The Dolphins of Pern (24 page)

After the initial experiment with the dolphins, Oldive had asked for volunteers to work more closely with the discerning mammals, offering the reciprocal service of removing any bloodfish. Curran had been only too happy to permit the building of a small healer cothold at Fort Sea Hold. A float was rigged at the end of the pier so that patients could be lowered into the water where the dolphins could use their sonar capability on them. There were similar facilities
at four other seaside locations: Ista, Igen, Nerat, and Monaco Bay, or rather, the Eastern Weyr.

Aivas had spent much time with Master Oldive and his more receptive Masters and journeymen. Though he had made it clear that Pern did not have certain requisites to bring medicine up to the level the Ancients had practiced, many innovations would improve the Hall. The dolphins were an effective alternative for the Ancients’ X ray machine and other scanning devices, an invaluable exploratory device for healers.

There was one major drawback to the dolphins’ ability to perceive abnormalities in the humans they examined: they could not tell the healers exactly what the growth or lump was, nor how to treat it: only that it was inside a body and shouldn’t be there. Nevertheless, their sonar readings gave healers more knowledge of the irregularities that could not be seen or palpated.

Master Oldive often had the notion that there had been a great many such devices, which Aivas had not even mentioned to him, and he sighed over those omissions and then went on, as healers had for centuries, making do with what was to hand and had proved helpful.

Once the wind machines had been installed on Fort Hold fireheights, a terminal unit was installed in Oldive’s rooms at the Harper Hall, and two more dominated classrooms. Lord Holder Groghe had tried his not insignificant best to get one for Fort Hold, but until the Smithcraft, or the new Computer Craft, could duplicate the components, distribution was restricted to those disseminating information.

The Landing students did not study all day long, as Master Samvel was well aware that youngsters required physical exercise as well as mental. Many old games were annotated in the Aivas files, and some of those Samvel revived: baseball, soccer, and polo, a sport in which Readis was to become quite proficient—as he was in the water sports when they started using the pond below the landing field. Readis suspected that Master Samvel emphasized the water sports in deference to his infirmity, but he thought it made sense that people should learn how to swim when so many long journeys were made on the seas.

Master Samvel also gained permission from Benden Weyr for a half wing of weyrling dragons to take Class 21 to Honshu, to see the incredible artifacts left by the Ancients in the mountain eyrie, not the least of which were the remarkable murals that decorated the walls. They had all seen the devices in action from tapes of that period of Pernese history, but now they could see and touch the machines that the Ancients had left behind. Kami was awestruck by the paintings, while Pardure found the old sled, the big looms, and the finely crafted tools to be of more interest. Readis found the view from the hall to be fascinating—the vista of endless mountains and valleys, a sense of the breadth of the landmass of this southern continent, which was scarcely explored.

F’lessan, rider of bronze Golanth and only son of F’lar and Lessa, had made this place what he called his “weyrhold.” As he explained to the students, this unique historical spot should be available to any who wished to visit it—to see the magnificent murals that
decorated the main hall walls. He had appointed himself caretaker and spent more of his free time here than at Benden Weyr. The weyrhold had a complement of holders, herding and experimenting with grain crops and vegetables in areas that had once, clearly, been fields, walled by stones set in place centuries before.

“You’re Readis, aren’t you?” F’lessan asked, joining the boy on the bench placed on the upper terrace, where the best view of the valley could be had. The other students were clambering about the terraces below. “I asked Master Samvel to point you out. I knew your mother.” He leaned back against the cliff wall. “She was at Benden Weyr for a while, you know, before hearing dragons got too much for her. K’van, who’s now Weyrleader at Southern, was one of the weyriings in my wing and they were very close before Lessa sent her down to Benden Hold.” He gazed out over the view for a few moments. “So, have you decided what to study at Landing?”

“Oh, we’re just getting general stuff right now,” Readis said. “What Master Samvel calls ‘preparatory’ courses. There’s so much to learn.” Sometimes the sheer volume and complexity of the knowledge available at Landing overwhelmed Readis. It was daunting to know how much he didn’t know. “Master Samvel says he’s learning more ail the time himself.”

F’lessan grinned down at him. “Samvel’s the type of person who’ll never stop learning.”

“My head aches sometimes,” Readis admitted shyly.

“Mine would, too,” F’lessan agreed. “I was never
a good student. Even Master Robinton gave up on me.”

Readis gave him a quick glance of surprise. “You had Master Robinton as a teacher?”

F’lessan’s snort was self-deprecating. “I was
in
the room all right but I didn’t pay much attention.” He grinned. “I was too enamored with being Golanth’s rider at the time, I think. Jaxom, Menolly, and Benelek were the real students.”

“Master Benelek of the Smithcraft? The one who’s keeping the Aivas machinery running?”

“The very one.” Then F’lessan cast a look at the awed expression of the boy. “Who knows where some of your study mates may end up? Where you yourself will.”

“Oh, I know where I’ll end up,” Readis said. “I’m to be Paradise River Holder.” He flicked a finger at his right leg. “I’m to learn so much that even this won’t keep me from being confirmed.”

“Your father’s a strong, healthy man. You might have to wait a long time to accede. What’re you going to do with all that time in between?”

Readis had thought about that. During his initial Turns at Landing, he realized that he had absorbed a great deal of hold management from following his father about and hearing him give orders. Managing the hold would be easy.

“I’d like to be a dolphineer.”

“A what? Oh, yes, you’ve been talking to the creatures, havan’t you?”

“There aren’t any dolphineers, not like the Ancients had, and the dolphins are very helpful, you know. To the Fishcrafthall and the healers. But we
just sort of call them when we want them. We don’t do much
for
them apart from prying off a bloodfish now and then …” Readis paused, not wanting to appear to belittle the delphinic accomplishments, but he had to be truthful to the dragonrider. “I mean, nothing at all like the great work they did exploring the oceans and coastlines.”

“As I understand it, the coastline’s always changing. Charts will need to be updated, won’t they? Are you studying cartography?”

“Not as much as I’d like. I’m good at the maths but you also need special instruments to do a proper job.”

“I understand that Master Fandarel is making those instruments since everyone seems to want a chunk of the Southern Continent.” F’lessan chuckled.

“Don’t you dragonriders get the first choice?”

“Where’d you hear that?” F’lessan shot the lad an appraising look.

Readis shrugged. “Oh, you hear lots of things at Landing.”

“I’ll just bet you do.” F’lessan snorted. “Have you accessed the tapes on dolphins in the Library?”

“I did that the first term I was here,” Readis said, grinning. Then he went through some of the hand signals of the ancient dolphineers, and F’lessan’s eyes widened respectfully. “That’s how dolphineers gave directions to the dolphins underwater. They still know them. The dolphins, I mean.”

“And with you living right on Paradise River and the sea, you must make good use of them.”

Readis mumbled a noncommittal answer. This was
not the time to confide home problems—nor the person to confide them to.

Oblivious to the boy’s hesitation, F’lessan went on. “You might even start up your own crafthall. That’s what Benelek did, you know, by learning all he could about Aivas’s terminals.”

“He did?”

“He did!” Then F’lessan gave Readis a mischievous grin. “Right now, you and all the other students at Landing have a brilliant chance to make sure that Pern
becomes
what the Ancients wanted it to be
before
Thread interrupted their progress.” The dragon-rider gestured behind him, to the murals. “The sum total of their knowledge and their overview of this planet is available to us. It’s up to us, and you, as the next generation, to be sure we pick up the plan where they left off and see that Pern becomes the planet they envisioned. That’s what must be done if Pern is to be what it
could
be. D’you see that? That’s what Master Robinton wanted. It’s what my parents want. But not all the Holders or Mastercraftsmen. They’re still hanging back with what’s comfortable and familiar.” He narrowed his eyes slightly to assess the impact of his words on his audience. “It’s going to be difficult, the next twenty-odd Turns, to set in place what Pern will be now that Thread has stopped.”

“But it hasn’t, has it?”

F’lessan gave him a quick look and grinned. “But it will.”

“Were you,” Readis began tentatively, “one of the dragonriders who took the engines to the Red Star?”

F’lessan nodded. “Golanth and I”

Readis’s jaw dropped in awe.

“All in a day’s work for a dragonrider,” F’lessan said, dismissing the feat in his usual light manner.

On the top of the weyrhold, Golanth lifted his head and uttered a welcoming bugle.

“Ah, your conveyancers arrive,” F’lessan said, standing up, though Readis could see nothing but empty sky in front of them. “Think about what I said, Readis, about the dolphins and about what Pern could be.”

Readis nodded, eyes front, waiting … and was rewarded by the thrilling sight that always made his heart pound faster: the abrupt emergence of a half wing of dragons. They were so beautiful. But not for everyone. Dolphins, now, they weren’t so restricted. Anyone could get to know a dolphin. He could be a dolphineer
and
a Holder. Form a new crafthall? That did appeal to Readis, and he turned over that possibility. Of course, his mother would have an attack if he even whispered of his interest in the dolphins around her. She persisted in believing that it was the dolphins who had put his life at risk when it was the other way round. His father might understand, especially now that the dolphins had been shown to be useful in so many ways, guarding the coastline and warning them of bad squalls and good fishing. Certainly mastering another Craft would only show the Lord Holders that Readis, son of Jayge and Aramina, was that much more capable of managing an important Southern Hold like Paradise.

“Thank you, F’lessan,” he said.

“For what?” the bronze rider asked, smiling down at the boy.

Suddenly Readis went shy and covered it by waving his arm about to indicate the weyrhold. “For what you just said.”

F’lessan grinned and placed his finger beside his nose, indicating secrecy. “Think about it, lad. We dragonriders are, I assure you.”

Before Readis could ask him what that cryptic comment meant, F’lessan had walked off to find Master Samvel.

Back at school, when he had some free time to use one of the keyboards, Readis tried to find out exactly
what
the Ancients had meant Pern to be, before Thread ruined their plans. Eventually, he found the Charter in LAWS, and that gave him a good deal to mull over. He wished he could talk to F’lessan again. By deft questioning, he learned that the son of F’lar and Lessa was considered a competent and much trusted Wingleader but, until he had discovered Honshu Weyrhold, had not been given to much serious thinking or behavior. That made Readis give more weight to what the bronze rider had said that day.

Of course, the dragons were not mentioned in the Charter, since they hadn’t been created at the time the Charter had been composed. Nor in any other file on LAWS or GOVERNMENT or VETERINARY or FARMING. They were listed in BIOGENETICS, though Readis couldn’t understand half the words and gave up trying to figure out what the cryptic words in the lab notes meant.

Nevertheless, in twenty Turns or so, Thread would stop falling on Pern and would never come back to
rain on the planet. What would dragonriders do then? Surely there had to be something
special.
Readis gave a shudder. Pern without its dragons would be unthinkable. He was awed by the ingenuity that had resulted in dragons. He’d had enough biology to understand the concept of biogenesis even if no one on Pern now could possibly perform it. So what would dragons do when Thread was gone? He fretted over that question for quite a few weeks of that school term. Dragons did so many things that didn’t have to do with fighting Thread. They conveyed people, and often these days, materials that would take days to be transferred by cart or ship. Well, the blues and greens did, and occasionally the browns and the younger bronzes before they started flying Thread. For adult dragons to do so was somewhat demeaning. He couldn’t imagine a queen lugging things from one Hold or Hall to another.