Thank you for your continuing supportive reviews. There's a lot of ground to cover, so the story might skip days or months as we go on. Thank you to AM as well, for providing the bones of the stories so we can embellish.

30.11.195

H'ric raised his head as Jiverny slipped out of the bed beside him.

"What?" he murmured.

"Egg laying has begun," she replied, pulling on her clothes and finding her heavy soled shoes.

"I'll come with you - may I?"

"Of course."

H'ric spent a futile few moments looking for his own shoes, and then padded barefoot down to the Hatching Ground, carrying a glow-basket. On the day of Hatching and Impression this place would be full of dragons and assorted humans, but tonight there was only Haveneth on the Sands, Galanath perched above her, crooning to her, and the figures of the two humans walking across to join them, dwarfed by their surroundings and the size of their dragons.

Jiverny stopped H'ric and they stood watching the bulk of the queen dragon as she moved around and around the Sands, trying out first one place and then another.

"She says to thank you for the extra Ista sand," Jiverny murmured, and H'ric nodded. He had had several sacks of the fine sand brought in, the short flight between killing any bugs in it, and everyone had benefited from a share, but most of the sand was in here.

"Is that one now?"

"Yes." Jiverny clutched his arm, and H'ric put a hand over hers, smiling in the dimness as they watched the eggs being laid. H'ric was counting, and he was sure Galanath was as well; the bronze dragon would have an interest in the eggs and the hatchlings, but H'ric was not sure how much of a human father's emotion he would feel life long.

"What are you thinking?" Jiverny asked softly. "Haveneth is puzzled."

"Only wondering about how they react as parents."

"They aren't parents in the way we are," Jiverny replied. "Once the eggs are laid and hatched, the young dragons are on their own, although I suppose these two will always know which dragons came from their own mating."

- I will be pleased to see them Impress, that will be a special time and I will know they are safe

H'ric gave a half bow to Haveneth for her reply, and then he could count the completed clutch, and discerned twenty six eggs.

"Is one a gold?" he asked Jiverny as she inspected them.

"I think so. This one, with the stronger markings. Haveneth will guard the one she thinks is a gold."

She came down in a hurry onto the lower sands which were slightly cooler than the sands where Haveneth was now stretched out in a protective wall around her eggs as they hardened. This was a vulnerable time for the eggs with their slightly softer skins, and the two leaders walked away from the dragons to let them tend the eggs.

They came out to see the first light of dawn over the Weyr, the redness of the sun touching the underside of a bank of clouds, but the sky overhead clear and still sparkling with the strongest stars in their sky.

"The Red Star will come in from over there, slightly east of north," H'ric said. "We can see it now, but it's not on the right alignment."

"I know - who's that - oh, Mima."

"Here y'are. Klah and a few sweet rolls. Are they laid, then, the eggs? I seem to feel it when they're laid."

"Yes, you've always said that," Jiverny agreed with a smile, a smile that was seen more often now, H'ric thought contentedly as he poured the klah and handed the sweet rolls around.

"I'll see about the Candidate rooms," Mima said as she left the room. H'ric gave a helpless shrug, smiling at Jiverny.

"I often wonder why she isn't Headwoman," he said.

"Because she doesn't want or need that position," Jiverny replied as she finished her drink, hiding a yawn. "We'd better get the riders ready to go out on Search, and write to the Lord Holders."

"Writing more letters," H'ric grumbled as he went to change into more suitable garb than the hotch-potch of clothing he had thrown on. The wonderful sight of Haveneth laying her eggs had affected him more than he had expected, and he found himself switching between pride and worry. He would need to bring in a surplus of young people for the Hatching, and although a large proportion of them would be Weyr-bred, Search was always undertaken planet wide because everyone on Pern should have the chance to be a Candidate.

H'ric and C'lin selected the Weyr's children who would stand at this Hatching. As H'ric had suspected, there were a number of youngsters of all ages, and he insisted the older ones should stand, rather than the very young.

"They can stand as young as 12," C'lin pointed out. "And you'll want them of an age to fight when the Pass proper begins."

"Yes, but we're stretched too thin at the moment to train them properly at that young age," H'ric said. "N'rin does a grand job, I can't fault him, but he's not getting any younger. He said he would be willing for K'mar to join him."

C'lin frowned. "K'mar is one of my Wing blues."

"I know. But if I transferred V'cin and brown Saloth from my Wing to you, and took in P'tar and his brown Maranath from the newly trained youngsters, would that balance things?"

"V'cin is a good rider," C'lin agreed grudgingly. "All right. I've three weyrlings in my own Wing and V'cin is good with youngsters."

H'ric nodded, marking the charts of the Wings and their members, moving names around. He did not have these battles with the other Wingleaders, he thought, but C'lin was one of the best riders at aerial manoeuvres and if he argued, at least it was always a measured argument, and not made out of spite.

"And outsiders?" C'lin asked.

"Most of the blues are out searching," H'ric replied. "I've taken the opportunity to write to the Holders as well, keeping them up to date with what's happening."

"That's not usual, is it?"

H'ric shook his head. "Not that I've ever found in the Records, but then the Records are so skimpy I'm amazed we know anything about running a Weyr."

"It's all done verbally," C'lin said. "My father was friends with a journeyman harper who used to come to the Weyr in his day, and the harper always maintained the vocal records of Pern were the more important. Every harper had to learn vast screeds of information by rote, and be able to repeat it at Gathers and anywhere else it was requested."

H'ric traced a set of letters on his waxed tablet, and C'lin shook his head.

"I know. People die, like R'tin, unexpectedly, in their prime, and their knowledge is lost. The Ancients must have had a way of recording what they did and where they came from, but that was lost when men came north to shield."

"Shield what?"

"Shield from, I would have thought. Shield themselves from Thread in the many caves and caverns of this land. Whatever happened in the south, must have killed that land off so they couldn't live in it anymore."

"Probably. Caves and caverns are safe places, but gloomy without plaster and paint."

C'lin laughed as he stood up. "Hence the pretty pictures in the teaching rooms? I like those as well, Weyrleader!"

H'ric watched him leave the room, and gathered his notes together. He planned to fly to Fort and speak to the Lord Holder, who termed himself the first amongst equals, and also he planned to speak to the Masterhealer and Masterharper about keeping records. A trip into Fort Weyr might be instructive as well.