Todd McCaffrey

by Dragonriders of Pern 03 - Dragongirl (v5)

  The other? Fiona glanced around furtively to see if any of the wingleaders had noted the exchange and was surprised at her sense of disappointment when she realized they hadn’t. Men, she snorted disgustedly before glancing back up to the headwoman, her eyebrows raised in inquiry.

  “Think Tenniz was the only one with gifts?” Shaneese asked. “You’re the right age and you’ve been trying so hard—wouldn’t be surprised if you had two.”

  “That’d be a good start,” Fiona said.

  Shaneese smiled, saying, “I suppose it would, for you, at that.” She reached over, grabbed a moisture-beaded pitcher, snagged a clear glass, and deftly poured a large helping of the juice, placing it near Fiona’s right hand and the pitcher just above it. “Be sure you drink at least two glasses, then,” Shaneese ordered. “Every meal.”

  “But you’ve never …?” Fiona uttered, trailing off in surprise. She judged Shaneese to be within ten Turns of her own age and not yet a mother.

  “I’ve a mother and sisters,” Shaneese replied. She glanced openly toward T’mar and added in a poorly concealed tone of joy and surprise, “After L’rat, I never thought the right one would come along for me.”

  Fiona hefted her juice glass, half-turned and raised it high in salute to the headwoman before draining it in one go. She put the glass back down on the table, her brows raised in surprise as she exclaimed, “Tart but sweet!”

  “Good for you, too,” Shaneese said, reaching over to refill her glass pointedly. Dutifully Fiona emptied the second glass. As she reached for the pitcher of klah, Shaneese warned, “You might want to be careful with that, I’ve heard it said that some babies’ll keep their parents awake at night if they’ve had too much.”

  “It’s better to be awake at night than asleep in the day,” Fiona said, punctuating her words with a wide yawn. She poured the klah and gratefully downed a portion before adding, “I don’t know how I’d survive without this.”

  “Talk to Bekka and Birentir before you get too far along,” Shaneese said, resting a comforting hand on the Weyrwoman’s shoulder.

  Fiona turned again to look up at her questioningly.

  Shaneese responded with a troubled look, then leaned down close to Fiona’s ear to confide worriedly, “This may not be the best time for you.” Fiona’s eyes widened but she said nothing. “If that’s so, there’s ways—”

  “Ways?”

  “‘Seven breaths between keeps a body flat and lean’ is what I’ve heard,” Shaneese said, her tone devoid of any emotion.

  “I’d heard eleven,” Fiona said. “Are you saying that I should be careful going between?”

  “At least you should know your choices,” Shaneese said. She gestured toward the pitcher of klah. “You’ve still no understanding of why you’re so tired—”

  “Nor does T’mar!”

  “But he’s not growing a baby, is he?”

  “No, just flying Thread,” Fiona reminded her, surprised at her own clashing emotions. She was irritated at the headwoman’s suggestion; she knew what she was doing and why, but she hadn’t considered that her weariness might provide complications. Come to think of it, was there a correlation between the tired riders and injuries? She glanced at the wingleaders, saw T’mar and F’jian both stifle yawns—which, Fiona conceded, could just as easily be from their ongoing fatigue as from their exertions flying Thread. She made a note to herself to follow the issue up later.

  “I’ll support you either way, Fiona,” Shaneese said, grasping some of the younger woman’s feelings better than the Weyrwoman did herself, “but I’d be remiss if I didn’t make you aware of your options and your risks.”

  “Thank you,” Fiona said, aware that her tone was stiff but unable to control it. The thought of terminating the pregnancy was nearly as frightening as the thought of losing it to her fatigue.

  Shaneese rubbed her shoulder affectionately. “Talk to Bekka and Birentir, they’ll know better.”

  “I will.”

  Shaneese moved away, not without a worried glance back over her shoulder as she left. Fiona returned to her breakfast, switching partway through her mug of klah to another glass of the juice, somewhat surprised that the smell of the klah wasn’t as pleasant this morning as it usually was.

  As she self-consciously chewed on a roll, Fiona found herself paying more attention to the wingleaders’ discussion. It was a moment before she realized that they had stopped and were staring at her.

  “I asked, Weyrwoman,” T’mar told her with a smile, “if you knew the strength of High Reaches?”

  “Ninety-two,” she replied quickly to disprove any notion that she might not be fully alert. A moment later she added, “Ninety-four later, when two of their wounded are cleared back to flying.”

  “And don’t forget that five of our own injured should be cleared tomorrow,” F’jian said, glancing pointedly toward H’nez. “We’ll have fifty-five then.”

  “Less than two Wings.”

  “Benden will have another five as well tomorrow,” Fiona said. “So that’ll give them over three Wings—three and a half.”

  There was a moment of polite silence before T’mar cleared his throat, saying, “Yes, we’d already mentioned that.”

  “Oh,” Fiona said, sitting back in her chair, feeling heat rise in her cheeks even as she explained, “I was talking with Shaneese.”

  H’nez glanced pointedly away from her and back toward T’mar. “So the fighting strength of all Pern”—he cast a glance quickly in Fiona’s direction—“tomorrow will be four hundred and seventy-nine.”

  “That’s over five Flights,” C’tov pointed out.

  “And yet we should expect at this moment to have better than eighteen Flights with all six Weyrs,” T’mar said with a sigh and an acknowledging look toward H’nez. “We know the situation is grave, but it is less than it was when the sickness was taking dragons every day.”

  H’nez turned to Fiona. “Was there ever a time, in all the Records that you read, that a Weyr’s fighting strength was less than a Flight?”

  Fiona shook her head. “Igen had a time in the Interval when it was down to two Flights, but that’s the worst I recall.”

  “And their solution was to merge with Telgar,” T’mar said, grimacing.

  H’nez nodded, returning his gaze to Fiona as he asked, “And so, even given that we survive the next Fall, on what do you base your hopes that Pern will find the missing Flights—more than four Weyrs’ worth—before we are all annihilated?”

  Fiona shook her head in painful admission of her ignorance. The other bronze riders shot angry glances at H’nez, but there was no dodging the question. “I don’t have anything,” Fiona told him slowly, “beyond a feeling, a determination that somehow we will prevail.” She paused before reminding him, “Just as we prevailed against the sickness.”

  “I, for one, will go on fighting with my very last breath,” C’tov told the older rider firmly.

  “He knows that,” Fiona told him sadly. H’nez raised his eyebrows in surprise. She nodded at the other riders, adding, “He knows that you’ll all give your lives to protect Pern.”

  “That’s not the question,” H’nez said in confirmation.

  Fiona locked eyes with him. “The question you want answered is: Who will watch over your child when you are no longer. The answer is: I will.”

  Mutters went around the table. “Child?” “H’nez?”

  The bronze rider broke away from Fiona’s gaze, his face flushing as he met the eyes of his fellow wingleaders and nodded mutely.

  “Congratulations, man!” C’tov said, rising from his chair and patting the older rider hard on the shoulder, his face split ear to ear with a huge smile. “I can see why you’re concerned!”

  “But it also means you’ve got something to live for,” F’jian added, trying to puzzle out why the wingleader was so glum.

  “I think our ancestors, back when the first Threads destroyed their crops and their dwellings, must have felt
the same way,” Fiona said to H’nez. “And they found a way to overcome the menace.”

  H’nez turned back to look at her. “Dragons.”

  “And watch-whers,” a new voice spoke up, closing in from the exit to the Weyr Bowl. It was Kindan. He nodded toward Fiona and H’nez and pulled up a seat opposite the wiry bronze rider. “You know what killed Lorana’s queen, H’nez?”

  The bronze rider shook his head.

  “She didn’t know it at the time,” he went on, his expression bleak, “but one of the four vials was meant to be kept separate.” A sour look crossed his face, which he schooled away with effort. “The vials were mixed up and we didn’t know …”

  He shook himself out of his grim reverie. “The fourth vial was meant to make a watch-wher into a dragon.”

  “So if we lose all our dragons, we could start over?” C’tov asked.

  “Only if there were still watch-whers,” H’nez muttered.

  “Does Nuella know?” Fiona asked.

  Kindan nodded.

  “Good,” Fiona said to herself. She glanced back to H’nez. “So there is still reason to hope, as much or more than our ancestors had.”

  “How are the weyrlings?” T’mar asked of Kindan, to change the subject.

  “They’re doing well,” the harper said. Adding, with a grin, “Xhinna is showing her mettle.”

  “A woman riding a blue,” H’nez muttered darkly.

  “The dragon chooses its rider,” Fiona reminded him.

  “Strange dragon,” the wiry rider said.

  “We’ll see,” T’mar said, turning back to Kindan. “But we’ve Turns yet.”

  “If we sent them back in time—” F’jian began.

  “Igen was the only unused Weyr and we filled it with our injured,” T’mar said.

  “Well,” F’jian said, groping for a solution and looking up, eyes bright with sudden inspiration, “why not send them forward in time, to after the Fall?”

  H’nez’s dark look made it clear to Fiona what he was thinking: assuming anyone lives.

  “How?” C’tov asked the younger bronze rider.

  “It’s too far a jump,” T’mar said. “It was dangerous enough”—he shot Fiona an accusing look—“to go back ten Turns in time; but to go forward fifty?” He shook his head at the impossibility of it.

  “I suppose so,” F’jian agreed, his shoulders slumping.

  “But don’t stop thinking,” Fiona told him encouragingly. “There may be something we haven’t yet considered that could help.”

  “I’m not sure it would be a good idea to send the weyrlings away,” T’mar said. “It was far too great a risk the last time.”

  “We needed them,” Fiona said. “If we hadn’t done it, imagine where we’d be now.”

  “And it was K’lior’s idea,” F’jian said, partly in the Weyrwoman’s defense.

  “It was K’lior’s suggestion that the least injured go back in time,” T’mar replied quellingly. He glanced toward Fiona, adding, “Someone decided to lead the weyrlings and the most injured back in time as well.”

  “Which only emphasizes the need of them,” Fiona responded tartly. “Besides, Weyrleader, we know that it wasn’t my idea, so you can stop with the accusing glares!”

  T’mar pursed his lips sourly and sat back in his chair, flipping open a hand in a gesture of defeat.

  “Anyway,” C’tov went on, returning to the original subject, “with all the eggs on the sands at all the Weyrs we’ve only got—what?—another three Wings?”

  “Twenty-two eggs, one queen in each of the five clutches,” Kindan said, glancing meaningfully toward first T’mar and then Fiona. “One hundred and five fighting dragons and five queens.”

  “Well, five queens would be a help,” F’jian said. Fiona caught his eyes and the bronze rider flushed—it was an open secret that he was hoping Terin would Impress the queen from Tolarth’s clutch.

  “In three Turns, when they rise,” H’nez remarked sourly.

  “But with the Hatching, our queens will soon rise again,” Fiona said. The others looked at her. “The Records show that the queens usually rise twice a Turn, sometimes as many as three.”

  “All of which might”—H’nez began and corrected himself when he caught Fiona’s arch look—“will help us in the Turns to come but …” He shrugged.

  “It’s not wise to count your eggs before they hatch,” T’mar told F’jian in a reproving tone whose sting was softened by his grin.

  The younger bronze rider accepted the rebuke with an easy shrug.

  T’mar sat forward decisively, glancing toward Fiona. “The Hatchings will be soon?”

  “Probably tomorrow,” Fiona said. She glanced toward Kindan for confirmation as she added, “The Records are very firm that Hatching occurs five weeks after clutching.”

  “It’s very consistent,” Kindan agreed.

  “I remember, from the Teaching Ballads,” C’tov said, frowning as he recited:

  “Count three months and more,

  And five heated weeks,

  A day of glory and

  In a month, who seeks?”

  He glanced toward Kindan, asking, “I’ve always wondered about the last two lines—what do they mean?”

  C’tov’s question sent a chill through Fiona; she’d heard this only days before from Lorana—and read it in the Records even earlier. What did it mean? Clearly it meant something special, that she, Lorana, and now C’tov remarked upon it. She sat back and let the rest of the conversation spill over her, engrossed in thought.

  “A day of glory—that’s the Hatching,” H’nez told him chidingly.

  “I figured that,” C’tov said with a dismissive glower for the older rider before returning his attention to Kindan, “but what about the last bit: ‘In a month, who seeks?’”

  “Well,” Kindan said with a wry look toward Fiona, “the current thinking is that the last line is merely a harper’s twiddle said to make the whole verse rhyme.”

  “And how many of the Teaching Ballads are riddled with such twiddles?” H’nez asked archly.

  “It’s easier to remember that which rhymes and trips off the tongue, H’nez,” Kindan said without any hint of apology in his tone. “As far as I can recall, though, all the other Teaching Ballads are without embellishments.”

  “So what makes this an embellishment?” C’tov asked.

  Kindan shrugged. “If it’s not, I can’t decipher its meaning.”

  “Maybe that’s when dragons can go between,” Fiona spoke up into the uneasy silence that had fallen. The others turned to her incredulously.

  “I suppose it’s possible,” T’mar said. He glanced toward Kindan with a warning look as he added, “But I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  “We had Impressed not much more than two months before we went back in time to Igen,” F’jian said.

  “And I still wouldn’t recommend it,” T’mar reminded him with a quelling look.

  “Anyway, even if they were old enough to go between,” C’tov said thoughtfully, “they’d be too small to fight Thread.”

  “Too small to carry firestone!” F’jian snorted in agreement.

  “Two Turns at least,” H’nez agreed tersely, looking toward T’mar. “Three is better.”

  “Two in a pinch,” T’mar said.

  “And we’re in a pinch, there’s no doubt!” F’jian exclaimed.

  T’mar nodded, then glanced at Fiona with a sad look. The Weyrwoman needed no dragon to interpret it: Two Turns or three—either was too long for Pern.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Eyes faceted,

  Eyes fearful.

  Hearts beating:

  Beat as one.

  Telgar Weyr, evening, AL 508.6.25

  Fiona smiled as she spied a glint off the red-blond hair of the figure walking through the entrance into the Hatching Grounds as the last rays of sun filtered through the Weyr Bowl that night.

  “I figured you’d be here,” she called out, waving T
erin over to her, not worried about disturbing the group of weyrchildren clustered nearby—they were not sleeping, too excited at the prospect of the Hatching the next day; most likely, in the morning.

  “F’jian sent me,” Terin said, her tone mixed with anger and fear. She gave Fiona an anxious look. “But I’m too young!”

  “You’re not much younger than I was when I Impressed Talenth,” Fiona said. “And you’re older than both Xhinna and Taria.”

  “But they didn’t Impress a queen.”

  “I don’t think age chooses color,” Fiona replied, chuckling.

  Terin glanced around nervously, even as baskets of glows were turned over to add their illumination to the dimming light. “There are a lot of girls here!”

  “I’m not sure that all of them are hoping for queens,” Fiona said.

  “Why not?”

  Fiona laughed. “You’d think every girl would wish to ride a gold, but I think, with Xhinna’s example, some have realized that they could actually fight Thread.”

  “Queens fight Thread.”

  “In the queens’ wing,” Fiona agreed. “When there are enough of them, and at a relatively safe level.”

  Terin frowned at her. “I read the Records at Igen—”

  “You did?” Fiona asked. “When?”

  “When you were off gallivanting around or stuck in exile as watchqueen,” Terin snapped in reply. “And I read enough to know that those queens in the queens’ wing, while not chewing firestone, weren’t exempt from scoring and injury.”

  Fiona nodded, surprised that the youngster had taken note—it was not something often mentioned. Fiona suspected that part of that was because the Werywomen traditionally kept the Records—they certainly edited them!—and did not want to make the dangers of the queens’ wing too apparent to any nervous Weyrleader.

  “Still,” Fiona said, conceding Terin’s point with a shrug, “it’s not the same as flying in a fighting Wing.”

  “Yes, I can see that,” Terin said, swiveling her head to gaze at the ranks of smaller eggs set not so close to Tolarth’s watchful gaze. Fiona could follow her thinking, her indecision as the temptation of flying firestone together with F’jian formed in her mind, and could see the slight shake of her head when Terin decided that she’d prefer to be a queen rider.