was careful, he could avoid being noticed by the Oldtimers until he’d made contact with the holder … what was his name? He was certain he’d heard Sebell mention the man by name. Toric! Yes, that was it. Toric.
He set about making a rough circle of stones to protect his fire from the breeze, whistling softly.’ A fresh breeze brought him another whiff of that odor, sun-warmed and so puzzlingly familiar. Whatever it was must be down on the plain for the wind came from that direction. Leaving his meat to roast at his fire, Piemur made his way down the slope, looking about at the tiny blooms in among the grasses with Thread-pricked blades. He almost passed the first clump of bushes before he realized that their leaves were definitely familiar. Familiar, he thought as he reached out to touch one, but so much larger. He bruised the leaf as the final test and sure enough, had to jerk his hand back as his fingers smarted and then lost all feeling. Numbweed! The whole plain was dotted with numbweed bushes, growing bigger and fuller than any he’d ever seen in the north. Why, if you harvested even one side of this plain, you’d keep every Weyr on Pern in numbweed for the entire Pass. Master Oldive ought to know about this place.
A petulant squeak in his ear warned him that Farii had roused, probably smelling the roasted meat. He carefully broke off some large numbweed leaves, and wrapping .their cut stems in a thick blade of grass, returned to the fire. “When he had given Farii a few half-done pieces of meat, she was quite content to curl up for the rest of her nap. Then Piemur bruised a numbweed leaf between two flat, , clean stones. He nibbed the wet side of the stones against his cuts, shivering at the slight sting of the raw numbweed before its anesthetic properties took effect. He was careful not to rub the stone too deep, for raw numbweed must be used sparingly or you could get horrible blisters and end up with scars.
As he settled by the fire to wait for his meat to cook, he knew he’d be sorry to leave here.
He said that to himself the next morning when he rose, and that evening when he curled up in the shelter he’d made for Parii and himself. He really ought to try to get word back to the Harper Hall.
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Each day, however, found him too busy catering to the needs of a’ rapidly growing fire lizard to make provisions for a journey of possibly several days. He spent a whole day trying to catch a fish for the oils needed to soothe Farli’s flaking skin.
Then Thread fell again. This time he was adequately prepared, and forewarned. Farii went hysterical with alarm, her eyes wheeling furiously with the red of anger as she rose on her wings and, shrieking defiance to the north-east, suddenly flicked out. When Piemur called her, she popped back in, scolded him furiously, and then disappeared. She had gone between before, inadvertently scared by some odd noise or other, so that it wasn’t until she remained away for much longer than before that Piemur be-gan to wonder what had frightened her. He looked north-east, noticing as his eyes swept across the plains, that the animals were all moving toward the river with considerable haste. The quick blossom of flame against the sky caught his eyes, and he saw, not only Thread’s gray rain, but the distant motes of dragons.
He had made preparations against the next Pall of Thread, determined never to spend another eternity under a rock ledge. He had found a sunken tree trunk where the river flowed out of the forest. Diving into the water, he kicked down to the depth at which drowning Thread could no longer sting. There he hooked his arm around the tree trunk and poked back to the surface a thick reed, through which he then was able to breathe. It was not the most comfortable of hideaways, and fish constantly mis-took his arms and legs for outsized Thread so he had to keep moving. Time, too, seemed motionless, and it felt like hours had passed before the impact circles of Thread on the water surface ceased. He was glad when with a mighty kick of his legs, he burst back into the air, nearly over-turning a small runner. In fact the shallows seemed to be blanketed with animals. As if his eruption from the depths had been a signal, or perhaps his presence had frightened them, the creatures began to struggle toward the shore, shake themselves, and then rapidly take off down the plain. Some were bawling with pain, and he saw a number with bloody face scores where Thread had stung them. He