The Chronicles Of Pern: First Fall

The second weyr

You were over there again, weren't you?" Sorka said to Torene in an amused undertone as the young queen rider sauntered past the Weyrwoman on her way to the day hearth. The lower cavern was deserted at this hour: well past midday and not yet time to prepare the evening meal.

Torene grinned over her shoulder at Sorka as she continued to the hearth. She served herself some soup from the big pot, broke off a wedge of bread, and came back to the table where Sorka was also having a late lunch. She swung one of her elegantly leather-clad long legs over the low chair back and sat down, neatly putting her meal in front of her, all in one graceful movement.

"How'd you guess?"

Sorka had to grin at the girl's insouciance. Torene hovered on the edge of impudence but never quite offended. Of course that would have given both Sorka and Sean reasons to reprimand her, but she seemed instinctively to know the limits. Sorka would have been particularly loath to bring her up sharp because she, who had been a reserved child in the restricted society she had been born into on Earth, admired Torene's candid charismatic manner and her irrepressible gaiety. Sean found those traits less easy to deal with, but then, he was obsessed with the responsibilities of the Weyr and the nurture and care of the dragons, and he had never been very lighthearted to begin with.

Sean generally knew everything that went on in the Weyr, sooner or later. He certainly knew that there was great interest in the east coast crater that was touted as the next official base for dragonriders. But Sorka didn't think he was aware of how often hopeful riders went to survey these likely premises.

Establishing another Weyr was no longer an idle notion but an urgent need. Fort's accommodations were terribly overcrowded, even when they sent wings to live temporarily in the less-than-comfortable cavern systems at Telgar; and due to the stress and the greater risk of accidents, they had begun sending mating and clutching queens to the nearly tropical Big Island. Sorka gave a little shudder, remembering last year's disaster and how close they had come to losing three queens in an aerial battle that left all three wounded. The bronzes and browns who had finally separated them had not come away unscathed either.

The entire Weyr had learned a terrible lesson: one queen in heat could precipitate the condition in those also near their season. No queen would share bronze and brown followers with another. Tarrie Chernoff still woke up with nightmares in which Porth was going between and she couldn't follow. Evenath, the first queen that Faranth had produced, had lost an eye as well as the use of one wing and Catherine's Siglath had so much wing fabric destroyed that neither could fly in the queens' wing again. There were still queens enough to do the low flying with flamethrowers, joined as they usually were by any green rider in the first or third trimesters of pregnancy, when constant dropping into the cold of between might cause miscarriage. Jays, there were more than enough dragons and riders to form three Weyrs—and give everyone decent space. They needn't all cram in like holders.

Sean delayed, Sorka felt, because he could not yet bring himself to delegate final authority to anyone else. His was the responsibility; his would be any blame. He was intensely proud and immensely caring of the fighting force he commanded: the force that, indeed, he had created.

No one denied that. Every rider knew that dragon welfare came first with Sean, and he constantly strove to maximize their effectiveness while reducing personal injury. Initially, when the dragons and riders moved up to Fort Weyr, he had spent endless hours with those who had had pilot experience during the Nathi Wars and with the admiral and both captains. He had found what he could of military history and strategy tapes to figure out the most successful way to combat Threadfall: a combination of cavalry and dogfighting techniques. Then he had refined formations to apply them to the different ways Thread would fall.

As the numbers of available fighting dragons increased he had decided on the appropriate and handiest number for smaller units: wings of thirty-three dragons, each with a Wingleader and two Wingseconds so that, even if the Wingleader and his dragon had to drop out because of injuries, there would be a secondary rider prepared to take charge. This was especially necessary, he felt, when the numbers of the smaller dragons, the blues and greens, increased. The Wingleader should know each dragon in his wing well enough to see signs of strain and send the pair back to the Weyr to rest. Some blue and green riders, determined to prove that their partners were every bit as good as the larger dragons, took risks and rode their lighter, less sturdy beasts beyond their endurance.

"Even a dragon has limits," Sean repeated and repeated during weyrling training. "Respect them! And yours! We don't need heroes in every Fall. We need dragonriders every Fall."

The fortunately rare deaths, either rider or dragon, or both, had a sobering effect on even the most audacious. Injuries, so often due to carelessness, always dropped off after a death or a bad accident. Those that happened during weyrling training were the ones that Sorka hated the most—because they would haunt Sean through his dreams and turn him into an implacable martinet during his waking hours. Sorka would, however, take him to task when he became too autocratic. She made herself always approachable by any rider and never assumed a judgmental attitude.

"You upset morale throughout the Weyr," she'd tell him firmly.

"I'm trying to improve discipline throughout the Weyr," he'd shout back at her. "So we won't have more deaths. I can't stand the deaths! Especially the dragons! They are so special, and we need every one of them."

That was true enough, especially now that more people were moving out of Fort Hold and setting up on their own wherever they could find appropriate cave systems. Boll and Ruatha Holds were thriving. Tarvi Telgar had moved his mining and engineering group into an immense system in the mountains above lodes he was currently working. Naturally he called his hold Telgar. After five years of searching for the "right" name, Zi Ongola had finally called his "Tillek," in memory of the man who had brought a gaggle of pleasure yachts along the entire coastline of the southern continent and, despite storm and other difficulties, led them north to Fort's docks. As the newly dubbed Tillek was on shores full of fine fishing, the name was all the more appropriate.

"How'd I guess?" Sorka now repeated to Torene. "Not a guess. You have that indefinable look of someone very pleased with herself. And, if you listen a moment, you'll probably hear all the dragons talking about it. I know Faranth is asking questions."

Torene did listen a moment, her eyes going briefly out of focus before she made a grimace of resignation. "There's a distinct disadvantage about being able to hear all the dragons, especially if you want to be discreet." Then, eyes widening in concern, she glanced anxiously about the low-ceilinged rooms.

"Sean's not here," Sorka said with a chuckle. "He and two wings went south to hunt early this morning." She sighed. "I really look forward to having that tithe system they keep talking about in full operation." She went on more briskly. "By the time they're due back, there will be other things for dragons to talk about. Or the ones here'll all be asleep. It's a nice sunny day."

"Sorka…" Torene cocked her head as she leaned toward Sorka, the expression in her large dark eyes anxiously earnest. "Can't you persuade Sean that we desperately need a second permanent Weyr? It's not just for the space it'll give us to spread out. It's needed to—" And Torene closed her lips on whatever point she'd been about to make.

Sorka gave a little laugh and finished for her. "It's needed to give someone else a chance to run a full Weyr." Seeing Torene's stricken face, she patted her arm. "I know my weyrmate, dear. His faults—"

"But that's it, Sorka, he doesn't have any. He's always right." Torene said that without any malice but with some despair. "He is the best possible Weyrleader we could ever have, but…"

"There are other very capable riders who would also make good Weyrleaders."

"Yes, and that isn't all." Torene leaned ever closer. "I heard that the Ierne Island bunch are going to come north, too. They want to settle on the east coast. I mean, we've boasted so often that distance is nothing to a dragon"—Torene's grin was pure amusement—"that they say we can protect them on the east coast just as easily as here in the west."

Sorka gave a genuine burst of laughter. "Hoist on our own petards, as my father used to say."

Torene blinked in bewilderment. "What does that mean?"

It was slightly unfair, Sorka thought, for a girl to have such long eyelashes as well as a beautiful face, an elegant—Sean said "sexy"—figure, and personality and brains, as well. Even her short hair, close-cropped to be more comfortable under the skull-fitting helmets they wore, formed exquisite curls that framed her high-cheeked and distinctive countenance.

"It means getting caught in one's own trap, actually, but in this case the ‘trap' is the boasts we dragonriders keep making."

"Oh!" The girl giggled. "Well, we have, but if we don't move in right smart, those Ierne Islanders will take the better cave system and we'll be left with second best," she added indignantly.

"You're a true dragonrider, girl," Sorka said. "Nothing but the best for us."

"Oh, I don't mean it that way, Sorka, and you know it. But the old crater is perfect for a second proper Weyr," Torene said, leaning forward again in her enthusiasm, ignoring her cooling soup. "Even better than this one in some ways, because it's a double crater system, one nearly circular, the other oblong, with a deep lake, and enough space to keep herdbeasts, instead of having to go south to catch dinner when our provisions run short. Best of all, there's one immense vaulted cavern that would be big enough for a half-dozen queens to clutch in…" "One at a time is quite enough."

The enthusiasm in Torene's eyes dimmed slightly at the memory before she rushed on. "And we wouldn't have to do much to it at all since it's got some sand in it, and an hypocaust system could be installed in one of the side niches. Furthermore, my mother says that the stonecutters have about had it. If we don't get to use them soon, we might have to chisel out individual weyrs with our bare hands." Torene gave a sharp nod of her head at that unwelcome option.

"Those cutters've done more than they were designed to do," Sorka said, remembering her father saying much the same thing when he'd used them nine years earlier at Ruatha Hold.

"Well, I want to design our Weyr with them…"

"Our Weyr?" Sorka raised a quizzical eyebrow at the young rider.

Torene closed her eyes and made a rattling sound of dismay with her tongue, covering her face with her hands. Then she uncovered her face and grinned impishly at Sorka. "You can't blame me for dreaming. Someone's going to be Weyrwoman, and you told me yourself that Alaranth's the biggest gold yet."

"And have you planned who's to be Weyrleader?" Sorka asked gently.

Torene blushed furiously. She had the uncomfortable feeling sometimes that it was wrong of Alaranth to be a full hand taller in the shoulder than her dam, Faranth, although Sorka had always appeared delighted by the improvement. The young queen was nearly mature enough to make her first mating flight. But Torene discounted her own physical attractiveness whenever someone complimented her, and she played no favorites among the male riders who were constantly in her company. The only exception was Michael, the bronze-rider son of Sorka and Sean. He never seemed interested in her at all, though he seemed interested in every other attractive woman. Well, maybe she just wasn't attractive to him. She certainly wouldn't have objected to his company—might even have welcomed it—but she was too level-headed to feel more than surprise and, perhaps, a little chagrin at his disinterest.

Mihall, as he was generally called, was as dedicated a dragonrider as his father. Sometimes more so. Since coming to maturity three years ago, Mihall's bronze Brianth had sired sufficient clutches that Sean had grounded the randy bronze during queen mating flights. One of Sorka's duties was to keep very precise records of which clutch was sired by which bronze or brown, so that any queens resulting from that pairing would not be rematched with their own sires. Mihall had shrugged and remarked that that was fine by him; there were plenty of greens who liked Brianth enough to twine necks with him anytime.

"Who's to be Weyrleader?" Torene repeated, dragging her thoughts back to the conversation. "No, I wouldn't plan that far, Sorka, because Sean would make such an important appointment, wouldn't he?"

"Probably," Sorka replied discreetly. Sean, she knew, had a notion on the best way to decide that. "Surely you've some preference as to which dragon mates with Alaranth?" she asked gently.

Torene flushed but answered quickly enough. "That depends on who's fast enough to catch Alaranth, doesn't it? She grinned, avoiding Sorka's subtle probing. Torene wasn't being arrogant in suggesting that the bigger males were going to have to fly very well indeed to mate with her Alaranth. That young queen would lead them a long and very dizzy chase. Torene added a giggle to her grin. "I only hope I'm strong enough to last. Don't try to figure out who I really fancy. You might be surprised." Her mobile face turned solemn. "Seriously, though, Sorka, dragonriders have got to move quickly to secure that twin-cratered place as our own."

"I agree with you, Torene, except that there's no way in except to fly, and that could prove awkward for a number of reasons."

"Ah…" Torene held up one finger in triumph. "I know where to put an access tunnel." From a thigh pocket, she extracted a limp, well-used plasfilm, an echo survey of the double crater, with top, side, and ground-level elevations: probably from one of the original probes. It hadn't occurred to Sorka that there might be other copies of those survey reports. Now she realized that as mining engineers, Torene's parents, the Ostrovskys, would likely have had personal copies of all the preliminary surveys.

Torene spread the sheet out carefully, her touch almost caressing as she smoothed it down on the table and put salt and pepper mills to hold down the curling edges. "Now, there's a natural opening quite far in. See the shadow here? Two-thirds of the way to the lake. Okay, the ceiling in the central cavity is only about two or three meters high, but you wouldn't have to dig a very long tunnel to hook to it from either direction. There's your ground access."

"You do seem to have studied the entire site well," Sorka admitted.

"Not just me," Torene replied quickly. "A bunch of us go." She hitched her chair closer and whispered across the space to Sorka. "Couldn't you act as mediator for us?"

"Which bunch of you?"

Torene's dark eyes sparkled. "Nyassa…"

"Really?"

"Well, Milath's due to clutch soon, and Nya doesn't like the Big Island ground, hates the cold at that place above Telgar, and doesn't want to clutch here when she has to share the sands again with Tenneth, Amalath, and Chamuth."

"I take her point."

"D'vid and Wieth, N'klas and Petrath—"

"Hold it, Torene. D'vid and N'klas?" Sorka didn't believe her ears.

"Oh, hadn't you heard them?" Torene seemed surprised, then added quite casually, "No, I guess you wouldn't have. I hear them all the time during Fall, because it's what the dragons call other riders when they're warning their dragons to be careful. They're speaking so fast they sort of, well, compress names. So Day-vid has become D'vid, Nicholas Gomez is N'klas, and Fulmar is F'mar.

"Are you T'rene?" Sorka asked, diverted.

The girl thought a moment. "No, but Sevya'll be Sev and Jenette, Jen. They're sort of fast names anyway. I mentioned it one day after Fall and—" She gave a helpless shrug. "—everyone wanted to know their dragonish name."

"Do they shorten their own, or others?"

"No." Torene shook her head vigorously and flashed Sorka a dazzling smile. "Dragons always know who's being spoken to."

"I see." Sorka tried to appear that she comprehended the distinction.

"We think it's kind of nice to have a dragon nickname. It means they care about each other's riders, too."

"I guess it would. Tell me, how do they shorten Sean?"

Torene shook her head, bouncing her curls. "They don't. He's always ‘Leader,' and I'd say they capitalize the 1, too." She shot Sorka a sly grin.

"Oh, g'wan with you, now."

"No, honest, Sorka, they're always respectful of Sean. And you're always a full ‘Sorka.' "

"Are you buttering me up, young woman?"

"Now, why would I do a thing like that?" Torene made her eyes rounder. "Just because I've asked you to be softly persuasive… ."

Sorka laughed again. There was no other young woman in the Weyr quite like Torene: so refreshingly herself, without guile and yet exceedingly clever in her directness. "Now, who else is in your select bunch that's dropping over to the site all the time?"

"Sevya and Butoth, R'bert and Jenoth, P'ter and Siwith, Uloa and Elliath…"

"That makes three queens…"

"The new Weyr could accommodate four at least," Torene said, "and we've got interest from six more bronze riders, one a Wingleader and two Wingseconds; fifteen brown riders, three Wingseconds among them; and ten blue and eight more green riders."

"How long has this been going on?" A faint unease about the activities of the younger riders replaced amusement. Torene was far too candid in her dealings to be plotting a subtle mutiny of sorts. Sorka did a quick figuring—but forty-seven riders? Who were all eager to start fresh in a new location? That was unsettling. She was certainly going to speak to Sean if this was the scale.

"Oh, nothing's been going on, Sorka," Torene said, genuinely alarmed. Making immediate eye contact, she laid a reassuring hand on Sorka's arm. "We'd just—basically—like to have more space. Except for Nyassa and Uloa, we're all younger riders, stuck upstairs or downstairs or wherever we can be fitted in. Sevya says her mother has a bigger cupboard in Tillek than she and her dragon have here." A tinge of dissatisfaction did color the girl's voice, and she bit down on her lip, flushing at having spoken criticizingly.

What she said was fair enough, Sorka knew. Sevya and Butoth, just graduated from the weyrling barracks, were in embarrassingly tight quarters. Though Torene had not mentioned herself, Alaranth did not even have proper head room in the weyr she and her rider shared. In fact, they did not have two parts to their quarters as most partnerships did, and unlike most of the dragons, Alaranth had to go to the Rim to do her daily sunbathing. Soon enough the young queen would be fully mature, and there was no question that by then she could not continue in such a cramped accommodation.

"We haven't wanted to rock the boat, Sorka, but really, we can't afford to lose the chance at this place." Torene tapped the diagram. "See here? Just above ground level where there are three natural caverns, one after the other? Made-to-order Weyrwoman's quarters… and with a little bit of alteration, these—here, here, and here—would be spacious enough for the other queens. And over here, opposite what would be great domestic areas, is a series, of caves just right for weyrlings, instead of having to cram them side by each. Why, the place would be wasted on holders." She laid a slightly disparaging stress on that noun.

"It would and it won't be," a voice said, startling both women.

Torene turned a dull red under her tan as Sean appeared from behind them and sat down at their table, a cup of klah in his hand. He had obviously just returned, for only the top of his flight jacket was undone, and hat and gauntlets were still clutched in his free hand. A quick glance at the Weyrwoman assured Torene that Sorka was just as surprised to see him.

Sean placed riding gear on the table beside his cup as he shrugged out of his heavy fleece-lined jacket. He finger-combed sweaty silvering red hair back from his forehead and craned his neck so he could see the plasfilm. At Torene's anxious look, he smiled slightly.

"Glad there's more than one copy."

"Mother—" Torene began in explanation, and then couldn't go on.

Sean's grin broadened. "Mothers have their uses."

Torene gulped and, seizing this amazing opportunity, plunged right in. " ‘It would and it won't be,' you said. We'll get the place? Ierne Islanders won't grab it?"

Sean snorted. "They had notions, but I persuaded them that the other cliff site was far more viable and only slightly less scenic. There's a valley with good soil for cultivation, a river for access to the coast, and south-facing slopes that are just what Rene Mallibeau's been screaming for, complete with the shale he insists he needs. I've been hoping to get back and go over this place"—he tapped the plasfilm with his forefinger—"with Ozzie, if Telgar could spare him."

"Mother made me take him with us when she gave me this," Torene said, casting a quick glance at Sorka, who was, as usual, all eyes for her husband. Torene was scarcely the only female in the Weyr who envied them their double bonding.

"Starting your own splinter group with Alaranth, are you?" Sean asked, his expression carefully bland. But his cheek muscle didn't twitch the way it usually did when he was about to chew out an erring weyrling or rider.

Torene chose quickly between the options that bland question gave her and smiled brightly at Sean—not over-brightly, because that would annoy him, but brightly enough to make him believe that she wasn't that much of a fool. Good thing the table concealed the shaking of her knees.

"Well, you know how big Alaranth's getting, and honest, Sean, we just don't fit where we are anymore, and it isn't as if there's anywhere here we could switch to. I've just been daydreaming, really." She let her voice dwindle down to an apologetic whisper.

As she spoke, Sean sipped klah, looking neither at her nor at Sorka.

Yes, she's telling you truly, Torene heard Carenath tell his rider. She is very excited about the place and has been over every inch several times. So Alaranth says.

Torene did not let her expression change, but she saw Sorka peer at her with a slight frown.

"Sean, have you forgotten that I can hear Carenath?" Torene spoke almost plaintively, as she felt she should remind him since it amounted to inadvertent eavesdropping. "He's got a strong thought to him, you know."

Sean gave her one of his quietly thoughtful looks, neither accusing nor accepting. "Yes, even though it proves to your advantage."

Torene let herself smile now with less anxiety. "Either way I'd've heard him."

"I think that can prove to be an asset, young Torene," he said. His words surprised her almost as much as the total approval she heard from Carenath. Was the bronze dragon merely echoing his rider's thoughts, or was that his sentiment, too?

His and Sean's, Alaranth said in her very quiet way. But he's not thinking of Carenath right now.

Sean was indeed thoughtful as he ran fingers along the shadowed "open" areas within the crater walls shown on the plasfilm, finally laying his hand on the lake site. He nodded once, gulped down the last of his klah, and rose.

"Have you finished, love?" he asked Sorka with a brief apologetic nod to Torene.

"Yes, actually, I have."

"Keep the diagram handy, would you please, Torene?" Sean added. Then one hand under the elbow of his weyrmate, he walked away with Sorka.

Torene let out a whooshing breath of relief and, dipping a piece of bread in her soup, began to eat, more out of a release of taut nerves than from hunger. The appearance of Sean Connell had taken away her appetite. The sop of bread was cold, but she ate it. One didn't waste food, and even cold the soup tasted good.

"She's brought matters to a head, Sean," Sorka said when they arrived at their apartment, a series of five adjoining caverns that had needed only minor alteration and addition to be a comfortable, and private, living space. "There's a group of forty-seven young people who dream of occupying that place."

"Probably more," he said, hanging his riding gear on the pegs near the entrance.

"You knew?"

He shrugged, once again smoothing back his now-dry hair. "It's honest speculation, according to Dave Caterel, Paul, and Otto. It would come sooner or later—a need to split into separate groups to cover the ground that's going to be cultivated and keep it Thread-free. Red had a go at me last time Thread fell on Ruatha lands." He shrugged again and, taking a seat, held up his right leg. Sorka straddled the leg, braced herself for his push, and hauled the boot off; automatically, she repeated the process for the left boot while they talked. "Torene would have done better getting your dad to intercede for them."

"Now, Sean…" Sorka began, ready to defend Torene.

"Don't ‘now, Sean' me, woman," he said. She glanced quickly over her shoulder to test his mood and decided that she could speak bluntly. "She's right, for all I think she's a tad young to be so… so beforehand."

"There isn't an ounce of malice in Torene Ostrovsky," Sorka said staunchly.

"I haven't suggested there was, lovey," he said. Scattering his boots, he pulled her by the waist onto his lap. "But it's obvious we'll have to move quickly on this, now that the ball's rolling."

He laid his head between her shoulder blades as he often did, not amorously, but because he was better at using gestures than words and had many ways of expressing his love for her.

"Have you decided who will lead the new Weyr?" she asked, covering his hands on her waist with hers and leaning into the close embrace.

"Weyrs," he said, giving her a final hug before he gently put her back on her feet.

"Weyrs?"

"Yes. Plural." He rose and, stripping off his shirt as he walked toward their bathing room, gestured with his head for her to follow.

"We've more than enough dragons, with three clutches hardening, to populate three, maybe four Weyrs…"

"Torene's dream site, Big Island, that crater in Telgar's holding, and where else?"

He paused on his way through their bedroom long enough to step out of his pants and heavy socks, and ball them up to throw into the laundry basket.

"We've got two other choices, one down on that mid-eastern peninsula and another up in the High Ranges, the crater with all those spiky peaks. But, to make the necessary improvements even in the east coast place, we'll need to monopolize the remaining functional stonecutters…"

"Is there enough fuel?"

"Fulmar Stone's got all of ‘em rigged to run off generators." Sean grinned at Sorka as he stepped into the steaming bath. Having a copious supply of thermally heated water was one of the luxuries he enjoyed. The excess water ran off down the pipes that helped keep the Weyr warm. Far underground the water went through a filtering system and returned, cleansed, to the reservoirs, to be pumped up again. Other pipes brought drinking water from the cisterns that were kept topped up by mountain streams.

"But the actual cutting surfaces are wearing out."

"True, but Telgar's trying to make replacement abrasives that'll slice rock. There're enough industrial diamonds near Big Island to give us a fair approximation of the cutting surface. ‘Tany rate, I dealt with the Ierne group. They get the second east coast cave system and give us a workforce to make our own adaptations." He grinned both with pleasure as he sank to his chin in the warm water and with an understandable pride in the success of his machinations. "With them there, and in a fertile area, they'll have enough to tithe to the new Weyr."

"You thought all this up?"

He opened his eyes and grinned at her, suddenly boyish. "Hell no, your old man gave me the wink and the nod, and stood by me while I fought it all out with Lilienkamp." After Paul Benden's death the previous winter, Joel Lilienkamp had been voted into the management of Fort Hold. He was, in some ways, much harder to listen to in the further disbursement of people—whom he regarded as renewable resources—and of irreplaceable material, which the colony had to conserve.

"You mean, you weren't hunting south with the others?"

He nodded once and then shook his head and began vigorously soaping himself. "Nope. Carenath made do nicely with an injured bullock that had fallen into a crevasse that your father said we could have. I didn't want any more rumors to circulate than necessary." He grimaced. "There seem to be enough."

She had to wait until he had ducked his head to clear the soap suds from his hair before she asked the next question.

"Who're to be Weyrleaders?"

He gave her an enigmatic smile and she knew why he was going for three new Weyrs: that way he'd avoid any complaint of nepotism. The young people who had been born on Pern, especially those orphaned by the Fever eight years ago, were quick to make that charge when the children of still living fathers and mothers were promoted more often than any from their numbers. Mihall expected to become a Weyrleader. Sorka knew that, and she knew that Sean was aware of those aspirations even though their eldest son never made any allusions to his hope. Indeed, he pointedly did not, scrupulously serving as Wingleader, helping to train weyrlings as part of the duties of his rank, and, except when Brianth lifted in a mating flight, never stepping out of line on any matter, despite his relationship to Sean and Sorka. "Because of it," Sean had once said to Sorka.

So Mihall, if Brianth flew a senior queen designate, would reach the objective he had set himself from the moment he had stood on the Hatching Ground at twelve, the youngest ever to Impress a bronze. There had been mutterings about that among older candidates, but Sean's answer had been firm. "The dragon chooses. Mihall could have been left standing."

There'd been a few private words between the new bronze rider and his father, the Weyrleader, but Mihall had never once taken advantage of the relationship. In his group of weyrlings, he had almost been shunned for trying too hard, for always doing more than was necessary and showing up the others.

If Sean had been self-contained and private as a boy, Mihall was doubly so. Her own firstborn and she didn't really know or understand him, Sorka thought… and yet, she did.

The boy had been mad about dragons as soon as he was old enough to understand what his parents did, and despite being mainly raised by his grandparents and with his own siblings, he spent as many waking hours as he could up at the Weyr, making the long hike by himself if there was no one to escort him.

"We've got twenty mating queens—discounting you, because no one flies Faranth but Carenath—" He cocked a stern finger at her, provoking her to grin smugly. "And the three injured…"

"Porth can fly," Sorka objected on Tarrie's behalf.

"But she doesn't fly long enough to have a good clutch."

"Tarrie's got experience managing Weyr problems," Sorka said staunchly, knowing how often she'd relied on her friend during her pregnancies or when the children were too ill for her to cope with all that went to running a Weyr.

"All perfectly true, but I mean to start the new Weyrs with young leaders who'll see their group through the rest of the Fall: who can pass on what we had to learn the hard way."

"So how will you determine these young leaders?"

"Figure it out, love," he said, and slipped once more under the surface of the hot bath water.

"You would!" she said to the ripples that floated soap down the outtake pipe.

Three Weyrs? My word, she thought with relief and a certain amount of awe. Jays, when Sean let go, he let to with a vengeance. Young leaders! That made excellent sense, and there were enough. Any one of those who were currently Wingleaders could manage a Weyr: they'd been thoroughly indoctrinated by Sean, with emphasis on safety and tactics. Even the Wingseconds would make good leaders. Too bad the blues simply hadn't the stamina to keep up with a queen. At that, there were only two Wingseconds. And she didn't see either Frank Bonneau or Ashok Kung as Weyrleaders. Nice enough young men, but better as subordinates than leaders.

But that meant, and she found herself clutching the bath sheet under her breasts in relief, that Mihall would most certainly be one of the new Weyrleaders—one of three, so no one would be able to accuse anyone of nepotism. Besides, as everybody had been told repeatedly, the preference of the queen and her rider had to be reckoned with. Sorka allowed herself a small smug smile. There wasn't a girl in the Weyr who wouldn't be proud to have her queen flown by Brianth and to be able to stay in Mihall's company as his Weyrwoman. Ah, but would her handsome red-headed son, who had shown himself as willing to bed a holder as a rider, be willing to settle to one? The Weyrleadership had to be stable, or the Weyr would be disrupted. What behavior Sean would condone in his son in his current capacity would alter once Mihall became a Weyrlead. It was time for the boy to settle anyway, she thought firmly, and on the end of that, decided she would not interfere with a word to the wise to him. Mihall was man enough now to recognize a need for fidelity.

"Well, don't stand there, woman!" Sean's voice brought her back, and with an apologetic murmur, she handed her dripping husband his towel.

"You're also a very clever man," she said, then added to keep him from being too smug, "Did you know that dragons elide riders' names?"

"Sometimes, during Fall if it's especially heavy, I've heard Carenath slur a name or two," Sean said, vigorously rubbing himself with the towel. "Why?"

"It seems to have caught on, at least with some of the younger riders."

"No harm in that!"

"I do have it on very good authority that neither your name or mine, however, are ever slurred."

"I should hope not!"

By the time the southern hunting party made it back that evening—replete dragons did not go between—Torene had had a chance to calm down from the excitement of knowing the double-cratered place was going to be her Weyr. She decided not to mention her conversation with the Weyr-leaders. The other members of her group were high enough as it was from their eastern hop: the boys planning which weyr they'd make their own; Sevya and Nya figuring out just how much sand would be needed to give a good deep bedding for hardening eggs. Siglath was hopeful in a wistful way, or so Nyassa told the youngsters. Torene thought the rest of the Weyr should hear the news from Sean—once it was official. Fortunately, her bunch tended not to mouth their enthusiasms near the more conservative older riders, and Alaranth would keep her counsel. Torene grinned. Her queen took her cue from her rider. And sometimes that worked the other way round, too.

So Torene applied herself to checking her riding gear. Sean just might call a snap inspection—they had Fall the day after tomorrow. Out of several years' habit now, Torene rechecked the flamethrower tanks she used, as well as the nozzles and the carrying straps. Then she checked her safety harness and inspected the heavy plastic-coated gloves for any sign that the fingers might have spillage of the HNO3 on them. Eventually the plastic would wear through and have to be recoated. Her hands tended to sweat inside the nonporous material, but that damp discomfort was better than acid burns. She made sure her goggles were clear, too. Sometimes a fine spray was blown back before the HNO3 ignited, and she needed clear, not clouded, plasglas.

She was just about finished when F'mar—Fulmar Stone Junior—bronze Tallith's rider, swung into the queen's ready room, helmet and gloves in hand, riding jacket open.

"Hey, gal, we're back!" F'mar was grinning from ear to ear. "And boy, did we bring home the bacon!"

"Real bacon? Is Longwood curing pig so early?"

"You can be so literal sometimes, ‘Rene."

She hadn't told Sorka that was how her name had been compressed, since it was humans and not dragons who had given her that nickname.

Slapping his gloves on his leg with some irritation, F'mar went on. "No, actually, we brought back steaks and a lot of stew meat. They're culling herds for the winter down there. Or don't you remember how seasons switch?"

"I remember that much," she replied evenly. Eight years older than Torene, Fulmar Stone had been five when he and his family had Landed; he had Impressed a bronze of a Weyrleaders' clutch at nineteen. Half-trained to follow in his father's mechanical engineering specialty, F'mar had salved Fulmar Senior's shock at the idea of his son's pursuing an entirely different life's work by taking charge of all the Weyr's mechanicals. These were, however, so well designed or redesigned that they rarely needed more than a drop of oil—or so F'mar insisted.

"You should've come." Then F'mar, as tall as she was but rangier in frame and bony shoulders, leaned toward her with a friendly leer. "It was more fun than climbing about rock faces and peering in holes."

Torene grinned placidly at him. "But I like cliff climbing, and Alaranth hunted yesterday with the other queens. I'd better go help with dinner if there're steaks."

"I have to, too," F'mar said, grimacing. He didn't enjoy that segment of the additional duties that the riders assumed inside the Weyr. "In fact, Tarrie sent me to find you."

"For steak, I'm findable," she said. "Just let me wash my hands first."

"Can I help?" he asked with a second amicable leer.

Torene laughed at him, evading his half-serious interference with a direct path to the sinks.

F'mar was nothing if not persistent in his efforts to attach her. He pressed his luck whenever he had the chance, like now, trying to persuade her that he was her best possible weyrmate, just as his Tallith would be the perfect bronze to twine necks with her queen. F'mar was looking for any opportunity to prove his worth—in advance. He was also a Wingleader, which he thought gave him an advantage over others of their group.

For her part, she treated them all alike, and no one knew if she'd any experience at all. She didn't because she was romantic enough, though she knew that would surprise many, to want her first time to be very special. She wanted to really like the man. She was being too picky perhaps; then, too, she knew all the most likely men too well now to see any of them in a sexual way. Except possibly Mihall, but only because she didn't know him at all and knew far too much about his reputation. She'd become skillful in evading answers and importunities. Sometimes, to tease, she'd mention one or another of the apprentices at Telgar Hold whenever she'd been to visit her parents and sibs.

Actually, she liked F'mar best of them all, with his good humor and pleasant good looks, though she'd never give him any encouragement. He might just try joining her in her tight squeeze of a weyr. It was just as well that she was in such an uncomfortable weyr, she reflected. Everyone knew she slept right beside her queen—warmer that way, anyhow. Two human bodies wouldn't fit, and she wasn't about to be seen leaving a male rider's weyr—or caught hiding if she chose to be in one.

When they reached the kitchen cavern, Tarrie and Yashma Zulieta were supervising the carving up of the carcasses. It was much too late in the day to have spit-roasted the whole sides, which was the usual way of preparing meat in quantity. Torene knew they'd have several meals from all this mess. Good big meaty animals. Well, the grass at Longwood had produced many a fine meal for the Weyr when Fort's supplies ran short.

It was indeed a fine meal. While comestibles like flour, dried beans and legumes, and dairy produce were provided by Fort now, the dragonriders could add to the bare necessities by going between to the southern continent and returning with fruits, fresh vegetables, and herd animals. Slowly but surely, the task of provisioning the Weyr was being handled by the Holds so, one way or another, the dragonriders often ate far better than holders. That, and the glamor of being a dragonrider, were reasons why so many young people were ready to take their chances on the Hatching Ground even though their parents might have had other careers in mind for their children. In the early days, Sean and Sorka had been forced to act rather autocratically in demanding enough boys and girls to stand on the Hatching Ground, especially older boys, who would be mature enough to fly in Fall as soon as their dragons were old enough. Gradually, however, to have a son or daughter become a dragonrider became a mark of prestige for a family. Although birthrates had been high the first six years at Fort Hold, there were only so many available to stand as candidates now. Lately they'd had to include preadolescents, to be able to present enough of a choice to the hatchlings.

With eggs hardening on the Ground and Hatching quite near, the Weyr was presently hosting candidates. They were, Torene noted, the ones that came back for seconds and thirds of the juicy steaks. Not that she blamed them. She remembered her stomach rumbling far too often in the days when she had lived at home. There were not that many days when food was scarce—for a dragonrider.

And, if one happened to find a fire-lizard's clutch in the southern sands, a rider could barter eggs for anything he or she desired. That was one unhappy aspect of living north: there were fewer and fewer of the lovely creatures looking to humans. They didn't seem to like the colder climate. Early on, hundreds had augmented dragon fire during Threadfall. Now that number had dwindled to a couple of pairs.

That was how Ierne Island had managed to hold out so long against coming north. The shores of Longwood, Lockahatchee, Uppsala, and Orkney were fire-lizard havens, and every man, woman, and child had dozens to help protect them during Fall. At least the proposed site for Longwood and Orkney personnel would be warmer than the double crater: they'd keep their fire-lizard friends that much longer.

When Torene's kitchen duties finally allowed her to rejoin her friends, they talked more about the fine eating than about their afternoon activities. Torene didn't mention her encounter with Sean, but she did notice the Weyrleader glancing over in her direction from time to time. The second time she observed his casual glance, she spoke to Alaranth; she concentrated that little bit harder, but Carenath was fast asleep.

He didn't ask him anything all night, volunteered Alaranth also sleepily.

Probably because he remembers that I can hear.

No, Sean asked Carenath his opinion of some of the candidates. It would be good for Dagmath's rider to have some of his own persuasion.

Torene considered that. The blue rider preferred boys to girls. And Sean would prefer to have fewer of the speedy little green dragons out of action because their riders were taking maternity leave.

Are there any prospects in that line? Torene asked.

Three.

Torene grinned. Now that was certain to please the Weyrleader.

"Who's the grin for?" F'mar asked. He was sitting beside her and now leaned heavily against her shoulder.

"For me to know and you to guess," she replied in a singsong voice.

"You're not giving anything away, are you?" He sounded irked. "You did go to the craters today, didn't you?"

"Sure, but that conversation had been gnawed to the bone by the time I got here," she replied. "It would really make such a splendid Weyr…" She gave a wistful sigh.

"I think," F'mar whispered in her ear, his breath tickling, "that Sean's about to do something about establishing a new one."

"You do?" She pulled back to look at him with an eager surprise which was genuine enough.

F'mar bent close again. "Sean wasn't hunting all the time he was gone."

"He wasn't?" Torene used that as an excuse to widen the distance between them, to foil yet another of F'mar's heavy-handed ploys.

"I think," F'mar said, putting one hand to the side of his face and lowering his voice so that only she could hear, "that he's busy making some deal with the Langsams and the Mercers at Ierne."

"Oh, so they'd be happy with the lower site and leave the higher one for us?"

He nodded.

"You could be right," she replied, imbuing her tone with hope. "Oh, good, music! The perfect end for such a meal!"

She used that opportunity to slip away from F'mar completely, hauling the penny whistle from a thigh pocket as she joined the other players.

Torene always woke early on a Fall day, even if Fall wasn't until afternoon, as it was today over Fort and parts of Boll.

Rumors had been flying yesterday. The dragons were as bad as the people, repeating their riders' stories, adding supporting details based on the occasional odd statement by Sean or Sorka, or even what one of the bronzes who had gone south had to say about suspected meetings with the Longwood and Orkney stakeholders. Torene listened and wondered if she ought to report some of the more implausible theories to the Weyrleaders. Then she decided against it. There was no need to tell tales out of turn. And the prospect of a new Weyr raised spirits often full of jitters before any Fall, especially one over occupied lands.

As was his custom, Sean sent riders ahead to watch for the leading Edge and check the composition of today's Fall. It would begin halfway across Big Bay, coming in over the port area—where the dolphins would swarm for the good eating and to provide what help they could. Then the Fall would sweep southwesterly across Fort and Boll lands and down the other side of the mountain range. Over the last year the Weyr had, at Pierre's request, extended its protection to that area, too, for Boll folk were spreading out, making small holds under the jurisdiction of the larger.

Torene always managed to eat breakfast, but like many other riders, she skipped the noontime meal, settling instead for a cup of klah before she changed into riding gear and asked Alaranth to come down to be tacked up. The other queens began to assemble, joined by the seven green riders whose pregnancy required them to fight with flame-throwers. There were nine more green riders unavailable, either too recently delivered or recovering from injury, so the greens would have to ride longer shifts to keep the wings at proper strength. Sean did not like drafting in spare riders from the wings temporarily stationed at Big Island and Telgar: Wingleaders found that a gap in the rank was better than a diffident replacement who wasn't sure of his wing-mates. Torene listened carefully as Sorka gave the greens their positions in the low-flying wing of queens. Most of them were seasoned riders, though there was one newcomer: Amy Mott, who was pregnant by Paul Logorides as a result of her green's first mating flight.

It was almost a relief to hear Carenath's bellow and look up to see the massed wings ranged along the Weyr Rim, awaiting the signal to chew firestone. Torene mounted the kneeling Alaranth, then reached down to those who were lifting the heavy tanks to their positions on either side of the queen's withers. The tanks tethered, Torene attached the wand to the right-hand one and gave a good turn of her wrench to be sure the connection was firm. Thanking her helpers, she then peered up to the Rim to wait for Sean's signal to Sorka and Faranth, the leaders of the queens' wing.

Follow me, Carenath said to Faranth. His voice was loud and clear in Torene's head, but she didn't make a move. She always took extra care to wait for Sorka's signal—ever since her first flight with the queens' wing, when she had moved off ahead of Faranth. That was the day she had admitted, shamefacedly and feeling she was guilty of a terrible sin against the Weyrleaders and the Weyr, that she could hear the speech of other dragons. After she had made a stammered confession—in private—to the Weyrleaders, she had agreed to keep her ability to herself and be discreet at all times in exercising this unique talent.

Faranth made the all-important first leap off the ground, springing with tremendous power from her hind legs, and Torene, riding right point to Faranth, gave Alaranth the go-ahead.

As often as she had fought Thread, Torene felt the excitement knot in her belly, felt the surge of adrenaline in her blood as her queen's wings described mighty strokes. With three, they were above the Weyr walls, gliding into their in-flight position under the massed wings of Fort dragons.

She took their destination from both Carenath and Faranth, felt that awful sinking into the cold blackness that was the medium through which the dragons passed on their telekinetic way from one place to another, and came out over the sea, just beginning to darken as Thread slanted down across it. She was close enough at a roughly thousand-foot altitude to notice the churning of the water where schools of every fish that thrived in Pern's seas had gathered to feast on drowning Thread.

High above—at some eight thousand feet, Torene estimated—the aerial defenders of Pern waited for the leading Edge to get closer to the port facility. No sense wasting dragon flame on what would drown.

Then the nearer wings went into action. Flame sprouted red-orange, then caught, and Thread burned into blackness. It was clumping today, Torene noticed, and she turned the regulator on her wand to a wide setting.

She also turned her hearing to listen to the dragons already engaged and wondered if Sorka was asking Faranth about the nicknames.

She is, Alaranth promptly replied, as an overlay of messages from both dragons and riders briefly confused Torene: Watch your left, F'mar! That's coming in at two o'clock, B'ref! Big mother clump descending right over you, D'vid. Firth, watch right! That last came directly from the Weyrleader dragon to Shih Lao's.

Torene giggled. There was nothing dragons could do with that name!

S'lao was Alaranth's prompt reply. Stuff getting through. Veer right!

Sorka and Faranth had already begun to swing, and Torene and Alaranth followed. Habit kept Torene listening in with half an ear, as the queens' wing began to mop up: mostly single Threads, which the upper level of fighters ignored in order to concentrate on the clumps and tangles. Faranth directed some of the quicker green riders to spread out to catch the outer edges of these and then, in an aside, ordered Alaranth to supervise.

Sometimes Torene's neck ached with craning her head upward. Occasionally Alaranth eased her forequarters upward so that the strain was reduced, but such an awkward maneuver was hard for the queen to sustain

A dragon screamed, and instantly Alaranth identified the beast: Siwith, P'ter's blue.

Wing damage, Alaranth said. We go.

We're assisting, Elliath, Uloa's queen, said. The pair went between the brief distance to the falling blue. Siwith's right wing had been shredded. Unable to sustain flight, he was managing no more than a downward spiral.

Spouting flame, two greens appeared, clearing Thread from the path of the two queens as they arrived to arrest the blue's descent.

Alaranth and Elliath had done this maneuver so often in the past two years that it was nearly routine now. As Torene laid herself flat against her queen's neck, Alaranth being the larger beast, slipped up under the falling blue matching his downward speed and then coming up under his smaller body, holding it along her spine. Torene could feel Siwith's hot and pungent breath on her back and hoped he wasn't going to lose another suit of riding gear from scorching. Elliath hovered above them both, her forelegs poised to grab Siwith by the wing shoulders if he slipped.

Nice catch, Carenath told Alaranth.

Siwith's whistles of pain were muted as the little fellow valiantly tried to stifle the agony of a wing injury.

We have him, Alaranth told her rider, who could feel the strain through her queen's body.

Siwith, Torene said, relax now while we take you between. We've got you safe. Elliath, we go… now!

The transfer to Fort Weyr was accomplished. Sometimes the wounded panicked when they weren't in control of a movement between, another reason for the second queen ready to grab wing-shoulder joints. But Siwith managed to stay calm, and Alaranth arrived at the Weyr with her casualty still in place. The extra weight had her skimming the surface, though she landed smoothly just where medics waited.

"Are you okay, P'ter?" Torene shouted over her shoulder. A whiff of scorched leather reached her nose.

"Yeah. Thanks, ‘Rene! Just missed me. Ah, Siwith, you'll be all right. You'll be all right!" P'ter's voice was ragged with concern and shared pain.

"Hang on while we transfer you."

Alaranth tucked her left wing as well as she could under the wounded blue's limp pinion, Elliath caught Siwith by his uninjured joints, and as Alaranth eased out from under Siwith, the other queen gently eased his body to the ground. Hoses had already sprayed numbweed on the underside of the mangled wing membrane; now the medics could reach the upper surface. The blue's rider unbuckled his fighting straps and started slathering his dragon's upper back. Siwith's whistles of pain were reduced to murmurs of relief.

"D'you need new tanks, Uloa?" Torene asked.

"No, I'm fine for another hour."

"Me, too."

Torene looked skyward, giving Alaranth the signal to be ready. Both queens sprang from the ground at the same instant and, sufficient altitude gained, winked between and back to the Fall.

The evening meal was served at a late hour. While ground crews said that little had gotten through the wings, there had been sufficient injuries that all the riders knew Sean would have words with the Weyr in general before they were dismissed.

"He's sure to claim today's flying injuries are due to careless riding, bad concentration, and stupidity," N'klas muttered as he followed Torene into the lower cavern.

"And he'd be right," Torene said, grinning back over her shoulder at the morose N'klas. "But clumps are the hardest to fly, and he's sure to admit that before he starts lambasting us."

"Nice catch on Siwith, by the way. P'ter says he'll be out months growing back wing membrane."

"Thought so, from what I could see when we brought him in."

"At least he got the best ambulance team."

When she and Uloa had returned to the queens' wing, Faranth and Greteth had been in the process of catching another wing injury.

Sorka says your timing is excellent. You have command of the wing, Faranth had said directly to Torene. We have him, Greteth. Easy now, Shelmith. We have you. Relax, will you?

I still fall, Torene heard Shelmith say, frightened.

Of course you do, but I fall right under you. You are caught. Feel my back under your belly.

I do! I do!

"What about Shelmith?" she asked N'klas now. She hadn't had time to check on the injured yet. The queens' wing always made contact with ground-crew leaders before returning to the Weyr.

"He's only got holes in one wing, but body scores and some bad tracks down the right hindquarter," N'klas said, wrinkling his nose at the extent of the injuries. "We need rearview mirrors."

Torene laughed. "Where on earth would we attach them?"

"Oh, shoulder, peripheral vision reflex mirror, maybe."

Torene stopped at the sight of the crowded dining tables. "Lord, we'll have to take front seats tonight," she said, noting the only vacant spots at the tables perpendicular to the slightly raised Weyrleader and Wingleaders' table.

"You did great," N'klas said. "You've got no cause to feel guilty. Too bad you aren't bigger," he added with a grin, for he was heavy through the shoulders and chest. "I could hide behind you."

"You've nothing to worry about. You brought Petrath in with no scores, didn't you?"

N'klas paused before he answered, his remorseful expression verging on the comical. "Not exactly. Though," he hastened to add, "he won't be out of action more than a week, I'd say."

"I'm sorry, I didn't know." She glanced up at him with a rueful smile.

N'klas shrugged his wide shoulders. "Nothing a bucket of numbweed didn't soothe. Dragon hide grows back quickly, thanks be!"

The kitchen crew were quick to serve the riders as soon as they seated themselves. The top table was not occupied as yet: Torene knew that Sean would be having a few words with Wingleaders over poor performance. But Sean knew that clump Falls were always the trickiest, and while a lot of dragons had not finished this Fall due to minor wounds, there had been very few put out of commission by major ones. Every wing had missing members, and some wings were off on R & R, so the Weyr was flying a bit short. Only queens never got official vacation: queens got time off only for clutching. As Alaranth had yet to experience her first mating flight, Torene had been on duty for over two years without a break.

We fly well as a team. We do excellent rescues, Alaranth said.

Oh, beloved heart, Torene said, immediately chagrined that she'd been thinking so negatively, we do, we do. But I am tired. Like most of the riders. Everyone needs some time off, not just a visit home or to the east coast. Well, she added to herself, maybe Sean would announce that some of those recuperating at Big Island would be reporting back for duty, and that would take the burden off the short-manned wings.

The meal was good: one of Yashma's special casseroles, more of the beef, plus legumes and tubers, served with fresh hot bread and slabs of butter. Torene grinned as she slathered her bread with it before passing it on to the impatient rider next to her. Butter in this quantity obviously had come in from Ierne Island. Would they be able to have dairy products when Longwood settled on the east coast? She'd miss them. In the Hold, milk products had been reserved for babies and growing kids. What was being tired to the many advantages of being a rider… not the least of which was having Alaranth?

You like me better than butter?

Of course I do, but there's absolutely no doubt that you couldn't be spread on hot bread!

Bread is all right. Alaranth was unenthusiastic. From time to time, because Alaranth was curious, Torene had given her queen samples of what she ate.

But not for a carnivore like you, darling. You aren't hungry again, are you?

No, but you were!

Alaranth also found it hard to understand why her rider had to eat several times a day, when once or twice a week sufficed the much bigger dragon.

Before the casseroles were passed around the tables for the second time, the Weyrleaders and Wingleaders took their places. Torene thought they all looked relaxed as they conversed pleasantly with each other. That did not jibe with her notions of the Weyr getting a lecture on recklessness and inefficiency.

A spicy nut-filled bar provided a sweet, and then ale was served, along with refills for anyone wanting just klah.

"He must really be going to take slices from our hides," N'klas muttered in her ear.

"Then why is F'mar grinning from ear to ear?" Toren asked. The young Wingleader was looking excessively smug. Of course, she realized, mentally reviewing the day's injuries, his wing had come through unscathed, so he could afford to be at his ease. But she wondered why F'mar kept trying to catch her eye.

Torene listened for Tallith, but the bronze was asleep. Alaranth, did I miss something?

What?

I don't know, and F'mar's grinning like a fool at me.

He does that all the time.

Torene caught an almost impatient and irritable note to her queen's remark.

Don't you like F'mar? she asked. Or is it Tallith you don't fancy?

Torene often asked her queen which bronze she preferred. As she had no particular favorite among the riders, maybe her queen had one among the bronzes. Torene did have to think in terms of her queen's mating flight, an event that could happen soon now. Sorka had no difficulty in telling her queen riders exactly what to expect—and Torene hoped it would be as thrilling for her as reputed. Sorka never exaggerated.

Bronze dragons are much the same in a mating flight. But I will be hard to catch!

Torene burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?" N'klas asked her.

"Alaranth," Torene said and shrugged, indicating a private joke.

She nodded at him to pour some ale into her glass after he'd filled his own. She was getting to like the stuff; certainly she preferred it to the jarring taste of quikal. And tonight, she had the feeling that she'd need the loosening beer provided.

Suddenly noise in the dining area subsided and Torene saw that Sean had risen.

"Uh-oh," N'klas said, scrunching himself small beside her.

"Oh, don't be an idiot," she said rather sharply. She was well acquainted with N'klas's tendency to dramatize.

This time he was right. Unexpectedly, Sean was holding his glass in one hand.

"You all know that the wings did not perform very well today, but I take the nature of today's Fall into consideration. We all know that clumps and tangles are the worst types to combat, and that the very nature of such a Fall can cause injuries to even the most alert rider and clever dragon. I don't excuse you, and I shall have words with some of you who were caught unawares, and those of you who managed to escape when you bloody well deserved to be scored." Sean's expression was harsh as he looked over the crowded tables. "Injuries could have been worse."

When he paused again and let his gaze sweep the riders, Torene had the feeling that something momentous was going to happen. She was positive she knew what that had to be and inhaled, sitting straighter. She felt N'klas shift beside her as if he, too, felt impending news.

"The holders all agree that new Weyrs—" He stopped as dramatically as N'klas might, to let the plurality be absorbed. "—must be formed."

He would have gone on, but wild cheering and stamping ensued and made him smile as he held up his arms for silence.

"Some of you"—and Torene caught him looking at her—"may think that the double-cratered site on the east coast is an ideal site for one. And you'd be right." More cheering punctuated that statement. Torene felt N'klas's elbow in her ribs, and she saw that F'mar was also watching her, a broad, happy, and very smug grin on his face.

Well, she thought, he had the makings of a good Weyr-leader, and his Wingseconds swore by his competence.

"We'll start that one first," Sean went on, "and there will be two more adapted as soon as possible. I project that we'll need two more at the rate our queens are laying, so we should prepare now for our needs while holder enthusiasm for our profession continues strong." He gave a wry smile, which brought a ripple of appreciative laughter. "Big Island is also a firm choice, to give us a warmer climate not only where our injured can convalesce but also where our disabled can still be of assistance. Telgar needs one to protect the miners—" There was a ripple of mild dissent, because Telgar was mountain-cold. "There is a crater in the sandy peninsula to the east and another in the far north-west. But we already have contingents at Big Island and Telgar, so those will be completed first."

He waited until the wave of whistles and cheering died and then, with a slight grin on his face, continued. "Ierne Islanders are coming north, and Longwood wants the secondary site on the east coast. They will also help us prepare that Weyr in appreciation of our willingness to protect them." Sean grinned more broadly now.

"So that's how he's done it," N'klas said, his eyes shining with respectful awe.

"Done what?" Torene asked in a low voice.

"Made them think we're doing them the favor when it's the other way round," N'klas replied. "Oh, he's clever, is Carenath's rider."

"Lockahatchee and Uppsala fancy Big Island, and they will help us enlarge the existing facility there," Sean went on. "Telgar's promised as many miners as he can spare for some of the excavation work on all sites, so I think we will be able to provide protection in four locations even as the Weyrs are being adapted to the needs of our dragons."

Four Weyrs, including the one she had yearned for! Torene couldn't believe it! One would have occasioned great joy. But four Weyrs? Well… She did a quick count: Sean could put twenty wings in the air for any given Fall even if all were not accommodated at Fort. Three new weyrs also meant three new Weyrleaders and Weyrwomen. Who had Sean and Sorka chosen to promote? Probably some of the senior riders, and she couldn't but be happy for Uloa's and Arna's sakes, or David Caterel and Peter Semling. They were logical choices… but who else?

"We have twenty mature queens," Sean was saying, "and well over a hundred bronzes and ten or twelve browns who would make admirable leaders. This being the case, I feel that we'll let chance play a part in what is too difficult a choice for us"—he indicated himself and Sorka—"to make. So you're going to draw which Weyr you'll go to. We're splitting up the queen dragons, with the exception of Faranth, who stays here, with me." Sean scowled fiercely, waiting for the widespread laugh that was expected at the notion of any other dragon but Carenath flying Faranth. When the laughter died down, he went on. "Nora will pass the bag among the gold riders. Tarrie has a bag for Wingleaders, as I think it's best if the wings go forward as a unit to whichever Weyr the Wingleader draws. Does that seem a fair way to distribute riders?"

Despite an almost universal surprise, approval followed almost immediately. Looking around at the faces she could see from her position, Torene saw many expectantly hopeful expressions; she put her hands to her ears in an automatic but pointless attempt to shut out the tumultuous responses of dragons to their riders' anxious reactions. She shook her head and then felt Alaranth's mind helping her shut off the mental noise. Usually she could filter unwanted messages, but not tonight—not that she could blame either party.

"Of course, we've three clutches of eggs ready for hatching, and we'd divvy them up as soon's we know what they are," Sean added with a grin.

Torene looked around for Tarrie and Nora and saw them rising from a table on the far end of the cavern. She'd be one of the last to choose, sitting as she was at the front of the room, and the agony of the wait was exquisitely painful. Dare she dream of drawing the east coast Weyr? would she stay on here at Fort, since she was the youngest queen rider and had so much to learn? She ought to wish she'd be stationed at Telgar for then she'd be nearer her parents, which they'd appreciate all the more now that her brothers and sisters were away on their apprenticeships. But she had developed a special feeling for the double crater and had so brashly planned how to use its many natural caverns – just as if she had the right to!

Brown and bronze riders began to shout out their new assignments, leaping from their seats or just waving their arms about in delight. Surprised, Torene heard as much pleasure expressed at being assigned to Telgar as east coast or Big island. Everything was happening so quickly on the far side that she really didn't see who had got the east coast assignment. She was surprised when she saw Tarrie go to the head table and pass the bag to the Wingleaders sitting there. Why had F'mar been grinning so much then? She saw him reach his hand in and was so eager to know where he was going that she was startled when she felt someone touch her arm and turned to see Nora standing beside her.

"You're the last queen rider present to pick," Nora said. "Hope it's the one you want. Then Sorka will draw for the absentees."

Holding her breath, Torene dutifully slipped her hand into the bag and felt several slivers. Squeezing her eyes tight, she let her fingers close on one, drawing it out.

"Do exhale, 'Rene," Nora said with amusement.

Torene let out her breath, grinning nervously at the other queen rider before she had the nerve to look at what she held. She read it, then read it again.

You keep saying 'east coast,' Alaranth remarked patiently. Are we to go to the place we want?

"Yes, oh, yes, yes," Torene breathed, clutching the all-important message to her breasts.

" 'Yes, oh, yes, yes,' where'd you get?" N'klas asked, showing her his slip. He'd pulled "east coast" as well.

She hugged him in a most uncharacteristic gush of joy. He was too surprised to take full advantage of it before she, as abruptly, released him.

"East coast!" Oh, she was so happy, and she squeezed the message in hands suddenly moist. Radiantly she smiled up the head table and caught Sorka's smile and Sean's nod of approval. As her eyes slid away, she saw F'mar's face: he wasn't smiling quite so broadly now. She raised her eyebrows queryingly, and he mouthed "Telgar" at her.

She made a moue of disappointment, but actually she wasn't disappointed at all.

Tarrie and Nora had brought the bags up to the main table and Sorka drew for the absent queen riders, Sean for the six absent Wingleaders.

"So you now all know which Weyr you'll be stationed at—for now—since we'll have to make other divisions if we decide to expand to six full Weyrs. All of you Wingleaders are experienced and know as much about managing a fighting Weyr as I do. I've seen to that!" He ignored the barrage of whistles and jocular remarks that met his slightly smug smile. "There's really only one fair way to decide who becomes Weyrleader. " He used another of his pregnant pauses to increase suspense. Torene had never seen her Weyrleader in such teasing good spirits. He was really enjoying stringing all this out.

"We leave it up to the queens." He surprised them all by making a gracious bow to Sorka. "And we'll leave which queen up to chance, as well. Chance plays a greater part in our affairs than you may be aware, but I feel the Weyr has profited by random choice, and we will continue this. Therefore, the first queen in each new Weyr to rise to mate will decide which rider will be Weyrleader!"

That announcement met with a stunned silence, which was broken by quiet murmuring. Torene was even more surprised than most. She didn't know which other queens had been assigned along with her, but she was suddenly very sure that somehow the draw had been arranged so that she, and Alaranth, would go east. For Alaranth, of all the twenty fertile queens, would undoubtedly be the next one to rise to mate. Was that what Sean had meant when he had said Torene's ability to hear all dragons was an asset? How long had he been planning to form new Weyrs?

She shot a quick glance at the Weyrleaders, but they were not looking in her direction.

Am I right, Faranth? Torene asked, breaking her self imposed rule never to initiate a conversation with another's dragon.

You can hear all of us, Faranth said. It would be wise to have you over there. You will be a very good Weyrwoman. Sorka thinks so, and so do Carenath and Sean. Be easy!

As if she possibly could at a moment like this! Chance, indeed! Torene stared fiercely at Sorka, wanting to catch the Weyrwoman's eye, but Sorka was leaning across the table to talk to Tarrie and Nora.

"So, those of you who have to remain here with Sorka and myself can be excused. I think the new Weyrfolk ought to have a bit of a gather and find out who goes where. Big Islanders, assemble at the far right tables; Telgar, these in the middle; and east coast on my left."

As Sean pointed, his eyes at last met Torene's. His expression did not change—except for the slight tilt of one eyebrow. So she could read more into this public exhibition of "random choice"? But how could he have arranged it? The odds against were four to one.

She was startled out of her reverie when F'mar leaned down, lips to her ear.

"I would have liked to have you as my Weyrwoman, Rene," he murmured. Before she could remark on his arrogance, being so sure that he would end up Telgar's Weyrleader, he had moved to the center tables.

"Sour grapes?" N'klas asked, jerking his thumb at F'mar's retreating back.

"No, no sour grapes," she said, with a not too saccharine smile. "He's got as good a chance as anyone to make Weyrleader at Telgar. See—" She pointed at Arna, Nya, and Sigurd already seated at the head of one of the Telgar tables.

She welcomed Uloa with a happy cry, and then Jean, Greteth's rider, only to be overcome with chagrin. Uloa and Jean would know that Alaranth would be the first queen assigned there to rise to mate. So did Julie, for her queen had just clutched and wouldn't rise for months. Torene's thoughts must have been transparent, for Uloa leaned close to her.

"And why not Alaranth?" Uloa murmured. "Better you than me. You're young enough to cope."

"My sentiments entirely," Jean added quietly, then raised her voice. "N'klas, pass the beer pitcher, will you? Who else have we got for Wingleaders?" She looked about as riders shifted to the appropriate tables. "Besides you, N'klas. Hello, there, Jess. You're one of us? Great."

Torene glanced shyly at the older bronze Wingleader. She hadn't had the chance to get to know him, but she'd never heard unfavorable reports. She saw David Caterel making his way to them. He and Polenth were of the original seventeen dragonriders. He had always been pleasant to her, but the look he gave her now made her blush. He knew. Young Boris Pahlevi, who had risen quickly to the rank of Wingleader on Gesilith, was also on his way over. And behind him… Torene blinked, but the lithe redheaded figure was still that of Mihall, Brianth's rider, and the Weyrleaders' oldest son.

Well, she thought, an odd numbing sensation running over her, he was one of the best Wingleaders. Why should she resent him being in her Weyr? Silly! It's not your Weyr, yet, m'girl. He gave her a sharp nod as he stopped a little behind N'klas, reversed a chair, and sat, leaning his arms on the back of it. He took the mug of beer passed to him but only sipped politely.

Wingseconds and some of the other wingriders ranged casually near their leaders, chatting among themselves.

"Well, well, and well," Uloa said, grinning, her black eyes snapping with wry amusement. "David, your Polenth is the oldest dragon—do you wish to take charge of this first meeting of us new Weyrmates?"

"Why should I, when you're doing so well, Uloa?" he replied good-humoredly and endured a bit of teasing from his wingmates. "Anyway, you've seen more of our new Weyr than I have."

"Shouldn't all of us go there now, to see what needs doing?" asked Jess Kaiden, whose bronze, Hallath, came from the same hatching as Uloa's queen.

"Not now," Uloa said, amused, "as it's past midnight there and we wouldn't see much."

"We go when it's daylight then," Jess said with a shrug.

"All of us?" asked one of the blue riders seated near David. Torene didn't know his name. That was one detail she'd have to remedy.

Martin, who rides Dagmath, Alaranth said.

"Yes, all of us," David replied, "since all of us will share the making of this Weyr."

"Does it have to stay known as the east coast Weyr?" Boris asked in some disgust. "What a mouthful!"

"See it first, name it later," Jean said. "I've only been there once myself."

"Just how much help will we get from the settlers?" N'klas asked, shooting Torene a quick look. Both were aware of how much work would be required to make the place livable.

"I think we'll have to ask Sean that," David replied.

" ‘Rene, you got that film on you?" N'klas asked, turning to her.

Torene felt herself flush. She ducked her head on the pretext of opening the thigh pocket where she kept the plasfilm and recovered her composure somewhat by the time she could spread it out on the table in front of her. Everyone began to press in to have a look. David, who was tallest of those nearby, took it and held it up high enough for more to see.

"Shaded areas show the echo spaces inside," N'klas said. "Some only need to be broken out. And Torene spotted where we can put a ground-level access tunnel." Craning his head and stretching out one arm, he pointed out the various features. "Hatching ground, bigger'n Fort's—plenty of ground-level caverns for support staff, kitchens, weyrling barracks, queens' quarters, and there're tunnels underground. One to a cavern big enough for us to put hydroponics… ."

"If we do our job properly, we'll get supplied by the holders we protect," David Caterel said. N'klas was not the only one whose mouth dropped open in surprise. "That's the plan which has just now been accepted by all holders." David grinned. "That's what allows us to decentralize the fighting force. The Holds we protect will tithe to support the local Weyr. That way Fort won't be overburdened. We won't always be able to sneak south for food, especially after Ierne is abandoned. Their fire-lizards have done a great job to help the wings we've sent there. But they'll be leaving, too. We've got to let the grubs dig in and spread. A good start's been made at Key Largo, Seminole, and Ierne, but it's a long-term process."

There were a few wry smiles at the understatement. Everyone knew that it would take several hundred years for grubs—the anti-Thread organism that Ted Tubberman had bioengineered—to spread across the Southern Continent in sufficient density to make ordinary vegetation less vulnerable to destruction by those deadly spores. And only once the new life-form was well-enough established in the south could colonies of it be transferred north.

"So that's what all this coming and going's been about," Uloa said, propping her fists on her hips and glaring at David. "And you never gave us so much as a hint."

David recoiled slightly. "I never had so much as a hint myself until this evening. You know how closemouthed Sean can be."

"That's true enough," Jean said with a wry laugh.

"What he dislikes is that the dragons'll have to do a lot of hauling."

Jean made a real grimace this time and sighed deeply. "Then it's only fair that the holders help us dig!"

"That was Sean's point."

Jean couldn't see the diagram, so she pulled it down. "So this is how we'll be spending our free time?"

"What free time?" half a dozen voices chorused around her.

"The free time tomorrow when we'll all go over and formally take possession of our Weyr," David said firmly. He glanced around, looking for acknowledgment. "Go easy on the beer. We'll make a daylight start."

"Our daylight, of course!" said an anonymous voice from the back.

"He's got more sense than to interfere with your beering by making us start at daylight on the east coast," Jean said tartly.

From the middle of the room a roar went up: "Telgar! Telgar Weyr!"

"As if they had any choice," Jean said at her drollest, "though I'd like to suggest a name now for ours and let you think about it."

"What name?"

"Benden!" she said in a proud quiet tone, lifting her chin. There was a long moment of respectful silence.

"What's to think about?" asked a firm baritone voice from the rear.

"Could there be any other name that would be more fitting?" David Caterel asked, and Torene could see that his eyes had filled.

The murmur grew quickly as the name was repeated throughout their small gathering. Jean touched her glass to David's, and suddenly the others all got to their feet, glasses raised.

"To Benden Weyr!" David Caterel said, though "Weyr" came out raggedly.

"To Benden Weyr!" And mugs, cups, and glasses were raised high and then drained.

Torene had to sniff and dash the tears from her eyes, but she felt uplifted by that little ceremony. Hers had been the last Hatching that the ailing admiral had attended. She remembered that he had sought her out and wished her and her new queen the very best. Though he still walked with an erect back, his step was short and jerky. One of his sons and Mihall had escorted him.

Many riders began to circulate then, some to get more beer, some to drift off, but Torene was more or less hemmed in by the other queen riders and Wingleaders.

"You got this copy from your mother?" David asked, spreading it carefully out on the table. When she nodded, he asked, "Any chance we can get more? And at least one set of enlargements for each elevation?" Torene nodded again. Her parents would be extremely proud of her assignment and willing to cooperate in any way they could. "And you've been there recently?" His manner was kindly, as if she were much younger than she actually was and needed to be led. She was twenty-two, but she didn't resent that from David as much as she would have from one of her peers.

"A whole bunch of us went the day you and Sean went down to Ierne to eat," Uloa said, with a put-you-in-your-place tone.

Grinning back at her, David said, "If I'd known Sean was going to pull it off, I'd've come with you. What I need to establish is how recent your visit was."

"Very."

"And where is this access tunnel you found, Torene?"

N'klas was closer and jammed his index finger down on the spot. "Here."

David kept looking at Torene for his answer.

She nodded. "This echo reads as two meters high, ground to ceiling." She indicated with a fingertip. "Here and here Ozzie says there're tunnels that can be enlarged, with an entrance into the—into Benden Weyr—" She was interrupted by a chorus of approval: "Sounds good." "Paul'd be pleased." "Perfect name!" "Has a ring to it, doesn't it?" She went on: "—and an exit on high ground above the river, here."

Comments and suggestions flew too thick and fast for her to identify the speakers.

"That would be the priority project, so we can get materials and people in and out easily."

"We still have to shift by dragonback. Couldn't send a land expedition when we don't know the overnighting places."

"Kaarvan wouldn't mind a good long sail. He's bored with fishing the Bay."

"Iernans can bring in a lot of their own gear on their ships."

Other riders, eager to contribute, began to crowd in, and Torene, courteously letting people past her, suddenly found herself excluded.

"It's my map," she said under her breath, trying to suppress a surge of bitterness as she took a further step back, nearly stepping on the feet of someone seated behind her.

"It'll be your Weyr, ‘Rene," said a soft, amused tenor voice. She looked down into Mihall Connell's slightly mocking gray-blue eyes. She'd never been close enough to see their color before. "Come the time Alaranth flies," he went on. "She'll fly soon—but you know that, don't you?"

There was no mockery in his tone, and he'd made more of a statement than a question.

"Well, if you intend to be Weyrleader, why aren't you in there, mapping your space?" The moment the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them and bit her lip. "I'm sorry, Mihall."

"Why?" His very regular eyebrows quirked briefly, and his gray-blue eyes, not a trace of mockery in them, met hers once more, his head tilted up at her. "I should like to be Weyrleader. I intend to be Weyrleader. Everyone knows that." The mockery was back. "The question is, how does Alaranth feel about Brianth?"

"Isn't it more how I feel about you?" The words tumbled out before she could stop them, and she shook her head and stamped her foot in annoyance: That wasn't at all what she had intended to say.

Mihall rose slowly until he was looking down at her, an intense expression on his face. "No, it's ultimately the dragons who decide: the one who decides how to fly this queen, and the one who decides who she'll let catch her."

Torene knew now why she hadn't been in his company much. He wasn't at all like the other bronze and brown riders in her "bunch." And knowing the reputation he and Brianth had in "catching" queens, she had deliberately, if unconsciously, avoided being in his company. She also knew the opinions the other queen riders had of him, and those only confused her more. "Polite"? "Quick"? "Deft and considerate"? "Too controlled"? None of those comments fit what she sensed of him.

He knows he is the son of his parents, Alaranth said.

"Yes, he would know that," she said almost sadly, for that couldn't be easy on him. When Mihall politely raised his eyebrows in query, she realized she had spoken aloud. "Brianth," she added, and gave Mihall what she hoped was an understanding smile. From his stunned expression, she found she had only compounded her blunder and he had jumped to the logical conclusion. "Oh, lord, both feet are in my mouth tonight. Do you want a copy of your own when I ask Mother for them tomorrow?" She tried to keep her voice even and pleasant, but to her own ears she sounded irritated.

Mihall inclined toward her. "I'd appreciate it," he said, but all the warmth she had seen—so briefly—in his eyes was gone and they were coldly gray. He stood clear of the chair, and before she could walk away from her embarrassment, he left her.

I could just scream, she told Alaranth. It all came out so wrong, Allie. How could I possibly have said the things I did to him? And the way I said them! Oh, how could I!

There was a long pause when she thought that her dragon was too sleepy to answer.

Don't worry. The voice was not Alaranth's.

Brianth?

He's right. Too late now was Alaranth's not too reassuring reply.

"Where did Torene go?" David's voice rose above the other conversations.

"I'm here," she said, and allowed the alacrity with which the riders parted to let her back in soothe her frustration and self-accusation.

The next morning, having asked the watchdragon to wake her at daybreak, Telgar time, Torene arrived at her parents' cavern just as Sonja was pouring klah. To her daughter's astonishment, she was pouring it into three cups, and there was a third bowl of steaming porridge set at the table.

"How did you know I was coming?"

"How could we not know?" Sonja said, clasping her daughter to her ample bust and joyfully, proudly, embracing her with arms well muscled from a lifetime of mining. "Telgar announces to us there will be four Weyrs, and one of them here."

"Up there," Volodya corrected his wife, pointing north-east, but he rose from his seat and kissed his daughter, hugging her nearly as enthusiastically as his wife had but with some consideration for Torene's ribs. "And you are named to be at the east coast one."

"At Benden Weyr," she said, hoping that at least the name would be a surprise.

"Ah!" Her mother's face lit up and she embraced her daughter again before she mopped a tear from each eye

"As it should be. As it should be," Volodya said, sittig down at the table and beginning to spoon his porridge into his mouth. "Sit! Eat! You will need it."

"So, how many copies do you come for me to make for you?" Sonja asked slyly, giving Torene a little push toward the spare place.

"Oh, Mother!"

"And why shouldn't you, dushka?" Sonja was unperturbed. "Always you are putting yourself behind. And where else is there a replicating machine that works? You will want enlargements, too, of each elevation? How many in all?"

"Mother…" Torene began in protest, and then burst out laughing.

"Sit! Eat!" her father repeated and gestured firmly for her to take her seat. "Copies we can talk of later. Now you will have breakfast with us and tell us news we don't get to hear at Telgar."

When she finally left, stuffed with two bowls of porridge and more klah than she liked to have swirling in her belly going between, she was carrying a plastic tube full of copies and enlargements—more than she would have had the nerve to request. Sonja had blithely replicated four copies of each and every possible angle of the original and secondary surveys of Benden Weyr. Torene reckoned that one reason they were so willing to go over the top was because they were so pleased with that naming.

"No, is for you, dushka," Sonja said, giving her daughter a hard kiss on her cheek in farewell. "We are proud to have queen rider daughter. Keep her safe, Alaranth!"

With her many-faceted eyes gleaming in the shadows cast by Telgar's high mountain peaks, Alaranth turned her head and lowered her forequarters to the ground, as much to aid her rider to mount as to acknowledge the parting.

Who else is to keep you safe? Alaranth said as she turned and dropped off the ledge into the valley below.

Torene laughed at her phrasing, the speed of their descent snatching the sounds away. You sound just like my mother!

We go now to Benden Weyr?

Torene squeezed her eyes, which had filled slightly with tears of pride at the grand sound of the name, and the concentrated on the image of the double-cratered bowl—the bowl of Benden Weyr.

Yes!

She was certain that all that klah and porridge would turn to ice in her belly, but then they were out in the warm spring sunlight, gliding down the Weyr toward the lake.

Good morning to you! Torene recognized Brianth's voice though she didn't see him below, nor any sign of Mihall.

He's on the rim behind us, sunning, Alaranth told her, well pleased that she and Torene had started their own errand earlier than this pair.

Torene's mouth felt dry as Alaranth swung back to the upper crater and lost altitude. She had a view of Brianth, sunning himself on the heights. Backwinging, Alaranth landed neatly on the surface, the breeze from her pinions making the gravel rattle. A man's head peered out from the nearby opening to what Torene thought would be the Hatching Ground. Mihall still wore his flying gear, so he couldn't have been here long, Torene thought.

He didn't rush, but his stride covered the distance between them so that he was at her side when she reached the ground.

"You've been busy this morning, I see." He nodded at the tube.

Keeping a stern grip on her tongue, she smiled pleasantly. "Their daybreak, not ours," she said, opening the tube.

He looked into the tube's contents and whistled, grinning down at her with approval. That was the first time she had seen him smile so openly, and she wondered why he didn't more often. It would have improved his reputation.

Then she could see his fingers twitching, eager to see every sheet she had brought. Was that why he had gotten here so early? How could he have been certain she'd do her errand so promptly?

Brianth told him we'd left.

This time she was careful to keep her immediate response to herself. Had Brianth slept with one eye open?

The watchdragon will speak to anyone who asks politely. This came from Brianth, and although she knew dragons couldn't laugh, there was amusement of that quality in the bronze's tone.

"Here," Torene said, perversely irritated now by both rider and dragon. Why did Mihall have the ability to disturb her with so many conflicting emotions? She tapped the tube so the roll would fall out.

Mihall was that much quicker and had the films in his hands before she could catch them.

"It's less windy inside here," he said, impatient to unroll the sheets but not willing to risk their damage.

When she got inside the vaulted chamber, she saw that he had been there long enough to make a small fire, set far enough in the shelter of the front wall to be protected from the wind, and secure in a neat circle of stones. A klah pot balanced close enough to keep its contents hot. A bulging sack was propped up against the wall, along with an opaque sheet of plastic wrapped around a number of finished plastic shafts.

"The klah's ready if you'd like a cup," he said, noting her surprise. "If not, help me put the table together. It's easier with two."

Torene shook her head at the first offer and started to untie the bundle. When assembled, the table was exactly the same size as the largest of the replicated elevations. Mihall produced pushpins and a narrow strip of plastic. He worked deftly, and before she knew it, one full set of the drawings was secured to the table with the plastic strip holding down the top edges so that the diagrams could be flipped over without being torn.

"You are handy," she said, pleased and somewhat amused by his preparations.

"I know the largest size that replicator can print," he said, shrugging off her implied compliment. "Ah, this is the one I wanted to see." He turned to the side elevations of the upper crater.

There are more coming now! Brianth and Alaranth said almost in unison.

"About time," Torene and Mihall said, also in chorus. Catching each other's eyes, they both laughed: blue dominated the gray in the bronze rider's eyes.

For Torene, that marked the beginning of the most intense period of activity she had ever experienced, even when she was first learning how to care for Alaranth. David Caterel had borrowed Ozzie from Telgar, although the old prospector insisted that everything he and Cobber had discovered in these craters was already written up or symbolized on the plasfilm they had in their possession.

"We used some of those first uglies Wind Blossom bred to check out the tunnels," he said, tapping a joint-disfigured finger on the drawings. "X marks spots you don't go. ‘S'all here. Took her"—he pointed at Torene– "and her, him, him," he added, indicating Uloa, N'kla and D'vid, "through every one of ‘em, up and down, and the ones in between. The ‘between' you get to when you walk," he commented, favoring David Caterel with a droll eye.

"Had you anything better to do today?" David asked, grinning. "You can sit here, drink all the klah…"

"You didn't think to bring any beer, didja? Prefer beer.

"In fact, I did, knowing your preference," David said, and began to haul large bottles from each of his thigh and jacket pockets.

"Good man." Ozzie took one, broke the seal, took a long pull, then wiped his mouth with the back of his sun-riddled hand and sighed with deep appreciation. At last he looked up at David again. "I'll tell ya if ya do anythin' wrong," he assured them. "That one"—and he pointed to Torene again—"knows most of ‘em anyway, so she can lead you. I'll just stay here in case ya go wrong. Then I'll findja.'

Smiles were carefully concealed from the wiry old man as David turned purposefully to Torene.

"So, what do you want to see first?" she asked, holding her hands out in compliance.

"Everything," David said. "Starting with here and where can we put the hypocaust to keep the sands warm.

"This way, lords and ladies," Torene said impishly, remembering the phrases from the stories her father had told her as a child. There were always lords and ladies in Volodya Ostrovsky's bedtime tales.

By noontime, they had climbed about, or been flown by obliging dragons to, every cave, niche, nook, and cranny in the eastern side of the upper crater. They paused to eat, and review their notes and the diagrams, and then, with only slightly diminished zeal, explored the western side, including the sites where Torene had thought ground access was possible. The plasfilm that had been pristine that morning showed all kinds of marks and new legends in the margins. Lists of materials urgently needed were stuck in under the top rail.

By the time darkness fell, not only was everyone tired, scratched, and bruised from clambering over, under, and past unforgiving stone, but also full of intimate knowledge of their proposed home.

The next day queen riders, Wingleaders, and -seconds held conferences with Ierne's representatives to see what materials would be needed to start work on the access tunnel.

Though they were not asked, the dragons insisted on helping dig once the stonecutters had excised the cliff face of the proposed access tunnel. David Caterel tried to stop them.

"You're fighting dragons, not digging dragons," he said, scowling at his own Polenth. "Torene, Uloa, Jean, speak to your queens."

"Sternly?" Jean asked, grinning back and smearing the mud on her face as she mopped sweat. A shovel handle leaned against her.

This will be our home, too, Alaranth and Greteth said, and the bronzes bugled agreement.

"Think you got outvoted," Uloa said. "It's only because you're one of the first and Sean fussed so about doing carrier duty."

"This is different," Jean said, replacing gloves preparatory to attacking the rubble again. "This is for us!"

The dragons gave another bugle, and David, shaking his head, surrendered. There was no question that dragon assistance lightened the task. Ozzie was on hand, too, "to make sure the echoes were accurate," he said. But he carried out his supervision from a sunny spot on a convenient boulder, pulling away at his beer.

Torene was not the only rider who had brought sleeping furs, spare clothes, and what food she could wangle from Tarrie's kitchen. She had dumped her things in one of the smaller caves that she could climb to if Alaranth was asleep. It was three times the size of her accommodation at Fort—palatial in comparison. Alaranth thoroughly approved of the ledge in front, which got the morning sun.

By pooling their food, those who stayed on overnight managed quite a satisfactory meal. Despite being tired, some of the bronze and brown riders excused themselves afterward.

"Wonder where they're going?" Uloa asked.

"Not where, not even why," Jean said, groaning, "but how do they have the energy to go at all! Fresh fruit would go nice for breakfast."

"Did any of them check for Threadfall in the south?" Torene asked.

"Mihall did," R'bert said, offering round the klah pot.

Jean rolled her eyes and Uloa sighed, stretching warily.

"D'you think he'll bring back a hot bath?" she asked.

"That would be heaven," Jean said. "What did Ozzie say about the possibility of tapping into some thermals here?"

"He said that it was possible if there was enough pipeline left from doing Tillek, " Torene said, thinking longingly of a hot bath herself.

We could go back to Fort? Alaranth suggested.

I don't think I have muscles enough to climb up to your back, Torene replied.

She was half-asleep when the riders returned. Not only had they brought fresh fruit and several braces of chickens, but each dragon had a fat bullock or cow struggling in his claws. These were deposited down by the lake, where they bawled out their terror for hours before finally settling.

"Where'd you find the chickens?" Jean asked, eyes wide with delighted surprise.

"They take shelter in the old caves, the Catherine caves, I think they were called," Mihall said.

"Yes, they were," Jean said as she watched him untie the chickens' legs. Squawking, each released fowl ran off into the bowl. "We've nothing to feed them with."

"I think I threw some crusts and heels onto the compost heap," Torene said, and got up.

Mihall caught her by the shoulder. "If it's there, they'll find it on their own. What's the matter?" he added as he saw her wince.

"My shoulder's stiff."

"Whose isn't?" Uloa said, groaning and rubbing her own shoulder.

"Didn't one of you think to bring some numbweed?" Mihall asked with a grin.

A widespread groan answered the question: the remedy was so obvious! Jean stiffly began to get to her feet. "My pack's nearest."

Mihall reached out to prevent her. "Where? Let me get it."

"Oh, would you? I'm in the third cave on the left on the first level. It's an easy climb."

When Mihall returned with the numbweed, they took turns rubbing the salve into abused muscles. Somehow—and she couldn't reject the courtesy without sounding uncivil—Mihall managed to be available to work on Torene's shoulders. Then she was much too grateful for the sure, firm touch of his massaging fingers as he worked the salve in.

"Thanks, Mihall," she said, rotating shoulder blades that no longer ached.

"Just take it easy tomorrow or you'll be back to me again," he said, and turned to Genteelly, who was waiting for similar ministrations.

Because of the massage she slept easier that night—once she tuned out the bawling of the cattle. The next day, at an appropriate hour, she asked Polenth to have David bring along a big jar of the numbweed when they returned from Fort to Benden.

In effect, they now worked two shifts: those staying at Benden did the first one, then took a rest break when the Fort-based contingent arrived, fresh. The four Benden wings, excused from Threadfall at Fort, began to catch the eastern Falls, to see how they could protect the newly named Benden Hold property. A nearby source of phosphine-bearing rock was indicated on the survey maps, and David sent a work group of blue and brown riders to begin to stockpile the all-important firestone.

A team arrived from Tarvi Telgar to set up the hypocaust system in the Hatching Ground, so the campers moved their belongings across the Bowl to what would be the living quarters. The first hearth and its chimney were built against an outside wall. Ozzie and Svenda Bonneau plumbed for and found a thermal vent, and Fulmar Stone supplied the pump and instructed his apprentices in setting the pipes that would supply the individual weyrs as well as the main living accommodations.

More cattle and other types of herd beasts that had managed to survive Threadfall in the South were added to the herd that occupied the lake end of the craters. The chickens laid, and it became a regular early-morning exercise to find where, in the sands, the eggs had been secreted. Some were left to the broody hens, but others supplied the cooks. Julie, the fourth queen rider for Benden Weyr, arrived from Big Island on her Rementh, who had finally recovered from wing scoring. Julie, who was still in a gelicast for the broken leg she'd incurred trying to dismount in a hurry to tend to her queen, announced that she'd act as domestic manager.

Then Captain Kaarvan and the Pernese Venturer dropped anchor at the mouth of Benden River, and the promised assistance from Ierne broke trail to be the first to make use of the access tunnel. The workers they supplied included masons and carpenters, and soon individual caves became proper weyrs, with partitions between dragon and rider accommodations, and even private bathrooms.

Work was also done on what would be the quarters of the two Weyrleaders, the large room that would be used for private conferences, and one below that which could be an office for the Weyrleaders.

No one minded the hard work and the long hours, because they were building for their own comfort as well as that of generations to come. So they built well and carefully.

When the Benden Weyrfolk decided that sufficient provision for them had been made, they and their dragons flew down to the Hold, which was progressing more slowly, and, used the skills they had learned to help the holders settle into their new accommodation.

The only break the Benden riders took was to attend the Hatching at Fort. That was always a glad occasion for dragonriders and could not be missed, especially when most of the sixteen hatchlings had been assigned to Benden Weyr. That provoked a complaint from F'mar, in the name of Telgar Weyr, although work on that facility had not even started.

"The next clutch will go to you, F'mar, especially as you've no place to put them yet but here at Fort," Sean said dismissively.

"Young Fulmar better stop hassling Sean," Jean murmured to the other Benden queen riders. "Especially if he keeps on acting like he's already Weyrleader. That's a long way from being decided."

"But someone has to be in charge, sort of, don't they?" Torene asked. "I mean, David…"

"David Caterel has the right," Jean said firmly. "You've no complaints, have you?" She eyed Torene speculatively.

"Me? No. He listens to any objections, anyway," she said, once again made conscious of the fact that although no one said anything to the point of her being Benden's Weyrwoman, everyone knew, and tended to turn to her for decisions and opinions.

Working shoulder to shoulder, day after day, with the bronze and brown riders had given Torene a good chance to get to know them all. She liked most of them, so she supposed Alaranth would have the final say. Of the younger riders, N'klas, L'ren, T'mas, and D'vid kept as much in her company as possible. David Caterel was always courteous to her, but he treated all the women riders the same way, even Julie, whom his Polenth had last flown. Mihall had a knack of appearing when she was in trouble—like when the cutter jammed, or when she was trying to roll a heavy boulder out of the way. It got so she almost expected him to be there when she needed a hand. Some-what to her chagrin, he never lingered, but returned to whatever task he had interrupted to help her. Meanwhile, the Weyrleaders' quarters remained unoccupied.

It was Mihall who cried "Get the queens away!" while people were finishing their midday meal. He came pounding into the lower cavern, straight up to Torene. He caught her hand and, pulling her to her feet, urged her to action. "Get your queens out of here, Jean, Uloa. Where's Julie gone?"

Licking the fingers of her right hand, which were sticky from peeling red fruit, Torene did not resist Mihall's urgent tugging.

"How could she go into heat without me noticing?" she cried. She had been keeping such a close watch on Alaranth—or so she had thought.

"Today, because she's been lounging in the sun," Mihall said, and turned her by the hand he held so that she was facing the right way. He pointed. "She's more than just gold right now."

Torene inhaled sharply: Alaranth, stretching legs and wings in a manner that Torene instantly identified as sensual, was gleaming a bright gold that had nothing to do with clean skin and sunlight. Mihall jerked round as Jean, Uloa, and Julie came pelting out of the lower cavern in flying jackets too large for them and helmets that were just as obviously borrowed. No time to get their own riding gear. Throwing anxious glances over their shoulders at the luminous Alaranth, the three riders scrambled aboard their own dragons.

"Look!" Mihall swiveled Torene about again so that she could see the male dragons beginning to gather on the Rim, their eyes taking on the avid orange of arousal. Their riders were converging on Mihall and Torene, and suddenly she was the focus of their awakened sensuality. Despite herself, she recoiled, tearing her hand free of Mihall's grip. His eyes had turned an intense blue. "Remember," Mihall said then, "don't let her—"

"I know, I know, I know!" she cried, resenting each and every one of them for the way they were looking at her. No one had told her about this part of a queen's mating—especially this flight, when the reward of Weyrleadership went to the winner. She backed up until she was leaning against the stone of the Weyr, her mouth gone dry, even as sweat began to ooze from her pores and a strange sensation enveloped her guts.

At her final shout, Alaranth woke completely and Torene made the mental linkage. The rock wall supported her. Not even the calm explicit recital Sorka had given her covered the depth or intensity of the emotions the dragon was feeling, much less Torene's reluctant but inexorable response to the lust. A blood lust, first, with Alaranth aware of an insatiable hunger.

Glittering in the summer sunshine, Alaranth extended her wings and bellowed a challenge. Aware that the male dragons were watching, she turned to display her proud strong body, throwing her head back and stretching out her long neck. She retracted in the blink of an eye, arching herself, and with a graceful, powerful motion, leaped into the air. Three long sweeps of her gleaming wings, and then she was gliding down to the lake, scattering the beasts—her prey—with her hungry cries.

Blood it, Alaranth. Blood it! Don't eat! The instructions Torene had been drilled in jumped to mind as Alaranth landed on the bullock. Blood it only! Torene kept her voice firm, stern, putting every ounce of authority into her tone.

Alaranth snarled back at the distant tense circle of humans before she tore the throat and sucked greedily at the blood.

Blood it! Hear me now! Alaranth! Torene could not give her any leeway in this. Blooding gave the mating queen the quick energy she needed: flesh would only weigh her down and she would not achieve the height required in a truly successful mating flight. Height meant safety, for dragons locked in conjugation could plummet to the ground before finishing if insufficient altitude had not been attained.

Blood only, Alaranth! Torene repeated as her queen leaped on a second large bullock. You must fly the highest you can. You must not eat to do that! Blood it only!

Though they were the length of the Weyr apart, Torene felt as if she were right there beside her ravenous queen; the hot blood was running down her throat, and she wondered why it wasn't choking her. With another part of her consciousness, she felt hands touching her and realized that she was surrounded by many sweaty male bodies, but her immediate concern was not for herself, but for Alaranth. The queen seemed to pulse goldenly even from this distance.

The terrified herd beasts were stampeding about, but they had nowhere to go, and as their circling took them too close to the blooding queen again, she casually made a little hop and landed on one of the smaller creatures.

Blood it! Don't you dare take the flesh, Alaranth. Don't you dare!

Torene was in her queen's mind with an immediacy she had never experienced since Impression. Still, she gasped at the suddenness with which Alaranth flung aside the last kill and, with a gigantic push from her hind legs, surged aloft. The male dragons on the Rim were equally surprised. They all sprang up; two or three dropped off the Rim and were somehow airborne and rising faster than their rivals. To Torene, they were just a blur of wings behind her, for she was Alaranth more than she was Torene, increasing the distance between herself and the males with every beat of her broader, longer wings.

The peaks were falling fast below, and the air cooled a body heated by blooding and by sexual drive at its most potent point. Alaranth reveled in her speed, in the height she was gaining so effortlessly. She caught a thermal and soared on it, attaining more altitude. This was higher than she had ever ventured, and she felt strong, felt the powerful lift of air under her wings, caressing her body, stoking the fires already consuming her.

Far below her sparkled the sea, blues shading to green and aqua. She felt, rather than saw, the shadow: sensed the proximity of another. Craning her head around, she saw the cluster of males below and some distance behind her. They would not catch her so easily. They hadn't her wings, her strength, her…

Strong talons gripped her shoulder joints, a powerful neck twined with hers, and wrenching herself about to meet her attacker, only too late did Alaranth realize she had done exactly as the bronze had hoped and she was well and truly caught. As he made sure of his conquest of her, wing to wing, necks twined, talons locked, Alaranth realized that only one had ever been in contention for her, and she abandoned all restraint.

"Now! Torene, now!"

Torene was no longer aloft with Alaranth in the throes of the dragons' mating passion; she was naked in the arms of the bronze's rider—naked, and her body demanding the same glorious orgasm that her dragon had just experienced.

"Damn it, Torene," that rider was saying as he attempted to penetrate her body, "did you have to wait until now?"

She gripped him to her, her nails digging into the muscular flesh of his back. The hurt was a mere moment's discomfort, immediately forgotten in the powerful surging of lust that rose from some unexpected, limitless depth within her.

"Toreeeeeeeene!"

The cry of her name produced mild astonishment in her: the tone held more than triumph, more than surprise, more than intense pleasure. So she opened her eyes to see whose dragon had flown hers so skillfully, which rider had take her.

His face was still buried in her neck; his body, limp with repletion, leaned heavily against hers. He smelled of sweat, as she did. Even his hair was damp. They were both dripping, but as she wrapped slippery arms about his slippery back, she knew him, and knew him more intimately now than she had known any other man.

"Polite"? "Considerate"? Her errant mind went through the comments of the other queen riders about this man. "Deft"? Well, he had certainly been that, both with his bronze's tactics and with herself. "Controlled"? Oh, no, not a bit controlled. Not polite, and more angry with her virginity than considerate. But then, had she been all that wise, leaving her first experience until her queen's first flight? Well, it had been her option, and she was glad she had. That way she had been sure that it was her dragon who would choose, not some silly preference of hers.

"Mihall?" She spoke his name softly. His breathing had slowed, and she didn't know if he had fallen asleep where he lay on her. He wasn't that heavy, and she'd better get accustomed to it anyway, since he was now indisputably the Weyrleader—and her weyrmate.

He gathered himself to move away, and she held him fast. She liked his body. Indeed, she liked it very much for the way it had made her feel, the way it had completed her.

"You made for the thermal current right off?" she asked, having figured out just how he had managed to achieve his goal.

"Hmmm." He moved his head to emphasize the agreement.

Vividly blue eyes regarded her with solemn appraisal. His short hair was dark red with sweat, but it curled as much as hers did. She expected that they'd have curly, red-headed children and smiled to be thinking that far ahead right now.

"Only way," he murmured. Then, almost as if he expected her to resist, he ran a wondering finger down her cheek.

"Alaranth hadn't a chance against that technique," she said.

"I didn't intend that she should, ‘Rene," he said with a slow smile, and stroked her cheek again. It was the warm smile she liked so much. "I couldn't let any other rider have you."

She looked up at him quizzically: not "dragon," but "rider" and "you." He meant her, not just what she brought to this union, her dragon and the Weyrleadership.

"Rider?"

He raised himself on his elbows, looking down at her face as if he had to memorize every detail. "You are exceptionally beautiful, you know, and those eyelashes are totally unfair!" That marvelous smile of his again curved his firm mouth.

"But you said you were going to be Weyrleader."

"Oh, I'd've been that one way or another, sooner or later," he said in a blithe tone. He gave her very tender kisses on the edges of her lips.

"Polite"? "Restrained"? She couldn't help smiling up at him, thinking of how very wrong the other women had been and how very glad she was that they were.

"It was always you I ached to have," he said, still memorizing the planes of her face, kissing her cheekbones. "From the moment I saw you Impress Alaranth. But my father had warned me off the queen riders. I had to shadow Admiral Benden in order to get anywhere near you then without having my backside flayed."

"That long ago?" Who had been avoiding whom since? She raised her eyelashes then and swept them teasingly across his forehead. His arms tightened, and there was nothing polite or considerate about his response: a response that had nothing to do with his dragon.

We both have what we wanted, said a dragon in a sleepy satisfied tone.

Try though she would in all the years she and M'hall were the Weyrleaders of Benden, Torene was never sure which dragon had spoken. Or to whom.