“Which leaves the Keroon Plains and you! Get your riding things. The day’s half done in the east. I’ll tell Kamiana to take over the rest of my run. S’peren can do the western coast from the Delta. I had the oddest feeling that something was going to go wrong. I did all the hidey holes in the top range first. The others are easy to find. Go, girl! I’ll stay with Orlith. In truth”Leri had difficulty swinging her leg to dismount“my bones are very weary today and I’ll be quite content to sit sipping my fellis juice and wine by Orlith’s side.”
“Peterpar’s gone to hunt wild wherries for her. Make her eat.”
“I’ll save a few fat ones for Holth when you two get back. She’ll need to eat by then.” Leri called cheerfully after Moreta as she ran to grab her riding gear. She started toward Orlith to give her a parting
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hug, but Leri cautioned her. “You’ve no time to waste and a lot to make. I’ll give her all the affection she needs.”
You must go to Keroon, Orlith said, still keeping one eye on the Benden queen in the center of Fort Weyr Bowl. Holth will take you. I must guard my eggs.
“Oribeth doesn’t want your eggs,” Moreta cried, scrambling up
Holth’s side.
/ have told her that, Holth said.
Moreta quickly lengthened the riding straps to accommodate her longer body, secured them, then told Holth she was ready. Holth turned, charged a few lengths toward the lake, not quite in line with Oribeth, and then launched herself in the air. Moreta caught a glimpse of Levalla standing on the steps in earnest conversation with Sh’gall, who didn’t even look up as Holth took to the air. With relief, Moreta realized that the bronze rider had not noticed the switch of
riders.
“Please take me to Keroon Beasthold, Holth,” Moreta said, visualizing the distinctive pattern of the fields that she knew as well from the ground as from the air. She didn’t have time to think of her verse she had to think of how much time she had to make. The Keroon region blazed in her mind, a map she had seen daily as a child in the big room of her family’s hold. She knew it even better than she knew the northern holds, for she had trotted around it on runnerback as a child; she knew the north only from the back of a queen dragon.
The beasthold itself, set in its complex of paddocks, was a sturdy group of stone buildings and quadrangles of low, slate-roofed stables. It was there that the feline had been brought for identification and from those fields that runners had carried the disease. Few enough beasts occupied the fields, but more than she had expected. Perhaps in her family’s hold the strays had been rounded up and all her father’s careful breeding had not been wiped out. Holth glided in to land near the building where a group of men obviously awaited them, a line of nets arrayed on the ground.
Moreta recognized Balfor, an unsmiling man who generally confined his remarks to monosyllables. Or perhaps he had always diplomatically deferred to the affable and verbose Herdmaster Sufur. Balfor was certainly vocal now as he hurried to Moreta and Holth, beckoning his men to bring the first of the nets.
“We have them all in order for you, Weyrwoman,” he said, “if you
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know the holds from east to west. We’ve taken pains to be sure there is enough vaccine for every beast and human registered with the drum census. Go speedily, for the afternoon is half gone.”
Balfor exaggerated, too, for the sun was just past zenith.
“Then I shall make the most of it. Don’t go wandering off. I’ll be back directly.”
Moreta angled Holth in takeoff so they both had a good look at the angle of the sun. Then she checked the first label: Keroon River Hold, situated where the river rushed through a gorge in its first wild charge from the higher plateaus. Holth jumped for the sky and went between as Moreta kept the gorge hard in her mind. She was met by the healer of Keroon River Hold and her delivery received with thanks. They had begun to worry since the vaccine had been promised for early morning. Moreta did not dally.