Anne McCaffrey - Pern 14 - Red Star Rising aka Dragon's Eye

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Telgar Weyr, Fort Hold 62

Fort Hold 72

Telgar Weyr 82

Fort Hold and Bitran Borders - Early Winter VI 88

High Reaches, Boll Holds, Ista, Benden Weyrs, Ista Hold, High

Reaches, Fort and Telgar Holds 97

The Trials at Telgar and Benden Weyrs 104

High Reaches and Fort Holds 115

Bitra Hold and Telgar Weyr 121

Turn 5 End at Fort Hold and Telgar Weyr 131

New Year 258 After L(anding) - College, Benden Hold, Telgar Weyr

143

Cathay, Telgar Weyr, Bitra Hold, Telgar 151

Threadfall 165

destroy the silvery invaders. But, incredibly, one Lord Holder refuses to

believe the Thread will fall again, and he may endanger the entire planet.

When such aspects were harmonious, and not distorted by conjunctions

with other planets in the system, the wanderer brought in a life form which

sought to bridge the space gap to the more temperate and hospitable

planet.

The initial losses the colonists suffered from the voracious mycorrhizoid

organism that fell on them were staggering.

They had divorced themselves from their home planet, Earth, and had

cannibalized the colony ships, the Yokohama, the Bahrain and the Buenos

Aires, so they would have to improvise with what they had.

Their first need was an aerial defence against the Thread, as they

named this menace. Using highly sophisticated bio-engineering techniques,

they developed a specialized variant of a Pernese life form which had two

unusual, and useful, characteristics: the so-called fire-lizards could digest a

phosphine bearing rock in one of their two stomachs and, belching forth the

resultant gas, create a fiery breath which reduced Thread to harmless char.

The second of their unusual qualities were the ability to teleport and an

empathy which allowed limited understanding with humans. The bio-

engineered "dragons" - so called because they resembled the Earth's

mythical creatures - were paired at hatching with an empathic human,

forming a symbiotic relationship of unusual depth and mutual respect.

During this interval, the dragons multiplied and each successive gen-

eration became a little larger than the last, although optimum level would

take many, many more generations to reach. And the humans spread out

across the northern continent, creating holds to live in, and halls in which to

train young people in skills and professions. Sometimes folks even forgot

that they lived on a threatened planet.

However, in both Holds and Weyrs, there were masses of reports, jour-

nals, maps and charts to remind the Lords and Weyrleaders of the prob-

lem: and much advice to assist their descendants when next the rogue

planet approached Pern and how to prepare for the incursion.

This is what happened two hundred and fifty-seven years later.

Early Autumn at Fort's Gather

Dragons in squadrons wove, and interwove sky trails, diving and climb-

ing in wings, each precisely separated by the minimum safety distance so

that occasionally the watchers thought they saw an uninterrupted line of

dragons as the close order drill continued.

The skies above Fort Hold, the oldest of the human settlements on the

northern continent, were brilliantly clear on this early autumn day: that spe-

cial sort of clarity and depth of colour that their ancestors in the New Eng-

land sector of the North American continent would have instantly identified.

broidered border of his best tunic had scratched the skin. Actually, he had

had a few heart-stopping moments during some of the manoeuvres, but he

would never mention that aloud. The dragon riders were far too full of

themselves as it was, without pandering to their egos and an inflated sense

of importance: constantly appearing at his Hold and handing him lists of

what hadn't been done and must be done before Threadfall. Chalkin

snorted. Just how many people were taken in with all this twaddle? The

storms last year had been unusually hard, but then that wasn't in itself un-

expectable, so why were hard storms supposed to be a prelude to a Pass?

Winter meant storms.

And this preoccupation with the volcanoes going off. They did periodi-

cally anyway, sort of a natural phenomenon, if he remembered his science

orientation correctly. So what if three or four were active right now? That

did not necessarily have to do with the proximity of a spatial neighbour! And

he was not going to require guards to freeze themselves keeping an east-

erly watch for the damned planet. Especially as every other Hold was also

on the alert. So what if it orbited near Pern? That didn't necessarily mean it

was close enough to be dangerous, no matter how the ancients had gone

on about cyclical incursions.

The dragons were just one more of the settlers' weird experiments, al-

tering an avian species to take the place of the aircraft they had once had.

didn't the brainy ones develop a new type of air-worthy vessel? A vessel

that didn't expect to be thanked for doing its duty!

He glanced down at the wide roadway where the gather tables and

stalls were set up. His were empty; even his gamesters were watching the

sight. He'd have a word with them later. They should have been able to

keep some customers at the various games of chance even with the

dragon rider display. Surely everyone had seen that by now.

Still, the races had gone well and, with every one of the wager-takers

his operators, he'd have made a tidy profit from his percentage of the bets.

As he made his way back to his seat, he saw that wine chillers had been

placed at every table. He rubbed his be ringed fingers together in anticipa-

tion, the black Istan diamonds flashing as they caught sunlight. The wine

was the only reason he had been willing to come to this Gathering; and

he'd half suspected Hegmon of some prevarication in the matter. An effer-

vescent wine, like the champagne one heard about from old Earth, was to

have its debut. And, of course, the food would be marvellous too, even if

the wine should not live up to its advance notice. Paulin, Fort Hold's Lord,

had lured one of the best chefs on the continent to his kitchens and the

evening meal was sure to be good: if it didn't turn sour in his stomach while

he sat through the obligatory meeting afterwards. Chalkin had bid for the

clear intention of buying cases of the vintage. But Hegmon had refused to

see him. Oh, his eldest son had been apologetic - something about a criti-

cal time in the process requiring Hegmon's presence in the caverns - but

the upshot was that Chalkin couldn't even get his name put down on the

purchase list for the sparkling wine. Since Benden Weyr was likely to get

the lion's share of it, Chalkin had to keep in good with the Benden

Weyrleaders so that, at the Hatching which was due to occur in another few

weeks, he'd be invited and could drink as much of their allotment of wines

as he could.

More than one way to skin a wherry!

He paused to twirl one of the bottles in its ice nest. Almost perfectly

chilled. Riders must have brought the ice in from the High Reaches for

Paulin. Whenever he needed some, he couldn't find a rider willing to do

him, Bitra's Lord Holder, such a simple service. Humph!

But of course, certain Bloodlines always got preferential treatment.

Rank didn't mean as much as it should, that was certain!

He was surreptitiously inspecting the label of a bottle when there was a

sudden, startled intake of fearful breaths from the watchers, instantly fol-

lowed by a wild cheer. Looking up, he saw he had just missed some sort of

dangerous manoeuvre Ah, yes, they'd done another mid-air rescue. He

saw a bronze dragon veering from under a blue who was miming a

was purportedly supposed to start falling again. They really ought to be

consistent! Of course, tunnelling into the cliff would take more time than

building outside. But too many folks preached one thing and practised an-

other.

Chalkin grunted to himself, wondering acidly if the architects had got

Weyrleader approval for the design. Thread! He snorted again and wished

that Paulin, chatting so cosily with the two Benden Holders as he and his

wife escorted them back to the head table, would hurry up.

He was dying to sample the bubbly white.

Rattling his fingers on the table, he awaited the return of his host and

the opening of the tempting bottles in the cooler.

K'vin, bronze Charanth's rider, put his lips close to the ear of the young

blue rider sitting in front of him.

"Next time wait for my signal!" he said.

P'tero only grinned, giving him a backward glance, his bright blue eyes

merry.

"Knew you'd catch me", he bellowed back. "Too many people watching

to let me swing and give Weyr secrets away!" Then P'tero waved encour-

agingly at Ormonth, who was now flying anxiously at Charanth's wingtip.

"I was in no danger," P'tero repeated. "I used brand-new straps and he

watched me braid'em".

"Hah!" As every rider knew, dragons had gaps in their ability to correlate

cause and effect. So Ormonth would scarcely have connected the new

straps with his rider's perfect safety.

"Oh, thanks," the rider added as K'vin snapped one of his own straps to

P'tero's belt. Not that they would be doing more than landing, but K'vin

wished to make a point of safety to P'tero.

While K'vin approved of courage, he did not appreciate recklessness,

especially if it endangered a dragon this close to the beginning of

Threadfall. Careful supervision had kept his Weyr from losing any dragon

partners and he intended to maintain that record.

Spilling off his blue before K'vin had passed the word was taking a to-

tally unnecessary risk. Fortunately, K'vin had seen P'tero dive.

His heart had lurched in his chest, even if he knew P'tero was equipped

with the especially heavy and long harness as a fail-safe. Even if he and

Charanth had not accurately judged the mid-air rescue, those long straps

would have saved the blue rider from falling to his death.

Today's manoeuvre had been precipitous instead of well-executed.

And, if Charanth had not been as adept on the wing, P'tero might be

nursing broken ankles or severe bruising as a result of his folly.

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摘要：

TelgarWeyr,FortHold62FortHold72TelgarWeyr82FortHoldandBitranBorders-EarlyWinterVI88HighReaches,BollHolds,Ista,BendenWeyrs,IstaHold,HighReaches,FortandTelgarHolds97TheTrialsatTelgarandBendenWeyrs104HighReachesandFortHolds115BitraHoldandTelgarWeyr121Turn5EndatFortHoldandTelgarWeyr131NewYear258AfterL(a...

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Anne McCaffrey - Pern 14 - Red Star Rising aka Dragon's Eye

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