New chapter is up unusually soon, so please enjoy it. The plot will develop a lot in this chapter, but it might take a bit to tie everything together. Please bear with me. Also, if you read, please review. I'd love some feedback. And just because I love them, I'll say this: M'ris and Forth, Lina and Mith, and M'gor and Cadeth are all pairs that I created on another site with a situation very much like this. I'll toss in some of the other characters in later chapters, where I will point them out to you. Please look forward to it.

Disclaimer: Same as chapter one.

Chapter 2: Panic

Sunlight pouring through an open window alerted M'ris to the coming of dawn. He could just barely glimpse his dragon's blue tail twitching spasmodically beyond the east-facing doorway; he guessed Forth hadn't been able to sleep either. With a groan, he rose to his feet and rummaged in his cold-storage unit for a pitcher of red fruit juice. The unit was one of many conveniences that the people of Pern had resurrected with the help of Aivas; not all had caught on, but this was one that had made life in Southern far easier. M'ris wondered how his many-times-great grandfather, an avid Weyr- and Aivas-hater, would react if he could see the bluerider now as he made full use of the "new" technology.

Don't think such negative thoughts, M'ris, Forth told his rider. They upset you.

M'ris caught the absent note to his partner's thoughts. Usually, the blue was very focused on the here and now; M'ris hadn't heard him so distant since the time they were present for an Ista Weyr green's first mating flight. Had a green and her rider wandered too near? No. He decided that Forth was intent on something, but it wasn't on that sort of something. He exited the wooden house he had built for himself and went to stand by his dragon's head, facing the rising sun. The horizon was tinged with silver, promising rains later in the day. Forth would enjoy that; he loved rainy flights.

It is not rain.

"Are you sure?" M'ris asked. It looked like rainclouds to him.

Positive.

M'ris had been a dragonrider long enough not to question his dragon. Forth's eyes were whirling faster and faster with twinges of red and orange beginning to show. But if not rain, then what...? Abruptly, Forth's body tensed, and he hissed, his tail thrashing violently. M'ris stumbled backward as his dragon reared up on his hind legs and roared.

M'ris! I need firestone. Now!

"Firestone?" M'ris asked incredulously. "What are you talking about? No one needs firestone anymore. Forth! What is it?"

Forth hissed, his eyes now a solid whirl of red and orange.

It is...Thread!

M'ris froze, denial of that statement flooding his brain. That wasn't possible. The Ninth Pass dragons and riders had eliminated the threat of Thread for good. Aivas had assured them that there would be no more Passes! But...could Forth be so mistaken? No. Dragons alway knew when Thread was near. Always. Right?

Hurry! Thread falls. The others are gathering in the Weyrs! We must go to Ista!

That decided him. M'ris wasted no time grabbing his flying jacket, helmet, gloves, and riding harness. He strapped the leather harness onto Forth's back and scrambled into place. He was struggling to shove his arms through the sleeves of his wherhide jacket even as he gave Forth the visual of Ista Weyr's Bowl, the Weyr where they had Impressed and spent their first Turn of training. As they disappeared into the bitter cold and dark of between, M'ris hastily grabbed at his riding straps, cursing himself for a fool who didn't remember to clip his safety straps onto his riding belt, and prayed that he wouldn't fall off while in the dark nothingness of between. Abruptly, they reemerged above Ista Weyr among a chaotic frenzy of dragons swooping and veering, all trying to find space to land, and Forth found himself forced to hover to keep from colliding with another dragon. M'ris watched as a half dozen queen dragons collected near the storage room entrances, their riders hurriedly trying to find flamethrowers and tanks of HNO3, more commonly known by its nickname: agenothree. He pulled his gaze from the queens, desperate to find both a place to land and some way to get either firestone or some answers. His eyes raked the Bowl, skimming the scene to find an open pathway of air.

There.

Forth didn't wait for his rider to acknowledge his statement or look in the right direction; the blue dragon dove, tucking his wings in completely at one point to get through a narrow space between two bronzes. Neither dragon noticed as the small, blue body rocketed past, but, had M'ris been a regular Weyr rider instead of a free-lancer in the South, he was sure that he would have been grounded for several sevendays and put on the lowliest duties the Weyrleader could think of for trying a stunt like that. Or perhaps not; he saw more than one other dragon pair perform the same risky, and sometimes riskier, maneuvers in the frenzy. Finally, he felt Forth connect with the ground, the force of landing throwing him forward. He very nearly fell, but Forth moved quickly to compensate for his rider's imbalance. The pair moved quickly to the side to give others more room to land, but M'ris still saw a fair amount of dragons perching on the edges of personal weyrs, their whirling red eyes glowing balefully in the dawn light.

"Can't they settle?" M'ris asked impatiently as he realized that some of the dragons darting about were not even trying to land; they were simply there to make a ruckus or, more likely, grab some firestone and disappear between.

As though she had heard M'ris's statement, Ista's senior queen shrieked for silence, both with her voice and her mind. It took a moment more, but the dragons all abruptly either winked out of sight or found an empty space on a weyr ledge or in the Bowl. All eyes turned towards the Weyrleaders, and M'ris belatedly realized that the hierarchy had changed since he had left ten Turns ago. Mith was now senior queen, with bronze Cadeth as her mate. He thought he could just make out Lina and M'gor near them, directing some of the other riders and gesturing to a man further off. Good; someone needed to take control of this mess, and it may as well be the Weyrleaders. Who better to prevent an even greater panic?

Forth? Do any of the other dragons know what's going on? M'ris asked his dragon mentally. Any spoken words would have been lost in the din raised by so many dragons, riders, and fairs of fire-lizards from those who weyred in the South.

We all know. We know that Thread is falling. We do not know why.

That was answer enough for M'ris. He knew that he certainly didn't know why Thread was falling when the last Pass had ended 200 Turns before, and he didn't have time to think about it. He was a dragonrider, and he knew his Teaching Ballads as well as anyone. Dragonmen must fly/When Thread is in the sky. But what were the Weyrleaders looking so panicked about? There were several bronze riders clustered about the pair, and the color had drained from all of their faces. M'ris frowned.

They are worried, Forth said, anticipating his rider's query. They say the mines were closed many Turns ago, and they don't know what they can do now. M'ris, what does that mean? What mines were closed?

M'ris couldn't answer. He had completely forgotten that the firestone mines hadn't been worked since the Interval began.

M'ris? When will they give us firestone? When will we flame Thread?

How could he have been so dense? M'ris cursed himself. How could he tell Forth that there was no firestone?

Dun-dun-dun! Dramatic cliff-hanger. Next installation is in the works, so don't think that I'm just going to leave things the way they are. Thanks for reading, and have fun trying to figure out what will happen next. Please review.