Moreta

by Anne McCaffrey

  “ ‘Dragonmen must fly, when Thread is in the sky!’ ” Tirone’s resonant voice rang with pride and exultation.

  Capiam stared at him, aware only of profound dismay. How had he failed to catch the significance of Tirone’s mention of the Weyrleaders’ joint interdiction of the Southern Continent? They’d had to consolidate Weyrs to meet Fall.

  “ ‘To fight Thread is in their blood! Despite their cruel losses, they rise, as always, to defend the continent . . .’ ”

  Tirone was off in what Capiam had derisively termed his lyric trance. It was not the time to be composing sagas and ballads! Yet the ringing phrases plucked at a long forgotten memory.

  “Do be quiet, Tirone. I must think! Or there won’t be any dragonriders left to fight Thread. Get out!”

  Blood! That’s what Tirone had said. It’s in their blood! Blood! Capiam hit his temples with the heels of his hands as if he could jolt the vagrant memory into recall. He could almost hear the creaky old voice of old Master Gallardy. Yes, he’d been preparing for his journeyman’s examinations and old Gallardy had been droning on and on about unusual and obsolescent techniques. Something to do with blood. Gallardy had been talking about the curative properties of blood—blood what? Blood serum! That was it!

  Blood serum as an extreme remedy for contagious or virulent disease.

  “Capiam?” It was Desdra, her voice hesitant. “Are you all right? Tirone said—”

  “I’m fine! I’m fine! What was that you kept telling me? What can’t be cured must be endured. Well, there’s another way. Inuring to cure. Immunizing. And it’s in the blood! It’s not a bark, a powder, a leaf, it’s blood. And the deterrant is in my blood right now! Because I’ve survived the plague.”

  “Master Capiam!” Desdra stepped forward, hesitant, mindful of the precautions of the last five days.

  “I do not think I am contagious any longer, my brave Desdra. I’m the cure! At least I believe I am.” In his excitement, Capiam had crawled out of bed, flinging sleeping rugs away from him in an effort to reach the case that held his apprentice and journeyman’s texts.

  “Capiam! You’ll fall!”

  Capiam was tottering and he grasped at the chair Tirone had vacated to prevent the collapse. He couldn’t summon the strength to reach to the shelves.

  “Get me my notes. The oldest ones, there on the left-hand side of the top shelf.” He sat down abruptly in the chair, shaking with weakness. “I must be right. I have to be right. ‘The blood of a recovered patient prevents others from contracting the disease.’ ”

  “Your blood, my fine feeble friend,” Desdra said tartly, dusting off the records before she handed them to him, “is very thin and very weak, and you’re going back to your bed.”

  “Yes, yes, in a minute.” Capiam was riffling through the thin hide pages, trying in his haste not to crack the brittle fabric, forcing himself to recall exactly when Master Gallardy had delivered those lectures on “unusual techniques.” Spring. It was spring. He turned to the last third of his notes. Spring, because he had allowed his mind to dwell more on normal springtime urges than ancient procedures. He felt Desdra tugging at his shoulder.

  “You have me spend two hours fixing glowbaskets just to illuminate you in bed and now you read in the darkest corner of your room. Get back into bed! I haven’t nursed you this far out of that plague to have you die on me from a chill caught prancing about in the dark like a broody dragon.”

  “And hand me my kit . . . please.” He kept reading as he allowed himself to be escorted back to bed. Desdra tugged the furs so tightly in at the foot that he couldn’t bend his knees to prop up the notes. With a tug and a kick, he undid her handiwork.

  “Capiam!” Returning with his kit, she was furious at his renewed disarray. She grabbed his shoulder and laid her hand across his forehead. He pushed it away, trying not to show the irritation he felt at her interruptions.

  “I’m all right. I’m all right.”

  “Tirone thought you’d had a relapse the way you’re acting. It’s not like you, you know, to cry ‘blood, blood, it’s in their blood.’ Or in yours, for that matter.”

  He only half heard her for he had found the series of lectures that he had copied that spring, thirty Turns gone, when he was far more interested in urgent problems like Threadscore, infection, preventive doses, and nutrition.

  “It is in my blood. That’s what it says here,” Capiam cried in triumph. “The clear serum which rises to the top of the vessel after the blood has clotted produces the essential globulins which will inhibit the disease. Injected intravenously, the blood serum gives protection for at least fourteen days, which is ordinarily sufficient time for an epidemic disease to run its course.” Capiam read on avidly. He could separate the blood components by centrifugal force. Master Gallardy had said that the Ancients had special apparatus to achieve separation, but he could suggest a homely expedient. “The serum introduces the disease into the body in such a weakened state as to awaken the body’s own defenses and thus prevent such a disease in its more virulent form.”

  Capiam lay back on his pillows, closing his eyes against a momentary weakness that was compounded of relief as well as triumph. He even recalled how he had rebelled against the tedious jotting down of a technique that might now save thousands of people. And the dragonriders!

  Desdra regarded him with a curious expression on her face. “But that’s homeopathic! Except for injecting directly into the vein.”

  “Quickly absorbed by the body, thus more effective. And we need an effective treatment. Desdra, how many dragonriders are sick?”

  “We don’t know, Capiam. They stopped reporting numbers. The drums did say that twelve wings flew Thread at Igen, but the last report I had, from K’lon actually, was that one hundred and seventy-five riders were ill, including one of the queen riders. L’bol lost two sons in the first deaths.”

  “A hundred and seventy-five ill? Any secondary infections?”

  “They haven’t said. But then we haven’t asked . . .”

  “At Telgar? Fort Weyr?”

  “We have been thinking more of the thousands dying than the dragonriders,” Desdra admitted in a bleak voice, her hands locked so tightly the knuckles were white.

  “Yes, well, we depend on those two-thousand-odd dragonriders. So nag me no more and get what I need to make the serum. And when K’lon comes, I’ll want to see him immediately. Is there anyone else here in the Halls or the Hold who has recovered from this disease?”

  “Not recovered.”

  “Never mind. K’Ion will be here soon?”

  “We expect him. He’s been conveying medicines and healers.”

  “Good. Now, I’ll need a lot of sterile, two liter glass containers with screw tops, stout cord, fresh reeds span-length—I’ve got needlethorns—redwort and oh, boil me that syringe the cooks use to baste meats. I do have some glass ones Master Clargesh had blown for me, but I can’t think where I stored them. Now, away with you. Oh, and Desdra, I’ll want some double-distilled spirits and more of that restorative soup of yours.”

  “I can understand the need for spirits,” she said at the door, her expression sardonic, “but more of the soup you dislike so?”

  He flourished a pillow and she laughed as she closed the door behind her.

  Capiam turned the pages to the beginning of Master Gallardy’s lecture.

  In the event of an outbreak of a communicable disease, the use of a serum prepared from the blood of a recovered victim of the same disease has proved efficacious. Where the populace is healthy, an injection of the blood serum prevents the disease. Administered to a sufferer, the blood serum mitigates the virulence. Long before the Crossings, such plagues as varicella, diphtheria, influenza, rubella, epidemic roseola, morbilli, scarlatina, variola, typhoid, typhus, poliomyelitis, tuberculosis, hepatitis, cytomegalovirus herpes, and gonococcal were eliminated by vaccination . . .

  Typhus and typhoid were familiar to Capiam, for there had been outbreaks of ea
ch as the result of ineffective hygiene. He and the other healers had feared they would result from the current overcrowding. Diphtheria and scarlatina had flared up occasionally over the past several hundred Turns, at least often enough so that the symptoms and the treatment were part of his training. The other diseases he didn’t know except from the root words, which were very very old. He would have to look them up in the Harper Hall’s etymological dictionary.

  He read on farther in Master Gallardy’s advice. A liter and a half of blood could be taken from each recovered victim of the disease and that, separated, would give fifty mils of serum for immunization. The injectable amount varied from one mil to ten, according to Gallardy, but he wasn’t very specific as to which amount for which disease. Capiam thought ruefully of the impassioned words he had poured at Tirone concerning the loss of techniques. Was he himself at fault for not attending more closely to Master Gallardy’s full lecture?

  No great calculation was needed for Capiam to see the enormity of the task of producing the desirable immunity even for the vital few thousand dragonriders, the Lords Holder, and Mastercraftsmen, let alone the healers who must care for the ill and prepare and administer the vaccine.

  The door swung before Desdra, who looked flustered for the first time that Capiam could remember. She carried a rush basket and closed the door with a deft hook of her foot.

  “I have your requirements and I have found the glass syringes that Master Clargesh blew for you. Three were broken, but I have boiled the remainder.”

  Desdra carefully deposited the wicker basket by his bed. She pulled his bedside table to its customary place and, on it, she put the jar of redwort in its strongest solution, a parcel of reeds, the leaf-bound needlethorns, a steaming steel tray that had covered the kettle in which he could see a small glass jar, a stopper, and the Clargesh syringes. From her pocket, Desdra drew a length of stout, well-twisted cord. “There!”

  “That is not a two-liter jar.”

  “No, but you are not strong enough to be reduced by two liters of blood. Half a liter is all you can lose. K’lon will be here soon enough.”

  Desdra briskly scrubbed his arm with the redwort then tied the cord about his upper arm while he clenched his fist to raise the artery. It was ropy and blue beneath flesh that seemed too white to him. With tongs, she took the glass container from the boiled water. She opened the packet of reeds, then the needlethorns, took one of each and fitted the needlethorn to one end of the reed. “I know the technique but I haven’t done this often.”

  “You’ll have to! My hand shakes!”

  Desdra pressed her lips in a firm line, dipped her fingers in redwort, put the glass container on the floor by his bed, tilted the reed end into it, and picked up the needlethorn. The tip of a needlethorn is so fine that the tiny opening in the point is almost invisible. Desdra punctured his skin and, with only a little force, entered the engorged vein then flipped loose the tourniquet. Capiam closed his eyes against the slight dizziness he felt when his blood pressure lowered as the blood began to flow through the needlethorn and down the reed into the container. When the spell had passed, he opened his eyes and was objectively fascinated by his blood dripping into the glass. He pumped his fist and the drip increased to a thin flow. In a curious, detached way, he seemed to feel the fluid leaving his body, being gathered from his other limbs, even from his torso, that the draining was a totally corporeal affair, not just from the fluid in one artery. He really could feel his heart beating more strongly, accommodating the flow. But that was absurd. He was beginning to feel a trifle nauseated when Desdra’s fingers pressed a redwort-stained swab over the needlethorn, then removed it with a deft tweak.

  “That is quite enough, Master Capiam. Almost three quarters of a liter. You’ve gone white. Here. Press hard and hold. Drink the spirits.”

  She placed the drink in his left hand and he automatically held the compress with his right. The powerful spirit seemed to take up the space left by the release of his blood. But that was a highly fanciful notion for a healer who knew very well the route taken by anything ingested.

  “Now what do we do?” she asked, holding up the closed glass jar of his blood.

  “That top firmly screwed on?” And when she demonstrated that it was: “Then wrap the cord tightly around the neck and knot it firmly. Good. Hand it here.”

  “What do you think you’re going to do now?” Her face was stern and her gaze stubborn. For a woman who had often preached detachment, she was suddenly very intense.

  “Gallardy says that centrifugal force, that is, whirling the jar around, will separate the components of the blood and produce the useful serum.”

  “Very well.” Desdra stood back from the bed, made sure she had sufficient clear space to accomplish the operation, and began to swing the jar around her head.

  Capiam, observing her exertions, was glad she had volunteered. He doubted that he could have managed it. “We could rig something similar with the spit canines, couldn’t we? Have to prod the beasts to maintain speed. One needs a constant speed. Or perhaps a smaller arrangement, with a handle so one could control the rotational velocity?”

  “Why? Do we . . . need . . . to do this . . . often?”

  “If my theory is correct, we’ll need rather a lot of serum. You did leave word that K’lon is to be shown here as soon as he arrives?”

  “I did. How . . . much . . . longer?”

  Capiam could not have her desist too soon, yet Master Gallardy had said “in a very short time” or—and Capiam looked more closely at his own handwriting—had he erred in transcribing? A concerned healer with thirty Turns of Craft life behind him, he silently cursed the diffidence of the spring-struck young apprentice he had been. “That ought to suffice, Desdra. Thank you!”

  Breathless, Desdra slowed the swing of the jar and caught it, placing it on the table. Capiam hunched forward on the bed while Desdra examined the various layers with astonishment.

  “That”—Desdra pointed dubiously to the straw-colored fluid in the top level—“is your cure?”

  “Not a cure, exactly. An immunization.” Capiam enunciated the word carefully.

  “One has to drink it?” Desdra’s voice was neutral with distaste.

  “No, though I daresay it wouldn’t taste any worse than some of the concoctions you’ve insisted I swallow. No, this must be injected into the vein.”

  She gave him a long thoughtful look. “So that’s why you needed the syringes.” She gave her head a little shake. “We don’t have enough of them. And I think you better see Master Fortine.”

  “Don’t you trust me?” Capiam was hurt by her response.

  “Completely. That’s why I suggest you go to Master Fortine. With your serum. He has been too frequent a visitor at our cautious Lord Holder’s internment camp. He’s coming down with the plague.”

  CHAPTER X

  Fort Weyr and Ruatha Hold, Present Pass, 3.16.43

  WHEN MORETA WOKE, she felt Orlith’s joyful presence in her mind.

  You are better. The worst is over!

  “I’m better?” Moreta was annoyed by the quaver in her voice, too much a remnant of the terrible lassitude that had enervated her the day before.

  You are much better. Today you will get stronger every minute.

  “How much of that is wishful thinking, my love?”

  Even as Moreta spoke in her usual affectionate way, she realized that Orlith would know. During Moreta’s illness, the queen had been as close in her mind as if the dragon had changed mental residence. Orlith had shared every moment of Moreta’s discomfort, as if, by sharing, the dragon could diminish the effects of the plague on her rider. They, who had been partners in so much, had achieved a new peak of awareness, the one in the other. Orlith had dampened the pain of the fierce headache, she had eased the stress of fever and depressed the hard, racking cough. All she could do was comfort Moreta during the fourth day of physical and mental exhaustion. But by then the dragon queen had every right to re
joice.

  Holth says there is other good news! Master Capiam has a serum which prevents the plague.

  “Prevents it? Can he cure it?” Moreta had not been so detached in the course of her illness that she had not known that others in Fort had sickened—or that dragons and riders had died in other Weyrs. She was aware as well that two Fort Weyr wings had risen the day before to meet the Fall on Igen’s behalf. That Berchar and Tellani’s new babe had died. She knew as well that the epidemic had extended its insidious grip on the continent. It was time and enough for the healers to have found some specific means to control it.

  The plague has a name. It is an ancient disease.

  “What name do they give it then?”

  I can’t remember, Orlith said apologetically.

  Moreta sighed. Naming was a dragon failing. Yet Orlith remembered quite a few, Moreta thought fondly.

  Holth asks are you hungry yet?

  “My greetings to our good Holth and our gracious Leri, and I think I am hungry.” Moreta said with some surprise. For four days any thought of food had caused nausea. Thirst she had suffered, as well as the hard throat-searing cough, and a weakness so deep she feared at moments that she would never shake it. That was when Orlith had been closest to her mind. Had there been space enough, the queen would have forced her swollen body into Moreta’s quarters to be physically near.

  “How’s Sh’gall?” Moreta inquired. She had been feverishly ill by morning when Kadith had mournfully roused Orlith and Holth with the news of his rider’s collapse.

  He is weak. He doesn’t feel at all well.

  Moreta grinned. Orlith’s tone was tinged with scorn as if the queen felt her own rider had been more valiant.

  “Do remember, Orlith, that Sh’gall has never been ill. This must come as a terrible shock to his self-esteem.”

  Orlith said nothing.

  “What news from Ruatha Hold? You’d better tell me,” Moreta added when she felt Orlith’s resistance.