S’peren shook his head. “We’d that yet to do and thought there was worlds of time for Search.”
“Pick carefully before you bring anyone new into your Weyr!” L’bol advised sourly.
“If the need arises. High Reaches has a few promising youngsters who are healthy. I’m sure an adequate number can be made up from the other Weyrs?” S’ligar waited for the murmur of assent to go round the circle. “You’ll inform Leri?”
“Fort Weyr is grateful.”
“Is that all?” L’bol demanded as he Sumed toward his dragon.
“Not quite. One more point while we are convened.” S’ligar hitched up his belt. “I know that some of us have thought of explor-ing the Southern Continent once this Pass is over”
“After this?” L’bol stared at S’ligar in total disbelief.
“My point. In spite of the Instructions left to us, we cannot risk further contagions. Southern must be left alone!” S’ligar made a cutting gesture with the flat of his huge hand. He looked to the Benden Weyrleader for comment.
“An eminently sensible prohibition,” K’dren said.
M’tani flourished his hand curtly to show agreement and turned to S’peren.
“Of course, I cannot speak for Sh’gall but I cannot conceive why Fort would disagree.”
“The continent will be interdicted by my Weyr, I assure you,” F’gal said in a loud, strained voice.
“Then we shall leave it to the queens to communicate how many wings each Weyr supplies for Fall until this emergency is over. We’ve all the details we need to go on.” S’ligar brandished his roll before he shoved it in his tunic. “Very well then, my friends. Good flying! May your Weyrs” He caught himself, a flicker of uncertainty for his glib use of a courteous salutation not entirely appropriate.
“The Weyrs will prosper, S’ligar,” K’dren said as he smiled confidently at the big man. “They always have!”
The bronze riders turned to their dragons, mounting with the ease
152 Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern
and grace of long practice. Almost as one, the six dragons wheeled to the left and right of the red butte, to spring agilely into the air. Again, as if the unique maneuver had been many times rehearsed, on the third downstroke of six pairs of great wings, the dragons went between.
Fort Weyr, 3.14.43
At about the time the bronze dragonriders were meeting at the Butte, Capiam had discovered that if he timed a fit of coughing, he could miss some of the incoming, more painful messages. Even after the thrumming of the great drums in the tower had ceased, the cadences played ring-a-round in his head and inhibited the sleep he yearned for. Not that sleep brought any rest. He would feel more tired when he roused from such brief naps as the drums permitted. And the nightmares! He was forever being harried by that tawny, speckle-coated, tuft-eared monster that had carried its peculiar germs to a vulnerable continent. The irony was that the Ancients had probably created the agency that threatened to exterminate their descendants.
If only those seamen had let the animal die on its tree trunk in the Eastern Current. If only it had died on the ship, succumbing to thirst and exhaustionas Capiam felt he was likely to do at any moment before it had contaminated more than the seamen. If only the nearby holders hadn’t been so bloody curious to relieve the winter’s tedium. If! If! If? If wishes were dragons, all Pem would fly!
And ;/ Capiam had any energy, he would apply it to finding a concoction that would relieve and, preferably, inhibit the disease. Surely the Ancients had had to cope with epidemics. There were, indeed, grand paragraphs in the oldest Records, boasting that the ailments that had plagued mankind before the Crossing had been totally eliminated on Pernwhich statement, Capiam maintained, meant that there had been two Crossings, not one, as many people-including Tironebelieved. The Ancients had brought many animals with them in that first Crossing, the equine from which runners originated; the bovine for the herdbeasts; the ovine, smaller, herdbeasts; the canine; and a smaller variety of the dratted feline plague carrier. The creatures had been brought, in ova (or so the Record put