He clearly understood her warning and hunched closer to her, clinging with sharp nails to her hair and hiding his face against her braid. Then she crawled backward from the beach edge until she was screened sufficiently to risk standing up. Dead fronds and branches tangled her feet as she ran, and she encountered a disheartening variety of thorny bushes and needley plants. But she plunged on.
When she could no longer hear the cries of the dragonets, she turned west and crashed back out to the beach. She pelted down the sands as fast as she could, ignoring the stitch in her side in deference to the antics of the egg beating at her ribs. Duke circled about her head, keening with obediently muted anxiety.
Surely she must be almost back at the camp. Was that the first cairn she had passed, or the second? She stumbled, and Duke cried out in terrible alarm, a shrill strident shriek like the cries of the peacocks that had inhabited her father’s farm, a ghastly sound like someone in extreme agony. He swooped, tugging valiantly at her shoulder, as if he himself could support her.
His shriek had been sufficient to rouse the sleepers. Jim Tillek was the first one to struggle to his feet, which got tangled in the bag for the first few steps. Pol and Bay were more laggard until they recognized Sorka.
Sorka, ignoring both Tillek’s urgent queries and helping hands, staggered to the plump microbiologist, dropping heavily to her knees and fumbling to get the egg into Bay’s hands for she could feel a crack beginning to run along the shell.
“Here! Here, this is yours, Bay!” she gasped, grabbing the astonished woman’s hands and closing them about the egg.
Bay’s reaction was to thrust it back to Sorka, but the girl had thrown herself toward the supply packs, rummaging for something edible, fumbling to open a packet of protein bars and break one into tiny pieces.
“It’s cracking, Sorka. Pol! What do I do with it? It’s cracking all over!” Bay exclaimed uncertainly.
“It’s yours, Bay, an animal that will love only you,” Sorka said in gasps, floundering back with full hands. “It’s hatching. It’ll be yours. Here, feed it these. Pol, Captain, see what you can find under the seaweed for it to eat. You be bronzes. See, watch what Duke’s going after.”
Duke, chirping with exultation, was dragging a huge branch of seaweed up from the high-tide line.
“Just bundle the seaweed up, Pol,” Tillek said moments later as he demonstrated.
“It’s cracked!” Bay cried, half-afraid, half-delighted. “There’s a head! Sorka! What do I do now?”
Twenty minutes later the risen sun shone on a weary but excite quartet as Bay, with the most beatific and incredulous expression on her face, cradled a lovely golden dragonet on her forearm. Its head was an ornament on the back of her hand, its forearms loosely encircled her wrist. Its distended belly had support from Bay’s well-fleshed limb, its hind legs dangled by her elbow, and its tail was lightly twined around her upper arm. A slight noise, similar to a snore, could be discerned. Bay stroked the sleeping creature from time to time, dazed by the texture of its skin, by the strong but delicate claws, the translucent wings, and the strength of the newborn’s tail about her arm. She constantly extolled its perfections.
Jim Tillek regenerated the fire and served a hot drink to counteract the chilly breeze from the sea.
“I think we should go back to the nest, Pol,” Sorka said, “to see if . . if . . .”
“Some didn’t make it?” Jim finished for her. “You need to eat.”
“But then it’ll be too late.”
“It’s probably too late already, young lady,” Tillek said firmly. “And you’ve acquitted yourself superbly anyhow, delivering the gold. That’s the highest status of the species, isn’t it?”
Pol nodded, peering detachedly at Bay’s sleeping charge. “I don’t think any other biologist actually has one yet. Ironic that.”
“Always the last to know, huh?” Jim asked, screwing his eyebrows sardonically but grinning. “Ah, what have we here?” He pointed his long cooking fork at the figure plodding from the west. “He’s got something. Can you make it out better, Sorka, with your young eyes?”
“Maybe he’s got more eggs and you’ll have one, too, Pol and Jim.”
“I tend to doubt Sean’s altruism, Sorka,” Pol remarked dryly. She flushed. “Now, now, child. I’m not being critical. It’s a difference of temperament and attitude.”
“He’s carrying something, and it’s larger than an egg, and his two dragonets are very excited. No,” Sorka amended. “They’re upset!”
On her shoulder, Duke raised up on to his hind legs, uttering one shrill query. She could feel him sag as he received an answer, and he gave a little moan, almost a sob, she thought. She reached up to stroke him. He nuzzled her hand as if he appreciated her sympathy. She could feel the tension in his small frame, and in the way his feet gripped her pullover. Once again she was glad that her mother had reinforced the fabric to prevent his claws from puncturing through to her skin. She turned her head, rubbing his side with her cheek.
Everyone watched as Sean made his way toward the camp. Soon his bundle could be distinguished as layers of wide leaves, closely wrapped and bound with green climber vine. He was aware of their scrutiny and he looked tired. Sorka thought he also looked unhappy. He came right up to the two scientists and carefully deposited his bundle by Pol.
“There you are. Two of ‘em. One barely touched. And some of the green eggs. Had to search both nests to find some that snakes hadn’t sucked dry.”
Pol laid one hand on Sean’s offering. “Thank you, Sean. Thank you very much. Are the two . . . from a gold’s clutch or a green’s?”
“Gold’s, of course,” Sean said with a disgusted snort. “Greens rarely hatch. They’re snake-eaten. I got there just in time.” He looked almost challengingly at Sorka.
She did not know what to say.
“So did Sorka,” Jim Tillek replied proudly, nodding to Bay.
Only then did Sean see the sleeping dragonet. A fleeting look of surprise, admiration, and annoyance crossed his face, and he sat down with a thump.
Sorka did not quite meet his eyes. “I didn’t do as well,” she heard herself saying. “I didn’t get what we were sent after. You did.”
Sean grunted, his face expressionless. Above his head, his browns exchanged news with her bronze in a rapid fire of cheeps, chirps, and murmurs. Then each gave a flip to its wings to close them back and settled in the sun to catch the warming rays.
“Chow’s up,” Jim Tillek said. He began filling plates with fried fish and rings of one of the fruit nuts that was improved by cooking.
* * * * *
“So, Ongola, what have you to report?” Paul Benden asked.
Emily Boll poured a measure of Benden’s precious brandy into three glasses and passed them around before taking her own seat. Ongola used the interval to organize his thoughts. The three had gathered, as they often did, in the meteorology tower beside the landing grid now used by the sleds and the one shuttle that had been altered for sparing use as a cargo carrier.
Both admiral and governor, naturally pale of skin, had become almost as brown as the swarthy Ongola. All three had worked hard in the fields, in the mountains, and on the sea, actively participating in every aspect of the colony’s endeavors.
Once the colonists took up their stake acres and Landing’s purpose had been accomplished, the ostensible leaders would turn consultants, with no more authority than other stakeholders. The council would convene regularly to discuss broad topics and redress problems that affected the entire colony. A yearly democratic meeting would vote on any issues that required the consent of all. Magistrate Cherry Duff administered justice at Landing and would have a circuit for grievances and any litigation. By the terms of the Pern Charter, charterers and contractors alike would be autonomous on their stake acres. The plan was idealistic, perhaps, but as Benden repeatedly insisted, there was more than enough land and resources to allow everyone plenty of latitude.