Dragonquest (Dragonriders of Pern 2)

“You’ve a problem for the Masterherdsman, have you, Weyrleader?” Sograny asked, giving F’lar a curt nod, his eyes on the laboring beast in the box stall. “How does that happen?”

The man’s attitude was so defensive that F’lar wondered what D’ram of Ista Weyr might have been doing to irritate him.

“Mastersmith Fandarel suggested that you would be able to advise me, Masterherdsman,” F’lar replied, no trace of levity in his manner and no lack of courtesy in his address.

“The Smithcrafter?” Sograny looked at F’lar with narrowed, suspicious eyes. “Why?”

Now what could Fandarel have done to warrant the bad opinion of the Masterherdsman?

“Two anomalies have come to my attention, good Masterherdsman. The first, a clutch of fire-lizard eggs hatched in the vicinity of one of my riders and he was able to Impress the queen . . .”

Sograny’s eyes widened with startled disbelief.

“No man can catch a fire lizard!”

“Agreed, but he can Impress one. And certainly did. We believe that the fire lizards are directly related to the dragons.”

“That cannot be proved!” Sograny pulled himself straight up, his eyes darting toward his assistants who suddenly found tasks far from F’lar and the Masterherdsman.

“By inference, yes. Because the similar characteristics are obvious. Seven fire lizards were Impressed on the sands of a beach at Southern. One by my Wing-second, F’nor, Canth’s rider . . .”

“F’nor? The man who fought those two thieving weyrmen at the Smithcrafthall?”

F’lar swallowed his bile and nodded. That regrettable incident had hatched an unexpected brood of benefits.

“The fire lizards exhibit undeniable draconic traits. Unfortunately, one of them is to stay close to their Impressor or I’d have proof positive.”

Sograny only grunted, but he was suddenly receptive.

“I was hoping that you, as Masterherdsman, might know something about the fire lizards. Igen certainly abounds with them . . .”

Sograny was cutting him off with an impatient wave of his hand.

“No time to waste on flitterbys. Useless creatures. No crafter of mine would . . .”

“There is every indication that they may be of tremendous use to us. After all, dragons were bred from fire lizards.”

“Impossible!” Sograny stared at him, thin lips firmly denying such an improbability.

“Well, they weren’t bred up from watch-whers.”

“Man can alter size but only so far. He can, of course, breed the largest to the largest and improve on the original stock,” and Sograny gestured toward the long-legged cow. “But to breed a dragon from a fire lizard? Absolutely impossible.”

F’lar wasted no further time on that subject but took the glove from his belt and emptied the grubs into the other, gloved palm.

“These, sir. Have you seen such as these . . .”

Sograny’s reaction was immediate. With a cry of fear, he grabbed F’lar’s hand, tumbling the grubs to the stone of the barn. Yelling for agenothree, he stamped on the squirming grubs as if they were essence of evil.

“How could you—a dragonman—bring such filth into my dwellings?”

“Masterherdsman, control yourself!” F’lar snapped, grabbing the man and shaking him. “They devour Thread. Like sandworms. Like sandworms!”

Sograny was trembling beneath F’lar’s hands, staring at him. He shook his skull-like head and the wildness died from his eyes.

“Only flame can devour Thread, dragonman!”

“I told you,” F’lar said coldly, “that those grubs devoured Thread!”

Sograny glared at F’lar with considerable animus.

“They are an abomination. You waste my time with such nonsense.”

“My deep apologies,” F’lar said, with a curt bow. But his irony was wasted on the man. Sograny turned back to his laboring cow as though F’lar had never interrupted him.

F’lar strode off, pulling on his gloves, his forefinger coming into contact with the wet, slippery body of a grub.

“See the Masterherdsman, eh?” he muttered under his breath, waving aside the services of the guide as he left the breeding barn. A bellow from a herdbeast followed him out. “Yes, he breeds animals, but not ideas. Ideas might waste time, be useless.”

As he and Mnementh circled upward, F’lar wondered how much trouble D’ram was having with that old fool.

CHAPTER IX

Afternoon at Southern Weyr: Same Day

IT WAS a long flight, the straight way, from the western swamps to Southern Weyr’s headland. At first, F’nor rebelled. A short hop between would not affect his healing arm, but Canth became unexpectedly stubborn. The big brown soared, caught the prevailing wind and, with great sweeps of his wings, sped through the cooler air, high above the monotonous terrain.

As Canth settled down into long-distance flying, the rhythm began to soothe F’nor. What ought to have been a tedious journey became the blessing of uninterrupted time for reflection. And F’nor had much to think about.

The brown rider had noticed the widespread Thread-scoring. He had turned back bush after bush, heavily pitted by Threadmark, to find no trace of burrow at all in the swamp mud around them. Not once had he used his flame thrower. And the ground crews told him they had so little to do they wondered the Weyr called them at all. Many were from the fishing settlement and they were beginning to resent being taken from their labors, for they were trying to complete stone holds against the winter storms. They all preferred Southern to their old homes, though they did not complain against Tillek’s Lord Oterel, or Lord Warbret of Ista.

It had always amused F’nor that people he had scarcely met were willing to confide in him, but he had found that this was often an advantage, despite the hours he’d had to spend listening to maundering tales. One of the younger men, the ground-crew chief, Toric, informed him that he’d staked out a sandy cove near his hold. It was almost inaccessible from the landside, but he’d seen certain fire-lizard signs. He was determined to Impress one and positive that he could, for he’d been lucky with watch-whers. He’d tried to convince Fort Weyr that he should have a chance at Impressing a dragon, but he hadn’t been given the courtesy of seeing T’ron. Toric was quite bitter about weyrmen and, knowing (as everyone seemed to, F’nor had discovered) about the belt-knife fight, Toric expected F’nor to be disaffected, too. He was surprised when F’nor brusquely cut off his carping recital.

It was this curious ambivalence of Holder feeling toward dragonmen that occupied F’nor’s thought. Holders claimed that weyrfolk held themselves aloof, acted patronizing or condescending, or plain arrogant in their presence. Yet there wasn’t a man or woman, Holder or Crafter, who hadn’t at one time or another wished he or she had Impressed a dragon. And in many this turned to bitter envy. Weyrmen insisted they were superior to commoners even while they consistently exhibited the same appetites as other men for material possessions and nubile women. Yet they did indeed refute the Crafter contention that dragonriding was a skill no more exacting than any craft on Pern, for in no other craft did a man risk life as a matter of course. And far worse, the loss of half his life. Reflexively, F’nor’s thought sheered sharply away from any hint of threat to the great brown he rode.

The little queen stirred inside the heavy arm sling where he had been carrying her.

Young Toric, no

w, would lose some of his bitterness if he did Impress a fire lizard. He would feel that his claim was vindicated. And if fire lizards did take to anyone, and could carry messages back and forth, what a boon that would be. A lizard for everyone? That would be quite a battle cry. F’nor chortled as he thought of the Oldtimers’ reactions to that. Do them good, it would, and he chuckled at the vision of T’ron trying to lure a fire lizard which ignored him to be Impressed by a lowly crafterchild. Something had better pierce the Oldtimers’ blind parochiality. Yet even they, at a crucial moment in the sensitive awareness of adolescence, had appealed to dragonkind; they endured cold and possible death to fight an endless and mindless enemy. But there was more to living than that initial achievement and that eternal alert. Adolescence was only a step of life, not a career in itself. When one matured, one knew there was more to living.

Then F’nor remembered that he’d not had the chance to mention Brekke’s problem to F’lar. And F’lar would probably have gone back to Benden Weyr by now. F’nor upbraided himself for what was downright interference. Comes from being a Wing-second so long, he thought. You can’t go around meddling in another’s Weyr. T’bor had enough stress. But, by the First Egg, F’nor hated to think of the scenes Kylara would subject Brekke to, if Orth flew Wirenth.

He grew restless with traveling and wasn’t even amused when Canth began to croon soothingly. But when the journey was accomplished, and they were circling down into the late afternoon sun over Southern, he felt no fatigue. A few riders were feeding their beasts in the pasture and he inquired if Canth wished to be fed.

Brekke wants to see you, Canth advised F’nor as he landed neatly in his weyt

“Probably to scold me,” F’nor said, slapping Canth’s muzzle affectionately. He stood aside watching until the brown settled himself in the warmth of his dusty wallow.

Grall peeked out of the folds of the sling and F’nor transferred her to his shoulder. She squeaked a protest as he strode quickly toward Brekke’s weyrhold and dug her claws into the shoulder pad for balance. She was thinking hungry thoughts.