Let the charts, with the waves and times of the Thread attacks clearly visible, reassure the Lords.
THE VISITORS WERE not long in assembling. Nor were they all successful in hiding their apprehension and the shock they had received now that Threads had again spun down from the Red Star to menace all life on Pern. This was going to be a difficult session, F’lar decided grimly. He had a fleeting wish, which he quickly suppressed, that he had gone with F’nor and Lessa to the southern continent. Instead, he bent with apparent industry to the charts before him.
Soon there were but two more to come, Meron of Nabol (whom he would have liked not to include for the man was a troublemaker) and Lytol of Ruatha. He had sent for Lytol last because he did not wish Lessa to encounter the man. She was still overly, and, to his mind, foolishly, sensitive over resigning her claim to Ruatha Hold for Lady Gemma’s posthumous son. Lytol as Warder of Ruatha had a place in this conference. The man was also an ex-dragonman, and his return to the Weyr was painful enough without Lessa compounding it with her resentment. Lytol had turned to the Weaver’s craft after his dragon’s death and his compulsory exile from the Weyr. He was, with the exception of young Larad of Telgar, the Weyr’s most valuable ally.
S’lel came in with Meron a step behind him. The Holder was furious at this summons; it showed in his walk, in his eyes, in his haughty bearing. But he was also as inquisitive as he was devious. He nodded only to Larad among the Lords and took the seat left vacant for him by Larad’s side. Meron’s manner made it obvious that that place was too close to F’lar by half a room.
The Weyrleader acknowledged S’lel’s salute and indicated the bronze rider should be seated. F’lar had given thought to the seating arrangements in the Council Room, carefully interspersing brown and bronze dragonriders with Holders and Craftsmen. There was now barely room to move in the generously proportioned cavern, but there was also no room in which to draw daggers if tempers got hot.
A hush fell on the gathering and F’lar looked up to see that the stocky, glowering ex-dragonman from Ruatha had stopped at the threshold of the Council. He slowly brought his hand up in a respectful salute to the Weyrleader. As F’lar returned the salute, he noticed that the tic in Lytol’s left cheek jumped almost continuously.
Lytol’s eyes, dark with pain and inner unquiet, ranged the room. He nodded to the members of his former wing, to Larad and Zurg, head of his own Weaver’s Craft. Stiff-legged he walked to the remaining seat, murmuring a greeting to T’sum on his left.
F’LAR ROSE.
“I appreciate your coming, good Lords and Craftmasters. The Threads spin once again. The first attack has been met and seared from the sky. Lord Vincet,” and the worried Holder of Nerat looked up in alarm, “we have dispatched a patrol to the rainforest to do a low-flight sweep to make certain there are no burrows.”
Vincet swallowed nervously, his face paling at the thought of what Threads could do to his fertile, lush holdings.
“We shall need your best junglemen to help…”
“Help…but you said…the Threads were seared in the sky?”
“There is no point in taking the slightest chance,” F’lar replied, implying the patrol was only a precaution instead of the necessity he knew it would be.
Vincet gulped, glancing anxiously around the room for sympathy—and found none. Everyone would soon be in his position.
“There is a patrol due at Keroon and at Igen,” and F’lar looked first at Lord Corman, then Lord Banger, who gravely nodded. “Let me say, by way of reassurance, that there will be no further attacks for three days and four hours.” F’lar tapped the appropriate chart. “The Threads will begin approximately here on Telgar, drift westward through the southernmost portion of Crom, which is mountainous, and on, through Ruatha and the southern end of Nabol.”
“How can you be so certain of that?”
F’lar recognized the contemptuous voice of Meron of Nabol.
“The Threads do not fall like a child’s tumble-sticks, Lord Meron,” F’lar replied. “They fall in a definitely predictable pattern; the attacks last exactly six hours. The intervals between attacks will gradually shorten over the next few Turns as the Red Star draws closer. Then, for about forty full Turns, as the Red Star swings past and around us, the attacks occur every fourteen hours, marching across our world in a timetable fashion.”
“So you say,” Meron sneered and there was a low mumble of support.
“So the Teaching Ballads say,” Larad put in firmly.
Meron glared at Telgar’s Lord and went on, “I recall another of your predictions about how the Threads were supposed to begin falling right after Solstice.”
“Which they did,” F’lar interrupted him. “As black dust in the Northern Holds. For the reprieve we’ve had, we can thank our lucky stars that we have had an unusually hard and long Cold Turn.”
“Dust?” demanded Nessel of Crom. “That dust was Threads?” The man was one of Fax’s blood connections and under Meron’s influence: an older man who had learned lessons from his conquering relative’s bloody ways and had not the wit to improve on or alter the original. “My Hold is still blowing with them. They’re dangerous?”
F’lar shook his head emphatically. “How long has the black dust been blowing in your Hold? Weeks? Done any harm yet?”
Nessel frowned.
“I’m interested in your charts, Weyrleader,” Larad of Telgar said smoothly. “Will they give us an accurate idea of how often we may expect Threads to fall in our own Holds?”
“Yes. You may also anticipate that the dragonmen will arrive shortly before the invasion is due,” F’lar went on. “However, additional measures of your own are necessary and it is for this that I called the Council.”
“Wait a minute,” Corman of Keroon growled. “I want a copy of those fancy charts of yours for my own. I want to know what those bands and wavy lines really mean. I want…”
“Naturally you’ll have a timetable of your own. I mean to impose on Masterharper Robinton,” and F’lar nodded respectfully towards that Craftmaster, “to oversee the copying and make sure everyone understands the timing involved.”
Robinton, a tall, gaunt man with a lined, saturnine face, bowed deeply. A slight smile curved his wide lips at the now hopeful glances favored him by the Hold Lords. His craft, like that of the dragonman, had been much mocked and this new respect amused him. He was a man with a keen eye for the ridiculous, and an active imagination. The circumstances in which doubting Pern found itself were too ironic not to appeal to his innate sense of justice. He now contented himself with a deep bow and a mild phrase.
“Truly all shall pay heed to the master.” His voice was deep, his words enunciated with no provincial slurring.
F’lar, about to speak, looked sharply at Robinton as he caught the double barb of that single line. Larad, too, looked around at the Masterharper, clearing his throat hastily.
“We shall have our charts,” Larad said, forestalling Meron, who had opened his mouth to speak, “we shall have the Dragonmen when the Threads spin. What are these additional measures? And why are they necessary?”
All eyes were on F’lar again.
“We have one Weyr where six once flew.”
“But word is that Ramoth has hatched forty more,” someone in the back of the room declared. “And why did you Search out still more of our young men?”
“Forty as yet unmatured dragons,” F’lar said aloud, privately hoping that this southern venture would still work out. There was real fear in that man’s voice. “They grow well and quickly. Just at present, while the Threads do not strike with great frequency as the Red Star begins its Pass, our Weyr is sufficient…if we have your cooperation on the ground. Tradition is that,” and he nodded tactfully toward Robinton, the dispenser of Traditional usage, “you Holders are responsible for only your dwellings which, of course, are adequately protected by fire pits and raw stone. However, it is spring and our heights have been allowed to grow wild with vegetation. Arable land is blossoming with crops. This presents a vast acreage vulnerable to the Threads which one Weyr, at this time, is not able to patrol without severely draining the vitality of our dragons and riders.”