“Your dad’ll be pleased,” Sorka said, expansive in her own pleasure. “Won’t he, Sean? Bet they’ll be better even than dogs at going after snakes. Look at the way they attacked the mottleds.”
Sean snorted. “Only because the hatchlings were being attacked.”
“I doubt it was just that. I could almost feel the way they hate the snakes.” She wanted to believe that the flying lizards were unusual just as she had always believed that their marmalade tom, Duke was the best hunter in the valley, and old Chip the best cattle dog in Tipperary. Doubt suddenly assailed her. “But maybe we should leave them here for their dam.”
Sean frowned. “She was shooing the others off to the sea fast enough.’’
Of one mind, they rose and, walking carefully so as not to disturb their sleeping burdens, headed for the summit of the headland.
“Oh, look!” Sorka cried, pointing wildly just as something pulled the tattered body of a hatchling under the water. “Oh, oh, oh.” Sean watched impassively. Sorka turned away, clenching her fists. “She’s not a very good mother after all.”
“Only the best survive,” Sean said. “Our three are safe. They were smart enough to come to us!” Then he turned, cocking his head and peering at her through narrowed eyes. “Will yours be safe at Landing?” They’ve been after us to bring ‘em specimens, you know. ‘Cause my dad’s special at trapping and snaring.”
Sorka hugged her sleeping charge closer to her body. “My father wouldn’t let anything happen to this lad. I know he wouldn’t.’
Sean was cynical. “Yeah, but he’s not head of his group, is he? He has to obey orders, doesn’t he?”
“They just want to look at life-forms. They don’t want to cut ‘em up or anything.”
Sean was unconvinced, but he followed Sorka as she moved away from the sea and made her way through the undergrowth to the edge of the plateau.
“See ya tomorra?” Sean asked, suddenly loath to give up their meetings now that their mutual vigil had now come to an end.
“Well, tomorrow’s a workday, but I’ll see you in the evening? Sorka didn’t even pause a moment to think about her reply. She was no longer hampered by the stern tenets of Earth restrictions on her comings and goings. She was beginning to accept her safety on Pern as easily as she accepted her responsibility to work for her future here. Sean was also part of that sense of personal safety, despite his innate distrust of all but his own people. Even if Sean was unaware of it, a special link had been forged between Sean and her after the momentous experience on the rock head.
Are you sure these creatures will hunt the snake?” Porrig Connell asked as he examined one of Sean’s sleeping acquisitions. It remained motionless when he extended one of the limp wings.
“If they’re hungry,” Sean replied, holding his breath lest his father inadvertently hurt his little lizard.
Porrig snorted. “We’ll see. At least it’s a creature of this place. Anything’s better than being eaten alive. One of the blue mottled ones took a huge chunk out of Sinead’s babee last night.”
‘Sorka says the snakes can’t get in their house. Plastic keeps ‘em out.”
Porrig gave another of his skeptical grunts, then nodded towards the sleeping hatchling. “Watch ‘em now. They’re your problem.”
At Residence Fourteen in Asian Square, there was considerably more enthusiasm about Sorka’s creature. Mairi dispatched Brian to bring his father from the veterinary shed. Then she made a little nest in one of the baskets she had been weaving from the tough Pernese reeds, lining it with dried plant fiber. Tenderly she transferred the creature from Sorka’s arm to its new bed, where it immediately curled itself into a ball and, with a tremendous sigh that inflated its torso to the size of its engorged belly, fell deeper into sleep.
“It’s not really a lizard, is it?” she said, softly stroking the warm skin. “It feels like good suede. Lizards are dry and hard to the touch. And it’s smiling. See?”
Obediently Sorka peered down and smiled in response. “You should have seen it wolf down the sandwiches.”
“You mean, you’ve had no lunch?” Aghast, Mairi immediately bustled about to remedy that situation.
Though the communal kitchens catered for most of the six thousand regular inhabitants of Landing, more and more of the family units were beginning to cook for themselves for all but the evening meal. The Hanrahans’ home was a typical accommodation for a family: one medium-sized bedroom, two small, a larger room for general purposes, and a sanitary unit; all the furnishings but the treasured rosewood dower chest were salvaged from the colony ships or made by Red in his infrequent spare time. At one end of the largest room was a food-preparation unit, compact but adequate. Mairi prided herself on her culinary skills and was enjoying a chance to experiment with new foods.
Sorka was halfway through her third sandwich when Red Hanrahan arrived with zoologist Pol Nietro and microbiologist Bay Harkenon.
“Don’t wake the little thing,” Mairi instantly cautioned them.
Almost reverently the three peered at the sleeping lizard. Red Hanrahan let the specialists monopolize it while he gave his daughter a hug and a kiss, ruffling her hair with affectionate pride. “Who’s a clever girl!” he exclaimed.
He sat down at the table, stretching his long legs underneath, and slid his hands into his pockets as he watched the two tut-tutting over a genuine Pernese native.
“A most amazing specimen,” Pol remarked to Bay as they straightened.
“So like a lizard,” she replied, smiling with wonder at Sorka. “Will you please tell us exactly how you enticed the creature to you?”
Sorka hesitated only briefly, then, at her father’s reassuring nod, she told them all she knew about the lizards, from her first sight of the little gold beast guarding her eggs, to the point where she had coaxed the bronze one to eat from her hand. She did not, however, mention Sean Connell, though she knew from the glances her parents exchanged that they mised that he had been with her.
“Were you the only lucky one?” her father asked her in a low voice while the two biologists were engrossed in photographing the sleeping creature.
“Sean took two brown ones home. They have an awful time with snakes in their camp.”
“There’re homes waiting for them on Canadian Square,” her father reminded her. “And they’d have the place to themselves.”
All the ethnic nomads in the colony’s complement had been duly allotted living quarters, thoughtfully set to the edge of Landing, where they might not feel so enclosed. But after a few nights, they had all gone, melting into the unexplored lands beyond the settlement. Sorka shrugged.
Then Pol and Bay began a second round of questions, to clarify her account.
“Now, Sorka, we’d like to borrow your new acquisition for a few hours.” Bay emphasized the word “borrow.” “I assure you we won’t harm a – well, a patch of its hide. There’s a lot we can determine about it simply from observation and a judicious bit of hands-on examination.”
Sorka looked anxiously at her parents.
“Why don’t we let it get used to Sorka first?” Red said easily, one hand resting lightly on his daughter’s clenched fists. “Sorka’s very good with animals; they seem to trust her. And I think it’s far more important right now to reassure this bitty fellow than find out what makes it tick.” Sorka remembered to breathe and let her body relax. She knew she could count on her father. “We wouldn’t want to scare it away. It only hatched this morning.”
“Zeal motivates me,” Bay Harkenon said with a rueful smile. “But I know you’re right, Red. We’ll just have to leave it in Sorka’s capable care.” The woman gathered herself to rise when her associate cleared his throat.
“But if Sorka would keep track of how much it eats, how often, what it prefers – ” Pol began.
“Besides bread and sandwich spread,” Mairi said with a laugh.
“That would improve our understanding.” Pol had a charming grin that made him ap
pear less gray and frowzy. “And you say that all you had to do was entice it with food?”
Sorka had a sudden mental image of the rather stooped and unathletic Pol Nietro lurking in bushes with a basket of goodies, luring lizards to him.
I think it had something to do with its being so dreadfully hungry after it hatched,” she replied thoughtfully. “I mean, I’ve had sandwiches in my pockets every morning this week on the beach, and the dam never came near me for food.”
“Hmmm. A good point. The newly hatched are voracious.” Pol continued to mumble to himself, mentally correlating the information.
“And the adults actually held food for the hatchlings?” Bay murmured. “Fish and insects? Hmm. Sort of an imprinting ritual, perhaps? The juveniles could fly as soon as the wings dried? Hmmm. Yes. Fascinating. The sea would be the nearest source of food.” She gathered up her notes and thanked Sorka and her parents. Then the specialists left the house.
“I’d best go back myself, loves,” Red said. “Good work, Sorka. Just shows what old Irish know-how can achieve.”
“Peter Oliver Plunkett Hanrahan,” his wife immediately chided him. “Start thinking Pernese. Pernese. Pernese.” With each repetition she raised her voice in mock emphasis.
“Pernese, not Irish. We’re Pernese,” Red obediently chanted. Grinning unrepentantly, he did a dance step out of the house to the tempo of “Pernese, Pernese.”
That night, to Sorka’s intense and embarrassed surprise, and to the total disgust of her envious brother, she was called upon to light the evening bonfire. When Pol Nietro announced why, there were cheers and vigorous applause. Sorka was astonished to see that Admiral Benden and Governor Boll, who had made a point of attending that little evening ceremony, were shouting and clapping like everyone else.
“It wasn’t just me,” Sorka said in a loud clear voice as she was formally presented with the torch by the acting mayor of Landing. “Sean Connell got two brown lizards, only he isn’t here tonight. But you should know that he found the nest first, and both of us watched it.”
She knew that Sean Connell would not care if he was given due credit or not, but she did. With that thought, she plunged the burning brand into the heart of the bonfire. She jumped back quickly as the dry material caught and flared brightly.
“Well done, Sorka,” her father said, lightly resting his hands on her shoulders. “Well done.”
Sorka and Sean remained the only proud owners of the pretty lizards for nearly a full week, even though there was an evening rush to the beaches and headlands. But bit by bit, nests were staked and vigilantly guarded. Guided by the routine that Sorka had accurately reported, several more of the little creatures were finally acquired. And her name for the creatures – “dragonets” – was adopted popularly.
The acquisition, as Sorka soon discovered, had two sides. Her little dragonet, whom she nostalgically named Duke after her old marmalade tomcat, was voracious. It ate anything at three-hour intervals the first night disturbing the entire square with its hungry keening. Between feedings, it slept. When Sorka noticed that its skin was cracking, her father prescribed a salve, prudently concocted of local fish oils, with the help of a pediatrician and a biologist. The pediatrician was so pleased with the result that she had the pharmacist make up more as an ointment for dry skin in general.
“Duke is growing, and his skin is stretching,” was Red’s diagnosis.
The male designation was arbitrary, since no one had been able to examine the creature closely enough to discover it’s sex, or even if it had any. The golden dragonets had demonstrated a generally more feminine role in egg-laying, though one of the biologists qualified that by reminding people that the males of some species on Earth were the egg-tenders. The dead skin flakes were assiduously collected for analysis. The eager zoologists had not been able to X-ray Duke, for he seemed to know the moment someone had designs on him. On the second day of his advent, the zoologists had attempted to place him under the scope, while Sorka waited nervously in the next room.
“My word!”
“What?”
Sorka heard the startled exclamations from Pol and Bay at the same moment that Duke reappeared above her head, considerably agitated. Dropping to her shoulder with cries of relief and anger, he wrapped his tail firmly about her neck and hooked his talons into her hair, scolding furiously, his many-faceted eyes rippling with angry reds and oranges.
The door behind Sorka opened suddenly, and Pol and Bay burst into the room, their eyes wide with amazement.
“He just appeared,” the girl told the two scientists.
Recovering their composure, the two exchanged glances. Pol’s broad face became wreathed in a smile, and Bay looked remarkably pleased.
“So the Amigs do not have a monopoly on telekinetic abilities,” Bay said with a smug smile. “I always maintained, Pol, that they could not be unique in the galaxy.”
“How did he do that?” Sorka asked, not quite certain as she remembered other instances of perplexingly rapid departures.
“Duke must have been frightened by the scope. He is rather small and it does look menacing,” Bay said. “So he teleported himself away. Fortunately back to you, whom he considers his protector. The Amigs use teleportation when threatened. A very useful capability.
“I wonder if we can discover how the little creatures do it?” Pol mused.
“We could try the Eridani equations,” Bay suggested.
Pol looked at Duke. The lizard’s eyes were still red with anger, and he continued to cling tenaciously to Sorka, but he had folded his wings to his back.
“To try them, we need to know more about this chap and his species. Perhaps if you held him, Sorka?” Pol suggested.
Even with Sorka’s gentle reassurance, Duke would not permit himself to be placed under the scope. After a half hour, Pol and Bay reluctantly allowed their unwilling subject to be taken away. Reassuring him every step, Sorka carried her still-outraged lizard to his birthplace. Sean was there, stretched out in the shade cast by the bushes, his two browns curled up against his neck. They heard Sorka coming and peered up at her, their eyes whirling a mild blue-green. Duke chirped a greeting to which they replied in kind.
“I was just getting some sleep,” Sean muttered petulantly not bothering to open his eyes to see who had arrived. “M’da made me bunk in with the babees to see if these fellers would scare off the snakes.”
“Well, did they?” Sorka asked when he seemed to be falling asleep again.
“Yup.” Sean yawned hugely and swatted idly at an insect. One of the browns immediately snapped it out of the air and swallowed it.
“They do eat anything.” Sorka’s tone was admiring. “Omnivorous Dr. Marceau called them.” She sat down on the rock beside Sean. “And they can go between places when they’re scared. Dr. Nietro tried to scope Duke and made me leave the room. The next thing I knew Duke was clinging to me like he’d never let go. They said he can teleport. He uses telekinesis.” She was proud that she had gotten the words out without stumbling over them.
Sean opened one eye and cocked his head to stare up at her. “What does that mean?”
“He can project himself out of danger instantly.”
Sean gave a huge yawn. “Yeah? We’ve both seen them do the disappearing act. And they don’t do it always because of danger.” Sean yawned again. “You were smart to take only one. If one isn’t eating the other is. What with that and guarding the babees, I’m fair knackered.” He closed his eye again, settled his hands across his chest, and went back to sleep.
“I shall play gold then and guard you, lest a big nasty mottled blunt-nose comes and takes a bite out of you!”
She did not rouse him even when she saw a flight of the lizards in the sky, looping and diving in an aerial display that left her breathless. Duke watched with her, crooning softly to himself, but despite her initial consternation that he might choose to join them, he didn’t even ease his tailhold about her neck. Before she returned home, Sor
ka left Sean a jar of the ointment that had been made for Duke’s skin.
Sorka was not the only person on Pern watching aerial acrobatics that day. Half a continent to the south and west, Sallah Telgar’s heart was in her mouth as she watched Drake Bonneau pull the little air sled out of a thermal elevator above the vast inland lake that he was campaigning to call Drake’s Lake. No member of their small mining expedition would deny him that privilege, but Drake had a tendency to beat a subject to death. Similarly, he would not stop showing off; he seemed bent on stunning everyone with his professional skill. His antics were a foolish waste of power, Sallah thought, and certainly not the way to her heart and esteem. He had taken to hanging around her quarters, but so far he had met with no great success.
Ozzie Munson and Cobber Alhinwa emerged from the shelter where they had just stored their gear and paused to see what Sallah was staring at.
“Oh, my word, he’s at it again,” Ozzie said, grinning maliciously at Sallah.
“He’ll crash hisself,” Cobber added, shaking his head, “and that bleeding lake’s so deep we’d never find ‘im. Or the sled. And we need that.”
Seeing Svenda Olubushtu coming to join them, Sallah hastily turned and headed for the main shelter of the small prospecting camp. She did not care to listen to Svenda’s snide, jealous remarks. It was not as if Sallah encouraged Drake Bonneau. On the contrary, she had emphatically, publicly, and frequently made her disinterest plain enough.
Maybe I’m going about discouraging him the wrong way, she thought. Maybe if I’d run after him, hang on his every word, and ambush him every chance I get, the way Svenda’s doing, he’d leave me alone, too.
In the main shelter, she found Tarvi Andiyar already marking the day’s findings on the big screen, muttering to himself as he did so, his spidery fingers flicking at the terminal keys so fast that even the word processor had trouble keeping up with him. No one understood him when he talked to himself like that; he was speaking in his first language, an obscure Indic dialect. When asked about his eccentricity he would respond with one of his heart-melting smiles.
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