healer at Igen Sea Hold, Master Burdion, entrusted this to my journeyman. I wanted it for an accurate account of this period.”
“Yes, yes, you badgered me on my sickbed.” Capiam made to take the book from Tirone, who reproved him with a look.
“There was no floating animal, no chance encounter, Capiam. They landed in Southern. Burdion was quite ill, you know, and dur-ing his convalescence he read the log of the good ship Windtoss for lack of anything more stimulating. He’s been in a sea hold long enough to know sailing annotations. And he said that Master Varny was an honest man. He logs the squall, right enough, and that did send them legitimately off course. But they ought not to have landed. Exploration of the Southern Continent was not to be undertaken until this Pass was over. It was to be a combined effort of Hall, Hold, and Weyr. They were three days in that anchorage!” Tirone punctuated his remarks by stabbing his finger at the journal in such a way that Capiam couldn’t see the page properly. Then Tirone relinquished it to his grasp, and Desdra sidled up to look.
“Oh, dear, oh, dear, how very presumptuous of Master Vamey,” Master Fortine said. “But that means this is not a case of zoonosis,
Capiam, but a direct infection.” “Only if there were humans in the Southern Continent,” Capiam
said hopefully.
“The log entries do not suggest there are!” Tirone sank that possibility.
“Indeed the Records concerning the Second Crossing are clear on
that point.”
“Are we sure,” Desdra asked, “that they were in southern wa-ters?”
“Oh, yes,” Tirone said. “A seabred journeyman harper confirmed
that the positions correspond to the Southern Continent! He said
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there wouldn’t be any place shallow enough to anchor anywhere short of the landmass of the continent. Three days they were there!”
“The log says”Desdra was reading“that they had to jury-rig repairs to the sloop after it was damaged by a storm.”
“That’s what it says,” Tirone agreed sardonically. “Undoubtedly they did make repairs, but Burdion added a note”Tirone produced a scrap that he flourished before he read it” ‘I found fruit pits of unusual size in the unemptied galley bucket and rotten husks of some specimens which were unknown to me though I have been many Turns in this Hold.’” Tirone leaned toward Capiam, his eyes brilliant. “So, my friends, the Windtoss made a premature landing. And look where it has landed us!” Tirone threw his arms wide in another of his grand gestures.
Capiam sank back wearily in his chair, staring at the maps, flicking his careful lists with his fingers.
“The log may shed light on certain aspects of this, my good friend, but also warns us against that projected return to the Southern Continent.”
“I heartily agree!”
“And it reinforces my conclusion that we must vaccinate to prevent the spread of the plague. And vaccinate the runners as well. I really hadn’t counted on that complication.”
“Look on it as a challenge?” said Desdra dryly, her hands knead-ing at the tense muscles of Capiam’s shoulders.
“Not one which I think our unofficial Masterherdsman is capable of answering, I fear,” said Capiam.
“Would Moreta know? She was runnerhold bred, her family had a fine breeding hold in Keroon …” Even the brash Masterharper paused, knowing of the tragedy there. “She did attend that middistance runner at Ruatha Gather. That was the first case to be noted here in the west, remember.”
“No, I don’t remember, Tirone,” Capiam said irritably. Did he have to cure the sick animals of this continent, too? “You’re the memory of our times.”
“Surely if we have a human vaccine, we can produce by the same methods an animal one,” Desdra said, soothingly. “And there’s Lord Alessan, who certainly has enough donors. I did hear, did I not, that some of his runnerbeasts survived the plague?”
“Yes, yes, they did,” Tirone said swiftly, glancing with an anxious
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frown at the despondent Masterhealer. “Come, my friend, you’ve solved so many of our recent problems. You cannot lose heart now.” Tirone’s bass voice oozed entreaty and persuasiveness.