The Dolphins of Pern (2 page)

This was another matter that all dolphins must believe as surely as they believed Thread was good to eat.

Then the Tillek would speak History and tell of the Day Thread Fell on Pern, and how it fed on the flesh of humans. How the humans had battled hard with flame—a source of heat and light that coastal dolphins could recognize but had never felt—to burn Thread in the skies before it could fall on land and eat it, or on humans and humans’ animals and eat them. When all the things that humans had brought with them from Old Earth had been used up, the dolphins had helped the humans sail the many ships of the Dunkirk to the north where they could shelter in great caves, forsaking the pleasant warm southern
waters. Kibbe had always loved hearing how the dolphins had helped the small ships make the long journey, despite storms and having to cross the Great Currents. There had been a dolphins’ bell at Fort, too, and there had been many good years of partnership for dolphins and partners. Until the Sickness.

Kibbe knew that all humans had not died: ships still sailed with human crews, and on land, people could be seen working—when it was not the Time of Thread.

Since Kibbe had had a partner, he knew of humans and their frailties and their skill at relieving the few illnesses to which dolphins were prone. But the young in his pod did not and questioned why dolphins should bother.

“It is tradition. We have always done as we do now. We will always obey the traditions.”

“Why do humans
want
to come into water? They cannot surrender themselves to the currents as we can.”

“Once humans swam as well as dolphins,” Kibbe would reply.

“But then we cannot walk on the land,” the calves would say. “Why would we
want
to?”

“We are of different flesh, with different needs: dolphins to the water, humankind to the land. Each to his own ways.”

“Why do humans not stay on land and leave the water for us?”

“They need the fish in the seas, as we do,” Kibbe would tell them. One had to tell the young the same words many times before they understood. “They
need to travel to other land places, and the only way is by water.”

“They have dragons who fly.”

“Not everyone has dragons to fly.”

“Do dragons like us?”

“I believe they do, though lately we have seen few of them. Once, I was told, they would swim in the sea with us.”

“How can they swim with those great wings?”

“They fold them to their backs.”

“Odd creatures.”

“Many creatures of the land look odd to us,” Kibbe would say, undulating through the water gracefully and effortlessly beside the calves he was teaching.

Kibbe privately thought that humans were clumsy, awkward creatures, in the water or out. They were, however, slightly more graceful in the water, especially if they swam as dolphins did, by keeping their legs together. The way some of them thrashed about with their limbs moving separately wasted much energy.

Nowadays, humans did not follow the forms laid down by the ancestors of both species. Very few captains leaned over the side of their ship when dolphins appeared to accompany it and asked how the pod was faring and how the schools were running. Very few would give their escort a token fish for the assistance. Of course, it had been many seasons since dolphins had found and brought any drowned human boxes to their attention. As it had been many seasons since dolphineers had swum long distances with their partners.
Sad the way tradition declined, Kibbe thought. Like not answering the bell.

He made one last pass in front of the wharf, eyeing the deserted structure. He tolled the bell one last time, thinking it sounded as mournful as he felt for the silence that had once been filled with human noises, the fine work they had done together, and the games they had played.

With a final flip of his tail, he turned and started his long journey to the Great Subsidence in the Northwest Sea to inform the Tillek that, once again, no one had answered the bell. The humans who sailed in the ships would not learn of the latest hazards the dolphins had dutifully come to report. Even the waters of Pern changed the land of Pern, but that was the natural way of things. Or so the Tillek said. The dolphins would keep to their patrols of the coastline, and when, if ever, a human listened to them, at least they could tell him what had changed, and save his ship from being broken on unexpected reefs or rocks; or warn him of where the Currents had altered and might be a hazard to the ships and the humans who sailed on them.

W
HEN
M
ASTERFISHER
A
LEMI
came by Readis’s hold that morning, he found his fishing crony ready and waiting.

“I thought you’d never come, Uncle Alemi,” Readis said in a tone that was a thin line away from accusatory.

“He’s been on the porch,” Aramina told Alemi with a solemn, hiding-a-smile face, “for the last hour. He was up in dawn’s dark!” And she rolled her eyes at such eager anticipation.

“Uncle Alemi says the fish bite best at dawn,” Readis informed his mother condescendingly as he jumped down the three steps to take a firm hold of the callused hand of his courtesy uncle.

“I don’t know which excited him more: fishing with you, or being allowed to attend Swacky’s Gather this evening.” Then she waggled a finger at her small son. “Remember, you have to take a nap this afternoon.”

“I’m all ready to go fishing
now”
Readis said, ignoring the threat. “I got my snack”—he brandished
the net sack laden with his water bottle and wrapped sandwich—“and my vest.” The last was added somewhat contemptuously.

“You will note that I’m wearing mine, too,” Alemi said, giving the trusting little paw a shake.

Aramina chuckled. “That’s the only reason he’s wearing his.”

“I swim good!” Readis announced in a strong, loud voice. “I swim as good as any shipfish!”

“That you do,” his mother agreed equably.

“Don’t I know that as taught you?” Alemi replied cheerfully. “And I can swim that much better and still use a vest in a small boat.”

“An’ in stormy weather,” Readis added to prove that he knew the whole lesson on safety vests. “My mother made mine,” he said proudly, puffing out his vested chest and grinning up at her. “With love in every stitch!”

“C’mon, lad, time’s a-wasting,” Alemi said.

With a farewell wave of his free hand to Aramina, he led his small charge down to the beach and the slab-sided dinghy that would convey them out to where Alemi felt they would likely find the big red-fins that were promised for grilling at Swacky’s evening’s festivities.

Swacky had been part of Readis’s life since he could remember. The stocky ex-soldier had joined Jayge and Aramina when Aunt Temma and Uncle Nazer had come from the north. He lived in one of the smaller holds and turned his hand to any one of a number of chores necessary in Paradise River Hold. Swacky had guard stories of all the Holds he’d served in to tell a small and fascinated boy. Readis’s father,
Jayge, never talked of the renegade problem, which had drawn him and Swacky together. And Swacky, though he was fierce and unforgiving of the renegades for “slaughtering innocent folk and animals just to see their blood run,” never mentioned exactly what Jayge had done in those days, except to let on that it had to do with the particular renegades who had attacked the Lilcamp wagon train, which was Jayge’s family business.

If Readis had been asked which man he loved best—apart from his father, of course—Swacky or Alemi, he would have been hard-pressed to make a choice.

Both men figured largely in his young life, but for different reasons. Today Readis was going to have the best of both: fishing in the morning with Alemi, and feasting in the evening to honor Swacky’s seventy-five Turns of living!

Pushing together, they eased the skiff down the sandy shore and into the gently lapping water. When they had waded out until the water was mid-thigh on Readis, Alemi gestured for him to jump in and take up the paddle. That was the main difference between Readis’s two idols: Swacky talked a lot; Alemi used gestures where the other man would have used sentences.

With one mighty last push, Alemi sent the skiff forward over the first of the little combers and jumped in. At another familiar gesture, Readis moved to the stern and sculled his paddle to keep the forward movement while Alemi unfurled the sail and let the boom run out. The inland dawn breeze filled the canvas, and Readis stowed the paddle and reached
for the keel board, sending it home into the stern slot and shoving the cotter pin through to lock it firmly in place.

“Hard a-port,” Alemi sang out, accompanying his command with appropriate gestures. As the boom swung over he ducked agilely, playing out the lines until he had moved into the seat beside his shipmate. He shortened sail and then put his free arm behind Readis, noting the lad’s instinctive handling of the rudder.

Alemi’s good wife had given him three fine girl children and was carrying a fourth child, which both devoutly hoped would be a son. But until that time, Alemi “practiced” with Readis. Jayge approved, since it would stand a shoreside holder in good stead to appreciate the moods and bounty of the sea, and Readis would profit by knowing more than one skill.

Alemi sniffed at the offshore breeze, redolent of vegetation and exotic blossoms. He judged that the wind would turn once they got out beyond the Paradise River channel. He didn’t intend to sail far from land but, on the landside of the Great Southern Current, they were sure to find the redfins that frequented this part of the sea in great schools. Yesterday, Alemi had sent out the two smaller ships of his little fleet to meet those schools. As soon as the repairs to his bigger yawl had been completed, he and his crew would join them. Alemi was just as pleased to be on shore for Swacky’s Gather. He might miss a day’s fishing, but until the mains’l had been mended, he was shorebound.

As they hit the rip at the channel mouth, the little skiff bucked and bounced. Readis’s merry laugh burbled
out of him, as he delighted in the dipping and dumping. Not much fazed the lad, and he’d never fed the fishes once. Which was more than could be said for some grown men.

Then Alemi caught the sparkle and shine on the surface and, touching Readis’s shoulder, pointed. The boy leaned against him and cast his eye along the extended arm, nodding excitedly as he, too, saw the school: so many fish trying to occupy the same space that they seemed to be flippering on each others’ backs.

In a single-minded action, both reached for the rods that had been stowed under the gunnels. These were sturdy rods of the finest bambu, with reels of the stoutest tight-stranded line, and hooks hand-fashioned by the Hold’s Smithjourneyman, barbed to hold once sunk in the jaw of the wiliest redfin.

Twelve redfins the length of a grown man’s arm were required for the evening’s feasting. There would be roast wherry and succulent herdbeast, but redfin was Swacky’s favorite. He’d wanted to come along, Swacky had told Readis the night before, but he had to stay about and organize his Gather, or no one would do it the way he wanted.

Alemi let Readis bait his own hook with the innards of the shellfish redfins loved best. The boy’s tongue stuck out the side of his mouth as he manipulated the slimy mess securely onto the hook. He looked up at Alemi and saw the nod of approval. Then, with a deft cast for a boy his age, he sent the weighted hook, bait still attached, out across the starboard wake of the skiff. To give the boy a chance to make the first catch of the day, Alemi busied himself
furling the sail and performing other chores. Then he, too, hunkered down in the cockpit, bracing his rod on the port side.

They didn’t have long to wait for a bite. Readis was first. The rod bent, its tip almost touching the choppy waves as the redfin fought its ensnarement. Readis, biting his lip, his eyes bugged out with determination, set both feet on the seat and hung on to his rod. Grunts came out of him as he struggled to reel in this monster. Alemi had one hand, out of the boy’s line of sight, ready to grab the rod should the fish prove too strong.

Readis was panting with effort by the time the equally exhausted redfin was flapping feebly at the starboard side. With one deft swoop, Alemi netted it and hauled it aboard; Readis whooped with glee as he saw the size of it.

“That’s the biggest one yet, isn’t it, Uncle Alemi? That’s the biggest one I’ve caught. Isn’t it? A real good big ’un!”

“Indeed it is,” Alemi replied stoutly. The fish was not as long as his forearm, but it was a good prize for the boy.

Just then his line tugged.

“You gotta bite, too. You gotta bite!”

“That I do. So you’ll have to attend to this one yourself.”

Alemi was amazed at the pull of his hooked fish. He had to exert considerable force to keep the rod from being pulled out of his hand. For a startled moment, he wondered if he had inadvertently hooked a shipfish, something no fishman in his right mind ever did. He was immensely relieved as he saw the red
fins of his captive as the fish writhed above the surface in an attempt to loosen the barb in its mouth.

“That’s ginormous!” Readis cried, and looked up in awe at the Masterfishman.

“It’s a big ’un all right,” Alemi said, jamming his feet under the cockpit seat to get more leverage against the pull.

“And it’s dragging the skiff!”

That, too, was obvious to Alemi: it was dragging them toward the edge of the Great Southern Current. He could even discern the difference in color between current and sea.

“And we’re right in the middle of the school!” Readis cried, lurching from port to starboard to look down at the darting bodies that surrounded the little ship.

“Best knock your catch on the head before it flips overboard,” Alemi said, noting the flapping of the landed fish and not wanting its oil to coat the deck. He managed to reel in a good length, though the tip of his rod went briefly underwater. He hauled mightily and got enough play in the line to reel in again.

“That is the fightingest fish you’ve ever hooked,” Readis said. He’d knocked his redfin smartly on the head and tossed it in the catch tank, remembering to fasten the lid with a deft turn of the fastener.