“My fire-lizards,” Lorana continued, unable to control herself, “I think they got sick. And-” She stopped, eyes going wide with astonished fear. “J’trel and Talith-they went between forever.” She gulped down her tears. “I was so sure that it was me. I was going to leave, but then I Impressed Arith. I couldn’t leave her-I didn’t know what to do.”
“You’re right,” Salina said, “you couldn’t leave her. And as your Weyrwoman, once you’d Impressed, I would never consider asking you to leave the Weyr. We will solve this problem together.”
“Of all the stupid, ill-considered, blockheaded, unthinking-”
“Don’t stop,” K’tan told Kindan as the harper poured out a litany of self-contempt. “You forgot fardling.”
“-fardling, moronic, imbecilic-” Kindan paused, groping for more words.
K’tan shook his head sadly. “A harper at a loss for words when they’re so desperately needed.”
“Why did you do it?” M’tal asked, joining the other two.
Kindan let out a deep sigh, shaking his head ruefully. “It just came to me,” he said. “Stupid, stupid, stupid!” He punctuated each word by banging his head with his hand.
“How’s Lorana?” K’tan asked M’tal. “I noticed you sent Salina after her.”
“I have no way of knowing,” M’tal answered with a grimace.
“You could ask Arith,” Kindan suggested hopefully.
“I don’t think so,” M’tal answered frostily. Kindan grimaced and dropped his head.
“I suppose I could talk to Lorana,” he said.
“No.” M’tal’s voice was firm.
“You’ve caused enough trouble,” K’tan agreed.
“I don’t know how I’ll make up for it,” Kindan said, giving M’tal a look that begged for advice.
“I don’t know if you’ll be able,” M’tal told him grimly. “But there is one thing that would be a good start.” At Kindan’s hopeful look, he continued, “Salina says that she thinks the Oldtimer Rooms are hidden behind a rock fall near the Hatching Grounds.”
“You mean?…” K’tan started, his eyes taking on a faraway look.
M’tal nodded. “That rockslide back by the way we used to come to look at the eggs back when we were candidates.”
“It seemed dangerous, even when I was young,” K’tan said. “I never went too close.”
Kindan braced to the challenge. “Well, let’s grab some glows and have a look, shall we?”
“Tonight?” K’tan asked, taken aback.
“What better time?” Kindan replied. “While Tullea’s occupied.”
“Should we wait for Salina?” K’tan asked.
M’tal shook his head. “No, I think we might be in for a very long wait.”
Kindan groaned.
In the end, M’tal and K’tan talked him out of acting immediately, reasoning that the job was properly one for miners, and that Kindan would best be employed in engaging some. So with B’nik’s blessing, M’tal, K’tan, and Kindan left at first light the next morning.
It took only moments after their arrival at Mine Natalon for Dalor to agree to come to Benden with miners. K’tan and Kindan returned to Benden to make preparations while M’tal arranged transport. Kindan had just finished alerting Mikkala that there would be extra mouths to feed when he heard a shout.
“Kindan! Is it you?” the red-haired woman cried joyfully as she crossed the Bowl along with the other arrivals. “It’s been ages!”
Kindan gave the woman a startled look and then recognition dawned: It was Renna. Memories of his youth at Camp Natalon came back to him. This woman was the youngster Kindan had set to keeping the watch when he’d been put in charge of his watch-wher, Kisk, over ten Turns ago. Renna had grown taller and broader, but she still bore the easygoing intelligence he had seen so long ago.
Renna ran up to him and Kindan closed the remaining distance to be met by a tight hug and a peck on the cheek, both of which he returned fully.
“You’re looking great,” Renna said, pushing him away to look him up and down. “Life at the Weyr agrees with you?”
Kindan nodded, then broke into a grin. “I remember ages back when Nuella said, ‘I know who he’s sweet on.’ ”
Renna blushed and laughed as Dalor, Head Miner at Mine Natalon, clumped up beside them. He shook Kindan’s hand, then clapped him firmly on the back.
“Thank you for coming,” Kindan told Dalor.
“For a chance to see a Weyr close up, it’s I who should be thanking you,” Dalor responded with a snort. He took in the sight of the great Bowl with a whistle. “Not to mention a chance to do some clean mining.” Hastily, he added, “Not that coal hasn’t been good to us, nor that we don’t need it. But it-”
“-gets everywhere!” Renna joined him in chorus. She turned to him and kissed his cheek.
“But you clean up nice, love,” she said. Dalor blushed and looked down at the ground, smiling.
Three other miners drew up beside him, waiting for orders.
“I’ll show you the spot,” Kindan said, leading the way toward the Hatching Grounds.
As he had planned, Kindan gave them a quick tour of the Grounds and a chance to recover from the impressive view before leading them down the corridor toward the cave-in. They were followed by a group of weyrfolk, mostly young boys, who were just as interested in the miners as the miners were in them. Kindan sent some of the youngsters back to the Bowl to haul down the miners’ gear.
“You’re right when you say this is Oldtimer work,” Dalor commented, running his hands appreciatively along the smooth walls. He took a closer look at the rock. “It looks like they melted their way through.”
“That’s what I thought,” Kindan agreed.
“Ah, but they weren’t so smart, were they?” Dalor went on, pausing to glance carefully at a part of the smooth wall.
Kindan looked at him questioningly.
“Look here,” Dalor said, pointing. “You can see where the rock faces are formed. They must have hoped that the two layers would never slip over each other, or they must not have realized what they were dealing with.”
“Slip?” M’tal, who had been following along, asked.
“Aye, my lord,” Dalor said with a nod. “There are two different layers here, see?” He pointed to the spot where the different colors were close to each other. “You can tell by the color. The layers can slip over each other, which happens when there’s an earth shake.”
M’tal examined the spot with renewed interest.
“Can you get through to the other side?” Kindan asked.
“Well, we don’t know how far it is, do we?” Dalor replied.
“It can’t be too far,” M’tal said. “This section can only go so far before it comes out the far side of the Bowl.”
“There’s that,” Dalor agreed, nodding. “That’d be about five or six meters, right?”
M’tal frowned in thought. “About,” he said. “Maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less.”
“Might not take so long, Dalor,” another miner said. “If the rock gave at the layers, there’d only be a meter or two falling from the roof.”
“I hadn’t thought of that, Regellan,” Dalor said. In an aside to Kindan, he added, “It turns out our Regellan here is quite the thinker. I brought him along in part to see what he would learn from looking over the Weyr.”
“He’s welcome to look all he wants,” Kindan told him. He remembered Regellan as one of the new apprentices assigned to Mine Natalon just before he’d left for the Harper Hall.