Alessan stared from Oklina to the dragon already airborne, and femembered K’lon’s remark the day he had brought the vaccine to Ruatha Hold. “It couldn’t be!”
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Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern
Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern
239
At that point, Follen rushed out of the Hold, his expression hopeful, and Alessan devoted his full attention to putting vaccine theory
to test.
Tuero brought the brood mare in from the field; she was quiet enough to be led by her forelock. Follen, Oklina, Deefer, and the trustworthy fosterlings bore the medical equipment to the beasthold. The momentum of exhilaration was briefly checked when they discovered that they didn’t have large enough glass containers for the quantity of animal blood. Then Oklina remembered that Lady Oma had put away huge ornamental glass bottles long ago presented by Master Clargesh to Lords Holder as samples of apprentice industry and design. To spin such large bottles, Alessan, Tuero, and Deefer contrived a big centrifuge from a spare wagonwheel attached to
spitcogs and a crank. The runner mare stood quietly impassive since the bloodtaking
caused no discomfort.
“Strange,” Follen said as the first batch was completed and the straw-colored fluid drawn off. “It’s the same color as human serum.”
“It’s only dragons who have green blood,” Oklina said.
“We’ll try the vaccine on the lame runner,” Alessan said, wondering which blue rider was harassing his sister and why. All the time the wheel was turning, Alessan fidgeted. Since he’d no other option, he had been patient, but now that he could search out Dag, he was fretting to be gone. “If there’s no ill effect on that creature, we can assumewe have to assumethat the serum works, since the same principle is efficacious for humans.”
“It’s too late to do more tonight anyhow,” Follen said with a vast yawn when he had injected the serum in the lame beast.
“No one at the Harper Hall will think kindly of a message at this hour,” Tuero agreed, knuckling his eyes.
“I think I’ll just stay here tonight, in case there’s a reaction.” Alessan nodded toward the lame runner.
“And you’ll be off first thing in the morning, won’t you?”Oklina leaned toward her brother, her dark soft eyes on his, her comment for him alone“to find Dag and Squealer?”
He nodded and gave her shoulders an affectionate squeeze before he sent her off after the healer and the harper. Alessan watched the three until the glowbaskets they carried were out of sight in a dip of the roadway. Then he fixed himself a bed of straw in the stall next to
the runner. Despite his good intention to remain alert enough to check on the beast, he slept soundly until first light. The injected runner was still lame but it exhibited no signs of a distress, no mark of sweat, and had eaten a good deal of the clean bedding with which it had been furnished.
Reassured, Alessan saddled the runner that Tuero had nicknamed Skinnynot a mount he would have chosen for anyone, but beggars couldn’t be choosers at Ruatha those days. Alessan carefully packed the serums, needlethoms, and Pollen’s glass syringe into the saddlebag, cushioning them with clean straw, then mounted and urged Skinny onto the roadway.
The night before, he had had many doubts as they waited for the serum to be produced: doubts about many things, including Moreta’s unexpected response to him. He thought of kindness and the kiss he had given his sister. Had Moreta only meant to be kind? Today, in the dawn of a bright fresh spring morning, he knew it had not been mere kindness in Moreta. He and the Weyrwoman had been of one mind in that brief instant. And the dragon queen had trilled in con-cord.
Skinny shied at some imaginary bogey in the greening bushes by the track. Alessan swayed to the motion, checking the animal’s sideway plunge with a firm pressure of that leg, while he made sure that the flaps on the saddlebags were secure. Alessan liked an active mover but he couldn’t risk the precious fluid or pause to school a fractious beast. He must concentrate on riding and not be diverted by visions of the impossible. Moreta was the Fort Weyrwoman. Although she might, just might, enjoy a discreet relationship with him, might even allow a pregnancyand suddenly Alessan longed for a child as he had not with SurianaAlessan was still Lord of a severely depleted bloodline. He had to have an acknowledged wife, and others to bear his children, as many as he could beget.