Энн Маккефри: The Second Weyr

Sorka gave a little laugh and finished for her. “It’s needed to give someone else a chance to run a full Weyr.” Seeing Torene’s stricken face, she patted her arm. “I know my weyrmate, dear. His faults-”

“But that’s it, Sorka, he doesn’t have any. He’s always right.” Torene said that without any malice but with some despair. “He is the best possible Weyrleader we could ever have, but. . .”

“There are other very capable riders who would also make good Weyrleaders.”

“Yes, and that isn’t all.” Torene leaned ever closer. “I heard that the Ierne Island bunch are going to come north, too. They want to settle on the east coast. I mean, we’ve boasted so often that distance is nothing to a dragon”-Torene’s grin was pure amusement-”that they say we can protect them on the east coast just as easily as here in the west.”

Sorka gave a genuine burst of laughter. “Hoist on our own petards, as my father used to say.”

Torene blinked in bewilderment. “What does that mean?”

It was slightly unfair, Sorka thought, for a girl to have such long eyelashes as well as a beautiful face, an elegant-Sean said “sexy”-figure, and personality and brains, as well. Even her short hair, close-cropped to be more comfortable under the skull-fitting helmets they wore, formed exquisite curls that framed her high-cheeked and distinctive countenance.

“It means getting caught in one’s own trap, actually, but in this case the ‘trap’ is the boasts we dragonriders keep making.”

“Oh!” The girl giggled. “Well, we have, but if we don’t move in right smart, those Ierne Islanders will take the better cave system and we’ll be left with second best,” she added indignantly.

“You’re a true dragonrider, girl,” Sorka said. “Nothing but the best for us.”

“Oh, I don’t mean it that way, Sorka, and you know it. But the old crater is perfect for a second proper Weyr,” Torene said, leaning forward again in her enthusiasm, ignoring her cooling soup. “Even better than this one in some ways, because it’s a double crater system, one nearly circular, the other oblong, with a deep lake, and enough space to keep herdbeasts, instead of having to go south to catch dinner when our provisions run short. Best of all, there’s one immense vaulted cavern that would be big enough for a half-dozen queens to clutch in. . .”

“One at a time is quite enough.”

The enthusiasm in Torene’s eyes dimmed slightly at the memory before she rushed on. “And we wouldn’t have to do much to it at all since it’s got some sand in it, and an hypocaust system could be installed in one of the side niches. Furthermore, my mother says that the stonecutters have about had it. If we don’t get to use them soon, we might have to chisel out individual weyrs with our bare hands.” Torene gave a sharp nod of her head at that unwelcome option.

“Those cutters’ve done more than they were designed to do,” Sorka said, remembering her father saying much the same thing when he’d used them nine years earlier at Ruatha Hold.

“Well, I want to design our Weyr with them. . .”

“Our Weyr?” Sorka raised a quizzical eyebrow at the young rider.

Torene closed her eyes and made a rattling sound of dismay with her tongue, covering her face with her hands. Then she uncovered her face and grinned impishly at Sorka. “You can’t blame me for dreaming. Someone’s going to be Weyrwoman, and you told me yourself that Alaranth’s the biggest gold yet.”

“And have you planned who’s to be Weyrleader?” Sorka asked gently.

Torene blushed furiously. She had the uncomfortable feeling sometimes that it was wrong of Alaranth to be a full hand taller in the shoulder than her dam, Faranth, although Sorka had always appeared delighted by the improvement. The young queen was nearly mature enough to make her first mating flight. But Torene discounted her own physical attractiveness whenever someone complimented her, and she played no favorites among the male riders who were constantly in her company. The only exception was Michael, the bronze-rider son of Sorka and Sean. He never seemed interested in her at all, though he seemed interested in every other attractive woman. Well, maybe she just wasn’t attractive to him. She certainly wouldn’t have objected to his company-might even have welcomed it-but she was too level-headed to feel more than surprise and, perhaps, a little chagrin at his disinterest.

Mihall, as he was generally called, was as dedicated a dragonrider as his father. Sometimes more so. Since coming to maturity three years ago, Mihall’s bronze Brianth had sired sufficient clutches that Sean had grounded the randy bronze during queen mating flights. One of Sorka’s duties was to keep very precise records of which clutch was sired by which bronze or brown, so that any queens resulting from that pairing would not be rematched with their own sires. Mihall had shrugged and remarked that that was fine by him; there were plenty of greens who liked Brianth enough to twine necks with him anytime.

“Who’s to be Weyrleader?” Torene repeated, dragging her thoughts back to the conversation. “No, I wouldn’t plan that far, Sorka, because Sean would make such an important appointment, wouldn’t he?”

“Probably,” Sorka replied discreetly. Sean, she knew, had a notion on the best way to decide that. “Surely you’ve some preference as to which dragon mates with Alaranth?” she asked gently.

Torene flushed but answered quickly enough. “That depends on who’s fast enough to catch Alaranth, doesn’t it? She grinned, avoiding Sorka’s subtle probing. Torene wasn’t being arrogant in suggesting that the bigger males were going to have to fly very well indeed to mate with her Alaranth. That young queen would lead them a long and very dizzy chase. Torene added a giggle to her grin. “I only hope I’m strong enough to last. Don’t try to figure out who I really fancy. You might be surprised.” Her mobile face turned solemn. “Seriously, though, Sorka, dragonriders have got to move quickly to secure that twin-cratered place as our own.”

“I agree with you, Torene, except that there’s no way in except to fly, and that could prove awkward for a number of reasons.”

“Ah. . .” Torene held up one finger in triumph. “I know where to put an access tunnel.” From a thigh pocket, she extracted a limp, well-used plasfilm, an echo survey of the double crater, with top, side, and ground-level elevations: probably from one of the original probes. It hadn’t occurred to Sorka that there might be other copies of those survey reports. Now she realized that as mining engineers, Torene’s parents, the Ostrovskys, would likely have had personal copies of all the preliminary surveys.

Torene spread the sheet out carefully, her touch almost caressing as she smoothed it down on the table and put salt and pepper mills to hold down the curling edges. “Now, there’s a natural opening quite far in. See the shadow here? Two-thirds of the way to the lake. Okay, the ceiling in the central cavity is only about two or three meters high, but you wouldn’t have to dig a very long tunnel to hook to it from either direction. There’s your ground access.”

“You do seem to have studied the entire site well,” Sorka admitted.

“Not just me,” Torene replied quickly. “A bunch of us go.” She hitched her chair closer and whispered across the space to Sorka. “Couldn’t you act as mediator for us?”

“Which bunch of you?”

Torene’s dark eyes sparkled. “Nyassa. . .”

“Really?”

“Well, Milath’s due to clutch soon, and Nya doesn’t like the Big Island ground, hates the cold at that place above Telgar, and doesn’t want to clutch here when she has to share the sands again with Tenneth, Amalath, and Chamuth.”