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Anne McCaffrey

Dragons Dawn

PROFOUND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book could not have been written without the advice, assistance, and aid of Dr. Jack Cohen, D. Sc. , lately Senior Lecturer of Reproductive Biology at Birmingham University, England, whose expertise and enthusiasm helped me create the dragons of Pern, and attendant botany/biology/ecology. Jack made fact out of myth, and science out of legend. I am not the only writer of his acquaintance who owes him a tremendous debt of gratitude.

I am also indebted to Harry Alm, Naval Engineer of New Orleans, Louisiana, for his configuration of the Thread Fall Patterns, based on only casual remarks in various of my books. To his wife, Marilyn, I owe the patient and correct transmission by Compuserve of this incredible technical data.

PART ONE. Landing

“Probe reports coming through, sir,” Sallah Telgar announced without taking her eyes from the flickering lights on her terminal.

“On the screen, please, Mister Telgar,” Admiral Paul Benden replied. Beside him, leaning against his command chair, Emily Boll kept her eyes steadily on the sunlit planet, scarcely aware of the activity around her.

The Pern Colonial Expedition had reached the most exciting moment of its fifteen-year voyage: the three colony ships, the Yokohama, the Bahrain, and the Buenos Aires were finally approaching their destination. In offices below the bridge deck, specialists eagerly awaited updates on the reports of the long-dead Exploration and Evaluation team that, 200 years earlier, had recommended Rukbat’s third planet for colonization.

The long journey to the Sagittarian Sector had gone without a hitch, the only excitement being the surprise when the Oort cloud encircling the Rukbat system had been sighted. That phenomenon had continued to engross some of the space and scientific personnel, but Paul Benden had lost interest when Ezra Keroon, captain of the Bahrain and the expedition’s astronomer, had assured him that the nebulous mass of deep-frozen meteorites was no more than an astronomical curiosity. They would keep an eye on it, Ezra had said, but although some comets might form and spin from its depths, he doubted that they would pose a serious threat to either the three colony ships or the planet the ships were fast approaching. After all, the Exploration and Evaluation team had not mentioned any unusual incidence of meteor strikes on the surface of Pern.

“Screening probe reports, sir,” Sallah confirmed, “on two and five. ” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Admiral Benden smile slightly.

“This is sort of anticlimactic, isn’t it?” Paul murmured to Emily Boll as the latest reports flashed onto the screens.

Arms folded across her chest, she hadn’t moved since the probes had been launched, except for an occasional twiddling of fingers along her upper arms. She lifted her right eyebrow in a cynical twitch and kept her eyes on the screen.

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s one more procedure which gets us nearer the surface. Of course,” she added dryly, “we’re sort of stuck with whatever’s reported, but I expect we can cope. ”