The Dolphins of Pern Read online

  “No, no trub-bul,” Alemi said with a laugh. “I didn’t mean to ring the bell to call you,” he added. And then shrugged because he didn’t understand their last question.

  “Good call. Long listen. No call. We … [a word Alemi didn’t catch] … bell. Pul-lease?” She cocked her head—Alemi didn’t know why, all at once, he decided she was a female, but something about her seemed to give that clue to her gender. He was also peripherally aware of how much he had actually absorbed from the pictures that Aivas had shown and the explanations of these … mammals. That was going to shock the conservative fishmen. His father especially. “Fish” had no right to be intelligent, much less answer humans.

  “That bell”—Alemi pointed back to the shore—“is … not working. I will get a bell that works. I will put it at Paradise River Hold. I will call you from there. Can you hear me anywhere?”

  There were squeeings and clickings and noisy blowings out of their airholes as they seemed to be trying to understand him.

  Suddenly Flo reared up out of the water, holding herself aloft by what Alemi decided could only be sheer determination. She tilted her head, her left eye regarding him. “Lemi ring bellill. Flo come. You oo-ait? ’Mis you oo-ait? Flo come!” She emphasized the last word with a flick of her tail before she sank into the water.

  “’Mis you wait?” Alemi repeated.

  “I tell you I come. I come,” Flo said with a burble and a whoosh from her blowhole. Everyone about her clicked and squee’ed in tones so emphatic that Alemi grinned broadly at their insistence. “Ooo skraaaabb blufiss?” Flo sounded hopeful.

  The last thing he had expected was the eager participation of the dolphins in reestablishing contact with humans. He tried repeating her last query just as he’d heard it. “Ooo” meant “you” but what “skraaaabb” or “blufiss” were sounds for, he couldn’t even guess. Beside him, Flo turned over and over in the water. He had to laugh at her antics: they were childlike, almost. Then he became aware of being uncomfortably hot, in water now up to his chest, and weighed down by the sodden heavy jacket.

  “Let me go ashore, will you?” he asked, indicating that he needed to pass by the dolphin bodies pressing about him. He put out his arms to swim and found himself crowded by helpful sleek forms. “I can swim. Let me.”

  “Suwim, mans suwim, mans suwim …” Suddenly the ring about him parted, dolphins flipping up and overhead, out of his way.

  Dragon and rider were at the water’s edge, dubiously surveying the incredible scene.

  “’Member! ’Member! Oooo ring. Oo-ee come!” a dolphin shouted as Alemi waded out of the bay. “Oooo do blufiss.”

  He nodded enthusiastically as he turned, waving at the dolphins crisscrossing each other as they made for deeper water. There seemed to be an incredible number occupying the bay waters. Then, as the chorus was picked up by other voices, he cupped his hands. “I ring. You come. I wait.”

  T’lion looked at him in blank amazement. “They were talking? Speaking to you?”

  Alemi nodded, slipping out of his soaking jacket while he worked his sodden boots off his feet. “That’s what I saw Aivas about—the dolphins. I never thought we’d get that sort of response, just tapping a bell.”

  T’lion shook his head slowly from side to side. “Me neither!” He let his breath out with a sigh and took Alemi’s coat from him, draping it on the bell, as Alemi now stripped off his shirt and began wringing it out. “I better go get you some dry clothes. Even in the midday sun, it’s going to take time to dry ’em, and you can’t go between in wet clothes.”

  “No, I can’t, and I would appreciate dry things. Is that a problem?”

  T’lion sized him up for a moment and shook his head. “No. It’ll only take a few minutes,” he said as he vaulted to his dragon’s back. “I’ll borrow some from a rider your size. We always have spares.”

  Sand briefly showered Alemi as the young bronze leaped from the beach.

  “Shards!” Alemi said, diving for the Aivas papers in his jacket.

  With shaking hands he opened the wet sheath, but the writing appeared not to have suffered. Carefully, using pebbles to hold them down, he spread the sheets out on the sand to dry in the hot sun.

  Now it was the turn of Flo, pod leader at Moncobay, to sound the news far and wide that the bell had been rung. Not exactly as it should be rung, but it had been rung and they had swarmed to answer, to prove to mans that they would reply when they heard the bell It had been so long since that sound had been heard upon the waters or under them. No member of the pod, even Teres, who was the oldest and had to be accompanied when she fed in the schools of fish, had ever heard the bell But they had remembered to remember. Those at Pardisriv were not the only ones to talk to mans and use the Words.

  The mans had been two and they had sent happy feelings to the pod. There had been scratches and pats that had long been denied the dolphins. The entire pod had been made glad to answer the bell They had shown their appreciation with great leaps and tail walks and flips and deep divings. Mans had said they would scrape off the bloodfish, which was the best news of all That evening as they rested in the Great Current, Teres repeated the old tales that she had learned from the Tillek in her time at the Great Subsidence, before she had swum cleanly through the whirlpool and been considered worthy of bearing dolphin calves. When mans had swum alongside dolphins, above and below the surface, and they had accomplished many wonderful things together. And now there would be mans to heal the wounded and keep the stranded from dying on the sands. There would be good Work to be done. The sea had changed the land in the time since humankind and dolphinkind had come to these waters. Humankind should know. Dolphins could show mans where the shore had changed, and the Currents, and where the biggest schools of fish were. And there might even be games to play.

  CHAPTER IV

  WHEN ALEMI RETURNED to Paradise Hold, he was bursting with his tidings and tracked Jayge down to make his report.

  Perhaps what Jayge was doing—chopping down the verdant undergrowth that relentlessly encroached on the clearings about the holds, a sweaty, difficult job but one best done to inhibit growth during the coming hot season—made him sour. In any event, the Holder’s enthusiasm for Alemi’s new adventure with dolphins was less than appreciative.

  Jayge paused in his labors, wiping the sweat that was overflowing the band on his forehead.

  “That’s all very well and good, Alemi. I suppose”—Jayge hesitated—“it’s good. We’ve got fire-lizards and dragons, why not intelligent life in the seas? The Ancients apparently knew what would combine to make a perfect world, so these doll-fins had their role to play …” He hesitated again.

  “But you’re worried about Readis?”

  Jayge let out an explosive sigh. “Yes, I am. He’s still talking about his mam’l …”

  “They are,” Alemi said, regaining his perspective on the matter, “mam-mals.” He repeated the word carefully, not glottalizing it into one syllable. “Creatures who give birth to live offspring and suckle them.”

  Jayge gave him a long incredulous stare. “Underwater?”

  Alemi grinned, appreciating his amazement. “Saw moving-picture records of a birth as well as the suckling so I can’t doubt it.”

  “Aivas wastes time on such things?”

  “I wouldn’t call it wasting time,” Alemi said wryly, “if the result is dolphins ready to rescue the shipwrecked.”

  Jayge had the grace to flush and concentrated on honing the edge of his wide blade.

  “Look, I’ll keep my findings to myself then. You didn’t mention my interview with Aivas to Readis, did you? No. All right. I certainly won’t, but I’d like your permission, as my Holder, to discreetly pursue a closer association with these creatures. With squalls like the one Readis and I were caught in, those at sea in these waters need all the help available.”

  “And these doll-fins would always help?”

  “According to what I saw and what Aivas said, water rescues a
re a dolphin’s responsibility and duty.”

  “Humph. What does Master Idarolan say to this?”

  “I’m only just back, Jayge. Haven’t told him yet, but I certainly shall. Most ships carry bells. If masters know what sequence summons dolphins to their assistance, we’d have just that much more of a chance in the water. You can’t deny that, can you?”

  “No.” Jayge had been vividly recalling the storm that had tossed himself and Aramina overboard, and the shipfish who had rescued them. “I can’t. Ah, very well. Just be sure, Alemi, that Readis doesn’t get wind of all this. He’s much too young.”

  Alemi nodded, perversely pleased that he could try to establish himself with the dolphins without having to share the experience. After all, they had that jetty now on the sheltered cove just around the headland. He could rig a bell there, and a float like the one he’d seen in the pictures, where he could meet the dolphins on the same level.

  “I’ll take some of this heavier bambu away for you, Jayge,” Alemi offered, noting the size of the stalks the Holder was cutting.

  “Your doll-fins eat vegetation?”

  “No, but I’ve uses for this,” Alemi said, gathering up the lengths that were suitable for his purpose. With air bladders to increase their flotation, he’d have a platform similar to the one that used to ride the water at Monaco Bay—smaller, but adequate for one man. “Have you had any further word from the Benden Weyrleaders as to when we can expect the new settlers?”

  “I should hear by the end of this sevenday.” Jayge paused to wipe his brow. “So they’ll probably be grateful for fish to lay in as supplies.”

  “No problem there,” Alemi said, grinning. The delicious whitefish were running—and plentiful. They could be salted, pickled, or smoked and retain their flavor.

  He knew that Jayge was looking forward to having a new hold farther down the river. He was, too. Jayge’s boundaries were confirmed; Alemi, Swacky, Temma, and Nazer had helped the dragonriders survey the new hold that would start on the eastern side of the river, below the bend that marked the end of his Paradise River Hold, and continue down to the origin of the river. The best site would be in the foothills, as the new arrivals were farmercraftsmen; they would round up and protect the wild runner-and herdbeasts, and grow the grain crops in the higher lands that did not grow along the coast.

  Alemi had met the Keroon leaders, a large family complete with aunties and uncles, who had applied for the holding. Good solid men and women. He looked forward to having them as neighbors. And there was talk of another group interested in settling the southwestern bank of the Paradise.

  Alemi didn’t have as much time for his new enthusiasm as he would have liked. He’d have to assign sailors to help ship the settlers’ belongings down the Paradise to the Bend, so his fishing crews would be shorchanded. With the whitefish running, he wanted to net as much as possible. He and his crews were out all the hours of the lengthening days, trawling and long-lining. Alemi was extra mindful of some of the precautions Aivas had mentioned—precautions Fishmen always observed but without knowing why: taking care for the size of the nets, as well as the old warnings of the “sin” of netting a shipfish. Even his father, who hadn’t the imagination to be superstitious, followed those precepts. Now Alemi knew the reason behind those practices, but he doubted his father would ever admit to it—much less admit that dolphins could talk and were intelligent. One more of the many gulfs between them.

  Armed with Aivas’s confirmation of the intelligence of shipfish/dolphins, Alemi did inform Master Idarolan of his investigations and his plan to renew the partnership to mutual benefit—though he wasn’t sure what benefit the dolphins might derive. As he respected the Masterfishman and did not wish to lower himself in his Craftmaster’s estimation, he qualified his interest by virtue of his and Readis’s escape and the turbulence and unpredictability of these tropical waters. He sent that message off by Tork, his bronze fire-lizard. The creature’s speedy return pleased him: proof of his success at using Menolly’s sensible suggestions to train the fire-lizard. Alemi felt that if he had handled a fire-lizard’s instruction so well, he could certainly deal with the more intelligent dolphins.

  Aware that water magnified sound, Alemi nonetheless felt he would need a larger bell than the one on his ship—which he was borrowing whenever she was at anchor. He wondered if the alarm triangle that Jayge had put up outside his hold after Thella’s invasion would also call the dolphins but quickly discarded that notion. A triangle just didn’t produce the same resonances.

  So he needed a bell. He sent Tork on a second journey that day, to the Smithcrafthall in Telgar Hold, asking them to cast a bell for him, similar to the one at Monaco Bay.

  The Mastersmith Fandarel sent back a message to Masterfishman Alemi that he would be happy to cast a bell of that splendid size, but that the commission would have to wait its torn, what with all the other work that the Halls were currently undertaking to the purpose of eliminating Thread. Alemi had to be content with the promise. In the meantime, Masterharper Robinton found him a small handbell, then later sent him a message by his fire-lizard Zair that the harper at Fort Hold thought he’d seen a big bell in the extensive storage area of the Hold’s lower levels.

  Every evening Alemi studied the notes Aivas had given him until he had memorized the hand signals and the basic commands that he hoped had survived in shipfish memories. As he studied, he was occasionally given to fits of incredulous head shaking.

  “Why does reading those sheets make you shake your head, Alemi?” Kitrin asked him with a sigh of exasperation.

  “Wonder,” Alemi answered, leaning back in his chair. “Wonder that we missed every single clue the dolphins gave us that they wanted to be friends. Shards, they tried to tell us and we humans didn’t listen!” Kitrin made such a grimace that he laughed. He often knew her thoughts before she spoke them aloud. “Yes, indeed, I can just picture my good father, Yanus, listening to a shipfish!” He snorted.

  “Exactly,” Kitrin said with some heat, for a moment abandoning the little wrapper she was hemming for their expected child. “I mean no disrespect—well, maybe I do,” she added with a rueful expression, “but he is sometimes …”

  “Always,” Alemi amended firmly with a smile.

  “So set in his ways. You know, neither he nor your mother have ever mentioned Menolly. Though your mother often remarks on ingratitude in my presence.” She sighed. “It’s as if Menolly never existed.”

  “I think she prefers it that way,” Alemi said with a wry and slightly bitter grin, knowing all too well the treatment given his talented sister during her adolescence at Half Circle Sea Hold. “Both of them—mother and daughter.”

  “Menolly’s never been back? Ever?”

  “Not to the Sea Hold. Why should she?”

  Kitrin shrugged. “It seems so … so awful … that they cannot accept her accomplishments.” Then she added shyly, “Sebell always remembers to send us copies of her latest songs. Alemi, when are we going to have a harper?”

  He grinned, for he knew that had been the main reason for this trend of their conversation.

  “Hmmm. I’ve asked Jayge and Aramina. Readis is growing old enough to learn his ballads and so are enough other youngsters, including our own, for the hold to have its own harper. Enough for a journeyman surely, and we can offer many benefits here: decent weather and property to develop.”

  “Ask if they’ve asked,” Kitrin said with unusual force. “I’m not going to have the girls, or our son”—and she said this defensively, one hand on her gravid belly—“grow up ignorant of what they owe Hold, Hall, and Weyr.”

  Alemi laughed. “Stoutly said.”

  He did bring up the matter of a harper for the Hold the very next afternoon when he delivered the Holder’s best of the day’s catch: three grand big redfins.

  “I could almost wish,” Jayge said with some acrimony, “that Aivas hadn’t been discovered! Everything depends on what he needs first!”


  “But surely harpers …”

  “Every harper who’s done his journeyman’s walk wants to have some part in transcribing Aivas’s information, which seems to be inexhaustible on every subject imaginable and all of it seemingly has to be done now!” The Holder rubbed an agitated hand across the stubble of his close-cropped black hair. He scowled. “I’ve asked and asked.”

  “Master Robinton?” Alemi suggested hopefully.

  Jayge dismissed that hope. “He’s worse than anyone else, stuck up there at the Admin.” Then he gave a snort of amusement. “Still has his finger in most pies! But I no more want Readis ignoring his duties—even if those, too, are apt to change with all these new gadgets and information—than you want your girls growing up untrained. Push comes to shove, the farmcrafters have an elderly harper who might be persuaded to travel up to us now and again, but …”

  “If you don’t mind me doing so, I’ll drop a word to my sister,” Alemi offered.

  A look of intense relief passed over Jayge’s tanned features. “I didn’t want to impose …”

  “Why not?” Alemi grinned. “I haven’t fished for many favors from my well-placed Master of a sister. She’s got a child, too, you know. And another one on the way.”

  Jayge gave him a stare and then winked. “Seems she does more than craft all the songs anyone sings these days.”

  “It’s one way of being able to do just that, according to her, what with everything else harpers seem to be required to do right now.”

  While it was the hot season on the Southern Continent, it was bitter cold in the North, and there were few who would turn down the opportunity to come south. So it came as no surprise that Alemi’s plea to Menolly for a harper to teach the children of Paradise River Hold resulted in the message that one was coming as soon as transport could be arranged. What no one at Paradise River expected was to see Menolly herself and her young son, Robse, carried by the sturdy, loyal, lack-witted Camo, stepping out of Master Idarolan’s longboat onto the beach.