Dragonsdawn (32 page)

“L
OOK
, J
IM
, I just can’t find any other logical explanation for the destruction of the probes and
these
.” Ezra Keroon waved a handful of probe pics, so blurred that no detail could be seen. “One, maybe two probes could malfunction. But I’ve sent off seven! And Sallah—” Ezra paused a moment, his face expressing the sorrow he still felt at her loss. “Sallah told us that there had been no damage report for the probe garage. Then we have the
Mariposa.
It did not hit the surface. Something hit it just about the same time one of the probes went bang!”

“So you prefer to believe that something down on the surface prevents inspection?” Jim Tillek asked wryly. He leaned back in his seat, easing shoulder muscles taut from hours of bending and peering through magnifiers. “I can’t credit that explanation, Ez. C’mon, man. How can anything on that planet be functioning? The surface has been frozen. It can’t have thawed appreciably in the time it’s been swinging in to Rukbat.”

“One does not have such regular formations on any unpopulated surface. I don’t say they can’t be natural. They just don’t look natural. And I certainly won’t make any guesses about what sort of creature made them. Then look at the thermal level here, here, and here.” Ezra jabbed a finger at the pics he had been studying. “It’s higher than I’d anticipated on a near-frozen surface. That much we got from the one probe that sent data back.”

“Volcanic action under the crust could account for that.”

“But regular
convex
, not concave, formations along the equator?”

Jim was incredulous. “You
want
to believe that plutonic planet could be the
source
of this attack?”

“I like that better than substantiating the Hoyle-Wickramansingh theory, I really do, Jim.”

“If Avril hadn’t taken the gig, we could find out what that nebulosity is. Then we’d know for sure! Hoyle-Wickramansingh or little frozen blue critters.” Jim’s tone was facetious.

“We’ve the shuttles,” Ezra said tentatively, tapping his pencil.

“No fuel, and there isn’t a pilot among those left that I’d be willing to trust to do such a difficult retrieval. You’d have to match its orbital speed. I saw the dents on the
Mariposa
’s hull myself where the defense shields failed. Also, we didn’t bring down any heavy worksuits that would protect a man out in a meteor storm. And if your theory’s correct, he’ll get shot down.”

“Only if he gets too close to the planet,” Ezra went on cautiously. “But he wouldn’t have to, to get a sample of the trail. If the trail is nothing but ice, dirt, and rock, the usual cometary junk, we’d know then that the real menace is the planet, not the trail. Right?”

Jim eyed him thoughtfully. “It’d be dangerous either way. And there’s no fuel to do it anyhow!” Jim opened his arms in a gesture of exasperation.

“There
is
fuel.”

“There is?” Jim sat bolt upright, eyes wide with surprise.

Ezra gave him a wry smile. “Known only to a chosen few.”

“Well!” Jim made his eyebrows twitch, but he grinned to show that he took no offense at having been excluded. “How much?”

“With a thrifty pilot, enough for our purpose. Or maybe, if we can find Kenjo’s main cache, more.”

“More?” Jim gawked. “Kenjo’s cache? He scrounged fuel?”

“Always was a clever driver. Saved it from his drops, Ongola said.”

Jim continued to stare at Ezra, amazed at Kenjo’s sheer impudence. “So that’s why Kimmer’s nosing about the Western Barrier Range. He’s out trying to find Kenjo’s cache. For his own purposes or ours?”

“Not enough to get anyone’s hopes up, mind you,” Ezra continued, holding up a warning hand. “Maybe it’s not too bad a thing that Tubberman sent off the homer. Because if it is the planet, we need help, and I’m not too proud to ask for it.” Ezra grimaced. “Not that Kimmer said anything to anyone when he made off with the big sled and enough concentrated food and power packs to stay lost for years. Joel Lilienkamp was livid that anyone would
steal
from his Store. We don’t even know how Stev found out about Kenjo’s hoard. Except that he knew how much fuel the
Mariposa
had in her tanks eight years ago. So he must have figured out someone had saved fuel back when Kenjo made those reconnaissance flights.” Then, as Jim opened his mouth, he added, “Don’t worry about Kimmer taking off even if he finds fuel. Ongola and Kenjo disabled the shuttles some time back. Kimmer doesn’t know where we stash the fuel sacks here. Neither do I.”

“I’m honored—by your confidence and the cares you have so carefully laid on my bowed shoulders.”

“You walked in here three days ago and volunteered your services,” Ezra reminded him.

“Three days? Feels like three years. I wonder if my skimmer’s been serviced.” He rose and stretched again until the bones in his spine and joints readjusted with audible clicks. “So, shall we take this mess—” He gestured to the mass of photos and flimsies neatly arranged on the work surface. “—to the guys who have to figure out what we do with it?”

Paul and Emily listened, saying nothing, until both men had finished expressing their conflicting viewpoints.

“But when the planet is past us in the next eight or nine years, Threadfall will stop,” Paul said, jumping to a conclusion.

“Depends on whose theory you favor,” Jim said, grinning with good-natured malice. “Or how advanced Ezra’s aliens are. Right now, if you buy his theory, they’re keeping us at arm’s length while the Thread softens us up.”

Paul Benden brushed away that notion. “I don’t credit that, Ezra. Thread was ineffective on the previous try. But the Pluto planet could be defending itself. I could live with that much of your theory based on the evidence.”

Emily looked squarely at Jim. “How long will this gunge fall if it’s from your cometary tail?”

“Twenty, thirty years. If I knew the length of that tail, I could give a closer estimate.”

“I wonder if that’s what Avril meant,” Paul said slowly, “by ‘it’s not the . . .’ Did she mean that it wasn’t the planet we had to fear, but the tail it brought from the Oort cloud?”

“If she hadn’t taken the
Mariposa,
we’d have a chance of knowing.” Emily’s voice had a sharp edge.

“We still do,” Ezra said. “There’s enough fuel to send a shuttle up. Not as economical a vehicle as the
Mariposa
but adequate.”

“Are you sure?” Paul’s expression was taut as he reached for a calc pad on which he worked several equations. He leaned back, his face pensive, then passed the pad over to Emily and Jim. “It might just be possible.” He caught and held Emily’s gaze. “We have to know. We have to know the worst we can expect before we can plan ahead.”

Ezra raised a warning hand, his expression wary. “Mind you, they can’t get close to the planet! We’ve lost seven probes. Could be mines, could be missiles—but they blow up.”

“Whoever goes will know exactly what and how big the risks are,” Paul said.

“There’s risk enough in just going up,” Ezra said gloomily.

“I hate to sound fatuous, but surely there’s one pilot who’d take the challenge to save this world,” Paul added.

Drake Bonneau was approached first. He thought the scheme was feasible, but he worried about the risk of a shuttle that had certainly deteriorated from eight years’ disuse. He then pointed out that he was married with responsibilities, and that there were other pilots equally as qualified. Paul and Emily did not argue with him.

“Marriage and dependent children will be the excuse of practically everyone,” Paul told their private counselors, Ezra, Jim, and Zi Ongola, who had been permitted four hours of work a day by his reluctant medical advisers. “The only one still unattached is Nabhi Nabol.”

“He’s a clever enough pilot,” Ongola said thoughtfully, “though not exactly the type of man on whom the future of an entire planet should ride. However, exactly the type if the reward could be made attractive enough for him to take the risk.”

“How?” Emily asked skeptically.

Nabhi had already been reprimanded a dozen times and served Cherry Duff’s sentences for social misdemeanors such as being caught “drunk and disorderly,” several work delinquencies, and one “lewd advance.” Lately he had somewhat redeemed himself by being a good squadron leader, and was much admired by the young men he led.

“He’s a contractor,” Ongola said. “If he should be offered, say, a charterer’s stake rights, I think he might well go for it. He’s griped about the disparity in land holdings often enough. That could sweeten him. He also fancies himself as a crack pilot.”

“We’ve got some very good young pilots,” Jim began.

“Who have had no experience in space with a shuttle.” Ongola dismissed that notion. “Though it might be a good idea to choose one to go as copilot and give them the feel. But I’d rather trust Nabhi than a complete space novice.”

“If we suggest that he was also our second choice, rather than our last one . . .” Emily remarked.

“We’d better get on with it, whatever we do,” Ezra said. “I can’t keep stalling questions. We need data and we need a sample of the stuff in that trail. Then we’ll know for certain what our future is.”

Bargaining with Nabhi began that afternoon. He sneered at the flattery and the appeal to his competence and demanded to know just how much the trip was worth in terms of a holding and other rights. When he demanded the entire province of Cibola, Paul and Emily settled down to their task. When Nabhi insisted on being granted charterer status, they agreed with sufficient reluctance to satisfy the man that he was ahead in the bargaining.

Then Emily nonchalantly mentioned that Big Island was now untenanted. She and Paul managed to suppress their relief when he immediately seized on the notion of occupying Avril’s former property.

Nabhi said that he wanted the shuttle he had used during the ferrying operation and he specified the personnel who were, under his supervision, to handle the
Moth
’s recommissioning. He waved aside the fact that all the people he named were already heavily involved in crucial projects. He would only make the trip if he was satisfied that the long-disused shuttle checked out technically. But the other inducements were his immediately.

He then demanded Bart Lemos as his copilot, with the condition that Bart, too, would be given charterer status. Paul and Emily found that particularly unpalatable, but agreed reluctantly.

Nabol’s attitude toward both admiral and governor immediately altered, becoming so arrogant and pompous that Emily had to struggle to contain her dislike of the man. His smile of triumph was only one degree less than a full sneer as he left their office with the signed charterer’s warrant. Then he commandeered one of the speed shuttles, although it was needed for an imminent Threadfall, and went to inspect his new acquisition.

The admiral and the governor formally announced the venture, its aims, and its personnel. The news managed to outweigh every other topic of interest with one exception: the transfer of the twenty-seven mature eggs to their artificial hatching ground.

The full veterinary contingent assisted the biologists in that maneuver. Sorka Hanrahan and Sean Connell, in their capacities as advanced veterinary apprentices, had also done some of the early analysis and tedious documentation for the project, working under Kitti Ping’s close supervision. It didn’t take long to accomplish the transfer, but Sorka noticed that the amount of dithering was aggravating her lover. But the project meant more to him than his exasperation with worried biologists, and he suppressed his irritation. Finally the eggs were placed to the complete satisfaction of Wind Blossom, Pol, and Bay: in a double circle, seven on the inner ring, twenty on the outer, with the warm sand banked high around them to imitate the natural environment of dragonets.

“The whole thing could have been done in a third of the time,” Sean muttered darkly to Sorka. “So much fuss is bad for the eggs.” He scowled at the precise circles.

“They’re much bigger than I thought they’d be,” Sorka said after a moment’s silence.

“Much bigger than
they
thought they’d be,” Sean said in a scoffing tone. “I suppose we’re lucky that so many survived to this stage—a credit to Kit Ping, considering all that had to be done to create them.”

Sorka knew that it meant as much to Sean to be a part of the project as it did to her. They had, after all, been the first to discover one of the wild nests. Eager but tired, she was balancing on one of the edging timbers, keeping her feet off the uncomfortably warm sands of the artificial hatching ground.

Although the transfer was complete, the helpers had not yet dispersed. Wind Blossom, Pol, and Bay were deep in discussions with Phas, the admiral, and the governor, who had taken an official part in the removal. Sorka thought that Emily Boll particularly looked drawn and exhausted, but her smile remained warm and genuine. They, too, seemed reluctant to leave.

Most of the Landing population of dragonets had been in and out of the Hatching Ground, darting up to the rafters and vying to find roosting room. They seemed content to watch; none of them had been bold enough to examine the eggs closely. Sorka interpreted their little chirps as reverent, awed.

“Would they know what these are?” she asked Sean softly.

“Do we?” Sean retorted with an amused snort. He had both arms folded across his chest; he unlaced one to point to the nearest egg. “That’s the biggest. I wonder if it’s one of the golds. I’ve lost track of which was put where in that dance we just did. There were more males than females among the ones lost, and Lili’s opened book on which of us get what.”

Sorka gave the egg a long speculative look. She thought about whether or not it was a gold, and then decided, somewhat arbitrarily in her own mind, that no, it was not. It was a bronze. She did not tell Sean her conclusion. Sean tended to debate such issues, and that moment, surveying the first clutch of “dragons,” was not a moment to spoil. She sighed.

Dragonets had become as important to her as horses. She readily admitted that Sean could make his fair behave better than she could hers. He could and did discipline his for effective use during Threadfall. But she knew that she
understood
any of them—hers, his, or those impressed by anyone else on Pern—better than he did, especially when they were injured fighting Thread. Or maybe her sensitivity, developed over the last couple of months along with her pregnancy, tended toward maternal caring. The doctor had said she was in excellent health and had found nothing in her physical profile to suggest problems. She could continue riding as long as she felt comfortable in the saddle.