Anne McCaffrey - Pern 03 - Dragon Song

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derer brought it close to its stepsister at perihelion.

Then, the spore life, which proliferated at an incredible rate on the Red

Star's wild surface, spun off into space and bridged the gap to Pern. The

spores fell as thin threads on the temperate, hospitable planet, and de-

voured anything organic in their way, seeking to establish burrows in Pern's

warm earth from which to set out more voracious Threads.

The colonists suffered staggering losses in terms of people scored to

death, and in crops and vegetation wiped out completely. Only fire killed

Thread on land: only stone and metal stopped its progress. Fortunately it

drowned in water, but the colonists could scarcely live on the seas.

The resourceful men cannibalized their transport ships and, abandoning

the open southern continent where they had touched down, set about

making the natural caves in the northern continent habitable. They evolved

a two-phase plan to combat Thread. The first phase involved breeding a

highly specialized variety of a life-form indigenous to their new world. The

"dragons" (named for the mythical Terran beast they resembled) had two

extremely useful characteristics: they could get from one place to another

instantly by teleportation, and when they had chewed a phosphine-bearing

rock, they could emit a flaming gas. Thus the flying dragons could char

Thread to ash midair and escape its ravages themselves.

Since the Red Star rose in the East, it was decided to start a holding in

the eastern mountains, provided suitable accommodations could be found.

The ancient cave-pocked cones of extinct volcanoes in the Benden moun-

tains proved so suitable to the dragonmen and women that they searched

and found several more throughout Pern, and left Fort Hold and Ruatha

Hold for the pastoral colonists, the holders.

However, such projects took the last of the fuel for the great stonecut-

ters, originally thought to be used for the most diffident mining since Pern

was light on metals, and any subsequent holds and weyrs were Hand-

hewn.

The dragons and their riders in their weyrs, and the people in the cave

holdings, went about their separate tasks and each developed habits that

became custom, which solidified into tradition as incontrovertible as law.

By the Third Pass of the Red Star, a complicated social, political and

economic structure had developed to deal with the recurrent evil of Thread.

There were now six Weyrs, pledged to protect all Pern, each Weyr having a

geographical section of the northern continent literally under its wings. The

rest of the population, the Holds, agreed to tithe to support the Weyrs,

since these fighters, these dragonmen, did not have any arable land in their

volcanic homes, nor did they have time for fanning while protecting the

planet from Passes of the Thread.

generic pool and keep the Holds from dangerous inbreeding. Such a prac-

tice was called "fostering" and was used in both Hold and Crafthalls, where

special skills such as metalworking, animal breeding, farming, fishing and

mining (such as there was) were preserved. So that one Lord Holder could

not deny the products of a Crafthall situated in his Hold to others, the Crafts

were decreed independent of a Hold affiliation, each Craftsmaster at a hall

owing allegiance only to the Master of that particular craft who, as the need

arose, took likely students in as fosterlings.

Except for the return of the Red Star approximately every two hundred

years, life was pleasant on Pern.

There came a time when the Red Star, due to the conjunction of

Rukbar's five natural satellites, did not pass close enough to Pern to drop

the dreadful spores. And the Pernese forgot about the danger. The people

prospered, spreading out across the rich land, carving

more Holds out of solid rock and becoming so busy with their pursuits,

that they did not realize that there were only a few dragons hi the skies,

rider of the bronze dragon, Mnementh, believed that the ancient tales had

truth in them. His half brother, Fnor, rider of brown Canth, listened to his

arguments and came to believe. When the last golden egg of a dying

queen dragon lay hardening on the Benden Weyr Hatching Ground, Flar

and Fnor seized the opportunity to gain control of the Weyr. Searching

Ruatha Hold, they found a strong woman, Lessa, the only surviving mem-

ber of the proud bloodline of Ruatha Hold. She impressed young Ramoth,

the new queen, and became Weyrwoman of Benden Weyr. And Flares

bronze Mnementh became the new queen's mate.

The three young riders, FTar, Fnor and Lessa forced the Lord Holders

and the Craftsmen to recognize their imminent danger and prepare the

almost defenseless planet against TTiread. But it was distressingly obvious

that the scant two hundred dragons of Benden Weyr could not defend the

wide-spread and sprawling settlements. Six full Weyrs had been needed in

the olden days when the settled land had been much less extensive. In

learning to direct her queen between one place and another, Lessa discov-

ered that dragons could tele-port between times as well. Risking her life as

well as Pern's only queen, Lessa and Ramoth went back in time, four hun-

dred Turns, to the days before the mysterious disappearance of the other

five Weyrs, just after the last Pass of the Red Star had been completed.

Kill

Cnapter 1

Drummer, beat, and piper, blow Harper, strike, and soldier, go Free the

flame and sear the grasses Tfl the dawning Red Star passes.

Almost as if the elements, too, mourned the death of the gentle old

Harper, a southeaster blew for three days, locking even the burial barge in

the safety of the Dock Cavern.

The storm gave Sea Holder Yanus too much time to brood over his

dflemma. It gave him time to speak to every man who could keep rhythm

and pitch, and they aH give him the same answer. TTiey couldn't properly

honor the Old Harper with his deathsong, but Menolly could.

To which answer Yanus would grunt and stamp off. It rankled in his

mind that he couldn't give voice to his dissatisfaction with that answer, and

his frustration. Menolly was only a girl: too tall and lanky to be a proper girl

at that It galled him to have to admit that; unfortunately, she was the only

properly sung to rest. One does not have to record who did the singing."

'The old man knew he was dying. Why didn't he instruct one of the

men?"

"Because," replied Mavi with a touch of sharpness in her voice, "you

would never spare him a man when there was fishing."

"There was young Tranflty..."

"Whom you sent fostering to Ista Sea Hold."

"Couldn't that young lad of Forolt's..."

"His voice is changing. Come, Yanus, if 11 have to be

Menolly."

Yanus grumbled bitterly against the inevitable as he climbed into the

sleeping furs.

ever had: the Hold was prospering, with plenty for bartering set by in the

storage caves; they hadn't lost a ship or a man in several Turns either,

which said much for his weather-wisdom. But Yanus, at home on a heaving

deck in foul weather, was very much adrift when taxed with the unexpected

on land.

Mavi was keenly aware that Yanus was displeased with his youngest

child. Mavi found the girl exasperating, too. Menolly worked hard and was

very clever with her fingers: too clever by half when it came to playing any

instrument in the Harper Craft Perhaps, Mavi thought, she had not been

wise to permit the girl to linger in the old Harper's constant company once

she had learned all the proper Teaching Songs. But it had been one less

worry to let Menolly nurse the old

Harper, and Petiron had wished it. No one begrudged a Harper's re-

quests. Ah weH, thought Mavi, dismissing the past, there'd be a new

Harper soon, and Menolly could be put to tasks proper to a young girl

The next morning, the storm had cleared off: the skies were cloudless,

the sea, calm. The burial barge had been outfitted in the Dock Cavern,

Petiron's body wrapped in harper-blue on the tilter board. The entire Fleet

and let drum and stick slide from her ringers into the sea. How could she

ever use them again when they had beaten Petiron's last song? She'd held

back her tears since the Harper had died because she knew she had to be

able to sing his elegy and you couldn't sing with a throat closed from crying.

Now the tears ran down her cheeks, mingled with sea spray: her sobs

punctuated by the soft chant of the steersman, setting about

Petiron had been her friend, her ally and mentor. She had sung from the

heart as he'd taught her: from the heart and the gut Had he heard her song

where he had gone?

She raised her eyes to the palisades of the coast: to the white-sanded

harbor between the two arms of Half-Circle Hold. The sky had wept itself

out in the past three days: a fitting tribute. And the air was cold. She shiv-

ered in her thick wherhide jacket. She would have some protection from the

wind if she stepped down into the cockpit with the oarsmen. But she could-

n't move. Honor was always accompanied by responsibility, and it was

fitting for her to remain where she was until the burial barge touched the

stones of Dock Cavern.

"One in ten hundred have perfect pitch," Petiron had said in one of his

evasive replies. "One in ten thousand can build an acceptable melody with

meaningful words. Were you only a lad, there'd be no problem at all."

"Well, we're stuck with me being a girl." "You'd make a fine big strong

lad, you would," Petiron had replied exasperatingly.

"And what"s wrong with being a fine big strong girl?'* Menolly had been

half-teasing, half-annoyed.

"Nothing, surely. Nothing." And Petiron had patted her hands, smiling up

at her.

She'd been helping him eat his dinner, his hands so crippled even the

lightest wooden spoon left terrible ridges in the swollen fingers.

"And Masterharper Robinton's a fair man. No one on Pern can say he

isn't And hell listen to me. He knows his duty, and I am, after all, a senior

member of the CrafthaH, being taught up in the Craft before him himself.

And I'll require him to listen to you."

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摘要：

dererbroughtitclosetoitsstepsisteratperihelion.Then,thesporelife,whichproliferatedatanincrediblerateontheRedStar'swildsurface,spunoffintospaceandbridgedthegaptoPern.Thesporesfellasthinthreadsonthetemperate,hospitableplanet,andde-vouredanythingorganicintheirway,seekingtoestablishburrowsinPern'swarmea...

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Anne McCaffrey - Pern 03 - Dragon Song

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