“I don’t understand,” Lessa wailed. Mardra slipped a comforting arm around her shoulders.
“But I do, I do trust me,” Lytol pleaded, patting her shoulder awkwardly and glancing at T’ton for support. “It is as F’nor has said. You cannot be several places in time without experiencing great distress, and when you stopped twelve Turns back, it threw Lessa all to pieces.”
“You know that?” T’ton cried.
“Of course. Just go back two days. You see, I know you have. I shall, of course, be surprised then, hut now, tonight, I know you reappeared two days earlier. Oh, go. Don’t argue.
F’lar was half out of his mind with worry for you.”
“He’ll shake me,” Lessa cried, like a little girl.
“Lessa!” T’ton took her by the hand and led her back to Ramoth, who crouched so her rider could mount.
T’ton took complete charge and had his Fidranth pass the order to return to the references Lytol had given, adding by way of Ramoth, a description of the humans and Mnementh.
The cold of between restored Lessa to herself, although her error had badly jarred her confidence. But then there was Ruatha again. The dragons happily arranged themselves in tremendous display. And there, silhouetted against the light from the Hall, stood Lytol, Robinton’s tall figure, and … F’lar.
Mnementh’s voice gave a brassy welcome, and Ramoth could not land Lessa quickly enough to go and twine necks with her mate. Lessa stood where Ramoth had left her, unable to move. She was aware that Mardra and T’ton were beside her. She was conscious only of F’lar, racing across the Court toward her. Yet she could not move. He grabbed her in his arms, holding her so tightly to him that she could not doubt the joy of his welcome.
“Lessa, Lessa,” his voice raggedly chanted in her ear. He pressed her face against his, crushing her to breathlessness, all his careful detachment abandoned. He kissed her, bugged her, held her, and then kissed her with rough urgency again.
Then he suddenly set her on her feet and gripped her shoulders. “Lessa, if you ever …” he said, punctuating each word with a flexing of his fingers, then stopped, aware of a grinning circle of strangers surrounding them.
“I told you he’d shake me,” Lessa was saying, dashing tears from her face. “But, F’lar, I brought them all … all but Benden Weyr. And that is why the five Weyrs were abandoned. I brought them.”
F’lar looked around him, looked beyond the leaders to the masses of dragons settling in the valley, on the heights, everywhere he turned. There were dragons, blue, green, bronze, brown, and a whole wingful of golden queen dragons alone.
“You brought the Weyrs?” he echoed, stunned.
“Yes, this is Mardra and T’ton of Fort Weyr, D’ram and …”
He stopped her with a little shake, pulling her to his side so he could see and greet the newcomers.
“I am more grateful than you can know,” he said and could not go on with all the many words he wanted to add. T’ton stepped forward, holding out his hand, which F’lar seized and held firmly.
“We bring eighteen hundred dragons, seventeen queens, and all that is necessary to implement our Weyrs.”
“And they brought fiamethrowers, too,” Lessa put in excitedly.
“But to come … to attempt it …” F’lar murmured in admiring wonder.
T’ton and D’ram and the others laughed.
“Your Lessa showed the way …”
“… with the Red Star to guide us …” she said.
“We are dragonmen,” T’ton continued solemnly, “as you are yourself, F’lar of Benden. We were told there are Threads here to fight, and that’s work for dragonmen to do … in any time!”
EVEN AS the five Weyrs had been settling around Ruatha Valley, F’nor had been compelled to bring forward in time his southern Weyrfolk. They had all reached the end of endurance in double-time life, gratefully creeping back to quarters they had vacated two days and ten Turns ago.
R’gul, totally unaware of Lessa’s backward plunge, greeted F’lar and his Weyrwoman, on their return to the Weyr, with the news of F’nor’s appearance with seventy-two new dragons and the further word that he doubted any of the riders would be fit to fight.
“I’ve never seen such exhausted men in my life,” R’gul rattled on, “can’t imagine what could have gotten into them, with sun and plenty of food and all, and no responsibilities.”
F’lar and Lessa exchanged glances.
“Well, the southern Weyr ought to be maintained, R’gul. Think it over.”
“I’m a fighting dragonman, not a womanizer,” the old dragonrider grunted. “It’d take more than a trip between times to reduce me like those others.”
“Oh, they’ll be themselves again in next to no time,” Lessa said and, to R’gul’s intense disapproval, she giggled.
“They’ll have to be if we’re to keep the skies Thread-free,” R’gul snapped testily.
“No problem about that now,” F’lar assured him easily.
“No problem? With only a hundred and forty-four dragons?”
“Two hundred and sixteen,” Lessa corrected him firmly.
Ignoring her, R’gul asked, “Has that Mastersmith found a flamethrower that’ll work?”
“Indeed he has,” F’lar assured R’gul, grimmig broadly.
The five Weyrs had also brought forward their equipment.
Fandarel all but snatched examples from their backs and, undoubtedly, every hearth and smithy through the continent would be ready to duplicate the design by morning. T’ton had told F’lar that, in his time, each Hold had ample flamethrowers for every man on the ground. In the course of the Long Interval, however, the throwers must have been either smelted down or lost as incomprehensible devices. D’ram, particulariy, was very much interested in Fandarel’s agenothree sprayer, considering it better than thrown-flame, since it would also act as a fertilizer.
“Well,” R’gul admitted gloomily, “a flamethrower or two will be some help day after tomorrow.”
“We have found something else that will help a lot more,” Lessa remarked and then hastily excused herself, dashing into the sleeping quarters.
The sounds that drifted past the curtain were either laughter or sobs, and R’gul frowned on both. That girl was just too young to be Weyrwoman at such a time. No stability.
“Has she realized how critical our situation is? Even with Fnor’s additions? That is, if they can fly?” R’gul demanded testily. “You oughtn’t to let her leave the Weyr at all.”
F’lar ignored that and began pouring himself a cup of wine.
“You once pointed out to me that the five empty Weyrs of Pern supported your theory that there would be no more Threads.”
R’gul cleared his throat, thinking that apologieseven if they might be due from the Weyrleader were scarcely effective against the Threads.
“Now there was merit in that theory,” F’lar went on, filling a cup for R’gul. “Not, however, as you interpreted it. The five Weyrs were empty because they … they came here.”
R’gul, his cup halfway to his lips, stared at F’lar. This man also was too young to bear his responsibilities. But … he seemed actually to believe what he was saying.
“Believe it or not, R’guland in a bare day’s time you willthe five Weyrs are empty no longer. They’re here, in the Weyrs, in this time. And they shall join us, eighteen hundred strong, the day after tomorrow at Telgar, with flamethrowers and with plenty of battle experience.”