What a bizarre, and cruel, lecture to give to the weyrlings!
And yet – the thought stopped him – was it not kinder to be truthful now
and ease the shock of what could possibly happen?
This evening?” M’leng said firmly.
This very evening, M’leng,’ lantine agreed, nodding his head.
When the green rider had left him, it took the young artist some long
moments before he could return to his sketching.
Well, this was one thing he could do as a gift to the Weyr for all their
kindnesses to him – he could leave behind a graphic gallery of everyone
currently living in Telgar Weyr!
Fort Hold
Classes were also being held that same day in Fort Hold. in the College
assembly room, Corey, as Head Medic, was conducting a seminar for
healers from all over Pern who had been flown in for a three-day clinic.
This included a first-aid session dealing with both human and dragon
injuries. She was assisted by the Fort Weyr medic, N’ran, who had
originally studied animal medicine before he had inadvertently Impressed
brown Galath. Galath, on this occasion, was outside, enjoying the sun,
while a green dragon, who was small enough to fit in the Hall, was being
used for demonstration purposes much as Ormonth was at Telgar Weyr.
Now we have been able to duplicate the records of Doctors Tomlinson,
Marchane and Lao which include some fading photos of actual injuries.
Lunch is fortunately sufficiently in the future,’ she said with a quirky
smile. Then her expression turned sober. The verbal descriptions are
worse, but it’s necessary to impress on all those who have to deal with
a man began and his ground injuries how incredibly fast,’ she ticked off
one finger, how horrendous Thread is,’ another and then with a sigh,
and how quickly we must act to . her pause was longer now, . . . to
limit suffering.
Murmurs answered her and she could see that some of the audience had
paled. Others looked defiant.
From what I, and my staff,’ and she indicated those in the front seat,
have determined, there is little option. The alternative of getting
into cold between as the dragons can is not available to us .
. . Yes?” Why not? If that’s an alternative . . -.
For them, not us,’ she said firmly. Because all the records emphasize
the speed with which Thread… consumes organic material.
Too swiftly to call a dragon, even if any were available, in your
locale. A whole cow goes in less than two minutes.
Why, that’s not even time to voice trailed off.
Precisely,’ Corey agreed. If a limb is scored, there’s the chance it
could be amputated before the organism spreads over the body Shards!
You can’t just . . . another man began.
If survival means loss of just a limb, it can be done.
But only if you’re right there . Corey recognized him as a
practitioner in a large hold in Nerat.
And many of us will be right there,’ Corey said firmly, with the
ground crews, sharing their dangers and hopefully saving as many as we
can.” She managed a wry smile. Any body of water handy is useful since
Thread drowns. Quickly, according to reports. Depending on the site of
the injury, water can impede the ingestion long enough for an amputation
to be performed. Even a trough is sufficient.” She glanced down at her
notes. Thread needs oxygen as well as organic material.
It drowns in three seconds.” What if it’s burrowed into flesh?” Three
seconds. Flesh does not have the free oxygen necessary for Thread life.
Ice, too, can retard progress, but that isn’t always available either.
Let us assume that we have, somehow, halted the organism’s progress but
we have a bad scoring and/ or an amputation. Numbweed, numb weed
numb weed And bless this planet for inventing something it didn’t know
we’d need so badly. In the case of an amputation, of course, proceed
with standard practices, including cautery. That at least would
eliminate any final vestige of Thread. There will be significant trauma
so fell is is recommended if the patient is still conscious.
She glanced down at her notes. Tomlinson and Marchane also indicate