As Sabra changed Shuvin’s shirt, deftly handling the little boy’s squirms, she realized that the cries that penetrated the thick plastic walls of the house sounded frightened. Sabra knew the usual dragonets sounds as well as anyone in Landing. What could they be frightened of?
The large flying creature—perhaps a very big wherry—that had been occasionally spotted soaring near the Western Barrier Range would be unlikely to range so far east. What other danger could there be on a fine early spring morning? That smudge of gray cloud far off on the horizon suggested rain later on in the day, but that would be good for the crops already sprouting in the grain fields. Maybe she should get the clothes in off the line. Sometimes she missed the push-button conveniences that back on old Earth had eliminated the drudgery of monotonous household tasks. Too bad that the council never considered requiring miscreants to do domestic duties as punishment for disorderly conduct. She pulled Shuvin’s shirt down over his trousers, and he gave her a moist, loving kiss.
“Truck, Mommie, truck? Now?”
His wistful question made her aware, suddenly, of the silence, of the absence of the usual cheerful cacophony of dragonet choruses which was the background to daily life in Landing and in nearly every settlement across the southern continent. Such a complete silence was frightening. Startled, restraining Shuvin who wanted urgently to get back out and play in the sand, Sabra peered out the back window, then through the plasglas behind her. She saw not a dragonet in sight. Not even on Betty Musgrave-Blake’s house where there had been the usual natal congregation. Betty was expecting her second child; and Sabra had seen Basil, the obstetrician, arriving with Greta, his very capable apprentice midwife.
Where were the dragonets? They never missed a birth.
As well established as Landing was, one was still supposed to report anything unusual on Pern. She tried Ongola’s number on the comm unit, but it was engaged. While she was using the handset, Shuvin reached his grubby hand up to the door pull and slid it open, with a mischievous grin over his shoulder at his mother as he performed that new skill. She smiled her acquiescence as she tapped out Bay’s number. The zoologist might know what was amiss with her favorite critters.
Well east and slightly south of Landing, Sean and Sorka were hunting wherry for Restday meals. As the human settlements spread, foragers were having to go farther afield for game.
“They’re not even trying to bunt, Sorka,” Sean said, scowling. “They’ve spent half the morning arguing. Fardling fools.” He lifted one muscular brown arm in an angry gesture to his eight dragonets. “Shape up, you winged wimps. We’re here to hunt!”
He was ignored as his veteran browns seemed to be arguing with the mentasynths, most aggressively with Sean’s queen, Blazer. That was extraordinary behavior: Blazer, who had been genetically improved by Bay Harkenon’s tinkering, was usually accorded the obedience that any of the lesser colors granted the fertile gold females.
“Mine, too,” Sorka said, nodding as her own five joined Sean’s. “Oh, jays, they’re coming for us!” Slackening her reins, she began to tighten her legs around her bay mare but stopped when she saw Sean, wheeling Cricket to face the oncoming dragonets, hold up an imperious hand. She was even more startled to see the dragonets assume an attack formation, their cries clamors of unspeakable fright and danger.
“Danger? Where?” Sean spun Cricket around on his haunches, a trick that Sorka had never been able to teach Doove despite Sean’s assistance and her own endless patience. He searched the skies and stayed Cricket as the dragonets solidly turned their heads to the east.
Blazer landed on his shoulder, swirling her tail about his neck and left bicep, and shrieked to the others. Sean was amazed at the interaction he sensed. A queen taking orders from browns? But he was distracted as her thoughts became vividly apprehensive.
“Landing in danger?” he asked. “Shelter?”
Once Sean had spoken, Sorka understood what her bronzes were trying to convey to her. Sean was always quicker to read the mental images of his enhanced dragonets, especially those of Blazer, who was the most coherent. Sorka had often wished for a golden female, but she loved her bronzes and brown too much to voice a complaint.
“That’s what they all give me, too,” Sorka said, as her five began to tug various parts of her clothing. Though Sean could hunt bare to the Waist, she bobbled too much to ride topless comfortably; her sleeveless leather vest provided support, as well as protection from the claw holds of the dragonets. Bronze Emmett settled on Doove’s poll long enough to secure a grip on one ear and the forelock, trying to pull the mare’s head around.
“Something big, something dangerous, and shelter!” Sean said, shaking his head. “It’s only a thunderstorm, fellas. Look, just a cloud!”
Sorka frowned as she looked eastward. They were high enough on the plateau to have just a glimpse of the sea.
“That’s a funny-looking cloud formation, Sean. I’ve never seen anything like it. More like the snowclouds we’d have now and again in Ireland.”
Sean scowled and tightened his legs. Cricket, picking up on the dragonets’ urgent fears, pranced tensely in place in the piaffe he had been taught, but it was clear that he would break into a mad gallop the minute Sean gave him his head. The stallion’s eyes were rolling white in distress as he snorted. Doove, too, was fretting, spurred by Emmett’s peculiar urgency.
“Doesn’t snow here, Sorka, but you’re right about the color and shape. By jays, whatever it’s raining, it’s damned near visible. Rain here doesn’t fall like that.”
Duke and Sean’s original two browns saw it and shrieked in utter frustration and terror. Blazer trumpeted a fierce command. The next thing Sean and Sorka knew, both horses had been spurred by well-placed dragonet stabs across their rumps into a headlong stampede which the massed fair of dragonets aimed north and west. Rein, leg, seat, or voice had no effect on the two pain-crazed horses, for whenever they tried to obey their riders, they got another slash from the vigilant dragonets.
“Whatinell’s got into them?” Sean cried, hauling on the hackamore that he used in place of a bit in Cricket’s soft mouth. “I’ll break his bloody nose for him, I will.”
“No, Sean,” Sorka cried, leaning into her mare’s forward plunge. “Duke’s terrified of that cloud. All of mine are. They’d never hurt the horses! We’d be fools to ignore them.”
“As if we could!”
The horses were diving headlong down a ravine. Sean needed all his skill to stay on Cricket, but his mind sensed Blazer’s relief that she had succeeded in moving them toward safety.
“Safety from what?” he muttered in a savage growl, hating the feeling of impotence on an animal that had never disobeyed him in its seven years, an animal that he had thought he understood better than any human on the whole planet.
The headlong pace did not falter, even when Sean felt the gray stallion, fit as he was, begin to tire. The dragonets drove both horses onward, straight toward one of the small lakes that dotted that part of the continent.
“Why water, Sean?” Sorka cried, sitting back and hauling on Doove’s mouth. When the mare willingly slowed, Duke and the other two bronzes screamed a protest and once again gouged her bleeding rump.