“Nor, I’m afraid, is it wise to press your confirmation as Lord Holder-”
“I don’t want Lytol to have to step down, sir. Not ever.”
“Your loyalty does you credit but I really can understand and appreciate your ambiguous position. It’s never easy to be patient, my friend, but patience can be rewarding.”
Again Jaxom was embarrassed by the look that Lessa and F’lar exchanged.
“And,” the Weyrleader continued more briskly, as if he realized Jaxom’s discomfiture, “you’ve already proved your resourcefulness today, though, believe me, had I known you to be so thorough, I’d have been more explicit in my instructions.” F’lar’s expression was severe but Jaxom found himself grinning in relief. “Twenty-five Turns timing it …” The Weyrleader was both appalled and impressed. Lessa gave a snort.
“It was your jumps, Lessa, that first gave me the notion,” Jaxom said, and when he saw her startled expression, explained: “Remember, you came forward in twenty-five Turn jumps when you brought the Oldtimers forward. So I thought it likely that D’ram would go back that interval. It left him time enough before the Pass started so he wouldn’t have to worry about Thread.”
F’lar nodded approvingly, and Lessa appeared somewhat mollified.
Ramoth turned her head toward the entrance.
“Your meal is coming,” Lessa said, smiling. “No more talk till you’ve eaten. Ruth’s way ahead of you, just brought down his third wherry, Ramoth says.”
“Don’t worry about a bird or three or four,” F’lar said, for Jaxom had winced at this report of Ruth’s greed. “The Weyr can support the meal.”
Menolly entered, breathing heavily from the climb and, to judge by the beads of perspiration on her brow, her haste. When Lessa exclaimed that she’d brought enough food to feed a fighting wing, Menolly replied that Manora said it was nearly dinnertime and they might as well all eat in the weyr.
If anyone had told Jaxom that morning that he’d enjoy a comfortable diner with the Benden Weyrleaders, he’d have told them to open their glow baskets. Despite the reassurances of Mnementh and Ramoth that were conveyed to him, he wouldn’t sit still and eat until he’d checked on Ruth. So Lessa permitted him to walk to the ledge and see the white dragon grooming himself by the lake. When Jaxom resumed his place at the table, he found himself shaking, and he applied himself to the roast meats to restore his energy.
“Tell me again what those firelizards said about men,” F’lar asked when they were relaxing around the table.
“You can’t always get firelizards to explain,” Menolly said, glancing first at Jaxom to see if he wished to answer. “They got so excited when Ruth asked them if they remembered men that their images made no sense. Actually,” Menolly paused, drawing her brows together in concentration, “the images were so varied that you didn’t see much.”
“Why would their images be varied?” Lessa asked, interested in spite of her present antagonism to firelizards.
“Generally a group will come up with one specific image …”
Jaxom inhaled wearily: she couldn’t be foolish enough to mention the egg pictures.
“They echoed Canth’s fall from the Red Star. My friends will often come back with rather good images, I think each reinforcing the other, of places they’ve been.”
“Men!” F’lar said thoughtfully. “They could mean men elsewhere in the South. It is a vast continent.”
“F’lar!” Lessa’s voice was sharp and warning. “You are not exploring the Southern Continent. And, might I suggest that if there were men there, somewhere, they would certainly have ventured far enough north to be seen at some stage or another by F’nor when he was south, or by Toric’s groups. There would have been signs of them other than the unreliable recollections of some firelizards.”
“You’re quite likely correct, Lessa,” F’lar said, looking so disappointed that Jaxom realized for the first time that being Benden’s Weyrleader and First Dragonrider of Pern might not be as enviable a position as he’d previously assumed.
So often lately he’d come to realize that things were not as they seemed. There were hidden facets to everything. You’d think you had what you wanted in your grasp and, when you looked closely, it wasn’t what it had seemed to be from a distance. Like teaching your dragon to chew firestone-and getting caught at it, in one sense, as he had. Now he had to train earnestly with N’ton’s weyrlings, which was fine as far as it went but it didn’t go far enough to please Jaxom-flying high in a Fort Weyr wing so his holders wouldn’t even know he was there!