I do not own Pern, or its wonderful dragons, they belong to Anne McCaffrey. I think of the canon writing as a drystone wall marching across the landscape of fantasy, and we the fan fiction writers are busily filling in the spaces between the stones.

I have used the Pern timeline by starting the Eighth Interval at 1.1.1, but my dates run .Turn.

Danette of suggested we might like to know what happened at the start of what should have been the Ninth Pass and wasn't. I stretched the story a little by imagining Benden's Weyrleader was entrusted with the secret, to be passed on to successive generations.

But what happens when the chain is broken, and the new Weyrleader, close to the end of the Interval, has to wrestle with only a minimal Weyr to guard the whole planet? Who does he turn to, who does he rely on, and what is the reaction of the Holders and Craftmasters when their prejudices are confirmed?

3.8.195

H'ric opened his eyes and stared at the plastered wall by his face as he surfaced from a dream laden sleep. He felt sticky and damp, and his mouth was as dry as Igen's deserts.

He looked blearily around the weyr and decided it wasn't his own. He did not have curtains. Nor did he have slippery bedding that rumpled and bunched under his naked hip.

"Klah," said a voice in his ear, and H'ric jerked around on the bed and stared in wild confusion at the woman standing by it.

She was fully dressed in a sumptuous green gown, her hair was combed and braided, she wore jewellery, and she offered him the pottery mug of steaming drink.

H'ric propped himself on one elbow, feeling a fresh set of aches and pains start up. He reached for the mug and drank half the klah down in one swallow. It was just warm enough to soothe his roiled stomach but not hot enough to scorch his throat, in fact it was just as he liked to drink it.

He blinked up at the woman, and realised who she was.

"Jiverny? Weyrwoman? Where - is this - what happened?"

The tall woman did not move as she watched him drink the rest of the klah.

"Don't you remember?" she asked at last.

"Yes," H'ric said reluctantly. "Haveneth rose?"

"She did. And Galanath mated her."

H'ric stared up at her, wincing from the coolness of her voice.

"What about - what about Verenth? I mean - he's a lot bigger and older than Galanath. Everyone thought - oh - shells - "

"Yes. Quite. I suggest you go and bathe yourself, Weyrleader, and get dressed. I had a drudge bring some fresh clothes from your old weyr."

She turned and whisked out of the bedspace, and H'ric put the mug down on the floor with care because he found he was shaking with a mixture of apprehension and exultation, and his mind reached to his dragon.

- you are awake?

"Yes. Shells, Galanath, how did you manage that? Did you mean to do it?"

- of course I did, I am much cleverer than Verenth, as you are much cleverer than his rider, and there will be a Queen egg, Haveneth tells me

H'ric groaned and sat up, realising he had been showing his entire naked body to Jiverny, who was, he thought with another tremor of apprehension, his weyrmate, and the woman with whom he must run Benden Weyr, untried and inexperienced as he was.