The Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey [127]
The weyrlings are promising, Canth remarked as he locked his wings to his back and curled his tail against his hind legs. He settled his great head to his forelegs, the many-faceted eye nearest F’nor gleaming softly on his rider.
Responding to the tacit plea, F’nor scratched the eye ridge until Canth began to hum softly with pleasure.
“Lazybones!”
When I work, I work; Canth replied. Without my help, how would you know which holdbred lad would make a good dragonrider? And do I not find girls who make good queen riders, too?
F’nor laughed indulgently, but it was true that Canth’s ability to spot likely candidates for fighting dragons and breeding queens was much vaunted by Benden Weyr dragonmen.
Then F’nor frowned, remembering the odd hostility of the small holders and crafters he’d encountered in Southern Boll’s Holds and Crafts. Yes, the people had been hostile until—until he’d identified himself as a Benden Weyr dragonrider. He’d have thought it’d be the other way round. Southern Boll was weyrbound to Fort Weyr. Traditionally—and F’nor grinned wryly since the Fort Weyrleader, T’ron, was so adamant in upholding all that was traditional, customary . . . and static—traditionally, the Weyr which protected a territory had first claim on any possible riders. But the five Oldtime Weyrs rarely sought beyond their own Lower Caverns for candidates. Of course, thought F’nor, the Oldtime queens didn’t produce large clutches like the modern queens, nor many golden queen eggs. Come to think on it, only three queens had been Hatched in the Oldtime Weyrs in the seven Turns since Lessa brought them forward.
Well, let the Oldtimers stick to their ways if that made them feel superior. But F’nor agreed with F’lar. It was only common sense to give your dragonets as wide a choice as possible. Though the women in the Lower Caverns of Benden Weyr were certainly agreeable, there simply weren’t enough weyrborn lads to match up the quantity of dragons hatched.
Now, if one of the other Weyrleaders, maybe G’narish of Igen Weyr or R’mart of Telgar Weyr, would throw open their junior queens’ mating flights, the Oldtimers might notice an improvement in size of clutch and the dragons that hatched. A man was a fool to breed only to his own Bloodlines all the time.
The afternoon breeze shifted and brought with it the pungent fumes of numbweed a-boil. F’nor groaned. He’d forgotten that the women were making numbweed for salve that was the universal remedy for the burn of Thread and other painful afflictions. That had been one main reason for going on Search yesterday. The odor of numbweed was pervasive. Yesterday’s breakfast had tasted medicinal instead of cereal. Since the preparation of numbweed salve was a tedious as well as smelly process, most dragonmen made themselves scarce during its manufacture. F’nor glanced across the Weyr Bowl to the queen’s weyr. Ramoth, of course, was in the Hatching Ground, hovering over her latest clutch of eggs, but bronze Mnementh was absent from his accustomed perch on the ledge. F’lar and he were off somewhere, no doubt escaping the smell of numbweed as well as Lessa’s uncertain temper. She conscientiously took part in even the most onerous duties of Weyrwoman, but that didn’t mean she had to like them.
Numbweed stink notwithstanding, F’nor was hungry. He hadn’t eaten since late afternoon yesterday, and, since there was a good six hours’ time difference between Southern Boll on the western coast and Benden Weyr in the east, he’d missed the dinner hour at Benden Weyr completely.
With a parting scratch, F’nor told Canth that he’d get some food,