“Are you for or against?” F’lar asked with mild amusement. He gripped Asgenar’s shoulder. “Instruct your foresters to keep constant watch. Their vigilance is essential.”

“Then you don’t know the pattern in the Thread shifts?”

F’lar shook his head slowly, unwilling to perjure himself to this man. “I’ll leave the long-eyed F’rad with you.”

A wide smile broke the thin troubled face of the Lord Holder.

“I couldn’t ask, but it’s a relief. I shan’t abuse the privilege.”

F’lar glanced at him sharply. “Why should you?”

Asgenar gave him a wry smile. “That’s what the Oldtimers carp about, isn’t it? And instant transportation to any place on Pern is a temptation.”

F’lar laughed, remembering that Asgenar, Lord of Lemos, was to take Famira, the youngest sister of Larad, Lord of Telgar Hold, to wife. While the Telgar lands marched the boundaries of Lemos, the Holds were separated by deep forest and several ranges of steep rocky mountains.

Three dragons appeared and circled above them, wingriders reporting on the ground activities. Nine infestations had been sighted and controlled with minimum loss of property. Sweepriders had reported that the mid-Fall area was clear. F’lar dismissed them. A runner came loping up the meadow to his Lord Holder, carefully keeping several dragonlengths between himself and the two beasts. For all that every Pernese knew the dragons would harm no human, many would never lose their fearfulness. Dragons were confused by this distrust so that F’lar strolled casually to his bronze and scratched the left eye ridge affectionately until Mnementh allowed one lid to droop in pleasure over the gleaming opalescent eye.

The runner had come from afar, managing to gasp out his reassuring message before he collapsed on the ground, his chest heaving with the effort to fill his starved lungs. Asgenar stripped off his tunic and covered the man to prevent his chilling and made the runner drink from his own flask.

“The two infestations on the south slope are char!” Asgenar reported to the Weyrleader as he rejoined him. “That means the hardwood stands are safe.” Asgenar’s relief was so great that he took a swig on the bottle himself. Then hastily offered it to the dragonrider. When F’lar politely refused, he went on, “We may have another hard winter and my people will need that wood. Cromcoal costs!”

F’lar nodded. Free provision of fuelwood meant a tremendous saving to the average holder, though not every Lord saw it in this aspect. Lord Meron of Nabol Hold, for instance, refused to let his commoners chop fuelwood, forcing them to pay the high rates for Cromcoal, increasing his profit at their expense.

“That runner came from the south slope? He’s fast.”

“My forest men are the best in all Pern. Meron of Nabol has twice tried to lure that man from me.”

“And?”