The Second Weyr

“Up there,” Volodya corrected his wife, pointing north-east, but he rose from his seat and kissed his daughter, hugging her nearly as enthusiastically as his wife had but with some consideration for Torene’s ribs. “And you are named to be at the east coast one.”

“At Benden Weyr,” she said, hoping that at least the name would be a surprise.

“Ah!” Her mother’s face lit up and she embraced her daughter again before she mopped a tear from each eye

“As it should be. As it should be,” Volodya said, sittig down at the table and beginning to spoon his porridge into his mouth. “Sit! Eat! You will need it.”

“So, how many copies do you come for me to make for you?” Sonja asked slyly, giving Torene a little push toward the spare place.

“Oh, Mother!”

“And why shouldn’t you, dushka?” Sonja was unperturbed. “Always you are putting yourself behind. And where else is there a replicating machine that works? You will want enlargements, too, of each elevation? How many in all?”

“Mother. . .” Torene began in protest, and then burst out laughing.

“Sit! Eat!” her father repeated and gestured firmly for her to take her seat. “Copies we can talk of later. Now you will have breakfast with us and tell us news we don’t get to hear at Telgar.”

When she finally left, stuffed with two bowls of porridge and more klah than she liked to have swirling in her belly going between, she was carrying a plastic tube full of copies and enlargements-more than she would have had the nerve to request. Sonja had blithely replicated four copies of each and every possible angle of the original and secondary surveys of Benden Weyr. Torene reckoned that one reason they were so willing to go over the top was because they were so pleased with that naming.

“No, is for you, dushka,” Sonja said, giving her daughter a hard kiss on her cheek in farewell. “We are proud to have queen rider daughter. Keep her safe, Alaranth!”

With her many-faceted eyes gleaming in the shadows cast by Telgar’s high mountain peaks, Alaranth turned her head and lowered her forequarters to the ground, as much to aid her rider to mount as to acknowledge the parting.

Who else is to keep you safe? Alaranth said as she turned and dropped off the ledge into the valley below.

Torene laughed at her phrasing, the speed of their descent snatching the sounds away. You sound just like my mother!

We go now to Benden Weyr?

Torene squeezed her eyes, which had filled slightly with tears of pride at the grand sound of the name, and the concentrated on the image of the double-cratered bowl-the bowl of Benden Weyr.

Yes!

She was certain that all that klah and porridge would turn to ice in her belly, but then they were out in the warm spring sunlight, gliding down the Weyr toward the lake.

Good morning to you! Torene recognized Brianth’s voice though she didn’t see him below, nor any sign of Mihall.

He’s on the rim behind us, sunning, Alaranth told her, well pleased that she and Torene had started their own errand earlier than this pair.

Torene’s mouth felt dry as Alaranth swung back to the upper crater and lost altitude. She had a view of Brianth, sunning himself on the heights. Backwinging, Alaranth landed neatly on the surface, the breeze from her pinions making the gravel rattle. A man’s head peered out from the nearby opening to what Torene thought would be the Hatching Ground. Mihall still wore his flying gear, so he couldn’t have been here long, Torene thought.

He didn’t rush, but his stride covered the distance between them so that he was at her side when she reached the ground.

“You’ve been busy this morning, I see.” He nodded at the tube.

Keeping a stern grip on her tongue, she smiled pleasantly. “Their daybreak, not ours,” she said, opening the tube.

He looked into the tube’s contents and whistled, grinning down at her with approval. That was the first time she had seen him smile so openly, and she wondered why he didn’t more often. It would have improved his reputation.

Then she could see his fingers twitching, eager to see every sheet she had brought. Was that why he had gotten here so early? How could he have been certain she’d do her errand so promptly?

Brianth told him we’d left.

This time she was careful to keep her immediate response to herself. Had Brianth slept with one eye open?

The watchdragon will speak to anyone who asks politely. This came from Brianth, and although she knew dragons couldn’t laugh, there was amusement of that quality in the bronze’s tone.

“Here,” Torene said, perversely irritated now by both rider and dragon. Why did Mihall have the ability to disturb her with so many conflicting emotions? She tapped the tube so the roll would fall out.

Mihall was that much quicker and had the films in his hands before she could catch them.

“It’s less windy inside here,” he said, impatient to unroll the sheets but not willing to risk their damage.