Helen sighed. “They said the infection was in him. I’ve patched his wounds and given him the anti-lycanthropy treatment, and I’ve agreed to come back the next three days to treat him again. He’s still very much in the woods. We could lose him. I’m not going to lie to you about that.”

That explained why Shelby hadn’t come out. All three Tanner sisters were inside, as was their mother, and they had more than enough on their plates at the moment. I would have been a distraction. “How’s he taking it?”

“Surprisingly well,” she said, shaking her head. “He thanked me for my service. Thanked me! A Thirty-Sixer! Honestly, that alone was worth getting involved in this whole sordid mess. I never thought I’d live to see the day.”

“This isn’t the time to go into the whole history of colonization in Australia,” not with God only knew how many werewolves still roaming Queensland, “but what is the deal with you and the Society? I thought they had rejected Covenant teachings.”

“They did and they didn’t.” Helen took a swig of ginger beer. “This happened before I was born, all right? I wasn’t here for any of it. My family didn’t even move here until two generations ago.”

“Secondhand knowledge at least gives me someplace to start,” I said.

“Just so we’re clear,” said Helen. “The Thirty-Six Society rejected the Covenant not because they were perfect paragons of equality and enlightenment. They just didn’t like the idea of killing everything that already lived here. They sort of went ‘Adam and the Garden’ conservationist. Taking care of all the poor, misguided, unprotected animals that needed the benefit of their wisdom and experience and firearms.”

“I’m guessing ‘animals’ that were capable of talking back didn’t fit that mission statement,” I said.

Helen nodded. “They’ve never been particularly nasty. I mean, we don’t have to deal with being hunted through the streets or ‘cleansed’ out of our neighborhoods, not the way it would have been under the Covenant. But when the Covenant was first sent packing and the Society was getting itself organized, we had some rough elements show up thinking Australia was the new wild frontier, and that they could do anything they damn well wanted. The Society closed ranks damn fast after that happened. Said if something wasn’t human, it deserved conservation, but it didn’t get a voice in how that conservation happened. Between that and their approach to ‘invasive species’ . . .” Her tone turned bitter. “As if European settlers weren’t the most invasive species this continent has ever seen. There are fewer than three hundred wadjet in the country, but some of the Society would be happy to send us all packing, because we don’t ‘belong here,’ and somehow they do.”

“That’s not going to happen,” I said. “I don’t care if I have to move to Australia and spend all my time yelling at people; no one’s getting deported or sent away. You’re Australian citizens by virtue of birth, same as anyone else who was born or hatched or budded here. No one gets to tell you differently.”

Helen smiled a little. “I knew there was a reason Kumari liked you. And it’s not just that fabulous mammalian butt of yours.”

I blinked at her, not sure what to say to that. Helen’s laughter split the night like an ax, and we sat for a little longer in silence, waiting to see what the night was going to bring next.

It was nice to have a little bit of a break. I needed the time to think. Most of my life is lived in laboratories and offices, places where things go slowly enough that I can really consider my next move and what it’s going to mean for the situation at hand. Since getting to Australia, it felt like I’d been rolling from argument to crisis to argument again. And that wasn’t good. That wasn’t how I did my best work.

“You’re a doctor,” I said abruptly. “What kind of doctor are you?”

“See, that’s the sort of question I would have expected someone to ask before I was providing emergency medical care to the lot of you,” said Helen. “I trained as an oncologist before I came out here as a general practitioner. It’s an odd specialization, I’ll admit, but it meant I didn’t have to deal with as many humans before it was time for me to settle down and start a family of my own. The ones I saw, I saw a lot, and that let me learn how to deal with mammals better. I’ve been a GP long enough now to be quite good at it, if that’s a concern. I can’t catch most of the diseases you mammals carry. I get to do some good for the human populace, and keep admitting privileges and access to certain pharmaceuticals that my people have real use for.”

“Sounds like everyone wins, then,” I said. “How much do you know about the lycanthropy family?”

“Nasty business, related to rabies, and this is the first major outbreak I’ve heard of on this continent,” she said. “We’ve had some issues with a few nasty strains in India, but I’ve never been there, so I don’t have frontline experience.”

“Right. Everything we have says that once someone is infected and capable of transforming, they’re not really rational anymore—that they’re essentially beasts in their transformed state. But the werewolves we’re dealing with here are showing complex planning behaviors while transformed. They’re capable of lying in wait while they let their targets get into position. It doesn’t feel right somehow. It doesn’t mesh with what we know about this disease.”

Helen took a swig of her ginger beer, expression going thoughtful. “Didn’t this start off as spillover from the therianthropes?” she asked. “It was their disease first.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “We think it originated with either the wulver or the faoladh. We’ve never really spent the time or resources to try to nail down the origins of the infection. Most of the likely origin points are firmly within Covenant territory, and knowing where rabies lurks naturally hasn’t enabled us to cure it.”

“Right. See, here’s the thing. I’ve never met whatever that second one you said was, but I’ve met wulver. They’re perfectly nice people, and they’re not ravening beasts when they’re transformed. A little impulsive, sure, and really offended if you try to play fetch with them—mostly because they will play fetch, and then they feel bad about letting their instincts take over—but still people. They’re just people who look different.”