Dragonsblood (6 page)

The man winced at the name. “I am called Purman now,” he corrected.

“The boy is my son.”

A crease formed on Wind Blossom’s brows. Ted Tubberman had been

considered a dangerous renegade in the early days of the Pern colony at

Landing. He had “stolen” equipment to conduct biology experiments, one

of which had killed him and orphaned young Peter at an early age. Wind

Blossom could understand why Peter Tubberman would want to remove

himself from memories of his father.

“Purman. Benden wines,” she said to herself. “Modified vines, no?” She

waited only long enough for his body language to answer her before she

said to the other intern, “Purman scrubs with us.”

She turned her attention back to Latrel. “The old needles, you kept them,

right?” When the intern nodded, she said, “Have them sterilized and bring

them in. What about sutures?”

The young trainee—Carelly, Wind Blossom finally put a name to

her—arrived, breathless with Wind Blossom’s medical bag. “My lady,” she

gasped, and gathered in another breath to say, “there are no more in

Stores.”

Wind Blossom grunted acknowledgment. She looked at the Benden

Weyrleader. “M’hall?”

M’hall approached the diminutive geneticist. He bent over her when she

beckoned him closer.

“I have one set of sutures left. If I use them on this boy, others will die later.

Probably dragonriders,” she said in a voice that carried only to his ears.

M’hall nodded his understanding.

“I saw this day coming,” she added. “We are losing our tech base. These

sorts of wounds are rare enough that soon no one will even know how to

treat them.”

“Then let us use these sutures now,” M’hall said, “while there is still

someone with your skills.”

Wind Blossom nodded. She turned to Carelly. “Go back to my room, girl,

and bring down the orange bag.”

As the girl ran off, Wind Blossom turned to Purman. “The last of the sutures

and antibiotics are in my orange bag. Your son will be the last one treated

with such medicines on Pern.”

“For how long?” Purman wondered, as if to himself.

“A long time, I fear,” Wind Blossom answered. “There are so few of us who

have the skill and the knowledge. And now, without supplies, the skills will

become useless.”

In the clean room, Wind Blossom found that the boy’s injuries were every

bit as awful as she’d feared. His right forehead, nose, and left cheek had

been opened by the three-clawed paw of the watch-wher. The claw-marks

continued down the top left side of the boy’s chest, near the shoulder, and

into the biceps of the upper left arm.

Wind Blossom leaned closer to the boy’s face. Before the incident, he had

been as handsome as his father at the same age. Now . . . she shook

herself and checked his pulse.

“He is in shock,” she announced. Janir nodded, saying, “I’ve been keeping

him warm, but he has lost a lot of blood—and going
between
. . . “

The doors to the ready room swung open as Latrel, Carelly, and Purman

entered.

“He will need blood,” Wind Blossom announced. She looked at Latrel. “Get

the other bed set up close by.” She turned to Purman. “He will need at least

three units. You can only donate one.” She patted the bed that Latrel

brought up. “Get on it—you’ll be first.

“Carelly, find Emorra and tell her we have need of her,” Wind Blossom

ordered. “And have someone make me some peppermint tea with a dash

of arnica.”

The young apprentice waved an arm over her shoulder in acknowledgment

as she sped off on her mission.

Purman’s face was clouded with fear. Wind Blossom explained, “We need

to stabilize him, and irrigate the wounds to prevent infection.”

She looked closely at the boy’s nose.

“He has lost a lot of cartilage. Rebuilding the nose will be difficult.”

She gestured for a probe from Janir. Gently, she examined the boy’s

cheek.

“The damage to the left cheek is severe. Immobilizing it while it heals will

be a major concern.” She continued her examination, adding, “Fortunately,

there is no sign of damage to the underlying bone.”

She sighed and looked at the boy’s chest wound. “The chest cavity is

intact—that is good. It is a flesh wound. We will have to leave it open and

irrigated to ensure that there is no infection.”

She turned her attention to the boy’s arm. “Some of the muscle has been

removed here,” she said. She looked at Janir. “You will irrigate with saline

solution and bandage here, too.”

“Him? What about you?” Purman asked, sitting up on his bed.

“We need three units of blood,” Wind Blossom repeated in answer. “You

will give the first.”

The door opened, and a competent-looking young woman entered the

clean room, bringing with her the faint smell of starsuckle, the Pernese

hybrid of honeysuckle.

“Emorra”—Wind Blossom nodded to the woman, and Purman was struck

by their resemblance—“will donate the second unit, and I, the third.”

“But—” Purman objected.

Wind Blossom silenced him with her upheld hand. “I will stitch his facial

wounds before I give the blood.” Her lips curved up in a shadowy grin. “It is

fitting. Kitti Ping’s daughter and granddaughter should help Tubberman’s

son and grandson.”

“And,” she added as Purman started another objection, “she and I are the

only other two suitable blood donors available.”

“You are too old, Mother,” Emorra objected. “I shall donate two units.”

“Who is too old?” Wind Blossom snorted. “What do you know? You never

studied medicine.”

“You know better,” Emorra corrected. Carelly arrived with a tray and a cup

of tea.

“That was genetics, not medicine,” Wind Blossom said. Emorra’s eyes

flashed.

Purman and Janir looked askance at the two women. “Please,” Purman

said anxiously. “My son.”

Wind Blossom spared one more moment to glare at her daughter. “Always

a disappointment you were to me,” she muttered before she bent over the

boy. She worked quickly, starting with the lacerations of the forehead.

Gently she teased the open wounds together.

She stitched the dermis and subcutaneous fat together with

polydioxanone—a synthetic absorbable suture—and closed the epidermis

with synthetic polyester sutures. She made her stitches small and as few as

she could; there was even less suture material than she had feared.

Janir monitored the boy’s vital signs, while Latrel supervised the direct

transfusion of first Purman’s and then Emorra’s blood.

When both units had been transferred to the boy, Wind Blossom said,

without looking up from her work, “Carelly, take Purman and Emorra out of

here, make sure they both have wine and cheese, and take some rest.”

An hour later, Wind Blossom laid aside her tools and walked wearily to the

other bed. “My turn now, Latrel.”

Janir and Latrel exchanged worried looks. “The boy is—” Janir began.

Wind Blossom cut him off. “He needs the blood. I don’t.”

Latrel pursed his lips. “Emorra may not have studied medicine, but I have.

A unit of blood at your age is not a good idea.”

Wind Blossom looked up at the young intern. “Latrel, there is nothing more

I can teach you to do with the supplies we have left,” she said slowly. “The

boy’s wounds came from a watch-wher, my ‘mistake.’ If it’s to be, then

nothing would suit me more than for my blood to redeem my error.” When

she saw that the intern still looked unconvinced, she added, “And it’s my

choice, Latrel.”

“Very well,” he replied, his tone resigned but his face showing his worry.

Wind Blossom winced as he inserted the needle into her vein. As her blood

began to flow into the mutilated boy, she sighed, and remembered nothing

more.

It was always the same dream.

“How could you say that the Multichord songbird of Cetus III is my greatest

success?”

That honors had been heaped upon Kitti Ping for her work in developing the

hybrid, which had so neatly averted the worst ecological disaster of the

Nathi Wars, was not answer enough.

“When are we done?” Kitti Ping prodded when Wind Blossom would not

answer her first question.

“Never,” Wind Blossom heard herself dully repeating.

“Why is that?”

“Because today is the mother of tomorrow,” Wind Blossom said, spouting

another of her mother’s sayings.

Kitti Ping’s eyes narrowed. “And what does that mean, child?”

“It means, my mother, that our work today will be changed by what happens

tomorrow.”

“And only those who anticipate tomorrow will find rest in their labors,” Kitti

Ping concluded. She sighed, her symbol of utmost despair in her daughter.

“The Multichord was
nothing
compared to the leechworm.”

Wind Blossom schooled her face carefully to hide any trace of her

thoughts: Here it comes
again.
Aloud she said, “I consider the Multichord

the obvious representative of the entire symbiotic solution you created, my

mother.”

Kitti Ping allowed her gaze to soften—a little. “You are in error. The

leechworm, the ugly eater of unwanted radiation, was the true solution to the

problem. The Multichord was a felicitous symbiont embodying both a

guardian for Cetus III’s pollen-spreading systems, and a suitable predator

for the leechworms, allowing us to quickly concentrate the deleterious

radioactives in a controlled sector of the biosphere.”

Wind Blossom nodded dutifully. Behind her eyes she remembered the

awards citing the Multichord of Cetus III as the First Wonder of the

Universe. They had been such an elegant solution to the radiation left by

the nuclear horror that the alien Nathi had rained down upon Cetus III in

their attempt to eradicate all humanity—an attempt that would have

succeeded if not for Admiral Benden.

Wind Blossom remembered the marvelous multitonal choruses that had

thrilled the night air and brought smiles to all the survivors of that horrible

war, the sheer beauty of the rainbow-colored birds, built upon the original

hummingbird genotype, as they flitted like the little bees they protected

from one plant to another, pausing occasionally to eat any stray leechworm

that threatened to transport radioactives into those areas already

reclaimed.

The dream changed. “Why did you make the watch-whers?”

Mother, Wind Blossom thought, you know why I made the watch-whers.

They were part of the original plan.

“Why did you make the watch-whers, Wind Blossom?” The voice was not

Kitti Ping’s: It was deeper.

Wind Blossom opened her eyes. Sitting beside her was Ted Tubberman’s

son, Purman.

She sat up slowly. She was in her room. Purman was seated beside her

bed, looking intently at her.

“Your son, how is he?” she asked.

Purman’s eyes lightened. “He is recovering. Your Latrel had to dose him

with fellis juice so that he wouldn’t talk and dislodge the sutures in his

cheek. His chest and arm wounds are healing nicely.”

Wind Blossom raised an eyebrow.

“You have been unconscious for nearly two days,” Purman told her. “You

really were too old to be a donor.”

“My daughter?”

Purman’s face took on a gentler expression. “Emorra did not leave your

side until she collapsed into sleep herself. I had Carelly take her to her

rooms.” His expression changed. “I think you treated her harshly. Was Kitti

Ping like that?”

Wind Blossom examined his face before slowly nodding. “It is a great

honor the Eridani bestowed on us.”

“It’s a curse,” Purman growled. “This whole planet’s a curse.”

“How did your son come to be mauled by the watch-wher?” Wind Blossom

asked, sidestepping his outburst.

Purman glared at her before answering, his lips pursed tightly.

“Tieran loved that thing. He played with her, and spent all his time with her,”

he replied. He sighed. “She was sleeping and Tieran came over to her and

tried to scratch her head, like he’d seen M’hall do with his dragon.”

Wind Blossom sat upright and tried to get out of bed, but Purman stopped

her, looking at her questioningly. Her fatigue did not diminish the fire that

fanned in her brown eyes, as she said, “That one must be destroyed.

Immediately.”

Purman recoiled. Instead of asking her why, he furrowed his brows in

thought.

“An instinctive reaction?” he guessed. “Why?”

The door to her room opened and M’hall and Emorra entered.

“An instinctive reaction,” Wind Blossom agreed. “I thought I had bred it

out.” She turned to M’hall. “That watch-wher must be destroyed before she

passes on the trait.”

M’hall shook his head. “Bendensk went
between
already, Wind Blossom.”

Wind Blossom sighed. “She was very old.” She looked at Purman.

“Perhaps if she had been younger, she could have controlled herself.” She

looked up at M’hall. “How is the wherhandler?”

M’hall crossed the room and seated himself, frowning. “That may have

been part of the problem, too,” he said. “Jaran—now J’ran—had been

Searched and Impressed the week before.”

“The watch-wher would have been confused and seeking out a new

wherhandler,” Wind Blossom said to herself. She looked at Purman.