Colonizing had seemed like a good idea back on Earth when the excitement of the Nathi War had died down. Any alternative, save First Centauri, which everyone knew was controlled by the First Families and founding companies, was no better than Earth or moldering at grade on a lumbering merchantman. She had even toyed with the challenge of navigating mining ships within the Belts until the Roosevelt Dome had exploded for no apparent reason, killing all but a handful of the ten thousand inhabitants. The chance to rule a new world had drawn her. Over the years, she had had enough experience with psycho profiles to know how to control her pulse and what answers to give to the asinine questions that were supposed to separate truth from fiction. And so she had been accepted as astrogator for the Pern expedition.
But since she had failed to capture Paul Benden, who would be Pern’s first leader-in her estimation, the less colorful Emily Boll would be over shadowed by the more flamboyant admiral once they landed on Pern – she had decided that living the rest of her life in obscurity at the end of the Milky Way was insupportable. She was, after all, a competent astrogator and, given a ship, charts, and a deep-sleep tank, she could make her way to some other civilized and sophisticated planet that catered to the life-style she wished to enjoy.
She had begun with Stev Kimmer, partly just to ease the pain of losing Paul Benden. When she had noticed that Bart Lemos managed to attach himself to her whenever Stev was on duty, she encouraged him, too. Nabhi Nabol joined the group one evening, along with several others. Bart and Nabhi were pilots, each with a useful secondary skilclass="underline" Bart in mining, and Nabhi in computers. Stev was a mechanical engineer with an uncanny ability to diagnose computer failures and rearrange chips to do twice the work they had been designed to handle.
For the plan taking shape in her mind, she assembled useful cronies. Most were contractors like herself, or small-stake charters beginning to feel that they had been shortchanged on their deals. In the back of Avril’s mind was the notion that it would be fun to see if she could foment sufficient discord to overthrow their benevolent leaders and rule Pern on her own, instead of as Paul Benden’s consort. But that would have to wait for a propitious moment once the colony had been settled in and troubles began.
So far, except for minor hitches, there had been no trouble of the type that she could use for her purposes. Everyone was too busy scurrying around, settling in, raising livestock, and zipping here and there looking at real estate. She despised the colonists for being so enthusiastic about the ghastly empty wasteland of a world, with its noisy wildlife and the thousands of things that crawled, wriggled, or flew. There was not a decent useful animal native to the entire planet and she was getting very tired of eating fish or wherry, which sometimes tasted more like fish than what came out of the sea. Even tank beef would have been an acceptable substitute.
More and more her determination to leave this wretched backwater world was reinforced. But she would leave it in style, and the hell with the rest of them.
Stev Kimmer was essential to that escape. He was constructing an emergency beacon for her from parts he had “found” on the Yokohama; without that essential piece of equipment, her scheme would have to be aborted. Kimmer had to be kept on the mark, too, for when she wanted to appropriate the captain’s gig.
More important was his willingness to participate in her plan to stake the right sections of the island to prospect for the gemstones that she knew were there. Grandmama Shavva had left her single remaining descendant a legacy that had to be grasped.
Kimmer was to requisition a sled for seven days in a quite legitimate search for a stake. He was supposed to imply that he was looking about the southern continent. As a veteran of the Nathi War, he had twice Avril’s allotment. That the charterers had more than any contractor, including herself, the astrogator, who had delivered them safely to the wretched place, was a fact that had never set well with her.
Damn Munson and Alhinwa. They could have told her where they had unearthed the turquoise. Pern was a virgin world, with metal and mineral aplenty, untouched as yet by careless prospectors and greedy merchants. There was plenty for everyone. Back on sophisticated worlds, any large, well-colored hunks of that sky-blue stone would be snatched up by ardent collectors – the higher the asking price the more collectible!
And why had she not heard from Nabhi? She suspected that he might be trying to run a program of his own, instead of the one she had set. She would have to watch that one: he was a devious sort. Much as she was. In the long run, she had the upper hand, since she was the astrogator, and Nabhi did not have the skills required to get home by himself. He had to have her, but she did not have to have him – unless it suited her. Nabol was not as good overall for her purposes as Kimmer was, but he would do in a pinch.
She had almost bridged the distance between continent and island and could see waves lashing the granite rock. She veered to port looking for the mouth of the natural harbor where the long-dead survey team had made camp. She had told Kimmer to meet her there. She felt better about being someplace that had already been occupied. She could not stand listening to the idiot colonists going on and on about being “first” to see that or “first” to step there, or the naming arguments that continually dominated conversation night after night around the bonfire. Shit in Drake’s Lake! Fatuous ass! Lousy gravity-ball player!
She corrected her course as she spotted the two natural spurs of rock that formed a breakwater to the roughly oval natural harbor. Kimmer would have hid the sled anyhow just in case . . . She caught herself and snorted in sour amusement. As if anyone on this goody-good world is checking up on anyone else! “We are all equal here.” Our brave and noble leaders have so ordained it. With equal rights to share in Pern’s wealth. You just bet. Only I’ll get my equal share before anyone else and shake this planet’s dirt off my boots!
Just as she passed over the breakwater, she saw the glint of metal under the lush foliage to starboard on a ledge above the sandy shore-line. Nearby was the smoke of Kimmer’s small fire. She landed her sled neatly beside his.
“You were right about this place, baby,” he greeted her, a closed fist upraised and shaken in victory. “I got here yesterday afternoon, good tail wind all the way, so I did a decco. And see what I found first thing!”
“Let me see,” she said, displaying a bright breathless eagerness, though she did not at all like his presumptive solo explorations.
He smiled broadly as he slowly opened his fingers and let his hand drop so that she could see the large gray rock he held. Her eagerness drained with discouragement until he turned the stone just slightly and she caught the unmistakable glint of green, half buried in one end.
“Fardles!” She snatched the stone from his hand and whirled to the sun, which had risen over the ocean by then. She wet her finger and rubbed at the green glint.
“I also found this,” Kimmer said.
Looking up, she saw him holding a squarish green stone the size of a spoon bowl, rough-edged where it had been prized from a limestone cavity.
She almost threw away the rock with its still-bidden treasure in her eagerness to take the rough emerald from him. She held it to the sun and saw the flaw, but had no complaint about the clear deep green. She weighed it in her hand. Why, it had to be thirty or forty carats. With clever lapidary to cut beyond the flaw, there would be fifteen carats of gemstone. And if that stone was just a sample . . . The idea of apprenticing as a gemstone cutter and using that magnificent jewel to learn on amused her.