"As if anyone would rob your clutch," Moreta teased her affectionately. She had told Orlith all about her early-morning visit to High Reaches and received a serene absolution for her errand of mercy.

Leri was here. Holth was with you. Fair exchange in those conditions. I slept.

Moreta slept for a while after her return from the High Reaches, waking nervously almost as if she had expected another summons. She would have preferred to stay at Tamianth's side until she was certain that the ichor was flowing to the wing, but Pressen had learned of the dangers and was able to perform necessary countermeasures. Further, as Tamianth strengthened and Falga recovered from wound fever, another crisis was less likely to develop.

So Moreta ascribed her nagging sense of apprehension to the tensions of a long day and sent M'barak, Leri's favorite weyrling rider, to Ruatha Hold. K'lon told Leri and Moreta how appalled he had been by Ruatha. Moreta did not like to dwell on the scenes of a derelict Ruatha that her active imagination could conjure. What could she say in condolence to a man who had suffered so many losses?

Suddenly Alessan, dressed in rough leathers but a clean shirt showing at the neck, stood to one side of the entrance to the Hatching Ground. Beside him was a lanky man in a faded, patched tunic of harper blue. M'barak was grinning at their hesitation and waved them toward the portion of the tiers that Moreta had converted to a temporary living space. Orlith was awake and watched them enter, but displayed no agitation.

Moreta rose, one hand raised in unconscious protest against the change in Alessan. Too vividly she recalled the assured, handsome, buoyant young man who had greeted her at Ruatha's Gather eight days before. He had lost weight and his tunic was belted tightly to take up the slack. His hair no longer looked trimmed or brushed. She wondered why that detail should matter so much to her. The stains on his hands, witness of his efforts to plow and plant, were honorable ones, as was the redwort on hers. She grieved, too, for the lines of worry and tension in his face, the cynical slant to his mouth, and the wary expression in his light green eyes.

"This is Tuero, Moreta, who has been invaluable to me over the... since the Gather." After the slight pause, Alessan's voice deepened as if to ward off comment. "He has a theory against which I can raise no objections, but, as we cannot reach an authority at this hour in Keroon Beasthold, I thought you might give us an opinion."

"What is it?" Moreta asked, put off by his diffidence. The change in him went far deeper than appearance.

"Tuero"-Alessan gave the harper a slight bow of acknowledgment– "wondered if a vaccine could be made from the blood of runnerbeasts to protect them from the plague." '

"Of course it can! You mean it hasn't been done?" Moreta was consumed by such a surge of fury and frustration that Orlith rose to all four legs from her semi-recumbent position, her eyes whirling pinkly, and a worried question rumbled from her throat.

"No." In the one word, Alessan mirrored her own intense reaction.

"No one thought of doing it, or there hasn't been the time?" she demanded, sick at the thought of more loss, animal or human. The grim set of Alessan's mouth and the harper's sigh gave the answer. "I would have thought that-" She broke off the angry sentence, closing her eyes and clenching her fists. She recalled the heavy losses at Keroon Beasthold-the emptiness of her family's runnerhold.

"There have been other priorities," Alessan said. He spoke without bitterness but from a resignation to harsh fact.

"Yes, of course." She pulled her wits back from useless conjecture. "Have you any healers?"

"Several."

"Runnerblood would produce the same serum by the same method, centrifugal separation. More blood can be drawn from runners, of course, and the vaccine should be administered in proportion to body weight. The heavier-"

Alessan cocked his left eyebrow just enough for her to realize that there were no more of the heavier beasts at Ruatha.

"Would you have any spare needlethorns?" Alessan asked, breaking the silence.

"Yes." At that moment Moreta would have given Alessan anything he needed to alleviate his problems. "And whatever else is needed by Ruatha."

"We've been promised a supply train from Fort," Tuero said, "but until we can assure the wagoners that man and animal in Ruatha are plague-free, no one will venture near the Hold."

Moreta assimilated that information with a slow nod of her head, her eyes on Alessan. They might be discussing something completely foreign to him to judge by his detachment. How else could he have survived his losses?

"M'barak, please take Lord Alessan and Journeyman Tuero to the storeroom. They may have anything they need from our supplies."

M'barak's eyes widened.

"I'll be right with you," Alessan told Tuero and M'barak, who left him. Alessan swung down the pack he carried. "I did not come," hi said with a wry smile, "in expectation of bounty. I can, however, return your gown." He took out the carefully folded gold and brown dress and presented it to her with a courteous bow.

She managed to take it from him but her hands trembled. She thought of the racing, the dancing, her joy in a Gather as one should be, her delight in the perfection of that Gather evening as she and Oklina had made their way to the dancing square for an evening she would never forget. The pent-up frustrations, angers, suppressed griefs, the mandatory absences from Orlith that she thought of as betrayals of Impression, the whole accumulation burst the barrier of self-control and she buried her face in the dress, weeping uncontrollably.

As Orlith crooned supportively, Moreta was taken into Alessan's embrace. The touch of his arms, fierce in their hold, the mixed odors of human and animal sweat, of damp earth, combined to free her tears. Abruptly she felt the heave and swell of his body as his grief found expression at last. Together they comforted and were comforted by each other's release.

You needed this, Orlith said to Moreta but she knew that the dragon included Alessan in her compassion.

It was Moreta who recovered from the catharsis first. She continued to hold Alessan tightly, to ease his shuddering body, as she murmured reassurances and encouragements, repeating all the praise for his indomitable spirit and fortitude that had come to her through K'lon: trying to make her voice and hands convey her own respect, admiration, and empathy. She felt the shuddering subside and then, with one final deep sigh, Alessan was purged of the aggregation of sorrow, remorse, and frustration. She relaxed her grip and his arms became less fierce and clinging. Slowly they leaned apart so that they could look into each other's eyes. The lines of pain and worry had not diminished but the strain had eased about his mouth and brow. Alessan raised his hand and with gentle fingers smoothed the tears from her cheeks. His hands tightened and he pulled her toward him again, bending his head to one side so that she could evade him if she chose. Moreta tilted her head and accepted his kiss, thinking to put the seal of comfort to their shared sorrow with that age-old benison. Neither expected their emotions to flare to passion-Moreta because she had stopped thinking of relationships outside the Weyr, Alessan because he had thought himself spent from his losses at Ruatha.

Orlith crooned serenely, almost unheard by Moreta, who was caught up by the surge of emotion, the flow of sensuality so remarkably aroused by Alessan's touch, the hard strength of his thighs against hers, the sensation of being vital again. Not even her girlhood love for Talpan had waked such an uninhibited response, and she clung to Alessan, willing the moment to endure.