The Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey [80]
“ ‘Flamethrowing fire lizards to wipe out the spores. Q.E.D.’?”
“No help there, either. Obviously just a primitive rejoicing that he is a dragonman, who didn’t even know the right word for Threads.” F’lar’s shrug was expressive.
Lessa wet one fingertip to see if the patterns were inked on. The metal was shiny enough for a good mirror if she could get rid of the designs. However, the patterns remained smooth and precise.
“Primitive or no, they had a more permanent way of recording their visions that is superior to even the well-preserved skins,” she murmured.
“Well-preserved babblings,” F’lar said, turning back to the skins he was checking for understandable data.
“A badly scored ballad?” Lessa wondered and then dismissed the whole thing. “The design isn’t even pretty.”
F’lar pulled forward a chart that showed overlapping horizontal bands imposed on the projection of Pern’s continental mass.
“Here,” he said, “this represents waves of attack, and this one”—he pulled forward the second map with vertical bandings—“shows time zones. So you can see that with a fourteen-hour break only certain parts of Pern are affected in each attack. One reason for spacing of the Weyrs.”
“Six full Weyrs,” she murmured, “close to three thousand dragons.”
“I’m aware of the statistics,” he replied in a voice devoid of expression. “It meant no one Weyr was overburdened during the height of the attacks, not that three thousand beasts must be available. However, with these timetables, we can manage until Ramoth’s first clutches have matured.”
She turned a cynical look on him. “You’ve a lot of faith in one queen’s capacity.”
He waved that remark aside impatiently. “I’ve more faith, no matter what your opinion is, in the startling repetitions of events in these Records.”
“Ha!”
“I don’t mean how many measures for daily bread, Lessa,” he retorted, his voice rising. “I mean such things as the time such and such a wing was sent out on patrol, how long the patrol lasted, how many riders were hurt. The brooding capacities of queens, during the fifty years a Pass lasts and the Intervals between such Passes. Yes, it tells that. By all I’ve studied here,” and he pounded emphatically on the nearest stack of dusty, smelly skins, “Nemorth should have been mating twice a Turn for the last ten. Had she even kept to her paltry twelve a clutch, we’d have two hundred and forty more beasts. . . . Don’t interrupt. But we had Jora as Weyrwoman and R’gul as Weyrleader, and we had fallen into planet-wide disfavor during a four hundred Turn Interval. Well, Ramoth will brood over no measly dozen, and she’ll lay a queen egg, mark my words. She will rise often to mate and lay generously. By the time the Red Star is passing closest to us and the attacks become frequent, we’ll be ready.”
She stared at him, her eyes wide with incredulity. “Out of Ramoth?”
“Out of Ramoth and out of the queens she’ll lay. Remember, there are Records of Faranth laying sixty eggs at a time, including several queen eggs.”
Lessa could only shake her head slowly in wonder.
“ ‘A strand of silver/In the sky. . . . With heat, all quickens/And all times fly,’ ” F’lar quoted to her.
“She’s got weeks more to go before laying, and then the eggs must hatch . . .”
“Been on the Hatching Ground recently? Wear your boots. You’ll be burned through sandals.”
She dismissed that with a guttural noise. He sat back, outwardly amused by her disbelief.
“And then you have to make Impression and wait till the riders—” she went on.
“Why do you think I’ve insisted on older boys? The dragons are mature long before their riders.”
“Then the system is faulty.”
He narrowed his eyes slightly, shaking the stylus at her.
“Dragon tradition started out as a guide . . . but there comes a time when man becomes too traditional, too—what was it you said?—too hidebound? Yes, it’s traditional to use the weyrbred, because it’s been convenient. And because this