Another Turn, no close encounters - are we sure Thread will ever return? Thank you again for all your comments and reviews on the story, it certainly encourages me.

30.12.196 - 5.1.197

H'ric looked up from the records as someone entered the room. He had half expected Jiverny, although the Weyrwoman was recovering from a vicious winter cold. Half the Weyr was down with it, sneezing and coughing. The healers would not allow anyone to go between in such a state, so the dragons were exercised by those riders fit enough to go aloft, their anxious mates connected in mind with them.

"The notes from Fort, Weyrleader," G'las said formally. The blue rider had been stationed at Fort Weyr to record the passage of the Red Star through the Star Stones, and was the last to report.

"What kept you?" H'ric asked tetchily as he took the parcel of parchments.

"I was looking for any more old records. That Weyr is a maze of apartments and corridors and unexpected warm spots. I used a roll of twine to find my way."

H'ric leaned back and rubbed his neck.

"Sorry - I shouldn't have snapped at you. Sit down - call for some klah, would you, my throat's raw."

"Are you sickening for this illness? There's fever at Fort Hold itself - the winter has taken a real grip on the place - there's illness in the animals as well."

"That's not good news if I want another lot of herdbeasts fattened. Is it serious?"

"I didn't go too close, but I questioned a farmer or two and they seemed fatalistically resigned to losing all their animals. But that's farmers for you."

"Did you find any more records?" H'ric asked as he compared the drawings of the Red Star from all the Weyrs. G'las had taken the pitcher of drink from a drudge and added something from a bottle also on the tray, and handed a mug to the Weyrleader.

"I didn't find anything very much, no. Some bits and pieces of pottery left over, I must suppose from the flight out of there. A couple of metal spoons. I left them in the lower caverns for their stock. I could hear tunnel snakes, although I didn't meet any."

H'ric leaned back, sighing, fanning out the parchments.

"It doesn't seem to be growing any larger," he said frettily. "And look at the angle from the last Turn to this one - if you draw a line, it's not going to be bracketed in the Eye Stone correctly at all!"

"I know. I can't understand it, unless it drops suddenly into position? But that would defy all the rules all the other stars are governed by, even the Dawn Sisters. Is it possible - have we counted the Turns wrong?"

H'ric took an incautious gulp of klah and had a coughing fit, sneezing the hot liquid all over his clothing and the table top. G'las had hastily swept all the parchments away, and now leaned and collected them from the floor as H'ric choked himself back under control.

"Counted them wrong? What - why should you say that?"

"Only that it can't be that precise, surely?"

"Other stars move in precise patterns," H'ric objected. "So far the pattern is - the Red Star brightens, it approaches, we size it through the Eye Stone and Thread falls."

"Yes I know."

"Why did you mention the Dawn Sisters?"

G'las shrugged as he drank his klah. "I took sightings on them at Fort. They're visible at dawn. They're so bright, it's hard to miss them."

"They're visible from Benden as well."

"Mmm."

H'ric traced a pattern on the table top in the spilt klah.

"So if they don't follow the rules, are you saying the Red Star might not?"

"It's a possibility. If we look at it positively, it might give us more time to breed up the dragons we need."

"The queens aren't rising as often or clutching as hard as I had supposed they might," H'ric confessed. "Haveneth has risen only once each Turn in the last ten Turns since she became fully mature. All right, she's Hatched four junior queens, but Bedlith - is such a small dragon - I'd not expect a queen from her this time around."

"Yes. So - are we sure on our timings?"

H'ric stared at his mug as if he wanted to hurl it across the room.

"I don't know. All I can do is to train what we have, hope the queens clutch often, and make sure the Holders know their duty."

G'las sighed and shook his head, spreading out the Weyr documents showing the Red Star.

"Get some rest, Weyrleader. Get some youngsters in training to write your letters and reports."

H'ric nodded. "I'll try. I saw you in the classrooms, didn't I? Would you like to do it?"

"Oddly enough, yes I would," G'las said bluntly. "I Impressed at the same time as you, Weyrleader, we're the same age. I don't have a permanent weyrmate, and I get lonely, sometimes. I'd like to help Yorus with classes, and train up to help you."

"And M'nas is usually with Yorus?"

G'las flushed. "Yes he is. And he has a proddy green, and Deneth has flown her a couple of times."

H'ric nodded. "I've no objection, G'las. If we do have to wait longer, we all of us need to find some occupation to keep ourselves busy. There's only so much formation flying, and games, we can do to pass the time."

"I thought that when I was down in Fort. Thanks."

"Thank you," H'ric replied. "And I think we all feel a bit flat after Turnover, and need a new resolution or two to carry us through this winter. I can't remember so much rain and sleet and hail before. Give me a good depth of clean snow rather than these icy mucky conditions!"

It seemed H'ric would have his wish, because snow started falling the next day, covering the ice and making conditions underfoot treacherous, but at least the cold and coughs started to abate. The weyrlings had been sequestered in their own quarters and seemed to have suffered the least, and H'ric knew they had been hard at work with all the dragons, cleaning and oiling them, getting themselves familiar with harness work, because very soon they would be flying for the first time.

H'ric and Jiverny stood on the Hatching grounds watching as Haveneth settled herself and displayed her second clutch of Galanath's mating.

"Thirty and a gold," H'ric said. "The Holders won't love us, lady mine, for this!"

"You've plenty of candidates in the Weyr?"

"Oh yes, but I'll still send out in Search. How sure are you that young Kalina from Fort will Impress the gold?"

Jiverny nodded. "If self-possession is anything to go by, she will do so. She's a very mature young lady, and helps me, and Lavand, with the ordering of the Weyr already. She's going to be an asset in the future - whatever that holds - "

She glanced at H'ric who shook his head in frustration. "It still doesn't add up. There should be a real urgency about the dragons, in the queens, and the Red Star should be looming larger."

"Has G'las made any headway in his theory we might be out by Turns?"

They made their way outside, and H'ric looked at the silently falling snow.

"He's trying to count back, trying to get people to remember how old they are, how old their parents were, that sort of thing."

"What about the records at Benden Hold?"

"I've sent a messenger to ask Lord Arun for his record keeper's assistance, but I suspect like us, they restart the Turns. That's how it's always been, he'll tell me, I'm sure."

"But even if we managed to pin down the length between Passes, there's no guarantee it would be exact, right back to the First Pass?"

H'ric shook his head as they entered the lower caverns. Mima bustled forward with a drink for them, and a nurse brought Jerenic to them. At eight months old he was already reaching for objects, already pulling himself up, and he stood on H'ric's knees and pulled at his clothes, babbling at him.

"Strong bones," Mima said approvingly. "He'll be a heart-breaker as well, if those curls stay in."

H'ric guided Jerenic's fingers to his buttons, and watched the child play with them, and Jiverny smiled fondly at them both; she spared as much time as she could to be with the child, and she could sense H'ric relaxing as he focussed on the child and not on the everlasting worries he had about the Weyr and their place in it. Jiverny could feel Haveneth's approval, and hoped this quiet time would help H'ric. Jerenic grabbed at his father's hair and H'ric gave a yelp, and Jiverny realised with a shock that there were grey hairs threaded in the black. She glanced at Mima, who nodded imperceptibly, and Jiverny knew she was not the only one to have noticed.

"Go to mama," H'ric said, and Jiverny took the child who made a grab for her long hair. "Ouch, that hurt!"

He glanced at the hair he had extracted from his son's grip, and sighed and shook his head.

"My father's hair was never grey that I recall, he died when I was so young," he said in a low voice. "My grandfather's hair was grey, the short time I remember him. But we all kept our curls."

"And so you will life long, lovey," Mima said briskly as she stood up. "Five weeks to Impression, I'd best be making an inventory of the food. We could do with some salted fish."

This last was a throw away remark over her shoulder, and H'ric glanced at Jiverny.

"Will you come to the coast? Master Fisherman Varel's fleet should be in the harbour, there might be some fish to buy."

"That would be nice. Yes, we'll go soon."