On The Wings Of Silence

(click here to read the story... for notes about Pern, maps, and so on, look below)

About Pern

Long ago, humans colonized the distant world of Pern, in the Rukbat star system.

They planned to create an agrarian colony, leaving behind the technology and problems of the larger galaxy. Upon landing on Pern, they were cut off from help. But fate threw them an unexpected problem....

Deadly spores began to fall from the sky. Crops, animals, and people... anything organic these "threads" touched were horribly consumed.

The colonists used what remained of their technology to build a solution... they genetically engineered a small indiginous animal (pets known as a fire-lizard) into larger and more intelligent flying dragons that could serve as an arial defense against the threads.

The fire-lizards and dragons had several unique abilities:

• at birth they could telepathically bond with a human, impressing themselves for life to the person who fed and cared for them.
• by chewing on a phospherous bearing rock, they could temporarily produce flame that destroys thread in the air.
• as a defense mechanism, they could teleport from place to place, avoiding thread.

The people of Pern eventually built a system for their lives. Most people lived in "Holds", communities governed by a local ruler. People with talents in various crafts (such as miners, smithcrafters, and harpers) were beholden to the masters of their craft, and often travelled across Pern teaching their knowledge. The dragons and their riders lived in the "Weyrs"... everyone tithed part of their products to the Weyrs so the dragonriders could care for their dragons and protect the people of Pern.

During the ninth pass of the Red Star, when thread once again fell upon Pern, humans began to re-discover where they had come from... they found ruins in the unexplored Southern Continent, left behind by their ancient ancestors. Among those ruins they found a powerful computer system, known as "AVAIS", who helped them recover old technology. With this ancient computer intelligence, left behind by their ancestors, they finally found a way to rid themselves of the horror of thread once and for all.

Now the dragonriders and their dragons, their original purpose gone, are learning to find new ways to serve Pern....

Author's Notes

This story was originally written around 2001 for a Pern fan-club called "The Logres Weyr". A friend of mine was a member of the club and convinced me to try to write something for their fanzine. Unfortunately, by the time I finished writing this story (six months later), the Logres Weyr no longer existed. Of course, the story I wrote ended up being far larger than they could have ever published in their fan publication anyway....

About Logres Weyr

For the die-hard Pern fans who want to know, here's a little info about the setting of the Logress Weyr.

The Logres Fan Weyr was set up to explore the lives of the dragonriders after the end of the ninth and final pass of the deadly Thread. Their fan stories take place in and around a new Weyr (Logres) in the heart of the Southern Continent, and explores the variety of ways the dragons and their riders can continue to be useful once they no longer have to protect the people of Pern from the deadly airborn menace.

My story begins in a Hold I created for the story, Kimmen Hold (see the following maps).