The Dragonriders of Pern Read online

  THE

  DRAGONRIDERS

  OF

  PERN

  DRAGONFLIGHT

  DRAGONQUEST

  THE WHITE DRAGON

  Anne McCaffrey

  A Del Rey Book

  BALLANTINE BOOKS • NEW YORK

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Map

  VOLUME I: DRAGONFLIGHT

  Dedicatory Note

  PART I Weyr Search

  PART II Dragonflight

  PART III Dust Fall

  PART IV The Cold Between

  VOLUME II: DRAGONQUEST

  Dedication

  I Morning at Mastercrafthall, Fort Hold / Several Afternoons Later at Benden Weyr / Midmorning (Telgar Time) at Mastersmithcrafthall, Telgar Hold

  II Evening (Fort Weyr Time). Meeting of the Weyrleaders at Fort Weyr

  III Morning over Lemos Hold

  IV Midday at Southern Weyr

  V Midmorning at Ruatha Hold / Early Evening at Benden Weyr

  VI Midmorning at Southern Weyr / Early Morning at Nabol Hold: Next Day

  VII Midmorning at Benden Weyr / Early Morning at the Mastersmithcrafthall, Telgar Hold

  VIII Midmorning at Southern Weyr

  IX Afternoon at Southern Weyr: Same Day

  X Early Morning in Harpercrafthall at Fort Hold / Afternoon at Telgar Hold

  XI Early Morning at Benden Weyr

  XII Morning at Benden Weyr / Predawn at High Reaches Weyr

  XIII Night at Fort Weyr: Six Days Later

  XIV Early Morning at Ruatha Hold / Midday at Benden Weyr

  XV Evening at Benden Weyr: Impression Banquet

  XVI Evening at Benden Weyr / Later Evening at Fort Weyr

  VOLUME III: THE WHITE DRAGON

  Dedication

  I At Ruatha Hold, Present Pass, 12th Turn

  II Benden Weyr, Present Pass, 13th Turn

  III Morning at Ruatha Hold, and Smithcrafthall at Telgar Hold, Present Pass, 15.5.9

  IV Ruatha Hold, Fidello’s Hold, and Various Points Between, 15.5.10-15.5.16

  V Morning in Harpercraft Hall, Fort Hold, Afternoon in Benden Weyr, Late Afternoon in Harpercraft Hall, 15.5.26

  VI Ruatha Hold and Southern Hold, 15.5.27-15.6.2

  VII Morning at Ruatha Hold, 15.6.2

  VIII Ruatha Hold, Fort Weyr, Fidello’s Hold, 15.6.3-15.6.17

  IX Early Summer, Harpercraft Hall and Ruatha Hold, 15.7.3

  X From Harpercraft Hall to the Southern Continent, Evening at Benden Weyr, 15.7.4

  XI Late Morning at Benden Weyr, Early Morning at Harpercraft Hall, Midday at Fidello’s Hold, 15.7.5

  XII Ruatha Hold, Fidello’s Hold, Threadfall, 15.7.6

  XIII A Cove in the Southern Continent, 15.7.7-15.8.7

  XIV Early Morning at Harpercraft Hall, Midmorning at Ista Weyr, Midafternoon at Jaxom’s Cove, 15.8.28

  XV Evening at Jaxom’s Cove and Late Evening at Ista Weyr, 15.8.28

  XVI At the Cove Hold, 15.8.28-15.9.7

  XVII Fort Hold, Benden Weyr, at Cove Hold, and at Sea aboard the Dawn Sister, 15.10.1-15.10.2

  XVIII At the Cove Hold the Day of Master Robinton’s Arrival, 15.10.14

  XIX Morning at the Cove Hold, Star-gazing in Late Evening, Next Morning, Discovery at the Mountain, 15.10.15-15.10.16

  XX At the Mountain and at Ruatha Hold, 15.10.18-15.10.20

  XXI Next Day at the Mountain, Cove Hold, and the Southern Hatching Ground, 15.10.21

  Afterword

  Dragondex

  Other Books by Anne McCaffrey

  To learn more about other great titles from Ballantine Books . . .

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Rukbat, in the Sagittarian Sector, was a golden G-type star. It had five planets, two asteroid belts and a stray planet that it had attracted and held in recent millennia. When men first settled on Rukbat’s third world and called it Pern, they had taken little notice of the strange planet swinging around its adopted primary in a wildly erratic elliptical orbit. For two generations, the colonists gave the bright Red Star little thought—until the path of the wanderer brought it close to its stepsister at perihelion. When such aspects were harmonious and not distorted by conjunctions with other planets in the system, the indigenous life form of the wandering planet sought to bridge the space gap between its home and the more temperate and hospitable planet. At these times, silver Threads dropped through Pern’s skies, destroying anything they touched. The initial losses the colonists suffered were staggering. As a result, during the subsequent struggle to survive and combat this menace, Pern’s tenuous contact with the mother planet was broken.

  To control the incursions of the dreadful Threads—for the Pernese had cannibalized their transport ships early on and abandoned such technological sophistication as was irrelevant to this pastoral planet—the more resourceful men embarked on a long-term plan. The first phase involved breeding a highly specialized variety of a life form indigenous to their new world. Men and women with high empathy ratings and some innate telepathic ability were trained to use and preserve these unusual animals. These dragons—named for the mythical Terran beast they resembled—had two valuable characteristics: they could get from one place to another instantaneously and, after chewing a phosphine-bearing rock, they would emit a flaming gas. Because the dragons could fly, they were able to char Thread in midair, and then escape from its ravages.

  It took generations to develop to the fullest the potential of these dragons. The second phase of the proposed defense against the deadly incursions would take even longer. For Thread, a space-traveling mycorrhizoid spore, with mindless voracity devoured all organic matter and, once grounded, burrowed and proliferated with terrifying speed. So a symbiote of the same strain was developed to counter this parasite, and the resulting grub was introduced into the soil of the southern continent. The original plan was that the dragons would be a visible protection, charring Thread while it was still skyborne and protecting the dwellings and the livestock of the colonists. The grub-symbiote would protect vegetation by devouring any Thread that managed to evade the dragons’ fire.

  The originators of the two-stage defense did not allow for change or for hard geological fact. The southern continent, overtly more attractive than the harsher northern land, proved unstable and the entire colony was eventually forced to move north to seek refuge from the Threads in the natural caves on the continental shield rock of the north.

  The original Fort, constructed in the eastern face of the Great West Mountain Range, soon grew too small to hold the colonists. Another settlement was started slightly to the north, alongside a great lake conveniently formed near a cave-filled cliff. But Ruatha Hold, as the settlement was called, became overcrowded within a few generations.

  Since the Red Star rose in the east, the people of Pern decided to establish a holding in the eastern mountains, provided a suitable cavesite could be found. Only solid rock and metal, both of which were in distressingly short supply on Pern, were impervious to the burning score of Thread.

  The winged, tailed, fire-breathing dragons had by then been bred to a size that required more spacious accommodations than the cliffside holds could provide. But ancient cave-pocked cones of extinct volcanoes, one high above the first Fort, the other in the Benden mountains, proved to be adequate and required only a few improvements to be made habitable. However, such projects took the last of the fuel for the great stonecutters, which had been programed only for regular mining operations, not for wholesale cliff excavations. Subsequent holds and weyrs had to be hand-hewn.

  The dragons and their riders in their high places and the people in their cave holds went about their separate tasks
, and each developed habits that became custom, which solidified into tradition as incontrovertible as law.

  Then came an interval of two hundred Turns of the planet Pern around its primary—when the Red Star was at the other end of its erratic orbit, a frozen, lonely captive. No Thread fell on Pern. The inhabitants erased the depredations of Thread and grew crops, planted orchards from precious seed brought with them, thought of reforestry for the slopes denuded by Thread. They even managed to forget that they had once been in grave danger of extinction. Then the Threads fell again when the wandering planet returned for another orbit around Pern, bringing fifty years of attack from the skies. The Pernese once again thanked their ancestors, now many generations removed, for providing the dragons who seared the dropping Thread midair with their fiery breath.

  Dragonkind, too, had prospered during that interval and had settled in four other locations, following the master plan of interim defense.

  The significance of the southern hemisphere—and of the grub—had been lost in the immediate struggle to establish new settlements. Recollections of Earth receded further from Pernese history with each successive generation until memory of their origins degenerated into legend or myth and passed into oblivion.

  By the Third Pass of the Red Star, a complicated socio-political-economic structure had been developed to deal with this recurrent evil. The six Weyrs, as the old volcanic habitations of the dragonfolk were called, pledged themselves to protect Pern, each Weyr having a geographical section of the northern continent literally under its wing. The rest of the population agreed to tithe to support the Weyrs since these fighters, these dragonmen, did not have arable land in their volcanic homes. They could not afford to take time away from nurturing their dragons to learn other trades during peacetime, nor could they take time away from protecting the planet during Passes.

  Settlements, called Holds, developed wherever natural caves were found—some, of course, more extensive or strategically placed than others. It took a strong man to hold frantic, terrified people in control during Thread attacks; it took wise administration to conserve victuals when nothing could be safely grown, and it took extraordinary measures to control population and keep it productive and healthy until such time as the menace passed.

  Men with special skills in metalworking, weaving, animal husbandry, farming, fishing, mining formed Crafthalls in each large Hold and looked to one Mastercrafthall where the precepts of their craft were taught and craft skills were preserved and guarded from one generation to another. One Lord Holder could not deny the products of the Crafthall situated in his Hold to others, since the Crafts were deemed independent of a Hold affiliation. Each Craftmaster of a hall owed allegiance to the Master of that particular craft—an elected office based on proficiency in that craft and administrative ability. The Mastercraftsman was responsible for the output of his halls and the distribution, fair and unprejudiced, of all craft products on a planetary rather than parochial basis.

  Certain rights and privileges accrued to different leaders of Holds and Masters of Crafts and, naturally, to the dragonriders whom all Pern looked to for protection during the Threadfalls.

  On occasion, the conjunction of Rukbat’s five natural planets would prevent the Red Star from passing close enough to Pern to drop its fearful spores. To the Pernese these were Long Intervals. During one such Interval, the grateful people prospered and multiplied, spreading out across the land, carving more holds out of solid rock, just in case Thread returned. But they became so busy with their daily pursuits that they preferred to think that the Red Star had indeed passed beyond any danger to them.

  No one realized that only a few dragons remained to take to the skies and that only one Weyr of dragonriders was left on Pern. Since the Red Star wasn’t due to return for a long, long while, if ever, why worry? Within five generations, the descendants of the heroic dragonmen fell into disfavor; the legends of past braveries and the very reason for their existence fell into disrepute.

  Then the Red Star, obeying natural forces, began to spin closer to Pern, winking with a baleful red eye on its ancient victim . . .

  VOLUME I

  DRAGONFLIGHT

  CONTENTS

  Dedicatory Note

  PART I Weyr Search

  PART II Dragonflight

  PART III Dust Fall

  PART IV The Cold Between

  Dedicatory Note

  Dear God,

  Yes, there is a Virginia who helped me create this planet and the marvels thereon. And for whom I thank you.

  AMJ

  PART I

  Weyr Search

  Drummer, beat, and piper, blow,

  Harper, strike, and soldier, go.

  Free the flame and sear the grasses

  Till the dawning Red Star passes.

  Lessa woke, cold. Cold with more than the chill of the everlastingly clammy stone walls. Cold with the prescience of a danger stronger than the one ten full Turns ago that had then sent her, whimpering with terror, to hide in the watch-wher’s odorous lair.

  Rigid with concentration, Lessa lay in the straw of the redolent cheeseroom she shared as sleeping quarters with the other kitchen drudges. There was an urgency in the ominous portent unlike any other forewarning. She touched the awareness of the watch-wher, slithering on its rounds in the courtyard. It circled at the choke limit of its chain. It was restless, but oblivious to anything unusual in the predawn darkness.

  Lessa curled into a tight knot of bones, hugging herself to ease the strain across her tense shoulders. Then, forcing herself to relax, muscle by muscle, joint by joint, she tried to feel what subtle menace it might be that could rouse her, yet not distress the sensitive watch-wher.

  The danger was definitely not within the walls of Ruath Hold. Nor approaching the paved perimeter without the Hold where relentless grass had forced new growth through the ancient mortar, green witness to the deterioration of the once stone-clean Hold. The danger was not advancing up the now little-used causeway from the valley, nor lurking in the craftsmen’s stony holdings at the foot of the Hold’s cliff. It did not scent the wind that blew from Tillek’s cold shores. But still it twanged sharply through her senses, vibrating every nerve in Lessa’s slender frame. Fully roused, she sought to identify it before the prescient mood dissolved. She cast outward, toward the Pass, farther than she had ever pressed. Whatever threatened was not in Ruatha . . . yet. Nor did it have a familiar flavor. It was not, then, Fax.

  Lessa had been cautiously pleased that Fax had not shown himself at Ruath Hold in three full Turns. The apathy of the craftsmen, the decaying farmholds, even the green-etched stones of the Hold infuriated Fax, self-styled Lord of the High Reaches, to the point where he preferred to forget the reason he had subjugated the once proud and profitable Hold.

  Relentlessly compelled to identify this oppressing menace, Lessa groped in the straw for her sandals. She rose, mechanically brushing straw from matted hair, which she then twisted quickly into a rude knot at her neck.

  She picked her way among the sleeping drudges, huddled together for warmth, and glided up the worn steps to the kitchen proper. The cook and his assistant lay on the long table before the great hearth, wide backs to the warmth of the banked fire, discordantly snoring. Lessa slipped across the cavernous kitchen to the stable-yard door. She opened the door just enough to permit her slight body to pass. The cobbles of the yard were icy through the thin soles of her sandals, and she shivered as the predawn air penetrated her patched garment.

  The watch-wher slithered across the yard to greet her, pleading, as it always did, for release. Comfortingly, she fondled the creases of the sharp-tipped ears as it matched her stride. Glancing fondly down at the awesome head, she promised it a good rub presently. It crouched, groaning, at the end of its chain as she continued to the grooved steps that led to the rampart over the Hold’s massive gate. Atop the tower, Lessa stared toward the east where the stony breasts of the Pass rose in black relief against the gathering
day.

  Indecisively she swung to her left, for the sense of danger issued from that direction as well. She glanced upward, her eyes drawn to the red star that had recently begun to dominate the dawn sky. As she stared, the star radiated a final ruby pulsation before its magnificence was lost in the brightness of Pern’s rising sun. Incoherent fragments of tales and ballads about the dawn appearance of the red star flashed through her mind, too quickly to make sense. Moreover, her instinct told her that, though danger might come from the northeast, too, there was a greater peril to contend with from due east. Straining her eyes as if vision would bridge the gap between peril and person, she stared intently eastward. The watch-wher’s thin, whistled question reached her just as the prescience waned.

  Lessa sighed. She had found no answer in the dawn, only discrepant portents. She must wait. The warning had come and she had accepted it. She was used to waiting. Perversity, endurance, and guile were her other weapons, loaded with the inexhaustible patience of vengeful dedication.

  Dawnlight illumined the tumbled landscape, the unplowed fields in the valley below. Dawnlight fell on twisted orchards, where the sparse herds of milchbeasts hunted stray blades of spring grass. Grass in Ruatha, Lessa mused, grew where it should not, died where it should flourish. Lessa could hardly remember now how Ruatha Valley had once looked, sweetly happy, amply productive. Before Fax came. An odd brooding smile curved lips unused to such exercise. Fax realized no profit from his conquest of Ruatha . . . nor would he while she, Lessa, lived. And he had not the slightest suspicion of the source of this undoing.

  Or had he, Lessa wondered, her mind still reverberating from the savage prescience of danger. West lay Fax’s ancestral and only legitimate Hold. Northeast lay little but bare and stony mountains and the Weyr that protected Pern.

  Lessa stretched, arching her back, inhaling the sweet, untainted wind of morning.