“It is just needlethom which you lack?” Moreta asked, catching Capiam’s despondent gaze. The Masterhealer’s eyes began to widen and his stricken expression changed to incredulity as he realized what her question implied.
“And will lack, unfortunately, until autumn,” Desdra was saying, turning away from the disappointment she had just inflicted on her master. She did not see the exchange that passed between Moreta and Capiam. “I have appealed to every hall and hold on the drum network to send us their inventory. As it is, we may be forced to exclude some people”
“How? Who? When?” Capiam’s terse questions to Moreta were hoarse whispers but so intense was his voice that it caused a hush and Desdra whirled to face him.
Shrugging off discretion with a nervous laugh, Moreta answered him. “How is walking down the roadway. Who is us, for I can count on your silence and that is as essential as needlethom, and when has to be now, before I have time to reconsider this aberration.” She grinned in reckless glee. Knowing it was a dramatic gesture, but unable to resist, she pointed to the entrance just as B’lenon and Oklina entered. “Are you badly injured, B’lerion?” she said, hailing the bronze rider cheerfully and, in a lower voice to Capiam, “He can’t be that bad or he wouldn’t have risked between.”
“No, my shoulder was only dislocated,” the bronze rider replied diffidently, “but I can’t stand seeing the wings form without me. Pressen needed someone to bring Ruatha what we can spare from
254 Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern
our stores, so I volunteered.” B’lerion did not look at Oklina, who was standing breathlessly beside him, but bowed with tacit sympathy to Alessan. “I have wanted to express” He broke off, sensing Alessan’s distress.
“There is something you can do to help, now that you’re handy,” Moreta said, and B’lerion gave her a startled look. She drew him to one side and explained the situation and made her audacious request.
“I concede,” he said, darting quick glances at Capiam and Alessan, “that the matter is urgent, even overwhelmingly so”he spread the fingers of his uninjured hand in appeal“but it is quite one thing, Moreta, to add a few more hours to a day, and a completely different matter to flit across months. You know very well that it’s damn dangerous!” He kept his reply low while trying to argue sense into her. Though B’lerion might often behave with apparent disregard for proprieties, he was far from careless and irresponsible.
“B’lerion, I know where we need to go, in both Ista and Nerat. I know when needlethom is ripe to be harvested. The ging tree is always in bloom. I have seen the rainforest resemble a green face with a thousand dark-rimmed eyes”
“Highly poetic, Moreta, but not exactly the guide I’d need.”
“But it is a when. And to get the proper coordinates we’ve only to check the autumnal position of the Red Star. Alessan would have the charts. It’s rising farther and farther west. One only has to calculate the autumnal degree.” She could see that that argument did much to reassure B’lerion.
“I had not really expected to spend my free afternoon harvesting needlethom …” His protest was halfhearted as he came to a conclusion that Moreta hastily reinforced.
“We can spend as much time as we need there, B’lerion, and still harvest what is so desperately needed now. But we must go now. I have to be back at the Weyr for the end of Fall. Nabeth is equal to the feat.”
“Of course he is. But they’d know”he jerked his thumb at the waiting group“that we had traveled forward in time, Moreta.”
“Capiam and Desdra already know it’s possible.” She grinned at the expression on his face. “After all, the Healer Hall bred dragons.”
“So they did.” B’lerion recovered from his astonishment.
“We will also have to use the ability on the day the vaccine is distributed.”
Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern 255
B’lerion blinked wildly, glancing about him, but his gaze fell more regularly on Oklina’s figure and Moreta began to relax. “I could, actually, see the Weyrs condoning that application, Moreta.”
“They do not need to know we have taken time today. Who knows you’ve been here?”