Hungry? he asked courteously of his dragon, glancing down the Weyr Bowl to the Feeding Grounds. No dragons were dining and the herdbeasts stood in their fenced pasture, legs spraddled, heads level with their bony knees as they drowsed in the sunlight.
Sleepy, said Canth, although he had slept as long and deeply as his rider. The brown dragon proceeded to settle himself on the sun-warmed ledge, sighing as he sank down.
Slothful wretch, Fnor said, grinning affectionately at his beast.
The sun was full on the other side of the enormous mountain cup that formed the dragonmans habitation on the eastern coast of Pern. The cliffside was patterned with the black mouths of the individual dragon weyrs, starred where sun flashed off mica in the rocks. The waters of the Weyrs spring-fed lake glistened around the two green dragons bathing as their riders lounged on the grass verge. Beyond, in front of the weyrling barracks, young riders formed a semicircle around the Weyrlingmaster.
Fnors grin broadened. He stretched his lean body indolently, remembering his own weary hours in such a semicircle, twenty odd Turns ago. The rote lessons which he had echoed as a weyrling had far more significance to this present group of Dragonriders. In his Turn, the Silver Thread of those teaching songs had not dropped from the Red Star for over four hundred Turns, to sear the flesh of man and beast and devour anything living which grew on Pern. Of all the dragonmen in Perns lone Weyr, only Fnors half-brother, Flar, bronze Mnemenths rider, had believed that there might be truth in those old legends. Now Thread was an inescapable fact, falling to Pern from the skies with diurnal regularity. Once more, its destruction was a way of life for Dragonriders. The lessons these lads learned would save their skins, their lives and, more important, their dragons.
The weyrlings are promising, Canth remarked as he locked his wings to his back and curled his tail against his hind legs. He settled his great head to his forelegs, the many-faceted eye nearest Fnor gleaming softly on his rider.
Responding to the tacit plea, Fnor scratched the eye ridge until Canth began to hum softly with pleasure.
Lazybones!
When I work, I work, Canth replied. Without my help, how would you know which holdbred lad would make a good dragonrider? And do I not find girls who make good queen riders, too?
Fnor laughed indulgently, but it was true that Canths ability to spot likely candidates for fighting dragons and breeding Queens was much vaunted by Benden Weyr dragonmen.
Then Fnor frowned, remembering the odd hostility of the small holders and crafters hed encountered in Southern Bolls Holds and Crafts. Yes, the people had been hostile until until hed identified himself as a Benden Weyr dragonrider. Hed have thought itd be the other way round. Southern Boll was weyrbound to Fort Weyr. Traditionally and Fnor grinned wryly since the Fort Weyrleaders Tron, was so adamant in upholding all that was traditional, customary … and static traditionally, the Weyr which protected a territory had first claim on any possible riders. But the five Oldtime Weyrs rarely sought beyond their own Lower Caverns for candidates. Of course, thought Fnor, the Oldtime queens didnt produce large clutches like the modern queens, nor many golden queen eggs. Come to think on it, only three queens had been Hatched in the Oldtime Weyrs in the seven Turns since Lessa brought them forward.
Well, let the Oldtimers stick to their ways if that made them feel superior. But Fnor agreed with Flar. It was only common sense to give your dragonets as wide a choice as possible. Though the women in the Lower Caverns of Benden Weyr were certainly agreeable, there simply werent enough weyr-born lads to match up the quantity of dragons hatched.
Now, if one of the other Weyrs, maybe Gnarish of Igen Weyr or Rmart of Telgar Weyr, would throw open their junior queens mating flights, the Oldtimers might notice an improvement in size of clutch and the dragons that hatched. A man was a fool to breed only to his own Bloodlines all the time.
The afternoon breeze shifted and brought with it the pungent fumes of numbweed a-boil. Fnor groaned. Hed forgotten that the women were making numbweed for salve that was the universal remedy for the burn of Thread and other painful afflictions. That had been one main reason for going on Search yesterday. The odor of numbweed was pervasive. Yesterdays breakfast had tasted medicinal instead of cereal. Since the preparation of numbweed salve was a tedious as well as smelly process, most dragonmen made themselves scarce during its manufacture. Fnor glanced across the Weyr Bowl to the queens weyr. Ramoth, of course, was in the Hatching Ground, hovering over her latest clutch of eggs, but bronze Mnementh was absent from his accustomed perch on the ledge. Flar and he were off somewhere, no doubt escaping the smell of numbweed as well as Lessas uncertain temper. She conscientiously took part in even the most onerous duties of Weyrwoman, but that didnt mean she had to like them.