The Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey [307]
“Where else?” The Masterharper’s long face was suitably serious but Jaxom thought he saw the man’s lips twitch in an effort not to smile. Robinton then half-guided, half-pushed Wansor toward the platform at the far end of the hall.
“Come on, Wansor.” Fandarel said in his rolling tones.
“Oh yes, so sorry. Didn’t mean to keep you waiting. Ah, and there’s Lord Asgenar. How very good of you to come. I say, is N’ton here, too?” Wansor executed a full circle. Being nearsighted, he peered closely at faces, trying to spot N’ton. “He really should be—”
“Here I am, Wansor.” N’ton raised his arm.
“Ah.” The worried frown vanished from the round face of the Starsmith as Menolly had impudently, if accurately, labeled him. “My dear N’ton, you must come up front. You’ve done so much work, watching and looking at the most dreadful hours of the night. Come, you must—”
“Wansor!” Fandarel half-rose to project his commanding bellow. “You can’t put everyone up front and they’ve all watched. That’s why they’re here. To see what their watching was all for. Now get up here and get on with it. You’re wasting time. Sheer inefficiency.”
Wansor muttered protestations and apologies as he bounced up the short distance to the platform. He did indeed look, Jaxom noticed, as if he’d been sleeping in those clothes. He probably hadn’t changed since the last Threadfall to judge by the sharpness of the creases in the back of his tunic.
But there was nothing sloppy about the charts of star positions which Wansor now tacked up on the wall.
Where did Wansor get that lurid red color for the Red Star—the color almost pulsed on the paper. Nothing dithering about his spoken presentation. Out of deference and respect for Wansor, Jaxom tried to pay close attention but he had heard it all before and his mind returned inexorably to N’ton’s parting shot. “Don’t let anyone catch you giving Ruth firestone!”
As if he would be that foolish. Here Jaxom hesitated. Although he knew in theory the whys and hows of teaching a dragon to chew firestone, he had also learned in his classes that between theory and practice anything could happen. Maybe he could enlist F’lessan’s help?
He glanced at the friend of his boyhood, who had Impressed a bronze two Turns ago. Candidly, Jaxom did not consider F’lessan more than a boy and certainly not serious enough about his responsibilities as a bronze rider. He was grateful that F’lessan had never told anyone that Jaxom had actually touched Ruth’s egg when the dragon was still in its shell on the Hatching Ground. Of course, that would have been a serious offense against the Weyr. F’lessan would scarcely regard teaching a dragon to chew firestone as anything at all remarkable.
Mirrim? Jaxom glanced toward the girl. The morning sun slanted through her browny hair, catching golden glints which he’d never noticed before. She was oblivious to anything but Wansor’s words. She’d probably give Jaxom an argument about not precipitating the Weyr into more problems and then set one of those fire-lizards of hers on him to be sure he didn’t set himself ablaze.
Jaxom was privately convinced that T’ran, the other young bronze rider from Ista Weyr, thought Ruth was essentially an overgrown fire-lizard. He’d be even less help than F’lessan.
Benelek was out, too. He ignored dragons and fire-lizards as completely as they ignored him. But give Benelek a diagram or a machine, even the assorted parts of a machine found in the old Holds and Weyrs, and he’d spend days trying to figure out what it was supposed to be or do. Generally he could make a full machine work, even if he had to dismantle the whole thing to find out why it wasn’t operating. Benelek and Fandarel understood each other perfectly.
Menolly? Menolly was just the person, if he did need someone, in spite of her predilection for putting anything she heard into a tune—a trick that was occasionally a real nuisance. But that talent made her an excellent Harper,