Dragonquest

CHAPTER XII

Morning at Benden Weyr

Predawn at High Reaches Weyr

As SOON as he could, F’nor left the Council Room in search of F’lar. He retrieved the pot of revolting grubs which he’d left in a shadowed recess of the weyr corridor.

He’s in his quarters, Canth told his rider.

“What does Mnementh say of F’lar?”

There was a pause and F’nor found himself wondering if dragons spoke among themselves as men spoke to them.

Mnementh is not worried about him.

F’nor caught the faintest emphasis on the pronoun and was about to question Canth further when little Grall swooped, on whirring wings, to his shoulder. She wrapped her tail around his neck and rubbed against his cheek adoringly.

“Getting braver, little one?” F’nor added approving thoughts to the humor of his voice.

There was a suggestion of smug satisfaction about Grall as she flipped her wings tightly to her back and sunk her talons into the heavy padding Brekke had attached to the left tunic shoulder for that purpose. The lizards preferred a shoulder to a forearm perch.

F’lar emerged from the sleeping room, his face lighting with eagerness as he realized F’nor was alone and awaiting him.

“You’ve the grubs? Good. Come.”

“Now, wait a minute,” F’nor protested, catching F’lar by the shoulder as the Weyrleader began to move toward the outer ledge.

“Come! Before we’re seen.” They got down the stairs without being intercepted and F’lar directed F’nor toward the newly opened entrance by the Hatching Ground. “The lizards were parceled out fairly?” he asked, gri

F’nor chuckled. “Groghe took over, as you probably guessed he would. The Lord Holders of Ista and Igen, Warbret and Laudey, magnanimously disqualified themselves on the grounds that their Holds were more likely to have eggs, but Lord Sangel of Boll took a pair. Lytol didn’t!”

F’lar sighed, shaking his head regretfully.

“I didn’t think he would but I’d hoped he’d try. Not a substitute for Larth, his dead brown, but – well . . .”

They were in the brightly lit, newly cleaned corridor now, which F’nor hadn’t seen. Involuntarily he glanced to the right, gri

“That’s mean.”

“Huh?” F’lar looked startled. “Oh, that. Yes. Lessa said it upset Ramoth too much. And Mnementh agreed.” He gave his half brother a bemused grin, half for Lessa’s quirk, half for the mutual nostalgic memory of their own terror-ridden exploration of that passage, and a clandestine glimpse of Nemorth’s eggs. “There’s a chamber back here that suits my purpose . . .”

“Which is?”

F’lar hesitated, giving F’nor a long, thoughtful look.

“Since when have you found me a reluctant conspirator?” asked F’nor.

“It’s asking more than . . .”

“Ask first!”

They had reached the first room of the complex discovered by Jaxom and Felessan. But the bronze rider did not give F’nor time to examine the fascinating design on the wall or the finely made cabinets and tables. He hurried him past the second room to the biggest chamber where a series of graduated, rectangular open stone troughs were set around the floor. Other equipment had obviously been removed at some ancient time, leaving puzzling holes and grooves in the walls, but F’nor was startled to see that the tubs were planted with shrubs, grasses, common field and crop seedlings. A few small hardwood trees were evident in the largest troughs.

F’lar gestured for the grub pot which F’nor willingly handed over.

“Now, I’m going to put some of these grubs in all but this container, F’lar said, indicating the medium-sized one. Then he started to distribute the squirming grubs.

“Proving what?”

F’lar gave him a long deep look so reminiscent of the days when they had dared each other as weyrlings that F’nor couldn’t help gri

“Proving what?” he insisted.

“Proving first, that these southern grubs will prosper in northern soil among northern plants . . .”

“And . . .”

“That they will eliminate Thread here as they did in the western swamp.”

They both watched, in a sort of revolted fascination, as the wriggling gray mass of grubs broke apart and separately burrowed into the loose dark soil of the biggest tub.

“What?”

F’nor experienced a devastating disorientation. He saw F’lar as a weyrling, challenging him to explore and find the legendary peekhole to the Ground. He saw F’lar again, older, in the Records Room, surrounded by moldering skins, suggesting that they jump between time itself to stop Thread at Nerat. And he imagined himself suggesting to F’lar to support him when he let Canth fly Brekke’s Wirenth . . .

“But we didn’t see Thread do anything,” he said, getting a grip on perspective and time.

“What else could have happened to Thread in those swamps? You know as surely as we’re standing here that it was a four-hour Fall. And we fought only two. You saw the scoring. You saw the activity of the grubs. And I’ll bet you had a hard time finding enough to fill that pot because they only rise to the surface when Thread falls. In fact, you can go back in time and see it happen.”

F’nor grimaced, remembering that it had taken a long time to find enough grubs. It’d been a strain, too, with every nerve of man, dragon and lizard alert for a sign of T’kul’s patrols. “I should have thought of that myself. But – Thread’s not going to fall over Benden . . .”

“You’ll be at Telgar and Ruatha Holds this afternoon when the Fall starts. This time, you’ll catch some Thread.”

If there had not been an ironical, humorous gleam in his half-brother’s eyes, F’nor would have thought him delirious.

“Doubtless,” F’nor said acidly, “you’ve figured out exactly how I’m to achieve this.”

F’lar brushed the hair back from his forehead.

“Well, I am open to suggestion . . .”

“That’s considerate, since it’s my hand that’s to be scored.”

“You’ve got Canth, and Grall to help . . .”

“If they’re mad enough . . .”

“Mnementh explained it all to Canth . . .”

“That’s helpful . .”

“I wouldn’t ask you to do it if I could myself!” And F’lar’s patience snapped.

“I know!” F’nor replied with equal force, and then gri

“All right.” F’lar gri

“All right, let us assume I can catch some live, viable Thread,” and the brown rider could not suppress the tremor that shook him, “and let us assume that the grubs do – dispose of them. What then?”

With a ghost of a smile on his lips, F’lar spread his arms wide. “Why then, son of my father, we breed us hungry grub by the tankful and spread them over Pern.”

F’nor jammed both fists into his belt. The man was feverish.

“No, I’m not feverish, F’nor!” the bronze rider replied, settling himself on the edge of the nearest tank. “But if we could have this kind of protection,” and he picked up the now empty pot, turning it back and forth in his hand as if it held the sum of his theory, “Thread could fall when and where it wanted to without creating the kind of havoc and revolution we’re going through.

“Mind you, there’s nothing remotely hinting at such events in any of the Harper Records. Yet I’ve been asking myself why it has taken us so long to spread out across this continent. In the thousands of Turns, given the rate of increase in population over the last four hundred, why aren’t there more people? And why, F’nor, has no one tried to reach that Red Star before, if it is only just another kind of jump for a dragon?”