The Skies of Pern Read Online Free PDF Page B

the back of her hand and on her forefinger. She wasn’t pretty; she didn’t act sensual, the way some green riders did, and shewas only half a head shorter than he was. She wasn’t
too
thin, but the lack of flesh on her bones gave her a slightly boyish appearance.
    “I’m F’lessan, Golanth’s rider, of Benden.”
    “Yes,” she said, shooting him a sharp look. Her eyes were set at an unusual upward slant, but she looked away so quickly he couldn’t see what color they were. Oddly enough, she flushed. “I know.” She seemed to gather breath to continue. “Zaranth just told me that Golanth had apologized for disturbing her nap on the ledge.” She flicked him another almost contrite glance, awkwardly clasping her left wrist with her right hand so that the knuckles turned white.
    F’lessan grinned in his most ingratiating fashion. “By nature, Golanth is very considerate.” He gave a little bow and gestured toward the volume open on the reading desk. “Don’t let me disturb your studies. I’ll be over there.” He pointed to the far right.
    He could just as easily work in the alcove as in the main room and not intrude on her solitude. In no time at all he had collected three of the records he thought most likely to contain the information he sought, and brought them to the smaller reading desk in the alcove. A narrow window gave him a view of the eastern hills and the barest sparkle of the sea. He seated himself, placed the piece of paper that he had brought with him on the table, and started riffling through the thinly coated plastic pages of the COM Tower records. He was looking for one name: Stev Kimmer, listed in the colony records as Stakeholder on Bitkim Island, now called Ista Hold. He needed to find any connection between Kimmer and Kenjo Fusaiyuki, who had been the original Honshu Stakeholder.
    In his careful clearing of debris in the ancient dwelling place, he had found the initials SK carved or etched on several surfaces: on the metal worktop in the garage of the ancient sled and on several drawers. No other inhabitant had defaced or initialed anything. The only SK not listed as going north in the Second Crossing—when the Thread-beleaguered colonists had resettled at Fort—was Stev Kimmer. Previous research revealed that the man had disappeared with a sled after Ted Tubberman’s illegal launch of an appeal for help from old Earth. Kimmer had not been seenagain. The loss of a functional sled had been officially regretted; Kimmer’s absence had not.
    The interesting point in F’lessan’s earlier search was that Ita Fusaiyuki had continued to hold at Honshu and resisted every invitation to move north with her children. Other colonists, like those at Ierne Island and some of the smaller holds in Dorado, had hung on in the south as long as they could. Eventually all, save perhaps those at Honshu, had immigrated. There had been no reference to Honshu or the Fusaiyukis in the early records at Fort Hold.
    The initials, S and K, were distinctively carved. F’lessan needed to find any other samples of Stev Kimmer’s handwriting to be sure of his identification. Not that it mattered, except to him. With atypical zeal, F’lessan yearned to complete the history of Honshu itself as accurately as possible: who had lived there, when they had left, where they had gone, and why.
    Honshu was also an excellent example of colonial self-sufficiency. Clearly it had been occupied by quite a few people and designed for many more: a whole floor of bedrooms had never been furnished. Then, all at once and in some hurry, considering details like drawers left pulled out in a workshop that had otherwise been meticulously kept, everyone had left. Twelve of them at least. To judge by strands of moldering material, even garments had been left behind, folded on the shelves, in drawers, or hanging in closets. The fact that all the utensils were still stored and hung about the capacious kitchen argued that, wherever the