Dragonrider

Anne McCaffrey Editor’s note:

What follows is selfcontained and selfexplanatory. That’s obvious; how else could it have won an award?

At the same time, it is the concluding half of a larger work, part of which appeared in Nebula Three. Therefore Karen Anderson has prepared a synopsis of what went before. You may well prefer to skip that and go directly on to the gorgeously colored world of dragons and their riders which Anne McCaffrey has created for you. On the other hand, many travelers prefer to read a guidebook before they leave home.

On the world called Pern, the human inhabitants have no tradition of Earth or of space travel. There is a legendary vagueness about the menace of the Threads which fall when the freakish orbit of the Red Star (a captured planet) brings it close to Pern. Though nobles and commoners are in awe of the Dragons and the elite corps who ride them, they are ignorant of the nature of the powers bred into both Dragons and riders.

In the Hold of Ruatha, young Lessa had for half her life used her inborn mental powers to camouflage herself from the men of Fax, the brigand lord who slaughtered her entire family to secure his seizure of their Hold. She also managed, by small subtle interferences, to disrupt all the workings of Ruatha, so that Fax had no profit from his conquest.

Fax did not know of her existence; but when the dragonrider F’lar inspected Fax’s Holds in search of a potential Weyrwoman, he knew that someone at Ruatha had the abilities he was looking forespecially when he realized that he had been maneuvered into a duel with Fax. The latter dead, Lessa claimed Ruatha. But in the fury to which she had provoked him, Fax had renounced this unprofitable Hold in favor of his youngest son, born that night. F’lar told Lessa that the infant’s claim must stand, but that she had the Power needed in a Weyrwoman. She agreed to go with him to the Weyr.

This had fallen very low in prestige, due in part to the incompetence of the last Weyrwoman, Jora, now dead. The last clutch of the dying queen-dragon Nemorth included one queen-egg; they had been sired by Hath, and consequently his rider R’gul was Weyrleader. On hatching, the queen-chick chose Lessa after clumsily injuring two other candidates. At the moment their eyes met, their minds joined in joyful rapport. Lessa and the golden dragon Ramoth would now be devoted to each other for the rest of their lives. R’gul remained Weyrleader while Ramoth grew up, and taught Lessa her duties. Meanwhile few Holds sent tithes and the Lords of the others called the dragonriders parasites, the legendary Threads a lie. After Lessa secretly encouraged raids on the herds of disaffected Holds to make up the shortage of food, there was active revolt. But by the time troops marched on the Weyr, the situation had drastically changed. Ramoth, now two Turns old, was full-grown and larger even than F’lar’s bronze Mnementh. She had made her nuptial flight, and Mnementh had claimed her. Their rapport with the dragons brought F’lar and Lessa together with the same passion.

The new Weyrieader F’lar was quick-witted and decisive: he sent parties of dragonriders to make hostages of the womenfolk of the rebel lords. Their Holds were unguarded, for they had forgotten that a dragon can fly between, passing almost instantly from one place to another. So the tithes would be paid; the Weyr would prosper again.