Chap. 413 The Healer’s Dilemna

Landing’s riders dispersed to their individual quarters for unharnessing and grooming.  Mondevuth, Falconth and Corvuth flew the short distance to their mountainside weyrs. They were too big to fit in the buildings that had been opened.

Their riders weren’t gentle in their assessment of L’ichen’s care (or lack thereof) of Sorath.

“That’s not just age, mates, or I’m a wherry. That’s plain neglect,” T’balt said, as he oiled Mondevuth. “I swear, were I his Weyrleader, I’d banish him.”

“Where he could do exactly as he’s doing now,” D’nis chided.

“Damn. Yes.” T’balt said.

“Did you see his talons? They’ve not been looked at in months,” P’jar said. He’d finally settled on living in the caverns, too. His brown Falconth wasn’t as big as the bronzes, but was far larger than Raventh.

“That lad was right. The poor beast DID smell bad. The Healer couldn’t believe her eyes,” T’balt said.

“It’s odd that he says he knows Raventh, but K’ndar’s dragon doesn’t remember him.”

“How can that be?”

“To me, I’m betting that he’s only recently gotten to be this bad,” P’jar said.

“Well, we’ll find out what the Healer says. I didn’t want to interfere with her, and we DO have to get to work right after lunch,” T’balt said.

He stopped, then said, in a tone that dripped Officialese, “Lord D’nis, Rider P’jar, please bear witness to my decision as both a dragon rider and a Councilman. Blue dragon Sorath is not to leave Landing until the Healer decides he can fly, AND we agree, based on her decision. Our dragons are to report if they see him even think of flying.”

“Heard and witnessed,” both men said. D’nis added, “That’s a good idea. I agree with you, Lord T’balt. Any recovery is going to take him weeks, that’s IF he recovers. When we find his rider, I am going to have a few words with him.”

“Words my arse, my lord. I want to punch his lights out,” P’jar said.

______________________________________________________

K’ndar’s datalink called as he unharnessed Raventh outside their quarters.

Sighing, he pulled it from its holster.

“K’ndar here, who calls?”

“It’s me, Jansen. I need you to come to the library as soon as possible.”

“Uh, we just finished drill, Raventh needs a bath and then an oiling. Remember, I have this morning off for drill.”

He didn’t say that he wanted to see what the Healer could do for the blue. Francie had things in control, he knew. But he very much wanted to be there, if for no other reason then to translate for the Healer.

“K’ndar, I know, and please, I don’t know how to handle this situation. I’m  in the Library with Chief Elene, she called me for help with a visitor. I have to be quiet, he’s not far from me. Just come as soon as you can.”

Something in her voice made him worried. She wouldn’t ask for something like this if it weren’t serious.

“Raventh, do you mind if I leave you for a while? I need to talk to Jansen,  something is wrong and my gut says it has something to do with that poor blue.”

It is okay. I will roll in the sand, then get a bath. I don’t think I need oiling, you did that a few days ago. I would like to know what your gut says when it talks to you. Is it words like we’re using?  Is it when you are hungry? Then it sounds like rocks rolling in a metal can.

He laughed.

K’ndar walked into the library. He passed a table with several pre-teens  wearing “Escort” badges” and playing a game of Scrabble.

He saw an elderly man sitting across from Library Chief Elene. Jansen was next to her. Elene had a pile of notebooks in front of her.

Jansen said, “Oh, excuse me! There’s a friend of mine I think you’d like to meet,” she said to the man.

She came to K’ndar, taking his arm and putting a finger to her lips. She whispered, her voice urgent.

“It’s him, K’ndar, it’s that dragonrider, L’ichen? The one from the future? I am pretending I don’t know anything about him. I don’t want him to go away until Raylan talks to him. He’s the one who’s been turning all those notebooks with data and used my code for scanning! You’re the only one other than Elene who knows what he looks like, he…”

The thought that had refused to come out of hiding suddenly bloomed in his mind. Of COURSE. The blue dragon was L’ichen’s. It’s been so long since he was here last I’d forgotten about him, he thought. He’s Sorath’s rider. He looked over her head to see the man.

“I know exactly who you mean, but it can’t be. That man looks to be far too old to be L’ichen. The L’ichen I remember can’t be more than 30.”

“It’s him, K’ndar, it can’t be anyone else. And Elene referred to him as L’ichen.”

He approached Elene’s desk. Meeting her eyes, he bowed out of deep and heartfelt respect. “Good morning, Chief? I had a few minutes to spare, I was wondering if…”

“Hello, K’ndar!” she said, and motioned to the man. “L’ichen is here, the man who’s been turning in all that fabulous data,” Elene said, knowing full well that K’ndar knew him. I don’t remember him looking so old, she thought, by the egg, I’m doubting if it’s really him. But who else could it be?

The man looked up at him.

“Hullo,” he said.

K’ndar was shocked at his appearance. L’ichen looked haggard and worn, his face wrinkled and creased. His hair was thin and gray, and he looked as if he’d not eaten in weeks. He looks like an Oldtimer!

“L’ichen! By the egg, L’ichen, what has happened to you?”

“What did you say?” the man said, pushing one ear forward.

How do I say that you look as if you’ve aged fifty years?

“Uh, well, um, you look, um, tired.”

“I feel fine. I’m just here to turn in more data and get some more notebooks, then I’ll go right back out.”

Jansen’s face looked desperate. I can’t let him get away, she thought, he’s like a flutter, here and gone, and we’re so desperate to talk to him.

“I was telling him how much we appreciate his data,” she said. Elene nodded.

Raventh, call Falconth. Tell P’jar I need him right now, tell him the botanist from the future is here in the library. Tell him it’s L’ichen, rider of the dying blue dragon.

His thoughts scrambling, K’ndar said, “Yes. YES. L’ichen, I can’t tell you how valuable your data is. I’ve never seen better data annotation. Jansen here tells me it’s so voluminous and it’s CORRECT.”

L’ichen straightened up.

“Thank you.”

Now I remember how laconic this man is, he thought. 

“We’ve been hoping you’d stop for more than a moment,” Jansen said, “Especially our Data division. You could teach some of our people how you do your data annotation. It makes so much sense to them, they don’t have to do much more than tabulate. It’s better than any we’ve got here so far.”

He’s running Raventh said of P’jar.

“My coworker, P’jar, is a botanist, like you. He’s been wanting to talk to you for a long time,” K’ndar said. “He was right behind me, he’ll be here in a minute.”

“I’m a taxonomist,” L’ichen said, as if ‘botanist’ was an insult. K’ndar saw him beginning to realize that all these people weren’t just kindasorta arriving.

“I just take my time to do the data collection right,” L’ichen said. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to go.” He stood up. K’ndar noticed a datalink hidden under his riding jacket. 

“It’s not just right,” Jansen said, her intuition beginning to question the man.  “It’s so precise. How do you do that? Do you have an encyclopedia in your head?”

L’ichen’s face twitched. “What? Oh, it’s, I just remember things. Look, I really would like to pick up new notebooks and leave.”

The big brown rider came in. He was puffing. I hope he doesn’t realize P’jar ran here, K’ndar thought, this man is as skittish as a lone scavenger surrounded by a flock of giant wherrys.

“Hi, Elene! Jansen! Oh, hello, who are you!?

L’ichen looked up at P’jar. “I’m no one, I was just leaving.”

“Not without new notebooks, L’ichen,” Elene said, “I promised you, every time you bring in a filled one, I’ll give you a new one. Let me do that now, I have several in my locker in the back.” He acts as if he’s partially deaf, she thought.

“No, it’s okay, I have to…”

“Stars! You’re L’ichen?  THAT L’ichen? Do you realize how you have single handedly advanced our botanical knowledge by dragon lengths? You have the most incredible data collection skills. I need to talk to you,” P’jar said, sensing the man was about to bolt, “Don’t leave until you tell me where  you collected that chuckleweed specimen. I’ve seen it once in my life, and that was by sheer luck.”

“Oh, I just found it, you know, right outside here. It’s very common.”

No, P’jar thought, rankled, it’s not at all common. I’ve seen all the plants here and not a one of them is chuckleweed. For some reason, you’re trying to escape, and I’m not going to let that happen. Nope.  I DO want to talk to you but I also am mightily pissed at what you’ve done to your dragon. K’ndar never said a word about how old you are. But that’s a moot point, the councilmen have decided you’re staying here whether you like it or not. There’s something sneaky about you, you’re hiding something, maybe not illegal but not acceptable, either. Damn it, stop running like a scared dog.

“I’ve never seen it here,” he said.

“Um, it, well, it’s not that hard, next time I’m here, I’ll show you. For now, I have to go.”

“No. You have time, really,” P’jar said, suddenly dropping all pretense of interest, “The dragon Healer is here to check your dragon.”

“What? No!” L’ichen shouted, displaying the first emotion K’ndar could remember seeing, “He’s okay, he’s just, well, he’s not used to strangers…”

“He’s NOT okay, L’ichen. Your dragon is deathly ill. I don’t know what from or why, but he is in no condition to fly,” P’jar said, seeming to grow even taller. Elene and Jansen both looked stunned. 

“He’s just tired, I tell you. I’m leaving. How dare someone just arbitrarily decide to tend to my dragon.”

“YOU certainly haven’t,” P’jar snapped, “If nothing else, you’re guilty of dreadful neglect of him. But it’s out of your hands, anyway. The only way you’re leaving is on foot.”

“What?”

“Your dragon is grounded. He’s in no shape to fly,” P’jar said, loudly, so that the teens would hear. The only gossips worse than dragons were teenagers. Word would travel through Landing at light speed.

“Grounded? By whose order? By someone who didn’t have the courtesy to ask me first before messing with my dragon?”

“By order of the Council of Six, two of whom are dragonriders. The grounding will be enforced by the Landing’s dragons,” P’jar snarled, even louder.

“If he lives,” K’ndar said.

Jansen groaned, softly. “Is he that bad?”

K’ndar nodded mutely.

“They can’t do that,” L’ichen said, beginning to panic.

I’m so close to kicking your ass, K’ndar thought. “They can, you know. You’re in the Council’s jurisdiction. Never mind that a Councilman’s order is obeyed across the planet, no matter where you are.  Sorath will obey the bronzes. And you will disobey the Council at your risk. Be glad Lord Lytol hasn’t seen Sorath, he’d probably have you beheaded just on account of because.”

L’ichen swore. “Naw. You’re full of gas and ash. I’ve done nothing wrong, nothing. You can’t keep me here. He’s my dragon to do with as I choose.”

He turned to Elene and said, “Please, may I have the notebooks. I need to leave right now.”

“Not yet, please?” Jansen said, forcing her words. “The Science Division Chief would like to talk to you, he’s very impressed with your data.”

He ignored her.

Only because I’m doing what Raylan wanted am I saying this. I’m not so sure you’re worth being hired. Other than your data, which is priceless, you appear to be the most feckless, uncaring lout I’ve ever seen. AND now I remember, you’re the thief who used MY code for data input without giving me the credit. If you’re so careless of your dragon that it may be dying, what other things would you be so careless of? Nor do I want anything to do with you. These dragonriders are PISSED and I’m almost afraid to see what your dragon looks like. Never mind that you smell, like a solar battery that’s given out.

He stood up, slowly, bent over as if his back hurt him.  “May I have some new notebooks please?” to Elene, as if Jansen didn’t exist. He reached for the ones he’d brought.

His hands, Jansen thought, the knuckles, they’re all swollen, like nuts. Like rocks under the skin. P’jar, stung by the obvious disrespect for Jansen,  rumbled, “She asked you a question, L’ichen.”

He looked at P’jar, then Jansen.

His eyes, she thought, they look like grandmother’s before she died at age 80.

Understanding erupted in her mind. You’re not an old man due to longevity. You’re ageing at an incredible rate from all the time traveling you’ve done.

“I, uh, I didn’t hear her.  Sorry. Maybe next time. Notebooks, please?”

The “please’ was obviously forced.

Elene shook her head. She pulled his notebooks to her chest. “Your dragon is being seen by a Healer, I know that takes a while. Why don’t you go to the dining hall and get something to eat? You’re thin as a withy.”

Where am I getting this civility? You’re a jerk, Elene thought.

“We had a deal. I give you filled notebooks and you give me new ones,” he protested.

Elene shook her head. “Not until you get some tucker in your tum. You don’t eat, you don’t get a notebook until you do. Capiche?”

P’jar rumbled, “You should do what Chief Elene advises,” he said, resisting the urge to strangle him, “She might look benign but I assure you, had she Impressed a dragon, it would have been a gold.”

Elene smiled, honored.

L’ichen grunted. “With you all ganging up on me, I guess I have to.”

“Thank you,” Elene said, then called, “Escort? Escort, please?”

One of the girls came over, adjusting her Escort badge with evident pride.

“Yes, Chief?” she said, her smile like sunshine.

“Please, lass, take our guest L’ichen to the dining hall.”

“Yes,’m.” She looked at the old man. I’ll have to go slowly, she thought.

“Welcome to Landing, sir! My name is…”

L’ichen cut her off with a scowl. “I prefer that lad, thank you.”

The girl looked stricken. “But sir! It’s my turn…”

“I said the BOY.”

You bastard, Jansen thought.  What does it matter the gender of the escort? That’s it. If I have anything to say about your being hired, it will be to say over my dead body.

Elene was about to say that Landing’s schoolkids did classwork in the mornings and hands on training and tasks in the afternoons. Escorting guests through the maze that was Landing was a coveted task, assigned  only to kids who excelled in class.  It was not only a way to prevent visitors from getting lost, but also to steer the curious ones out of areas they weren’t authorized to enter.

She pinned L’ichen’s eyes, then relented. There is something wrong with you, lout, obviously I’d be wasting my time trying to get some empathy from you. I’ll make it up to the girl when you leave.

You’re a real sod, P’jar thought. She’s just a kid. 

The girl went back to the table and said, “He doesn’t want me. He wants you,” to the one boy at their table. There were tears in her eyes. The young lad stood up, looked hard at L’ichen, then gave the girl a hug before approaching the adults.

“Follow me,” he said to L’ichen, as curtly as possible. 

——————————————————————————–

K’ndar and P’jar were walking back to the dragon meadow.

“Strange man, isn’t he,” P’jar said. 

“Strange isn’t the word for it. I’d say ‘despicable’,”  K’ndar said.

“I’ve never seen a dragon look so bad.  For that matter, I’ve never seen a dragon die. Usually they go between, and even then, I’ve only seen that happen once.”

“Nor have I,” K’ndar said.

“Why would he refuse to talk to the other dragons?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s because he’s such a nomad. We’ve met him on two occasions, when he was south of Landing, doing plant surveys. His blue was normal, although Raventh said he didn’t seem comfortable being here.”

“He didn’t look like he was an old dragon?”

“No. Nor did L’ichen. He was strange then and if any thing he’s even stranger now. His data shows he’s fifty years ahead of us.”

“Huh. I took him to be in his seventies.”

“But he didn’t look that way earlier. He’s not much older than me! I’m betting my boots all the time jumping he’s doing is ageing him. Today was the most words I ever heard out of him, usually, getting more than a grunt from him is like pulling teeth,” K’ndar said. He pinged Raventh.

I’ll be there in about ten minutes. Is Siskin still with the blue?

Yes. He feels very sorry for Sorath. He’s been bringing crawlers to him,  like he did for Roany when that one was so thin.

His heart swelled at the kindness his beloved fire lizard displayed.

Is Sorath saying anything?

No. The Healer is still with him.

Did he eat the fish Motanith brought him?

Only a little. 

Only some?

He says he’s not hungry, just very tired. All he wants to do is sleep. And now her fire lizards are eating the fish. Siskin did, too.

Waste not, want not. The dragon that doesn’t want to eat is a very sick dragon.

He is. His mind is all cloudy, like he was still in the egg. He says he can’t see very well.

K’ndar thought of the horrifying black of Sorath’s eyes.

Is he blind? Is he in pain?

No, I don’t think so. But something is very wrong with him. He is so old.

Does he know he’s been grounded?

Mondevuth told him. But I don’t know if he understood it. His mind is like muddy water, you can’t see through it.

I’ve figured it out. He is ageing fast from all the time jumping they’ve been doing. Does he have a home weyr? Where they go in between time jumps?

No. He says they go all the time. He says they go here and his rider looks at plants. They sleep outside or sometimes in a cavern. They stop at holds and cotholds and take food for the rider, but not Sorath. Then they go elsewhere and the rider looks at plants. Many times they go to places where there are no herd beasts, like cows. He said they go places where humans never got to. He said one time they came here but had to leave because the mountain was burning.

If that isn’t proof of timing it, he thought, nothing does. Mt. Garben erupted over twenty five hundred years ago.

So what has he been eating?

Raventh was silent for a moment.

Plants.

PLANTS? Not meat from kills?

He says his rider wants him to eat only plants. He digs up roots and eats those, and sometimes, the bark off trees. Now he says he must stop talking, the Healer is talking to him through Motanith.

“Oh, for stars sakes,” he shouted, driven around the bend by L’ichen’s neglect, “Dragons are obligate carnivores!!”

“What?”

“Raventh is talking to Sorath. He says L’ichen won’t let him hunt, that he makes the poor thing eat only plants.”

P’jar shouted in fury. “What idiot Searched him? He needs to clobbered. This lout had no more business Impressing a dragon than he had impressing a dead fish!” 

“He said once that he impressed at Benden Weyr and grew up somewhere North. A cothold, I think? Something named stones.”

“Graystone Hold. A more miserable Hold on Pern doesn’t exist,” P’jar said. “It’s always cold, with hard rocks for a bed, soggy in summer and never ending rain in the winter, and nothing to stop the frigid winds but your hair. If you want a bad case of depression, it’s a dandy place to develop it.”

K’ndar felt a wave of sadness emanate from Raventh.

There is something sad in his mind. It feels as if he isn’t loved? like you love me and I love you. He thinks of himself as no better than a horse. Something to be used but not cared for.

Poor Sorath. Even horses know about love.

K’ndar’s datalink called. He could hear many children in the background.

“K’ndar, it’s Elene. You recall I told L’ichen he was to get something to eat before I gave him new notebooks.”

“Yes, ma’am, that was just a little while ago.”

“He didn’t go. The lad just returned, he said the minute they were out of sight of Library, oh, forgive my language, he told the lad to “bugger off, he knew Landing.”

“No!  Where did he go?”

“The lad doesn’t know. I’m having to console him even though he’s not to blame.”

P’jar heard it and looked at K’ndar.

“He’s coming to jump on that poor beast and escape,” P’jar said.

“Aye, but we won’t let him. If we run, we can beat him to the meadow. Shards, in his condition we can crawl and still get there ahead of him. But I’m not willing to chance it. I’m sure he knows the way from the library to the meadow,” he said to P’jar.

“K’ndar? Will you stop him?” Elene said from the datalink.

“Don’t worry about that, Chief. He’ll have to go through me,” P’jar said.

“We’ll keep him here,” K’ndar said. “Did you see the datalink on his belt?”

“I did. And right after this, I’m calling Data to track him. If he runs, we’ll know where he goes.”

“Please? Call the Councilmen right now, and advise them,” P’jar called to the datalink.

“I will. What will they do?”

P’jar laughed, but it wasn’t a friendly one. “I don’t know but I want to be there if they do. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a Weyrleader thrash a punk.”

Siskin chittered, happy that his person was outside of the buildings. K’ndar pushed an image of L’ichen to him.

“Siskin. Find him. Look for this man. Send me images of when you see him.”

Siskin chuckled and sent an image of Francie’s three. Enlist their help?

He pushed an affirmative.

“P’jar, what DO we do when he shows up?”

He could hear P’jar breathing heavily, not used to all the running he’d done that day.

“I don’t know. We’ll have to play that card when he plays it.”

______________________________________________________

“Chief Elene?” one of the children came to her desk. It was lunch time, and this particular crowd of kids, released from classes for the day, usually spent the hour in the library rather than eat lunch. They were always a bit noisy at first but after pulling a book off the shelf, they all quieted down.

“Yes, lad?”

“I found this backpack next to the entryway, it had fallen over so you couldn’t see it,” the boy said, and lifted a worn and ragged backpack that had seen better days.

“Hmm, it’s not one from your classmates?”

“No’m. Everyone has their’s with ‘em, I have mine on my back, see?” He turned to show his.

“Well, thank you, lad, I’ll take it to the Lost and Found.”

__________________________________________________________

“I don’t know if he’s going to make it,” the Healer said. Francie, K’ndar, and P’jar were there, as well as the two Weyrlings.

“What have you found?” Francie asked.

The Healer gently tucked Sorath’s left, half outstretched wing closer to his body. Anything to keep you warm, she thought. You’re so cold, I know it’s a chilly day but this isn’t normal, not at all.

Sorath only slightly responded with a slight retraction of the wing.

“His heart beat is uneven, his pulse is thready and weak,” she said, her fingers checking for his carotid artery without her consciously doing so.

“His wings have holes, and I’m pretty sure it’s because he’s not been oiled in a very long time. Notice that’s he’s lost his left alula, which probably makes it much harder to extend his wings fully. How that happened, I don’t know, it’s been a while.”

She paused, then said, “He’s comatose. I can’t hear dragons, so I’m assuming that he’s not responding to Motanith or Raven’s contacts. I don’t know if it’s due to the fellis I gave him or if it’s just part of his condition, whichever, I am grateful that’s he is unconscious, at least he’s not feeling pain. Or fear.”

“He’s not responding to Motanith, OR my fire lizards, and they’re a chatty bunch,” Francie said. Her sorrow over Soraths condition made her voice raw.

“His eyes, ma’am,” the weyrling said, almost afraid to recall their color, “they were black.”

She looked at the girl. “I know. I’ve never seen that before.”

She stroked the dragon’s head, gently, almost afraid of awakening the poor beast.  Even his breathing is ragged, she thought.

“He’s dreadfully dehydrated and I’m sure that’s affected his kidneys. They’re not like mammalian kidneys, when I palpate them they feel pulpy, like rotten fruit. And they’re empty. I’m sure you can smell him, that’s called acidosis, it’s part of the kidney failure. Mind you, I’ve seldom had this, oh, dear, I hate calling it this, this opportunity to examine what is clearly a dragon in very dire condition. I hesitate to say he’s dying…they’re tough creatures, but …” Tears welled in her eyes. How in the world can a dragonrider let his soulmate get so bad?

The others felt their hearts rend. The youngsters searched her face for better news. The adults refrained from meeting her eyes, knowing better.

How do I say I am convinced he is dying?  There is nothing I can do other than palliative care, and I’m not even sure then if it’s doing any good.  Where is his rider? Why isn’t he here? Maybe he shouldn’t be here, I want to beat him, Sorath is dying of dreadful neglect as well as too much time traveling. And what do I do once he is dead? They go between rather than lay dying. He can’t fly, so he must die slowly.

 No one has ever done a necropsy on a dragon. They go between to die.  Dragon Anatomy and Physiology classes were so nebulous. We had drawings of their innards but were reduced to feeling around the dragon’s outside, and that was always on healthy, sometimes impatient dragon, not one deteriorating in front of my eyes. I still have only the general idea of where their stomach is, never mind how it’s connected. I know more about the insides of a dolphin than I do a dragon.

“I feel so stuck in the middle. I want to keep this dragon alive, but he’s at the point where it’s mercy to allow him to die. If he were a horse I’d have already put him down. But I don’t have the rider’s permission. I don’t know if I administer what I assume is a killing dose will kill him or merely prolong the dying process. I DON’T KNOW!  and damn the man who’s put me and the dragon in this position,” she heard herself saying, although it wasn’t meant for the others.

I also see his dying as an opportunity to do some real examination of a dragon’s organs. I feel like I’m heartless, like this dragon is just a bag of blood and guts and I’m impatient for him to die. I’m not.  No dragon Healer has had a chance like this before. One the one hand, I can gain some vitally important data. Even this right now, my examination of a sick dragon, is new information, it will help dragons now and in the future. THAT feeling is overwhelming, too. I’m just a dragon Healer, I’m not a scientist.

But my data will also catapault my discoveries into the classrooms now and in the future. Healers will know my name as ‘that woman who.” DO I want that? I don’t want to be ‘famous’, I want to do right by this and any dragon I’m called on to help.

 But right now, I have this horrible situation on my hands. I want him to live, but I also want to do a necropsy after he dies. I want to remove his organs, look at the blood I took from him under a microscope, I want to see and draw or photograph his kidneys, his heart, his brain, all of him. Even his skeleton will be valuable, it’s so bizarre that we have plenty of skeletons from other creatures, but not dragons.

She felt her heart twist. Cutting him up is the only way I can collect priceless information on dragons. I don’t know if I can do it. It’s not like when I had to put a horse with a twisted intestine down, that was mercy and the necropsy taught me so much. But a dragon isn’t a horse, they’re sentient beings, as intelligent as a dolphin. It’s almost as if someone brought me a dying child and says, after he’s dead cut him up so we can see what ailed him. Like the child was merely a side of meat.

Oh, how I wish I had someone to talk to about this, BEFORE he dies. And that’s not long from now.

Francie saw her dismay and gave her a reassuring hug. “This is the hard part of your job..”

She looked into Francie’s eyes and could only nod.

“His talons, ma’am,” the boy began, interrupting her reverie.

She was grateful for the distraction. “They’re worn to the nub, at least one is abscessed. I can smell it, it’s badly infected, he’ll probably lose it, even after I dosed it with iodine. They only get this bad when they’ve been digging, but why he’s digging at all, I don’t know.”

“I do,” K’ndar said, his heart aching for the blue, “He told my dragon he’s not allowed to eat meat. His rider allows him to eat only plants, and so he digs up roots.”

OH FOR STARS SAKES,” she shouted grateful for the ability to shout her anger out at the rider, “they’re carnivores!”

She shook her head. ““K’ndar, I’m told you’ve met the rider and this dragon before. Was he ever like this?”

“No, ma’am.  Not him, not the rider. Who looks as if he’s seventy years old, his hearing’s going, his eyes look all filmy. He walks like his back hurts, too.”

“But he’s not seventy, is he.”

“No, ma’am. I’ll say he’s a little older than me, I’ll say he’s about twenty six.”

“That makes sense. I looked at Sorath’s teeth. Once a year, dragons lose their four front fangs and what we call carnissals, the side teeth they use for  biting and slicing meat. They don’t lose them all at once. The new ones come in with a line around it, a growth line. Sorath  is by my judgement, no more than ten years old.”

The weyrlings gasped. Their Weyrlingmaster was not there. It didn’t matter.

Francie looked at the kids and said, “THIS is why we don’t go time jumping, kids. If you want to die young, if you want your dragon to be like this, just go time traveling like that lout L’ichen’s done.”

“Never ever, don’t worry,” they both said, almost in unison.

“Interestingly,” the Healer said, glad to have her thoughts diverted from her inner battle with her conscience, “his molars show no sign at all of having chewed fire stone. It’s the first dragon I’ve ever examined that didn’t have stone wear on them.”

“Um, ma’am?” the blue riding Weyrling said, “My dragon’s never chewed it.”

“Nor mine,” said the girl. “Our dragons are clutchmates.”

“Oh,” she said, “they’re how old?”

“We both Impressed about a year ago, last winter, so, a little over a year old?”

“AFTER thread stopped falling.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“My dragon’s memory has improved a thousand fold since he quit ingesting firestone,” K’ndar said.

“Mine, too,” said Francie.

“I’ve had other dragonriders say the same thing,” the Healer said. Great. Now another reason I need to examine the condition of Sorath’s organs.

“Thank you, both for reminding me. It’s a new day for me as a Healer, I’m so grateful that we no longer have to deal with Thread. I didn’t like it when dragons came in all scored and their wings torn. They were always so brave, never complaining, even though we knew they were in pain.”

P’jar said, “Well, if nothing else, we know that fifty years from now, there’s still no Thread.”

“He’s fifty years ahead of us, in time?”

K’ndar nodded. “Yes, his data dates prove it.”

They heard a chittering overhead.

Siskin had appeared from between. Within moments, he was joined by Francie’s three.

Siskin, did you see the man?

Siskin gave a distraught moan. No.

It’s okay, Siskin. Don’t worry.

“Look!” cried the weyrling boy, “There’s another fire lizard, it’s flying in front of a man with a cane!”

“It’s Fafhrd,” K’ndar said, recognizing the man immediately.

“Why is he flying instead of going between?”

“He’s leading Grafton, Landing’s Headman.”

“Leading?”

“Yes. When he gets here, you will see why. Don’t be afraid to ask him why he needs a fire lizard to lead him. He is the kindest, wisest man on all of Pern. I have gone to him several times with problems I had no idea how to unknot, and he always helped me through it. Like today, after this poor blue dies, I am going to have to talk to Grafton to help me understand how someone like his rider can be so careless and neglectful.”

The Healer said, “Is he a counselor?”

“The best, ma’am.”

The Headman walked briskly, his cane helping him avoid the tufts of meadow grass.

I need his help, she thought.

The girl looked at the Healer and asked, “Can I touch Sorath? Will it hurt him?”

The Healer nodded. “You won’t hurt him. He’s beyond that, lassie.”

The girl crept as close as she dared to Sorath and began to stroke the blue’s head and neck. She began to sing, softly, softly, the words unintelligible but the solace heartbreakingly clear.  

“K’ndar?” the Healer asked, her tears flowing now, “Do you mind if I speak with Grafton first?”

His tears were flowing, too.

“By all means, ma’am.”