“There wasn’t anything else I could do,” the man insisted, as if he could not rid himself of some lingering feeling of guilt.

“We were lucky you were there at all,” Lessa said. “We might never have known where Kylara was.”

“What I want to know is what’s going to happen to her—now?” A hard vindictiveness replaced the half-shame, half-guilt in the rider’s face.

“Isn’t loss of a dragon enough?” T’bor roused himself to ask.

“Brekke lost her dragon, too,” S’goral retorted angrily, “and she was doing what she should!”

“Nothing can be decided in heat or hatred, S’goral,” F’lar said, rising to his feet. “We’ve no precedents—” He broke off, turning to D’ram and G’narish. “Not in our time, at least.”

“Nothing should be decided in heat or hatred,” D’ram echoed, “but there were such incidents in our time.” Unaccountably he flushed. “We’d better assign some bronzes here, F’lar. The High Reaches men and beasts may not be fit tomorrow. And with Thread falling every day, no Weyr can be allowed to relax its vigilance. For anything.”

CHAPTER XIII

Night at Fort Weyr: Six Days Later

ROBINTON WAS WEARY, with fatigue of the heart and mind that did not lift to the thrill the Masterharper usually experienced on dragonback. In fact, he almost wished he’d not had to come to Fort Weyr tonight. These past six days, with everyone reacting in varying ways to the tragedy at High Reaches, had been very difficult. (Must the High Reaches always push the knottiest problems on Pern?) In a way, Robinton wished that they could have put off this Red Star viewing until minds and eyes had cleared and were ready for this challenge. And yet, perhaps the best solution was to press this proposed expedition to the Red Star as far and as fast as possible—as an anodyne to the depression that had followed the deaths of the two queens. Robinton knew that F’lar wanted to prove to the Lord Holders that the dragonmen were in earnest in their desire to clear the air of Thread, but for once, the Masterharper found himself without a private opinion. He did not know if F’lar was wise in pushing the issue, particularly now. Particularly when the Benden Weyrleader wasn’t recovered from T’ron’s slash. When no one was sure how T’kul was managing in Southern Weyr or if the man intended to stay there. When all Pern was staggered by the battle and deaths of the two queens. The people had enough to rationalize, had enough to do with the vagaries of Threadfall complicating the seasonal mechanics of plowing and seeding. Leave the attack of the Red Star until another time.