Dragonsdawn (23 page)

“You’re damned fools. We can’t lick this stuff by ourselves. There’s no place safe from it on this planet. Don’t you remember the EEC reports? The entire planet was eaten up. It took more than two hundred years to recover. What chance have we?”

“That is enough, Tubberman,” Cabot roared at him. “You asked for a vote. It was taken in sight of all, and the
majority
has decided against sending for help. Even if the decision had been in favor, our situation is serious enough so that certain measures must be initiated immediately.

“One priority is the manufacture of metal sheeting to protect existing buildings, no matter where they are. The second is to manufacture HNO
₃
cylinders and flamethrower components. A third is to conserve all materials and supplies. Another problem is keeping a good eastern watch at every stake until a pattern can be established for Threadfall.

“I’m asking that we temporarily reinstate Emily Boll and Paul Benden as leaders. Governor Boll kept her planet fed and free despite a five-year-long Nathi space embargo, and Admiral Benden is by far the best man to organize an effective defense strategy.

“I’m calling for a show of hands now, and we’ll make it a proper referendum when we know exactly how long the state of emergency will last.” A ripple of assent greeted his crisp, decisive statements. “Rudi, prepare for another count.” He waited a moment as the crowd shifted restlessly. “Let’s have a show of hands on implementing those priorities tonight, with Admiral Benden and Governor Boll in charge.”

Many hands were immediately thrust in the air, while others came up more slowly as the undecided took heart from their neighbors’ resolution. Even before Rudi gave him the count, Cabot could see that the vote was heavily in favor of the emergency measures.

“Governor Boll, Admiral Benden, will you accept this mandate?” he asked formally.

“It was rigged!” Ted Tubberman shouted. “I tell you, rigged. They just want to get back into power again.” His accusations broke off suddenly as Tarvi and Fulmar pushed him firmly back down on the bench.

“Governor? Admiral?” Cabot ignored the interruption. “You two still have the best qualifications for the jobs to be done, but if you decline, I will accept nominations from the floor.” He waited expectantly, giving no hint of his personal preference in the matter and paying no attention to the restless audience and the rising murmur of anxious whispers.

Slowly Emily Boll rose to her feet. “I accept.”

“As I do,” Paul Benden said, standing beside the governor. “But only for the duration of this emergency.”

“You believe that?” Tubberman roared, breaking loose from his restrainers.

“That is quite enough, Tubberman,” Cabot shouted, appearing to lose his professional detachment. “The majority supports this temporary measure even if you won’t.” Slowly the audience quieted. Cabot waited until there was complete silence. “Now, I’ve saved the worst news until I was certain we were all resolved to work together. Thanks to Kenjo and his survey teams, Boris and Dieter believe that there is a pattern emerging. If they’re right, we have to expect this Thread to fall again tomorrow afternoon at Malay River and proceed across Cathay Province to Mexico on Maori Lake.”

“On Malay?” Chuck Kimmage jumped to his feet, his wife clutching his arm, both of them horrified. Phas had managed to find and warn all the other stakers at Malay and Mexico, but Chuck and Chaila had arrived just before the meeting, too late to be privately informed.

“And all of us will help preserve your stakes,” Emily Boll said in a loud firm voice.

Paul jumped up on the platform, raising his hands and glancing at Cabot for permission to speak. “I’m asking for volunteers to man sleds and flamethrowers. Kenjo and Fulmar have worked out a way of mounting them. Some are already in place on what sleds they could commandeer. Those of you with medium and large sleds just volunteered them. The best way to get the Thread is while it’s still airborne, before it has a chance to land. We will also need people on the ground, mopping up what does slip through.”

“What about the fire-lizards, or whatever you call ’em? Won’t they help?” someone asked.

“They helped us that day at Landing,” a woman added, a note of fearful apprehension making her voice break.

“They helped at Sadrid Stake two days ago,” Wade said.

“The rain helped a lot, too,” Kenjo added, not at all convinced of assistance from a nonmechanical quarter.

“Any of you with dragonets would be very welcome in ground crews,” Paul went on, willing to entertain any possible reinforcements. But he, too, was skeptical; he had been too busy to attach a dragonet, though his wife and older son had two each. “I particularly need those of you who’ve had any combat or flight experience. Our enemy isn’t the Nathi this time, but it’s our world that is being invaded. Let’s stop it, tomorrow and whenever it’s necessary!”

A spontaneous cheer went up in response to his rousing words and was repeated, growing in volume as people got to their feet, waving clenched fists. Those on the platform watched the demonstration, relieved and reassured. Perhaps only Ongola took note of those who remained seated or silent.

I
F
D
EITER AND
Boris were correct, the oncoming Fall would give the Kahrain peninsula a near miss, beginning at approximately 1630 hours, roughly 120 klicks northwest of the mouth of the Paradise River,
25
degrees south. Dieter and Boris were not sure if the Fall would extend as far southwestward as Mexico on Lake Maori, but precautions were being taken there as well.

Acting Commander Kenjo Fusaiyuki assembled his squadrons at the required point. Though Thread drowned in the sea, his teams would at least have some practice throwing flame at the “real thing.”

“Practice” was not the appropriate term for the chaos that resulted. Kenjo was reduced to snarling preemptory orders over the comm unit as the inept but eager sled pilots plummeted through the skies after Thread, frequently favoring one another with a glancing touch of thrown HNO
₃
.

Fighting Thread required entirely different techniques from hunting wherry or scoring a hit on a large flying machine driven by a reasonably intelligent enemy. Thread was mindless. It just fell—in a slanting southwesterly direction, occasionally buffeted into tangles by gusting winds. It was the inexorability of that insensate Fall that infuriated, defeated, depressed, and frustrated. No matter how much was seared to ash in the sky, more followed relentlessly. Nervous pilots swooped, veered, and dove. Unskilled gunners fired at anything that moved into range, which more often than not was another sled chasing down a tangle of Thread. Nine domesticated dragonets fell victim to such inexpertise, and there was suddenly a marked decrease in the number of wild ones who had joined the fray.

In the first half hour of the Fall, seven sleds were involved in midair collisions, three badly damaged and two with cracked siliplex canopies which made them unairworthy. Even Kenjo’s sled bore scorch marks. Four broken arms, six broken or sprained hands, three cracked collarbones, and a broken leg put fourteen gunners out of action; many others struggled on with lacerations and bruises. No one had thought about rigging any safety harnesses for the flame-gunners.

A hasty conference between the squadron leaders was called on a secured channel at the beginning of the second hour while the Fall was still over water. The squadron leaders—Kenjo, Sabra Stein-Ongola, Theo Force, and Drake Bonneau—and Paul Benden, as leader of the ground-support crews—decided to assign each squadron their own altitude level at hundred-meter intervals. The squadron would fly in a stacked wedge formation back and forth across the fifty-klick width of the Thread corridor. The important factor was for each wedge of seven sleds to stick to its designated altitude.

Once the sleds began to maintain their distances, midair collisions and scorchings were immediately reduced. Kenjo led the most capable fliers at ground level to catch as much missed Thread as possible and to inform the surface crews where tangles got through. Paul Benden coordinated the movements of the fast ground-skimmers, which carried teams with small portable flamers. Channels were kept open to air, ground, and Landing. Joel Lilienkamp organized replacement of empty HNO
₃
cylinders and power packs. A medical team remained on standby.

By mid-Fall, Paul knew that his ground-support teams were too thinly spread to be truly effective, even though there were, fortunately, substantial stretches where Thread landed on stony or poor soil and shriveled and died quickly. Toward the end, when weary pilots were running low on energy and the sled power packs were nearly depleted, more Thread got through. It seemed to be part of the growing bad luck that it fell over thick vegetation and the home farm of the Mexico Stake.

The abrupt end of the Fall, on the verge of Maori Lake and the main buildings of Mexico, came as a distinct shock to those who had been concentrating so hard on destroying Thread. Squadron leaders ordered their fighters to land on the lakeside while they had a chance to confer with the ground-crew marshals. Those at Mexico who had not been in ground defense provided hot soup and klah, fresh bread, and fruit, and had prepared an infirmary in one of the houses. Tarvi and the Karachi team had managed to complete metal roofing just before the Fall reached the area. Then Joel Lilienkamp’s supply barge arrived with fresh power packs and HNO
₃
cylinders.

The day was not over yet. Pilots cruised slowly back over the Fall corridor, checking for any “live” Thread. Paul drove himself and his sweat-smeared, soot-covered, weary teams back toward Malay Stake and the coast to try to spot signs of a secondary infestation where no shell or dissolving matter was visible. Only two such points were discovered and, on Paul’s order, the ground was saturated with sustained blasts of HNO
₃
.

One of the ground crew on that detail told the admiral that he thought that was a waste of fuel. “The dragonets weren’t at all concerned, Admiral. They are when there’s Thread.”

“We take no chances at this stage,” Paul replied, a slight smile removing any hint of rebuke. He did not look upon the fiery bath as an overkill. The dragonets were palpably alerted by Thread, but were obviously unaware of the presence of the second, and possibly more fearful, stage of its life cycle.

However, Paul Benden’s respect for the dragonets was increased by their diligent searching out of newly fallen Thread. Several times during the Fall, he spotted the fair of dragonets fighting alongside Sean Connell and the redheaded Hanrahan girl. The creatures seemed to be obeying orders. Their movements had a discipline, while other groups flitted about in a kind of chaotic frenzy.

On almost too many occasions, Paul saw the little creatures suddenly disappearing just when one seemed certain to be seared by the fiery breath of another. He found himself wishing that sleds had that sort of ability, or even more agility. Sleds were not the most efficient fighter craft. He recalled his admiration of the dragonets during the wherry attack. From accounts of their now legendary “umbrella” defense of Landing from the First Fall, he knew that hundreds of wild ones had assisted their domesticated kin. They could be splendid reinforcements. Paul wondered what the chances were to mobilize
all
the dragonets to be trained by Connell and Hanrahan.

The present Fall had left denuded patches on the surface, but despite all initial bungling and the inexperience of sled and ground crews, the devastation was not as widespread as in the first horrific Fall.

Most of the exhausted fighters chose to remain the night at Malay Stake. Pierre de Courci took it upon himself to act as chef, and his team had prepared baked fish and tubers in great pits on the beach. Weary men, women, and youngsters sat around the reassuring bonfires, too spent to talk, glad enough just to have survived the rigors of the day.

Sean and Sorka opened an emergency clinic on the Malay beach to tend the wounded fire-dragonets, slathering numb-weed on Threadscored wings and seared hide.

“D’you think that once Sira stops crying, my bronze and brown will come back?” Tarrie Chernoff asked. She was dirty with black grease and vegetation-green stains, her wher-hide jerkin showing numerous char spots, new and old, but like all devoted fire-dragonet owners, she was caring for her creature before seeing to her own relief.

Sean shrugged noncommittally, but Sorka laid a reassuring hand on Tarrie’s arm. “They usually do. They get pretty upset when one of their own fair’s hurt, especially a queen. You get a good night’s sleep and see what the morning brings.”

“Why’d you give her false comfort like that, Sorka?” Sean asked in a low voice when Tarrie had trudged back to the bonfires, her comforted queen cradled in the crook of her arm. “You know bloody well by now that if it’s hurt badly enough, a fire-lizard doesn’t come back.” Sean was grim. He and Sorka had been lucky with their fair so far, but then, he had seen to it that their dragonets had the discipline to survive.

“She needs a good night’s sleep without worrying herself sick. And a lot do come back.”

Sorka gave a weary sigh as she closed the medicine case. She arched her back against tired back muscles. “Give me a rub, would you, Sean? My right shoulder.” She turned her back to him and sighed in relief as his strong fingers kneaded the strain away.

Sean’s hands felt marvelous on her back; he knew just how to ease away the tension. Then his hands moved caressingly up the nape of her neck and lovingly into her hair. Tired as she was, she responded to the silent question. She stepped away from him, smiling as she looked quickly about to see where their fair had taken themselves.

“They’ve all found quiet nests to curl up in.” Sean’s low voice was suggestive.

“Then let’s find us one of our own.” She caught his hand and led him off the beach and into a thick grove of arrow-leaf plants that they had helped save from Threadscore.

Revived by the hot meal and a generous beaker of a very smooth quikal fermented by Chaila Xavior-Kimmage from local fruits, Paul and Emily quietly organized a discreet council, which they held in one of the unscathed Malay outbuildings. Besides the admiral and the governor, Ongola, Drake, Kenjo, Jim Tillek, Ezra Keroon, and Joel Lilienkamp attended.

“We’ll do better next time, Admiral,” Drake Bonneau assured Paul with a cocky salute. Kenjo, entering behind him, regarded the tall war ace with amused condescension. “Today taught us that this Thread requires entirely different flight and strike techniques. We’ll refine that wedge maneuver so nothing gets through. Sled pilots must drill to maintain altitude patterns. Gunners must learn to control their blasts. It’s more than just holding the button down. We had some mighty close encounters. We lost some of the little dragonets, too. We can’t risk so many lives, much less the sleds.”

“We can repair the sleds, Drake,” Joel Lilienkamp remarked dryly before Paul spoke, “but power packs won’t last forever. We can’t afford to expend them uselessly on drills. Despite our resupply system, which I bet I can improve, nine pilots had to glide-land at Maori. That’s clumsy management. That wedge formation, by the way, Drake, is economical on the packs. But it still takes days to recharge exhausted ones. How long will this stuff keep falling, Paul?” Joel looked up from his calculating pad.

“We haven’t established that yet,” Paul said, his left thumb rubbing his knuckles. “Boris and Dieter are collating information from the pilot debriefing.”

“Hellfire, that’s not going to tell us what we need to know, Paul,” Drake said, his weary tone a complaint. “Where does this stuff
come from?”

“Probe’s gone off,” Ezra Keroon said. “It’ll be a couple a more days before any reports come back.”

Drake continued almost as if he had not heard. “I want to find out if the stuff mightn’t be more vulnerable in the stratosphere. Even if we only have ten pressurized sleds, would a high-altitude strike be more effective? Does this junk hit the atmosphere in clumps and then disperse? Can we develop a defense less clumsy than flamethrowers? We need to know more about this enemy.”

“It doesn’t fight back,” Ongola remarked, rubbing his temples to ease the pounding sort of headache that battle had always given him.

“True,” Paul replied with a grim smile as he turned to Kenjo. “I wonder if we would gain any useful data from an orbital reconnaissance flight? How much fuel in the
Mariposa’s
tanks?”

“If I pilot it, enough for three, maybe four flights,” Kenjo replied, deliberately avoiding Drake’s eyes, “depending on how much maneuvering is required and how many orbits.”

“You’re the man for it, Kenjo,” Drake said with a flourish of his hand and a rueful expression. “You can land on a breath of fuel.” Kenjo, smiling slightly, gave a short, quick bow from the waist. “Do we know when, or where, the stuff hits us again?”

“We do,” Paul assured them in a flat tone. “If the data is correct, and it was today, stakeholders are lucky. It strikes in two places: 1930 hours across Araby to the Sea of Azov,”—his expression reflected his continued regret at the loss of Araby’s original stakeowners—“and 0330 from the sea across the tip of Delta. Both those areas are unoccupied.”

“We can’t let that stuff go unchecked anywhere, Paul,” Ezra said in alarm.

“I know, but if we’re going to have to mount crews every three days, we’ll all soon be exhausted.”

“Not everything needs to be protected,” Drake said, unfolding his flight map. “Lots of marsh, scrub land.”

“The Fall will still be attended,” Paul said in an inarguable tone of voice. “Look on it as a chance to refine maneuvers and train teams, Drake. It is undeniably best to get the stuff while it’s airborne. Thread didn’t eat through as much land today, but we can’t afford to lose wide corridors every time it hits us.”

“Draft some more of those dragonets,” Joel suggested facetiously. “They’re as good on the ground as in the air.”

Emily regarded him sadly as the others grinned. “Unfortunately they just aren’t big enough.”

Paul turned around in his chair to give the governor a searching look. “That’s the best idea today, Emily.”

Drake and Kenjo looked at each other, puzzled, but Ongola, Joel, and Ezra Keroon sat up, their expressions expectant. Jim Tillek grinned.

There were five main islands off the southern coast of Big Island and several small prominences, the remains of volcanoes poking above the brilliant green-blue sea. The one Avril and Stev were eagerly approaching was no more than the crater of a sunken volcano. Its sides sloped into the sea, providing a narrow shore, except to the south where the lip of the crater was lowest. Avril was bouncing with impatience as Stev nosed the prow of the little boat up onto the north shore.

“That Nielsen twit couldn’t possibly be right,” she muttered, hopping on to the pebbly beach before he had shut off the power. “How could we have missed a whole beach full of diamonds?”

“We had more promising sites. Remember, Avril?”

Stev watched her scoop up a handful of the black stones and sift them through her fingers. She kept only the largest, which she thrust at him.

“Here! Scan it!” As he inserted the palm-sized stone into the portable scanner, she looked about in angry agitation. “It makes no sense. They can’t all be black diamonds. Can they?”