R’ney—drat the man!—took in her discomfort with one raised eyebrow and a hastily erased smirk. But, she suddenly realized, he might have a solution. Surely he had been in similar straits; he could at least tell her how he’d coped.
For that matter K’dan and Fiona probably had dealt with such affections hundreds of times and—
Oh! Xhinna thought, suddenly enlightened. Fiona had dealt with such affection before. Xhinna herself had been the source of it. “How are you, Wingleader?” R’ney asked, bringing her from her hidden set of problems to her more immediate set.
“Tetchy, tired, wobbly, and irritated,” Xhinna said.
“Don’t forget alive,” R’ney reminded her.
Xhinna glowered at him, and then firmly turned her attention to the Weyr’s problems. “We’ve got twelve weeks—three months before Sarinth will clutch,” she reminded him. “Where will we put them? How will they hatch?”
“And how will we keep them safe?” R’ney added.
“That, too,” she agreed with a twist of her lips.
“I’ve a long-term plan, which might do in another Turn or two,” R’ney began, stroking his chin and pulling his hand away to glance at it irritably. Apparently the brown rider was not satisfied with his razor; he had the barest trace of stubble but it annoyed him all the same.
“We’ve got twelve weeks,” Xhinna reminded him. “A Turn might help but not for the next two hatchings—”
“Two?” Danirry asked, her eyebrows going up.
“Queens—and greens, probably—rise twice a Turn in a Pass,” Xhinna said.
“But we’re not in the Pass now, are we?” Danirry asked, glancing anxiously up at the skies above and using her fear as an excuse to grasp Xhinna’s arm.
Xhinna moved forward, pulling away and turning to face the other blue rider. “No, we’re three Turns back,” she said. “We won’t see Thread for Turns yet.”
“You did that?” Danirry asked in surprise. “You brought us back in time?”
Xhinna nodded. “We needed to get away from a Threadfall; it seemed the wise thing to do.”
“Back in time …” Danirry murmured thoughtfully.
Xhinna turned back to R’ney. “Okay, you’re so excited: Tell me about this long-term plan of yours,” she said with a sigh.
“Rain,” R’ney said, grinning broadly.
“Rain?”
“Yes, we use the rain,” the brown rider told her, giving her an expectant look.
Xhinna frowned. “To catch more water?” she guessed. No, judging by his expression. “To fill a lake?”
“No, to get to the stone,” R’ney said. “It’s simplicity itself. We burn, dig, and break—and the rains do the rest.”
“I’m not a smither,” Xhinna reminded him, letting some impatience creep into her voice. Danirry laid a hand on Xhinna’s shoulder in an offer of support.
Tazith, ask Kiarith if he doesn’t feel itchy, Xhinna said to her blue in desperation.
“Oh, Kiarith is awake and he’s itchy!” Danirry said suddenly. Xhinna turned to her, trying to look surprised, only to find her breath suddenly taken away.
There, standing in front of her, was a completely different person. The gaunt ghost Danirry was not there; the fawning, love-struck Danirry was also absent. Instead, there stood a vision of beauty, a young woman growing into adulthood, a look of joy and belonging etched deep in her eyes, a smile on her lips, a passion for life radiating from her.
“See to him,” Xhinna said, finding the strength to wave a hand in dismissal. “R’ney can look out for me.”
“I’ll come right back!” Danirry promised.
To her surprise and annoyance, Xhinna found herself saying, “Hurry.”
R’ney waited in tense silence until Danirry was out of earshot and then asked, drolly, “Wasn’t that supposed to be: Take your time, we don’t need you?”
Xhinna turned back to him: his eyes were dancing with merriment. “Oh, hush!”
A moment later, R’ney asked her in all seriousness, “Do you know what you’re doing, Wingleader?”
“Actually, I was hoping to ask you,” she admitted. “I thought perhaps you’ve been—”
“No,” R’ney said. “Once the other way around.”
“And?” Xhinna prompted, willing to take any advice she could find.
“We had a grand time together,” R’ney said, shaking his head sadly. “And he died.”
“Oh,” Xhinna said. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be; we weren’t,” the brown rider told her. He raised his eyebrows in the direction the other blue rider had gone. “If all things are equal, I’d say grab for it with all you’ve got.”
“All things are probably not equal,” Xhinna said sadly. She quickly gave R’ney a rundown of what she’d learned from Nerra and her own subsequent observations. “If I choose wrong—”
“She’ll survive,” R’ney said firmly. “You can’t fix all the people on Pern, you know.”
“No, but she’s mine, so I’ll do my best for her,” Xhinna said.
“Naturally,” R’ney agreed. “And what is that?”
Xhinna shook her head and blew out a sigh. “I don’t know.”
“Well, not that I think you need to divert your attention or anything, but just in case, perhaps we can get back to our plans,” he suggested.
“Go on,” Xhinna said warily, waving for him to proceed.
“As I said, we’ll let the rains do the hard work,” he told her. “We burn off our target area, dig out ruts all along its length, and, as I said, let the rains do the rest.”
“What?” Xhinna asked. “How?”
“Have you ever watched rain falling on newly turned earth?”
Xhinna thought for a moment, her eyes narrowed. Then she shook her head.
“Ever been to a Gather?”
She nodded, even more confused.
“And seen how the horses dig up the ground?”
She nodded again.
“And what happens when it rains?”
“You get mud,” Xhinna said, wondering what by the First Egg the brown rider was going on about and if he would ever get to the point.
“And if it’s a hill or a place where there’s lower ground, what happens to the mud in the water?”
“It sinks into the ground, doesn’t it?”
“Some,” R’ney agreed. “But when there’s too much mud and there are deeper places for the muddy water to go—say, downhill—where does the water carry all that mud?”
“Downhill,” Xhinna said, annoyed at such an obvious question.
“And when enough rain falls and takes away all the mud, what’s left?”
“Nothing?”
R’ney shook his head, his eyes twinkling. “Bare rock.”
“Wait, instead of us digging up all the earth, we dig up some channels and let the rains clear the rest of the dirt?”
R’ney nodded, looking relieved. “I was afraid I was going to have to draw a diagram.”
“You should have—your explanation took far too long,” Xhinna told him. Then she felt a hand touch her waist and she turned around.
“Did I miss much?” Danirry asked, peering up at the wingleader with a smile.
“No,” Xhinna said, just as R’ney said, “Yes.”
The girl looked from wingleader to wingsecond and back, confused. Xhinna laughed and laid her hand over Danirry’s in reassurance.
Somehow, Xhinna promised herself, she would do the right thing by Danirry. It was just another one of the duties of a leader she’d never before considered.
Danirry took the touch for an invitation and, wrapping her arms around Xhinna’s waist, moved in close, resting her head on Xhinna’s shoulder.