Dragonquest (21 page)

Mystified, F'lar raised his eyes in answer to a summons from the hovering weyrlings.

They wish to know if this is the Edge of Threadfall,
Mnementh reported to his rider.

“It must be further south,” F'lar replied and waved the weyrlings in that direction. He stood looking down at the overturned earth, at the grubs burrowing frantically away from sunlight. He picked up a stout barkless branch and jabbed the earth of the trench Mnementh had made, prodding for the cavities that meant Thread infestations. “It has to be further south. I don't understand this.” He ripped a handful of the leaves from a berry bush and sifted them through his gloves. “If this happened some time ago, rain would have washed the char from the punctures. The damaged leaves would have dropped.”

He began to work his way south, and slightly east, trying to ascertain exactly where Thread had started. Foliage on every side gave evidence of its passage but he found no burrows.

When he located drowned Thread in the brackish water of a swamp pool, he had to consider that as the leading Edge. But he wasn't satisfied and bogged himself down in syrtis muds investigating, so that Mnementh had to pull him free.

So intent was he on the anomalies of this Fall, that he did not notice the passage of time. He was somewhat startled, then, to have T'bor appear overhead, announcing the end of Fall. And both men were alarmed when the ground-crew chief, a young fisherman from Ista named Toric, verified that the Fall had lasted a scant two hours since discovery.

“A short Fall, I know, but there's nothing above, and Toric here says the ground crews are mopping up the few patches that got through,” T'bor said, rather pleased with the efficient performance of his Weyr.

Every instinct told F'lar that something was wrong. Could Thread have changed its habits that drastically? He had no precedent. It always fell in four-hour spans—yet clearly the sky was bare.

“I need your counsel, T'bor,” he said and there was that edge of concern in his voice that brought the other to his side instantly.

F'lar scooped up a handful of the brackish water, showing him the filaments of drowned Thread.

“Ever notice this before?”

“Yes, indeed,” T'bor replied in a hearty voice, obviously relieved. “Happens all the time here. Not many fish to eat Thread in these foot-sized pools.”

“Then there's something in the swamp waters that does for them?”

“What do you mean?”

Wordlessly, F'lar tipped back the scarred foliage nearest him. He warily turned down the broad saw-edged swamp grasses. Catching T'bor's stunned eyes, he gestured back the way he had come, where ground crews moved without one belch of flame from their throwers.

“You mean, it's like that? How far back?”

“To Threadfall Edge, an hour's fast walk,” F'lar replied grimly. “Or rather, that's where I assume Thread Edge is.”

“I've seen bushes and grasses marked like that in these swampy deltas closer to the Weyr,” T'bor admitted slowly, his face blanched under the tan, “but I thought it was char. We mark so few infestations—and there've been no burrows.”

T'bor was shaken.

Orth says there have been no infestations,
Mnementh reported quietly and Orth briefly turned glowing eyes toward the Benden Weyrleader.

“And Thread was always short-timed?” F'lar wanted to know.

Orth says this is the first, but then the alarm came late.

T'bor turned haunted eyes to F'lar.

“It wasn't a short Fall, then,” he said, half-hoping to be contradicted.

Just then Canth veered in to land. F'lar suppressed a reprimand when he saw the flame thrower on his half-brother's back.

“That was the most unusual Fall I've ever attended,” F'nor cried as he saluted the two bronze riders. “We can't have got it all airborne, but there's not a trace of burrow. And dead Thread in every water pocket. I suppose we should be grateful. But I don't understand it.”

“I don't like it, F'lar,” T'bor said, shaking his head. “I don't like it. Thread wasn't due here for another few weeks, and then, not in this area.”

“Thread apparently is falling when and where it chooses.”

“How can Thread choose?” T'bor demanded with the anger of a frightened man. “It's mindless!”

F'lar gazed up at tropical skies so brilliant that the fateful stare of the Red Star, low on the horizon, wasn't visible.

“If the Red Star deviates for four hundred Turn Intervals, why not a variation in the way it falls?”

“What do we do then?” asked T'bor, a note of desperation in his voice. “Thread that pierces and doesn't burrow! Thread falling days out of phase and then for only two hours!”

“Put out sweepriders, to begin with, and let me know where and when Thread falls here. As you said, Thread is mindless. Even in these new Shifts, we may find a predictable pattern.” F'lar frowned up at the hot sun; he was sweating in the wher-hide fighting clothes more suited to upper levels and cold
between.

“Fly a sweep with me, F'lar,” T'bor suggested anxiously. “F'nor, are you up to it? If we missed even one burrow here . . .”

T'bor had Orth call in every rider, even the weyrlings, told them what to look for, what was feared.

The entire complement of Southern spread out, wingtip to wingtip, flying at minimum altitude, and scanned the swampy region right back to Fall Edge. Not one man or beast could report any unusual disturbance of greenery or ground. The land over which Thread had so recently fallen was now undeniably Threadfree.

The clearance made T'bor even more apprehensive, but another tour seemed pointless. The fighting wings went
between
to the Weyr then, leaving the convalescents to fly straight.

As T'bor and F'lar glided in over the Weyr compound, the roofs of the weyrholds and the bare black soil and rock of the dragonbeds flashed under them like a pattern through the leaves of the giant fellis and spongewood trees. In the main clearing by the Weyrhall, Prideth extended her neck and wings, bugling to her Weyrmates.

“Circle once again, Mnementh,” F'lar said to his bronze. First he'd better get over the urge to beat Kylara, and give T'bor the chance to reprimand her privately. He regretted, once more, that he had ever suggested to Lessa that she pressure that female into being a Weyrwoman. It had seemed a logical solution at the time. And he was sincerely sorry for T'bor although the man did manage to keep her worst depredations under control. But the absence of a queen from a Weyr . . . Well, how could Kylara have known Thread would fall here ahead of schedule? Yet where was she that she couldn't hear that alarm? No dragon slept that deeply.

He circled as the rest of the dragons peeled off to their weyrs and realized that none had had to descend by the Infirmary.

“Fighting Thread with no casualties?”

I like that,
Mnementh remarked.

Somehow that aspect of the day's encounter unsettled F'lar the most. Rather than delve into that, F'lar judged it time to land. He didn't relish the thought of confronting Kylara, but he hadn't had the chance to tell T'bor what had been happening north.

“I told you,” Kylara was saying in sullen anger, “that I found a clutch and Impressed this queen. When I got back, there wasn't anyone left here who knew where you'd all gone. Prideth has to have coordinates, you know.” She turned toward F'lar now, her eyes glittering. “My duty to you, F'lar of Benden,” and her voice took on a caressing tone which made T'bor stiffen and clench his teeth. “How kind of you to fight with us when Benden Weyr has troubles of its own.”

F'lar ignored the jibe and nodded a curt acknowledgment.

“See my fire lizard. Isn't she magnificent?” She held up her right arm, exhibiting the drowsing golden lizard, the outlines of her latest meal pressing sharp designs against her belly hide.

“Wirenth was here and Brekke. They knew,” T'bor told her.

“Her!” Kylara dismissed the weyrwoman with a negligent shrug of contempt. “She gave me some nonsensical coordinates, deep in the western swamp. Threads don't fall . . .”

“They did today,” T'bor cried, his face suffused with anger.

“Do tell!”

Prideth began to rumble restlessly and Kylara, the hard defiant lines of her face softening, turned to reassure her.

“See, you've made her uneasy and she's so near mating again.”

T'bor looked dangerously close to an outburst which, as Weyrleader, he could not risk. Kylara's tactic was so obvious that F'lar wondered how the man could fall for it. Would it improve matters to have T'bor supplanted by one of the other bronze riders here? F'lar considered, as he had before, throwing Prideth's next mating flight into open competition. And yet, he owed T'bor too much for coping with this—this female to insult him by such a measure. On the other hand, maybe one of the more vigorous Oldtime bronzes with a rider just sufficiently detached from Kylara's ploys, and interested enough in retaining a Leadership, might keep her firmly in line.

“T'bor, the map of this continent's in the Weyrhall, isn't it?” F'lar asked, diverting the man. “I'd like to set the coordinates of this Fall in my mind . . .”

“Don't you like my queen?” Kylara asked, stepping forward and raising the lizard right under F'lar's nose.

The little creature, unbalanced by the sudden movement, dug her razor-sharp claws into Kylara's arm, piercing the wher-hide as easily as Thread pierced leaf. With a yelp, Kylara shook her arm, dislodging the fire lizard. In midfall the creature disappeared. Kylara's cry of pain changed to a shriek of anger.

“Look what you've done, you fool. You've lost her.”

“Not I, Kylara,” F'lar replied in a hard, cold voice. “Take good care you do not push others to their limit!”

“I've limits, too, F'lar of Benden,” she screamed as the two men strode quickly toward the Weyrhall. “Don't push me. D'you hear? Don't push
me
!” She kept up her curses until Prideth, now highly agitated, drowned her out with piteous cries.

At first the two Weyrleaders went through the motions of studying the map and trying to figure out where Thread might have fallen elsewhere undetected on the Southern continent. Then Prideth's complaints died away and the clearing was vacant.

“It comes down to manpower again, T'bor,” F'lar said. “There ought to be a thorough search of this continent. Oh, I'm aware,” and he held up his hand to forestall a defensive rebuttal, “that you simply don't have the personnel to help, even with the influx of holderfolk from the mainland. But Thread can cross mountains,” he tapped the southern chain, “and we don't know what's been happening in these uncharted areas. We've assumed that Threadfall occurred only in this coastline portion. Once established though, a single burrow could eat its way across any land mass and—” He made a slashing movement of both hands. “I'd give a lot to know how Thread could fall unnoticed in those swamps for two hours and leave no trace of a burrow!”

T'bor grunted agreement but F'lar sensed that his mind was not on this problem.

“You've had more than your share of grief with that woman, T'bor. Why not throw the next flight open?”

“No!” And Orth echoed that vehement refusal with a roar.

F'lar looked at T'bor in amazement.

“No, F'lar. I'll keep her in hand. I'll keep myself in hand, too. But as long as Orth can fly Prideth, Kylara's mine.”

F'lar looked quickly away from the torment in the other's face.

“And you'd better know this, too,” T'bor continued in a heavy low voice. “She found a full clutch. She took them to a Hold. Prideth told Orth.”

“Which Hold?”

T'bor shook his head wearily. “Prideth doesn't like it so she doesn't name it. She doesn't like taking fire lizards away from
the
weyrs either.”

F'lar brushed his forelock back from his eyes in an irritated movement. This was the most unhealthy development. A dragon displeased with her rider? The one restraint they had all counted on was Kylara's bond with Prideth. The woman wouldn't be fool enough, wanton enough, perverted enough to strain that, too, in her egocentric selfishness.

Prideth will not hear me,
Mnementh said suddenly.
She will not hear Orth. She is unhappy. That isn't good.

Threads falling unexpectedly, fire lizards in Holder hands, a dragon displeased with her rider and another anticipating his rider's questions! And F'lar had thought he'd had problems seven Turns ago!

“I can't sort this all out right now, T'bor. Please mount guards and let me know the instant you've any news of any kind. If you do uncover another clutch, I would very much appreciate some of the eggs. Let me know, too, if that little queen returns to Kylara. I grant
the
creature had reason, but if they frighten
between
so easily, they may be worthless except as pets.”

F'lar mounted Mnementh and saluted the Southern Weyrleader, reassured by nothing in this visit. And he'd lost the advantage of surprising the Lord Holders with fire lizards. In fact, Kylara's precipitous donation would undoubtedly cause more trouble. A Weyrwoman meddling in a Hold not bound to her own Weyr? He almost hoped that these creatures would be nothing more than pets and her action could be soft-talked. Still, there was the psychological effect of that miniature dragon, Impressionable by anyone. That would have been a valuable asset in improving Weyr-Hold relations.

As Mnementh climbed higher, to the cooler levels, F'lar worried most about that Threadfall. It had fallen. It had pierced leaf and grass, drowned in the water, and yet left no trace of itself in the rich earth. Igen's sandworms would devour Thread, almost as efficiently as agenothree. But the grub life that had swarmed in the rich black swamp mud bore little resemblance to the segmented, shelled worms.