“Has anyone asked which Holds are beading their fire-lizards?” Tieran wondered suddenly, holding up the bead harness that the fire-lizard had worn. The little brown saw it and gave a chirp of recognition.
“We’ll get it back on you soon enough, little one,” Tieran told him apologetically. The fire-lizard made a small noise and rubbed his head affectionately against Tieran’s hand.
Janir shook his head. “We’ve heard nothing so far.”
“It’s been nearly three weeks,” Emorra said with a touch of heat in her voice. “How long can it take?”
“The holders aren’t being as responsive as we’d like,” Janir confessed. Wind Blossom quirked an eyebrow.
“There’s some feeling that this is a bit of a tempest in a teapot,” he explained. “There have been no reports of holders even considering putting bead harnesses on the fire-lizards. There just aren’t all that many of them, and everyone pretty much recognizes each fire-lizard.”
“Then where did he come from?” Wind Blossom demanded. “Are there others like him? Other sick fire-lizards?”
“Wouldn’t they all have died or recovered from the infection by now?” Janir asked her.
“What if the infection can be passed to dragons?” Emorra demanded. “What then?”
Janir raised his hands. “No dragon has gotten sick like this-”
“Before now,” Wind Blossom interrupted him, “I have never seen a fire-lizard sick like this. Ever.”
“But he recovered, didn’t he?” Janir protested. “I’m sorry, Wind Blossom, but you know the backlash we got from Mendin over what will happen to his best festival tent-”
“Not important,” Wind Blossom cut him off. “We must find out where this fire-lizard came from. We must know more about this infection. We must know how it spreads, what its symptoms are, and how fatal it is.”
“Right now you have a baseline of fifty percent mortality,” Janir pointed out.
“And this one survived only with the last of the antibiotics,” Emorra added. “We don’t know if a fire-lizard could survive unaided.”
Wind Blossom raised her hands and said, “We know how hard the human population was hit by the Fever Year forty-two years ago. Can you imagine what would happen to the dragons if half of them died?”
Janir’s face slowly drained of all color.
ELEVEN
And you’re sure, D’nal, that the watch dragon has her orders right this time?” D’gan sneered. They were up high at the top of Telgar Weyr, where the watch dragon was posted.
“Yes, I’m sure,” D’nal, the object of Weyrleader D’gan’s derision, replied. “No more fire-lizards will come into the Bowl.”
“No!” D’gan shouted. “No more fire-lizards are to come anywhere near the Weyr!”
D’nal nodded, his fists clenched tightly to his side. D’gan stared at him, jaw clenched, until the shorter rider took a backward step involuntarily.
“How will the holders communicate with us if they can’t send their fire-lizards?” L’rat, leader of the second wing at Telgar, asked.
D’gan raised an eyebrow at L’rat’s question and saw the other dip his eyes, unwilling to match D’gan’s look. He snorted. “They’ll light beacons and raise the call flags,” he replied. “The useless flitters were no good with messages anyway.”
“No one really knows, D’gan, if the fire-lizards brought the illness,” K’rem, the healer, said.
“Well, then, we’ll find out, won’t we?” D’gan returned sourly.
Fifteen. Fifteen dragons had died in the past sevenday, three of them so sick that they could not even go between but expired in their weyrs.
“They were useful for communicating with the Masterhealer,” K’rem added.
D’gan vetoed the idea with a shake of his head. “The Masterhealer concerns himself with people, not dragons.”
“We should tell the other Weyrs-” L’rat began.
“We will tell them nothing!” D’gan roared. He turned away, facing east, away from the Weyr Bowl behind him, away from his Wingleaders, his face into the wind.
“But surely they will have the same problems,” D’nal said.
“Listen, all of you,” D’gan said angrily, whirling around, jabbing a finger at each of them. “Telgar Weyr will take care of itself,” he declared, pointing at D’nal. He turned to L’rat, saying, “I will not have that addled M’tal or that cretin C’rion making fun of us, telling us what to do.
“Remember how they chided when we brought the two Weyrs together? How jealous they were that they hadn’t thought to absorb poor Igen when our last queen died? How envious they were once we started winning the Games, Turn after Turn?
“We are the largest Weyr, the strongest Weyr, the best-trained Weyr,” he said, emphasizing each point by slapping a clenched fist into the palm of his other hand. “We will be the best at fighting Thread,” he declared. He turned eastward toward Benden Weyr, then south toward Ista Weyr. “And then they will come asking us for advice.”
To the healer he said, “If you can figure out a way to defeat this illness, then we’ll have something to talk to the other Weyrs about.”
K’rem pursed his lips tightly. L’rat and D’nal exchanged troubled looks.
“K’rem, have you isolated the sick dragons?” D’gan asked.
“There are thirty dragons that are very sick,” K’rem said with a shake of his head. “I don’t think they should be moved. Another dozen or so are only showing the first signs of a cough-”
“Move them! Move them all,” D’gan commanded. “I told you that already-why did you delay?”
“Do you want to lose more dragons?” K’rem asked. When D’gan’s brows stormed together he continued quickly, “If we move them, they may die. Do you want their deaths on your hands?”
“Do you?” D’gan replied. The healer dropped his gaze and D’gan snorted. “I didn’t think so. Move the sick ones!”
“You will have to break up the wings,” D’nal pointed out.
“Then do it,” D’gan said. He looked at K’rem. “Isn’t this the way the herders isolate sick beasts and save their herds?”
“But these are dragons, D’gan,” L’rat protested. “We don’t know how they are getting sick, how the illness spreads.”
“And we won’t begin to find out until we isolate the sick ones,” D’gan responded with a pointed look at K’rem.
Reluctantly, K’rem nodded. “If we isolate them, who will look after them?” he asked. “My Darth is not ill.”
“Hmm. Good point,” D’gan agreed. He bent his head to his hand in thought. Finally he looked up, decisive. “Have some of the weyrfolk help them.”
He gestured to the others.
“Let’s go to the Star Stones and see how much time we have before the Fall starts,” he said in a suddenly cheerful voice. “Things will sort themselves out when Thread comes, you’ll see.”
M’tal stood back from his observation at the Star Stones of Benden Weyr, grim-faced.
“The Eye Rock has bracketed the Red Star,” he told K’tan and Kindan, gesturing for them to look for themselves.
Kindan told the Weyr healer to go first. K’tan stepped forward and looked through the Eye Rock, aligning his view with the Finger Rock beyond. There, just above the Finger Rock, as the Records had warned, was the Red Star.