Dragonsblood (32 page)

his own son throwing him a sack of firestone as Thread fell all around

them.

Lina smiled, although her eyes were still weary. “I’m glad to hear that,” she

said. “He so wants to live up to your example, you know.”

Unconsciously, D’gan felt stung by the comment, even though he knew it

had been kindly meant. He was determined to set a standard no other could

attain.

C’rion stopped, pulling his back straight and forcing a pleasant expression

onto his face before he stepped out onto Ista Weyr’s Bowl. All above him,

from one side of the Bowl to the other, the Weyr was full of the sounds of

dragons coughing, snorting, and sneezing.

Directly above him, he heard a dragonrider call out, “Valorth! Valorth, no!”

A dragon dived out from its weyr and winked
between,
leaving behind

T’lerin—no, C’rion grimaced, Telerin; the honorific contraction for a

dragonrider lasted as long as his dragon. C’rion turned to head toward the

ex-dragonrider, to console him as he had consoled so many others in the

past three sevendays.

“I’ll do it,” a voice behind him said. C’rion whirled, swaying slightly from

fatigue, as he caught sight of J’lantir.

Wearily, C’rion nodded. “Get Giren,” he said, “he’ll know what to do.”

J’lantir shook his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, just now. T’lerin

spent too much time comforting Giren when Kamenth went
between.
”

C’rion gave him a blank look.

“T’ler—Telerin might blame Giren,” J’lantir explained.

“Then G’trial—I mean, Gatrial—” The look on J’lantir’s face stopped him.

“I’m sorry,” J’lantir said, tears welling up in his eyes. “I was coming to tell

you—”

C’rion bowed his head and nodded. He had feared that the Weyr healer

would not survive the loss of his dragon, especially after experiencing all

the pain and suffering of watching over thirty other dragons succumb.

“It was fellis juice, laced with wine and something else, I couldn’t identify,”

J’lantir said. “Dalia said she’ll look after him.”

C’rion shook his head, biting his lips. “No, no, I’ll do it, it’s my duty.”

J’lantir touched his shoulder gently. “You’ve too many duties, Weyrleader.

Thread is falling—”

“The Weyr must be led,” C’rion finished, swallowing hard. “How many have

we lost so far?”

“Thirty-six,” a new voice answered. Dalia joined them. “I’ve got weyrfolk

looking after Telerin,” she said. “We’ve got another thirty or more that don’t

look well.”

“Thread falls nine days from now,” C’rion responded.

Dalia smiled grimly, walked wearily up to him and hugged him. “You’ll do all

right,” she told him.

TWELVE

“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” This is as

true in ecosystems as it is in physics. Any new species will incite a

reaction from the ecosystem.

—Fundamental Principles of Ecosystem Design,
11th Edition

Fort Hold, End of First Pass, Year 50, AL 58

M’hall leaned back on Brianth and gazed up into the darkening sky. Nothing.

Some stars had started twinkling and the Red Star, which had been invisible

for months in daylight, was definitely fading in intensity.

Torene wants to know if that’s it,
Brianth relayed, adding an echoing

rumble of his own.

We haven’t seen any more signs of Thread for the past hour,
M’hall

replied.
I think that’s it. Have Torene assign a watch rider and tell the rest

to go back to the Weyr.

Torene wants to know if you’re coming, too,
Brianth said.

M’hall pursed his lips in thought.
Might as well,
between
won’t get any

warmer while I’m waiting.

It was hard to imagine that Thread would not return. That he would not be

called upon to fight them day after day, again and again. That finally, he and

all his surviving dragonriders could rest.

Rest, M’hall thought with a snort of amusement, I wonder what that’s like. He

patted his hardworking bronze partner on the neck and thought,
Come on,

Brianth, let’s go home.

Brianth had obligingly dropped M’hall off near the Caverns before retiring to

his weyr. M’hall waited for his Wingleaders to assemble, patting them on

the back or exchanging words as they arrived. Ghosts of lost riders ringed

them: M’hall could bring up many faces, scarred or young, bitter or thrilled,

that were no longer seen in the Weyr.

I wonder how Father would have handled this, he mused. Or Mother.

“So that’s the last of it, M’hall?” G’len called out.

“As far as I can tell,” M’hall replied. “And right on schedule.”

“Well that’s something to be grateful for,” young M’san said.

“Wine all around!” a voice bellowed from the background. M’hall roared in

hearty agreement. The cold of
between
filled the air as another dragon

returned. Without looking, M’hall knew it was Torene and Alaranth.

“Mugs tonight,” Torene declared. “You’ll all just break the glasses.”

They waited patiently while the wine was passed around. Soon the Cavern

was filled to overflowing with riders and weyrfolk.

“I didn’t know we had this many mugs,” Torene remarked in surprise.

“I didn’t realize we had this many people,” M’hall returned with a smile. He

looked out at the people of Benden Weyr, survivors of the First Pass of the

Red Star, and bellowed in a voice so loud that the dragons roared, “To

absent friends!”

“Absent friends!” The shouted response shook the very rocks of the Weyr.

“Come down and join the celebration,” Emorra called to the drummers on

the tower.

“We can’t, we’re on duty.”

“Suit yourselves, then,” she called back to them. She was drunk and she

knew it. She hadn’t been drunk in—she couldn’t remember how long. She

must have been drunk once before, or she wouldn’t have recognized it

now.

She turned back to the College, watching her feet to keep from stumbling.

Then she glanced over her shoulder at the tower behind her, realizing that

the voice that had answered her wasn’t Tieran’s. Where was he? She hadn’t

seen him for a while. Emorra pursed her lips, wondering exactly why she

cared.

The celebrants in the courtyard of the College had dispersed, some going

back to their rooms and others settling down for quieter revelries right

there. Emorra startled when her ears picked out Tieran’s voice. He was in

one of the classrooms. She headed toward it.

Partway there, Emorra paused. She heard a woman’s voice talking to him.

Well, maybe I should leave them alone, she thought sadly to herself. The

voice spoke again, passionately, and Emorra recognized it.

She charged into the room, yelling, “Just what do you think you’re doing?

You’re old enough to be his
grand
mother!”

Her agitation took her all the way into the room. Tieran was seated at one of

the tables. No one was seated in his lap. No one was muttering sweet

nothings into his ear.

Instead, Wind Blossom was in front of the chalkboard, scribbling genetic

coding sequences on it. Of course, Emorra thought to herself with slowly

dawning comprehension, I’ve never heard her use that tone
unless
she

was talking genetics.

Tieran and Wind Blossom were startled by her bold entrance. Wind

Blossom recovered more quickly, giving her daughter an inscrutable—even

to Emorra—look. Tieran just looked puzzled. The brown fire-lizard had leapt

into the air, but did not go
between.

“I was explaining the sequencing differences between the dragons and the

fire-lizards,” Wind Blossom told her daughter calmly. After a pause, she

added with only the slightest hint of a purr in her voice, “Were you enjoying

the end of Pass festivities?”

Emorra thought that over before responding. “I’m drunk,” she declared.

“So I had gathered,” Wind Blossom said frostily.

“What’s it like?” Tieran asked, eyes wide with interest. “I’ve never been

drunk,” he admitted. Hastily, he added, “Yet.”

“I think it’ll hurt in the morning,” Emorra admitted, her face still red. Why in

the world would I
ever
have thought that my mother and Tieran were . . .

ardent about anything, Emorra berated herself. “Why worry about the

sequencing?” she asked, trying to sound normal.

“We’re looking for common immune system limitations,” Tieran explained.

Emorra blinked, thinking. “The infection?”

“I was hoping we could prove that it couldn’t cross to dragons,” Tieran

said.

Emorra cocked her head, questioningly.

“We are still working on it,” Wind Blossom added pointedly.

“It’s the end of the Pass—haven’t you got anything better to do?” Emorra

blurted. “Alcohol blunts inhibitions and slows reasoning,” she remembered

as her brain processed the words her mouth had just uttered.

“Like what?” Wind Blossom asked.

“Like—like . . . well,
you’re
too old!” Emorra said. Clasping her hand to her

head in frustration at her own stupidity, she turned around and stomped

away.

“Alcohol reduces sexual function,” Emorra recalled with infuriating clarity as

she strode away.
Hmmph!

“It was bacterial in nature,” Wind Blossom repeated. “The general

spectrum antibiotic knocked it out.”

“Didn’t you teach me not to jump to conclusions?” Janir asked. “Isn’t it also

possible that the bacterial infection was a secondary infection that took

advantage of the compromised immune system, just like Tieran said?”

“So you’re arguing that we only knocked out the secondary infection, giving

the fire-lizard’s immune system a chance to handle the primary infection,”

Emorra suggested. They were gathered in one of the classrooms at Wind

Blossom’s invitation.

“Exactly,” Janir agreed.

“Wind Blossom and I agree that it really can’t be proved either way,” Tieran

said, with an apologetic look toward the old geneticist. “But what
can
be

proved is that the antibiotics saved Grenn’s life.” The little brown fire-lizard

gave Tieran an approving chirp.

“Grenn?” Janir asked.

“That’s what he’s named the fire-lizard,” Wind Blossom explained, waving a

hand toward Tieran.

“No, that’s the name that was on his bead harness,” Tieran corrected. “It’s

the name he was given by his original owner.”

Emorra’s eyes narrowed. “Do you have that harness?”

Tieran nodded. He drew it out of the pouch he had hanging over his

shoulder. “Right here.”

“May I see it?” she asked, extending a hand. Tieran handed it over, not

without misgivings. He didn’t know if he was more afraid that Emorra would

be immediately able to identify Grenn’s owner by the beads, or that she

wouldn’t. Emorra was studying the beadwork carefully.

“This symbol here—do you see it?” she asked, holding the harness up to

the others. “What do you make of it?”

“There’s the caduceus of Aesculapius,” Janir said. “The standard symbol

for medicine—”

“Or a doctor,” Emorra interjected. She peered more closely at the

beadwork. “But what’s beneath it?”

“It looks like some sort of animal,” Tieran suggested tentatively.

“But it’s hard to tell,” Janir complained.

Emorra looked at them all. “I just received a message from Igen, detailing a

plan to begin a beadworks,” she told them. “To my knowledge, there were

no beads brought over from Landing, nor any that landed with the original

settlers.”

She fingered the small beads sewn into the fire-lizard’s harness.

“These beads should not exist.”

“Really, Mother,” Emorra said, “you and that boy!”

“He is not a boy,” Wind Blossom countered. “He is nineteen!”

Emorra tossed the correction off with a wave of her hand. “Are you so

desperate to make amends with him that you’d deprive someone else of

their fire-lizard?” she sniffed. “That’s beneath you, you know.”

“Emorra, it’s been two months since the fire-lizard appeared,” Wind

Blossom replied. “I would have thought that if anyone was missing a

fire-lizard, we would have heard of it at the College by now.

“You can’t deny that the fire-lizard was sick with an illness we haven’t seen

before,” she continued.

Emorra grimaced. The fire-lizard
had
been ill. Both fire-lizards had been ill.

Clearly they had caught the disease somewhere. If they could get it, so

could other fire-lizards. If the fire-lizards could get it, then perhaps the

dragons. Possibly the day of planet-wide disaster she had been fearing

was just around the corner. Although, it could be that the disease was rare,

or propagated slowly, or its method of transmission . . .

“Were you asking people if they’d lost one or two fire-lizards?” she asked

abruptly.

“Tieran’s drum message asked if anyone was missing a gold or brown

fire-lizard,” Wind Blossom answered.

“Did you mention the illness?” Emorra asked, trying to recall the drum

messages that had been sent while they were in quarantine.

“Not in connection with the fire-lizards,” Wind Blossom said. “But we had to

have a reason for the quarantine. It’s a wonder that more people haven’t

been asking, putting two and two together. In fact, I’m rather surprised