and teacher training. The dormitories were also going to house
volunteers who were assiduously trying to save the records, damaged
during last spring when water had leaked down the walls of the vast
storage caverns under Fort. Riders had offered to spend as much time as
possible from their training schedules to help in the project.
Everyone who had a legible script was acceptable, and Lord Paulin had
done a bang-up job in making the copyists comfortable. The other Holds
had contributed material and work forces.
The exterior buildings of the College were designed to be Threadproof,
with high peaked roofs of Telgar slate and gutters which led into
underground cisterns where errant Thread would be drowned.
All the Craftsmen involved, including those destined to inhabit the
facility, would have preferred to enlarge the cave system, but there had
been two serious collapses of caverns and the mining engineers had
vetoed interior expansion for fear of undermining the whole cliff-side.
Even the mutant, blunt-winged, flightless photo-sensitive watchwhers had
refused to go on further subterranean explorations which, their handlers
insisted meant dangers human eyes couldn’t see. So build they did:
stout walls more than two and a half me tres thick at ground level,
tapering to just under two me tres under the roof. With the iron mines
at Telgar going full blast, the necessary structural beams to support
such weight had posed no problem.
The new quarters were to be finished within the month.
Even today there had been a work force, though they had taken a break to
watch the aerial display and would finish in time for the evening meal
and entertainment.
Charanth landed gracefully, with Ormonth right beside him so that P’tero
could remove the tethering safety straps before they could be noticed.
As he was doing so, M’leng, green Sith’s rider, came up to him, scolding
him for putting my heart in my mouth like that!” And he proceeded to
berate P’tero far more viciously than his Weyrleader would.
K’vin grinned to himself, especially as he saw how penitent P’tero
became under such a harangue. K’vin rolled up his riding straps and
tied them to the harness ring.
Enjoy the sun, my friend,’ he said, slapping Charanth on the wide
shoulder.
I wilL Meranath is already there, the bronze dragon said, his tone
slightly smug as he executed a powerful upward leap, showering his rider
with grit.
Charanth’s attitude towards his mate, Meranath, amused, and pleased, his
rider. No-one had expected K’vin to accede to Telgar’s Weyrleadership
when it fell open after B’ner’s death nine months before. Who would
have expected that the sturdy rider, just into his sixth decade, had had
any heart problems? But that is what the medics said killed him. So,
when Meranath was ready to mate again, Telgar’s senior Weyrwoman,
Zulaya, had called for an open flight, leaving it to the dragons to
decide on the next Leader. She’d insisted that she had no personal
preference. She had been sincerely attached to B’ner and was probably
still grieving for him.
There had certainly been no lack of suitors’.
K’vin had sent Charanth aloft in the mating flight because all the
Telgar Weyr wing leaders were expected to take part, as well as bronze
riders from the other Weyrs. He had no real wish to lead a Weyr into a
Pass; he considered himself too yonng for such responsibilities. He had
observed from B’ner that the normal duties of an Interval were bad
enough, but to know that a high percentage of your fellow-riders would
be injured, or killed, that the lives of so many people rested on your
expertise and endurance was too much to contemplate. Some nights, now,
he was racked by terrifying dreams, and Threadfall hadn’t even started.
On the occasions when he was in Zulaya’s bed, she had been understanding
and calmly reassuring.
B’ner worried, too, if that’s any consolation, Kev,’ she said, using
his old nickname and soothing back sweat-curled hair as he trembled with
reaction. He had nightmares, too. Comes with the title. As a rule,
the morning after a nightmare, B’ner’d go over Sean’s notes. I figure
he had to have memorized them.
I’ve seen you do the same thing. You’ll do well, Kev, when push comes