The Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey [345]
“I don’t envy them,” Menolly said to Jaxom in an undertone.
“Will she let them Impress, sir?” Jaxom asked the Harper, momentarily forgetting his awareness of the man’s mortality.
“You’d think she was inspecting each one to see if he smelled of the Southern Weyr, wouldn’t you?” the Harper replied, his voice light with humor.
Jaxom glanced at him and wondered if there hadn’t been some unflattering trick of lighting for the Harper grinned with mischief, very much his customary self.
“I’m not sure I’d care for such a scrutiny right now,” he added, giving his left eyebrow a quirk upward.
Menolly coughed, her eyes dancing. Jaxom supposed they’d been South recently and wondered what they had learned.
Shells, he thought, in a sudden sweaty panic, the Southerners knew that none of them had returned the egg. Suppose Robinton had found that out?
An angry hiss from the Hatching Ground brought such a reaction from the audience that Jaxom quickly transferred his attention. One of the eggs had split, but Ramoth had moved so protectively over it that none of the candidates dared approach. Mnementh bellowed from his ledge outside and the bronzes within thrummed. Ramoth’s head went up, her wings, shimmering gold and green, extended and she warbled a defiant answer. The other bronzes answered her in conciliating tones but Mnementh’s bugle was clearly an order.
Ramoth is very upset, Ruth said to Jaxom. The white dragon had discreetly retired to a sunny spot by the Bowl lake. His absence did not keep him from knowing what was happening within the Ground. Mnementh tells her she is being silly. The eggs must Hatch; the Hatchlings must make Impression. Then she will not have to worry about them again. They will be safe with men.
The croon of the bronzes deepened and Ramoth, still protesting an inevitable cycle of life, stepped slowly away from the eggs. Whereupon one of the older boys who had bravely led the first rank bowed formally to her and then stepped up to the split egg from which a young bronze was emerging, squealing as it tried to balance itself on wobbly legs.
“That boy has good presence of mind,” Robinton said, nodding his approbation. He was intent on the scene below. “Just what Ramoth needed, that courtesy. Her eyes are slowing and she’s retracting her wings. Good. Good!”
Following the example set, two more of the older candidates bowed to Ramoth and moved quickly toward eggs that had begun rocking violently with the efforts of the Hatchlings to pierce their shells. If subsequent obeisances were jerky or skimped, Ramoth had been mollified although she emitted curious little barks as each dragonet made its Impression.
“Look, he got the bronze! He deserved him!” Robinton said, applauding, as the newly linked pair moved toward the entrance of the Ground.
“Who’s the lad?’ Menolly asked.
“From Telgar Hold; he’s got the build and coloring of the old Lord—and his wits.”
“Young Kirnety from Fort Hold has another bronze,” Menolly reported, delighted. “I told you he’d do it.”
“I have been wrong before and will be again, my dear girl. Infallibility would be a bore,” Master Robinton replied equably. “Are there any lads here from Ruatha, Jaxom?”
“Two, but I can’t recognize them from this angle.”
“It’s a good-sized clutch,” Robinton replied. “Plenty to choose from.”
Jaxom was watching five boys who had circled one large egg covered with green splotches. He caught his breath as the dragonet’s head emerged, turning to look at each of the boys as it shook shell fragments from its body. “And many boys disappointed,” Jaxom said as the little brown dragon pushed past the, five boys, out into the sands, crooning piteously, swinging its head from side to side. What if, Jaxom thought with a pang of cold in his guts, Ruth had not found me suitable? Almost all the candidates had left the Ground