Энн Маккефри: The Second Weyr

If Sean had been self-contained and private as a boy, Mihall was doubly so. Her own firstborn and she didn’t really know or understand him, Sorka thought. . . and yet, she did.

The boy had been mad about dragons as soon as he was old enough to understand what his parents did, and despite being mainly raised by his grandparents and with his own siblings, he spent as many waking hours as he could up at the Weyr, making the long hike by himself if there was no one to escort him.

“We’ve got twenty mating queens-discounting you, because no one flies Faranth but Carenath-” He cocked a stern finger at her, provoking her to grin smugly. “And the three injured. . .”

“Porth can fly,” Sorka objected on Tarrie’s behalf.

“But she doesn’t fly long enough to have a good clutch.”

“Tarrie’s got experience managing Weyr problems,” Sorka said staunchly, knowing how often she’d relied on her friend during her pregnancies or when the children were too ill for her to cope with all that went to running a Weyr.

“All perfectly true, but I mean to start the new Weyrs with young leaders who’ll see their group through the rest of the Fall: who can pass on what we had to learn the hard way.”

“So how will you determine these young leaders?”

“Figure it out, love,” he said, and slipped once more under the surface of the hot bath water.

“You would!” she said to the ripples that floated soap down the outtake pipe.

Three Weyrs? My word, she thought with relief and a certain amount of awe. Jays, when Sean let go, he let to with a vengeance. Young leaders! That made excellent sense, and there were enough. Any one of those who were currently Wingleaders could manage a Weyr: they’d been thoroughly indoctrinated by Sean, with emphasis on safety and tactics. Even the Wingseconds would make good leaders. Too bad the blues simply hadn’t the stamina to keep up with a queen. At that, there were only two Wingseconds. And she didn’t see either Frank Bonneau or Ashok Kung as Weyrleaders. Nice enough young men, but better as subordinates than leaders.

But that meant, and she found herself clutching the bath sheet under her breasts in relief, that Mihall would most certainly be one of the new Weyrleaders-one of three, so no one would be able to accuse anyone of nepotism. Besides, as everybody had been told repeatedly, the preference of the queen and her rider had to be reckoned with. Sorka allowed herself a small smug smile. There wasn’t a girl in the Weyr who wouldn’t be proud to have her queen flown by Brianth and to be able to stay in Mihall’s company as his Weyrwoman. Ah, but would her handsome red-headed son, who had shown himself as willing to bed a holder as a rider, be willing to settle to one? The Weyrleadership had to be stable, or the Weyr would be disrupted. What behavior Sean would condone in his son in his current capacity would alter once Mihall became a Weyrlead. It was time for the boy to settle anyway, she thought firmly, and on the end of that, decided she would not interfere with a word to the wise to him. Mihall was man enough now to recognize a need for fidelity.

“Well, don’t stand there, woman!” Sean’s voice brought her back, and with an apologetic murmur, she handed her dripping husband his towel.

“You’re also a very clever man,” she said, then added to keep him from being too smug, “Did you know that dragons elide riders’ names?”

“Sometimes, during Fall if it’s especially heavy, I’ve heard Carenath slur a name or two,” Sean said, vigorously rubbing himself with the towel. “Why?”

“It seems to have caught on, at least with some of the younger riders.”

“No harm in that!”

“I do have it on very good authority that neither your name or mine, however, are ever slurred.”

“I should hope not!”

By the time the southern hunting party made it back that evening-replete dragons did not go between-Torene had had a chance to calm down from the excitement of knowing the double-cratered place was going to be her Weyr. She decided not to mention her conversation with the Weyr-leaders. The other members of her group were high enough as it was from their eastern hop: the boys planning which weyr they’d make their own; Sevya and Nya figuring out just how much sand would be needed to give a good deep bedding for hardening eggs. Siglath was hopeful in a wistful way, or so Nyassa told the youngsters. Torene thought the rest of the Weyr should hear the news from Sean-once it was official. Fortunately, her bunch tended not to mouth their enthusiasms near the more conservative older riders, and Alaranth would keep her counsel. Torene grinned. Her queen took her cue from her rider. And sometimes that worked the other way round, too.

So Torene applied herself to checking her riding gear. Sean just might call a snap inspection-they had Fall the day after tomorrow. Out of several years’ habit now, Torene rechecked the flamethrower tanks she used, as well as the nozzles and the carrying straps. Then she checked her safety harness and inspected the heavy plastic-coated gloves for any sign that the fingers might have spillage of the HNO3 on them. Eventually the plastic would wear through and have to be recoated. Her hands tended to sweat inside the nonporous material, but that damp discomfort was better than acid burns. She made sure her goggles were clear, too. Sometimes a fine spray was blown back before the HNO3 ignited, and she needed clear, not clouded, plasglas.

She was just about finished when F’mar-Fulmar Stone Junior-bronze Tallith’s rider, swung into the queen’s ready room, helmet and gloves in hand, riding jacket open.

“Hey, gal, we’re back!” F’mar was grinning from ear to ear. “And boy, did we bring home the bacon!”

“Real bacon? Is Longwood curing pig so early?”

“You can be so literal sometimes, ‘Rene.”

She hadn’t told Sorka that was how her name had been compressed, since it was humans and not dragons who had given her that nickname.

Slapping his gloves on his leg with some irritation, F’mar went on. “No, actually, we brought back steaks and a lot of stew meat. They’re culling herds for the winter down there. Or don’t you remember how seasons switch?”

“I remember that much,” she replied evenly. Eight years older than Torene, Fulmar Stone had been five when he and his family had Landed; he had Impressed a bronze of a Weyrleaders’ clutch at nineteen. Half-trained to follow in his father’s mechanical engineering specialty, F’mar had salved Fulmar Senior’s shock at the idea of his son’s pursuing an entirely different life’s work by taking charge of all the Weyr’s mechanicals. These were, however, so well designed or redesigned that they rarely needed more than a drop of oil-or so F’mar insisted.

“You should’ve come.” Then F’mar, as tall as she was but rangier in frame and bony shoulders, leaned toward her with a friendly leer. “It was more fun than climbing about rock faces and peering in holes.”

Torene grinned placidly at him. “But I like cliff climbing, and Alaranth hunted yesterday with the other queens. I’d better go help with dinner if there’re steaks.”

“I have to, too,” F’mar said, grimacing. He didn’t enjoy that segment of the additional duties that the riders assumed inside the Weyr. “In fact, Tarrie sent me to find you.”

“For steak, I’m findable,” she said. “Just let me wash my hands first.”

“Can I help?” he asked with a second amicable leer.

Torene laughed at him, evading his half-serious interference with a direct path to the sinks.

F’mar was nothing if not persistent in his efforts to attach her. He pressed his luck whenever he had the chance, like now, trying to persuade her that he was her best possible weyrmate, just as his Tallith would be the perfect bronze to twine necks with her queen. F’mar was looking for any opportunity to prove his worth-in advance. He was also a Wingleader, which he thought gave him an advantage over others of their group.