Disclaimer: Pern and the Dragons of Pern belong to Anne McCaffrey

Lystar walked slowly and steadily down the narrow stone staircase. The cascade had dried up again to a thin trickle, a glistening wet streak on the rock rather than a stream, and the worn steps were dry and dusty. Physically, she was almost better. She'd eaten and slept a lot over the past two days, and already she could feel that she was stronger.

Mentally, she was still bracing herself. She knew that she'd barely begun to assimilate the damage to the Weyr – the damage to her friends, both living and dead. Maybe it was too early for her to try and figure out exactly what was going on. It was still hard to believe that Gilda wouldn't come round the corner, scolding furiously.

Lystar stopped, steadied herself, and shut her eyes for a minute. She was tired.

But she was better. In the whole Weyr, full of people who were in fear of their lives, she was free of the fear. It gave her a link with Melly, and she knew, now, why the little dark candidate felt driven to do all that she could for the sufferers. She knew, too, what was her duty. The candidates. While she was sick, had anyone remembered that G'zul was dead and that those fifty-three – well, forty-eight healthy, the last thing she knew – young people would be confused, scared, and alienated? She'd seen them arrive, one by one, and taught them all, and tried to make them feel welcome. She cared about them. So she approached the candidate barracks with some trepidation.

The candidates slept in two rooms, boys on one side of the corridor, and a smaller room for the girls on the other side. Normally they would have been busy with lessons and chores and have spent barely any time in the rooms, and Lystar didn't really know whether she would find any of them there today, but it was a place to start looking.

She hooked aside the heavy curtain in the girl's doorway first. Three girls were sitting inside, one braiding another's hair with hands that shook, and the third perched on the edge of her bed, chewing nervously at ragged nails.

She was the first to notice the bluerider's entrance. 'Lystar!'

'Hey there, Jory. Where's everyone else?'

'Sick.' The answer was concise and gloomy. Lystar could hear the taut fear in the younger girl's voice.

'I knew about Ranna, of course. Yevessa and Senna both have the plague?'

'Yeah.' The girl who had been having her long black hair braided shook off her friend's hands and sat up straighter to explain. 'Ranna's dead. So's Yevessa. She was working down in the infirmary, but she got sick really fast. None of us helps out there now.'

'Yes, they do, that weird girl, Meliana, she does,' pointed out mousy-haired Jory. 'She's not sick, Kindra.'

'Nor are we,' Kindra told her. 'Yet.'

'What's weird about Melly?' Lystar asked. She wasn't sure whether she was reassured or horrified by the girls' attitudes. They haven't been here long, she reminded herself. They don't really know anyone very well, so it's sad when people die, but it's not heartbreaking. They're all right. Compared to a lot of people, they're all right.

At the same, time, something in her was protesting against the girls' matter-of-fact approach. People are dead! How can they not care? Is the only thing for them their own safety?

People are dead, but they are alive, said Caliath. We are alive. Be happy.

Lystar sighed mentally. I am happy about that, I suppose. But I can't stop thinking… Gilda brought me up from when I was small. She taught me to read and write and cook, and whacked me when I got caught stealing food and… all right, didn't comfort me when I was upset, but that was just the way she was, she always pretended that she didn't care. And those two – Yevessa, she always thought she knew best, always happy to argue and Ranna told me how much she missed her home and her baby brother, and… they're gone. They're just… gone. I don't know how anyone can just think… that things will carry on the way they were before. Things will never be the same again, because they're gone. Don't you see?

No, said Caliath, frankly. People and dragons go between. They have always gone between, they will always go between. New people come out of the egg. The Weyr still fights thread. That is what matters.

Lystar gave up on trying to explain, and listened instead to Kindra, who was answering her question. 'Meliana is weird. She never says anything, and she looks at you like she's considering whether you're worth listening to. She doesn't have any friends, and she doesn't seem to care. She just seems really cold. It's like she thinks she's better than us, although I can't see why, since she comes from some obscure hold in the middle of nowhere.'

'Not like she thinks she's better than us,' Jory corrected. 'Just like she's not living in the same world.'

Lystar shook her head. I guess that is what I thought about Melly in the beginning, she admitted. Out loud, she said. 'Are you all right, though, for the time being?'

'Until we get sick, yes,' Kindra said, sourly.

'You might not. Gild – well, the Lower Cavern women – are working on a cure all the time, and they might find out how to stop it. Or you might get better – it happens, look at me. And – plagues don't last forever, remember.'

'Yeah.'

'You need something to do,' said Lystar. 'All of you. It'll take your mind off things. You don't have to work with the sick, but if you could help with stuff like cooking, cleaning, keeping the records up to date, then that would free up people who don't mind nursing to help out with that. I'm going over the corridor to see the boys, but then I'm going to go and find out what needs doing most. And you should be doing lessons – you're still candidates. Now I'm better, we'll see if we can't manage at least one class every couple of days.'

The three girls were looking at her incredulously. Jory gave her what looked like a genuine, if shaky grin. 'Lystar,' she said, 'I'm glad you're back.' Then her face fell. 'But you'll find the boys are in an even worse state than us. A lot more of them are sick.'

K'beth was surprised to find himself at something of a loose end. He knew where Lystar had gone – after she'd made it down to the Lower Caverns alone on the first day of her convalescence he'd had Rosith keep tags on her through Caliath until Melly had told him that the bluerider might get up again, and then he'd made her promise to let him know where she was all the time. He didn't even know why he was being so ridiculously over-protective, since she was so obviously almost herself again, except that he was still reeling from the conviction, just a few of days ago, that he might never see her again.

But even knowing where she was didn't help him now, since she didn't need or want his help when she was talking to the candidates. What were most people doing? He had spent the last few days – since the beginning of the quarantine time – watching anxiously at Lystar's bedside every minute that he wasn't eating, sleeping or caring for Rosith. What were most people doing with their time, with no thread drills and no wing drills?

K'beth drifted through the Weyr, feeling somehow empty. Maybe he should look for Jarrin, see if the Harper felt as useless as he did.

He wouldn't have found Jarrin if he had gone to look for him. The Journeyman was in the Weyr's main storeroom with a long inventory and a stick of charcoal. 'People've been taking stuff – food mostly, and healing supplies – whenever they needed it,' Marti had explained, when she left him there. 'Gilda always makes sure – Gilda always used to make sure that everything went through her, so she always knew exactly what she had, but we've lost that now. We need to find out exactly how much of everything we've got, so we can resupply. Mark out the inventory roughly, and then we can check it over and ink it in later. No one understands Gilda's system. Just do the best you can.'

Then the young Weyrwoman had bustled off to deal with another problem. Jarrin remembered the time when he'd first looked at her and thought that she might be a force to be reckoned with. Now he wondered how he had ever failed to notice Marti's competence and organising talents. His feet kicked up little clouds of dust as he wandered down the room, marking out the inventory. The air smelled a little stale, but the cool of the deep caves was a wonderful relief on skin that had been out in the blazing tropical heat.

Marti herself was deep in a conversation with Melly.

'We need to try and get this Weyr back on track. At the moment – we're living this kind of half life. I know you have the infirmary under control, but down there it's like you're all living in this little bubble which isn't part of the same world. You know people stand back in the corridors to let the healing staff pass? It's like you have some kind of sacred mission. And meanwhile the rest of the Weyr are huddling in their weyrs and trying to believe that their friends – whether they're down with you people or out in the Weyr somewhere – will get better. This is just the ghost of a Weyr. We can't live this way!'

She could feel Amerenth shifting urgently and responding to her agitation. Calm down, dear one, she said, to herself as much as the dragon. Amerenth was the single bastion between the dragons of the Weyr and panic, she reminded herself, and Amerenth was relying on her.

'Sorry,' she said, more coolly. 'But you see what I mean. I don't even know how many people are sick any more!'

'I do,' said Melly. 'Well, I can find out.'

'You do? Amazing. Can you tell me who it is that's ill, too?'

'Yes. Come on down and see.'

'Excellent. I'm going to figure out who's sick, who's caring for those who are, and who's free to help out. Lystar's volunteered all of the candidates for kitchen duties, and she said she's going to send down a bunch of the weyrlings, too. Right now she's gone to see the drudges. A lot of them seem to have just vanished, and we don't know if they're sick or just scared. We've got to try and reinstate normal life. If everyone who isn't sick or involved in caring for the sick helps out around the Weyr then I reckon we can have regular mealtimes again. That's important – if we can gather everyone down here then it'll reduce the sense of isolation. And I'm hoping it'll reduce the fear, too. I don't know how many people are sick, but I know it's not anything like three quarters of the Weyr – that's the gossip that's going round. I don't want to ask Amerenth to cut the chattering that's going on because I think that will make people feel that they're totally alone without much idea of what's going on, but it sure isn't helpful when dragons pass rumours along.'

Melly nodded silently and turned to go down to the infirmary. Marti followed her, frowning. Her mind was still running over all the things that needed to be done. She'd set Jarrin going in the storeroom, but they'd have to make a complete inventory. Maybe some of Lystar's candidates could help? Most of them could probably read and write.

And Meliana was another puzzle. The girl seemed totally incurious. She hadn't asked any questions or volunteered any information that the young queenrider hadn't asked about. She was a blank. And yet –

She is closed up, Amerenth rumbled in Marti's head. But she is already more open than she was when she came.

Can't say I've noticed, dear one. But I'll take your word for it.

When she stops being afraid and opens up completely, she will ride a queen.

– and yet, this little girl, smaller even than Marti herself, and slender, with an elfin prettiness, had taken charge when Gilda died. The fully grown women of the Weyr had meandered uncertainly when free of the old Headwoman's iron rule, but Meliana had kept the infirmary going.

And if she seemed unreadable and her competence was surprising – well, two sevendays ago, would Marti have known that she herself could run the Weyr?

Lystar had remembered to bring a thick bundle of fresh glows with her, and as she passed she slipped a new one into each glowbasket in place of the sickly, faded remnants so that she seemed to bring a trail of light with her into the depths of the Weyr.

There was no one around. Lystar had never felt threatened or vulnerable poking around in the Weyr's back corridors, but she was beginning to feel desperately nervous. Cal, something's not right.

She felt the mental flick of Caliath's acknowledgement, but her dragon made no comment. He had no useful advice to offer.

Then Lystar's quick ears caught a faint noise; it sounded like someone crying. That's a baby. Benellin – Kalla!

She hurried onwards. Where could she look for the drudge? The noises were faint, but through the thick cavern walls of the Weyr the sound couldn't actually be that far away, and as long as she continued to refill the glowbaskets on her path she couldn't get lost. She pushed aside a heavy hide curtain and stepped through into the drudges' sleeping quarters.

A rush of stale, stinking air blew into her face as she lifted the door covering. Lystar coughed, her eyes watering, and covered her nose with her sleeve. It smelt as though no one had botherd to try and clear up the vomit and sewage down here. Now she knew that at least some of the drudges were sick, if not dead. 'Kalla!'

There was no answer, but the baby's crying intensified. Lystar held up the bundle of shining glows, covering her mouth and nose with her other hand and stepped forwards carefully, stamping down on her impulse to throw up.

On the far side of the room there was a still figure lying on a pallet, half-concealed by dirty rags and shadows. An ominously still figure. Lystar's breath caught in her throat as she looked at it. At this distance, she couldn't even tell if it was a man or a woman. For a second she wanted nothing more than to run away, out into the blinding sunshine and suffocating heat and to find K'beth and Caliath and pretend that nothing was wrong.

Steady, little one, Caliath rumbled, and Lystar took a deep breath, then coughed, her eyes streaming, as she got a lungful of the foul air.

It wasn't the effect she'd intended, but it shook of the paralysing fear. Biting her lip, Lystar gathered up all her courage and picked her way across the uneven floor to the still figure, then bent down and shook its shoulder.

As soon as she touched the body, she knew that it was dead. The figure rolled half onto its back, grinning up at her with skeletal features, and Lystar jumped back with a little scream. Cal, oh Cal!

Caliath was there in her head. Hush, hush, little one. The dead cannot hurt you.

I know, I know. Lystar waited for her racing heart to still. It was just the shock. After a minute she added. I'm glad you're there, Cal.

She looked back at the dead man. Now she had a chance to see more clearly, the face wasn't a skeleton at all; it was just the way the skin was shrunk and stretched over the bone that had made her think so for a moment. She knew the man; his name was Derrin, and he had used to be the person on duty in the kitchens if she dropped in there for a cup of klah after a late night watch duty.

Lystar stood in the dirty, dim-lit cavern, and blinked furiously, biting her lip to keep her composure.

Then Benellin wailed again, and she remembered her task. She'd come down to ascertain the extent of the damage to the drudges, and it was clear that those who weren't sick had hidden themselves away. Certainly, they wouldn't be helping to put the Weyr back onto its feet any time soon. She could go.

But somewhere, Kalla's son was crying, and that meant Kalla – well, she wouldn't let the boy cry like that. Not on and on, as if he would never stop. Not if she couldn't help it.

Very pale and upright, Lystar edged past Derrin's body and stepped through the next doorway.