Anne McCaffrey - Dragonquest

F’lar didn’t waste time wondering why Thread was falling hours ahead of schedule or northeast instead of southwest. He checked to see if there were enough riders assembled and aloft to make up a full low altitude wing. He hesitated long enough to have Mnementh order every weyrling to proceed immediately to Lemos to help fly ground crews to the area and then told his dragon to take the wing between.

Thread was indeed falling, a great sheet plummeting down toward the delicate new leafing hardwoods that were Lord Asgenar’s prime forestry project. Screaming, flaming, dragons broke out of between, skimming the spring forest to get quick bearings before they soared up to meet the attack.

Incredibly, F’lar believed they had actually managed to beat Thread to the forest. That green’s rider would have his choice of anything in F’lar’s power to give. The thought of Thread in those hardwood stands chilled the Weyrleader more thoroughly than an hour between.

A dragon screamed directly above F’lar. Even as he glanced upward to identify the wounded beast, both dragon and rider had gone between where the awful cold would shatter and break the entangling Threads before they could eat into membrane and flesh.

A casualty minutes into an attack? Even an attack that was so unpredictably early? F’lar winced.

Virianth, R’nor’s brown, Mnementh informed his rider as he soared in search of a target. He craned his sinuous neck around in a wide sweep, eyeing the forest lest Thread had actually started burrowing. Then, with a warning to his rider, he folded his wings and dove toward an especially thick patch, braking his descent with neck-snapping speed. As Mnementh belched fire, F’lar watched, grinning with intense satisfaction as the Thread curled into black dust and floated harmlessly to the forests below.

Virianth caught his wingtip, Mnementh said as he beat upward again. He’ll return. We need him. This Thread falls wrong.

“Wrong and early,” F’lar said gritting his teeth against the fierce wind of their ascent. If he hadn’t been in the custom of sending a messenger on to the Hold where Thread was due . . .

Mnementh gave him just enough warning to secure his hold as the great bronze veered suddenly toward a dense clump. The stench of the fiery breath all but choked F’lar. He flung up an arm to protect his face from the hot charred flecks of Thread. Then Mnementh was turning his head for another block of firestone before swooping again at dizzying speed after more Thread.

There was no further time for speculation; only action and reaction. Dive. Flame. Firestone for Mnementh to chew. Call a weyrling for another sack. Catch it deftly mid-air. Fly above the fighting wings to check the pattern of flying dragons. Gouts of flame blossoming across the sky. Sun glinting off green, blue, brown, bronze backs as dragons veered, soared, dove, flaming after Thread. He’d spot a beast going between, tense until he reappeared or Mnementh reported their retreat. Part of his mind kept track of the casualties, another traced the wing line, correcting it when the riders started to overlap or flew too wide a pattern. He was aware, too, of the golden triangle of the queens’ wing, far below, catching what Thread escaped from the upper levels.

By the time Thread had ceased to fall and the dragons began to spiral down to aid the Lemos Hold ground crews, F’lar almost resented Mnementh’s summary.

Nine minor brushes, four just wingtips; two bad lacings, Sorenth and Relth, and two face-burned riders.

Wingtip injuries were just plain bad judgment. Riders cutting it too fine. They weren’t riding competitions, they were fighting! F’lar ground his teeth . . .

Sorenth says they came out of between into a patch that should not have been there. The Threads are not falling right, the bronze said. That is what happened to Relth and T’gor.

That didn’t assuage F’lar’s frustration for he knew T’gor and R’mel as good riders.

How could Thread fall northeast in the morning when it wasn’t supposed to drop until evening and in the southwest? he wondered, savage with frustrated worry.

Automatically, F’lar started to ask Mnementh to have Canth fly close in. But then he remembered that F’nor was wounded and half a planet away in Southern Weyr. F’lar swore long and imaginatively, wishing T’reb of Fort Weyr immured between with Weyrleader T’ron fast beside him. Why did F’nor have to be absent at a time like this? It still rankled F’lar deeply that Fort’s Weyrleader had tried to shift the blame of the fight from his very guilty rider to Terry. Of all the specious, contrived, ridiculous contentions for T’ron to stand by!

Lamanth is flying well, the bronze dragon remarked, cutting into his rider’s thoughts.

F’lar was so surprised at the unexpected diversion that he glanced down to see the young queen.

“We’re lucky to have so many to fly today,” F’lar said, amused despite his other concerns by the bronze’s fatuous tone. Lamanth was the queen from Mnementh’s second mating with Ramoth.

Ramoth flies well too, for one so soon from the Hatching Ground. Thirty-eight eggs and another queen, Mnementh added with no modesty.

“We’re going to have to do something about that third queen.”

Mnementh rumbled about that. Ramoth disliked sharing the bronze dragons of her Weyr with too many queens, in spite of the fact that she would mate only with Mnementh. Many queens were the mark of virility in a bronze and it was natural for Mnementh to want to flaunt his prowess. Benden Weyr had to maintain more than one golden queen to placate the rest of the bronzes and to improve the breed in general, but three?

After the meeting the other night at Fort Weyr, F’lar hesitated to suggest to any of the other Weyrleaders that he’d be glad of a home for the new queen: They’d probably contrive it to be bad management of Ramoth or coddling of Lessa. Still, Benden queens were bigger than Old-timer queens, just as modern bronzes were bigger, too. Maybe R’mart at Telgar Weyr wouldn’t take offense. Or G’narish? F’lar couldn’t think how many queens G’narish had at Igen Weyr. He grinned to himself, thinking of the expression of T’ron’s face when he heard Benden was giving away a queen dragon.

“Benden’s known for its generosity, but what’s behind such a maneuver?” T’ron would say. “It’s not traditional.”

But it was. There were precedents. F’lar would far rather cope with T’ron’s snide remarks than Ramoth’s temper. He glanced down, sighting the gleaming triangle of the queens’ wing, with Ramoth easily sweeping along, the younger beasts working hard to keep up with her.

Threads dropping out of pattern! F’lar gritted his teeth. Worse, out of a pattern which he’d so painstakingly researched from hundreds of disintegrating Record skins in his efforts seven Turns ago to prepare his ill-protected planet.

Patterns, F’lar thought bitterly, which the Oldtimers had enthusiastically acclaimed and used – though that was scarcely traditional. Just useful

Now how could Thread, which had no mind, no intelligence at all, deviate from patterns it had followed to the split second for over seven Turns? How could it change time and place overnight? The last Fall in Benden’s Weyr jurisdiction had been on time and over upper Benden Hold as expected.

Could he possibly have misread the timetables? F’lar thought back, but the carefully drawn maps were clear in his mind and, if he had made an error, Lessa would have caught it.

He’d check, double check, as soon as he returned to the Weyr. In the meantime, he’d better make sure they had cleared the Fall from Edge to Edge. He directed Mnementh to find Asgenar, Lord Holder of Lemos.

Mnementh obediently turned out of the leisurely glide and dropped swiftly. F’lar could thank good fortune that it was Lord Asgenar of Lemos to whom he must explain rather than Lord Sifer of Bitra Hold or Lord Raid of Benden Hold. The former would rant against the injustice and the latter would contrive to make a premature arrival of Thread a personal insult to him by dragonmen. Sometimes the Lords Raid and Sifer tried F’lar’s patience. True, those three Holds, Benden, Bitra and Lemos, had conscientiously tithed to support Benden Weyr when it was the sole dragonweyr of Pern. But Lord Raid and Lord Sifer had an unpleasant habit of reminding Benden Weyr riders of their loyalty at every opportunity. Gratitude is an ill-fitting tunic that can chafe and smell if worn too long.