The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall by Anne McCaffrey Page B

record processors.
    Red’s list included four veterinary students, but there were more than enough experienced practitioners and apprentices in the Hold to leave it amply staffed. Red himself would complete their training and qualify them. Mar Dook’s second son, Kes, had been well trained in agronomy by his father, and he was bringing his young family; young Akis Andriadus had just qualified as a general practitioner, and his wife, Kolya Logorides, had studied gynecology and midwifery, so that would provide the new Hold with the medical support it would need, though Mairi could certainly manage most minor medical emergencies. Ilsa Langsam had just qualified as a primary teacher: she would have more than enough pupils. Max and Emily Schultz were two of the oldest fostered, plus two Wangs and two Brennans; in the fosterings, siblings had been kept together wherever possible, so there were also three very young Coatls and two Cervanteses. Among the fosterlings, there seemed to be at least one representative from every ethnic group, and Paul wondered if Red had done that on purpose. But all the general skills that would be needed seemed covered in those choices: metalworking and engineering, as well as teaching, agronomy, and medical.
    “Hundred and forty-one all totaled, huh?” Paul said. “And a good cross section. What are you springing loose from Joel, since you’ve the foresight to bring one of his kids?”
    “Turn the sheet over,” Red said, amused. The “foresight” of attaching young Buck was not moving his father an inch in terms of what he’d allocate a new settlement.
    “Stingy, ain’t he?” Paul said with a snort.
    “Cautious with community property and ever aware of the charge of nepotism.”
    Paul continued reading, then looked up in surprise. “An airlock door? What’re you going to use that for?” he demanded.
    “Well, it isn’t being used for anything else, and it’ll make an impressive entrance: also impregnable,” Red said. “I took the dimensions last time I was down in the storage cellars. Ivan and Peter Chernoff dissected the frame panel, too, which fits in the opening as if meant to be there. Seated it in some of that hull-patching compound Joel couldn’t find another use for. Peter even rescued the floor and ceiling bar holders. A spin of the airlock wheel, and we can drive home the lock bars top and bottom so that nothing can get past that door once it’s closed. Cos Melvinah called it a neat bit of psychological reinforcement.”
    Paul nodded in appreciation. “Good job of recycling materials, too. I will miss you, Red,” he said, then paused.
    “But you won’t miss having to arbitrate the disputes in the beast hold,” Red finished for him with a grin.
    There were constant quarrels over who had what space in the low caverns that housed the colonists’ animals, and who got what fodder. Red had been waging a clever and diplomatic war with the Gallianis and the Logorides, the other major breeders. During the frequent breakdowns of the overworked grass incubators, the Hanrahan family had fed their animals their own bread rations and scrounged the shoreline—some distance from the safety of the Hold—for the seaweed that could be dried and shredded into a fodder the horses would eat.
    “They can’t complain when your exodus leaves them with a lot more space.”
    “No, but they’ll agitate to try and bring up more of the stock they had to leave behind,” Red said with some acerbity.
    Paul shook his head. “No transport. There’s no one will get Jim Tillek to bring his precious Cross out of that watery cavern he’s stored it in. And, with Per and Kaarvan gone fishing most weeks . . .” Paul shrugged. “I see you’re requisitioning the use of five sled-wagons? How long will you need them?”
    With almost no power packs left to run the airsleds, many had been stripped to hulls and fitted with wheels as ground vehicles. The smaller ones were useful for hauling stone