Dragonflight

CHAPTER I

«You still doubt, R'gul?» F'lar asked, appearing slightly amused by the older bronze rider's perversity.

R'gul, his handsome features stubbornly set, made no reply to the Weyrleader's taunt. He ground his teeth together as if he could grind away F'lar's authority over him.

«There have been no Threads in Pern's skies for over four hundred Turns. There are no more!»

«There is always that possibility,» F'lar conceded amiably. There was not, however, the slightest trace of tolerance in his amber eyes. Nor the slightest hint of compromise in his manner.

He was more like F'lon, his sire, R'gul decided, than a son had any right to be. Always so sure of himself, always slightly contemptuous of what others did and thought. Arrogant, that's what F'lar was. Impertinent, too, and underhanded in the matter of that young Weyrwoman. Why, R'gul had trained her up to be one of the finest Weyrwomen in many Turns. Before he'd finished her instruction, she'd known all the Teaching Ballads and Sagas letter-perfect. And then the silly child had turned to F'lar. Didn't have sense enough to appreciate the merits of an older, more experienced man. Undoubtedly she felt a first obligation to F'lar for discovering her on Search.

«You do, however,» F'lar was saying, «admit that when the sun hits the Finger Rock at the moment of dawn, winter solstice has been reached?»

«Any fool knows that's what the Finger Rock is for,» R'gul grunted.

«Then why don't you, you old fool, admit that the Eye Rock was placed on Star Stone to bracket the Red Star when it's about to make a Pass?» burst out K'net.

R'gul flushed, half-starting out of his chair, ready to take the young sprout to task for such insolence.

«K'net!» F'lar's voice cracked authoritatively. «Do you really like flying the Igen patrol so much you want another few weeks at it?»

K'net hurriedly seated himself, flushing at the reprimand and the threat.

«There is, you know, R'gul, incontrovertible evidence to support my conclusions,» F'lar went on with deceptive mildness. «The Finger points/At an Eye blood-red…'»

«Don't quote me verses I taught you as a weyrling,» R'gul exclaimed heatedly.

«Then have faith in what you taught,» F'lar snapped back, his amber eyes flashing dangerously.

R'gul stunned by the unexpected forcefulness, sank back into his chair.

«You cannot deny, R'gul,» F'lar continued quietly, «that no less than half an hour ago the sun balanced on the Finger's tip at dawn and the Red Star was squarely framed by the Eye Rock.»

The other dragonriders, bronze as well as brown, murmured and nodded their agreement to that phenomenon. There was also an undercurrent of resentment for R'gul's continual contest of F'lar's policies as the new Weyrleader. Even old S'lel, once R'gul's avowed supporter, was following the majority.

«There have been no Threads in four hundred Turns. There are no Threads,» R'gul muttered.

«Then, my fellow dragonman,» F'lar said cheerfully, «all you have taught is falsehood. The dragons are, as the Lords of the Holds wish to believe, parasites on the economy of Pern, anachronisms. And so are we.

«Therefore, far be it from me to hold you here against the dictates of your conscience. You have my permission to leave the Weyr and take up residence where you will.»

Someone laughed.

R'gul was too stunned by F'lar's ultimatum to take offense at the ridicule. Leave the Weyr? Was the man mad? Where would he go? The Weyr had been his life. He had been bred up to it for generations. All his male ancestors had been dragonriders. Not all bronze, true, but a decent percentage. His own dam's sire had been a Weyrleader just as he, R'gul, had been until F'lar's Mnementh had flown the new queen.

But dragonmen never left the Weyr. Well, they did if they were negligent enough to lose their dragons, like that Lytol fellow at Ruatha Hold. And how could he leave the Weyr with a dragon?

What did F'lar want of him? Was it not enough that he was Weyrleader now in R'gul's stead? Wasn't F'lar's pride sufficiently swollen by having bluffed the Lords of Pern into disbanding their army when they were all set to coerce the Weyr and dragonmen? Must F'lar dominate every dragonman, body and will, too? He stared a long moment, incredulous.

«I do not believe we are parasites,» F'lar said, breaking the silence with a soft, persuasive voice. «Nor anachronistic. There have been long Intervals before. The Red Star does not always pass close enough to drop Threads on Pern. Which is why our ingenious ancestors thought to position the Eye Rock and the Finger Rock as they did … to confirm when a Pass will be made. And another thing»-his face turned grave-«there have been other times when dragonkind has all but died out. . . and Pern with it because of skeptics like you.» F'lar smiled and relaxed indolently in his chair. «I prefer not to be recorded as a skeptic. How shall we record you, R'gul?»

The Council Room was tense. R'gul was aware of someone breathing harshly and realized it was himself. He looked at the adamant face of the young Weyrleader and knew that the threat was not empty. He would either concede to F'lar's authority completely, though concession rankled deeply, or leave the Weyr.

And where could he go, unless to one of the other Weyrs, deserted for hundreds of Turns? And-R'gul's thoughts were savage-wasn't that indication enough of the cessation of Threads? Five empty Weyrs? No, by the Egg of Faranth, he would practice some of F'lar's own brand of deceit and bide his time. When all Pern turned on the arrogant fool, he, R'gul, would be there to salvage something from the ruins.

«A dragonman stays in his Weyr,» R'gul said with what dignity he could muster.

«And accepts the policies of the current Weyrleader?» The tone of F'lar's voice made it less of a question and more of an order.

So as not to perjure himself, R'gul gave a curt nod of his head. F'lar continued to stare at him and R'gul wondered if the man could read his thoughts as his dragon might. He managed to return the gaze calmly. His turn would come. He'd wait.

Apparently accepting the capitulation, F'lar stood up and crisply delegated patrol assignments for the day.

«T'bor, you're weather-watch. Keep an eye on those tithing trains as you do. Have you the morning's report?»

«Weather is fair at dawning … all across Telgar and Keroon … if all too cold,» T'bor said with a wry grin. «Tithing trains have good hard roads, though, so they ought to be here soon.» His eyes twinkled with anticipation of the feasting that would follow the supplies' arrival-a mood shared by all, to judge by the expressions around the table.

F'lar nodded. «S'lan and D'nol, you are to continue an adroit Search for likely boys. They should be striplings, if possible, but do not pass over anyone suspected of talent. It's all well and good to present, for Impression, boys reared up in the Weyr traditions.» F'lar gave a one-sided smile. «But there are not enough in the Lower Caverns. We, too, have been behind in begetting. Anyway, dragons reach full growth faster than their riders. We must have more young men to Impress when Ramoth hatches. Take the southern holds, Ista, Nerat, Fort, and South Boll where maturity comes earlier. You can use the guise of inspecting Holds for greenery to talk to the boys. And take along firestone and run a few flaming passes on those heights that haven't been scoured in-oh– dragon's years. A flaming beast impresses the young and arouses envy.»

F'lar deliberately looked at R'gul to see the ex-Weyrleader's reaction to the order. R'gul had been dead set against going outside the Weyr for more candidates. In the first place, R'gul had argued that there were eighteen youngsters in the Lower Caverns, some quite young, to be sure, but R'gul would not admit that Ramoth would lay more than the dozen Nemorth had always dropped. In the second place, R'gul persisted in wanting to avoid any action that might antagonize the Lords.

R'gul made no overt protest, and F'lar went on.

«K'net, back to the mines. I want the dispositions of each firestone-dump checked and quantities available. R'gul, continue drilling recognition points with the weyrlings. They must be positive about their references. If they're used as messengers and suppliers, they may be sent out quickly and with no time to ask questions.

«F'nor, T'sum»-F'lar turned to his own brown riders-«you're clean-up squad today.» He allowed himself a grin at their dismay. «Try Ista Weyr. Clear the Hatching Cavern and enough Weyrs for a double wing. And, F'nor, don't leave a single Record behind. They're worth preserving.

«That will be all, dragonmen. Good flying.» And with that, F'lar rose and strode from the Council Room up to the queen's weyr.

Ramoth still slept, her hide gleaming with health, its color deepening to a shade of gold closer to bronze, indicating her pregnancy. As he passed her, the tip of her long tail twitched slightly.

All the dragons were restless these days, F'lar reflected. Yet when he asked Mnementh, the bronze dragon could give no reason. He woke, he went back to sleep. That was all. F'lar couldn't ask a leading question for that would defeat his purpose. He had to remain discontented with the vague fact that the restlessness was some kind of instinctive reaction.

Lessa was not in the sleeping room, nor was she still bathing. F'lar snorted. That girl was going to scrub her hide off with this constant bathing. She'd had to live grimy to protect herself in Ruatha Hold, but bathing twice a day? He was beginning to wonder if this might be a subtle Lessa-variety insult to him personally. F'lar sighed. That girl. Would she never turn to him of her own accord? Would he ever touch that elusive inner core of Lessa? She had more warmth for his half brother, F'nor, and for K'net, the youngest of the bronze riders than she had for F'lar who shared her bed.

He pulled the curtain back into place, irritated. Where had she gone to today when, for the first time in weeks, he had been able to get all the wings out of the Weyr just so he could teach her to fly between?

Ramoth would soon be too egg-heavy for such activity. He had promised the Weyrwoman, and he meant to keep that promise. She had taken to wearing the wherhide riding gear as a flagrant reminder of his unfulfilled pledge. From certain remarks she had dropped, he knew she would not wait much longer for his aid. That she should try it on her own didn't suit him at all.

He crossed the queen's weyr again and peered down the passage that led to the Records Room. She was often to be found there, poring over the musty skins. And that was one more matter that needed urgent consideration. Those Records were deteriorating past legibility. Curiously enough, earlier ones were still in good condition and readable. Another technique forgotten.

That girl! He brushed his thick forelock of hair back from his brow in a gesture habitual to him when he was annoyed or worried. The passage was dark, which meant she could not be below in the Records Room.

«Mnementh,» he called silently to his bronze dragon, sunning on the ledge outside the queen's weyr. «What is that girl doing?»

Lessa, the dragon replied, stressing the Weyrwoman's name with pointed courtesy, is talking to Manora. She's dressed for riding, he added after a slight pause.

F'lar thanked the bronze sarcastically and strode down the passage to the entrance. As he turned the last bend, he all but ran Lessa down.

You hadn't asked me where she was, Mnementh plaintively answered F'lar's blistering reprimand.

Lessa rocked back on her heels from the force of their encounter. She glared up at him, her lips thin with displeasure, her eyes flashing.

«Why didn't I have the opportunity of seeing the Red Star through the Eye Rock?» she demanded in a hard, angry voice.

F'lar pulled at his hair. Lessa at her most difficult would complete the list of this morning's trials.

«Too many to accommodate as it was on the Peak,» he muttered, determined not to let her irritate him today. «And you already believe.»

«I'd've liked to see it,» she snapped and pushed past him toward the weyr. «If only in my capacity as Weyrwoman and Recorder.»

He caught her arm and felt her body tense. He set his teeth, wishing, as he had a hundred times since Ramoth rose in her first mating flight, that Lessa had not been virgin, too. He had not thought to control his dragon-incited emotions, and Lessa's first sexual experience had been violent. It had surprised him to be first, considering that her adolescent years had been spent drudging for lascivious warders and soldiertypes. Evidently no one had bothered to penetrate the curtain of rags and the coat of filth she had carefully maintained as a disguise. He had been a considerate and gentle bedmate ever since, but, unless Ramoth and Mnementh were involved, he might as well call it rape.

Yet he knew someday, somehow, he would coax her into responding wholeheartedly to his lovemaking. He had a certain pride in his skill, and he was in a position to persevere.

Now he took a deep breath and released her arm slowly.

«How fortunate you're wearing riding gear. As soon as the wings have cleared out and Ramoth wakes, I shall teach you to fly between.»

The gleam of excitement in her eyes was evident even in the dimly lit passageway. He heard her inhale sharply.

«Can't put it off too much longer or Ramoth'll be in no shape to fly at all,» he continued amiably.

«You mean it?» Her voice was low and breathless, its usual acid edge missing. «You will teach us today?» He wished he could see her face clearly.

Once or twice he had caught an unguarded expression on her face, loving and tender. He would give much to have that look turned on him. However, he admitted wryly to himself, he ought to be glad that melting regard was directed only at Ramoth and not at another human.

«Yes, my dear Weyrwoman, I mean it. I will teach you to fly between today. If only,» and he bowed to her with a flourish, «to keep you from trying it yourself.»

Her low chuckle informed him his taunt was well aimed.

«Right now, however,» he said, indicating for her to lead the way back to the weyr, «I could do with some food. We were up before the kitchen.»

They had entered the well-lighted weyr, so he did not miss the trenchant look she shot him over her shoulder. She would not so easily forgive being left out of the group at the Star Stone this morning, certainly not with the bribe of flying between.

How different this inner room was now that Lessa was Weyrwoman, F'lar mused as Lessa called down the service shaft for food. During Jora's incompetent tenure as Weyrwoman, the sleeping quarters had been crowded with junk, unwashed apparel, uncleared dishes. The state of the Weyr and the reduced number of dragons were as much Jora's fault as R'gul's, for she had indirectly encouraged sloth, negligence, and gluttony.

If he, F'lar, had been just a few years older when F'lon, his father, had died . . . Jora had been disgusting, but when dragons rose in mating flight, the condition of your partner counted for nothing.

Lessa took a tray of bread and cheese, and mugs of the stimulating klah from the platform. She served him deftly.

«You'd not eaten, either?» he asked.

She shook her head vigorously, the braid into which she had plaited her thick, fine dark hair bobbing across her shoulders. The hairdressing was too severe for her narrow face, but it did not, if that was her intention, disguise her femininity or the curious beauty of her delicate features. Again F'lar wondered that such a slight body contained so much shrewd intelligence and resourceful. . . cunning-yes, that was the word, cunning. F'lar did not make the mistake, as others had, of underestimating her abilities.

«Manora called me to witness the birth of Kylara's child.»

F'lar maintained an expression of polite interest. He knew perfectly well that Lessa suspected the child was his, and it could have been, he admitted privately, but he doubted it. Kylara had been one of the ten candidates from the same Search three years ago which had discovered Lessa. Like others who survived Impression, Kylara had found certain aspects of Weyr life exactly suited to her temperament. She had gone from one rider's weyr to another's. She had even seduced F'lar-not at all against his will, to be sure. Now that he was Weyrleader, he found it wiser to ignore her efforts to continue the relationship. T'bor had taken her in hand and had had his hands full until he retired her to the Lower Caverns, well advanced in pregnancy.

Aside from having the amorous tendencies of a green dragon, Kylara was quick and ambitious. She would make a strong Weyrwoman, so F'lar had charged Manora and Lessa with the job of planting the notion in Kylara's mind. In the capacity of Weyrwoman … of another Weyr . . . her intense drives would be used to Pern's advantage. She had not learned the severe lessons of restraint and patience that Lessa had, and she didn't have Lessa's devious mind. Fortunately she was in considerable awe of Lessa, and F'lar suspected that Lessa was subtly influencing this attitude. In Kylara's case, F'lar preferred not to object to Lessa's meddling.

«A fine son,» Lessa was saying.

F'lar sipped his klah. She was not going to get him to admit any responsibility.

After a long pause Lessa added, «She has named him T'kil.»

F'lar suppressed a grin at Lessa's failure to get a rise from him.

«Discreet of her.»

«Oh?»

«Yes,» F'lar replied blandly. «T'lar might be confusing if she took the second half of her name as is customary. 'T'kil,' however, still indicates sire as well as dam.»

«While I was waiting for Council to end,» Lessa said after clearing her throat, «Manora and I checked the supply caverns. The tithing trains, which the Holds have been so gracious as to send us»-her voice was sharp-«are due within the week. There will shortly be bread fit to eat,» she added, wrinkling her nose at the crumbling gray pastry she was attempting to spread with cheese.

«A nice change,» F'lar agreed.

She paused.

«The Red Star performed its scheduled antic?»

He nodded.

«And R'gul's doubts have been wiped away in the enlightening red glow?»

«Not at all.» F'lar grinned back at her, ignoring her sarcasm. «Not at all, but he will not be so vocal in his criticism.»

She swallowed quickly so she could speak. «You'd do well to cut out his criticism,» she said ruthlessly, gesturing with her knife as if plunging it into a man's heart. «He is never going to accept your authority with good grace.»

«We need every bronze rider . . . there are only seven, you know,» he reminded her pointedly. «R'gul's a good wingleader. He'll settle down when the Threads fall. He needs proof to lay his doubts aside.»

«And the Red Star in the Eye Rock is not proof?» Lessa's expressive eyes were wide.

F'lar was privately of Lessa's opinion-that it might be wiser to remove R'gul's stubborn contentiousness. But he could not sacrifice a wingleader, needing every dragon and rider as badly as he did.

«I don't trust him,» she added darkly. She sipped at her hot drink, her gray eyes dark over the rim of her mug. As if, F'lar mused, she didn't trust him, either.

And she didn't, past a certain point. She had made that plain, and, in honesty, he couldn't blame her. She did recognize that every action F'lar took was toward one end . . . the safety and preservation of dragonkind and weyrfolk and consequently the safety and preservation of Pern. To effect that end, he needed her full cooperation. When Weyr business or dragonlore were discussed, she suspended the antipathy he knew she felt for him. In conferences she supported him wholeheartedly and persuasively, but always he suspected the double edge to her comments and saw a speculative, suspicious look in her eyes. He needed not only her tolerance but her empathy.

«Tell me,» she said after a long silence, «did the sun touch the Finger Rock before the Red Star was bracketed in the Eye Rock or after?»

«Matter of fact, I'm not sure, as I did not see it myself . . . the concurrence lasts only a few moments . . . but the two are supposed to be simultaneous.»

She frowned at him sourly. «Whom did you waste it on? R'gul?» She was provoked, her angry eyes looked everywhere but at him.

«I am Weyrleader,» he informed her curtly. She was unreasonable.

She awarded him one long, hard look before she bent to finish her meal. She ate very little, quickly and neatly. Compared to Jora, she didn't eat enough in the course of an entire day to nourish a sick child. But then, there was no point in ever comparing Lessa to Jora.

He finished his own breakfast, absently piling the mugs together on the empty tray. She rose silently and removed the dishes.

«As soon as the Weyr is free, we'll go,» he told her.

«So you said.» She nodded toward the sleeping queen, visible through the open arch. «We still must wait upon Ramoth.»

«Isn't she rousing? Her tail's been twitching for an hour.»

«She always does that about this time of day.» F'lar leaned across the table, his brows drawn together thoughtfully as he watched the golden-forked tip of the queen's tail jerk spasmodically from side to side.

«Mnementh, too. And always at dawn and early morning. As if somehow they associate that time of day with trouble …»

«Or the Red Star's rising?» Lessa interjected.

Some subtle difference in her tone caused F'lar to glance quickly at her. It wasn't anger now over having missed the morning's phenomenon. Her eyes were fixed on nothing; her face, smooth at first, was soon wrinkled with a vaguely anxious frown as tiny lines formed between her arching, well-defined brows.

«Dawn . . . that's when all warnings come,» she murmured.

«What kind of warnings?» he asked with quiet encouragement.

«There was that morning … a few days before . . . before you and Fax descended on Ruatha Hold. Something woke me … a feeling, like a very heavy pressure . . . the sensation of some terrible danger threatening.» She was silent. «The Red Star was just rising.» The fingers of her left hand opened and closed. She gave a convulsive shudder. Her eyes refocused on him.

«You and Fax did come out of the northeast from Crom,» she said sharply, ignoring the fact, F'lar noticed, that the Red Star also rises north of true east.

«Indeed we did,» he grinned at her, remembering that morning vividly. «Although,» he added, gesturing around the great cavern to emphasize, «I prefer to believe I served you well that day . . . you remember it with displeasure?»

The look she gave him was coldly inscrutable.

«Danger comes in many guises.»

«I agree,» he replied amiably, determined not to rise to her bait. «Had any other rude awakenings?» he inquired conversationally.

The absolute stillness in the room brought his attention back to her. Her face had drained of all color.

«The day Fax invaded Ruatha Hold.» Her voice was a barely articulated whisper. Her eyes were wide and staring. Her hands clenched the edge of the table. She said nothing for such a long interval that F'lar became concerned. This was an unexpectedly violent reaction to a casual question.

«Tell me,» he suggested softly.

She spoke in unemotional, impersonal tones, as if she were reciting a Traditional Ballad or something that had happened to an entirely different person.

«I was a child. Just eleven. I woke at dawn . . .» Her voice trailed off. Her eyes remained focused on nothing, staring at a scene that had happened long ago.

F'lar was stirred by an irresistible desire to comfort her. It struck him forcibly, even as he was stirred by this unusual compassion, that he had never thought that Lessa, of all people, would be troubled by so old a terror.

Mnementh sharply informed his rider that Lessa was obviously bothered a good deal. Enough so that her mental anguish was rousing Ramoth from sleep. In less accusing tones Mnementh informed F'lar that R'gul had finally taken off with his weyrling pupils. His dragon, Hath, however, was in a fine state of disorientation due to R'gul's state of mind. Must F'lar unsettle everyone in the Weyr …

«Oh, be quiet,» F'lar retorted under his breath.

«Why?» Lessa demanded in her normal voice.

«I didn't mean you, my dear Weyrwoman,» he assured her, smiling pleasantly, as if the entranced interlude had never occurred. «Mnementh is full of advice these days.»

«Like rider, like dragon,» she replied tartly.

Ramoth yawned mightily. Lessa was instantly on her feet, running to her dragon's side, her slight figure dwarfed by the six-foot dragon head.

A tender, adoring expression flooded her face as she gazed into Ramoth's gleaming opalescent eyes. F'lar clenched his teeth, envious, by the Egg, of a rider's affection for her dragon. In his mind he heard Mnementh's dragon equivalent of laughter.

«She's hungry,» Lessa informed F'lar, an echo of her love for Ramoth lingering in the soft line of her mouth, in the kindness in her gray eyes.

«She's always hungry,» he observed and followed them out of the weyr.

Mnementh hovered courteously just beyond the ledge until Lessa and Ramoth had taken off. They glided down the Weyr Bowl, over the misty bathing lake, toward the feeding ground at the opposite end of the long oval that comprised the floor of Benden Weyr. The striated, precipitous walls were pierced with the black mouths of single weyr entrances, deserted at this time of day by the few dragons who might otherwise doze on their ledges in the wintry sun.

As F'lar vaulted to Mnementh's smooth bronze neck, he hoped that Ramoth's clutch would be spectacular, erasing the ignominy of the paltry dozen Nemorth had laid in each of her last few clutches.

He had no serious doubts of the improvement after Ramoth's remarkable mating flight with his Mnementh. The bronze dragon smugly echoed his rider's certainty, and both looked on the queen possessively as she curved her wings to land. She was twice Nemorth's size, for one thing; her wings were half-awing again longer than Mnementh's, who was the biggest of the seven male bronzes. F'lar looked to Ramoth to repopulate the five empty Weyrs, even as he looked to himself and Lessa to rejuvenate the pride and faith of dragonriders and of Pern itself. He only hoped time enough remained to him to do what was necessary. The Red Star had been bracketed by the Eye Rock. The Threads would soon be falling. Somewhere, in one of the other Weyrs' Records, must be the information he needed to ascertain when, exactly, Threads would fall.

Mnementh landed. F'lar jumped down from the curving neck to stand beside Lessa. The three watched as Ramoth, a buck grasped in each of her forefeet, rose to a feeding ledge.

«Will her appetite never taper off?» Lessa asked with affectionate dismay.

As a dragonet, Ramoth had been eating to grow. Her full stature attained, she was, of course, now eating for her young, and she applied herself conscientiously.

F'lar chuckled and squatted, hunter fashion. He picked up shale-flakes, skating them across the flat dry ground, counting the dust puffs boyishly.

«The time will come when she won't eat everything in sight,» he assured Lessa. «But she's young . . .»

». . . and needs her strength,» Lessa interrupted, her voice a fair imitation of R'gul's pedantic tones.

F'lar looked up at her, squinting against the wintry sun that slanted down at them.

«She's a finely grown beast, especially compared to Nemorth.» He gave a contemptuous snort. «In fact, there is no comparison. However, look here,» he ordered peremptorily.

He tapped the smoothed sand in front of him, and she saw that his apparently idle gestures had been to a purpose. With a sliver of stone, he drew a design in quick strokes.

«In order to fly a dragon between, he has to know where to go. And so do you.» He grinned at the astonished and infuriated look of comprehension on her face. «Ah, but there are certain consequences to an ill-considered jump. Badly visualized reference points often result in staying between.» His voice dropped ominously. Her face cleared of its resentment. «So there are certain reference or recognition points arbitrarily taught all weyrlings. That,»-he pointed first to his facsimile and then to the actual Star Stone with its Finger and Eye Rock companions, on Benden peak-«is the first recognition point a weyrling learns. When I take you aloft, you will reach an altitude just above the Star Stone, near enough for you to be able to see the hole in the Eye Rock clearly. Fix that picture sharply in your mind's eye, relay it to Ramoth. That will always get you home.»

«Understood. But how do I learn recognition points of places I've never seen?»

He grinned up at her. «You're drilled in them. First by your instructor,» and he pointed the sliver at his chest, «and then by going there, having directed your dragon to get the visualization from her instructor,» and he indicated Mnementh. The bronze dragon lowered his wedge-shaped head until one eye was focused on his rider and his mate's rider. He made a pleased noise deep in his chest.

Lessa laughed up at the gleaming eye and, with unexpected affection, patted the soft nose.

F'lar cleared his throat in surprise. He had been aware that Mnementh showed an unusual affection for the Weyrwoman, but he had had no idea Lessa was fond of the bronze. Perversely, he was irritated.

«However,» he said, and his voice sounded unnatural to himself, «we take the young riders constantly to and from the main reference points all across Pern, to all the Holds so that they have eyewitness impressions on which to rely. As a rider becomes adept in picking out landmarks, he gets additional references from other riders. Therefore, to go between, there is actually only one requirement: a clear picture of where you want to go. And a dragon!» He grinned at her. «Also, you should always plan to arrive above your reference point in clear air.»

Lessa frowned.

«It is better to arrive in open air»-F'lar waved a hand above his head-«rather than underground,» and he slapped his open hand onto the dirt. A puff of dust rose warningly.

«But the wings took off within the Bowl itself the day the Lords of the Hold arrived,» Lessa reminded him.

F'lar chuckled at her uptake. «True, but only the most seasoned riders. Once we came across a dragon and a rider entombed together in solid rock. They . . . were… very young.» His eyes were bleak.

«I take the point,» she assured him gravely. «That's her fifth,» she added, pointing toward Ramoth, who was carrying her latest kill up to the bloody ledge.

«She'll work them off today, I assure you,» F'lar remarked. He rose, brushing off his knees with sharp slaps of his riding gloves. «Test her temper.»

Lessa did so with a silent. Had enough? She grimaced at Ramoth's indignant rejection of the thought.

The queen went swooping down for a huge fowl, rising in a flurry of gray, brown and white feathers.

«She's not as hungry as she's making you think, the deceitful creature,» F'lar chuckled and saw that Lessa had reached the same conclusion. Her eyes were snapping with vexation.

«When you've finished the bird, Ramoth, do let us learn how to fly between,» Lessa said aloud for F'lar's benefit, «before our good Weyrleader changes his mind.»

Ramoth looked up from her gorging, turned her head toward the two riders at the edge of the feeding ground. Her eyes gleamed. She bent her head again to her kill, but Lessa could sense the dragon would obey.

It was cold aloft. Lessa was glad of the fur lining in her riding gear, and the warmth of the great golden neck which she bestrode. She decided not to think of the absolute cold of between which she had experienced only once. She glanced below on her right where bronze Mnementh hovered, and she caught his amused thought.

F'lar tells me to tell Ramoth to tell you to fix the alignment of the Star Stone firmly in your mind as a homing. Then, Mnementh went on amiably, we shall fly down to the lake. You will return from between to this exact point. Do you understand?

Lessa found herself grinning foolishly with anticipation and nodded vigorously. How much time was saved because she could speak directly to the dragons!

Ramoth made a disgruntled noise deep in her throat. Lessa patted her reassuringly.

«Have you got the picture in your mind, dear one?» she asked, and Ramoth again rumbled, less annoyed, because she was catching Lessa's excitement.

Mnementh stroked the cold air with his wings, greenish-brown in the sunlight, and curved down gracefully toward the lake on the plateau below Benden Weyr. His flight line took him very low over the rim of the Weyr. From Lessa's angle, it looked like a collision course. Ramoth followed closely in his wake. Lessa caught her breath at the sight of the jagged boulders just below Ramoth's wing tips.

It was exhilarating, Lessa crowed to herself, doubly stimulated by the elation that flowed back to her from Ramoth.

Mnementh halted above the farthest shore of the lake, and there, too, Ramoth came to hover.

Mnementh flashed the thought to Lessa that she was to place the picture of where she wished to go firmly in her mind and direct Ramoth to get there.

Lessa complied. The next instant the awesome, bone-penetrating cold of black between enveloped them. Before either she or Ramoth was aware of more than that biting touch of cold and impregnable darkness, they were above the Star Stone.

Lessa let out a cry of pure triumph.

It is extremely simple. Ramoth seemed disappointed.

Mnementh reappeared beside and slightly below them.

You are to return by the same route to the Lake, he ordered, and before the thought had finished, Ramoth took off.

Mnementh was beside them above the lake, fuming with his own and F'lar's anger. You did not visualize before transferring. Don't think a first successful trip makes you perfect. You have no conception of the dangers inherent in between. Never fail to picture your arrival point again.

Lessa glanced down at F'lar. Even two wingspans apart, she could see the vivid anger on his face, almost feel the fury flashing from his eyes. And laced through the wrath, a terrible sinking fearfulness for her safety that was a more effective reprimand than his wrath. Lessa's safety, she wondered bitterly, or Ramoth's?

You are to follow us, Mnementh was saying in a calmer tone, rehearsing in your mind the two reference points you have already learned. We shall jump to and from them this morning, gradually learning other points around Benden.

They did. Flying as far away as Benden Hold itself, nestled against the foothills above Benden Valley, the Weyr Peak a far point against the noonday sky, Lessa did not neglect to visualize a clearly detailed impression each time.

This was as marvelously exciting as she had hoped it would be, Lessa confided to Ramoth. Ramoth replied: yes, it was certainly preferable to the time-consuming methods others had to use, but she didn't think it was exciting at all to jump between from Benden Weyr to Benden Hold and back to Benden Weyr again. It was dull.

They had met with Mnementh above the Star Stone again. The bronze dragon sent Lessa the message that this was a very satisfactory initial session. They would practice some distant jumping tomorrow.

Tomorrow, thought Lessa glumly, some emergency will occur or our hard-working Weyrleader will decide today's session constitutes keeping his promise and that will be that. There was one jump she could make between, from anywhere on Pern, and not miss her mark.

She visualized Ruatha for Ramoth as seen from the heights above the Hold … to satisfy that requirement. To be scrupulously clear, Lessa projected the pattern of the firepits. Before Fax invaded and she had had to manipulate its decline, Ruatha had been such a lovely, prosperous valley. She told Ramoth to jump between. The cold was intense and seemed to last for many heartbeats. Just as Lessa began to fear that she had somehow lost them between, they exploded into the air above the Hold. Elation filled her. That for F'lar and his excessive caution! With Ramoth she could jump anywhere! For there was the distinctive pattern of Ruatha's fire-guttered heights. It was just before dawn, the Breast Pass between Crom and Ruatha, black cones against the lightening gray sky. Fleetingly she noticed the absence of the Red Star that now blazed in the dawn sky. And fleetingly she noticed a difference in the air. Chill, yes, but not wintry … the air held that moist coolness of early spring.

Startled, she glanced downward, wondering if she could have, for all her assurance, erred in some fashion. But no, this was Ruatha Hold. The Tower, the inner Court, the aspect of the broad avenue leading down to the crafthold were just as they should be. Wisps of smoke from distant chimneys indicated people were making ready for the day.

Ramoth caught the tenor of her insecurity and began to press for an explanation.

This is Ruatha, Lessa replied stoutly. It can be no other. Circle the heights. See, there are the firepit lines I gave you. . . .

Lessa gasped, the coldness in her stomach freezing her muscles.

Below her in the slowly lifting predawn gloom, she saw the figures of many men toiling over the breast of the cliff from the hills beyond Ruatha, men moving with quiet stealth like criminals.

She ordered Ramoth to keep as still as possible in the air so as not to direct their attention upward. The dragon was curious but obedient.

Who would be attacking Ruatha? It seemed incredible. Lytol was, after all, a former dragonman and had savagely repelled one attack already. Could there possibly be a thought of aggression among the Holds now that F'lar was Weyrleader? And what Hold Lord would be foolish enough to mount a territorial war in the winter?

No, not winter. The air was definitely spring-like.

The men crept on, over the firepits to the edge of the heights. Suddenly Lessa realized they were lowering rope ladders over the face of the cliff, down toward the open shutters of the Inner Hold.

Wildly she clutched at Ramoth's neck, certain of what she saw.

This was the invader Fax, now dead nearly three Turns-Fax and his men as they began their attack on Ruatha nearly thirteen Turns ago.

Yes, there was the Tower guard, his face a white blot turned toward the Cliff itself, watching. He had been paid his bribe to stand silent this morning.

But the watch-wher, trained to give alarm for any intrusion-why was it not trumpeting its warning? Why was it silent?

Because, Ramoth informed her rider with calm logic, it senses your presence as well as mine, so how could the Hold be in danger?

No, No! Lessa moaned. What can I do now? How can I wake them? Where is the girl I was? I was asleep, and then I woke. I remember. I dashed from my room. I was so scared. I went down the steps and nearly fell. I knew I had to get to the watch-wher's kennel…. I knew….

Lessa clutched at Ramoth's neck for support as past acts and mysteries became devastatingly clear.

She herself had warned herself, just as it was her presence on the queen dragon that had kept the watch-wher from giving alarm. For as she watched, stunned and speechless, she saw the small, gray-robed figure that could only be herself as a youngster, burst from the Hold Hall door, race uncertainly down the cold stone steps into the Court, and disappear into the watch-wher's stinking den. Faintly she heard it crying in piteous confusion.

Just as Lessa-the-girl reached that doubtful sanctuary, Fax's invaders swooped into the open window embrasures and began the slaughter of her sleeping family.

«Back-back to the Star Stone!» Lessa cried. In her wide and staring eyes she held the image of the guiding rocks like a rudder for her sanity as well as Ramoth's direction.

The intense cold acted as a restorative. And then they were above the quiet, peaceful wintry Weyr as if they had never paradoxically visited Ruatha. F'lar and Mnementh were nowhere to be seen. Ramoth, however, was unshaken by the experience. She had only gone where she had been told to go and had not quite understood that going where she had been told to go had shocked Lessa. She suggested to her rider that Mnementh had probably followed them to Ruatha so if Lessa would give her the proper references, she'd take her there. Ramoth's sensible attitude was comforting.

Lessa carefully drew for Ramoth not the child's memory of a long-vanished, idyllic Ruatha but her more recent recollection of the Hold, gray, sullen, at dawning, with a Red Star pulsing on the horizon.

And there they were again, hovering over the Valley, the Hold below them on the right. The grasses grew untended on the heights, clogging firepit and brickwork; the scene showed all the deterioration she had encouraged in her effort to thwart Fax of any profit from conquering Ruatha Hold

But, as she watched, vaguely disturbed, she saw a figure emerge from the kitchen, saw the watch-wher creep from its lair and follow the raggedly dressed figure as far across the Court as the chain permitted. She saw the figure ascend the Tower, gaze first eastward, then northeastward. This was still not Ruatha of today and now! Lessa's mind reeled, disoriented. This time she had come back to visit herself of three Turns ago, to see the filthy drudge plotting revenge on Fax.

She felt the absolute cold of between as Ramoth snatched them back, emerging once more above the Star Stone. Lessa was shuddering, her eyes frantically taking in the reassuring sight of the Weyr Bowl, hoping she had not somehow shifted backward in time yet again. Mnementh suddenly erupted into the air a few lengths below and beyond Ramoth. Lessa greeted him with a cry of intense relief.

Back to your weyr! There was no disguising the white fury in Mnementh's tone. Lessa was too unnerved to respond in any way other than instant compliance. Ramoth glided swiftly to their ledge, quickly clearing the perch for Mnementh to land.

The rage on F'lar's face as he leaped from Mnementh and advanced on Lessa brought her wits back abruptly. She made no move to evade him as he grabbed her shoulders and shook her violently.

«How dare you risk yourself and Ramoth? Why must you defy me at every opportunity? Do you realize what would happen to all Pern if we lost Ramoth? Where did you go?» He was spitting with anger, punctuating each question that tumbled from his Ups by giving her a head-wrenching shake.

«Ruatha,» she managed to say, trying to keep herself erect. She reached out to catch at his arms, but he shook her again.

«Ruatha? We were there. You weren't. Where did you go?»

«Ruatha!» Lessa cried louder, clutching at him distractedly because he kept jerking her off balance. She couldn't organize her thoughts with him jolting her around.

She was at Ruatha, Mnementh said firmly.

We were there twice, Ramoth added.

As the dragons' calmer words penetrated F'lar's fury, he stopped shaking Lessa. She hung limply in his grasp, her hands weakly plucking at his arms, her eyes closed, her face gray. He picked her up and strode rapidly into the queen's Weyr, the dragons following. He placed her upon the couch, wrapping her tightly in the fur cover. He called down the service shaft for the duty cook to send up hot klah.

«All right, what happened?» he demanded.

She didn't look at him, but he got a glimpse of her haunted eyes. She blinked constantly as if she longed to erase what she had just seen.

Finally she got herself somewhat under control and said in a low, tired voice, «I did go to Ruatha. Only … I went back to Ruatha.»

«Back to Ruatha?» F'lar repeated the words stupidly; the significance momentarily eluded him.

It certainly does, Mnementh agreed and flashed to F'lar's mind the two scenes he had picked out of Ramoth's memory.

Staggered by the import of the visualization, F'lar found himself slowly sinking to the edge of the bed.

«You went between times?»

She nodded slowly. The terror was beginning to leave her eyes.

«Between times,» F'lar murmured. «I wonder . . .»

His mind raced through the possibilities. It might well tip the scales of survival in the Weyr's favor. He couldn't think exactly how to use this extraordinary ability, but there must be an advantage in it for dragonfolk.

The service shaft rumbled. He took the pitcher from the platform and poured two mugs.

Lessa's hands were shaking so much that she couldn't get hers to her lips. He steadied it for her, wondering if going between times would regularly cause this kind of shock. If so, it wouldn't be any advantage at all. If she'd had enough of a scare this day, she might not be so contemptuous of his orders the next time; which would be to his benefit.

Outside in the weyr, Mnementh snorted his opinion on that. F'lar ignored him.

Lessa was trembling violently now. He put an arm around her, pressing the fur against her slender body. He held the mug to her lips, forcing her to drink. He could feel the tremors ease off. She took long, slow, deep breaths between swallows, equally determined to get herself under control. The moment he felt her stiffen under his arm, he released her. He wondered if Lessa had ever had someone to turn to. Certainly not after Fax invaded her family Hold. She had been only eleven, a child. Had hate and revenge been the only emotions the growing girl had practiced?

She lowered the mug, cradling it in her hands carefully as if it had assumed some undefinable importance to her.

«Now. Tell me,» he ordered evenly.

She took a long deep breath and began to speak, her hands tightening around the mug. Her inner turmoil had not lessened; it was merely under control now.

«Ramoth and I were bored with the weyrling exercises,» she admitted candidly.

Grimly F'lar recognized that, while the adventure might have taught her to be more circumspect, it had not scared her into obedience. He doubted that anything would.

«I gave her the picture of Ruatha so we could go between there.» She did not look at him, but her profile was outlined against the dark fur of the rug. «The Ruatha I knew so well-I accidentally sent myself backward in time to the day Fax invaded.»

Her shock was now comprehensible to him.

«And . . .» he prompted her, his voice carefully neutral.

«And I saw myself-« Her voice broke off. With an effort she continued. «I had visualized for Ramoth the designs of the firepits and the angle of the Hold if one looked down from the pits into the Inner Court. That was where we emerged. It was just dawn»-she lifted her chin with a nervous jerk-«and there was no Red Star in the sky.» She gave him a quick, defensive look as if she expected him to contest this detail. «And I saw men creeping over the firepits, lowering rope ladders to the top windows of the Hold. I saw the Tower guard watching. Just watching.» She clenched her teeth at such treachery, and her eyes gleamed malevolently. «And I saw myself run from the Hall into the watch-wher's lair. And do you know why»-her voice lowered to a bitter whisper-«the watch-wher did not alarm the Hold?»

«Why?»

«Because there was a dragon in the sky, and I, Lessa of Ruatha, was on her.» She flung the mug from her as if she wished she could reject the knowledge, too. «Because I was there, the watch-wher did not alarm the Hold, thinking the intrusion legitimate, with one of the Blood on a dragon in the sky. So I» –her body grew rigid, her hands clasped so tightly that the knuckles were white-«I was the cause of my family's massacre. Not Fax! If I had not acted the captious fool today, I would not have been there with Ramoth and the watch-wher would-«

Her voice had risen to an hysterical pitch of recrimination. He slapped her sharply across the cheeks, grabbing her, robe and all, to shake her.

The stunned look in her eyes and the tragedy in her face alarmed him. His indignation over her willfulness disappeared. Her unruly independence of mind and spirit attracted him as much as her curious dark beauty. Infuriating as her fractious ways might be, they were too vital a part of her integrity to be exorcised. Her indomitable will had taken a grievous shock today, and her self-confidence had better be restored quickly.

«On the contrary, Lessa,» he said sternly, «Fax would still have murdered your family. He had planned it very carefully, even to scheduling his attack on the morning when the Tower guard was one who could be bribed. Remember, too, it was dawn and the watch-wher, being a nocturnal beast, blind by daylight, is relieved of responsibility at dawn and knows it. Your presence, damnable as it may appear to you, was not the deciding factor by any means. It did, and I draw your attention to this very important fact, cause you to save yourself, by warning Lessa-the child. Don't you see that?»

«I could have called out,» she murmured, but the frantic look had left her eyes and there was a faint hint of normal color in her lips.

«If you wish to flail around in guilt, go right ahead,» he said with deliberate callousness.

Ramoth interjected a thought that, since the two of them had been there that previous time as Fax's men had prepared to invade, it had already happened, so how could it be changed? The act was inevitable both that day and today. For how else could Lessa have lived to come to the Weyr and impress Ramoth at the hatching?

Mnementh relayed Ramoth's message scrupulously, even to imitating Ramoth's egocentric nuances. F'lar looked sharply at Lessa to see the effect of Ramoth's astringent observation.

«Just like Ramoth to have the final word,» she said with a hint of her former droll humor.

F'lar felt the muscles along his neck and shoulders begin to relax. She'd be all right, he decided, but it might be wiser to make her talk it all out now, to put the whole experience into proper perspective.

«You said you were there twice?» He leaned back on the couch, watching her closely. «When was the second time?»

«Can't you guess?» she asked sarcastically.

«No,» he lied.

«When else but the dawn I was awakened, feeling the Red Star was a menace to me? . . . Three days before you and Fax came out of the northeast.»

«It would seem,» he remarked dryly, «that you were your own premonition both times.»

She nodded.

«Have you had any more of these presentiments … or should I say reinforced warnings?»

She shuddered but answered him with more of her old spirit.

«No, but if I should, you go. I don't want to.»

F'lar grinned maliciously. «I would, however,» she added, «like to know why and how it could happen.»

«I've never run across a mention of it anywhere,» he told her candidly. «Of course, if you have done it –and you undeniably have,» he assured her hastily at her indignant protest, «it obviously can be done. You say you thought of Ruatha, but you thought of it as it was on that particular day. Certainly a day to be remembered. You thought of spring, before dawn, no Red Star-yes, I remember your mentioning that-so one would have to remember references peculiar to a significant day to return between times to the past.»

She nodded slowly, thoughtfully.

«You used the same method the second time, to get to the Ruatha of three Turns ago. Again, of course, it was spring.»

He rubbed his palms together, then brought his hands down on his knees with an emphatic slap and rose to his feet.

«I'll be back,» he said and strode from the room, ignoring her half-articulated cry of warning.

Ramoth was curling up in the Weyr as he passed her. He noticed that her color remained good in spite of the drain on her energies by the morning's exercises. She glanced at him, her many-faceted eye already covered by the inner, protective lid.

Mnementh awaited his rider on the ledge, and the moment F'lar leaped to his neck, took off. He circled upward, hovering above the Star Stone.

You wish to try Lessa's trick, Mnementh said, unperturbed by the prospective experiment.

F'lar stroked the great curved neck affectionately. You understand how it worked for Ramoth and Lessa?

As well as anyone can, Mnementh replied with the approximation of a shrug. When did you have in mind?

Before that moment F'lar had had no idea. Now, unerringly, his thoughts drew him backward to the summer day R'gul's bronze Hath had flown to mate the grotesque Nemorth, and R'gul had become Weyrleader in place of his dead father, F'lon.

Only the cold of between gave them any indication that they had transferred; they were still hovering above the Star Stone. F'lar wondered if they had missed some essential part of the transfer. Then he realized that the sun was in another quarter of the sky and the air was warm and sweet with summer. The Weyr below was empty; there were no dragons sunning themselves on the ledges, no women busy at tasks in the Bowl. Noises impinged on his senses: raucous laughter, yells, shrieks, and a soft crooning noise that dominated the bedlam.

Then, from the direction of the weyrling barracks in the Lower Caverns, two figures emerged-a stripling and a young bronze dragon. The boy's arm lay limply along the beast's neck. The impression that reached the hovering observers was one of utter dejection. The two halted by the lake, the boy peering into the unruffled blue waters, then glancing upward

toward the queen's weyr.

F'lar knew the boy for himself, and compassion for that younger self filled him. If only he could reassure that boy, so torn by grief, so filled with resentment, that he would one day become Weyrleader. . . .

Abruptly, startled by his own thoughts, he ordered Mnementh to transfer back. The utter cold of between was like a slap in his face, replaced almost instantly as they broke out of between into the cold of normal winter.

Slowly, Mnementh flew back down to the queen's weyr, as sobered as F'lar by what they had seen.

CHAPTER II

«I don't know why you insisted that F'nor unearth these ridiculous things from Ista Weyr,» Lessa exclaimed in a tone of exasperation. «They consist of nothing but trivial notes on how many measures of grain were used to bake daily bread.»

F'lar glanced up at her from the Records he was studying. He sighed, leaned back in his chair in a bone-popping stretch.

«And I used to think,» Lessa said with a rueful expression on her vivid, narrow face, «that those venerable Records would hold the total sum of all dragonlore and human wisdom. Or so I was led to believe,» she added pointedly.

F'lar chuckled. «They do, but you have to disinter it.»

Lessa wrinkled her nose. «Phew. They smell as if we had . . . and the only decent thing to do would be to rebury them.»

«Which is another item I'm hoping to find … the old preservative technique that kept the skins from hardening and smelling.»

«It's stupid, anyhow, to use skins for recording. There ought to be something better. We have become, dear Weyrleader, entirely too hidebound.»

While F'lar roared with appreciation of her pun, she regarded him impatiently. Suddenly she jumped up, fired by another of her mercurial moods.

«Well, you won't find it. You won't find the facts you're looking for. Because I know what you're really after, and it isn't recorded!»

«Explain yourself.»

«It's time we stopped hiding a rather brutal truth from ourselves.»

«Which is?»

«Our mutual feeling that the Red Star is a menace and that the Threads will come! We decided that out of pure conceit and then went back between times to particularly crucial points in our lives and strengthened that notion, in our earlier selves. And for you, it was when you decided you were destined»-her voice made the word mocking-«to become Weyrleader one day.»

«Could it be,» she went on scornfully, «that our ultraconservative R'gul has the right of it? That there have been no Threads for four hundred Turns because there are no more? And that the reason we have so few dragons is because the dragons sense they are no longer essential to Pern? That we are anachronisms as well as parasites?»

F'lar did not know how long he sat looking up at her bitter face or how long it took him to find answers to her probing questions.

«Anything is possible, Weyrwoman,» he heard his voice replying calmly. «Including the unlikely fact that an eleven-year-old child, scared stiff, could plot revenge on her family's murderer and-against all odds-succeed.»

She took an involuntary step forward, struck by his unexpected rebuttal. She listened intently.

«I prefer to believe,» he went on inexorably, «that there is more to life than raising dragons and playing spring games. That is not enough for me. And I have made others look further, beyond self-interest and comfort. I have given them a purpose, a discipline. Everyone, dragonfolk and Holder alike, profits.

«I am not looking in these Records for reassurance. I'm looking for solid facts.

«I can prove, Weyrwoman, that there have been Threads. I can prove that there have been Intervals during which the Weyrs have declined. I can prove that if you sight the Red Star directly bracketed by the Eye Rock at the moment of winter solstice, the Red Star will pass close enough to Pern to throw on Threads. Since I can prove those facts, I believe Pern is in danger. I believe . . . not the youngster of fifteen Turns ago. F'lar, the bronze rider, the Weyrleader, believes it!»

He saw her eyes reflecting shadowy doubts, but he sensed his arguments were beginning to reassure her.

«You felt constrained to believe in me once before,» he went on in a milder voice, «when I suggested that you could be Weyrwoman. You believed me and . . .» He made a gesture around the weyr as substantiation.

She gave him a weak, humorless smile.

«That was because I had never planned what to do with my life once I did have Fax lying dead at my feet. Of course, being Ramoth's Weyrmate is wonderful, but»-she frowned slightly– «it isn't enough anymore, either. That's why I wanted so to learn to fly and…»

». . . that's how this argument started in the first place,» F'lar finished for her with a sardonic smile.

He leaned across the table urgently.

«Believe with me, Lessa, until you have cause not to. I respect your doubts. There's nothing wrong in doubting. It sometimes leads to greater faith. But believe with me until spring. If the Threads have not fallen by then …» He shrugged fatalistically.

She looked at him for a long moment and then inclined her head slowly in agreement.

He tried to suppress the relief he felt at her decision. Lessa, as Fax had discovered, was a ruthless adversary and a canny advocate. Besides these, she was Weyrwoman: essential to his plans.

«Now, let's get back to the contemplation of trivia. They do tell me, you know, time, place, and duration of Thread incursions,» he grinned up at her reassuringly. «And those facts I must have to make up my timetable.»

«Timetable? But you said you didn't know the time.»

«Now the day to the second when the Threads may spin down. For one thing, while the weather holds so unusually cold for this time of year, the Threads simply turn brittle and blow away like dust. They're harmless. However, when the air is warm, they are viable and . . . deadly.» He made fists of both hands, placing one above and to one side of the other. «The Red Star is my right hand, my left is Pern. The Red Star turns very fast and in the opposite direction from us. It also wobbles erratically.»

«How do you know that?»

«Diagram on the walls of the Fort Weyr Hatching Ground. That was the very first Weyr, you know.»

Lessa smiled sourly. «I know.»

«So, when the Star makes a pass, the Threads spin off, down toward us, in attacks that last six hours and occur approximately fourteen hours apart.»

«Attacks last six hours?»

He nodded gravely. «When the Red Star is closest to us. Right now it is just beginning its Pass.»

She frowned.

He rummaged among the skin sheets on the table, and an object dropped to the stone floor with a metallic clatter.

Curious, Lessa bent to pick it up, turning the thin sheet over in her hands.

«What's this?» She ran an exploratory finger lightly across the irregular design on one side.

«I don't know. F'nor brought it back from Fort Weyr. It was nailed to one of the chests in which the Records had been stored. He brought it along, thinking it might be important. Said there was a plate like it just under the Red Star diagram on the wall of the Hatching Ground.»

«This first part is plain enough: 'Mother's father's father, who departed for all time between, said this was the key to the mystery, and it came to him while doodling: he said that he said: ARRHENIUS? EUREKA! MYCORRHIZA. . . .' Of course, that part doesn't make any sense at all,» Lessa snorted. «It isn't even Pernese-just babbling, those last three words.»

«I've studied it, Lessa,» F'lar replied, glancing at it again and tipping it toward him to reaffirm his conclusions. «The only way to depart for all time between is to die, right? People just don't fly away on their own, obviously. So it is a death vision, dutifully recorded by a grandchild, who couldn't spell very well either. 'Doodling' as the present tense of dying!» He smiled indulgently. «And as for the rest of it, after the nonsense-like most death visions, it 'explains' what everyone has always known. Read on.»

«'Flamethrowing fire lizards to wipe out the spores. Q.E.D.'?»

«No help there, either. Obviously just a primitive rejoicing that he is a dragonman, who didn't even know the right word for Threads.» F'lar's shrug was expressive.

Lessa wet one fingertip to see if the patterns were inked on. The metal was shiny enough for a good mirror if she could get rid of the designs. However, the patterns remained smooth and precise.

«Primitive or no, they had a more permanent way of recording their visions that is superior to even the well-preserved skins,» she murmured.

«Well-preserved babblings,» F'lar said, turning back to the skins he was checking for understandable data.

«A badly scored ballad?» Lessa wondered and then dismissed the whole thing. «The design isn't even pretty.»

F'lar pulled forward a chart that showed overlapping horizontal bands imposed on the projection of Pern's continental mass.

«Here,» he said, «this represents waves of attack, and this one»-he pulled forward the second map with vertical bandings-«shows time zones. So you can see that with a fourteen-hour break only certain parts of Pern are affected in each attack. One reason for spacing of the Weyrs.»

«Six full Weyrs,» she murmured, «close to three thousand dragons.»

«I'm aware of the statistics,» he replied in a voice devoid of expression. «It meant no one Weyr was overburdened during the height of the attacks, not that three thousand beasts must be available. However, with these timetables, we can manage until Ramoth's first clutches have matured.»

She turned a cynical look on him. «You've a lot of faith in one queen's capacity.»

He waved that remark aside impatiently. «I've more faith, no matter what your opinion is, in the startling repetitions of events in these Records.»

«Ha!»

«I don't mean how many measures for daily bread, Lessa,» he retorted, his voice rising. «I mean such things as the time such and such a wing was sent out on patrol, how long the patrol lasted, how many riders were hurt. The brooding capacities of queens, during the fifty years a Pass lasts and the Intervals between such Passes. Yes, it tells that. By all I've studied here,» and he pounded emphatically on the nearest stack of dusty, smelly skins, «Nemorth should have been mating twice a Turn for the last ten. Had she even kept to her paltry twelve a clutch, we'd have two hundred and forty more beasts. . . . Don't interrupt. But we had Jora as Weyrwoman and R'gul as Weyrleader, and we had fallen into planet-wide disfavor during a four hundred Turn Interval. Well, Ramoth will brood over no measly dozen, and she'll lay a queen egg, mark my words. She will rise often to mate and lay generously. By the time the Red Star is passing closest to us and the attacks become frequent, we'll be ready.»

She stared at him, her eyes wide with incredulity. «Out of Ramoth?»

«Out of Ramoth and out of the queens she'll lay. Remember, there are Records of Faranth laying sixty eggs at a time, including several queen eggs.»

Lessa could only shake her head slowly in wonder.

» 'A strand of silver/In the sky. . . . With heat, all quickens/And all times fly,'» F'lar quoted to her.

«She's got weeks more to go before laying, and then the eggs must hatch…»

«Been on the Hatching Ground recently? Wear your boots. You'll be burned through sandals.»

She dismissed that with a guttural noise. He sat back, outwardly amused by her disbelief.

«And then you have to make Impression and wait till the riders-« she went on.

«Why do you think I've insisted on older boys? The dragons are mature long before their riders.»

«Then the system is faulty.»

He narrowed his eyes slightly, shaking the stylus at her.

«Dragon tradition started out as a guide . . . but there comes a time when man becomes too traditional, too-what was it you said?-too hidebound? Yes, it's traditional to use the weyrbred, because it's been convenient. And because this sensitivity to dragons strengthens where both sire and dam are weyrbred. That doesn't mean weyrbred is best. You, for example…»

«There's Weyrblood in the Ruathan line,» she said proudly.

«Granted. Take young Naton; he's craftbred from Nabol, yet F'nor tells me he can make Canth understand him.»

«Oh, that's not hard to do,» she interjected.

«What do you mean?» F'lar jumped on her statement.

They were both interrupted by a high-pitched, penetrating whine. F'lar listened intently for a moment and then shrugged, grinning.

«Some green's getting herself chased again.»

«And that's another item these so-called all-knowing Records of yours never mention. Why is it that only the gold dragon can reproduce?»

F'lar did not suppress a lascivious chuckle.

«Well, for one thing, firestone inhibits reproduction. If they never chewed stone, a green could lay, but at best they produce small beasts, and we need big ones. And, for another thing»-his chuckle rolled out as he went on deliberately, grinning mischievously– «if the greens could reproduce, considering their amorousness and the numbers we have of them, we'd be up to our ears in dragons in next to no time.»

The first whine was joined by another, and then a low hum throbbed as if carried by the stones of the Weyr itself.

F'lar, his face changing rapidly from surprise to triumphant astonishment, dashed up the passage.

«What's the matter?» Lessa demanded, picking up her skirts to run after him. «What does that mean?»

The hum, resonating everywhere, was deafening in the echo-chamber of the queen's weyr. Lessa registered the fact that Ramoth was gone. She heard F'lar's boots pounding down the passage to the ledge, a sharp ta-ta-tat over the kettledrum booming hum. The whine was so high-pitched now that it was inaudible, but still nerve-racking. Disturbed, frightened, Lessa followed F'lar out.

By the time she reached the ledge, the Bowl was a-whir with dragons on the wing, making for the high entrance to the Hatching Ground. Weyrfolk, riders, women, children, all screaming with excitement, were pouring across the Bowl to the lower entrance to the Ground.

She caught sight of F'lar, charging across to the entrance, and she shrieked at him to wait He couldn't have heard her across the bedlam.

Fuming because she had the long stairs to descend, then must double back as the stairs faced the feeding grounds at the opposite end of the Bowl from the Hatching Ground, Lessa realized that she, the Weyrwoman, would be the last one there.

Why had Ramoth decided to be secretive about laying? Wasn't she close enough to her own weyrmate to want her with her?

A dragon knows what to do, Ramoth calmly informed Lessa.

You could have told me, Lessa wailed, feeling much abused.

Why, at the time F'lar had been going on largely about huge clutches and three thousand beasts, that infuriating dragon-child had been doing it!

It didn't improve Lessa's temper to have to recall another remark of F'lar's-on the state of the Hatching Grounds. The moment she stepped into the mountain-high cavern, she felt the heat through the soles of her sandals. Everyone was crowded in a loose circle around the far end of the cavern. And everyone was swaying from foot to foot. As Lessa was short to begin with, this only decreased the likelihood of her ever seeing what Ramoth had done.

«Let me through!» she demanded imperiously, pounding on the wide backs of two tall riders.

An aisle was reluctantly opened for her, and she went through, looking neither to her right or left at the excited weyrfolk. She was furious, confused, hurt, and knew she looked ridiculous because the hot sand made her walk with a curious mincing quickstep.

She halted, stunned and wide-eyed at the mass of eggs, and forgot such trivial things as hot feet. Ramoth was curled around the clutch, looking enormously pleased with herself. She, too, kept shifting, closing and opening a protective wing over her eggs, so that it was difficult to count them.

No one will steal them, silly, so stop fluttering, Lessa advised as she tried to make a tally.

Obediently Ramoth folded her wings. To relieve her maternal anxiety, however, she snaked her head out across the circle of mottled, glowing eggs, looking all around the cavern, flicking her forked tongue in and out.

An immense sigh, like a gust of wind, swept through the cavern. For there, now that Ramoth's wings were furled, gleamed an egg of glowing gold among the mottled ones. A queen egg!

«A queen egg!» The cry went up simultaneously from half a hundred throats. The Hatching Ground rang with cheers, yells, screams, and howls of exultation.

Someone seized Lessa and swung her around in an excess of feeling. A kiss landed in the vicinity of her mouth. No sooner did she recover her footing than she was hugged by someone else-she thought it was Manora-and then pounded and buffeted around in congratulation until she was reeling in a kind of dance between avoiding the celebrants and easing the growing discomfort of her feet.

She broke from the milling revelers and ran across the Ground to Ramoth. Lessa came to a sudden stop before the eggs. They seemed to be pulsing. The shells looked flaccid. She could have sworn they were hard the day she Impressed Ramoth. She wanted to touch one, just to make sure, but dared not.

You may, Ramoth assured her condescendingly. She touched Lessa's shoulder gently with her tongue.

The egg was soft to touch and Lessa drew her hand back quickly, afraid of doing injury.

The heat will harden it, Ramoth said.

«Ramoth, I'm so proud of you,» Lessa sighed, looking adoringly up at the great eyes that shone in rainbows of pride. «You are the most marvelous queen ever. I do believe you will redragon all the Weyrs. I do believe you will.»

Ramoth inclined her head regally, then began to sway it from side to side over the eggs, protectingly. She began to hiss suddenly, raising from her crouch, beating the air with her wings, before settling back into the sands to lay yet another egg.

The weyrfolk, uncomfortable on the hot sands, were beginning to leave the Hatching Ground now that they had paid tribute to the arrival of the golden egg. A queen took several days to complete her clutch so there was no point to waiting. Seven eggs already lay beside the important golden one, and if there were seven already, this augured well for the eventual total. Wagers were being made and taken even as Ramoth produced her ninth mottled egg.

«Just as I predicted, a queen egg, by the mother of us all,» F'lar's voice said in Lessa's ear. «And I'll wager there'll be ten bronzes at least.»

She looked up at him, completely in harmony with the Weyrleader at this moment. She was conscious now of Mnementh, crouching proudly on a ledge, gazing fondly at his mate. Impulsively Lessa laid her hand on F'lar's arm.

«F'lar, I do believe you.»

«Only now?» F'lar teased her, but his smile was wide and his eyes proud.

CHAPTER III

If f'lar's orders over the next months caused no end of discussion and muttering among the weyrfolk, they seemed to Lessa to be only the logical outcomes of their discussion after Ramoth had finished laying her gratifying total of forty-one eggs.

F'lar discarded tradition right and left, treading on more than R'gul's conservative toes.

Out of perverse distaste for outworn doctrines against which she herself had chafed during R'gul's leadership, and out of respect for F'lar's intelligence, Lessa backed him completely. She might not have respected her earlier promise to him that she would believe with him until spring if she had not seen his predictions come true, one after another. These were based, however, not on the premonitions she no longer trusted after her experience between times, but on recorded facts.

As soon as the eggshells hardened and Ramoth had rolled her special queen egg to one side of the mottled clutch for attentive brooding, F'lar brought the prospective riders into the Hatching Ground. Traditionally the candidates saw the eggs for the first time on the day of Impression. To this precedent F'lar added others: very few of the sixty-odd were weyrbred, and most of them were in their late teens. The candidates were to get used to the eggs, touch them, caress them, be comfortable with the notion that out of these eggs young dragons would hatch, eager and waiting to be Impressed. F'lar felt that such a practice might cut down on casualties during Impression when the boys were simply too scared to move out of the way of the awkward dragonets.

F'lar also had Lessa persuade Ramoth to let Kylara near her precious golden egg. Kylara readily enough weaned her son and spent hours, with Lessa acting as her tutor, beside the golden egg. Despite Kylara's loose attachment to T'bor, she showed an open preference for F'lar's company. Therefore, Lessa took great pains to foster F'lar's plan for Kylara since it meant her removal, with the new-hatched queen, to Fort Weyr.

F'lar's use of the Hold-born as riders served an additional purpose. Shortly before the actual Hatching and Impression, Lytol, the Warder appointed at Ruatha Hold, sent another message.

«The man positively delights in sending bad news,» Lessa remarked as F'lar passed the message skin to her.

«He's gloomy,» F'nor agreed. He had brought the message. «I feel sorry for that youngster cooped up with such a pessimist.»

Lessa frowned at the brown rider. She still found distasteful any mention of Gemma's son, now Lord of her ancestral Hold. Yet … as she had inadvertently caused his mother's death and she could not be Weyrwoman and Lady Holder at the same time, it was fitting that Gemma's Jaxom be Lord at Ruatha.

«I, however,» F'lar said, «am grateful for his warnings. I suspected Meron would cause trouble again.»

«He has shifty eyes, like Fax's,» Lessa remarked. «Shifty-eyed or not, he's dangerous,» F'lar answered. «And I cannot have him spreading rumors that we are deliberately choosing men of the Blood to weaken Family Lines.»

«There are more craftsmen's sons than Holders' boys, in any case,» F'nor snorted.

«I don't like him questioning that the Threads have not appeared,» Lessa said gloomily.

F'lar shrugged. «They'll appear in due time. Be thankful the weather has continued cold. When the weather warms up and still no Threads appear, then I will worry.» He grinned at Lessa in an intimate reminder of her promise.

F'nor cleared his throat hastily and looked away.

«However,» the Weyrleader went on briskly, «I can do something about the other accusation.»

So, when it was apparent that the eggs were about to hatch, he broke another long-standing tradition and sent riders to fetch the fathers of the young candidates from craft and Hold. The great Hatching Cavern gave the appearance of being almost full as Holder and Weyrfolk watched from the tiers above the heated Ground. This time, Lessa observed, there was no aura of fear. The youthful candidates were tense, yes, but not frightened out of their wits by the rocking, shattering eggs. When the ill-coordinated dragonets awkwardly stumbled-it seemed to Lessa that they deliberately looked around at the eager faces as though pre-Impressed-the youths either stepped to one side or eagerly advanced as a crooning dragonet made his choice. The Impressions were made quickly and with no accidents. All too soon, Lessa thought, the triumphant procession of stumbling dragons and proud new riders moved erratically out of the Hatching Ground to the barracks.

The young queen burst from her shell and moved unerringly for Kylara, standing confidently on the hot sands. The watching beasts hummed their approval.

«It was over too soon,» Lessa said in a disappointed voice that evening to F'lar.

He laughed indulgently, allowing himself a rare evening of relaxation now that another step had gone as planned. The Holder folk had been ridden home, stunned, dazed, and themselves impressed by the Weyr and the Weyrleader.

«That's because you were watching this time,» he remarked, brushing a lock of her hair back. It obscured his view of her profile. He chuckled again. «You'll notice Naton…»

«N'ton,» she corrected him. «All right, N'ton-Impressed a bronze.»

«Just as you predicted,» she said with some asperity.

«And Kylara is Weyrwoman for Pridith.» Lessa did not comment on that, and she did her best to ignore his laughter.

«I wonder which bronze will fly her,» he murmured softly.

«It had better be T'bor's Orth,» Lessa said, bridling. He answered her the only way a wise man could.

CHAPTER IV

Lessa woke abruptly, her head aching, her eyes blurred, her mouth dry. She had the immediate memory of a terrible nightmare that, just as quickly, escaped recall. She brushed her hair out of her face and was surprised to find that she had been sweating heavily.

«F'lar?» she called in an uncertain voice. He had evidently risen early. «F'lar,» she called again, louder.

He's coming, Mnementh informed her. Lessa sensed that the dragon was just landing on the ledge. She touched Ramoth and found that the queen, too, had been bothered by formless, frightening dreams. The dragon roused briefly and then fell back into deeper sleep.

Disturbed by her vague fears, Lessa rose and dressed, forgoing a bath for the first time since she had arrived at the Weyr.

She called down the shaft for breakfast, then plaited her hair with deft fingers as she waited.

The tray appeared on the shaft platform just as F'lar entered. He kept looking back over his shoulder at Ramoth. «What's gotten into her?»

«Echoing my nightmare. I woke in a cold sweat.»

«You were sleeping quietly enough when I left to assign patrols. You know, at the rate those dragonets are growing, they're already capable of limited flight All they do is eat and sleep, and that's…»

»… what makes a dragon grow,» Lessa finished for him and sipped thoughtfully at her steaming hot klah. «You are going to be extra-careful about their drill procedures, aren't you?»

«You mean to prevent an inadvertent flight between times? I certainly am,» he assured her. «I don't want bored dragonriders irresponsibly popping in and out» He gave her a long, stern look.

«Well, it wasn't my fault no one taught me to fly early enough,» she replied in the sweet tone she used when she was being especially malicious. «If I'd been drilled from the day of Impression to the day of my first flight, I'd never have discovered that trick.»

«True enough,» he said solemnly.

«You know, F'lar, if I discovered it, someone else must have, and someone else may. If they haven't already.»

F'lar drank, making a face as the klah scalded his tongue. «I don't know how to find out discreetly. We would be foolish to think we were the first. It is, after all, an inherent ability in dragons, or you would never have been able to do it.»

She frowned, took a quick breath, and then let it go, shrugging. «Go on,» he encouraged her. «Well, isn't it possible that our conviction about the imminence of the Threads could stem from one of us coming back when the Threads are actually falling? I mean…»

«My dear girl, we have both analyzed every stray thought and action-even your dream this morning upset you, although it was no doubt due to all the wine you drank last night-until we wouldn't know an honest presentiment if it walked up and slapped us in the face.»

«I can't dismiss the thought that this between times ability is of crucial value,» she said emphatically.

«That, my dear Weyrwoman, is an honest presentiment.»

«But why?»

«Not why,» he corrected her cryptically. «When.» An idea stirred vaguely in the back of his mind. He tried to nudge it out where he could mull it over. Mnementh announced that F'nor was entering the weyr.

«What's the matter with you?» F'lar demanded of his half brother, for F'nor was choking and sputtering, his face red with the paroxysm.

«Dust. . .» he coughed, slapping at his sleeves and chest with his riding gloves. «Plenty of dust, but no Threads,» he said, describing a wide arc with one arm as he fluttered his fingers suggestively. He brushed his tight wher-hide pants, scowling as a fine black dust drifted off.

F'lar felt every muscle in his body tense as he watched the dust float to the floor.

«Where did you get so dusty?» he demanded.

F'nor regarded him with mild surprise. «Weather patrol in Tillek. Entire north has been plagued with dust storms lately. But what I came in for . . .» He broke off, alarmed by F'lar's taut immobility. «What's the matter with dust?» he asked in a baffled voice.

F'lar pivoted on his heel and raced for the stairs to the Record Room. Lessa was right behind bun, F'nor belatedly trailing after.

«Tillek, you said?» F'lar barked at his wingsecond. He was clearing the table of stacks for the four charts he then laid out. «How long have these storms been going on? Why didn't you report them?»

«Report dust storms? You wanted to know about warm air masses.»

«How long have these storms been going on?» F'lar's voice crackled.

«Close to a week.»

«How close?»

«Six days ago the first storm was noticed in upper Tillek. They have been reported in Bitra, Upper Telgar, Crom, and the High Reaches,» F'nor reported tersely.

He glanced hopefully at Lessa but saw she, too, was staring at the four unusual charts. He tried to see why the horizontal and vertical strips had been superimposed on Pern's land mass, but the reason was beyond him.

F'lar was making hurried notations, pushing first one map and then another away from him.

«Too involved to think straight, to see clearly, to understand,» the Weyrleader snarled to himself, throwing down the stylus angrily.

«You did say only warm air masses,» F'nor heard himself saying humbly, aware that he had somehow failed his Weyrleader.

F'lar shook his head impatiently.

«Not your fault, F'nor. Mine. I should have asked. I knew it was good luck that the weather held so cold.» He put both hands on F'nor's shoulders, looking directly into his eyes. «The Threads have been falling,» he announced gravely. «Falling into cold air, freezing into bits to drift on the wind»-F'lar imitated F'nor's finger-fluttering-«as specks of black dust.»

» 'Crack dust, blackdust,'» Lessa quoted. «In «The Ballad of Moreta's Ride,' the chorus is all about black dust.»

«I don't need to be reminded of Moreta right now,» F'lar growled, bending to the maps. «She could talk to any dragon in the Weyrs.»

«But I can do that!» Lessa protested.

Slowly, as if he didn't quite credit his ears, F'lar turned back to Lessa. «What did you just say?»

«I said I can talk to any dragon in the Weyr.» Still staring at her, blinking in utter astonishment, F'lar sank down to the table top.

«How long,» he managed to say, «have you had this particular skill?»

Something in his tone, in his manner, caused Lessa to flush and stammer like an erring weyrling. «I … I always could. Beginning with the watchwher at Ruatha.» She gestured indecisively in Ruatha's westerly direction. «And I talked to Mnementh at Ruatha. And . . . when I got here, I could . . .» Her voice faltered at the accusing look in F'lar's cold, hard eyes. Accusing and, worse, contemptuous.

«I thought you had agreed to help me, to believe in me?»

«I'm truly sorry, F'lar. It never occurred to me it was of any use to anyone, but…»

F'lar exploded onto both feet, his eyes blazing with aggravation. «The one thing I could not figure out was how to direct the wings and keep in contact with the Weyr during an attack, how I was going to get reinforcements and firestone in time. And you . . . you have been sitting there, spitefully hiding the…»

«I am NOT spiteful,» she screamed at him. «I said I was sorry. I am. But you've a nasty, smug habit of keeping your own counsel. How was I to know you didn't have the same trick? You're F'lar, the Weyrleader, you can do anything. Only you're just as bad as R'gul because you never tell me half the things I ought to know . ..»

F'lar reached out and shook her until her angry voice was stopped.

«Enough We can't waste time arguing like children.» Then his eyes widened, his jaw dropped.

«Waste time? That's it.»

«Go between times?» Lessa gasped. . «Between times!»

F'nor was totally confused. «What are you two talking about?»

«The Threads started falling at dawn in Nerat,» F'lar said, his eyes bright, his manner decisive.

F'nor could feel his guts congealing with apprehension. At dawn in Nerat? Why, the rainforests would be demolished. He could feel a surge of adrenalin charging through his body at the thought of danger.

«So we're going back there, between times, and be there when the Threads started falling, two hours ago. F'nor, the dragons can go not only where we direct them but when.»

«Where? When?» F'nor repeated, bewildered. «That could be dangerous.»

«Yes, but today it will save Nerat. Now, Lessa,» and F'lar gave her another shake, compounded of pride and affection, «order out all the dragons, young, old, any that can fly. Tell them to load themselves down with firestone sacks. I don't know if you can talk across time…»

«My dream this morning …»

«Perhaps. But right now rouse the Weyr.» He pivoted to F'nor. «If Threads are falling .. . were falling … at Nerat at dawn, they'll be falling on Keroon and Ista right now, because they are in that time pattern. Take two wings to Keroon. Arouse the plains. Get them to start the firepits blazing. Take some weyrlings with you and send them on to Igen and Ista. Those Holds are not in as immediate danger as Keroon. I'll reinforce you as soon as I can. And . . . keep Canth in touch with Lessa.»

F'lar clapped his brother on the shoulder and sent him off. The brown rider was too used to taking orders to argue.

«Mnementh says R'gul is duty officer and R'gul wants to know …» Lessa began.

«C'mon, girl,» F'lar said, his eyes brilliant with excitement. He grabbed up his maps and propelled her up the stairs.

They arrived in the weyr just as R'gul entered with T'sum. R'gul was muttering about this unusual summons.

«Hath told me to report,» he complained. «Fine thing when your own dragon …»

«R'gul, T'sum, mount your wings. Arm them with all the firestone they can carry, and assemble above Star Stone. I'll join you in a few minutes. We go to Nerat at dawn.»

«Nerat? I'm watch officer, not patrol…»

«This is no patrol,» F'lar cut him off.

«But, sir,» T'sum interrupted, his eyes wide, «Nerat's dawn was two hours ago, the same as ours.»

«And that is when we are going to, brown riders. The dragons, we have discovered, can go between places temporally as well as geographically. At dawn Threads fell at Nerat. We're going back, between time, to sear them from the sky.»

F'lar paid no attention to R'gul's stammered demand for explanation. T'sum, however, grabbed up firestone sacks and raced back to the ledge and his waiting Munth.

«Go on, you old fool,» Lessa told R'gul irascibly. «The Threads are here. You were wrong. Now be a dragonman! Or go between and stay there!»

Ramoth, awakened by the alarms, poked at R'gul with her man-sized head, and the ex-Weyrleader came out of his momentary shock. Without a word he followed T'sum down the passageway.

F'lar had thrown on his heavy wher-hide tunic and shoved on his riding boots. «Lessa, be sure to send messages to all the Holds. Now, this attack will stop about four hours from now. So the farthest west it can reach will be Ista. But I want every Hold and craft warned.»

She nodded, her eyes intent on his face lest she miss a word.

«Fortunately, the Star is just beginning its Pass, so we won't have to worry about another attack for a few days. I'll figure out the next one when I get back. «Now, get Manora to organize her women. We'll need pails of ointment. The dragons are going to be laced, and that hurts. Most important, if something goes wrong, you'll have to wait till a bronze is at least a year old to fly Ramoth…»

«No one's flying Ramoth but Mnementh,» she cried, her eyes sparkling fiercely.

F'lar crushed her against him, his mouth bruising hers as if all her sweetness and strength must come with him. He released her so abruptly that she staggered back against Ramoth's lowered head. She clung for a moment to her dragon, as much for support as for reassurance.

That is, if Mnementh can catch me, Ramoth amended smugly.

CHAPTER V

As f'lar raced down the passageway to the ledge, firesacks bumping against his thighs, he was suddenly grateful for the tedious sweeping patrols over every Hold and hollow of Pern. He could see Nerat clearly in his mind's eye. He could see the many-petaled vineflowers which were the distinguished feature of the rainforest at this time of the year. Then: ivory blossoms would be glowing in the first beams of sunlight like dragon eyes among the tall, wide-leaved plants.

Mnementh, his eyes flashing with excitement, hovered skittishly over the ledge. F'lar vaulted to the bronze neck.

The Weyr was seething with wings of all colors, noisy with shouts and counter-commands. The atmosphere was electric, but F'lar could sense no panic in that ordered confusion. Dragon and human bodies oozed out of openings around the Bowl walls. Women scurried across the floor from one Lower Cavern to another. The children playing by the lake were sent to gather wood for a fire. The weyrlings, supervised by old C'gan, were forming outside their barracks. F'lar looked up to the peak and approved the tight formation of the wings assembled there in close flying order. Another wing formed up as he watched. He recognized brown Canth, F'nor on his neck, just as the entire wing vanished.

He ordered Mnementh aloft. The wind was cold and carried a hint of moisture. A late snow? This was the time for it, if ever.

R'gul's wing and T'bor's fanned out on his left, T'sum and D'nol on his right. He noted each dragon was well-laden with sacks. Then he gave Mnementh the visualization of the early spring rainforest in Nerat, just before dawn, the vineflowers gleaming, the sea breaking against the rocks of the High Shoal. . ..

He felt the searing cold of between. And he felt a stab of doubt. Was he injudicious, sending them all possibly to their deaths between times in this effort to outtime the Threads at Nerat?

Then they were all there, in the crepuscular light that promises day. The lush, fruity smells of the rainforest drifted up to them. Warm, too, and that was frightening. He looked up and slightly to the north. Pulsing with menace, the Red Star shone down.

The men had realized what had happened, their voices raised in astonishment. Mnementh told F'lar that the dragons were mildly surprised at their riders' fuss.

«Listen to me, dragonriders,» F'lar called, his voice harsh and distorted in an effort to be heard by all. He waited till the men had moved as close as possible. He told Mnementh to pass the information on to each dragon. Then he explained what they had done and why. No one spoke, but there were many nervous looks exchanged across bright wings.

Crisply he ordered the dragonriders to fan out in a staggered formation, keeping a distance of five wings' spread up or down.

The sun came up.

Slanting across the sea, like an ever-thickening mist, Threads were falling, silent, beautiful, treacherous. Silvery gray were those space-traversing spores, spinning from hard frozen ovals into coarse filaments as they penetrated the warm atmospheric envelope of Pern. Less than mindless, they had been ejected from their barren planet toward Pern, a hideous rain that sought organic matter to nourish it into growth. One Thread, sinking into fertile soil, would burrow deep, propagating thousands in the warm earth, rendering it into a black-dusted wasteland. The southern continent of Pern had already been sucked dry. The true parasites of Pern were Threads.

A stifled roar from the throats of eighty men and dragons broke the dawn air above Nerat's green heights-as if the Threads might hear this challenge, F'lar mused.

As one, dragons swiveled their wedge-shaped heads to their riders for firestone. Great jaws macerated the hunks. The fragments were swallowed and more firestone was demanded. Inside the beasts, acids churned and the poisonous phosphines were readied. When the dragons belched forth the gas, it would ignite in the air into ravening flame to sear the Threads from the sky. And burn them from the soil.

Dragon instinct took over the moment the Threads began to fall above Nerat's shores.

As much admiration as F'lar had always held for his bronze companion, it achieved newer heights in the next hours. Beating the air in great strokes, Mnementh soared with flaming breath to meet the downrushing menace. The fumes, swept back by the wind, choked F'lar until he thought to crouch low on the lea side of the bronze neck. The dragon squealed as a Thread flicked the tip of one wing. Instantly F'lar and he ducked into between, cold, calm, black. The frozen Thread cracked off. In the flicker of an eye, they were back to face the reality of Threads.

Around him F'lar saw dragons winking in and out of between, flaming as they returned, diving, soaring. As the attack continued and they drifted across Nerat, F'lar began to recognize the pattern in the dragons' instinctive evasion-attack movements. And in the Threads. For, contrary to what he had gathered from his study of the Records, the Threads fell in patches. Not as rain will, in steady unbroken sheets, but like flurries of snow, here, above, there, whipped to one side suddenly. Never fluidly, despite the continuity their name implied.

You could see a patch above you. Flaming, your dragon would rise. You'd have the intense joy of seeing the clump shrivel from bottom to top. Sometimes, a patch would fall between riders. One dragon would signal he would follow and, spouting flame, would dive and sear.

Gradually the dragonriders worked their way over the rainforests, so densely, so invitingly green. F'lar refused to dwell on what just one live Thread burrow would do to that lush land. He would send back a low-flying patrol to quarter every foot. One Thread, just one Thread, could put out the ivory eyes of every luminous vineflower.

A dragon screamed somewhere to his left. Before he could identify the beast, it had ducked between. F'lar heard other cries of pain, from men as well as dragons. He shut his ears and concentrated, as dragons did, on the here-and-now. Would Mnementh remember those piercing cries later? F'lar wished he could forget them now.

He, F'lar, the bronze rider, felt suddenly superfluous. It was the dragons who were fighting this engagement. You encouraged your beast, comforted him when the Threads burned, but you depended on his instinct and speed.

Hot fire dripped across F'lar's cheek, burrowing like acid into his shoulder … a cry of surprised agony burst from F'lar's lips. Mnementh took them to merciful between. The dragonman battled with frantic hands at the Threads, felt them crumble in the intense cold of between and break off. Revolted, he slapped at injuries still afire. Back in Nerat's humid air, the sting seemed to ease. Mnementh crooned comfortingly and then dove at a patch, breathing fire.

Shocked at self-consideration, F'lar hurriedly examined his mount's shoulder for telltale score marks.

I duck very quickly, Mnementh told him and veered away from a dangerously close clump of Threads. A brown dragon followed them down and burned them to ash.

It might have been moments, it might have been a hundred hours later when F'lar looked down in surprise at the sunlit sea. Threads now dropped harmlessly into the salty waters. Nerat was to the east of him on his right, the rocky tip curling westward.

F'lar felt weariness in every muscle. In the excitement of frenzied battle, he had forgotten the bloody scores on cheek and shoulder. Now, as he and Mnementh glided slowly, the injuries ached and stung.

He flew Mnementh high and when they had achieved sufficient altitude, they hovered. He could see no Threads falling landward. Below him, the dragons ranged, high and low, searching for any sign of a burrow, alert for any suddenly toppling trees or disturbed vegetation.

«Back to the Weyr,» he ordered Mnementh with a heavy sigh. He heard the bronze relay the command even as he himself was taken between. He was so tired he did not even visualize where-much less, when-relying on Mnementh's instinct to bring him safely home through time and space.

CHAPTER VI

Craning her neck toward the Star Stone at Benden Peak, Lessa watched from the ledge until she saw the four wings disappear from view.

Sighing deeply to quiet her inner fears, Lessa raced down the stairs to the floor of Benden Weyr. She noticed that someone was building a fire by the lake and that Manora was already ordering her women around, her voice clear but calm.

Old C'gan had the weyrlings lined up. She caught the envious eyes of the newest dragonriders at the barracks windows. They'd have time enough to fly a flaming dragon. From what F'lar had intimated, they'd have Turns.

She shuddered as she stepped up to the weyrlings but managed to smile at them. She gave them their orders and sent them off to warn the Holds, checking quickly with each dragon to be sure the rider had given clear references. The Holds would shortly be stirred up to a froth.

Canth told her that there were Threads at Keroon, falling on the Keroon side of Nerat Bay. He told her that F'nor did not think two wings were enough to protect the meadowlands.

Lessa stopped in her tracks, trying to think how many wings were already out.

K'net's wing is still here, Ramoth informed her. On the Peak.

Lessa glanced up and saw bronze Piyanth spread his wings in answer. She told him to get between to Keroon, close to Nerat Bay. Obediently the entire wing rose and then disappeared.

She turned with a sigh to say something to Manora when a rush of wind and a vile stench almost overpowered her. The air above the Weyr was full of dragons. She was about to demand of Piyanth why he hadn't gone to Keroon when she realized there were far more beasts a-wing than K'net's twenty.

But you just left, she cried as she recognized the unmistakable bulk of bronze Mnementh.

That was two hours ago for us, Mnementh said with such weariness in his tone that Lessa closed her eyes in sympathy.

Some dragons were gliding in fast. From their awkwardness it was evident that they were hurt.

As one, the women grabbed salve pots and clean rags and beckoned the injured down. The numbing ointment was smeared on score marks where wings resembled black and red lace.

No matter how badly injured he might be, every rider tended his beast first.

Lessa kept one eye on Mnementh, sure that F'lar would not keep the huge bronze hovering like that if he'd been hurt. She was helping T'sum with Munth's cruelly pierced right wing when she realized the sky above the Star Stone was empty.

She forced herself to finish with Munth before she went to find the bronze and his rider. When she did locate them, she also saw Kylara smearing salve on F'lar's cheek and shoulder. She was advancing purposefully across the sands toward the pair when Canth's urgent plea reached her. She saw Mnementh's head swing upward as he, too, caught the brown's thought.

«F'lar, Canth says they need help,» Lessa cried. She didn't notice then that Kylara slipped away into the busy crowd.

F'lar wasn't badly hurt. She reassured herself about that. Kylara had treated the wicked burns that seemed to be shallow. Someone had found him another fur to replace the tatters of the Thread-bared one. He frowned-winced because the frown creased his burned cheek. He gulped hurriedly at his klah.

Mnementh, what's the tally of able-bodied? Oh, never mind, just get 'em aloft with a full load of firestone.

«You're all right?» Lessa asked, a detaining hand on his arm. He couldn't just go off like this, could he?

He smiled tiredly down at her, pressed his empty mug into her hands, giving them a quick squeeze. Then he vaulted to Mnementh's neck. Someone handed him a heavy load of sacks.

Blue, green, brown, and bronze dragons lifted from the Weyr Bowl in quick order. A trifle more than sixty dragons hovered briefly above the Weyr where eighty had lingered so few minutes before.

So few dragons. So few riders. How long could they take such toll?

Canth said F'nor needed more firestone. She looked about anxiously. None of the weyrlings were back yet from their messenger rounds. A dragon was crooning plaintively, and she wheeled, but it was only young Pridith, stumbling across the Weyr to the feeding grounds, butting playfully at Kylara as they walked. The only other dragons were injured or –her eye fell on C'gan, emerging from the weyrling barracks, «C'gan, can you and Tagath get more firestone to F'nor at Keroon?»

«Of course,» the old blue rider assured her, his chest lifting with pride, his eyes flashing. She hadn't thought to send him anywhere, yet he had lived his life in training for this emergency. He shouldn't be deprived of a chance at it

She smiled her approval at his eagerness as they piled heavy sacks on Tagath's neck. The old blue dragon snorted and danced as if he were young and strong again. She gave them the references Canth had visualized to her.

She watched as the two blinked out above the Star Stone.

It isn't fair. They have all the fun, said Ramoth peevishly. Lessa saw her sunning herself on the Weyr ledge, preening her enormous wings.

«You chew firestone and you're reduced to a silly green,» Lessa told her Weyrmate sharply. She was inwardly amused by the queen's disgruntled complaint

Lessa passed among the injured then. B'fol's dainty green beauty moaned and tossed her head, unable to bend one wing that had been threaded to bare cartilage. She'd be out for weeks, but she had the worst injury among the dragons. Lessa looked quickly away from the misery in B'fol's worried eyes.

As she did the rounds, she realized that more men were injured than beasts. Two in R'gul's wing had sustained serious head damages. One man might lose an eye completely. Manora had dosed him unconscious with numb-weed. Another man's arm had been burned clear to the bone. Minor though most of the wounds were, the tally dismayed Lessa. How many more would be disabled at Keroon?

Out of one hundred and seventy-two dragons, fifteen already were out of action, some only for a day or two, however.

A thought struck Lessa. If N'ton had actually ridden Canth, maybe he could ride out on the next dragonade on an injured man's beast, since there were more injured riders than dragons. F'lar broke traditions as he chose. Here was another one to set aside-if the dragon was agreeable.

Presuming N'ton was not the only new rider able to transfer to another beast, what good would such flexibility do in the long run? F'lar had definitely said the incursions would not be so frequent at first, when the Red Star was just beginning its fifty-Turn-long circling pass of Pern. How frequent was frequent? He would know, but he wasn't here.

Well, he had been right this morning about the appearance of Threads at Nerat, so his exhaustive study of those old Records had proved worthwhile.

No, that wasn't quite accurate. He had forgotten to have the men alert for signs of black dust as well as warming weather. As he had put the matter right by going between times, she would graciously allow him that minor error. But he did have an infuriating habit of guessing correctly. Lessa corrected herself again. He didn't guess. He studied. He planned. He thought and then he used common good sense. Like figuring out where and when Threads would strike according to entries in those smelly Records. Lessa began to feel better about their future.

Now, if he would just make the riders learn to trust their dragons' sure instinct in battle, they would keep casualties down, too.

A shriek pierced air and ear as a blue dragon emerged above the Star Stone.

Ramoth! Lessa screamed in an instinctive reaction, hardly knowing why. The queen was a-wing before the echo of her command had died. For the careening blue was obviously in grave trouble. He was trying to brake his forward speed, yet one wing would not function. His rider had slipped forward over the great shoulder, precariously clinging to his dragon's neck with one hand.

Lessa, her hands clapped over her mouth, watched fearfully. There wasn't a sound in the Bowl but the napping of Ramoth's immense wings. The queen rose swiftly to position herself against the desperate blue, lending him wing support on the crippled side.

The watchers gasped as the rider slipped, lost his hold, and fell-landing on Ramoth's wide shoulders.

The blue dropped like a stone. Ramoth came to a gentle stop near him, crouching low to allow the weyrfolk to remove her passenger. It was C'gan.

Lessa felt her stomach heave as she saw the ruin the Threads had made of the old harper's face. She dropped beside him, pillowing his head in her lap. The weyrfolk gathered in a respectful, silent circle.

Manora, her face, as always, serene, had tears in her eyes. She knelt and placed her hand on the old rider's heart. Concern flickered in her eyes as she looked up at Lessa. Slowly she shook her head. Then, setting her lips in a thin line, she began to apply the numbing salve.

«Too toothless old to flame and too slow to get between,» C'gan mumbled, rolling his head from side to side. 'Too old. But 'Dragomnen must fly/ when Threads are in the sky….'» His voice trailed off into a sigh. His eyes closed.

Lessa and Manora looked at each other in anguish. A terrible, ear-shattering note cut the silence. Tagath sprang aloft in a tremendous leap. C'gan's eyes rolled slowly open, sightless. Lessa, breath suspended, watched the blue dragon, trying to deny the inevitable as Tagath disappeared in mid-air.

A low moan sprang up around the Weyr, like the torn, lonely cry of a keening wind. The dragons uttered tribute.

«Is he … gone?» Lessa asked, although she knew.

Manora nodded slowly, tears streaming down her cheeks as she reached over to close C'gan's dead eyes.

Lessa rose slowly to her feet, motioning to some of the women to remove the old rider's body. Absently she rubbed her bloody hands dry on her skirts, trying to concentrate on what might be needed next.

Yet her mind turned back to what had just happened. A dragonrider had died. His dragon, too. The Threads had claimed one pair already. How many more would die this cruel Turn? How long could the Weyr survive? Even after Ramoth's forty matured, and the ones she soon would conceive, and her queendaughters, too?

Lessa walked apart to quiet her uncertainties and ease her grief. She saw Ramoth wheel and glide aloft, to land on the Peak. One day soon would Lessa see those golden wings laced red and black from Thread marks? Would Ramoth … disappear?

No, Ramoth would not. Not while Lessa lived.

F'lar had told her long ago that she must learn to look beyond the narrow confines of Hold Ruatha and mere revenge. He was, as usual, right. As Weyrwoman under his tutelage, she had further learned that living was more than raising dragons and Spring Games. Living was struggling to do something impossible-to succeed, or die, knowing you had tried!

Lessa realized that she had, at last, fully accepted her role: as Weyrwoman and as mate, to help F'lar shape men and events for many Turns to come-to secure Pern against the Threads. Lessa threw back her shoulders and lifted her chin high.

Old C'gan had had the right of it.

CHAPTER VII

As f'lar had predicted, the attack ended by high noon, and weary dragons and riders were welcomed by Ramoth's high-pitched trumpeting from the Peak. Once Lessa assured herself that F'lar had taken no additional injury, that F'nor's were superficial and that Manora was keeping Kylara busy in the kitchens, she applied herself to organizing the care of the injured and the comfort of the worried.

As dusk fell, an uneasy peace settled on the Weyr –the quiet of minds and bodies too tired or too hurtful to talk. Lessa's own words mocked her as she made out the list of wounded men and beasts. Twenty-eight men or dragons were out of the air for the next Thread battle. C'gan was the only fatality, but there had been four more seriously injured dragons at Keroon and seven badly scored men, out of action entirely for months to come.

Lessa crossed the Bowl to her Weyr, reluctant but resigned to giving F'lar this unsettling news.

She expected to find him in the sleeping room, but it was vacant. Ramoth was asleep already as Lessa passed her on the way to the Council Room-also empty. Puzzled and a little alarmed, Lessa half-ran down the steps to the Records Room, to find F'lar, haggard of face, poring over musty skins.

«What are you doing here?» she demanded angrily. «You ought to be asleep.»

«So should you,» he drawled, amused.

«I was helping Manora settle the wounded…»

«Each to his own craft.» But he did lean back from the table, rubbing his neck and rotating the uninjured shoulder to ease stiffened muscles.

«I couldn't sleep,» he admitted, «so I thought I'd see what answers I might turn up in the Records.»

«More answers? To what?» Lessa cried, exasperated with him. As if the Records ever answered anything. Obviously the tremendous responsibilities of Pern's defense against the Threads were beginning to tell on the Weyrleader. After all, there had been the stress of the first battle, not to mention the drain of the traveling between time itself to get to Nerat to forestall the Threads.

F'lar grinned and beckoned Lessa to sit beside him on the wall bench.

«I need the answer to the very pressing question of how one understrength Weyr can do the fighting of six.»

Lessa fought the panic that rose, a cold flood, from her guts.

«Oh, your time schedules will take care of that,» she replied gallantly. «You'll be able to conserve the dragon-power until the new forty can join the ranks.»

F'lar raised a mocking eyebrow. «Let us be honest between ourselves, Lessa.»

«But there have been Long Intervals before,» she argued, «and since Pern survived them. Pern can again.»

«Before there were always six Weyrs. And twenty or so Turns before the Red Star was due to begin its Pass, the queens would start to produce enormous clutches. All the queens, not just one faithful golden Ramoth. Oh, how I curse Jora!» He slammed to his feet and started pacing, irritably brushing the lock of black hair that fell across his eyes.

Lessa was torn with the desire to comfort him and the sinking, choking fear in her belly that made it difficult to think at all. «You were not so doubtful…»

He whirled back to her. «Not until I had actually had an encounter with the Threads and reckoned up the numbers of injuries. That sets the odds against us. Even supposing we can mount other riders to uninjured dragons, we will be hard put to keep a continuously effective force in the air and still maintain a ground guard.» He caught her puzzled frown. «There's Nerat to be gone over on foot tomorrow. I'd be a fool indeed if I thought we'd caught and seared every Thread in mid-air.»

«Get the Holders to do that They can't just immure themselves safely in their Inner Holds and let us do all. If they hadn't been so miserly and stupid…»

He cut off her complaint with an abrupt gesture. «They'll do their part all right,» he assured her. «I'm sending for a full Council tomorrow, all Hold Lords and all Craftmasters. But there's more to it than just marking where Threads fall. How do you destroy a burrow that's gone deep under the surface? A dragon's breath is fine for the air and surface work but no good three feet down.»

«Oh, I hadn't thought of that aspect. But the firepits…»

». . . are only on the heights and around human habitations, not on the meadowlands of Keroon or on Nerat's so green rainforests.»

This consideration was daunting indeed. She gave a rueful little laugh.

«Shortsighted of me to suppose our dragons are all poor Pern needs to dispatch the Threads. Yet . . .» She shrugged expressively. «There are other methods,» F'lar said, «or there were. There must have been. I have run across frequent mention that the Holds were organizing ground groups and that they were armed with fire. What kind is never mentioned because it was so well known.» He threw up his hands in disgust and sagged back down on the bench. «Not even five hundred dragons could have seared all the Threads that fell today. Yet they managed to keep Pern Thread-free.»

«Pern, yes, but wasn't the Southern Continent lost? Or did they just have their hands too full with Pern itself?»

«No one's bothered with the Southern Continent in a hundred thousand Turns,» F'lar snorted.

«It's on the maps,» Lessa reminded him.

He scowled disgustedly at the Records, piled in uncommunicative stacks on the long table.

«The answer must be there. Somewhere.»

There was an edge of desperation in his voice, the hint that he held himself to blame for not having discovered those elusive facts.

«Half those things couldn't be read by the man who wrote them,» Lessa said tartly. «Besides that, it's been your own ideas that have helped us most so far. You compiled the time maps, and look how valuable they have been already.»

«I'm getting too hidebound again, huh?» he asked, a half smile tugging at one comer of his mouth.

«Undoubtedly,» she assured him with more confidence than she felt. «We both know the Records are guilty of the most ridiculous omissions.»

«Well said, Lessa. So let us forget these misguiding and antiquated precepts and think up our own guides. First, we need more dragons. Second, we need them now. Third, we need something as effective as a flaming dragon to destroy Threads which have burrowed.»

«Fourth, we need sleep, or we won't be able to think of anything,» she added with a touch of her usual asperity.

F'lar laughed outright, hugging her.

«You've got your mind on one thing, haven't you?» he teased, his hands caressing her eagerly.

She pushed ineffectually at him, trying to escape. For a wounded, tired man, he was remarkably amorous. One with that Kylara. Imagine that woman's presumption, dressing his wounds.

«My responsibility as Weyrwoman includes care of you, the Weyrleader.»

«But you spend hours with blue dragonriders and leave me to Kylara's tender ministrations.»

«You didn't look as if you objected.»

F'lar threw back his head and roared. «Should I open Fort Weyr and send Kylara on?» he taunted her.

«I'd as soon Kylara were Turns as well as miles away from here,» Lessa snapped, thoroughly irritated.

F'lar's jaw dropped, his eyes widened. He leaped to his feet with an astonished cry.

«You've said it»

«Said what?»

«Turns away! That's it. We'll send Kylara back, between times, with her queen and the new dragonets.» F'lar excitedly paced the room while Lessa tried to follow his reasoning. «No, I'd better send at least one of the older bronzes. F'nor, too … I'd rather have F'nor in charge…. Discreetly, of course-«

«Send Kylara back . . . where to? When to?» Lessa interrupted him.

«Good point.» F'lar dragged out the ubiquitous charts. «Very good point. Where can we send them around here without causing anomalies by being present at one of the other Weyrs? The High Reaches are remote. No, we've found remains of fires there, you know, still warm, and no inkling as to who built them or why. And if we had already sent them back, they'd've been ready for today, and they weren't. So they can't have been in two places already. . . .» He shook his head, dazed by the paradoxes.

Lessa's eyes were drawn to the blank outline of the neglected Southern Continent. «Send them there,» she suggested sweetly, pointing. «There's nothing there.»

«They bring in what they need. There must be water, for Threads can't devour that. We fly in whatever else is needed, fodder for the herdbeasts, grain. . . .»

F'lar drew his brows together in concentration, his eyes sparkling with thought, the depression and defeat of a few moments ago forgotten.

«Threads wouldn't be there ten Turns ago. And haven't been there for close to four hundred. Ten Turns would give Pridith time to mature and have several clutches. Maybe more queens.»

Then he frowned and shook his head dubiously. «No, there's no Weyr there. No Hatching Ground, no …»

«How do we know that?» Lessa caught him up sharply, too delighted with many aspects of this project to give it up easily. «The Records don't mention the Southern Continent, true, but they omit a great deal. How do we know it isn't green again in the four hundred Turns since the Threads last spun? We do know that Threads can't last long unless there is something organic on which to feed and that once they've devoured all, they dry up and blow away.»

F'lar looked at her admiringly. «Now, why hasn't someone wondered about that before?»

«Too hidebound.» Lessa wagged her finger at him. «Besides, there's been no need to bother with it.»

«Necessity-or is it jealousy?-hatches many a tough shell.» There was a smile of pure malice on his face, and Lessa whirled away as he reached for her.

«The good of the Weyr,» she retorted.

«Furthermore, I'll send you along with F'nor tomorrow to look. Only fair, since it is your idea.»

Lessa stood still. «You're not going?»

«I feel confident I can leave this project in your very capable, interested hands.» He laughed and caught her against his uninjured side, smiling down at her, his eyes glowing. «I must play ruthless Weyrleader and keep the Hold Lords from slamming shut their Inner Doors. And I'm hoping»-he raised his head, frowning slightly-«one of the Craftmasters may know the solution to the third problem-getting rid of Thread burrows.»

«But…»

«The trip will give Ramoth something to stop her fuming.» He pressed the girl's slender body more closely to him, his full attention at last on her odd, delicate face. «Lessa, you are my fourth problem.» He bent to kiss her.

At the sound of hurried steps in the passageway, F'lar scowled irritably, releasing her.

«At this hour?» he muttered, ready to reprove the intruder scathingly. «Who goes there?»

«F'lar?» It was F'nor's voice, anxious, hoarse.

The look on F'lar's face told Lessa that not even his half brother would be spared a reprimand, and it pleased her irrationally. But the moment F'nor burst into the room, both Weyrleader and Weyrwoman were stunned silent. There was something subtly wrong with the brown rider. And as the man blurted out his incoherent message, the difference suddenly registered in Lessa's mind. He was tanned! He wore no bandages and hadn't the slightest trace of the Thread-mark along his cheek that she had tended this evening!

«F'lar, it's not working out! You can't be alive in two times at once!» F'nor was exclaiming distractedly. He staggered against the wall, grabbing the sheer rock to hold himself upright. There were deep circles under his eyes, visible despite the tan. «I don't know how much longer we can last like this. We're all affected. Some days not as badly as others.»

«I don't understand.»

«Your dragons are all right,» F'nor assured the Weyrleader with a bitter laugh. «It doesn't bother them. They keep all they wits about them. But their riders … all the weyrfolk . . . we're shadows, half alive, like dragonless men, part of us gone forever. Except Kylara.» His face contorted with intense dislike. «All she wants to do is go back and watch herself. The woman's egomania will destroy us all, I'm afraid.»

His eyes suddenly lost focus, and he swayed wildly. His eyes widened, and his mouth fell open. «I can't stay. I'm here already. Too close. Makes it twice as bad. But I had to warn you. I promise, F'lar, we'll stay as long as we can, but it won't be much longer … so it won't be long enough, but we tried. We tried!»

Before F'lar could move, the brown rider whirled and ran, half-crouched, from the room.

«But he hasn't gone yet!» Lessa gasped. «He hasn't even gone yet!»