Kindan ducked his head and concentrated on getting down the stairs and into the first of the Learning Rooms, which he had dubbed “The Classroom.”
Inside, Lorana seated herself and began once again to study her book.
It took Kindan longer to settle down in the icy silence that had spread between them. In the end, too full of nervous energy to stay seated, he got up to pace the room, earning a disgruntled look from Lorana. He flashed a smile in apology, was rewarded with a frown and a sigh, and turned his attention to the writing on the door.
“You know,” he said after a moment, “we’re going about this the wrong way.”
Lorana slammed her book shut and peered over her shoulder at him. “What should we do, then?”
“We should concentrate on what we know first, and then worry about what we don’t know,” he said. Lorana’s look was not encouraging but he pressed on. “For example, what would this word be?”
Lorana’s face relaxed into a thoughtful frown, and she turned away to get into a position more comfortable for thinking.
“Maybe they need to know if the infection is bacterial or viral,” Kindan suggested.
Lorana shook her head. “I don’t think that’s it,” she said after a moment’s further thought. “The textbook hints that the problem is one of data reduction. It would seem that there wouldn’t be all that much difference between antibacterial and antiviral methods.
“It must have something to do with how the disease is spread,” she said softly to herself. She got up and walked over to where Kindan stood in front of the door, once again reading the inscription on it:
“Well,” Kindan commented as he followed the lines with his eyes again, “at least it’s not the most disturbing part.”
Lorana cocked an eye at him, and Kindan sang,
As he sang it, Lorana’s eyes widened with fear and she started shivering.
“What is it?” Kindan asked, grabbing her shoulder with his hand. “Lorana, are you all right?”
But Lorana wasn’t hearing him.
“D’gan, no!” she shrieked.
D’gan looked over his shoulder one final time at the arrayed dragons of Telgar Weyr. Beneath him Kaloth shook with a long gargling cough. He saw K’rem turn to look at him and, impatient to get at Thread, he ordered Kaloth to take them between.
Just as the cold of between enveloped D’gan, he felt Kaloth give another shuddering cough.
Not long now, he told his dragon. Kaloth coughed again. D’gan began to think that perhaps he would keep Kaloth back on the next Fall. Let D’nal or L’rat lead-it would do them good.
Kaloth coughed again. A chill ran down D’gan’s spine, colder than the cold of between.
Between only lasts as long as it takes to cough three times, D’gan recalled.
Kaloth had coughed three times.
Kaloth coughed again-and in that instant, D’gan realized his error.
All the dragons of Telgar Weyr had gone beyond between.
The Weyrs! They must be warned! D’gan thought in terror as the last of his consciousness seeped away.
D’lin swallowed hard as he watched the dragons of Telgar wink between. He had worked hard for his first chance to fight Thread. Soon, he thought to himself, the Weyr would appear over Upper Crom, ready to flame the deadly menace from the sky.
Aseth turned his huge head to stare down at his rider. Our turn will come soon.
Of course, D’lin agreed fervently, not wanting his beautiful Aseth to think for a moment that he was in any way less than the most perfect dragon ever hatched on all Pern.
I do not hear them, Aseth thought a moment later, craning his neck up high in the sky.
And then the world collapsed. D’lin felt as though someone had punched him both in the stomach and just as hard in the brain, if that were possible. He was overwhelmed by pain and fear.
The Weyrs! They must be warned! D’lin heard the thought as though it were his own. Aseth bellowed in horror and defiance. Without thinking, D’lin leapt on his dragon and urged him up, out of the Bowl.
Benden will be nearest, D’lin thought, his sight masked by the waves of tears that were streaming down unchecked.
Come on, Aseth, between! And with that, overwhelmed by despair, hopelessness, and pure courage, D’lin urged his dragon between-
- without envisioning his destination.
Two thousand Turns later, their bodies would be discovered, entombed in solid rock at Benden Weyr.
M’tal looked back with satisfaction at the wings behind him. Every wing, including those who had gone back in time, was formed up neatly.
Thread ahead, Gaminth informed him.
I see it, M’tal replied, signaling the wings behind him to rise up to meet the incoming Thread. And then-
- a wave of horror, wrenching loss, and fear wracked him. Gaminth bellowed in pain, his cry echoed by every dragon.
What is it? M’tal asked his dragon fearfully.
D’gan and Telgar, Gaminth replied, sounding shaken in a way that M’tal had never heard before. They’re gone.
All of them?
All the fighting dragons, Gaminth confirmed.
And the Thread? M’tal asked, as he envisioned Thread falling unopposed on the ranges of Upper Crom. But he already knew the answer.
“Lorana!” Kindan shouted, catching her as she slumped toward the floor. In the distance he could hear dragons keening. “Lorana, what is it?”
A dragon’s bellow rent the air, answered by another more plaintive one.
“Is it Caranth?” Kindan asked.
Lorana opened her eyes, shivering. “It’s Telgar,” she told him dully.
Caranth? she asked, but the dragon was already aloft, riderless, beating toward the watch heights. In an instant she guessed his intention. Caranth, no!
Lorana felt the bronze go between, chasing after the dragons and riders of Telgar Weyr. With a cry, she reached out to grab him, bring him back-and found herself dragged along instead.
“Lorana?” Kindan called softly. But her eyes had gone vacant, just as they had been when she had lost Arith. Kindan’s own soul cry was echoed by Minith. The dragon repeated her cry louder-and then the cry was cut off.
“Lorana, Minith’s gone after Caranth,” Kindan said, hoping that she would hear the words in her lifeless state. The only response Lorana made was a gasp, as though she’d had the breath knocked out of her.
A rush of feet echoed down the stairs and Ketan and Salina burst into the room. They looked from Kindan to Lorana and back.
“She must come back,” Salina rasped. “She can talk to all the dragons. She can bring them back.”