Dragonsdawn - Chapter Fifteen
Jun. 2nd, 2023 08:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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i_read_whatSo last time, we saw the colonists' leadership make the decision to migrate north! Woo!
Ugh, we start with Pol and Bay. They've pretty much lost my goodwill by this point, for being general assholes, though I dislike them less than Paul Benden I suppose. But it sounds like some of my questions are about to be answered, because they've been approached by Mary Tubberman.
This is sad:
“Please don’t turn an old friend away unheard.”
“Mary,” Pol said kindly, “you weren’t shunned.” He shared the earpiece with Bay, who nodded in vigorous approval.
“I might as well have been.” The woman’s tone was bitter, then her voice broke on a tremulous note and both Bay and Pol could hear her weeping. “Look, Pol, something’s happened to Ted. Those creatures of his are loose I’ve pulled down the Thread shutters, but they’re still prowling about and making awful noises.
What did they expect would happen? The colonial leadership put this woman in a terrible situation. Either she leaves her husband, who she presumably loves a lot since she puts up with his obnoxiousness, or she is kind of shunned by default. Also, it's still fucking unfair that Ted was shunned for the beacon.
Anyway, this is the first Pol and Bay have heard about "creatures". Mary explained that Ted had stolen some in vitro creatures and is experimenting.
...so wait, you guys didn't KNOW he stole more than the beacon?
The bizarre thing about this is that stealing the embryos and the program probably would be a shunning-justifiable offense. If THIS were the reason that they all kicked him out, I wouldn't be so annoyed! But McCaffrey seems to support this MZB-like hive mentality, where the only people who could possibly want to leave her fucking death world are terrible.
(I do feel a little guilty for making that comparison, as there is no indication that McCaffrey has ever been as vile a person as MZB. But we're talking about literary ideas, not morality here.)
Anyway, Mary thinks something has happened to Ted, because he wouldn't have let the animals loose. They might harm "Petey". I'm genuinely surprised that McCaffrey is letting anyone give Ted the benefit of the doubt here, but there we go.
...wow, Pol and Bay really do seem to patronize this woman horribly:
“Now, Mary, calm down. Stay in the house. We’ll come.”
“Ned’s not in Landing!” Her tone became accusatory. “I tried his number. He’d believe me!
“It’s not a question of belief, Mary.” Bay pulled the mouthpiece around to speak directly into it. “And anyone can come assist you.”
“Sue and Chuck won’t answer.”
“Sue and Chuck moved north, Mary, after that first bad rock shower from Picchu.” Bay was patient with her. The woman had a right to sound paranoid, living in seclusion as she had for so long with an unbalanced husband and so many earthshocks and volcanic rumblings.
“Pol and I are coming down, Mary,” Bay said firmly. “And we’ll bring help.” She replaced the handset.
I mean, I do give Bay some credit for acknowledging Mary's stress. But a) "paranoia" is irrational, Mary's given you clear reasons for why she's panicked, and b) Ted was never written as "unbalanced". He was GRIEVING. He disagreed with leadership. He made a clear-headed decision to steal and launch a beacon and accepted the consequences for it!
Everything about that seems rational to me. The grubs are also a rational product, and probably the single most useful thing any of you invented aside from the dragons. The beasts...well, everyone makes mistakes.
So they're bringing Sean and Sorka and...oh, huh. As much as I dislike Bay in general, she actually does have some oblique criticism of Emily and Paul, feeling that they should have had someone investigate Drake and Ned Tubberman's report.
Hm, stop being a dick to Wind Blossom and you might well win me over again.
So she sends her lizard to find Sorcha. Pol accuses her, playfully, of wanting to help Mary so she gets to ride a dragon again. Fair. Bay does claim to be concerned about Mary though.
I do enjoy Sean, whose first question when the situation is explained is whether or not they're taking them there "officially or unofficially". Bay says that it's to help Mary, but I like the implication that Sean is perfectly willing to violate the shunning sentence if he feels like it.
Bay really likes flying on a dragon. I don't blame her.
This makes me roll my eyes though:
The journey gave Bay time to ponder what Mary had said about “beasts.” Red Hanrahan had reported a late-night entry into the veterinary laboratory. A portable bio-scan had been missing without being logged out, but as the bio lab was always borrowing vet equipment, the absence was dismissed. Later someone had noticed that the order in which the frozen ova of a variety of Earth-type animals were stored had been disarranged. It could have happened during the earthquakes.
Ted Tubberman had been very busy in his discontent, Bay thought grimly. One of the strictest dictums of her profession as a microbiologist was a strict limitation of genetic manipulation. She had actually been surprised, if relieved, that Kitti Ping Yung, as the senior scientist on the Pern expedition, had permitted the bioengineering of the fire-dragonets. Had Kitti Ping any idea of what a marvelous gift she had bestowed on the people of Pern?
But for Ted Tubberman, disgruntled botanist, to tinker with ova — and he had not at all understood the techniques or the process — to make independent alterations was intolerable to her, both professionally and personally. Bay knew herself to be a tolerant person, friendly and considerate, but if Ted Tubberman was dead, she would be tremendously relieved. And she would not be the only one. Just thinking about the man produced symptoms of agitation and pure fury which made Bay lose her professional detachment, and that annoyed her even more. There she was on dragonback, a marvelous opportunity for peaceful reflection, with only the noise of the wind in her ears, with all Jordan spread below her, and she was wasting contemplative time on Ted Tubberman. Bay sighed. One had so few moments of total relaxation and privacy. How she envied young Sorka, Sean, and the others.
a) Are you really a tolerant person? Because you weren't tolerant of Wind Blossom for having the nerve to grieve her own damn grandmother.
b) Holy shit, these colonists are fucking incompetent. How did you NOT know that this shit was missing?
c) Also, Bay, you hated Ted long before you knew he did anything morally reprehensible.
Okay, so things look pretty bad:
“Look!” Sorka was directing her gaze downward.
Seventy-five meters from the main house, there was a roofed compound with separate enclosures along an L passageway, forming two sides of a fenced-in area. One of the outside walls and several of the interior partitions were smashed, and a corner of the roofing had burst outward. Bay could not recall if there had been any more earthshocks reported in that area to cause such structural damage. No other building was damaged.
Sean and Sorka take charge pretty smoothly when they realize there are animals out there. They'll send for reinforcements.
This part is noteworthy:
Her ordeal ended, Mary Tubberman wept copiously on Bay’s shoulder. Her son, Peter usually a cheerful seven-year-old, watched poker-faced and taut with anxiety. His two little sisters clung together on a lounger and would not respond to Pol’s efforts to comfort them, though he was generally very deft with children. Mary did not resist the suggestion that she move to a safer location.
“Dad’s dead, isn’t he?” Petey asked, stepping right up to Sean.
“He could be out trying to recapture the beasts,” kindhearted Bay suggested. The boy gave her a scornful look and went off down the corridor to his room.
Is it wrong that I kind of love Peter Tubberman?
And when the fuck has Bay ever earned the descriptor "kindhearted"?
Sadly, they do find Ted's "mauled and gnawed" body. Death by cat. Well, could be worse.
I like this bit from Sean though:
“The man was insane,” Sean said, poking a rod into the dung pats in one enclosure. “Developing big predators. We’ve enough trouble with wherries and snakes!”
“I’ll go tell Mary,” Kathy murmured.
Sean caught her arm as she went by. “Tell her he died quickly.” She nodded and left.
Aw. And this is probably hypocritical, but I'm a lot more accepting of the kind act from Sean than Bay. Probably because McCaffrey doesn't call him "kindhearted" in the process.
So they gather up Ted's notes. They also find the grubs and decide to take them back too. Well, now the moral dilemma of benefiting from the research of the man you exiled is gone. Hmph.
That said, I do think taking the grubs is the right idea. I wonder why they never seeded them north? Maybe McCaffrey will tell us.
Pol can't break Ted's personal code, which makes me smirk a little. They were dicks about Ted's intelligence for so long that I'm very happy that he is inconveniencing them from beyond the grave.
...I had the thought that while Sallah Telgar is the one who gets posthumously honored in All the Weyrs of Pern, I really do think F'lar would have been happy to dedicate a celebration day for Ted Tubberman.
Maybe not after the evil cats become an issue, post-Thread, but there you go.
Apparently it's already well known that felines don't take metasynth well. So no one's sure why Ted would fuck around with them. Because McCaffrey likes to make her adversarial characters stupid as well? I don't know. Maybe he's a cat person.
Hey, look how kind-hearted Bay is:
Bay permitted herself a scornful sniff. “At least Blossom has the good sense to keep those wretched photophobes of hers chained. I cannot think why she persists with them. She’s the only one they like. Bay gave a shudder of revulsion. “They positively fawn on her.”
Pol snorted. “That’s why,” he said absently, riffling through the notes on the undecipherable clipboard. “What I don’t understand is why he chose the large felines?”
...why are you guys such assholes to this woman? Also, its not the dragons' fault they're imperfect. No wonder the proto-watch whers only like her. You guys are dicks.
They decide to ask Peter about the cats, and I'm perplexed because the kid is seven. How much do they expect him to know?
When Peter answered, his tone was not particularly encouraging. “Yeah?”
“Those large cats your father was breeding? Did they have spots or stripes?” Pol asked in a conversational tone.
“Spots.” Peter was surprised by the unexpected question.
“Ah, the cheetah. Is that what he called them?”
“Yeah, cheetahs.”
“Why cheetahs, Peter? I know they’re fast, but they wouldn’t be any good hunting wherries.”
“They were great going after the big tunnel snakes.” Peter’s voice became animated. “And they’d come to heel and do everything Dad told them — ” he broke off.
“I expect they did, Petey. Several ancient cultures on Earth bred them to hunt all manner of game. Speediest things on four legs!
“Did they turn on him?” Peter asked after a moment’s silence.
Aw. Pol admits he doesn't know and awkwardly changes the subject to the bonfire, and whether or not Peter will give him a rematch in chess. I don't think this kid is stupid, Pol.
They head out and the scene shifts to Emily's office. Some dude is telling her that Garben's about to blow. NOW. Picchu is the one smoking, but Garben's sneaky and there's a change in the chemical make up. It's bad.
Fortunately, they do have an evacuation plan in place. This is good, because this is looking bad:
The sky continued to darken as thick black clouds of ash rolled up, covering the peaks of the now active volcanoes that had once appeared so benign. White plumes rose from Garben’s awakened fumaroles and from crevasses down its eastern side. Morning became twilight as the air pollution spread. Handlamps and breathing masks were issued.
Joel is the one in charge of the accusation, and given that he was the one in charge of the supplies and stores and somehow missed Ted Tubberman's cheetah heist, I'm a little leery about this. But okay.
There's thread fall, but everyone's a bit too busy to fight it. Understandably.
Drake Bonneau flies the Swallow off with the children and equipment. He lands safely, though the flight was difficult. The kids are only moderately traumatized. Woo.
The dragonriders are also ferrying people and packages, and we have a bit of a clash here:
By nightfall, Sean called a halt for dragonriders ferrying people and packages to the Kahrain cove. “I’m not risking tired dragons and riders,” he told Lilienkamp with some heat. “Too risky, and the dragons are just too young to be under this sort of stress.”
“Time, man, we don’t have time for niceties!” Joel replied angrily.
You handle the exodus, Joel, I’ll handle my dragons. The riders will work until they drop, but it’s bloody stupid to push young dragons! Not while I can prevent it.”
Joel gave him an angry, frustrated glare. The dragons had been immensely useful, but he also knew better than to put them at risk. He gunned the sled away, perched behind the console like a small, ash covered statue.
I like seeing Sean tell people to shove it. That said, in all fairness, Joel's anxiety is completely understandable. This is one of those rare "everyone's got a point" conflicts. They do work until they drop anyway, with the dragons curling protectively around their sleeping riders. Aw.
Eventually, the time comes:
The engines of the shuttle were drowned by the rumbling earth and an ear-splitting roar of tremendous power as the volcano erupted. The attentive stance of observers broke as people scrambled to complete tasks at hand, shouting to one another above the noise. Later, those who watched the peak fracture and the red-hot molten lava begin to ooze from the break said that everything appeared to happen in slow motion. They saw the fissures in the crater outlined by orange-red, saw the pieces blowing out of the lip, even saw some of the projectiles lifting out of the volcano and could track their dizzying trajectory. Others averred that it all happened too fast to be sure of details.
Bright red tongues of lava rolled ominously up and over the blasted lip of Garben, one flow traveling at an astonishing rate directly toward the western most buildings of Landing.
There's lots of teamwork, with dolphins towing boats, and more barges and sleds and skimmers heading out.
Thick sulfur-smelling ash began to cover Landing’s buildings. Some of the lighter roofs collapsed under the load, and observers could hear the plastic groaning and shifting. The air was almost unbreathable with traces of chlorine. Everyone used the breathing masks without complaint.
There is something sad about this.
The dragons aren't in good shape. They're hungry and they need to hunt now. The fire lizards have all vanished. They make plans to eat some of the sheep, which puts poor Marco in a moral quandary, as they're his father's breeding stock. But the dragons are even more prime breeding stock, so there we go.
Oh, we finally learn where the "fire lizard" term comes from. Sean invented it.
So anyway, SOME of the fire lizards are back. Emily and Sean chat a bit, she regrets that the dragons aren't "fully functional" and apologizes. Sean doesn't take offense. They don't know enough about "how it's done" so they can tell the dragons what to do.
...except...
“That ash burns, Governor. Burns as easily through dragon wings as — ” Sean broke off, staring fixedly toward the western beach, one hand coming up in a futile gesture of warning. Emily twisted around to see what had prompted his concern.
The dragon’s trumpet of alarm was faint and thin on the hot air. The driver of the sled on collision course with the creature seemed unaware that he was descending onto another flyer. Then, just before the sled would have hit, dragon and rider disappeared.
Emily's at first delighted, but then she realized Sean is not. The rider and dragon haven't reappeared. Oh no.
This has always bugged me a little, because we've seen fire lizards get shocked and disappear many times in the series. They always seem to find their way back. This "gets lost Between" thing only seems to happen with human-partnered dragons. Is it a flaw in the makeup? Or maybe we just don't notice the unbonded fire lizards disappear for good, while the bonded ones home in on their bondmates?
Shame they couldn't have the dragons bond with TWO people: one in the air, one on land.
The dragons know something is wrong:
The other dragons rose, riderless, to fly past the point where one of their number and his human partner had lost their lives. In a complex pattern that would have thrilled watchers on any other occasion, fire-dragonets flew around their larger cousins, emitting their weird counterpoint to the deeper, throbbing, mournful cry of the dragons.
“I’ll find out how that could have happened. The driver of that sled — ” Emily stopped as she saw the terrible expression on Sean’s Face.
“That won’t bring back Marco Galliani and Duluth, will it?” He whipped his hand sideways in a sharp, dismissive cut. “Tomorrow we will fly wherever you need us for whatever we can save for you.”
For a long long moment Emily stood looking after him until the image of the sorrowing young man was indelibly imprinted in her mind. In the sky, as if escorting him back to the dragon-riders’ camp, the graceful beasts wheeled, dipped, and glided westward to their beach.
Alas, poor Marco. I knew I'd heard his name before. There's an epilogue short story with Moreta where he appears. Very strange and sad.
The dragonriders, plus Pol Nietro, try to analyze what went wrong. Pol is really upset, as he sees the dragonriders as family. No sign of Wind Blossom, because McCaffrey doesn't like her. She doesn't get to be part of the family, even though she finished her grandmother's work. Hmph.
I might be being unfair, admittedly, but she's nowhere to be seen.
Pol comments that this shows how important it is to make sure the dragons are taught discipline. The dragonriders bristle, but Sean agrees. He thinks they must have panicked. No one's sure why Marco would have panicked, but there you go. They realize they need to instruct the dragons the way they instruct their fire lizards.
They were all chosen, btw, because of the lizards. Which makes it rather fascinating that the two supreme dragon riders in the Ninth Pass do NOT have lizards and have no interest in them.
Anyway, they realize they need to study the fire lizards' abilities more.
Hey, fire lizard hierarchal stuff here:
“You’ve made some very good points there, Sean,” Pol said, beginning to take heart himself, “though I trust you mean to use the, gold and bronze fire-dragonets. They have always seemed more reliable to Bay and myself.”
“I had. Especially since the blues and greens all scampered off after the eruption.
I will grant that THIS time, there does seem to be some merit in differentiating the fancy types from the less fancy types. By the Ninth Pass though, it's fucking ridiculous. They're FFXIV minions by that point. Color is irrelevant.
There's a lot more talking in the scene, but it's not terribly relevant. Fun to read, meaningless to recap. We do zip forward to see some of their exercises with the fire lizards. They seem fun and promising. Sorka suggests they send one to her brother in Fort Hold. Sean's skeptical, but Pol's on board.
Brian is actually a bit irked by being summoned, but I'd imagine the relocation to Fort Hold has been stressful on everyone. As soon as Sean mentions Marco and Duluth, though, he's immediately cooperative and apologetic.
Duke makes the flight in eight seconds. Woo.
I'm a little surprised no one thought to do this in the eight years pre-Threadfall, but hindsight's twenty-twenty.
Emily and Paul discuss the relocation. Emily, rather understandably, doesn't particularly want to live in a "hole in the ground", but Paul reassures her. Something seems a little off about her. She's taking Marco's death very hard.
Back to the dragonriders - they're still working and training. Good for them.
There's some interesting discussion about aging: apparently fire lizards don't age. At least no one's seen any elderly ones. Sean points out they have only the one generation to really judge. I feel like this ends up disproven, as we see weaker/tired older dragons in the later-set books. But it's interesting speculation.
Well, soon enough, the dragonriders end up roped into emergency transport. Which makes sense. F'lar should look into that kind of thing when Thread's defeated. Or during the next Interval, instead of being parasites on society.
Anyway, there's more dragon/dragonrider hijinx that are fun and cute. But in the end, they DO succeed in going Between. Woo. The chapter ends with more than one rider (including Sean himself, surprisingly) realizing they need a new pair of pants. Aw. Good for them.
Ugh, we start with Pol and Bay. They've pretty much lost my goodwill by this point, for being general assholes, though I dislike them less than Paul Benden I suppose. But it sounds like some of my questions are about to be answered, because they've been approached by Mary Tubberman.
This is sad:
“Please don’t turn an old friend away unheard.”
“Mary,” Pol said kindly, “you weren’t shunned.” He shared the earpiece with Bay, who nodded in vigorous approval.
“I might as well have been.” The woman’s tone was bitter, then her voice broke on a tremulous note and both Bay and Pol could hear her weeping. “Look, Pol, something’s happened to Ted. Those creatures of his are loose I’ve pulled down the Thread shutters, but they’re still prowling about and making awful noises.
What did they expect would happen? The colonial leadership put this woman in a terrible situation. Either she leaves her husband, who she presumably loves a lot since she puts up with his obnoxiousness, or she is kind of shunned by default. Also, it's still fucking unfair that Ted was shunned for the beacon.
Anyway, this is the first Pol and Bay have heard about "creatures". Mary explained that Ted had stolen some in vitro creatures and is experimenting.
...so wait, you guys didn't KNOW he stole more than the beacon?
The bizarre thing about this is that stealing the embryos and the program probably would be a shunning-justifiable offense. If THIS were the reason that they all kicked him out, I wouldn't be so annoyed! But McCaffrey seems to support this MZB-like hive mentality, where the only people who could possibly want to leave her fucking death world are terrible.
(I do feel a little guilty for making that comparison, as there is no indication that McCaffrey has ever been as vile a person as MZB. But we're talking about literary ideas, not morality here.)
Anyway, Mary thinks something has happened to Ted, because he wouldn't have let the animals loose. They might harm "Petey". I'm genuinely surprised that McCaffrey is letting anyone give Ted the benefit of the doubt here, but there we go.
...wow, Pol and Bay really do seem to patronize this woman horribly:
“Now, Mary, calm down. Stay in the house. We’ll come.”
“Ned’s not in Landing!” Her tone became accusatory. “I tried his number. He’d believe me!
“It’s not a question of belief, Mary.” Bay pulled the mouthpiece around to speak directly into it. “And anyone can come assist you.”
“Sue and Chuck won’t answer.”
“Sue and Chuck moved north, Mary, after that first bad rock shower from Picchu.” Bay was patient with her. The woman had a right to sound paranoid, living in seclusion as she had for so long with an unbalanced husband and so many earthshocks and volcanic rumblings.
“Pol and I are coming down, Mary,” Bay said firmly. “And we’ll bring help.” She replaced the handset.
I mean, I do give Bay some credit for acknowledging Mary's stress. But a) "paranoia" is irrational, Mary's given you clear reasons for why she's panicked, and b) Ted was never written as "unbalanced". He was GRIEVING. He disagreed with leadership. He made a clear-headed decision to steal and launch a beacon and accepted the consequences for it!
Everything about that seems rational to me. The grubs are also a rational product, and probably the single most useful thing any of you invented aside from the dragons. The beasts...well, everyone makes mistakes.
So they're bringing Sean and Sorka and...oh, huh. As much as I dislike Bay in general, she actually does have some oblique criticism of Emily and Paul, feeling that they should have had someone investigate Drake and Ned Tubberman's report.
Hm, stop being a dick to Wind Blossom and you might well win me over again.
So she sends her lizard to find Sorcha. Pol accuses her, playfully, of wanting to help Mary so she gets to ride a dragon again. Fair. Bay does claim to be concerned about Mary though.
I do enjoy Sean, whose first question when the situation is explained is whether or not they're taking them there "officially or unofficially". Bay says that it's to help Mary, but I like the implication that Sean is perfectly willing to violate the shunning sentence if he feels like it.
Bay really likes flying on a dragon. I don't blame her.
This makes me roll my eyes though:
The journey gave Bay time to ponder what Mary had said about “beasts.” Red Hanrahan had reported a late-night entry into the veterinary laboratory. A portable bio-scan had been missing without being logged out, but as the bio lab was always borrowing vet equipment, the absence was dismissed. Later someone had noticed that the order in which the frozen ova of a variety of Earth-type animals were stored had been disarranged. It could have happened during the earthquakes.
Ted Tubberman had been very busy in his discontent, Bay thought grimly. One of the strictest dictums of her profession as a microbiologist was a strict limitation of genetic manipulation. She had actually been surprised, if relieved, that Kitti Ping Yung, as the senior scientist on the Pern expedition, had permitted the bioengineering of the fire-dragonets. Had Kitti Ping any idea of what a marvelous gift she had bestowed on the people of Pern?
But for Ted Tubberman, disgruntled botanist, to tinker with ova — and he had not at all understood the techniques or the process — to make independent alterations was intolerable to her, both professionally and personally. Bay knew herself to be a tolerant person, friendly and considerate, but if Ted Tubberman was dead, she would be tremendously relieved. And she would not be the only one. Just thinking about the man produced symptoms of agitation and pure fury which made Bay lose her professional detachment, and that annoyed her even more. There she was on dragonback, a marvelous opportunity for peaceful reflection, with only the noise of the wind in her ears, with all Jordan spread below her, and she was wasting contemplative time on Ted Tubberman. Bay sighed. One had so few moments of total relaxation and privacy. How she envied young Sorka, Sean, and the others.
a) Are you really a tolerant person? Because you weren't tolerant of Wind Blossom for having the nerve to grieve her own damn grandmother.
b) Holy shit, these colonists are fucking incompetent. How did you NOT know that this shit was missing?
c) Also, Bay, you hated Ted long before you knew he did anything morally reprehensible.
Okay, so things look pretty bad:
“Look!” Sorka was directing her gaze downward.
Seventy-five meters from the main house, there was a roofed compound with separate enclosures along an L passageway, forming two sides of a fenced-in area. One of the outside walls and several of the interior partitions were smashed, and a corner of the roofing had burst outward. Bay could not recall if there had been any more earthshocks reported in that area to cause such structural damage. No other building was damaged.
Sean and Sorka take charge pretty smoothly when they realize there are animals out there. They'll send for reinforcements.
This part is noteworthy:
Her ordeal ended, Mary Tubberman wept copiously on Bay’s shoulder. Her son, Peter usually a cheerful seven-year-old, watched poker-faced and taut with anxiety. His two little sisters clung together on a lounger and would not respond to Pol’s efforts to comfort them, though he was generally very deft with children. Mary did not resist the suggestion that she move to a safer location.
“Dad’s dead, isn’t he?” Petey asked, stepping right up to Sean.
“He could be out trying to recapture the beasts,” kindhearted Bay suggested. The boy gave her a scornful look and went off down the corridor to his room.
Is it wrong that I kind of love Peter Tubberman?
And when the fuck has Bay ever earned the descriptor "kindhearted"?
Sadly, they do find Ted's "mauled and gnawed" body. Death by cat. Well, could be worse.
I like this bit from Sean though:
“The man was insane,” Sean said, poking a rod into the dung pats in one enclosure. “Developing big predators. We’ve enough trouble with wherries and snakes!”
“I’ll go tell Mary,” Kathy murmured.
Sean caught her arm as she went by. “Tell her he died quickly.” She nodded and left.
Aw. And this is probably hypocritical, but I'm a lot more accepting of the kind act from Sean than Bay. Probably because McCaffrey doesn't call him "kindhearted" in the process.
So they gather up Ted's notes. They also find the grubs and decide to take them back too. Well, now the moral dilemma of benefiting from the research of the man you exiled is gone. Hmph.
That said, I do think taking the grubs is the right idea. I wonder why they never seeded them north? Maybe McCaffrey will tell us.
Pol can't break Ted's personal code, which makes me smirk a little. They were dicks about Ted's intelligence for so long that I'm very happy that he is inconveniencing them from beyond the grave.
...I had the thought that while Sallah Telgar is the one who gets posthumously honored in All the Weyrs of Pern, I really do think F'lar would have been happy to dedicate a celebration day for Ted Tubberman.
Maybe not after the evil cats become an issue, post-Thread, but there you go.
Apparently it's already well known that felines don't take metasynth well. So no one's sure why Ted would fuck around with them. Because McCaffrey likes to make her adversarial characters stupid as well? I don't know. Maybe he's a cat person.
Hey, look how kind-hearted Bay is:
Bay permitted herself a scornful sniff. “At least Blossom has the good sense to keep those wretched photophobes of hers chained. I cannot think why she persists with them. She’s the only one they like. Bay gave a shudder of revulsion. “They positively fawn on her.”
Pol snorted. “That’s why,” he said absently, riffling through the notes on the undecipherable clipboard. “What I don’t understand is why he chose the large felines?”
...why are you guys such assholes to this woman? Also, its not the dragons' fault they're imperfect. No wonder the proto-watch whers only like her. You guys are dicks.
They decide to ask Peter about the cats, and I'm perplexed because the kid is seven. How much do they expect him to know?
When Peter answered, his tone was not particularly encouraging. “Yeah?”
“Those large cats your father was breeding? Did they have spots or stripes?” Pol asked in a conversational tone.
“Spots.” Peter was surprised by the unexpected question.
“Ah, the cheetah. Is that what he called them?”
“Yeah, cheetahs.”
“Why cheetahs, Peter? I know they’re fast, but they wouldn’t be any good hunting wherries.”
“They were great going after the big tunnel snakes.” Peter’s voice became animated. “And they’d come to heel and do everything Dad told them — ” he broke off.
“I expect they did, Petey. Several ancient cultures on Earth bred them to hunt all manner of game. Speediest things on four legs!
“Did they turn on him?” Peter asked after a moment’s silence.
Aw. Pol admits he doesn't know and awkwardly changes the subject to the bonfire, and whether or not Peter will give him a rematch in chess. I don't think this kid is stupid, Pol.
They head out and the scene shifts to Emily's office. Some dude is telling her that Garben's about to blow. NOW. Picchu is the one smoking, but Garben's sneaky and there's a change in the chemical make up. It's bad.
Fortunately, they do have an evacuation plan in place. This is good, because this is looking bad:
The sky continued to darken as thick black clouds of ash rolled up, covering the peaks of the now active volcanoes that had once appeared so benign. White plumes rose from Garben’s awakened fumaroles and from crevasses down its eastern side. Morning became twilight as the air pollution spread. Handlamps and breathing masks were issued.
Joel is the one in charge of the accusation, and given that he was the one in charge of the supplies and stores and somehow missed Ted Tubberman's cheetah heist, I'm a little leery about this. But okay.
There's thread fall, but everyone's a bit too busy to fight it. Understandably.
Drake Bonneau flies the Swallow off with the children and equipment. He lands safely, though the flight was difficult. The kids are only moderately traumatized. Woo.
The dragonriders are also ferrying people and packages, and we have a bit of a clash here:
By nightfall, Sean called a halt for dragonriders ferrying people and packages to the Kahrain cove. “I’m not risking tired dragons and riders,” he told Lilienkamp with some heat. “Too risky, and the dragons are just too young to be under this sort of stress.”
“Time, man, we don’t have time for niceties!” Joel replied angrily.
You handle the exodus, Joel, I’ll handle my dragons. The riders will work until they drop, but it’s bloody stupid to push young dragons! Not while I can prevent it.”
Joel gave him an angry, frustrated glare. The dragons had been immensely useful, but he also knew better than to put them at risk. He gunned the sled away, perched behind the console like a small, ash covered statue.
I like seeing Sean tell people to shove it. That said, in all fairness, Joel's anxiety is completely understandable. This is one of those rare "everyone's got a point" conflicts. They do work until they drop anyway, with the dragons curling protectively around their sleeping riders. Aw.
Eventually, the time comes:
The engines of the shuttle were drowned by the rumbling earth and an ear-splitting roar of tremendous power as the volcano erupted. The attentive stance of observers broke as people scrambled to complete tasks at hand, shouting to one another above the noise. Later, those who watched the peak fracture and the red-hot molten lava begin to ooze from the break said that everything appeared to happen in slow motion. They saw the fissures in the crater outlined by orange-red, saw the pieces blowing out of the lip, even saw some of the projectiles lifting out of the volcano and could track their dizzying trajectory. Others averred that it all happened too fast to be sure of details.
Bright red tongues of lava rolled ominously up and over the blasted lip of Garben, one flow traveling at an astonishing rate directly toward the western most buildings of Landing.
There's lots of teamwork, with dolphins towing boats, and more barges and sleds and skimmers heading out.
Thick sulfur-smelling ash began to cover Landing’s buildings. Some of the lighter roofs collapsed under the load, and observers could hear the plastic groaning and shifting. The air was almost unbreathable with traces of chlorine. Everyone used the breathing masks without complaint.
There is something sad about this.
The dragons aren't in good shape. They're hungry and they need to hunt now. The fire lizards have all vanished. They make plans to eat some of the sheep, which puts poor Marco in a moral quandary, as they're his father's breeding stock. But the dragons are even more prime breeding stock, so there we go.
Oh, we finally learn where the "fire lizard" term comes from. Sean invented it.
So anyway, SOME of the fire lizards are back. Emily and Sean chat a bit, she regrets that the dragons aren't "fully functional" and apologizes. Sean doesn't take offense. They don't know enough about "how it's done" so they can tell the dragons what to do.
...except...
“That ash burns, Governor. Burns as easily through dragon wings as — ” Sean broke off, staring fixedly toward the western beach, one hand coming up in a futile gesture of warning. Emily twisted around to see what had prompted his concern.
The dragon’s trumpet of alarm was faint and thin on the hot air. The driver of the sled on collision course with the creature seemed unaware that he was descending onto another flyer. Then, just before the sled would have hit, dragon and rider disappeared.
Emily's at first delighted, but then she realized Sean is not. The rider and dragon haven't reappeared. Oh no.
This has always bugged me a little, because we've seen fire lizards get shocked and disappear many times in the series. They always seem to find their way back. This "gets lost Between" thing only seems to happen with human-partnered dragons. Is it a flaw in the makeup? Or maybe we just don't notice the unbonded fire lizards disappear for good, while the bonded ones home in on their bondmates?
Shame they couldn't have the dragons bond with TWO people: one in the air, one on land.
The dragons know something is wrong:
The other dragons rose, riderless, to fly past the point where one of their number and his human partner had lost their lives. In a complex pattern that would have thrilled watchers on any other occasion, fire-dragonets flew around their larger cousins, emitting their weird counterpoint to the deeper, throbbing, mournful cry of the dragons.
“I’ll find out how that could have happened. The driver of that sled — ” Emily stopped as she saw the terrible expression on Sean’s Face.
“That won’t bring back Marco Galliani and Duluth, will it?” He whipped his hand sideways in a sharp, dismissive cut. “Tomorrow we will fly wherever you need us for whatever we can save for you.”
For a long long moment Emily stood looking after him until the image of the sorrowing young man was indelibly imprinted in her mind. In the sky, as if escorting him back to the dragon-riders’ camp, the graceful beasts wheeled, dipped, and glided westward to their beach.
Alas, poor Marco. I knew I'd heard his name before. There's an epilogue short story with Moreta where he appears. Very strange and sad.
The dragonriders, plus Pol Nietro, try to analyze what went wrong. Pol is really upset, as he sees the dragonriders as family. No sign of Wind Blossom, because McCaffrey doesn't like her. She doesn't get to be part of the family, even though she finished her grandmother's work. Hmph.
I might be being unfair, admittedly, but she's nowhere to be seen.
Pol comments that this shows how important it is to make sure the dragons are taught discipline. The dragonriders bristle, but Sean agrees. He thinks they must have panicked. No one's sure why Marco would have panicked, but there you go. They realize they need to instruct the dragons the way they instruct their fire lizards.
They were all chosen, btw, because of the lizards. Which makes it rather fascinating that the two supreme dragon riders in the Ninth Pass do NOT have lizards and have no interest in them.
Anyway, they realize they need to study the fire lizards' abilities more.
Hey, fire lizard hierarchal stuff here:
“You’ve made some very good points there, Sean,” Pol said, beginning to take heart himself, “though I trust you mean to use the, gold and bronze fire-dragonets. They have always seemed more reliable to Bay and myself.”
“I had. Especially since the blues and greens all scampered off after the eruption.
I will grant that THIS time, there does seem to be some merit in differentiating the fancy types from the less fancy types. By the Ninth Pass though, it's fucking ridiculous. They're FFXIV minions by that point. Color is irrelevant.
There's a lot more talking in the scene, but it's not terribly relevant. Fun to read, meaningless to recap. We do zip forward to see some of their exercises with the fire lizards. They seem fun and promising. Sorka suggests they send one to her brother in Fort Hold. Sean's skeptical, but Pol's on board.
Brian is actually a bit irked by being summoned, but I'd imagine the relocation to Fort Hold has been stressful on everyone. As soon as Sean mentions Marco and Duluth, though, he's immediately cooperative and apologetic.
Duke makes the flight in eight seconds. Woo.
I'm a little surprised no one thought to do this in the eight years pre-Threadfall, but hindsight's twenty-twenty.
Emily and Paul discuss the relocation. Emily, rather understandably, doesn't particularly want to live in a "hole in the ground", but Paul reassures her. Something seems a little off about her. She's taking Marco's death very hard.
Back to the dragonriders - they're still working and training. Good for them.
There's some interesting discussion about aging: apparently fire lizards don't age. At least no one's seen any elderly ones. Sean points out they have only the one generation to really judge. I feel like this ends up disproven, as we see weaker/tired older dragons in the later-set books. But it's interesting speculation.
Well, soon enough, the dragonriders end up roped into emergency transport. Which makes sense. F'lar should look into that kind of thing when Thread's defeated. Or during the next Interval, instead of being parasites on society.
Anyway, there's more dragon/dragonrider hijinx that are fun and cute. But in the end, they DO succeed in going Between. Woo. The chapter ends with more than one rider (including Sean himself, surprisingly) realizing they need a new pair of pants. Aw. Good for them.