She tapped her microblade on a ring. "This feels like metal."
"Then excise it and any more like it that you see, and have the items sent to Master Fandarel for analysis. What else?"
"There're a lot of particles lodged in the pasty parts, and-and it's hollow in the center. Could that yellow be liquid helium?" Sharra went on. "It's just like the stuff you showed us in the liquid gas experiments, and it boils as soon as it's exposed to the -150 ° atmosphere. We haven't yet tried it at 3K."
"There is no reason why it cannot be helium. Helium is liquid at the temperatures that Thread inhabits. Isolate a sample, and a positive identification can be made."
"This whole thing resembles those micrographs you displayed, Aivas," Mirrim said.
"You are quite right, Mirrim. This is the real thing, though, not a slide. Continue, Sharra."
"How?"
"Dissect another ring. Slice it so that you go through more than half the torus. That will show more of its composition."
"That's odd," Brekke said. "Compare that ring with the other one. The first has all kinds of springy-like things sort of layered, while in the other they're all twisted up-oooh, shells!"
Sharra had prodded one of the rings, and suddenly it flipped away from the tool, sticking to the wall of the examination enclosure.
"This could be their method of reproduction," Aivas said. "Or it could be a parasite, escaping from the dying organism. But this is quite interesting. Try another ring to see if the reaction is the same."
Though Sharra's second prod was more tentative, there was another eruption.
"Now, apply your blade to the springs in the first torus," Aivas instructed. "Nothing happens. Now you have seen two entirely different facets of this organism. You are investigating a wholly new creature, and we must see everything that it is."
"Why?" Mirrim asked.
"Because you must know how to destroy this organism, so that it cannot reproduce, so that it cannot multiply anywhere in your system."
"If it doesn't fall on Pern, that's enough, isn't it'?" Brekke asked.
"For you, perhaps, but the sensible thing would be to destroy it at its source."
Caselon recovered first. "But if the Red Star is moved..."
"That doesn't destroy Thread. It only removes its vector. Your task is to discover how you can destroy the Thread organism itself!"
"Isn't that a bit ambitious for us?" Sharra asked.
"The means are available. Even in your very brief investigations today, you have discovered much about the organism. Each day you will discover more. It is possible that some of those bits are parasites, smaller entities built on the same plan. Parasites or progeny. Or predators."
"Like those limpets on the tunnel snakes?" Oldive asked. "The ones that attach themselves to the snakes and eat their muscle tissue and then leave when they're sated?"
"A good example. Were they predators, or were they parasites?"
"I don't think we ever decided," Oldive remarked. "According to your definition, a parasite does not always cause its host lasting harm, and tends to be unable to survive apart from this host; while a predator usually kills its victim and moves on. As the snake limpet leaves its host/victim alive and able to heal, it is more of a parasite, not quite a predator."
"What must be found are parasites that can be made into predators, guaranteed to kill their hosts just as you isolated bacteria and altered it to create bacteriophages to reduce wound infection."
"I still don't see the purpose," Mirrim muttered.
"There is one," Aivas said so emphatically that Mirrim grimaced in dismay and pretended to be frightened.
"Sharra, have you isolated those parts that must be subjected to other tests?"
"I've got a lot of messy bits, and springs and metals, and lumps and bumps, if that's what you mean."
"Good. Place them on the petri dishes and we can proceed with the investigation. You are to examine them under high pressure, with inert gas-xenon, which we have in that cylinder-to discover if those tubes are full of helium. Now that you have opened the containing tubular vessels, you are losing all the helium, if that's what it is, very rapidly."
When Lessa and F'lar learned of the threat against Master Robinton, they were all for sending him up to the Yokohama, or to Honshu, or back to the Harper Hall.
"I'm not a child," he said, considerably incensed by such protectiveness. "I'm a grown man and have faced down every danger that has come my way. Do not deny me that right. Besides, if these conspirators should learn that their victim has been put beyond them, they'll merely think of something else we might not learn about in time to counter. No, I'll stay here, with half the fire-lizards of Pern as my escort and whatever other"-he held up a warning hand-discreet guardians you choose to appoint. Beat a cowardly retreat I will not!" With his head up, his eyes flashing, his breath rapid, he forestalled all further protests.
If he noticed those set to guard him in the following weeks, he did not register the surveillants with so much as a flicker of his eye. Master Idarolan, as irate as everyone else, sent messages to all harbormasters, consulted at great length with his most trusted captains, and dispatched his fastest courier ship to Monaco Bay. Menolly sent Rocky, Diver, and Mimic to assist Robinton's Zair, and Swacky and two other big mercenaries were established at Cove Hold. Master Robinton continued his duties at Landing and on the Yokohoma, pretended to be highly intrigued by the biological team's exacting work.
How Aivas learned of the threat no one knew, or admitted, but it gave Fandarel the schematics for a small device that Master Robinton was to wear at all times. "A locator," Aivas termed it. "Wearing that, you can be traced anywhere on this planet and as far as the spaceships."
That afforded all his friends far more relief than any would admit. With Aivas as protector, Master Robinton was surely safe.
17
By the end of the summer, there was still no sign of would-be abductors. Nurevin collected Brestolli from the brewer's cot in Bitra, limping bat still adamant about what he had overheard; a visit to Lord Sigomal by Benden Weyrleaders secured the release of the "contagious" harpers, and Master Sebell told the Bitran Lord Holder that, regretfully, he had no replacements suitable for a Hold of such stature. Several other Crafts withdrew their masters, leaving the Bitran Halls staffed by minor journeymen and apprentices of local origin.
A similar withdrawal occurred at Nerat but not at Keroon, for despite his increasingly vocal distrust of all improvements originating from the "Abomination," Lord Corman did not interfere with any of his Crafthalls or with the performance of their traditional duties to his Hold. He also made plain that he was distancing himself from Sigomal and Begamon.
Every Weyrwoman kept her queen on her mark, and every harper tracked down the faintest whisper of clandestine activities. Major Crafthalls discreetly doubled security measures. And dragonriders continued to drill outside the Yokohama, the Bahrain, and the Buenos Aires. Hamian and his crews worked overtime producing protective covering for riders, as well as a garment that would fit like a glove on dragon hind paws to shield flesh from the burn of ice-cold metal. Oldive, Sharra, Mirrim, Brekke, and the others labored under Aivas's close guidance to analyze and describe the peculiar organism that was Thread or, rather, that became Thread as it met its fiery frenzied doom in the skies of Pern.
Sharra tried to explain to Jaxom the task Aivas had set his investigators, as much to hear herself explain what she was doing as to make it clear to her mate.