The Skies of Pern (34 page)

Planting was not work most riders would volunteer to do but, when F’lessan saw Tai’s was the only name on that list, he added his. He had done very well getting on work teams with Tai, mostly jobs as backbreaking and thankless as this, waiting until he saw where she was going to spend her spare hours before he signed up. She was willing enough—even eager—to discuss their mutual interest in astronomy. They were sometimes the only dragonriders on such sites. She seemed to know many of the more isolated cotholders and was welcomed warmly. The two dragonriders had been shown where to find tools, where fresh water could now be obtained, and what was available for their lunch. All the Benini holders had ridden out on their runner-beasts for another long hot search.

When the two dragonriders had collected the plants at sunrise, rootballs wrapped and secured on wooden flats, Jayge had greeted F’lessan with surprise and gravely shook hands with Tai, remarking on what a fine green she rode.

“Didn’t think to see you again so soon, F’lessan,” the Paradise River Holder said, grinning at the bronze rider.

“And will do as long as Paradise River is intent on reforesting Monaco,” F’lessan responded. He waggled his finger at Jayge. “You and Aramina have been exceedingly generous. T’gellan told me.”

“The least we can be,” Jayge said. “We were very lucky here, protected from the tsunami by the Kahrain cape.” He gestured first over his shoulder and then down the river. “We can find as many young trees and bushes as are needed. You two look tired. Have you eaten?”

F’lessan dismissed that with a wave of his hand. “Yes, yes, thank you. We can get untired when things are more or less back in order.” He examined the thick lift knot on the flat, the net that secured the young saplings to it, and the corner ropes. All the dragons were now deft at lifting such carriers. One trick was to keep the ropes taut and lift vertically very slowly to keep the load from swaying; dragons were perfecting the maneuver. The other step was going
between
very close to the ground, again to prevent swaying. After being root-pruned several days before, the young bushes and saplings were wrapped in balls early on the morning they were to be replanted. Dragon transport meant they could be in the ground, watered, and staked within hours.

It also meant that the transplanters could finish before the sun started baking gardeners and plants. F’lessan checked the angle of the shadows; his watch was in his jacket. It was just mid-morning and they were nearly finished. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep up this pace, even if they had both stripped down to sleeveless tops and shorts.

“You’re getting pretty good at this,” Tai said, pushing her hands up to her knees until she was upright, too. She removed the sweatband from her forehead, mopped her brow, and retied the kerchief.

“I like restoring things,” he said, looking at the zigzag line they had been working on, a windbreak on the eastern edge. The holding was actually on a rise, which had saved it from more damage. Redfruit on the inside, handy to the hold, a curving line of fellis, and then the fronds. Some untagged saplings, which didn’t resemble either redfruit or fellis, they decided to plant in the rich loam here and there. Someone had started a garden patch. Luckily this was midsummer and they’d have fresh vegetables in a few weeks. With just a little husbandry, there’d be good growth in the windbreak plants before winter’s winds.

“Like Honshu?” she asked, leaning down for the canteen. Benini’s spouse had left cool juice to slake their thirst.

“Yes, like Honshu.” F’lessan grinned, sweeping sweaty hair back from his forehead. He gave her a quirky grin. “Place fascinates me. There’re still levels of it I haven’t had a chance to show you.”

They had spent several evenings on the upper terrace, sharing the use of his binoculars, held steady on the stand. He’d let her have more time using them because he liked watching the intent expression on her face as she observed, jotting down time and references. She was quite circumspect, taking down notes—but then she’d been training with Erragon—marking degrees carefully, asking him to verify the objects she viewed. He even teased her—she had to
know
that he was teasing her or she got quite upset—about minutes and seconds in the degree readings of the fifth planet out from Rukbat, currently visible at right ascension 19 hours, 32 minutes, 53.7 seconds; declination 27 degrees, 16 minutes, 25 seconds, just below Acrux. She said it was a habit she’d got into, sky-watching at Cove Hold, to keep a record. Erragon was collecting such information from other sky-watchers. F’lessan had wanted to take her high on Honshu’s eastern face for a panoramic view of the forest and foothills below where sometimes he’d used the binoculars to spot felines, hunting at dawn, but the long spiral staircase was not a climb he could face with equanimity and she was as tired as he was.

“I would really like to see this mysterious observatory of yours, F’lessan,” she said shyly as she passed him the canteen.

“Oh, I’ll take you, never fear—one night when we aren’t dragging tired. It’s a steep climb.”

“Well, whenever,” she agreed amiably as she reached for the next plant from the nearly empty flat. “We’re about done here. Let’s just put these untagged ones near the garden,” she added with a sigh and glanced over at their dragons, lounging on the ridge behind the hold, in the thick ground cover that not even the tsunami had been able to scrape away.

F’lessan took note, but did not mention, that the dragons were, unusually for dragons, so close they were touching. He’d had a few ideas of his own but with a personality as reserved as Tai’s, he deliberately kept his manner as casual as possible. The excuse of sky-watching had reduced tensions and given both F’lessan and Tai a respite. Not that he had been able to join her every evening. F’lessan was only too willing to give Tai the chance to replace the notes that had been swept away. He had several reasons for rediscovering an interest in astronomy.

Most of the weyrfolk had left whatever temporary accommodations they’d been in; riders had cleared space for their dragons and built personal shelters. A new Monaco Center was being constructed on a height, well back from the shoreline. Today, certainly tomorrow, the very last displaced riders would be gone to new quarters. As far as he knew, Tai had not found any. She might have, when he was at Benden; he hadn’t wanted to appear to be keeping a watch on her. And Zaranth.

He watched now as Tai gravely considered where to dig holes for the unidentifiable plants. He picked up an armload and carried them over to her. Out of the corner of his right eye, he caught movement in the thick grass cover just beyond Zaranth. He looked more closely and muttered in surprise.

“Trundlebugs,” he said. He deposited the plants within her reach. “I’d thought most of them got swept out to sea.”

“They can, and have, tread water,” Tai said, grinning at him as she pushed the spade into the ground.

“Really?” F’lessan regarded their relentless progress. “How long?”

“I don’t know. But I have watched them cross streams.” She dug deeper.

“Hmmm.”

She handed him the spade and knelt to take the wrapping off the balled plant, deftly spreading its roots before she put it in the prepared hole.

“Big mother,” F’lessan said, commenting on the size of the lead bug. “Four offspring. If she’s not careful, she’ll lose the biggest.”

Tai shot a glance at the trundlebugs, then quickly knuckled loam around the plant, tamping it down well. For some reason, she was smiling.

“Coming right at Zaranth. Shall I …” He hefted the spade and took a step forward to intercept the trundlers. One had to swat the wretched mother bug out of her line of march but, at the same time, be careful not to break off her largest offspring at the end of the reproductive line, lest she retaliate with some of the stink-spray to defend her offspring.

“No, no! Wait.”

“They’re heading right for her. I don’t know about Zaranth but
Golanth hates ’em crawling on him. If he wakes, he’ll squash them.” F’lessan did not add that Golanth was showing more and more of a proprietary interest in the green’s well-being, one of the subtler reasons why he was glad Tai preferred to work away from projects with other dragonriders. He wasn’t ready for others to notice the growing relationship between Golanth and Zaranth.

“Watch,” she said, her eyes sparkling green as she rose from her knees.

F’lessan dropped to the ground, narrowing his eyes in the bright sun to check the angle of the trundlebug approach.

Tai held up her hand, grinning. “Just a moment!”

“They’re heading right for her nose. Doesn’t she sense them? Golanth usually does.”

“Wait!” Putting up her hand to stay his attack, Tai grinned widely, her look almost mischievous.

The trundlebug parade marched relentlessly in its unswerving path, oblivious to what was in its way. Zaranth’s nose twitched but she didn’t open so much as a slit of one eye. The parade was abruptly at right angles to its original path, heading back into the scrubland.

“There!” Tai beamed at her dragon.

“She blew them away?” F’lessan exclaimed.

“No. She didn’t. They can only get so close to her and they go off in another direction, any direction so long as it is away from her.”

She reclaimed her spade from him and began to dig another hole. “There’re two spades, you know.”

“Yes, yes, of course, my dear green,” he said, making a play of diligence, going for the second one. Anything to keep her from noticing the brilliant green of the sleeping Zaranth, lounging so gracefully in the sun by the sleeping bronze. How long would Golanth continue to fake sleep? F’lessan wondered.

“Tai, a question,” he began, digging busily. “I was watching and Zaranth didn’t move. She only twitched her nose. How could she make a trundlebug detour doing that?”

Tai dabbed at a drop of sweat rolling down her nose and, picking up the next to last plant, removed the wrapping and dropped it in place.

“I don’t know. But, if they get close to her, they are suddenly perpendicular to the original line of progress. You know trundlebugs: they never deviate from their chosen path.”

“Amazing!” He blotted the sweat from his face, then unwrapped the last plant, placed it firmly in the ground, and tamped dirt around it. “That’s that. We’re supposed to water them now, aren’t we?”

Probably the first thing Benini had done after the flooding receded was to sink a new well and provide a long watering trough from which they could easily fill buckets for that last garden chore.

“Didn’t Benini say they’d rigged a shower over by the beast-hold?” he asked, when they had finished.

“Yes, with a big enough cistern above to wash all of them,” she said, looking eagerly around to point to the freshly painted enclosure. “Or so his spouse said. We’ll get clean much quicker showering than having to wash in a bucket,” she added, dropping hers on the shadowed side of the well.

“Leave enough warm water for me,” he said, waving her to go first. “I’ll return the tools.” He gathered them up and started for the shed, calling after her. “I plan to hunt Golanth this afternoon at Honshu. How’s Zaranth’s appetite?” Well, he thought privately, “appetite” was one word for it.

Tai cast a look over her shoulder at her sleeping dragon. “She isn’t the least bit off-color.”

F’lessan blinked and then, with an engaging grin that Mirrim would have identified as “devious,” added, “We could hunt felines. Saw some a little closer than they should be to the Honshu herds. Get us some good pelts.”

Since the Flood, most green riders had been giving all their customary courier services free of charge. But there’d be a Gather in Telgar in two sevendays, when the Council met, and that was time enough to cure hides for sale and give her book-money.

“Fine by me!” Tai called back. He caught just a glimpse of her back and long tanned legs as she entered the shower enclosure.

He gathered their riding gear and packs and walked slowly up to the shower, giving her time for a good wash and rinse.

“Hey, leave me some,” he said, speaking above the sound of vigorous splashings. He slipped off his muddy sandals. Well, cleaning them could wait till he got back to Honshu, but he smacked them against the side of the wall to remove as much mud as he could.

“You’ll find it warm enough,” she assured him. “Can you hand me my towel?”

He opened her pack and dragged it, and her fresh clothes, out. “Where is it?” she asked.

He saw her bare arm extending from the shower wall and accurately lobbed the towel to her searching fingers. There were shiny new hooks screwed to the wall and he hung her fresh clothes on one, his own on another. Riders were not as bothered by nudity as holders or crafthall folk so he stripped down, glad to be out of the sweaty, dirty shorts. As she emerged, toweling her body dry, she gave him a fleeting glimpse. He stepped courteously past her, into the shower, and looked around for sweetsand.

When he had had a good scrub, especially his feet, he rinsed off well and, vigorously drying himself, sauntered across the changing area to his clean clothes. Dressed in her leathers, with her jacket still open, she leaned against the wall, in what shade there was, looking out at the scene of their morning’s hard work, feeling pleased.

Summoning their dragons, they took off before heat brought fresh sweat.

As they came out of
between
above Honshu, F’lessan first noted that there were no dragons lounging on the summit or the main terrace.

Will you hunt today, Golanth?

I will hunt well today
, Golanth replied, watching Zaranth as she glided past him to land on Honshu’s main terrace.

Startled by the odd note in his dragon’s tone, for a moment F’lessan worried that he hadn’t been as sensitive to Golanth’s needs as he should be. When was the last time he’d hunted Golanth?

I will hunt very well today!

The bronze was coming in slowly—almost stealthily—to land so that Zaranth was directly in front of them, her rider stripping
the safety harness, which was never used when dragons went after a meal. F’lessan could not miss Zaranth’s condition. She was gleaming with more than health. Why hadn’t Tai noticed that the green was coming into heat? He tried to think which dragons had been at Honshu early this morning. Most had gone well before dawn, as they had, to begin whatever work was slated for that day in the reconstruction of Monaco’s Weyr building. In a traditional Weyr, with dragons basking on their ledges, her readiness would have been noticed long before the green herself might be aware of her form. Honshu had been guesting dragons since the Flood. True, both riders and dragons arrived tired: riders eating quickly and seeking their beds, dragons finding a spot on sunwarmed terraces and rousing only when their riders called them the next morning. He and Tai had gone directly to Paradise River and from there to Benini Hold, their dragons sprawling in full sun; several hours in the sun. Heat was known to trigger a dragon’s mating instinct. He swore, wondering if any of the other dragons had been awake to the nearness of Zaranth’s cycle? Riders were known to remember when greens were likely to come into heat. Most of those staying at Honshu were Monaco Weyr riders. Would they come storming in from all over now Zaranth was active? Was this a delayed reaction in Zaranth? Overdue? But he was a Wingleader and he shouldn’t have missed the signs. Well, Tai had!