Slowly, reluctantly, Alessan raised his mouth from hers, looking down at her with incredulous intensity. Then he, too, became aware of the dragon's crooning and looked, startled, in the queen's direction.

"She doesn't object!" That amazed him further, and he was sensible of the risk he had taken.

"If she did, you'd know about it." Moreta laughed. His expression of dismay swiftly altering to delight was marvelous. Joy welled up from a long-untapped source in her body.

Orlith's croon changed to as near a trill as the dragon larynx could manage. With great reluctance, Moreta stepped back from Alessan, her smile expressing that regret.

"They'll hear it?" he asked, smiling back at her ruefully, his hands clinging as he released her.

"It may be chalked up to the joys of clutching."

"Your gown!" He grasped at the excuse of retrieving the crumpled folds where the dress had fallen unremarked to the stone at their feet. He was passing it to her when M'barak and Tuero entered the Hatching Ground, Tuero with a keen sparkle in his expressive eyes.

"With so much on your mind, Alessan," Moreta said, amazed at her self-possession, "it is very good of you to have remembered."

"If the simple courtesy of returning what had been misplaced is always rewarded with such generosity, leave more with me!" Alessan's eyes burned with amusement at his turn of phrase but it was Tuero's full pack that he indicated.

Moreta could not but laugh. M'barak was looking from her to Orlith, Tuero was aware that something had occurred but he couldn't identify it.

"I didn't take ail we needed," the harper said as he looked from Weyrwoman to Lord Holder with a bemused smile. "That would have stripped your stores completely."

"I shall be able to get replacements more easily than you, I think. As I was telling Alessan"-Moreta felt the need to dissemble-"I think there are old Records about this sort of animal vaccination, though I cannot remember the details. I would try the serum on a worthless beast-"

"Just now there are no worthless beasts at Ruatha," Alessan said quickly, a slight edge to his voice. "I have no choice but to proceed and hope the animal vaccine is as efficacious as the human."

"Did you inquire of Master Capiam?" Moreta asked, wishing that Alessan had not distanced himself from her quite so soon though she could appreciate the necessity.

"You know runners, not Master Capiam. Why rouse them if the notion was not feasible?"

"I think it is feasible." Moreta put her hand urgently on Alessan's arm, yearning to recapture some trace of their encounter. "I think you should inform the Healer Hall immediately. And keep me informed. "

Alessan smiled with polite acknowledgment and, under the pretense of a courteous pressure on her hand, his fingers caressed hers.

"You may be sure of that."

"I know Oklina lives." The words came in a rush from her lips as Alessan turned to leave. "Did Dag . . . and Squealer?"

"Why do you think I want so desperately to vaccinate the runners? Squealer may be the only full male I have left." Alessan left, pausing briefly at the entrance to bow toward Orlith.

With a startled expression, Tuero hastened after him, and M'barak hurried after his two passengers.

Orlith crooned again, her many-faceted eyes whirling with flashes of red amid the predominant blue. Feeling rather limp after the spate of emotions and resurgent desire, Moreta sank to the stone seat, clasping her trembling hands together. She wondered if there was any chance that Holth and Leri had missed that tumultuous interview.

"Look at the situation as a challenge!" Capiam suggested to Master Tirone.

The harper slammed the door behind him, an uncharacteristic action that startled Desdra and sent Master Fortine into a spasm of nervous coughing.

"A challenge? Haven't we had enough of those in the past ten days?" Tirone demanded indignantly. "Half the continent sick, the other half scared sick, everyone suspicious of a cough or a sneeze, the dragonriders barely able to meet Thread. We've lost irreplaceable Masters and promising journeymen in every Craft. And you advise me to look on this news as a challenge?" Tirone jammed his fists against his belt and glared at the Masterhealer. He had fallen into the pose that Capiam irreverently called the "harper attitude." Capiam dared not glance at Desdra to whom he had confided the observation for it was not a moment for levity. Or perhaps that was all that was keeping his mind from buckling under the new "challenge."

"Did you not tell me yourself earlier this morning," Tirone continued, his bass voice resonant with vexation-"harper enunciator," Capiam's graceless mind decided, "that there had been no new cases of the plague reported anywhere on the continent?"

"I did. I'll be happier when the lapse is four days long. But that only means that this wave of the viral influence is passing. The 'flu'– as the Ancients nicknamed it-can recur. It's the next wave that worries me dreadfully."

"Next one?" Tirone stared blankly at Capiam, as if wishing he had misheard.

Capiam sighed. He was not at all happy with a discussion that he had hoped to put off until he had completed a plan of action. People were less apt to panic if they were presented with a course of action. He had nearly completed his computations for the amount of vaccine needed, the number of dragonriders (and he had to assume they wanted to avoid a repetition of the plague as much as he) needed to distribute the vaccine, and the halls and holds where it would be administered. The confrontation had been precipitated by apprentice gossiping: speculations about why healers were still asking for blood donations for more serum when the reported cases of the "flu" were dropping and why the internment camp had not been struck.

"Next one?" Tirone's voice was incredulous.

"Oh, dear me, yes," Master Fortine replied from his comer, thinking his colleague needed support. "So far we have found four distinct references to this sort of viral influence. It seems to mutate. The serum which suppresses one kind does not always have any effect on the next."

"The details would bore Master Tirone, I fear," Capiam said. No sense in fomenting total alarm. Capiam had seized on the hope that, if they could immunize everyone in the Northern continent, catching all the carriers of this type, they would be in less danger from further manifestations, the symptoms for which would now be easily recognized and speedily dealt with.

"I am less bored by details than you might imagine," Tirone said. He strode forward, pulled out the chair at Capiam's desk, and seated himself, folding his arms across his chest in an aggressive fashion. He stared pointedly at Capiam. "Acquaint me with the details."

Capiam scratched at the back of his neck, a habit he had recently acquired and that he deplored in himself.

"You know that we looked back into the Records to find mention of the viral influence . . ."

"Yes. Stupid name."

"Descriptive, however. We found four separate references to such 'flus' as periodic scourges before the Crossing. Even before the First Crossing."

"Let us not get into politics."

Capiam opened his eyes in mild reproof. "I'm not. But I always thought you were of the Two-Crossings school of thought and the language in the texts supports that theory. Suffice to say," Capiam hurried on as Tirone twitched his eyebrows in growing irritation, "our ancestors also carried with them certain bacteria and viruses which were ineradicable."

"Indeed they were, but they are necessary to the proper function of our bodies and the internal economy of the animals brought on both Crossings," Master Fortine said in earnest support of his colleague.