The Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey [251]
“This is what happened before. I know it I don’t care what he says, get F’nor here.”
Lioth is coming and a green from Telgar Mnementh announced.
Lessa took consolation from the fact that Mnementh didn’t seem the least bit distressed by F’lar’s ravings.
F’lar gave a startled cry, glaring accusingly at Lessa.
“Don’t look at me. I didn’t send for N’ton. It isn’t even dawn there yet.”
The green is a messenger and the man he bears is very excited, Mnementh reported, and he sounded mildly curious.
Ramoth, who had taken herself to the Hatching Ground after Lessa awakened, rumbled a challenge to bronze Lioth.
N’ton came striding down the passageway, accompanied by Wansor, certainly the last person Lessa expected to see. The rotund little man’s face was flushed with excitement, his eyes sparkling despite red rims and bloodshot whites.
“Oh, Weyrlady, this is the most exciting news imaginable. Really exciting!” Wansor babbled, shaking the large leaf under her nose. She had an impression of circles. Then Wansor saw F’lar. All the excitement drained out of his face as he realized that the Weyrleader was a very sick man. “Sir, I had no idea—I wouldn’t have presumed . . .”
“Nonsense, man,” F’lar said irritably. “What brings you? What have you there? Let me see. You’ve found a coordinate for the dragons?”
Wansor seemed so uncertain about proceeding that Lessa took charge, guiding the man to the bed.
“What’s this leaf mean? Ah, this is Pern, and that is the Red Star, but what are these other circles you’ve marked?”
“I’m not certain I know, my lady, but I discovered them while scanning the heavens last night—or this morning. The Red Star is not the only globe above us. There is this one, too, which became visible toward morning, didn’t it, N’ton?” The young bronze rider nodded solemnly but there was a gleam of amusement in his blue eyes for the glassman’s manner of exposition. “And very faintly, but still visible as a sphere, is this third heavenly neighbor, to our northeast, low on the horizon. Then, directly south—it was N’ton’s notion to look all around—we found this larger globe with the most unusual cluster of objects moving with visible speed about it. Why, the skies around Pern are crowded!” Wansor’s dismay was so ludicrous that Lessa had to stifle her giggle.
F’lar took the leaf from the glassman and began to study it while Lessa pushed Wansor onto the stool by the sick man. F’lar tapped the circles thoughtfully as though this tactile contact made them more real.
“And there are four stars in the skies?”
“Indeed there are many more, Weyrleader,” Wansor replied. “But only these,” and his stained forefinger pointed to the three newly discovered neighbors, “appear so far as globes in the distance-viewer. The others are merely bright points of light as stars have always been. One must assume, then, that these three are also controlled by our sun, and pass around it, even as we do. For I do not see how they could escape the force that tethers us and the Red Star to the sun—a force we know to be tremendous . . .”
F’lar looked up from the rude sketches, a terrible expression on his face.
“If these are so near, then does Thread really come from the Red Star?”
“Oh dear, oh dear,” moaned Wansor softly and began caressing his fingertips with his thumbs in little fluttery gestures.
“Nonsense,” said Lessa so confidently that the three men glanced at her in surprise. “Let’s not make more complications than we already have. The ancients who knew enough to make that distance-viewer definitely stipulate the Red Star as the origin of Thread. If it were one of these others, they’d have said so. It is when the Red Star approaches Pern that we have Thread.”
“In that drawing in the Council Room at Fort Weyr there is a diagram of globes on circular routes,” N’ton said thoughtfully. “Only there are six circles and,” his eyes widened suddenly; he glanced quickly down at the sheet in Wansor’s hand, “. . . one of them, the next to the last, has clusters of smaller satellites.