DRAGONRIDER
by
Anne McCaffrey

Anne McCaffrey Editor's note; What follows is selfcontained and
selfexplanatory. That's obvious; how else could it have won an award?

At the same time, it is the concluding half of a larger work, part of which
appeared in Nebula Three. Therefore Karen Anderson has prepared a synopsis of
what went before. You may well prefer to skip that and go directly on to the
gorgeously colored world of dragons and their riders which Anne McCaffrey has
created for you. On the other hand, many travelers prefer to read a guidebook
before they leave home.



On the world called Pern, the human inhabitants have no tradition of Earth or
of space travel. There is a legendary vagueness about the menace of the
Threads which fall when the freakish orbit of the Red Star (a captured planet)
brings it close to Pern. Though nobles and commoners are in awe of the
Dragons and the elite corps who ride them, they are ignorant of the nature of
the powers bred into both Dragons and riders.



In the Hold of Ruatha, young Lessa had for half her life used her inborn
mental powers to camouflage herself from the men of Fax, the brigand lord who
slaughtered her entire family to secure his seizure of their Hold. She also
managed, by small subtle interferences, to disrupt all the workings of Ruatha,
so that Fax had no profit from his conquest.

Fax did not know of her existence; but when the dragonrider F'lar inspected
Fax's Holds in search of a potential Weyrwoman, he knew that someone at Ruatha
had the abilities he was looking forespecially when he realized that he had
been maneuvered into a duel with Fax. The latter dead, Lessa claimed Ruatha.
But in the fury to which she had provoked him, Fax had renounced this
unprofitable Hold in favor of his youngest son, born that night. F'lar told
Lessa that the infant's claim must stand, but that she had the Power needed in
a Weyrwoman. She agreed to go with him to the Weyr.

This had fallen very low in prestige, due in part to the incompetence of the
last Weyrwoman, Jora, now dead. The last clutch of the dying queen-dragon
Nemorth included one queen-egg; they had been sired by Hath, and consequently
his rider R'gul was Weyrleader. On hatching, the queen-chick chose Lessa after
clumsily injuring two other candidates. At the moment their eyes met, their
minds joined in joyful rapport. Lessa and the golden dragon Ramoth would now
be devoted to each other for the rest of their lives. R'gul remained
Weyrleader while Ramoth grew up, and taught Lessa her duties. Meanwhile few
Holds sent tithes and the Lords of the others called the dragonriders
parasites, the legendary Threads a lie. After Lessa secretly encouraged raids
on the herds of disaffected Holds to make up the shortage of food, there was
active revolt. But by the time troops marched on the Weyr, the situation had
drastically changed. Ramoth, now two Turns old, was full-grown and larger even
than F'lar's bronze Mnementh. She had made her nuptial flight, and Mnementh
had claimed her. Their rapport with the dragons brought F'lar and Lessa
together with the same passion.

The new Weyrieader F'lar was quick-witted and decisive: he sent parties of
dragonriders to make hostages of the womenfolk of the rebel lords. Their Holds
were unguarded, for they had forgotten that a dragon can fly between, passing
almost instantly from one place to another. So the tithes would be paid; the
Weyr would prosper again.

The Finger points

At an Eye blood-red.

Alert the Weyrs

To sear the Thread.

"You STILL doubt, R'gul?" F'lar asked, appearing slightly amused by the older
bronze rider's perversity.

R'gul, his handsome features stubbornly set, made no reply to the weyrleader's
taunt. He ground his teeth together as if he could grind away F'lar's
authority over him.

"There have been no Threads in Pern's skies for over four hundred Turns. Thkre
are no more!"

"There is always that possibility," F'lar conceded amiably.

There was not, however, the slightest trace of tolerance in his amber eyes.
Nor the slightest hint of compromise in his manner.

He was more like F'lon, his sire, R'gul decided, than a son had any right to
be. Always so sure of himself, always slightly contemptuous of what others did
and thought. Arrogant, that's what F'lar was. Impertinent, too, and
underhanded in the matter of that young Weyrwoman. Why, R'gul had trained her
up to be one of the finest Weyrwomen in many Turns. Before he'd finished her
instruction, she'd known all the Teaching Ballads and Sagas letter-perfect.
And then the silly child had turned to F'lar. Didn't have sense enough to
appreciate the merits of an older, more experienced man. Undoubtedly she felt
a first obligation to F'lar for discovering her on Search.

"You do, however," F'lar was saying, "admit that when the sun hits the Finger
Rock at the moment of dawn, winter solstice has been reached?"

"Any fool knows that's what the Finger Rock is for," R'gul grunted.

"Then why don't you, you old fool, admit that the Eye Rock was placed on Star
Stone to bracket the Red Star when it's about to make a Pass?" burst out
K'net.

R'gul flushed, half-starting out of his chair, ready to take the young sprout
to task for such insolence.

"K'net!" F'lar's voice cracked authoritatively. "Do you really like flying the
lgen patrol so much you want another few weeks at it?"

K'net hurriedly seated himself, flushing at the reprimand and the threat.

"There is, you know, R'gul, incontrovertible evidence to support my
conclusions," F'lar went on with deceptive mildness. " 'The Finger points/At
an Eye blood-red . . .' " "Don't quote me verses I taught you as a weyriing,"
R'gul exclaimed heatedly.
"Then have faith in what you taught," F'lar snapped back, his amber eyes
flashing dangerously.

R'gul, stunned by the unexpected forcefulness, sank back into his chair.

"You cannot deny, R'gul," F'lar continued quietly, "that no less than half an
hour ago the sun balanced on the Finger's tip at dawn and the Red Star was
squarely framed by the Eye Rock."

The other dragonriders, bronze as well as brown, murmured and nodded their
agreement to that phenomenon. There was also an undercurrent of resentment for
R'gul's continual contest of F'lar's policies as the new Weyrleader. Even old
S'lel, once R'gul's avowed supporter, was following the majority.

"There have been no Threads in four hundred Turns. There are no Threads,"
R'gul muttered.

"Then, my fellow dragonman," F'lar said cheerfully, "all you have taught is
falsehood. The dragons are, as the Lords of the Holds wish to believe,
parasites on the economy of Pern, anachronisms. And so are we.

"Therefore, far be it from me to hold you here against the dictates of your
conscience. You have my permission to leave the Weyr and take up residence
where you will."

Someone laughed. R'gul was too stunned by F'lar's ultimatum to take offense at
the ridicule. Leave the Weyr? Was the man mad? Where would he go? The Weyr had
been his life. He had been bred up to it for generations. All his male
ancestors had been dragonriders. Not all bronze, true, but a decent
percentage. His own dam's sire had been a Weyrleader just as he, R'gul, had
been until F'lar's Mnementh had flown the new queen.

But dragonmen never left the Weyr. Well, they did if they were negligent
enough to lose their dragons, like that Lytol fellow at Ruath Hold. And how
could be leave the Weyr with a dragon?

What did F'lar want of him? Was it not enough that he was Weyrleader now in
R'gul's stead? Wasn't F'lar's pride sufficiently swollen by having bluffed the
Lords of Pern into disbanding their army when they were all set to coerce the
Weyr and dragonmen? Must F'lar dominate every dragonman, body and will, too?
He stared a long moment, incredulous.

"I do not believe we are parasites," F'lar said, breaking the silence with a
soft, persuasive voice. "Nor anachronistic. There have been long Intervals
before. The Red Star does not always pass close enough to drop Threads on
Pern. Which is why our ingenious ancestors thought to position the Eye Rock
and the Finger Rock as they did . . . to confirm when a Pass will be made. And
another thing" his face turned grave "there have been other times when
dragonkind has all but died out . . . and Pern with it because of skeptics
like you." F'lar smiled and relaxed indolently in his chair. "I prefer not to
be recorded as a skeptic. How shall we record you, R'gul?"

The Council Room was tense. R'gul was aware of someone breathing harshly and
realized it was himself. He looked at the adamant face of the young Weyrleader
and knew that the threat was not empty. He would either concede to F'lar's
authority completely, though concession rankled deeply, or leave the Weyr. And
where could he go, unless to one of the other Weyrs, deserted for hundreds of
Turns? And R'gul's thoughts were savage wasn't that indication enough of the
cessation of Threads? Five empty Weyrs? No, by the Egg of Faranth, he would
practice some of F'lar's own brand of deceit and bide his time. When all Pern
turned on the arrogant fool, he, R'gul, would be there to salvage something
from the rylns.

"A dragonman stays in his Weyr," R'gul said with what dignity he could muster.

"And accepts the policies of the current Weyrleader?" The tone of F'lar's
voice made it less of a question and more of an order.

So as not to perjure himself, R'gul gave a curt nod of his head. Flar
continued to stare at him and, R'gul wondered if the man could read his
thoughts as his dragon might. He managed to return the gaze calmly. His turn
would come. He'd wait.

Apparently accepting the capitulation, F'lar stood up and crisply delegated
patrol assignments for the day.

"T'bor, you're weather-watch. Keep an eye on those tithing trains as you do.
Have you the morning's report?"

"Weather is fair at dawning . . . all across Telgar and Keroon . . . if all
too cold," T'bor said with a wry grin.

"Tithing trains have good hard roads, though, so they ought to be here soon."
His eyes twinkled with anticipation of the feasting that would follow the
supplies' arrival a mood shared by all, to judge by the expressions around
the table.

F'lar nodded. "S'lan and D'nol, you are to continue an adroit Search for
likely boys. They should be striplings, if possible, but do not pass over
anyone suspected of talent.It's all well and good to present for Impression
boys reared up in the Weyr traditions." F'lar gave a one-sided smile.

"But there are not enough in the Lower Caverns. We, too, have been behind in
begetting. Anyway, dragons reach full growth faster than their riders. We must
have more young men to Impress when Ramoth hatches. Take the southern holds,
Ista, Nerat, Fort, and South Boll where maturity comes earlier. You can use
the guise of inspecting Holds for greenery to talk to the boys. And take along
firestone and run a few flaming passes on those heights that haven't been
scoured in-oh dragon's years. A flaming beast impresses the young and arouses
envy."

F'lar deliberately looked at R'gul to see the ex-weyrleader's reaction to the
order. R'gul had been dead set against going outside the Weyr for more
candidates. In the first place, R'gul had argued that there were eighteen
youngsters in the Lower Caverns, some quite young, to be sure, but R'gul would
not admit that Ramoth would lay more than the dozen Nemorth had always
dropped. In the second place, R'gul persisted in wanting to avoid any action
that might antagonize the Lords.

R'gul made no overt protest, and F'lar went on.

"K'net, back to the mines. I want the dispositions of each firestone-dump
checked and quantities available. R'gul, continue drilling recognition points
with the weyriings. They must be positive about their references. If they're
used as messengers and suppliers, they may be sent out quickly and with no
time to ask questions.

"F'nor, T'sum"F'lar turned to his own brown riders "you're clean-up squad
today." He allowed himself a grin at their dismay. "Try Ista Weyr. Clear the
Hatching Cavern and enough weyrs for a double wing. And, F'nor, don't leave a
single Record behind. They're worth preserving. That will be all, dragonmen.
Good flying." And with that, F'lar rose and strode from the Council Room up to
the queen's weyr.

Ramoth still slept, her hide gloaming with health, its color deepening to a
shade of gold closer to bronze, indicating her pregnancy. As he passed her,
the tip of her long tail twitched slightly.

All the dragons were restless these days, F'lar reflected. Yet when he asked
Mnementh, the bronze .dragon could give no reason. He woke, he went back to
sleep. That was all. F'lar couldn't ask a leading question for that would
defeat his purpose. He had to remain discontented with the vague fact that the
restlessness was some kind of instinctive reaction.

Lessa was not in the sleeping room, nor was she still bathing. F'lar snorted.
That girl was going to scrub her hide off with this constant bathing. She'd
had to live grimy to protect herself in Ruath Hold, but bathing twice a day?
He was beginning to wonder if this might be a subtle Lessa-variety insult to
him personally. F'lar sighed. That girl. Would she never turn to him of her
own accord? Would he ever touch that elusive inner core of Lessa? She had more
warmth for his half brother, F'nor, and for K'net, the youngest of the bronze
riders than she had for F'lar who shared her bed.

He pulled the curtain back into place, irritated. Where had she gone to today
when, for the first time in weeks, he had been able to get all the wings out
of the Weyr just so he could teach her to fly between?

Ramoth would soon be too egg-heavy for such activity. He had promised the
Weyrwoman, and he meant to keep that promise. She had taken to wearing the
wher-hide riding gear as a flagrant reminder of his unfulfilled pledge. From
certain remarks she had dropped, he knew she would not wait much longer for
his aid. That she would try it on her own didn't suit him at all.

He crossed the queen's weyr again and peered down the passage that led to the
Records Room. She was often to be found there, poring over the musty skins.
And that was one more matter that needed urgent consideration. Those Records
were deteriorating past legibility. Curiously enough, earlier ones were still
in good condition and readable. Another technique forgotten. That girl! He
brushed his thick forelock of hair back from his brow in a gesture habitual to
him when he was annoyed or worried. The passage was dark, which meant she
could not be below in the Records Room.

"Mnementh," he called silently to his bronze dragon, sunning on the ledge
outside the queen's weyr. "What is that girl doing?"

Lessa, the dragon replied, stressing the Weyrwoman's name with pointed
courtesy, is talking to Manora. She's dressed for riding, he added after a
slight pause.

F'lar thanked the bronze sarcastically and strode down the passage to the
entrance. As he turned the last bend, he all but ran Lessa down.

You hadn't asked me where she was, Mnementh plaintively answered F'lar's
blistering reprimand.

Lessa rocked back on her heels from the force of their encounter. She glared
up at him, her lips thin with displeasure, her eyes flashing.

"Why didn't I have the opportunity of seeing the Red Star through the Eye
Rock?" she demanded in a hard, angry voice.
F'lar pulled at his hair. Lessa at her most difficult would complete the list
of this morning's trials.

"Too many to accommodate on the Peak as it was," he muttered, determined not
to let her irritate him today. "And you already believe."

"I'd've liked to see it," she snapped and pushed past him toward the weyr. "If
only in my capacity as Weyrwoman and Recorder."

He caught her arm and felt her body tense. He set his teeth, wishing, as he
had a hundred times since Ramoth rose in her first mating flight, that Lessa
had not been virgin, too. He had not thought to control his dragon-incited
emotions, and Lessa's first sexual experience had been violent. It had
surprised him to be first, considering that her adolescent years had been
spent drudging for lascivious warders and soldier- types. Evidently no one had
bothered to penetrate the curtain of rags and the coat of filth she had
carefully maintained as a disguise. He had been a considerate and gentle
bedmate ever since, but, unless Ramoth and Mnementh were involved, he might as
well call it rape.

Yet he knew someday, somehow, he would coax her into responding wholeheartedly
to his lovemaking. He had a certain pride in his skill, and he was in a
position to persevere. Now he took a deep breath and released her arm slowly.

"How fortunate you're wearing riding gear. As soon as the wings have cleared
out and Ramoth wakes, I shall teach you to fly between."

The gleam of excitement in her eyes was evident even in the dimly lit
passageway. He heard her inhale sharply.

"Can't put it off too much longer or Ramoth'll be in no shape to fly at all,"
he continued amiably.

"You mean it?" Her voice was low and breathless, its usual acid edge missing.
"You will teach us today?" He wished he could see her face clearly.

Once or twice he had caught an unguarded expression on her face, loving and
tender. He would give much to have that look turned on him. However, he
admitted wryly to himself, he ought to be glad that melting regard was
directed only at Ramoth and not at another human.

"Yes, my dear Weyrwoman, I mean it. I will teach you to fly between today. If
only," and be bowed to her with a flourish, "to keep you from trying it
yourself."

Her low chuckle informed him his taunt was well-aimed.

"Right now, however," he said, indicating for her to lead the way back to the
weyr, "I could do with some food. We were up before the kitchen."

They had entered the well-lighted weyr, so he did not miss the trenchant look
she shot him over her shoulder. She would not so easily forgive being left out
of the group at the Star Stone this morning, certainly not with the bribe of
flying between.



How different this inner room was now that Lessa was Weyrwoman, F'lar mused as
Lessa called down the service shaft for food. During Jora's incompetent tenure
as Weyr- woman, the sleeping quarters had been crowded with junk, unwashed
apparel, uncleared dishes. The state of the Weyr and the reduced number of
dragons were as much Jora's fault as R'gul's, for she had indirectly
encouraged sloth, negligence, and gluttony. If he, F'lar, had been just a few
years older when F'lon, his father, had died . . . Jora had been disgusting,
but when dragons rose in mating flight, the condition of your partner counted
for nothing.

Lessa took a tray of bread and cheese, and mugs of the stimulating klah from
the platform. She served him deftly.

"You'd not eaten, either?" he asked.

She shook her head vigorously, the braid into which she had plaited her thick,
fine dark hair bobbing across her shoulders. The hairdressing was too severe
for her narrow face, but it did not, if that was her intention, disguise her
femininity or the curious beauty of her delicate features.

Again F'lar wondered that such a slight body contained so much shrewd
intelligence and resourceful . . . cunning yes, that was the word, cunning.
F'lar did not make the mistake, as others had, of underestimating her
abilities.

"Manora called me to witness the birth of Kylara's child."

F'lar maintained an expression of polite interest. He knew perfectly well that
Lessa suspected the child was his, and it could have been, he admitted
privately, but he doubted it. Kylara had been one of the ten candidates from
the same Search three years ago which had discovered Lessa. Like others who
survived Impression, Kylara had found certain aspects of Weyr life exactly
suited to her temperament. She had gone from one rider's weyr to another's.
She had even seduced F'lar not at all against his will, to be sure. Now that
he was Weyrleader, he found it wiser to ignore her efforts to continue the
relationship. T'bor had taken her in hand and had had his hands full until he
retired her to the Lower Caverns, well advanced in pregnancy.

Aside from having the amorous tendencies of a green dragon, Kylara was quick
and ambitious. She would make a strong Weyrwoman, so F'lar had charged Manora
and Lessa with the job of planting the notion in Kylara's mind. In the
capacity of Weyrwoman . . . of another Weyr . . . her intense drives would be
used to Pern's advantage. She had not learned the severe lessons of restraint
and patience that Lessa had, and she didn't have Lessa's devious mind.
Fortunately she was in considerable awe of Lessa, and F'lar suspected that
Lessa was subtly influencing this attitude. In Kylara's case, F'lar preferred
not to object to Lessa's meddling.

"A fine son," Lessa was saying.

F'lar sipped his klah. She was not going to get him to admit any
responsibility.

After a long pause Lessa added, "She has named him T'kil."

F'lar suppressed a grin at Lessa's failure to get a rise from him.

"Discreet of her."

"Oh?"

"Yes," F'lar replied blandly. "T'lar might be confusing if she took the second
half of her name as is customary. 'Tkil, however, still indicates sire as well
as dam."

"While I was waiting for Council to end," Lessa said after clearing her
throat, "Manora and I checked the supply caverns. The tithing trains, which
the Holds have been so gracious as to send us" her voice was sharp "are due
within the week. There will shortly be bread fit to eat," she added, wrinkling
her nose at the crumbling gray pastry she was attempting to spread with
cheese.

"A nice change," F'lar agreed.

She paused.   "The Red Star performed its scheduled antic?"

He nodded.

"And R'gul's doubts have been wiped away in the enlightening   red glow?"

"Not at all." F'lar grinned back at her, ignoring her sarcasm. "Not at all,
but he will not be so vocal in his criticism."

She swallowed quickly so she could speak. "You'd do well to cut out his
criticism," she said ruthlessly, gesturing with her knife as if plunging it
into a man's heart. "He is never going to accept your authority with good
grace."

"We need every bronze rider . . . there are only seven, you know," he reminded
her pointedly. "R'gul's a good wing- leader. He'll settle down when the
Threads fall. He needs proof to lay his doubts aside."

"And the Red Star in the Eye Rock is not proof?" Lessa's expressive eyes were
wide.

F'lar was privately of Lessa's opinionthat it might be wiser to remove R'gul's
stubborn contentiousness. But he could not sacrifice a wingleader, needing
every dragon and rider as badly as he did.

"I don't trust him," she added darkly. She sipped at her hot drink, her gray
eyes dark over the rim of her mug. As if, F'lar mused, she didn't trust him,
either.

And she didn't, past a certain point. She had made that plain, and, in
honesty, he couldn't blame her. She did recognize that every action F'lar took
was toward one end . . . the safety and preservation of dragonkind and
weyrfolk and consequently the safety and preservation of Pern. To effect that
end, he needed her full cooperation. When Weyr business or dragonlore were
discussed, she suspended the antipathy he knew she felt for him. In
conferences she supported him wholeheartedly and persuasively, but always he
suspected the double edge to her comments and saw a speculative, suspicious
look in her eyes. He needed not only her tolerance but her empathy.

'Tell me," she said after a long silence, "did the sun touch the Finger Rock
before the Red Star was bracketed in the Eye Rock or after?"

"Matter of fact, I'm not sure, as I did not see it myself . The concurrence
lasts only a few moments . but the two are supposed to be simultaneous."

She frowned at him sourly. "Whom did you waste it on? R'gul?" She was
provoked, her angry eyes looked everywhere but at him.
"I am Weyrleader," he informed her curtly. She was unreasonable. She awarded
him one long, hard look before she bent to finish her meal. She ate very
little, quickly and neatly. Compared to Jora, she didn't eat enough in the
course of an entire day to nourish a sick child. But then, there was no point
in ever comparing Lessa to Jora.

He finished his own breakfast, absently piling the mugs together on the empty
tray. She rose silently and removed the dishes.

"As soon as the Weyr is free, we'll go," he told her.

"So you said." She nodded toward the sleeping queen, visible through the open
arch. "We still must wait upon Ramoth."

"Isn't she rousing? Her tail's been twitching for an hour."

"She always does that about this time of day." .

F'lar leaned across the table, his brows drawn together thoughtfully as he
watched the golden-forked tip of the queen's tail jerk spasmodically from side
to side.

"Mnementh, too. And always at dawn and early morning. As if somehow they
associate that time of day with trouble ..."

"Or the Red Star's rising?" Lessa interjected.

Some subtle difference in her tone caused F'lar to glance quickly at her. It
wasn't anger now over having missed the morning's phenomenon. Her eyes were
fixed on nothing; her face, smooth at first, was soon wrinkled with a vaguely
anxious frown as tiny lines formed between her arching, well-defined brows.

"Dawn . . . that's when all warnings come," she murmured.

"What kind of warnings?" he asked with quiet encouragement.

"There was that morning . . . a few days before . . . before you and Fax
descended on Ruath Hold. Something woke me . . . a feeling, like a very heavy
pressure . . . the sensation of some terrible danger threatening." She was
silent. "The Red Star was just rising." The fingers of her left hand opened
and closed. She gave a convulsive shudder. Her eyes re- focused on him.

"You and Fax did come out of the northeast from Crom," she said sharply,
ignoring the fact, F'lar noticed, that the Red Star also rises north of true
east.

"Indeed we did," he grinned at her, remembering that morning vividly.
"Although," he added, gesturing around the great cavern to emphasize, "I
prefer to believe I served you well that day . . . you remember it with
displeasure?"

The look she gave him was coldly inscrutable.

"Danger comes in many guises."

"I agree," he replied amiably, determined not to rise to her bait. "Had any
other rude awakenings?" he inquired conversationally.

The absolute stillness in the room brought his attention back to her. Her face
had drained of all color.
"The day Fax invaded Ruath Hold." Her voice was a barely articulated whisper.
Her eyes were wide and staring. Her hands clenched the edge of the table. She
said nothing for such a long interval that F'lar became concerned. This was an
unexpectedly violent reaction to a casual question.

"Tell me," he suggested softly.

She spoke in unemotional, impersonal tones, as if she were reciting a
Traditional Ballad or something that had happened to an entirely different
person.

"I was a child. Just eleven. I woke at dawn . . ." Her voice trailed off. Her
eyes remained focused on nothing, staring at a scene that had happened long
ago.

F'lar was stirred by an irresistible desire to comfort her. It struck him
forcibly, even as be was stirred by this unusual compassion, that he had never
thought that Lessa, of all people, would be troubled by so old a terror.

Mnementh sharply informed his rider that Lessa was obviously bothered a good
deal. Enough so that her mental anguish was rousing Ramoth from sleep. In less
accusing tones Mnementh informed F'lar that R'gul had finally taken off with
his weyriing pupils. His dragon, Hath, however, was in a fine state of
disorientation due to R'gul's state of mind. Must F'lar unsettle everyone in
the Weyr . . .

"Oh, be quiet," F'lar retorted under his breath.

"Why?" Lessa demanded in her normal voice.

"I didn't mean you, my dear Weyrwoman," he assured her, smiling pleasantly, as
if the entranced interlude had never occurred. "Mnementh is full of advice
these days."

"Like rider, like dragon," she replied tartly.

Ramoth yawned mightily. Lessa was instantly on her feet, running to her
dragon's side, her slight figure dwarfed by the six-foot dragon head. A
tender, adoring expression flooded her face as she gazed into Ramoth's
gleaming opalescent eyes. F'lar clenched his teeth, envious, by the Egg, of a
rider's affection for her dragon.

In his mind he heard Mnementh's dragon equivalent of laughter.

"She's hungry," Lessa informed F'lar, an echo of her love for Ramofh lingering
in the soft line of her mouth, in the kindness of her gray eyes.

"She's always hungry," he observed and followed them out of the weyr.

Mnementh hovered courteously just beyond the ledge until Lessa and Ramoth had
taken off. They glided down the Weyr Bowl, over the misty bathing lake, toward
the feeding ground at the opposite end of the long oval that comprised the
floor of Benden Weyr. The striated, precipitous walls were pierced with the
black mouths of single weyr entrances, deserted at this time of day by the few
dragons who might otherwise doze on their ledges in the wintry sun.

As F'lar vaulted to Mnementh's smooth bronze neck, he hoped that Ramoth's
clutch would be spectacular, erasing the ignominy of the paltry dozen Nemorth
had laid in each of her last few clutches. He had no serious doubts of the
improvement after Ramoth's remarkable mating flight with his Mnementh. The
bronze dragon smugly echoed his rider's certainty, and both looked on the
queen possessively as she curved her wings to land. She was twice Nemorth's
size, for one thing; her wings were half-a-wing again longer than Mnementh's,
who was the biggest of the seven male bronzes. F'lar looked to Ramoth to
repopulate the five empty Weyrs, even as he looked to himself and Lessa to
rejuvenate the pride and faith of dragonriders and of Pern itself. He only
hoped time enough remained to him to do what was necessary. The Red Star had
been bracketed by the Eye Rock. The Threads would soon be falling. Somewhere,
in one of the other Weyrs' Records, must be the information he needed to
ascertain when, exactly, Threads would fall.

Mnementh landed. F'lar jumped down from the curving neck to stand beside
Lessa. The three watched as Ramoth, a buck grasped in each of her forefeet,
rose to a feeding ledge.

"Will her appetite never taper off?" Lessa asked with affectionate dismay.

As a dragonet, Ramoth had been eating to grow. Her full stature attained, she
was, of course, now eating for her young, and she applied herself
conscientiously.

F'lar chuckled and squatted, hunter fashion. He picked up shale-flakes,
skating them across the flat dry ground, counting the dust puffs boyishly.

"The time will come when she won't eat everything in sight," he assured Lessa.
"But she's young . . ."

". . . and needs her strength," Lessa interrupted, her voice a fair imitation
of R'gul's pedantic tones.

P'lar looked up at her, squinting against the wintry sun that slanted down at
them.

"She's a finely grown beast, especially compared to Nemorth." He gave a
contemptuous snort. "In fact, there is no comparison. However, look here," he
ordered peremptorily. He tapped the smoothed sand in front of him, and she saw
that his apparently idle gestures had been to a purpose. With a sliver of
stone, he drew a design in quick strokes.

"In order to fly a dragon between, he has to know where to go. And so do you."
He grinned at the astonished and infuriated look of comprehension on her face.
"Ah, but there are certain consequences to an ill-considered jump. Badly
visualized reference points often result in staying between." His voice
dropped ominously. Her face cleared of its resentment. "So there are certain
reference or recognition points arbitrarily taught all weyriings. "That," he
pointed first to his facsimile and then to the actual Star Stone with its
Finger and Eye Rock companions, on Benden Peak "is the first recognition point
a weyriing learns. When I take you aloft, you will reach an altitude just
above the Star Stone, near enough for you to be able to see the hole in the
Eye Rock clearly. Fix that picture sharply in your mind's eye, relay it to
Ramoth. That will always get you home."

"Understood. But how do I learn recognition points of places I've never seen?"

He grinned up at her. "You're drilled in them. First by your instructor," and
he pointed the sliver at his chest, "and then by going there, having directed
your dragon to get the visualization from her instructor," and he indicated
Mnementh. The bronze dragon lowered his wedge-shaped head until one eye was
focused on his rider and his mate's rider. He made a pleased noise deep in his
chest. Lessa laughed up at the gleaming eye and, with unexpected affection,
patted the soft nose.

F'lar cleared his throat in surprise. He had been aware that Mnementh showed
an unusual affection for the Weyrwoman, bue he had had no idea Lessa was fond
of the bronze. Per- versely, he was irritated.

"However," he said, and his voice sounded unnatural to himself, "we take the
young riders constantly to and from the main reference points all across Pern,
to all the Holds so that they have eyewitness impressions on which to rely. As
a rider becomes adept in picking out landmarks, he gets additional references
from other riders. Therefore, to go between, there is actually only one
requirement: a clear picture of where you want to go. And a dragon!" He
grinned at her.

"Also, you should always plan to arrive above your reference point in clear
air."

Lessa frowned.

"It is better to arrive in open air"F'lar waved a hand above his head"rather
than underground," and he slapped his open hand onto the dirt. A puff of dust
rose wamingly.

"But the wings took off within the Bowl itself the day the Lords of the Hold
arrived," Lessa reminded him.

F'lar chuckled at her uptake. "True, but only the most seasoned riders. Once
we came across a dragon and a rider entombed together in solid rock. They . .
. were . . . very young," His eyes were bleak.

"I take the point," she assured him gravely. "That's her fifth," she added,
pointing toward Ramoth, who was carrying her latest kill up to the bloody
ledge.

"She'll work them off today, I assure you," F'lar remarked.

He rose, brushing off his knees with sharp slaps of his riding gloves. "Test
her temper."

Lessa did so with a silent, Had enough? She grimaced at Ramoth's indignant
rejection of the thought.

The queen went swooping down for a huge fowl, rising in a flurry of gray,
brown and white feathers.

"She's not as hungry as she's making you think, the deceitful creature," F'lar
chuckled and saw that Lessa had reached the same conclusion. Her eyes were
snapping with vexation.

"When you've finished the bird, Ramoth, do let us learn how to fly between,"
Lessa said aloud for F'lar's benefit, "before our good Weyrleader changes his
mind."

Ramoth looked up from her gorging, turned her head toward the two riders at
the edge of the feeding ground. Her eyes gleamed. She bent her head again to
her kill, but Lessa could sense the dragon would obey.
It was cold aloft. Lessa was glad of the fur lining in her riding gear, and
the warmth of the great golden neck which she bestrode. She decided not to
think of the absolute cold of between which she had experienced only once. She
glanced below on her right where bronze Mnementh hovered, and she caught his
amused thought. F'lar tells me to tell Ramoth to tell you to fix the alignment
of the Star Stone firmly in your mind as a homing.

Then, Mnementh went on amiably, we shall fly down to the lake.You will return
from between to this exact point. Do you understand?

Lessa found herself grinning foolishly with anticipation and nodded
vigorously. How much time was saved because she could speak directly to the
dragons! Ramoth made a disgruntled noise deep in her throat. Lessa patted
her reassuringly. "Have you got the picture in your mind, dear one?" she
asked, and Ramoth again rumbled, less annoyed, because she was catching
Lessa's excitement.

Mnementh stroked the cold air with his wings, greenish- brown in the sunlight,
and curved down gracefully toward the lake on the plateau below Benden Weyr.
His flight line took him very low over the rim of the Weyr. From Lessa's
angle, it looked like a collision course. Ramoth followed closely in his wake.
Lessa caught her breath at the sight of the jagged boulders just below
Ramoth's wing tips.

It was exhilarating, Lessa crowed to herself, doubly stimulated by the elation
that flowed back to her from Ramoth. Mnementh halted above the farthest shore
of the lake, and there, too, Ramoth came to hover.

Mnementh flashed the thought to Lessa that she was to place the picture of
where she wished to go firmly in her mind and direct Ramoth to get there.
Lessa complied.

The next instant the awesome, bone-penetrating cold of black between enveloped
them. Before either she or Ramoth were aware of more than that biting touch of
cold and impregnable darkness, they were above the Star Stone. Lessa let out
a cry of pure triumph.

It is extremely simple. Ramoth seemed disappointed.

Mnementh reappeared beside and slightly below them. You are to return by the
same route to the Lake, he ordered, and before the thought had finished,
Ramoth took off.

Mnementh was beside them above the lake, fuming with his own and F'lar's
anger. You did not visualize before transferring. Don't think a first
successful trip makes you perfect. You have no conception of the dangers
inherent in between.

Never fail to picture your arrival point again.

Lessa glanced down at F'lar. Even two wingspans apart, she could see the vivid
anger on his face, almost feel the fury flashing from his eyes. And laced
through the wrath, a terrible sinking fearfulness for her safety that was a
more effective reprimand than his wrath. Lessa's safety, she wondered
bitterly, or Ramoth's?

You are to follow us, Mnementh was saying in a calmer tone, rehearsing in your
mind the two reference points you have already learned. We shall jump to and
from them this morning, gradually learning other points around Benden.
They did. Flying as far away as Benden Hold itself, nestled against the
foothills above Benden Valley, the Weyr Peak a far point against the noonday
sky, Lessa did not neglect to visualize a clearly detailed impression each
time.

This was as marvelously exciting as she had hoped it would be, Lessa confided
to Ramoth. Ramoth replied: yes, it was certainly preferable to the
time-consuming methods others had to use, but she didn't think it was exciting
at all to jump between from Benden Weyr to Benden Hold and back to Benden Weyr
again. It was dull. They had met with Mnementh above the Star Stone again. The
bronze dragon sent Lessa the message that this was a very satisfying initial
session. They would practice some distant jumping tomorrow.

Tomorrow, thought Lessa glumly, some emergency will occur or our hard-working
Weyrleader will decide today's session constitutes keeping his promise and
that will be that.

There was one jump she could make between, from anywhere on Pern, and not miss
her mark. She visualized Ruatha for Ramoth as seen from the heights above the
Hold . . . to satisfy that requirement. To be scrupu- lously clear, Lessa
projected the pattern of the firepits. Before Fax, invaded and she had had to
manipulate its decline, Ruatha had been such a lovely, prosperous valley. She
told Ramoth to jump between.

The cold was intense and seemed to last for many heartbeats. Just as Lessa
began to fear that she had somehow lost them between, they exploded into the
air above the Hold.

Elation filled her. That for F'lar and his excessive caution! With Ramoth she
could jump anywhere! For there was the distinctive pattern of Ruatha's
fire-guttered heights. It was just before dawn, the Breast Pass between Crom
and Ruatha, black cones against the lightening gray sky. Fleetingly she
noticed the absence of the Red Star that now blazed in the dawn sky. And
fleetingly she noticed a difference in the air.

Chill, yes, but not wintry . . . the air held that moist coolness of early
spring.

Startled, she glanced downward, wondering if she could have, for all her
assurance, erred in some fashion. But no, this was Ruath Hold. The Tower, the
inner Court, the aspect of the broad avenue leading down to the crafthold were
just as they should be. Wisps of smoke from distant chimneys indicated people
were making ready for the day.

Ramoth caught the tenor of her insecurity and began to press for an
explanation.

This is Ruatha, Lessa replied stoutly. It can be no other.

Circle the heights. See, there are the firepit lines I gave you....

Lessa gasped, the coldness in her stomach freezing her muscles.

Below her in the slowly lifting predawn gloom, she saw the figures of many men
foiling over the breast of the cliff from the hills beyond Ruatha, men moving
with quiet stealth like criminals.

She ordered Ramoth to keep as still as possible in the air so as not to direct
their attention upward. The dragon was curious but obedient.
Who would be attacking Ruatha? It seemed incredible. Lytol was, after all, a
former dragonman and had savagely repelled one attack already. Could there
possibly be a thought of aggression among the Holds NOW that F'lar was Weyr-
leader? And what H6ld Lord would be foolish enough to mount a territorial war
in the winter? No, not winter. The air was definitely springlike.

The men crept on, over the firepits to the edge of the heights. Suddenly Lessa
realized they were lowering rope ladders over the face of the cliff, down
toward the open shutters of the Inner Hold.

Wildly she clutched at Ramoth's neck, certain of what she saw. This was the
invader Fax, now dead nearly three Turns Fax and his men as they began their
attack on Ruatha nearly thirteen Turns ago.

Yes, there was the Tower guard, his face a white blot turned toward the Cliff
itself, watching. He had been paid his bribe to stand silent this morning.

But the watch-wher, trained to give alarm for any intrusion why was it not
trumpeting its warning? Why was it silent?

Because, Ramoth informed her rider with calm logic, it senses your presence as
well as mine, so how could the Hold be in danger?

No, No! Lessa moaned. What can I do now? How can I wake them? Where is the
girl I was? I was asleep, and then I woke. I remember. I dashed from my room.
I was so scared. I went down the steps and nearly fell. I knew I had to get to
the watch-wher's kennel. . . . I knew. . . .

Lessa clutched at Ramoth's neck for support as past acts and mysteries became
devastatingly clear. She herself had warned herself, just as it was her
presence on the queen dragon that had kept the watchwher from giving alarm.
For as she watched, stunned and speechless, she saw the small, gray-robed
figure that could only be herself as a youngster, burst from the Hold Hall
door, race uncertainly down the cold stone steps into the Court, and disappear
into the watch-wher's stinking den. Faintly she heard it crying in piteous
confusion.

Just as Lessa-the-giri reached that doubtful sanctuary, Fax's invaders swooped
into the open window embrasures and began the slaughter of her sleeping
family.

"Back-back to the Star Stone!" Lessa cried. In her wide and staring eyes she
held the image of the guiding rocks like a rudder for her sanity as well as
Ramoth's direction. The intense cold acted as a restorative. And then they
were above the quiet, peaceful wintry Weyr as if they had never paradoxically
visited Ruatha.

F'lar and Mnementh were nowhere to be seen. Ramoth, however, was unshaken by
the experience. She had only gone where she had been told to go and had not
quite understood that going where she had been told to go had shocked Lessa.
She suggested to her rider that Mnementh had probably followed them to Ruatha
so if Lessa would give her the proper references, she'd take her there.
Ramoth's sensible attitude was comforting.

Lessa carefully drew for Ramoth not the child's memory of a long-vanished,
idyllic Ruatha but her more recent recollection of the Hold, gray, sullen, at
dawning, with a Red Star pulsing on the horizon. And there they were again,
hovering over the valley, the Hold below them on the right. The grasses grew
untended on the heights, clogging firepit and brickwork; the scene showed all
the deterioration she had encouraged in her effort to thwart Fax of any profit
from conquering Ruath Hold.

But, as she watched, vaguely disturbed, she saw a figure emerge from the
kitchen, saw the watch-wher creep from its lair and follow the raggedly
dressed figure as far across the Court as the chain permitted. She saw the
figure ascend the Tower, gaze first eastward, then northeastward. This was
still not Ruatha of today and now! Lessa's mind reeled, disoriented. This time
she had come back to visit herself of three Turns ago, to see the filthy
drudge plotting revenge on Fax.

She felt the absolute cold of between as Ramoth snatched them back, emerging
once more above the Star Stone. Lessa was shuddering, her eyes frantically
taking in the reassuring sight of the Weyr Bowl, hoping she had not somehow
shifted backward in time yet again. Mnementh suddenly erupted into the air a
few lengths below and beyond Ramoth. Lessa greeted him with a cry of intense
relief.

Back to your weyr! There was no disguising the white fury in Mnementh's tone.
Lessa was too unnerved to respond in any way other than instant compliance.
Ramoth glided swiftly to their ledge, quickly clearing the perch for Mnementh
to land.

The rage on F'lar's face as he leaped from Mnementh and advanced on Lessa
brought her wits back abruptly. She made no move to evade him as he grabbed
her shoulders and shook her violently.

"How dare you risk yourself and Ramoth? Why must you defy me at every
opportunity? Do you realize what would happen to all Pern if we lost Ramoth?
Where did you go?"

He was spitting with anger, punctuating each question that tumbled from his
lips by giving her a head-wrenching shake.

"Ruatha," she managed to say, trying to keep herself erect. She reached out to
catch at his arms, but he shook her again.

"Ruatha? We were there. You weren't. Where did you go?"

"Ruatha!" Lessa cried louder, clutching at him distractedly because he kept
jerking her off balance. She couldn't organize her thoughts with him jolting
her around.

She was at Ruatha, Mnementh said firmly.

We were there twice, Ramoth added.

As the dragons' calmer words penetrated F'lar's fury, he stopped shaking
Lessa. She hung limply in his grasp, her hands weakly plucking at his arms,
her eyes closed, her face gray. He picked her up and strode rapidly into the
queen's weyr, the dragons following. He placed her upon the couch, wrapping
her tightly in the fur cover. He called down the service shaft for the duty
cook to send up hot klah. "All right, what happened?" he demanded.

She didn't look at him, but he got a glimpse of her haunted eyes. She biinked
constantly as if she longed to erase what she had just seen.

Finally she got herself somewhat under control and said in a low, tired voice.
"I did go to Ruatha. Only . . . I went back to Ruatha."

"Back to Ruatha?" F'lar repeated the words stupidly; the significance
momentarily eluded him.

It certainly does, Mnementh agreed and flashed to F'lar's mind the two scenes
he had picked out of Ramoth's memory. Staggered by the import of the
visualization, F'lar found himself slowly sinking to the edge of the bed. "You
went between times?"

She nodded slowly. The terror was beginning to leave her eyes.

"Between times," F'lar murmured. "I wonder . . ." His mind raced through the
possibilities. It might well tip the scales .of survival in the Weyr's favor.
He couldn't think exactly how to use this extraordinary ability, but there
must be an advantage in it for dragonfolk.

The service shaft rumbled. He took the pitcher from the platform and poured
two mugs.

Lessa's hands were shaking so much that she couldn't get hers to her lips. He
steadied it for her, wondering if going between times would regularly cause
this kind of shock. If so, it wouldn't be any advantage at all. If she'd had
enough of a scare this day, she might not be so contemptuous of bis orders the
next time; which would be to his benefit.

Outside in the weyr, Mnementh snorted his opinion on that. F'lar ignored him.

Lessa was trembling violently now. He put an arm around her, pressing the fur
against her slender body. He held the mug to her lips, forcing her to drink.
He could feel the tremors ease off. She took long, slow, deep breaths between
swallows, equally determined to get herself under control. The moment he felt
her stiffen under his arm, he released her. He wondered if Lessa had ever had
someone to turn to.

Certainly not after Fax invaded her family Hold. She had been only eleven, a
child. Had hate and revenge been the only emotions the growing girl had
practiced?

She lowered the mug, cradling it in her hands carefully as if it had assumed
some undefinable importance to her.

"Now. Tell me," he ordered evenly.

She took a long deep breath, and began to speak, her hands tightening around
the mug. Her inner turmoil had not lessened; it was merely under control
now.

"Ramoth and I were bored with the weyriing exercises," she admitted candidly.

Grimly F'lar recognized that, while the adventure might have taught her to be
more circumspect, it had not scared her into obedience. He doubted that
anything would.

"I gave her the picture of Ruatha so we could go between there." She did not
look at him, but her profile was outlined against the dark fur of the rug.
"The Ruatha I knew so well 1 accidentally sent myself backward in time to the
day Fax invaded."

Her shock was now comprehensible to him.

"And . . ." he prompted her, his voice carefully neutral.
"And I saw myself" Her voice broke off. With an effort she continued. "I had
visualized for Ramoth the designs of the firepits and the angle of the Hold if
one looked down from the pits into the Inner Court. That was where we emerged.
It was just dawn" she lifted her chin with a nervous jerk "and there was no
Red Star in the sky." She gave him a quick, defensive look as if she expected
him to contest this detail. "And I saw men creeping over the firepits,
lowering rope ladders to the top windows of the Hold. I saw the Tower guard
watching. Just watching." She clenched her teeth at such treachery, and her
eyes gleamed malevolently.

"And I saw myself run from the Hall into the watch-wher's lair. And do you
know why"her voice lowered to a bitter whisper"the watch-wher did not alarm
the Hold?"

"Why?"

"Because there was a dragon in the sky, and I, Lessa of Ruatha, was on her."
She flung the mug from her as if she wished she could reject the knowledge,
too. "Because I was there, the watch-wher did not alarm the Hold, thinking the
intrusion legitimate, with one of the Blood on a dragon in the sky. So I" her
body grew rigid, her hands clasped so tightly that the knuckles were white"I
was the cause of my family's massacre. Not Fax! If I had not acted the
captious fool today, I would not have been there with Ramoth and the
watch-wher would" Her voice had risen to an hysterical pitch of recrimination.

He slapped her sharply across the cheeks, grabbing her, robe and all, to shake
her. The stunned look in her eyes and the tragedy in her face alarmed him. His
indignation over her willfulness disappeared. Her unruly independence of mind
and spirit attracted him as much as her curious dark beauty. Infuriating as
her fractious ways might be, they were too vital a part of her integrity to be
exorcised. Her indomitable will had taken a grievous shock today, and her
self-confidence had better be restored quickly.

"On the contrary, Lessa," he said sternly, "Fax would still have murdered your
family. He had planned it very carefully, even to scheduling his attack on the
morning when the Tower guard was one who could be bribed. Remember, too, it
was dawn and the watch-wher, being a nocturnal beast, blind by daylight, is
relieved of responsibility at dawn and knows it. Your presence, damnable as it
may appear to you, was not the deciding factor by any means. It did, and I
draw your attention to this very important fact, cause you to save yourself,
by warning Lessa-the-child. Don't you see that?"

"I could have called out," she murmured, but the frantic look had left her
eyes and there was a faint hint of normal color in her lips.

"If you wish to flail around in guilt, go right ahead," he said with
deliberate callousness.

Ramoth interjected a thought that, since the two of them had been there that
previous time as Fax's men had prepared to invade, it had already happened, so
how could it be changed? The act was inevitable both that day and today. For
how else could Lessa have lived to come to the Weyr and impress Ramoth at the
hatching?

Mnementh relayed Ramoth's message scrupulously, even to imitating Ramoth's
egocentric nuances. F'lar looked sharply at Lessa to see the effect of
Ramoth's astringent observation.

"Just like Ramoth to have the final word," she said with a hint of her former
droll humor.
F'lar felt the muscles along his neck and shoulders begin to relax. She'd be
all right, he decided, but it might be wiser to make her talk it all out now,
to put the whole experience into proper perspective.

"You said you were there twice?" He leaned back on the couch, watching her
closely. "When was the second time?"

"Can't you guess?" she asked sarcastically.

"No," he lied.

"When else but the dawn I was awakened, feeling the Red Star was a menace to
me? . . . Three days before you and Fax came out of the northeast."

"It would seem," he remarked dryly, "that you were your own premonition both
times."

She nodded.

"Have you had any more of these presentiments . . . or should I say reinforced
warnings?"

She shuddered but answered him with more of her old spirit.

"No, but if I should, you go. I don't want to."

F'lar grinned maliciously.

"I would, however," she added, "like to know why and how it could happen."

"I've never run across a mention of it anywhere," he told her candidly. "Of
course, if you have done it and you undeniably have," he assured her hastily
at her indignant protest, "it obviously can be done. You say you
thought of Ruatha, but you thought of it as it was on that particular day.
Certainly a day to be remembered. You thought of spring, before dawn, no Red
Star yes, I remember your mentioning that so one would have to remember
references peculiar to a significant day to return to between times to the
past."

She nodded slowly, thoughtfully.

"You used the same method the second time, to get to the Ruatha of three Turns
ago. Again, of course, it was spring."

He rubbed his palms together, then brought his hands down on his knees with an
emphatic slap and rose to his feet.

"I'll be back," he said and strode from the room, ignoring her
half-articulated cry of warning.

Ramoth was curling up in the weyr as he passed her. He noticed that her color
remained good in spite of the drain on her energies by the morning's
exercises. She glanced at him, her many-faceted eye already covered by the
inner, protective lid.

Mnementh awaited his rider on the ledge, and the moment F'lar leaped to his
neck, took off. He circled upward, hovering above the Star Stone.

You wish to try Lessds trick, Mnementh said, unperturbed by the prospective
experiment.

F'lar stroked the great curved neck affectionately. You understand how it
worked for Ramoth and Lessee?

As well as anyone can, Mnementh replied with the approxi- mation of a shrug.
When did you have in mind?

Before that moment F'lar had had no idea. Now, unerringly, his thoughts drew
him backward to the summer day R'gul's bronze Hath had flown to mate
the grotesque Nemorth, and R'gul had become weyrleader in place of his dead
father, F'lon.

Only the cold of between gave them any indication that they had transferred;
they were still hovering above the Star Stone. F'lar wondered if they had
missed some essential part of the transfer. Then he realized that the sun was
in another quarter of the sky and the air was warm and sweet with summer. The
Weyr below was empty; there were no dragons sunning themselves on the ledges,
no women busy at tasks in the Bowl. Noises impinged on his senses: raucous
laughter, yells, shrieks, and a soft crooning noise that dominated the bedlam.

Then, from the direction of the weyriing barracks in the Lower Caverns, two
figures emerged , a stripling and a young bronze dragon. The boy's arm lay
limply along the beast's neck. The impression that reached the hovering
observers was one of utter dejection. The two halted by the lake, the boy
peering into the unruffled blue Waters, then glanting upward 'toward the
queen's weyr. F'lar knew the boy for himself, and compassion for that younger
self filled him. If only he could reassure that boy, so torn by grief, so
filled with resentment, that he would one day become weyrleader. . . .

Abruptly, startled by his own thoughts, he ordered Mnementh to transfer
back. The utter cold of between was like a slap in his face, replaced almost
instantly as they broke out of between into the cold of normal winter.

Slowly, Mnementh flew back down to the queen's weyr, as sobered as F'lar by
what they had seen.



Rise high in glory,

Bronze and gold.

Dive entwined,

Enhance the Hold.

 Count three months and more,

And five heated weeks,

A day of glory and In a month,

who seeks?

 A strand of silver In the sky . . .

With heat,

all quickens And all times fly.
"I don't know why you insisted that F'nor unearth these ridiculous things from
Ista Weyr," Lessa exclaimed in a tone of exasperation. "They consist of
nothing but trivial notes on how many measures of grain were used to bake
daily bread."

F'lar glanced up at her from the Records he was studying. He sighed, leaned
back in his chair in a bone-popping stretch.

"And I used to think," Lessa said with a rueful expression on her vivid,
narrow face, "that those venerable Records would hold the total sum of all
dragonlore and human wisdom. Or so I was led to believe," she added pointedly.

F'lar chuckled. "They do, but you have to disinter it."

Lessa wrinkled her nose. "Phew. They smell as if we had . . . and the only
decent thing to do would be to rebury them."

"Which is another item I'm. hoping to find . . . the old preservative
technique that kept the skins from hardening and smelling."

"It's stupid, anyhow, to use skins for recording. There ought to be
something better. We have become, dear Weyrleader, entirely too hidebound."

While F'lar roared with appreciation of her pun, she regarded him impatiently.
Suddenly she jumped up, fired by another of her mercurial moods.

"Well, you won't find it. You won't find the facts you're looking for. Because
I know what you're really after, and it isn't recorded!"

"Explain yourself."

"It's time we stopped hiding a rather brutal truth from ourselves."

"Which is?"

"Our mutual feeling that the Red Star is a menace and that the Threads will
come! We decided that out of pure conceit and then went back between times to
particularly crucial points in our lives and strengthened that notion, in our
earlier selves. And for you, it was when you decided you were destined" her
voice made the word mocking "to become Weyrleader one day.

"Could it be," she went on scornfully, "that our ultraconservative R'gul has
the right of it? That there have been no Threads for four hundred Turns
because there are no more? And that the reason we have so few dragons is
because the dragons sense they are no longer essential to Pern? That we are
anachronisms as well as parasites?"

F'lar did not know how long he sat looking up at her bitter face or how long
it took him to find answers to her probing questions.

"Anything is possible, Weyrwoman," he heard his voice replying calmly.
"Including the unlikely fact that an eleven year old child, scared stiff,
could plot revenge on her family's murderer and against all odds succeed."

She took an involuntary step forward, struck by his unexpected rebuttal. She
listened intently.
"I prefer to believe," he went on inexorably, "that there is more to life than
raising dragons and playing spring games. That is not enough for me. And I
have made others look further, beyond self-interest and comfort. I have given
them a purpose, a discipline. Everyone, dragonfolk and Holder alike, profits.
                 I am not looking in these Records for reassurance. I'm
looking for solid facts.

"I can prove, Weyrwoman, that there have been Threads. I can prove that there
have been Intervals during which the Weyrs have declined. I can prove that if
you sight the Red Star directly bracketed by the Eye Rock at the moment of
winter solstice, the Red Star will pass close enough to Pern to throw off
Threads. Since I can prove these facts, I believe Pern is in danger. / believe
. . . not the youngster of fifteen Turns ago. F'lar, the bronze rider, the
Weyrleader, believes it!"

He saw her eyes reflecting shadowy doubts, but he sensed his arguments were
beginning to reassure her.

"You felt constrained to believe in me once before," he went on in a milder
voice, "when I suggested that you could be Weyrwoman. You believed me and . .
." He made a ges- ture around the weyr as substantiation.

She gave him a weak, humorless smile. "That was because I had never planned
what to do with my life once I did have Fax lying dead at my feet. Of course,
being Ramoth's Weyrmate is wonderful, but" she frowned slightly "it isn't
enough any more, either. That's why I wanted so to learn to fly and . . ."

". . . . that's how this argument started in the first place," F'lar finished
for her with a sardonic smile.

He leaned across the table urgently.

"Believe with me, Lessa, until you have cause not to. I respect your doubts.
There's nothing wrong in doubting. It sometimes leads to greater faith. But
believe with me until spring. If the Threads have not fallen by then . . ." He
shrugged fatalistically.

She looked at him for a long moment and then inclined her head slowly in
agreement.

He tried to suppress the relief he felt at her decision. Lessa, as Fax had
discovered, was a ruthless adversary and a canny advocate. Besides these, she
was Weyrwoman: essential to his plans.

"Now, let's get back to the contemplation of trivia. They do tell me, you
know, time, place, and duration of Thread incursions," he grimied up at her
reassuringly. "And those facts I must have to make up my timetable."

"Timetable? But you said you didn't know the time."

"Not the day to the second when the Threads may spin . down. For one thing,
while the weather holds so unusually cold for this time of year, the Threads
simply turn brittle and blow away like dust. They're harmless. However, when
the air is warm, they are viable and . . . deadly." He made fists of both
hands, placing one above and to one side of the other. "The Red Star is my
right hand, my left is Pern. The Red Star tarns very fast and in the opposite
direction to us. It also wobbles erratically."

"How do you know that?"
"Diagram on the walls of the Fort Weyr Hatching Ground. That was the very
first Weyr, you know."

Lessa smiled sourly. "I know."

"So, when the Star makes a pass, the Threads spin off, down toward us, in
attacks that last six hours and occur approximately fourteen hours apart."

"Attacks last six hours?"

He nodded gravely.

"When the Red Star is closest to us. Right now it is just beginning its Pass."

She frowned. He rummaged among the skin sheets on the table, and an object
dropped to the stone floor with a metallic clatter. Curious, Lessa bent to
pick it up, turning the thin sheet over in her hands.

"What's this?" She ran an exploratory finger lightly across the irregular
design on one side.

"I don't know. Fnor brought it back from Fort Weyr. It .was nailed to one of
the chests in which the Records had been stored. He brought it along, thinking
it might be important. Said there was a plate like it just under the Red Star
diagram on the wall of the Hatching Ground."

"This first part is plain enough: 'Mother's father's father, who departed for
all time between, said this was the key to the mystery, and it came to him
while doodling: he said that he said: ARRHENIUS? EUREKA! MYCORRHIZA. . . .' Of
course, that part doesn't make any sense at all," Lessa snorted. "It isn't
even Pernesejust babbling, those last three words."

"I've studied it, Lessa," F'lar replied, glancing at it again and tipping it
toward him to reaffirm his conclusions. "The only way to depart for all time
between is to die, right?

People just don't fly away on their own, obviously. So it is a death vision,
dutifully recorded by a grandchild, who couldn't spell very well either.
'Doodling' as the present tense of dying!" He smiled indulgently. "And as for
the rest of it, after the nonsenselike most death visions, it 'explains' what
everyone has always known. Read on."

" 'Flamethrowing fire lizards to wipe out the spores.

Q.E.D.'?"

"No help there, either. Obviously just a primitive rejoicing that he is a
dragonman, who didn't even know the right word for Threads." F'lar's shrug was
expressive.

Lessa wet one fingertip to see if the patterns were inked on. The metal was
shiny enough for a good mirror if she could get rid of the designs. However,
the patterns remained smooth and precise.

"Primitive or no, they had a more permanent way of recording their visions
that is superior to even the well- preserved skins," she murmured.

"Well-preserved babblings," F'lar said, turning back to the skins he was
checking for understandable data.
"A badly scored ballad?" Lessa wondered and then dismissed the whole thing.
"The design isn't even pretty."

F'lar pulled forward a chart that showed overlapping horizontal bands imposed
on the projection of Pern's continental mass.

"Here," he said, "this represents waves of attack, and this one" he pulled
forward the second map with vertical bandings "shows time zones. So you can
see that with a fourteen- hour break only certain parts of Pern are affected
in each attack. One reason for spacing of the Weyrs."

"Six full Weyrs," she murmured, "close to three thousand dragons."

"I'm aware of the statistics," he replied in a voice devoid of expression. "It
meant no one Weyr was overburdened during the height of the attacks, not that
three thousand beasts must be available. However, with these timetables, we
can manage until Ramoth's first clutches have matured."

She turned a cynical look on him. "You've a lot of faith in one queen's
capacity."

He waved that remark aside impatiently. "I've more faith, no matter what your
opinion is, in the startling repetitions of events in these Records."

"Ha!"

"I don't mean how many measures for daily bread, Lessa," he retorted, his
voice rising. "I mean such things as the time such and such a wing was sent
out on patrol, how long the patrol lasted, how many riders were hurt. The
brooding capacities of queens, during the fifty years a Pass lasts and the
Intervals between such Passes. Yes, it tells that. By all I've studied here,"
and he pounded emphatically on the nearest stack of dusty, smelly skins,
"Nemorth should have been mating twice a Turn for the last ten. Had she even
kept to her paltry twelve a clutch, we'd have two hundred and forty more
beasts. . . . Don't interrupt. But we had Jora as weyrleader, and we had
fallen into planet-wide disfavor during a four hundred Turn Interval. Well,
Ramoth will brood over no measly dozen, and she'll lay a queen egg, mark my
words. She will rise often to mate and lay generously. By the time the Red
Star is passing closest to us and the attacks become frequent, we'll be
ready."

She stared at him, her eyes wide with incredulity. "Out of Ramoth?"

"Out of Ramoth and out of the queens she'll lay. Remember, there are Records
of Faranth laying sixty eggs at a time, including several queen eggs."

Lessa could only shake her head slowly in wonder.

" 'A strand of silver/in the sky. . . . With heat, all quick- ens/And all
times fly,' " F'lar quoted to her.

"She's got weeks more to go before laying, and then the eggs must hatch . . ."

"Been on the Hatching Ground recently? Wear your boots. You'll be burned
through sandals."

She dismissed that with a guttural noise. He sat back, outwardly amused by her
disbelief.

"And then you have to make Impression and wait till the riders" she went on.
"Why do you think I've insisted on older boys? The dragons are mature long
before their riders."

"Then the system is faulty." He narrowed his eyes slightly, shaking the stylus
at her.

"Dragon tradition started out as a guide . . . but there comes a time when man
becomes too traditional, toowhat was it you said?too hidebound? Yes, it's
traditional to use the weyrbred, because it's been convenient. And because
this sensitivity to dragons strengthens where both sire and dam are weyrbred.
That doesn't mean weyrbred is best. You, for example..."

"There's Weyrblood in the Ruathan line," she said proudly.

"Granted. Take young Naton; he's craftbred from Nabol, yet F'nor tells me he
can make Canth understand him."

"Oh, that's not hard to do," she interjected.

"What do you mean?" F'lar jumped on her statement.

They were both interrupted by a high-pitched, penetrating whine. F'lar
listened intently for a moment and then shrugged, grinnieg.

"Some green's getting herself chased again."

"And that's another item these so-called all-knowing Records of yours never
mention. Why is it that only the gold dragon can reproduce?"

F'lar did not suppress a lascivious chuckle.

"Well, for one thing, firestone inhibits reproduction. If they never chewed
stone, a green could lay, but at best they produce small beasts, and we need
big ones. And, for another thing"his chuckle rolled out as he went on
deliberately, grinning mischievously"if the greens could reproduce,
considering their amorousness and the numbers we have of them, we'd be up to
our ears in dragons in next to no time."

The first whine was joined by another, and then a low hum throbbed as if
carried by the stones of the Weyr itself. F'lar, his face changing rapidly
from surprise to triumphant astonishment, dashed up the passage.

"What's the matter?" Lessa demanded, picking up her skirts to run after him.
"What does that mean?"

The hum, resonating everywhere, was deafening in the echo-chamber of the
queen's weyr. Lessa registered the fact that Ramoth was gone. She heard Flar's
boots pounding down the passage to the ledge, a sharp to-ta-tat over the ket-
tiedrum booming hum. The whine was so high-pitched now that it was inaudible,
but still nerveracking. Disturbed, frightened, Lessa followed F'lar out.

By the time she reached the ledge, the Bowl was a-whir with dragons on the
wing, making for the high entrance to the Hatching Ground. Weyrfolk, riders,
women, children, all screaming with excitement, were pouring across the Bowl
to the lower entrance to the Ground.

She caught sight of F'lar, charging across to the entrance, and she shrieked
at him to wait. He couldn't have heard her across the bedlam.
Fuming because she had the long stairs to descend, then must double back as
the stairs faced the feeding grounds at the opposite end of the Bowl from the
Hatching Ground, Lessa realized that she, the Weyrwoman, would be the last one
there.

Why had Ramoth decided to be secretive about laying? Wasn't she close enough
to her own weyrmate to want her with her?

A dragon knows what to do, Ramoth calmly informed her.

You could have told me, Lessa wailed, feeling much abused.

Why, at the time F'lar had been going on largely about huge clutches and three
thousand beasts, that infuriating dragon-child had been doing it! It didn't
improve Lessa's temper to have to recall another remark of F'lar's on the
state of the Hatching Grounds. The moment she stepped into the mountain-high
cavern, she felt the heat through the soles of her sandals. Everyone was
crowded in a loose circle around the far end of the cavern. And everyone was
swaying from foot to foot. As Lessa was short to begin with, this only
decreased the likelihood of her ever seeing what Ramoth had done.

"Let me through!" she demanded imperiously, pounding on the wide backs of two
tall riders. An aisle was reluctantly opened for her, and she went through,
looking neither to her right or left at the excited weyrfolk. She was furious,
confused, hurt, and knew she looked ridiculous because the hot sand made her
walk with a curious mincing quickstep.

She halted, stunned and wide-eyed at the mass of eggs, and forgot such trivial
things as hot feet.

Ramoth was curled around the clutch, looking enormously pleased with herself.
She, too, kept shifting, closing and opening a protective wing over her eggs,
so that it was difficult to count them.

No one will steal them, silly, so stop fluttering, Lessa advised as she tried
to make a tally.

Obediently Ramoth folded her wings. To relieve her maternal anxiety, however,
she snaked her head out across the circle of mottled, glowing eggs, looking
all around the cavern, flicking her forked tongue in and out.

An immense sigh, like a gust of wind, swept through the cavern. For there, now
that Ramoth's wings were furled, gleamed an egg of glowing gold among the
mottled ones. A queen egg!

"A queen egg!" The cry went up simultaneously from half a hundred throats. The
Hatching Ground rang with cheers, yells, screams, and howls of exultation.
Someone seized Lessa and swung her around in an excess of feeling. A kiss
landed in the vicinity of her mouth. No sooner did she recover her footing
than she was bugged by someone else she thought it was Manora, and then
pounded and buffeted around in congratulation until she was reeling in a kind
of dance between avoiding the celebrants and easing the growing discomfort of
her feet. She broke from the milling revelers and ran across the Ground to
Ramoth. Lessa came to a sudden stop before the eggs. They seemed to be
pulsing. The shells looked flaccid.

She could have sworn they were hard the day she Impressed Ramoth. She wanted
to touch one, just to make sure, but dared not.

You may, Ramoth assured her condescendingly. She touched Lessa's shoulder
gently with her tongue.

The egg was soft to touch and Lessa drew her hand back quickly, afraid of
doing injury.

The heat will harden it, Ramoth said.

"Ramoth, I'm so proud of you," Lessa sighed, looking adoringly up at the great
eyes that shone in rainbows of pride. "You are the most marvelous queen ever.
I do believe you will redragon all the Weyrs. I do believe you will."

Ramoth inclined her head regally, then began to sway it from side to side over
the eggs, protectingly. She began to hiss suddenly, raising from her crouch,
beating the air with her wings, before settling back into the sands to lay yet
another egg.

The weyrfolk, uncomfortable on the hot sands, were beginning to leave the
Hatching Ground now that they had paid tribute to the arrival of the golden
egg. A queen took several days to complete her clutch so there was no point to
waiting. Seven eggs already lay beside the important golden one, and if there
were seven already, this augured well for the eventual total. Wagers were
being made and taken even as Ramoth produced her ninth mottled egg.

"Just as I predicted, a queen egg, by the mother of us all," F'lar's voice
said in Lessa's ear. "And I'll wager there'll be ten bronzes at least."

She looked up at him, completely in harmony with the Weyrleader at this
moment. She was conscious now of Mnementh, crouching proudly on a ledge,
gazing fondly at his mate. Impulsively Lessa laid her hand on F'lar's arm.

"F'lar, I do believe you."

"Only now?" F'lar teased her, but his smile was wide and his eyes proud.



Weyrman, watch;

Weyrman, learn S

omething new i

n every Turn.

Oldest may be coldest, too.

Sense the right; find the true!



IF F'LAR'S orders over the next months caused no end of discussion and
muttering among the weyrfolk, they seemed to Lessa to be only the logical
outcomes of their discussion after Ramoth had finished laying her gratifying
total of forty-one eggs.

F'lar discarded tradition right and left, treading on more than R'gul's
conservative toes.

Out of perverse distaste for outworn doctrines against which she herself had
chafed during R'gul's leadership, and out of respect for F'lar's intelligence,
Lessa backed him com- pletely. She might not have respected her earlier
promise to him that she would believe him until spring if she had not seen his
predictions come true, one after another. These were based, however, not on
the premonitions she no longer trusted after her experience between times, but
on recorded facts.

As soon as the eggshells hardened and Ramoth had rolled her special queen egg
to one side of the mottled clutch for attentive brooding, F'lar brought the
prospective riders into the Hatching Ground. Traditionally the candidates saw
the eggs for the first time on the day of Impression. To this precedent F'lar
added others: very few of the sixty-odd were weyrbred, and most of them were
in their late teens. The candidates were to get used to the eggs, touch them,
caress them, be comfortable with the notion that out of these eggs young
dragons would hatch, eager and waiting to be Impressed. F'lar felt that such a
practice might cut down on casualties during Impression when the boys were
simply too seared to move out of the way of the awkward dragonets.



F'lar also had Lessa persuade Ramoth to let Kylara near her precious golden
egg. Kylara readily enough weaned her son and spent hours, with Lessa acting
as her tutor, beside the golden egg. Despite Kylara's loose attachment to
T'bor, she showed an open preference for F'lar's company. Therefore, Lessa
took great pains to foster F'lar's plan for Kylara since it meant her removal,
with the new-hatched queen, to Fort Weyr.

F'lar's use of the Hold-born as riders served an additional purpose. Shortly
before the actual Hatching and Impression, Lytol, the Warder appointed at
Ruath Hold, sent another message.

'The man positively delights in sending bad news," Lessa remarked as F'lar
passed the message skin to her.

"He's gloomy," F'nor agreed. He had brought the message. "I feel sorry for
that youngster cooped up with such a pessimist."

Lessa frowned at the brown rider. She still found distasteful any mention of
Gemma's son, now Lord of her ancestral Hold. Yet . . . as she had
inadvertently caused his mother's death and she could not be Weyrwoman and
Lady Holder at the same time, it was fitting that Gemma's Jaxom be Lord at
Ruatha.

"I, however," F'lar said, "am grateful for his warnings. I suspected Meron
would cause trouble again."

"He has shifty eyes, like Fax's," Lessa remarked.

"Shifty-eyed or not, he's dangerous," F'lar answered. "And I cannot have him
spreading rumors that we are deliberately choosing men of the Blood to weaken
Family Lines."

"There are more craftsmen's sons than Holders' boys, in any case," F'nor
snorted.

"I don't like him questioning that the Threads have not appeared," Lessa said
gloomily.

F'lar shrugged. "They'll appear in due time. Be thankful the weather has
continued cold. When the weather warms up and still no Threads appear, then I
will worry." He grinned at Lessa in an intimate reminder of her promise.
F'nor cleared his throat hastily and looked away.

"However," the weyrleader went on briskly, "I can do something about the other
accusation."

So, when it was apparent that the eggs were about to hatch, he broke another
long-standing tradition and sent riders to fetch the fathers of the young
candidates from craft and Hold.

The great Hatching Cavern gave the appearance of being almost full as Holder
and Weyrfolk watched from the tiers above the heated Ground. This time, Lessa
observed, there was no aura of fear. The youthful candidates were tense, yes,
but not frightened out of their wits by the rocking, shattering eggs. When the
ill-coordinated dragonets awkwardly stumbled it seemed to Lessa that they
deliberately looked around at the eager faces as though pre-impressed. The
youths either stepped to one side or eagerly advanced as a crooning dragonet
made his choice. The Impressions were made quickly and with no accidents. All
too soon, Lessa thought, the triumphant procession of stumbling dragons and
proud new riders moved erratically out of the Hatching Ground to the barracks.

The young queen burst from her shell and moved unerringly for Kylara, standing
confidently on the hot sands. The watching beasts hummed their approval.

"It was over too soon," Lessa said in a disappointed voice that evening to
F'lar.

He laughed indulgently, allowing himself a rare evening of relaxation now that
another step had gone as planned. The Holder folk had been ridden home,
stunned, dazed, and themselves impressed by the Weyr and the weyrleader.

"That's because you were watching this time," he remarked, brushing a lock of
her hair back. It obscured his view of her profile. He chuckled again. "You'll
notice Naton..."

"N'ton," she corrected him.

"All right, N'ton Impressed a bronze," "Just as you predicted," she said with
some asperity.

"And Kylara is Weyrwoman for Pridith."

Lessa did not comment on that, and she did her best to ignore his laughter.

"I wonder which bronze will fly her," he murmured softly.

"It had better be T'bor's Orth," Lessa said, bridling.

He answered her the only way a wise man could.



Crack dust, blackdust,

Turn in freezing air.

Waste dust, spacedust,

From Red Star bare.
LBSSA WOKE abruptly, her head aching, her eyes blurred, her mouth dry She had
the immediate memory of a terrible nightmare that, just as quickly, escaped
recall. She brushed her hair out of her face and was surprised to find that
she had been sweating heavily.

"F'lar?" she called in an uncertain voice. He had evidently risen early.
"F'lar," she called again, louder.

He's coming, Mnementh informed her. Lessa sensed that the dragon was just
landing on the ledge. She touched Ramoth and found that the queen, too, had
been bothered by formless, frightening dreams. The dragon roused briefly and
then fell back into deeper sleep.

Disturbed by her vague fears, Lessa rose and dressed, foregoing a bath for the
first time since she had arrived at the Weyr: She called down the shaft for
breakfast, then plaited her hair with deft fingers as she waited.

The tray appeared on the shaft platform just as F'lar entered. He kept looking
back over his shoulder at Ramoth.

"What's gotten into her?"

"Echoing my nightmare. I woke in a cold sweat."

"You were sleeping quietly enough when I left to assign patrols. You know, at
the rate those dragonets are growing, they're already capable of limited
flight. All they do is eat and sleep, and that's . . ."

". . . what makes a dragon grow," Lessa finished for him and sipped
thoughtfully at her steaming hot klah. "You are going to be extra-careful
about their drill procedures, aren't you?"

"You mean to prevent an inadvertent flight between times?

I certainly am," he assured her. "I don't want bored dragonriders
irresponsibly popping in and out." He gave her a long, stern look.

"Well, it wasn't, my fault no one taught me to fly early enough," she replied
in the sweet tone she used when she was being especially malicious. "If I'd
been drilled from the day of Impression to the day of my first flight, I'd
never have discovered that trick."

"True enough," he said solemnly.

"You know, F'lar, if I discovered it, someone else must have, and someone else
may. If they haven't already."

F'lar drank, making a face as the klah scalded his tongue.

"I don't know how to find out discreetly. We would be foolish to think we were
the first. It is, after all, an inherent ability in dragons, or you would
never have been able to do it."

She frowned, took a quick breath, and then let it go, shrugging.

"Go on," he encouraged her.

"Well, isn't it possible that our conviction about the imminence of the
Threads could stem from one of us coming back when the Threads are actually
falling? I mean . . ."
"My dear girl, we have both analyzed every stray thought and actioneven your
dream this morning upset you, although it was no doubt due to all the wine you
drank last nightuntil we wouldn't know an honest presentiment if it walked up
and slapped us in the face."

"I can't dismiss the thought that this between times ability is of crucial
value," she said emphatically.

"That, my dear Weyrwoman, is an honest presentiment."

"But why?"

"Not why," he corrected her cryptically. "When." An idea stirred vaguely in
the back of his mind. He tried to nudge it out where he could mull it over.
Mnementh announced that F'nor was entering the weyr.

"What's the matter with you?" F'lar demanded of his half brother, for F'nor
was choking and sputtering, his face red with the paroxysm.

"Dust . . ." he coughed, slapping at his sleeves and chest with his riding
gloves. "Plenty of dust, but no Threads," he said, describing a wide arc with
one arm as he fluttered his fingers suggestively. He brushed his tight
wherhide pants, scowling as a fine black dust drifted off.

F'lar felt every muscle in his body tense as he watched the dust float to the
floor.

"Where did you get so dusty?" he demanded.

F'nor regarded him with mild surprise. "Weather patrol in Tiliek. Entire north
has been plagued with dust storms lately. But what I came in for . . ." He
broke off, alarmed by F'lar's taut immobility. "What's the matter with dust?"
he asked in a baffled voice.

F'lar pivoted on his heel and raced for the stairs to the Record Room. Lessa
was right behind him, F'nor belatedly trailing after.

"Tiliek, you said?" F'lar barked at his wingsecond. He was clearing the table
of stacks for the four charts he then laid out. "How long have these storms
been going on? Why didn't you report them?"

"Report dust storms? You wanted to know about warm air masses."

"How long have these storms been going on?" F'lar's voice crackled.

"Close to a week."

"How close?"

"Six days ago the first storm was noticed in upper Tiliek. They have been
reported in Bitra, Upper Telgar, Crom, and the High Reaches," F'nor reported
tersely. He glanced hopefully at Lessa but saw she, too, was staring at the
four unusual charts. He tried to see why the horizontal and vertical strips
had been superimposed on Pern's land mass, but the reason was beyond him.

F'lar was making hurried notations, pushing first one map and then another
away from him.

"Too involved to think straight, to see clearly, to understand," the
Weyrleader snarled to himself, throwing down the stylus angrily.

"You did say only warm air masses," F'nor heard himself saying humbly, aware
that he had somehow failed his Weyreeader.

F'lar shook his head impatiently.

"Not your fault, F'nor. Mine. I should have asked. I knew it was good luck
that the weather held so cold." He put both hands on F'nor's shoulders,
looking directly into his eyes."'The Threads have been falling," he announced
gravely. "Falling into the cold air, freezing into bits to drift on the wind"
F'lar imitated F'nor's finger-fluttering"as specks of black dust."

" 'Crack dust, blackdust,' " Lessa quoted. "In 'The Ballad of Moreta's Ride,'
the chorus is all about black dust."

"I don't need to be reminded of Moreta right now," F'lar growled, bending to
the maps. "She could talk to any dragon in the Weyrs."

"But I can do that!" Lessa protested.

Slowly, as if he didn't quite credit his ears, F'lar turned back to Lessa.
"What did you just say?"

"I said I can talk to any dragon in the Weyr."

Still staring at her,   blinking in utter astonishment,    F'lar sank down to the
table top.

"How long," he managed to say, "have you had this particular skill?"

Something in his tone, in his manner, caused Lessa to flush and stammer like
an erring weyrling.

"I . . . I always could. Beginning with the watch-wher at Ruatha." She
gestured indecisively in Ruatha's westerly direction. "And I talked to
Mnementh at Ruatha. And . . .

when I got here, I could . . ." Her voice faltered at the accusing look in
F'lar's cold, hard eyes. Accusing and, worse, contemptuous.

"I thought you had agreed to help me, to believe in me."

"I'm truly sorry, F'lar. It never occurred to me it was of any use to anyone,
but . . ."

F'lar exploded onto both feet, his eyes blazing with aggravation.

"The one thing I could not figure out was how to direct the wings and keep in
contact with the Weyr during an attack, how I was going to get reinforcements
and firestone in time. And you . . . you have been sitting there, spitefully
hiding the . . ."

"I am NOT spiteful," she screamed at him. "I said I was sorry. I am. But
you've a nasty, smug habit of keeping your own council. How was I to know you
didn't have the same trick? You're Flar, the Weyrleader, you can do anything.
Only you're just as bad as R'gul because you never tell me half the things I
ought to know . . ."

F'lar reached out and shook her until her angry voice was stopped.
"Enough. We can't waste time arguing like children." Then his eyes widened,
his jaw dropped. "Waste time? That's it."

"Go between times?" Lessa gasped.

"Between times!"

F'nor was totally confused. "What are you two talking about?"

"The Threads started falling at dawn in Nerat," F'lar said, his eyes bright,
his manner decisive.

F'nor could feel his guts congealing with apprehension. At dawn in Nerat? Why,
the rainforests would be demolished. He could feel a surge of adrenalin
charging through his body at the thought of danger.

"So we're going back there, between times, and be there when the Threads
started falling, two hours ago. F'nor, the dragons can go not only where we
direct them but when."

"Where? When?" F'nor repeated, bewildered. "That could be dangerous."

"Yes, but today it will save Nerat. Now, Lessa," and Flar gave her another
shake, compounded of pride and affection, "order out all the dragons, young,
old, any that can fly. Tell them to load themselves down with firestone sacks.
I don't know if you can talk across time . . ."

"My dream this morning . . ."

"Perhaps. But right now rouse the Weyr." He pivoted to F'nor. "If Threads are
falling . . . were falling . . . at Nerat at dawn, they'll be falling on
Keroon and Ista right now, because they are in that time pattern. Take two
wings to Keroon. Arouse the plains. Get them to start the firepits blazing.
Take some weyrlings with you and send them on to lgen and Ista. Those Holds
are not in as immediate danger as Keroon. I'll reinforce you as soon as I can.
And . . . keep Canth in touch with Lessa."

F'lar clapped his brother on the shoulder and sent him off. The brown rider
was too used to taking orders to argue.

"Mnementh says R'gul is duty officer and R'gul wants to know . . ." Lessa
began.

"C'mon, girl," F'lar said, his eyes brilliant with excitement.

He grabbed up his maps and propelled her up the stairs.They arrived in the
weyr just as R'gul entered with T'sum. R'gul was muttering about this unusual
summons.

"Hath told me to report," he complained. "Fine thing when your own dragon . .
."

"R'gul, T'sum, mount your wings. Arm them with all the firestone they can
carry, and assemble above Star Stone. I'll join you in a few minutes. We go to
Nerat at dawn."

"Nerat? I'm watch officer, not patrol . . ."

"This is no patrol," F'lar cut him off.
"But, sir," T'sum interrupted, his eyes wide. "Nerat's dawn was two hours ago,
the same as ours."

"And that is when we are going to, brown rider. The dragons, we have
discovered, can go between places temporally as well as geographically. At
dawn Threads fell at Nerat.

We're going back, between time, to sear them from the sky." F'lar paid no
attention to R'gul's stammered demand for explanation. T'sum, however, grabbed
up firestone sacks and raced back to the ledge and his waiting Munth.

"Go on, you old fool," Lessa told R'gul irascibly. "The Threads are here. You
were wrong. Now be a dragonman!

Or go between and stay there!"

Ramoth, awakened by the alarms, poked at R'gul with her man-sized head, and
the ex-weyrleader came out of his momentary shock. Without a word he followed
T'sum down the passageway.

F'lar had thrown on his heavy wher-hide tunic and shoved n his riding boots.

"Lessa, be sure to send messages to all the Holds. Now, this attack will stop
about four hours from now. So the farthest west it can reach will be Ista.
But I want every Hold and craft warned."

She nodded, her eyes intent on his face lest she miss a word.

"Fortunately, the Star is just beginning its Pass, so we won't have to worry
about another attack for a few days. I'll figure out the next one when I get
back. Now, get Manora to organize her women. We'll need pails of ointment. The
dragons are going to be laced, and that hurts. Most important, if something
goes wrong, you'll have to wait till a bronze is at least a year old to fly
Ramoth . . ."

"No one's flying Ramoth but Mnementh," she cried, her eyes sparkling fiercely.

F'lar crushed her against him, his mouth bruising hers as if all her sweetness
and strength must come with him. He released her so abruptly that she
staggered back against Ramoth's lowered head. She clung for a moment to her
dragon, as much for support as for reassurance.

That is, if Mnementh can catch me, Ramoth amended smugly.



Wheel and turn

Or bleed and bum.

Fly between,

Blue and green.

Soar, dive down,

Bronze and brown

Dragonmen must fly
When Threads are in the sky.



As F'LAR raced down the passageway to the ledge, fire- sacks bumping against
his thighs, he was suddenly grateful for the tedious sweeping patrols over
every Hold and hollow of Pern. He could see Nerat clearly in his mind's eye.
He could see the many-petaled vineflowers which were the distinguishing
feature of the rainforests at this time of year.

Their ivory blossoms would be glowing in the first beams of sunlight like
dragon eyes among the tall, wide-leaved plants. Mnementh, his eyes flashing
with excitement, hovered skittishly over the ledge. F'lar vaulted to the
bronze neck.

The Weyr was seething with wings of all colors, noisy with shouts and
countercommands. The atmosphere was electric, but F'lar could sense no panic
in that ordered confusion.

Dragon and human bodies oozed out of openings around the Bowl walls. Women
scurried across the floor from one Lower Cavern to another. The children
playing by the lake were sent to gather wood for a fire. The weyriings,
supervised by old C'gan, were' forming outside their barracks. F'lar looked up
to the Peak and approved the tight formation of the wings assembled there in
close flying order. Another wing formed up as he watched. He recognized brown
Canth, F'nor on his neck, just as the entire wing vanished.

He ordered Mnementh aloft. The wind was cold and carried a hint of moisture. A
late snow? This was the time for it, if ever.

R'gul's wing and T'bor's fanned out on his left, T'sum and D'nol on his right.
He noted each dragon was well-laden with sacks. Then he gave Mnementh the
visualization of the early spring rainforest in Nerat, just before dawn, the
vineflowers gleaming, the sea breaking against the rocks of the High Shoal....

He felt the searing cold of between. And he felt a stab of doubt. Was he
injudicious, sending them all possibly to their deaths between times in this
effort to outtime the Threads at Nerat?

Then they were all there, in the crepuscular light that promises day. The
lush, fruity smells of the rainforest drifted up to them. Warm, too, and that
was frightening. He looked up and slightly to the north. Pulsing with menace,
the Red Star shone down.

The men had realized what had happened, their voices raised in astonishment.
Mnementh told F'lar that the dragons were mildly surprised at their riders'
fuss.

"Listen to me, dragonriders," F'lar called, his voice harsh and distorted in
an effort to be heard by all. He waited till the men had moved as close as
possible. He told Mnementh to pass the information on. to each dragon. Then he
explained what they had done and why. No one spoke, but there were many
nervous looks exchanged across bright wings.

Crisply he ordered the dragonriders to fan out in a staggered formation,
keeping a distance of five wings spread up or down.

The sun came up.
Slanting across the sea, like an ever-thickening mist, Threads were
falling, silent, beautiful, treacherous. Silvery gray were those
space-transversing spores, spinning from hard frozen ovals into coarse
filaments as they penetrated the warm atmospheric envelope of Pern. Less than
mindless; they had been ejected from their barren planet toward Pern, a
hideous rain that sought organic matter to nourish it into growth.

One Thread, sinking into fertile soil, would burrow deep, propagating
thousands in the warm earth, rendering it into a black-dusted wasteland. The
southern continent of Pern had already been sucked dry. The true parasites of
Pern were Threads.

A stifled roar from the throats of eighty men and dragons broke the dawn air
above Nerat's green heightsas if the Threads might hear this challenge, F'lar
mused.

As one, dragons swiveled their wedge-shaped heads to their riders for
firestone. Great jaws macerated the hunks.

The fragments were swallowed and more firestone was demanded. Inside the
beasts, acids churned and the poisonous phosphines were readied. When the
dragons belched forth the gas, it would ignite in the air into ravening flame
to sear the Threads from the sky. And bum them from the soil.

Dragon instinct took over the moment the Threads began to fall above Nerat's
shores. As much admiration as F'lar had always held for his bronze companion,
it achieved newer heights in the next hours. Beat ing the air in great
strokes, Mnementh soared with flaming breath to meet the down-rushing menace.
The fumes, swept back by the wind, choked F'lar until he thought to crouch low
on the lee side of the bronze neck. The dragon squealed as a Thread flicked
the tip of one wing. Instantly F'lar and he ducked into between, cold, calm,
black. The frozen Thread cracked off. In the flicker of an eye, they were back
to face the reality of Threads.

Around him F'lar saw dragons winking in and out of between, flaming as they
returned, diving, soaring. As the attack continued and they drifted across
Nerat, F'lar began to recognize the pattern in the dragons' instinctive
evasion- attack movements. And in the Threads. For, contrary to what he had
gathered from his study of the Records, the Threads fell in patches. Not as
rain will, in steady unbroken sheets, but like flurries of snow, here, above,
there, whipped to one side suddenly. Never fluidly, despite the continuity
their name implied. You could see a patch above you. Flaming, your dragon
would rise. You'd have the intense joy of seeing the clump shrivel from bottom
to top. Sometimes, a patch would fall between riders. One dragon would signal
he would follow and, spouting flame, would dive and sear.

Gradually thedragonriders worked their way over the rainforests, so densely,
so invitingly green. F'lar refused to dwell on what just one live Thread
burrow would do to that lush land. He would send back a low-flying patrol to
quarter every foot. One Thread, just one Thread, could put out the ivory eyes
of every luminous vineflower.

A dragon screamed somewhere to his left. Before he could identify the beast,
it had ducked between. F'lar heard other cries of pain, from men as well as
dragons. He shut his ears and concentrated, as dragons did, on the
here-and-now.

Would Mnementh remember those piercing cries later? F'lar wished he could
forget them now.
He, F'lar, the bronze rider, felt suddenly superfluous. It was the dragons who
were fighting this engagement. You encouraged your beast, comforted him when
the Threads burned, but you depended on his instinct and speed.

Hot fire dripped across F'lar's cheeks, burrowing like acid into his shoulder
. . . a cry of surprised agony burst from F'lar's lips. Mnementh took them to
merciful between. The dragonmen battled with frantic hands at the Threads,
felt them crumble in the intense cold of between and break off.

Revolted, he slapped at injuries still afire. Back in Nerat's humid air, the
sting seemed to ease. Mnementh crooned comfortingly and then dove at a patch,
breathing fire.

Shocked at self-consideration, F'lar hurriedly examined his mount's shoulder
for telltale score marks.

/ duck very quickly, Mnementh told him and veered away from a dangerously
close clump of Threads. A brown dragon followed them down and burned them to
ash. It might have been moments, it might have been a hundred hours later when
F'lar looked down in surprise at the sunlit sea. Threads now dropped
harmlessly into the salty waters.

Nerat was to the east of him on his right, the rocky tip curling westward.

F'lar felt weariness in every muscle. In the excitement of frenzied battle, he
had forgotten the bloody scores on cheek and shoulder. Now, as he and Mnementh
glided slowly, the injuries ached and stung. He flew Mnementh high and when
they had achieved sufficient altitude, they hovered. He could see no Threads
falling landward. Below him, the dragons ranged, high and low, searching for
any sign of a burrow, alert for any suddenly toppling trees or disturbed
vegetation.

"Back to the Weyr," he ordered Mnementh with a heavy sigh. He heard the bronze
relay the command even as he himself was taken between. He was so tired he did
not even visualize wheremuch less, when relying on Mnementh's instinct to
bring him safely home through time and space.

Honor those the dragons heed,

In thought and favor, word and deed.

Worlds are lost or worlds are saved From those dangers dragon-braved.

CRANING HER neck toward the Star Stone at Benden Peak, Lessa watched from the
ledge until she saw the four wings disappear from view.

Sighing deeply to quiet her inner fears, Lessa raced down the stairs to the
floor of Benden Weyr. She noticed that someone was building a fire by the lake
and that Manora was already ordering her women around, her voice clear but
calm. Old C'gan had the weyrlings lined up. She caught the envious eyes of the
newest dragonriders at the barracks windows. They'd have time enough to fly a
flaming dragon. From what F'lar had intimated, they'd have Turns.

She shuddered as she stepped up to the weyrlings but managed to smile at them.
She gave them their orders and sent them off to warn the Holds, checking
quickly with each dragon to be sure the rider had given clear references. The
Holds would shortly be stirred up to a froth. Canth told her that there were
Threads at Keroon, falling on the Keroon side of Nerat Bay. He told her that
F'nor did not think two wings were enough to protect the meadowlands. Lessa
stopped in her tracks, trying to think how many wings were already out.
K'net's wing is still here, Ramoth informed her. On the Peak.

Lessa glanced up and saw bronze Piyanth spread his wings in answer. She told
him to get between to Keroon, close to Nerat Bay. Obediently the entire wing
rose and then disappeared. She turned with a sigh to say something to Manora
when a rush of wind and a vile stench almost overpowered her.

The air above the Weyr was full of dragons. She was about to demand of Piyanth
why he hadn't gone to Keroon when she realized there were far more beasts
a-wing than K'net's twenty.   But you just left, she cried as she recognized
the unmistakable bulk of bronze Mnementh.

That was two hours ago for us, Mnementh said with such weariness in his tone
that Lessa closed her eyes in sympathy.

Some dragons were gliding in fast. From their awkwardness it was evident that
they were hurt. As one, the women grabbed salve pots and clean rags and
beckoned the injured down. The numbing ointment was smeared on score marks
where wings resembled black and red lace. No matter how badly injured he might
be, every rider tended his beast first.

Lessa kept one eye on Mnementh, sure that F'lar would not keep the huge bronze
hovering like that if he'd been hurt.

She was helping Tsum with Munth's cruelly pierced right wing when she realized
that sky above the Star Stone was empty. She forced herself to finish with
Munth before she went to find the bronze and his rider. When she did locate
them, she also saw Kylara smearing salve on F'lar's cheek and shoulder. She
was advancing purposefully across the sands toward the pair when Canth's
urgent plea reached her. She saw Mnementh's head swing upward as he, too,
caught the brown's thought.

"F'lar, Canth says they need help," Lessa cried. She didn't notice then that
Kylara slipped away into the busy crowd. F'lar wasn't badly hurt. She
reassured herself about that.

Kylara had treated the wicked burns that seemed to be shallow. Someone had
found him another fur to replace the tatters of the Thread-bared one. He
frowned and winced because the frown creased his burned cheek. He gulped
hurriedly at his klah.

Mnementh, what's the tally of able-bodied? Oh, never mind, just get 'em atoft
with a full load of firestone.

"You're all right?" Lessa asked, a detaining hand on his arm. He couldn't just
go off like this, could he?

He smiled tiredly down at her, pressed his empty mug into her hands, giving
them a quick squeeze. Then he vaulted to Mnementh's neck. Someone handed him a
heavy load of sacks.

Blue, green, brown, and bronze dragons lifted from the Weyr Bowl in quick
order. A trifle more than sixty dragons hovered briefly above the Weyr where
eighty had lingered so few minutes before. So few dragons. So few riders. How
long could they take such toll? Canth said Fnor needed more firestone. She
looked about anxiously. None of the weyrlings were back yet from their
messenger rounds. A dragon was crooning plaintively, and she wheeled, but it
was only young Pridith, stumbling across the Weyr to the feeding grounds,
butting playfully at Kylara as they walked. The only other dragons were
injured orher eye fell on C'gan, emerging from the weyrling barracks.

"C'gan, can you and Tagath get more firestone to F'nor at Keroon?"

"Of course," the old blue rider assured her, his chest lifting with pride, his
eyes flashing. She hadn't thought to send him anywhere, yet he had lived his
life in training for this emergency. He shouldn't be deprived of a chance at
it. She smiled her approval at his eagerness as they piled heavy sacks on
Tagath's neck. The old blue dragon snorted and danced as if he were young and
strong again. She gave them the references Canth had visualized to her. She
watched as the two biinked out above the Star Stone.

It isn't fair. They have all the fun, said Ramoth peevishly. Lessa saw her
sunning herself on the Weyr ledge, preening her enormous wings.

"You chew firestone and you're reduced to a silly green," Lessa told her
Wyermate sharply. She was inwardly amused by the queen's disgruntled
complaint.

Lessa passed among the injured then. B'fol's dainty green beauty moaned and
tossed her head, unable to bend one wing that had been threaded to bare
cartilage. She'd be out for weeks, but she had the worst injury among the
dragons. Lessa looked quickly away from the misery in B'fol's worried eyes.

As she did the rounds, she realized that more men were injured than beasts.
Two in R'gul's wing had sustained serious head damages. One man might lose an
eye completely.

Manora had dosed him unconscious with numbweed. Another man's arm had been
burned clear to the bone. Minor though most of the wounds were, the tally
dismayed Lessa.

How many more would be disabled at Keroon?

Out of one hundred and seventy-two dragons, fifteen already were out of
action, some only for a day or two, however.

A thought struck Lessa. If N'ton had actually ridden Canth, maybe he could
ride out on the next dragonade on an injured man's beast, since there were
more injured riders than dragons. F'lar broke traditions as he chose. Here was
another one to set aside if the dragon was agreeable.

Presuming N'ton was not the only new rider   able to transfer to another beast,
what good would such flexibility do in the   long run? F'lar had definitely said
the incursions would not be so frequent at   first, when the Red Star was just
beginning its fifty-Tum long circling pass   of Pern. How frequent was frequent?
He would know, but he wasn't here.

Well, he had been right this morning about the appearance of Threads at Nerat,
so his exhaustive study of those old Records had proved worthwhile.

No, that wasn't quite accurate. He had forgotten to have the men alert for
signs of black dust as well as warming weather. As he had put the matter right
by going between times, she would graciously allow him that minor error. But
he did have an infuriating habit of guessing correctly. Lessa corrected
herself again. He didn't guess. He studied. He planned. He thought and then he
used common good sense. Like figuring out where and when Threads would strike
according to entries in those smelly Records. Lessa began to feel better about
their future.
Now, if he would just make the riders learn to trust their dragons' sure
instinct in battle, they would keep casualties down, too.

A shriek pierced air and ear as a blue dragon emerged above the Star Stone.

"Ramoth!" Lessa screamed in an instinctive reaction, hardly knowing why. The
queen was a-wing before the echo of her command had died. For the careering
blue was obviously in grave trouble. He was trying to brake his forward speed,
yet one wing would not function. His rider had slipped forward over the great
shoulder, precariously clinging to his dragon's neck with one hand.

Lessa, her hands clapped over her mouth, watched fearfully. There wasn't a
sound in the Bowl but the flapping of Ramoth's immense wings. The queen rose
swiftly to position herself against the desperate blue, lending him wing
support on the crippled side. The watchers gasped as the rider slipped, lost
his hold, and felllanding on Ramoth's wide shoulders. The blue dropped like a
stone. Ramoth came to a gentle stop near him, crouching low to allow the
weyrfolk to remove her passenger.

It was C'gan.

Lessa felt her stomach heave as she saw the ruin the Threads had made of the
old harper's face. She dropped beside him, pillowing his head in her lap. The
weyrfolk gathered in a respectful, silent circle. Manora, her face, as always,
serene, had tears in her eyes. She knelt and placed her hand on the old
rider's heart. Concern flicked in her eyes as she looked up at Lessa. Slowly
she shook her head. Then, setting her lips in a thin line, she began to apply
the numbing salve.

"Too toothless old to flame and too slow to get between" C'gan mumbled,
rolling his head from side to side. "Too old. But 'Dragonmen must fly/When
Threads are in the sky. . . .' " His voice trailed off into a sigh. His eyes
closed. Lessa and Manora looked at each other in anguish. A terrible,
ear-shattering note cut the silence. Tagath sprang aloft in a tremendous leap.
C'gan's eyes rolled slowly open, sightless. Lessa, breath suspended, watched
the blue dragon, trying to deny the inevitable as Tagath disappeared in mid-
air.

A low moan sprang up around the Weyr, like the torn, lonely cry of a keening
wind. The dragons uttered tribute.

"Is he . . . gone?" Lessa asked, although she knew.

Manora nodded slowly, tears streaming down her cheeks as she reached over to
close C'gan's dead eyes.

Lessa rose slowly to her feet, motioning to some of the women to remove the
old rider's body. Absently she rubbed her bloody hands dry on her skirts,
trying to concentrate on what might be needed next.

Yet her mind turned back to what had just happened. A dragonrider had died.
His dragon, too. The Threads had claimed one pair already. How many more would
die this cruel Turn? How long could the Weyr survive? Even after Ramoth's
forty matured, and the ones she soon would conceive, and her queen daughters,
too?

Lessa walked apart to quiet her uncertainties and ease her grief. She saw
Ramoth wheel and glide aloft, to land on the Peak. One day soon would Lessa
see those golden wings laced red and black from Thread marks? Would Ramoth . .
. disappear?
No, Ramoth would not. Not while Lessa lived.

F'lar told her long ago that she must learn to look beyond the narrow confines
of Hold Ruatha and mere revenge. He was, as usual, right. As Weyrwoman under
his tutelage, she had further learned that living was more than raising
dragons and Spring Games. Living was struggling to do something impossibleto
succeed, or die, knowing you had tried!

Lessa realized that she had, at last, fully accepted her role: as Weyrwoman
and as mate, to help F'lar shape men and events for many Turns to cometo
secure Pern against the Threads. Lessa threw back her shoulders and lifted her
chin high.

Old C'gan had had the right of it.

Dragonmen must fly When Threads are in the skyl



Worlds are lost

or worlds are saved

By those dangers

dragon-braved.

As F'LAR had predicted, the attack ended by high noon, and weary dragons and
riders were welcomed by Ramoth's highpitched trumpeting from the Peak.

Once Lessa assured herself that F'lar had taken no additional injury, that
F'nor's were superficial and that Manora was keeping Kylara busy in the
kitchens, she applied herself to organizing the care of the injured and the
comfort of the worried.

As dusk fell, an uneasy peace settled on the Weyrthe quiet of minds and bodies
too tired or too hurtful to talk.

Lessa's own words mocked her as she made out the list of wounded men and
beasts. Twenty-eight men or dragons were out of the air for the next Thread
battle. C'gan was the only fatality, but there had been four more
seriously injured dragons at Keroon and seven badly scored men, out of action
entirely for months to come. Lessa crossed the Bowl to her Weyr, reluctant but
resigned to giving F'lar this unsettling news.

She expected to find him in the sleeping room, but it was vacant. Ramoth was
asleep already as Lessa passed her on the way to the Council Roomalso empty.
Puzzled and a little alarmed, Lessa half-ran down the steps to the Records
Room, to find F'lar, haggard of face, poring over musty skins.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded angrily. "You ought to be asleep."

"So should you," he drawled, amused.

"I was helping Manora settle the wounded . . ."

"Each to his own craft." But he did lean back from the table, rubbing his neck
and rotating the uninjured shoulder to ease stiffened muscles.
"I couldn't sleep," he admitted, "so I thought I'd see what answers I might
turn up in the Records."

"More answers? To what?" Lessa cried, exasperated with him. As if the Records
ever answered anything. Obviously the tremendous responsibilities of Pern's
defense against the Threads were beginning to tell on the Weyrleader. After
all, there had been the stress of the first battle, not to mention the drain
of the traveling between time itself to get to Nerat to forestall the Threads.

F'lar grinned and beckoned Lessa to sit beside him on the wall bench.

"I need the answer to the very pressing question of how one understrength Weyr
can do the fighting of six."

Lessa fought the panic that rose, a cold flood, from her guts.

"Oh, your time schedules will take care of that," she replied gallantly.
"You'll be able to conserve the dragon- power until the new forty can join the
ranks."

F'lar raised a mocking eyebrow.

"Let us be honest between ourselves, Lessa."

"But there have been Long Intervals before," she argued, "and since Pern
survived them, Pern can again."

"Before there were always six Weyrs. And twenty or so Turns before the Red
Star was due to begin its Pass, the queens would start to produce enormous
clutches. All the queens, not just one faithful golden Ramoth. Oh, how I curse
Jora!" He slammed to his feet and started pacing, irritably brushing the lock
of black hair that fell across his eyes.

Lessa was torn with the desire to comfort him and the sinking, choking fear in
her belly that made it difficult to think at all.

"You were not so doubtful . . ."

He whirled back to her. "Not until I had actually had an encounter with the
Threads and reckoned up the numbers of injuries. That Sets the odds against
us. Even supposing we can mount other riders to uninjured dragons, we will be
hard put to keep a continuously effective force in the air and still maintain
a giound guard." He caught her puzzled frown.

"There's Nerat to be gone over on foot tomorrow. I'd be a fool indeed if I
thought we'd caught and seared every Thread in mid-air."

"Get the Holders to do that. They can't just immure themselves safely in their
Inner Holds and let us do all. If they hadn't been so miserly and stupid . .
."

He cut off her complaint with an abrupt gesture. "They'll do their part all
right," he assured her. "I'm sending for a full Council tomorrow, all Hold
Lords and all Craftmasters. But there's more to it than just marking where
Threads fall. How do you destroy a burrow that's gone deep under the surface?
A dragon's breath is fine for the air and surface work but no good three feet
down."

"Oh, I hadn't thought of that aspect. But the firepits . . ."
". . . are only on the heights and around human habitations, not on the
meadowlands of Keroon or on Nerat's so green rainforests."

This consideration was daunting indeed. She gave a rueful little laugh.

"Shortsighted of me to suppose our dragons are all poor Pern needs to dispatch
the Threads. Yet . . ." She shrugged expressively.

"There are other methods," F'lar said, "or there were. There must have been. I
have run across frequent mention that the Holds were organizing ground groups
and that they were armed with fire. What kind is never mentioned because it
was so well-known." He threw up his hands in disgust and sagged back down on
the bench. "Not even five hundred dragons could have seared all the Threads
that fell today. Yet they managed to keep Pern Thread-free."

"Pern, yes, but wasn't the Southern Continent lost? Or did they just have
their hands too full with Pern itself?"

"No one's bothered with the Southern Continent in a hundred thousand Turns,"
F'lar snorted.

"It's on the maps," Lessa reminded him.

He scowled disgustedly at the Records, piled in uncommunicative stacks on the
long table. "The answer must be there. Somewhere."

There was an edge of desperation in his voice, the hint that he held himself
to blame for not having discovered those elusive facts.

"Half those things couldn't be read by the man who wrote them," Lessa said
tartly. "Besides that, it's been your own ideas that have helped us most so
far. You compiled the time maps, and look how valuable they have been
already."

"I'm getting too hidebound again, hub?" he asked, a half smile tugging at one
comer of his mouth.

"Undoubtedly," she assured him with more confidence than she felt. "We both
know the Records are guilty of the most ridiculous omissions?'

"Well said, Lessa. So let us forget these misguiding and antiquated precepts
and think up our own guides. First, we need more dragons. Second, we need them
now. Third, we need something as effective as a flaming dragon to destroy
Threads which have burrowed."

"Fourth, we need sleep, or we won't be able to think of anything," she added
with a touch of her usual asperity.

F'lar laughed outright, bugging her.

"You've got your mind on one thing, haven't you?" he teased, his hands
caressing her eagerly.

She pushed ineffectually at him, trying to escape. For a wounded, tired man,
he was remarkably amorous. One with that Kylara. Imagine that woman's
presumption, dressing his wounds.

"My responsibility as Weyrwoman includes care of you, the Weyrleader."

"But you spend hours with blue dragonriders and leave me to Kylara's tender
ministrations."

"You didn't look as if you objected."

F'lar threw back his head and roared. "Should I open Fort Weyr and send Kylara
on?" he taunted her.

"I'd as soon Kylara were Turns as well as miles away from here," Lessa
snapped, thoroughly irritated.

F'lar's jaw dropped, his eyes widened. He leaped to his feet with an
astonished cry.

"You've said it!"

"Said what?"

'Turns away! That's it. We'll send Kylara back, between times, with her queen
and the new dragonets." F'lar excitedly paced the room while Lessa tried to
follow his reasoning. "No, I'd better send at least one of the older bronzes.
F'nor, too . . . I'd rather have F'nor in. charge. . . . Discreetly, of
course"

 "Send Kylara back . . . where to? When to?" Lessa interrupted him.

"Good point." F'lar dragged out the ubiquitous charts. "Very good point. Where
can we send them around here without causing anomalies by being present at one
of the other Weyrs? The High Reaches are remote. No, we've found remains of
fires there, you know, still warm, and no inkling as to who built them or why.
And if we had already sent them back, they'd've been ready for today, and they
weren't. So they can't have been in two places already. . . ." He shook his
head, dazed by the .paradoxes.

Lessa's eyes were drawn to the blank outline of the neglected Southern
Continent.

"Send them there," she suggested sweetly, pointing.

"There's nothing there."

"Then bring in what they need. There must be water, for Threads can't devour
that. We fly in whatever else is needed, fodder for the herdbeasts, grain. . .
."

F'lar drew his brows together in concentration, his eyes sparkling with
thought, the depressioa and defeat of a few moments ago forgotten.

"Threads wouldn't be there ten Turns ago. And haven't been there for close to
four hundred. Ten Turns would give Pridith time to mature and have several
clutches. Maybe more queens."

Then he frowned and shook his head dubiously. "No, there's no Weyr there. No
Hatching Ground, no . . ."

"How do we know that?" Lessa caught him up sharply, too delighted with many
aspects of this project to give it up easily.

"The Records don't mention the Southern Continent, true, but they omit a great
deal. How do we know it isn't green again in the four hundred Turns since the
Threads last spun?
We do know that Threads can't last long unless there is something organic on
which to feed and that once they've devoured all, they dry up and blow away."

F'lar looked at her admiringly. "Now, why hasn't someone wondered about that
before?"

'Too hidebound." Lessa wagged her finger at him. "Besides, there's been no
need to bother with it."

"Necessity or is it jealousy hatches many a tough shell." There was a smile of
pure malice on his face, and Lessa whirled away as he reached for her.

"The good of the Weyr," she retorted.

"Furthermore, I'll send you along with F'nor tomorrow to look. Only fair,
since it is your idea."

Lessa stood still. "You're not going?"

"I feel confident I can leave this project in your very capable, interested
hands." He laughed and caught her against his uninjured side, smiling down
at her, his eyes glowing. "I must play ruthless Weyrleader and keep the Hold
Lords from slamming shut their Inner Doors. And I'm hoping" he raised his
head, frowning slightly"one of the Craftmasters may know the solution to the
.third problem getting rid of Thread burrows."

"But..."

"The trip will give Ramoth something to stop her fuming."

He pressed the girl's slender body more closely to him, his full attention at
last on her odd, delicate face. "Lessa, you are my fourth problem." He bent to
kiss her.

At the sound of hurried steps in 'the passageway, F'lar scowled irritably,
releasing her.

"At this hour?" he muttered, ready to reprove the intruder scathingly. "Who
goes there?"

"Flar?" It was F'nor's voice, anxious, hoarse.

The look on F'lar's face told Lessa that not even his half brother would be
spared a reprimand, and it pleased her irrationally. But the moment F'nor
burst into the room, both weyrleader and Weyrwoman were stunned silent. There
was something subtly wrong with the brown rider. And as the man blurted out
his incoherent message, the difference suddenly registered in Lessa's mind. He
was tanned! He wore no bandages and hadn't the slightest trace of the
Thread-mark along his cheek that she had tended this evening!

"F'lar, it's not working out! You can't be alive in two times at once!" F'nor
was exclaiming distractedly. He staggered against the wall, grabbing the sheer
rock to hold himself upright. There were deep circles under his eyes,
visible despite the tan. "I don't know how much longer we can last like this.
We're all affected. Some days not as badly as others."

"I don't understand."

"Your dragons are all right," F'nor assured the Weyrleader with a bitter
laugh. "It doesn't bother them. They keep all their wits about them. But their
riders . . . all the weyrfolk . . . we're shadows, half alive, like dragonless
men, part of us gone forever. Except Kylara." His face contorted with intense
dislike. ""AQ she wants to do is go back and watch herself. The woman's
egomania will destroy us all, I'm afraid." His eyes suddenly lost focus, and
he swayed wildly. His eyes widened, and his mouth fell open. "I can't stay.
I'm here already. Too close. Makes it twice as bad. But I had to warn you. I
promise, F'lar, we'll stay as long as we can, but it won't be much longer . .
. so it won't be long enough, but we tried.

We tried!"

Before F'lar could move, the brown rider whirled and ran, half-crouched, from
the room.

"But he hasn't gone yetl" Lessa gasped. "He hasn't even gone yet!"

F'lar stared after his half brother, his brows contracting with the keen
anxiety he felt.

"What can have happened?" Lessa demanded of the Weyrleader. "We haven't even
told F'nor. We ourselves just finished considering the idea." Her hand flew
to her own cheek. "And the Thread-mark.. I dressed it myself tonight it's
gone. Gone. So he's been gone a long while." She sank down to the bench.

"However, he has come back. So he did   go," F'lar remarked slowly in a
reflective tone of voice. "Yet we now   know the venture is not entirely
successful even before it begins. And   knowing this, we have sent him back ten
Turns for whatever good it is doing."   F'lar paused thoughtfully.

"Consequently we have no alternative but to continue with the experiment."

"But what could be going wrong?"

"I think I know and there is no remedy." He sat down beside her, his eyes
intent on hers. "Lessa, you were very upset when you got back from going
between to Ruatha that first time. But I think now it was more than just the
shock of seeing Fax's men invading your own Hold or in thinking your return
might have been responsible for that disaster. I think it has to do with being
in two times at once." He hesitated again, trying to understand this immense
new concept even as he voiced it.

Lessa regarded him with such awe that he found himself laughing with
embarrassment.

"It's unnerving under any conditions," he went on,    "to think of returning and
seeing a younger self."

"That must be what he meant about Kylara," Lessa gasped, "about her wanting to
go back and watch herself . . . as a child. Oh, that wretched girl!" Lessa was
filled with anger for Kylara's selfabsorption. "Wretched, selfish creature.
She'll ruin everything."

"Not yet," F'lar reminded her. "Look, although F'nor warned us that the
situation in his time is getting desperate, he didn't tell us how much he was
able to accomplish. But you noticed that his scar had healed to
invisibilityconsequently some Turns must have elapsed. Even if Pridith lays
one good-sized clutch, even if just the forty of Ramoth's are mature enough to
fight in three days' time, we have accomplished something.
Therefore,Weyrwoman," and he noticed how she straightened up at the sound of
her title, "we must disregard F'nor's return. When you fly to the Sounthern
Continent tomorrow, make no allusion to it. Do you understand?"

Lessa nodded gravely and then gave a little sigh. "I don't know if I'm happy
or disappointed to realize, even before we get there tomorrow, that the
Southern Continent obviously will support a Weyr," she said with dismay. "It
was kind of exciting to wonder."

"Either way," F'lar told her with a sardonic smile, "we have found only part
of the answers to problems one and two."

"Well, you'd better answer number four right now!" Lessa suggested.
"Decisively!"

Weaver, Miner, Harper, Smith, Tanner, Farmer, Herdsman, Lord, Gather,
wingsped, listen well '

To the Weyrman's urgent word.



THEY BOTH managed to guard against any reference to his premature return when
they spoke to F'nor the next morning. F'lar asked brown Canth to send his
rider to the queen's weyr as soon as he awoke and was pleased to see F'nor
almost immediately. If the brown rider noticed the curiously intent stare
Lessa gave his bandaged face, he gave no sign of it. As a matter of fact, the
moment F'lar outlined the bold venture of scouting the Southern Continent with
the possibility of starting a Weyr ten Turns back in time, F'nor forgot all
about his wounds.

"I'll go willingly only if you send T'bor along with Kylara. I'm not waiting
till N'ton and his bronze are big enough to take her on. T'bor and she are as"
F'nor broke off with a grimace in Lessa's direction. "Well, they're as near a
pair as can be. I don't object to being . . . importuned, but there are limits
to what a man is willing to do out of loyalty to dragonkind."

F'lar barely managed to restrain the amusement he felt over F'nor's
reluctance. Kylara tried her wiles on every rider, and, because F'nor had not
been amenable, she was deter- mined to succeed with him.

"I hope two bronzes are enough. Pridith may have a mind of her own, come
matingtime."

"You can't turn a brown into a bronze!" F'nor exclaimed with such dismay that
F'lar could no longer restrain himself.

"Oh, stop it!" And that touched off Lessa's laughter.

"You're as bad a pair," F'nor snapped, getting to his feet. "If we're going
south, Weyrwoman, we'd better get started. Particularly if we're going to give
this laughing maniac a chance to compose himself before the solemn Lords
descend. I'll get provisions from Manora. Well, Lessa? Are you coming with
me?"

Muffling her laughter, Lessa grabbed up her furred flying cloak and followed
him. At least the adventure was starting off well.

Carrying the pitcher of ktah and his cup, F'lar adjourned to the Council Room,
debating whether to tell the Lords and Craftmasters of this southern venture
or not. The dragons' ability to fly between times as well as places was not
yet well-known. The Lords might not realize it had been used the previous day
to forestall the Threads. If F'lar could be sure that project was going to be
successful well, it would add an optimistic note to the meeting. Let the
charts, with the waves and times of the Thread attacks clearly visible,
reassure the Lords.

The visitors were not long in assembling. Nor were they all successful in
hiding their apprehension and the shock they had received now that
Threads had again spun down from the Red Star to menace all life on Pern. This
was going to be a difficult session, F'lar decided grimly. He had a fleeting
wish, which he quickly suppressed, that he had gone with F'nor and Lessa to
the Southern Continent. Instead, he bent with apparent industry to the charts
before him.

Soon there were but two more to come, Meron of Nabol (whom he would have liked
not to include, for the man was a troublemaker) and Lytol of Ruatha. F'lar had
sent for Lytol last because he did not wish Lessa to encounter the man. She
was still overly and, to his mind, foolishlysensitive at having had to resign
her claim to Ruatha Hold for the Lady Gemma's posthumous son. Lytol, as Warder
of Ruatha, had a place in this conference. The man was also an ex- dragonman,
and his return to the Weyr was painful enough without Lessa's compounding it
with her resentment. Lytol was, with the exception of young Larad of Telgar,
the Weyr's most valuable ally.

S'lel came in with Meron a step behind him. The Holder was furious at this
summons; it showed in his walk, in his eyes, in his haughty bearing. But he
was also as inquisitive as he was devious. He nodded only to Larad among the
Lords and took the seat left vacant for him by Larad's side. Meron's manner
made it obvious that that place was too close to F'lar by half a room.

The Weyrleader acknowledged S'lel's salute and indicated the bronze rider
should be seated. F'lar had given thought to the seating arrangements in the
Council Room, carefully interspersing brown and bronze dragonriders with
Holders and Craftsmen. There was now barely room to move in the generously
proportioned cavern, but there was also no room in which to draw daggers if
tempers got hot.

A hush fell on the gathering, and F'lar looked up to see that the stocky,
glowering ex-dragonman from Ruatha had stopped on the threshold of the
Council. He slowly brought his hand up in a respectful salute to the
weyrleader. As F'lar returned the salute, he noticed that the tic in Lytol's
left cheek jumped almost continuously. Lytol's eyes, dark with pain and inner
unquiet, ranged the room. He nodded to the members of his former wing, to
Larad and Zurg, head of his own weavers' craft. Stiff-legged, he walked to the
remaining seat, murmuring a greeting to T'sum on his left.F'lar rose.

"I appreciate your coming, good Lords and Craftmasters.The Threads spin once
again. The first attack has been met and seared from the sky. Lord Vincet,"
and the worried Holder of Nerat looked up in alarm, "we have dispatched a
patrol to the rainforest to do a low-flight sweep to make certain there are no
burrows."

Vincet swallowed nervously, his face paling at the thought of what Threads
could do to his fertile, lush holdings.

"We shall need your best junglemen to help" "Help? But you said . . . the
Threads were seared in the sky?"

"There is no point in taking the slightest chance," F'lar replied, implying
that the patrol was only a precaution instead of the necessity he knew it
would be.

Vincet gulped, glancing anxiously around the room for sympathy, and found
none. Everyone would soon be in his position.

"There is a patrol due at Keroon and at lgen." F'lar looked first at Lord
Corman, then at Lord Banger, who gravely nodded. "Let me say by way of
reassurance that there will be no further attacks for three days and four
hours." F'lar tapped the appropriate chart. "The Threads will begin
approximately here on Telgar, drift westward through the southernmost portion
of Crom, which is mountainous, and on, through Ruatha and the southern end of
Nabol."

"How can you be so certain of that?"

F'lar recognized the contemptuous   voice   of   Meron of Nabol.

"The Threads do not fall like a child's jackstraws. Lord Meron," F'lar
replied. "They fall in a definitely predictable pattern; the attacks last
exactly six hours. The intervals between attacks will gradually shorten over
the next few Turns as the Red Star draws closer. Then, for about forty full
Turns, as the Red Star swings past and around us, the attacks occur every
fourteen hours, marching across our world in a time-able fashion."

"So you say," Meron sneered, and there was a low mumble of support.

"So the Teaching Ballads say," Larad put in firmly.

Meron glanced at Telgar's Lord and went on, "I recall another of your
predictions about how the Threads were supposed to begin falling right after
Solstice."

"Which they did," F'lar interrupted him. "As black dust in the Northern Holds.
For the reprieve we've had, we can thank our lucky stars that we have had an
unusually hard and long Cold Turn."

"Dust?" demanded Nessel of Crom. "That dust was Threads?" The man was one of
Fax's blood connections and under Meron's influence: an older man who had
learned lessons from his conquering relative's bloody ways and had not the wit
to improve or alter the original. "My Hold is still blowing with them. They're
dangerous?"

F'lar shook his head emphatically. "How long has the black dust been blowing
in your Hold? Weeks? Done any harm yet?"

Nessel frowned.

"I'm interested in your charts, Weyrleader," Larad of Telgar said smoothly.
"Will they give us an accurate idea of how often we may expect Threads to fall
in our own Holds?"

"Yes. You may also anticipate that the dragonmen will arrive shortly before
the invasion is due," F'lar went on."However, additional measures of your own
are necessary, and it is for this that I called the Council."

"Wait a minute," Corman of Keroon growled. "I want a copy of those fancy
charts of yours for my own. I want to know what those bands and wavy lines
really mean. I want..."

"Naturally you'll have a timetable of your own. I mean to impose on
Masterharper Robinton" F'lar nodded respectfully toward that Craftmaster "to
oversee the copying and make sure everyone understands the timing involved."

Robinton, a tall, gaunt man with a lined, saturnine face, bowed deeply. A
slight smile curved his wide lips at the now hopeful glances favored him by
the Hold Lords. His craft, like that of the dragonmen, had been much mocked,
and this new respect amused him. He was a man with a keen eye for the
ridiculous, and an active imagination. The circumstances in which doubting
Pern found itself were too ironic not to appeal to his innate sense of
justice. He now contented himself with a deep bow and a mild phrase.

"Truly all shall pay heed to the master." His voice was deep, his words
enunciated with no provincial slurring.

F'lar, about to speak, looked sharply at Robinton as he caught the double barb
of that single line. Larad, too, looked around at the Masterharper, clearing
his throat hastily.

"We shall have our charts," Larad said, forestalling Meron, who had opened his
mouth to speak. "We shall have the dragonmen when the Threads spin. What are
these additional measures? And why are they necessary?"

All eyes were on F'lar again.

"We have one Weyr where six once flew."

"But word is that Ramoth has hatched over forty more," someone in the back of
the room declared. "And why did you Search out still more of our young men?"

"Forty-one as yet unmatured dragons," F'lar said. Privately, he hoped that
this southern venture would still work out. There was real fear in that man's
voice. "They grow well and quickly. Just at present, while the Threads do not
strike with great frequency as the Red Star begins its Pass, our Weyr is
sufficient . . . if we have your cooperation on the ground. Tradition is that"
he nodded tactfully toward Robinton, the dispenser of Traditional usage "you
Holders are responsible for only your dwellings, which, of course, are
adequately protected by firepits and raw stone. However, it is spring and our
heights have been allowed to grow wild with vegetation. Arable land is
blossoming with crops. This presents vast acreage vulnerable to the Threads
which one Weyr, at this time, is not able to patrol without severely draining
the vitality of our dragons and riders."

At this candid admission, a frightened and angry mutter spread rapidly
throughout the room.

"Ramoth rises to mate again soon," F'lar continued in a matter-of-fact way.
"Of course, in other times, the queens started producing heavy clutches many
Turns before the critical solstice as well as more queens. Unfortunately, Jora
was ill and old, and Nemorth intractable. The matter" He was interrupted.

"Your dragonmen with your high and mighty airs will bring destruction on us
all!"

"You have yourselves to blame," Robinton's voice stabbed across the ensuing
shouts. "Admit it, one and all. You've paid less honor to the Weyr than you
would your watch-wher's kenneland that not much! But now the thieves are on
the heights, and you are screaming because the poor reptile is nigh to death
from neglect. Beat him, will you? When you exiled him to his kennel because he
tried to warn you? Tried to get you to prepare against the invaders? It's on
your conscience, not the Weyrleader's or the dragonriders', who have honestly
done their duty these hundreds of Turns in keeping dragonkind alive . . .
against your protests. How many of you"his tone was scathing"have been
generous in thought and favor toward dragonkind? Even since I became master of
my craft, how often have my harpers told me of being beaten for singing the
old songs as is their duty? You earn only the right, good Lords and Craftsmen,
to squirm inside your stony Holds and writhe as your crops die a-borning." He
rose.

" 'No Threads will fall. It's a harper's winter tale,' " he whined, in
faultless imitation of Nessel. " These dragonmen leech us of heir and
harvest,' " and his voice took on the constricted, insinuating tenor that
could only be Meron's. "And now the truth is as bitter as a brave man's fears
and as difficult as mockweed to swallow. For all the honor you've done them,
the dragonmen should leave you to be spun on the Threads' distaff."

"Bitra, Lemos, and I," spoke up Raid, the wiry Lord of Benden, his blunt chin
lifted belligerently, "have always done our duty to the Weyr."

Robinton swung around to him, his eyes flashing as he gave that speaker a
long, slow look. "Aye, and you have. Of all the Great Holds, you three have
been loyal. But you others," and his voice rose indignantly, "as spokesman for
my craft, I know, to the last full stop in your score, your opinion of
dragonkind. I heard the first whisper of your attempt to ride out against the
Weyr."

He laughed harshly and pointed a long finger at Vincet.

"Where would you be today, good Lord Vincet, if the Weyr had not sent you
packing back, hoping your ladies would be returned you? All of you," and his
accusing finger marked each of the Lords of the abortive effort, "actually
rode against the Weyr because . . . 'there . . . were . . . no . . . more . .
. Threads!' " He planted his fists on either hip and glared at the assembly.
F'lar wanted to cheer. It was easy to see why the man was Masterharper, and he
thanked circumstance that such a man was the Weyr's partisan.

"And now, at this critical moment, you have the incredible presumption to
protest against any measure the Weyr suggests?" Robinton's supple voice oozed
derision and amaze- ment. "Attend what the Weyrleader says and spare him your
petty carpings!" He snapped those words out as a father might enjoin an erring
child. "You were," and he switched to the mildest of polite conversational
tones as he addressed F'lar, "I believe, asking our cooperation, good F'lar?
In what capacities?"

F'lar hastily cleared his throat.

"I shall require that the Holds police their own fields and woods, during the
attacks if possible, definitely once the Threads have passed. All burrows
which might land must be found, marked, and destroyed. The sooner they are
located, the easier it is to e rid of them."

"There's no time to dig firepits through all the lands . . .

we'll lose half our growing space," Nessel exclaimed.

"There were other ways, used in olden times, which I believe our Mastersmith
might know." F'lar gestured politely toward Fandarel, the archetype of his
profession if ever such existed.

The Smith Craftmaster was by several inches the tallest man in the Council
Room, his massive shoulders and heavily muscled arms pressed against his
nearest neighbors, although he had made an effort not to crowd against anyone.
He rose, a giant tree-stump of a man, booking thumbs like beast-horns in the
thick belt that spanned his waistless midsection. His voice, by no means sweet
after Turns of bellowing above roaring hearths and hammers, was, by comparison
to Robinton's superb delivery, a diluted, unsupported light baritone.

"There were machines, that much is true," he allowed in deliberate, thoughtful
tones. "My father, it was he, told me of them as a curiosity of the Craft.
There may be sketches in the Hall. There may not. Such things do not keep on
skins for long." He cast an oblique look under beetled brows at the Tanner
Craftmaster.

"It is our own hides we must worry about preserving," F'lar remarked to
forestall any intercraft disputes.

Fandarel grumbled in his throat in such a way that F'lar was not certain
whether the sound was the man's laughter or a guttural agreement.

"I shall consider the matter. So shall all my fellow craftsmen," Fandarel
assured the Weyrleader. "To sear Threads from the ground without damaging the
soil may not be so easy. There are, it is true, fluids which burn and sear. We
use an acid to etch design on daggers and ornamental metals. We of the Craft
call it agenothree. There is also the black heavy-water that lies on the
surface of pools in lgen and Boll. It burns hot and long. And if, as you say,
the Cold Turn made the Threads break into dust, perhaps ice from the coldest
northlands might freeze and break grounded Threads.

However, the problem is to bring such to the Threads where they fall since
they will not oblige us by falling where we want them. . . ." He screwed up
his face in a grimace.

F'lar stared at him, surprised. Did the man realize how humorous he was? No,
he was speaking with sincere concern.

Now the Mastersmith scratched his head, his tough fingers making audible
grating sounds along his coarse hair and heat-toughened scalp.

"A nice problem. A nice problem," he mused, undaunted.

"I shall give it every attention." He sat down, the heavy bench creaking under
his weight.

The Masterfarmer raised his hand tentatively.

"When I became Craftmaster, I recall coming across a reference to the
sandworms of lgen. They were once cultivated as a protective" "Never heard
lgen produced anything useful except heat and sand," quipped someone.

"We need every suggestion," F'lar said sharply, trying to identify that
heckler. "Please find that reference, Craftmaster.

Lord Banger of lgen, find me some of those sandworms!"

Banger, equally surprised that his arid Hold had a hidden asset, nodded
vigorously.

"Until we have more efficient ways of killing Threads, all Holders must be
organized on the ground during attacks, to spot and mark burrows, to set
firestone to burn in them. I do not wish any man to be scored, but we know how
quickly Threads burrow deep, and no burrow can be left to multiply.
You stand to lose more," and he gestured emphatically at the Holder Lords,
"than any others. Guard not just yourselves, for a burrow on one man's border
may grow across to his neighbor's. Mobilize every man, woman, and child, farm
and crafthold. Do it now."

The Council Room was fraught with tension and stunned reflection until Zurg,
the Masterweaver, rose to speak.

"My craft, too, has something to offer . . . which is only fair since we deal
with thread every day of our lives . . . in regard to the ancient methods."
Zurg's voice was light and dry, and his eyes, in their creases of spare, lined
flesh, were busy, darting from one face in his audience to another. "In Ruath
Hold I once saw upon the wall . . . where the tapestry now resides, who
knows?" He slyly glanced at Meron of Nabol and then at Bargen of the High
Reaches who had succeeded to Fax's title there. "The work was as old as
dragonkind and showed, among other things, a man on foot, carrying upon his
back a curious contraption. He held within his hand a rounded, sword-long
object from which tongues of flame ... magnificently woven in the orange-red
dyes now lost to us . . . spouted toward the ground. Above, of course, were
dragons in close formation, bronzes predominating . . .

again we've lost that true dragon bronze shade. Consequently I remember the
work as much for what we now lack as for its subject matter."

"A flamethrower?" the Smith rumbled. "A flamethrower," he repeated with a
falling inflection. "A flamethrower," he murmured thoughtfully, his heavy
brows drawn into a titanic scowl. "A thrower of what sort of flame? It
requires thought."

He lowered his head and didn't speak, so engrossed in the required thought
that he lost interest in the rest of the discussion.

"Yes, good Zurg, there have been many tricks of every trade lost in recent
Turns," F'lar commented sardonically. "If we wish to continue living, such
knowledge must be re- vived . . . fast. I would particularly like to recover
the tapestry of which Master Zurg speaks."

F'lar looked significantly at those Lords who had quarreled over Fax's seven
Holds after his death.

"It may save all of you much loss. I suggest that it appear at Ruatha. Or at
Zurg's or at Fandarel's crafthall. Whichever is most convenient."

There was some shuffling of feet, but no one admitted ownership.

"It might then be returned to Fax's son, who is now Ruatha's Lord," F'lar
added, wryly amused at such magnanimous justice. Lytol snorted softly and
glowered around the room. F'lar supposed Lytol to be amused and experienced a
fleeting regret for the orphaned Jaxom, reared by such a cheerless if honest
guardian.

"If I may. Lord Weyrleader," Robinton broke in, "we might all benefit, as your
maps prove to us, from research in our own Records." He smiled suddenly, an
unexpectedly embarrassed smile. "I own I find myself in some disgrace for we
Harpers have let slip unpopular ballads and skimped on some of the longer
Teaching Ballads and Sagas . . . for lack of listeners and, occasionally, in
the interest of preserving our skins."

F'lar stifled a laugh with a cough. Robinton was a genius.
"I must see that Ruathan tapestry," Fandarel suddenly boomed out.

"I'm sure it will be in your hands   very soon," F'lar assured him with more
confidence than he dared feel. "My   Lords, there is much to be done. Now that
you understand what we all face, I   leave it in your hands as leaders in your
separate Holds and crafts how best   to organize your own people.

Craftsmen, turn your best minds to our special problems: review all Records
that might turn up something to our purpose. Lords Telgar, Crom, Ruatha, and
Nabol, I shall be with you in three days. Nerat, Keroon, and Jgen, I am at
your disposal to help destroy any burrow on your lands. While we have the
Masterminer here, tell him your needs. How stands your craft?"

"Happy to be so busy at our trade, weyrleader," piped up the Masterminer.

Just then F'lar caught sight of F'nor, hovering about in the shadows of the
hallway, trying to catch his eye. The brown rider wore an exultant grin, and
it was obvious he was bursting with news. F'lar wondered how they could have
returned so swiftly from the Southern Continent, and then he realized that
F'nor again was tanned. He gave a jerk of his head, indicating that F'nor take
himself off to the sleeping quarters and wait.

"Lords and Craftmasters, a dragonet will be at the disposal of each of you for
messages and transportation. Now, good morning."

He strode out of the Council Room, up the passageway into the queen's weyr,
and parted the still swinging curtains into the sleeping room just as F'nor
was pouring himself a cup of wine.

"Success!" F'nor cried as the weyrleader entered. "Though how you knew to send
just thirty-two candidates I'll never understand. I thought you were insulting
our noble Pridith. But thirty-two eggs she laid in four days. It was all I
could do to keep from riding out when the first appeared."

F'lar responded with hearty congratulations, relieved that there would be at
least that much benefit from this apparently ill-fated venture. Now all he had
to figure out was how much longer F'nor had stayed south until his frantic
visit the night before. For there were no worry lines or strain in F'nor's
grinning, well-tanned face.

"No queen egg?" asked F'lar hopefully. With thirty-two in the one experiment,
perhaps they could send a second queen back and try again. F'nor's face
lengthened. "No, and I was sure there would be. But there gre fourteen
bronzes. Pridith out-matched Ramoth there," he added proudly.

"Indeed she did. How goes the Weyr otherwise?"

F'nor frowned, shaking his head against an inner bewilderment. "Kylara's . . .
well, she's a problem. Stirs up trouble constantly. T'bor leads a sad time
with her, and he's so touchy everyone keeps a distance from him." F'nor
brightened a little. "Young N'ton is shaping up into a fine wing- leader, and
his bronze may outfly Tbor's Orth when Pridith flies to mate the next
time. Not that I'd wish Kylara on N'ton . . . or anyone."

"No trouble then with supplies?"

F'nor laughed outright. "If you hadn't made it so plain we must not
communicate with you here, we could supply you with fruits and fresh greens
that are superior to anything in the north. We eat the way dragonmen should!
F'lar, we must consider a supply Weyr down there. Then we shall never have to
worry about tithing trains and . . ."

"In good time. Get back now. You know you must keep these visits short."

F'nor grimaced. "Oh, it's not so bad. I'm not here in this time, anyway."

"True," F'lar agreed, "but don't mistake the time and come while you're still
here."

"Hmmm? Oh, yes, that's right. I forget time is creeping for us and speeding
for you. Well, I shan't be back again till Pridith lays the second clutch."
With a cheerful good-bye, F'nor strode out of the weyr.

F'lar watched him thoughtfully as he slowly retraced his steps to the Council
Room. Thirty-two new dragons, fourteen of them bronzes, was no small gain and
seemed worth the hazard. Or would the hazard wax greater?

Someone cleared his throat deliberately. F'lar looked up to see Robinton
standing in the archway that led to the Council Room.

"Before I can copy and instruct others about those maps, Weyrleader, I must
myself understand them completely. I took the liberty of remaining behind."

"You make a good champion, Masterharper."

"You have a noble cause, Weyrleader," and then Robinton's eyes glinted
maliciously. "I've been begging the Egg for an opportunity to speak out to so
noble an audience."

"A cup of wine first?"

"Benden grapes are the envy of Pern."

"If one has the palate for such a delicate bouquet."

"It is carefully cultivated by the knowledgeable."

F'lar wondered when the man would stop playing with words. He had more on his
mind than studying the time- charts.

"I have in mind a ballad which, for lack of explanation, I had set aside when
I became the Master of my crafthall," he said judiciously after an
appreciative savoring of his wine.

"It is an uneasy song, both the tune and the words. One develops, as a harper
must, a certain sensitivity for what will be received and what will be
rejected . . . forcefully," and he winced in retrospect. "I found that this
ballad unsettled singer as well as audience and retired it from use. Now, like
that tapestry, it bears rediscovery."

After his death C'gan's instrument had been hung on the Council Room wall till
a new Weyrsinger could be chosen.

The guitar was very old, its wood thin. Old C'gan had kept it well-tuned and
covered. The Masterharper handled it now with reverence, lightly stroking the
strings to hear the tone, raising his eyebrows at. the fine voice of the
instrument. He plucked a chord, a dissonance. F'lar wondered if the instrument
was out of tune or if the harper had, by some chance, struck the wrong string.
But Robinton repeated the odd discord, then modulating into a weird minor that
was somehow more disturbing than the first notes.

"I told you it was an uneasy song. And I wonder if you know the answers to the
questions it asks. For I've turned the puzzle over in my mind many times of
late."

Then abruptly he shifted from the spoken to the sung tone.



Gone away, gone ahead,

Echoes roll unanswered.

Empty, open, dusty, dead,

Why have all the Weyrfolk fled?

Where have dragons gone together?

Leaving Weyrs to wind and weather?

Setting herdbeasts free of tether?

Gone, our safeguards, gone, but whither?

Have they flown to some new Weyr Where cruel Threads some others fear?

Are they worlds away from here?

Why, oh, why, the empty Weyr? .



The last plaintive chord reverberated.

"Of course, you realize that the song was first recorded in the craft annals
some four hundred Turns ago," Robinton said lightly, cradling the guitar in
both arms. "The Red Star had just passed beyond attack-proximity. The people
had ample reason to be stunned and worried over the sudden loss of the
populations of five Weyrs. Oh, I imagine at the time they had any one of a
number of explanations, but none . . . not one explanation . . . is recorded."
Robinton paused significantly.

"I have found none recorded, either," F'lar replied. "As a matter of fact, I
had all the Records brought here from the other Weyrs . . . in order to
compile accurate attack timetables. And those other Weyr Records simply end"
F'lar made a chopping gesture with one hand. "In Benden's Records there is no
mention of sickness, death, fire, disaster not one word of explanation for the
sudden lapse of the usual intercourse between the Weyrs. Benden's
Records continue Mithely, but only for Benden. There is one entry that
pertains to the mass disappearance . . . the initiation of a Pernwide patrol
routing, not just Benden's immediate responsibility. And that is all."

"Strange," Robinton mused. "Once the danger from the Red Star was past, the
dragons and riders may have gone between to ease the drain on the Holds. But I
simply cannot believe that. Our craft Records do mention that harvests were
bad and that there had been several natural catastrophes . . . other than the
Threads. Men may be gallant and your breed the most gallant of all, but mass
suicide? I simply do not accept that explanation . . . not for dragonmen."
"My thanks," P'lar said with mild irony.

"Don't mention it," Robinton replied with a gracious nod.

F'lar chuckled appreciatively. "I see we have been too weyrbound as well as
too hidebound."

Robinton drained his cup and looked at it mournfully until F'lar refilled it.

"Well, your isolation served some purpose, you know, and you handled that
uprising of the Lords magnificently. I nearly choked to death laughing,"
Robinton remarked, grinning broadly. "Stealing their women in the flash of a
dragon's breath!" He chuckled again, then suddenly sobered, looking F'lar
straight in the eye. "Accustomed as I am to hearing what a man does not say
aloud, I suspect there is much you glossed over in that Council meeting. You
may be sure of my discretion . . . and . . . you may be sure of my whole-
hearted support and that of my not ineffectual craft. To be blunt, how may my
harpers aid you?" and be strummed a vigorous marching air. "Stir men's pulses
with ballads of past glories and success?" The tune, under his flashing
fingers, changed abruptly to a stern but determined rhythm.

"Strengthen their mental and physical sinews for hardship?"

"If all your harpers could stir men as you yourself do, I should have no
worries that five hundred or so additional dragons would not immediately end."

"Oh, then despite your brave words and marked charts, the situation is"a
dissonant twang on the guitar accented his final words"more desperate than
you carefully did not say."

"It may be."

"The flamethrowers old Zurg remembered and Fandarel must reconstructwill they
tip the scales?"

F'lar regarded this clever man thoughtfully and made a quick decision.

"Even lgen's sandworms will help, but as the world turns and the Red Star
nears, the interval between daily attacks shortens and we have only
seventy-two new dragons to add to those we had yesterday. One is now dead and
several will not fly for several weeks."

"Seventy-two?" Robinton caught him up sharply. "Ramoth hatched but forty, and
they are still too young to eat fire- stone."

F'lar outlined F'nor and Lessa's expedition, taking place at that moment. He
went on to F'nor's reappearance and warning, as well as the fact that the
experiment had been successful in part with the hatching of thirty-two new
dragons from Pridith's first clutch. Robinton caught him up.

"How can F'nor already have returned when you haven't heard from Lessa and him
that there is a breeding place on the Southern Continent?"

"Dragons can go between times as well as places. They go as' easily to a when
as to a where."

Robinton's eyes widened as he digested this astonishing news.

"That is how we forestalled the attack on Nerat yesterday morning. We jumped
back two hours between time to meet the Threads as they fell."

"You can actually jump backward? How far back?"

"I don't know. Lessa, when I was teaching her to fly Ramoth, inadvertently
returned to Ruath Hold, to the dawn thirteen Turns ago when Fax's men invaded
from the heights. When she returned to the present, I attempted a between
times jump of some ten Turns. To the dragons it is a simple matter to go
between times or spaces, but there appears to be a terrific drain on the
rider. Yesterday, by the time we re- turned from Nerat and had to go on to
Keroon, I felt as though I had been pounded flat and left to dry for a summer
on lgen Plain." F'lar shook his head. "We have obviously succeeded in sending
Kylara, Pridith, and the others ten Turns between, because F'nor has already
reported to me that he has been there several Turns. The drain on humans,
however, is becoming more and more marked. But even seventy-two more mature
dragons will be a help."

"Send a rider ahead in time to see if it is sufficient," Robinton suggested
helpfully. "Save you a few days' worrying."

"I don't know how to get to a when that has not yet happened. You must give
your dragon reference points, you know. How can you refer him to times that
have not yet occurred?"

"You've got an imagination. Project it."

 "And perhaps lose a dragon when I have none to spare? No, I must continue . .
. because obviously I have, judging by F'nor's returns . . . as I decided to
start. Which reminds me, I must give orders to start packing. Then I shall go
over the time-charts with you."

It wasn't until after the noon meal, which Robinton took with the Weyrleader,
that the Masterharper was confident that he understood the charts and left to
begin their copying.

Across a waste of lonely tossing sea, Where no dragonwings had lately spread,
Flew a gold and sturdy brown in spring, Searching if a land be dead.

As RAMOTH and Canth bore Lessa and F'nor up to the Star Stone, they saw the
first of the Hold Lords and Craftmasters arriving for the Council.

In order to get back to the Southern Continent Of ten Turns ago, Lessa and
F'nor had decided it was easiest to transfer first between times to the Weyr
of ten Turns back which F'nor remembered. Then they would go between places to
a seapoint just off the coast of the neglected South- ern Continent which was
as close to it as the Records gave any references.

F'nor put Canth in mind of a particular day he remembered ten Turns back, and
Ramoth picked up the references from the brown's mind. The awesome cold of
between times took Lessa's breath away, and it was with intense relief that
she caught a glimpse of the normal weyr activity before the dragons, took them
between places to hover over the turgid sea. Beyond them, smudged purple on
this overcast and gloomy day, lurked the Southern Continent. Lessa felt a new
anxiety replace the uncertainty of the temporal displacement. Ramoth beat
forward with great sweeps of her wings, making for the distant coast. Canth
gallantly tried to maintain a matching speed.

He's only a brown, Lessa scolded her golden queen.

He is flying with me, Ramoth replied coolly, he must stretch his wings a
little.

Lessa grinned, thinking very privately that Ramoth was still piqued that
she had not been able to fight with her weyrmates. All the males would
have a hard time with her for a while.

They saw the flock of wherries first and realized that there would have to be
some vegetation on the Continent. Wherries needed greens to live, although
they could subsist on little else besides occasional grubs if necessary.

Lessa had Canth relay questions to his rider. The Southern Continent was
rendered barren by the Threads, how did new growth start? Where did the
wherries come from?

Ever notice the seed pods split open and the flakes carried away by the winds?
Ever notice that wherries fly south after the autumn solstice?

Yes, but . . .

Yes, but!   But the land was Thread-bared!

In less than four hundred Turns even the scorched hilltops of our Continent
begin to sprout in the springtime, F'nor replied by way of Canth, so it is
easy to assume the Southern Continent could revive, too.

Even at the pace Ramoth set, it took time to reach the jagged shoreline with
its forbidding cliffs, stark stone in the sullen light. Lessa groaned
inwardly but urged Ramoth higher to see over the masking highlands. All
seemed gray and desolate from that altitude.

Suddenly the sun broke through the cloud cover and the gray dissolved into
dense greens and browns, living colors, the live greens of lush tropical
growth, the browns of vigorous trees and vines. Lessa's cry of triumph was
echoed by F'nor's hurrah and the brass voices of the dragons. Wher- ries,
startled by the unusual sound, rose in squeaking alarm from their perches.

Beyond the headland, the land sloped away to jungle and grassy plateau,
similar to mid-Boll. "Though they searched all morning, they found no
hospitable cliffs wherein to found a new Weyr. Was that a contributing factor
in the southern venture's failure, Lessa wondered.

Discouraged, they landed on a high plateau by a small lake. The weather was
warm but not oppressive, and while F'nor and Lessa ate their noonday meal, the
two dragons wallowed in the water, refreshing themselves.

Lessa felt uneasy and had little appetite for the meat and bread. She noticed
that F'nor was restless, too, shooting surreptitious glances around the lake
and the jungle verge.

"What under the sun are we expecting? Wherries don't change, and wild whers
would come nowhere near a dragon. We're ten Turns before the Red Star, so
there can't be any Threads."

F'nor shrugged, grimacing sheepishly as he tossed his unfinished bread back
into the food pouch.

"Place feels so empty, I guess," he tendered, glancing around. He spotted ripe
fruit hanging from a moonflower vine. "Now that looks familiar and good enough
to eat, without tasting like dust in the mouth."
He climbed nimbly and snagged the orange-red fruit.

"Smells right, feels ripe, looks ripe," he announced and deftly sliced the
fruit open. Grinning, he landed Lessa the first slice, carving another for
himself. He lifted it challengingly. "Let us eat and die together!"

She couldn't help but laugh and saluted him back. They bit into the succulent
flesh simultaneously. Sweet juices dribbled from the corners of her mouth, and
Lessa hurriedly licked her lips to capture the least drop of the delicious
liquid.

"Die happy1 will," F'nor cried, cutting more fruit.

Both were subtly reassured by the experiment and were able to discuss their
discomposure.

"I think," F'nor suggested, "it is the lack of cliff and cavern and the still,
still quality of the place, the knowing that there are no other men or beasts
about but us."

Lessa nodded her head in agreement. "Ramoth, Canth, would having no Weyr upset
you?"

We didn't always live in caves, Ramoth replied, somewhat haughtily as she
rolled over in the lake. Sizable waves rushed up the shore almost to where
Lessa and F'nor were seated on a fallen tree trunk. The sun here is warm and
pleasant, the water cooling. I would enjoy it here, but I am not to come.

"She is out of sorts," Lessa whispered to P'nor. "Let Pridith have it, dear
one," she called soothingly to the golden queen. "You've the Weyr and all!"

Ramoth ducked under the water, blowing up a froth in disgruntled reply.

Canth admitted that he had no reservations at all about living Weyrless. The
dry earth would be warmer than stone to sleep on, once a suitably comfortable
hollow had been achieved. No, he couldn't object to the lack of the cave as
long as there was enough to eat.

"We'll have to bring herdbeasts in," F'nor mused. "Enough to start a
good-sized herd. Of course, the wherries here are huge. Come to think of it, I
believe this plateau has no exits. We wouldn't need to pasture it off. I'd
better check.

Otherwise, this pleateau with the lake and enough clear space for Holds seems
ideal. Walk out and pick breakfast from the tree."

"It might be wise to choose those who were not Hold- reared," Lessa added.
"They would not feel so uneasy away from protecting heights and stone
security." She gave a short laugh. "I'm more a creature of habit than I
suspected. All these open spaces, untenanted and quiet, seem . . . indecent."
She gave a delicate shudder, scanning the broad and open plain beyond 'the
lake.

"Fruitful and lovely," F'nor amended, leaping up to secure more of the
orange-red succulents. "This tastes uncommonly good to me. Can't remember
anything this sweet and juicy from Nerat, and yet it's the same variety."

"Undeniably superior to what the Weyr gets. I suspect Nerat serves home first,
Weyr last."
They both stuffed themselves greedily.

Further investigation proved that the plateau was isolated, and ample to
pasture a huge herd of foodbeasts for the dragons. It ended in a sheer drop of
several dragonlengths into denser jungle on one side, the sea-side escarpment
on the other. The timber stands would provide raw material from which
dwellings could be made for the Weyrfolk. Ramoth and Canth stoutly agreed
dragonkind would be comfortable enough under the heavy foliage of the dense
jungle. As this part of the continent was similar, weatherwise, to Upper
Nerat, there would be neither intense heat nor cold to give distress.

However, if Lessa was glad enough to leave, F'nor seemed reluctant to start
back.

"We can go between time and place on the way back," Lessa insisted finally,
"and be in the Weyr by late afternoon. The Lords will surely be gone by then."

F'nor concurred, and Lessa steeled herself for the trip between. She wondered
why the when between bothered her more than the where, for it had no effect on
the dragons at all. Ramoth, sensing Lessa's depression, crooned
encourag- ingly. The long, long black suspension of the utter cold of between
where and when ended suddenly in sunlight above the Weyr. Somewhat startled,
Lessa saw bundles and sacks spread out before the Lower Caverns as
dragonriders supervised the loading of their beasts.

"What has been happening?" F'nor exclaimed.

"Oh, F'lar's been anticipating success," she assured him glibly.

Mnementh, who was watching the bustle from the ledge of the queen's weyr, sent
a greeting to the travelers and the information that F'lar wished them to join
him in the weyr as soon as they returned.

They found F'lar, as usual, bent over some of the oldest and least legible
Record skins that he had had brought to the Council Room.

"And?" he asked, grinning a broad welcome at them.

"Green, lush, and livable," Lessa declared, watching him intently. He knew
something else, too. Well, she hoped he'd watch his words. F'nor was no fool,
and this foreknowledge was dangerous.

"That is what I had so hoped to hear you say," F'lar went on smoothly. "Come,
tell me in detail what you observed and discovered. It'll be good to fill in
the blank spaces on the chart."

Lessa let F'nor give most of the account, to which F'lar listened with sincere
attention, making notes.

"On the chance that it would be practical, I started packing supplies and
alerting the riders to go with you," he told F'nor when the account was
finished. "Remember, we've only three days in this time in which to start you
back ten Turns ago. We have no moments to spare. And we must have many more
.mature dragons ready to fight at Telgar in three days time. So, though ten
Turns will have passed for you, three days only will elapse here. Lessa, your
thought that the farm-bred might do better is well-taken. We're lucky that our
recent Search for rider candidates for the dragons Pridith will have come
mainly from the crafts and farms. No problem there. And most of the thirty-two
are in their early teens."
"Thirty-two?" F'nor exclaimed. "We should have fifty. The dragonets must have
some choice, even if we get the candidates used to the dragonets before
they're hatched."

F'lar shrugged negligently. "Send back for more. You'll have time, remember,"
and F'lar chuckled as though he had started to add something and decided
against it.

F'nor had no time to debate with the weyrleader, for F'lar immediately
launched on other rapid instructions.

F'nor was to take his own wingriders to help train the weyrlings. They would
also take the forty young dragons of Ramoth's first clutch: Kylara with her
queen Pridith, T'bor and his bronze Piyanth. N'ton's young bronze might also
be ready to fly and mate by the time Pridith was, so that gave the young queen
two bronzes, at least.

"Suppose we'd found the continent barren?" F'nor asked, still puzzled by
F'lar's assurance. "What then?"

"Oh, we'd've sent them back to, say, the High Reaches," F'lar replied far too
glibly, but quickly went on. "I should send on other bronzes, but I'll need
everyone else here to ride burrow-search on Keroon and Nerat. They've already
unearthed several at Nerat. Vincet, I'm told, is close to heart attack from
fright."

Lessa made a short comment on that Hold Lord.

"What of the meeting this morning?" F'nor asked, remembering.

"Never mind that now. You've got to start shifting between by evening, F'nor."

Lessa gave the weyrleader a long hard look and decided she would have to find
out what had happened in detail very soon.

"Sketch me some references, will you, Lessa?" F'lar asked.

There was a definite plea in his eyes as he drew clean hide and a stylus to
her. He wanted no questions from her now that would alarm F'nor. She sighed
and picked up the drawing tool.

She sketched quickly, with one or two details added by F'nor until she had
rendered a reasonable map of the plateau they had chosen. Then, abruptly, she
had trouble focusing her eyes. She felt light-headed.

"Lessa?" F'lar bent to her.

"Everything's . . . moving . . . circling . . ." and she collapsed backward
into his arms.

As F'lar raised her slight body into his arms, he exchanged an alarmed look
with his half brother.

"I'll call for Manora," F'nor suggested.

"How do you feel?" the weyrleader called after his brother.

"Tired but no more than that," F'nor assured him as he shouted down the
service shaft to the kitchens for Manora to come and for hot klah. He needed
that, and no doubt of it.
F'lar laid the Weyrwoman on the sleeping couch, covering her gently.

"I don't like this," he muttered, rapidly recalling what F'nor had said of
Kylara's decline, which F'nor could not know was yet to come in his future.
Why should it start so swiftly with Lessa?

"Time-jumping makes one feel slightly" F'nor paused, groping for the exact
wording. "Not entirely . . . whole. You fought between times at Nerat
yesterday. . . ."

"I fought," F'lar reminded him, "but neither you nor Lessa battled anything
today. There may be some inner . . .mental . . . stress simply to going
between times. Look, F'nor, I'd rather only you came back once you reach the
southern Weyr. I'll make it an order and get Ramoth to inhibit the dragons.
That way no rider can take it into his head to come back even if he wants to.
There is some factor that may be more serious than we can guess. Let's take no
unnecessary risks."

"Agreed."

"One other detail, F'nor. Be very careful which times you pick to come back to
see me. I wouldn't jump between too close to any time you were actually here.
I can't imagine what would happen if you walked into your own self in the
passageway, and I can't lose you." With a rare demonstration of affection,
F'lar gripped his half brother's shoulder tightly.

"Remember, F'nor. I was here all morning and you did not arrive back from the
first trip till mid-afternoon. And remember, too, we have only three days. You
have ten Turns."

F'nor left, passing Manora in the hall.

The woman could find nothing obviously the matter with Lessa, and they finally
decided it might be simple fatigue; yesterday's strain when Lessa had to relay
messages between dragons and fighters followed by the disjointing between
times trip today.

When F'lar went to wish the southern ventures a good trip, Lessa was in a
normal sleep, her face pale, but her breathing easy. F'lar had Mnementh relay
to Ramoth the prohibition he wished the queen to instill in all dragonkind
assigned to the venture. Ramoth obliged, but added in an aside to bronze
Mnementh, which he passed on to F'lar, that everyone else had adventures while
she, the Weyr queen, was forced to stay behind.

No sooner had the laden dragons, one by one, winked out of the sky above the
Star Stone than the young weyriing assigned to Nerat Hold as messenger came
gliding down, his face white with fear.

"Weyrleader, many more burrows have been found, and they cannot be burned out
with fire alone. Lord Vincet wants you."

F'lar could well imagine that Vincet did.

"Get yourself some dinner, boy, before you start back. I'll go shortly."

As he passed through to the sleeping quarters, he heard Ramoth rumbling in her
throat. She had settled herself down to rest.

Lessa still slept, one hand curled under her cheek, her dark hair trailing
over the edge of the bed. She looked fragile, childlike, and very precious to
him. F'lar smiled to himself.

So she was jealous of Kylara's attentions yesterday. He was pleased and
flattered.' Never would Lessa learn from him that Kylara, for all her bold
beauty and sensuous nature, did not have one tenth the attraction for him that
the unpredic- table, dark, and delicate Lessa held. Even her stubborn
intractableness, her keen and malicious humor, added zest to their
relationship. With a tenderness he could never show her awake, F'lar bent and
kissed her lips. She stirred and smiled, sighing lightly in her sleep.

Reluctantly returning to what must be done, F'lar left her so. As he paused by
the queen, Ramoth raised. her great, wedge-shaped head; her many-faceted eyes
gleamed with bright luminiscence as she regarded the weyrleader.

"Mnementh, please ask Ramoth to get in touch with the dragonet at Fandarel's
crafthall. I'd like the Mastersmith to come with me to Nerat. I want to see
what his agenothree does to Threads."

Ramoth nodded her head as the dragon relayed the message to her.

She has done so, and the green dragon comes as soon as he can. Mnementh
reported to his rider. It is easier to do, this talking about, when Lessa is
awake, he grumbled.

F'lar agreed heartily. It had been quite an advantage yesterday in the battle
and would be more and more of an asset.

Maybe it would be better if she tried to speak, across time, to F'nor . . .
but no, F'nor had come back.

F'lar strode into the Council. Room, still hopeful that somewhere within the
illegible portions of the old Records was the one clue he so desperately
needed. There must be a way out of this impasse. If not the southern venture,
then something else. Something!

Fandarel showed himself a man of iron will as well as sinew; he looked calmly
at the exposed tangle of perceptibly growing Threads that writhed and
intertwined obscenely.

"Hundreds and thousands in this one burrow," Lord Vincet of Nerat was
exclaiming in a frantic tone of voice. He waved his hands distractedly around
the plantation of young trees in which the burrow had been discovered. "These
stalks are already withering even as you hesitate. Do something! How many more
young trees will die in this one field alone? How many more burrows escaped
dragon's breath yesterday?

Where is a dragon to sear them? Why are you just standing there?"

F'lar and Fandarel paid no attention to the man's raving, both fascinated as
well as revolted by their first sight of the burrowing stage of their ancient
foe. Despite Vincet's panicky accusations, it was the only burrow on this
particular slope.

F'lar did not like to, contemplate how many more might have slipped through
the dragons' efforts and had reached Nerat's warm and fertile soil. If they
had only had time enough to set out watchmen to track the fall of stray
clumps.

They could, at least, remedy that error in Telgar, Crom, and Ruatha in three
days. But it was not enough. Not enough.

Fandarel motioned forward the two craftsmen who had accompanied him. They were
burdened with an odd contraption: a large cylinder of metal to which was
attached a wand with a wide nozzle. At the other end of the cylinder was
another short pipe-length and then a short cylinder with an inner plunger. One
craftsman worked the plunger vigorously, while the second, barely keeping' his
hands steady, pointed the nozzle end toward the Thread burrow. At a nod from
this pumper, the man released a small knob on the nozzle, extending it
carefully away from him and over the burrow. A thin spray danced from the
nozzle and drifted down into the burrow. No sooner had the spray motes
contacted the Thread tangles than steam hissed out of the burrow. Before long,
all that remained of the pallid writhing tendrils was a smoking mass of
blackened strands. Long after Fandarel had waved the craftsmen back, he stared
at the grave. Finally he grunted and found himself a long stick with which he
poked and prodded the remains. Not one Thread wriggled, "Humph," he grunted
with evident satisfaction. "However, we can scarcely go around digging up
every burrow. I need another."

With Lord Vincet a hand-wringing meaner in their wake, they were escorted by
the junglemen to another undisturbed burrow on the sea-side of the rainforest.
The Threads had entered the earth by the side of a huge tree that was already
drooping. With his prodding stick Fandarel made a tiny hole at the top of the
burrow and then waved his craftsmen forward. The pumper made vigorous motions
at his end, while the nozzle-holder adjusted his pipe before inserting it in
the hole. Fandarel gave the sign to start and counted slowly before he waved a
cutoff. Smoke oozed out of the tiny hole. After a suitable lapse of time,
Fandarel ordered the junglemen to dig, reminding them to be careful not to
come in contact with the agenothree liquid. When the burrow was uncovered, the
acid had done its work, leaving nothing but a thoroughly charred mass of
tangles.

Fandarel grimaced but this time scratched his head in dissatisfaction.

"Takes too much time, either way. Best to get them still at the surface," the
Mastersmith grumbled.

"Best to get them in the air," Lord Vincet chattered. "And what will that
stuff do to my young orchards? What will it do?"

Fandarel swung around, apparently noticing the distressed Holder for the first
time.

"Little man, agenothree in diluted form is what you use to fertilize your
plants in the spring. True, this field has been burned out for a few years,
but it is not Thread-full. It would be better if we could get the spray up
high in the air. Then it would float down and dissipate harmlessly fertilizing
very evenly, too." He paused, scratched his head gratingly. "Young dragons
could carry a team aloft. . . . Hmmm. A possibility, but the apparatus is
bulky yet." He turned his back on the surprised Hold Lord then and asked F'lar
if the tapestry had been returned. "I cannot yet discover how to make a tube
throw flame. I got this mechanism from what we make for the orchard farmers."

"I'm still waiting for word on the tapestry," F'lar replied, "but this spray
of yours is effective. The Thread .burrow is dead."

"The sandworms are effective too, but not really efficient," Fandarel grunted
in dissatisfaction. He beckoned abruptly to his assistants and stalked off
into the increasing twilight to the dragons.
Robinton awaited their return at the Weyr, his outward calm barely masking his
inner excitement. He inquired politely, however, of Pandarel's efforts.
The Mastersmith grunted and shrugged.

"I have all my craft at work."

"The Mastersmith is entirely too modest," F'lar put in. "He has already put
together an ingenious device that sprays agenothree into Thread burrows and
sears them into a black pulp."

"Not efficient. / like the idea of flamethrowers," the smith said, his eyes
gloaming in his expressionless face. "A thrower of flame," he repeated, his
eyes unfocusing. He shook his heavy head with a bone-popping crack. "I go,"
and with a curt nod to the harper and the Weyrleader, he left.

"I like that man's dedication to an idea," Robinton observed. Despite
his amusement with the man's eccentric behavior, there was a strong
undercurrent of respect for the smith. "I must set my apprentices a task for
an appropriate Saga on the Mastersmith. I understand," he said, turning to
F'lar, "that the southern venture has been inaugurated."

F'lar nodded unhappily.

"Your doubts increase?"

"This between times travel takes its own toll," he admitted, glancing
anxiously toward the sleeping room.

"The Weyrwoman is ill?"

"Sleeping, but today's journey affected her. We need another, less
dangerous answer!" and F'lar Slammed one fist into the other palm.

"I came with no real answer," Robinton said then, briskly, "but with what I
believe to be another part of the puzzle. I have found an entry. Four hundred
Turns ago the then Masterharper was called to Fort Weyr not long after the Red
Star retreated away from Pern in the evening sky."

"An entry? What is it?"

"Mind you, the Thread attacks had just lifted and the Masterharper was called
one late evening to Fort Weyr. An unusual supimons. However," and Robinton
emphasized the distinction by pointing a long, calloustipped finger at F'lar,
"no further mention is ever made of that visit. There ought to have been, for
all such summonses have a purpose. All such meetings are recorded, yet no
explanation of this one is given. The record is taken up several weeks later
by the Master- harper as though he had not left his crafthall at all. Some ten
months afterward, the Question Song was added to compulsory Teaching Ballads."

"You believe the two are connected with the abandonment of the five Weyrs?"

"I do, but I could not say why. I only feel that the events, the visit, the
disappearances, the Question Song, are connected." F'lar poured them .both
cups of wine.

"I have checked back, too, seeking some indications." He shrugged. "All must
have been normal right up to the point they disappeared. There are Records of
tithing trains received, supplies stored, the list of injured dragons and men
returning to active patrols. And then the Records cease at full Cold, leaving
only Benden Weyr occupied."
"And why that one Weyr of the six to choose from?" Robinton demanded. "Island
Ista would be a better choice if only one Weyr was to be left. Benden so far
north is not a likely place to pass four hundred Turns."

"Benden is high and isolated. A disease that struck the others and was
prevented from reaching Benden?"

"And no explanation of it? They can't all dragons, riders, weyrfolk have
dropped dead on the same instant and left no carcasses rotting in the sun."

"Then let us ask ourselves, why was the harper called?

Was he told to construct a Teaching Ballad covering this disappearance?"

"Well," Robinton snorted, "it certainly wasn't meant to reassure us, not with
that tuneif one cares to call it a tune at all, and I don'tnor does it answer
any questions! It poses them."

"For us to answer?" suggested F'lar softly.

"Aye." Robinton's eyes shone. "For us to answer, indeed, for it is a difficult
song to forget. Which means it was meant to be remembered. Those questions are
important, F'lar!"

"Which questions are important?" demanded Lessa, who had entered quietly.

Both men were on their feet. F'lar, with unusual attentiveness, held a chair
for Lessa and poured her wine. .

"I'm not going to break apart," she said tartly, almost annoyed at the excess
of courtesy. Then she smiled up at F'lar to take the sting out of her words.
"I slept and I feel much better. What were you two getting so intense about?"

F'lar quickly outlined what he and the Masterharper had been discussing. When
he mentioned the Question Song, Lessa shuddered.

"That's one I can't forget, either. Which, I've always been told," and she
grimaced, remembering the hateful lessons with R'gul, "means it's important.
But why? It only asked questions." Then she biinked, her eyes went wide with
amazement.

" 'Gone away, gone . . . ahead!' " she cried, on her feet. "That's it! All
five Weyrs went . . . ahead. But to when?"

F'lar turned to her, speechless.

"They came ahead to our time! Five Weyrs full of dragons," she repeated in an
awed voice.

"No, that's impossible," F'lar contradicted.

"Why?" Robinton demanded excitedly. "Doesn't that solve the problem we're
facing? The need for fighting dragons? Doesn't it explain why they left so
suddenly with no explanation except that Question Song?"

F'lar brushed back the heavy lock of hair that overhung his eyes.

"It would explain their actions in leaving," he admitted, "because they
couldn't leave any clues saying where they went, or it would cancel the whole
thing. Just as I couldn't tell F'nor I knew the southern venture would have
problems. But how do they get hereif here is when they came? They aren't here
now. How would they have known they were neededor when they were needed? And
this is the real problemhow can you conceivably give a dragon references to a
when that has not yet occurred?"

"Someone here must go back to give them the proper references," Lessa replied
in a very quiet voice.

"You're mad, Lessa," F'lar shouted at her, alarm written on his face. "You
know what happened to you today. How can you consider going back to a when you
can't remotely imagine? To a when four hundred Turns ago? Going back ten Turns
left you fainting and half-ill."

"Wouldn't it be worth it?" she asked him, her eyes grave.

"Isn't Pern worth it?"

F'lar grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her, his eyes wild with fear.

"Not even Pern is woyth losing you, or Ramoth. Lessa, Lessa, don't you dare
disobey me in this." His voice dropped to an intense, icy whisper, shaking
with anger.

"Ah, there may be a way of effecting that solution, momentarily beyond us,
Weyrwoman," Robinton put in adroitly.

"Who knows what tomorrow holds? It certainly is not some- thing one does
without considering every angle."

Lessa did not shrug off F'lar's viselike grip on her shoulders as she gazed at
Robinton.

"Wine?" the Masterharper suggested, pouring a mug for her. His diversionary
action broke the tableau of Lessa and F'lar.

"Ramoth is not afraid to try," Lessa said, her mouth set in a determined line.

F'lar glared at the golden dragon who was regarding the humans, her neck
curled around almost to the shoulder joint of her great wing.

"Ramoth is young," F'lar snapped and then caught Mnementh's wry thought even
as Lessa did. She threw her head back, her peal of laughter echoing in the
vaulting chamber.

"I'm badly in need of a good joke myself," Robinton remarked pointedly.

"Mnementh told F'lar that he was neither young nor afraid to try, either. It
was just a long step," Lessa explained, wiping tears from her eyes.

F'lar glanced dourly at the passageway, at the end of which Mnementh lounged
on his customary ledge. A laden dragon comes, the bronze warned those in the
Weyr. it is Lytol behind young B'rant on brown Fanth.

"Now he brings his own bad news?" Lessa asked sourly.

"It is hard enough for Lytol to ride another's dragon or come here at all,
Lessa of Ruatha. Do not increase his torment one jot with your childishness,"
F'lar said sternly.
Lessa dropped her eyes, furious with F'lar for speaking so to her in front of
Robinton.

Lytol slumped into the queen's weyr, carrying one end of a large rolled rug.
Young B'rant, struggling to uphold the other end, was sweating with the
effort. Lytol bowed respect- fully toward Ramoth and gestured the young brown
rider to help him unroll their burden. As the immense tapestry uncoiled, F'lar
could understand why Masterweaver.Zurg had remembered it. The colors, ancient
though they undoubtedly were, remained vibrant and undimmed. The subject
matter was even more interesting.

"Mnementh, send for Fandarel. Here's the model he needs for his flamethrower,"
F'lar said.

"That tapestry is Ruatha's," Lessa cried indignantly. "I remember it from my
childhood. It hung in the Great Hall and was the most cherished of my Blood
Line's possessions. Where has it been?" Her eyes were flashing.

"Lady, it is being returned to where it belongs," Lytol said stolidly,
avoiding her gaze. "A masterweaver's work, this," he went on, touching the
heavy fabric with reverent fingers.

"Such colors, such patterning. It took a man's life to set up the loom, a
craft's whole effort to complete, or I am no judge of true craftsmanship."

F'lar walked along the edge of the immense arras, wishing it could be hung to
afford the proper perspective of the heroic scene. A flying formation of three
wings of dragons dominated the upper portion of half the hanging. They were
breathing flame as they dove upon gray, falling clumps of Threads in the
brilliant sky. A sky just that perfect autumnal blue, F'lar decided, that
cannot occur in warmer weather.

Upon the lower slopes of the hills, foliage was depicted as turning yellow
from chilly nights. The slatey rocks suggested Ruathan country. Was that why
the tapestry had hung in Ruatha Hall? Below, men had left the protecting Hold,
cut into the cliff itself. The men were burdened with the curious cylinders of
which Zurg had spoken. The tubes in their hands belched brilliant tongues of
flame in long streams, aimed at the writhing Threads that attempted to burrow
in the ground.

Lessa gave a startled exclamation, walking right onto the tapestry, staring
down at the woven outline of the Hold, its massive door ajar, the details of
its bronze ornamentation painstakingly rendered in fine yarns.

"I believe that's the design on the Ruatha Hold door," F'lar remarked.

"It is . . . and it isn't," Lessa replied in a puzzled voice.

Lytol glowered at her and then at the woven door. "True. It isn't and yet it
is, and I went through that door a scant hour ago." He scowled down at the
door before his toes.

"Well, here are the designs Fandarel wants to study," F'lar said with relief,
as he peered at the flamethrowers.

Whether or not the smith could produce a working model from this woven one in
time to help them three days hence F'lar couldn't guess. But if Fandarel could
not, no man could.

The Mastersmith was, for him, jubilant over the presence of the tapestry. He
lay upon the rug, his nose tickled by the nap as he studied the details. He
grumbled, moaned, and muttered as he sat cross-legged to sketch and peer.

"Has been done. Can be done. Must be done," he was heard to rumble.

Lessa called for klah, bread, and meat when she learned from young B'rant that
neither he nor Lytol had eaten yet.

She served all the men, her manner gay and teasing. F'lar was relieved for
Lytol's sake. Lessa even pressed food and klah on Fandarel, a tiny figure
beside the mammoth man, insisting that he come away from the tapestry and eat
and drink before he could return to his mumbling and drawing.

Fandarel finally decided that he had enough sketches and disappeared, to be
flown back to his crafthold.

"No point in asking him when he'll be back. He's too deep in thought to hear,"
F'lar remarked, amused.

"If you don't mind, I shall excuse myself as well," Lessa said, smiling
graciously to the four remaining around the table. "Good Warder Lytol, young
B'rant should soon be excused, too. He's half asleep."

"I most certainly am not, Weyrlady," B'rant assured .her hastily, widening his
eyes with simulated alertness.

Lessa merely laughed as she retreated into the sleeping chamber. F'lar stared
thoughtfully after her.

"I mistrust the Weyrwoman when she uses that particularly docile tone of
voice," he said slowly.

"Well, we must all depart," Robinton suggested, rising.

"Ramoth is young but not that foolish," F'lar murmured after the others had
left. Ramoth slept, oblivious of his scrutiny. He reached for the consolation
Mnementh could give him, without response. The big bronze was dozing on his
ledge.

Black, blacker, blackest,

And cold beyond frozen things.

Where is between when there is naught

To Life but fragile dragon wings?

"I JUST want to see that tapestry back on the wall at Ruatha," Lessa insisted
to F'lar the next day. "I want it where it belongs."

They had gone to check on the injured and had had one argument already over
F'lar's having sent N'ton along with the southern venture. Lessa had wanted
him to try riding another's dragon. F'lar had preferred for him to learn to
lead a wing of his own in the south, given the Turns to mature in. He had
reminded Lessa, in the hope that it might prove inhibiting to any ideas she
had about going four hundred Turns back, about F'nor's return trips, and he
had borne down hard on the difficulties she had already experienced.

She had become very thoughtful, although she had said nothing.
Therefore, when Fandarel sent word that he would like to show F'lar a new
mechanism, the weyrleader felt reasonably safe in allowing Lessa the triumph
of returning the pur- loined tapestry to Ruatha. She went to have the arras
rolled and strapped to Ramoth's back. He watched Ramoth rise with great sweeps
of her wide wings, up to the Star Stone before going between to Ruatha. R'gul
appeared on the ledge just then, reporting that a huge train of firestone was
entering the Tunnel. Consequently, busy with such details, it was midmoming
before he could get to see Fandarel's crude and not yet effective flamethrower
. . . the fire did not "throw" from the nozzle of the tube with any force at
all. It was late afternoon before he reached the Weyr again. R'gul announced
sourly that F'nor had been looking for himtwice, in fact.

"Twice?"

"Twice, as I said. He would not leave a message with me for you." R'gul was
clearly insulted by F'nor's refusal.

By the evening meal, when there was still no sign of Lessa, F'lar sent to
Ruatha to learn that she had indeed brought the tapestry. She had badgered and
bothered the entire Hold until the thing was properly hung. For upward of
several hours she had sat and looked at it, pacing its length occasionally.
She and Ramoth had then taken to the sky above the Great Tower and
disappeared. Lytol had assumed, as had everyone at Ruatha, that she had
returned to Benden Weyr.

"Mnementh," F'lar bellowed when the messenger had finished. "Mnementh, where
are they?"

Mnementh's answer was a long time in coming.

I cannot hear them, he said finally, his mental voice soft and as full of
worry as a dragon's could be.

F'lar gripped the table with both hands, staring at the queen's empty weyr. He
knew, in the anguished privacy of his mind, where Lessa had tried to go.

Cold as death,   death-bearing,

Stay and die, unguided.

Brave and braving, linger.

This way was twice decided.



BELOW THEM was Ruatha's Great Tower. Lessa coaxed Ramoth slightly to the left,
ignoring the dragon's acid comments, knowing that she was excited, too.

Thafs right, dear, this is exactly the angle at which the tapestry illustrates
the Hold door. Only when that tapestry was designed, no one had carved the
lintels or capped the door. And there was no Tower, no inner Court, no gate.
She stroked the surprisingly soft skin of the curving neck, laughing to hide
her own tense nervousness and apprehension at what she was about to attempt.

She told herself there were good reasons prompting her action in this matter.
The ballad's opening phrase, "Gone away, gone ahead," was clearly a reference
to between times.

And the tapestry gave the required reference points for the jump between
whens. Oh, how she thanked the Masterweaver who had woven that doorway. She
must remember to tell him how well he had wrought. She hoped she'd be able to.
Enough of that. Of course, she'd be able to. For hadn't the Weyrs disappeared?
Knowing they had gone ahead, knowing how to go back to bring them ahead, it
was she, obviously, who must go back and lead them. It was very simple, and
only she and Ramoth could do it. Because they already had. She laughed again,
nervously, and took several deep, shuddering breaths.

"All right, my golden love," she murmured. "You have the reference. You know
when I want to go. Take me between, Ramoth, between four hundred Turns."

The cold was intense, even more penetrating than she had imagined. Yet it was
not a physical cold. It was the awareness of the absence of everything. No
light. No sound. No touch. As they hovered, longer, and longer, in this
nothingness, Lessa recognized full-blown panic of a kind that threatened to
overwhelm her reason. She knew she sat on Ramoth's neck, yet she could not
feel the great beast under her thighs, under her hands. She tried to cry out
inadvertently and opened her mouth to . . . nothing . . . no sound in her own
ears. She could not even feel the hands that she knew she had raised to her
own cheeks.

I am here, she heard Ramoth say in her mind. We are together, and this
reassurance was all that kept her from losing her grasp on sanity in that
terrifying aeon of unpassing, timeless nothingness.

Someone had sense enough to call for Robinton. The Masterharper found F'lar
sitting at the table, his face deathly pale, his eyes staring at the empty
weyr. The craftmaster's entrance, his calm voice, reached F'lar in his shocked
numbness. He sent others out with a peremptory wave.

"She's gone. She tried to go back four hundred Turns," F'lar said in a tight,
hard voice.

The Masterharper sank into the chair opposite the Weyrleader.

"She took the tapestry back to Ruatha," F'lar continued in that same choked
voice. "I'd told her about F'nor's returns. I told her how dangerous this was.
She didn't argue very much, and I know going between times had frightened her,
if any- thing could frighten Lessa." He banged the table with an impotent
fist. "I should have suspected her. When she thinks she's right, she doesn't
stop to analyze, to consider. She just does it!"

"But she's not a foolish woman," Robinton reminded him slowly. "Not even she
would jump between times without a reference point. Would, she?"

" 'Gone away, gone ahead'that's the only clue we have!"

"Now wait a moment," Robinton cautioned him, then snapped his fingers. "Last
night, when she walked upon the tapestry, she was uncommonly interested in the
Hall door. Remember, she discussed it with Lytol."

F'lar was on his feet and halfway down the passageway.

"Come on, man, we've got to get to Ruatha."

Lytol lit every glow in the Hold for F'lar and Robrnton to examine the
tapestry clearly.

"She spent the afternoon just looking at it," the Warder said, shaking his
head. "You're sure she has tried this incredible jump?"
"She must have. Mnementh can't hear either her or Ramoth anywhere. Yet he says
he can get an echo from Canth many Turns away and in the Southern Continent."
F'lar stalked past the tapestry. "What is it about the door, Lytol? Think,
man! It is much as it is now, save that there are no carved lintels, there is
no outer Court or Tower . . ."

"That's it. Oh, by the first Egg, it is so simple. Zurg said this tapestry is
old. Lessa must have decided it was four hundred Turns, and she has used it as
the reference point to go back between times."

"Why, then, she's there and safe," Robinton cried, sinking with relief in a
chair.

"Oh, no, harper. It is not as easy as that," F'lar murmured, and Robinton
caught his stricken look and the despair echoed in Lytol's face.

"What's the matter?"

"There is nothing between," F'lar said in a dead voice. "To go between places
takes only as much time as for a man to cough three times. Between four
hundred Turns. . . ." His voice trailed off.

Who wills, Can.

Who tries, Does.

Who loves, Lives.

THERE WERE voices that first were roars in her aching ears and then hushed
beyond the threshold of sound. She gasped as the whirling, nauseating
sensation apparently spun her, and the bed which she felt beneath her, around
and around. She clung to the sides of the bed as pain jabbed through her head,
from somewhere directly in the middle of her skull. She screamed, as much in
protest at the pain as from the terrifying, rolling, whirling, dropping lack
of a solid ground.

Yet some frightening necessity kept her trying to gabble out the message she
had come to give. Sometimes she felt Ramoth trying to reach her in that vast
swooping darkness that enveloped her. She would try to cling to Ramoth's mind,
hoping the golden queen could lead her out of this torturing nowhere.
Exhausted, she would sink down, down, only to be torn from oblivion by the
desperate need to communicate.

She was finally aware of a soft, smooth hand upon her arm, of a liquid, warm
and savory, in her mouth. She rolled it around her tongue, and it trickled
down her sore throat. A fit of coughing left her gasping and weak. Then she
experi- mentally opened her eyes, and the images before her did not lurch and
spin.

"Who . . . are . . . you?" she managed to croak.

"Oh, my dear Lessa . . ."

"Is that who I am?" she asked, confused.

"So your Ramoth tells us," she was assured. "I am Mardra of Port Weyr."

"Oh, F'lar will be so angry with me," Lessa moaned as her memory came rushing
back. "He will shake me and shake me. He always shakes me when I disobey him.
But I was right. I was right. Mardra? . . . Oh, that . . . awful . . .
nothingness," and she felt herself drifting off into sleep, unable to resist
that overwhelming urge. Comfortably, her bed no longer rocked beneath her. The
room, dimly lit by wallglows, was both like her own at Benden Weyr and subtly
different. Lessa lay still, trying to isolate that difference. Ah, the
weyr-walls were very smooth here. The room was larger, too, the ceiling higher
and curving. The furnishings, now that her eyes were used to the dim light and
she could distinguish details, were more finely crafted. She stirred
resUessly.

"Ah, you're awake again, mystery lady," a man said. Light beyond the parted
curtain flooded in from the outer weyr. Lessa sensed rather than saw the
presence of others in the room beyond. A woman passed under the man's arm,
moving swiftly to .the bedside.

"I remember you. You're Mardra," Lessa said with surprise.

"Indeed I am, and here is T'ton, Weyrleader at Fort." T'ton was tossing more
glows into the wallbasket, peering over his shoulder at Lessa to see if the
light bothered her.

"Ramoth!" Lessa exclaimed, sitting upright, aware for the first time that it
was not Ramoth's mind she touched in the outer weyr.

"Oh, that one," Mardra laughed with amused dismay. "She'll eat us out of the
Weyr, and even my Loranth has had to call the other queens to restrain her."

"She perches on the Star Stones as if she owned them and keens constantly,"
T'ton added, less charitably. He cocked an ear. "Ha. She's stopped."

"You can come, can't you?" Lessa blurted out.

"Come? Come where, my dear?" Mardra asked, confused.

"You've been going on and on about our 'coming,' and Threads approaching, and
the Red Star bracketed in the Eye Rock, and . . . my dear, don't you realize
the Red Star has been past Pern these two months?"

"No, no, they've started. That's why I came back between times..."

"Back? Between times?" T'ton exclaimed, striding over to the bed, eyeing Lessa
intently.

"Could I have some klah? I know I'm not making much sense, and I'm not really
awake yet. But I'm not mad or still sick, and this is rather complicated."

"Yes, it is," Tton remarked with deceptive mildness. But he did call down the
service shaft for klah. And he did drag a chair over to her bedside, settling
himself to listen to her.

"Of course you're not mad," Mardra soothed her, glaring at her weyrmate. "Or
she wouldn't ride a queen."

Tton had to agree to that. Lessa waited for the klah to come; when it did, she
sipped gratefully at its stimulating warmth.

Then she took a deep breath and   began, telling them of the Long Interval
between the dangerous passes of   the Red Star: how the sole Weyr had fallen
into disfavor and contempt, how   Jora had deteriorated and lost control over
her queen, Nemorth, so that, as   the Red Star neared, there was no sud- den
increase in the size of clutches. How she had Impressed Ramoth to become
Benden's Weyrwoman. How Flar had outwitted the dissenting Hold Lords the day
after Ramoth's first mating flight and taken firm command of Weyr and
Pern, preparing for the Threads he knew were coming. She told her by now rapt
audience of her own first attempts to fly Ramoth and how she had inadvertently
gone back between time to the day Fax had invaded Ruath Hold.

"Invade . . . my family's Hold?" Mardra cried, aghast.

"Ruatha has given the Weyrs many famous Weyrwomen," Lessa said with a sly
smile at which T'ton burst out' laughing.

"She's Ruathan, no question," he assured Mardra.

She told them of the situation in which dragonmen now found themselves, with
an insufficient force to meet the Thread attacks. Of the Question Song and the
great tapestry.

"A tapestry?" Mardra cried, her hand going to her cheek in alarm. "Describe it
to me!"

And when Lessa did, she saw at last belief in both their faces.

"My father has just commissioned a tapestry with such a scene. He told me of
it the other day because the last battle with the Threads was held over
Ruatha." Incredulous, Mardra turned to T'ton, who no longed looked amused.
"She must have done what she has said she'd done. How could she possibly know
about the tapestry?"

"You might also ask your queen dragon, and mine," Lessa suggested.

"My dear, we do not doubt you now," Mardra said sincerely, "but it is a most
incredible feat."

"I don't think," Lessa said, "that I would ever try it again, knowing what I
do know."

"Yes, this shock makes a forward jump between times quite a problem if your
F'lar must have an effective fighting force," T'ton remarked.

"You will come? You will?' "There is a distinct possibility we will," T'ton
said gravely, and his face broke into a lopsided grin. "You said we left the
Weyrs . . . abandoned them, in fact, and left no explanation. We went
somewhere . . . somewhen, that is, for we are still here now. . . ."

They were all silent, for the same alternative occurred to them
simultaneously. The Weyrs had been vacant, but Lessa had no way of proving
that the five Weyrs reappeared in her time.

"There must be a way. There must be a way," Lessa cried distractedly. "And
there's no time to waste. No time at all!"

T'ton gave a bark of laughter. "There's plenty of time at this end of history,
my dear."

They made her rest then, more concerned than she was that she had been ill
some weeks, deliriously screaming that she was falling and could not see,
could not hear, could not touch. Ramoth, too, they told her, had suffered from
the appalling nothingness of a protracted stay between, emerging above ancient
Ruatha a pale yellow wraith of her former robust self. The Lord of Ruatha
Hold, Mardra's father, had been. surprised out of his wits by the appearance
of a staggering rider and a pallid queen on his stone verge. Naturally and
luckily he had sent to his daughter at Fort Weyr for help.

Lessa and Ramoth had been transported to the Weyr, and the Ruathan Lord kept
silence on the matter. When Lessa was strong enough, T'ton called a Council of
Weyrleaders. Curiously, there was no opposition to going . . . provided they
could solve the problem of time-shock and find reference points along the way.
It did not take Lessa long to comprehend why the dragonriders were so eager to
attempt the journey. Most of them had been born during the present Thread
incursions. They had now had close to four months of unexciting routine
patrols and were bored with monotony. Training Games were pallid substitutes
for the real battles they had all fought. The Holds, which once could not do
dragonmen favors enough, were beginning to be indifferent.

The weyrleaders could see these incidents increasing as Thread-generated fears
receded. It was a morale decay as insidious as a wasting disease in Weyr and
Hold. The alternative which Lessa's appeal offered was. better than a slow
decline in their own time. Of Benden, only the Weyrleader himself was privy to
these meetings. Because Beaden was the only Weyr in Lessa's time, it must
remain ignorant, and intact, until her time. Nor could any mention be made of
Lessa's presence, for that, too, was unknown in her Turn.

She insisted that they call in the Masterharper because her Records said he
had been called. But when he asked her to tell him the Question Song, she
smiled and demurred.

"You'll write it, or your successor will, when the Weyrs are found to be
abandoned," she told him. "But it must be your doing, not my repeating."

"A difficult assignment to know one must write a song that four hundred Turns
later gives a valuable clue."

"Only be sure," she cautioned him, "that it is a Teaching tune. It must not be
forgotten, for it poses questions that I have to answer."

As he started to chuckle, she realized she had already given him a pointer.

The discussions how to go so far safely with no sustained sense deprivations
grew heated. There were more constructive notions, however impractical, on how
to find reference points along the way. The five Weyrs had not been ahead in
time, and Lessa, in her one gigantic backward leap, had not stopped for
intermediate time marks.

"You did say that a between times jump of ten years caused no hardship?" T'ton
asked of Lessa as all the weyrleaders and the Masterharper met to discuss this
impasse.

"None. It takes . . . oh, twice as long as a between places jump."

"It is the four hundred Turn leap that left you imbalanced. Hmmm. Maybe twenty
or twenty-five Turn segments would be safe enough."

That suggestion found merit until Ista's cautious leader, D'ram, spoke up.

"I don't mean to be a Hold-hider, but there is one possibility we haven't
mentioned. How do we know we made the jump between to Lessa's time? Going
between is a chancy business. Men go missing often. And Lessa barely made it
here alive."
"A good point, D'ram," Tton concurred briskly, "but I feel there is more to
prove that we do-did-will-go forward. The clues, for one thingthey were aimed
at Lessa.

The very emergency that left five Weyrs empty sent her back to appeal for our
help" "Agreed, agreed," D'ram interrupted earnestly, "but what I mean is can
you be sure we reached Lessa's time? It hadn't happened yet. Do we know it
can?"

T'ton was not the only one who searched his mind for an answer to that. All of
a sudden he slammed both hands, palms down, on the table.

"By the Egg, it's die slow, doing nothing, or die quick, trying. I've had a
surfeit of the quiet life we dragonmen must lead after the Red Star passes
till we go between in old age. I confess I'm almost sorry to see the Red Star
dwindle farther from us in the evening sky. I say, grab the risk with both
hands and shake it till it's gone. We're dragonmen, aren't we, bred to figh'
the Threads? Let's go hunting . . . four hundred Turns ahead!"

Lessa's drawn face relaxed. She had recognized the validity of D'ram's
alternate possibility, and it had touched off bitter fear in her heart. To
risk herself was her own responsibility, but to risk these hundreds of men.
and dragons, the Weyrfolk who would accompany their men . . . ?

T'ton's ringing words for once and all dispensed with that consideration.

"And I believe," the Masterharper's exultant voice cut through the answering
shouts of agreement, "I have your reference points." A smile of surprised
wonder illuminated his face. "Twenty Turns or twenty hundred, you have a
guide!

And T'ton said it. As tha Red Star dwindles in the evening sky..."

Later, as they plotted the orbit of the Red Star, they found how easy that
solution actually was and chuckled that their ancient foe should be their
guide. Atop Fort Weyr, as on all the Weyrs, were great stones. They were so
placed that at certain times of the year they marked the approach and retreat
of the Red Star, as it orbited in its erratic two hundred Turn-long course
around their sun.

By consulting the Records which, among other morsels of information, included
the Red Star's wanderings, it was not hard to plan jumps between of
twenty-five Turns for each Weyr. It had been decided that the complement of
each separate Weyr would jump between above its own base, for there would
unquestionably be accidents if close to eighteen hundred laden beasts tried it
at one point.

Each moment now was one too long away from her own time for Lessa. She had
been. a month away from F'lar and missed him more than she had thought
possible. Also, she was worried that Ramoth would mate away from Mnementh.
There were, to be sure, bronze dragons and bronze riders eager to do that
service, but Lessa had no interest in them.

T'ton and Mardra occupied her with the many details in organizing the exodus,
so that no clues, past the tapestry and the Question Song that would be
composed at a later date, remained in the Weyrs.

It was with a relief close to tears that Lessa urged Ramoth upward in the
night sky to take her place near T'ton and Mardra above the Fort Weyr Star
Stone. At five other Weyrs great wings were ranged in formation, ready to
depart their own times. As each Weyrleader's dragon reported to Lessa that all
were ready, reference points determined by the Red Star's travels in mind, it
was this traveler from the future who gave the command to jump between.

The blackest night must end in dawn, The sun dispel the dreamer's fear: When
shall my soul's black, hopeless pain

Find solace in its darkening Weyr?

THEY HAD made eleven   jumps between, the Weyrleaders' bronzes spe.''king to
Lessa as they rested   briefly between each jump. Of the eighteen hundred-odd
travelers, only four   failed to come ahe d. and they had been older beasts. All
five sections agreed   to pause for a quick meal and hot klah before the final
jump, which would be   but twelve Turns.

"It is easier," T'ton commented as Mardra served the klah, "to go twcny-five
Turns than twelve." He glanced up at the Red Dawn Star, their winking and
faithful guide. "It does not alter its position as much. I count on you,
Lessa, to give us additional references."

"I want to get us back to Ruatha before F'lar discovers I have gone " Shs
shivered as she looked up at the Red Star and sipped hast'ly at the hot klah.
"I've seen the Star just like that, once . . . no, twice . . . before at
Ruatha." She stared at T'ton, her throat constricting as she remembered that
morning: the fma she had decided that the Red Star was a menace to her, three
days after which Fax and F'lar had appeared at Ruatha lo!d. Fax had died on
F'lar's dagger, and she had gone to Benden Weyr. She felt suddenly dizzy,
weak, strangely unsettled. She had not felt this way as they paused between
other jumps.

"Are you all right, Lessa?" Mardra asked with concern. "You're so white.
You're shaking." She put her arm around Lessa, glancing, concerned, at her
Weyrmate.

"Twelve Turns ago I was at Ruatha," Lessa murmured, grasping Mardra's hand for
support. "I was at Ruatha twice. Let's go on quickly. I'm too many in this
morning. I must get back. I must get back to F'lar. He'll be so angry."

The note of hysteria in her voice alarmed both Mardra and T'ton. Hastily the
latter gave orders for the fires to be extinguished, for the Weyrfolk to mount
and prepare for the final jump ahead.

Her mind in chaos, Lessa transmitted the references to the other Weyrleaders'
dragons: Ruatha in the evening light, the Great Tower, the inner Court, the
land at springtime. . . .

A fleck of red in a cold night sky, .

 A drop of blood to guide them by, Turn away. Turn away. Turn, be gone,

A Red Star beckons the travelers on.

BETWEEN THEM, Lytol and Robinton forced F'lar to eat, deliberately plying him
with wine. At the back of his mind F'lar knew he would have to keep going, but
the effort was immense, the spirit gone from him. It was no comfort that they
still had Pridith and Kylara to continue dragonkind, yet he delayed sending
someone back for F'nor, unable to face the reality of that admission: that in
sending for Pridith and Kylara, he had acknowledged the fact that Lessa and
Ramoth would not return.
Lessa, Lessa, his mind cried endlessly, damning her one moment for her
reckless, thoughtless daring, loving her the next for attempting such an
incredible feat.

"I said, F'lar, you need sleep now more than wine."

Robinton's voice penetrated his preoccupation. F'lar looked at him, frowning
in perplexity. He realized that he was trying to lift the wine jug that
Robinton was holding firmly down.

"What did you say?"

"Come. I'll bear you company to Benden. Indeed, nothing could persuade me to
leave your side. You have aged years, man, in the course of hours."

"And isn't it understandable?" F'lar shouted, rising to his feet, the impotent
anger boiling out of him at the nearest target in the form of Robinton.
Robinton's eyes were full of compassion as he reached for F'lar's arm,
gripping it tightly.

"Man, not even this Masterharper has words enough to express the sympathy and
honor he has for you. But you must sleep; you have tomorrow to endure, and the
tomorrow after that you have to fight. The dragonmen must have a leader. . .
." His voice trailed off. "Tomorrow you must send for F'nor . . . and
Pridith."

F'lar pivoted on his heel and strode toward the fateful door of Ruatha's great
hall.

Oh, Tongue, give sound

to joy and sing

Of hope and promise

On dragonwing.

BEFORE THEM loomed Ruatha's Great Tower, the high walls of the Outer Court
clearly visible in the fading light. The claxon rang violent summons into the
air, barely heard over the earsplitting thunder as hundreds of dragons ap-
peared, ranging in full fighting array, wing upon wing, up and down. the
valley.

A shaft of light stained the flagstones of the Court as the Hold door opened.

Lessa ordered Ramoth down, close to the Tower, and dismounted, running eagerly
forward to greet the men who piled out of the door. She made out the stocky
figure of Lytol, a handbasket of glows held high above his head. She was so
relieved to see him that she forgot her previous antagonism to the Warder.

"You misjudged the last jump by two days, Lessa," he cried as soon as he was
near enough for her to hear him over the noise of settling dragons.

"Misjudged? How could I?" she breathed.

T'ton and Mardra came up beside her.

"No need to worry," Lytol reassured her, gripping her hands tightly in his,
his eyes dancing. He was actually smiling at her. "You overshot the day. Go
back between, return to Ruatha of two days ago. That's all." His grin widened
at her confusion. "It is all right," he repeated, patting her hands. "Take
this same hour, the Great Court, everything, but visualize F'lar, Robinton,
and myself here on the flagstones. Place Mnementh on the Great Tower and a
blue dragon on the verge. Now go."

Mnementh? Ramoth queried Lessa, eager to see her Weyrmate. She ducked her
great head, and her huge eyes gleamed with scintillating fire.

"I don't understand," Lessa wailed. Mardra slipped a comforting arm around her
shoulders.

"But I do, I do trust me," Lytol pleaded, patting her shoulder awkwardly and
glancing at T'ton for support. "It is as F'nor has said. You cannot be several
places in time without experiencing great distress, and when you stopped
twelve Turns back, it threw Lessa all to pieces."

"You know that?" T'ton cried.

"Of course. Just go back two days. You see, I know you have. I shall, of
course, be surprised then, hut now, tonight, I know you reappeared two days
earlier. Oh, go. Don't argue.

F'lar was half out of his mind with worry for you."

"He'll shake me," Lessa cried, like a little girl.

"Lessa!" T'ton took her by the hand and led her back to Ramoth, who crouched
so her rider could mount.

T'ton took complete charge and had his Fidranth pass the order to return to
the references Lytol had given, adding by way of Ramoth, a description of the
humans and Mnementh.

The cold of between restored Lessa to herself, although her error had badly
jarred her confidence. But then there was Ruatha again. The dragons happily
arranged themselves in tremendous display. And there, silhouetted against the
light from the Hall, stood Lytol, Robinton's tall figure, and . . . F'lar.

Mnementh's voice gave a brassy welcome, and Ramoth could not land Lessa
quickly enough to go and twine necks with her mate. Lessa stood where Ramoth
had left her, unable to move. She was aware that Mardra and T'ton were beside
her. She was conscious only of F'lar, racing across the Court toward her. Yet
she could not move. He grabbed her in his arms, holding her so tightly to him
that she could not doubt the joy of his welcome.

"Lessa, Lessa," his voice raggedly chanted in her ear. He pressed her face
against his, crushing her to breathlessness, all his careful detachment
abandoned. He kissed her, bugged her, held her, and then kissed her with rough
urgency again.

Then he suddenly set her on her feet and gripped her shoulders. "Lessa, if you
ever . . ." he said, punctuating each word with a flexing of his fingers, then
stopped, aware of a grinning circle of strangers surrounding them.

"I told you he'd shake me," Lessa was saying, dashing tears from her face.
"But, F'lar, I brought them all . . . all but Benden Weyr. And that is why the
five Weyrs were abandoned. I brought them."

F'lar looked around him, looked beyond the leaders to the masses of dragons
settling in the valley, on the heights, everywhere he turned. There were
dragons, blue, green, bronze, brown, and a whole wingful of golden queen
dragons alone.

"You brought the Weyrs?" he echoed, stunned.

"Yes, this is Mardra and T'ton of Fort Weyr, D'ram and ..."

He stopped her with a little shake, pulling her to his side so he could see
and greet the newcomers.

"I am more grateful than you can know," he said and could not go on with all
the many words he wanted to add. T'ton stepped forward, holding out his hand,
which F'lar seized and held firmly.

"We bring eighteen hundred dragons, seventeen queens, and all that is
necessary to implement our Weyrs."

"And they brought fiamethrowers, too," Lessa put in excitedly.

"But to come . . . to attempt it . . ." F'lar murmured in admiring wonder.

T'ton and D'ram and the others laughed.

"Your Lessa showed the way . . ."

". . . with the Red Star to guide us . . ." she said.

"We are dragonmen," T'ton continued solemnly, "as you are yourself, F'lar of
Benden. We were told there are Threads here to fight, and that's work for
dragonmen to do . . . in any time!"

Drummer, beat, and piper, blow, Harper, strike, and soldier, go.

Free the flame and sear the grasses Till the dawning Red Star passes.

EVEN AS the five Weyrs had been settling around Ruatha Valley, F'nor had been
compelled to bring forward in time his southern Weyrfolk. They had all reached
the end of endurance in double-time life, gratefully creeping back to quarters
they had vacated two days and ten Turns ago.

R'gul, totally unaware of Lessa's backward plunge, greeted F'lar and his
Weyrwoman, on their return to the Weyr, with the news of F'nor's appearance
with seventy-two new dragons and the further word that he doubted any of the
riders would be fit to fight.

"I've never seen such exhausted men in my life," R'gul rattled on, "can't
imagine what could have gotten into them, with sun and plenty of food and all,
and no responsibilities."

F'lar and Lessa exchanged glances.

"Well, the southern Weyr ought to be maintained, R'gul. Think it over."

"I'm a fighting dragonman, not a womanizer," the old dragonrider grunted.
"It'd take more than a trip between times to reduce me like those others."

"Oh, they'll be themselves again in next to no time," Lessa said and, to
R'gul's intense disapproval, she giggled.

"They'll have to be if we're to keep the skies Thread-free," R'gul snapped
testily.

"No problem about that now," F'lar assured him easily.

"No problem? With only a hundred and forty-four dragons?"

"Two hundred and sixteen," Lessa corrected him firmly.

Ignoring her, R'gul asked, "Has that Mastersmith found a flamethrower that'll
work?"

"Indeed he has," F'lar assured R'gul, grimmig broadly.

The five Weyrs had also brought forward their equipment.

Fandarel all but snatched examples from their backs and, undoubtedly, every
hearth and smithy through the continent would be ready to duplicate the design
by morning. T'ton had told F'lar that, in his time, each Hold had ample
flamethrowers for every man on the ground. In the course of the Long Interval,
however, the throwers must have been either smelted down or lost as
incomprehensible devices. D'ram, particulariy, was very much interested in
Fandarel's agenothree sprayer, considering it better than thrown-flame, since
it would also act as a fertilizer.

"Well," R'gul admitted gloomily, "a flamethrower or two will be some help day
after tomorrow."

"We have found something else that will help a lot more," Lessa remarked and
then hastily excused herself, dashing into the sleeping quarters.

The sounds that drifted past the curtain were either laughter or sobs, and
R'gul frowned on both. That girl was just too young to be Weyrwoman at such a
time. No stability.

"Has she realized how critical our situation is? Even with Fnor's additions?
That is, if they can fly?" R'gul demanded testily. "You oughtn't to let her
leave the Weyr at all."

F'lar ignored that and began pouring himself a cup of wine.

"You once pointed out to me that the five empty Weyrs of Pern supported your
theory that there would be no more Threads."

R'gul cleared his throat, thinking that apologieseven if they might be due
from the Weyrleader were scarcely effective against the Threads.

"Now there was merit in that theory," F'lar went on, filling a cup for R'gul.
"Not, however, as you interpreted it. The five Weyrs were empty because they .
. . they came here."

R'gul, his cup halfway to his lips, stared at F'lar. This man also was too
young to bear his responsibilities. But . . . he seemed actually to believe
what he was saying.

"Believe it or not, R'guland in a bare day's time you willthe five Weyrs are
empty no longer. They're here, in the Weyrs, in this time. And they shall join
us, eighteen hundred strong, the day after tomorrow at Telgar, with
flamethrowers and with plenty of battle experience."

R'gul regarded the poor man stolidly for a long moment. Carefully he put his
cup down and, turning on his heel, left the weyr. He refused to be an object
of ridicule. He'd better plan to take over the leadership tomorrow if they
were to fight Threads the day after.

The next morning, when he saw the clutch of great bronze dragons bearing the
Weyrleaders and their wingleaders to the conference, R'gul got quietly drunk.

Lessa exchanged good mornings with her friends and then, smiling sweetly, left
the weyr, saying she must feed Ramoth.

F'lar stared after her thoughtfully, then went to greet Robinton and Fandarel,
who had been asked to attend the meeting, too. Neither Craftmaster said much,
but neither missed a word spoken. Fandarel's great head kept swiveling from
speaker to speaker, his deep-set eyes blinking occasionally.

Robinton sat with a bemused smile on his face, utterly delighted by ancestral
visitors. Flar was quickly talked out of resigning his titular position as
Weyrlieader of Benden on the grounds that he was too inexperienced.

"You did well enough at Nerat and Keroon. Well indeed," T'ton said.

"You call twenty-eight men or dragons out of action good leadership?"

"For a first battle, with every dragonman green as a hatchling? No, man, you
were on time at Nerat, however you got there," and T'ton grinned maliciously
at F'lar, "which is what a dragonman must do. No, that was well flown, I say.
Well flown." The other four Weyrleaders muttered complete agreement with that
compliment. "Your Weyr is under- strength, though, so we'll lend you enough
odd-wing riders till you've gotten the Weyr up to full strength again. Oh,
the queens love these times!" And his grin broadened to indicate that bronze
riders did, too.

F'lar returned that smile, thinking that Ramoth was about ready for another
mating flight, and this time, Lessa . . . oh, that girl was being too
deceptively docile. He'd better watch her closely.

"Now," T'ton was saying, "we left with Fandarel's craft- hold all the
flamethrowers we brought up so that the ground- men will be armed tomorrow."

"Aye, and my thanks," Fandarel grunted. "We'll turn out new ones in record
time and return yours soon."

"Don't forget to adapt that agenothree for air spraying, too," D'ram put in.

"It is agreed," and T'ton glanced quickly around at the other riders, "that
all the Weyrs will meet, full strength, three hours after dawn above Telgar,
to follow the Threads' attack across to Crom. By the way, F'lar, those charts
of yours that Robinton showed me are superb. We never had them."

"How did you know when the attacks would come?"

T'ton shrugged. "They were coming so regularly even when I was a weyriing, you
kind of knew when one was due. But this way is much, much better."

"More efficient," Fandarel added approvingly.

"After tomorrow, when all the Weyrs show up at Telgar, we can request supplies
we need to stock the empty Weyrs," T'ton grinned. "Like old times, squeezing
extra tithes from .the Holders." He rubbed his hands in anticipation. "Like
old times."
"There's the southern Weyr," F'nor suggested. "We've been gone from there six
Turns in this time, and the herdbeasts were left. They'll have multiplied, and
there'll be all that fruit and grain."

"It would please me to see that southern venture continued," F'lar remarked,
nodding encouragingly at F'nor.

"Yes, and continue Kylara down there, please, too," F'nor added urgently, his
eyes sparkling with irritation.

They discussed sending for some immediate supplies to help out the newly
occupied Weyrs, and then adjourned the meeting.

"It is a trifle unsettling," T'ton said as he shared wine with Robinton, "to
find that the Weyr you left the day before .in good order has become a dusty
hulk." He chuckled. "The women of the Lower Caverns were a bit upset."

"We cleaned up those kitchens," F'nor replied indignantly. A good night's rest
in a fresh time had removed much of his fatigue.-T'ton cleared his throat.
"According to Mardra, no man can clean anything."

"Do you think you'll be up to riding tomorrow, F'nor?" F'lar asked
solicitously. He was keenly aware of the stress showing in his half brother's
face, despite his improvement overnight. Yet those strenuous Turns had been
necessary, nor had they become futile even in hindsight with the arrival of
eighteen hundred dragons from past time. When F'lar had ordered F'nor ten
Turns backward to breed the desperately needed replacements, they had not yet
brought to mind the Question Song or known of the tapestry.

"I wouldn't miss that fight if I were dragonless," F'nor declared stoutly.

"Which reminds me," F'lar remarked, "we'll need Lessa at Telgar tomorrow. She
can speak to any dragon, you know," he explained, almost apologetically, to
T'ton and D'ram.

"Oh, we know," T'ton assured him. "And Mardra doesn't mind." Seeing F'lar's
blank expression, he added, "As senior Weyrwoman, Mardra, of course, leads the
queens' wing."

F'lar's face grew blanker. "Queens' wing?"

"Certainly," and T'ton and D'ram exchanged questioning glances at F'lar's
surprise. "You don't keep your queens from fighting, do you?"

"Our queens? T'ton, we at Benden have had only one queen dragon at a time for
so many generations that there are those who denounce the legends of queens in
battle as black heresy!"

T'ton looked rueful. "I had not truly realized till this instant how small
your numbers were." But his enthusiasms overtook him. "Just the same, queens
are very useful with flamethrowers. They get clumps other riders might miss.

They fly in low, under the main wings. That's one reason D'ram's so interested
in the agenothree spray. Doesn't singe the hair off the Holders' heads, so to
speak, and is far better over tilled fields."

"Do you mean to say that you allow your queens to fly against Threads?" F'lar
ignored the fact that F'nor was grinning, and T'ton, too.
"Allow?" D'ram bellowed. "You can't stop them. Don't you know your Ballads?"

" 'Moreta's Ride'?"

"Exactly."

F.nor laughed aloud at the expression on F'lar's face as he irritably pulled
the hanging forelock from his eyes. Then, sheepishly, he began to grin.

"Thanks. That gives me an idea."

He saw his fellow weyrleaders to their dragons, waved cheerfully to Robinton
and Fandarel, more lighthearted than he would have thought he'd be the morning
before the second battle. Then he asked Mnementh where Lessa might be.

Bathing, the bronze dragon replied.

F'lar glanced at the empty queen's weyr. Oh, Ramoth is on the Peak, as usual.
Mnementh sounded aggrieved.

F'lar heard the sound of splashing in the bathing room suddenly cease, so he
called down for hot klah. He was going to enjoy this.

"Oh, did the meeting go well?" Lessa asked sweetly as she emerged from the
bathing room, drying-cloth wrapped tightly around her slender figure.

"Extremely. You realize, of course, Lessa, that you'll be needed at Telgar?"

She looked at him intently for a moment before she smiled again.

"I am the only Weyrwoman who can speak to any dragon," she replied archly.

"True," F'lar admitted blithely. "And no longer the only queen's rider in
Benden. . . ."

"I hate you!" Lessa snapped, unable to evade F'lar as he pinned her
cloth-swathed body to his.

"Even when I tell you that Fandarel has a flamethrower for you so you can join
the queens' wing?"

She stopped squirming in his arms and stared at him, disconcerted that he had
outguessed her.

"And that Kylara will be installed as Weyrwoman in the south . . . in this
time? As Weyrleader, I need my peace and quiet between battles. . . ."

The cloth fell from her body to the floor as she responded to his kiss as
ardently as if dragon-roused.



From the Weyr and from the Bowl, Bronze and brown and blue and green Rise the
dragonmen of Pern,

 Aloft, on wing; seen, then unseen.

RANGED ABOVE the Peak of Benden Weyr, a scant three hours after dawn, two
hundred and sixteen dragons held their formations as F'lar on bronze Mnementh
inspected their ranks. Below in the Bowl were gathered all the Weyrfolk and
some of those injured in the first battle. All the Weyrfolk, that is, except
Lessa and Ramoth. They had gone on to Fort Weyr where the queens' wing was
assembling. F'lar could not quite suppress a twinge of concern that she and
Ramoth would be fighting, too. A holdover, he knew, from the days when Pern
had only one queen. If Lessa could jump four hundred Turns between and lead
five Weyrs back, she could take care of herself and her dragon against
Threads.

He checked to be sure that every man was well loaded with firestone sacks,
that each dragon was in good color, especially those in from the southern
Weyr. Of course, the dragons were fit, but the faces of the men still showed
evidences of the temporal strains they had endured. He was procrastinating,
and the Threads would be dropping in the skies of Telgar. He gave the order to
go between. They reappeared above, and to the south of Telgar Hold itself, and
were not the first arrivals. To the west, to the north, and yes, to the east
now, wings arrived until the horizon was patterned with the great V's of
several thousand dragon wings. Faintly he heard the claxon bell on Telgar Hold
Tower as the unexpected dragon strength was acclaimed from the ground.

"Where is she?" F'lar demanded of Mnementh. "We'll need her presently to relay
orders . . ."

She's coming, Mnementh interrupted him.

Right above Telgar Hold another wing appeared. Even at .this distance, F'lar
could see the difference:      the golden dragons .shone in the bright
morning sunlight. A hum of approval drifted down the dragon ranks, and despite
his fleeting worry, F'lar grinned with proud indulgence at the glittering
sight.

Just then the eastern wings soared straight upward in the sky as the dragons
became instinctively aware of the presence of their ancient foe.

Mnementh raised his head, echoing back the brass thunder of the war cry. He
turned his head, even as hundreds of other beasts turned to receive firestone
from their riders.

Hundreds of great jaws masticated the stone, swallowed it, their digestive
acids transforming dry stone into flame-producing gases, igniting on contact
with oxygen.

Threads! F'lar could see them clearly now against the spring sky.   His pulses
began to quicken, not with apprehen- sion, but with a savage joy.   His heart
pounded unevenly. Mnementh demanded more stone and began to speed   up the
strokes of his wings in the air, gathering himself to leap upward   when
commanded.

The leading Weyr already belched gouts of orange-red flame into the pale blue
sky. Dragons winked in and out, flamed and dove. The great golden queens sped
at cliff-skimming height to cover what might have been missed. Then F'lar gave
the command to gain altitude to meet the Threads halfway in
their abortive descent. As Mnementh surged upward, F'lar
shook his fist defiantly at the winking Red Eye of the Star.

"One day," he shouted, "we will not sit tamely here,
awaiting your fall. We will fall on you, where you spin, and
sear you on your own ground."

By the Egg, he told himself, if we can travel four hundred
Turns backward and across seas and lands in the blink of an
eye, what is travel from one world to another but a
different kind of step? F'lar grinned to himself. He'd
better not mention that audacious notion in Lessa's
presence.

Clumps ahead, Mnementh warned him. As the bronze dragon
charged, flaming, F'lar tightened his knees on the massive
neck. Mother of us all, he was glad that now, of all times,
he, F'lar, rider of bronze Mnementh, was a dragonman of
Pern!travel from one world to another but a different kind
of step?

F'lar grinned to himself. He'd better not mention that
audacious notion in Lessa's presence.

Clumps ahead, Mnementh warned him.

As the bronze dragon charged, flaming, F'lar tightened his
knees on the massive neck. Mother of us all, he was glad
that now, of all times conceivable, he, F'lar, rider of
bronze Mnementh, was a dragonman of Pern I