Dragonsblood (20 page)

into the air. “I assume time is of the essence.”

“It is,” Wind Blossom agreed. The cold of
between
answered her.

EIGHT

Proteomics: The study of proteins, typically those created by genetic

codes, and how they work.

—Glossary of terms,
Elementary Biological Systems, 18th Edition

Fort Hold, First Pass, Year 50, AL 58

Wind Blossom was surprised by the length of time they remained
between.

When the cold of
between
ended, it was abruptly replaced by a different

chill. It was still night and rain was falling, lashing into them as Brianth dived

around the Drum Tower toward the College.

“What happened?” Wind Blossom shouted over the noise of the wind.

“I took us back to last night, when I picked you up,” M’hall replied.

“You timed it?” Wind Blossom asked, her tone disapproving.

“I wasn’t thinking carefully enough and gave Brianth these coordinates,” he

added ingenuously, concealing that he knew that he had already been here.

“Here, let me help you down.”

Wind Blossom grabbed his hand and scrambled with a distinct lack of

dignity down Brianth’s side. Just as she belatedly realized that she was far

too short to jump to the ground without hurting herself, hands reached up to

grab her.

It was Tieran. Wind Blossom schooled her pleasure at seeing him into a

more neutral expression, saying, “Get help. The body must go to the cold

room.”

“Body?” Tieran repeated. Before Wind Blossom could give him an

explanation, a group of people rushed out from the College and grabbed

the shrouded body from M’hall. Wind Blossom followed the group in and

was inside the College, heading to the surgery, before a second boom

announced the arrival of another dragon. Wind Blossom paused but

realized that she was too tired and too stressed to concern herself with the

second arrival. As she started forward again toward the surgery, a wave of

fatigue swept through her and she wavered on her feet.

“Mother?” Emorra had turned at the sound of the second arriving dragon

and had seen her mother falter. “Janir! Janir come quick, Wind Blossom

has collapsed!”

M’hall shivered more from grief than from the cold of
between
as he

lowered his mother’s body down to the waiting arms gathered below

Brianth. He let out a sob as the group carried her body out of sight.

A boom heralded the arrival of his own younger self, timing it so as to bring

Wind Blossom to his still-living mother.

“No!” M’hall yelled, tears coursing warmly down his cheeks. “Don’t do it!”

He knew it was pointless, that he couldn’t create a time paradox, but his

grief was too great. If he didn’t go, then maybe Sorka would still be alive, he

thought wishfully.

“Would you make a time paradox?” his younger self asked, eyes wide with

horror.

M’hall tried to answer but couldn’t. Finally, he jumped back onto his dragon

and cried, “Go then! Don’t say I didn’t warn you!”

Brianth gave one powerful leap and beat the air once with his wings before

taking them
between,
to Benden Weyr and the comfort of Torene.

Wind Blossom found herself lying down on one of the infirmary’s beds with

a blanket laid over her. A hand on her chest resisted her immediate effort to

rise. Wind Blossom looked up and connected the hand to Emorra.

“I must get up—I have work to do,” she said, modulating her tone from one

of outraged impatience to calmly clinical as she realized that she was too

weak to bring off the former.

Quirking an eyebrow at her, Emorra reached to the bedside table and

picked up a small steaming cup. Wind Blossom inhaled the fragrant odor

of
klah
and suppressed a brief flash of regret that the tea plant had been

lost in the mad dash to the Northern Continent.

“Drink this,” Emorra said, deftly slipping her other arm supportively under

her mother’s back to help her sit up. “Janir’s coming.”

“You shouldn’t have disturbed him,” Wind Blossom replied unconvincingly.

She sipped from the proffered cup. The
klah
was warm, not hot, but she

could feel it rejuvenate her. She took the cup from Emorra’s hand, drained

the contents, and pressed the cup back into her daughter’s still

outstretched hand in one quick, surprising move. “There, all better.”

“Mother! You still need to rest. Your collapse shocked everyone.”

“Nonsense,” Wind Blossom said. “The sudden change from day to night

triggered an attack of lethargy. I’m recovered,” she lied assuredly, swinging

her legs to the side of the bed opposite Emorra, “and I have work to do.”

Wind Blossom encountered Janir entering the room just as she was

leaving. “Where has Sorka’s body been placed?”

“In the cold room,” Janir replied. “But it can’t stay there much longer.”

“Have it prepped for autopsy, then,” Wind Blossom said, striding past him

and causing him to turn around and match her stride. “I’ll be in the main

surgery.”

“At this hour? Do you think that wise?”

“I have to work before rigor sets in, Janir,” Wind Blossom answered. “Can

you do it?”

“Yes, but—”

“Fine. Five minutes?” Wind Blossom turned toward the surgery, leaving

Janir speechless.

Wind Blossom roused the night-duty student to get her hot water with which

to scrub. She forced herself to clean her hands and arms methodically,

going the full five minutes customary for surgery on the living. As she did,

she called forth one of the Eridani focusing mantras. She pulled her training

around her like a cloak.

When she turned from the wash basin, Sorka’s body had already been

placed on the operating table. Janir, and to Wind Blossom’s surprise,

Emorra, were waiting for her. Janir was close to the operating table; Emorra

had positioned herself deferentially at a distance, declaring her observer

status.

“I can do this,” Janir offered, indicating the tray of biopsy equipment that

he’d laid out.

Wind Blossom looked the gear over, picked up the most delicate of

probes, and shook her head. “No.”

Deftly she performed her cerebral biopsy, content that only a magnifying

glass could reveal her handiwork. She handed the sample to Janir. “Have

that analyzed, please. I’m interested in any deviations in chemistry and cell

structure, particularly any signs of advanced geriatric degradation.”

Janir took the sample reluctantly. “But—”

Wind Blossom shook her head. “I—I, Janir, I must honor her last request.”

Emorra glanced between Janir and Wind Blossom but the outcome was

foregone: With a slight nod of his head, Janir took the sample and left the

room for the lab.

Wind Blossom turned to one of the surgical chests that lined the walls and

selected a standard set of scalpels and clamps. She placed the set on the

operating tray in place of the biopsy set she’d used earlier.

She moved to the right side of Sorka’s head and grasped a scalpel. For a

long time she stood there, poised to re-create the gash on Sorka’s body

that a watch-wher had inflicted on young Tieran.

Slowly, as though on their own, tears began to leak out of her eyes, first on

the left side and then the right, creating long rivulets that dripped down her

cheeks and off her jaw. Her hand spasmed and she flung the scalpel away.

“I cannot, I cannot, I cannot!”

Emorra crossed the distance between them with long strides, paused

hesitantly, then laid a tentative hand on her mother’s shoulder. As though

released, Wind Blossom turned to her daughter with an inarticulate cry and

buried her head against her.

“I cannot do it, Emorra, I cannot,” she whispered into the hollow of Emorra’s

shoulder. “I dishonor our family, but I cannot do it.”

Emorra patted her mother gently in a way that she herself had never been

patted and—she realized with a start—that Wind Blossom had never been

patted by
her
mother, Kitti Ping.

“Hush, it’s all right. Of course you can’t. No one has a right to expect it of

you,” she found herself saying. The words served double duty, reassuring

not only her mother but Emorra herself.

Wind Blossom pushed back and looked into her daughter’s eyes. “But it

was her last request!”

“It was only a request, mother,” Emorra answered. “Sorka only wished to

ease your burdens, not add to them. Take it in the spirit it was given—”

A harsh sound broke through her words. Drumbeats, loud, fast, staccato.

Wind Blossom stood back and cocked her head, listening intently.

Emergency! Emergency! Emergency!
The rules were emphatic—each

repeat of an emergency gave increased urgency to the call. One more

repeat and the drummer would be reporting a Pern-wide emergency.

Emergency! Medical alert. Wind flower
—there was no code for

“blossom”—
bring medical bag immediately!

“It’s Tieran!” Emorra said.

Janir dove through the door in the same instant. “What’s all that drumming

about?” he demanded.

“Janir, get my bag and meet me at the Drum Tower,” Wind Blossom

ordered, bundling past him through the door.

“The Drum Tower? Wind Blossom, it’s pouring in buckets outside—you’ll

drown!”

“Just do it, Janir,” Emorra said, following hard on Wind Blossom’s heels.

“Tieran just sent a planet-wide emergency.”

Janir caught up with them halfway to the Drum Tower. As he passed them,

Wind Blossom yelled, “Stay back! Give me my bag and stay back.”

“We can’t have both of you get infected,” Emorra explained as Janir looked

questioningly at her.

With a decisive nod, Janir heaved to and crouched, lungs heaving in the

downpour.

When did the boy get taller than me? Wind Blossom found herself

wondering as she drew near the Drum Tower and Tieran, who was standing

at the foot of the stairs. High above in the tower itself, she could make out

the shape of another person peering down anxiously, all glows exposed to

light up the scene. She nodded approvingly to herself—Tieran had

remembered his quarantine protocols.

Tieran cupped something in his hands protectively. Beside him, on the

ground, was the crumpled form of a fire-lizard.

“They fell from the sky,” he shouted down to them. “I couldn’t catch them

both.”

It was quite dead. From its little mouth flowed some ugly green spittle.

“You were lucky to catch either on a night like this,” Emorra shouted back

encouragingly.

Wind Blossom flung an outstretched arm in Emorra’s direction. “Stay where

you are! This area is in quarantine.”

Emorra stopped, examined the situation for a moment, then stepped boldly

forward, grabbing her mother’s outstretched arm.

“Silly girl! Why did you do that?” Wind Blossom hissed at her only child.

“You’ll need help,” Emorra answered firmly.

“But not at the loss of my only child,” Wind Blossom answered sadly. “Not

with him in danger, too. Pern can’t lose both of you.”

Emorra arched an eyebrow. “One day you must explain that,” she said. “But

not now. What can I do?”

Tieran heard them and looked relieved when he saw Wind Blossom’s

medical bag.

“This one’s still alive,” he said, indicating the fire-lizard in his arms. “He

needs antibiotics.”

“How can you know?” Wind Blossom demanded, stepping forward and

kneeling down to examine the dead fire-lizard on the ground. She prodded

it gently, got out a spatula from her medical bag, and gingerly sampled

some of the green fluid leaking from the fire-lizard’s mouth.

“Get me a specimen bag,” she ordered Emorra curtly. When Emorra

complied, Wind Blossom put the spatula in the bag.

“He’s wheezing—he’s got an infection,” Tieran said. “He needs antibiotics.”

“Which one?” Wind Blossom asked. “How can you know the right sort of

antibiotic? What dosage level?”

Tieran gritted his teeth. “There is only one and you know it. The

general-spectrum antibiotic. Maximum dosage for his body mass.”

“There isn’t that much of the general antibiotic left, Tieran,” Wind Blossom

said, voice barely carrying over the wind and the rain. “If we use it and it’s

not enough, the fire-lizard will die. And even if it lives, that antibiotic was

being saved for your surgery.”

Tieran remained silent, focused on an internal debate.

When he spoke again, it was with a harsh certainty. “It’s the only chance he

has, Wind Blossom.”

NINE

Jump,

Cup air,

Bound into the sky.

A wink

Between; beyond the eye.

Benden Weyr, Second Interval, AL 507

Two dragons burst into existence under the low clouds near Bay Head. One

was gold, the other, bronze.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Tullea grumbled to her dragon. She

looked around and found B’nik’s Caranth sidling up on their right side. Her

eyes darted to the seashore and the nearby rain-soaked fields. “I can’t

understand why I let B’nik talk us into this.”

Because you love him,
Minith replied with a hint of questioning in her tone.

Tullea laughed and patted her beautiful gold dragon’s neck.
And
you