Dragonsblood (37 page)

Lorana, adding, “But Lorana might have some thoughts.”

Lorana was still digesting the events of the evening. She shook her head.

“My father bred herdbeasts,” she said. “Sometimes they would go off their

feed for no reason. We could never explain it.”

“Well, Tullea’s been ‘off her feed’ for the past three Turns now,” Kindan

commented sardonically.

“I think she’s just scared,” Salina said sympathetically. “And who can blame

her? These are very worrying times.”

Kindan recognized the end of the conversation and picked up the tray.

“We need to get back to our work,” he said to the others, gesturing for

Lorana to precede him.

“No, you need to get to sleep,” M’tal corrected. “I can’t have you two acting

like Tullea.”

Out of earshot, Kindan turned back to Lorana and said quietly, “Could it be

that the dragons are off their feed?”

Lorana looked at him questioningly.

“Could they be missing some nutrient we aren’t aware of? Something that

would make them susceptible to this illness?”

Lorana shook her head. She started to speak, but it turned into a wide yawn

before she could answer.

“M’tal is right,” Kindan declared. “You do need your sleep.”

He placed the tray on the return shaft to the Lower Caverns, turned back to

her with a grin, and raised his elbow invitingly. “May I escort you back to

your weyr, my lady?”

Lorana smiled in return, placing a hand on the proffered elbow, and getting

into “my lady” character. “Why certainly. Lead on!”

“I think I’ve got something,” Lorana said as they pored over Records the

next day.

Kindan looked up from his Records and gave her an encouraging look.

“This is the third reference I’ve seen to Fort Weyr.”

“I’ve seen about the same,” Kindan said.

“I think that when the Weyrleaders get really stumped, they go to Fort Weyr

and check the Records there,” Lorana declared.

“That would make sense,” Kindan agreed. “And Fort Weyr’s close enough

to the Harper Hall that they could draft some of the archivists to maintain

copies in good condition.”

“Didn’t you say you used to do copying at the Harper Hall?” Lorana asked.

When Kindan nodded, she continued, “Do you remember copying Fort

Weyr Records?”

“No,” Kindan admitted. “But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t done Turns

before.”

“I think it’s worth investigating,” Lorana said.

Lorana sprang up from her seat, gave herself an almighty stretch, and said,

“Anything to get away from these musty old Records.”

Kindan looked at her quizzically. “Are you accusing me of that sentiment, or

admitting it yourself?”

“Both,” Lorana answered, laughing.

“B’nik.”

A voice in his ear and gentle shaking roused the dragonrider. He turned

over, coming face-to-face with Tullea, her eyes worried.

“I—” she began, voice low and full of apology.

“Shh,” B’nik said, raising his fingers to her lips in a gesture of

understanding. Tullea’s face crumpled and she crushed herself against

him.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered into his shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all right, love, it’s all right,” B’nik told her, stroking her graceful neck and

clasping her tight to him.

Tullea tensed and pulled back. “But it’s
not
all right,” she protested, her

eyes shiny with tears and her nose running. She shook her head helplessly.

“I don’t understand, B’nik—”

B’nik tried to shush her again but she dodged his fingers.

“I never used to be like this,” Tullea continued. “I feel pulled apart, dizzy; I

can’t concentrate. I feel out of control all the time, B’nik. And it’s been like

this for
Turns.
”

B’nik nodded sympathetically.

“I want
me
back,” Tullea cried. “I want to be who I was, not angry all the

time.”

She looked into his warm eyes and told him her deepest fear: “And if I lose

you, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do that.”

M’tal wasn’t in his quarters, nor in the Kitchen Cavern. As they wandered

across the Bowl, they found K’tan first and decided to try the idea on him.

“Two more dragons have started coughing this morning,” he told them as

they approached. “That makes seven more since the last Fall.”

“Nearly two a day,” Kindan observed. “How long from the start of the cough

until . . .”

“Death?” K’tan finished. He shook his head. “Two, maybe three

sevendays.”

Lorana eyed the walls of the Bowl above them, picking out each individual

weyr. She spotted one dragon lolling with its neck extended out over the

ledge of its weyr, saw it sneeze and send a cloud of green ooze spraying

down and out across the Bowl. She pointed at it.

“It may not be the way it starts to spread,” she said to the others, “but do we

know if the latest sick are close by or under those already infected?”

K’tan gasped in surprise. “I hadn’t thought of that before.”

“I hadn’t either,” Lorana admitted.

Kindan raised his hands. “Nor I.”

K’tan stroked his chin thoughtfully. “But if you’re right, then we need to

isolate the sick ones on the lowest levels.”

Lorana shook her head. “That won’t work,” she said. When the other two

looked at her in surprise, she explained, “Because the riders still have to

walk across the Bowl—and the dragons wash in the lake.”

“They could be getting it from the waters of the lake, then, couldn’t they?”

Kindan said, with an apologetic look at Lorana for countering her theory.

Lorana’s shoulders slumped.

“They could. For that matter, they all eat the same food. The contagion

could be spread through the herdbeasts.”

“There’s a map of the weyrs in the Weyrleader’s quarters, I believe,” K’tan

said. “Given that any of these theories could be right, wouldn’t it make

sense to see if we spot the pattern Lorana suggested?”

“It might,” Lorana agreed. “But if the weyrs aren’t grouped by wings, it

probably won’t.”

K’tan gave her a questioning look.

“The dragons could infect each other while they’re training,” she explained

sadly.

Kindan groaned. “So we’re no nearer than we were.”

K’tan shook his head. “No, I think there’s some progress—we have a

number of good ideas we can follow.” He looked at Lorana. “When your

father dealt with sick herdbeasts, what did he do?”

Lorana started to marshal the list of actions in her mind. Seeing that she

was preparing a lengthy response, he interrupted her with an upraised

palm.

“I mean, what did he do first?”

“He tried to isolate the sick from the healthy,” she said immediately. And

then, as she registered the import of the words, she groaned. “Why didn’t

we think of this earlier?”

“Because we’ve been too near the problem,” K’tan answered swiftly.

“We’ve been too busy dealing with Thread and the day-to-day battle with

the sickness.” He shook his head sadly. “M’tal’s off training.”

“Not anymore,” Lorana declared. “I just called Gaminth back.”

Kindan whistled in surprise at her forwardness.

“Now
that’s
acting like a Weyrwoman,” K’tan said approvingly.

“You were right to call me back,” M’tal said to Lorana when they had

explained their purpose. “Fighting this illness is just as important as fighting

Thread.”

They were gathered in the Council Room. At M’tal’s invitation, Salina had

joined them. Kindan gave M’tal and Salina a quick review of their thinking.

Salina pointed to a slate chart and said, “Here’re the assignments for the

riders.” She looked it over and sighed. “I’m afraid it’s not very up-to-date.”

She laid it on the table and the others looked it over. It was arranged by

levels, with quarters numbered from the Weyrleader’s weyr.

K’tan found some colored chalks. He circled in red all those weyrs

occupied by dragons that had gone
between,
and in yellow all those who

were coughing.

Lorana pursed her lips unhappily. “That tells us how things are now,” she

said. “What we want to know is the progression of the sickness.”

“Mm.” K’tan agreed. He went back and started putting numbers beside

each illness. Salina’s Breth was, sadly, number one.

“But there were others sick before Breth,” Salina noted.

K’tan grunted agreement, dusted off some numbers and corrected them.

They peered at the final arrangement.

“I don’t see a pattern,” Kindan said.

“Well, there wouldn’t be,” M’tal said after a long moment’s silence. “If the

sickness is airborne and carried in the dragons’ sneezes, then the sickness

would sink down into the Bowl. Because every dragon comes down to the

Bowl at some point, they would breathe in the infected air.”

“Although some dragons sleep lower down and would be exposed to the

infected air more,” K’tan commented.

M’tal accepted this point with a shrug.

“If the disease was spread by water, then every dragon would have an

equal chance of catching it,” Kindan observed. He pointed to the

distribution of the sick dragons. “The upper levels are less infected than the

lower ones, so perhaps it
is
an airborne sickness.”

“You can’t rule out something in their food, either,” Salina countered.

Kindan nodded.

M’tal looked up at Lorana. “Gaminth said you had a plan. What was it?”

Lorana paused before answering. “I noticed repeated references to Fort

Weyr. It seems that every time the Weyrleader encounters something

extraordinary, there’s a trip made to Fort—”

“No,” M’tal said shaking his head. “I can guess what you’re thinking and we

can’t risk it. No one knows how the sickness spreads and we don’t want to

spread—”

“But the fact that more dragons have gotten sick since we imposed the

quarantine indicates that however the sickness was first acquired, it’s being

spread by our own dragons now,” K’tan interjected.

“Maybe our dragons can’t get sicker,” M’tal said, “but we can’t say whether

Fort Weyr’s dragons could.” He shook his head. “It’s a risk I don’t want to

take. And I can’t ask K’lior to take it, especially as he’s fighting his first Fall

tomorrow.”

“Perhaps after?” Lorana suggested forlornly.

M’tal drew a loud, thoughtful breath. He let it out again in a sigh, shaking his

head. “No.”

Kindan started to speak, but Lorana grabbed his arm, shaking her head.

“Very well,” she said. “We’ll do what we can.”

“Have you heard from Masterharper Zist?” M’tal asked Kindan.

Kindan shook his head. “Not yet. I’ve got a weyrling up on the watch heights

listening for the drums.”

“Perhaps he’ll have good news for us,” M’tal said wearily. He looked at the

others. “Well, if that’s all, I think I’ll get back to B’nik’s training flight.”

“It’s time to do our rounds, anyway,” K’tan said, rising from his seat. He

gestured to Lorana. “Coming?”

Lorana roused herself from her musings over the chart. “What? Oh, yes! I

want to see Denorith’s wing.”

FOURTEEN

Thread falls

Dragons rise

Dragonriders scan the skies

Dragons flame, Thread dies.

Fort Weyr, Third Pass, 6th day, AL 508

Wake up! Come on, K’lior, get up—it’s time to fight Thread,” Cisca called

from across the room, full of irrepressible enthusiasm.

K’lior rolled over and up. In truth, he hadn’t slept and even though he had

gone to bed very early in the morning, he had found himself faking sleep so

as not to upset Cisca.

“You were faking last night,” she said as she came across the room and

kissed him.

K’lior groaned. “I didn’t want to worry you.”

“I couldn’t sleep either,” she admitted. “But it’s time: Thread falls over lower

Nabol and upper Ruatha in less than two hours.” She gestured toward the

bathing room. “Get a good bath, start the day right.”

K’lior smiled. If there was any mantra to Cisca’s high energy life, it was “get

a good bath.” It was about the only time he could get her to slow down.

Well, one of the only times, he corrected himself with a wicked grin.

“I heard that!” Cisca called from the bathing room.

“I didn’t say anything,” K’lior returned mildly.

Cisca reentered the room, grabbed his hand, and tugged him playfully

toward the waiting bath. “I heard it anyway,” she said.

Wisely, K’lior said nothing. As he eased into the bath, he opened his mouth

to ask for some breakfast but Cisca hushed him with a raised finger.

“I’ve already sent down for some
klah
and scones,” she informed him. “Eat

light up here, so that you can eat a hearty breakfast with the riders.”

K’lior nodded: That had been his plan. He once again blessed his luck that

his Rineth had managed to catch Melirth when she rose. He had been so

afraid that one of the older, wiser dragons—and his rider—would have

managed to outmaneuver the young bronze on his first mating flight. He and

Cisca had already formed a strong attachment before her gold rose for the

first time, and while he understood and accepted the ways of the Weyr, he

was honest enough to admit that he did not want any other dragonman

entwined with her.

“I know that look,” Cisca said, returning with a tray. She put it down beside

the bathing pool and sat herself beside it. “You’re worrying about me