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stowed
her gear in the healer's cabin and then joined the crew on deck as the ship
was
nimbly warped out of Ista Harbor. The schooner heeled as the wind caught her
quarter, and the helmsman cursed as he struggled to control the wheel.
As the ship heeled into a new wave and burst through the other side, Captain
Tanner said to Colfet, "What do you think of her now, Mister Colfet? Is she
fit
for your Master's fleet?"
"She grabs the wind well, Captain Tanner," Colfet admitted. "But it's early
days, early days. I'd like to see her in a blow."
Tanner laughed and pointed to the confused seamen above in the rigging. "Not
before this lot get themselves sorted out, I hope."
Colfet gave him a sour grin. "No, not before." He glanced at the setting sun
over the taffrail. "And tomorrow will be too fair for a strong wind."
"What makes you say that?" Lorana asked.
"Bad weather coming, probably a blow," Colfet answered, as if that were all
the
explanation needed.
Captain Tanner raised his monocular to his eye. "Lorana, look there! It seems
we're getting a send-off!"
Lorana looked where Tanner pointed and could see a dragon and rider in the
distance waving at them. She laughed and waved back.
J'trel says safe voyage, Lorana, Talith told her.
Thank him please, Talith.
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High up in the sky, Talith relayed Lorana's reply to J'trel.
"You're welcome, lass," J'trel said to himself. "Did you hear that, Talith?
How
many can speak to other dragons? How many Weyrwomen can do that? Not one, I'm
telling you. She'll ride gold, and she'll be the best Weyrwoman Pern's ever
seen."
TWO
-ome (suffix): (i) the biological portion of an ecosystem. (ii) the material
and
genetic information required to re-create the biological portion of an
ecosystem. Examples: the "terrome" refers to the biological portion of the
Terran ecosystem; the "cetome" refers to the biological portion of the Cetus
III
ecosystem; the "eridanome" refers to the biological portion of the Eridani
ecosystem.
-Glossary of terms, Ecosystems: From -ome to Planet, 24th Edition
Fort Hold, First Pass year 42, AL 50
With another wordless cry, Wind Blossom rolled out of her dreams into the new
day. It was always the same dream. Only-different this time. Something had
woken
her early.
Even with the dream interrupted, as if against her will, Wind Blossom
remembered
her mother's last words: "Always a disappointment you were to me. Now you
hold
the family honor. Fail not, Wind Blossom."
Wind Blossom had had the same dreams for the last forty years.
The sound repeated itself: a dragon bugling in the sky above.
Her mother, Kitti Ping, had created the dragons. Kitti Ping, famed Eridani
Adept, who had saved Cetus III from the ravages of the Nathi War was also
Pern's
savior with the creation of the great, fire-breathing, telepathic dragons.
Wind Blossom was credited with-blamed for-the creation, through similar
genetic
manipulation, of the photophobic watch-whers. On the starships' manifests
Kitti
Ping and Wind Blossom had been listed as geneticists. That title conveyed only
a
small portion of the full Eridani training Kitti Ping had received and had
passed on to her daughter, Wind Blossom.
"Always a disappointment you were to me," her mother's calm, controlled voice
came to Wind Blossom's mind-a memory over forty years old.
They had come to Pern fifty years earlier, thousands of war-weary people
seeking
an idyllic world beyond the knowledge of human and Nathi alike. They had been
led by such luminaries as Emily Boll, famed Governor of Tau Ceti and heroic
leader of Cetus III, and Admiral Paul Benden, the victor of the Nathi Wars.
Instead of finding rest and a pastoral, agricultural world, they discovered
that
their lush planet Pern had an evil stepsister-the Red Star. Its orbit was
wildly
erratic, coming through the solar system on a cometary 250-year cycle,
dragging
with it the mysterious peril of Thread.
Eight years after the colonists landed on Pern, the Red Star came close
enough
to unload its burden on its sister-planet. The Thread, mindless, voracious,
space-traveling spores, ate anything organic-plastics, woods, flesh. The
first
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Threadfall on the unsuspecting colony was devastating.
Galvanized by this new threat, Kitti Ping, Wind Blossom, and all the
biologists
on Pern dropped their work in adapting terran life-forms to life on Pern to
concentrate instead on creating a defense against Thread.
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