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» 3941.03.20 10:30 - Aren, Erhom, Lorler, Tikal, Silvara
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» Boys' Bunkroom #1 - Aren, Erhom, Lorler
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Acknowledgements

All canon Pern content copyright to Anne McCaffrey. All non-canon Pern content copyright Kestrana. All draconic sprites/button images copyright to various artists (many images from Pern book covers; dragon sprite from "Dragonlady" fantasy portrait of Anne McCaffrey). All original characters copyright of their gamers.

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Reverie Weyr » Advanced Search

Search found 1 match for Alina

H'lee was as anxious as any other dragonrider.  He was one of the few who had remained in the Weyrs after Thread had been permanently stopped; as a Weyrlingmaster, he was one of the few who legitimately continued to reside there.  Unfortunately, his position as trainer of new dragonriders also made him one of the biggest targets in the genocide that had been instigated against the Weyrs and their inhabitants.  Early on in the war, he and Seeth had been the target of an attack when he had gone to help the mother of his first child move back to the Weyr.  The pair had barely escaped with their lives, and that of his daughter; Nysa (the girl's mother) and her lover were not so lucky.  The attackers had come armed with flamethrowers and bottles of acid; H'lee and his brown were on the receiving end of acid hand grenades, which had put them out of commission for several weeks, and Nylee received a couple of mild burns on her hands.  After that, his adoptive mother and Weyrwoman had forbidden him from leaving the Weyr.  They had long since brought all the weyrlings back to their respective Weyrs, and all his other family were already in the Weyrs as well, so he had no reason to disobey.

Sikra's dragon was getting egg-heavy with her latest clutch when a gold firelizard arrived with a message and attached herself, literally, to H'lee.  Messages by firelizard weren't unusual, but the level of sheer exhaustion this one exhibited was.  She could barely even stir herself to eat once he slipped the message from her collar.  The brownrider was with Lery and their son when the firelizard arrived, and Sikra had been resting on the couch; Sh'zon's bronze had continued to fly her gold and she often tired of his overbearing attitude, so she'd hide out "in meetings" with the Headwoman to avoid him.  H'lee glanced at the two women, who frowned and shook their heads, also not recognizing the little gold.  He tugged the message from her collar and his eyes widened when he unrolled it to find several sheets of the paper which had become popular in recent years.

"Pretty long message," he murmured.  Lery rummaged up some meat to feed the firelizard while he started to read the message.  "Jays..." he whispered, growing pale under his tan and his eyes widening.  Sikra looked at him sharply, and he numbly passed the top sheet to her and continued to read.

H'lee -
You are the only one of whom I could find a picture to use to send Reese back to, so I hope you'll get this and you'll be in a position to do something.  I've enclosed all of the relevant research and information to prove what I have to tell you, so I'll be brief here: the year is 3941, Thread has returned and there are no dragonriders left, and precious few firelizards.
Please, you have to do something, we don't have the resources to stop it from destroying Pern.

Learyam (27th great grandson of your Learyam)


Several of the additional sheets of paper contained astronomical charts showing how the Red Star's orbit had restabilized with a new path through the Oort cloud and the asteroid belt that separated Pern from the next planet in the system.  The new orbit was shorter and rounder than the old, which had the unfortunate side effect of increasing the frequency of Passes: Thread fell for four years with Intervals lasting 22 years.

The other papers were odd-sized: newspaper articles.  Some were dated from the last several months, but others were dated a few weeks into the future; one was dated the day that Sikra's clutch was due to be laid.  This is what had caused H'lee to blanch; it talked about how all of the dragonriders and their dragons, down to unhatched eggs, had been destroyed by one of the anti-Weyr factions.  Later articles were tattered, some were scorched around the edges as though they'd been pulled from a fire, but they talked about how those who supported the Weyrs were put to death or banished to the islands as criminals, and how the firelizards and dragonets had also been targeted until the species was virtually wiped out.

"Do you suppose this is a fake? A prank to demoralize us?" Sikra asked softly as Lery finished reading it over.  H'lee, although his specialty was tanning, was somewhat familiar with the processes of papermaking, since they'd replaced leather as a writing medium.

"It could be," he muttered, fingering some of the damaged papers.  "This sort of damage could be faked.  But that," he jerked his chin at the exhausted firelizard who was a wraith of what a gold should be, "that would be hard to fake, and impossible to produce without the willing cooperation of the firelizard.  I think it's real.  I think she was sent between time to bring us this."

The three of them sifted through the message again while Lerane worked on an assignment after H'lee succeeded in coaxing Reese, the firelizard, to eat something before she resumed her nap.  After some discussion, they decided to keep this among the four of them for the moment.  Sh'zon was already on the verge of trying to use dragonriders to flame locations suspected to be housing members of the more extreme anti-Weyr factions; this information would push him over the edge.

Finally, Lery sighed.  "The only answer I can see is for you to go between time with Reesteth," she frowned for a moment, looking at the miniature queen napping on the table, before her lips quirked into a smile, "into the future, past the point of where these events took place. Before she gets so egg-heavy she can't go, just...just in case."

H'lee frowned.  "Not alone.  You should take the whole Weyr.  If Thread is returning, you'll need more than just one clutch of weyrlings.  Besides, that gives you more backup in case something goes wrong."

Moments after he made that statement, someone pounded on the door.  They swiftly slipped the papers underneath another stack on the desk while Lery went to answer.  Lery squawked in surprise and there was a greeat deal of whispering at the door before the Headwoman closed it and returned.  "You look like you've seen a ghost," Sikra said.

"You could say that.  I saw you."  Sikra and H'lee stared at her.  "You said that we had to wait until after the eggs were laid and take them forward, one to each Weyr, and only H'lee could go with them.  You tried to take the whole Weyr, and the anti-Weyr factions were waiting for you and killed everyone when you arrived; you and H'lee barely escaped, and H'lee died before they could complete the journey back.  Judging by how you looked just now, I don't think you'll live longer than it takes to go far enough between times to keep your death from affecting us in the now.  She gave me this," and she handed them another piece of paper.

H'lee snatched it.  "That's...my handwriting," he said.  "Reesteth must appear to still be egg-heavy when they come, otherwise they'll hunt us down through time.  If too many adult riders come through, they'll hunt us down.  One or two adult riders may be able to escape without arousing suspicion, but not more," he read.  "Jays..."  He dropped heavily onto the couch and the three of them stared at each other for several minutes, trying to absorb the shock.

He looked at the latest note again.  "It doesn't say anything about non-riders.  If we take the eggs that far into the future, and if this is all true, then how do we find Candidates with only one or two riders to make the rounds?  And she said to spread the eggs around the Weyrs...I assume the better to hide them.  But this article," he pulled the one about the slaughter of all the riders out, "says that this happens the day before she's due to clutch.  How do we..."  He trailed off, looking at Sikra's face.

"I go between times for a couple of days so she clutches early.  I hide...somewhere.  Somewhen.  A week.  Lessa went 450 years and was unconscious for 2 days, then she came back forward in shorter jumps, but it still took two days.  If you're going triple that...you'll have to take all the eggs at once, or we have to involve more people."

H'lee thought for a minute.  "Sikra, what if you and I both go?  Then you return to the same moment we left?  That will give Reesteth the time and give us a way to get the eggs forward relatively easily."

The older woman rubbed her forehead.  Lery piped up. "You should have some non-riders with you. People who know how to handle a Weyr."

"People like you, perhaps?" H'lee quirked a smile.  He looked at the notes again.  "But we won't have much room.  Four adult passengers, tops?  Or maybe six?  I'd really rather have at least one other rider with me on this venture, and if it can't be you, Sikra, let it be Silvara."

"What if there's no gold in the clutch, though?" Sikra pointed out, avoiding the question about her daughter for the moment.

H'lee chuckled.  "And in all the years since I became a Weyrlingmaster, when have you known me to be wrong about the contents of a clutch, even before they're laid?  There will be a gold."  The two women rolled their eyes in exasperation, although there was truth to what he said; although, in truth, it was because he could always coax Silv into telling him what was in the clutch so he could take wagers (she wouldn't participate, and everyone else had long since learned not to bet against him).  "I wish we could bring more, keep a larger gene pool, but I don't know how.  Maybe a little judicious timing it when she's of age...I don't know.  And then there's the question of how to defend against Thread with only one clutch's worth of hatchlings..."

"What about not going so far forward, give yourself a couple generations to build up?" Lery asked.

"No, if we come back before Thread returns, the anti-Weyr crowd will still be trying to kill us.  We'll have to wait until after Thread comes back.  Although...if we have to wait until then anyway, I wonder why we can't bring the whole Weyr forward..."

"Because the anti-Weyr crowd would notice that the entire Weyr went somewhere," Sikra pointed out logically.  "They would have to assume we timed it; it's an ability we couldn't really hide after Ruth led the Weyrs in altering the Red Star's orbit. They'd watch the Weyrs for us to reappear in the future. They've been spreading lies about us for twenty years now, they'd have no shortage of volunteers.  Another 1,200 years without anyone to dispute their propaganda, they might not even be willing to believe that Thread returned."

"Or they believe one of their technologies will be able to save them," the brownrider pointed out dryly.  There'd been a great deal of grumbling among Crafters and dragonriders, and even some holdfolk, about the technological breakthroughs since AIVAS had retired.  Those who embraced it thought it could solve every problem and that nothing anyone had ever done could not be improved by it.  "About Silvara..."

Sikra sighed heavily.  "Alright, alright.  But only if she agrees to it.  I'll have Reesteth call her..."  The Weyrwoman paused to relay the message through her dragon.  "If you're so sure there's going to be a gold in the clutch, you'll need a bronze to keep her in line.  No offense to Seeth, but he just doesn't have the power to keep a gold under control once she's over six months of age."

H'lee winced.  He hadn't thought about that.  "Maybe I shouldn't go, we should just send T'lon," he suggested, a little reluctantly.

Both women shook their heads emphatically.  "No--" they grinned at each other and Lery waved to Sikra, who continued.  "No, T'lon's a good man and he does well with the weyrlings, but you're the one who studied Threadfall charts and maneuvers, even though it was no longer required of you when you were in training.  You have to go.  Maybe we should send you and T'lon and not Silvara," the goldrider's voice was hesitant on that last.  Silvara was her daughter, and the idea of the young woman being killed out of hand like the rest of them didn't sit well with her.

H'lee hummed to himself for a minute, thinking.  "What about sending him 'on an errand' now?  You don't have to tell anyone what the errand was.  When he doesn't return, we can mount a search for him and when no one finds him, everyone will assume that either he was killed or got lost between times?  We send him ahead to meet us.  We can't do that too many times, maybe once more, as though we're trying to complete whatever errand he was sent on."

The older woman cringed.  "I don't like it," she said flatly.  "But I don't see how else we can sneak T'lon out without raising suspicions.  And no, no more riders after him.  This is going to be hard enough to keep a secret as it is.  And this all assuming he agrees to run away.  Your friend isn't exactly known for avoiding fights," she finished with a raised eyebrow.  H'lee made a face, but had to agree.  Through Roth via Seeth, he asked T'lon to join them.

After Silvara and T'lon arrived, they handed the two riders the messages and let them read them.  There was nothing else to do then but wait for their responses.

"H'lee, darling, if you're expecting Alina and Allie to come along," Lery chimed in sweetly, "I would suggest you invite her up and ask her."  Lery and Alina got along just fine, which was a blessing for H'lee, since he cared for both of them, as well as their children.  However, he occasionally forgot that neither woman would necessarily just go along with whatever he decided.  H'lee reddened slightly and coughed; Sikra smiled, amused.  He reached out to Seeth again and asked him to convey to T'lon and Silv for one of them to bring Alina with them.

#Hlee #Tlon #Silvara #Alina #Site-Main-Plot
Search in: In the year 3941...  Topic: It's back!...to the future? - 2789.07.01 - Benden Weyr  Replies: 8  Views: 1665

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