Moreta (30 page)

Alessan cocked his left eyebrow just enough for her to realize that there were no more of the heavier beasts at Ruatha.

“Would you have any spare needlethorns?” Alessan asked, breaking the silence.

“Yes.” At that moment Moreta would have given Alessan anything he needed to alleviate his problems. “And whatever else is needed by Ruatha.”

“We’ve been promised a supply train from Fort,” Tuero said, “but until we can assure the wagoners that man and animal in Ruatha are plague-free, no one will venture near the Hold.”

Moreta assimilated that information with a slow nod of her head, her eyes on Alessan. They might be discussing something completely foreign to him to judge by his detachment. How else could he have survived his losses?

“M’barak, please take Lord Alessan and Journeyman Tuero to the storeroom. They may have anything they need from our supplies.”

M’barak’s eyes widened.

“I’ll be right with you,” Alessan told Tuero and M’barak, who left him. Alessan swung down the pack he carried. “I did not come,” he said with a wry smile, “in expectation of bounty. I can, however, return your gown.” He took out the carefully folded gold and brown dress and presented it to her with a courteous bow.

She managed to take it from him but her hands trembled. She thought of the racing, the dancing, her joy in a Gather as one should be, her delight in the perfection of that Gather evening as she and Oklina had made their way to the dancing square for an evening she would never forget. The pent-up frustrations, angers, suppressed griefs, the mandatory absences from Orlith that she thought of as betrayals of Impression, the whole accumulation burst the barrier of self-control and she buried her face in the dress, weeping uncontrollably.

As Orlith crooned supportively, Moreta was taken into Alessan’s embrace. The touch of his arms, fierce in their hold, the mixed odors of human and animal sweat, of damp earth, combined to free her tears. Abruptly she felt the heave and swell of his body as his grief found expression at last. Together they comforted and were comforted by each other’s release.

You needed this,
Orlith said to Moreta but she knew that the dragon included Alessan in her compassion.

It was Moreta who recovered from the catharsis first. She continued to hold Alessan tightly, to ease his shuddering body, as she murmured reassurances and encouragements, repeating all the praise for his indomitable spirit and fortitude that had come to her through K’lon: trying to make her voice and hands convey her own respect, admiration, and empathy. She felt the shuddering subside and then, with one final deep sigh, Alessan was purged of the aggregation of sorrow, remorse, and frustration. She relaxed her grip and his arms became less fierce and clinging. Slowly they leaned apart so that they could look into each other’s eyes. The lines of pain and worry had not diminished but the strain had eased about his mouth and brow.

Alessan raised his hand and with gentle fingers smoothed the tears from her cheeks. His hands tightened and he pulled her toward him again, bending his head to one side so that she could evade him if she chose. Moreta tilted her head and accepted his kiss, thinking to put the seal of comfort to their shared sorrow with that age-old benison. Neither expected their emotions to flare to passion—Moreta because she had stopped thinking of relationships outside the Weyr, Alessan because he had thought himself spent from his losses at Ruatha.

Orlith crooned serenely, almost unheard by Moreta, who was caught up by the surge of emotion, the flow of sensuality so remarkably aroused by Alessan’s touch, the hard strength of his thighs against hers, the sensation of being
vital
again. Not even her girlhood love for Talpan had waked such an uninhibited response, and she clung to Alessan, willing the moment to endure.

Slowly, reluctantly, Alessan raised his mouth from hers, looking down at her with incredulous intensity. Then he, too, became aware of the dragon’s crooning and looked, startled, in the queen’s direction.

“She doesn’t object!” That amazed him further, and he was sensible of the risk he had taken.

“If she did, you’d know about it.” Moreta laughed. His expression of dismay swiftly altering to delight was marvelous. Joy welled up from a long-untapped source in her body.

Orlith’s croon changed to as near a trill as the dragon larynx could manage. With great reluctance, Moreta stepped back from Alessan, her smile expressing that regret.

“They’ll hear it?” he asked, smiling back at her ruefully, his hands clinging as he released her.

“It may be chalked up to the joys of clutching.”

“Your gown!” He grasped at the excuse of retrieving the crumpled folds where the dress had fallen unremarked to the stone at their feet. He was passing it to her when M’barak and Tuero entered the Hatching Ground, Tuero with a keen sparkle in his expressive eyes.

“With so much on your mind, Alessan,” Moreta said, amazed at her self-possession, “it is very good of you to have remembered.”

“If the simple courtesy of returning what had been misplaced is always rewarded with such generosity, leave more with me!” Alessan’s eyes burned with amusement at his turn of phrase but it was Tuero’s full pack that he indicated.

Moreta could not but laugh. M’barak was looking from her to Orlith, Tuero was aware that something had occurred but he couldn’t identify it.

“I didn’t take
all
we needed,” the harper said as he looked from Weyrwoman to Lord Holder with a bemused smile. “That would have stripped your stores completely.”

“I shall be able to get replacements more easily than you, I think. As I was telling Alessan”—Moreta felt the need to dissemble—“I think there are old Records about this sort of animal vaccination, though I cannot remember the details. I would try the serum on a worthless beast—”

“Just now there are
no
worthless beasts at Ruatha,” Alessan said quickly, a slight edge to his voice. “I have no choice but to proceed and hope the animal vaccine is as efficacious as the human.”

“Did you inquire of Master Capiam?” Moreta asked, wishing that Alessan had not distanced himself from her quite so soon though she could appreciate the necessity.

“You
know runners, not Master Capiam. Why rouse them if the notion was not feasible?”

“I think it is feasible.” Moreta put her hand urgently on Alessan’s arm, yearning to recapture some trace of their encounter. “I think you should inform the Healer Hall immediately. And keep me informed.”

Alessan smiled with polite acknowledgment and, under the pretense of a courteous pressure on her hand, his fingers caressed hers.

“You may be sure of that.”

“I know Oklina lives.” The words came in a rush from her lips as Alessan turned to leave. “Did Dag . . . and Squealer?”

“Why do you think I want so desperately to vaccinate the runners? Squealer may be the only full male I have left.” Alessan left, pausing briefly at the entrance to bow toward Orlith.

With a startled expression, Tuero hastened after him, and M’barak hurried after his two passengers. Orlith crooned again, her many-faceted eyes whirling with flashes of red amid the predominant blue. Feeling rather limp after the spate of emotions and resurgent desire, Moreta sank to the stone seat, clasping her trembling hands together. She wondered if there was any chance that Holth and Leri had missed that tumultuous interview.

CHAPTER XIV

Healer Hall, Ruatha Hold, Fort Weyr, Ista Hold, Present Pass, 3.20.43

“L
OOK AT THE
situation as a challenge!” Capiam suggested to Master Tirone.

The harper slammed the door behind him, an uncharacteristic action that startled Desdra and sent Master Fortine into a spasm of nervous coughing.

“A challenge? Haven’t we had enough of those in the past ten days?” Tirone demanded indignantly. “Half the continent sick, the other half
scared
sick, everyone suspicious of a cough or a sneeze, the dragonriders barely able to meet Thread. We’ve lost irreplaceable Masters and promising journeymen in every Craft. And you advise me to look on this news as a challenge?” Tirone jammed his fists against his belt and glared at the Masterhealer. He had fallen into the pose that Capiam irreverently called the “harper attitude.” Capiam dared not glance at Desdra to whom he had confided the observation for it was not a moment for levity. Or perhaps that was all that was keeping his mind from buckling under the new “challenge.”

“Did you not tell me yourself earlier this morning,” Tirone continued, his bass voice resonant with vexation—“harper enunciator,” Capiam’s graceless mind decided, “that there had been no new cases of the plague reported anywhere on the continent?”

“I did. I’ll be happier when the lapse is four days long. But that only means that this wave of the viral influence is passing. The ‘flu’—as the Ancients nicknamed it—can recur. It’s the
next
wave that worries me dreadfully.”

“Next one?” Tirone stared blankly at Capiam, as if wishing he had misheard.

Capiam sighed. He was not at all happy with a discussion that he had hoped to put off until he had completed a plan of action. People were less apt to panic if they were presented with a course of action. He had nearly completed his computations for the amount of vaccine needed, the number of dragonriders (and he had to assume they wanted to avoid a repetition of the plague as much as he) needed to distribute the vaccine, and the halls and holds where it would be administered. The confrontation had been precipitated by apprentice gossiping: speculations about why healers were still asking for blood donations for more serum when the reported cases of the “flu” were dropping and why the internment camp had not been struck.

“Next one?” Tirone’s voice was incredulous.

“Oh, dear me, yes,” Master Fortine replied from his corner, thinking his colleague needed support. “So far we have found four distinct references to this sort of viral influence. It seems to mutate. The serum which suppresses one kind does not always have any effect on the next.”

“The details would bore Master Tirone, I fear,” Capiam said. No sense in fomenting total alarm. Capiam had seized on the hope that, if they could immunize everyone in the Northern continent, catching all the carriers of
this
type, they would be in less danger from further manifestations, the symptoms for which would now be easily recognized and speedily dealt with.

“I am less bored by details than you might imagine,” Tirone said. He strode forward, pulled out the chair at Capiam’s desk, and seated himself, folding his arms across his chest in an aggressive fashion. He stared pointedly at Capiam. “Acquaint me with the details.”

Capiam scratched at the back of his neck, a habit he had recently acquired and that he deplored in himself.

“You know that we looked back into the Records to find mention of the viral influence . . .”

“Yes. Stupid name.”

“Descriptive, however. We found four separate references to such ‘flus’ as periodic scourges before the Crossing. Even before the First Crossing.”

“Let us not get into politics.”

Capiam opened his eyes in mild reproof. “I’m not. But I always thought you were of the Two-Crossings school of thought and the language in the texts supports that theory. Suffice to say,” Capiam hurried on as Tirone twitched his eyebrows in growing irritation, “our ancestors also carried with them certain bacteria and viruses which were ineradicable.”

“Indeed they were, but they are necessary to the proper function of our bodies and the internal economy of the animals brought on both Crossings,” Master Fortine said in earnest support of his colleague.

“Yes, as Fortine says, we cannot escape some infections. We
must
prevent a second viral infection. It can recur. Here. Now. As doubtless it does periodically on the Southern Continent. We know to our sorrow that it only takes one carrier. We can’t let that happen again, Tirone. We have neither the medicines nor the personnel to cope with a second epidemic.”

“I know that as well as you do,” Tirone said, his voice rough with irritation. “So? Do those precious Records of yours say what the Ancients did?” He gestured at the thick Records on Capiam’s desk with a contempt based on fear.

“Mass vaccination!”

It took Tirone a moment to realize that Capian had given him a candid answer.

“Mass vaccination? The whole continent!” Tirone made a lavish sweep of one arm, glaring at Capiam. “But I’ve
been
vaccinated.” His hand went to his left arm.

“That immunity lasts only about fourteen days with the sort of serum we can produce. So you see, our time is limited . . . and might even be running out in Igen and Keroon unless we can vaccinate everyone and anyone who might harbor the virus. That’s the challenge. My Hall provides the serum and the personnel to vaccinate; yours keeps Hall, hold, and Weyr from panic!”

“Panic? Yes, you’re right about that!” Tirone jerked his thumb in the direction of Fort Hold where Lord Tolocamp still refused to leave his apartment. “You would have more to fear from the panic than the plague-just now.”

“Yes!” Capiam put a great deal into that quiet affirmative. Desdra had moved perceptibly closer to him. He wasn’t sure if her intention was supportive or defensive, but he appreciated her proximity. “And we have to proceed with speed and diligence. If there should be a carrier in Igen, Keroon, Telgar, or Ruatha . . .”

The vulnerable angry look in Tirone’s eyes reminded him of his own reaction when he had had to admit the inescapable conclusions drawn from the four references Fortine, and then Desdra, had reluctantly shown him.

“To prevent a second epidemic, we must vaccinate now, within the next few days.” Capiam turned briskly to the maps he had been preparing. “Portions of Lemos, Bitra, Crom, Nabol, upper Telgar, High Reaches, and Tillek have not had contact with anyone since the cold season started. We can vaccinate them later, when the snow melts but before the spring rains, when those people begin to circulate more freely. So we have to concern ourselves with this portion of the continent.” Capiam brought his arm down the southern half. “There are certain advantages to the social structure on Pern, Tirone, particularly during a Pass. We can keep track of where everyone is. We also know approximately how many people survived the first wave of the flu and who has been vaccinated. So it comes down to the problem of distributing the vaccine on the appointed day. As dragonriders are vulnerable to the disease, I feel we can ask their cooperation in getting vaccine to the distribution points I’ve marked out across the continent.”

Tirone gave a cynical snort. “You won’t get any cooperation from M’tani at Telgar. L’bol at Igen is useless—Wimmia’s running the Weyr and it’s a mercy Fall is a consolidated effort. F’gal might help . . .”

Capiam shook his head impatiently. “I can get all the help I need from Moreta, S’ligar, and K’dren. But we must do it now, to halt any further incidence of the flu. It can be halted, killed, if it does not have new victims to propagate it.”

“Like Thread?”

“That is an analogy, I suppose,” Capiam admitted wearily. He had spent so much time arguing lately, with Fortine, Desdra, the other Masters, and himself. The more he presented the case, the more clearly did he feel the necessity for the push. “It takes only one Thread to ruin a field, or a continent. Only one carrier is needed to spread the plague.”

“Or one idiot master seaman trying to stake a premature claim on the Southern Continent—”

“What?
”

Tirone took from his tunic a water-stained sheaf, its parchment pages roughly evened.

“I was on my way to see you about this, Master Capiam. Your healer at Igen Sea Hold, Master Burdion, entrusted this to my journeyman. I wanted it for an accurate account of this period.”

“Yes, yes, you badgered me on my sickbed.” Capiam made to take the book from Tirone, who reproved him with a look.

“There was no floating animal, no chance encounter, Capiam. They
landed
in Southern. Burdion was quite ill, you know, and during his convalescence he read the log of the good ship
Windtoss
for lack of anything more stimulating. He’s been in a sea hold long enough to know sailing annotations. And he said that Master Varny was an honest man. He logs the squall, right enough, and that did send them legitimately off course.
But
they ought not to have landed. Exploration of the Southern Continent was not to be undertaken until this Pass was over. It was to be a combined effort of Hall, Hold, and Weyr. They were three days in that anchorage!” Tirone punctuated his remarks by stabbing his fmger at the journal in such a way that Capiam couldn’t see the page properly. Then Tirone relinquished it to his grasp, and Desdra sidled up to look.

“Oh, dear, oh, dear, how very presumptuous of Master Varney,” Master Fortine said. “But that means this is not a case of zoonosis, Capiam, but a direct infection.”

“Only if there were humans in the Southern Continent,” Capiam said hopefully.

“The log entries do not suggest there are!” Tirone sank that possibility.

“Indeed the Records concerning the Second Crossing are clear on that point.”

“Are we sure,” Desdra asked, “that they
were
in southern waters?”

“Oh, yes,” Tirone said. “A seabred journeyman harper confirmed that the positions correspond to the Southern Continent! He said there wouldn’t
be
any place shallow enough to anchor anywhere
short
of the landmass of the continent. Three days they were there!”

“The log says”—Desdra was reading—“that they had to jury-rig repairs to the sloop after it was damaged by a storm.”

“That’s what it
says,
” Tirone agreed sardonically. “Undoubtedly they did make repairs, but Burdion added a note”—Tirone produced a scrap that he flourished before he read it—“ ‘I found fruit pits of unusual size in the unemptied galley bucket and rotten husks of some specimens which were unknown to me though I have been many Turns in this Hold.’ ” Tirone leaned toward Capiam, his eyes brilliant. “So, my friends, the
Windtoss
made a premature landing. And look where it has landed us!” Tirone threw his arms wide in another of his grand gestures.

Capiam sank back wearily in his chair, staring at the maps, flicking his careful lists with his fingers.

“The log may shed light on certain aspects of this, my good friend, but also warns us against that projected return to the Southern Continent.”

“I heartily agree!”

“And it reinforces my conclusion that we must vaccinate to prevent the spread of the plague. And vaccinate the runners as well. I really hadn’t counted on that complication.”

“Look on it as a challenge?” said Desdra dryly, her hands kneading at the tense muscles of Capiam’s shoulders.

“Not one which I think our unofficial Masterherdsman is capable of answering, I fear,” said Capiam.

“Would Moreta know? She was runnerhold bred, her family had a fine breeding hold in Keroon . . .” Even the brash Masterharper paused, knowing of the tragedy there. “She did attend that mid-distance runner at Ruatha Gather. That was the first case to be noted here in the west, remember.”

“No, I don’t remember, Tirone,” Capiam said irritably. Did he have to cure the sick animals of this continent, too? “You’re the memory of our times.”

“Surely if we have a human vaccine, we can produce by the same methods an animal one,” Desdra said, soothingly. “And there’s Lord Alessan, who certainly has enough donors. I did hear, did I not, that some of his runnerbeasts survived the plague?”

“Yes, yes, they did,” Tirone said swiftly, glancing with an anxious frown at the despondent Masterhealer. “Come, my friend, you’ve solved so many of our recent problems. You cannot lose heart now.” Tirone’s bass voice oozed entreaty and persuasiveness.

“No, no, my dear Capiam, we
cannot
lose heart now,” Master Fortine added from his corner.

Tirone rose, his manner suddenly brisk. “Look, Capiam, I’ll drum for a convey. You can go to Fort Weyr, see what Moreta can tell you. Then on to that new man—what’s his name, Bessel?—at Beastmasterhold. Meanwhile, since I take it that this vaccination program of yours is more urgent than ever, I’ll sweeten hail and hold. I’ll start with Tolocamp.” Tirone jerked his thumb toward Fort Hold. “If he agrees, we’ll have no trouble with the other Lords Holder, even that crevice snake Ratoshigan.”

“Considering Tolocamp’s mental state, however will you accomplish his cooperation?” Capiam asked, jarred from his depression by Tirone’s obvious confidence.

“If you recall, my fellow Master, Lord Tolocamp has been deprived of our services for the past few days. As he has never encouraged any of his children or his holders to have ideas, he is going to need
ours.
He’s had long enough to reconsider his intransigence,” Tirone replied with a deceptively bland smile. “You take care of the vaccine; I’ll organize the rest.”

The Masterharper was careful to retrieve the log of the
Windtoss
from Capiam before he left with an energetic stride and a brisk slam of the door.

The elation that Alessan had experienced after his visit to Fort Weyr was compounded of renewed hope and the unexpected sympathy of Moreta. He would have liked to savor that incident but the most urgent problem, producing a usable vaccine for runnerbeasts, especially those he devoutly hoped that Dag had saved, took precedence over any personal consideration.