“I hadn’t forgotten,” Wind Blossom said. “But it bears repeating. The youngsters needed to relinquish a lot of control to the older colonists simply because we older people had learned the skills needed to surive. And survival on Pern is still touch and go-as those young people who do not heed their elders discover with the forfeit of their lives.”
Sorka pulled her hand free of Wind Blossom’s and used both hands to make an emphatic “hurry up” gesture.
“I can’t hurry up, Sorka, I’m thinking out loud,” Wind Blossom said. She paused, striving to recover her train of thought.
“So Pern’s going to have a bunch of lords and ladies in the form of Weyrleaders, Weyrwomen, and the men and women who run the holds,” Sorka supplied when Wind Blossom’s silence stretched.
The sound of boots striding loudly up to the entrance of Sorka’s quarters distracted them. Sorka’s bronze fire-lizard, Duke, looked up from his resting place at the foot of her bed, looked back to Sorka for a moment, and lowered his head again, unperturbed.
“M’hall!” Torene shouted. “Why didn’t you tell me? What’s going on? Don’t you think I wanted to pay my respects?”
M’hall’s voice was a murmur as he strove to placate his outraged mate.
“Have you looked at the casualty reports recently?” Wind Blossom asked Sorka once they both determined that they were not going to be immediately interrupted.
“I have,” Sorka’s voice was pained.
“I am sorry. My mother had predicted those numbers when she first calculated the mating cycle,” Wind Blossom said. “But with such a short life span fighting Thread, and with the difficulties of the holders in providing sufficient food for the colonists, maintaining a sufficient margin to support such luxuries as education and research is quite problematic.”
Sorka nodded and gestured for the older woman to continue.
“So our society will ossify and stratify at least until the end of this Pass.”
“And then?”
Wind Blossom shook her head. “Then population pressures will force an expansion of the Holder population and the creation of new Holds across this continent. The lack of Thread should allow the dragonriders several generations in which to increase their numbers and recover from this first Pass; the dragonriders in the next Pass should be much more able to handle the onslaught. There will be pressure in both the Weyrs and the holds to consolidate what they have and to build conservatively. Any skills not directly needed in expansion or retention will atrophy.”
“That’s already happening.”
“By the next Pass the skills needed to maintain our older, noncritical equipment will have been lost.”
“Maybe before then,” Sorka agreed.
Wind Blossom nodded. “Our descendants should survive anyway.”
“Unless the wrong skills are lost,” Sorka noted.
“That is my worry, yes,” Wind Blossom agreed.
“You are an Eridani Adept, so you would worry about the ecology,” Sorka noted. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “You’re worried about the dragons, aren’t you?”
“At some point there will be crossover infections from the fire-lizards to the dragons,” Wind Blossom said.
“There are the grubs and the watch-whers-what about them?”
“Tubberman’s grubs were well-designed,” Wind Blossom said. “They are a distinct species derived from other native species. This gives them both the native protection and the native susceptibilities. Given that there are other similar species, there will be a high degree of crossover, as Purman demonstrated with his vine grubs. That actually provides a certain degree of protection because there are multiple species for a particular disease to assault. Any successful defense by one of the species will rapidly be spread to the other species. Also, because we plan to plant the grubs throughout the Northern Continent-and they have already been distributed throughout the Southern Continent-there is a strong likelihood that any severe parasitic assault on the grubs will devolve into a symbiosis before all of the species has been eradicated.”
“Just like the Europeans and the Black Death,” Sorka observed.
“Yes, rather like that,” Wind Blossom agreed.
“If we’re spread across the Northern Continent that won’t be a major problem, will it?”
“I hope not,” Wind Blossom agreed. “The effect of another epidemic should dissipate with the added distance between settlements.”
“So the weak point in all this is the dragons, right?” Sorka said.
Wind Blossom shook her head. “It is difficult to point to just one. The dragons or the watch-whers appear to be the most susceptible. We have thousands or millions of grubs but only hundreds of dragons and fewer watch-whers.”
“Are the two genetically so similar that one disease might destroy them both?”
Wind Blossom pursed her lips. “I strived to avoid that. In fact, I engineered so many changes… which might be one of the reasons that we had so many infertile watch-wher eggs.”
Sorka’s eyes gleamed. “One reason.”
Wind Blossom returned her stare with a blank look.
“I am curious about the other reasons,” Sorka said. “I am now convinced that some of those failures were planned to make you look less skilled than you are.”
Wind Blossom said nothing.
“Your mother was trained by the Eridani,” Sorka said. “You were trained by her, weren’t you?”
Wind Blossom shook her head. “There are some questions I should not answer even for you, Sorka.”
A wheezing cough shook Sorka’s body and M’hall glanced inside, Torene hovering worriedly behind him.
Sorka waved them back out as the cough passed.
“If you cannot answer my questions, I won’t hinder you with them,” she said after taking a sip of water from the glass Wind Blossom proffered her.
Wind Blossom winced. “I do not want to burden you.”
Sorka smiled. “And I was trying to lighten your load. A burden shared, as it were.”
Wind Blossom spent a moment in thought. “I do not know everything. I was not told myself.”
“But you made guesses,” Sorka observed. “I have made guesses, too. Let me share some with you.
“I think it odd that such heroic figures as Admiral Benden and Governor Boll should willingly take themselves into oblivion just after the Nathi War when their skills were still very clearly needed.”
Wind Blossom nodded. “Yes, I had wondered about that.”
“And the Eridani?”
“When the Eridani agree to husband a new ecosystem they assign three bloodlines,” Wind Blossom said. “It is a major undertaking. There has only been one time that I know of where the Eridani have been willing to make such an assignment without having thorough knowledge of the ecosystem in question.”
“Here?” Sorka asked.
Wind Blossom nodded.
“Three bloodlines?”
“To avoid mistakes and provide redundancy,” Wind Blossom said. Sorka’s face paled and Wind Blossom reached for her hand, placing her finger over her wrist to take the Weyrwoman’s pulse. “Your pulse is failing, Sorka. Let me call the others.”
“Wait!” Sorka’s voice was nearly a whisper. “What can I do to help you?”
Wind Blossom was silent for a moment. “Go quietly and peacefully, dear friend.”
Sorka smiled. “What can I do to help Pern? Do you want to perform an autopsy?”
Wind Blossom’s eyes widened in horror. “No.”
“But I heard that you need cadavers.”
Wind Blossom shook her head. “Not yours.”
She turned to the doorway and gestured to M’hall and the others to enter.
Sorka glared at her but was so quickly surrounded by her offspring and relatives that she could do no more.