The Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey [366]
“Don’t worry about a bird or three or four,” F’lar said, for Jaxom had winced at this report of Ruth’s greed. “The Weyr can support the meal.”
Menolly entered, breathing heavily from the climb and, to judge by the beads of perspiration on her brow, her haste. When Lessa exclaimed that she’d brought enough food to feed a fighting wing, Menolly replied that Manora said it was nearly dinnertime and they might as well all eat in the Weyr.
If anyone had told Jaxom that morning that he’d enjoy a comfortable dinner with the Benden Weyrleaders, he’d have told them to open their glow baskets. Despite the reassurances of Mnementh and Ramoth that they conveyed to him, he wouldn’t sit still and eat until he’d checked on Ruth. So Lessa permitted him to walk to the ledge and see the white dragon grooming himself by the lake. When Jaxom resumed his place at the table, he found himself shaking, and he applied himself to the roast meats to restore his energy.
“Tell me again what those fire-lizards said about men,” F’lar asked when they were relaxing around the table.
“You can’t always get fire-lizards to explain,” Menolly said, glancing first at Jaxom to see if he wished to answer. “They got so excited when Ruth asked them if they remembered men that their images made no sense. Actually,” Menolly paused, drawing her brows together in concentration, “the images were so varied that you didn’t see much.”
“Why would their images be varied?” Lessa asked, interested in spite of her present antagonism to fire-lizards.
“Generally a group will come up with one specific image . . .”
Jaxom inhaled wearily: she couldn’t be foolish enough to mention the egg pictures.
“They echoed Canth’s fall from the Red Star. My friends will often come back with rather good images, I think each reinforcing the other, of places they’ve been.”
“Men!” F’lar said thoughtfully. “They could mean men elsewhere in the South. It is a vast continent.”
“F’lar!” Lessa’s voice was sharp and warning. “You are not exploring the Southern Continent. And, might I suggest that if there were men there, somewhere, they would certainly have ventured far enough north to be seen at some stage or another by F’nor when he was south, or by Toric’s groups. There would have been signs of them other than the unreliable recollections of some fire-lizards.”
“You’re quite likely correct, Lessa,” F’lar said, looking so disappointed that Jaxom realized for the first time that being Benden’s Weyrleader and First Dragonrider of Pern might not be as enviable a position as he’d previously assumed.
So often lately he’d come to realize that things were not as they seemed. There were hidden facets to everything. You’d think you had what you wanted in your grasp and, when you looked closely, it wasn’t what it had seemed to be from a distance. Like teaching your dragon to chew firestone—and getting caught at it, in one sense, as he had. Now he had to train earnestly with N’ton’s weyrlings, which was fine as far as it went but it didn’t go far enough to please Jaxom—flying high in a Fort Weyr wing so his holders wouldn’t even know he was there!
“The problem is, Jaxom, that we,” F’lar indicated Lessa, himself and the entire Weyr, “have other plans for the South—before the Lord Holders start parceling it out to their younger sons.” He brushed his hair back from his face. “We learned a lesson from the Oldtimers, a valuable one. And I know what happens to a Weyr in a long Interval.” F’lar grinned broadly at Jaxom. “We’ve been mighty busy protecting land by seeding the grubs. By the next Pass of the Red Star, all the Northern Continent,” and the Weyrleader’s gesture was wide, “will be seeded. And safe at least from Thread burrowing. If the Holds thought dragonriders were superfluous before, they certainly will have more cause then.”
“People always feel better seeing dragons flame Thread,” Jaxom said hastily, from a sense of loyalty although, from the expression on F’lar’s face, the Weyrleader didn’t seem to be in need