Free The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall by Anne McCaffrey Page A

okay if I’d had on a full wet suit. It’s only to regrow the skin I lost. But I gather we will spend some time here at our pleasant seaside resort.”
    “Who’s taking charge then?”
    “The medics,” she said with a rude laugh. “Hey, someone!” she called. “We’re hungry in here.”
    “Coming!” a cheerful voice answered.
    Jim groaned again as he levered himself up.
    “Hey, they are coming,” Theo said in alarm. She sat up as he headed toward the thick shrubbery behind their temporary accommodation. “Oh! Always did think you guys had the best of the deal in circumstances like this.”
    That short but critically necessary excursion proved to Jim Tillek that he had less strength than the fronds bowing to the light wind. It was going to take more time than he had to spare to recover from yesterday’s excursions.
    “Yesterday’s?” Theo laughed lustily, making him aware that he had spoken aloud. “Jim, m’lad, you’ve been out for the full thirty-six. Today’s the day after yesterday.”
    “My God, then who’s . . .”
    She grabbed his hand and gave one pull: sufficient to make his weak knees buckle. The air mattress cushioned his sudden descent, but the jolt reminded him that he had other injuries as well as the broken arm. “Paul sent another sled, with plenty of people to muscle the salvage and a team of Joel’s apprentices to run bar codes through their recorders. Where there are bar-code patches left, that is.”
    Jim groaned just as the obscuring foliage was pushed aside and Betty Musgrave arrived with a laden tray, which she set in the space between them.
    “Hi, feel better, Jim? Theo?” she said with none of the forced cheerfulness that Jim would have found egregious.
    “He’s had a nice long sleep and a nice long—” Theo chuckled as Jim’s half growl cut off the rest of her sentence.
    “Good, everyone’ll be glad to hear that,” Betty said with genuine relief. “And I won’t have to ditch some of the urgent stuff Joel begged me to take to make room for his body. Eat. You’re lucky to get room service today.”
    She settled back then on her heels, and Jim got the impression that she wasn’t going to move until they finished what she’d brought: klah, of course, slices of fresh fruit, and rolls that were still warm from the oven. That was enough to make him attack the meal ravenously, and he mumbled gratitude.
    “Yes, we’ve civilized your camp since, you’re likely to be here long enough to appreciate a few—” She paused, making a funny grimace, “comforts.”
    “What’s happening at Fort?” Jim asked, pinning Betty with a stern eye.
    She raised her eyebrows and lifted her hands in a gesture that told him she didn’t care to go into any great detail. “There’s good—we’re safe in Fort. There’s bad—we haven’t enough power packs left for sleds to mount any sort of defense against Fall.” She shrugged. “So we’ll sit tight. Safe enough in a cliff Thread can’t penetrate.”
    “Emily?”
    Betty pulled mouth and head to one side and rocked a hand. Though the medics had done all that their not-inconsiderable skill could do to repair Emily Boll’s broken body after the crash landing of the shuttle ferrying people from Landing to the new settlement at Fort, she was making a very slow recovery from the trauma. No wonder Paul had sounded so defeated: he and Emily made a superb team, each supporting the other. Without her active participation, Paul Benden would have a great deal to cope with even with Ongola’s help.
    “She’s some better,” the pilot said, “but it’ll be a long convalescence. Pierre’s taking real good care of her. Ongola’s a rock, as always, and if Joel would only stop yapping about losing so much cargo . . .”
    “We haven’t lost it . . .” Jim and Theo said in chorus.
    Betty chuckled. “If you two won’t give up, I don’t see that Paul should. And so I’ll tell him.” She looked down at the wide digital on