“I thought you might be. You don’t have to. They’re doing splendidly. Capiam’s sent more people in to help. Desdra’s overseeing. She says Tirone and his harpers are doing a magnificent job with the Lords Holder and Crafthallmasters.”
“He must be. I haven’t seen K’lon in days.”
“Good fellow, K’lon; and I don’t say that about just any blue rider.”
Then they were beside Arith and, one-armed or not, B’lerion nearly lifted her over the blue dragon.
Orlith was awake on Moreta’s return to Fort Weyr because Sh’gall had roused her while looking for Moreta. He was pacing up and down in front of the tier and whirled belligerently at her when she entered.
“M’tani sent a green weyrling,” he cried, fuming, “hardly more than a babe, to give our watchrider the most insulting message I have ever received. He has repudiated any agreement made at the Butte, a meeting at which I was not present.” Sh’gall shook his fist first at Moreta and then in the vague direction of the Butte. “And at which arbitrary decisions were made, which I cannot condone, though I’ve been forced to comply with them! M’tani has repudiated any ar-langement, agreement, accord, understanding, undertaking. He is not to be botheredbothered, he saysnot to be bothered by problems of any other Weyr. If we are so poor that we have to beg and Search from other Weyrs, then we do not deserve to have a clutch at
all.” Sh’gall ended up swinging his arms about like a drum apprentice.
Moreta had never seen him so furious. She listened to what he had to say but offered no response, hoping he would vent his rage and leave. Having repeated himself at length on his displeasure with her shameless venture for the Weyr that had resulted in such an insuffer-able message from M’tani, he ranted on through his usual grievances, about his illness, about the puny size of the clutch. Finally Moreta could bear no more.
“There is a queen egg, Sh’gall. There have to be enough candidates to give the little queen some choice. I applied to Telgar Weyr as I did to Benden, Igen, Ista, and the High Reaches. No one else thought my appearance or my request importunate. Now leave the Ground. You’ve upset Orlith sufficiently for one day.”
Orlith was visibly upset as Moreta ran across the hot sands to her, but not, Moreta knew very well, by Sh’gall. By Telgar Weyr. She paced in front of her eggs, her eyes wheeling from red to yellow and orange as she recited to her rider a list of the damages she would inflict on bronze Hogarth in such detail that Moreta was torn between laughter and horror. A mating dragon could be savage with the drive of that purpose, but a clutching dragon was usually passive.
Moreta scratched Orlith’s eye ridges and head knob to soothe her, urging the dragon to have a care for her eggs and come lie down again and let the hot sands lull her.
She has some very good ideas, came the unmistakable voice of Holth. Leri says that Raylinth’s rider understands all that is necessary. She says that in the interests of tranquility, you are to stay in the Ground, eat and sleep well.
Do you miss anything, Holth-Leri?
No. If Orlith does not finish Hogarth appropriately, I will do so.
Leri saysand the voice was now only Orlith’s, her tone sullen that we must not stop Holth. Why not? If you had ridden me, you would not have been insulted.
“Actually, I’d rather have C’ver’s skin for a floor rug,” Moreta said in a considered tone. “He’s hairy enough.”
The notion of flaying a rider was originally Leri’s, but thinking about the process restored Moreta and indirectly placated Orlith. Perhaps she should go for Sh’gall’s hide, too, except that she was fond of Kadith and wouldn’t cause him anxiety.
290 Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern
Kamiana comes, Orlith said, her tone calmer, her eyes more green than yellow.
Moreta looked up and saw the Weyrwoman beckoning urgently for Moreta to join her on the tier.
“Leri told me to wait until you’d both had a chance’to cool down!” Kamiana said, rolling her eyes and grinning sympathetically at Moreta. “Sh’gall will drone on when he’s offended, won’t he? You’d think the plague had been invented to annoy him alone. And that M’tani? We’re all tired of Thread but we still do what is expected. He may find himself flying by his lonesome, and I know his Weyr’s at half strength. Can we not replace him? Or must we wait until Telgar’s Dalgeth rises to replace him as Leader? However, we’re flying for Capiam tomorrow, Lidora, Haura, and myself. I wish you could persuade Leri not to, but she does know the hole-in- the-hill places better than anyone else in the Weyr. She’s talked S’peren into taking a few runs and K’lon, though he’s only a blue.” Kamiana frowned dubiously over that choice. “I think P’nine would have been wiser but he got scored.”