The Dolphins of Pern (4 page)

He knew he should get to his feet and go reassure Aramina that they’d survived the storm. Though, as he turned his head to look down the shoreline, he couldn’t see a soul Was it possible that no one on shore had noticed the sudden squall? That no one had even known they were in danger? Just as well not to unnecessarily mar what would still be a happy occasion in Swacky’s nameday Gather.

“Unclemi?” There was a disturbed wail in Readis’s voice. “We lost our redfins.” Then the boy added hastily, to show he was aware of the priorities, “And the skiff, too.”

“We have our lives, Readis, and we’ve a story to tell. Now, just get your breath a few more minutes.”

A few more minutes became an hour before either stirred, for the warm sand had taken the last of the squall’s chill from their bones, and the sea sounds and the light winds had combined with the fatigue of their recent labors to send them to sleep.

Except for the fact that Alemi was not given to fanciful tales, the rest of Paradise River Hold might not have believed the astounding tale the two of them told. By the next morning tide, however, pieces of the skiff were deposited on the beach.

By then everyone in Paradise River Hold knew the bare bones of their near-fatal fishing trip. No one on shore had noticed the squall, busy with their chores and getting ready for the evening Gather. Aramina had been in Temma’s cothold, baking. She nearly fainted when Alemi informed her, as gently as possible,
of the recent ordeal her son had come through so magnificently. Then she fussed so over Readis, who was trying to eat lunch because his had been lost at sea, that she looked hurt when he shrugged her attentions off so he could get on with filling his very empty stomach. She reprimanded him severely when he told her that shipfish talk.

“How can
fish
talk?” She glared at Alemi as if he had filled the boy’s head with nonsense.

Before Alemi could support him, Readis gave his mother a very fierce scowl. “Dragons talk,” he insisted.

“Dragons talk to their
riders
, not small boys.”

“And you heard dragons, Mother,” he protested boldly even though he knew she didn’t like to be reminded. That made her pause so long that he wished the words back in his throat and chewed more slowly.

“Yes, I heard dragons, but I certainly have never heard shipfish!”

“Even when they rescued you and Da?”

“In the middle of a storm?” she asked skeptically.

“Mine didn’t start talking until
after
the storm.”

His mother glanced again at Alemi for confirmation.

“It is true, Aramina. They spoke.”

“Their noises may have just
sounded
like words, Alemi,” she tried to insist.

“Not when they said ‘wielcame’ after I said ‘thank you,’” Readis went on hotly, and Alemi nodded vigorously under Aramina’s outraged eyes. “And they know that the Ancients called the place Landing and they’re mam’ls, not fish!”

“Of course they’re fish!” Aramina blurted out. “They swim in the sea!”

“So do we and we’re not fish!” Readis retorted in disgust with her disbelief, and stormed out of the room, refusing to return when she called him.

“Now see what you’ve done!” Aramina said to Alemi, and then she, too, left Temma’s kitchen.

Alemi regarded the older woman blankly.

“If you say they spoke, ’Lemi, they spoke,” the former trader said with a definitive nod of her head. Then she grinned at his confused expression. “Don’t worry about Ara. She’ll calm down, but you gotta admit you frightened the life out of her. And none of us here even knowing there’d been a bad squall. Here!” She handed him a cup of freshly brewed klah, to which she added a dollop of the special brew she kept for emergencies.

“Ha!” Alemi said, smacking his lips after a long swig. “I needed that!” He handed back the cup, with a quizzical expression.

“You don’t need any more or you won’t be able to regale the Gather tonight with your adventure,” Temma said with a wink.

The pod swam back into their customary waters full of elation that they had once again saved land-folk. This was worth relaying to the Tillek now, instead of waiting until the year turned and pods gathered at the Great Subsidence to watch the young males attempt the whirlpool and exchange the news each pod gathered in its waters. The southern pods did not have as many occasions as the northern ones did to perform traditional duties. So the sounds went
out and were broadcast that Afo and Kib had played with mans lost at sea. It had been a great moment For they had spoken to mans in Words and mans had spoken to them, using the ancient Words of Courtesy. So Kib rehearsed the tale, murmuring into the waters as he swam the Words of his Reporrit. He sent the sounds out to be repeated from pod to pod until they came to the hearing of the Tillek. Maybe this was the time that the Tilleks had promised would come: when mans once more remembered to speak to seafolk and became partners again.

The sounds traveled to the Tillek, who had them repeated from one end of the seas to the other, to all the pods in all the waters of Pern. There was envy at such good luck, and some even wished to join the fortunate pod, Afo, Kib, Mel, Temp, and Mul swam fast and proud, with great leaps. And Mel wondered if mans would still know how to get rid of bloodfish, for he had one sucking him that he could not seem to scrape off, no matter how he tried.

R
EADIS FELL ASLEEP
that night some time after his third repetition of their adventure.

“He’s got it down as pat as any harper,” his father said with some chagrin.

“Just so long as you’ve made it
plain,”
Aramina said, emphasizing the word, “that he isn’t to swim out or go sailing—”

“Skiff’s gone, remember?” Jayge put in reassuringly.

“—to try and find those shipfish again,” she finished, glaring at him.

“You heard him promise, ’Mina, that he wouldn’t go too near the water without a companion. He’s a child of his word, you know.”

“Hmmm,” Aramina said ominously.

But, as she kept strict track of her son’s whereabouts for the next two days, he did not disobey, though she saw him often shielding his eyes from the sun, gazing out across the restless waters of the Southern Sea. Perversely now she worried that he had taken a fear of the sea. When she hesitantly mentioned
this to her mate, Jayge stoutly denied there was a fearful bone in Readis’s body.

“He’s obeying—isn’t that what you wanted of him?” Jayge demanded. “You can’t have it both ways.”

Aramina sighed and then was summoned out of her preoccupation over Readis by a loud cry of frustration from Aranya, who was having trouble with a toy cart that kept losing its wheel.

The next afternoon, while holders were taking their midday rest, avoiding the heat of the sun, Aramina received a polite message from Ruth that he and Lord Jaxom were visiting Paradise River. She told her husband. She was halfway to the kitchen to prepare the fruit juices that she knew Jaxom liked when she turned back, puzzled.

“They’re already here at Paradise,” she said. Then she went to the edge of the wide veranda that shaded their house and peered up into skies empty of the recognizable form of a dragon. “But where? Isn’t that just like Jaxom? Although why he would tell me he was coming when he’s already nearby … Oh, maybe I misheard Ruth. I do that now and then.” She sighed in exasperation, shrugged, and went back inside.

Jayge seated himself where he could command a good view of the approaches to the house and propped his feet up on the railing. The days when Aramina had heard every single dragon conversation were long past—to her infinite relief. Now the dragons had to think specifically
at
her to convey a message. Jayge couldn’t imagine what could have delayed Ruth, who was generally very prompt to follow any announcement of his coming. Lord Jaxom of
Ruatha Hold was always welcome, but Jayge smiled at the surprise Readis would have to see the white dragon when he woke from his afternoon nap.

“Not that that would rate as high now as swimming with a dolphin,” Jayge murmured aloud. As well it was Ruth and Jaxom who were the first dragon pair to land at Paradise River after Readis’s adventure. The very ones to answer candid questions.

Just then Ruth glided with deft backwinging to land in front of the house. Jayge rose to his feet and went to greet them, a broad grin on his face. “Ara started squeezing juice the moment Ruth told her you were coming. You’ve confused her. She said you were already here, but we couldn’t see the white hide anywhere. And I’m glad you’ve come, because something’s come up!”

Jaxom grinned and Jayge frowned because he suddenly realized that Jaxom was carrying his riding jacket and had sweated through his light shirt. His face also bore sweat marks. Considering that
between
was beyond measure cold, Jayge was confused. Then Ruth turned and, in a hop-glide gait, made for the shore while happily chirping fire-lizards converged above him.

“Off for a scrub, is he?” Jayge gestured his human guest up to the coolness of the porch. “How could you work up such a sweat in
between
, Jaxom?”

“Stealing sand.” The young Lord Holder grinned with mischief. “We’ve been examining the quality of your local Stuff.”

“Indeed? Now what would you need Paradise River sand for? As I’m sure you’re going to tell me anyway.” He motioned for Jaxom to take the hammock,
strategically placed at the corner of the house where it caught any breeze, seaward or landward. He leaned against the banister, arms folded across his chest, awaiting an explanation.

“The settlers had a sandpit back in that scrubland of yours. They thought highly of Paradise River sands—for glass making.”

“There’s certainly enough. Did Piemur and Jancis find those whatchamacallums …”

“Chips?” With a grin, Jaxom supplied the proper term for all the odd bits that had been stored in the Hold’s barn by the Ancients. It was only in recent days that anyone had understood their purpose: parts for computers, of which the Artificial Intelligence Voice-Address System recently discovered at a Landing building was the most complex. Aivas, as it was known, was the receptacle in which all the Ancients’ vast knowledge had been stored. Jayge had had a brief glimpse of the incredible machine, in its special room at Landing, and heard what miracles of information it had.

“Chips, then … useful, after all?”

“Well, we managed to salvage the usable transistors and capacitors, but they haven’t actually been installed yet.”

Jayge gave him a long suspicious look for the way the strange words came so easily from his mouth. “As you say,” he said with a grin.

Just then young Readis, clad only in a clout, came out on the porch, Ribbing sleep out of his eyes. He peered at Jaxom, swinging lazily in the hammock, then swiveled his head around to the front of the house. “Ruth?”

Jaxom pointed to where the white dragon, surrounded by industrious fire-lizards, wallowed in the shallow water.

“He’s enough of a guardian, isn’t he?” Readis asked, tilting his head back in a stance that mirrored one of his father’s postures.

Jayge nodded, glad that Readis was so conscious of his promise not to go in the water unattended. “But Ruth’s bathing right now, and besides, I’d like you to tell Jaxom what happened to you and Alemi the other day.”

“Did you come just to hear?” Readis asked, though he knew that Lord Jaxom had a lot of other things to do, since he was aware of how hard his own Holder father worked. On the other hand, he was certain that even a busy man like Lord Jaxom would find his adventure interesting: because it was a
real
adventure.

“Well, that
was
one reason,” Jaxom said, smiling. “So what did happen to you and Alemi the other day?”

Aramina emerged from the house, carrying her squirming daughter under one arm and a tray in her free hand. Jayge quickly sprang to relieve her of the tray, but she gave him Aranya instead, and served Jaxom a tall cool drink and some freshly baked sweet biscuits. It took a few more minutes until Readis was settled on his stool, with two biscuits and a small glass. When his mother was seated, Readis looked to his father for his cue to begin.

He took a deep breath and launched into the well-rehearsed tale. He kept his eyes on Lord Jaxom’s face to be sure he was listening properly—and he was—almost from the start.

“Shipfish?” Lord Jaxom exclaimed when Readis got to that part of his recital. He glanced at Jayge and Aramina then, and Readis saw their solemn confirmation of his claim.

“A whole pod of ’em,” Readis said proudly. “Unclemi said there must have been twenty or thirty. They pulled us far enough in for us to reach the beach safely on our own.
And,”
he added, pausing to give emphasis to his final words, “the next morning the skiff was found beached up by the fishhold, like they knew exactly where it belonged.”

“That is some tale, young Readis. You’re a harper born. An amazing rescue. Truly amazing.”

Readis caught the genuine feeling in the Lord Holder’s tone.

“The redfins weren’t by any chance returned with the skiff?” Jaxom asked.

“Nah.” Readis dismissed that with a flick of his wrist, despite his own disappointment at the failure of the lockbox to reappear on shore, as well. “They drowned. So we had to eat ol’ stringy wherry ’stead of good juicy redfin steaks. And you know something else?”

“No, what?” Jaxom responded.

“It wasn’t just that they rescued us—they talked to us, too!”

“What did they say?”

The expression on Lord Jaxom’s face was suddenly alert, and his eyes bored into Readis as if he’d caught him out in a lie. Readis stiffened his back and threw out his chest.

“They said ‘wielcame’ when we thanked ’em. And
they called themselves ‘mam’Is,’ not fish. Unclemi will tell you!”

Readis caught Jaxom glancing at his father, as if doubting him. His father gave a slow nod to Jaxom, then turned to him. “Readis, why don’t you run down and see if the fire-lizards are giving Ruth a proper scrubbing?”

Having said his piece, Readis was delighted to be released to help bathe Ruth, who was his favorite dragon of all the ones he’d met so far.