Fiona, continuing, “So the Weyrwoman said—”
“ ‘We’re leaving. We’ll be back when we’re needed,’ ” Fiona said. “And then, would you believe, our old Mekiar comes along and says—” She turned to the old potter to let him speak.
“Well …” Mekiar, glad to be invited to participate, smiled as he said, “I merely said, ‘Would you perhaps need a potter where you’re going?’ ”
“But—” Xhinna gestured at all the riders from other Weyrs. All the young weyrlings who’d grown up with her and Tazith, Taria, and Coranth were arrayed there, including all four queens and all the bronzes.
“The story’s not done yet,” Fiona said. “So when we went to leave, D’gan tried to block us, but the queens put an end to that.”
“He didn’t give up, did he?” Taria asked. She’d known him from her childhood at Telgar Weyr.
“Oh, no!” Fiona exclaimed. “It wasn’t until the others”—she waved a hand at the non-Telgar riders—“arrived that things were finally sorted.” Her smile dimpled. “You see, I thought that if we were going to do this, we should be certain not to do it by halves.”
“But what of the other Weyrs?” Taria objected. “Surely they didn’t—”
“Ah, but they did!” Jeila said with a laugh. “In fact—” and she waved a hand for Fiona to finish the story.
“Lorana spoke with them,” Fiona said. “You should have seen the look on D’gan’s face when he saw them. And then I told him, ‘The others are a parting gift, as it were.’ ”
“Others?” Xhinna asked.
“That’s just what D’gan said!” Jeila laughed. “Because when he looked up he saw not only all our Eastern weyrlings and riders but—” and again she waved to Fiona to finish.
“Not only Tullea on her Minith, but Sonia of High Reaches on Lyrinth, Cisca of Fort on Melirth, and Dalia of Ista on Bidenth all gliding in for a landing—and all looking as though they were going to have more than a few words with Telgar’s old Weyrleader.”
“And now we’re here!” Jeila said in conclusion, smiling all around.
“Of course, there is one catch,” T’mar said somberly.
Xhinna and the others of Sky Weyr had given him all their attention then, ready to hear what came next, but it was K’dan who spoke up instead: “We can’t fail.”
And they hadn’t. There were enough dragons and more to repopulate all the Weyrs of Pern. In half a Turn or less, they’d be able to return home, triumphant, ready to fight Thread.
The hectic days of scouting, building, and struggling to establish all the extra dragons and riders across the Western Isle were over. The days of mating flight after mating flight—with the horrifying specter of battles between mating queens and mating greens—were nearly done, and besides, Xhinna and her riders had learned how to distract and separate amorous dragons safely.
Soon it would be all over, they’d go back, and Pern would be safe.
So why was it she was so worried? And if it was just that she felt things had gone too well for too long, then why was Jirana still acting so oddly?
SEVENTEEN
Journey to Starlight
Zirenth says you should join them, Tazith told Xhinna as they wheeled around toward a landing.
Zirenth? T’mar?
He is in the stone, Tazith replied. Xhinna’s lips twitched at her blue’s title for the first housing that had been built on the reclaimed Meeyu Plateau. Bare rock, with a few smaller piles of sand, made the whole area look like a blight on the otherwise green plain that stretched out under the watch of the Sky Weyr’s broom trees.
Scouring the plateau of all life and soil had been R’ney’s solution to the problem of tunnel snakes, superceded by the brilliant plan of uniting Mrreows and dragon eggs to spot and counter any assaults on the unhatched dragonets. Almost as a sop to R’ney, two dragons had clutched on the sandpiles, but most preferred the comfort of the long, sandy beaches.
The upside of gouging the earth down to the rock and letting the torrential rains churn the ground into mud had been runoff that included a large amount of gold dust. The gold dust, in turn, had been used to surreptitiously purchase those items that could not be found or made on the Western Isle by the industrious riders and weyrfolk.
The bare rock, augmented by sands and stout iron, had been the primary home for the baby Meeyus and adult Mrreows that helped guard the defenseless dragon eggs from the depredations of the ever-hungry tunnel snakes. The Mrreows and the Meeyus preferred any of the six-limbed creatures of Pern as their prey, so enlisting them to protect the dragons had its drawbacks—particularly as the Mrreows grew older and less controllable by either human or dragon.
The solution had been to retire the intractable beasts to one of the many smaller islands that dotted the oceans surrounding the great Eastern and Western Isles of Pern. Xhinna’s own Scruff had been one of the first to be so placed, and a pang of sorrow went through her even as she realized it was prompted by the sight and smell of the cages and the noise of the latest litter of little Meeyus.
Jirana and the other Green-queens—as the green queen riders had come to be known—were gathered around, chatting among themselves and instructing a group of younger helpers in the care and feeding of the cute but noisy beasts. Xhinna made a note to speak with Jirana about this—the beasts wouldn’t be needed for guard duty once the last of the clutches had Hatched, and it would be an unkindness to break the hearts of yet another generation of youngsters who would have to leave the Mrreows behind when they finally abandoned the Western Isle.
T’mar? Xhinna wondered. What did he want? And what, she thought guiltily, did I do wrong?
He says to say that you did nothing wrong, Tazith said just then, as if the Southriver Weyrleader had been touching her mind just as easily as her blue dragon could.
To comfortably house and support all the dragons and riders, it had been decided in the first month after the arrival of Fiona and the other 126 dragons to spread out throughout the Western Isle. In addition to Sky Weyr—the name had stuck, despite all of Xhinna’s protests—they created five additional Weyrs: Midriver, Southriver, Southern, Western, and Northern.
Fiona’s desire to spend time with her children and K’dan had grown from inclination into permanence. While T’mar had taken the lead in everything, he was too good a leader not to involve everyone, and so it was mutually decided that H’nez and C’tov, as the next two most experienced wingleaders, would be the temporary Weyrleaders of the Northern and Southern Weyrs. X’lerin, ever tactful, offered to relinquish his leadership at Sky Weyr to K’dan and, as a consequence, was assigned to start Midriver Weyr—an assignment made permanent when his Kivith flew Indeera’s queen Morurth when she rose. There was no established Weyrleader at the Western Weyr, which was ably run by the Weyrwoman, Garra, with T’mar aiding as needed in the leadership that W’vin and his brown Jorth provided to the adult riders.
Xhinna’s wing was not, to her surprise, disbanded. In fact, both the queen and bronze weyrling riders insisted on staying with her at Sky Weyr in spite of the lure of better positions elsewhere. But at Xhinna’s insistence and in defiance of Fiona—who had been delighted with the notion of a blue wingleader—the young bronze riders themselves had rotated through the leadership of the fledgling wing, able to lean on the assistance of both Xhinna and R’ney as wingseconds.
The queens and their riders, naturally, had become the business of Fiona as Weyrwoman, but with Taria’s connivance, Xhinna had found herself compelled to take on much of that, as well, as Fiona had, in a very unconvincing tone, apologized for being too busy with her other duties.