Following the courtesy now well established, Drake Bonner checked in at the Havers’ stakehold on his way back from end of Fall which had just tipped Bordeaux across the Jordan River. He landed within sight of the Tubbermans’ larger home.
“Ned and Mary were out with flame-throwers,” Chuck told the squadron leader, “and then, for some insane reason, Ted drove them back into the house. There couldn’t have been much damage, or we’d have seen results.”
“Well, you’re all right here,” Drake said heartily.
“The ground crew arrived well in advance. But does anyone know why the pattern’s shifted?” Sue asked. Weary with fighting, she needed some spark of reassurance.
“No,” Drake replied cheerfully, “but we’ll probably be told!”
He accepted a cup of the refreshing fruit drink that the oldest Havers girl brought him and his crew, then said good-bye. Drake had obeyed Ongola’s order to bypass the Tubberman stake during Fall, but after what the Havers had said about Ted, he was curious. In his opinion, all thread had to be destroyed, even if it fell on a shunned homesite. Thread did not care about human conflicts it ate. Drake did not want to see a little burrow get started because of man-made restrictions.
Therefore, as he took off, he made a leisurely turn right over the Tubberman property. He saw Ned standing on the green patch surrounding the house. Ned waved and gesticulated rather wildly, at which point Drake felt obliged to follow orders and turn northwest towards Landing.
He was having a quick bite to eat in the dining hall when Ned Tubberman found him.
“You saw it, Drake, I know you did. You have to have seen it,” he said, excitedly pulling at Drake’s sleeve to pull him to his feet. “C’mon, you have to tell them what you saw.”
Drake pulled his arm free. “Tell who what?” He forked up another mouthful of the hot food. Thread-fighting gave him an incredible appetite.
“Tell Kwan and Paul and Emily what you saw.”
“I didn’t see anything!” Then suddenly Drake had a flash of pure recalclass="underline" Ned standing on a green square, a green square that was surrounded by scorched earth. “I don’t believe what I saw!” He wiped his mouth, chewing absently as he absorbed that memory. “But Thread had just been across your place, and Chuck and Sue saw your father stop you flaming!”
“Exactly!” Ned grinned hugely and again pulled at Drake. The squadron leader rose and followed Ned out of the room. “I want you to tell them what you saw, to corroborate my statement. I don’t know what Dad’s done.” The grin faded and some of the buoyancy drained from Ned Tubberman. “He says shunning works two ways. Mother told me that he locks himself away in his laboratory and won’t let anyone near it. My brothers and sister go over to Sue’s all the time but Mother won’t leave Dad, even if he isn’t in the house much. She keeps the place ticking over.”
“Your father’s been experimenting with something?” Drake was confused.
“Well, he’s got botanical training. He did say that until help came, the only defense was the planet itself.” Ned slowed his pace. And that patch of grass must have defended itself – somehow – against today’s Fall, because it’s still there!”
Drake did tell Kwan, Paul, Emily, and the hastily summoned Pol and Bay. Ned insisted that he had seen Thread fall on the ground-cover plants, had not seen them wither or be ingested, and that by the time Drake had overflown the stake, there was no evidence that Thread had ever fallen on that twelve-by– twenty-meter rectangle.
“I couldn’t hazard a guess as to how he’s done it,” Pol finally said, looking to Bay for agreement. “Maybe he has been able to adapt Kitti Ping’s basic program for use on a less complex life-form. Professionally I have to doubt it.”
“But I saw it,” Ned insisted. “Drake saw it, too.”
There was a long silence, which Emily finally broke. “Ned, we do not doubt you, or Drake’s verification, but as your father said, shunning works both ways.”
“Are you too proud to ask him what he’s done?” Ned demanded, his skin blanched under his tan, and his nostrils flaring with indignation.
“Pride is not involved,” Emily said gently. “Safety is. He was shunned because he defied the will of the colony. If you can honestly say that he has changed his attitude, then we can discuss reinstatement.”
Ned flushed, his eyes dropping away from Emily’s tolerant gaze. He sighed deeply. “He doesn’t want anything to do with Landing or anyone on it.” Then he gripped the edge of the table and leaned across it toward the governor. “But he’s done something incredible. Drake saw it.”
“I did indeed see ground cover where there shouldn’t’ve been any,” Drake conceded.
“Could your mother present evidence on his behalf?” Paul asked, seeking an honorable way out for Ned’s sake.
“She says he only talks to Petey, and Petey says he’s sworn to secrecy, so she hasn’t pushed him.” Ned’s face twisted with anguish for a long moment, then it cleared. “I’ll ask her. I’ll ask Petey, too. I can try.
“This has not been easy for you either, Ned,” Emily said. “All of us would like to see the matter happily resolved.” She touched his hand where he still gripped the table edge. “We need everyone right now.
Ned looked her steadily in the eyes and gave a slow nod. “I believe you, Governor.”
“Sometimes the duties to which rank entitles me are more than it’s worth,” Emily murmured to Paul as the hatch of the shuttle finally closed on Nabhi Nabol and Bart Lemos. She spoke quietly, because every young man in Nabhi’s squadron had come to wish their leader good luck. She turned and smiled at them, leading the way off the grid to the safer sidelines, and waited dutifully with the technicians for the takeoff.
They waited and waited, until both admiral and governor were giving the meteorology tower anxious scrutiny. Just when both had decided that Nabhi was going to renege, as they had half suspected he would, they heard the roar of ignition and saw the yellow-white flame pouring out of the tubes.
“Firing well,” Paul bellowed over the noise. Emily contented herself with a nod as she plugged her ears with her fingers.
She did not know much about the mechanics of shuttles, but the young men were grinning and waving their arms triumphantly. The look of relief on Fulmar’s face was almost comical. Majestically the shuttle began its run up the grid, its speed increasing at a sensational rate. It became airborne, the engines thrusting it in an abrupt but graceful swoop up. The flame became lost in the blue of the sky as the observers shaded their eyes against the rising sun. Then the puffy contrail blossomed, billowing out as a tracer for the shuttle’s path. The technicians who had made it possible cheered, and clapped one another on the back.
“Gawssakes, but it’s good to get a bird up again,” one of the men shouted. “Hey, what’s wrong with them?” he added, pointing to several fairs of dragonets zipping at low level across the grid out of nowhere, crooning oddly.
“Who’s having a baby?” Fulmar demanded.
Emily and Paul exchanged glances. “We are,” she said, sliding quickly into the skimmer. “See? They’re going straight to the Hatching Ground.”
Looking up toward Landing, there was no doubt that fairs of dragonets were streaming in that direction. No one lingered on the grid. The roof of the Hatching Ground was covered with the crooning and chittering creatures. The cacophony was exciting rather than irritating. When the admiral and governor arrived, they had to make their way through the crowd to the open double doors.
“Welcome in nine-hundred-part harmony,” Emily muttered to Paul as they made it to the edge of the warm sands. Their they halted awed by the sense of occasion within.