“No sir, he seemed insensible after his collapse. He did not respond to questions, and did not release any scent.”
“That matches. If it is the same disease as has been observed in the north and west, he will remain semi-conscious until the fever breaks, which could be five days or five hours. After that comes loose bowels and dehydration, then slow recovery provided there are no secondary infections, especially no pulmonary complications.”
Rigi took notes. “Sir, I have a contact with the human officers in the Staré units in the army. May I pass this information to him? He is discreet.”
“No. Not until a house visit confirms the illness.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Rajnanda out.” The comm call closed. Rigi logged out of the medical network and went and sat next to Martinus. She hugged the m-dog and petted the soft synthetic material on his head and mid-back. She rested her head on his shoulder.
“Woo?”
“Very woo, Martinus. Very woo. Good dog.” She shook with nerves and more than a little fear, and Rigi closed her eyes, stroking him and reciting the Litany against Evil. Not that disease was evil per se, but that litany calmed her better than some of the others. Only after Rigi regained her composure did she open her eyes and return to the computer. She hesitated, looking at the timer and staring past the screen into the distance, trying to decide. Should she? Not Tomás, but she needed to tell someone, someone who could pass information to the right people and return information if they knew anything. And who had possibly, just possibly, seen something similar somewhere or someplace.
Rigi almost wept with relief when Aunt Kay herself answered the comm. Her aunt's eyes flashed open with concern. “Rigi, dear, what is it?”
Rigi adjusted the headset so she could speak very quietly. “Aunt Kay, I think the Staré disease Mr. De Groet found in the north has reached Sogdia. I was visiting west of the city this afternoon and a young male collapsed, his fur falling out and running a high fever.”
Kay Trent’s eyes opened even wider, then narrowed. “You reported it?”
“Affirmative, and spoke with the head of Staré infectious diseases. I burned what I’d been wearing before I came into the house, and washed all over.”
“Well done, Rigi, well done indeed.” Kay looked up, over the top of the screen, as if thinking. She chewed her lower lip. “Have you had any word from Ebenezer since he asked you to pass word to Tomás?”
“No, ma’am.”
“I swear sometimes, that man." Her aunt pinched the bridge of her nose with two fingers. "Well, with Lexi sick, of course he would be trying to find his head in the dictionary under A for ‘anatomical part'." She sighed a little. "The last word I heard from Ebenezer was to prepare for a sixty percent illness rate, and ten percent mortality. If the patient gets through the fever and dehydration without getting another illness, she’ll survive but will be weak for another ten days, or at least that’s what’s happening in Kenusha.”
“Lexi’s sick?” Rigi whispered, scared.
“Yes, but not with this new thing. He’s having his annual allergy-turned-to-pneumonia.” Aunt Kay ran a hand over her upswept grey-brown hair. “Rigi, dear, do not marry a man whose friends have strange semi-chronic illnesses. Just don’t.”
Despite herself Rigi giggled. “I’ll do my best, Aunt Kay.”
“Please do, dear.” She sighed again.
Rigi remembered, “Oh, Aunt Kay, I noticed glittering dust on the sick Staré. I’ve not seen the dust before this year, and that only recently. I noticed it after the last duster from the northwest.”
Her aunt-by-marriage and distant relation leaned forward. “Repeat that, please?”
“I said I noticed strange, glittery dust after the last northwest duster, and the sick Staré had it on him, in his fur. He’s fifth, a general work servant.”
“I wonder . . . I’ll pass that to Eb and see if he knows anything. It could be coincidence.”
“It probably is, ma’am, since dust has gotten into everything this year, from every direction but due east.” Rigi had grown heartily tired of dust.
Aunt Kay snorted. “If you get a dust storm from the east, I believe it means that the Creator and Creatrix have decided to remake the world and began by removing the sea. In which case, shedding Staré will be among our lesser worries. On a different topic, do you have any images of a wombow dairy? I’m finishing a project and the writer decided she wants a wombow dairy, and I have given up on fur for the rest of the year. Especially the fur of a dozen wombows seen from behind.”
Creator be praised! “Ah, actually, I have a sketch I can expand. Color or duotone, ma’am?”
“Duotone with emphasis on texture, please, and if you can get it to me before the next feast day, I will hug you as well as pay you.”
“Done. I’ve seen a rather lot of wombow trailing ends recently.” She would not say “wombow rump.” It always came out wrong.
Aunt Kay smiled and laughed. “It would be nice if they pushed instead of pulled. Remind me to tell you the story about Ebenezer and a rented wombow called ‘Lightning’.”
She could imagine. “I’ll do that. Thank you, Aunt Kay, and I’ll get started on the drawing this evening.”
“Bless you, my dear. Trent out.”
Rigi cleared enough space on the work-surface to rest her head on it, leaned forward, and closed her eyes. Oh dear, now what? She stayed that way for another minute, then straightened up. First, look at the most basic files on Staré infectious disease protocols, and words for disease. Then the wombow dairy sketch, she decided. That would keep her from worrying, especially if she tried to catch that odd brindled wombow in duotone. She’d gotten spoiled by doing full color for so long.
Rigi read through the first tier of files before her brain decided that it had reached maximum data storage capacity. She needed to get up and drink something as well, so she stretched and visited the necessary, then drank a large glass of water before changing for supper and warming up her electronic sketchpad. It still did not quite produce what she wanted, not the way pencil and paper did, but she needed to learn how to use it properly and there was only one way to do that. “So, start with the dividers and angle, and go from there.”
She’d gotten a good start by the time she heard the knocker tapping, signaling supper. Rigi saved everything, backed it up, and washed her hands. Supper included tam, but with a thick sauce that almost covered the bitterness. Rigi didn’t bolt the vegetable for once, and managed to eat properly, taking small lady-like bites of everything. Instead of a sweet, Shona had prepared a cheese course with dried fruit paste, and curls of the candied rind. Rigi ate with a clear conscience and wondered how the fruit tasted to the Staré. Their palates seemed far less sensitive to bitter flavors than were humans, and less sensitive to textures as well, but more responsive to sweet. And they tended to cook meat for themselves until it had a thin layer of char on the outside, something Rigi’s father considered a form of blasphemy. Rigi wondered if it came from Staré occasionally eating meat that she considered “excessively fermented” to put it mildly. Their language lacked a word for “spoiled meat” in the sense of rotten.
After supper, Mrs. deStella-Bernardi smiled broadly. “Auriga, I have wonderful news. Mrs. Brown asked today if she might have the honor of hosting your coming-of-age celebration.”
Rigi blinked, then realized what her mother had just said. “How, how generous and kind of her.” Rigi had not given a thought to her coming-of-age, not with Cyril officially courting someone and her own work and the illness among the Staré. Oh dear, she had not even started looking for dresses, or thought about invitations, or re-reading her mother’s books about manners and courting.
“Yes, it is. You will share with Miss Leopoldi and Miss Deleon, which will make some things easier, Auriga, but I would like you to begin drawing up your invitation list so I may add names as appropriate.”
“Yes, ma’am.” She looked at the words on her file reader but he
r mind went blank. Invite who? Tomás and his family of course, because they were relations if distant, and some of the other young ladies from the local Temple, but who else? Rigi shook a little. Well, Miss Leopoldi’s list would probably strain even the Brown’s hospitality, given the number of young men Cyril claimed wanted to court her. She was beautiful, charming, and related to the incoming Royal Governor—what wasn’t there to like? Rigi had seen her once, at a distance, and had almost burst into flames from envy. That beautiful, thick black hair, perfectly coiffed and topped with a little white lace cap, ooh, Rigi had wanted to ask if they could trade. Her curls never behaved, no matter how hard she tried to straighten them. Loose ringlets were all she could manage, not long, straight waves.
And dress? At least that was easier. She would have a Staré dressmaker design something based on her favorites, in an appropriate color. No, nothing from Home, not this season, Creatrix forefend. She did not trust the front of a gown to stay up without a matching back, no matter what the designers claimed. And that style required, ahem, attributes that Rigi did not care to flaunt in that way, especially if the dress suffered a “technical failure,” as her mother had phrased it after one such incident at a dance. Although Rigi had some suspicions about just how accidental the accident had been, suspicions one did not mention in polite company or to one’s mother. No, a modest neckline, proper sleeves, a full skirt, that’s what Rigi wanted. Something she could wear and be Rigi.
The next day Rigi stared at the emergency bulletin and at the image beneath the subject line. A second Stamm male had collapsed in the square of the main Staré market in Sogida. He’d barely had a hand-width of fur left on him by the time he staggered, then fell to the ground unconscious. Two hoplings had been injured in the panic and stampede that followed his appearance, and the mayor of Sogdia announced that the market would be closed until it could be properly cleaned and determined to be disease free. “So how are the Staré to get supplies?” Rigi asked Martinus, petting the top of his head as he sat beside her chair.
“A delivery system.” Rigi twisted, craning her neck, and saw her father standing in the doorway. “The districts are activating the emergency distribution network, so that Staré households can place orders for food-stuffs and other goods. The supplies will be delivered by automated carts and by lower Stamm workers, and eventually by those who have recovered from whatever is ailing the Staré.”
“It is called fur-drop, sir, and it almost destroyed them a thousand years ago, not long after the destruction of their cities,” Rigi said.
“Are you certain it is the same thing, Auriga?”
She called up the file she’d made after visiting the Eldest of Elders almost a year before. “Not completely to the point of notifying the infectious disease department, sir, but the symptoms are the same, the timing is the same, and the high secondary infection mortality rate is the same, at least if what the Staré ancestors’ oral tradition recalls is true.” He read over her shoulder. “I hope I am wrong, but it seems dreadfully close, especially, well, sir, this little detail. I’d forgotten it until yesterday.” She pointed at the screen.
“Glittering dust? Like what came after that last dust roller? It certainly interfered with some of the equipment, clogged the secondary filters terribly.”
“Yes, sir. The Staré at Mrs. Nolan’s house had it, the dust, in his fur. I, it sounds silly and strange, but I wonder if there is something in the dust, a spore or something, that causes the disease, if the main symptoms are actually a massive allergic reaction rather than an infection.” She shook her head. “I’m probably seeing things that are not there, since I just finished reading about auto-immune responses to common antibiotics.”
“Quite possible, and I’m certain that the crown physicians and xenomedical specialists are working with the Staré physicians to determine just what it is and how to prevent it.” Her father straightened up and patted her shoulder. “Your mother is concerned.”
“Sir?”
“A call has gone out for Staré-fluent medical personnel to contact the mayor’s office. You are not officially of age yet, but your training puts you in that company.” He took a deep breath, then met her eyes. “If you are called, you have my permission to go. If you are called. Do not volunteer, Auriga Maris Regina, that is an order.”
“Yes, sir.”
Her father continued, “I’ve already signed us up for the delivery service, on standby. Your mother can do some of the marketing for Shona, but Paul needs her, and they still have not determined if humans can catch whatever this is. Apparently wombows do not, but some leapers, the semi-domestic kind,” his forehead wrinkled as he tried to recall, “ah, blast, white-spotted, that’s it, those can.”
“I’d just as soon not see what a wombow without hair looks like, sir.”
He chuckled a little. “That makes at least two of us. Nor do I care to be downwind of a pen full of shedding wombows.”
“Oh. Oh dear. No,” Rigi started giggling despite herself at the mental picture. “I’m sorry, sir, I shouldn’t laugh. But the flying fur . . .”
“I know. It is an amusing thought, so long as it remains only a thought.” He patted her shoulder again. “I just wanted to let you know the situation before your mother has a fit, or the gossip tree starts to blossom.”
Two days later the call went out. Rigi packed her sturdiest, plainest clothes, and she and Martinus went to the closest Staré medical center. “I don’t want you to go,” her mother said, watching her pack, “but you are trained and speak the language, and they trust you. Be careful, dear, please?”
Rigi stopped and hugged her mother. “I will, I promise. And I doubt I’ll have contact with the patients other than interpreting. I’m only emergency trained, not infection trained, and I don’t want to go any farther.”
“Always remember, Rigi, the Creatrix never gives us burdens greater than we can bear, even if we don’t realize it at first.”
The whispered words scared Rigi more than the disease did. “Yes, ma’am.”
The head administrative nurse’s explosion when she and Martinus appeared scared her almost as much. “What? Who do you think you are, showing up here with that thing and claiming that you can help?” The woman’s eyes bulged and she almost screamed, “Get out, take that thing out, and go home to your parents, girl. This is not a hotel or a shelter for run-aways! Get out!”
Rigi wanted to melt into the ground. She didn’t dare argue, assuming she could get a word in around the large woman’s indignant exhortations. Rigi picked up her bag and patted Martinus, then tugged at his lead. He turned and she started to leave, wondering how far it was to the next designated reporting point. The adults waiting to report gave her looks ranging from sympathetic to annoyed. She and left the building and stopped at the side of the stairs. Where was the next place? The message had been most insistent, and Rigi reached into her bag, intending to dig out her comm box and see what she could find.
“Excuse me?” She looked up to see a gentleman with unusual dark blue eyes and a slightly hesitant manner approaching her. “Miss Bernardi?”
“Yes, Mr. Patel.”
Relief suffused his dark features. “Thanks be to the Maker. We’ve, that is, the Crown physicians, have been looking for someone who can speak with high-Stamm Staré at the medical center near the Place of Refuge. Have you checked in yet here?”
“I tried, but I was told I was not needed, sir.” Thanks be to the Creator and Creatrix, this might work better.
“Who in their right—no,” he caught himself. “I won’t say. Please, miss, come with me.” She followed him to a waiting vehicle. Should she go without a chaperone? Well, she had Martinus, and she had permission to associate with Mr. Patel, and things were different just now, Rigi decided.
Ten minutes later, his surface transport stopped in front of a building on the opposite side of the Place of Refuge from the main market section. “This way, please.” He trotted up the low steps and in through the main
door, calling, “Raj, Raj, I found your interpreter!”
Rigi froze in her tracks as Dr. Rajnanda stepped into the open foyer. “What? I hope you are—You’re the emergency nurse, the index case reporter.”
“You’ve met, sir?” Mr. Patel looked from one to the other.
“Not in person, no, but this young lady is known to me, yes.” Dr. Rajnanda rolled from side to side as he came toward her, walking a bit like a well-fed wombow. He seemed almost as round, with a round, bald head. “You are fluent in Staré?”
“Yes, sir, and I can synthesize some Staré communication pheromones. I’m wearing ‘polite/harmless’ right now, and I brought a few others in smaller quantities, including ‘safe/reassuring.’ It seemed like a good idea, sir.”
“Vishnu and Pārbati be praised,” Dr. Rajnanda said. “Do you know of any high-Stamm Staré?”
“I know and have worked with Tankutshishin, Tortutalya and his twin, and a few others, sir.”
“Then come in, come in. Well done, Patel.” He raised his voice, and turned around, “Mrs. Australi, we have an interpreter and guard, please show her where to leave her things and what you need from her. And she’s trained.”
A woman in a plain white dress, with greying, close-cut black hair, bustled up. “Good. Come with me, please. We have two first Stamm and a second who we need to treat, and our Staré physician is fourth Stamm. They are not too advanced, but came as soon as they began the fast-shedding stage. This way, mind your knees, please.” Rigi stepped over a high lintel, Martinus doing likewise. “This room will be yours, for sleeping that is. Do you have a sanitation drape for your ‘bot?”
“No, ma’am, Martinus is not a medical m-dog. He will stay with my things unless I call for him.” Rigi set her bags on the un-rumpled bed, and stopped long enough to dab more polite/harmless scent on.
“Good.” The nurse leaned close to Rigi. She murmured, “Are you on a cycle-blocker?”
Rigi blushed. “No, ma’am, but I’m clean for the next twenty days.”
Stamme: Shikari Book Three Page 5
