"He must be. I haven't seen K'lon in days."
"Good fellow, K'lon; and I don't say that about just any blue rider."
Then they were beside Arith and, one-armed or not, B'lerion nearly lifted her over the blue dragon.
Orlith was awake on Moreta's return to Fort Weyr because Sh'gall had roused her while looking for Moreta. He was pacing up and down in front of the tier and whirled belligerently at her when she entered.
"M'tani sent a green weyrling," he cried, fuming, "hardly more than a babe, to give our watchrider the most insulting message I have ever received. He has repudiated any agreement made at the Butte, a meeting at which I was not present." Sh'gall shook his fist first at Moreta and then in the vague direction of the Butte. "And at which arbitrary decisions were made, which I cannot condone, though I've been forced to comply with them! M'tani has repudiated any arrangement, agreement, accord, understanding, undertaking. He is not to be bothered-bothered, he says-not to be bothered by problems of any other Weyr. If we are so poor that we have to beg and Search from other Weyrs, then we do not deserve to have a clutch at all." Sh'gall ended up swinging his arms about like a drum apprentice.
Moreta had never seen him so furious. She listened to what he had to say but offered no response, hoping he would vent his rage and leave. Having repeated himself at length on his displeasure with her shameless venture for the Weyr that had resulted in such an insufferable message from M'tani, he ranted on through his usual grievances, about his illness, about the puny size of the clutch. Finally Moreta could bear no more.
"There is a queen egg, Sh'gall. There have to be enough candidates to give the little queen some choice. I applied to Telgar Weyr as I did to Benden, Igen, Ista, and the High Reaches. No one else thought my appearance or my request importunate. Now leave the Ground. You've upset Orlith sufficiently for one day."
Orlith was visibly upset as Moreta ran across the hot sands to her, but not, Moreta knew very well, by Sh'gall. By Telgar Weyr. She paced in front of her eggs, her eyes wheeling from red to yellow and orange as she recited to her rider a list of the damages she would inflict on bronze Hogarth in such detail that Moreta was torn between laughter and horror. A mating dragon could be savage with the drive of that purpose, but a clutching dragon was usually passive.
Moreta scratched Orlith's eye ridges and head knob to soothe her, urging the dragon to have a care for her eggs and come lie down again and let the hot sands lull her.
She has some very good ideas, came the unmistakable voice of Holth. Leri says that Raylinth's rider understands all that is necessary. She says that in the interests of tranquility, you are to stay in the Ground, eat and sleep well.
Do you miss anything, Holth-Leri?
No. If Orlith does not finish Hogarth appropriately, I will do so.
Leri says-and the voice was now only Orlith's, her tone sullen– that we must not stop Holth. Why not? If you had ridden me, you would not have been insulted.
"Actually, I'd rather have C'ver's skin for a floor rug," Moreta said in a considered tone. "He's hairy enough."
The notion of flaying a rider was originally Leri's, but thinking about the process restored Moreta and indirectly placated Orlith. Perhaps she should go for Sh'gall's hide, too, except that she was fond of Kadith and wouldn't cause him anxiety.
Kamiana comes, Orlith said, her tone calmer, her eyes more green than yellow.
Moreta looked up and saw the Weyrwoman beckoning urgently for Moreta to join her on the tier.
"Leri told me to wait until you'd both had a chance to cool down!" Kamiana said, rolling her eyes and grinning sympathetically at Moreta. "Sh'gall will drone on when he's offended, won't he? You'd think the plague had been invented to annoy him alone. And that M'tani? We're all tired of Thread but we still do what is expected. He may find himself flying by his lonesome, and I know his Weyr's at half strength. Can we not replace him? Or must we wait until Telgar's Dalgeth rises to replace him as Leader? However, we're flying for Capiam tomorrow, Lidora, Haura, and myself. I wish you could persuade Leri not to, but she does know the hole-in the-hill places better than anyone else in the Weyr. She's talked S'peren into taking a few runs and K'lon, though he's only a blue." Kamiana frowned dubiously over that choice. "I think P'nine would have been wiser but he got scored."
"K'lon's already stumbled onto timing; besides, he's done a lot of conveying lately, you know."
"I didn't know"-Kamiana rolled her eyes expressively again– "just how much was going on around here, Moreta, and your queen on the Hatching Ground, pushing sand about to warm her eggs!"
In the main Hall of Ruatha Hold, which had so recently been a hospital, forty cartwheels had been rigged as centrifuges. A hundred or more ornamental bottles had also served their purpose and were now stacked against the stair wall where once the banquet table of Ruathan Lords had graced the raised end of the long Hall. The frenzied activity of the past three days had, in the late hours of this night, abated to weary preparations for the morning's final effort. It was no comfort to the fatigued that similar activity had wearied anxious men and women in Keroon Beasthall and Benden Hold.
In the corner nearest the kitchen entrance, a trestle table had been serving as dining table at appropriate hours and a worktable at all other times. The remnants of an evening meal were at the end nearest the wall, where maps and lists had been tacked to the hangings, On its long benches sat the eight people whom Alessan called his Loyal Crew, relaxing with a cup of wine from Alessan's skin of Benden white.
"I wasn't so taken with that Master Balfor, Lord Alessan," Dag was saying, his eyes on the wine in his cup.
"He's not confirmed in the honor," Alessan said. He was too weary to take part in an argument and well aware that Fergal was listening with avid ears to store bits and pieces of irrelevant information in his cunning young mind.
"I'd worry who else might have the rank, for Master Balfor certainly hasn't the experience."
"He has done all that Master Capiam asked," Tuero said with an eye on Desdra, who apparently was not listening.
"Ah, it's sad to realize how many good men and women have died." Dag lifted his cup in a silent toast. "And sadder to think of the fine bloodlines just wiped out. When I think of the races Squealer will walk away with and no competition to stretch him in a challenge. "
Alessan poured a bit more wine in his cup, Fergal's eyes on the business. He'd been offered a portion but disdained it with an insolence that Alessan excused only because the lad had worked so diligently at any task assigned him. But then, the work had been to save runners, and the boy had obviously inherited his grandfather's total commitment to the breed.
"You say Runel died?" Dag continued, finding it hard to comprehend how few of his old cronies remained. "Did all his bloodline go?"
"The oldest son and his family are safe in the hold."
"Ah, well, he's the right one for it. I'll just have a look at that brown mare. She could foal tonight. Come along, Fergal." Dag swung his splinted leg off the bench and took up the crutches Tuero had contrived for him. For just a moment, Fergal looked rebellious.
"I'll come with you if I may," Rill said, rising and unobtrusively assisting Dag. "A birth is a happy moment!"
Fergal was on his feet in an instant, extremely possessive of Dag and unwilling to share the man's attention with anyone, not even with Nerilka, for whom he had taken a curious liking.
Tuero watched the curious trio until they had left the hall. "I know I've seen that woman before."
"I have, too," Desdra said, "or maybe her kinfolk. Faces have got blurred. Overdose!" She was leaning back against the wall behind her, hands limp in her lap, a few wisps of dark hair escaping from the tight braids. "When this is over tomorrow, I'm going to sleep and sleep and sleep. Anyone, anyone whosoever attempts to rouse me, shall be ... shall be ... I'm too tired to think of something suitably vile."