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By Root 2570 0

at Zair, who resumed his customary perch on the Harper’s shoulder. Zair did not respond to her crackling, causing Robinton to grin. Menolly must be agitating for an account of the afternoon’s doings. She wasn’t presumptuous enough to nag at him, but that didn’t keep Beauty from badgering his bronze. A good child, Menolly, and worth her weight in marks. He hoped she’d approve of a trip with young Jaxom. He hadn’t mentioned her participating in front of Lytol since F’lar had long ago enjoined him to the strictest secrecy about his Southern trips. Zair would not have been enough for Jaxom to find the right cove, but with Menolly, who had been with him on that stormy trip, and her fire-lizards to act as reinforcement, they’d have no trouble at all. But the fewer people who knew about it the better.

The next day when the Harper informed Jaxom of this added insurance for success, Jaxom looked relieved and surprised.

“Mind you, young Jaxom, it’s not to be discussed that Menolly and I have been exploring so far south. In point of fact, we hadn’t planned that trip . . .”

Menolly chuckled. “I told you there’d be a storm.”

“Thank you. I’ve heeded your weather wisdom since, as you well know.” He grimaced as he recalled three days of storm-sickness and a desperate Menolly clinging to the tiller of their light craft.

He saddled them with no further advice, urged them to take a supply of food from the kitchens and said he hoped they’d have a favorable report.

“Of D’ram’s whereabouts?” Menolly asked, her eyes dancing at him, “or the performance of the fire-lizards?”

“Both, of course, saucy girl. Away with you.” He had decided not to query Jaxom about his strong reactions to timing it and discretion. When he had told Menolly of his intention to send her and her fire-lizards to accompany Jaxom, she, too, had reacted in an unexpected fashion. He had casually asked her what was so amusing and she had merely shaken her head, convulsed in laughter. He couldn’t imagine what the two of them had been up to together. Now, as he watched Ruth circle into the skies above the Hold, he reviewed their interactions. Good-natured chaffing, certainly—a dollop of contention for leadership but nothing beyond the exchanges of old friends. Not, he hastily told himself, that Menolly would not make an excellent Lady Holder for Jaxom if the two were sincerely attached. It was just that . . . the Harper chided himself for interfering and turned to dull matters of Craft management which he had been delaying far too long.

CHAPTER X

From Harpercraft Hall to the Southern

Continent, Evening at Benden Weyr, 15.7.4

As ruth flew upward from the meadow, Jaxom experienced a tremendous sense of relief and excitement as well as the usual tension that gripped him when making a long jump between. Beauty and Diver were perched on Menolly’s shoulders, tails twined about her neck. He had given shoulder room to Poll and Rocky since these four had accompanied the Harper and Menolly on that initial trip. Jaxom would have liked to ask what they’d been doing sailing in the Southern Continent. The boat made some sense since Menolly, being SeaHold-bred, was a good sailor. But there’d been a challenging gleam in Menolly’s eyes that had kept him from asking. He was wondering, too, if she had told the Harper anything of her suspicions about his part in returning the egg.

They went between first to Nerat’s tip, circling again while Menolly and her fire-lizards concentrated on imagining the cove far to the southeast. Jaxom had wanted to time it to the night before; he’d spent hours working out star positions in the Southern Hemisphere. Menolly and Robinton had overruled him unless Ruth couldn’t get a vivid enough picture of the cove from the combination of Menolly and the fire-lizards.

Somewhat to Jaxom’s disgruntlement, Ruth announced that he could clearly see where he was to go. Menolly makes very sharp pictures, he added.

Jaxom had no option but to ask him to change.

The quality of the air was Jaxom’s first impression of the new location: softer, cleaner, less humid.