Энн Маккефри - The Second Weyr

You were over there again, weren’t you?” Sorka said to Torene in an amused undertone as the young queen rider sauntered past the Weyrwoman on her way to the day hearth. The lower cavern was deserted at this hour: well past midday and not yet time to prepare the evening meal.

Torene grinned over her shoulder at Sorka as she continued to the hearth. She served herself some soup from the big pot, broke off a wedge of bread, and came back to the table where Sorka was also having a late lunch. She swung one of her elegantly leather-clad long legs over the low chair back and sat down, neatly putting her meal in front of her, all in one graceful movement.

“How’d you guess?”

Sorka had to grin at the girl’s insouciance. Torene hovered on the edge of impudence but never quite offended. Of course that would have given both Sorka and Sean reasons to reprimand her, but she seemed instinctively to know the limits. Sorka would have been particularly loath to bring her up sharp because she, who had been a reserved child in the restricted society she had been born into on Earth, admired Torene’s candid charismatic manner and her irrepressible gaiety. Sean found those traits less easy to deal with, but then, he was obsessed with the responsibilities of the Weyr and the nurture and care of the dragons, and he had never been very lighthearted to begin with.

Sean generally knew everything that went on in the Weyr, sooner or later. He certainly knew that there was great interest in the east coast crater that was touted as the next official base for dragonriders. But Sorka didn’t think he was aware of how often hopeful riders went to survey these likely premises.

Establishing another Weyr was no longer an idle notion but an urgent need. Fort’s accommodations were terribly overcrowded, even when they sent wings to live temporarily in the less-than-comfortable cavern systems at Telgar; and due to the stress and the greater risk of accidents, they had begun sending mating and clutching queens to the nearly tropical Big Island. Sorka gave a little shudder, remembering last year’s disaster and how close they had come to losing three queens in an aerial battle that left all three wounded. The bronzes and browns who had finally separated them had not come away unscathed either.

The entire Weyr had learned a terrible lesson: one queen in heat could precipitate the condition in those also near their season. No queen would share bronze and brown followers with another. Tarrie Chernoff still woke up with nightmares in which Porth was going between and she couldn’t follow. Evenath, the first queen that Faranth had produced, had lost an eye as well as the use of one wing and Catherine’s Siglath had so much wing fabric destroyed that neither could fly in the queens’ wing again. There were still queens enough to do the low flying with flamethrowers, joined as they usually were by any green rider in the first or third trimesters of pregnancy, when constant dropping into the cold of between might cause miscarriage. Jays, there were more than enough dragons and riders to form three Weyrs-and give everyone decent space. They needn’t all cram in like holders.

Sean delayed, Sorka felt, because he could not yet bring himself to delegate final authority to anyone else. His was the responsibility; his would be any blame. He was intensely proud and immensely caring of the fighting force he commanded: the force that, indeed, he had created.

No one denied that. Every rider knew that dragon welfare came first with Sean, and he constantly strove to maximize their effectiveness while reducing personal injury. Initially, when the dragons and riders moved up to Fort Weyr, he had spent endless hours with those who had had pilot experience during the Nathi Wars and with the admiral and both captains. He had found what he could of military history and strategy tapes to figure out the most successful way to combat Threadfall: a combination of cavalry and dogfighting techniques. Then he had refined formations to apply them to the different ways Thread would fall.

As the numbers of available fighting dragons increased he had decided on the appropriate and handiest number for smaller units: wings of thirty-three dragons, each with a Wingleader and two Wingseconds so that, even if the Wingleader and his dragon had to drop out because of injuries, there would be a secondary rider prepared to take charge. This was especially necessary, he felt, when the numbers of the smaller dragons, the blues and greens, increased. The Wingleader should know each dragon in his wing well enough to see signs of strain and send the pair back to the Weyr to rest. Some blue and green riders, determined to prove that their partners were every bit as good as the larger dragons, took risks and rode their lighter, less sturdy beasts beyond their endurance.

“Even a dragon has limits,” Sean repeated and repeated during weyrling training. “Respect them! And yours! We don’t need heroes in every Fall. We need dragonriders every Fall.”

The fortunately rare deaths, either rider or dragon, or both, had a sobering effect on even the most audacious. Injuries, so often due to carelessness, always dropped off after a death or a bad accident. Those that happened during weyrling training were the ones that Sorka hated the most-because they would haunt Sean through his dreams and turn him into an implacable martinet during his waking hours. Sorka would, however, take him to task when he became too autocratic. She made herself always approachable by any rider and never assumed a judgmental attitude.

“You upset morale throughout the Weyr,” she’d tell him firmly.

“I’m trying to improve discipline throughout the Weyr,” he’d shout back at her. “So we won’t have more deaths. I can’t stand the deaths! Especially the dragons! They are so special, and we need every one of them.”

That was true enough, especially now that more people were moving out of Fort Hold and setting up on their own wherever they could find appropriate cave systems. Boll and Ruatha Holds were thriving. Tarvi Telgar had moved his mining and engineering group into an immense system in the mountains above lodes he was currently working. Naturally he called his hold Telgar. After five years of searching for the “right” name, Zi Ongola had finally called his “Tillek,” in memory of the man who had brought a gaggle of pleasure yachts along the entire coastline of the southern continent and, despite storm and other difficulties, led them north to Fort’s docks. As the newly dubbed Tillek was on shores full of fine fishing, the name was all the more appropriate.

“How’d I guess?” Sorka now repeated to Torene. “Not a guess. You have that indefinable look of someone very pleased with herself. And, if you listen a moment, you’ll probably hear all the dragons talking about it. I know Faranth is asking questions.”

Torene did listen a moment, her eyes going briefly out of focus before she made a grimace of resignation. “There’s a distinct disadvantage about being able to hear all the dragons, especially if you want to be discreet.” Then, eyes widening in concern, she glanced anxiously about the low-ceilinged rooms.

“Sean’s not here,” Sorka said with a chuckle. “He and two wings went south to hunt early this morning.” She sighed. “I really look forward to having that tithe system they keep talking about in full operation.” She went on more briskly. “By the time they’re due back, there will be other things for dragons to talk about. Or the ones here’ll all be asleep. It’s a nice sunny day.”

“Sorka. . .” Torene cocked her head as she leaned toward Sorka, the expression in her large dark eyes anxiously earnest. “Can’t you persuade Sean that we desperately need a second permanent Weyr? It’s not just for the space it’ll give us to spread out. It’s needed to-” And Torene closed her lips on whatever point she’d been about to make.