All the Weyrs of Pern (38 page)

“The best way to reduce the threat of Thread is to alter the orbit of the eccentric planet that brings it into Pern’s system.”

“And when will you tell us how we accomplish that?”

“The research and technology required will shortly be completed.”

“Then finding the fuel makes no difference?” F’lessan slumped in disappointment, his usually merry expression glum.

“It may make a difference in another area, F’lessan. It is always good to have alternatives. You have all done exceedingly well.” That, from Aivas, was praise indeed. “Do not succumb to apathy.”

“What should I do with all these fuel sacks then?” F’lessan asked dispiritedly.

“They should be transferred to a safe storage facility in Landing.”

“I shouldn’t put them into anything else? Those sacks are old.”

“If they have lasted 2,528 years, they will suffice for another.” A chart appeared on the screen. “Now, here is the schedule for bronze and brown dragons to jump to the cargo bays of all three ships. The latest readings indicate sufficient oxygen levels to allow every dragon and rider some experience in free-fall.”

“Why?” F’lar asked.

“It is essential for the success of the Plan that all the dragons of Pern learn to handle weightlessness.”

The schedules were forwarded to the Weyrleaders of all eight Weyrs, and there was a good deal of jubilation from all but a few—and those were mainly riders of elderly dragons for whom even hunting was becoming difficult. The weyrlings were ecstatic, and Weyrlingmasters hard put to maintain discipline.

Each group was sent up with someone experienced in free-fall; even Jancis, Piemur, and Sharra were sent as monitors. There were often full fairs of fire-lizards tagging along, and though that occasioned complaints, Aivas approved of their interest. A new enthusiasm swept through all the Weyrs, overcoming the mid-Pass apathy.

Three days later, fires were set among the fuel sacks, but fire-lizards gave the alarm so no harm was done. On hearing of the near disaster, Aivas was unperturbed and, in an offhanded tone, informed the agitated Lytol and D’ram that the fuel was nonflammable. The relief was palpable, but when Fandarel heard, he immediately wanted to know exactly how such fuel provided the desired effect. Aivas responded with a lecture on the intricacies of seven kinds of jet engines, from the simple reaction engines they had learned about, which made little sense even to Master Fandarel, to more complex multistage affairs.

That evening Master Morilton dispatched his fire-lizard with an urgent and horrified message that someone had destroyed all the lenses his Hall had ready to be installed in microscopes and telescopes, ruining months of hard and patient work. Later the next morning Master Fandarel found that the metal barrels he had been producing to house the lenses had been thrown into the forge fire and distempered overnight.

It was as well that the orientation program for dragons was going so well, or morale would have hit a new low. Then Oldive and Sharra at last were successful in penetrating the shell of the Thread egg with a black diamond cutter.

“I’m not much wiser,” Sharra told Jaxom when she returned home that evening. “It’s a complex organism, and it’s going to take us time to analyze it. We have to work so slowly. I think that may be why Aivas taught us how to culture bacteria. Good training for this investigation.”

“What did it look like—inside, I mean?”

“The most astonishing mess,” she said, frowning in perplexity. Then she gave a disparaging chuckle. “I don’t know what I thought it’d look like. In fact, I never thought about it at all. But the ovoid is coated in layers of dirty, rock-hard ice, with all kinds of pebbles and grains and—and junk mixed up. It’s sort of whitish, yellow, black, gray . . . Is the yellow helium? Were you there for those lectures on liquefying gas? No, that was Piemur and Jancis.

“At any rate, there are rings that wrap round and round. You can separate the rings from the other material. There are tubes, and patches of bubbling stuff. Aivas said it was a very disorganized life-form.”

Jaxom laughed in surprise. “It certainly disorganizes us!”

“Silly! He doesn’t mean it that way. But we couldn’t do much today because we don’t have the proper tools to work in three-degree absolute temperatures.” She grinned in reminiscence. “The tools we brought sort of went brittle and disintegrated in the cold.”

“Metal? Turned brittle?”

“Good Smithcraft steel, too. Aivas says we have to use special glass.”

“Glass, huh.” Jaxom thought of all the time Aivas had spent with Master Morilton and grinned. “So that was why. But how could Aivas have known then that we’d capture Thread when he didn’t even know we could?”

“I’m not sure I followed all of that, Jaxom.”

“I’m not sure I did, too, lovey. I wonder who’s getting the bigger surprises? Aivas, or us?”

The next morning, Sharra asked Jaxom if he would mind letting Ruth convey her to Master Oldive to confer on who else they would need to assist them in their study. Ruth was always glad to oblige Sharra, so Jaxom was free to remain behind in Ruatha to preside with Brand over a long-delayed Hold disciplinary meeting.

He was just taking his seat in the Great Hall when he caught a glimpse of Ruth departing with Sharra on his back. He bounced back to his feet in alarm.

The harness, Ruth! Which harness did Sharra use?

At the same moment that Ruth replied,
She’s safe,
her two fire-lizards screamed so loudly that Lamoth, the elderly bronze on Ruatha’s heights, bugled a warning. As Jaxom watched paralyzed by shock, he saw Ruth slowly descending, Sharra clutching him tightly about the neck; Meer and Talla hooked their talons in the shoulders of her riding jacket. The main riding strap dangled loosely between Ruth’s legs.

Trembling in fear for what might have been, Jaxom forgot dignity and duty as he tore out of the Great Hall. In his wish not to worry her with an incident he had almost forgotten, he had nearly cost her her life. As Ruth delicately landed in front of him, his hands were still shaking as he helped Sharra down from her precarious perch and embraced her tightly.

I should have asked which harness she had with her,
Ruth said, his tone remorseful, his hide tinged gray with anxiety.
I could have told her where you hide the harness you’re using now.

“It’s no fault of yours, Ruth. You’re all right, Sharra? You didn’t hurt yourself? When I saw you hanging—” His voice broke and he buried his face in her neck, aware that she was trembling nearly as much as he.

Sharra was quite willing to be comforted, but soon enough she became aware of the audience and, with a weak, embarrassed laugh, struggled to be free. He eased his hold but did not let her go. If she had not been such a skilled rider . . . if Ruth hadn’t been such a clever dragon . . .

“I thought you’d mended that harness,” she said, anxiously looking into his eyes.

“I had!” He couldn’t tell her the truth, not with so many within earshot, and despite the bond between them, she did not apparently realize he was not being entirely candid.

“I’ve got to go, Jaxom,” she said, duty warring with fright. “Would Ruth be totally offended if I went with G’lanar on Lamoth?”

“You’ll go on?” Jaxom was both amazed by and proud of his wife’s courage and resilience.

“It’s the best thing I can do, Jax, to get over this shock.” She leaned across him to stroke Ruth’s nose. “I know it wasn’t your fault, dearest Ruth. Please relax! That shade of gray is not becoming!”

I felt the strap go as I leaped,
Ruth told Jaxom.
I should have asked her which straps she used. I should have.

“It’s all right. You saved Sharra,” Jaxom repeated, never more grateful to his dragon than at this moment. “She still has to get to the Healer Hall. On Lamoth with G’lanar.”

Ruth eyed his rider, the orange of panic beginning to recede.
He’s all right for an Oldtimer,
Ruth allowed grudgingly.
I wish that Dunluth and S’gar were back.

“You know that pair can’t fly Thread now. G’lanor’s failing and Lamoth can barely chew his food anymore, much less firestone.” Jaxom didn’t think more of Ruth’s comment then but tactfully called to the elderly dragon and rider to convey Sharra to the Healer Hall. He stripped off the dangling harness and rolled it up until he could examine it.

He watched the three until Lamoth went
between
, Meer and Talla following without fuss. Then he retraced his steps to the Great Hall, while Brand and the understewards gestured for those attending the court to settle themselves.

“You never told her?” Brand murmured in Jaxom’s ear as they sat down.

“I will now. That was too close.” Jaxom saw that his fingers were trembling as he sorted the papers he had scattered in panic.

“Indeed and it was. Does this . . . obvious attempt on your life have anything to do with all the recent incidents?”

“I wish I knew.”

“You will speak to Benden now, won’t you?” Brand’s look was severe and implacable.

“I will,” Jaxom agreed with a faint smile, “because I know that you intend to.”

“So long as that’s understood.” Then in a louder voice, Brand went on. “The first case concerns the alleged misuse of Hold supplies . . .”

That evening Jaxom told Sharra every detail of the incident at Tillek Hold and the investigations that Brand had set in motion—investigations that had produced no results at all, for Pell professed himself to be quite content working in his father’s craft. No one had asked him about his Ruathan Bloodlines, he assured them. And he was only a second cousin at best.

After Sharra had torn strips out of him for “sparing” her anxiety, they went over the entries in the Hold visitors’ book and could find no one in the least bit suspicious. Ruth could not even be encouraging, for he was not always in his weyr when Jaxom was at home. He usually joined whichever dragon was on duty on the heights.

Even old Lamoth,
he added.
I scratch his itches; he scratches mine.

Both Sharra and Jaxom were due at Landing the next day for a meeting concerning the vandalism.

“If you don’t come clean about this incident, Jaxom, I will,” Sharra said, her expression fierce.

“That was about succession, Sharrie,” he objected. “The destruction is a different matter entirely.”

“How do you know that?” she demanded, clenching her fists on the armrest and shooting him an angry and reproachful glare. “Especially when you’re the leader for all of Aivas’s plans.”

“Me? The leader?” Jaxom stared at her in complete surprise.

“Well, you are, even if you don’t realize it.” Then her severe expression softened. “You wouldn’t.” She gave him a sweetly condescending smile. “You are, though. Take my word for it, and everyone on the planet knows it.”

“But I—I—”

“Oh, don’t get fussed, Jax. It’s one of your most endearing traits that you don’t get puffed up with importance and irritate people with an inflated self-consequence.”

“Who does that?” Jaxom rapidly thought of all those working so diligently with him.

“No one, but you’d have the right to.” She came to sit on his lap, coiling one arm about his neck and stroking his frown smooth. “That’s why you might well be a target for the dissidents. You certainly can’t hide from the fact that dissatisfaction about Aivas’s far too long-term project is increasing.”

Jaxom sighed, for it was but one more thing he had tried to play down. “I’m all too aware. In fact, it’s almost a relief to know they’ve come out in the open.”

Sharra stiffened in his arms. “You know who they are?”

He shook his head. “Sebell knows who’s likely to be involved, but none of his harpers have been able to produce any evidence. And you can’t really accuse a Lord Holder without pretty substantial proof.”

She murmured agreement and laid her head down on his shoulder. “You are being careful, aren’t you, Jax?” she asked in a low and anxious voice.

He hugged her to him. “More than you are. How many times have I told you to check the riding harness before you use it?” he asked. He met her outraged reaction with a grin.

When the meeting convened the next day in Landing, Aivas took charge, first ordering the building cleared of all but those immediately involved.

“While these incidents are clearly directed at the new technology you are developing,” Aivas said, “none, so far, threatens the success of the main drive of your efforts.”

“Not yet,” Robinton said darkly.

“I disagree,” Sharra said, and fixed Jaxom with a steady glance. When he hesitated, she added, “Someone’s trying to kill Jaxom.”

When the commotion subsided, Jaxom gave a full and concise report.

“That is disturbing,” Aivas said, raising his voice over the babel of questions. “Is not the white dragon protection against such attempts? Can he not prevent them?”

“Don’t get so upset,” Jaxom said, annoyed at the fuss, though he wanted to set his mind at rest over any further threat to Sharra. “Ruth knew the moment the leather went, and he saved Sharra’s life. I left those riding straps right out in the open, and hid the set I use. It was only—”

“He was trying to keep me from worrying,” Sharra said in an acid tone. “Brand is trying to find out who could have sliced the leathers. It was done very cleverly by someone who knew exactly what stress would be put on riding straps.”

“A dragonrider?” Lessa’s voice rose to a near shriek, and outside half the dragons on the heights bugled in alarm. “There isn’t a dragonrider on Pern who’d endanger Jaxom or Ruth!” And she glared at the young Lord Holder as if he were at fault. He glared right back.

“Nor any way a dragonrider could do so without his dragon’s awareness,” F’lar said emphatically.

“Nothing would be gained by—” Lessa faltered. “By disposing of Jaxom.”

“Could it have been as protest to my involvement with Thread?” Sharra asked.

Jaxom shook his head violently. “How could it? Who would know that you’d want to have Ruth fly you to the Healer Hall?”

“Since it is usually Jaxom who flies Ruth,” Aivas’s calm voice said, “it is logical to assume that he was the target. No further attempts on his life must be permitted.”