Background of Study
Introduction
In 1968, she was the first woman to win both the Hugo (an award bestowed annually at the World Science Fiction Convention) and the Nebula (awarded annually by the Science Fiction Writers of America), the genre’s most prestigious awards. In 1978, she became the first science fiction writer to have a book on the New York Times best-seller list. In 1999, the American Library Association recognized her work with the Margaret A. Edwards Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement. Anne has also collected the Dit- mar Award (Australia), the Gandalf Award, and the Streza (the European Science Fiction Convention Award). In 2005, she was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, an honor bestowed only on twenty-two other writers, of whom just two are women. In 2006, she was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. Her books have been translated into fourteen languages and have sold more than twelve million copies. These distinctions and statistics are important because she was a leader in the feminist revolution in science fiction, and she also focused on female protagonists and women’s issues—child rearing, for example—at a time when strong women were largely absent from the genre. Sarah Lefanu, the author of one of the first books on women and science fiction, Feminism and Science Fiction, praises Anne’s contributions: “It is great to have Anne’s girls and women with their skills and strengths and emotions.”
One of the most popular writers of a group of women who began publishing science fiction in the 1960s and 1970s, Anne came to writing later than her peers and was older than many of the other famous science fiction writers who began publishing in those decades: Ursula K. Le Guin and Joanna Russ, among oth- ers. And also unlike those writers, Anne faced the struggle of try- ing to support herself and three children by her writing. Yet like them, Anne became an award-winning writer who helped feminize the genre. Anne brought great emotional depth to her writing. While not as overtly political as Russ or Le Guin, Anne nevertheless challenged traditional ideas about women and science and women as heroes. Her novels’ strong emotional appeal can be traced to Anne’s own preoccupations and concerns as a member of a generation who came of age during World War II. Disap- pointed by the opportunities available to her as a highly educated and intelligent young woman, she gravitated to science fiction for the alternatives it offered to an unsatisfactory real world. But she found limited roles for women in the pulp magazines she read, and she consciously wrote her first novel, Restoree, “as a tongue-in- cheek protest, utilizing as many of the standard ‘thud and blunder’ clichés as possible with one new twist—the heroine was the viewpoint character and she is always Johanna on the spot.”
Like that of other women science fiction writers, Anne’s work
champions strong female characters, and she positions women in worlds where they have greater opportunities than in the real
world. As literary critic Jane Donawerth notes, these women, in-cluding Anne, moved the figure of woman as alien in science fiction “from margin to center.” At the time Anne began writing, feminist anthropologist Sherry Ortner, in a famous essay, “Is Fe- male to Male as Nature Is to Culture?” (1972), analyzed how women’s association with nature was presented as a reason for women’s subordination. Taking women’s stereotypical association with the natural world, Anne and a number of other women science fiction writers inverted this association, making it into something positive, a strength for their female characters. Anne’s dragons, for example, are genetically engineered, telepathic crea- tures that bond with their humans. The dragons enable humans to live on Pern, providing an alternative to machine transporta- tion and a way for the colonists to fight a life-threatening spore. In making dragons, that had heretofore been featured primarily as evil beasts, into attractive companions, Anne reshaped our cultural image of them. Significantly, she did so in a structure in which queen dragons were the species’ leaders. Bonding with female humans, the dragons enable women on Pern to assume positions of leadership; and, as Jane Donawerth explains, “the dragons offer an alternative model for relationship,” one that is more positive than traditional masculine domination of women. Similarly, Vonda McIntyre’s eponymous character Dream snake, for example, is a natural healer who uses genetically altered snakes to cure illness. There are many other instances of feminist science fiction writers who reclaim animals as special partners with women, from Joan Slonczewski to Octavia Butler, but Anne was one of the first, and her Dragonriders of Pern are surely one of the most enduring and most popular of such creations.
A number of women science fiction writers use strong female
protagonists whose position as outsiders enables them to connect not only with other beings, but also with other humans. Again Donawerth describes a pattern central to Anne’s novels: “the hero intuits the intelligence of another life form” and “establish[es] communication with the aliens before ‘developers’ destroy them and their planets.” Donawerth cites Dinosaur Planet Survivors as a prime example.
In Anne’s case, her sense of her family as being different, and herself more so, contributed to her sense of sympathy for out- siders and a strong desire that such characters should eventually be appreciated and rewarded for their difference. Her parents, for example, stood out in her suburban New Jersey hometown by their level of education and by their odd habits. Anne’s fa- ther marched the children in military formations, keeping in practice for the second world war he knew would come, and her mother took the children out of school to see movies. Both par- ents believed in second sight, or premonitions, and they have family stories of such experiences. So it is no wonder that Anne helped popularize the mental powers, such as telepathy or teleki- nesis, known as psionic powers, that have become one of science fiction’s mainstays. Anne’s creation of characters with psionic talents in her Tower and Hive series, or powerful voices, as in the Crystal Singer series, depicts misfits who become valuable to their societies and who find self-worth in their usefulness through their special powers. The short story that later developed into the Tower and Hive series reveals Anne’s view on such qualities: it is entitled “A Womanly Talent.”
Her first novel, Restoree, was a space gothic romance, a new
hybrid that few reviewers recognized. Anne wrote the novel be- cause, she said, “After seven years of voracious reading in the field, I’d had it up to the eyeteeth with vapid women.” Anne’s willingness to write about love, sex, and emotion became her fic- tion’s identifying characteristic. As she later explained, “Emo- tional content and personal involvement are expected in stories by me. In fact, I have had stories returned to me by editors because they lacked these elements.” Anne sees these elements as essen- tial to the transformation of the genre during her writing ca- reer: “With the injection of emotional involvement, a sexual jolt to the Romance and Glamour, science fiction rose out of pulp and into literature.” While there may be other formulations of science fiction’s rise to respectability, Anne and other women sci- ence fiction writers undoubtedly helped the genre achieve more acclaim through their insistence on characterization and atten- tion to writing style. In the early twenty-first century, we may
minimize the extent of this transformation of science fiction, but Justine Larbalestier, who has written an in-depth study of early twentieth-century science fiction, comments that, after read- ing through fifty years of pulp science fiction, “it became much easier to understand what it was that Russ and Wood and McCaf- frey were reacting to.” Larbalestier found the misogyny of maga- zine science fiction overwhelming.
Women science fiction writers often depict the integration and acceptance of feminine values in other societies with a very strong, if implicit, message about the relevance of the feminine in the real world. Dismissed as “diaper copy” in the 1960s, the fiction that Anne and other writers published brought feminine values such as mothering into science fiction. Judith Merril, a strong supporter of Anne’s work and an influential editor as well as a writer, in 1947 published a famous story, “That Only a Mother,” about a father’s and mother’s very different reactions to a child’s radiation-induced deformities. But Anne’s work moves beyond conventional gender roles (there are very few diapers in her fic- tions) to deal with the emotional needs of girls and women. Ex- cluded herself from any active role in World War II, while her brothers and father were off fighting, Anne depicts female char- acters who are successful combatants and strategists in her Dragon- riders of Pern series, where male and female Dragonriders battle the dreaded Thread, and in the Tower and Hive series, where hu- mans with special psionic talents combat an utterly alien species who threatens the existence of humanity, among many other examples.
Anne repeatedly depicts outcast characters who radically change
their circumstances by discovering they have a special skill. Communicating with dragons, singing crystal, or having psionic powers, all may function as stand-ins for what really happened in her life: she felt abandoned as an outsider as a young girl at camp and as a young woman exiled to a southern boarding school, and she lived through a desperate and depressing life of dependency on an abusive husband. Just as Mary Shelley’s miscarriages in- fluenced her creation of the novel Frankenstein, so Anne McCaf- frey’s relationships affected what she depicts in her science fiction
worlds. Like all writers, I suspected, and this biography confirms, that Anne lived a life that shaped her writing, though Anne’s traumas were transformed in her writing.
http://daydreaminstudios.org/free-library-read/anne-mccaffreys-a-life-with-dragons
Literature Review
Pern is a world created by science fiction writer Anne McCaffrey. It all started with a short story which Anne wrote in part to combat the negative image of dragons. “Weyr Search” was published in the Science Fiction magazine Analog in October 1967. This first story was nominated for both the Nebula and Hugo Awards for best novella, and won the 1968 Hugo Award.
Anne did not intend to write any more about Pern, but the editor of Analog encouraged her to write a sequel. “Dragonrider” was published by Analog in two parts, in December 1967 and January 1968. It too was nominated for the Nebula and Hugo Awards for best novella, and it won the 1969 Nebula–consequently making Anne the first woman to win both awards.
These stories were put together and expanded into the first Pern novel, Dragonflight. Ten years later another Pern novel, The White Dragon, hit the New York Times Bestseller List, making Anne the very first avowed science fiction author to have a bestseller. Over thirty years and fifteen books later, Anne still hasn’t stopped delighting her millions of fans with more tales of Pern.
So just what makes Pern so special?
Pern is an earth-like planet settled by humans who wished to escape a war-torn, space-faring society by setting up a low-tech agrarian colony in a remote sector of the galaxy. Initially they took little notice of the red planet which also circled their sun Rukbat, unaware that its highly eccentric orbit would take it from the remote Oort Cloud to the heart of the solar system and back again every 250 years. Eight years after they landed, the path of this wanderer brought it near Pern. The deadly spores it towed in its wake began to rain down in silvery strands, which quickly devoured all organic material–plant, animal, and human–it came in contact with.
The panicked settlers suffered heavy losses from this first fall of what they named Thread. Using their remaining technology, they urgently set out to learn as much as they could about it. The bad news: it would fall every three days for six hours, and Falls would continue for 50 years. After a 200 year Thread-free Interval, another Pass would begin. The good news: it could be killed with fire, water, or freezing temperatures. Pilots were quickly drafted to fly the colony’s small collection of sleds to combat the Falls with flamethrowers. But this was only a temporary solution; the sleds would wear out, as would the battery packs that fueled them. The colony had not counted on needing to replace them, and didn’t have the tools and materials necessary to do so. What the colonists needed was a renewable air-force to combat the deadly rain of Thread. The newest inhabitants of Pern looked to a native life-form to supply their need.
The small fire-dragonets, so named for their resemblance to mythical Terran dragons, were naturally equipped to fight Thread. They not only could breathe fire (after consuming a phosphine-bearing rock, firestone) but also could teleport themselves out of danger. These engaging creatures had a spark of intelligence, and they empathically bonded with their human owners when they hatched. The fire-dragonets did their best to shield their human friends during that tragic First Fall, but they simply weren’t large enough to offer full protection.
Enter geneticist Kitti Ping Yung. This extraordinarily gifted woman manipulated the DNA of the fire-dragonets to produce a number of large eggs on which the hopes and future of the colony rested. The eighteen dragons which successfully hatched (shortly after Kitti’s death) immediately each Impressed a young adult and surprised them by telepathically speaking their own names to their chosen partner. When they reached their full growth, the dragons would be able to breathe fire and fly to battle Thread with their riders on their backs.
Like the fire-dragonets, the dragons came in five colors. The golden queens were the largest of the breed and they mated with the bronze or brown that managed to catch them, producing the next generation of dragons. While the smaller blues didn’t have the stamina for a gold’s mating flight, they proved much more maneuverable against Thread–as did the numerous greens, the smallest of the dragons. The amorous greens proved unable to bear eggs as the golds did, by design of Kitti Ping.
Kitti tinkered with the genetic code for the dragons in other ways as well. The gold dragons proved unable to produce flame after chewing fire-stone, but this did not keep the breeding queens from battling Thread as Kitti might have intended. The women who partnered them simply carried mechanical flame-throwers. The dragons of each generation were somewhat larger than their forebears, until the optimum size was reached shortly before the Ninth Pass. The differences in size between the five colors also grew more distinct because of this, and in modern times the browns are no longer able to successfully compete against the larger bronzes in the mating flights of queens. These modern beasts are many times the size of the original 18 dragons.
The structure of Pern’s society developed over the years to one well-suited to support the dragons and riders, freeing them to protect the planet’s population from Threadfall. The dragonriders lived and trained in extinct volcanoes they called Weyrs. Each Weyr would be led by the riders of the senior queen and her bronze mate. Food was tithed to the Weyrs by those that farmed the land and lived together in caves and stone buildings known as Holds, each led by a Lord and Lady Holder. Other goods were tithed by the various autonomous Crafthalls which trained their members in particular skills under the guidance of an elected Craftmaster.
The original story opens just prior to the Ninth Pass. Most technology and knowledge–including their Terran origin–has been lost to the population by this time. The wandering planet that brings the Threads to Pern is now known as the Red Star. Five of the six Weyrs are empty and most of the people of Pern don’t believe that Thread will fall again–a result of an extra-long Interval of over 400 years, or Turns as they are now called, since the previous Pass. The return of the Red Star threatens disaster for Pern, unless a strong-willed woman can be found before the last golden egg hatches, and a young, visionary man can find a way to unite and lead his fellow dragonriders.
Pern is a world created by science fiction writer Anne McCaffrey. It all started with a short story which Anne wrote in part to combat the negative image of dragons. “Weyr Search” was published in the Science Fiction magazine Analog in October 1967. This first story was nominated for both the Nebula and Hugo Awards for best novella, and won the 1968 Hugo Award.
Anne did not intend to write any more about Pern, but the editor of Analog encouraged her to write a sequel. “Dragonrider” was published by Analog in two parts, in December 1967 and January 1968. It too was nominated for the Nebula and Hugo Awards for best novella, and it won the 1969 Nebula–consequently making Anne the first woman to win both awards.
These stories were put together and expanded into the first Pern novel, Dragonflight. Ten years later another Pern novel, The White Dragon, hit the New York Times Bestseller List, making Anne the very first avowed science fiction author to have a bestseller. Over thirty years and fifteen books later, Anne still hasn’t stopped delighting her millions of fans with more tales of Pern.
So just what makes Pern so special?
Pern is an earth-like planet settled by humans who wished to escape a war-torn, space-faring society by setting up a low-tech agrarian colony in a remote sector of the galaxy. Initially they took little notice of the red planet which also circled their sun Rukbat, unaware that its highly eccentric orbit would take it from the remote Oort Cloud to the heart of the solar system and back again every 250 years. Eight years after they landed, the path of this wanderer brought it near Pern. The deadly spores it towed in its wake began to rain down in silvery strands, which quickly devoured all organic material–plant, animal, and human–it came in contact with.
The panicked settlers suffered heavy losses from this first fall of what they named Thread. Using their remaining technology, they urgently set out to learn as much as they could about it. The bad news: it would fall every three days for six hours, and Falls would continue for 50 years. After a 200 year Thread-free Interval, another Pass would begin. The good news: it could be killed with fire, water, or freezing temperatures. Pilots were quickly drafted to fly the colony’s small collection of sleds to combat the Falls with flamethrowers. But this was only a temporary solution; the sleds would wear out, as would the battery packs that fueled them. The colony had not counted on needing to replace them, and didn’t have the tools and materials necessary to do so. What the colonists needed was a renewable air-force to combat the deadly rain of Thread. The newest inhabitants of Pern looked to a native life-form to supply their need.
The small fire-dragonets, so named for their resemblance to mythical Terran dragons, were naturally equipped to fight Thread. They not only could breathe fire (after consuming a phosphine-bearing rock, firestone) but also could teleport themselves out of danger. These engaging creatures had a spark of intelligence, and they empathically bonded with their human owners when they hatched. The fire-dragonets did their best to shield their human friends during that tragic First Fall, but they simply weren’t large enough to offer full protection.
Enter geneticist Kitti Ping Yung. This extraordinarily gifted woman manipulated the DNA of the fire-dragonets to produce a number of large eggs on which the hopes and future of the colony rested. The eighteen dragons which successfully hatched (shortly after Kitti’s death) immediately each Impressed a young adult and surprised them by telepathically speaking their own names to their chosen partner. When they reached their full growth, the dragons would be able to breathe fire and fly to battle Thread with their riders on their backs.
Like the fire-dragonets, the dragons came in five colors. The golden queens were the largest of the breed and they mated with the bronze or brown that managed to catch them, producing the next generation of dragons. While the smaller blues didn’t have the stamina for a gold’s mating flight, they proved much more maneuverable against Thread–as did the numerous greens, the smallest of the dragons. The amorous greens proved unable to bear eggs as the golds did, by design of Kitti Ping.
Kitti tinkered with the genetic code for the dragons in other ways as well. The gold dragons proved unable to produce flame after chewing fire-stone, but this did not keep the breeding queens from battling Thread as Kitti might have intended. The women who partnered them simply carried mechanical flame-throwers. The dragons of each generation were somewhat larger than their forebears, until the optimum size was reached shortly before the Ninth Pass. The differences in size between the five colors also grew more distinct because of this, and in modern times the browns are no longer able to successfully compete against the larger bronzes in the mating flights of queens. These modern beasts are many times the size of the original 18 dragons.
The structure of Pern’s society developed over the years to one well-suited to support the dragons and riders, freeing them to protect the planet’s population from Threadfall. The dragonriders lived and trained in extinct volcanoes they called Weyrs. Each Weyr would be led by the riders of the senior queen and her bronze mate. Food was tithed to the Weyrs by those that farmed the land and lived together in caves and stone buildings known as Holds, each led by a Lord and Lady Holder. Other goods were tithed by the various autonomous Crafthalls which trained their members in particular skills under the guidance of an elected Craftmaster.
The original story opens just prior to the Ninth Pass. Most technology and knowledge–including their Terran origin–has been lost to the population by this time. The wandering planet that brings the Threads to Pern is now known as the Red Star. Five of the six Weyrs are empty and most of the people of Pern don’t believe that Thread will fall again–a result of an extra-long Interval of over 400 years, or Turns as they are now called, since the previous Pass. The return of the Red Star threatens disaster for Pern, unless a strong-willed woman can be found before the last golden egg hatches, and a young, visionary man can find a way to unite and lead his fellow dragonriders.
http://pern.srellim.org/intro.htm
In a world where dragons and men coexist, Weyrleader F’lar and his Weyrwoman, Lessa, push past personal differences and work together to save Pern from deadly spores known as Threads that fall to the ground with the Red Star’s orbital passing. In the past, six Weyrs filled with weyrfolk, dragons and their riders fought this alien invasion using dragon flames to sear the Threads before they reached the ground. Yet, as the threat draws near, five of six Weyrs sit empty, leaving F’lar, Lessa, and a handful of dragons and dragonmen of Benden Weyr to save all of Pern. The two turn to the ancient Ballads, Traditions and Records for help. When Lessa accidentally visits the past while learning to fly her dragon queen, they believe the answer to the Question Song is to fly dragons between times to the past in order to seed the dragon population and give them time to grow before the next battle.
As the story opens, Lessa hides behind the disguise of a filthy kitchen drudge within Ruath Hold where she awakens with a sense of danger. Her special ability touches the watch-wher’s mind, but it does not sense the danger. The threat is unfamiliar. Danger emanates from the east and the west. Her eyes drift to the Red Star dominating the sky at dawn—a recent occurrence. The worst of the danger will come from the east.
F’lar senses Lessa’s power and sees through her disguise while she is unconscious. After talking to her, he carries her to Benden Weyr in hopes she is one to Impress with the queen. When the queen dragon hatches, Lessa is chosen by the hatchling. This thrusts the girl into the position of Weyrwoman overnight. She uses her secret abilities discreetly, but her hidden skill of communicating with all dragons creates a bond between her and the beasts. This bond of trust paves the way for the future when dragons and riders are forced to fly between times in an effort to repopulate the diminished dragon population.
With the discovery of Threads falling over Nerat, flying between times becomes a reality for the dragons of Benden Weyr and their riders as they go back two hours to fight Threads at dawn. The battle is successful but takes its toll. The few dragons and trained riders will not be enough to fight the Threads day after day for years. This reality gives birth to a plan to send a queen and a handful of others ten years into the past to grow the dragon population and bring their riders to maturity. This venture is not enough to keep up with the steady stress of fighting the Threads. However, it gives birth to Lessa’s idea as she reads the Question Song. Along with references found on a long lost tapestry, she decides to risk traveling back four hundred years to a time before the Weyrfolk of the other five Weyrs disappeared. If she arrives safely, she plans to ask their help to fly forward in time to fight the Threads along with F’lar and the handful of others.
In a world where dragons and men coexist, Weyrleader F’lar and his Weyrwoman, Lessa, push past personal differences and work together to save Pern from deadly spores known as Threads that fall to the ground with the Red Star’s orbital passing. In the past, six Weyrs filled with weyrfolk, dragons and their riders fought this alien invasion using dragon flames to sear the Threads before they reached the ground. Yet, as the threat draws near, five of six Weyrs sit empty, leaving F’lar, Lessa, and a handful of dragons and dragonmen of Benden Weyr to save all of Pern. The two turn to the ancient Ballads, Traditions and Records for help. When Lessa accidentally visits the past while learning to fly her dragon queen, they believe the answer to the Question Song is to fly dragons between times to the past in order to seed the dragon population and give them time to grow before the next battle.
As the story opens, Lessa hides behind the disguise of a filthy kitchen drudge within Ruath Hold where she awakens with a sense of danger. Her special ability touches the watch-wher’s mind, but it does not sense the danger. The threat is unfamiliar. Danger emanates from the east and the west. Her eyes drift to the Red Star dominating the sky at dawn—a recent occurrence. The worst of the danger will come from the east.
F’lar senses Lessa’s power and sees through her disguise while she is unconscious. After talking to her, he carries her to Benden Weyr in hopes she is one to Impress with the queen. When the queen dragon hatches, Lessa is chosen by the hatchling. This thrusts the girl into the position of Weyrwoman overnight. She uses her secret abilities discreetly, but her hidden skill of communicating with all dragons creates a bond between her and the beasts. This bond of trust paves the way for the future when dragons and riders are forced to fly between times in an effort to repopulate the diminished dragon population.
With the discovery of Threads falling over Nerat, flying between times becomes a reality for the dragons of Benden Weyr and their riders as they go back two hours to fight Threads at dawn. The battle is successful but takes its toll. The few dragons and trained riders will not be enough to fight the Threads day after day for years. This reality gives birth to a plan to send a queen and a handful of others ten years into the past to grow the dragon population and bring their riders to maturity. This venture is not enough to keep up with the steady stress of fighting the Threads. However, it gives birth to Lessa’s idea as she reads the Question Song. Along with references found on a long lost tapestry, she decides to risk traveling back four hundred years to a time before the Weyrfolk of the other five Weyrs disappeared. If she arrives safely, she plans to ask their help to fly forward in time to fight the Threads along with F’lar and the handful of others.
Literature Sample Collection:
F’lar nodded slowly. “Your harper can reinstruct you on the signs. Good Lords, the tithe is required. Your women will be returned. The Holds are to be put in order. The Weyr prepares Pern, as the Weyr is pledged to protect Pern. Your cooperation is expected—” he paused significantly—“and will be enforced.” With that, he vaulted to Mnementh’s neck, keeping the queen always in sight.
He saw her golden wings beat as the dragon turned and soared upward. It was infuriating of Lessa to take this moment, when all his energy and attention ought to go to settling the Holders’ grievance for a show of rebellion. Why did she have to flaunt her independence so, in full sight of the entire Weyr and all the Lords? He longed to chase immediately after her and could not. Not until he had seen the army in actual retreat, not until he had signaled for the final show of Weyr strength for the Holders’ elucidation. Gritting his teeth, he signaled Mnementh aloft. The wings rose behind him with spectacular trumpetings and dartings so that there appeared to be thousands of dragons in the air instead of the scant two hundred Benden Weyr boasted.
Assured that that part of his strategy was proceeding in order, he bade Mnementh fly after the Weyrwoman, who was now dipping and gliding high above the Weyr. When he got his hands on that girl, he would tell her a thing or two . . . . Mnementh informed him caustically that telling her a thing or two might be a very good idea. Much better than flying so vengefully after a pair who were only trying their wings out
Mnementh reminded his irate rider that, after all, the golden dragon had flown far and wide yesterday, having blooded four, but had not eaten since. She’d be neither capable of nor interested in any protracted flying until she had eaten fully. However, if F’lar insisted on this ill-considered and completely unnecessary pursuit, he might just antagonize Ramoth into jumping between to escape him. The very thought of that untutored pair going between cooled F’lar instantly. Controlling himself, he realized that Mnementh’s judgment was more reliable than his at the moment.
He’d let anger and anxiety influence his decisions, but . . . Mnementh circled in to land at the Star Stone, the tip of Benden Peak being a fine vantage point from which F’lar could observe both the decamping army and the queen. Mnementh’s great eyes gave the appearance of whirling as the dragon adjusted his vision to its farthest reach. He reported to F’lar that Piyanth’s rider felt the dragons’ supervision of the retreat was causing hysteria among the men and beasts.
Injuries were occurring in the resultant stampedes. F’lar immediately ordered K’net to assume surveillance altitude until the army camped for the night. He was to keep close watch on the Nabolese contingent at all times, however.
Even as F’lar had Mnementh relay these orders, he realized his mind had dismissed the matter. All his attention was really on that high-flying pair. You had better teach her to fly between, Mnementh remarked, one great eye shining directly over F’lar’s shoulder. She’s quick enough to figure it out for herself, and then where are we? F’lar let the sharp retort die on his lips as he watched, breathless.
Ramoth suddenly folded her wings, a golden streak diving through the sky. Effortlessly she pulled out at the critical point and soared upward again. Mnementh deliberately called to mind their first wildly acrobatic flight.
A tender smile crossed F’lar’s face, and suddenly he knew how much Lessa must have longed to fly, how bitter it must have been for her to watch the dragonets practice when she was forbidden to try.
Well, he was no R’gul, torn by indecision and doubt. And she is no Jora, Mnementh reminded him pungently. I’m calling them in, the dragon added. Ramoth has turned a dull orange. F’lar watched as the flyers obediently began a downward glide, the queen’s wings arching and curving as she slowed her tremendous forward speed.
Unfed or not, she could fly! He mounted Mnementh, waving them on, down toward the feeding grounds. He caught a fleeting glimpse of Lessa, her face vivid with elation and rebellion. Ramoth landed, and Lessa dropped to the ground, gesturing the dragon on to eat. The girl turned then, watching Mnementh glide in and hover to let F’lar dismount.
She straightened her shoulders, her chin lifted belligerently as her slender body gathered itself to face his censure. Her behavior was like that of any weyrling, anticipating punishment and determined to endure it, soundless. She was not the least bit repentant! Admiration for this indomitable personality replaced the last trace of F’lar’s anger.
He smiled as he closed the distance between them. Startled by his completely unexpected behavior, she took a half-step backward. “Queens can, too, fly,” she blurted out, daring him. His grin broadening to suffuse his face, he put his hands on her shoulders and gave her an affectionate shake.
“Of course they can fly,” he assured her, his voice full of pride and respect. “That’s why they have wings!”
PART III Dust Fall The Finger points At an Eye blood-red.
Alert the Weyrs To sear the Thread. “You still doubt, R’gul?” F’lar asked, appearing slightly amused by the older bronze rider’s perversity. R’gul, his handsome features stubbornly set, made no reply to the Weyrleader’s taunt. He ground his teeth together as if he could grind away F’lar’s authority over him.
“There have been no Threads in Pern’s skies for over four hundred Turns. There are no more!” “There is always that possibility,” F’lar conceded amiably. There was not, however, the slightest trace of tolerance in his amber eyes. Nor the slightest hint of compromise in his manner. He was more like F’lon, his sire, R’gul decided, than a son had any right to be. Always so sure of himself, always slightly contemptuous of what others did and thought. Arrogant, that’s what F’lar was. Impertinent, too, and underhanded in the matter of that young Weyrwoman. Why, R’gul had trained her up to be one of the finest Weyrwomen in many Turns. Before he’d finished her instruction, she’d known all the Teaching Ballads and Sagas letter-perfect. And then the silly child had turned to F’lar.