All the Weyrs of Pern (40 page)

Abruptly Meer and Farli appeared floating beside Ruth, blinking out a moment later only to reappear, hanging on to the spar with their claws, daintily keeping their flesh from contact with the absolute chill of the metal. Their eyes began to whirl into excited reds.

We’re not staying much longer. You’d better go in. You can’t hold your breaths as long as I can,
Ruth told the two fire-lizards.
They say space is much too big,
he said to Jaxom.
It is also colder than
between.
I think we will go in now. I feel the need to breathe.

Once again, before Jaxom could direct the proceeding, Ruth had executed his intention. Almost without any sensation of transfer, they were back on the bridge of the
Yokohama
.

That was splendid!
Ruth exclaimed, chirping happily.

Piemur’s complexion, Jaxom noted, was noticeably pale under his southern tan, and his expression was unusually grim for a man who traversed the Southern coasts for months with only a gold fire-lizard and a runt runnerbeast for company and never lost his sense of humor.

“Did you have to make Farli and Meer come?”

“They came of their own accord. Ruth says they think space is too big.” Jaxom laughed at their understatement. “Ruth thoroughly enjoyed it,” he went on, realizing even as he said it how inadequate the comment was. “And so did I,” he added staunchly, picturing again that vision of grandeur and immensity, “once I got used to it.” He undid his helmet and grinned down at Piemur. “No difference really, from
between
, and not really as dangerous. As Ruth pointed out, all he has to do is go
between
wherever he wants, so we’d never really be in any danger in space.”

“You sound to me a bit like a man convincing himself against the evidence of his own senses,” Piemur said, regarding his friend through narrowed eyes.

“Well, it does take getting used to,” Jaxom repeated, running his fingers through sweat-damp hair and grinning in what he hoped was a more convincing fashion. He wouldn’t admit to Piemur that he had been apprehensive, though he could now appreciate the sour smell of sweat rising from his suit.

“I wonder,” Piemur went on, “just how Sharra, and Lytol, and Lessa, and F’lar, and Robinton will view your latest escapade.”

“Once they’ve tried it, they’ll see that it’s not really dangerous. It’s just . . . a different aspect of travel on a dragon!”

Piemur let out an exaggerated sigh. “And if you and Ruth can do it, every other dragon and rider on Pern will feel required to follow your example. Is that what you wanted, Aivas?”

“The result is inevitable, given the friendly competitiveness of dragonriders.”

Piemur raised both hands in a gesture of resignation. “As I said, with a friend like Aivas, you don’t need enemies!”

Jaxom had let himself in for a series of harangues once they got back to Landing.

“True harper instincts!” he remarked acidly to Piemur, when the journeyman bellowed the news to Lytol on the duty desk. His old guardian turned pale and stern, and Jaxom had the satisfaction of seeing Piemur blanch. “Just let’s keep this all in perspective, shall we?” he added, striding to Lytol. “I’m all right, really I am. Ruth wouldn’t put me in danger any more than Aivas would. Someone!” He raised his voice. “I need some help here!”

Jancis came running down the hall, halted as she took in the scene, and darted into a side room. She was back in a moment with a hot bottle and poured Lytol a cup of klah.

“Just don’t stand there, Piemur, get some wine. Some of that fortified wine would be best,” she called after him as he scurried for the kitchen. “And just what have you been up to?” she demanded of Jaxom.

“Nothing as dangerous as springing news on—” Jaxom caught himself before saying “old man.” “—someone with no advance warning or preparation. I gather Aivas did not mention what he had planned for us today.”

“How could emptying fuel sacks be dangerous?” Jancis asked, her pretty eyes wide with astonishment.

“I’m perfectly all right,” Lytol insisted. After he had obediently taken several sips of the hot klah, his color had improved.

Piemur burst back into the hall, a wineskin in one hand and several glasses in the fingers of the other. He set these down on the table with more force than needed, but he could see that Lytol was recovering. “I need a drink as much as anyone else,” the harper said, splashing wine into the first glass so sloppily that Jancis, uttering a protest, took the skin from his hand. “Thanks. I needed that!” And Piemur downed the glass he had filled and held it out for a refill.

“You wait your turn,” she scolded.

Jaxom gestured for her to pour wine into Lytol’s cup and for the older man to drink again.

“Now, whatever made you attempt such a dangerous maneuver?” Lytol demanded.

Jaxom sighed. “It wasn’t dangerous. Aivas asked Ruth and me to do an EVA, and we did. Ruth and I were quite safe. He had his claws hooked on that framework around the engine section and I—I was hanging on to him.” Jaxom grinned at the consternation on Jancis’s face.

“Dragonriders!” In that tone, Jancis’s single word was a profound condemnation.

“Wouldn’t you agree, Lytol, that a dragon won’t endanger his ride? That a dragon can take himself and his rider anywhere
between
to safety?” Suddenly Jaxom realized that this was the first time in many Turns that he had asked Lytol to verify draconic abilities. He could see the muscles along his guardian’s jaw clench, and wondered if he had overstepped the bounds of tact.

Lytol exhaled. “On occasion I have thought that Ruth acted too much on impulse, but you, Jaxom, have always been cautious; thus the two of you balanced each other. He would no more endanger you than you would put his life in jeopardy. But your extravehicular activity should have been discussed beforehand.”

Piemur shot Jaxom a righteous glare, and Jaxom shrugged.

“We did it, and we have proved that it can be done with no harm.”

I am going to sleep in the sun,
Ruth told him.
You’re going to be talking for hours. I’m glad we didn’t talk about doing it first. It could have taken days to arrive at permission. We might never have gotten to do it.

Jaxom did not repeat Ruth’s less than diplomatic remarks or his appraisal of talk to come—talk that grew into harangue as Lessa, F’lar, Robinton, and D’ram were informed of the EVA.

“One more incidence of Aivas’s obsession,” Lessa said, not at all pleased to be summoned to the hastily convened meeting.

“I wish you would all address the meat of the exercise,” Jaxom said with more irritation than he had ever before betrayed in the Benden Weyrleaders’ presence. “The important fact is that it can be done, has been done, and that Aivas says that EVA by dragons and riders is crucial to his plan.”

They were not in the Aivas chamber, but in the conference room.

“Why on earth would he want dragons clinging to that bloody framework, thousands of miles above Pern?” F’lar demanded.

“To accustom dragons to being in space,” Jaxom replied.

“That’s not all,” Robinton said in a slow, thoughtful tone.

“No.” D’ram sat erect and alert. “The dragons must move the
Yokohama
.”

“Why?” Lessa asked. “What good would that do?”

“To ram it at the Red Star,” D’ram said.

Jaxom, Piemur, and F’lar shook their heads.

“Why not?” Lessa demanded. “That must be why he wanted the fuel in the tanks.”

Jaxom smiled wryly at her ignorance. “That drop of fuel would not explode on impact, and ramming the Red Star with the
Yokohama
, ponderous as it is, would not alter its orbit one bit. But I grant you, he needs the dragons to move something.”

“Let’s ask him!” Robinton suggested, standing and starting for the door. When the others did not move, he turned back at them. “Well, don’t we
want
to know?”

“I’m not so sure I do,” Lessa murmured, but she rose and followed the others as they trooped down the hallway to Aivas’s room.

Jaxom, Jancis, and Piemur closed the doors into the various rooms occupied by students and, when all were inside Aivas’s chamber, that door was closed. Piemur leaned back against it.

“What do the dragons have to move and where?” F’lar asked with no preamble.

“So you have perceived part of the plan, Weyrleader.”

“You mean to use the
Yokohama
to ram the planet?” Lessa asked, still sure that she had the answer.

“That would be totally ineffectual, and the
Yokohama
is needed as a vantage point.”

“Then what?” F’lar insisted.

A picture came up of the Red Star, with details gleaned from Wansor’s patient study of the face the planet presented its viewers. A deep chasm could be seen running diagonally across one hemisphere—an unusual feature caused, Aivas had said, by an earthquake of incredible force.

“You all see this fracture. It is entirely possible that the chasm goes deep into the planet. It is probable that an explosion of sufficient magnitude at this point would have the desired effect of altering the planet’s orbit. Especially when the planet is already perturbed by its proximity to the fifth satellite of this system.” The visual altered to the familiar diagram of the Rukbat system. “Ordinarily an explosion of this magnitude would be impossible to effect. Not only because of the difficulty of amassing the elements required to make such a blast, but because it is nearly impossible to prevent chaotic elements from entering the equations of motion of the Red Star and even of the other planets.

“It is apparent from Master Wansor’s investigations that the fifth planet is devoid of atmosphere and life. It is also at its farthest distance from Pern. There will be some perturbations throughout the system, but these have been calculated as negligible in the face of the desired result, the relief from any further incursions of Thread on this planet.”

For a very long moment, no one spoke.

“We have no such exploding capability,” Jaxom said.

“You do not. The
Yokohama
, the
Bahrain
, and the
Buenos Aires
do.”

“What?” F’lar demanded angrily.

“The engines,” Jaxom said. “The bloody engines. Oh, you are devious, Aivas!”

“But the engines are dead!” “There’s not enough fuel!” “How would we get them there?” Everyone tried to be heard.

“The engines are dormant,” Aivas said over the uproar. “But it is the material in the engines that will provide the explosive power. If antimatter is allowed to contact matter without controls, the result will suit your needs.”

“Now wait a moment—” Jaxom called for order over the babel of questions. “You specifically stated in those engineering lectures to Fandarel that the antimatter is held out of contact with matter in the densest metals Mankind has ever forged. We don’t have the equipment to penetrate those casings. Or is Fandarel working on something we don’t know about?”

There was a little pause, and Jaxom found himself agreeing with Master Robinton that Aivas seemed to laugh to himself sometimes.

“It is true that the safety factors built into the great interstellar engines were immensely sophisticated, and that schematics for their design are not available in the engineering data,” Aivas said at last. “But it has long been the case that complex things can be attacked best by simple methods. This facility must also obey the stipulation that you are not to be instructed in levels of technology beyond that of your ancestors. Fortunately you already have an agent that will provide the penetration. You have used it in every Fall for many centuries.”

“HNO
₃
!” Piemur said in a gasp.

“Correct. The metal casings of the matter/antimatter drives are not impervious to its erosive effect.” The visual of the
Yokohama
’s engine shaft reappeared, but now there were large extraneous tanks placed on the drive cube. “It will take time, which is why there is a wide window of two weeks for this part of the activity, but the acid will penetrate the casings, and once the magnetic chamber is broached, matter and antimatter will self-destruct, causing the cataclysmic explosion necessary to shift the Red Star’s orbit. Any further questions?”

Jaxom broke the silence that time. “So all the Weyrs of Pern will be needed to take the engines, not the ships,
between
to the Red Star. To drop them into the chasm?”

“To drop them might displace the HNO
₃
tanks.”

“How heavy are those engines?” F’lar asked.

“Their mass is the one weak point of the plan. However, you have constantly stated that the dragons can carry that which they think they can carry.”

“Correct, but no one has ever asked them to carry engines!” F’lar replied, awed by the scale of the loads.

Jaxom began to chuckle and received offended stares. “That’s why the bronzes have been exercising in free-fall—to get them used to things being so much lighter in space. Right, Aivas?”

“That is correct.”

“So if we don’t tell them how much those bloody things weigh . . .”

“Now, really, Jaxom,” F’lar began.

“No, really, F’lar,” Jaxom replied. “Aivas is applying a valid psychological tactic. I think it’ll work. Especially if
we
think it can work. Right?” He gave F’lar a challenging look.

“Jaxom makes a good point,” Lytol said. Beside him, D’ram nodded accord. “With many dragons, all working together . . . it could be done. No one dragon bearing more than his fair share of the burden, everyone believing that he can succeed. That framework is convenient. Each dragon will be able to grip the load.”

“With padding on their feet to reduce the effects of space-cold metal,” Aivas added.

“And take that much weight
between
?” Lessa asked, still skeptical.

“You know,” F’lar said, rubbing his jaw speculatively. “I think they could do it—if we think they can. Tell me how Ruth reacted to being in space, Jaxom.”

“Wait a minute,” Lessa said, holding up her hand, her brow wrinkled in concentration. “How long would such a maneuver take? We could get an engine
between
, but to go that distance
between
. . .”