Dragonsdawn (39 page)

“Couldn’t you have waited for me? Polenth and I were just behind you. You scared the living wits out of me for a moment, you know.”

Sean clasped Dave’s arm in tacit apology. “It was what you’d said about being forgotten, Dave. I just had to try, but I didn’t want to endanger anyone else in case I was wrong.” Sean caught Sorka frowning at him and pretended to flinch. “I was all right, love. You
know
that! But—” He glared warningly at the others seated on the rugs around him. “We’ve got to go about this in a logical and sensible way, folks. Flying a dragon’s not like riding a horse.”

His glance held Nora Sejby’s. She certainly was not the sort of person he would have said would Impress a dragon, but Tenneth had chosen her, and they would have to make the best of it. Nora was accident-prone, and Tenneth had already hauled her partner out of the land and prevented her from falling into the crevices and holes that pitted the hills around the Catherine Caves. On the other hand, Nora had been sailing across Monaco Bay since she was strong enough to manage a tiller and she had checked out on both sleds and skimmers.

“For one thing, there’s all this open air around you. Falling is down onto a hard and injurious surface,” Sean made appropriate gestures, smacking one hand into the palm of the other and startling Nora with the noise.

“So?” Peter Semling said. “We use a saddle.”

“A dragon’s back is full of wing,” Sorka replied dryly.

“You ride forward, sitting your butt in the hollow between the last two ridges,” Sean went on, grabbing for a sheet of opaque film and a marker. He made a quick sketch of a dragon’s neck and shoulders, and the disposition of two straps. “The rider wears a stout belt, wide like a tool belt. You strap yourself in on either side, and the safety harness goes over your thigh for added security. And we’re going to need special flying gear and protective glasses—the wind made my eyes water, and I wasn’t even aloft all that long.”

“What did it really feel like, Sean?” Catherine Radelin asked, her eyes shining in anticipation.

Sean smiled. “The most incredible sensation I’ve ever had. Beats flying a mechanical all hollow, I mean . . .” He raised his fists, tensing his arms into his chest and giving his hands an upward thrusting turn of indescribable experience. “It’s . . . it’s between you and your dragon and . . .” He swung his arms out. “And the whole damned wide world.”

He made a less dramatic presentation at the impromptu meeting where he was asked to account for such risk-taking. He would rather have reported privately, to maybe Admiral Benden or Pol or Red, but he found himself facing the entire council.

“Look, sir, the risk was justified,” he said, looking quickly from the admiral to Red Hanrahan. His father-in-law had been both furious and hurt by what he considered a betrayal. Sean had not anticipated that. “We were almost to the ridge when I suddenly knew I had to prove that dragons could fly us. Sir, all the planning in the world sometimes doesn’t get you to the right point at the right time.”

Admiral Benden nodded wisely, but the startled expression on Jim Tillek’s blunt face and Ongola’s sudden attention told Sean that he had said something wrong.

“I could risk my own neck, sir, but no one else’s,” he went on, “so we’ve got to take our time getting some of the other riders ready to fly. I’ve done a lot of riding and sled-driving, but flying a dragon’s not the same thing, and I’m not about to go out again until Carenath’s got some safety harness on him. And me.”

Joel Lilienkamp leaned forward across the table. “And what will that require, Council?”

Sean grinned, more out of relief than amusement. “Don’t worry, Lili, what I need is what Pern’s got plenty of—hide. I found a use for all that tanned wher skin you’ve got in Stores. It’s plenty tough enough and it’ll be easier on dragons’ necks than the synthetic webbing used in sled harnesses. I’ve made some sketches.” He unfolded the diagrams, much improved on by his discussions with the other dragonmates. “These show the arrangement of straps and the belts we’ll need, the flying suits, and we can use some of those work goggles plastics turns out.”

“Flying suits and plastic goggles,” Joel repeated, reaching for the drawings. He examined them with a gradually less jaundiced attitude.

“As soon as I can rig the flying harness for Carenath, Admiral, Governor, sirs,” Sean said, politely including all assembled and adding a tentative grin at Cherry Duff’s deep scowl, “you can see just how well my dragon flies me.”

“You were informed, weren’t you,” Paul Benden said, and Sean saw him rubbing the knuckles of his left hand, “that there’re new eggs on the Hatching Sands?”

Sean nodded. “Like I told you, Admiral, eighteen are not enough to take up much slack. And it’ll be generations before there’s enough.”

“Generations?” Cherry Duff exclaimed in her raspy voice, swinging in accusation on the veterinary team. “Why weren’t we told it’d take generations?”

“Dragon generations,” Pol answered, smiling slightly at her misinterpretation. “Not human.”

“Well, how long’s a dragon generation?” she demanded, still affronted. She shot a disgusted scowl at Sean.

“The females should produce their first independent clutches at three. Sean has proved that a male dragon can fly at just under a year—”

Cherry brought both hands down on the table, making a sharp, loud noise. “Give me facts, damn it, Pol.”

“Then, four to five years?”

Cherry pursed her lips in annoyance, a habit that made her look even more like a dried prune, Sean thought idly.

“Humph, then I’m not likely to see squadrons of dragons in the sky, am I? Four to five years. And when will they start flaming Thread? That was their design function,, wasn’t it? When will they start being useful?”

Sean was fed up, “Sooner than you think, Cherry Duff. Open a book on it, Joel.” With that he strode from the office. It galled him to the bone to have to take a skimmer back to Sorka and the others who waited to hear what had happened.

Ten days later, when Joel Lilienkamp himself brought them the requisitioned belts, straps, flying kit, and goggles, flight training on the Dragons of Pern began in earnest.

Landing had grown accustomed over the past year and a half to the grumblings and rumblings underfoot. On the morning of the second day of the fourth month of their ninth spring on Pern, early risers sleepily noted the curl of smoke, and the significance did not register.

Sean and Sorka, emerging from their cave with Carenath and Faranth, also noticed it.

Why does the mountain smoke?
Faranth wanted to know.

“The mountain
what
?” Sorka demanded, waking up enough to absorb her dragon’s words. “Jays, Sean, look!”

Sean gave a long hard look. “It’s not Garben. It’s Picchu Peak. Patrice de Brogue was wrong! Or was he?”

“What on earth do you mean, Sean?” Sorka stared at him in amazement.

“I mean, there’s been all this talk of basement rock, and shifting Landing to a more practical base, with a special accommodation for dragons and us . . .” Sean kept his eyes on the plume curling languidly up from the peak, dwarfed beside the mightier Garben but certainly as ominous. He shrugged. “Not even Paul Benden can make a volcano erupt on cue. Come, we can get breakfast at your mother’s. Let’s stuff Mick in his flying suit and go. Maybe your dad will have received some official word.” He scowled. “We’re always the last ones to get news. I’ve got to convince Joel to release at least one comm unit for the caves.”

Sorka got their wriggling son into his fleece-lined carrying sack before she shrugged into her jacket and crammed helmet and goggles onto her head. Sean carried Mick out to Faranth. With an ease grown of practice, Sorka ran the two steps to her dragon’s politely positioned foreleg and vaulted astride. Sean handed her a protesting bundle to sling over her back and then turned to mount the obliging Carenath.

The dragons leapt upward from the ledge before the cave, giving themselves enough airway to take the first full sweep. Over the last few weeks, dragon backs had strengthened and muscled up. They had managed flights of several hours’ duration. Riders, even Nora Sejby—Sean had contrived a special harness that made her feel securely fastened to Tenneth—were improving. Long discussions with Drake Bonneau and some of the other pilots who had both fighter experience in the old Nathi War and plenty fighting Thread had improved the dragonriders’ basic understanding of the skills needed. And practice had encouraged them.

Three weeks before, Wind Blossom’s latest attempt had hatched. The four creatures who had survived had not been Impressed by the candidates awaiting them, although the creatures ate the food presented. Indeed, the poor beasts turned out to be photophobic, but Blossom, much to the disgust of Pol and Bay and against their advice, had insisted on special darkened quarters for the beasts, for the purpose of continued examination of that variant.

Even the fire-lizards were more useful, Sean thought, as the two fairs erupted into the air about them, bugling a morning welcome in their high, sweet voices. Now, if the dragons could only prove capable of that, Sean thought enviously. But how do you teach a dragon to do something you do not yourself understand? The dragons got smarter every day and they were fast learners, but it was impossible to explain telekinesis to them or ask them to teleport the way the fire-lizards did. Kitti Ping had called it an instinctive action. Nowhere in the genetics program that Sean had memorized did he find any words of wisdom on how to instruct a dragon to use his innate instinct.

And it was not the sort of exercise one did on a spontaneous basis. First, they would try to chew firestone and make flame. They knew where the fire-lizards got the phosphinebearing rock; Sean had even watched the browns and Sorka’s Duke selecting the pieces to chew and the careful way they concentrated while they chewed. The fire-lizards had learned to produce flame on demand, so Sean felt easy about teaching the dragons that. But going between one place and another . . . that was scary.

Flame of a different kind obsessed Landing’s counselors three days later.

“What people want to know, Paul, Emily,” Cherry Duff said, turning her penetrating stare from admiral to governor, “is how much warning you bad of Picchu’s activity.”

“None,” Paul said firmly. Emily nodded. “Patrice de Broglie’s reports have not been altered. There’s been a lot of volcanic activity all along the ring, as well as the new volcano. You’ve felt the same shakes I have. Landing and all stakeholders have been apprised of every technical detail. This is as much of an unpleasant surprise to us as it is to you!” Then Paul’s stern expression altered. “By all that’s holy, Cherry, all that black ash gave me as much a fright yesterday as it did everyone else.”

“So?” Cherry demanded, her attitude unsoftened.

“Picchu is officially an active volcano!” Paul spread his hands, looking past Cherry to Cabot Francis Carter and Rudi Shwartz. “And officially, it’s likely to continue to spout smoke and ash. Patrice and his crew are up at the crater now. He’ll give a full public report this evening at Bonfire Square.”

Cherry gave him a long hard stare, her black eyes piercing, her face expressionless. Then she snorted. “I believe him, but that doesn’t mean I like it—or the obvious prognosis. Landing moves, doesn’t it?”

Emily Boll nodded solemnly.

“And your next statement,” Cherry went on in her hard voice, “is that you have prepared a place for us!”

Paul burst into guffaws, though Emily muffled her laughter when she saw how such levity affronted Rudi Shwartz.

“You had no right,” Paul said, controlling his laughter, “to steal that line from Emily, Cherry Duff! Damn it, we were working on the official announcement when you barged in. And you fardling well know we’ve been rushing to complete the northern fort. Landing couldn’t continue much longer as a viable settlement even if Picchu hadn’t started showering us with ash. That doesn’t, of course, mean,” he put in quickly, holding up his hand to forestall Cabot’s explosion, “that stake-holders will be asked to leave their lands. But the administration of this planet will have to be in the most protected situation we can contrive. Plainly Landing has outlived its usefulness. It was never intended as a permanent installation.”

Emily took up the discussion then, passing to each of the delegation copies of the directive she and Paul had been drafting. “The transfer is being organized much as our space journey here. We have the technicians and the equipment to make a northern crossing as easy as possible. We have enough fuel to power two of the shuttles to transport equipment too bulky to fit on any of Jim’s ships. It’ll be a one-way trip for the shuttles: they’ll be dismantled for parts. When there’s time, we can send a crew back to scavenge the other three. Joel Lilienthal has been working on priority shipments for the big sleds, taking as few as possible from the fighting strength.”

“Speaking of fighting strength, has that young upstart taught them any new tricks?” Cherry demanded imperiously, looking down her long nose at Paul. “Speaking of eruptions, as we were, how are those beasts of Kitti Ping’s progressing? I see them flitting around all the time. Mighty pretty they look in formation, but are they any good in battle?”

“So far,” Paul began cautiously, “they’ve matured well beyond the projections. The young Connells have proved splendid leaders.”

“They were the best ground-crew leaders I had,” Cabot Carter said, disgruntled.

“They’ll be superior as aerial fighters,” Paul went on, overriding the legist’s unspoken criticism. “Self-perpetuating, too, unlike sleds and skimmers.”

“D’you know that for sure?” Cherry demanded in her raspy voice. “Blossom’s experiments aren’t all that successful.”

“Her grandmother’s are,” Paul replied with a firm confidence he hoped would reassure Cherry. “According to Pol and Bay, the males are producing their equivalent to sperm. Genetic analysis has started but will take months. We might have direct proof of dragon fertility by then, as the gold females mature later.” Paul tried not to sound defensive, but he wanted to counter the very bad publicity surrounding Wind Blossom’s brutes. Especially when the young dragonriders were trying so very hard to perfect themselves for combat against Thread. Though it was not public knowledge, Sean and his group had already served as messengers and had transported light loads efficiently.