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.