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41

A quick reconnaissance of the Station confirmed McKay's report. Polly Murgatroyd had organized meals and care for the sick, but the Carrots controlled the food supply and might cut it off at any time. There was nothing Julian could do to make things any better. He discovered that three quarters of the strangers had fled and not one of the remainder was able or willing to accompany Captain Smedley on a hundred-mile walk. All the rabbits had gone from the paddocks and when he continued on up the valley to the dragon compound, he found that deserted also. Seventy-seven must have discovered the situation and chosen the logical course of action.

He gathered a blanket, spare clothes, and some money, and walked out his front door with a pack on his back and an umbrella in his good hand. He could reach Randorvale before dark. He might be carrying the infection with him, but so many of the Service had preceded him that he was not going to make matters any worse. From Randorvale he would go by Lappinvale, Mapvale, and Jurgvale—none of those passes was beyond a man on foot. If necessary, he could carry on to Niolvale, but before then he ought to have news of the Liberator. He should also have learned just how badly the Spanish flu had struck Nextdoor. An epidemic that could circle the Earth in five months would have spread across the Vales in days.

Fifteen minutes brought him to the Carrots' village. His approach was noticed, and a delegation of three elderly men came out to meet him on the road. Two he could not recall ever seeing before, but the third had been the Pinkneys' butler, although Julian could not recall the man's name. When he was still about twenty or thirty feet away, that one shouted, "Stop!"

Julian stopped and stood there in the mud, facing rebellion while rain pattered on his umbrella. "How many of you have been stricken? How many have died?"

"Too many! Let the tyikank attend to their own sick and leave the Carrots alone. You are not welcome." Their green eyes were uniformly hostile.

"I do not understand. We have brought much prosperity to this valley, and done much good for your people. Just because a sickness comes, you suddenly turn on—"

"Go away, Kaptaan!" said another. "You have brought the wrath of the gods upon us. Many of us think we should burn your big houses and drive you out. Do not tempt our young men to rashness. Go!"

"I am trying to."

"Go by the river trail, then," said the former butler.

That was a sizable detour, but evidently charisma was not going to work.

"Is Entyika McKay with you?"

"No."

"I have two letters here—one for her, if she comes back, and one from Dommi for Ayetha."

"Leave them on that stump and begone."

Julian did so and trudged back to the turnoff. The Carrots' attitude was infuriating but understandable. It was only natural for them to attribute the pestilence to Zath and the anger of the Pentatheon. Perhaps the storm could have been weathered if the tyikank had stood their ground and not been so craven. As it was, the Service was wounded mortally. It could not blame Exeter or the Pentatheon, for it had brought Götterdämmerung upon itself.

 

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Framed