As she followed Lord Jaxom around, Saska decided that a Lord Holder on Pern had considerably more clout than a Professor on Terrvert. This was an autocratic society, she reminded herself, and this man was one of the top people.
They ate in an open room, shaded from the fierce sun, with netting at the open windows to keep out the insects. The food was freshly picked and prepared and there was fruit juice to drink with it rather than klah which Saska decided was an acquired taste; she knew Pern folk in her own time who could not bear the taste of what passed for coffee or tea.
"Why couldn't you have found these connections in your own time?" Lord Jaxom asked bluntly.
"I would have done, if I'd gone to Landing," Saska replied. "Once Tyron pointed them out, they're obvious. When all the dragons went forward at once, they left only the smallest possible breeding colony at Benden. Normally, in an isolated community, such a pinch-point would have meant the dragons became smaller. But because they had the resources of the whole planet to themselves for 400 turns or so, they could overcompensate for the small breeding pool and grow larger. From the end of this present Pass, if you keep records, you'll see a gradual stabilisation in the size, and then it will start to revert to the optimum size again."
"And that will be sufficient for your purposes in the future?"
Saska nodded. "What a dragon thinks it can do, it will do," she said. "You know that, because Ruth should never be able to carry more than the lightest person. You, if I may say so, are not small. Nor am I. Yet Ruth has no difficulty carrying both of us."
- you are very easy to carry
Yes I know, thank you. But you can carry what you think you can
- of course I can, I just think it, and it is so
Lord Jaxom nodded, his gaze coming back into focus after listening to Ruth.
"I take your point. So you will relieve the future Masters of the need to breed larger?"
"Indeed. If I can get back, if you don't think, like F'lessan, that I should just leave something here to be found, and continue my life in this time."
Lord Jaxom studied her.
"You could probably Impress a gold," he said unexpectedly. "It would solve some problems, and cause others."
"Like what would I do with a dragon in my line of work," Saska agreed sarcastically. "I'd be tied to a weyr, and whatever work I could do there. I don't doubt it would be wonderful - everything I've seen about dragonriders persuades me it would be wonderful to Impress - but I'd still be torn in two directions, my past career and my future."
"I said that, when it was suggested. There are two clutches coming to maturity, but the Candidates have already been Searched, and I said it would not be fair either to them or to you."
"I'm a bit too old," Saska said with a sigh. "Candidates are young girls, surely?"
"Are you saying you are not a young girl?" He smiled at her and Saska smiled back, but shook her head.
"I'm sorry. No, I'm not young, and I don't respond well to that type of flattery."
"As the blue rider found to his cost?"
"Goodness me, Lord Jaxom, there was nothing in my behaviour that would have suggested to any male, dragonrider or not, that I wanted any sort of - of - that sort of - "
Saska floundered to a stop, aware she was flushing and had raised her voice. Lord Jaxom was studying her, and now nodded.
"My mistake," he said formally. "You are not used to a society like ours, I suspect. If many of your colony are like you, how is the cultural exchange going?"
Saska calmed herself and accepted his apology.
"It will be good for each society," she said. "I think that, and my father certainly does. He works actively to bring both societies together for mutual advantage."
"I'm glad of that. So then. We'll sleep here, I think, because there are always guest places. Then we can pinpoint this place you call Base, which is most familiar to you, I think?"
"Yes, very familiar. K'var, the Weyrlingmaster, and his bronze Lateth showed me just about all the landmarks the weyrlings use."
"A bronze rider as Weyrlingmaster? Isn't that unusual?"
"In this present time it might be, and especially given K'var's age. He says he just naturally fell into the position, observing and helping the previous Weyrlingmaster."
Lord Jaxom nodded. "It very often happens that way, that the position comes by default, but the Weyrlingmaster is always very highly regarded in a Weyr."
"As K'var is," Saska said with a nod.
"Can they time it?"
"Yes. K'var and S'lul, another bronze rider, timed it to bring me to the Gather."
"Goodness me, two bronze riders - no, I'm sorry, that was the wrong thing to say - "
Saska laughed ruefully. "Yes, they tried to play each other off to get my attention. S'lul was based at Southern, though."
"I wonder - if they have motivation to try and reach you," Lord Jaxom said thoughtfully. "I'd hoped to time it by the movement of the orbit of the Red Star, and I wonder - if they might do the same?"
"If they had any idea where I was, if they didn't think Noreth had simply flung all of us between for all time."
"Oh - Faranth's shell! I didn't think of that. Yes, they might think that, if no other dragon picked up that image of F'lessan you had in your mind."
Saska found that she needed to take a deep and careful breath.
"It was so quickly done."
"Yes. I appreciate that. Very well. We'll simply go forward as best we can. How far into the future was this Base established?"
"I don't know," Saska replied honestly. "I know it was founded as a healing weyr. I hope you won't need to be exposed to anything."
He shook his head.
"We'll take breathing equipment with us, so I should be all right. Once we reach far enough into the future, you can envision the Base as you knew it, and we'll take the last jump to that position and time."
Saska studied him, and he raised an enquiring eyebrow.
"I know you're a Lord Holder, and a member of the High Council," she said slowly. "But are you quite sure you and Ruth are the only pair that can do this?"
"Yes," he replied bluntly. "I haven't been idle, I've consulted with all the people who need to know what's happening, and however reluctant they are, they all agree it has to be us."