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 quickens/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 highpitched, 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 highpitched 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.