“You are in the recovery room in the Staré hospital,” Rigi assured her. “You have been ill and are getting better. Your fur is returning.”
“My clan, I need to go to my clan. I am eldest, I must care for them, two were ill and I had sent Sar to get aid.” She tried to sit up and Rigi hesitated, then lightly palpated the base of the female’s ear.
“They are being cared for. Sar found help and some of your clan are here, recovering,” Rigi said. She wasn’t lying, not entirely, as far as she knew, and a helpful half-truth would serve better than painful honesty. “You have been very ill and are weak. Others are assisting your family, and you will heal faster if you rest.”
“Who are you?” She sniffed. Rigi wore harmless/polite, and it seemed to help. “You do not sound like Healer Haan.”
“I am a wise one in training, a half healer.”
The female relaxed and lay down again, quiet. “I hear your words, Wise One, and I follow.”
If it worked, Rigi told herself, it wasn’t wrong, and the female would not know the truth. Besides, so many of the Staré seemed convinced that having the talent that the Elders called the Wise Eye made her a Wise One that she wasn’t lying, really. Rigi continued down the row, making note of the different individuals and how far along they seemed to be. She’d passed to the second row when she heard fast, light hop-steps approaching. Rigi turned to see a hopling, a female with unusual shading, approaching at a near run. “Help, please,” she enunciated badly in Common.
“I come,” Rigi said in Staré. She followed the hopling between rows and found a male struggling against restraints. //Confusion/agitation/fear// and wheezing that alternated with gasping. It wasn’t the wheeze of a tired runner, and Rigi grabbed a muzzle mask, then pushed the red button by his cot. “Please lie still.” Rigi watched his pulse rate starting to rise. He slumped back, then began fighting again. “No, rest, please.”
“Get away! Get them away, don’t touch me, I’m not the one! I’ve kept Stamm, don’t hurt me, don’t hurt them.” His next words turned into garbled nonsense.
“Go get another nurse, now,” Rigi ordered the hopling. As soon as the little female hopling turned her back and hop-walked away, Rigi put both hands on the male’s head, rubbing his ear bases, massaging and gently pushing down on the nerve cluster. He subsided for a moment, long enough for her to get the mask on him before she had to resume palpating him. He began coughing and the green mask darkened. Would he inhale and choke? Great shaking coughs wracked the male, and Rigi moved away from him until he finished. When he did, he lay still, gasping for air. She took the risk of changing his mask for a clean, dry one, and put the gummy, blood-laced mask in a specimen bag.
“What is going—good thinking, ma’am,” a second Stamm male wearing a nurse’s badge on his vest said. “That will help with the diagnosis. Coughing?”
She hand-bowed. “Yes, and hallucinations. I pushed the button.”
“Fever too. We need to move him. Ah, here we are.” He shooed the female hopling out of the way as four masked, cloaked, and gloved Staré rolling a stretcher appeared. “The usual. With a sample. Ward three?”
One of the stretcher-party gestured affirmative. “Three still has room, yes healer.”
“Take him.” Rigi moved, clearing space for the males as they undid the straps holding the male to the cot and lifted bedding and all onto the stretcher, secured him, and hurried him away. “He’s the fifth today. Replace the bedding, please, the stacks are by the central desk." The second-Stamm nurse sounded tired. "We will need the room, I suspect.”
“Replace the bedding, yes healer.”
He turned back to her and almost jumped with surprise, tail shooting out straight and ears snapping to the vertical as his eyes dilated, //distress/upset/apology//. “Your pardon, Wise One, I did not realize—”
“Your pardon, healer, I did not stop to say,” the hopling interrupted. She cringed away from the nurse.
Rigi hand-bowed. “Here you know more and have authority.” She quoted the proverb, “Only the foolish do not listen to a master in his own work-shed.”
He ear-bowed. “As you say, Wise One. Please change the bedding.” The hopling disappeared, and by the time the nurse reached the end of the row, she had come back, struggling to carry things without touching them more than she had to.
“Good. You can help me. Take the end of the bottom mat and put it in place.” Rigi didn’t give the female time to protest, instead making use of the hopling's smaller forefeet. Stamm contamination would not be a concern since she was not touching an individual, and no one knew what Stamm the next occupant of the bed might have. Rigi had decided that emergency rules remained in effect, and so long as she could avoid gross violations, or until someone told her otherwise, she’d do as she needed to. “Yes, and then spread the bottom drape like so, yes.”
From that moment on, Rigi had a full time helper who worked until Rigi or one of the others ordered her to sleep or eat. The female, Nahla, was upper third and young. Rigi finally remembered that she’d seen her before. She'd been the junior in the park, where Rigi had taken Paul and where she’d noticed the interesting dust. Nahla’s better hearing and smell senses helped Rigi find potential problems faster, and the junior made herself even more useful by restocking things.
The third day in the general ward, Tomás and Kor met her at the central desk as she was finishing some notes and inventory. They all took turns recording what had been used, with whoever happened to be closest to the desk at the hour turn making the notes. The system seemed to be working, so Rigi stayed with it. As she wrote, she heard a familiar Staré voice saying, “My honored sibling grants that, perhaps, my personal conduct has proven of value.” Rigi looked up to see Tomás studying the ceiling and shaking his head a little as the stocky, dark brown-black male beside him puffed the scent Rigi had learned to associate with sarcasm. Only two or three Staré seemed to have that trait, and Kor was one of them. She stood and bowed to him. He bowed in return. Rigi’s shadow bowed as well, her nose almost touching the floor. Rigi caught a whiff of //amusement//, but faint. “Ruins, riot, and plague. My fur trembles at the thought of when we shall next meet, Wise Eye.”
“When Ebenezer Trent and Lexissol listen to the wisdom of others?” She dared to tease.
His ears flopped flat to the sides and he put one forefoot to his forehead as if swooning. “May all my deities and yours prevent that day from arriving, for truly it shall signal the end of the Second World and of all worlds to come.” Tomás sounded as if he were strangling as he fought to keep a straight face. Rigi wasn’t much better off. Nahla released a burst of //confused//, and hid behind the desk. “The hopling is wise.” Kor’s ears returned to their normal, slightly off center position. “It seems I am one of four immune individuals among the southern people.” He switched to Common. “My clan received this news with disbelief, annoyance, and expressions of confusion that my,” he stopped and looked to Tomás.
“Ah, I believe the phrase I heard was ‘your unfortunate choice of companions and disregard for society,’ sir.”
“Thank you.” Kor flipped to Staré, “That seems to have rendered me immune through repeated low-level exposure. Which has led to the development of a preventative.”
“A vaccine, sir?” Rigi asked.
Kor looked to Tomás again. “No, Miss Rigi,” Tomás said, frowning just a little. “If I understand Dr. Rajnanda, your guess about the dust having something to do with this was correct. It is—that being the dust is—a trigger for an immune system over-response, because the dust mimics several diseases at once. It comes from near the Kenusha Plains, in the Breakbone Desert region, but only in years without wet seasons. The dust starts an immune-system cascade, and the response is the fur loss and fever. So what is needed is not a vaccine per se but an immune booster sort of thing so the body does not over-react. It is something like a vaccine, but isn’t what I was taught a vaccine was.” He sounded frustrated. “I don’t speak doctor
. Injections began three days ago.”
Rigi shrugged a little. “I barely do, but that makes sense. Did they develop Stamm specific treatments?”
Kor made a gesture and released a mild //negation.// “The Elders Council, before it collapsed, ruled that vaccines are not compromising, since they come from outside all Stamm rules and we do not have a native analogue. Those who have recovered are administering to their fellow Stamm members, those who have not yet gotten ill, and the healers believe it will end the course of the disease.”
“Creator and Creatrix be praised! That’s wonderful to hear.”
Tomás and Kor both nodded. “Indeed it is, because we have lost far too many, especially the oldest of the elders. Eight of the council have died. My brother is near panic because of the loss of memories.”
Rigi’s eyes went wide. Was that what, why—? She licked dry lips. “Um, sir, not all of the memories may have been lost, at least, not if I copied down correctly.”
Kor froze, the way he did when he saw game moving. “You copied something? You translated the carvings?” She smelled eagerness and a hint of desperation and hope.
“No, sir, but I was, um, I was assigned to the initial ward for first Stamme, sir. Many of the ill insisted on reciting accounts and stories and wisdom, and demanded that it be recited back, becoming agitated and upset if no one spoke. I, my memory is not so good, so I took notes and read back. It helped calm and ease them, sir, and I’d planned to destroy my notes as soon as I could, since I did not have permission and the elders didn’t know that I was not a wise one in training.”
//Hope/desperation// “What speech are they in?”
“In Staré as written in Common. I can show someone the sound symbols I used, they are the ones Uncle Eb and Lexi devised.” Rigi liked their system better than the official one.
The cloud of //joy/hope/relief// threatened to choke her. “Do not destroy them, Miss Auriga. Do not speak of them to anyone else until I give you leave.”
Tomás walked over and hugged her, just a little, around the shoulders. “Fur-drop is as terrifying as the tales claimed,” he whispered. “I’ll tell you about the mass panic later.” He straightened up and moved away. After all, he was a military officer and she was not of age, even if they were distant relatives. Rigi suddenly wondered if he was courting, and if he was one of the young men waiting for the new governor’s niece to officially come of age. If so, it made perfect sense, since he’d been promoted and captains could court. It also wasn’t the sort of question one asked in front of other people, or in medical wards, and Rigi shooed it away.
“I will keep them. I also have sketches, but not of individuals, just of scenes and feelings.”
//Interest and thought// drifted past and Kor rubbed under his muzzle. “I would like to see those, but not today. It seems that as punishment for my good fortune in keeping my pelt, I have been tasked with explaining human science to my brother. Tracking trap-lizards and tanning stink-pig hides is becoming an increasingly desirable profession.”
Rigi wondered just how dim Tortuh was. She winked at Tomás and offered, “Perhaps, sir, given the need for an immediate change in occupation, timing kitfeng races and cleaning wombow dairy floors might be preferable.” Beside her, she watched a pair of ears turning this way and that, Nahla’s confusion plain to see. Tomás and Kor both smiled, and Kor puffed //amusement//.
“I shall consider your suggestion with the seriousness with which it was proffered.” Kor ear-bowed, and Rigi stood and hand bowed. He and Tomás left, deep in conversation, and Rigi went back to her work.
After several minutes, Nahla ventured, “Miss Rigi, what meant first Stamm sir?”
Oh dear. How do you explain sarcasm and human humor to a hopling? Rigi thought for a while. “Kor is first Stamm but he lives outside the cities, away from others, and cannot keep all Stamm rules all the time. He teaches Captain Prananda the ways of the hunter and other wisdom, and speaks to the Elders Council of human ways, easing misunderstandings.”
“Oh.”
Rigi nodded. “Humans are not always easy to explain.” After all, she was one and she did not understand them, especially men.
“Oh. I think I understand.” She sounded and smelled confused. Rigi didn’t say anything. Instead she saved her file entries and stood. Nahla stood as well. “Do I need to get bedding, Miss Rigi?”
“I do not know. I need to ask.” They had six empty cots waiting, and Rigi had not heard or seen any admissions recently. “Don’t make any fresh beds until we—” A terrible smell reached her nose—someone had suffered an attack of green-bowel. She should not have spoken aloud, Rigi groaned silently, gathering her skirts in one hand and putting her other hand over her nose and mouth. “Yes, a full set, please, and spare towels.” She hurried down the row and around the partition curtain knowing all too well what she’d find. Indeed, it was as bad as she’d imagined, but at least this time it was a relatively small upper third female. She’d almost been crushed by a lower fifth male. He hadn’t meant to hurt her, but he’d been big, and weak, and had fallen over. The female’s skin seemed a little crinkled under the new fur, a sign of dehydration. Rigi pushed the call button and assured her patient, “You are ill, and there is no shame in illness. Allow me to assist you, yes, move this way, yes, tail like that, thank you . . .”
Two days later, the ward consolidated and Drs. Rajnanda and Tsee dismissed Tomás, Rigi, and a dozen other volunteers, human and Staré. “We have enough people to deal with any foreseeable difficulties, and the immune booster is working. We have had no new cases in fifty hours, two days, and we have enough people here to take care of those recovering. The immune booster for humans is also underway, and should be ready soon.”
Rigi blinked. “Ah, do I need to find a place to stay, sir? I have a two-year-old sibling at home.”
“No. You cannot carry it to children, Miss Auriga. They catch it from the air just as Staré do. If the child has not had it, she won’t get it from you.” Dr. Rajnanda sounded confident and Dr. Tsee gestured his agreement. Rigi hand bowed.
“I’ll comm your parents if you wish, Miss Rigi” Tomás offered.
“Thank you. If you would not mind, Capt. Prananda, I will be in your debt.” She’d forgotten to charge her little personal comm and it had run flat.
“It is my pleasure as well as duty.” He made a flourish and bow, then smiled slyly. “Your mother would never forgive me if you had to drag poor Martinus home through Sogdia. What would people say?”
She giggled for the first time in weeks.
Rigi wasted no time collecting her things and stirring Martinus. He needed a deep cycle, and she hoped he would not lock up before she got him home. His hundred kilos were a little much for her to carry. Nahla watched her, then pleaded, “Miss Rigi, may I come with you?” //Hopeful.//
Rigi stopped. Oh dear, what did she say? She crouched down so she was eye-to-eye with the hopling. “Not right now. I will ask for permission to see if you are old enough to join me, but you are needed here, and I do not know if my house has room for another person.” She doubted her parents would agree, but she would ask. And Nahla’s mother and father should be recovering soon and be able to take her home, and Rigi did not want them to have to pay for having Nahla purified of human as well as cross Stamm contacts. Hoplings and pouchlings fell outside the Stamm rules to an extent, but not entirely. “I give my word that I will ask.”
//Disappointment.// “Thank you, Miss Rigi.”
To her surprise Rigi emerged in the fresh air to find Makana, her father’s assistant Jaihu, and a flitter waiting. Jaihu bowed as best he could and Rigi hand-bowed. “Your father sends his greetings and his transport. Your mother prefers that you not walk home, lest,” he shifted to Common, “people talk.”
Rigi covered her mouth to hide giggles. “Thank you, Jaihu, Makana.” Makana opened the rear and Rigi watched Martinus get in, then followed him. That explained why Makana had come along, she thought as they lifted into
a low hover. His mass was needed to balance Martinus, since Jaihu did not allow Martinus into the front seat.
“You are most welcome.” Makana looked to Jaihu, who gestured with one forefoot. “You are not to go out without both Martinus and I, Miss Rigi, not until matters settle. Some Staré and humans blame other humans for the fur-drop plague, and are threatening those who work in the places of healing.”
Rigi closed her eyes and counted to ten. “Thank you for informing me Makana, Jaihu.” She would worry later. Right now she wanted to be home, to take a long soak, to put on different clothes, to deep cycle Martinus, and to eat either Shona’s or her mother’s cooking. She probably needed to plug Martinus in first. Carrying him upstairs would be . . . difficult, she decided, even with Makana and Lonka helping. He’d be awkward to lift.
They reached the house without incident, and Jaihu dropped her, Martinus, and Makana off. She rounded the back corner to find her mother on the verandah, hands on hips. Oh dear. “Auriga, as soon as you take care of Martinus, you need to look at the invitation list I drew up so I can send it to Mrs. Brown. I do not want to over-weight her hospitality. Then you really need to—” She stopped and really looked at Rigi, leaned forward, and sniffed.
Oh dear. Makana stepped sideways, as if removing himself from the line of fire.
“See to Martinus, then wash and change, Auriga Maris Regina. What did you get into?”
Rigi almost answered. Instead she said, “I was close to some cleaning chemicals, and I fear they may have gotten into my bag. Shall I leave everything in the coat-and-shoe room?”
“Everything you are not wearing, Auriga.” Feeling very much like her ten-year-old self, Rigi slunk past her mother. “Makana, Shona has a list of items now that the market has reopened.” Makana slunk as well, Rigi noticed.
The bath felt very good. Clean clothes felt even better. The list was not quite as long as Rigi had feared, lifting her spirits a little. A plate of cheese rusks and something sweet-hot-crispy appeared as she went through the list, and she wondered how Lonka had snuck in without her noticing. Then she looked at her in-box. Rigi returned the list to her mother, cleaned every crumb off the plate, and girded her loins, so to speak, to start work on the messages.
Stamme: Shikari Book Three Page 7