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“However, he has come back. So he did go,” F’lar remarked slowly in a reflective tone of voice. “Yet we now know the venture is not entirely successful even before it begins. And knowing this, we have sent him back ten Turns for whatever good it is doing.” F’lar paused thoughtfully. “Consequently we have no alternative but to continue with the experiment.”
“But what could be going wrong?”
“I think I know and there is no remedy.” He sat down beside her, his eyes intent on hers. “Lessa, you were very upset when you got back from going between to Ruatha that first time. But I think now it was more than just the shock of seeing Fax’s men invading your own Hold or in thinking your return might have been responsible for that disaster. I think it has to do with being in two times at once.” He hesitated again, trying to understand this immense new concept even as he voiced it.
Lessa regarded him with such awe that he found himself laughing with embarrassment.
“It’s unnerving under any conditions,” he went on, “to think of returning and seeing a younger self.”
“That must be what he meant about Kylara,” Lessa gasped, “about her wanting to go back and watch herself . . . as a child. Oh, that wretched girl!” Lessa was filled with anger for Kylara’s self-absorption. “Wretched, selfish creature. She’ll ruin everything.”
“Not yet,” F’lar reminded her. “Look, although F’nor warned us that the situation in his time is getting desperate, he didn’t tell us how much he was able to accomplish. But you noticed that his scar had healed to invisibility—consequently some Turns must have elapsed. Even if Pridith lays only one good-sized clutch, even if just the forty of Ramoth’s are mature enough to fight in three days’ time, we have accomplished something. Therefore, Weyrwoman,” and he noticed how she straightened up at the sound of her title, “we must disregard F’nor’s return. When you fly to the Southern Continent tomorrow, make no allusion to it. Do you understand?”
Lessa nodded gravely and then gave a little sigh. “I don’t know if I’m happy or disappointed to realize, even before we get there tomorrow, that the Southern Continent obviously will support a Weyr,” she said with dismay. “It was kind of exciting to wonder.”
“Either way,” F’lar told her with a sardonic smile, “we have found only part of the answers to problems one and two.”
“Well, you’d better answer number four right now!” Lessa suggested. “Decisively!”
Weaver, Miner, Harper, Smith,
Tanner, Farmer, Herdsman, Lord,
Gather, wingsped, listen well
To the Weyrman’s urgent word.
THEY BOTH MANAGED to guard against any reference to his premature return when they spoke to F’nor the next morning. F’lar asked brown Canth to send his rider to the queen’s weyr as soon as he awoke and was pleased to see F’nor almost immediately. If the brown rider noticed the curiously intent stare Lessa gave his bandaged face, he gave no sign of it. As a matter of fact, the moment F’lar outlined the bold venture of scouting the Southern Continent with the possibility of starting a Weyr ten Turns back in time, F’nor forgot all about his wounds.
“I’ll go willingly only if you send T’bor along with Kylara. I’m not waiting till N’ton and his bronze are big enough to take her on. T’bor and she are as—” F’nor broke off with a grimace in Lessa’s direction. “Well, they’re as near a pair as can be. I don’t object to being . . . importuned, but there are limits to what a man is willing to do out of loyalty to dragonkind.”
F’lar barely managed to restrain the amusement he felt over F’nor’s reluctance. Kylara tried her wiles on every rider, and, because F’nor had not been amenable, she was determined to succeed with him.
“I hope two bronzes are enough. Pridith may have a mind of her own, come mating time.”
“You can’t turn a brown into a bronze!” F’nor exclaimed with such dismay that F’lar could no longer restrain himself.
“Oh, stop it!” And that touched off Lessa’s laughter. “You’re as bad a pair,” F’nor snapped, getting to his feet. “If we’re going south, Weyrwoman, we’d better get started. Particularly if we’re going to give this laughing maniac a chance to compose himself before the solemn Lords descend. I’ll get provisions from Manora. Well, Lessa? Are you coming with me?”
Muffling her laughter, Lessa grabbed up her furred flying cloak and followed him. At least the adventure was starting off well.
Carrying the pitcher of klah and his cup, F’lar adjourned to the Council Room, debating whether to tell the Lords and Craftmasters of this southern venture or not. The dragons’ ability to fly between times as well as places was not yet well-known. The Lords might not realize it had been used the previous day to forestall the Threads. If F’lar could be sure that project was going to be successful—well, it would add an optimistic note to the meeting.
Let the charts, with the waves and times of the Thread attacks clearly visible, reassure the Lords.
The visitors were not long in assembling. Nor were they all successful in hiding their apprehension and the shock they had received now that Threads had again spun down from the Red Star to menace all life on Pern. This was going to be a difficult session, F’lar decided grimly. He had a fleeting wish, which he quickly suppressed, that he had gone with F’nor and Lessa to the Southern Continent. Instead, he bent with apparent industry to the charts before him.
Soon there were but two more to come, Meron of Nabol (whom he would have liked not to include, for the man was a troublemaker) and Lytol of Ruatha. F’lar had sent for Lytol last because he did not wish Lessa to encounter the man. She was still overly—and, to his mind, foolishly—sensitive at having had to resign her claim to Ruatha Hold for the Lady Gemma’s posthumous son. Lytol, as Warder of Ruatha, had a place in this conference. The man was also an ex-dragonman, and his return to the Weyr was painful enough without Lessa’s compounding it with her resentment. Lytol was, with the exception of young Larad of Telgar, the Weyr’s most valuable ally.
S’lel came in with Meron a step behind him. The Holder was furious at this summons; it showed in his walk, in his eyes, in his haughty bearing. But he was also as inquisitive as he was devious. He nodded only to Larad among the Lords and took the seat left vacant for him by Larad’s side. Meron’s manner made it obvious that that place was too close to F’lar by half a room.
The Weyrleader acknowledged S’lel’s salute and indicated the bronze rider should be seated. F’lar had given thought to the seating arrangements in the Council Room, carefully interspersing brown and bronze dragonriders with Holders and Craftsmen. There was now barely room to move in the generously proportioned cavern, but there was also no room in which to draw daggers if tempers got hot.
A hush fell on the gathering, and F’lar looked up to see that the stocky, glowering ex-dragonman from Ruatha had stopped on the threshold of the Council. He slowly brought his hand up in a respectful salute to the Weyrleader. As F’lar returned the salute, he noticed that the tic in Lytol’s left cheek jumped almost continuously.
Lytol’s eyes, dark with pain and inner unquiet, ranged the room. He nodded to the members of his former wing, to Larad and Zurg, head of his own weavers’ craft. Stiff-legged, he walked to the remaining seat, murmuring a greeting to T’sum on his left.
F’lar rose.
“I appreciate your coming, good Lords and Craftmasters. The Threads spin once again. The first attack has been met and seared from the sky. Lord Vincet,” and the worried Holder of Nerat looked up in alarm, “we have dispatched a patrol to the rainforest to do a low-flight sweep to make certain there are no burrows.”
Vincet swallowed nervously, his face paling at the thought of what Threads could do to his fertile, lush holdings.
“We shall need your best junglemen to help—”
“Help? But you said . . . the Threads were seared in the sky?”
“There is no point in taking the slightest chance,” F’lar replied, implying that the patrol was on
ly a precaution instead of the necessity he knew it would be.
Vincet gulped, glancing anxiously around the room for sympathy, and found none. Everyone would soon be in his position.
“There is a patrol due at Keroon and at Igen.” F’lar looked first at Lord Corman, then at Lord Banger, who gravely nodded. “Let me say by way of reassurance that there will be no further attacks for three days and four hours.” F’lar tapped the appropriate chart. “The Threads will begin approximately here on Telgar, drift westward through the southernmost portion of Crom, which is mountainous, and on, through Ruatha and the southern end of Nabol.”
“How can you be so certain of that?”
F’lar recognized the contemptuous voice of Meron of Nabol.
“The Threads do not fall like a child’s jackstraws, Lord Meron,” F’lar replied. “They fall in a definitely predictable pattern; the attacks last exactly six hours. The intervals between attacks will gradually shorten over the next few Turns as the Red Star draws closer. Then, for about forty full Turns, as the Red Star swings past and around us, the attacks occur every fourteen hours, marching across our world in a timeable fashion.”
“So you say,” Meron sneered, and there was a low mumble of support.
“So the Teaching Ballads say,” Larad put in firmly.
Meron glared at Telgar’s Lord and went on, “I recall another of your predictions about how the Threads were supposed to begin falling right after Solstice.”
“Which they did,” F’lar interrupted him. “As black dust in the Northern Holds. For the reprieve we’ve had, we can thank our lucky stars that we have had an unusually hard and long Cold Turn.”
“Dust?” demanded Nessel of Crom. “That dust was Threads?” The man was one of Fax’s blood connections and under Meron’s influence: an older man who had learned lessons from his conquering relative’s bloody ways and had not the wit to improve on or alter the original. “My Hold is still blowing with them. They’re dangerous?”
F’lar shook his head emphatically. “How long has the black dust been blowing in your Hold? Weeks? Done any harm yet?”
Nessel frowned.
“I’m interested in your charts, Weyrleader,” Larad of Telgar said smoothly. “Will they give us an accurate idea of how often we may expect Threads to fall in our own Holds?”
“Yes. You may also anticipate that the dragonmen will arrive shortly before the invasion is due,” F’lar went on. “However, additional measures of your own are necessary, and it is for this that I called the Council.”
“Wait a minute,” Corman of Keroon growled. “I want a copy of those fancy charts of yours for my own. I want to know what those bands and wavy lines really mean. I want . . .”
“Naturally you’ll have a timetable of your own. I mean to impose on Masterharper Robinton”—F’lar nodded respectfully toward that Craftmaster—“to oversee the copying and make sure everyone understands the timing involved.”
Robinton, a tall, gaunt man with a lined, saturnine face, bowed deeply. A slight smile curved his wide lips at the now hopeful glances favored him by the Hold Lords. His craft, like that of the dragonmen, had been much mocked, and this new respect amused him. He was a man with a keen eye for the ridiculous, and an active imagination. The circumstances in which doubting Pern found itself were too ironic not to appeal to his innate sense of justice. He now contented himself with a deep bow and a mild phrase.
“Truly all shall pay heed to the master.” His voice was deep, his words enunciated with no provincial slurring.
F’lar, about to speak, looked sharply at Robinton as he caught the double barb of that single line. Larad, too, looked around at the Masterharper, clearing his throat hastily.
“We shall have our charts,” Larad said, forestalling Meron, who had opened his mouth to speak. “We shall have the dragonmen when the Threads spin. What are these additional measures? And why are they necessary?”
All eyes were on F’lar again.
“We have one Weyr where six once flew.”
“But word is that Ramoth has hatched over forty more,” someone in the back of the room declared. “And why did you Search out still more of our young men?”
“Forty-one as yet unmatured dragons,” F’lar said. Privately, he hoped that this southern venture would still work out. There was real fear in that man’s voice. “They grow well and quickly. Just at present, while the Threads do not strike with great frequency as the Red Star begins its Pass, our Weyr is sufficient . . . if we have your cooperation on the ground. Tradition is that”—he nodded tactfully toward Robinton, the dispenser of Traditional usage—“you Holders are responsible for only your dwellings, which, of course, are adequately protected by firepits and raw stone. However, it is spring and our heights have been allowed to grow wild with vegetation. Arable land is blossoming with crops. This presents vast acreage vulnerable to the Threads which one Weyr, at this time, is not able to patrol without severely draining the vitality of our dragons and riders.”
At this candid admission, a frightened and angry mutter spread rapidly throughout the room.
“Ramoth rises to mate again soon,” F’lar continued in a matter-of-fact way. “Of course, in other times, the queens started producing heavy clutches many Turns before the critical solstice as well as more queens. Unfortunately, Jora was ill and old, and Nemorth intractable. The matter—” He was interrupted.
“You dragonmen with your high and mighty airs will bring destruction on us all!”
“You have yourselves to blame,” Robinton’s voice stabbed across the ensuing shouts. “Admit it, one and all. You’ve paid less honor to the Weyr than you would your watch-wher’s kennel—and that not much! But now the thieves are on the heights, and you are screaming because the poor reptile is nigh to death from neglect. Beat him, will you? When you exiled him to his kennel because he tried to warn you? Tried to get you to prepare against the invaders? It’s on your conscience, not the Weyrleader’s or the dragonriders’, who have honestly done their duty these hundreds of Turns in keeping dragonkind alive . . . against your protests. How many of you”—his tone was scathing—“have been generous in thought and favor toward dragonkind? Even since I became master of my craft, how often have my harpers told me of being beaten for singing the old songs as is their duty? You earn only the right, good Lords and Craftsmen, to squirm inside your stony Holds and writhe as your crops die a-borning.”
He rose.
“ ‘No Threads will fall. It’s a harper’s winter tale,’ “ he whined, in faultless imitation of Nessel. “ ‘These dragonmen leech us of heir and harvest,’ “ and his voice took on the constricted, insinuating tenor that could only be Meron’s. “And now the truth is as bitter as a brave man’s fears and as difficult as mockweed to swallow. For all the honor you’ve done them, the dragonmen should leave you to be spun on the Threads’ distaff.”
“Bitra, Lemos, and I,” spoke up Raid, the wiry Lord of Benden, his blunt chin lifted belligerently, “have always done our duty to the Weyr.”
Robinton swung around to him, his eyes flashing as he gave that speaker a long, slow look.
“Aye, and you have. Of all the Great Holds, you three have been loyal. But you others,” and his voice rose indignantly, “as spokesmen for my craft, I know, to the last full stop in the score, your opinion of dragonkind. I heard the first whisper of your attempt to ride out against the Weyr.” He laughed harshly and pointed a long finger at Vincet. “Where would you be today, good Lord Vincet, if the Weyr had not sent you packing back, hoping your ladies would be returned you? All of you,” and his accusing finger marked each of the Lords of that abortive effort, “actually rode against the Weyr because . . . ‘there . . . were . . . no . . . more . . . Threads!”
He planted his fists on either hip and glared at the assembly. F’lar wanted to cheer. It was easy to see why the man was Masterharper, and he thanked circumstance that such a man was the Weyr’s partisan.
“And now, at this critical
moment, you have the incredible presumption to protest against any measure the Weyr suggests?” Robinton’s supple voice oozed derision and amazement. “Attend what the Weyrleader says and spare him your petty carpings!” He snapped those words out as a father might enjoin an erring child. “You were,” and he switched to the mildest of polite conversational tones as he addressed F’lar, “I believe, asking our cooperation, good F’lar? In what capacities?”
F’lar hastily cleared his throat.
“I shall require that the Holds police their own fields and woods, during the attacks if possible, definitely once the Threads have passed. All burrows which might land must be found, marked, and destroyed. The sooner they are located, the easier it is to be rid of them.”
“There’s no time to dig firepits through all the lands . . . we’ll lose half our growing space,” Nessel exclaimed.
“There were other ways, used in olden times, which I believe our Mastersmith might know.” F’lar gestured politely toward Fandarel, the archetype of his profession if ever such existed.
The Smith Craftmaster was by several inches the tallest man in the Council Room, his massive shoulders and heavily muscled arms pressed against his nearest neighbors, although he had made an effort not to crowd against anyone. He rose, a giant tree-stump of a man, hooking thumbs like beast-horns in the thick belt that spanned his waistless midsection. His voice, by no means sweet after Turns of bellowing above roaring hearths and hammers, was, by comparison to Robinton’s superb delivery, a diluted, unsupported light baritone.
“There were machines, that much is true,” he allowed in deliberate, thoughtful tones. “My father, it was he, told me of them as a curiosity of the Craft. There may be sketches in the Hall. There may not. Such things do not keep on skins for long.” He cast an oblique look under beetled brows at the Tanner Craftmaster.
“It is our own hides we must worry about preserving,” F’lar remarked to forestall any intercraft disputes.
Fandarel grumbled in his throat in such a way that F’lar was not certain whether the sound was the man’s laughter or a guttural agreement.
