Энн Маккефри: Beyond Between

She stared at him with a combination of horror and disbelief. “By the shards of my dragon’s egg! Then why am I here withyou?” She tilted her head to one side, looking intently at his eyes, and reached out her hand to pull him to his feet. He stared at her outstretched hand and then, clenching and unclenching his jaw, he returned her unwavering gaze. Moreta held her breath but did not break eye contact.

“You’re not with the right dragon. You should have gonebetween with Orlith, not Holth!” he said, and in one smooth movement he gripped her forearm and pulled himself to his feet.

“Couldn’t I find a way to get a message to Leri?”

He gave her an odd smile. “I don’t think they’ll see you,” he said in a measured tone. “And I’m not sure writing a message will work either.”

“Why not?”

He sighed. “It’s the problem of making it visible.”

She looked frantically at the sun, which was very low on the horizon. “I must go now,” she said, shrugging into her riding jacket.

She was about to call to Holth when Marco put a heavy hand on her shoulder to prevent her moving.

“I should have gone right back and waited,” she said, ducking her shoulder from under his grasp.

“No!” he said in a loud, firm voice. Holth raised her head and Duluth looked over at him from where he was drowsing in the sun, a peaceful green color in his many-faceted eyes. “It wouldn’t have done you any good. I’m positive of that.”

She subsided, more out of confusion than because he had prevented her. There’s something he knows that he won’t tell me, Moreta thought. Marco stared hard at Moreta’s face.

“I’ve had a great deal of time to think, Moreta. More than any man should have. And I’ve begun to believe that dragons can be immortal. I think that’s why I’m still here with Duluth.”

“Immortal?”

“I mean, they do not age, as we do, nor do their bodies decay. They can live hundreds of Turns.”

“But dragons can get injured in Threadfall and get sick,” Moreta protested, seizing on the one fact she did understand.

“Sure, but their organs don’t degenerate, so technically, they could last as long as they want to. Usually, they last as long as their rider; because the bond between the two is so strong they don’t wish to live after the rider is gone.” Marco paused and then, taking a deep breath, struggling to find the right words, continued. “Dragonmen, and I guess other folk on Pern, have rules and beliefs they live by. Where I came from we had quite a few belief systems. Some were very useful; some were very misused. But I won’t go into allthat now. Beyond everything, though, the one tenet the people of my world cherished was that there is a part of us that’s more than bones and blood.”

When Moreta shook her head, more confused than ever, he went on.

“Don’t you think we all have something about us that is special, different?” Marco asked. “An essence that makes you different from everyone else?”

“I’m not very different from everyone else I know,” she said, almost defensively.

“Well, you are a queen rider,” he said, “and your essence — power — and that of your dragon are eternally interlocked. You will never be parted.”

A tortured expression marred Moreta’s pretty face. Marco’s words were confusing her. All his talk of beliefs and blood and bones made her head reel. She needed todo something. Now! She feared she was wasting time.

“I’m apart from my dragon right now,” she said and walked toward Holth. “If I can get back to Waterhole, I must go now.”

He followed her, glancing over at Duluth, who immediately struggled out of his comfortable sand wallow. Holth woke, startled, her eyes beginning to whirl with the orange-red of alarm.

What is wrong?

“No, dear, no dear, it’s all right,” Moreta said. “We’re going back to Waterhole. I have to try to get back to Orlith. Somehow I’ll get a message to Leri to join us.”

Leri,Holth echoed, a piteous tone tingeing her mental voice.

Moreta turned to Marco. “You’re sure I can make the journey back?”

Marco nodded slowly. “Every one of us here can get back to our last point of entry. Just nowhere else — except of course Paradise River, because I can lead them in.”

Heaving a sigh, he touched her arm in sympathy. “You can’t jumpnow to where you intended to gothen.”

He shrugged into his worn riding jacket. “We’ll come with you — to guide you through.”

Holth moved slowly until Duluth leaned toward her, touching her muzzle. That revived the old queen. Moreta made much of her, patting her neck and murmuring suitable reassurances and endearments as she hauled herself onto the dragon’s back.

“Now, you’d best visualize Waterhole just after dusk,” he said, securing his helmet and giving it a brief rub to settle over his hair. “Me and Duluth will wait for you inbetween to help you get back here.”

Moreta held the landscape firm in her mind: the way the fences came to a point for the three fields and the hold off to the left; the way the lowering sun had caught sparkles from the gray-blue roof slates.

“Go on,” Marco said, showing her both hands with his thumbs pointed up.

“Let’s go to Waterhole, Holth,” she said, and the queen, slithering a bit in the sand underfoot, managed a much more energetic ascent than her last two.

“Black, blacker, blackest,” Moreta mumbled out of habit as she felt the dragon’s body lifting.

“You’re ready to drop, Moreta,” Marco shouted and, before she could draw another breath, she and Holth dropped through the grayness and were out in to fresh crisp air. Above them, Timor, the smaller moon, was just rising. A runnerbeast was shrieking at the top of its lungs, a gray-muzzled roan animal, his unusual markings gleaming in the moonlight. The other runners in the paddock were galloping around him in mindless terror. With neither Marco nor Duluth nearby, Moreta was afraid.

Holth managed a graceful glide to their destination of the intersecting fence lines. Lights, warm and yellow from glowbaskets, were visible in the nearby hold. Moreta heard sudden shouts of fright. All the lights went out, as the hold door was slammed tight by whoever looked out to see why the runnerbeasts were shrieking. She was just about to nudge Holth to walk to the hold and see why they had been so frightened when the doorway opened again, a mere crack, and a figure was silhouetted in the light.

“Who is it? Who goes there?” Moreta recognized the voice as Thaniel’s.

“Moreta, of course, Thaniel,” she called, but he didn’t seem to see her. Rusty shrieked again and Thaniel turned toward the sound.

“Stupid beast! There’s no one here.” He swept his hand in a wide gesture as if he saw nothing but empty space. An empty space that Moreta was sure she filled.

“Thaniel! I’m here. Can’t you see me?” she shouted as loud as she could, urging Holth to move forward.

Rusty increased his complaints, racing up and down the fenced enclosure, showing the whites of his eyes in terror.

“Shut your bawling!” Thaniel roared at Rusty. “The riders looking for Moreta have all gone back to their Weyrs. There’s not a sign of a dragon in the sky.”

Moreta was stunned. She ought to have returned earlier. If he could hear that wretched creature, surely he could hear her shouting? She dismounted Holth quickly and ran up to Thaniel, to stand right in front of him. In fact, when he turned his head back in her direction, she had to take a step back or their noses would have touched. She reached out to grab his arm, and Thaniel immediately gave a visible shudder that ran from his dusty boots to his long hair.

He mumbled something Moreta couldn’t hear and wrapped his arms about himself. “Am I getting the plague after all?” he cried out loud.