“How did your son come to be mauled by the watch-wher?” Wind Blossom asked, sidestepping his outburst.
Purman glared at her before answering, his lips pursed tightly.
“Tieran loved that thing. He played with her, and spent all his time with her,” he replied. He sighed. “She was sleeping and Tieran came over to her and tried to scratch her head, like he’d seen M’hall do with his dragon.”
Wind Blossom sat upright and tried to get out of bed, but Purman stopped her, looking at her questioningly. Her fatigue did not diminish the fire that fanned in her brown eyes, as she said, “That one must be destroyed. Immediately.”
Purman recoiled. Instead of asking her why, he furrowed his brows in thought.
“An instinctive reaction?” he guessed. “Why?”
The door to her room opened and M’hall and Emorra entered.
“An instinctive reaction,” Wind Blossom agreed. “I thought I had bred it out.” She turned to M’hall. “That watch-wher must be destroyed before she passes on the trait.”
M’hall shook his head. “Bendensk went between already, Wind Blossom.”
Wind Blossom sighed. “She was very old.” She looked at Purman. “Perhaps if she had been younger, she could have controlled herself.” She looked up at M’hall. “How is the wherhandler?”
M’hall crossed the room and seated himself, frowning. “That may have been part of the problem, too,” he said. “Jaran-now J’ran-had been Searched and Impressed the week before.”
“The watch-wher would have been confused and seeking out a new wherhandler,” Wind Blossom said to herself. She looked at Purman. “Probably your son.”
“How is the boy?”
“He is doing well,” Emorra replied. “Janir has him in a fellis-laced sleep.”
“We shall have to wake him soon,” Wind Blossom said, making a face. “And we must keep his jaw as immobile as possible.”
“That will be hard on him,” Purman said, flashing a smile. “He is a talker.”
“Then someone who can outtalk him should be at his side when he wakes,” Wind Blossom replied. She looked at her daughter. “Emorra, see to it.”
“My lady!” M’hall protested, “Emorra is the administrator here. She should not be ordered about-”
“She is my daughter,” Wind Blossom replied, as if that were enough. Emorra bit off a bitter response, nodded curtly to her mother, and left.
“Mother or not-” M’hall’s indignation suffused his face.
Purman was unmoved. “Why did you send her out?”
Wind Blossom stared at M’hall until the Weyrleader let out an angry sigh. “How much has your mother told you, M’hall?”
M’hall shot a pointed glance at Purman. Wind Blossom motioned for M’hall to continue. The Benden Weyrleader relaxed, looking only at Wind Blossom.
“My mother,” M’hall said, giving the second word slight emphasis, “has told me everything she knows.”
“About what?” Purman asked, turning from one to the other, realizing slowly that the conversation was for his benefit.
“About the dragons, the watch-whers, and the grubs,” the Benden Weyrleader replied.
“And now, Purman’s vine-grubs,” Wind Blossom added.
“Don’t forget the felines in the Southern Continent,” M’hall countered.
Wind Blossom cocked her head toward Purman. “How much can you tell us about the felines?”
Purman shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
“The dragons, watch-whers, and grubs are all modifications to Pern’s ecosystem,” Wind Blossom said, as if that were explanation enough.
Purman pursed his lips in thought. “The dragons fight Thread from on high, and the grubs catch it down low,” he said after a moment.
“But the grubs do more than that, don’t they?” Wind Blossom prompted.
Purman nodded slowly.
“My mother made the dragons and I made the watch-whers,” Wind Blossom said. M’hall snorted derisively at her, but she held up a restraining hand. “That is what everyone has been told, M’hall.”
Purman cocked an eyebrow at this exchange. “My father bred the felines and the grubs,” he said after a moment. “The grubs protect Pern, so you were wondering if I knew the purpose of the felines?”
Wind Blossom nodded.
Purman shook his head, sadly. “My father never said,” he told them. “He was very excited with them, said that he would show everyone, but I was too little and he never tried to talk to me.” He frowned at old memories.
“I don’t think he trusted me to keep his secrets,” he admitted.
“My mother believes that there are too many secrets on Pern,” M’hall said, looking back and forth between the two of them. “She is afraid that something will happen and that vital information will be lost, to the detriment of all.”
Wind Blossom had been scrutinizing Purman’s face carefully while M’hall was talking. Now she shook her head. “M’hall, I don’t think he knows.”
“Knows what?” Purman asked.
Wind Blossom answered his question with a question: “When does it end?”
“When does what end?” Purman replied, irritated.
He thought he knew M’hall, and was accepted at Benden Hold for his valuable work in adapting the grubs in a tighter symbiosis with Benden’s grape vines, but now he wasn’t sure. He wondered if he was being mocked by these two for being his father’s son. His life had been so hard as a youngster that he’d changed his name, making it more Pernese and less readily identifiable with the rogue botanist.
Wind Blossom sighed, shaking her head. She reached out to take Purman’s hand in her own, soothingly. “I am sorry, Purman. I had hoped that your father had passed on his knowledge to you.”
“He told me some things,” Purman replied stiffly. “Other things I learned on my own.”
M’hall slapped his leg emphatically, exclaiming, “There, you see! That proves Mother’s point. There should be no secrets.”
“I do not disagree, M’hall,” Wind Blossom said. “But some things are pointless to know-like the knowledge of sutures-because the technology cannot support it.”
M’hall nodded reluctantly.
Purman had been thinking while the other two were talking. Now he looked at Wind Blossom. “How similar are the watch-whers to the dragons?”
M’hall snorted and gave Purman a keen smile. “You see, Wind Blossom, Purman lends weight to my point.”
Wind Blossom nodded and turned her head to face Purman. “They are very similar. I started with much of the same genetic base and the same master program.”
“What is their purpose, then?”
She raised an eyebrow in surprise, then sighed. “Your training is sparse, Purman. You should have been taught that there should always be more than one purpose in introducing a new species into an ecosystem.
“In fact, the watch-whers were intended to solve several problems,” she continued. “Dragons, by their nature, would associate only with a select few people. But they must become part of the human ecology, if you will. They must not be feared.”
“So you bred the watch-whers as something that most people could see?” Purman sounded skeptical.
“And they’re uglier than dragons, too,” M’hall added. “If you were to try to tell someone who’d never seen a dragon what they were like, you’d say like a watch-wher but bigger and prettier.”
“So their first purpose is psychological?”
“It is not their first purpose,” Wind Blossom said rather tartly. “Unlike your wines.”
Purman grunted in response and gestured for her to continue.
“I designed their eyes to be excellent in low-light situations,” Wind Blossom said, choosing her words carefully, “and particularly tuned to infrared wavelengths.”
“Don’t forget that you designed them to be more empathic than telepathic,” M’hall interjected. Wind Blossom gave him a reproving look. “Sorry,” he said, chastened.