The Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey [48]
“But the young males are growing just as fast, and they’re not a bit . . .” She broke off. She wouldn’t admit anything to that F’lar.
“They don’t grow as large, and they constantly practice . . .”
“Flying! . . .” Lessa leaped on the word, and then, catching a glimpse of the bronze rider’s face, said no more. He was just as quick with a casual taunt.
Ramoth had immersed herself and was irritably waiting to be sanded. The left dorsal ridge itched abominably. Lessa dutifully attacked the affected area with a sandy hand.
No, her life at the Weyr was no different from that at Ruatha. She was still scrubbing. And there was more of Ramoth to scrub each day, she thought as she finally sent the golden beast into the deeper water to rinse. Ramoth wallowed, submerging to the tip of her nose. Her eyes, covered by the thin inner lid, glowed just below the surface—watery jewels. Ramoth languidly turned over, and the water lapped around Lessa’s ankles.
All occupations were suspended when Ramoth was abroad. Lessa noticed the women clustered at the entrance to the Lower Caverns, their eyes wide with fascination. Dragons perched on their ledges or idly circled overhead. Even the weyrlings, boy and dragonet, wandered forth curiously from the fledgling barracks of the training fields.
A dragon trumpeted unexpectedly on the heights by the Star Stone. He and his rider spiraled down.
“Tithings, F’lar, a train in the pass,” the blue rider announced, grinning broadly until he became disappointed by the calm way his unexpected good news was received by the bronze rider.
“F’nor will see to it,” F’lar told him indifferently. The blue dragon obediently lifted his rider to the wing-second’s ledge.
“Who could it be?” Lessa asked F’lar. “The loyal three are in.”
F’lar waited until he saw F’nor on brown Canth wheel up and over the protecting lip of the Weyr, followed by several green riders of the wing.
“We’ll know soon enough,” he remarked. He turned his head thoughtfully eastward, an unpleasant smile touching the corner of his mouth briefly. Lessa, too, glanced eastward where, to the knowing eye, the faint spark of the Red Star could be seen, even though the sun was full up.
“The loyal ones will be protected,” F’lar muttered under his breath, “when the Red Star passes.”
How and why they two were in accord in their unpopular belief in the significance of the Red Star Lessa did not know. She only knew that she, too, recognized it as Menace. It had actually been the foremost consideration in all F’lar’s arguments that she leave Ruatha and come to the Weyr. Why he had not succumbed to the pernicious indifference that had emasculated the other dragonmen she did not know. She had never asked him—not out of spite, but because it was so obvious that his belief was beyond question. He knew. And she knew.
And occasionally that knowledge must stir in the dragons. At dawn, as one, they stirred restlessly in their sleep—if they slept—or lashed their tails and spread their wings in protest if they were awake. Manora, too, seemed to believe. F’nor must. And perhaps some of F’lar’s surety had infected his wingriders. He certainly demanded implicit obedience to tradition in his riders and received it, to the point of open devotion.
Ramoth emerged from the lake and half-flapped, half-floundered her way to the feeding grounds. Mnementh arranged himself at the edge and permitted Lessa to seat herself on his foreleg. The ground away from the Bowl rim was cold underfoot.
Ramoth ate, complaining bitterly over the stringy bucks that made her meal and resenting it when Lessa restricted her to six.
“Others have to eat, too, you know.”
Ramoth informed Lessa that she was queen and had priority.
“You’ll itch tomorrow.”
Mnementh said she could have his share. He had eaten well of a fat buck in Keroon two days ago. Lessa regarded Mnementh with considerable interest. Was that why all the dragons in F’lar’s wing looked so smug? She must pay more attention as to who frequented the feeding