The last time she returned, Pierre met her at the door.
“She is dead,” he told her woodenly. “Her heart stopped beating a few minutes ago. She told me not to try resuscitating her.” He rubbed his eyes, wiping away tears. “I was just coming to look for you. Where should I put her body?”
Numbed, Wind Blossom slipped past him into the room. She took one look at Emily and sat down in the chair beside her, head bowed.
After a moment, she spoke. “When I first saw her, she was the most beautiful person I had ever seen. She would light up the room, lift the spirits of everyone who met her. She did not allow even the threat of total annihilation to upset her.
“When the Nathi were bombing Tau Ceti day and night, it was Governor Boll who pulled everyone together. She worked tirelessly, always there, always ready-”
“I had heard,” Pierre interrupted, “but never like this.”
“I was young, still a girl,” Wind Blossom continued. “My mother was often away, unavailable. When I did see her, it was for my lessons-and her scoldings.” She sighed. “Governor Boll always found the time to say something encouraging to me. Even when cities were being obliterated, she would still find the time to talk to a young girl.”
“I did not know,” Pierre said.
“I did not tell anyone,” Wind Blossom confessed. “My mother would have been furious, and I was too embarrassed to tell Governor Boll myself.”
Pierre nodded. “But now she is not here. And we are left to do her work.”
“Yes,” Wind Blossom agreed, rising from her seat. “Can you carry the body?”
“I think so,” he said. “Where should I take it?”
“There’s a makeshift morgue over at the College,” she told him.
Pierre looked thoughtfully down at Emily’s body. “I can manage. And then what?”
Wind Blossom shook her head. “The lab technicians, both first and second team, have been overcome. I suppose I should see what I can do there first. But I still have to make my rounds, there are patients-”
Pierre held up a hand. “No one can be in two places at once; not even Emily could do that. Which is more important?”
“Both.”
“Who can help?”
“If there are some nurses or interns, they can tend the sick, but I don’t think anyone else knows how to operate the lab equipment.”
“Then you have your answer,” Pierre said.
“I don’t know if there are enough interns,” she said.
“There will have to be,” Pierre said after a moment’s thought. “If you are the only one left to handle the lab equipment, then the others will have to make do.”
And so it was decided. With Wind Blossom in the lab, Pierre found himself first blocking anyone from disturbing her and then later increasingly taking charge of the whole medical organization, starting with providing food and rest for the medical staff and their supporters, and then moving on to organizing the quarantine of the sickest and the burial of those beyond aid.
At the end of the second day, Wind Blossom had isolated the disease: As she had feared, it was a crossover of Pernese bacteria into Terran bacteria. The poor lab teams, following their medical training to look for the most likely causes, had been looking for either a flavivirus like Ebola, or a combination of viral and secondary bacterial infections. Instead, they had themselves become victims of the object of their search.
They had had the right symptoms but the wrong culprit. The colonists of Pern had no natural protection against the hybrid bacteria. Wind Blossom, following her training as an ecologist, isolated the mutation, sequenced its genetic core, and developed a vaccine and a course of treatment.
The pitifully few remaining medical personnel were innoculated first, then their assistants, and finally the population at large, and the epidemic was broken.
But not without cost. Among those lost were most of the children under four years of age, almost all expectant or new mothers, nine out of every ten medics at Fort Hold-and Emily Boll.
In private conversations first with Pierre and then with the recovered Paul Benden, it had been decided that it was better to ascribe the epidemic to a “mysterious” illness rather than a crossover infection-at least until Wind Blossom could train enough medical personnel to combat any future crossovers. Because the vaccine had been introduced along with a course of treatment, it was easy to convince most people that the treatments were only palliative and that only those with natural immunities had survived, leaving the survivors unconcerned about future recurrences.
Before she passed away, Emily had written a note to be given to Sorka. Sorka had never shown the note to Wind Blossom, but shortly after she received it, Sorka had asked Wind Blossom to visit her.
Their first meeting had been awkward.
Over time, their professional relationship deepened into respect and, finally, into friendship.
When Wind Blossom’s first and only child was born, she named her Emorra-combining Emily and Sorka-and had asked Sorka and Pierre to be godparents. Both had enthusiastically agreed.
“How’s your daughter?” Sorka asked, guessing at Wind Blossom’s thoughts.
Wind Blossom sighed. “She has not learned wisdom.”
Sorka squeezed Wind Blossom’s hand weakly. “I’m sure she’ll get it.”
“But not from me,” Wind Blossom said.
“M’hall, leave us,” Sorka said. M’hall gave her a rebellious look but she forestalled his arguments, saying quietly, “I’ll call you back in good time, luv.”
Clearly still uncomfortable, M’hall withdrew. Sorka’s gaze rested on the doorway for a moment, to assure herself that he wasn’t coming back. She turned her attention to Wind Blossom. “So, tell me.”
Years of familiarity enabled Wind Blossom to take the open-ended question at its value. “We are doing all right,” she said.
Sorka gave her a sour look. “Wind Blossom, I’m dying, not stupid. I heard about your short-term memory.”
Wind Blossom managed to keep her surprise from her face, but Sorka detected it in her body language. The first Weyrwoman allowed herself a satisfied chuckle. “What are the implications?”
Wind Blossom sighed. “I’m concerned because we have not had enough time to transfer our practical knowledge-things that have to be learned by doing rather than merely studying-from our eldest to our newer generation.”
“So we’ll lose some knowledge,” Sorka observed. “It’s happened on colony worlds before and they survived.”
Wind Blossom inclined her head in a nod. “True. But always at a cost: The knowledge had to be relearned, usually through trial and error at a later date. And sometimes the lack of that knowledge hit the affected colony world with a major setback.”
“This could happen here?”
“Yes. We are particularly vulnerable because of the population loss we suffered in the Fever Year and subsequent epidemics.”
Sorka grimaced. “I knew that and we’ve discussed this before.”
Wind Blossom allowed herself a rare smile. “But now we are discussing it for the last time, my lady.”
Sorka snorted in derision at Wind Blossom’s use of the title. “Not you, too!”
“I figured that if I am being so honored, you would deserve no less!”
Sorka allowed her free hand to primp at her hair and smiled. “Well, it’s not as though us distinguished ladies are not entitled.”
“Quite,” Wind Blossom agreed with a grin of her own. “But it disturbs me because it shows that people are beginning to adopt a caste system.”
“And how does that affect the Charter?” Sorka mused.
“Sociologically, I can see why this ‘elevation,’ this endowing of the old lord and lady titles, make sense in our young population,” Wind Blossom said.
Sorka waved her free hand dismissively. “We’ve had this conversation before.”