“Canth! Manora’s got an errand for us,” he warned the brown dragon as he strode from the Lower Cavern. He wondered how the women stood the smell.

Canth did, too, for the fumes had kept him from napping on the warm ledge. He was just as glad of an excuse to get away from Benden Weyr.

F’nor broke out into the early morning sunshine above Telgar Hold, then directed brown Canth up the long valley to the sprawling complex of buildings on the left of the Falls.

Sun flashed off the water wheels which were turned endlessly by the powerful waters of the three-pronged Falls and operated the forges of the Smithy. Judging by the thin black smoke from the stone buildings, the smelting and refining smithies were going at full capacity.

As Canth swooped lower, F’nor could see the distant clouds of dust that meant another ore train coming from the last portage of Telgar’s major river. Fandarel’s notion of putting wheels on the barges had halved the time it took to get raw ore downriver and across land from the deep mines of Crom and Telgar to the crafthalls throughout Pern.

Canth gave a bugle cry of greeting which was instantly answered by the two dragons, green and brown, perched on a small ledge above the main Crafthall.

Beth and Seventh from Fort Weyr, Canth told his rider, but the names were not familiar to F’nor.

Time was when a man knew every dragon and rider in Pern.

“Are you joining them?” he asked the big brown.

They are together, Canth replied so pragmatically that F’nor chuckled to himself.

The green Beth, then, had agreed to brown Seventh’s advances. Looking at her brilliant color, F’nor thought their riders shouldn’t have brought that pair away from their home Weyr at this phase. As F’nor watched, the brown dragon extended his wing and covered the green possessively.

F’nor stroked Canth’s downy neck at the first ridge but the dragon didn’t seem to need any consolation. He’d no lack of partners after all, thought F’nor with little conceit. Greens would prefer a brown who was as big as most bronzes on Pern.