They had reached the first room of the complex discovered by Jaxom and Felessan. But the bronze rider did not give F’nor time to examine the fascinating design on the wall or the finely made cabinets and tables. He hurried him past the second room to the biggest chamber where a series of graduated, rectangular open stone troughs were set around the floor. Other equipment had obviously been removed at some ancient time, leaving puzzling holes and grooves in the walls, but F’nor was startled to see that the tubs were planted with shrubs, grasses, common field and crop seedlings. A few small hardwood trees were evident in the largest troughs.

F’lar gestured for the grub pot which F’nor willingly handed over.

“Now, I’m going to put some of these grubs in all but this container,” F’lar said, indicating the medium-sized one. Then he started to distribute the squirming grubs.

“Proving what?”

F’lar gave him a long deep look so reminiscent of the days when they had dared each other as weyrlings that F’nor couldn’t help grinning.

“Proving what?” he insisted.

“Proving first, that these southern grubs will prosper in northern soil among northern plants…”

“And…”

“That they will eliminate Thread here as they did in the western swamp.”

They both watched, in a sort of revolted fascination, as the wriggling gray mass of grubs broke apart and separately burrowed into the loose dark soil of the biggest tub.

“What?”

F’nor experienced a devastating disorientation. He saw F’lar as a weyrling, challenging him to explore and find the legendary peekhole to the Ground. He saw F’lar again, older, in the Records Room, surrounded by moldering skins, suggesting that they jump between time itself to stop Thread at Nerat. And he imagined himself suggesting to F’lar to support him when he let Canth fly Brekke’s Wirenth…

“But we didn’t see Thread do anything,” he said, getting a grip on perspective and time.

“What else could have happened to Thread in those swamps? You know as surely as we’re standing here that it was a four-hour Fall. And we fought only two. You saw the scoring. You saw the activity of the grubs. And I’ll bet you had a hard time finding enough to fill that pot because they only rise to the surface when Thread falls. In fact, you can go back in time and see it happen.”

F’nor grimaced, remembering that it had taken a long time to find enough grubs. It’s been a strain, too, with every nerve of man, dragon and lizard alert for a sign of T’kul’s patrols. “I should have thought of that myself. But—Thread’s not going to fall over Benden…”

“You’ll be at Telgar and Ruatha Holds this afternoon when the Fall starts. This time, you’ll catch some Thread.”