“Are the Lord Holders doing anything about Meron?” she asked, glancing sternly at the four present. There was a long silence. “I must return to Benden Weyr. The dawn and another day’s watch come all too soon there. We’re keeping Wansor and Fandarel from the observations that will make it possible for us to go to that Star.”

“Before they monopolize the thing, I’d like another look,” Oterel of Tillek said loudly. “My eyes are keen…”

Lessa was tired as she called Ramoth to her. She wanted to go back to Benden Weyr, not so much to sleep as to reassure herself about F’lar. Mnementh was with him, true, and he’d have reported any change in his rider’s condition…

And I’d’ve told you, Ramoth said, sounding a little hurt.

“Lessa,” the Harper’s low voice reached her, “are you in favor of that expedition?”

She looked up at him, his face lighted by the path glows. His expression was neutral and she wondered if he’d really meant what he’d said back at the Star Rocks. He dissembled so easily, and so often against his own inclination, that she sometimes wondered what his candid thoughts were.

“It scares me. It scares me because it seems so likely that someone must have tried. Sometime. It just doesn’t seem logical…”

“Is there any record that anyone, besides yourself, ever jumped so far between times?”

“No.” She had to admit it. “Not so far. But then, there hadn’t been such need.”

“And there’s no need now to take this other kind of a jump?”

“Don’t unsettle me more.” Lessa was unsure of what she felt or thought, or what anyone felt or thought, should or shouldn’t do. Then she saw the kind, worried expression of the Harper’s eyes and impulsively gripped his arm. “How can we know? How can we be sure?”

“How were you sure that the Question Song could be answered—by you?”

“And you’ve a new Question Song for me?”

“Questions, yes.” He gave her a smile as he covered her hand gently with his own. “Answer?” He shook his head and then stepped back as Ramoth alighted.

But his questions were as difficult to forget as the Question Song which had led her between time. When she returned to Benden, she found that F’lar’s skin was hot to the touch; he slept restlessly. So much so that, although Lessa willed herself to sleep beside him on the wide couch, she couldn’t succeed. Desperate for some surcease from her fears—for F’lar, of the intangible unknown ahead—she crept from their couch and into the weyr. Ramoth roused sleepily and arranged her front legs in a cradle. Lulled by the warm, musty comfort of her dragon, Lessa finally did sleep.

—

By the morning, F’lar was no better, querulous with his fever and worried about her report on the viewing.