“Little beauty, come where we can admire you. We mean you no harm.” F’nor saturated his mental tone with all the reassuring persuasiveness at his command.

A shimmer of gold flickered at the corner of his eye. Then the little lizard hovered at F’nor’s eye level, just beyond his reach. He ignored Canth’s amusement that the tiny one was susceptible to flattery.

She is hungry, the big dragon said.

Very slowly F’nor reached into his pouch and drew out a meatroll. He broke off a piece, bent slowly to lay it on the rock at his feet, then backed away.

“That is food for you, little one.”

The lizard continued to hover, then darted down and, grabbing the meat in her tiny claws, disappeared again.

F’nor squatted down to wait.

In a second, the dragonette returned, ravenous hunger foremost in her delicate thoughts along with a wistful plea. As F’nor broke off another portion, he tried to dampen his elation. If hunger could be the leash…Patiently he fed her tiny bits, each time placing the food nearer to him until he got her to take the final morsel from his fingers. As she cocked her head at him, not quite sated, though she had eaten enough to satisfy a grown man, he ventured to stroke an eye ridge with a gentle fingertip.

The inner lids of the tiny opalescent eyes closed one by one as she abandoned herself to the caress.

She is a hatchling. You have Impressed her, Canth told him very softly.

“A hatchling?”

She is the little sister of my blood after all and so must come from an egg, Canth replied reasonably.

“There are others?”

Of course. Down on the beach.

F’nor, careful not to disturb the little lizard, turned his head over his shoulder. He had been so engrossed in the one at hand, he hadn’t even heard above the surf sounds the pitiful squawks which were issuing from the litter of shining wings and bodies. There seemed to be hundreds of them on the beach, above the high-tide mark, about twenty dragon lengths from him.

Don’t move, Canth cautioned him. You’ll lose her.

“But if they’re hatching…they can be Impressed…Canth, rouse the Weyr! Speak to Prideth. Speak to Wirenth. Tell them to come. Tell them to bring food. Tell them to hurry. Quickly or it’ll be too late.”