“Don’t talk loudly,” he whispered, his mouth close to Robinton’s ear, “because there’s an echo and anyone near the Ground will hear it.”
Robinton nodded vigorously. He didn’t want his mother to discover that he was doing something possibly forbidden, maybe even dangerous, at Benden Weyr. Falloner led him down the twisting passage. Anyone even two hands taller would have had to duck, and it was as well both boys were slender, because once or twice they’d had to suck in their stomachs to get past protrusions.
Then suddenly there was a dull light ahead and they came to an uneven crevice where they could stand erect and look directly out at the Hatching Ground.
“This is where we come to watch the eggs while they’re hardening,” Falloner murmured. “I even got out there and touched the eggs last time we had a clutch.”
“You did?” Robinton was truly impressed by Falloner’s daring.
“Did you get caught?” Would that be one of the reasons the Weyrwoman didn’t like him?
“Naw,” Falloner said, flicking his fingers in dismissal.
“What do eggs feel like?” Robinton couldn’t resist asking.
“Sort of rubbery at first …”
“At first?” Robinton was shocked.
“Yeah, they get harder every day.” Falloner shrugged. “More fun checking every day or so. They get warmer, and then the shells begin to feel thin under your hand. The dragonet eats the stuff around it in its shell, you see, while it’s growing strong enough to hatch. You ever see a wherry egg when the chick is only half-made?” Robinton hadn’t, but he nodded anyway. Lorra had once told him that some of the poultry eggs did that when they weren’t used quickly enough. “Same thing. That’s why dragonets come out of their shells starving to death.”
“But they don’t ever die. Do they?”
“S’loner says some do, but I haven’t seen any eggs that didn’t hatch.” There was the implication of long experience in his tone.
“Not that we have that many in a clutch.” Falloner sighed. “We’ll
get more, though, nearer to the next Pass.”
“We will have one, then?”
“Sum, we will. There’s been Long Intervals before. You’re Harper Hall; you should know that.”
“Sure,” Robinton agreed hastily. He did know that – sort of. But he was going to check up on it once he got back to the Hall. “But none,” he added as he suddenly remembered, “when there weren’t all six Weyrs waiting for the next Fall.”
Falloner was thoughtful. “We’ll be all right,” he said with more conviction than his expression implied. “We keep replacing the old ones who die off. Benden’s at full fighting strength.”
“But there’s only Benden,” Robinton whispered as a sudden pang of fear shot through him.
“Benden will be more than enough,” Falloner said proudly, and then covered his mouth with one hand, for he had spoken more loudly in his surety and his words echoed across the empty Hatching Ground. “C’mon, let’s get out of here. I’ll show you the barracks and have you meet some of my friends.”
They carefully retraced their steps and Falloner hid the glowbasket under a protrusion. Then the weyrbred lad took to his heels and raced towards the right-hand side of the Bowl, beyond the Lower Caverns, where there was a great deal of talking and laughing and general noise. As they flashed by, Rob caught a glimpse of his mother talking to some of the old aunties and uncles at one of the tables. Well, that duty would be over, so he wouldn’t have to
nod and smile at the oldsters. The look of them, not to mention sometimes their smell, distressed him. People shouldn’t get that old. When harpers could no longer work, they went back to their birthplaces or down to the warmer, southern holds.
The weyrling barracks were empty, since members of the last clutch had long since graduated to individual weyrs, but the place looked in good order for the next Hatching. Falloner knew a back way out of the barracks complex, too, which took them into a broad corridor that he said led to the supply caves.
“There’re lots of them,” he said proudly. “Benden, Lemos and Bitra still tithe properly every year, and the Telgar and Keroon Lord Holders tell us where the dragons can hunt, culling the herd-beasts for them.”