“Canth! Manora’s got an errand for us,” he warned the brown dragon as he strode from the Lower Cavern. He wondered how the women stood the smell.

Canth did, too, for the fumes had kept him from napping on the warm ledge. He was just as glad of an excuse to get away from Benden Weyr.

F’nor broke out into the early morning sunshine above Telgar Hold, then directed brown Canth up the long valley to the sprawling complex of buildings on the left of the Falls.

Sun flashed off the water wheels which were turned endlessly by the powerful waters of the three-pronged Falls and operated the forges of the Smithy. Judging by the thin black smoke from the stone buildings, the smelting and refining smithies were going at full capacity.

As Canth swooped lower, F’nor could see the distant clouds of dust that meant another ore train coming from the last portage of Telgar’s major river. Fandarel’s notion of putting wheels on the barges had halved the time it took to get raw ore down river and across land from the deep mines of Crom and Telgar to the Crafthalls throughout Pern.

Canth gave a bugle cry of greeting which was instantly answered by the two dragons, green and brown, perched on a small ledge above the main Crafthall.

Beth and Seventh from Fort Weyr, Canth told his rider, but the names were not familiar to F’nor.

Time was when a man knew every dragon and rider in Pern.

“Are you joining them?” he asked the big brown.

They are together, Canth replied so pragmatically that F’nor chuckled to himself.

The green Beth, then, had agreed to brown Seventh’s advances. Looking at her brilliant color, F’nor thought their riders shouldn’t have brought that pair away from their home Weyr at this phase. As F’nor watched, the brown dragon extended his wing and covered the green possessively. F’nor stroked Canth’s downy neck at the first ridge but the dragon didn’t seem to need any consolation. He’d no lack of partners after all, thought F’nor with little conceit. Greens would prefer a brown who was as big as most bronzes on Pern.

Canth landed and F’nor jumped off quickly. The dust made by his dragon’s wings set up twin whirls, through which F’nor had to walk. In the open sheds which F’nor passed on his way to the Crafthall, men were busy at a number of tasks, most of them familiar to the brown rider. But at one shed he stopped, trying to fathom why the sweating men were winding a coil of metal through a plate, until he realized that the material was extruded as a fine wire. He was about to ask questions when he saw the sullen, closed expressions of the crafters. He nodded pleasantly and continued on his way, uneasy at the indifference – no, the distaste – exhibited at his presence. He was beginning to wish that he hadn’t agreed to do Manora’s errand.

But Smithcraftmaster Fandarel was the obvious authority on metal and could tell why the big kettle had suddenly discolored the vital anesthetic salve. F’nor swung the kettle to make sure the two sample pots were within, and grinned at the self-conscious gesture; for an instant he had a resurgence of his boyhood apprehension of losing something entrusted to him.

The entrance to the main Smithcrafthall was imposing: four landbeasts could be driven abreast through that massive portal and not scrape their sides. Did Pern breed Smithcraftmasters in proportion to that door? F’nor wondered as its maw swallowed him, for the immense metal wings stood wide. What had been the original Smithy was now converted to the artificers’ use. At lathes and benches, men were polishing, engraving, adding the final touches to otherwise completed work. Sunlight streamed in from the windows set high in the building’s wall, the eastern shutters were burnished with the morning sun which reflected also from the samples of weaponry and metalwork in the open shelves in the center of the big Hall.

At first, F’nor thought it was his entrance which had halted all activity, but then he made out two Dragonriders who were menacing Terry. Surprised as he was to feel the tension in the Hall, F’nor was more disturbed that Terry was its brunt, for the man was Fandarel’s second and his major innovator. Without a thought, F’nor strode across the floor, his bootheels striking sparks from the flagstone.

“And a good day to you, Terry, and you, sirs.” F’nor said, saluting the two riders with airy amiability. “F’nor, Canth’s rider, of Benden.”

“B’naj, Seventh’s rider of Fort,” said the taller, grayer of the two riders. He obviously resented the interruption and kept slapping an elaborately jeweled belt knife into the palm of his hand.

“T’reb, Beth’s rider, also of Fort. And if Canth’s a bronze, warn him off Beth.”

“Canth’s no poacher,” F’nor replied, grinning outwardly but marking T’reb for a rider whose green’s amours affected his own temper.

“One never knows just what is taught at Benden Weyr,” T’reb said with thinly veiled contempt.

“Manners, among other things, when addressing Wing-seconds,” F’nor replied, still pleasant. But T’reb gave him a sharp look, aware of a subtle difference in his manner. “Good Master Terry, may I have a word with Fandarel?”

“He’s in his study . . .”

“And you told us he was not about,” T’reb interrupted, grabbing Terry by the front of his heavy wher-hide apron.

F’nor reacted instantly. His brown hand snapped about T’reb’s wrist, his fingers digging into the tendons so painfully that the green rider’s hand was temporarily numbed.

Released, Terry stood back, his eyes blazing, his jaw set.

“Fort Weyr manners leave much to be desired,” F’nor said, his teeth showing in a smile as hard as the grip with which he held T’reb. But now the other Fort Weyr rider intervened.

“T’reb! F’nor!” B’naj thrust the two apart. “His green’s proddy, F’nor. He can’t help it.”

“Then he should stay weyrbound.”

“Benden doesn’t advise Fort,” T’reb cried, trying to step past his Weyrmate, his hand on his belt knife.

F’nor stepped back, forcing himself to cool down. The whole episode was ridiculous. Dragonriders did not quarrel in public. No one should use a Craftmaster’s second in such a fashion. Outside, dragons bellowed.

Ignoring T’reb, F’nor said to B’naj, “You’d better get out of here. She’s too close to mating.”

But the truculent T’reb would not be silenced.

“Don’t tell me how to manage my dragon, you . . .”

The insult was lost in a second volley from the dragons to which Canth now added his warble.

“Don’t be a fool, T’reb,” B’naj said. “Come! Now!”

“I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t wanted that knife. Get it and come.”

The knife B’naj had been handling lay on the floor by Terry’s foot. The Craftsman retrieved it in such a way that F’nor suddenly realized why there had been such tension in the Hall. The Dragonriders had been about to confiscate the knife, an action his entrance had forestalled. He’d heard too much lately of such extortion’s.

“You’d better go,” he told the Dragonriders, stepping in front of Terry.

“We came for the knife. We’ll leave with it,” T’reb shouted and, feinting with unexpected speed, ducked past F’nor, grabbing the knife from Terry’s hand, slicing the smith’s thumb as he drew the blade.

Again F’nor caught T’reb’s hand and twisted it, forcing him to drop the knife.

T’reb gave a gurgling cry of rage and, before F’nor could duck or B’naj could intervene, the infuriated green rider had plunged his own belt knife into F’nor’s shoulder, viciously slicing downward until the point hit the shoulder bone.

F’nor staggered back, aware of nauseating pain, aware of Canth’s scream of protest, the green’s wild bawl and the brown’s trumpeting.

“Get him out of here,” F’nor gasped to B’naj, as Terry reached out to steady him.

“Get out!” the Smith repeated in a harsh voice. He signaled urgently to the other craftsmen who now moved decisively toward the dragonmen. But B’naj yanked T’reb savagely out of the Hall.