...Colony Ship Buenos Aires...
...One light month distant from the PERN system...
...179.3 Terran Standard Days deceleration time remaining...
Solveig Poulsen checks the reference number on her flimsy. Sleep Tank 29-B-iv, Holding Room D. Registered to Algernon Boll-Jeffries, biochemist. She angles the forks of her lifter with the ease and precision of someone who's already moved over two hundred sleep tanks in the last standard week alone, and carefully manouvres it onto the waiting auto-trolley. She hops down, and wipes the frost off the tank's ID-plate. Name and reference number match those on her flimsy, and she moves on to the other listed details. Beneath the viewing plate, the man's naked form lies still, pierced by the pale blue tubing that keeps the colonists from dying in their sleep. Height and weight look about right, as does the mid-brown skin tone and dark hair. No 'stowaways' today. She's got no chance of catching up with Karl's current tally of fifteen database-mixups now, but she isn't too disappointed. Algernon Boll-Jeffries is a mighty fine looking colonist.
Solveig parks the lifter in its bay, and makes a note on a flimsy of her own: her list of men to catch up with After Landing. Returning to the trolley, she keys in from memory the destination-code for the med-bay. It moves off ahead of her, and she follows on foot, tapping the flimsies against her thigh as she walks, a small smile upon her face as she wonders what sort of man he is, pondering all of those other details that the flimsies never hold.
There's a lot that isn't on Algernon's flimsy.
It doesn't mention the traumatic week he spent as a Nathi captive, or the months before that as a conscripted tech with the space forces. It doesn't mention the memories that were all he had left of his friends and family, even before he signed up as a Contractor for the PERN system colonisation effort. It doesn't mention his happy childhood in New Joburg, Centauri, or everything he achieved during the years he spent at Addison University in Prime City.
Nor does it mention the myriad microscopic crystals that litter his body. His mind dreams in glacial haste, ruptured by the dark crevasses into which all that he is has fallen, never to return.
...Landing, PERN...
...1/5, 8th year AL...
Algernon sits half-on, half-off his chair, face pressed against the plexi-glass, watching the fire-dragonets darting around in the sky outside. Mariah and Reynard and Sirius are up there, and seven other bronzes that he doesn't know by name. He feels funny, watching them. He's supposed to be helping Bay in the lab, doing his Special Work at the sink, but Bay had to leave. Al doesn't mind. He likes the fire-dragonets. He likes them a lot, and it feels good to watch them.
Behind him, Wind Blosson says, "Thought as much. Don't worry, Admiral, it's only Al."
Al can see her in the corner of his eyes, along with a man who is Someone Important that he Isn't To Bother.
"Oh," the man says. "And Al is...?"
"He was the talented biochemist that might have helped us get this project working six months back." Wind Blossom sighs. "The trainees are doing well enough, but they just don't have the background. If we could bring Ted back on boa-"
"No! No, he made his choice and we made ours. We all have to live by them now."
Al doesn't like the way the man shouted at Wind Blossom, nor the way he's looking at him now.
"What happened to him?" the man says. "He's obviously not... right."
"Cold Sleep. Someone messed up on Centauri, and he didn't freeze down fast enough. They tried repairing the damage with a custom stem-line on board the Buenos Aires, and that kept him going until Landing, at the expense of overwriting everything left of his mind. After that... everyone was just too busy to do any more than teach him the basics, and adult minds harden far too fast. Poor man, he doesn't even remember enough to know he needs to be scared of Thread! The medics say they've done what they could, which isn't very much. He helps as he can, and he's happy enough. Luckier than most of us, really."
Part of Al is listening, but Wind Blossom's voice is soft and fast, and the part of him that does listen, doesn't understand much of what he hears. It doesn't matter, anyway. Wind Blossom hasn't made him go away, so he can't be being Bad.
Besides, there are flying dragonets to watch.
...Landing, PERN...
...14/5, 8th year AL...
Pressing both fists against his ears, Al circles on the spot in frustration.
BEEP! goes something in the Don't Go In There, Al room. It's getting louder. And again: BEEP! Al doesn't know what to do. He tried to escape the noise in the Rec Room, but it just got louder, because the door to the Don't Go In There, Al room is open, and he looked inside and saw the flashing red light but no people and that's how he knows where it's—- BEEP! -coming from.
Bay's not in the lab. No-one is. They're all in the meeting room, and that has a big red light on the door, too. "Red-Means-No," Al mutters to himself, as the Something goes BEEP! again. He stops, close to the door, and listens to the voices.
"...scaling problem solved, the shell deposition rate is within the tolerances, but we're still seeing yolk-sac fissures. Kitti has some new models, but we need to try them out in vivo. Bay, I'll send the details your way for testing on the dragonets. Wind Blossom tells me she and Kitti have cracked the mentasynth enhancements, but while the revisions are coming through fully expressed in the fetal models, that and the hardwired dependencies are playing havoc with the mental resource loci. We need a completely new approach here, if we're not to be breeding flocks of flying goldfish."
It's Pol talking. He talks a lot. Al doesn't think Pol can hear the noises, otherwise he'd be saying "What's that noise?" and "Stop that noise!" and "NO MORE NOISE!" which is what Al has just shouted through the door of the Don't Go In There, Al room.
And the noise stops. Al blinks, curious, as a small figure straightens up in the darkness of the room.
"Hello, Algernon," Kittiping says. "It is a dreadful noise, isn't it? I turned up the volume, I'm afraid, so I'd still hear it if I left the room. My ears are not what they used to be."
Kittiping smiles at him. Al isn't sure what to do. Kittiping is Someone Important and Very Busy and she's right in the middle of the Don't Go In There, Al room.
"Won't you come in?" she says. "Bay says you've been very helpful. She says you love watching the dragonets. Maybe you'd like to see the eggs that are helping us make the dragons?"
Al doesn't understand how eggs can make dragons, but he takes one step, then another. He watches Kittiping carefully. The little lady is still smiling, but he doesn't want to be Bad. Once he's past the door, his eyes dart from one side of the room to the other, then back to Kittiping again. He can see lots of tanks, bubbling, full of wires and lumps. He can see boxes with dials and knobs. He can see lots of things that he's pretty sure are Things Al Mustn't Touch. He can't see any eggs except the one in the picture on the wall, the one with legs that's having a race with a chicken. It's funny, so he laughs.
Kittiping's eyes are wet. "And so the universe reminds us all of our humility. I can bring about new lives, new species. I can save this planet. But I can't give you back the life you lost, Al. Pol says you were one of his best students, back before the War. Maybe... perhaps, when the dragons are with us, I'll think of something then."
Al smiles. Kittiping pats him on the arm, and leads him to one of the tanks.
"Here we are. Crouch down, and look in here. You can see them, inside the shells, if you look hard."
Al does as she says. The lumps in the green, bubbly-water are round. There are shapes inside. Moving shapes!
"I wonder what Bay would say about keeping one of these?" Kittiping says to herself. "The enhanced mentasynth might make enough of a difference to a human with memory impairments. I wonder. I wonder if-"
"Algernon!"
Al straightens up in shock, nearly knocking little Kittiping aside. He's been bad! Pol is angry with him! He's in the Don't Go In There, Al room!
"Is he bothering you, Kitti?" Pol says as he pulls Al aside. "Honestly, Al! This stuff is important! Assuming we ever get all the kinks straightened out..."
Al wants to cry, but Kittiping says, "Pol, it's fine! I invited him in."
Al doesn't remember.
"You did?"
Pol says a Bad Word, then he smiles at Al too, and Al smiles back.
"Our weaknesses are sometimes our blessings, too" Kittiping says. "He'll forget all about it within the hour. Did anyone come up with any new ideas today, Pol?"
Pol shakes his head as he hands Al his favourite squishy-ball. "Not yet."
"Good. You can go right back and tell everyone that they no longer need to. Al here has given me the perfect solution."
...Landing, PERN...
...27/8, 8th year AL...
Al sits beside Bay, and watches the eggs hatch. They're big. The first dragon is bronze, just like his own Special Dragonet, Joey. But the dragon is much, MUCH bigger.
Al cheers along with everyone else when the man says the dragon is called Polenth. Joey is happy, too.
Between the two of them, Al and Joey remember this day for a very long time.