“It’d be a lot more flattering if it was happening the old-fashioned way. Anyway, while we were putting this all together, I told Kunohara that two questions were still burning up my brain. One was why the Avialle-shadows knew my name even though we’d never actually met. Kunohara figures that’s another proof we’ll have human-type babies. Higher mammals, especially humans, have long childhoods, and they need lots of parental care. It was in the interest of the network’s reproductive strategy to give both donors a chance of bonding together to raise the children, so the females get implanted with not just the male genetic information, but also the knowledge of who the father is and an ability to locate him, even if they don’t really know how the pregnancy itself happened. That’s how the Society women knew de Limoux was the daddy, and how the Avialle-shadows know they’re carrying my children—I guess I have to call them that, even if I didn’t really have anything to do with it.”
“But that doesn’t make sense, Orlando. I mean it does in a sort of way, but if the network really wants you to be involved with these children like a father, why would the mothers keep disappearing every time you hooked up with them?”
“See? Even after hours of rubbing your poor, sore brain against honors chemistry, Frederico, you’re still smarter than you think you are. That was exactly my other question. Kunohara figured that one out, too. It’s kind of embarrassing, really.”
“Chizz. Do tell.”
“Well, among higher mammals, especially the ones like us that need both parents, there’s usually an elaborate courtship strategy that helps to bind the father to the mother and the coming offspring. Since there isn’t anything remotely like courtship before the pregnancy in the network’s reproductive strategy . . . well, the system came up with a substitute. Kind of courtshipafter the pregnancy. Like a mating dance, or—what did Kunohara call it, bees do it? A nuptial flight.”
“Huh?”
“It only works really well for the Avialle-shadows because they can travel instantaneously—just vanish—but some of the Society women have also dropped out and disappeared in more conventional ways. This woman named Maisie Macapan has taken off for Imperial Rome, for instance. All this running away is supposed to keep the father interested. He chases after them, see?” He shook his head. “Boy, did it work on me.”
This was the hardest bit, and Orlando knew he was stalling. He thought about the last thing Sam had said before they disconnected.
“I guess it’s good,”she’d told him,“because you look utterly excited and interested. I was really beginning to worry about you—you seemed so depressed for a while. But what does it mean? How are you going to deal with being a father to all these babies, if that’s how it really turns out? What are you going to do, Orlando?”
And the truth was, he didn’t know—in fact, there were still hundreds of questions to be answered. How had the system arrived at this point, seemingly all at once? Had it been trying things out in some evolutionary laboratory world hidden in the folds of the network? Was it conscious, as the old operating system had been, or was it simply working out old tendencies left over from the original system? Or was it actually moving toward a new kind of consciousness—would Orlando and the other sims eventually become cells in some greater living thing? Some of the questions were downright scary. The elation of solving the mystery hadn’t entirely faded, but he knew the reality of this wasn’t going to be anywhere near as simple as explaining it to people. Not that explaining it was ever going to be easy—especially the explanation he was about to give, which was why he was stalling.
If there are dozens of children just from me, I can’t be a full-time father, obviously. We may have to turn the process off after this first group, at least as far as my own information—otherwise, what if the network plans to keep doing this all the time, generation after generation? Like I’m the queen bee, the king bee, whatever, and it’s going to make thousands of kids with me as a parent?He had some time to think about that, at least, to discuss the problem with Kunohara, since there were a limited number of potential mothers and the pregnancies seemed to be lasting as long as in the real world. The entomologist was in rapture with these new developments, and was hurrying to settle his court case so that he could throw himself into investigating the new paradigm.
Easy for him—his information isn’t copied into the system. He’s not going to be a dad to dozens of kids, to have all that responsibility.But if there was ever anyone in a position to protect his children, it was Orlando Gardiner, network ranger.After all, like they used to say about the sheriffs in the Wild West, I’m all the law there is this side of reality.
God, I don’t know. I’ll figure it out. I’ve got friends. It’ll be weird, but I’m dead and I’m on my way to visit my folks, so how much weirder can things get? It’ll be an adventure.
I’m going to be a father! Me!He couldn’t get over it. It was terrifying and exciting. What would the children be like? What would happen to the network as this first generation grew and then reproduced themselves, creating ever more complex patterns of inheritance? No one in the history of humanity had ever experienced anything like this.Unknown country. It’s all unknown country ahead.
“I’m going now, Beezle,” he announced. “I don’t want to be interrupted unless the universe as we know it is actually collapsing, okay? Take messages.”
“No problem, boss. I’ll just hang out here in imaginary space and play with the cats.”
Orlando summoned up the connection for his parents’ house. This time he would even be willing to wear that horrid plasteel scarecrow. After all their work arranging that surreal and touching birthday party at Rivendell, he felt he owed Conrad and Vivien a little something. Even more importantly, he wanted them in a good mood when he told them that against all logic, they were apparently going to be grandparents after all.
Maybe forty or fifty times.
PERN
ANNE MCCAFFREY
THE DRAGONRIDERS OF PERN TRILOGY:
DRAGONFLIGHT(1969)
DRAGONQUEST(1971)
THEWHITEDRAGON(1978)
THE HARPER HALL TRILOGY:
DRAGONSONG(1976)
DRAGONSINGER(1977)
DRAGONDRUMS(1978)
OTHER PERN NOVELS:
MORETA, DRAGONLADY OFPERN(1983)
NERILKA’SSTORY(1986)
DRAGONSDAWN(1988)
THERENEGADES OFPERN(1989)
ALL THEWEYRS OFPERN(1991)
THECHRONICLES OFPERN(1992)
THEDOLPHINS OFPERN(1994)
DRAGONSEYE(1996)
THEMASTERHARPER OFPERN(1998)
SKIES OFPERN(1999)
GIFT OFDRAGONS(2002)
DRAGON’SKIN(with Todd McCaffrey, December 2003)
Dissatisfied with life on technologically advanced Earth, hundreds of colonists traveled through space to the star Rukbat, which held six planets in orbit around it, five in stable trajectories, and one that looped wildly around the others. The third planet was capable of sustaining life, and the spacefarers settled there, naming it Pern. They cannibalized their spaceships for matériel and began building their homes.
Pern was ideal for settlement, except for one thing. At irregular intervals, the sixth planet of its system would swing close to it and release swarms of deadly mycorrhizoid spores, which devoured anything they touched and rendered the ground where they landed fallow for years. The colonists immediately began searching for a way to combat Thread, as the spores were named. For defense, they turned to the dragonets, small flying lizards that the colonists had tamed when they first landed. The fire-breathing ability of these reptiles had been a great help in the first Threadfall. By genetically enhancing and selectively breeding these reptiles through the generations, the colonists created a race of full-sized dragons.
With the dragons and their riders working together, the Pern colonists were able to fight Thread effectively and establish a firm hold on the planet. They settled into a quasi-feudal agricultural society,
building Holds for the administrators and field workers, Halls for the craftsmen, and Weyrs for the dragons and riders to inhabit.
Many of the Pern novels detail the politics of the Holds and Weyrs between Threadfalls. The entire line of books spans more than twenty-five hundred years, from the first landing of the settlers to their descendants’ discovery of the master ship’s computer centuries later.Dragonflight, the first of theDragonriders of Pern books, tells of a time twenty-five hundred years after the initial landing. Thread has not been seen in four centuries, and people are starting to be skeptical of the old warnings. Three dragonriders, Lessa, F’lar, and F’nor, believe that Thread is coming back, and try to mobilize the planetary defenses. Lessa, knowing that there are not enough dragons to combat Thread effectively, time-travels back four hundred years to a point just after the last Threadfall, when that era’s dragonriders are growing restless and bored from lack of activity. Lessa convinces most of them to come back with her to combat Thread in her time. They arrive and fight off the Thread.
Dragonquest,the second book, picks up seven years after the end of the first book. Relations between the Oldtimers, as the time-traveling dragonriders are called, and the current generation are growing tense. After getting into a fight with one of the old dragonriders, F’nor is sent to Pern’s southern continent to recover from his wound. There he discovers a grub that neutralizes Thread after it burrows into the ground. Realizing they have discovered a powerful new weapon against Thread, F’nor begins planning to seed the grubs over both continents.
Meanwhile, an unexpected Threadfall is the catalyst for a duel between F’lar, the Benden Weyrleader, and T’ron, the leader of the Oldtimers. F’lar wins and banishes all dragonriders who will not accept his role as overall Weyrleader. The banished go to the Southern Continent. The book ends with the grubs being bred for distribution over Pern.
The third book,The White Dragon, chronicles the trials of young Jaxom as he raises the only white dragon on Pern, a genetic anomaly. Jaxom encounters prejudice and scorn from other dragonriders because his dragon is smaller than the rest. He is also scheduled to take command of one of the oldest Holds on Pern, and there are those who doubt his ability to govern. Both Jaxom and his dragon Ruth rise to the challenges and succeed in proving that bigger is not necessarily better. Jaxom commands his Hold, gets the girl, and all is set right with the world.
TheHarper Hall Trilogy (Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, Dragondrums) is aimed at young readers and deals with a girl named Menolly and her rise from unappreciated daughter to Journeywoman Harper and keeper of fire-lizards.
In many subsequent novels, and in the short novel published here, McCaffrey has examined various other aspects of life on Pern from the earliest days of its colonization by humans.
BEYONDBETWEEN
ANNE MCCAFFREY
FOREWORD
When human colonists first settled on Pern, the third planet of the sun Rukbat, in the Sagittarian Sector, they paid little attention to the eccentric orbit of the sister planet they called the Red Star. After all, the star system had been surveyed and declared safe, and the Earth-born colonists, all war veterans, were more concerned with building a peaceful, low-tech, agrarian society for themselves and their children. So they were ill prepared when disaster struck, eight years later, in the form of a menace from space—a mindless organism that fell from the sky in thin strands, consuming all organic matter in its way. The colonists called it “Thread,” and although it could be destroyed by water or fire, and could not penetrate stone or metal, it fell so relentlessly that it seemed virtually unstoppable.
Then a solution was found: Using their old-world ingenuity and genetic engineering, the settlers altered an indigenous life-form that resembled the dragons of legend. The resulting enormous “dragons” became Pern’s most effective weapon against Thread. Able to chew and digest a phosphine-bearing rock, the dragons could literally breathe fire and sear the airborne Thread before it could reach the ground. Able not only to fly but to teleport, as well, the dragons could maneuver quickly to avoid injury during their battles with Thread. And their telepathic bond with their human riders—a bond forged at the moment of hatching—enabled dragons and humans to work in perfect harmony in their campaigns against Threadfall.
The dragonriders became the heroes of Pern, and it was many a child’s dream to grow up to be a dragonrider, to share that incredible mental and emotional bond with one of the great dragons. But that bond had a down side, as well: Death was a separation neither could endure alone. If the rider died, the dragon would suicide. If the dragon died, the rider might likewise attempt to take his own life or, at best, would be doomed from then on to lead but half a life.
Once the first fifty-year-long attack of Thread ended, three disparate societies developed on Pern: Holds, where strong-minded men and women managed the bounty of the land and kept people safe during the Falls of Thread; Halls, where crafts were practiced and perfected; and Weyrs, where dragons and their riders lived.
During the Sixth Pass of Thread, in 1543, on the third day of the tenth month, an unusual situation occurred for which the carefully kept records in the Harper Hall and individual Weyrs could find no precedent. A plague had raged across the continent, and the Healers had developed a preventive vaccine that needed to be administered as soon as the dragons and their riders brought it to every individual Hall and Hold from sea to sea. In an effort to perform this unusual delivery, dragons and their riders relied on a little-known, or -understood, ability in the dragons to teleport not just anywheretheir riders could visualize, but anywhen. It was very dangerous to cross not only distance but also time and, when tired and confused, even the best-trained dragon and rider could make mistakes.
When the runnerbeasts first started acting up, Thaniel wasn’t paying much attention. As happened so often, he was dreaming fondly of his beloved wife, gone these long Turns and still missed. The two of them had been like two halves: once united they became a perfect whole. He pulled a worn little kerchief from his pocket and fingered it fondly, feeling the blue and green embroidered flowers in one corner—the careful stitchery so typical of his wife’s work. He sighed heavily. Death seemed so unfair—and so frighteningly final.
“Why should trees and plants always come back to life after every cold season whenwe only have this one short time?” he’d rail when thoughts of death overwhelmed him.
Thaniel was in his late middle Turns, honed to a wiry frame from decades of riding and working runnerbeasts. Three Turns before, a sharp hoof to the knee had left him with a permanent limp. No longer quick enough on his feet to handle the runnerbeasts, he had been forced to let his children take over the endless routine of hold chores while he took over much of the work his wife used to perform, keeping the hold in proper order, and cooking the meals for his family. The youngest was Bill, whose difficult birth had cost his mother’s life. Maynar was the oldest and most competent in breaking and schooling the runnerbeasts. Jerra was a solid young woman who would soon, Thaniel hoped, make a match with one of the nearby holder lads. Brailli, the younger of the two girls, was quite clever and would go to the Weaver Hall for training once the plague was under control. Destry, the dreamer of his kids, aimed at BeastMaster training.
The high-pitched squeals of his favorite riding beast, old Rusty, distracted him, and with a shake of his head he dragged his attention back to the present. What could be upsetting the old runner like this? Nothing terrified Rusty like dragons, but the likelihood of dragons coming here was distant at best. Then Thaniel remembered: His hold was due to receive vaccine for the plague that was spreading across the continent. He knew thatsomeone would deliver the vaccine with instructions on how to use it. A dragonrider?
With the cup of hot, sweet klah he had just poured in hand, Thaniel left the kitchen and went out the front door of his hold. Scanning the scenery, he saw nothing amiss, just the rolling plains of grass spotted with copses of the hardy trees that could survive in the windswept, often
freezing open lands. Nearby was their modest beasthold—not a “real” stone beasthold such as could easily be built in Crom or Nabol with the stones some of the holders said was their only crop, but it was sufficient for birthing animals. Beside it, a stretch of fence led to the nearest paddock: sturdy wood palings on posts that had taken an entire day for a strong man to situate in the dense soil. Beside the gate, there was a watering trough that some ingenious ancestor had rigged to be continuously supplied with water from the Waterhole twelve dragonlengths away. Sure enough, a dragon was sweeping in to land in the open space by the watering trough. Good old Rusty never missed a trick, Thaniel thought, mentally chuckling at the runner’s uncanny ability to sense dragons.
Thaniel quickened his pace to meet the newcomers, careful not to spill hot klah on his hand. What first struck him as odd was that the dragon was a very pale gold and her head sagged, which suggested she was very tired. As she landed, her nose almost touched the ground, but she pulled herself up and regained her balance with a long sigh of relief. Queen dragons were the strongest and largest of the Pernese dragons, and he’d never seen one so ungainly, not even after the fatigue of a long Threadfall.
“Thaniel,” said the rider, and his amazement was complete, for he recognized her as Moreta, the Weyrwoman of Fort Weyr. He knew her from Gathers, to which people often came from all over to celebrate, but Ista was the Weyr Thaniel was beholden to, and it was Ista that was usually responsible for keeping Thread from dropping on his land.
Moreta reached into the sack slung across her dragon’s neck and held out two packages to him. He hurried to take them and to offer his cup of klah to her.
“I just poured it, and you look like you need it more’n I do,” he said.
“You’ve no idea how much I appreciate this,” she said, giving him a grateful smile as she sipped the hot beverage. After her first swallow, she seemed to shake her shoulders as if to release the tension in them. She looked out at the westering sun and sighed again deeply, this time from a satisfaction she did not explain to him. Not that queen riders and Weyrwomen were required to explain their actions or share their thoughts with mere holders like himself.