Dragonsdawn (10 page)

“For other ears to hear this beautiful liquid language, so it will be spoken even here on Pern, so that there will be one person alive who still speaks it fluently, even after all these centuries,” he always told those who asked. “Is it not a lovely language, lilting, melodic, a joy to the ear?”

An intuitive, highly trained mining engineer, Tarvi had a reputation of being able to trace elusive veins through many subterranean shifts and faults. He had joined the Pern expedition because all the glorious hidden “blood and tears of Mother Earth,” as he chose to describe the products of mining, had been pried from her bosom. He had prospected on First, too, but the alien metals had eluded his perceptions and so he had traveled across a galaxy to ply his trade in what he called his “declining years.”

As Tarvi Andiyar had only reached his sixth decade, that remark generally brought the reassurances he required from the kindly, or hoots of derision from those who knew his ploys. Sallah liked him for his wry and subtle wit, which he generally turned on his own shortcomings, and would never think to use to offend anyone else.

Since Sallah had first encountered him after coldsleep, he had not put even so much as an ounce more on his long, almost emaciated frame. “My family has had generations of gurus and mahatmas, all intent on fasting for the purification of their souls and bowels, until it has become a genetic imperative for all Andiyars to be of the thinness of a lathe. But I am strong. I do not need bulk and thews and bulging muscles. I am every bit as strong as the strongest sumo wrestler.” Everyone who had seen him work all day without respite beside Ozzie and Cobber knew that his claim was no idle boast.

Sallah found herself more attracted to the lanky engineer than to any of the other men in the colony. But if she could not impress on Drake Bonneau how little she cared for him, she was equally unable to get closer to Tarvi.

“What’s the tally, Tarvi?” she asked, nodding to Valli Lieb, who was already relaxing with a quikal drink.

One of the first things human settlers seemed to do on any new world was to make an immediate and intensive search for fermentables, and to devise an alcoholic beverage in the quickest possible time. Every lab at Landing, no matter what its basic function, had experimented with distilling or fermenting local fruits into potable beverages. The quikal still had been the first piece of equipment assembled when the mining expedition had set up its base camp, and no one had objected when Cobber and Ozzie had spent the first day producing imbibables from the fermented juices they had brought along. Svenda had berated them fiercely, while Tarvi and Sallah had merely carried on with the surveying. That first evening in the camp the drink had been more than a tradition: it was an achievement.

As Svenda entered the shelter, Sallah poured herself a glass of quikal. Valli moved over on the bench to make room for her. Valli looked freshly washed and in far better shape than when she had emerged from the brush that afternoon, covered with slime but bearing some very interesting samples for assay.

At that moment they heard the sound of the sled landing outside the shelter. Svenda craned her neck to watch Drake’s progress up from the pad; she barely moved as Ozzie and Cobber brushed past her to enter the room.

“What was the assay, Valli?” Sallah asked.

“Promising, promising,” the geologist said, her face glowing with achievement. “Bauxite has so many uses! This strike alone makes this expedition profitable.”

“However, your find—” Cobber bowed formally to Valli. “—will be far easier to work in an open pit.”

“Ha! We have enough to mine both,” Ozzie said. “High-grade ore’s always needed.”

“And,” Tarvi put in, joining them at the table though he refused the drink Svenda always offered him, “there is copper and tin enough within reasonable distance so that a mining town could profitably be established by this beautiful lake, with hydroelectric from the falls to power refineries, and a good waterway to transport the finished products to the coast, and thence to Landing.”

“So,” Svenda asked, “this site is viable?” She looked about her with an air of possession that struck Sallah as slightly premature. Charterers had first choice, before contract specialists.

“I shall certainly recommend it,” Tarvi said, smiling in the avuncular way he had that always annoyed Sallah. He was not old. He was very attractive, but if he kept thinking of himself as everyone’s uncle, how could she get him to really look at her? “I
have
recommended it,” he went on. “Especially as that slime into which you fell today, Valli, is high-yield mineral oil.” When the cheers had subsided, he shook his head. “Metals, yes. Petroleum, no. You all know that. To establish this as an effective colony, we must learn how to function efficiently at a lower technological level. That’s where the skill comes in, and how skills are remembered.”

“Not everyone agrees with our leaders on that score,” Svenda said, scowling.

“We signed the charter and we all agreed to honor it,” Valli said, quickly glancing at the others to see if anyone else concurred with Svenda.

“Fools,” was the blond girl’s derisive rejoinder. Slopping more quikal into her beaker, Svenda left the shelter.

Tarvi looked after her, his mobile face anxious.

“She’s all wind and piss,” Sallah said softly to him.

He raised his eyebrows, his dark eyes regarding her expressionlessly for a moment. Then his usual smile reappeared, and he patted her shoulder—unfortunately just as one would pat an obedient child. “Ah, and here is Drake with our supplies and news of our comrades.”

“Hey, where is everyone?” Drake demanded the moment he entered, well laden with bundles. “There’s more in the sled, too.”

Sallah dropped her head to hide her expression. “We’re celebrating, Drake,” Valli said, taking him a glass of quikal. “Two new finds, both of them rich and easily worked. We’re in business.”

“So, the Drake’s Lake Mining and Refinery is in business?”

Everyone laughed and, when he raised his glass in a toast, no one refuted the title.

“And I’ve news for you,” he said after he drank. “We’re all to go back to Landing three days from now.”

His announcement was met with great consternation. Grinning with anticipated pleasure, Drake raised his free hand for silence. “For a Thanksgiving.”

“For this? How’d they know?” Valli asked.

“That should be in the fall, after harvest,” Sallah said.

“Why?” was Tarvi’s simple response.

“For this auspicious start to our new life. The last load from the starships has reached Landing. We are officially landed.”

“Why make a fuss over that?” Sallah asked.

“Not everyone is a workaholic like you, my lovely Sallah,” Drake said, pinching her chin affectionately. Seeing that he meant to kiss her, Sallah ducked away, grinning to take away the sting of her rejection. He pouted. “Our gracious leaders have so decided, and it is to be the occasion of many marvelous announcements. All the exploratory teams are being called back, and a grand time will be had by all.”

Sallah was almost resentful. “We only got here last week!”

As an escape from several unpalatable but unprovable conclusions, she had taken on the assignment of flying the geologists and miners to the immense inland lake where the EEC survey had reported ore concentrations. She had hoped that distance might provide some objective answers to the events she had witnessed.

A week before, returning one evening to the
Mariposa
to look for a tape she had left on board during one of her early stints as Admiral Benden’s pilot, she had seen Kenjo emerging from the small rear service hatch, a brace of sacks in each hand. Curious, she had followed him as he hurried off into the shadows. Then he had seemed to disappear. She hid behind a bush and waited until he had reemerged empty-handed. Then she retraced his steps, and tried to find out where he had put his burden.

After some scrambling about, a couple of bruised shins, and a scraped hand, she had stumbled into a cave—and she was appalled to see the amount of fuel he had purloined. Tons of it, she judged, checking a tag for the quantity, all stashed in easily handled plasacks. The rock fissure was well hidden at the extreme end of the landing grid behind a clump of the tough thorny bushes that the farmers were clearing from the arable acres.

Two nights later, she had overheard a disturbing conversation between Avril and Stev Kimmer, the mining engineer whom Sallah had seen her with the day the landing site had been announced.

“Look, this island is stuffed with gemstones,” Avril was saying, and Sallah, dropping into the shadow of the delta wing of the shuttle, could hear the sound of plasfilm being unrolled. “Here’s the copy of the original survey report, and I don’t need to be a mining specialist to figure out what these cryptic symbols mean.” The plasfilm rippled as Avril jabbed her finger at various points. “A fortune for the taking!” There was a ring of triumph in her wheedling voice. “And I intend to take it.”

“Well, I grant you that copper, gold, and platinum are useful on any civilized world,” Stev began.

“I’m not talking industrial, Kimmer,” Avril said sharply. “And I don’t mean little stones. That ruby was a small sample. Here, read Shavva’s notes.”

Kimmer snorted in dismissal. “Exaggerations to improve her bonus!”

“Well, I have forty-five carats of exaggeration, man, and you saw it. If you’re not in this with me, I’ll find someone who can take a challenge.”

Avril certainly knew how to play her hook, Sallah thought grimly.

“That island’s not on the schedule for years,” Stev pointed out.

Avril gave a low laugh. “I can navigate more than spaceships, Stev. I’m checked out on a sled and I’m as free as everyone else on this mudball to look for the measly amount of stake acres I’m entitled to as a contractor. But you’re charter, and if we pool our allotments, we could own the entire island.”

Sallah heard Kimmer’s intake of breath. “I thought the fishers wanted the island for that harbor.”

“They only want a harbor, not an island. They’re fishermen, dolphineers. The land’s no use to them.”

He muttered, shifting his feet uneasily.

“Who’d know anyhow?” Avril demanded silkily. “We could go in, on the weekends, begin on the most accessible stuff, stash it in a cave. There’re so many that you could search for years and never find the right one. And we wouldn’t have to draw attention to our activities by staking it officially, unless we’re forced to.”

“But you said there was stuff in the Great Western Range.”

“And so there is,” Avril agreed with a little chuckle. “I also know where. A short hop from the island.”

“You’ve got it all worked out, haven’t you?” Kimmer’s voice had an edge of sarcasm.

“Of course,” Avril agreed easily. “I’m not going to live out the rest of my life in this backwater, not when I’ve discovered the means to live the style of life I very much prefer.” Again there was that rippling laugh and then a long silence, broken by the sound of moist lips parting. “But while I’m here, and you’re here, Kimmer, let’s make the most of it. Here and now, under the stars.”

Sallah had slipped away, both embarrassed and disgusted by Avril’s blatant sexuality. Small wonder Paul Benden had not kept the woman in his bed. He was a sensual man, Sallah thought, but unlikely to appreciate Avril’s crude abandon for long. Ju Adjai, elegant and serene, was far more suitable, even if neither appeared to be rushing a noticeable alliance.

But Avril’s voice had dripped with an insatiable greed. Had Stev Kimmer heard what Sallah had? Or had her enticement clouded his thinking? Sallah had always been aware of Pern’s gemstone wealth. The Shavva Ruby had been as much part of the legend of Pern as the Liu Nugget. Pern’s distance from the Federated Sentient Planets outweighed any major temptation its gem deposits might have held for the greedy. But if a person did manage to return to Earth with a shipload of gems, he or she would undoubtedly be able to retire to a sybaritic lifestyle.

Avril’s plot would hardly deplete Pern’s resources. What worried Sallah was
how
Avril would contrive the fuel for such a journey. Sallah knew that there was fuel left in the Admiral’s gig, the
Mariposa.
That was not common knowledge, but as a pilot, Avril would have access to that information. Judging by the computations Avril had made during her time on the
Yokohama,
Sallah knew that the woman could actually make it to an uninhabited system. But then what?

Sallah had liked surveying with Ozzie, Cobber, and the others, and she had been kept too tired to think of her dilemma. But with return to Landing imminent, her questions came flooding back. While she had no compunction about reporting Avril, she realized that she would also have to mention Kenjo’s activities. She wished she knew why Kenjo had held back fuel. Did he have some crazy notion about exploring the two moons? Or the wayward planet which was expected to cross Pern’s orbit in roughly eight years?

It was impossible to imagine Kenjo being involved with someone like Avril Bitra. Sallah was certain that the obvious animosity between the two was not feigned. She suspected that to Kenjo flying was both a religion and an incurable disease. But he did have all of Pern to fly over, and the packs that powered the colony’s air sleds would, if used circumspectly, allow for several decades of such flight.

What worried Sallah most was the possibility, however remote, of Avril’s discovering Kenjo’s cache. She had thought of confiding in one of the other pilots, but Barr Hamil could not handle such a problem, Drake would not take it seriously, and Jiro, Kenjo’s copilot, would never betray his superior. She did not know the others well enough to judge their reactions to such a disclosure. Go to the top, she told herself. This sort of thing is safest there. She was sure that Ongola would listen to her. And he would know whether or not to burden Paul and Emily with her suspicions.

Damn! Sallah’s fists clenched at her sides. Pern was supposed to be above petty schemes and intrigues. We’re all working to a common goal, she thought. A secure, bountiful future, without prejudice. Why must someone like Avril touch that beautiful vision with her sour egocentricity?