“Line up,” the young blond healer called. “Line up now so that we can meet you.”
Xhinna looked around and saw V’lex and T’rennor standing to one side, arms folded. V’lex smiled and waved. When she reached them, T’rennor looked at her and said, “Nothing like training others to learn yourself.”
“Not enough boys to Search?” V’lex commented, watching the new group being guided into three rows of six each by J’riz, Jirana, Alimma, and two of the green riders.
“Most of the lads old enough are working the fields,” Xhinna said. “Those three were the only male Candidates we could find in a hundred.”
“Three in a hundred?” V’lex asked, aghast.
“Too many died in the Plague and the rebellion, Nerra told me. More daughters lived,” Xhinna replied. “With so few men to take their holdings, and too many mouths to feed, many sent their daughters where they could.”
“There were women in the fields, too,” T’rennor said. “With the men dead, they had no choice.”
“So we fly with women,” V’lex said, nodding toward Xhinna. “If they’re all like you, we’ll have no problem.”
“It’s the browns and the bronzes that worry me,” Xhinna said. “I don’t think any of the boys here would be taken by one of them.”
“Well, that’s a problem for another day, isn’t it?” T’rennor said easily.
“It is,” Xhinna agreed.
“They all look so sad,” T’rennor said. “They’ll need feeding and care.” He frowned. “It’s a pity we couldn’t have saved the others. So many died just after the Plague.”
When T’rennor’s Kisorth clutched five days later, the Weyr was ready. As soon as the eggs were hard enough, Xhinna assigned a weyrling and rider to each of the sixteen eggs on the sands. Jirana walked directly over to one small, brownish one and touched the shell gently. “Hello, Laspanth, it’s me.”
“Jirana, I don’t think that’s a queen,” Xhinna said. “And besides, don’t you want to wait until you’re older?”
“Nope, it’s her,” Jirana said with childlike certainly. “And I’m the right age now.” She squatted comfortably in front of the egg and peered intently at the shell. Then she looked up at Xhinna and whispered, “She’s sleeping, she needs her rest.”
The words were clearly a dismissal. Shaking her head, Xhinna continued on her rounds, checking on the other eggs, the weyrlings, and the Candidates, whom she insisted should help out. Bekka wandered among them, saying encouraging words to each and every one until she got to Xhinna, where she let her guard down. “What if it rains?”
“We’ll put the canvas up,” Xhinna assured her. “And we’ll do it at night, too: It’ll help trap some of the heat from the sand.”
Bekka glanced around nervously once more and then, noticing a young rider looking their way, put on a brave smile again and patted Xhinna on the back.
It didn’t help Xhinna to know that the young queen rider and healer was as worried as she. She didn’t sleep that night, waking fitfully to make rounds through the mass of eggs, weyrlings, and riders. She wasn’t the only one, but while others dropped off one by one through the night as exhaustion took them, she kept on roaming until the Dawn Sisters appeared in the sky.
Jirana, rolled into a blanket and curled around the egg she’d claimed, opened her eyes and gave Xhinna an angry look when she passed by.
“You’re disturbing their sleep,” the little girl said, meaning the eggs. “I’ll tell you if they need help.”
“It’s my job,” Xhinna told her sternly.
“Just trust me,” Jirana said. Coming from a small, dark-eyed, half-sleeping child, these were words that Xhinna found hard to credit. Jirana sighed and reached out to grab Xhinna’s hand. “Trust me,” she repeated.
Xhinna smiled at her, patted the hand, and gently pushed it back into Jirana’s pile of blankets.
“We need these eggs to hatch,” she said. “We can’t fail.”
Jirana bit her lip and looked away from Xhinna, muttering, “You’ve just got to trust me.” Then she closed her eyes and rolled back toward her egg.
Xhinna stared at her. The child was a mystery: She had led them right so many times and yet—it was still hard to believe her claims. No one had ever heard of a queen egg coming from a green, not even among the fire-lizards. And here was this girl claiming not only that her egg was a queen, but also that she was in communication with the queen and already knew her name.
It was against all tradition, Xhinna thought wearily as she made her way back to Tazith.
I trust the little one, the blue offered as he drifted back to sleep, curling comfortably around his rider.
I worry about her, Xhinna said. She bears a lot on her shoulders. Maybe too much.
As she drifted off, she thought she felt a tendril of love coming from the direction of Jirana and her egg.
“Well, sixteen is a good start,” X’lerin said a sevenday later as he examined the guarded beach. He turned to Xhinna and examined her face. “You, however, have bags under your eyes. You need to get more rest.”
Xhinna shook her head, stifling a yawn. “I can’t,” she said. “No more than you; R’ney’s working overtime, and the whole Weyr is camped out here on the sands.”
A frown crossed the bronze rider’s face and he leaned closer so that his words would carry to her alone. “What about Coranth?”
“I know she clutched, but we can’t figure out where,” she said with a frown. “She’ll need Candidates, though.”
“And where will she get them?”
“If she’s got eggs Hatching, I’ll send her all the Candidates she needs,” Xhinna swore. “I don’t care how we do it—we need more dragons.”
“True,” X’lerin agreed. “But if she’s right about the Mrreows …”
“We’ll deal with that if it’s so,” Xhinna said. She doubted that Taria was right. She knew the green rider, knew that she was holding on now out of pure stubbornness. Xhinna wasn’t sure what Taria would do if it turned out she was wrong; she hoped she’d return and accept the consequences.
X’lerin paused as he spied Jirana, happily lying with her back against her egg. He turned to Xhinna with an eyebrow raised questioningly.
“She swears it’s a queen, her Laspanth,” Xhinna said, shaking her head.
“She’s been right about so many things; it’s a pity she’s wrong about what she wants the most.”
“So it can’t be a queen?”
The young Weyrleader shrugged. “K’dan says there have been some stories about the fire-lizards, but they were more likely the tales of confused holders.”
“The fire-lizards came from somewhere,” Xhinna said. “I wonder why we’ve got both green and gold females if only one of them has eggs that hatch.”
“Green fire-lizard eggs hatch if they’re watched and kept warm enough,” X’lerin said. “Or that’s what K’dan tells me.” He sighed. “He said that Verilan had an idea once that perhaps the blues and greens were first, and the golds, browns, and bronzes came after.”
“I could see how that might be,” Xhinna agreed. “The blues and the greens are smaller, more able to survive on less than the larger creatures.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” X’lerin said. “If you’re right, then perhaps a green hatched the first gold.”
“From a blue mate,” Xhinna added. Her expression changed as she added, “All this clutching is giving people ideas.”
X’lerin raised an eyebrow, so she explained: “Many of our woman riders here are either pregnant or trying.”
“That won’t be a problem, will it?” X’lerin asked, frowning.
“I don’t know,” Xhinna replied. “We’ve got more than two Turns before we go back to fight Thread, and they’ve got at least a Turn before their dragons are ready to fly, so this is the best time for them to start a family.”