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"I checked all the stations on the lower Jordan. Paradise River, Malay, even Boca, where Benden lived. No one. Fierce waste of materiel, though, piled as storm-wrack along the coast at one point. Looked to me as if they'd lost the cargo ships in a storm. We got bad ones blowing in from the sea—or maybe the aftermath of a tsunami. We had one of those after some sea volcano blew up to the east somewhere. Missed us, though, on Bitkim Island.
"Last message I ever heard, and only parts of it at that, was Benden telling everyone to conserve power, stay inside, and just let that frigging Thread fall. I guess it got him, too."
Ni Morgana's thigh deliberately pressed against Benden's, and he took it as sympathy. Though the old man's rambling had been confused and sometimes he contradicted himself, his statement had the ring of truth.
For a few moments, Kimmer sat silently contemplating his wineglass. At last he roused, raising a finger to bring Chio to his side. She refilled his glass. Then, with an apologetic smile, she offered wine to the other guests, whose glasses were barely touched.
"We had eight good years on Pern before disaster struck," Kimmer said, casting farther back in his memory. "I heard that Benden and Boll swore blind that they could lick Thread. Except for Ted Tubberman and a few others, they had half the colony behind them, too entranced by the great reputations of the admiral and the governor"—the titles were pronounced disparagingly—"to believe they could fail. Tubberman wanted to send for help then. The colony voted the motion down.
"Where we were on Bitkim Island, we didn't get much Thread, but I heard what it did: wiped out whole stakes down to the metal they'd been wearing. Ate anything, Thread did; gorged until it blew up too fast to live—but it could burrow down and the next generation would begin. Fire stopped it, and metal. It drowned in water. The fish, even the dolphins, thrived on it, or so the dolphineers said. Humph. Damned stuff only let up a couple a years back. Otherwise, we've had this frigging menace raining down on us every ten days or so for fifty fucking years."
"You did well to survive for fifty long years, Mr. Kimmer," Saraidh said in a flattering purr as she leaned forward to elicit more confidences. "But how? It must have taken tremendous effort."
"Kenjo'd started ‘ponics. Had some sense, that man even with this fanatic thing he had about flying and being in the air. Space crazy he was. But I was better at contrapting the things you need to live. I taught this whole bunch everything I knew—not that they're grateful to me." His spiteful gaze rested on the three Fusaiyukis. "We saved horses, sheep, cattle, chickens before Thread could ooze all over ‘em. I'd salvaged one of the old grass-makers they used the first year, before they'd planted Earth grass and that Altair hybrid got started." He paused, narrowing his eyes. "Tubberman had another type of grass growing before they shu
"Then others could have, too?" Saraidh asked mildly.
"No!" Kimmer thundered, banging the table to emphasize that denial. "No one survived but us. You don't believe me? Tell her, Shensu."
As if making up his mind to obey, Shensu regarded first Kimmer and then the three officers. Then he shrugged.
"After Thread had stopped for three months, Kimmer sent us out to see if anyone lived. We went from the Jordan River west to the Great Desert. We did see long-overgrown ruins where stakes had been started. We saw many domestic animals. I was surprised to see how many animals had managed to survive, for we saw much devastation of fertile land. We traveled for eight months. We saw no one human, nor any evidence of human endeavor. We returned to our Hold." He shot a single challenging look at Kimmer before his expression settled into its mask.
Benden had a stray thought: Kimmer had sent them out, not to search for survivors, but hoping they wouldn't return.
"We're miners, too," Shensu continued unexpectedly. Kimmer sat up, too enraged at the bland disclosure to form words. Shensu smiled at that reaction. "We have mined—ores and gemstones—as soon as we were strong enough to wield pick and shovel. All of us, my half sisters, and our children, too. Kimmer taught us how to cut gems. He insisted that we be rich enough to pay our way back to civilized worlds."
"You fools! You utter fools! You shouldn't have told them. They'll kill us and take it all. All of it."
"They are Fleet officers, Kimmer," Shensu said, bowing politely to Benden, Ni Morgana, and the astonished Nev. "Like Admiral Benden." His eyes slid and held Ross Benden's briefly. "They would not be so basely motivated as to steal our fortunes and abandon us. Their orders are to rescue any survivors."
"You will rescue us, won't you?" Kimmer cried, suddenly a terrified old man. "You must take us with you. You must!" And now he embarrassed Benden by begi
"Stev, you will make yourself ill again," Chio said, coming to disentangle the grasping hands from Benden's clothing. She gazed at Benden, mutely expressing her abject apologies for an old man's weakness and pleading for reassurance. The other women fastened apprehensive eyes on the Fleet party.
"Our orders are to establish contact with the survivors—" Benden began, taking refuge in that protocol.
"Lieutenant," Nev intervened, his face contorted with anxiety, "we'd have a weight problem, taking eleven more aboard the Erica."
Kimmer moaned.
"We'll discuss this later, Ensign," Benden said sharply. Trust Nev to be loosejawed. "It is time to change the watch." He gave Nev a quelling look and gestured for Greene to accompany him. Greene looked disgusted as he fell in behind the chastened ensign, who flushed as he realized how badly he had erred.
As Kimmer kept on sobbing, "You must take me, you must take me," Benden turned to Shensu and his brothers.
"We do have orders to follow, but I assure you that if we find no other survivors to make your continued residence viable, you will either come with us on the Erica, or another means will be found to rescue you."
"I appreciate your constraints and your devotion to duty," Shensu said, his composure in marked contrast to Kimmer's collapse. He made a slight bow from the hips. "However," he went on, with the slightest of smiles, "my brothers and I have already searched all the old stakes without success. Will you not accept our investigations as conclusive?" His dignified entreaty was far harder to ignore than Kimmer's blubbering.
Benden tried to assume a noncommittal pose. "I will certainly take that into consideration, Shensu." He was also trying to calculate just how to accommodate eleven extra bodies on the Erica. He had three-quarters of a tank: if they stripped unessential equipment, would that still give him enough fuel to lift and a reserve if last-minute adjustments were needed in the slingshot maneuver? Damn Nev. His orders were for search only, not rescue. One thing was certain: He trusted Shensu far more than he did Kimmer.
"This mission has another goal, Mr. Fusaiyuki," Ni Morgana said, "if, under these trying circumstances, you could find your way clear to assist us?"
"Certainly. If I can." Shensu executed a second dignified bow to her.
"Would you have any documentation that Thread comes from the stray planet as Mr. Kimmer intimated?" she asked, pointing to the ceiling and the system diagram. "Or was that only a theory?"
"A theory which my father proved to his satisfaction, at least, for he flew up into the stratosphere and observed the debris which the stray planet had dislodged from the Oort cloud and drawn into this part of the system. He had noticed the cloud on their way through the system. I remember him telling me that he would have paid far closer attention had he any idea of the threat it would pose." Shensu's well-formed lips curled in a wry smile. "The EEC report evidently gave the erratic planet only a mention. I have my father's notes."