“Graysk? What did you eat?”

That was never a good question to have to ask.

Don’t know.

And that was never a good answer to hear.

Grayson frowned at the little orange plastic bottle with the teeth marks in it. Yes, he frowned. As in, he made an actual facial expression that was not the slight quirk of one of those weird eyebrows of his. He was concerned. The little bottle was definitely one of the kind that Peregrine lab workers filled with pills… And it was empty. Furthermore, the label was sufficiently chewed on that Grayson couldn’t even identify what it had been, or the dosage thereof. It was something that started with a P. Or maybe a chewed-on B or R. That… narrowed it down hardly at all.

“Did Asimov put you up to this?” The little blue flit on his shoulder peeped in protest, but Grayson knew full well that the blue and the brown were alike in their casual disregard for danger. Neither of them was particularly logical. Or sensible. When left to their own devices, flit and wher tended to enable one another to larger and larger feats of silliness. Unfortunately, in this case the silliness was dangerous to more than just Grayson’s productivity level… and while he would certainly never admit it aloud, the science officer was concerned.

Looked like candy? Graysk offered. The little colorful things had looked like the crunchy snacks that offworlders ate sometimes! Those were tasty! These little colorful things had been not-tasty, though.

Grayson sighed. “Come on. Let’s get you to Cordel.” Which was how they arrived at the infirmary, Graysk honking pathetically and Grayson linefacing to the absolute best of his lineface abilities. While he frequently disapproved of the healer's poor bedside manner and worse decision-making skills, Grayson could not help but acknowledge the other man's expertise in this field. He would unfortunately be forced to rely on that expertise for the moment.

Since Cordel couldn't hear Grayson linefacing, his first warning of the wherhandler's approach was a particularly mournful honk. The Healer looked up from his books irritably. Either someone was murdering a goose in his Infirmary-----and hadn't they already learned their lesson about not doing that?-----or someone had let Grayson in, which was possibly worse. Mixing Grayson and Cordel was a bit like mixing cats and water, only they'd relentlessly argue about who was what in that analogy until Kas came to break them up. At least cats and water couldn't actually vocally argue.

Possibly, it was worse than rampant goose murder in the Infirmary.

With two clutches------possibly three; it was still unknown if Soleth would clutch or not yet------everyone was busy. Not that Cordel would have noticed the dragon Flight at all if it hadn't been for La pointing out the rumors and Aes actually participating (and, subsequently, Kas invading the Infirmary and... well, that wasn't going to be mentioned anymore).

The point was, Grayson was here when he clearly should have been elsewhere, trying to stare numbers into submission or whatever it was he did all day. Presumably he tried to stare down pi or some such thing.

"Grayson, what it i... what's wrong with Graysk?" It was amazing how quickly annoyance drained out of his voice, leaving behind only concern. Cordel liked Graysk; the animal was sweet, especially for a wher. On Cordel's shoulder, his ever present flits, peered at the wher curiously. To anyone else, the wher might have appeared fine, but Cordel knew his Craft well. There was a reason why the Weyr tolerated the ill-tempered Healer.