The Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey [281]
They had only to get to that fist, close enough for Canth’s long eyes to see to the surface, under the cloud cover. One look to settle the matter forever. One look that F’nor—not F’lar—would make.
He began to reconstruct that ethereal fist, its alien fingers closing over the westering tip of grayness on the Red Star’s enigmatic surface. “Tell Ramoth. She’ll broadcast what we see to everyone, dragon, rider, fire lizard. We’ll have to go slightly between time too to the moment on the Red Star when I saw that fist. Tell Brekke.” And he suddenly realized that Brekke already knew, had known when she’d seduced him so unexpectedly. For that was why Lessa had confided in them, in Brekke. He couldn’t be angry with Lessa. She’d had the courage to take just such a risk seven Turns ago, when she’d seen a way back through time to bring up the five missing Weyrs.
Fill your lungs, Canth advised him and F’nor felt the dragon sucking air down his throat.
He didn’t have time to consider Lessa’s tactics because the cold of between enveloped them. He felt nothing, not the soft hide of the dragon against his cheek, nor the straps scoring his flesh. Only the cold. Black between had never existed so long.
Then they burst out of between into a heat that was suffocating. They dropped through the closing tunnel of cloud fingers toward the gray mass which suddenly was as close to them as Nerat’s tip on a high-level Thread pass.
Canth started to open his wings and screamed in agony as they were wrenched back. The snapping of his strong fore-limbs went unheard in the incredible roar of the furnace-hot tornadic winds that seized them from the relative calm of the downdraft. There was air enveloping the Red Star—a burning hot air, whipped to flame-heat by brutal turbulences. The helpless dragon and rider were like a feather, dropped hundreds of lengths only to be slammed upward, end over end, with hideous force. As they tumbled, their minds paralyzed by the holocaust they had entered, F’nor had a nightmare glimpse of the gray surfaces toward and away from which they were alternately thrown and removed: the Neratian tip was a wet, slick gray that writhed and bubbled and oozed. Then they were thrown into the reddish clouds that were shot with nauseating grays and whites, here and there torn by massive orange rivers of lightning. A thousand hot points burned the unprotected skin of F’nor’s face, pitted Canth’s hide, penetrating each lid over the dragon’s eyes. The overwhelming, multileveled sound of the cyclonic atmosphere battered their minds ruthlessly to unconsciousness.
Then they were hurled into the awesome calm of a funnel of burning, sand-filled heat and fell toward the surface—crippled and impotent
Painridden, F’nor had only one thought as his senses failed him. The Weyr! The Weyr must be warned!
Grall returned to Brekke, crying piteously, burrowing into Brekke’s arm. She was trembling with fear but her thoughts made such chaotic nonsense that Brekke was unable to isolate the cause of her terror.
She stroked and soothed the little queen, tempting her with morsels of meat to no effect. The little lizard refused to be quieted. Then Berd caught Grall’s anxiety and when Brekke scolded him, Grall’s excitement and anguish intensified.
Suddenly Mirrim’s two greens came swooping into the weyr, twittering and fluttering, also affected by the irrational behavior of the little queen. Mirrim came running in then, escorted by her bronze, bugling and fanning his gossamer wings into