The Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey [361]
Menolly’s body was trimmer than Corana’s, Jaxom noticed as they waded out, happily exhausted by their swim with Ruth. She was longer in the leg and not nearly as rounded in the hip. A bit too flat in the breast, but she moved with a grace that fascinated Jaxom more than courtesy allowed. When he looked back, she had put on pants and overtunic, so that her slim bare arms were exposed to the sun as she dried her hair. He preferred long hair in a girl, though with all the dragonriding Menolly did, he could see why she’d keep it short enough to wear under a helmet.
They shared a yellow fruit which Jaxom had never eaten before. Its mild taste was well seasoned by the salt in his mouth.
Ruth emerged from the water, shaking water all over Jaxom and Menolly.
The sun is warm, he said when they complained of the shower. Your clothes will dry quickly. They always do at Keroon.
Jaxom shot a glance at Menolly but she evidently hadn’t caught the significance of the remark. She was resettling herself, disgusted by the wet sand that now speckled her clothes and bare arms.
“It’s not the wet that bothers,” Jaxom told Ruth, as he brushed his face before lying down again, “it’s the gritty sand.”
Ruth worked himself into a good wallow of dry sand and the fire-lizards, giving little tired cheeps, nestled down against him.
Jaxom thought that one of them should stay awake to see if local fire-lizards responded to the lure of the white dragon, but the combination of exercise, food, sun and the limpid air of the cove were too much.
Ruth’s soft call woke him. Do not move. We have visitors.
Jaxom was on his side, his head pillowed on his left hand. Opening his eyes slowly, he looked directly at Ruth’s shade-dappled body. He counted three bronze fire-lizards, four greens, two golds and a blue. None of them wore neck paint or bands. As he watched, a brown came gliding in to land by one of the golds. The two exchanged nose touches and then cocked their heads at Ruth’s head which was on the sand at their level. Ruth had the lids of one eye half-opened.
Beauty, who had been asleep on the other side of Ruth, minced carefully across the white dragon’s shoulders and returned the courtesies of the strangers.
“Ask them if they remember seeing a bronze dragon?” Jaxom thought to Ruth.
I have. They’re thinking about it. They like me. They’ve never seen anything like me before.
“Nor will again.” But Jaxom was amused at the delight in his dragon’s tone. Ruth did so like to be liked.
A long time ago there was a dragon, a bronze one, and a man who walked up and down the beach. They did not bother him. He didn’t stay long, Ruth added, almost as an afterthought.
Now what did that mean? Jaxom wondered, apprehensive. Either we came and got him. Or he and Tiroth suicided.
“Ask them what else they remember about men,” Jaxom said to Ruth. Maybe they saw F’lar with D’ram.
The new fire-lizards became so excited that Ruth’s head came up out of the sand and his eyes flashed open and began to whirl with alarm. At his movement, Beauty lost her grip on his ridge and slid out of sight, reappearing with wings working furiously as she repositioned herself, squawking over her disarrangement.
They remember men. Why don’t I remember such things?
“And dragons?” Jaxom suppressed a spurt of alarm, wondering how on earth the Oldtimers could know he and Menolly were here. Then his common sense asserted itself. They couldn’t know.
He nearly jumped to his feet at the touch on his arm.
“Find out when, Jaxom,” Menolly said in a soft whisper, “when was D’ram here?”
No dragons. But many many men, Ruth was saying and added that the fire-lizards were too excited now to remember anything about one man and a dragon. He didn’t understand what they were remembering; each one seemed to have different memories. He was confused.
“Do they know we’re here?”
They haven’t seen you. They’ve only looked at me. But you aren’t their men. Ruth’s tone indicated he was as perplexed by this message as Jaxom.
“Can’t you get them back to the subject of D’ram?”
No, Ruth said