Dragons Dawn

The tower was still dark as Paul parked his skimmer behind it. The windows were shuttered, but the main door was ajar. He went up the stairs as quietly as he could. Lately, with the dormitories so crowded, off-duty communications perso

As he reached the top floor, his eyes went immediately to the big screen, which showed the Moth’s position above Pern, relayed from the moon installation.

“He has not corrected his course once,” Ongola said, swinging his chair toward Paul. He motioned for Jake to vacate the second console chair. The young man’s eyes were black holes of fatigue, but Paul knew better than to suggest that Jake stand down until the shuttle was safely landed. “He ought to have fired ten minutes ago. He says he doesn’t need to.”

Paul dropped to the chair and toggled in the comm unit. “Tower to Moth do you read me? Benden here. Moth, respond.”

“Good morning, Admiral Benden,” Nabhi replied promptly and insolently. “We are on course and reentering at a good angle.”

“Your instrumentation is giving you false readings. Repeat, you are getting false readings, Nabol. Course correction essential.”

“I disagree, Admiral,” Nabhi replied, his tone jaunty. “No need to waste fuel! Our descent is on the green.”

“Correction, Moth! Your descent is red and orange across our board and on our screen. You have sustained instrument malfunction. I will give you the readings.” Paul read the numbers off from the calculator pad that Ongola handed to him. He was sure he heard startled gasp in the background.

But Nabhi seemed undisturbed by Paul’s information, and he did indeed report readings consonant with a good reentry.

“I don’t believe this,” Ongola said. “He’s coming in from the wrong quadrant, at too steep an angle, and he’s going to crash smack in the center of the Island Ring Sea. Soon.”

“Repeat, Moth, your angle is wrong. Abort reentry. Nabol, take another orbit. Sort yourself out. Your instruments are malfunctioning.” Fardles, if Nabol could not feel the wrongness of that entry, he was nowhere near the driver he thought himself.

“I’m captain of this ship, Admiral,” Nabol snapped back. “It’s your screen that’s malfunctioning . . . Whadidya say, Bart? I don’t believe it. You’ve got to be wrong. Give it a bang! Kick it!”

“Yank your nose up and fire a three-second blast, Nabol!” Paul cried, his eyes on the screen and the speed of the incoming shuttle.

“I’m trying. Can’t fire. No fuel!” Sudden fear made Nabol’s voice shrill.

Paul heard Bart’s cries in the background. “I told you it felt wrong. I told you! We shouldn’t’ve . . . I’ll jettison. They’ll have that much!” Bart shouted. “If the farking relay’ll work.”

Use the manual jettison lever, Bart,” Ongola yelled over Paul’s shoulder.

“I’m trying, I’m trying . . . She’s heating up too fast, Nabhi. She’s heatin – ”

Horrified, Paul, Ongola, and Jake watched the dissolution of the shuttle. One stubby wing sheared off and the shuttle began to spin. The tail section broke off and spun away on a different route, burning up in the atmosphere. The second wing followed suit.

“It’ll hit the sea?” Paul asked in a bare whisper, trying to calculate the impact of that projectile on land. Ongola nodded imperceptibly.

Like an obituary, the relay screen lit up with a glorious sunlit spread of many bits and one larger object, disappearing into many faint pricks of glitter.

A team of dolphins were sent out to the Ring Sea to find the wreck. Maxmilian and Teresa reported back a week later, tired and not too happy to tell humans that they had seen the twisted hulk wedged into a reef in waters too deep for them to examine closely. All the dolphins were still searching the Ring Sea for the jettisoned scoop.

“Tell them not to bother,” Jim Tillek muttered dourly. “There’s unlikely to be anything left to analyze. We know that the junk goes back in a years’ long tail. We’re stuck with it. Hail Hoyle and Wickramansingh!”

“Ezra?” Emily asked the solemn astronomer.

Keroon’s butterscotch-colored skin seemed tinged with gray, and he looked bowed by his responsibilities. He heaved a heavy, weary sigh and scratched at the back of his head. “I have to concede that Jim’s theory is correct. The contents of the pod would have been final proof, but I, too, doubt the scoop survived. Even if it did, it could take years to find it in such a vast area. Years also apply to that trail I fear. We won’t be able to judge until the end of that tail comes in sight.”

“And where does that leave us?” Paul asked rhetorically.

“Coping, Admiral, coping!” Jim Tillek replied proudly. With a twitch of his sturdy shoulders, he had thrown off his doomsday depression and instead challenged them all. “And we’ve Thread falling in two hours, so we’d better stop worrying about the future and attend to the present. Right?”

Emily looked at Paul and managed a tentative smile, which she also turned on Zi Ongola, who was watching them impassively.

“Right! We’ll cope.” She spoke in a firm, resolute voice. Surely we can hold out for ten years, she thought to herself, if we’re very careful. She wondered why no one mentioned the homing capsule. Perhaps because no one had much faith in Ted Tubberman. “We’ve got to.”

“Until those dragons start earning their keep,” Paul said. “But this settlement must be restructured.” Emily and he had been discussing redispositions for days. They had been waiting for the right moment to broach the subject to the others of the informal Landing council.

“No,” Ongola said, surprising everyone. “We must resettle completely. Landing is no longer viable. It used to be sort of a link with our origins, with the ships that brought us here. We no longer require that sense of continuity.”

“And most especially,” Jim picked up the thoughts, “not with volcanoes popping up and spouting off in this vicinity. “Jim shifted in his chair, settling in to discuss basics. “I’ve been listening to what people are saying. So has Ezra. Telgar’s notion about moving to that cave system on basement rock in the north is gaining strength. The cave complex is big enough to house Landing’s population – plus dragons! We’re not out of raw materials to make plastic and metal for housing. But making it takes time away from the essential task of fighting Thread and keeping us alive. Why not use a natural structure? Use our technology to make the cave system comfortable, tenable, and totally safe from Thread?”

Emily did not even pause to take a breath. “Just what Paul and I have been discussing. There’s enough fuel, I believe, to transport some of the heavier equipment by shuttle. Then we can use the metal in situ. Jim, the Pern Navy is about to be commissioned.”

Paul gri