Anne McCaffrey - A Gift of Dragons

A Del Rey Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group

Ever the Twain, copyright 2002 by Anne McCaffrey The Smallest Dragonboy, copyright 1973 by Rand McNally & Company for Science Fiction Tales, Roger Elwood, ed. The Girl Who Heard Dragons, copyright 1994 by Anne McCaffrey Runner of Pern, copyright 1998 by Anne McCaffrey Interior illustrations copyright 2002 by Tom Kidd

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Del Rey Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

The Girl Who Heard Dragons was originally published in 1994 as a Tor Book by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

Runner of Pern was originally published in Legends: Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy as a Tor Book by Tom Doherty Associates Ltd.

Del Rey is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

www.delreybooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

eISBN: 978-0-345-45860-5

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Contents

A lthough Keevan lengthened his walking stride as far as his legs would stretch, he couldnt quite keep up with the other candidates. He knew he would be teased again.

Just as he knew many other things that his foster mother told him he ought not to know, Keevan knew that Beterli, the most senior of the boys, set that spanking pace just to embarrass him, the smallest dragonboy. Keevan would arrive, tail fork-end of the group, breathless, chest heaving, and maybe get a stern look from the instructing wingsecond.

Dragonriders, even if they were still only hopeful candidates for the glowing eggs which were hardening on the hot sands of the Hatching Ground cavern, were expected to be punctual and prepared. Sloth was not tolerated by the Weyrleader of Benden Weyr. A good record was especially important now. It was very near hatching time, when the baby dragons would crack their mottled shells, and stagger forth to choose their lifetime companions. The very thought of that glorious moment made Keevans breath catch in his throat. To be chosento be a dragonrider! To sit astride the neck of a winged beast with jeweled eyes: to be his friend, in telepathic communion with him for life; to be his companion in good times and fighting extremes; to fly effortlessly over the lands of Pern! Or, thrillingly, between to any point anywhere on the world! Flying between was done on dragonback or not at all, and it was dangerous.

Keevan glanced upward, past the black mouths of the weyr caves in which grown dragons and their chosen riders lived, toward the Star Stones that crowned the ridge of the old volcano that was Benden Weyr. On the height, the blue watch dragon, his rider mounted on his neck, stretched the great transparent pinions that carried him on the winds of Pern to fight the evil Thread that fell at certain times from the skies. The many-faceted rainbow jewels of his eyes glistened fleetingly in the greeny sun. He folded his great wings to his back, and the watch pair resumed their statuelike pose of alertness.

Then the enticing view was obscured as Keevan passed into the Hatching Ground cavern. The sands underfoot were hot, even through heavy wher-hide boots. How the bootmaker had protested having to sew so small! Keevan was forced to wonder why being small was reprehensible. People were always calling him babe and shooing him away as being too small or too young for this or that. Keevan was constantly working, twice as hard as any other boy his age, to prove himself capable. What if his muscles werent as big as Beterlis? They were just as hard. And if he couldnt overpower anyone in a wrestling match, he could outdistance everyone in a footrace.

Maybe if you run fast enough, Beterli had jeered on the occasion when Keevan had been goaded to boast of his swiftness, you could catch a dragon. Thats the only way youll make a dragonrider!

You just wait and see, Beterli, you just wait, Keevan had replied. He would have liked to wipe the contemptuous smile from Beterlis face, but the guy didnt fight fair even when a wingsecond was watching. No one knows what Impresses a dragon!

Theyve got to be able to find you first, babe!

Yes, being the smallest candidate was not an enviable position. It was therefore imperative that Keevan Impress a dragon in his first hatching. That would wipe the smile off every face in the cavern, and accord him the respect due any dragonrider, even the smallest one.

Besides, no one knew exactly what Impressed the baby dragons as they struggled from their shells in search of their lifetime partners.

I like to believe that dragons see into a mans heart, Keevans foster mother, Mende, told him. If they find goodness, honesty, a flexible mind, patience, courageand youve got that in quantity, dear Keevanthats what dragons look for. Ive seen many a well-grown lad left standing on the sands, Hatching Day, in favor of someone not so strong or tall or handsome. And if my memory serves mewhich it usually did: Mende knew every word of every Harpers tale worth telling, although Keevan did not interrupt her to say soI dont believe that Flar, our Weyrleader, was all that tall when bronze Mnementh chose him. And Mnementh was the only bronze dragon of that hatching.

Dreams of Impressing a bronze were beyond Keevans boldest reflections, although that goal dominated the thoughts of every other hopeful candidate. Green dragons were small and fast and more numerous. There was more prestige to Impressing a blue or brown than a green. Being practical, Keevan seldom dreamed as high as a big fighting brown, like Canth, Fnors fine fellow, the biggest brown on all Pern. But to fly a bronze? Bronzes were almost as big as the queen, and only they took the air when a queen flew at mating time. A bronze rider could aspire to become Weyrleader! Well, Keevan would console himself, brown riders could aspire to become wingseconds, and that wasnt bad. Hed even settle for a green dragon: they were small, but so was he. No matter! He simply had to Impress a dragon his first time in the Hatching Ground. Then no one in the Weyr would taunt him anymore for being so small.

Shells, Keevan thought now, but the sands are hot!

Impression time is imminent, candidates, the wingsecond was saying as everyone crowded respectfully close to him. See the extent of the striations on this promising egg. The stretch marks