The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall (15 page)

The next morning was different. Red was up at first light, rousing Betty, Jess, Fyodor, and Deccie to feed the animals. By the time they returned to the kitchen, Licia Dook, Emily Schultz, and Sal Wang were starting breakfast under the watchful eyes of Madeleine.

With breakfast eaten and a fresh mug of klah, Red called a meeting of the various supervisors and discussed the day’s priorities. That set the pattern for the spring weeks to come, establishing pastures, crops, and garden, but still making the most use of the heavy equipment that would improve and enlarge the cave system. Hanrahan had never shirked hard work and did as much time on the stonecutters or the borer—the hardest of the machines to use—as he did in the fields or the breeding yard. He could and did leave a lot of the general management of his precious stock to Brian, Jess, and Betty, with whichever fosterlings could be spared from building. But he was sensible that reasonable rest and relaxation were as vital as a good day’s work.

Even that he used somewhat to his own advantage, since he made outings to map the holding a special treat—certainly a change from the unremitting labor of turning a cliff into a human habitation or the sheer drudgery of plowing, sowing, and weeding. First he had to be assured by the Weyr that there were a few safe days in hand; then he set directions and goals for his teams. The extent of his legitimate stake, combined with the acreage of those who had joined him in the enterprise, added up to a considerable hunk of real estate, as Brian put it. Now what had been delineated on probe cartographic surveys had to be thoroughly explored, posted, and assessed for potential.

In form, the Hold land was slightly pie-shaped, the most northern point the thinnest part of the wedge, and the high and very cold mountain tarn lake the blunt point. The holding widened out from the lake, bordered on both sides by rivers: on the southern side, the river they had so perilously crossed; on the northeast, the next large one, two days’ steady ride from the first riverine boundary. Red needed to know how many more possible cave sites were available for when his present population multiplied itself out of these facilities.

With material excised from the interior, stone cottages were to be erected along the foot of the ramp all the way to the animal accommodations. In his master plan, those ultimately would be workshops for the various crafts needed in a large and prospering community.

He was fond of Brian, got along well with him, and hoped to do the same with the younger ones, but his sons would need land of then own, where the da wasn’t sitting over every decision. And the stake was large enough to support many separate establishments. There should be room for future generations to expand, too. When this Fall was past, even though Red might not live to see that glorious time, his kin could spread out, all over the Hold. In his mind’s eye, Red saw that even more clearly now, as magnificent a dream as he had ever envisioned when he and Mairi had decided to join the Pern colony.

So, whenever possible, he sent scouts out to find what other riches—accommodation being the main one—the stake could provide. Sometimes he went himself to check on possible ore sites, for they’d need more coal than the one seam they’d found nearby to run the hypocaust system that Egend had devised for warming the living quarters of caves.

Egend was an ingenious engineer. He’d been successful at Fort Weyr in drilling into the old, still-hot magma chamber that provided delightful quantities of heat, especially for the hardening of dragon eggs on the sandy floor of the Hatching Ground. It had taken the dragons weeks of hard work hauling in the appropriate sands from the beaches near Boll, but the Weyr now had an approximation of the conditions Kitti Ping had felt the dragons would require. Not that there hadn’t been clutches successfully hatched on makeshift warm beds, but the sand flooring appealed to the queens. Like the babies appearing so continuously at Fort, dragon eggs seemed to be continually in one stage of maturity or another at the Weyr.

Whenever his duties had permitted him, Red had attended the happy occasions of Hatchings, but Mairi managed to get to them all, and was quite an expert on what color dragon would emerge from what shell.

Egend had seen no problem in heating Red’s Hold by hypocaust and such hearths as could safely be extended up to the heights. He had unearthed some solar paneling among Joel’s supplies, which would do for heating water. There was nothing like a good bath to soothe a body after a hard day’s work. And, after having to put up with other people’s dirt and grime for so long, having a bath, much less clean clothes when one wanted them, was a real luxury in the new Hold, made possible by the use of the solar panels.

Of Red’s fostered youngsters, young Ali Arthied had studied enough engineering under his father that he could set up and monitor that system with Jonti Greene’s assistance. They were very clever in adapting and contriving mechanicals, that pair. He planned to send both back to sit their exams with Fulmar Stone, who had been monitoring their studies.

Educating the young had become a race between the jobs that
had
to be done to survive and the studies that
had
to be done to keep skills from dying out.

Well, maybe, Red thought as he rose the morning they were finally going to hang the airlock door, when that chore was done, they could stop moving at such a hectic pace. Success in their first year here was crucial for many reasons, not the least of which was proving it could be done expeditiously. Grass
was
up in three of the seeded paddocks; the first shoots of alfalfa, the last of his seed allowance, were pushing through the assiduously fertilized earth. The fruit trees, puny as they were, had been planted in the walled orchard, which could be covered against Threadfall by translucent plastic sheets. The vegetable garden, also walled, was coming on with few failures, and the rows could be quickly covered with plastic shields.

It was a bright, sunny spring morning, too, Red was happy to notice: auspicious, especially since he had coaxed Paul Benden and a few other special guests from the Fort to gather for this momentous occasion—the Dooring of . . .

“Scorch it,” Red swore under his breath as he jammed his feet into his steel-capped work boots. He still didn’t have the
right
-sounding name for the place.

Mairi hadn’t been at all in favor of naming the place Keroon, or even Kerry, which he had thought she’d go for.

“Oh, it should be something of
us,
or
ours,”
she’d said, her face screwed up as she tried to express what she meant.

“Hanrahan Hold?” he’d asked, almost facetiously.

“Good heavens, no. That smacks of lord of the manor.” Then she’d given him one of her sly sideways grins. “Though you are, you know. Lord of all this . . .” She’d gestured broadly through the deep-set window of their upstairs bedroom.

The day they had moved their bed from his old office, which immediately became his office again, to the three-room suite that had been carved out of the cliff face—that had been
her
day. He was not likely to forget the joy on her face as she had directed Brian and Simon just where her heirloom chest—once more glued together since its dismemberment for the Second Crossing—should be placed. When she’d seen it settled exactly where she wanted it, she’d given such a happy, contented sigh. Then she shooed everyone out so she could polish it to a soft gleam.

She was so long at that task that Maureen ended up feeding her baby brother.

“That’s not like Ma,” she told her father as she cuddled Ryan in the crook of her arm.

“It is today, Maureen,” Red replied, swirling the last of the klah around in his cup before he drained it. “Settling that chest means this place is definitely your mother’s home now.”

“First thing Ma asked for when we landed here was glue to put the chest together,” Brian told his much younger sister, and winked at his father.

“Apart from the stones we stand on, that’s the oldest object in this Hold,” Red remarked in a sentimental tone. “Cherished for generations in your mother’s family . . .”

“And doubtless for generations here,” Brian added with an understanding grin. “So, when are we getting the front door installed, Dad?”

“The invitations have been accepted,” his father said, “so let’s get the hoists set up.”

Now everything was ready—and at last the great door was to be hung! Red had new trousers hiding the work boots, and a fine new shirt over which Mairi insisted he wear one of the leather jerkins that had been adopted as useful work apparel.

“At least until that thing is in place. We’ve ever so much spare hide,” she’d said, “but no time to set up Maddie’s big looms yet, so spare the cloth and wear the jerkin.”

Today, too, Sean and Sorka, with their newest son, would join the celebrations. A dragon or two might come in useful bringing in guests, though not in a million years would Red
ask
that a dragon be employed in any task but the one it had been bred to do. He knew how bitter Sean had been when all the dragons could do was carry things from one place to another. Of course, that was before they had learned to fly
between
and chew the firestone that made Thread-charring flame. Sean might be a tad arrogant over his present high position, but Red would not fault him. He and the other young dragonriders risked hideous death and many injuries to keep Thread from ravaging this one area of Pern that humans could survive in. And more power to the lad—no, the
man
that Sean had become—he was a true leader of his riders and a fine manager of the new species. The night that Alianne and Chereth had died had been the only time Sean had revealed any of the burden of responsibility he had undertaken. In one sense, Sean’s emotion had been a sign of real maturity in Red’s eyes: a man had the right to tears of grief, no blame attached. Red genuinely admired Sean for that. But then, he had always admired Sean, even when he’d been an unknown quantity as the wild and young proud possessor of two brown fire-lizards.

Tantalizing odors of the beef and sheep roasting over the glowing coals in the barbecue pits wafted across the rough road that led past the fields to the front of the Hold. Red could hear the fuss from the open kitchen doors and windows as Mairi, Maureen, and most of the fosterlings were pressed into service to prepare the feast for those who would gather here to set the door in the portal.

The mechanicals to perform that setting were already in place, awaiting the arrival of the guests; the hoist, securely supported, jutted from the window directly above, and the chains were already attached to the door to lift it out of the sled-wagon. The durasteel had been well rubbed with fine steel wool, removing the minor scrapes acquired during its first occupation. Red wondered briefly which shuttle it had been taken from. He hadn’t asked Joel Lilienkamp, too relieved to get the door released to him to irritate the old man with a minor detail. He’d say it was from the
Eusijan,
the shuttle in which Sallah Telgar and Barr Hamil had piloted the Hanrahans down to the surface of their new home. Who could argue with him? The shuttles had all been the same in design.

Suddenly a bronze fire-lizard came streaking in through the opening, chittering wildly at him. Snapper appeared and the two conferred. The bronze then approached Red, who held out his arm for the creature to land. Snapper popped to his shoulder, overseeing any attentions from a stranger. Chittering again, the bronze held up one foot, and Red could see that a message capsule was tied to it.

He carefully untied it, thanking the fire-lizard.

Where the hell’s this ford you told us to take? PB

Red laughed, sensing the frustration in the bold writing of the terse note. He poked his head out the window. “Someone saddle King for me. Paul can’t find my ford.”

By the time he got downstairs, King was saddled and waiting—along with ten other mounts and their riders.

“Should we bring a boat to make him feel at home?” Brian asked, grinning as he swayed easily with Cloudy’s excited cavortings.

“No, let’s just make tracks and get him here, or the day’ll be done with no door in place,” Red said, swinging up into his saddle.

“And no feast tonight either, if my front door’s not in place, Peter Hanrahan,” Mairi yelled from the kitchen door.

“Let’s go then, lads, or we go hungry!” The moment Red eased the reins, King took off, and the others were showered by the pebbles the eager stallion kicked up behind him.

The ford was an hour’s distance on a fast horse, four hours’ travel by wagon or cart. As he rode, Red hoped that his guests’ horses were still fresh enough to make the return journey at a decent speed. Maybe Paul had been practicing riding. Gorghe Logorides had bred a beast similar to a walking horse, but though the animals were easy to sit, they were plainsbred. Red’s Paso Fino types would be more useful here in the hilly North.

They paused only once to give the horses a breather—and surprised the party on the other side of the ford by their sudden appearance.

“Ahoy, there, Admiral Benden, be ye bogged down by a mere river?” Red shouted through cupped hands. Beneath him, King blew vigorously through his nostrils, but he was in such good condition that he was only slightly sweaty from the run and his breath rate quickly returned to normal.

“Ahoy yourself,” Paul bellowed back, getting to his feet. “How’re we expected to get across
that
?” He pointed disgustedly at the swirling current of muddy water that separated them.

“I told you to look for the cairn and line up the poles,” Red shouted back, pointing to the right and then indicating the plainly visible-to him—steel pole on his side of the bank. “Spare me from spacemen who need a bloody computer to navigate and a blinking beacon to guide them. Hi, there, Ju, Zi!” he added, noticing Paul’s wife and the big dark man among the nine or ten others who now joined the admiral where he stood just short of swirling water.

Speaking loudly enough for his voice to carry across the ford, Paul directed some of his party to find the alleged cairn and pole of Hanrahan’s. The river was high from the rains the previous week, but not quite as high as it had been the night Red had gotten his party across.