The Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey [332]
CHAPTER VI
Ruatha Hold and Southern Hold,
15.5.27–15.6.2
The hold day began by sending out fire-lizards with messages to all the smaller Holds and craftcottages, ordering that every fire-lizard be appropriately marked and individually warned about approaching any Weyr. Some of the nearby holders had ridden in during the morning for reassurances about the garbled accounts the fire-lizards had given. So Lytol, Jaxom and Brand were kept busy all day. The next day, Thread was due to fall, and it fell at precisely the moment Lytol had calculated. This gave him great pleasure and reassured the more nervous holders.
Jaxom good-naturedly took his place with the flamethrower crew, not that any Thread escaped the Fort Weyr dragons. It amused Jaxom to think that at the next Threadfall, he too might be above ground on a fire-breathing Ruth.
The third day after the egg was stolen, Ruth was famished and wanted to hunt. But the fire-lizards came in such droves to accompany him that he killed only once and ate the beast up, bones and hide.
I will not kill for them, Ruth told Jaxom so fiercely that he wondered if Ruth might eventually flame the fire-lizards.
“What’s the matter? I thought you liked them!” Jaxom met his dragon on the grassy slope and caressed him soothingly.
They remember me doing something I do not remember doing. I did not do it. Ruth’s eyes whirled with red sparks.
“What do they remember you doing?”
I haven’t done it. And there was a tinge of fearful uncertainty to Ruth’s mental tone. I know I haven’t done it. I couldn’t do such a thing. I am a dragon. I am Ruth. I am of Benden! His last words sounded in a despairing tone.
“What do they remember you doing, Ruth? You’ve got to tell me.”
Ruth ducked his head, as if he wished he could hide, but he turned back to Jaxom, his eyes wheeling piteously. I wouldn’t take Ramoth’s egg. I know I didn’t take Ramoth’s egg. I was there by the lake all the time with you. I remember that. You remember that. They know where I was. But somehow they remember that I took Ramoth’s egg too.
Jaxom clung to Ruth’s neck to keep from falling. Then he took several very deep breaths.
“Show me the images they’ve been giving you, Ruth!”
And Ruth did, the projections growing more clear and vivid as Ruth calmed in response to his rider’s encouragement.
That’s what they remember, he said finally with a deep sigh of relief.
Jaxom told himself to think logically so he said out loud, “Fire-lizards can only tell what they’ve seen. You say they remember. Do you know when they remember seeing you take Ramoth’s egg?”
I could take you to that when.
“Are you sure?”
There are two queens—they’ve bothered me most because they remember best.
“They wouldn’t just happen to remember it at night, when the stars are out, would they?”
Ruth shook his head. Fire-lizards are not big enough to see enough stars. And that’s when they got flamed. The bronzes who guard the egg chew firestone. They don’t want any fire-lizards near.
“That’s smart of them.”
None of the dragons like fire-lizards anymore. And if they knew what the fire-lizards remember about me, they wouldn’t like me, either.
“Then it’s just as well that you’re the only dragon who’ll listen to fire-lizards, isn’t it?” That observation wasn’t much comfort to either Ruth or Jaxom. “But why, if the egg is already back in Benden Weyr, are the fire-lizards bothering you about it?”
Because they don’t remember me going yet.
Jaxom felt he’d better sit down. This last statement would take a lot of thinking. No, he contradicted himself. F’lessan had been right. We think and talk things to death. He wondered briefly if Lessa and F’nor had been seized by this same sort of irrational compulsion at the moment of their decisions. He decided he’d better not think about that either.
“You’re sure you know