Woa! Nearly lost him there! Canon states there are fevers and illnesses on Pern, but not the most common human diseases. Given our present understanding of genetics and modifications to the DNA, I suspect that in such a small population there must be sufficient mutation to produce some unpleasant and potentially virulent illnesses.
1.3. - 1.4.199
I want to say goodbye to him. I'm not that ill. Let me go and say goodbye to him. They went without saying goodbye, but I can see where they went, I can go there as well, it's not a long journey.
You will stay with us. You will stay here, not follow them.
I want to go with them. They left me. I'm alone.
You are never alone, never whilst we are here, will you be alone. You must stay with us.
But I love them.
You love us as well. We love you very much, and our loving will keep you with us. You must not follow them, you must stay with us.
You love me as well?
We love you as one. We are one in loving you. You must stay with us. Stay with us, do not go, we will not let you go.
"H'ric, can you hear me? He's still wandering, Master, he can't hear us at all."
"But he can hear something, you can see the way his eyes are moving, and his throat, as if he's answering someone."
You will stay. They want you to stay. You make them sad with wanting to go. Stay with them. Wake and speak to them.
"J - Jiverny?"
"Oh - H'ric - oh - you're awake at last - "
H'ric stared up at Jiverny's face. He did not seem able to focus on it, he thought he had been staring into something bright and hurting, and he blinked a couple of times, and a cloth, cool and damp, was wiped gently over his face and eyes, and he found he could see better.
"Jiverny? Are you - are you crying, lady mine?" He wondered why his voice sounded so hoarse and uncertain.
The Weyrwoman leaned back and wiped her face with the back of one hand, the other still holding H'ric's hand.
"I was so afraid. I thought you were going to die."
"Who else - is here? Someone spoke to me - a lot of voices - in my head."
"You were answering them, my dear man," Masterhealer Perera said quietly as he took H'ric's wrist to feel his pulse racing. "We could see you were speaking to someone by the movement of eye and throat, but it was in your mind, only in your mind."
"In my mind - yes - they told me I had to stay here." He blinked into the shadowy room. "Where is here?"
"This is a small island off the coast of Ista," Perera said, and reached for a goblet. "Can you drink a little water for me? There's a straw - no need to lift your head - just turn gently this way."
H'ric obediently sucked the cool water, finding it sliding down his parched throat and relieving the stickiness of his tongue.
"Ista. Why are we at Ista, lady mine?"
"You've been dreadfully ill, H'ric. There was a fever, one the Masterhealer had never encountered before."
"It was similar to other fevers, enough so that we knew to isolate the patients."
"But you - might have caught it - and you, Jiverny!"
"We have had a light dose, it's true," Perera replied in his honest and forthright way. "But only the most serious cases have been brought here. You are one of them. I have a dozen other people from all over the western coast of Benden and Nerat here. It seems to have struck at that coast, perhaps because there was a storm, and things were washed up on the beaches, carcases and unknown vegetation."
"Carcases? People?"
"No, mostly animals, but so decomposed it was impossible to discover what they were. But now - you must rest as much as you can as you recover. Now you've taken a little water, you can take this solution of salt and sweetness as well. It doesn't take particularly nice, but it will help."
He stood up and stretched, and smiled at H'ric, before leaving the room. Jiverny still had his hand in hers.
"That's right - there was fresh fish delivered to Benden Hold - and we had a share - and then - people started falling ill."
"Yes."
H'ric closed his eyes, and felt Jiverny wiping his face and hands again with the cool damp cloth.
"That's nice. My skin feels so tight."
"I'll use some of the softening oil on it. Part of the fever was that everyone's skin seemed stretched and purpled. Frightening to look at, but not serious."
H'ric squeezed her hand gently, unwilling to move his head, which was aching from the light. Jiverny reached and pulled a curtain and plunged the room further into semi-darkness and H'ric relaxed and lay listening to the sounds of people, movement and murmuring in other rooms, he presumed, in whatever Hold they had built on this island. He was disinclined to move or think very much, but he wondered what had happened to the voices that had made him stay.
"They wouldn't let me follow my parents," he murmured aloud. "My parents both died in a mining accident - mother worked at the mine head offices. It was all blown apart from the back-draft as the adit collapsed. I didn't say goodbye to him, not properly."
"That's a shame, but not something you can mend or cure now, so long in the past now," Jiverny replied.
"Yes. They wouldn't let me follow."
"Who wouldn't? Were you dreaming, H'ric, or perhaps hallucinating?"
He opened his eyes and looked up into her concerned face.
"It was the dragons," he said in wonder. "All of them. I could hear all of them, all at once, singing me back to life."
"The dragons? Our dragons?"
"I could hear Galanath of course, his voice was strongest, but I could a lot of others as well. They pulled me back."
He could see she was communing with Haveneth, and very faintly in his mind he could sense them, and also the background of other voices.
- you will always hear them
- I can't distinguish single voices any more
- no but you can hear them speak
"I could still hear Haveneth," H'ric said.
"Yes, she told me you could hear her. I don't know if you'll ever have the ability as Moreta did, to hear every single dragon speaking clearly, or just hear something like the background chatter at the dinner table."
"I could pick out a few words here and there. Haveneth is still at Benden?"
"Yes. By asking her to remain there, I could direct the other riders through their dragons, and the Masterhealer could reassure her I will not as desperately ill as you - and others - were."
"We're lucky we don't have to rely on drum messages or runners. Where's Galanath?"
"Down on the beach. Most of the dragons that are here have made nests for themselves in the sand."
"Dragons here? Did other riders fall ill?"
He stared up into her face, and could see she was debating what to tell him. He squeezed her hand, and she responded, with a deep sigh.
"We lost six riders, and a number of drudges, and three children, but not Jerenic. Nor your particular care, Dawan, or the lady Irilia who is still living outside the Weyr boundaries."
H'ric sighed out and closed his eyes again, and Jiverny offered him the fruit juice in which he could taste salt and something he thought might be fellis, as he drifted to sleep, in which state he could distinguish the dragons speaking, a background swell and fall of sound.