Anne McCaffrey - Tower & Hive 4 - Lyon's Pride

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indigenous life, the queens propagated, and when the new world

was full, more ships were sent out, the colonization repeated

until no planet, no species, least of all Man and Mrdini was safe.

The furry and courageous Mrdini had fought the Hivers for

centuries, many dying bravely in an attempt to save their own

worlds. Now Mrdini and Man combined to form the Alliance-

and Humankind had their own weapons to offer-the power and

might of the Talents who could not only communicate silently

with each other, but could project cargoes, ships and themselves

across the deeps of space.

The four children of Damia-Laria, Thian, Rojer and Zara-were

Primes amongst the Talents, and all their skills were desperately

needed, for the Hivers' terrible Sphere ships were still thrusting

through space, unfathomable, impenetrable, and carrying death in

their labyrinthine depths.

One of the world's leading science fiction

writers, Anne McCaffrey has won the Hugo

and Nebula awards for science fiction. Brought

up in the U. S. and now living in Ireland, she is

DRAGONSONG

DRAGONSINGER: HARPER OF PERN

THE WHITE DRAGON

DRAGONDRUMS

MORETA: DRAGONLADY OF PERN

NERILKA'S STORY

DRAGONSDAWN

THE RENEGADES OF PERN

ALL THE WEYRS OF PERN

Anne McCaffrey

Other books by Anne McCaffrey:

RESTOREE

THE SHIP WHO SANG

DECISION AT DOONA

GET OFF THE UNICORN

THE CRYSTAL SINGER

KILLASHANDRA

PEGASUS IN FLIGHT

THE ROWAN

The right of Anne McCaffrey to be identified as the author of this

work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the

All of the characters in this book are fictitious

and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,

is purely coincidental.

This book is dedicated to

Matthew Haveates

for all the hard work, effort and time that he expended

in nailing down in an excellent bibliography

all the works by this grateful author

(except this one which wasn't written yet!)

Prologue

The first incursion of the Nine Star League by the Hive entities occurred

at Deneb where Jeff Raven, and the undeveloped Talents of his planet,

staved off a vicious attack by three alien scout ships orbiting Deneb IV

ship. The male merge, with Jeff Raven as focus, then teleport the Hive

ship into Deneb's primary.

Nineteen years later, while recuperating on Deneb, Damia Gwyn-

Raven, another T-1 Talent and the daughter of the Rowan and Jeff Raven,

and Afra Lyon, a Capellan T-2, have `dreams' which they realize are being

implanted by the alien figures which appear in these dreams.

Contact is made with these visitors who call themselves the Mrdini.

Through dreams, the Mrdini explain that they have been defending

themselves and their colony worlds against the incursions of the Hive for

centuries. They had followed the Hive ship to Deneb and been fascinated

by its destruction without loss of life on the part of the defenders. They

offer an alliance.

In order to establish meaningful relationships, young `Dinis are placed

with human children, in the sound belief that early exposure to another

species facilitates understanding. Among those selected for this experi-

ment are the children of Afra and Damia, now Tower Prime for Iota Auri-

gae, a mining world. Their eight children all have `Dini pairs.

At sixteen, the eldest daughter, Laria, is sent to the `Dini home world

of Clarf to teach `Dini human language and to expand her own under-

standing of the adult vocabulary. At about this time, Mrdini scouts observe

three Hive ships which separate before the `Dini can catch up. But the ion

Thian Lyon, Laria's next brother, is seconded by Federation Telepor-

tation and Telepath (FT&T) to the AS Vadim to act as Prime with the track-

ing mission of four ships, two human, two Mrdini. It is his job to improve

communications and relations between the Allies, and to receive supplies

to keep the ships moving towards their objective.

Thian has always been interested in naval matters so he is well suited

to the assignment. Thian is accompanied by his `Dini pair, Mrg and Dpl

(Mur and Dip).

When the Vadim encounters a lifeless stationary derelict, it i sidenti-

fied as a Hive ship, though larger by another third than any previously en-

countered. It appears to have been destroyed by the heat of an expanding

nova. Three escape pods seem to have been used, though others were

destroyed in situ. An exploration detail of both `Dini and human is to ex-

amine the wreck. Encountering hostility from a crewman, Thian is nearly

killed on the Hive ship where he discovers undamaged Hiver eggs. These

are sent to be studied by the Alliance xenobiologists. Recovering from his

injury, Thian elects to continue with the Mrdini ship, the KLTL, as the

Mrdinis insist on being certain that a nova has destroyed the Hive home-

world.

Two of the ships in Thian's element are required to start the

derelict on its way to a point at which both Mrdini and human

reconstruct, in an effort to learn more about the enemy.

One of the escaped pods, bearing a live queen, is discovered by

the Bequing and captured, safely on tow behind the ship. Afra and his

son Rojer are sent out to `port the pod to the Heinlein Moon Station

where it can be safely examined in great detail. There is considerable

deba and many fictions: some wishing summarily to execute the queen,

others wishing to aproach it in an effort to establish communications

and knowledge of a species never before captured. The Mrdini are

particularly against its maintenance. Rojer, with his father acting as

focus, easily transfers queen and pod.

Back on Earth, the captured queen pod is secured with twenty four

hour surveillance. When she finally emerges, she is seen as a

mantis-type creature, eight limbed, and egg-heavy. Since no-one has

had much luck in incubating the eggs discovered on the derelict ship,

it is decided to deposit these with her.

There has been considerable objection to keeping the creature

alive but those who insist that knowing more about the enemy may be a

deciding factor in a final victory over its incursions manage to win

the argument.

She is kept alive. Food of all varieties is supplied and she is

seen to prefer vegetables or fruit. Her actions, when there are any,

much hotter temperature in her parturitional stage. Zara's

intercession saves the queen's life although, despite a hope that there

has been some empathy between human and Hiver, this bizarre inci-

dent is

not repeated nor can Zara explain why she acted as she did. As her

parents realize with some regret that Zara is not Tower material, even

though a Prime, Elizara, the T-1 medic for whom she was named, and

her

great-grandmother Isthia decide she may have healing Talents.

Meanwhile, one of the escaping Hive ships has been tracked to a

star system where it is obviously slowing down. Rojer is sent to the

Genessee to expedite messages for Squadron B - two human ships and

one

Mrdini which is hovering, undetectable, within an asteroid belt of the

system.

The crew watch as the arriving Hiver ship is attacked from moon

bases and planetary surfaces. When its ammunition is exhausted, the

queens flee in escape pods which are disintegrated. This shocks those

on the Genessee. As much as the `Dini have observed of their enemy

over the centuries, they are as surprised and stunned as their human

allies.

other two pods which evacuated from the Great Sphere before it was hit

by the nova shock wave. A waiting game is played on several levels

and

ethical problems of great magnitude must be addressed by both human

and

Mrdini civilizations.

During the course of the next few weeks, while Rojer waited for

his older brother, Thian, to replace him on board the Genessee, he

spent a great deal more time on the bridge than he had originally

thought he would.

Not only was Rojer Lyon the T-1 FT&T which linked Squadron B with

its home worlds and the means by which the three ships were kept

supplied by twice weekly importations of supplies, he was also able to

provide other services to the squadron not in his original brief. If

he was referred to as `the boy' or `the civilian he couldn't deny `boy'

as he was not quite sixteen although tall and well-muscled from an

active life on his home planet. He also had inherited the family

silver lock of hair which made it difficult for some to believe he

hadn't yet reached his majority. Most times these references to his

age or status were jocular. Sometimes envy or disparagement tinged

these epithets - until he `ported in the next supply drones when he was

tension away.

Since the squadron was on orders to hold a watching brief and to

take no direct action against the ancient enemy which occupied the

system, tedium became a problem. Even escape pod drills became a

welcome variation of daily routine. So, when Captain Osullivan asked

Rojer if he could `port the newly developed and undetectable probes to

discover what they could about the moons' defences and the three

spherical ships in docking orbit around the planet, he was quite

willing to oblige.

The activity was one he was well able for: in fact, it gave him no

lite satisfaction to know that `the boy/ civilian' had an ability

no-one else in the B Squadron had. He was also just as curious as

anyone else in the squadron to learn as much as possible about the

Hivers world. He had discreet knowledge from Gil and Kat that Captain

Prtglm of the KTTS would have preferred direct action to surveillance

and had been extremely upset by the `surveillance' order from the High

Council which had originated from Human Supreme Commander, Admi-

ral Tohl

Mekturian, and Mrdini Co-ordinator, Gktmglnt.

The squadron had been given a stunning display of the planet's

defences when they had observed the attack on the refugee Hive ship

few more pieces' amid the clutter that spun in disarray round the

world. Frankly Rojer thought such garbage was an appalling way to

discard rubbish.

Neither Captain Quacho of the sister ship, the Arapahoe, or

Captain Osullivan of the Genessee had expected that the refugee Hiver

ship would be attacked by its own species, its queens driven to escape

in the pods which had then been summarily disintegrated by the

planetary batteries. Captain Prtglm had announced that it was no more

than could be expected of Hivers.

Since Rojer's first assignment was to inspect the three sphere

ships in their docking orbit, tensions were diffused further when the

monitors proved that only one looked to be space-worthy. Quite

possibly it had been the ship which had transported the original

colonizing group. One of the other two was near completion, though it

had significant gaps, probably left open to receive equipment, while

the other was only partly hulled. That gave rise to further

speculation as to why the planet's defenders had `holed' the refugee

ship, rendering it unusable.

Somewhat reassured by that investigation which he had Rojer relay

in his daily message to Earth Prime, Captain Osullivan requested Rojer

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摘要：

indigenouslife,thequeenspropagated,andwhenthenewworldwasfull,moreshipsweresentout,thecolonizationrepeateduntilnoplanet,nospecies,leastofallManandMrdiniwassafe.ThefurryandcourageousMrdinihadfoughttheHiversforcenturies,manydyingbravelyinanattempttosavetheirownworlds.NowMrdiniandMancombinedtoformtheAll...

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