders from other Weyrs. All the young weyrlings who’d grown up with her and Tazith, Taria, and Coranth were arrayed there, including all four queens and all the bronzes.

  “The story’s not done yet,” Fiona said. “So when we went to leave, D’gan tried to block us, but the queens put an end to that.”

  “He didn’t give up, did he?” Taria asked. She’d known him from her childhood at Telgar Weyr.

  “Oh, no!” Fiona exclaimed. “It wasn’t until the others”—she waved a hand at the non-Telgar riders—“arrived that things were finally sorted.” Her smile dimpled. “You see, I thought that if we were going to do this, we should be certain not to do it by halves.”

  “But what of the other Weyrs?” Taria objected. “Surely they didn’t—”

  “Ah, but they did!” Jeila said with a laugh. “In fact—” and she waved a hand for Fiona to finish the story.

  “Lorana spoke with them,” Fiona said. “You should have seen the look on D’gan’s face when he saw them. And then I told him, ‘The others are a parting gift, as it were.’ ”

  “Others?” Xhinna asked.

  “That’s just what D’gan said!” Jeila laughed. “Because when he looked up he saw not only all our Eastern weyrlings and riders but—” and again she waved to Fiona to finish.

  “Not only Tullea on her Minith, but Sonia of High Reaches on Lyrinth, Cisca of Fort on Melirth, and Dalia of Ista on Bidenth all gliding in for a landing—and all looking as though they were going to have more than a few words with Telgar’s old Weyrleader.”

  “And now we’re here!” Jeila said in conclusion, smiling all around.

  “Of course, there is one catch,” T’mar said somberly.

  Xhinna and the others of Sky Weyr had given him all their attention then, ready to hear what came next, but it was K’dan who spoke up instead: “We can’t fail.”

  And they hadn’t. There were enough dragons and more to repopulate all the Weyrs of Pern. In half a Turn or less, they’d be able to return home, triumphant, ready to fight Thread.

  The hectic days of scouting, building, and struggling to establish all the extra dragons and riders across the Western Isle were over. The days of mating flight after mating flight—with the horrifying specter of battles between mating queens and mating greens—were nearly done, and besides, Xhinna and her riders had learned how to distract and separate amorous dragons safely.

  Soon it would be all over, they’d go back, and Pern would be safe.

  So why was it she was so worried? And if it was just that she felt things had gone too well for too long, then why was Jirana still acting so oddly?

  SEVENTEEN

  Journey to Starlight

  Zirenth says you should join them, Tazith told Xhinna as they wheeled around toward a landing.

  Zirenth? T’mar?

  He is in the stone, Tazith replied. Xhinna’s lips twitched at her blue’s title for the first housing that had been built on the reclaimed Meeyu Plateau. Bare rock, with a few smaller piles of sand, made the whole area look like a blight on the otherwise green plain that stretched out under the watch of the Sky Weyr’s broom trees.

  Scouring the plateau of all life and soil had been R’ney’s solution to the problem of tunnel snakes, superceded by the brilliant plan of uniting Mrreows and dragon eggs to spot and counter any assaults on the unhatched dragonets. Almost as a sop to R’ney, two dragons had clutched on the sandpiles, but most preferred the comfort of the long, sandy beaches.

  The upside of gouging the earth down to the rock and letting the torrential rains churn the ground into mud had been runoff that included a large amount of gold dust. The gold dust, in turn, had been used to surreptitiously purchase those items that could not be found or made on the Western Isle by the industrious riders and weyrfolk.

  The bare rock, augmented by sands and stout iron, had been the primary home for the baby Meeyus and adult Mrreows that helped guard the defenseless dragon eggs from the depredations of the ever-hungry tunnel snakes. The Mrreows and the Meeyus preferred any of the six-limbed creatures of Pern as their prey, so enlisting them to protect the dragons had its drawbacks—particularly as the Mrreows grew older and less controllable by either human or dragon.

  The solution had been to retire the intractable beasts to one of the many smaller islands that dotted the oceans surrounding the great Eastern and Western Isles of Pern. Xhinna’s own Scruff had been one of the first to be so placed, and a pang of sorrow went through her even as she realized it was prompted by the sight and smell of the cages and the noise of the latest litter of little Meeyus.

  Jirana and the other Green-queens—as the green queen riders had come to be known—were gathered around, chatting among themselves and instructing a group of younger helpers in the care and feeding of the cute but noisy beasts. Xhinna made a note to speak with Jirana about this—the beasts wouldn’t be needed for guard duty once the last of the clutches had Hatched, and it would be an unkindness to break the hearts of yet another generation of youngsters who would have to leave the Mrreows behind when they finally abandoned the Western Isle.

  T’mar? Xhinna wondered. What did he want? And what, she thought guiltily, did I do wrong?

  He says to say that you did nothing wrong, Tazith said
just then, as if the Southriver Weyrleader had been touching her mind just as easily as her blue dragon could.

  To comfortably house and support all the dragons and riders, it had been decided in the first month after the arrival of Fiona and the other 126 dragons to spread out throughout the Western Isle. In addition to Sky Weyr—the name had stuck, despite all of Xhinna’s protests—they created five additional Weyrs: Midriver, Southriver, Southern, Western, and Northern.

  Fiona’s desire to spend time with her children and K’dan had grown from inclination into permanence. While T’mar had taken the lead in everything, he was too good a leader not to involve everyone, and so it was mutually decided that H’nez and C’tov, as the next two most experienced wingleaders, would be the temporary Weyrleaders of the Northern and Southern Weyrs. X’lerin, ever tactful, offered to relinquish his leadership at Sky Weyr to K’dan and, as a consequence, was assigned to start Midriver Weyr—an assignment made permanent when his Kivith flew Indeera’s queen Morurth when she rose. There was no established Weyrleader at the Western Weyr, which was ably run by the Weyrwoman, Garra, with T’mar aiding as needed in the leadership that W’vin and his brown Jorth provided to the adult riders.

  Xhinna’s wing was not, to her surprise, disbanded. In fact, both the queen and bronze weyrling riders insisted on staying with her at Sky Weyr in spite of the lure of better positions elsewhere. But at Xhinna’s insistence and in defiance of Fiona—who had been delighted with the notion of a blue wingleader—the young bronze riders themselves had rotated through the leadership of the fledgling wing, able to lean on the assistance of both Xhinna and R’ney as wingseconds.

  The queens and their riders, naturally, had become the business of Fiona as Weyrwoman, but with Taria’s connivance, Xhinna had found herself compelled to take on much of that, as well, as Fiona had, in a very unconvincing tone, apologized for being too busy with her other duties.

  So some things had changed—and many hadn’t.

  Danirry had been elevated to wingsecond, third in command of what was still known as Xhinna’s wing, when the work had become too much for the combined efforts of Xhinna, R’ney, and whichever bronze rider had the position.