Charanth's eyes whirled, the yellow of anxiety coloring the blue.

His tone was remorseful. I will not fail you again.

If they had been in real danger, I would have warned them off, Meranath said, entering the conversation.

I didn't ask you! K'vin was so irate he didn't really care if he offended Meranath, or her rider. But he was not going to lose riders from foolish and vainglorious actions. There were fifty years of Thread fighting ahead of them, and he was not going to lose partners or risk their injuries due to some c.o.c.kamamie notion of what comprises courageous actions.

If you think that I would jeopardize a single rider...

K'vin took the stairs up to the queen's weyr three at a time, trying to work out his rage before he had to confront Zulaya and explain why he thought he could speak to her queen in such a peremptory fashion.

I should be informed of ANY unfit rider or dragon, at any time, anywhere. Meranath and you should know that or, by the first egg, why are you senior queen?

"Because I am her rider!" Zulaya came storming out on to the weyr ledge, her eyes sparkling with indignation.

"How dare you address my queen?"

"How dare she withhold information from ME?" Zulaya stared at him, surprised, for K'vin had never reprimanded either her or Meranath, though she had to admit privately that he could have legitimately done so on several occasions she would be embarra.s.sed to admit.

"Did you know about P'tero's condition?" he demanded, and she backed into the weyr, away from him. He was rather magnificently furious, eyes blazing, face stern, the epitome of indignation.

"Tisha remarked that Maranis wasn't pleased with him a.s.suming duty. The scar tissue is thin."

"And you said nothing to me?"

"He's only a blue rider."

"EVERY ONE OF MY RIDERS IS IMPORTANT TO ME!" K'vin roared, clenching his fists at his sides because they wanted to grab something to release the pent-up fury in him.

"Threadfall is two days away. I need to have a Weyr in full readiness. I need to be sure of everyone I ask to face Thread in two days' time. I don't need secrets or evasions or..."

"K'vin," Zulaya began, reaching out a hand to him, "Kev, it's all right. The Weyr is ready perhaps tuned a little too tight, but that's all to the good."

"ALL TO THE GOOD?" and K'vin batted her hand away, "when we have unfit riders taking positions they couldn't possibly manage in their condition?" He began pacing now and Zulaya watched him, smiling with relief and pride. He was going to be a splendid Weyrleader, much better than B'ner would have been.

He halted just short of where she stood - his eyes, brilliant with his anger and frustration, fixed on her face.

"What on earth can you find to grin about right now?" he demanded - suspiciously, for there was a quality in her smile that he'd never seen before.

"That you're in full control," she said, leaving her smile in place.

"Oh, I am, am I?" Then, as she had always hoped he would, he took her in his arms and began kissing her with the full authority of his masculinity and his position as her Weyrleader, without a trace of hesitation or deference. Just what she had always hoped she'd provoke him to do.

K'vin was still very much in complete control even very early the next morning, before dawn in fact, when Meranath told them that B'nurrin and Shanna were waiting for them.

"Waiting for what?" K'vin asked, pulling himself reluctantly away from Zulaya to reach for his pants.

It is time to go, Charanth added.

"Go where?" asked K'vin in a querulous tone of voice.

"Go where?" Zulaya echoed sleepily.

South, they say, Meranath and Charanth echoed.

Suddenly K'vin remembered. Today was the day they would go to see Thread. He said that very, very quietly in the back of his mind where Charanth might not hear it. Both dragons had been asleep when B'nurrin had made his visit.

Which was just as well, or the whole Weyr might have been privy to the notion of a pre-viewing of Thread.

"B'nurrin wants us to join him," K'vin said, giving Zulaya a cautionary look.

She frowned for a moment, then her face cleared abruptly as she said, "Oh." With a conspiratorial grin, she was out of the bed, trailing the sheet on her way to her riding gear.

When they pa.s.sed each other once in the course of dressing, she pulled his head down to her mouth. "I could bring my flame-thrower."

"Might as well paint your destination on your forehead," he murmured back. "We're only going to watch."

"Yes, watch." Then she asked more loudly, "Where do we meet B'nurrin, Meranath?"

"We know that, too, remember?" K'vin said, grabbing Zulaya and giving her arm a little shake. Then he mouthed "Landing."

"Yes, how could I forget?"

If the dragon and rider on watch on the Rim wondered why the two Weyrleaders were slipping away long before dawn, neither asked and the rider gave a cheery swing of his arm as they pa.s.sed over him.

Ianath says to count to three and then go, Charanth told his rider, still mystified.

Landing is where we're going, K'vin replied, glancing across the s.p.a.ce between his dragon and Meranath. Zulaya showed him a thumb's-up signal to signify she had had the same message. Visualizing the arid sweep of desolate volcanic ash from Mount Garben down to Monaco Bay, K'vin nodded his head three times.

GO!.

Abruptly Charanth rumbled deep in his belly while his mind said in surprised shock OH! K'vin felt him shift. Consequently he was perhaps not as surprised as he might have been to realize that the airs.p.a.ce around them, and Meranath and Zulaya, was well occupied. With that extra sense dragons had, the two had averted a collision. In fact, as K'vin swiveled about to check, the only two Weyrleaders he didn't see were S'nan and Sarrai, although they might well have been among those who winked out of sight between so as not to be recognized.

K'vin caught flashes of blue, brown and even one or two green hides in the southern sun before they disappeared. Nor was this meeting composed now only of Weyrleaders and dragons; some thirty or so bronzes and browns were present.

The sight was too much for K'vin's sense of the ridiculous and it was a good thing that he was clipped into his safety harness. He was seized with such a laughing fit that he reeled back and forth against Charanth's neck ridges.

Had every rider on Pern been possessed of the compulsion to come here this morning? Of course, the particular site of Landing was well known to all riders. But for so many to decide independently to come here... Probably every one certain he or she'd be the only ones daring enough!

Nor was K'vin the only one laughing hard. Right now he was more in danger of wetting his breeches from mirth - not fright at seeing Thread for the first time. Which reminded him why he was here. Again that realization became universal.

Laughter faded as every dragon and rider irresistibly turned north-eastward.

It was there, too, the much-described silvery-grey haze on the upper levels of the blue sky. Not a dragon wing moved, not a rider recoiled as the silver stuff began to drop on to the sea. THREAD! And so aptly called. THREAD!

The word seemed to rumble from dragon to dragon and K'vin had to grab hold of the neck ridge as Charanth started to lurch towards what he had known all his life as his adversary.

I have no firestone! How can I flame it? What is wrong?

Why have you brought me here where there is Thread and I have no fire to char it!

It's all right, Charanth. We're here to watch. To see.

But it is Thread! I must chew to flame. Why may I not flame when there is THREAD!

Glancing wildly around him, K'vin realized that he was by no means the only rider having the same difficulty with a frustratedly zealous dragon, rapidly trying to close the gap to Threadfall.

I've seen enough, Charanth. Take us back to Telgar.

But THREAD? And the bronze dragon's tone was piteous, confused and horrified.

We leave. Now!

Leave? But we have not met Thread.

Not here or now or in this place, Charanth.

It took K'vin every bit of will-power and moral strength, and Charanth's faith in him, to overcome his bronze's impa.s.sioned protest.

Then, all of a sudden, Charanth stopped flying towards Thread.

Oh, all right! The tone was that of a petulant child forced by a senior authority to follow orders totally against the grain.

What?

The queens say we must go to the Red b.u.t.te.

Then let us go there. K'vin did not question the order, being far too glad that one was given which the dragon would obey.

The b.u.t.te was a training landmark in lower Keroon, a laccolithic dome so difficult to mistake that it figured in all weyrling training programs. And there the would-be observers managed to get their dragons to land. Even the queens eyes were revolving at a stiff red-orange pace, but some of the bronzes were so distraught with anger that their eyes pulsed wickedly, revolving at incredible speed.

K'vin was almost relieved to swing down from Charanth's neck. But he, and the other Weyrleaders, all kept one hand on their dragons, leg, shoulder or muzzle: some contact was maintained. In a wide outer circle were the brown and bronze riders who had also been rescued": they remained mounted, soothing their dragons, allowing their leaders the center for discussion.

It was M'shall who spoke first. "Well, that was one good idea gone awry," he said in a droll tone. "Great minds, all of us!"

"Except for forgetting one simple rule," Irene added, pulling off her flying cap. Her face was still pale from the fright she must have had.

K'vin glanced at Zulaya who was wiping sweat from her face, so he knew none of the queen riders had had an easy time to get their queens to insist on the disengagement.

"Dragons know what they're supposed to do when Thread falls," M'shall said, nodding. And then he started to laugh.

K'vin grinned and, when he heard G'don's ba.s.s chuckle, saw no reason to hold his laughter in any longer. B'nurrin was howling so that he had to clutch at K'vin to keep his balance. Even D'miel looked properly abashed, and Laura's giggle was infectious enough to increase the volume. Beyond the inner circle, the rest of the riders caught the joke on themselves and joined in the laugh. It was a good release from the fright that they had all just had.

"Did anyone happen to notice a Fort rider disappearing in guilty retreat?" M'shall asked when the laughter died down.

He'd been checking the ident.i.ty of those on the rim of this informal a.s.sembly.

"They'd be the last to admit coming," said Irene.

"I doubt that, Renee," G'don said. "S'nan runs a strict Weyr, it's true, but I'll wager there're a few renegades among his wing leaders."

"I know there are," Mari agreed, blotting her eyes which were still merry from laughter. "It's just such a hoot that we all..." and she ringed them with a swirl of her hand, "thought to come and have a peek."

"It's not going to inhibit any of the dragons, is it?" Laura asked, turning pale at the sudden thought. "Turning them off like that?"

D'miel wasn't the only Weyrleader to dismiss that notion derisively. "Hardly! It's increased rider-credibility a hundredfold. They now know without doubt that what we've been telling them since they were Hatched is true!"

"Oh, yes, it would, wouldn't it?" she said, relieved.

"I myself would like to thank the queen riders for exerting their powerful influence on our bronzes," G'don said with a formal hand over his heart as he bowed to the five queen riders.

"The advantage of having three very senior queens," said Zulaya, and two very strong-minded young women.

Laura blushed while Shanna stood even straighter.

"All right then," M'shall began, having taken note that most of the male dragons' eyes were resuming normal color and speed. He took a step towards the center of the sandy circle and cupped his hands, turning as he spoke. "All right, then, every one of you. This is a meeting that never happened and isn't to be referred to in any Weyr for any reason. Do you understand me?" The response was loud and clear.

He nodded and stepped back towards Craigath. "We'll meet..." he said now to the other leaders, "where Thread first... officially falls North."

"We've sweep riders out all the time," G'don reminded them.

"And we're all very sure that S'nan has, too," B'nurrin put in, grinning.

"So we'll know when and where to meet again."

"Wait a moment more, G'don," K'vin said. "Why don't we rotate the wings that meet that first Fall, wherever it is?"

A little cheer from the outer circle gave instant approval to that suggestion. "That'll give even more riders a chance for at least a little experience before the individual Weyrs have to meet Thread on their own.

G'don paused at Chakath's side, looking around to check the reaction to that idea. "In hourly intervals?" he asked.

"Make it two hours to allow wings to get properly into the routine," M'shall amended.

"It's not that we're green riders or anything," B'nurrin put in as protest.

"Two hours makes more sense than swapping around every hour." D'miel said thoughtfully.

"I'd agree on two," said G'don. "We'll bring the matter up to S'nan; he deserves that much from us. I'll initiate the idea," and he grinned again, since S'nan would listen to him as the oldest Weyrleader where he would summarily dismiss a younger man. "I'll let you know when we'll meet to make the changes we've already agreed to." Red dust swirled up in a cloud around the b.u.t.te as all the dragons leaped almost simultaneously from the ground.

Threadfall

Bitter cold weather and winds swept down from the icy poles of Pern on the day that S'nan set up a meeting with the other five Weyrleaders to discuss the rotation of wings which G'don had suggested to him. Freezing weather was likely to do Fort Weyr out of its chance to be the first Weyr to meet Thread in this Fall.

That S'nan keenly felt deprived was obvious. Throughout the meeting he paced the floor, pausing to peer out of the slanting corridor to the sleet falling heavily into Fort Bowl.