Then, as they saw the first of the eggs crack and a little wet head poke through, Sorka and Sean clung to each other in order to contain their excitement. Pausing in their harvesting, the airborne creatures warbled an intricate pattern of sound.
“See, it is welcome!” Sean knew that he had been right all along.
“No! Protection!” Sorka pointed to the blunt snouts of two huge mottled snakes at the far side of the underbrush.
The intruders were spotted by the flyers, and half a dozen dove at the protruding heads. Four of the dragonets sustained the attack right into the vegetation, and there was considerable agitation of branches until the attackers emerged, chittering loudly. In that brief interval, four more eggs had cracked open. The adult avians were a living chain of supply as the first arrival shed its shell and staggered about, keening woefully. Its dam herded it, with wing motion and encouraging chirps, toward a nearby dragonet that was holding a flopping fishling for the hatching to devour.
A bolder snake, emerging from the sand where it had hidden itself, attempted a rush up the rock face toward another hatchling. It braced its middle limbs as it raised its head, its turtlelike mouth agape, to grab its prey. Instantly the snake was attacked by the airborne dragonets. With a good sense of preservation, the hatchling lurched over the damlike ramparts of seaweed, toward the bush under which Sorka and Sean hid.
“Go away,” Sean muttered between clenched teeth. He waved his hand at the keening juvenile, shooing it away from them. He had no wish to be attacked by its adult kin.
“It’s starving, Sean,” Sorka said, fumbling for the packet of sandwiches. “Can’t you feel the hunger in it?”
“Don’t you dare mother it!” he muttered, though he, too, sensed the little thing’s craving. But he had seen the flyers rend fish with their sharp talons. He would prefer not to be their next victim.
Before he could stop her, Sorka tossed a corner of her sandwich out onto the rock. It landed right in front of the weaving, crying hatchling, who pounced and seemed to inhale the bit. Its cry became urgently demanding, and it hobbled more purposefully toward the source. Two more of the little creatures raised their heads and turned in that direction, despite their dam’s efforts to shoo them to the adults holding out succulent marine life.
Sean groaned. “Now you’ve done it.”
“But it’s hungry.” Sorka broke off more bits and lobbed them at the three hatchlings.
The other two scurried to secure a share of the bounty. To Sean’s dismay, Sorka had crawled out of their hiding place and was offering the foremost hatchling a piece directly from her fingers. Sean made a grab for her but missed, bruising his chin on the rock.
Sorka’s creature took the offered piece and then climbed into her hand, snuffling piteously.
“Oh, Sean, it’s a perfect darling. And it can’t be a lizard. It’s warm and feels soft. Oh, do take a sandwich and feed the others. They’re starving of the hunger.”
Sean spared a glance at the dam and realized with intense relief that she was far more concerned with getting the others fed than with coming after the three renegades. His fascination with the creatures overcame caution. He grabbed a sandwich and, kneeling beside Sorka, coaxed the nearer brown dragonet to him. The second brown, hearing the change in its sibling’s cries, spread its wet wings and, with a screech, joined it in a frantic dive. Sean found that Sorka was right: the critters had pliant skins and were warm to the touch. They did not feel at all lizardlike.
In short order, the sandwiches had been reduced to bulges in lizard bellies, and Sorka and Sean had unwittingly made lifelong friends. They had been so preoccupied with their three that they had failed to note the disappearance of the others. Only the empty shards of discarded eggs in a hollow of the rock bore witness to the recent event.
“We can’t just leave them here. Their mother’s gone,” Sorka said, surprised by the abandonment of dragonet kin.
“I wasn’t going to leave mine any road,” Sean said, slightly derisive of her quandary. “I’m keeping ’em. I’ll keep yours, too, if you don’t want to bring it back to Landing. Your mother won’t let you have a wild thing.”
“This one’s not wild,” Sorka replied, taking offense. With her forefinger, she stroked the back of the tiny bronze lizard curled in the crook of her arm. It stirred and snuggled closer, exhaling on something remarkably like a purr. “My mother’s great with babies. She used to save lambs that even my father thought might die.”
Sean was pacified. He had put the browns in his shirt, one on either side, and tightened the leather belt he had dared requisition. The ease with which he had accomplished that at the Stores building had encouraged him to trust Sorka. It had also proved to his father that the “others” were fairly distributing the wealth of matériel carried to Pern in the spaceships. Two days after getting his belt, Sean began to see proper new pots replacing discarded tins over the campfire, and his mother and three sisters were wearing new shirts and shoes.
The brown dragonets felt warm against his skin and a bit prickly where their tiny spikes pressed, but he was more than pleased with his success. They only had three toes, the front one folded against the back two. Everyone in his father’s camp had been hunting for lizard—well, dragonet—nests and snake holes along the coast. They looked for signs of the legendary lizards for fun, and hunted the snakes for safety. The scavenging reptiles were dangerous to people who camped in rough shelters of woven branches and broad-leaf fronds. Reptiles had eaten their way into the shelters and had bitten sleeping children in their blankets. Nothing was safe from their predatory habits. And they were not good eating.
Sean’s father had caught, skinned, and grilled several snakes. He had sampled a tiny bite of each variety and instantly had to wash his mouth out, as the snake flesh stung and caused his mouth to swell. So the order had gone to everyone in the camp: snare and kill the vermin. Of course, as soon as they had terriers or ferrets to go down the holes, they could make short work of the menace. Porrig Connell had been upset because the other members of the expedition seemed not to understand how urgent it was for his people to have dogs. The animals were not pets—they were necessary adjuncts of his folk’s life-style. It was proving the same on Pern as on Earth: the Connells were the last to get anything useful and the first to be given the back of the hand. But he had had each of his five families put in for a dog.
“Your dad’ll be pleased,” Sorka said, expansive in her own pleasure. “Won’t he, Sean? Bet they’ll be better even than dogs at going after snakes. Look at the way they attacked the mottleds.”
Sean snorted. “Only because the hatchlings were being attacked.”
“I doubt it was just that. I could almost feel the way they hated the snakes.” She wanted to believe that the flying lizards were unusual, just as she had always believed that their marmalade tom, Duke, was the best hunter in the valley, and old Chip the best cattle dog in Tipperary. Doubt suddenly assailed her. “But maybe we should leave them here for their dam.”
Sean frowned. “She was shooing the others off to the sea fast enough.”
Of one mind, they rose and, walking carefully so as not to disturb their sleeping burdens, headed for the summit of the headland.
“Oh, look!” Sorka cried, pointing wildly just as something pulled the tattered body of a hatchling under the water. “Oh, oh, oh.” Sean watched impassively. Sorka turned away, clenching her fists. “She’s not a very good mother after all.”