Энн Маккефри: Beyond Between

Moreta said, “Believe me, they can. I don’t know how many people have died. But Healers managed to develop a vaccine.”

“How did cats get to the north?” Marco wondered.

Moreta clicked her tongue. “Some seamen who’d been shipwrecked on the coast found the animal and brought it back, thinking they’d make a mark or two displaying it at Gathers. Before we traced the disease back to the cat, too many people had been infected.”

“Don’t your people know about quarantines?” Marco asked, taken aback.

“Of course we do, but the plague spread too fast. At first no one knew what had started it. We get contagious diseases now and then, but they’re usually just seasonal and only affect a small number of folk. This plague affected almost everyone.”

“Riders and dragons died, too?”

“Yes,” she replied sadly. “How did you know that?”

“I saw quite a few of them,” he said, grimacing. “Far more than would have been accounted for in a heavy Threadfall.”

“But if you saw them inbetween, then you must have seen where they went!” Moreta felt a rush of hope.

He shook his head slowly. “I don’t know where they went. I haven’t been there yet.” A curious expression touched his face as he talked. Duluth warbled gently to his rider.

Moreta stared at him, having figured out that he and the first riders had all been about nineteen or twenty Turns at the time they Impressed those first dragons. Why, he must be more than fifteen hundred Turns old! That is, if he really existed at all! She wanted to reach out and touch him.

“I still don’t understand. ” Her voice quavered with uncertainty and she felt fresh tears behind her eyes.

“How I could be hereand between?” He shook his head. “I don’t understand either, but demonstrably I am.Cogito, ergo sum. ”

“I beg your pardon?”

“That’s a very old Earth language, called Latin. It translates as ‘I think, therefore I am.’ ”

“Oh.”

“A double big oh, Moreta. What year — I mean, Turn — is this?”

Moreta stared at him for a moment even as she said the words. “Fifteen hundred and forty-three. We’re nearly through the Sixth Pass.”

He nodded, staring at some far distant spot on the horizon. A gentle sigh passed his lips.

“Buthow have you survived?”

“I’m not sure, but I’ve decided that time must be different inbetween. Which supports my notion that it’s another dimension or level, or something.”

“Aren’t you—” Moreta stopped, reluctant to hurt this gentle young man with her prying. “—lonely?” she asked.

“I have Duluth.” He looked toward his dragon, lounging next to Holth on the sand. As he made mental contact with his life partner, Moreta saw his eyes shining with the bond that all dragonriders knew. It made her long even more for Orlith.

Duluth rumbled with affection for his rider, and Holth stirred briefly as she lay in the warm sands.

“What happened to you and Holth?”

“Bad luck, bad imaging. Ours, I can candidly say, was due to fatigue and too many time changes.”

“Time changes?”

Moreta took a deep breath, composing herself before she began her story. As she recounted the events of the last few days, the pervading calmness that had overcome her faded. With the conclusion of her tale, her emotions welled up.

“All I said to her was ‘we only have to take one last jumpbetween, Holth, that’s all.’ And then we were stuck until you found us.” Moreta broke down in tears at her failure to give a clear picture of where she and Holth should have gone. Through sobs she cried, “I never said goodbye to Orlith.”

“This is where I help,” Marco said gently, as he shifted his position so he could put an arm around her shoulders. He rocked her slightly until she was calm again. “You delivered parcels to forty different places in the space of an afternoon?” He couldn’t help sounding incredulous. “But taking off and landing take up a lot of time.”

“Well, we made each hour work for two, or maybe three. Dragons can gobetween time, too, you see.”

“Dragons can gobetween time?” Marco asked, astonished.

“Well, as you can see, it can be very dangerous and totally disorient the rider. I’ve done it before, and even gone to the future, but only because the necessities of fighting this plague made that unavoidable. But we were short of riders. Since I was the most familiar with Keroon plains and holds, I offered to make the circuit. I used the position of the sun to guide me, but in order to get the medicine to everyone today, as promised, I had to backtrack. We were both exhausted by the time we made the last delivery.”

He touched her shoulder, studying her face with such a look of understanding that she blinked in surprise.

“Marco, why have you been here so long?”

He shrugged. “No place else we can go or come back to.”

“But haven’t you tried to follow any of the other dragons and riders when you see them inbetween?” she asked.

“Yes, we’ve tried. But it’s all just endless grayness. We’ve flown for hours, no, days! But it’s always been the same. At first, I thought I could see an end to it, and tried to get to it, but I never could. It always receded as fast as Duluth and I approached.”

He took another breath and said in a rush, “Sometimes, though. I see dragons, usually with their riders, just heading away — sometimes heading up. ” He waved his hand in some inexplicit overhead direction. “They aren’t heading forbetween, because they are alreadybetween. They are aiming for some destination. beyond between. ”

“Beyondbetween?” A shiver ran down her spine. “But there’s nothing beyondbetween.”

A heavy silence fell over them and it was quite some time before either one spoke.

“Are you sure?” Marco asked quietly.

“You should know. You arrived here in a spaceship, so you should have seen all there was to see of Pern.”

“You better believe it.” His tone was nostalgic. “They put the forward view up on all the screens so we could watch it getting closer. Most of us were awake, preparatory to landing, and I don’t think many of us bothered to eat or sleep. We couldn’t get enough of watching.” His eyes glowed. “Prettier than Earth, beautiful blue seas and green lands, and some desert spots, too. But beautiful — and ours!”

“And did you seebetween?”

He gave her a very thoughtful look before he shook his head slowly. “Betweenwas something we needed the dragons to find for us. It’s somethingthey do. We don’t. Their own special place.”

“Dragons gobetween to die,” Moreta said flatly.

“They may go throughbetween,” he retorted, “but they don’t stay there. No bodies. I’ve gone to check when I see a dragon in the grayness.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Moreta wasn’t sure of anything anymore, but she said nothing. She knew that dragons would gobetween if their riders had died. She knew that sometimes riders and dragons wentbetween together if the life of one of them had become insupportable. Her head snapped back as she was gripped by an overwhelming sense of urgency.

“I have to be with Orlith and get Holth back to Leri somehow,” she said.

“I understand,” Marco said.

“Didn’t you say I could go back to the place I came from? Waterhole?” She stood up, dusting sand from her clothing.

He looked up at her, almost expressionlessly. “You can go back to Waterhole, yes, but I’m not sure it will do you any good.”

“If I can get back to Waterhole maybe I can get back to Fort Weyr.”

He tilted his head sideways, a wry look on his face. “Now that may be the problem. You see, you’re dead.”