The Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey [96]
Muffling her laughter, Lessa grabbed up her furred flying cloak and followed him. At least the adventure was starting off well.
Carrying the pitcher of klah and his cup, F’lar adjourned to the Council Room, debating whether to tell the Lords and Craftmasters of this southern venture or not. The dragons’ ability to fly between times as well as places was not yet well-known. The Lords might not realize it had been used the previous day to forestall the Threads. If F’lar could be sure that project was going to be successful—well, it would add an optimistic note to the meeting.
Let the charts, with the waves and times of the Thread attacks clearly visible, reassure the Lords.
The visitors were not long in assembling. Nor were they all successful in hiding their apprehension and the shock they had received now that Threads had again spun down from the Red Star to menace all life on Pern. This was going to be a difficult session, F’lar decided grimly. He had a fleeting wish, which he quickly suppressed, that he had gone with F’nor and Lessa to the Southern Continent. Instead, he bent with apparent industry to the charts before him.
Soon there were but two more to come, Meron of Nabol (whom he would have liked not to include, for the man was a troublemaker) and Lytol of Ruatha. F’lar had sent for Lytol last because he did not wish Lessa to encounter the man. She was still overly—and, to his mind, foolishly—sensitive at having had to resign her claim to Ruatha Hold for the Lady Gemma’s posthumous son. Lytol, as Warder of Ruatha, had a place in this conference. The man was also an ex-dragonman, and his return to the Weyr was painful enough without Lessa’s compounding it with her resentment. Lytol was, with the exception of young Larad of Telgar, the Weyr’s most valuable ally.
S’lel came in with Meron a step behind him. The Holder was furious at this summons; it showed in his walk, in his eyes, in his haughty bearing. But he was also as inquisitive as he was devious. He nodded only to Larad among the Lords and took the seat left vacant for him by Larad’s side. Meron’s manner made it obvious that that place was too close to F’lar by half a room.
The Weyrleader acknowledged S’lel’s salute and indicated the bronze rider should be seated. F’lar had given thought to the seating arrangements in the Council Room, carefully interspersing brown and bronze dragonriders with Holders and Craftsmen. There was now barely room to move in the generously proportioned cavern, but there was also no room in which to draw daggers if tempers got hot.
A hush fell on the gathering, and F’lar looked up to see that the stocky, glowering ex-dragonman from Ruatha had stopped on the threshold of the Council. He slowly brought his hand up in a respectful salute to the Weyrleader. As F’lar returned the salute, he noticed that the tic in Lytol’s left cheek jumped almost continuously.
Lytol’s eyes, dark with pain and inner unquiet, ranged the room. He nodded to the members of his former wing, to Larad and Zurg, head of his own weavers’ craft. Stiff-legged, he walked to the remaining seat, murmuring a greeting to T’sum on his left.
F’lar rose.
“I appreciate your coming, good Lords and Craftmasters. The Threads spin once again. The first attack has been met and seared from the sky. Lord Vincet,” and the worried Holder of Nerat looked up in alarm, “we have dispatched a patrol to the rainforest to do a low-flight sweep to make certain there are no burrows.”
Vincet swallowed nervously, his face paling at the thought of what Threads could do to his fertile, lush holdings.
“We shall need your best junglemen to help—”
“Help? But you said . . . the Threads were seared in the sky?”
“There is no point in taking the slightest chance,” F’lar replied, implying that the patrol was only a precaution instead of the necessity he knew it would be.
Vincet gulped, glancing anxiously around the room for sympathy,