Dragonsblood (7 page)

“Probably your son.”

“How is the boy?”

“He is doing well,” Emorra replied. “Janir has him in a fellis-laced sleep.”

“We shall have to wake him soon,” Wind Blossom said, making a face.

“And we must keep his jaw as immobile as possible.”

“That will be hard on him,” Purman said, flashing a smile. “He is a talker.”

“Then someone who can outtalk him should be at his side when he wakes,”

Wind Blossom replied. She looked at her daughter. “Emorra, see to it.”

“My lady!” M’hall protested, “Emorra is the administrator here. She should

not be ordered about—”

“She is my daughter,” Wind Blossom replied, as if that were enough.

Emorra bit off a bitter response, nodded curtly to her mother, and left.

“Mother or not—” M’hall’s indignation suffused his face.

Purman was unmoved. “Why did you send her out?”

Wind Blossom stared at M’hall until the Weyrleader let out an angry sigh.

“How much has your mother told you, M’hall?”

M’hall shot a pointed glance at Purman. Wind Blossom motioned for M’hall

to continue. The Benden Weyrleader relaxed, looking only at Wind

Blossom.

“My mother,” M’hall said, giving the second word slight emphasis, “has told

me everything she knows.”

“About what?” Purman asked, turning from one to the other, realizing slowly

that the conversation was for his benefit.

“About the dragons, the watch-whers, and the grubs,” the Benden

Weyrleader replied.

“And now, Purman’s vine-grubs,” Wind Blossom added.

“Don’t forget the felines in the Southern Continent,” M’hall countered.

Wind Blossom cocked her head toward Purman. “How much can you tell us

about the felines?”

Purman shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

“The dragons, watch-whers, and grubs are all modifications to Pern’s

ecosystem,” Wind Blossom said, as if that were explanation enough.

Purman pursed his lips in thought. “The dragons fight Thread from on high,

and the grubs catch it down low,” he said after a moment.

“But the grubs do more than that, don’t they?” Wind Blossom prompted.

Purman nodded slowly.

“My mother made the dragons and I made the watch-whers,” Wind

Blossom said. M’hall snorted derisively at her, but she held up a restraining

hand. “That is what everyone has been told, M’hall.”

Purman cocked an eyebrow at this exchange. “My father bred the felines

and the grubs,” he said after a moment. “The grubs protect Pern, so you

were wondering if I knew the purpose of the felines?”

Wind Blossom nodded.

Purman shook his head, sadly. “My father never said,” he told them. “He

was very excited with them, said that he would show everyone, but I was

too little and he never tried to talk to me.” He frowned at old memories.

“I don’t think he trusted me to keep his secrets,” he admitted.

“My mother believes that there are too many secrets on Pern,” M’hall said,

looking back and forth between the two of them. “She is afraid that

something will happen and that vital information will be lost, to the detriment

of all.”

Wind Blossom had been scrutinizing Purman’s face carefully while M’hall

was talking. Now she shook her head. “M’hall, I don’t think he knows.”

“Knows what?” Purman asked.

Wind Blossom answered his question with a question: “When does it

end?”

“When does what end?” Purman replied, irritated.

He thought he knew M’hall, and was accepted at Benden Hold for his

valuable work in adapting the grubs in a tighter symbiosis with Benden’s

grape vines, but now he wasn’t sure. He wondered if he was being mocked

by these two for being his father’s son. His life had been so hard as a

youngster that he’d changed his name, making it more Pernese and less

readily identifiable with the rogue botanist.

Wind Blossom sighed, shaking her head. She reached out to take

Purman’s hand in her own, soothingly. “I am sorry, Purman. I had hoped

that your father had passed on his knowledge to you.”

“He told me some things,” Purman replied stiffly. “Other things I learned on

my own.”

M’hall slapped his leg emphatically, exclaiming, “There, you see! That

proves Mother’s point. There should be no secrets.”

“I do not disagree, M’hall,” Wind Blossom said. “But some things are

pointless to know—like the knowledge of sutures—because the technology

cannot support it.”

M’hall nodded reluctantly.

Purman had been thinking while the other two were talking. Now he looked

at Wind Blossom. “How similar are the watch-whers to the dragons?”

M’hall snorted and gave Purman a keen smile. “You see, Wind Blossom,

Purman lends weight to my point.”

Wind Blossom nodded and turned her head to face Purman. “They are very

similar. I started with much of the same genetic base and the same master

program.”

“What is their purpose, then?”

She raised an eyebrow in surprise, then sighed. “Your training is sparse,

Purman. You should have been taught that there should always be more

than one purpose in introducing a new species into an ecosystem.

“In fact, the watch-whers were intended to solve several problems,” she

continued. “Dragons, by their nature, would associate only with a select few

people. But they must become part of the human ecology, if you will. They

must not be feared.”

“So you bred the watch-whers as something that most people could see?”

Purman sounded skeptical.

“And they’re uglier than dragons, too,” M’hall added. “If you were to try to

tell someone who’d never seen a dragon what they were like, you’d say like

a watch-wher but bigger and prettier.”

“So their first purpose is psychological?”

“It is not their first purpose,” Wind Blossom said rather tartly. “Unlike your

wines.”

Purman grunted in response and gestured for her to continue.

“I designed their eyes to be excellent in low-light situations,” Wind Blossom

said, choosing her words carefully, “and particularly tuned to infrared

wavelengths.”

“Don’t forget that you designed them to be more empathic than telepathic,”

M’hall interjected. Wind Blossom gave him a reproving look. “Sorry,” he

said, chastened.

“I altered the design of their dermis and epidermis to incorporate more of

their boron crystalline skeletal materials—”

“She tried to make them armored,” M’hall translated. Wind Blossom

nodded.

“It didn’t work,” M’hall added. Wind Blossom sighed. M’hall waved a hand

toward her in conciliation, saying, “But it was a good idea.”

“Yes, it was,” Purman agreed, “but why? Why not incorporate those

changes directly into the dragons?”

“Two different species are safer,” Wind Blossom said. “Greater diversity

yields redundancy.”

Purman nodded but held up a hand as he grappled with his thoughts. Finally

he looked up at the two of them. “The watch-whers fight Thread at night?”

“By themselves,” M’hall agreed, eyes gleaming in memory. “I’ve seen them

once—they were magnificent. I learned a lot about fighting Thread that

night.”

“They breathe fire?”

“No,” M’hall said. “They eat Thread, like the fire-lizards. They don’t need

riders, either—the queens organize them all.”

“The queens?”

M’hall nodded. “Of course. They’re like dragons, or fire-lizards for that

matter.”

“What about their wings?” Purman asked. “They’re so short and stubby,

how do they fly?”

Wind Blossom’s eyes lit with mischief. “They fly the same way as dragons.

I made the wings smaller to avoid Thread damage.”

“Why keep this a secret?” Purman asked with outrage in his voice.

“Everyone should know this.”

“Why?” Wind Blossom asked. “So they’ll never sleep for fear that Thread

will fall at night? How many people are content to let only your grubs protect

the grapevines?”

“It doesn’t happen often,” M’hall put in. “The oxygen level in the atmosphere

shrinks at night, especially in the three thousand-to fifteen hundred-meter

range, and the air’s too cold to support the spores. A lot of them freeze and

are blown all over the place as dust.”

“But what about those that do get through?” Purman persisted.

“It’s no different than dealing with the small amount of Thread that the

dragons miss,” M’hall said. “Hopefully, the ground crews find and take care

of them.”

“And they are fewer at night anyway, due to the cold.” Purman pursed his

lips thoughtfully. “But on a warm night?”

M’hall recrossed his legs and shook his head ruefully. “That’s how I found

out, Purman. I asked myself that same question, wondering how I could get

my riders to fight day and night—especially as neither humans nor dragons

can see that well at night.”

A look of wonder crossed his face as he recalled the experience. “They

swarmed in from everywhere, arranged themselves by their queens, and

flew up to the Thread. I was above them, at first, and they came up at me

like stars coming out at night. And then they were above, swooping and

diving for the still-viable clumps of Thread.”

“They see more in the infrared range,” Wind Blossom said. “They can

differentiate between the live Thread and the Thread that has been frozen

by the night atmosphere.”

“So they have night vision . . .” Purman breathed.

Wind Blossom nodded. “That is why their eyes are so bad in daylight: too

much light for them.”

“And Benden’s watch-wher—why did it react to tickling?” Purman asked.

Wind Blossom shook her head sadly. “I wanted them to react if they were

asleep and Thread fell on them,” she said. “I had hoped to make the

watch-whers tough enough to survive Thread and protect Pern . . . in case

something happened to the dragons or their riders.”

Purman sat bolt upright, shocked. He looked to M’hall for confirmation, but

the Weyrleader only nodded. Purman asked him, “Do you think this could

happen?”

“I’m not a geneticist, Purman,” M’hall answered, “but I certainly hope not.”

Purman gave Wind Blossom a long, searching look. Finally, he said, “I

remember not too long ago I had a problem with one of the vineyards.

Something I hadn’t seen before. The grapes started going bad. I had to

work hard to isolate the problem, and it turned out that the usual fungus that

protected the grapes had been replaced by a new, more virulent strain. It

took me months to finally develop a variant vine-grub to protect against that

fungus.”

While he spoke, he carefully watched Wind Blossom’s reaction. When he

finished, he knew. “You fear that something similar might affect the

dragons, don’t you?”

Wind Blossom nodded. “The dragons are derived from the fire-lizards. The

parasites that prey on the fire-lizards could also prey on the dragons.”

She frowned. “But just as you modified your grubs to aid the grape in

fighting off that fungus, so the modifications to produce the dragons have

rendered them immune to bacterial and viral vectors that affect fire-lizards .

. . I hope.”

“But time will generate mutations,” Purman said to himself. He looked at

Wind Blossom. “How much time? What sort of problems would the

dragons have?”

Wind Blossom shook her head. “I do not know.”

She sighed and lay back down in her bed.

“The Eridani like to take centuries to add a new species to an ecosystem,”

she continued. “At the least, even with all the urgency of Thread, my mother

wanted to spend decades.

“As it was, we did not have time to research more than the most obvious

disease vectors affecting the fire-lizards before my mother created the

dragons.”

Wind Blossom sighed again. “I had the advantage of somewhat more

research before I created the watch-whers, but still . . .” Her voice trailed

off.

“I must rest now,” she told them, gesturing for them to leave. She smiled up

at Purman.

“Go look in on your son,” she said. “I would like him to stay here, so I can

teach him all that you have not been able to.”

She rolled over in her bed. “He must stay here a while, anyway, for his

wounds to heal.”

THREE

Wide ship, tall ship,

Tossed on a raging sea.

Fair ship, brave ship,

Bring my love back to me.

Near Half-Circle Sea Hold, Second Interval, AL 507

The air was cold and moist with sea spray and it pressed Lorana’s clothing

tight against her body as she finished her climb to the top of
Wind Rider
’s

highest mast. The sound of the sea and ship beneath her were all that she

could hear—she could see little, for the stars were hidden by cloud and the

dawn’s light was still a while off.

From the moment
Wind Rider
had heeled over as it caught the wind and

the swells outside of Ista Harbor, Lorana had wanted to do just this—climb

to the highest point on the ship, wrap her legs around the mast and hold

tight while she raised her arms to the wind and felt the salt air chap her

cheeks. She’d had to wait though, until she’d overcome her fear of the

heeling ship, and her fear of climbing the ratlines and then beyond the

crosstrees to the highest point of the ship, and she’d had to wait until she

was sure no one would be watching her, for hanging in the wind was only