Then the nearer wings went into action. Flame sprouted red-orange, then caught, and Thread burned into blackness. It was clumping today, Torene noticed, and she turned the regulator on her wand to a wide setting.

She also turned her hearing to listen to the dragons already engaged and wondered if Sorka was asking Faranth about the nicknames.

She is, Alaranth promptly replied, as an overlay of messages from both dragons and riders briefly confused Torene: Watch your left, F'mar! That's coming in at two o'clock, B'ref! Big mother clump descending right over you, D'vid. Firth, watch right! That last came directly from the Weyrleader dragon to Shih Lao's.

Torene giggled. There was nothing dragons could do with that name!

S'lao was Alaranth's prompt reply. Stuff getting through. Veer right!

Sorka and Faranth had already begun to swing, and Torene and Alaranth followed. Habit kept Torene listening in with half an ear, as the queens' wing began to mop up: mostly single Threads, which the upper level of fighters ignored in order to concentrate on the clumps and tangles. Faranth directed some of the quicker green riders to spread out to catch the outer edges of these and then, in an aside, ordered Alaranth to supervise.

Sometimes Torene's neck ached with craning her head upward. Occasionally Alaranth eased her forequarters upward so that the strain was reduced, but such an awkward maneuver was hard for the queen to sustain

A dragon screamed, and instantly Alaranth identified the beast: Siwith, P'ter's blue.

Wing damage, Alaranth said. We go.

We're assisting, Elliath, Uloa's queen, said. The pair went between the brief distance to the falling blue. Siwith's right wing had been shredded. Unable to sustain flight, he was managing no more than a downward spiral.

Spouting flame, two greens appeared, clearing Thread from the path of the two queens as they arrived to arrest the blue's descent.

Alaranth and Elliath had done this maneuver so often in the past two years that it was nearly routine now. As Torene laid herself flat against her queen's neck, Alaranth being the larger beast, slipped up under the falling blue matching his downward speed and then coming up under his smaller body, holding it along her spine. Torene could feel Siwith's hot and pungent breath on her back and hoped he wasn't going to lose another suit of riding gear from scorching. Elliath hovered above them both, her forelegs poised to grab Siwith by the wing shoulders if he slipped.

Nice catch, Carenath told Alaranth.

Siwith's whistles of pain were muted as the little fellow valiantly tried to stifle the agony of a wing injury.

We have him, Alaranth told her rider, who could feel the strain through her queen's body.

Siwith, Torene said, relax now while we take you between. We've got you safe. Elliath, we go… now!

The transfer to Fort Weyr was accomplished. Sometimes the wounded panicked when they weren't in control of a movement between, another reason for the second queen ready to grab wing-shoulder joints. But Siwith managed to stay calm, and Alaranth arrived at the Weyr with her casualty still in place. The extra weight had her skimming the surface, though she landed smoothly just where medics waited.

"Are you okay, P'ter?" Torene shouted over her shoulder. A whiff of scorched leather reached her nose.

"Yeah. Thanks, ‘Rene! Just missed me. Ah, Siwith, you'll be all right. You'll be all right!" P'ter's voice was ragged with concern and shared pain.

"Hang on while we transfer you."

Alaranth tucked her left wing as well as she could under the wounded blue's limp pinion, Elliath caught Siwith by his uninjured joints, and as Alaranth eased out from under Siwith, the other queen gently eased his body to the ground. Hoses had already sprayed numbweed on the underside of the mangled wing membrane; now the medics could reach the upper surface. The blue's rider unbuckled his fighting straps and started slathering his dragon's upper back. Siwith's whistles of pain were reduced to murmurs of relief.

"D'you need new tanks, Uloa?" Torene asked.

"No, I'm fine for another hour."

"Me, too."

Torene looked skyward, giving Alaranth the signal to be ready. Both queens sprang from the ground at the same instant and, sufficient altitude gained, winked between and back to the Fall.

The evening meal was served at a late hour. While ground crews said that little had gotten through the wings, there had been sufficient injuries that all the riders knew Sean would have words with the Weyr in general before they were dismissed.

"He's sure to claim today's flying injuries are due to careless riding, bad concentration, and stupidity," N'klas muttered as he followed Torene into the lower cavern.

"And he'd be right," Torene said, grinning back over her shoulder at the morose N'klas. "But clumps are the hardest to fly, and he's sure to admit that before he starts lambasting us."

"Nice catch on Siwith, by the way. P'ter says he'll be out months growing back wing membrane."

"Thought so, from what I could see when we brought him in."

"At least he got the best ambulance team."

When she and Uloa had returned to the queens' wing, Faranth and Greteth had been in the process of catching another wing injury.

Sorka says your timing is excellent. You have command of the wing, Faranth had said directly to Torene. We have him, Greteth. Easy now, Shelmith. We have you. Relax, will you?

I still fall, Torene heard Shelmith say, frightened.

Of course you do, but I fall right under you. You are caught. Feel my back under your belly.

I do! I do!

"What about Shelmith?" she asked N'klas now. She hadn't had time to check on the injured yet. The queens' wing always made contact with ground-crew leaders before returning to the Weyr.

"He's only got holes in one wing, but body scores and some bad tracks down the right hindquarter," N'klas said, wrinkling his nose at the extent of the injuries. "We need rearview mirrors."

Torene laughed. "Where on earth would we attach them?"

"Oh, shoulder, peripheral vision reflex mirror, maybe."

Torene stopped at the sight of the crowded dining tables. "Lord, we'll have to take front seats tonight," she said, noting the only vacant spots at the tables perpendicular to the slightly raised Weyrleader and Wingleaders' table.

"You did great," N'klas said. "You've got no cause to feel guilty. Too bad you aren't bigger," he added with a grin, for he was heavy through the shoulders and chest. "I could hide behind you."

"You've nothing to worry about. You brought Petrath in with no scores, didn't you?"

N'klas paused before he answered, his remorseful expression verging on the comical. "Not exactly. Though," he hastened to add, "he won't be out of action more than a week, I'd say."

"I'm sorry, I didn't know." She glanced up at him with a rueful smile.

N'klas shrugged his wide shoulders. "Nothing a bucket of numbweed didn't soothe. Dragon hide grows back quickly, thanks be!"

The kitchen crew were quick to serve the riders as soon as they seated themselves. The top table was not occupied as yet: Torene knew that Sean would be having a few words with Wingleaders over poor performance. But Sean knew that clump Falls were always the trickiest, and while a lot of dragons had not finished this Fall due to minor wounds, there had been very few put out of commission by major ones. Every wing had missing members, and some wings were off on R & R, so the Weyr was flying a bit short. Only queens never got official vacation: queens got time off only for clutching. As Alaranth had yet to experience her first mating flight, Torene had been on duty for over two years without a break.

We fly well as a team. We do excellent rescues, Alaranth said.