Two for the price of one today. Thank you for the reviews and follows of my stories.
Coming through the door, Saska blinked at sunlight falling across the floor. Doors were open onto a terrace, and she stared around, trying to orient herself from the Honshu she had known so briefly. Everything was new, she realised, the paintings were fresher, the floor less worn. The scents coming in from outside were the same, dust and flowers and greenery.
F'lessan, unmistakeable now she had seen his portrait, came across to help her.
"You look a lot better," he observed. "The arm isn't paining you?"
"My fingers are tingling - I think that's a good sign. Thank you."
She sat down on a leather covered couch and slid an embroidered cushion under her left elbow and looked around at the people in the room.
Granne, hovering watchfully, F'lessan by the open doors, Tai perched on another chair. Granne, she realised, was related to F'lessan, because her mother had been his uncle's weyrmate.
"First of all, we could ask your name," F'lessan said. "You'll not mind Tai making notes?"
"No, I don't mind. My name is Saska Freeman. I'm not a dragon rider. H'rat - H'rat and Noreth were taking me back to base - we'd been at a Gather."
"Not near here," F'lessan said at once. "We've had no Gathers for a long time."
"I know. It wasn't now."
F'lessan straightened up and stared at her.
"Not - now - you were timing it? Then you can give a dragon your co ordinates and return?"
Saska shook her head slowly.
"It's not quite as easy as that. It wasn't planned, in the way Weyrwoman Lessa planned her time-spanning flight, but there's a lot of time involved."
Tai studied her closely.
"Could you return with the help of one of our dragons?" she asked. "Can I presume - you have come back in time? Those clothes - the bag that won't open - "
"How long was I unconscious?" Saska asked in alarm.
"About ten days," Granne replied. "Then you drifted in and out of consciousness for perhaps another three or four. Does that make a difference?
"I don't know. I think I can still open my case. I was studying the decline in dragon sizes in that time compared to this time."
"We consulted AIVAS on that, and the conclusion was that dragons became artificially enlarged due to the bottle-neck of the leap forward," F'lessan observed.
Saska stared at him and struck her fist on her knee.
"Of course! I didn't factor that in, I was looking for other signs, but once all the dragons came forward, and breeding became more mixed, the sizes would have reverted to the optimum. I just need to know that optimum."
She looked around at the three people watching her with varying signs of bemusement and alarm and coloured up.
"Sorry," she said gruffly. "I know I sound self-centred, but I was working on something and my brain doesn't always know when to stop."
"But if you can't return, your information is useless anyway," Granne pointed out.
"Yes."
Saska looked away, studying the room, aware the other three were studying her.
"Why should it matter, if the dragons were getting smaller?" Tai asked at last. "I mean - this is the last Pass. After this, if AIVAS is right, there will be no more Thread. The dragons and their riders will find a new purpose in life, and I would expect them to diminish in size, back to what Kitty Ping devised."
"I'd been promised sight of the AIVAS records," Saska said. "H'rat was going to take me there - but then - there was something wrong - he was out of sorts - Noreth as well - the Holder had been arguing with him, I think."
"He was a blue. Perhaps there had been a mating flight?" F'lessan asked.
"There might have been. It would explain it, although H'rat was angry with me as well because I refused him."
"He wanted you as his weyrmate?" Tai asked incredulously. "A blue rider?"
Saska flushed. "No, he just wanted to be my escort at Re - back at the base. I told him I didn't want or need any particular person to be my escort, but I would always be pleased to be friendly to him."
F'lessan studied her.
"He took offence at that, and then all three of you took off. What happened then?"
Saska flushed scarlet and looked away.
"I was thinking about you, and Tai, and what I'd been told," she muttered. "There's a portrait of you at Honshu - Noreth said he'd like to see someone who looked as kind as you - and he flung us between."
F'lessan looked astonished, and then grinned.
"A portrait of me, eh, gone down through the ages. That's something, isn't it?"
"And Tai," Saska said, and Tai flushed up and swatted F'lessan as he preened.
"You must give terribly clear pictures, dangerously clear, if a dragon can choose your images over those of his rider," Tai said thoughtfully.
"That's what I'd been told, once I met the dragons, once the authorities realised I could hear them."
"All of them? Like Lessa?"
"Er - yes - all of them."
"Can you hear them now?" Granne asked, and Saska closed her eyes and listened to the buzz in her mind.
"I can't pick out any one individual," she said at last. "I get a general impression of a lot of dragons."
"There's a wing picketed here more or less permanently," F'lessan said.
"That's cruel!" Saska said, and then flushed up. "Sorry! But to have them all there - seeing what you can't have - but Golanth can still fly a little, can't he?"
"Yes, but not enough to fight. Not for a long time now, since the attack. I suppose that's all written in the history books? I hope they show me up in a good light!"
"Usually," Saska replied. She put her head on one side. "Someone's calling me, but no one here knows my name, surely?"
"Not unless one of the wing picked it out of Noreth's mind before he went between, for all time," Tai agreed.
They fell silent, Saska staring out onto the sunlit terrace, the others studying her, she was sure.
"So - the obvious question - how far back did you come?" Granne asked at last.
"300 turns, more or less," Saska replied slowly. "From what should have been close to the Eleventh Pass, except that as you say, there is no more Thread."
"Yet it's important the dragons shouldn't diminish in size?"
"Yes. It's to do with a project - something that dragons can do - move themselves and their riders to different locations."
"They need strength to do that," F'lessan agreed. "I always used to grumble at the amount of time I had to spend as a weyrling just doing exercises to build muscles, the same as Golly had to do."
Saska nodded. "I did mention to the Weyrlingmaster at the base weyr that dragons and riders should still be in top condition, even if the dragons don't actually use their wings for the - for the thing that they do."
F'lessan shook his head.
"You can't or won't tell us what is in the future, and I do appreciate that," he said at last. "But I think you'll have to explain a little more, in case there's a chance of a dragon picking out a location from your mind and taking you there."
"How would they get back?" Saska asked. "Assuming there's a rider with the dragon, they'd have to fly blindfolded into the future on my say-so, and then once I was safe, they'd be able to return here?"
"We might have to consider sending a dragon and rider to the future for all time," F'lessan said thoughtfully. "To take you there, and remain there."
Saska stared at him, and around at the others.
"Assuming you can picture it clearly enough, having been to Honshu in two time frames," Tai said with a frown.
"I can do that because in my case I've pictures of the Honshu I know, and the base as well - that would be a better place to aim for, because I know for a fact there's nothing there in this time frame, and no dragon will have a double picture of it."
"Always a better option," Granne said approvingly. "But for now - I want you back in bed, I'm afraid, because you're looking far too pale for my liking."
Saska eased her arm in its sling, but she had to admit she was tiring, and F'lessan came over to help her stand.
"Don't worry, Saska," he said gently. "We'll sort this one out for you, because we do have people who've travelling to and fro, so to speak, and their advice would be useful. Go and rest now, and see if you can find out which dragon actually called your name."