I hope to make some contrast between the two sets of colonists, but as we all know, human nature will be the same whatever the circumstances.
Despite her grumbles, Saska knew she was looking forward to going home. Benden was the place she remembered best, although she had a few images of other places she thought might be recollections of previous homes, and a tall man who might have been a relative. Saska shrugged mentally; they were her memories and she was entitled to keep them private.
"Please strap in for the transfer moment," the intercom intoned. Saska moved her reader pad from her knees, fastened her seat straps and glanced around to make sure nothing could come loose. She had made the transfer from the colony domes in a small shuttle across the continents to the larger Vector Point established within the crater of an extinct volcano, next to the Terrvert space port. From that world the dragon-ships had made two small flux-transfers, as Terrvert preferred to call them, to other Vector Points. Those short drops into between were nothing compared to the drop into between that would bring them out at Benden.
The man next to her had been asleep the whole of the previous two hours of normal flight whilst the dragon-mind had been resting, and the flight attendant leaned across to make sure the man was strapped in.
"Some people can sleep through anything," she murmured with a professional smile, and Saska nodded as she watched the cabin lights dim. She could sense the tension going up a notch or two, and someone called out, was hushed, but then called out again. This was going to be a difficult transfer if someone was awake and panicked, but two flight attendants were moving down the opposite aisle, and Saska relaxed her shoulders, closed her eyes and started counting slowly.
"10, 20, 30, 40, 50..."
There was an imperceptible judder, a sensation of freezing darkness and non-being, and then warmth again as the dragon-ship came into the safety of the port.
"600, 700, 800, 900, 1000, ready or not here I come."
Saska opened her eyes to find the man seated beside her watching her with a curious look on his face.
"Shouldn't that be 1,2,3?" he asked.
Saska reddened. "It's an old game."
"I know. We usually counted from one to one hundred rather than in tens!"
"There weren't that many hiding places, then?"
"A whole world," he said lightly. "But rather a lot of us to hide in the best places."
Saska nodded. "There were only ever three of us, my parents and I, and Benden isn't known for its hiding places."
"True enough," he said with a nod, beginning to gather his things together. "I'm K'nitt."
"You're a dragon rider?"
He paused, glancing at her again.
"Yes. I've been on a fact finding mission, but I'll be glad to get back to the Weyr on Benden."
"Not Benden Weyr?"
K'nitt shook his head. "Benden Weyr's back on Pern. This is just called the Weyr on Benden, where the dragons are gathered."
"I've been on Planet G-Ed-4, but I'm on a spot of R&R."
"Were you researching stuff on the planet? That's the one with the new mineral resources?"
"I was doing research, but I'm a biologist, so I was studying the way the native diseases might transmute into the colony."
K'nitt stared at her and frowned.
"I thought you were all under eco-domes? Nothing could get in or out?"
Saska smiled as she gathered up her possessions, and unstrapped herself. "Don't you believe it. Life can get in anywhere, I've found, and can take the most unexpected forms."
They stood up as the green lights went on, and K'nitt had to bend his head to get out of the seats, but he had the advantage of being able to reach up to the lockers and empty them, not just of his things, and those of Saska, but with a good-natured smile, and a joke, for the people around them.
"Should've seen me before I started pumping iron!" he said cheerfully, and then they were shuffling forward to the exit points, and down the steps to reach ground level, the dragon-ship having landed in a specially built hub.
Saska wondered if her parents would be there to greet her, or whether they were hundreds or thousands of mils away on the other side of the planet, documenting some new variation of the evolution of types under a red sun.
"That was quite a grimace," K'nitt said softly as they exited. "Not looking forward to sun, sea, and sand?"
"On Benden? Do me a favour!"
He laughed and shook his head. "We've installed a pool at the Weyr, waves and sand and all. Let me know where you're staying and I'll rustle up a pass for you."
Saska glanced at him, at the way he was very definitely staying beside her, and she smiled and eased away, swinging her bag symbolically between them.
"And what colour dragon do you ride? Or should I guess? Brown or bronze?"
His smile slipped for a second, and then he smiled more ruefully.
"Is it that obvious? I ride a brown, Sosteth. I was serious, I will get you a pass if you want one."
Saska shook her head.
"I'll find out what my regime is going to be first."
She took an extra step away, and found the booth she wanted, handing over her documents.
"Doctor Freeman? You're expected, there's a car for you. Jon! Escort Doctor Freeman, please."
Surprised, and startled, Saska glanced at the information desk but she could not read the security-warped messages, and then the young man Jon was beside her and waving her forward to go out of the complex and into the reddish light. Saska glanced back in time to see the bulk of the dragon-ship being scaffolded for maintenance before its next trip out under the power of telekinesis.
"This is our car. Tev is the driver."
Saska nodded to the driver and strapped herself in as Jon dealt with her luggage. The car left the commercial port district, driving across the open park area, and into the city proper. As on all Terrvert worlds, this was called City One, as the main city on the other continent was called City Two. Saska leaned forward to see if there were any changes in the skyline, but the swooping levels of offices and homes looked the same, with the high rise maglev train snaking through the neighbourhoods.
"Have you been away long, Doctor?" Jon asked diffidently. "I wondered if you see anything different about the place?"
Saska shook her head. "It looks much the same, Jon - may I call you Jon? I was brought up further out to the west, and I spent a long time with my parents on scientific trips."
"I've read all your father's papers on the native species," Jon said. "I'm majoring in plant exo-biology."
"There's plenty of scope for that, with Terrvert expanding all over the place."
"And Pern," Jon said unexpectedly. "You'll be able to catch up on the news, but the High Council on Pern has posted notice of a new planet they think will be viable for settlement."
Saska stared at him in astonishment.
"A - new planet? I thought Pern - well - no matter what I thought."
Jon nodded. "Everyone in Terrvert territories thinks Pern just concentrates on the mechanics of getting the ships from place to place. I don't think it's as simple as that, I don't think the High Council sits meekly waiting to be told what to do."
Saska thought of her lessons on the history of Pern, and agreed with him on that, as the young man fell silent and looked embarrassed at perhaps having spoken out of turn.
The car hissed to a stop at the familiar level and Jon hauled her bags out, and then jumped back into the car and left. Saska stood for a moment before recalling the memory sequence and pressed buttons to open the door, stepping through into the cool greenness of the apartment.
"There you are, dear," her mother said, looking out of the kitchen door. "Put your things away and have a shower, I'm nearly ready to dish up."
"Mother? What are you doing here? I thought - you and Dad - would be away - "
"He's watching the vids."
Saska stared in bewilderment at the closing kitchen door, and wondered uneasily if there was something wrong with her that the medics had left unmentioned. She hefted her bags and made her way to her room, unchanged since she had left it four years ago. She had a shower, and changed into a sea green kaftan, finding a long scarf to belt around herself, and then went across to the sitting room. Like all the apartments in the block, this one was compact, but cleverly designed so that no door looked directly at another, giving an illusion of space and privacy to each room.
"Hello Dad."
"Hullo dear. How are you?"
She kissed his cheek, ruffled his sparse hair and sat down, looking around the room.
"You've repainted?"
"We like the cool look, but yes, it was looking a bit scuffed and tired."
"And those plants?"
They both looked at the glass case containing a plant with delicate blue blooms.
"I found it out in the wilds. So far it doesn't seem to object to being shifted from red light towards yellow."
"It's beautiful. What does it do?"
Her father smiled. "I've taught you too well. I'm hoping to get a medicine out of it, but that's long term."
They went into the dining room and her mother served the meal, and they sat in a companionable silence as they ate, something Saska realised she had missed in the easygoing free-for-all in the canteens she had inhabited for the last few years. Only when she had cleared the table for her mother, and come back, did her father pour a second drink for them all and look expectantly at her.
"We were only told you had broken your wrist in a fall and couldn't prevent an anaesthetic," her mother said by way of explanation. "They were offhand about it, but we thought it would be nice to have a trip to the City to make sure you're all right."
Saska shook her head.
"I heard a dragon," she said bluntly. "Speaking in my mind. I was so startled I jumped up and tangled myself in the stool, and knocked myself out."
"A dragon. A genuine Pernese dragon?"
"So I surmised."
"From that distance? But no - there's a Vector Point established there, isn't there? Still - to hear a dragon all the way around the world - "
Saska shrugged. "What's distance to a dragon? Isn't that the whole point of Pernese history and the way dragons were structured? They can speak to anyone anywhere?"
"I'm not sure anyone else has made the corollary," her father admitted.
"Have you been hearing them for a long time?" her mother asked. "I remember you had some vivid dreams as a child, but the doctors thought they were normal flying dreams."
Saska blinked, and then took a sip of her wine.
"That's right," she said. "I'd forgotten them - or buried them. I think I've been hearing the dragons all my life, but very faintly. Then suddenly this green - Laroth - spoke directly into my mind."
"A green? What did she say?"
"She said the big man was very excited and wanted to meet me."
"I should think he would be excited," her father replied. "I don't know of any Terrvert native who's heard the dragons of Pern!"
"There must be others," Saska said. "But they probably don't recognise it, or they deny it, or just ignore it. I don't know why I suddenly heard it as speech, when all I've heard in the past has been something like the waves on the shore - a sort of hissing in and out."
"I'm glad you never mentioned that to any doctors," her mother said fervently.
"They gave me enough grief anyway," Saska replied absently, and then looked around at her parents, at their startlement. An awkward pause fell, and then Saska sighed out.
"All right, that slipped out. It was just a few pupils, and a couple of teachers, who seemed to think I must be - strange - with you two out in the field all the time, and Dad's hobbies of making little things that fly."
"I thought - that was in the past - that sort of prejudice."
"Can't be," Saska replied. "We're all humans, to some degree, and human nature hasn't changed since we climbed out of the jungle, I don't suppose. The primitive is still there in our brains, however deeply we've buried it."
"Are you going to meet with this dragon and her rider?" her mother asked.
"I will do eventually, I expect."
"Can you hear her now?"
"No. Just that vague murmur."
"They're probably all asleep," her father reminded her. "Did you hear the dragon that was guiding the ship?"
"No. According to the history, not every person on Pern can hear dragons, and not all dragon riders can hear more than their own dragons, most of the time."
"Moreta and Lessa could hear them all."
Saska recalled the songs about those two, and nodded.
"So they could. It's possible, of course, that all the dragons could make themselves heard to all the people, but I doubt if they'd want that many voices in their heads. In the first days, they had to concentrate on flaming Thread."
As she said it, she had that image again of a silvery rain twisting and writhing through the sky, and gave an atavistic shudder of horror, grabbed her wine glass and took a drink.
"Well, I think I'll switch on the news," her father said. "There's something about Pern, isn't there?"
His wife nodded. "Something about the High Council. I'll just put the dishes away."
Saska went through to the kitchen to join her, slipping the dishes out of the washer and into the cupboards. In other apartments the dishes might be recycled endlessly, here her mother took pride in the simple artisan dishes she made herself.
"I thought you were part of a project," her mother murmured.
"One of my fellow workers took it over, and the Committee chucked me out as surplus to requirements," Saska admitted. "I got across one of the head boffins, I think, although nothing was ever said."
"Human nature again," her mother said with a shake of the head. "There, that's done."
They came and sat down, and the news flashed up a stylised image of Pern, and the newsreader rehashed the statement from the High Council that a new planet had been observed and was under investigation by probes.
"Is Pern in partnership with Terrvert and able to use our science?" Saska asked. "I never bothered to think it through, before?"
"We're autonomous colonies," her father replied, switching to a music channel. "We work together in some ways, trading minerals and ores and so on. And of course the use of the dragon-ships. I don't think much of our technology is evident on Pern itself, because the First Settlers set up their Charter to make the whole place low level tech and mostly agrarian. That had to change with Thread, and changed again when they rediscovered their AIVAS, but the Pern High Council very rarely requests exchanges of knowledge with the Terrvert Committee."
"But the Weyr here on Benden - they must use our technology because of living under a red sun."
"Strangely enough, the dragons don't seem to be bothered about the red light."
"Have you been there?"
Her father looked across in mild surprise.
"Of course I have. I was the one who recommended that particular place, that enormous rocky island being suitable to excavation into weyrs. They're totally self sufficient in energy, of course, and probably mostly grow their own food by now, under glass. I haven't been there for quite some time."
"Do you know the dragon riders?"
"I don't recall a green called Laroth, but she might be a young dragon."
"No, I didn't get the impression of youth," Saska replied slowly. "Nor great age either, but just a general air of - competence - and some excitement she could speak to me."
"Yes, I should think that goes without saying," her mother replied. "It could be, now they know you're here, love, that the dragon riders will be paying you a visit before long."