I did promise dragons, so here is the first of them. I'm revising this story as I go along, before posting each chapter, because the ending is turning out to be a little unexpected (I am working both ends at once, as it were).
"Professor. Doctor."
G'rat made a bow to each of them, and Saska wondered why he was so formal when M'tin was still bouncing up and down on his toes and grinning that hugely infectious grin.
"Pleased to meet you, G'rat, rider of green Laroth," Doctor Freeman said briskly. "Stop trying to pretend you aren't as excited as this young man, because we don't believe you. Saska, go and greet Laroth."
G'rat relaxed and huffed out a breath, smiling now.
"Sorry! I didn't know what to expect - Laroth said she'd spoken to someone who didn't come from Pern, you see, and no one ever thought that would happen."
He moved to the table and began to pour drinks, and Saska moved slowly towards the opening to the ledge of the weyr. Laroth pulled her head back and Saska stepped out onto the narrow ledge and gasped and nearly retreated as she realised she was very high up and staring out over the ocean.
- I wouldn't let you fall
I know you would not. It's just - I've never seen such a view.
- this is not as beautiful as Pern.
do you like it here?
- there is work to be done, but sometimes we just go to our favourite place and stay for a while
there are some places on Benden where you can say it's beautiful.
- you haven't seen Benden for turns
turns? Years? No, I haven't.
- will you come to Pern?
Saska stepped away and stared up at the dragon, becoming aware she had been scratching her eye ridges, leaning against her huge foreleg.
"Come in and have something to eat, Saska," her father said quietly. "Greetings, Laroth."
"Laroth wants me to go to Pern," Saska said in a dazed voice. "I can't do that, can I, Dad? Are Terrvertians allowed to go to Pern?"
"Of course they are," he replied as he handed her a plate of food. "Eat some of this, my dear."
"You aren't the big man," Saska said, turning to G'rat.
"No. That's K'var, the Weyrlingmaster at Respite Weyr on Pern," he replied. "Laroth contacted him straight away, after you spoke to her, and he wants you to go there."
"Respite Weyr? Why that name?"
"Originally it was founded for healing purposes, it was quite small then," G'rat replied. "When the fever, or whatever, was conquered, the name stuck. Young dragon riders were sent there to gain confidence if they'd overreached themselves, and when the dragon-ships started, it seemed the obvious place to train their riders."
"So Respite takes riders from the other Weyrs?"
"Yes, although they breed their own as well. Much like the new colonies should be doing, eventually."
"But not as yet."
G'rat shrugged and looked away from her, picking up a drink, and Saska stored that evasion away as well.
"But you can go to Pern," M'tin said now. "I mean - talking to dragons - they'll want to know everything about that."
Saska looked at Laroth, who had stuck her head back through the opening and was watching them, her eyes whirling with excitement.
"Go to Pern," Saska said slowly. "To do what? I'm a biologist, not a dragon rider."
"There's a lot of research to be done still on Pern," G'rat replied. "We might think we know everything about dragons, but I'd said we don't."
"'Course we do," M'tin interrupted quickly. "We've got the AIVAS records."
"They didn't deal with the dragons. When the AIVAS awoke in the Ninth Pass, it absorbed everything that had been done up to then, of course, but then it switched off again. There's been a lot of turns between then and now."
M'tin scowled and did not answer, taking a sip of his drink. Saska ate some food and thought over what the two young men had said. Somehow G'rat's words rang true, more so than those of either M'tin or P'til.
"Where was K'nitt coming from?" she asked suddenly. "He was on the ship with me and implied he'd been on a fact finding mission. But that ship had only touched at Terrvert worlds."
Her father looked across at her, and then at M'tin, who looked uncomfortable.
- Sosteth did not like that place. He did not like being prodded and poked by the men in white coats, like the one you wore.
"K'nitt took his dragon to a Terrvert scientific facility," Saska said aloud. "Why? There's more to this than all of you jumping for joy because I can hear a dragon, isn't there?"
"I think you'll find out more when you get to Pern," her father said firmly. "If that's what the High Council want?"
"They can invite me properly," Saska said angrily. "I'm not just going to turn up there without knowing what anyone expects of me."
"Of course you won't. There must be a contract of employment put in place. You're effectively a freelance scientist, and you need to pay back a substantial loan to the Terrvert Committee for your education. Once you have a contract in place, and an agreed salary, I expect the Committee will let you go."
Saska nodded, glancing at the shocked expressions on the faces of the two dragon riders.
"But - pay back - a loan - contracts - we don't do any of that," M'tin spluttered.
"Of course you do," she replied. "You Impress your dragon, and then you're at the service of your Weyr, and Pern."
"We don't get money for it," G'rat said.
"Not in monetary terms, perhaps, but you get food and clothing, don't you? What d'you use when you want to go out on the town?"
G'rat looked angry and bewildered. "I suppose - I draw money from the bank here - is that wages?"
"In some sort, yes," Professor Freeman said gently. "But the dragon riders were never structured in that way, not the way a Holder pays his servants, or a Master gives his apprentice a coin to spend at a Gather."
Saska looked at him in astonishment.
"You know a lot about Pern, Dad!"
"Yes, I do. I was asked to help shape this weyr, and to advise on how they should grow their food, and what they could use from the planet."
"And what's the problem now?"
He shrugged. "That I don't know, m'dear, but you may very well find out, once the High Council has asked you to go to Pern. No, don't frown, either of you. My daughter is a citizen of Terrvert, and abides by its rules. But I can assure you, she will be coming to Pern very soon."
Saska spent the rest of the day at the Weyr. There was a lot to see, and her father and G'rat gave her a full guided tour, from the kitchen caverns up to the highest weyrs, out into the growing facilities, and around the cleverly constructed mechanics of the lift and pulley systems.
"Did you design this, Dad? It looks like that forest-top platform we lived in on Island Base Three."
"Yes, I remembered the plans for that when I advised here. There, we were avoiding ground-based predators, here they needed a system that wasn't energy-depleting."
"Those predators could climb!"
"But not right up into the canopy, because they would be picked off by other predators on the way up," her father replied.
"The growing houses rely on human labour as well?"
"Keeps the muscles in trim," G'rat said with a smile. "We're all on duty at some time or another - I like the growing houses best, but as Laroth said, we do have some favourite places out on the planet's surface as well."
"But you were born and brought up on Pern?" Saska asked as they sat down in the dining hall where G'rat brought them food and drink.
"Yes, I was, but not all dragon riders come from Pern now, although they have to go back to Impress. There's a much larger Weyr on Telgar, but like us, they're all working dragons, if you see what I mean? Helping with the setting up of the colony."
"What about the second colony world? Ruatha?"
"Dragons don't live there in a permanent Weyr."
"Is Benden permanent?" Professor Freeman asked. "I only ask, because although the bronze and browns from all colony Weyrs fly the dragon-ships, there aren't that many dragons here."
G'rat pulled at his lip, staring over their heads, and then looked back at them and shrugged.
"I'm not sure if I should tell you," he said. "Telgar operates a full Weyr like we do here on Benden World, and we co operate with Terrvert. After Ruatha World was found, and confirmed as habitable, the colonists told the High Council they didn't need dragons, except to ship stuff in and out. The Weyrleaders on Pern didn't take kindly to that, and only give minimal support. Here on Benden - the Terrvert Committee welcomed the help of the dragons and their riders."
"We certainly do appreciate it," Professor Freeman replied. "I couldn't have gone into some of the jungles and oceans without the aid of the dragons and their riders. I think - if the High Council could be persuaded to allow dragons onto other Terrvert colonies - you'd find the same situation."
"You could tell them that on Pern," G'rat said, turning to Saska. "Not the High Council, I mean, because you probably won't meet them, but the people at Respite - it would - encourage them."
Saska nodded but did not commit herself. The whole situation seemed skewed in some way she could not understand, but she had the feeling that getting to know the true home of the dragons might help.
"Can I carry any messages home for you, G'rat?"
He looked embarrassed and then vulnerable.
"A dragon rider gives up home and family when he - or she - Impresses," he said at last. "My home family - I've visited them in the past few years - but it's not encouraged."
Saska frowned at him.
"I've read the history of Pern, and I can understand when there was Thread it would be important to give your loyalty only to the Weyr," she said. "But now? Surely not now?"
G'rat swallowed the last of his drink, not looking at her, and her father nodded in understanding.
"Because, still, green dragons Impress males?" he asked gently.
"Yes, because of that. The High Council - the rest of Pern - I mean - they do understand, but they don't, if you see what I mean?"
Saska stared at his crimson face.
"Oh! I see! I can't comment - it's not for me to censure them!"
"Doesn't it work like that on Terrvert?" G'rat asked. "I never did pay any attention - and the lessons were skimpy at best."
"Terrvert is set up on a more science-based mode of living," Professor Freeman said carefully. "Like Pern, there's no religion as such, and although there are empathic people - metasynths as well - a last relic of the Nathi wars - I don't think the Terrverts relied on them, or selectively bred them, like they did on Pern."
"Selectively bred them?" G'rat asked in astonishment.
"You come from a Weyr, and a line of dragon riders, you told us. Pern bred its dragons and their riders to be almost a single unit."
"Outsiders are brought in on Search."
"Granted! But they must have some residue of metasynth in them, to be able to Impress. Some don't? Is that right?"
"Yes, but they can always stay in the Weyr if they can find employment there."
Professor Freeman shook his head.
"I think we're on the cusp of another great change. Pern has found another viable world, and Terrvert is about to form a nexus which will enable a new jump-out point to be manufactured. I just hope the High Council and the Terrvert Committee can talk this one through, and use each other's skills properly."
"I hope you don't expect me to front up to the High Council and tell them that," Saska said lightly, and then sobered as she examined her father's expression.
"It needs saying, m'dear," was all he would reply, and that was the last time they referred to it before she signed the contract and packed her bags to ride the dragon-ships to the home of the dragons.