Dragonsdawn (19 page)

“Thanks for the klaxon, Ongola. We had just time enough to batten down the hatches. Knew the critters were telling us something but howinell could we guess
that
?” Jim Tillek reported from the bridge of the
Southern Star.
“Thank the powers that be, our ships are all siliplex.”

Monaco Bay harbor office reported overturned small craft and was instigating rescues.

The infirmary reported that human casualties in and about Landing had been minimal: mainly dragonet scratches. They had the dragonets to thank for saving lives.

Red Hanrahan at Vet said that they had lost fifty or sixty assorted livestock of the breeding herds pastured about Landing, thanking the good fortune of having just shipped out three hundred calves, lambs, kids, and piglets to new homes the previous month. There were, however, large numbers at nearby stakes that did not have stabling facilities and were in the path of the abominable rain. Red added that all of the animals left loose to graze could be considered lost.

Two of the larger fishing vessels reported severe burn injuries for those who had not made it under cover in time. One of the Hegelman boys had jumped overboard and drowned when the things landed in a clump on his face. Maximilian, escorting the
Perseus,
had been unable to save him. The dolphin had added that native marine life was swarming to the surface, fighting over the drowning wrigglers. He himself did not much like the things: no substance.

Messages were rapidly stacking up on Ongola’s board; he rang Emily to send him some assistance.

The captain of
Maid of the Sea,
fishing to the north, wanted to know what was happening. The skies about him were clear to the southern horizon. Patrice de Brogue, stationed out at Young Mountain with the seismic team, asked if he should send his crew back. There had been only a few rumbles in the past weeks, though there were some interesting changes in the gravity meter graphs. Ongola told him to send back as many as he could, not wanting to think what might have happened to homesteads in the path of that malevolent Threadfall.

Bonneau phoned in from Drake’s Lake, where it was still night and very clear. He offered to send a contingent.

Sallah Telgar-Andiyar got through from Karachi Camp and said that assistance was already on its way. How widespread was the rain? she wanted to know.

Ongola shunted all those calls when the first of the nearby settlements reported.

“If it hadn’t been for those dragonets,” said Aisling Hempenstahl of Bordeaux, “we’d all be—have been eaten alive.” Her swallow was audible. “Not a green thing to be seen, and all the livestock gone. Except the cow the dragonets drove into the river, and she’s a mess.”

“Any casualties?”

“None I can’t take care of myself, but we’ve little fresh food. Oh, and Kwan wants to know do you need him at Landing?”

“I’d say yes, indeed we do,” Ongola replied fervently. Then he tried again to raise the Du Vieux, the Radelins, the Grant van Toorns, the Ciottis, and the Holstroms. “Keep trying these, Jacob.” He passed the list over to Jacob Chernoff, who had brought three young apprentices to help. “Kurt, Heinrich, try the River numbers, Calusa, Cambridge, and Vienna.” Ongola called Lilienkamp at Stores. “Joel, how many checked out for hunting today?”

“Too many, Ongola, too many.” The tough Joel was weeping.

“Including your boys?”

Joel’s response was the barest whisper. “Yes.”

“I am sorry to hear that, Joel. We’ve organized searches. And the boys have dragonets.”

“Sure, but look how many it took to protect Landing!” His voice rose shrilly.

“Sir.” Kurt tugged urgently at Ongola’s bare elbow. “One of the sleds—”

“I’ll get back to you, Joel.” Ongola took the call from the sled. “Yes?”

“Whaddya do to kill this stuff, Ongola?” Ziv Marchane’s anquished cry sent a stab of pure terror and fury to Ongola’s guts.

“Cautery, Ziv. Who is it?”

“What’s left of young Joel Lilienkamp.”

“Bad?”

“Very.”

Ongola paused and closed his eyes tightly for a moment, remembering the two sheep. “Then give him mercy!”

Ziv broke the connection, and Ongola stared at the console, paralyzed. He had given mercy several times, too many times, during the Nathi War when his men had been blown apart after Nathi hits on his destroyer. The practice was standard procedure in surface engagements. One never left one’s wounded to Nathi mercy. Mercy, yes, it was mercy to do so. Ongola had never thought that necessity would ever arise again.

Paul Benden’s vibrant voice broke through his pained trance. “What in hell’s happening, Ongola?”

“Wish the hell I knew, Admiral.” Ongola shook his head and then gave him a precise report and a list of casualties, known or suspected.”

“I’m coming in.” Paul had staked his claim on the heights above the delta on the Boca River. It would soon be dawn there. “I’ll check other stakes on the way in.”

“Pol and Kitti want samples if they can be safely got—of the stuff in the air. It scores holes through thin materials, so be sure to use heavy-gauge metal or siliplex. We’ve got enough of what ate our fields bare. I’ve sent all our big sleds out to track the frigging Fall. Kenjo’s flying in from Honshu in that augmented speeder of his. The stuff just came out of nowhere, Paul, nowhere!”

“Didn’t register on anything? No? Well, we’ll check it all out.”

The absolute confidence in Paul Benden’s voice was a tonic for Ongola. He had heard that same note all through the Cygnus Battle and he took heart.

He needed it. Before Paul Benden arrived late that afternoon, the casualties had mounted to a frightening total. Only three of the twenty who had gone hunting that morning had returned: Sorka Hanrahan, Sean Connell, and David Catarel, who had watched, helpless, from the water as his companion, Lucy Tubberman, dissolved under the rain on the riverbank despite the frantic efforts of their dragonets. He had deep scores on his scalp, left cheek, arms, and shoulders, and he was suffering from shock and grief.

Two babies, obviously thrust at the last moment into a small metal cabinet, were the only survivors of the main Tuareg camp on the plains west of the big bend in the Paradise River. Sean and Sorka had gone to find the Connells, who had last been reported on the eastern spur of Kahrain Province. No one answered from the northern stakes on the Jordan River. It looked bad.

Porrig Connell had, for once, listened to the warnings of the dragonets and had taken shelter in a cave. It had not been large enough to accommodate all his horses, and four of the mares had died. When they screamed outside, the stallion had gone berserk in the confines of the cave, and Porrig had had to cut his throat. There was no fodder for the remaining mares, so Sean and Sorka returned with hay and food rations. Then they went off to search for other survivors.

The Du Vieux and Holstroms at Amsterdam Stake, the Radelins and Duquesnes at Bavaria, and the Ciottis at Milan Stake were dead; no trace remained of them or their livestock. The metals and heavy-gauge, silicon-based plastic roofing, though it was heavily pocked, remained as the only evidence of their once thriving settlement. They had used the newly pressed vegetable-fiber, slabs for their homes. No one on Pern ever would use such building material again.

From the air, the swath of destruction cut by the falling threadlike rain was obvious, the fringes seething with bloated wormlike excrescences which squadrons of dragonets attacked with flaming breath. The path ended seventy-five klicks beyond the narrow Paradise River, where it had annihilated the Tuareg camps.

By evening, the exhausted settlers fed their dragonets first, and left out mounds of cooked grain for the wild ones that would not approach near enough to be hand-fed.

“Nothing was said about this sort of thing in the EEC report,” Mar Dook muttered in a bitter tone.

“Those wretched polka dots no one ever explained,” Aisling Hempenstahl said, her voice just loud enough to be heard.

“We’ve been investigating that possibility,” Pol Nietro said, nodding to a weary Bay, who was resting her head against his shoulder.

“Nevertheless, I think we should arrive at some preliminary conclusions before tomorrow,” Kitti said. “People will need facts to be reassured.”

“Bill and I looked up the reports we did on the polka dots—” Carol Duff-Vassaloe smiled grimly. “—during Landing Year. We didn’t investigate every site, but the ones we examined where tree development could be measured suggests a time lapse of at least a hundred and sixty or seventy years. I think it’s rather obvious that it was this terrible life-form which caused the patterning, turning all organic material it meets into more of itself. Thank heavens most of our building plastics are silicon-based. If they were carbon-based, we’d all have been killed, without a doubt. This infestation—”

“Infestation?” Chuck Havers’s voice broke in incredulous anger.

“What else to call it?” Phas Radamanth remarked in his dogmatic fashion. “What we need to know is how often it occurs? Every hundred and fifty years? That patterning was planet-wide, wasn’t it, Carol?” She nodded. “And how long does it last once it occurs?”

“Last?” Chuck demanded, appalled.

“We’ll get the answers,” Paul Benden said firmly.

PART TWO

THREAD

T
HE
C
OLONY’S TWO
psychologists flew in late that evening when the infirmary was still crowded with the injured and shocked, and set to work immediately to help reduce traumas. Cherry Duff had suffered a stroke at the news, but was recovering splendidly. Joel and his wife were both prostrated by the loss of their sons. Bernard Hegelman had submerged his own grief to comfort his shattered wife and the other families bereft by loss.

Sean and Sorka had tirelessly sledded in the wounded they located. Even those injured were dazed, some weeping uncontrollably until sedated, others pathetically quiet. Porrig Connell had sent his eldest daughter and his wife to help cope with the survivors, while he stayed with his extended family in the cave.

“The first time Porrig Connell ever did anything for anyone else,” his son remarked under his breath to Sorka, who berated him for such cynicism. “He wants to use Cricket to service the rest of his mares when they foal. He expects me to give up
my
stallion because he hadn’t trained his!”

Sorka wisely said nothing.

With one exception, the distant holdings had contacted Landing, offering either assistance or sympathy. The one exception was the Big Island mining camp, comprised of Avril Bitra, Stev Kimmer, Nabhi Nabol, and a few others. Ongola, running over the log, noticed the absence.

Kenjo, appearing like magic from his distant Honshu plateau, headed the aerial survey. By nightfall, he and his team produced accurate maps and pics of the extent of the terrible “Threadfall,” as it soon came to be called. The original complement of biologists reconvened at Landing to ascertain the nature of the beast. Kitti Ping and Wind Blossom lent their special skills to analyze the life-forms as soon as samples were brought in.

Unfortunately too many, acquired at considerable danger to the volunteers, were found apparently moribund in the metal or heavy plastic containers in which they had been contained. Seemingly, after about twenty minutes, all the frenetic activity, the replications of the original strand several thousand times into big wriggling “sausages,” ceased. The form unraveled, blackened, and turned into an utterly lifeless, sticky, tarry mess, within a tougher shell.

The captain of the
Mayflower
, which had been trawling at the ragged northern edge of the Fall, inadvertently discovered a segment of Thread in a pail of fish bait, slapped on a tight lid, and reported the find to Landing. He was told to keep it alive, if possible, by judicious feeding until it could be flown to Landing.

By then, the Thread had to be housed in the biggest heavy-gauge plastic barrel on board the
Mayflower
. Ongola transported the tightly sealed barrel, using a long steel cable attached to the big engineering sled. Only when the crew saw the sled disappearing in the distance would they come on deck. The captain was later astonished to learn that his act was considered one of extreme bravery.

By the time the pulsing life-form reached Landing, it coiled, a gross meter long and perhaps ten centimeters in circumference, resembling a heavy hawser. Double-thick slabs of transparent silicon-based building plastic, tightly banded with metal strips, were rigged into a cage, its base quikplased to the floor. Several thin slits with locking flaps were created. A hole the size of the barrel opening was incised in the top, the barrel lid readied, and with the help of grimly anxious volunteers the terrible creature was transferred from barrel to cage. The top opening was sealed as soon as the life-form was dropped into the plastic cube.

One of the men scrambled for a corner to be sick in. Others averted their faces. Only Tarvi and Mar Dook seemed unmoved by the creature’s writhing as it engulfed the food that had been placed in the cube.

In its urgency to ingest, the thing rippled in waves of gray, greasy colors: sickly greens, dull pink tones, and an occasional streak of yellow flowed across its surface, the image sickeningly distorted by the thick clear plastic. The outer covering of the beast seemed to thicken. The thick shell probably formed at its demise, the observers guessed, for such remains had been found in rocky places where the organism had starved. The interior of the beast evidently deteriorated as rapidly as it had initially expanded. Was it really alive? Or was it some malevolent chemical entity feeding on life? Certainly its appetite was voracious, although the very act of eating seemed to interfere with whatever physical organization the beast had, as if what it consumed hastened its destruction.

“It’s rate of growth is remarkable,” Bay said in a very calm voice, for which Pol later praised her, saying that it had provided an example to the others, all stunned by the sight of that gross menace. “One expects such expansion under the microscope but not in the macrocosm. Where can it have come from? Outer space?”

Blank silence met her astonishing query, and those in the room exchanged glances, partly of surprise, partly of embarrassment at Bay’s suggestion.

“Do we have any data on the periodicity of comets in this system?” Mar Dook asked hopefully. “That eccentric body? Something brought in from our Oort cloud? Then there’s the Hoyle-Wickramansingh theory, which has never been totally discredited, citing the possibility of viruses.”

“That’s one helluva virus, Mar,” Bill Duff said skeptically. “And didn’t someone on Ceti III confound that old theory?”

“Considering it drops from the skies,” Jim Tillek said, “why couldn’t it have a space origin? I’m not the only one who’s noticed that red morning star in the east getting brighter these past weeks. A bit of coincidence, isn’t it, that the planet with the crazy orbit is coming right into the inner planets, right at the same time this stuff hits us? Could that be the source? Is there any data in the library on that planet? On this sort of thing?”

“I’ll ask Cherry. No,” Bill Duff corrected himself before anyone could remind him that the redoubtable magistrate was indisposed. “I’ll access the information myself and bring back hardcopy to study.” He hurried from the room as if glad to have a valid excuse to leave.

“I’ll get a sample from the section pressing against the lower slot,” Kwan Marceau said, gathering up the necessary implements in the rush of someone who dared not consider overlong what he was about to do.

“A record’s being kept of the . . . intake?” Bay asked. She could not quite say “food,” remembering what the creatures had already consumed since they had fallen on Pern.

“Now, to judge the frequency of . . . intake”—Pol seized gratefully on that euphemism—“sufficient to keep the . . . organism alive.”

“And see how it dies,” Kitti added in a voice so bland that it rang with satisfaction.

“And why all its ilk died in this first infestation,” Phas Radamanth added, pulling the EEC pics out of the welter of hardcopy in front of him.

“
Did
all die?” Kitti asked.

By morning, with no report from scientists who had worked through the night, the muttering began: a still-shocked whisper over morning klah; a rumor that began to seep into every office and the hastily reopened living quarters on the andoned residential squares. A huge blaze had been started the previous evening and continued to burn at Bonfire Square. Torches, pitched and ready to be lit, had been piled at each corner, and more were added to the piles throughout the day.

Many of the lighter sleds that had been on the ground at Landing needed new canopies. Sweeping out the detritus of putrid Thread shells was undertaken with masks and heavy work gloves.

There was a new and respectful title for the winged friends: fire-dragons. Even those who had previously scorned the creatures carried tidbits for them in their pockets. Landing was dotted with fat-bellied dragonets sleeping in the sun.

By lunchtime, a meal was served from the old communal kitchens, and rumor was rife. By midafternoon, Ted Tubberman and a fellow malcontent, their faces streaked and drawn by grief, led bereaved relatives to the door of the containment unit.

Paul and Emily came out with Phas Radamanth and Mar Dook.

“Well? Have you discovered what that thing is?” Ted demanded.

“It is a complex but understandable network of filaments, analogous to a Terran mycorrhiza,” Mar Dook began, resenting Tubberman’s manner but respecting his grief.

“That explains very little, Mar,” Ted replied, belligerently sticking out his chin. “In all my years as a botanist, I never saw a plant symbiont dangerous to humans. What do we get next? A death moss?”

Emily reached out to touch Tubberman’s arm in sympathy, but he jerked away.

“We have little to go on,” Phas said in a sharp tone. He was tired, and working all night near the monstrosity had been a terrible strain. “Nothing like this has ever been recorded on any of the planets humans have explored. The nearest that has been even imagined were some of the fictional inventions during the Age of Religions. We’re still refining our understanding of it.”

“It’s still alive? You’re
keeping
it alive!” Ted was livid with irrational outrage. Beside him, his companions nodded agreement as fresh tears streamed down their faces. Murmuring angrily among themselves, the delegation crowded closer to the entrance, every one of them seeking an outlet for frustration and impotent grief.

“Of course, we have to study it, man,” Mar Dook said, keeping his voice steady. “And find out exactly what it is. To do that, it must be fed to . . . continue. We’ve got to ascertain if this is only the beginning of its life cycle.”

“Only the beginning!” Tubberman cried. Paul and Phas leapt forward to restrain the grief-mad botanist. Lucy had been his apprentice as well as his daughter, and the two had shared a deep and affectionate bond. “By all that’s holy, I’ll end it now!”

“Ted, be rational. You’re a scientist!”

“I’m a father first, and my daughter was . . . devoured by one of those creatures! So was Joe Milan, and Patsy Swann, Eric Hegelman, Bob Jorgensen, and . . .” Tubberman’s face was livid. His fists clenched at his sides, his whole body strained with rage and frustration. He glared accusingly at Emily and Paul. “We trusted you two. How could you bring us to a place that devours our children and all we’ve achieved the past eight years!” The murmurs of the delegation supported his accusation. “We”—his wide gesture took in the packed numbers behind him—“want that thing dead. You’ve had long enough to study it. C’mon, people. We know what we have to do!” With a final bitter, searing look at the biologists, he turned, roughly pushing aside those in his path. “Fire kills it!”

He stomped off, raging. His followers left with him.

“It won’t matter what they do, Paul,” Mar Dook said, restraining Paul Benden from going after Ted. “The beast is moribund now. Give them the corpse to vent their feelings on. We’ve about finished what examinations we can make anyhow.” He shrugged wearily. “For all the good it does us.”

“And that is?” Paul inquired encouragingly. Mar Dook and Phas gestured to him and Emily to reenter the containment until where Pol, Bay, and the two geneticists were still writing up their notes.

Wearily, Mar Dook scrubbed at his face, his sallow skin nearly gray as he slumped onto a table that was littered with tapes and slide containers. “We now know that it is carbon based, has complex, very large proteins which flick from state to state and produce movement, and others which attack and digest an incredible range of organic substances. It is almost as if the creature was designed specifically to be inimical to our kind of life.”

“I’m glad you kept that to yourself,” Emily said wryly, looking over her shoulder at the door swinging shut on a view of the angry group heading away.

“Mar Dook, you can’t mean what you just said,” Paul began, resting both hands on the shoulders of the weary biologist. “It may be dangerous, yes—but designed to kill
us
?”

“That
is
just a thought,” Mar Dook replied, looking a bit sheepish. “Phas here has a more bizarre suggestion.”

Phas cleared his throat nervously. “Well, it’s come out of the blue so unexpectedly, I wondered if it could possibly be a weapon, preparing the ground for an invasion?” Dumbfounded, Paul and Emily stared at him, aware of Bay’s sniff of disagreement and the amused expression on Kitti Ping’s face. “That is not an illogical interpretation, you know. I like it better than Bay’s suggestion, that this might be only the beginning of a life cycle. I dread what could follow.”

Paul and Emily glanced around them, stunned by such a dreadful possibility. But Pol Nietro rose from his chair and cleared his throat, a tolerant expression on his round face.

“That is also a suggestion from the fiction of the Age of Religions, Mar,” Pol said with a wry smile. He glanced apologetically at his wife and then noticed Kitti Ping’s reassuring smile. He felt heartened. “And, in my opinion, highly improbable. If the life cycle produced inimical forms, where are the descendants of subsequent metamorphoses? The EEC team may have erred in considering the polka dots nondangerous, but they also discovered no other incongruous life-forms.

“As for an invasion from outer space, every other planet in this sector of space was found to be inimical to carbon-based life-forms.” Pol began to warm to his own theory and saw Emily recovering from the shock of the other revelations. “And we have determined that
that
—” He jerked his thumb at the discolored cube. “—is carbon based. So that would seem to more or less limit it to this system. And we will find out how.” Pol’s burst of explanation seemed to have drained the last of his energy, and he leaned wearily against the high laboratory stand. “I believe I’m right, though. Airing the worst possible interpretations of the data we have gleaned has cleared the air, so to speak.” He gave a little, almost apologetic shrug and smiled hopefully at Phas and Bay.

“I still feel we have missed something in our investigations,” Phas said, shaking his head. “Something obvious, and important.”

“No one thinks straight after forty hours on the trot,” Paul said, clasping Phas by the shoulder to give him a reassuring shake. “Let’s look at your notes again when you’ve had some rest and something to eat, away from the stench in here. Jim, Emily, and I will wait and deal with Ted’s delegation. They’re overreacting.” He sighed. “Not that I blame them. Sudden grief is always a shock. However, I personally would rather plan for the worst that can happen. As you’ve suggested several dire options, we won’t be surprised by anything that happens. And we should plan to reduce its effects on the settlements.”