«An epidemic is a far different affair from reassuring a rider with a wing-damaged dragon.»
«And find Berchar. I want to know exactly what K'lon was ill of. K'lon didn't know, and Berchar wasn't in his quarters!» Sh'gall didn't approve of that. Fully male and hold-bred, Sh'gall had never developed any compassion or understanding of the green and blue riders and their associations.
«I'll speak to Berchar.» She had a fairly good idea she'd find him with S'gor, a green rider.
«And warn the Weyr?» He rose, groggy with fatigue and the wine he'd taken on an empty stomach. «And no one's to leave the Weyr and no one's to come in. You be sure that the watchrider passes on that order!» He waggled an admonitory finger at her.
«It's a bit late to cry Thread when the burrow's set, isn't it?» she replied bitterly. «The Gathers should have been canceled.»
«No one knew how serious this was yesterday. You transmit my orders straightaway!»
Still clutching her fur around him, Sh'gall stumbled from the weyr. Moreta watched him go, her head throbbing. Why hadn't they canceled the Gathers? All those people at Ruatha! And dragonriders from every Weyr in and out of Ista and Ruatha. What was it S'peren had told her? Sickness in Igen, Keroon, and Telgar? But he hadn't said anything about an epidemic. Or deaths. And that runner of Vander's? Had Alessan mentioned a new runner from Keroon in Vander's hold? Thinking of the long picket lines on Ruatha's race flat, Moreta groaned. And all those people! How infectious would that runner have been at the moment of his death, when anxious riders and helpful spectators had crowded around it? She shouldn't have interfered. It was not her business!
«You are distressed,» Orlith said, her eyes whirling in a soothing blue. «You should not be distressed by a runnerbeast.»
Moreta leaned against her dragon's head, stroking the near eye ridge, calming her anxiety with the soft feel of Orlith's skin.
«It's not just the runnerbeast, my love. A sickness is in the land. A very dangerous sickness. Where's Berchar?»
«With S'gor. Asleep. It is very early. And foggy.»
«And yesterday was so beautiful!» She remembered Alessan's strong arms about her in the toss dance, the challenge in his light green eyes.
«You enjoyed yourself!» Orlith said with deep satisfaction.
«Yes, indeed I did.» Moreta sighed ruefully.
«Nothing will change yesterday,» Orlith remarked philosophically. «So now you must deal with today.» As Moreta chuckled over dragon logic, the queen added, «Leri wishes to speak with you since you are awake.»
«Yes, and Leri might have heard about an epidemic like this. She might also know how I'm going to break the news to the Weyr the day before Fall.»
Since Sh'gall had gone off with her cloak, Moreta slipped into her riding jacket. Orlith had been correct, as always, about the weather. As Moreta left her weyr and started up the steps to Leri's, the fog was swirling down from the ranges. Thread would Fall tomorrow, fog or not, so she devoutly hoped the weather would clear. If the wind failed to clear the mist, the possibility of collision would be trebled. Dragons could see through fog but their riders couldn't. Sometimes riders did not heed their dragons and found themselves in one-sided arguments with bare ridges.
«Orlith, please tell the watchrider that no one, dragonrider or holder, is permitted into the Weyr today. And no one is to leave it, either. The order is to be passed to each watchrider.»
«Who would visit the Weyr in such fog?» Orlith asked. «And the day after two Gathers.»
«Orlith?»
«I have relayed the message. Balgeth is too sleepy to question why.» Orlith sounded suspiciously meek.
«Good day to you, Holth,» Moreta said courteously as she entered the old Weyrwoman's quarters.
Holth turned her head briefly in acknowledgment before closing her eyelids and snuggling her head more firmly into her forelegs. The old queen was nearly bronze with age.
Beside her, on the edge of the stone platform that was the dragon's couch, Leri sat on a heap of pillows, her body swathed in thick woven rugs. Leri said she slept beside Holth as much for the warmth the dragon had stored up in her from so much sunning over so many Turns as to save herself the bother of moving. The last few Turns, Leri's joints rebelled against too much use. Repeatedly Moreta and Master Capiam had urged the woman to take up the standing invitation to remove to the south to Ista Weyr. Leri adamantly refused, declaring that she wasn't a tunnel snake to change her skin. She'd been born in Fort Weyr and intended to live out her Turn with those few old friends who remained, and in her own familiar quarters.
«Hear you enjoyed yourself past the first watch,» Leri said. She raised her eyebrows questioningly. «Was that why Sh'gall was berating you?»
«He wasn't berating. He was bemoaning. An epidemic's loose on Pern.»
Concern wiped the amusement from Leri's face. «What? We've never had an epidemic on Pern. Not that I ever heard about. Nor read either.»
Her movement restricted by her joint ailment, Leri kept the Weyr's records to allow Moreta more time for her nursing. Leri often browsed through the older Records, for 'the gossip', she said.
«Shards! I'd hoped you'd read something somewhere. Something encouraging! Sh'gall's in a rare taking and this time with due cause.»
«Perhaps I haven't read far enough back for exciting things like epidemics.» Leri tossed Moreta a pillow from her pile and pointed imperiously at the small wooden stool set aside for visitors. «We're a healthy lot, by and large. Tend to break a lot of bones, Threadscores, occasional fevers, but nothing on a continent-wide scale. What sort of disease is it?»
«Master Capiam has not yet identified it.»
«Oh, I don't like the sound of that!» Leri rolled her eyes. «And, by the Egg, there were two Gathers yesterday, weren't there?»
«The danger was not fully appreciated. Master Capiam and Talpan,»
«The Talpan who was a friend of yours?»
«Yes, well, he's been an animal healer, you know, and he realized that the feline they had on display at Ista was the disease carrier.»
«The feline from the Southern Continent?» Leri clacked her tongue. «And some bloody fool has been taking that creature here, there, and everywhere, showing it off, so the disease is also here, there, and everywhere! With riders, including our noble Weyrleader, all going to have a little peek!»
«Sh'gall's story was a little incoherent but he'd taken Lord Ratoshigan to Ista to see the feline; Capiam had arrived from seeing what ailed Igen Sea Hold, Keroon, and Telgar,»
«Great Faranth!»
Moreta nodded. «Ista, of course. Then Ratoshigan had an urgent drum message summoning him back because of illness, so Sh'gall conveyed him and Master Capiam.»
«How did the sickness get there so fast? The beast only got as far as Ista!»
«Yes, but it was first at Keroon Beasthold to be identified by Master Sufur and no one realized that it was carrying sickness,»
«And because it's been an open winter, they've been shipping runners all over the continent!» Leri concluded, and the two women looked at each other gravely.
«Talpan told Capiam that dragons are not affected.»
«We should be grateful for small mercies, I suppose,» Leri said.
«And Fall's tomorrow. We'll have that over with before any of us fall sick. Incubation's two to four days.»
«That's not a big mercy, is it? But you weren't at Ista.» Leri frowned.
«No, Sh'gall was. However, a runner fell in the second race at Ruatha and it shouldn't have …»
Leri nodded, her comprehension complete. «And naturally you were close enough to go have a look. It died?»
«And shouldn't have. Its owner had just received some new stock from Keroon.»