《Nerilka's story_ & The Coelura》作者： - Anne McCaffrey【

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Prologue JL f the reader is unfamiliar with the series The Dragonriders of Pern certain confusions mayoccur. Nerilkas Story is an ancillary tale to Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern told from the pointof view of one of the minor characters in that novel. To summarize the background: Rukbat in the Sagittarian Sector was a golden G-type star. It had five planets two asteroidbelts and a stray planet that it had attracted and held in recent millennia. When men firstsettled on Rukbats third world and called it Pern they had Nerilkas Story taken little notice of the strange planet swinging around its adopted primary in a wildlyerratic orbit. For two generations the colonists gave the bright Red Star littlethought—until the path of the wanderer brought it close to its stepsister at perihelion. Whensuch aspects were harmonious and not distorted by conjunctions with other planets in thesystem parasitic organisms indig- enous to the wandering planet sought to bridge the space gapbetween their home and the more temperate and hospitable planet. At these times silver Threadsdropped through Perns skies de- stroying anything they touched. The initial losses thecolonists suffered were staggering. As a re- sult during the subsequent struggle to surviveand combat the menace. Perns tenuous contact with the mother planet was broken. To control the incursions of the dreadful Threads—for the Pemese had cannibalized theirtransport ships early on and abandoned such technological sophistication as was irrelevant tothe pastoral planet—the more resourceful men embarked on a long-term plan. The first phaseinvolved breeding a highly specialized variety of fire-lizard a life form indigenous to theirnew world. Men and women with high empathy rat- ings and some innate telepathic ability weretrained to use and preserve the unusual animals. The dragons—named for the mythical Terran Anne McCaffrey beast they resembled—had two valuable char- acteristics: They could instantaneously travelfrom one place to another and after chewing a phosphine-bearing rock they could emit a flam-ing gas. Because the dragons could fly they could