“More than one?” Emily asked.
“Of course.”
“But here, on Pern-Tubberman?” Emily was surprised. Then she grew thoughtful. “I’d always wondered why it was so easy for him to gain access to such valuable equipment. I realized that the Charter permitted it, but it had seemed odd at the time that no one had been guarding the equipment more zealously.”
Wind Blossom agreed, secretly relieved that the conversation had turned in this direction. She discovered, in talking with Governor Boll, that she was not ready to reveal all her secrets.
Pierre came back with a tray a few minutes later and the conversation lapsed, failing completely when Emily choked on a bit of food and slipped into a coughing fit as her tortured lungs protested the extra effort.
Pierre looked at Wind Blossom. “Is there anything you can do?” he implored.
“I have some medicine that can help the pain but-”
“She told me about the casualties, Pierre,” Emily interrupted her.
Pierre bit his lip and gave Wind Blossom a bitter look.
“I asked-it is my duty, you know.”
Pierre looked into Emily’s eyes, then nodded sadly. “At this time, I would have preferred to keep the pain from you, love.”
“I know,” Emily said. “And so did Wind Blossom. But I had to know. It helped me to make a decision. Two, in fact.”
Both Pierre and Wind Blossom looked at her.
“I have already asked Wind Blossom to perform an autopsy on my body,” Emily said.
“I do not want to do this,” Wind Blossom told Pierre. His eyes wide, he looked long at her face, saw that her own eyes were rimmed with tears, and nodded.
“Anything that can help the rest of you,” Emily said. “It is my job, my last duty.”
“I see, ma petite,” Pierre responded. “It shall be as you ask. And the other decision?”
“You can help, here,” Emily said. She looked at Wind Blossom. “Is it true that we don’t have a complete knowledge of the Pern herbal remedies?”
“We have none!” Pierre exclaimed, only glancing at Wind Blossom for confirmation. “You are not suggesting-”
“It is a bad idea,” Wind Blossom interjected. Emily and Pierre both gave her startled looks. “I appreciate the thought, but how would we know if a herbal was exacerbating the illness or helping it? Also, in your state, it would take too long to determine if the herbal was having any positive effects. It would be bad science, Governor.”
“Even to try palliatives?” Emily asked in a small voice. “You see, I just don’t think it’s fair to give me the painkillers when you could give them to others who might survive.”
“You’ve earned the right to them!” Pierre protested.
“That’s not the point, love,” Emily said, dropping her voice and reducing the tension in the argument. “Again, if I can’t be saved, why should we waste valuable painkillers on me and not on others?”
“What you say is true,” Wind Blossom agreed, earning a withering look from Pierre. “But, as I am the doctor on scene, triage is my responsibility.”
“But you have admitted that I am not going to survive,” Emily protested.
“How do you think we will feel if we have to watch you die in great pain?” Wind Blossom asked softly. “It is not only your decision.”
Emily threw open her hand in a gesture of defeat. “But,” she tried one last time, in a small voice, “there are children-”
Wind Blossom leaned over the bed and grabbed Emily’s open hand in hers. “I know,” she said, the iron control over her voice threatening to break. “I have held their hands as they…”
Pierre leaned across and laid an arm on her shoulder. “I am sorry, Wind Blossom, I did not think-”
Wind Blossom straightened up, her face once again masklike. “I cannot save them if I surrender to grief.”
“My point exactly,” Emily persisted, a look of triumph flashing in her eyes.
Wind Blossom nodded. “There are some infusions we make now, like the juice of the fellis plant-”
“I have some here,” Pierre said.
“If you would agree, we could substitute those known herbals for our standard medicines.”
“I like that,” Emily said. “We could test dosage levels while we’re at it, couldn’t we?”
And so they arrived at the treatment. Wind Blossom wrote the original prescription and Pierre filled it. Once Emily had taken her first dose, Wind Blossom begged other duties and left them.
She returned three more times during the night. The first time she returned, they agreed to up the dosage and added something to ease the cough. The second time, Emily seemed asleep.
“She is in a coma,” Wind Blossom told Pierre after she took Emily’s vitals.
“I was afraid of that,” Pierre said. “She has been so hot.”
“We don’t know if the fever kills or is just an immune response,” Wind Blossom said. “Pol Nietro and Bay Harkenon’s notes show that they tried cold water immersion with no success.”
“Her temperature’s not that high,” Pierre said.
Wind Blossom nodded. “Her pulse is low and dropping. It’s almost as if her heart were-” she broke off abruptly, and collapsed to the floor.
“Are you all right?” Pierre rushed to her side, lifting her up and putting her into a chair. Her skin was pale; Pierre put her head between her knees. “When did you last eat?”
Wind Blossom tried to sit up, to push him out of her way. “No time, I must do my rounds-”
He pushed her firmly back into the chair. “You will sit with your head between your knees. You will drink and you will eat. Then maybe I will let you up.”
“Pierre! I have to go, people are dying,” she protested, but her movements were feeble.
“They will not get better if you keel over, too,” Pierre said. “Emily spoke to me after you left. How many are sick? How many doctors are there?”
Wind Blossom shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“What, do you not confer with each other?”
“Of course,” Wind Blossom said, trying again to sit up. This time Pierre let her. “But I must have been late for the last meeting and I guess no one could wait around-”
“When was the last meeting?”
“Yesterday evening,” Wind Blossom said. “I think.”
“Drink this,” Pierre said, handing her a glass of klah. “How many were at the last meeting, the one before?”
“Maybe ten,” Wind Blossom replied. “But I think some were too busy tending the sick to come.”
“Emily said that they’ve buried fifteen hundred already. How many sick are there?”
Wind Blossom shook her head. “I can only guess. Maybe twice that number.”
“Eat this,” he said, handing her a breadroll. “Are you saying that we have one doctor for every three hundred sick people?”
She nodded. “Now you see why I must get going.”
“You must rest!” Pierre said, raising his hands in a restraining motion. “Eat, drink, and we’ll see. What does Paul-oh! He is sick, too. So who is in charge now?”
“I think maybe I am,” Wind Blossom said in a small voice. “Pol Nietro died two days ago, I think, and Bay Harkenon I last saw sick in bed herself. The dragonriders are all safe.”
“That’s a mercy,” Pierre said with feeling. “Finish that roll, please.”
Realizing that she was going nowhere until she satisfied the towering Pierre-of course, anyone towered over her-Wind Blossom tried to cram down the proffered roll.
“Non, s’il vous plait!” Pierre said. “I spent more time making that food than you are spending eating it!”
In the end, she had two rolls and another drink-not water, some sort of fruit juice-before Pierre let her go.