“It’d still be wrong.” Sorka heaved against him experimentally, but he pressed her harder into the sand. Stones were bruising her back. “Taking her from her eggs.”

“I was gonna keep watch on ’em.”

“But you don’t know if her hatchlings need her or not. You can’t take her.”

Sean regarded Sorka with equally angry suspicion. “An’ what were you going to do? There’s a reward for such as her. An’ we need the money a lot more than you do.”

“There isn’t any money on Pern! Who needs it?” Sorka regarded him with surprise and then sympathy for the dismay in his face. “You can get anything you need at Stores. Didn’t they explain that to you when you went to school?” Sean regarded her warily. “Oh, you didn’t even stay in school long enough to learn that, did you?” She gave a disgusted snort. “Let me up. I’ve got stones digging holes in my back. You really are the absolute end.” She got to her feet and swatted at the worst of the sand on her clothes. She faced Sean again. “Did you at least wait to find out what was poisonous?” When he gave her a slow nod, she exhaled in relief. “School isn’t all bad. At least, not here.”

“No money?” Sean seemed unable to grasp that astonishing idea.

“Not unless someone brought some old coins for keepsake. I doubt it: coins’d be heavy. Look,” she said quickly, catching his arm when he started to twist away. “You go to the Stores building at Landing. It’s the biggest one. Tell them what you want, sign your name on a chit, and if they have it, they give it to you. That’s called requisitioning, and every one of us, kids included, are entitled to requisition things from Stores. Well, reasonable things.” She grinned, hoping to lighten his scowl. “What are you doing way out here?” She felt a twinge of annoyance as she realized that if he and his family were in that area, then she had not been the first person to see the headland, and she could not ask to have it named after her.

“Like you told me on the spaceship—” He grinned suddenly, a smile full of charm and mischief. “Once we got here, we could go where we please. Only we can’t go really far yet until we get some horses.”

“Don’t tell me you brought your wagons with you?” Sorka was appalled at the weight those would take up in a cargo hold.

“Wagons were brought for us,” he told her. “Only we’ve nothing to pull ’em with.” He waved toward the thick underbrush. “But we are free again, and camping where we want until we get our animals.”