Dragonseye (34 page)

Today the queens’ wing would join the wingleaders at Bitra Hold, though traditionally they stayed aloft to assist groundcrews.

Zulaya sought K’vin as soon as she was on the ground and embraced him, seeking his mouth to kiss him with enthusiasm.

“We did it. We did it.”

“This time,” K’vin said, hugging her tightly. He could almost have thanked P’tero for getting him so angry. It had done the world of good for his relations with Zulaya. The way she looked at him, the way she had to touch him . . . well, they were truly weyrmates now.

M’shall was moving among the riders, slapping one on the shoulder, thanking each Weyrleader for participating in this almost scatheless Fall, a wide smile plastered on his face.

“I’d say that this was a normal Fall,” S’nan was saying portentously.

“How can we possibly tell?” G’don said.

“The records, man, the records,” S’nan said, glaring. “It’s exactly as Sean described Fall number 325, in his records of Fifty-eight A.L. Exactly.”

“Oh, Fall number 325?” B’nurrin asked, his eyes dancing. “Myself, I felt it was more like number 499 in Sixty A.L.”

“B’nurrin?” and M’shall’s raised eyebrows suggested that the irrepressible young Igen Weyrleader should stop baiting S’nan.

“We got off much too easily,” D’miel of Ista said, shaking his head. “I mean, we were all on a high. I for one was expecting far worse . . .”

“Isn’t it nice to be disappointed?” K’vin said, but he agreed with D’miel. Everything had gone too well.

“Nonsense,” G’don said. “We were all flying our best riders. We’ve been keyed up for weeks and nervous. And I don’t mind admitting I was,” he added, glancing around him, but he winked at K’vin and B’nurrin. Others nodded agreement. “So we were very cautious. It’s when we’re so accustomed to the menace that we’re liable to be careless, to take unnecessary risks, to stop watching out of the backs of our heads.”

A murmur of agreement and nods greeted that observation.

“We must never relax our guard during Fall,” S’nan said, again sententious. “Never!”

“We’ll have to be doubly cautious during the second Fall over south Benden and Keroon,” Zulaya said softly to K’vin.

“Well, I for one was pleased with the way the wings performed. Not much got through,” he repeated. “Between the upper flights and the queens’ wing, only four incidents of burrow, and those were handled with great dispatch. Thanks to Vergerin . . .”

The Bitra Lord Holder was directing the distribution of Hegmon’s sparkling wine to those crowding in his courtyard.

“Only think what might have happened if Chalkin was still here!” Irene said, raising her glass toward Vergerin.

“Who
wants
to think what might have happened?” Laura of Ista Weyr demanded, laughing with exaggerated relief.

“For one thing, we wouldn’t have this champagne,” Irene replied. “That’s for damned sure!”

“How’d you get the sparkly out of Hegmon, Vergerin?” G’don wanted to know, cradling his glass lovingly.

“We’re old friends, you might say,” Vergerin replied with a droll grin.

“Did any wing report injuries?” M’shall asked, his expression turning sober.

“Nothing above char burns in mine,” K’vin said. And that was what the other wingleaders reported one after another.

“Well, we’re fragging lucky if that’s all. Though I shudder to think how careless the average rider can get,” M’shall said. “We’ll have to keep them on their toes.”

“And on their dragons,” his weyrmate replied.

“Look at it this way,” B’nurrin said, grinning from ear to ear, “we’ve only 6,649 more falls to attend, give or take a few, before it’s all over for another two hundred years.”

There was a moment of dumbfounded silence as that fact was absorbed, and then B’nurrin ducked away before the wrath of his peers could descend on him.

“But Fall has begun,” K’vin said softly to Zulaya, standing proudly beside him, “and we have met the enemy again.”

“What a time to be alive . . .”

“And riding a dragon!”

And thus began the Second Pass of Thread on Pern!

Anne McCaffrey
was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She graduated cum laude from Radcliffe College, majoring in Slavonic Languages and Literatures. Before her success as a writer, she was involved in theater. She directed the American premiere of Carl Orff’s
Ludus de Nato Infante Mirificus
, in which she also played a witch. Her first novel,
Restoree
, was written as a protest against the absurd and unrealistic portrayals of women in science fiction novels in the 50s and early 60s. Ms. McCaffrey is best known, however, for her handling of broader themes and the worlds of her imagination, particularly in her tales of the Talents and the fourteen novels about the Dragonriders of Pern.

McCaffrey lives in a house of her own design, Dragonhold-Underhill, in County Wicklow, Ireland. Visit the author online at www.annemccaffrey.org.

Books by Anne McCaffrey

Decision at Doona

Dinosaur Planet

Dinosaur Planet Survivors

Get Off the Unicorn

The Lady

Pegasus in Flight

Restorree

The Ship Who Sang

To Ride Pegasus

Nimisha’s Ship

Pegasus in Space

THE CRYSTAL SINGER BOOKS

Crystal Singer

Killashandra

Crystal Line

THE DRAGONRIDERS OF PERN
^®
BOOKS

Dragonflight

Dragonquest

The White Dragon

Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern

Nerilka’s Story

Dragonsdawn

The Renegades of Pern

All the Weyrs of Pern

The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall

The Dolphins of Pern

Dragonseye

The Masterharper of Pern

The Skies of Pern

By Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough:

Powers that Be

Power Lines

Power Play

With Jody Lynn Nye:

The Dragonlover’s Guide to Pern

Edited by Anne McCaffrey:

Alchemy and Academe

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A Del Rey® Book

Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group

Copyright © 1997 by Anne McCaffrey

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Ballantine Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Published in Great Britain under the title Red Star Rising by Bantam Press, a division of Transworld Publishers Ltd., in 1996.

http://www.randomhouse.com

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 97-92492

eISBN: 0-345-45400-6

eISBN: 978-0-345-45400-3

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