"Oh? You thought so?" he asked, teasing. Just then, his left leg gave under him. She gave him quick support until he recovered.
"I forgot the cane," he said through clenched teeth. The euphoria of his ride here on Golanth instantly dissipated. He glanced across the sands to the Hold, a long walk for a man with a lame leg. He did notwant to fall on his face in front of Lytol or D'ram. Especially Lytol. How humiliating that would be. He was still incapacitated. His dragon was still injured. He would never again be what he had once been: the carefree self-indulgent bronze Wingleader from Benden Weyr!
"We did sort of leave abruptly," Tai said with an encouraging chuckle as she laid his bare left arm across her shoulders as if walking that way was customary. "Your skin'll be dry by the time we get to the porch."
"Give me that shirt, F'lessan," the old bronze rider said, taking it from the bronze rider's limp hand. "You'll want to be out of those wet pants, too. Come along to the house now. I'll just run ahead and get things ready."
F'lessan made himself match his stride with Tai's. He told himself that walking up the long beach to Cove Hold was really just another step on his way to recovery. After all, he and Golanth had nearly died a bare four sevendays before.
"What's all the fuss? Who just arrived?" Wansor was asking, his eyes wide in his sightless face. "I can't hear what those dolphins are screaming, they're so excited. Fless? Fless, they say? Surely it can't be F'lessan? Didn't you tell me, Lytol, that he and his dragon were badly wounded?"
"Yes, they were wounded, Wansor," Lytol said, coming to stand beside him. "They are here together to see you and discuss the Honshu scope."
They are here together.Lytol's sentence reverberated in F'lessan's mind and he felt tears spring to his eyes-not of pity, but for his new perception of Lytol's victory over the loss of his brown Larth. Lytol had re-created his life, not once, but three times.
Between one careful step and the next, the staggering concept that blossomed in detail in F'lessan's mind made him reel against Tai, who instantly supported him.
As she always had, as she always would! She and Zaranth!
You are all right?Golanth asked apprehensively, halting the water play in which he, Zaranth, and Tiroth indulged while dolphins leaped and played around them.
Quite right. Quite all right!F'lessan reassured his dragon.
Soon Zaranth would be practiced enough to be the only dragon whom Golanth would need for a lift to safe entry between.Tai and Zaranth were essential parts of the new future he had just stunningly envisioned for them-and for as many other dragons and riders who wished a part of such a bright, new adventure.
With such inner elation, F'lessan found it doubly hard to walk sedately when once he would have broken into a run. The ache in his left leg seemed irrelevant, even if he couldn't speed up their pace to reach Cove Hold.
"We're nearly there," Tai said, sensing the surge of excitement in her partner's body.
As he took hold of the stair post, F'lessan paused and grinned, almost reverently, up at Lytol. He saw surprise in Lytol's expression, then D'ram moved past Lytol, gesturing for F'lessan to hurry up the stairs.
"Come, lad, you're not so completely recovered that you can run around in wet clothes and not catch a chill. This way." D'ram beckoned for F'lessan to follow him.
When they finally settled at the table on the porch where the three dragonriders could keep an eye on their water-sporting dragons, F'lessan was wearing clothes supplied by Erragon while his dried. They'd had fresh klah and fruit. Boxed and ready for transport were the remote units that would control the Honshu scope from the main level. A technician, highly recommended by Master Benelek, would install these and the circuitry necessary to operate the opening and closing of the observatory roof.
"What I want to know, F'lessan, Tai," Master Wansor asked, almost testy with impatience, "is what's happened to the feline problem?"
That was perhaps the last question the two dragonriders expected, and they stared at each other. Lytol and D'ram flinched at their blind friend's tactlessness.
"Yes, well, Master Wansor," Tai began, recovering more quickly than F'lessan. "None have been seen around Honshu lately. The holders protect their fields with dragon dung and firestone mash, so we've spread that mixture on our perimeter. Seems to do the job."
"I understand," Lytol added, shifting in his chair after Wansor's blunder, "that Master Ballora sent teams to investigate the habits and lairs of these creatures on Southern." He paused. "She's of the opinion that they were originally developed to hunt the large variety of tunnel snakes that preyed on herdbeasts in the early colonial days. The experiment went wrong, the creatures escaped, and, with no predators to inhibit their numbers, they proliferated unchallenged after the Ancients went north. It would be an impossible, as well as a very dangerous, task to eradicate them. Master Oldive suggests that it should be possible to decrease their numbers by using bait tainted with an infertility substance, but first the species must be examined. Master Ballora is not the only Council member who is adamant that we may not do away with any species that inhabits this planet."
"Except Thread," F'lessan murmured, his sense of mischief suddenly dominant.
Lytol gave him a long, almost amused look. "That organism is not indigenous."
"No more than the felines," D'ram put in, "since they were developed by the Ancients." He shuddered.
"I shouldn't like to think that there were any lurking near," Wansor added, his face furrowed.
"Not with Tiroth on duty," D'ram said stoutly, patting Wansor on the hand.
Erragon cleared his throat, taking charge of conversation. "Quite true. Quite true. Now I want to thank you, F'lessan and Tai, for the work you've already completed, analyzing the images I sent. What I'd like to know is-" and the Star Master hesitated.
"If we'd be willing to undertake regular reviews of the southern starscape," F'lessan finished. "I think from T'gellan's presence here today," he said, glancing at Tai, "that Tai must gradually return to her duties with Monaco Weyr. With their agility, speed, and control, greens are the most useful dragon in any Fall."
Lytol bowed his scarred face in acknowledgment of F'lessan's tacit allusion to the fact that he would never again fly a fighting wing.
"Perhaps you should consider spending the Nine Fall here at Cove Hold with us, bronze rider," Lytol said.
"I shall hope to be able to land more gracefully by then," F'lessan replied with a self-deprecating grin.
"Practice, I believe," Lytol murmured, his eyes alive with understanding and compassion, "always improves performance."
"I will, however," and F'lessan paused, "need to pursue another future for myself and my dragon."
"Well, you've already proved that you can be useful as a star-watcher," Master Wansor blurted out. "You don't need a dragon for that." His plump hand covered his mouth as he realized what he had said. "I mean, you still haveGolanth, even if he…"
"Even if he is battered," F'lessan finished for him. "So, I entreat you, Master Wansor, Master Erragon, to allow me to study astronomy so that Honshu can become fully operational as the second Pern observatory."
"Oh, dear, there never has been a dragonrider astronomer," Wansor said, and then beamed in F'lessan's direction. "But then there wasn't even a StarSmith until very recently."
"Tai's already trained to near journeywoman status," F'lessan said, laying his hand on hers. "Isn't she, Erragon?"
"She is, indeed," Erragon agreed with hearty approval.
"We work well as a team," F'lessan hurried on, "and she'll need a profession, too, when Threadfall stops."