The Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey [183]
And in presenting these fire-lizard eggs to a Holder, particularly the most despised Holder of all, Meron of Nabol, Kylara struck back at all the ignominies and imagined slights she had endured at the hands of both dragonmen and Pernese. The most recent insult—that the dishfaced fosterling of Brekke’s had Impressed three, rejecting Kylara—would be completely avenged.
Well, Kylara would not be rejected here. She knew the way of it and, whatever else, she would be a winner.
The golden egg rocked violently, and a massive crack split it lengthwise. A tiny golden beak appeared.
“Feed her. Don’t waste time,” Meron whispered to her hoarsely.
“Don’t tell me bow to hatch eggs, you fool. Tend to your own.”
The head had emerged, the body struggled to right itself, claws scrabbling against the wet shell. Kylara concentrated on thoughts of welcoming affection, of joy and admiration, ignoring the cries and exhortations around her.
The little queen, no bigger than her hand, staggered free of its casing and instantly looked around for something to eat. Kylara laid a glob of meat in its path and the beast swooped on it. Kylara placed a second a few inches from the first, leading the fire lizard toward her. Squawking ferociously, the fire lizard pounced, her steps less awkward, the wings spread and drying rapidly. Hunger, hunger, hunger was the pulse of the creature’s thoughts and Kylara, reassured by receipt of this broadcast, intensified her thoughts of love and welcome.
She had the fire-lizard queen on her hand by the fifth lure. She rose carefully to her feet, popping food into the wide maw every time it opened, and moved away from the hearth and the chaos there.
For it was chaos, with the overanxious men making every mistake in the Record, despite her advice. Meron’s three eggs cracked almost at once. Two hatchlings immediately set upon each other while Meron was awkwardly trying to imitate Kylara’s actions. In his greed, he’d probably lose all three, she thought with malicious pleasure. Then she saw that there were other bronzes emerging. Well, all was not lost when her queen needed to mate.
Two men had managed to coax fire lizards to their hands and had followed Kylara’s example by removing themselves from the confused cannibalism on the hearth.
“How much do we feed them, Weyrwoman?” one asked her, his eyes shining with incredulous joy and astonishment.
“Let them eat themselves insensible. They’ll sleep and they’ll stay by you. As soon as they wake, feed them again. And if they complain about itchy skin, bathe and rub them with oil. A patchy skin breaks between and the awful cold can kill even a fire lizard or dragon.” How often she’d told that to weyrlings when she’d had to lecture them as Weyrwoman. Well, Brekke did that now, thank the First Egg.
“But what happens if they go between? How do we keep them?”
“You can’t keep a dragon. He stays with you. You don’t chain a dragon like a watch-wher, you know.”
She became bored with her role as instructor and replenished her supply of meat. Then, disgustedly observing the waste of creatures dying on the hearth, she mounted the steps to the Inner Hold. She’d wait in Meron’s chambers—there’d better be no one else there now—to see if he had, after all, managed to Impress a fire lizard.
Prideth told her that she wasn’t happy that she had transported the clutch to death on a cold, alien hearth.
“They lost more than this at Southern, silly one,” Kylara told her dragon. “This time we’ve a pretty darling of our own.”
Prideth grumbled on the fire ridge, but not about the lizard so Kylara paid her no heed.
CHAPTER VII