As they filed out, closing their jackets, settling their helmets, and pulling on their gloves, F'lessan felt the air of anticipation that always gripped him, speeding his pulse, deepening his breath.

On the ledges of their weyrs, green and blue riders were already mounted, firestone sacks on either side of dragon necks; some brown and bronze riders were still collecting sacks, launching from the Bowl to the Weyr Rim. Wingleader bronzes were drifting down to meet their riders in an orderly confusion. Golanth hovered above the ground to his left. F'lessan, judging the distance neatly, ran and vaulted to his back.

Golanth pumped his wings skillfully and circled, dropping down to his position on the Rim, between the wingseconds and in front of the twenty-two strong wing.

The green reserves are ready and will bring us sacks when you call them,Golanth reported.

As he fastened his safety straps and pulled up the fur-lined tops of his boots-his knees were always cold by the end of a Fall-F'lessan thought of Tai, wondering what it would be like to have her in his wing.

Zaranth is bigger than any of the others,his dragon remarked, turning his head slightly so that the left many-faceted eye reflected a view of his rider in the mid-planes. Firestone, please!He twisted his head to his rider's leg and dutifully F'lessan supplied him from the bulging sack.

Deftly Golanth tipped his head back, positioning the rock on his thick grinders. Then, exercising great care not to bite the edge of his tongue, he began to chew-as did every other dragon on the Rim. Five pieces F'lessan fed his bronze, sufficient for Golanth to work up a proper flame.

From the bowl rose the four Benden queens. As they circled up, all eyes on the Rim turned to the Weyrleader and Mnementh. F'lar's arm was raised; F'lessan held his high. The queens completed their last circle up, above the Rim, heading north-northeast.

You know where to go?F'lessan formally asked his dragon.

We all know!Golanth answered.

Mnementh roared and sprang forward just as F'lar's arm came down in the command to take wing. As one, dragons leaped upward. Then, as every one of the four hundred and eighty-four Benden dragons was a-wing, they went between.

They came out again in an air almost as cold as between.It hadn't been bright at Benden, but here, above the Eastern Sea, the sky was grayer: a shade that would make the silvery strands of falling Thread more difficult to see. Benden Weyr faced the probable entry of Thread, glad to have the wind behind them as the wings sorted themselves to their assigned levels. Far below, F'lessan could make out the queens' wings, small dots against the gray of snowy land and pewter sea. Ahead of him, almost motionless, was F'lar, he and Mnementh as ever leading them by several dragon-lengths.

This was the worst part of a Fall, F'lessan felt, and, with a glove-thickened finger, he pushed the thick new scarf against his goggles. He tucked his left boot top against his inner leg, and then checked the firestone sacks dangling down Golanth's withers before peering at the sky for any trace of Thread. Sometimes blinking helped.

It comes!Golanth told him and stroked his wings forward.

Mnementh's flame spouted brilliant orange and accurately seared the first Thread to fall.

There was nothing wrong with the Weyrleader's eyesight, F'lessan thought as he squinted to see the first Threads slanting down. He felt a primitive surge of elation as he and his dragon once more attacked their ancient adversary.

Sunlight woke Tai-hot sunlight. She kept her eyes closed as her mind roused to awareness. If the sun was on her face, it was almost noon. She was in her hammock between two big frond trees whose great draping leaves usually shielded her very well. The sun must now be close to its zenith. As usual, her face was turned toward the wallow that Zaranth used as a weyr. The green dragon was in full sun-just as she liked it, head between her forelegs, wings slightly drooping from her backbone so that their folds would absorb the heat. Many dragonriders had pondered the question: did dragons store heat in their bodies for their forays into between"?Zaranth had one eyelid open. By the gleam of the slit, she was watching something very carefully.

One of the disadvantages of living in the open was the insect population, in myriad forms: some scratched, even burrowed in flesh if possible; some merely moved in straight lines, like the trundlebugs that were the object of Zaranth's current inspection. A straight line for a trundlebug could also be perpendicular to the ground. They had been observed maneuvering up to the crown of a frond tree and down the other side. Right now, a very large trundlebug-the creatures could become quite large if no natural hazard ended their existence-was under intense draconic surveillance. This one had no fewer than five young still attached behind it, in various stages of maturation in the trundlebug's peculiar reproductive process. Their bodies collected pollen from low-growing shrubs and vines-also the occasional tree-and shed it in their progress to whatever unknowable goal trundlebugs had. What other purpose they served Tai did not know, but they were less of a nuisance than some crawlies and rather curious to watch. Single-mindedness was exemplified in the trundlebug. It had been suggested there was only a female of the species.

Trundlebugs were a good reason to sleep in a hammock. Humans used sticky-goo tapes around the trunks of hammock trees and the base of any living accommodation. Most buildings were on stilts as another deterrent to invading creepy-crawlies; in low-lying coastal areas, stilts also kept dwellings above high tide floods. Tai's little house was just beyond her hammock: all its shutters were open to let in what wind there was, the fine-net screens preventing the entry of airborne insects. The afternoon breeze generally wafted away those clinging to the material. The diurnal ones departed at dusk; the nocturnal ones were noisier but photosensitive. A tall spire of solar panel provided Tai with what power she needed: for lights, the warmer plate, the cold box, and for the occasional hot air during the worst of the cold weather-which, to her, was never as cold as it had once been in Keroon's foothills.

In the Southern hemisphere, some dragonriders preferred to live in companionable clusters or with their mates, but Tai loved seclusion. She had handcrafted such furnishings as she had, shelves, bedstead, worktop, hooks, and the chest where she kept her clothing.

Zaranth knew Tai was awake, but the green dragon was watching the trundlebug. Abruptly the inexorable path of the trundlebug-which would take it into Zaranth's left nostril-ended. Tai blinked. Had Zaranth exhaled from the victim nostril, tumbling the trundlebug and her offspring away from her? Movement out of the corner of her eye showed her that the trundlebug was now marching in an easterly direction, an exact forty-five degrees from its original course and at least a full dragon-length from its previous path.

How'd you do that?Tai asked, not sure she had seen what she had seen.

I did not care for it to crawl into my nose. I moved it.

Just like that?

Just like that.

Do you do it often?

Now and then. That…and Zaranth moved her chin slightly toward the redirected trundlebug, does not belong where it was going.The dragon lost her pose of indolence; her eyes were wide open, and she was magically on her feet. Felines! We're needed!

Tai scrambled from the hammock, leaping into her quarters, pulling on trousers, stomping into boots, shrugging into her riding jacket-and bother a sleeved shirt-and carrying the dangling safety straps out to slip the harness over Zaranth's eager head. It was as dangerous to hunt felines as to fly Thread. Zaranth shrugged the leathers to the base of her broad neck and lifted her leg for Tai to clip them together.