Nerilka's Story & The Coelura by Anne McCaffrey

Author:Anne McCaffrey
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448152346
Publisher: Transworld

Chapter Ten

3.24.43 – 4.23.43

I’M NOT SURE how any of us got through the next few days. B’lerion stayed with Oklina. It was more obvious than ever to me that her destiny would be the Weyr. She had heard the outcry from the dragons, which was unusual enough for someone not of the Weyr or dragon-linked. Alessan’s knowledge of Moreta’s death was shatteringly unexpected to all but Desdra and Oklina. I pieced together some parts of their story, aided by a growing intuition that seemed to be sensitive to anything concerning Alessan.

All the dragonriders and most Weyrfolk had been instantly aware of the two deaths, Moreta’s and Holth’s. Later B’lerion told us of the reinforced rules and disciplines imposed on all riders to prevent a recurrence of this type of tragedy.

It had begun as a logical expedient for injured riders to ask their flightworthy dragons if they would fly a sound dragonman to make up Wing strength at Threadfall. Each dragon had his own peculiarities of flight that his impressed rider understood. But, generally speaking, any dragon-rider was capable of riding another’s dragon. No blame could be attached to Leri for adopting that custom and allowing Moreta to ride Holth in the several emergencies that had arisen. The courtesy was by then customary Weyr practice. But tired dragons and tired riders make mistakes, and that late afternoon Moreta and Holth had been pushed beyond mere exhaustion to the point where habit only had carried them through the motions of landing and taking off. I remembered then how Holth had gone between a wingspan above the Court that afternoon.

‘Yes,’ B’lerion said, his voice a broken whisper. ‘Holth had lost a lot of natural spring in her hindquarters. She’d have leaped up and gone between before Moreta could have told her where to fly – they stayed, lost, between.’

Later, when Master Tirone began to write a celebratory ballad about Moreta’s courageous ride, Desdra told me that, at the insistence of all Weyrleaders, Moreta was to be properly mounted on her own queen, not Holth. To broadcast the truth behind that tragedy could have done incalculable harm. Most of Pern never knew the truth. I’m not so certain I was all that glad to be in the minority. Not that it diminished Moreta’s heroism in my estimation, but because so simple a mistake was causing so much anguish.

Desdra also told me, since she knew me to be discreet and trustworthy, how the dragonriders had managed to make so many deliveries. This had contributed to their total exhaustion, a major factor in the tragedy: dragons could go as easily between one time and another as one place to another. Moreta and Holth had overtaxed their strength in this way. For only by stretching time in this bizarre fashion or, rather, doubling back on themselves could Moreta and Holth manage to deliver serum to all the holds on the Keroon plains. Moreta had been the only one of the riders available that fateful day sufficiently familiar with Keroon’s many half-hidden holds to have succeeded in that task.

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