The Dolphins of Pern

CHAPTER XIV

ONCE READIS FOUND the seaside caves that he had once seen from the decks of the Fair Winds, he chose the one most suitable to his purposes, making it as comfortable as he could. Some of the water and wind-worn openings would be half-flooded with higher tides, but these would also be extremely handy for a Dolphin Hall. This series of caves and hollows were at the base of the rocky slope that led up to the deep gorge and the river shown on the Ancients’ charts as the Rubicon. Most of the caves were shallow or accessible only by a treacherous climb over tumbled boulders. There was really only one that could be made into a human living accommodation, with a sea-eroded maw through which he could lead Delky to the space on a wide ledge where he could stable her adequately. Past that point, the ledge led to two interior, water-hollowed chambers, one of them large enough to make a respectably sized hold, and both now high above the full-tide marks.

They’d had to spend their first Threadfall, on their way to these caves, crammed under a barely adequate overhang, with Delky shivering with fear as Thread hissed just a finger’s thickness from her hide.

There was plenty of time, too, for Readis to regret the precipitousness of his departure and bemoan the useful items that he should have packed that would have made his new life considerably easier. But then his exodus had not been planned. He steeled himself against other regrets, like forgoing the studies he had begun to enjoy for the challenge and mental stimulation they had provided. And the tantalizing prospect of things that could be when the Pass was over. He regretted not having access to the wealth of information in the Aivas files—and the chance to copy Persellan’s damaged pages, as much for his own information as to make amends to the healer. He worried how T’lion had gotten on with the healer and how he’d been disciplined by his Weyrleader. He worried most about Cori and Angie: had T’lion’s stitches held? Were they healing? Who was tending them? How was he going to get in touch with the pod in these waters? And would the dolphins feel the need to tell other humans where he was? He was doing this for them, finding sea caves, accessible by water: The quieter pools that were flushed out with the tides would be perfect for tending the injured, and the great ledge outside couldn’t be better for talking to a whole pod with no crowding. There was deep water beneath the ledge—or as deep as he could dive.

The Great Current was far out, too far to be visible, and that’s where the dolphins would swim, riding the westward flow. They wouldn’t know a human was in this area. And Readis had no bell and no way of obtaining one. If only T’lion were here, Gadareth could attract them with his bugle. No doubt the bronze rider had been restricted to official duties and the Weyr. Readis hoped that T’lion wouldn’t be denied access to the dolphins. Surely T’gellan would have understood how important it was … His parents hadn’t, Readis interrupted himself; why would he think a Weyrleader would care? Except that the dolphins had warned Path’s rider about a pregnancy and Mirrim had had a fine son. Was that enough?

Probably not. His parents didn’t care to remember that dolphins had rescued him and Alemi from the squall. That had been a long time ago now.

Readis had little time for much reflection: he had to find food, which in this season meant long and sometimes futile searchings, the main growing season being now over. What he could find he had to save, so he hunted until he discovered a supply of clay along a creek and made utensils, which he fire-hardened. It took him several tries to get a mug and a bowl that didn’t leak. He knew more theory than he had had a chance to put into practice. He could and did make himself a frond mattress, which gave him comfort at night, and he wove fine grasses into a covering. The tougher ones supplied him with stout rope to secure Delky when he didn’t want her straying from the cave. He’d twisted threads from her tail for a fishing line and braided more for a longer line, splicing it to a good length, thanks to those lessons he’d learned from Unclemi. He kept his belt knife honed sharp and hoped the steel blade would last until he could replace it, as the daily honings were visibly narrowing the good blade. He sought the biggest tree nuts and chiseled a hole in the tops so that once he had drunk off the juices, he could store fresh drinking water in them. While the nut juice was considered by many to be very tasty and he knew that Swacky fermented it for his sevenday night’s drinking, he didn’t like the almost sickly sweetness of it. Besides fresh fish and shoreline shellfish, he’d find the occasional fowl nest, so he had sufficient protein in his diet. No fire-lizard clutches yet, though he’d searched every sandy cove on his way here. It was really the wrong season for fire-lizards to clutch. He’d never particularly wanted one, but he could have used one now. Delky wasn’t that companionable. And, until he made contact with dolphins, he had only himself to talk to.

He was generally too busy to be lonely and too tired not to sleep at night, when doubts would have tended to assail him. If he wanted to communicate with dolphins, he’d have to swim out far enough, and he wasn’t so foolish as to venture out that far without the safeguard a vest would provide. Once he had finally located a stand of the fibrous plant from which life vests were made, he spent several days designing and making one.

From small fish bones he fashioned needles and, with clumsy but firm stitches, constructed a passable garment. He gave it a long test the morning he finished it, floating about until the local fishes were comfortable enough with his presence to come nibble his toes. That was brave of them, since he’d already caught so many. But he was as buoyant in the water at the end of the morning as at the beginning, so he felt confident enough in its efficiency. He made sure that Delky had enough fodder and fresh water in her clay pot—though he hadn’t been able to make it completely watertight and moisture oozed out slowly—before he donned the vest again.

Today the sea was calm, only wind ripples marring its surface. He might not get another such day in this stormy season. So he tested the ties on his vest one last time and then waded out until he reached the deeper water. Straight out from the shore he swam with good firm strokes. If his luck was in, he’d get a ride back.

By the time the shoreline was well behind him, he began to have second thoughts. His arms were beginning to tire and his breath was getting ragged. So he stopped swimming and assumed a floating position, letting his head go back until the top of his vest cushioned his neck. He closed his eyes against the glare of the sun, though he could not escape the whiteness of its rays behind his eyelids. His breathing slowly dropped to normal. He had never been afraid of the water and wasn’t now. The light waves occasionally splashed over his face, but he only snorted the water out of his nostrils without changing his position. This was very restful, rocking only lightly from time to time. He could almost fall asleep, mesmerized by the watery rhythms. Arms extended, he stopped even a cursory movement of his hands. He’d give himself a good rest before he started off again.

He felt motion in the water beneath him. As he flipped himself perpendicular, his legs encountered something slithery, and he caught sight of the large body aiming at the surface. Then he became aware of the dolphin fins nearby. Abruptly a smiling dolphin face emerged in front of him.

“Save man? No storm. No good far from land?”

“I was looking for you.”

“Looking for Cal?” The dolphin squee’ed loudly in surprise and swam past Readis with one bright black eye never leaving his face. “Who you?”

“I’m Readis, Cal.”

Abruptly the dolphin came back, stopping in front of him. “Pods looking for Readisssss.”

“Are they?”

“All pods looking for Readis,” Cal repeated and then flipped into a dive.

Startled, because Readis didn’t want to be found, he ducked under the water and hauled hard on Cal’s near flipper to prevent her from sounding a message through the water.

“Don’t tell the other pods you’ve found me,” he said urgently, his face inches from Cal’s bottlenose.

“Don’t tell?” The dolphin turned her head so her bright eye was fixed on Readis and her whole expression conveyed an air of total surprise. “You lost You found.”

“I’m not lost. I don’t want to be found. By humans.”

“You are human. Humans stay together. Live in pods on the land. Only visit dolphins in sea. Not live in sea. Dolphins live in sea.” Cal’s response was long for a dolphin and, if the squeaky, pinched tones dolphins used for human speech also conveyed emotions, this time she spoke in shocked amazement.

“I want to live with dolphins, heal dolphins when they’re hurt, be a dolphineer!”

Cal’s loud squee broke off when she spouted an unusually high fountain of water from her blowhole. “You be dolphineer?” The pinched tone rose to a shrill note. “You be Cal’s dolphineer?”

“Well, we’ve just met. You don’t know much about me …”

“Dolphineer! Dolphineer!” Cal’s response was ecstatic! “Will more mans be dolphineers again? Swim with pods, hunt with pods, go see where coast has changed? New reefs, new channels, new stuff? Visit subsidence and meet the Tillek?”

Cal’s brief, earlier submergence must have been sufficient to send for the rest of the pod. Dolphins were homing in on her from all directions, leaping in and out of the water, squeeing and clicking so enthusiastically that Readis came very close to being drowned by their attentions. But he caught a dorsal fin as he was tumbled underwater and hung on until he and—it was Cal he’d got hold of—the dolphin surfaced again. Readis had got a noseful of seawater and had to cling to Cal while he snorted his nasal passages clear and got breathing properly again. Somehow Readis would have to get an aqua-lung. Without it, he was likely to be a liability to any pod, not the helping partner he hoped to be.

“Cal, listen to me,” he said, catching hold of both flippers and pulling at first one, then the other to get Cal’s attention. “I want to stay here. Don’t tell humans.”

“Why?” Cal was plainly puzzled, and others poked their heads up to listen to the conversation.

“I want to be alone with the pod. Learn to be a dolphineer.”

“No long-feets,” another dolphin said. “Dolphineers had long-feets.”

“Your name please?” Readis asked, catching one of the speaker’s flippers.

“I Delfi.”

Then others started squeeing out their names: Tursi, Loki, Sandi, Tini, Rena, Leta, Josi. They poked their faces at him, or walked toward him with flippers extended. He was splashed with the waters of their enthusiasm.

“Hey, hey!” He held up his arms and waved his hands to get them to calm down. “Take it easy. You’ll drown me.”

“No drown in middle of dolphins!” Delfi cried, and squee’ed as she dropped back into the water.

“Yes, you will. I’ve no blowhole!”

There was a good deal of clicking and squeeing over that. The dolphins evidently thought it was very funny. Readis began to feel as if his great idea of being a dolphineer might not be such a childish one. At least the dolphins approved. What did he care if every other human on the planet didn’t!

“I have found caves that lead to the sea and the pools that would be perfect places for dolphins to come to talk to me, where dolphins who were sick could come to be healed. I can take off bloodfish, too. And stitch wounds. D’you want to see?”

“See, see,” squee’ed the dolphins.

“Give me a ride in?” Readis asked, lifting his right hand in the position to grasp a fin.

“Me!” cried Cal, and squirmed her way through to take up Readis’s hand.

There was a bit of splashing and bodies trying to push him away from Cal.

“Hey, wait a bit! You can take turns, swimming me in,” Readis shouted, and got a mouthful of water. He couldn’t clear his air passage and if not for the vest would have been helpless to remain above the surface.

Almost instantly the scramble ended. Two dolphin bodies supported him until he got his lungs clear, though the seawater he had swallowed nauseated him.

“All right, now, pod, let’s take it easy on this poor human. You take turns so I don’t tire you out. Huh?”

“Tire? What tire?”

“Ummmm, get weary, lose strength, exhaust.” Readis made motions of difficulty in swimming. “Like men you rescue, all tired from ship going down.”

Scornful fountains rose from blowholes, and two rolled in contempt for the notion.

“Dolphins swim all around Pern and not weary,” Cal said, her smile deeper than ever. “Swim you to shore is easy. Easy, easy, easy,” Gal said, gently brushing the side of his face with her nose. “We go now. We change. You keep hand up.”

And so he was towed to shore, actually at a much reduced speed than he remembered them taking him and Unclemi into shore after the storm. He changed supports, and there was always a new one, waiting for him to switch. He realized that Cal had come back for a second turn by the time the shore loomed above them.

“To starboard …” Readis gestured right with his left hand. “To the right.”

“Know starboard. Know port. Cal is smart.”

“Cal certainly is. Have you been in these caves?”

“Yessss, been in pools here. Good place. Readisss smart to find good place.” Her voice echoed in the stone cave, and Delky whinnied in fear.

“It’s okay, Delky,” Readis called, worried lest she break his vine rope in her panic.

“You have horsss?” Cal asked, carefully raising herself far enough above the water to put an eye on the startled beast.

“Horss?” Readis laughed. “Delky’s a runnerbeast. And a weed at that. Easy there, girl. It’s all right.”

“Looks horsssish,” Cal insisted. “Name Delky? Delky, I Cal.”

“Runnerbeasts can’t talk, Cal.”

“Pity. We can talk better now we got you to talk to.”

“I think you speak pretty well already, Cal,” Readis said, hauling himself out of the water. The vest had held him up all right, but it had rubbed badly underarm and on his shoulders and neck. He’d have to find something to pad it there. Right now the abrasions stung. He also needed a drink. “Stay put, will you, Cal?”

He rose and had to grab at the wall to keep upright. He hadn’t realized how tired he was, and his bad leg was not in good working order at all. That was the first time he realized that the dolphins never commented on his wizened leg. At least they didn’t seem to care.

Grabbing the nearest of his homemade water bottles, he returned to the pool and found it stuffed full of dolphins.

“Is the entire pod inside?”

“Yes, want to see man’s land place,” Delfi said, raising her body out of the water to peer about her. “Nice place.” And she dropped back.

“Anybody need a bloodfish scraped off?” Readis asked, wanting to reinforce his usefulness. He was tired enough to be grateful that his offer was not taken up.

“We strong pod,” Cal said with an understandable pride. “Maybe later. When we swim closer in, where reefs and things make cuts.”

“Well, I’m willing to help whenever I can,” Readis said.

“Can’t be dolphineer to whole pod,” Cal said. “Not right. One to one is tradition.”

“Until I can find more folks who want to be dolphineers, I guess I’ll have to be one for the whole pod.”

Readis was surprised to discover that dolphins had a covetous streak in them. But then, dragons and fire-lizards were possessive, one way or another, of the humans they looked to. Runnerbeasts didn’t much care who got on their backs, though Readis had always considered Delky to be especially his, since she’d been a gift. The canines responded better to some folks than to others, so maybe it was one of those universal attributes he’d learned of from reading in the Aivas files.

“How people know to be dolphineers if no one knows who you are?” Delfi asked.

If Readis had needed any confirmation of how intelligent dolphins were, that remark certainly clinched it.

“Well now, you have a point, Delfi,” he said, settling more comfortably on the ledge, his feet dangling. “Just tell folks that there is now a dolphineer and a dolphin crafthall.” Readis wasn’t exactly certain how one established a crafthall, but Master Benelek had and so had Master Hamian, when he decided to specialize in the plastic materials that the Ancients had made so much use of. Someone had to start someplace, sometime, and for a good reason. He believed that he had one; the care of the dolphins who had been neglected by humans for so long in their struggle to survive Threadfall “Was there a dolphin crafthall at Landing?”

“Where the bell rings is where we go. Is not crafthall?” Tursi asked. Readis recognized him by the network of old scrapes on his rostrum. He was very pleased that he was learning to identify the individuals of the pod so quickly.

“I wouldn’t qualify then—I’ve got no bell,” Readis said.

“No bell?” “No bell!” “No bell!” The phrase went from dolphin to dolphin.

“That’s why I had to swim out to you, I had no bell to ring.”

Clicks and hisses, and much blowing out of their holes as they turned from one to another.

“Tomorrow bell,” Cal said at the end of this cryptic discussion.

“Sure thing,” Readis said amiably, grinning and reaching down to scratch Cal under her chin.

“Give good scritches,” she said, dropping her jaw and leaning just hard enough into his hand to get him to increase the pressure. “We get bell.” Then she flipped up and over the rest of the pod and started out of the cavern.

Tursi had lifted his head for similar attentions; but, as abruptly, he pulled away and followed her out, the rest of the pod streaming behind, starting their characteristic leapings only when they were clear of the rock formations.

Readis watched them go, relieved that he had made such a good start and wondering what they were up to. Bells didn’t grow on trees, after all. And so far dolphins had shown no real interest in human artifacts. He was also relieved to see them leave be-cause fatigue was settling in on him, and hunger. He checked Delky’s water and refilled it, gathered enough dry grass to keep her through the night, and finished the last of the previous day’s fish stew before he gratefully laid himself down, dreaming dolphin songs.

Odd sounds roused him at dawn. By now he was accustomed to the various water noises made as the sea flowed in and out of the main cavern, so this unusual thunk, plus Delky’s distressed snort, got him out of bed.

His arms were stiff and sore where the vest had rubbed him. He wondered what he could use from his small store of clothing to pad it adequately. He slipped his knife from his belt and peered out into the outer cave. Nothing, and no more sounds. Delky snorted again, but she no longer seemed frightened. He peered around the irregular opening to the outer ledge.

There on the stone was a lump, dripping. There were wet patches, too, suggesting that the lump had been deposited by wet bodies. Readis didn’t see a dorsal fin in the cavern, nor could he see one outside. Straightening up and replacing his knife in the sheath, he went to examine the lump. Halfway to it, he realized it was rounded on the top, and he semijumped in his excitement to examine it. The heavy lump was indisputably bell-shaped, misshapen by centuries of encrustations. And it had no clapper, only the stout bar across the inside of the dome where a clapper could be hung. First he’d have to clean it up.

“A bell, my own bell,” he murmured to himself, and he went to collect the hammer he had made, along with other rocks to use in place of proper chisels. “A dolphin bell makes a proper Dolphin Hall.”

While he chipped away the accumulated layers, he kept one eye on the waters leading into the cavern. Dolphins were endlessly curious. Surely they’d come back to see how their offering had been received: to check that he was awake, to see what he did with the bell. He was almost sorry that no single fin cut the water.

He had to take a break to feed and water Delky. By his calculations, there’d be Threadfall sometime today and they’d better stay inside. And not only safe from Thread. He went as far as the patch of root vegetables to pull some to eat later: they were as tasty raw as cooked. He cut enough of the stout grasses to make a rope, broke a branch of a hardwood to make into the clapper arm, and for the actual clapper, picked up several sea-washed, smooth rocks that fit in his palm. He paused long enough by the fish trap to remove two good-sized yellowtails. The trap had been one of his real successes, and he blessed Unclemi for having taught him how to weave them properly.

He stirred up his fire, put his pot on the firestone to heat water, and then returned to the laborious chipping, pausing now and then to rest or work on the clapper. He hadn’t that long before he had chipped down to the metal. The lip, once he got all the junk off it, was smooth but dull after its long immersion. He wondered if it would polish up. Was it bronze? Or steel? The Ancients had had good steel Or maybe it was one of the other alloys they had favored.

It took him most of the day to clear the exterior, and then he had a time getting his tools in to scour the inside. He stopped only briefly when he heard Delky’s fearful squeal and saw her swinging as far inside the cavern as possible. Outside, the gray rain of Threadfall hissed against the surface of the water. He saw fish heads protruding to eat of the skyborne bounty, but not a single dolphin. He checked Delky’s tether, but it was firm, and she wasn’t likely to bolt out of safety no matter how scared she was. Then he returned to his work. He was constantly scraping his knuckles, and they got bloody and sore from the knocking. He couldn’t quite get the stuff at the very top of the bell but managed to clear the hanging bar so he could attach the grass thong to hold the clapper. So, by the light of his fire, he wove grasses about the roundest of the stones he’d picked up and attached it to the hanger. He had trouble getting the grasses over the bar, partly because the light from the fire had died down so much that he couldn’t really see. Finally, when he realized he hadn’t eaten, he put his work aside, determined to finish that night and have a proper dolphin bell to ring the next morning, but by the time he had grilled a yellowfish, chewing on a root vegetable while it cooked, and eaten it, he could barely keep his eyes open. His scraped and bruised knuckles hurt, his shoulder muscles were knotted from the laborious chip-chipping, and he never even made it to his bed, curling up by the remains of his fire and falling instantly asleep.

He woke with a start, but that was more from the discomfort of his chilly position on cold stone than from an external sound. His bad leg was very stiff and spasmed, knocking against the bell. It gave a soft bong that delighted him. He picked up the clapper arm and very softly tapped the rock against the rim of the bell. Not quite a perfect sound, but indisputably a bell ring! Would the dolphins have heard that muted sound? He needed a belfry, too, and a long rope that would dangle in the water for them to pull.

Quickly, he stoked up the fire, gutted and filleted the second yellowtail, and put it on the cooking rock. Then he picked up the bell and the clapper. His fingers were slightly swollen from the previous day’s exertions, and it took him quite a time—he nearly lost his temper twice—to get the grass around the hanging bar and secure the clapper arm. And then the bell pull.

He made himself eat the fish—it was tastier hot than cold—before he rose, hand on the clapper, and carried the bell to the water ledge. There was a protrusion near the entrance to the cavern. He put the bell down and returned to his supplies for more of the rope he had twisted. At last he hung the bell, wincing every time it issued a small complaint in the process. Delky kept one wide, white eye on him, not quite sure what he was doing. He hoped she wouldn’t panic when he rang the bell.

The sun was only just up in the east, he noted, so the pod would have finished its morning feed. He couldn’t have timed it better if he’d tried.

Taking a deep breath, he grabbed the pull rope and listened critically to the sound that reverberated through the cave.

“Not bad,” he said as the still slightly sour bong echoed in his ears. Then he rang the Come-in sequence. Not that a Report to celebrate the hanging of the bell wouldn’t be appropriate, but Report was urgent: Come-in gave them an option.

As if they’d been waiting just outside the cave for the slightest bell sound, sleek gray bodies glistened under the pool water and heads lifted right under him.

“Bell ring! Ring bell!” “We come!” “We come!” “Reporrit!” “Reporrit!”

“No report, you silly fish faces,” Readis said, laughing with relief and delight. “I only rang Come in.”

“We come in!” “We come in!”

Then the bell rope was yanked out of his grasp and enthusiastically pulled as a dolphin discovered it hanging down in the water.

“Hey, hey,” Readis cried, grabbing for the clapper. The ringing was like thunder all around him in the confines of the cavern. He should probably place it outside or he’d be deafened. Delky was rearing and kicking, screaming with panic. “Easy, there, now. Easy!” He meant the advice for both runner and dolphin. He was also none too sure that the grasses would hold under such ardent manipulations.

Then he knelt down at the side and delivered scratches on all the chins that were presented. “Where did you find that bell? I couldn’t believe it when I saw it yesterday morning. It took all day to clean it up.”

“Bell long lost,” Cal said. “Long, long, long.”

Readis grinned at the delphinic repetitions. He really must teach them “good, better, best,” though Cal’s pod spoke very well: much better than even the Paradise River ones.

“Did you find it on the sea bottom?”

“We find. We bring. You fix. You ring.” Loki said. He identified her by the splotch on the side of her melon.

“Loki! You’re a poet! Did you know that?” Readis exclaimed.

“Yes. I poet, I know it. See?”

Readis howled so with laughter that he lost his balance and sprawled on the ledge, repeating her words while dolphins faces regarded him in their constant amusement and clicked and squee’ed.

“You have bell now. Need long-feet, mask, tank so you can swim far with pod!”

That sobered Readis almost instantly. “That would cost more marks than I have …” And Readis suddenly realized that such marks as he did have were back in his dormitory room. Or, if Master Samvel had taken his long absence as a withdrawal from the school, maybe his belongings had been returned home. Either way, the marks were out of his reach, as was the aqua-lung. “And I don’t have any to buy an aqua-lung, even if one could be made.”

“No thing left over?” Cal asked.

“If you mean diving stuff from the Ancients’ time, no, they didn’t last the way the bell did. Where did you find it?”

“Where storm sink Dunkirk ships,” Cal said as if the event had taken place recently and not nearly twenty-five hundred Turns before.

“And you know where that was?”

“Still find man things when bad storm turn over,” Cal said, and Readis was astonished.

“How could you remember something that happened so long, long, long ago?” he asked, absently scratching her chin again.

“The Tillek. She holds history in her head.”

“Now, don’t tell me there’s a dolphin who’s twenty-five hundred Turns old.”

“No, not tell what isn’t true. But she knows from her Tillek.”

“Oh, you’ve sort of a Harper Hall?”

“We have the Tillek,” Cal repeated firmly. “You must have lung to go see the Tillek. You must go see the Tillek.”

“I’d love to. When I’m able.” Readis sighed. “If I ever am.”

“If you be dolphineer, you meet the Tillek.” Once again Cal spoke so definitively that Readis gave a wistful chuckle.

“I be dolphineer, already. I have bell, I have cave, I have you! Did you eat well yesterday on Thread?”

“Eat good, good, good,” squee’ed some of the other pod members. “Too bad, bad, bad, men don’t eat.”

“Well, that’s the way it is, fellas,” Readis said. “And I’d better eat,” he added as his stomach rumbled.

A large rainbow fish was flipped to the ledge, and instinctively he grabbed it by the gills before it could wriggle off. A second one followed the first, and then a large leaf, two beautiful shell fragments, and a barnacle-encrusted object.

“You eat, then we swim. Much to show you.”

“I’ve no long-feet, no lung. And my …” He had started to mention the abrasions the vest had made and how loath he was to put it back on and risk opening those barely healed scrapes.

“You dolphineer. Your pod swim you safe,” Tursi said with such authority that Readis could only laugh.

He took care of Delky while the rainbow cooked. After his breakfast, he collected more wood for his fire, and banked the coals with wet seaweed. He also lavished scratches and pattings on the waiting pod. Occasionally one of them would pull the bell, just to hear it ring. Finally, Delky had become so accustomed to the sound that she didn’t so much as twitch an ear when it rang.

The “much” the dolphins had to show him had to do with the coastline up to the mouth of the deep gorge of what the Ancients had called the Rubicon River. It required him to swim with the pod long but thrilling hours. When he needed to drink they seemed to know where little brooks and freshettes drained into the sea. They provided him with fish whenever he needed, they also kept up their gifts of items that attracted them. Almost every morning there were offerings. He’d removed only four bloodfish, so he felt he hadn’t earned any special gifts, but he remained grateful for anything. Once they brought him a “man thing,” a plastic crate with one side knocked in, but the color was as bright, when he cleaned off the clinging mud, as the day it had been made. They told him there were more where that came from. Over the next few weeks, he acquired seven, three of which were filled now with “treasures.”

Winter storms had set in, so he also had days when it was inadvisable for him to swim with the pod. The sea would lash waves into floods over the ledge and he’d have to bring Delky inside with him. The wind found all kinds of crevices to howl into, so that he often had to stuff his ears with plugs he made from fibrous plants. Invariably, if he went to the ledge at low tide, there’d be a fish left high and relatively dry, for him to eat. Occasionally branches with the tougher-stemmed fruits clinging to them would be added as special treats. It amazed him that the dolphins knew what humans could eat.

During the first of those storms, he padded the rough spots of the vest. He wore it as a “man thing”—his excuse to them—but there were many occasions when the vest kept him from being half drowned by the enthusiastic aquabatics of his companions. They began to learn how to swim with him, not over or under or impeding his movements. They could not quite understand why he had to spend time out of the water because his skin began to shrivel and slough off. He learned to qualify such matters as “man” things as opposed to “dolphin” or “sea and marine” things. He also tried experimenting with wood to carve the best approximation of “long-feet” he could; he tied these to his feet with a mixed grass and tail-hair rope. But the devices were too cumbrous and either twisted off—as he couldn’t carve a “pocket” for his feet without breaking off a piece of wood—or banged into dolphin bodies. They never complained, but he could see the darker marks on their skin, which he knew he had caused with his wooden water shoes.

His days were so full now of sea work that he almost considered turning Delky loose. It wasn’t fair to keep her standing in the cave. Declining to go with the pod one day, he used all the rope he had made to cordon off a pen for her, not far from the cave but with enough grass and shelter from the sun for her old hide and by one of the many brooks so she’d have water. As he kept a calendar on his cave wall to mark off Thread days, he could always keep her in when she might be in danger from Fall. That way, he didn’t feel as bad about confining her. With no other runners to lure her away, Delky was content with these arrangements.

He was therefore horrified to return late one evening to find evidence of a bloody struggle, bushes knocked over and trees scarred with kick-marks and no sign whatever of Delky. Searching the little paddock to discover what had attacked her, he finally found clear paw prints and knew his old friend had fallen victim to one of the huge cats. He blamed himself, and was disconsolate for days after Delky’s removal. The size of the paw prints dissuaded him from going after the beast with only a belt knife to defend himself. His father had always rounded up all the men in the Hold to go after the big marauders. He missed her for more practical reasons later on, when mourning turned to regret: he had no more of her long strong tail hairs to braid into rope.

He also had very few clothes left. It was apparent that the dolphins had not informed people of his whereabouts. There were moments, despite his full and exciting life with the pod, when he could almost wish they had disobeyed him. But then Cal or Tursi or Loki the Poet would do or say something and make him so glad that he was a part of their lives that his mood would swing up again.

The worst of the storm season passed, and he could gather some of the green shoots that supplied nutrients he didn’t get from fish or what root vegetables remained in his immediate environs. He really ought to start a garden in the glade where he’d kept Delky, he thought. Her manure would be good fertilizer. He knew what to plant and where to get the starts, and took some time off from the pod to organize his garden. That’s when he came across Delky’s tail. He almost didn’t bring it back with him. The urge to bury it as a tribute to its former owner was great, but common sense overcame sentiment and he made a bundle of the long hairs and stuffed them in the pack he had with him.

On his way back he heard the bell, heard the Report sequence, and broke into as fast a run as he dared with the precious starts and sprouting plants he had gathered. Constant swimming had improved the muscles in his bad leg so that he could achieve a respectable speed, but he was breathless by the time he reached his cavern.

There was only one dolphin pulling the bell, and that surprised him. It was also the largest dolphin he had ever seen. That should have warned him.

“I’m here, I’m here,” he blurted out, breathless, propping his pack against the inner wall before approaching the pool. “Is someone hurt? Where’s Cal? Tursi?”

“They come when I call,” the dolphin said, rearing her splendid head up, her flippers out of water.

“Are you hurt? Do you have a bloodfish?”

“Yes, I come to you to remove bloodfish,” she said. “It cannot be scraped off.” She turned on her side and eased slowly by him until he saw the bloodfish, precariously near her sex organs.

“Good thing I honed my knife, then,” he said, and slipped into the water. “Over here. And what’s your name, please?” he asked as he took three good strokes to where an underwater protuberance gave him a place to stand while he ministered to dolphin needs. “I like to know the name of my patients,” he added jovially in what he had decided was his “heal-ering” mode.

“I was called Theresa,” she said, gargling her words slightly as she remained heeled over to place herself close to him.

“That’s a very fine name. One of the originals, isn’t it?” he asked. “I’m Readis.”

“Your name is known. You call yourself the dolphineer.”

“You speak really well, Theresa,” Readis went on, his fingers, now deft at this task, assessing the depth of the bloodfish’s sucker. Often now he could get the whole thing out without severing the head first. If he punctured the thin skull at just the right point, the sucker released. He found the spot on the bloated body and inserted the thin knifepoint, and with a deft flip of the point, the bloodfish came off. With a flip of his wrist, Readis sent the parasite flying to the wall. It slipped down on a trail of blood until it lay, after two final convulsions before it expired, gape-mouthed: “I’m always glad to get rid of those vicious things for you.” He looked down at the minute hole and shoved water hard against her flank to rinse the puncture. “There, that should close shortly.”

“Thank you, that was well done, dolphin healer.”

“Oh, I’m not a healer by any means, though I can do small repairs now,” Readis said, washing his knife blade before returning it to its sheath. And he’d need a new one soon, as the salt water was rotting the leather. Whatever had the Ancient dolphineers used? More of their versatile plastics?

“I had heard of major healings?” She eased herself back so that she could focus her eye on him.

He smiled down at her, accustomed to such dolphin maneuverings. She was one big mother. And old, judging by the scars on her melon, though all looked long healed. Could she be full of calf? Near to birthing? None of his pod were carrying young. He very much wanted to be present during a birth. It was such a magical moment, especially in the sea.

“Don’t I wish I was able for major stuff,” Readis said, leaning back against the side of the pool, still supported underwater by the wide protuberance. “Maybe I could get more training … but I’d need to have more people working with me as dolphineers before I could take time off.”

“You are not the only dolphineer,” she startled him by saying.

“I’m not?” He jerked bolt upright, the sudden movement whooshing water over her eye. She blinked.

“There are dolphineers at Eastern Weyr, at Monaco Bay”—she was the only dolphin he had heard pronounce it correctly—“Paradise River, Southern, Ista, Tillek, Fort, Nerat Bay …”

“There are?” His heart sank within him. He would not be the first new dolphineer. The new Hall he had so proudly thought he might found was a dream dying in a single, casual sentence. Others had preempted his grand idea. He might as well go home now and take whatever punishment his father decreed for him. He probably wouldn’t be able to go back to school, so he’d lost that opportunity, too. He might even have lost the best chance to secure Paradise River. But he would have to make it very plain to his mother that he must swim with dolphins. He couldn’t give that up now. He was nearly eighteen now, he realized suddenly, if he’d counted days correctly. He was old enough to go off on his own in any case. Maybe, maybe, he could just come back here. He already had the makings of a small hold. And if he could prove enough land around him, under the terms of the Ancients’ Charter, he could own that. And he’d have Cal and Tursi to swim with, he could listen to Loki’s poems, and …

“Come, swim with me, Readis,” Theresa said in the very gentlest tone he had ever heard a dolphin use.

“I’m sorry, Theresa, I don’t feel much like swimming right now.” For all he was nearly eighteen now and thus considered a man, a sob caught in his throat and he turned his face from the dolphin’s knowing eye.

He was knocked off his perch by a deft swipe of her rostrum. He was coughing as he bobbed up, and she was facing the cavern entrance.

“Come, Readis, swim with me.”

“I need my vest.” He extended one arm toward the ledge, meaning to climb back up.

“No vest is needed if you swim with Theresa,” he was told, and he was nudged away from the side of the pool.

“I didn’t mean to offend you …”

“None taken,” she replied.

He caught her dorsal fin with his right hand. Her tow was deceptively smooth, but the speed with which he passed out of the cavern told him she was fast. Just outside the cave, they were joined by others, and Cal poked her head up on the other side of him, grinning.

“You help her?” Cal asked.

“She had a wicked bloodfish, yes, and I removed it.”

He was being pulled with such speed that he had more water in his mouth than words and gestured that he couldn’t speak. Then he saw that the entire pod was there, ranged on either side of Theresa. Some were in advance, leaping and diving as if they escorted a ship. Behind him, others were dipping in and out, but more sedately than usual, not displaying the more athletic maneuvers. He spotted Loki and she rolled her head at him before dipping her nose under again.

Theresa just kept swimming, heading directly toward the Great Western Current. He’d been out to it several times with the pod, and been caught up in the incredible current, fearless only because he had been in the company of dolphins.

They were nearly upon the ships before he realized that her bulk had kept him from seeing them bearing down on them.

Two ships, one of them Master Idarolan’s Dawn Sisters, and the other, Alemi’s Fair Winds.

“Oh, no, Theresa.” He dropped his hand and was immediately upheld by Cal on his left.

“Take hold, Readis,” Theresa said, screwing her head around so that he could not deny hearing her words. “You will come with me.”

“She speak, you obey!” Cal said, squeeing emphatically.

That was when Readis had the first suspicion. Later he realized how stupid he had been. Just then more pods could be seen, leaping and diving, plunging and cavorting, all heading toward the ships, which had furled their sails and seemed to be standing still. Sea anchors out, he thought in his bemuse-ment. As they neared, and Theresa was closing the distance with incredible speed, he could see that each ship had a longboat in the water beside it, and that there were dolphins clustered all around. He’d never heard that dolphins had Gathers, but that’s the word that came to mind. According to what Kib and Afo had suggested, the only time dolphin pods met was in the Northwest at the Great Subsidence for …

“You’re the Tillek, Theresa!” he shouted. He lost his grip, and swallowed a mouthful of water that had him gasping for breath and grasping for the nearest solid form. Which happened to be the Tillek, Theresa, and that made him reach for any other form, for to grab at her seemed tantamount to sacrilege.

“Hold me, Dolphineer,” he was commanded, and his hand was flung up and landed against the dorsal fin, which he obediently clutched.

“I shouldn’t—” he gasped. “It’s not right. You’re the Tillek.”

Loud squees and clickings of approval answered him, and then they were so close to the longboats that he could hear the welcoming shouts. The Tillek swam him up to Master Idarolan’s ship, and slowed to come to a complete stop, her flippers holding her steady with deft subtle movements, by the Dawn Sisters’ longboat. Looking up, he saw his father, smiling, his mother, unsmiling but somehow looking proud, Alemi, and Kami, of all people, and she looked as if she was about to weep. Beyond her were T’gellan, the Benden Weyrleader, D’ram, T’lion, looking excessively pleased, a dour-looking man he didn’t know, Master Samvel, Master Menolly, and Master Sebell. His father and Alemi held out their hands to him.

“Grab hold, Readis,” Jayge called. Too surprised to disobey, he held up his arms and was hauled aboard. His mother herself handed him a big towel, even as she ran critical eyes up and down his tanned body as if she hadn’t expected to find him in such good and healthy condition.

“Thanks, Mother,” he mumbled, and didn’t know what else to do because there was the Tillek herself raised up from the water to be part of whatever was about to transpire in the boat. For this had the feeling of more than the recapture of a recalcitrant truant,

“Well, Readis, lad,” Master Idarolan said, planting his hands on his hips and grinning at him. “Led us a fine and merry chase you have, lad.”

“I just wanted to help the dolphins,” Readis said, speaking to his father despite the press of other important people around him, “No one else was.”

Jayge took Readis’s arm and pressed it affectionately, his expression wistful. “We know that now, son. And I honor you for what you did that day, despite what I said, and felt, at the time.”

“I should never have said what I did,” Aramina murmured right beside him, and there were tears in her eyes when he looked around at her.

“Ahem, we can’t keep the Tillek waiting, friends,” Master Idarolan said. “We are come at her request, Readis,” he added.

“At her …” Readis looked from the Fishmaster to the looming shape of the Tillek.

“She wishes you to be the Dolphineer,” Master Idarolan said. “We’ve never had a Dolphin Hall on Pern … never realized we should have had one all these years. But, well, she’s been very understanding.”

“The Thread caused many problems for humans,” the Tillek said in a tone that suggested she really couldn’t understand quite why. Beyond her, Readis could see the masses and masses of dolphin bodies. Why, every pod on Pern must be here! “We are grateful to men for many things. For history, for knowing what we are, and for giving us the tongue to speak. For speech is what raises the human—and us—above the animals and fish of land and sea.”

“And you, Theresa the Tillek,” Masterharper Se-bell said, “are obviously my counterpart among dolphins.”

“I do not play music makers. But I sing the songs of old so that the young do not forget the past and the old Earth and how men and women swim with us in these new seas.”

“Close your mouth, Readis,” his father murmured softly.

“But he said—she said—a Dolphin Hall?”

“A Dolphin Hall,” Master Idarolan repeated.

“A Dolphincrafthall,” said F’lar of Benden, “and I speak for all the Weyrleaders …”

“And I, Oterel of Tillek Hold, speak for the Lord Holders …” said the gaunt man Readis didn’t know, and then he smiled and didn’t look half as forbidding.

“And I for the Harper Hall,” Sebell said, “that the new Hall is needed and is herewith situated at the sea caverns of … what will you call your place, Readis?”

“Huh? I don’t know. I don’t know anything …”

“Kahrain is the name we dolphins know of that place from the Ancients,” the Tillek said.

“Kahrain Hold it will be then,” Readis said, wondering if a man’s heart could burst from his chest. “But I really don’t have much of a Hold there right now, only the caves and the pools where I can do healing. And I’d need to learn much more healing to be a good dolphineer …”

“That has been promised you,” the Tillek said, and ducked down into the water, rising again to blow out of her hole.

“Why? Why me? You said there were other dolphineers …” Readis said, almost accusing her of gentle treachery.

“There are!” T’lion said, bursting with the news. “Because Gaddie wants to help, too, and T’gellan has given his permission for me to spend my free time with you and the dolphins. I’ve copied another set of medical stuff for you, too, Readis …”

Readis began to shiver suddenly, though the sun was warm and the breeze mild.

“He is cold and needs hot food,” the Tillek said. “We will retire and return when he has been cared for.” She either did not hear or did not care to acknowledge the outraged “Well, I never” from Ara-mina, for she went on: “You swim strong and well, Dolphineer Readis. You will be Tillek and Thea to all in your hold.” Then she disappeared below the side of the longboat. Stunned by all that had just happened, Readis stared at the space she had been occupying until he saw her long body gracefully arch out of and then back in the water, many dolphins following her away from the ships.

Readis was then bundled up the rope ladder and into Master Idarolan’s cabin, and given hot soup and hot klah and made much of by his mother, attentions that he endured out of gratitude for the day and for her forgiveness. His father handed him a new shirt and muttered something about other things that had been brought along that he would possibly need. Then, with Aramina still anxiously hovering over him, he was ushered back out to the deck. There everyone else on this extraordinary voyage had wineglasses, which were being topped up by Master Idarolan’s seamen.

“Now, lad, I’ve some cargo destined for your new Hold,” Master Idarolan said, handing Readis a full glass. “I know the Tillek wants to talk to you further …”

“I think I’d like to talk to you first,” Readis said, including his father and mother with a glance in their direction. “I didn’t know anyone knew where I was.”

“We have for the past three sevendays,” Jayge said, laying an arm across his son’s shoulders. When he saw Readis glance suspiciously toward the sea, he added, “No, the dolphins didn’t tell on you.”

“I’ve been on daily sweeps trying to find you, and then I saw the seaside caves and I figured that they were so perfect for you and dolphins, you had to be there,” T’lion said, looking very pleased with himself. “Only, what with one thing and another, Gaddie and I didn’t get a chance to check the place out. Made yourself right comfortable, didn’t you?”

“I got by fine,” Readis said, a remark calculated to take the anxious expression off his mother’s face and, at the same time, prove to his father that he’d coped well.

“Then,” Master Idarolan said, beaming at all impartially, “I was approached by no less than the Tillek herself. The dolphins at Paradise River were upset when you didn’t return.”

“I got questioned by the Eastern pod,” T’lion put in. “And so did Master Persellan—who forgave me, by the way!”

“That’s a relief,” Readis said.

“And the Tillek asked me when would dolphineers come back to the sea to work with her pods,” Idarolan went on. “So naturally I informed Lord Oterel …” He gestured to the Lord Holder.

“And I asked T’bor of High Reaches and he …” Oterel said, turning to the Masterharper.

“Didn’t know anything about dolphin pods, and while I knew a little from Menolly here,” Sebell said, “I conferred with Alemi, who told me of your disappearance, Readis, and why. I also spoke to …”

“Us,” Lessa said, picking up the tale in her turn, “and I remembered something that Master Robinton had told me about these creatures.” She turned to D’ram.

“And I remembered all the tapes which Aivas had shown of the early days when there were dolphineers,” the old Weyrleader said, and then shrugged. “So the Tillek went to Paradise River Hold and spoke to your parents.”

“She asked us,” Jayge said, looking slightly embarrassed while Aramina ducked her head and nervously twitched the hem of her tunic, one of her Gather tunics, Readis now noticed, “if we objected to your becoming a dolphineer.”

Readis waited.

“It is an honor to be asked,” his mother said softly, hesitantly, before raising her head to look him straight in the eye. “I was once asked to accept an honor”—she shot Lessa a quick glance—“and could not. I cannot stand in your way, Readis.”

“Thank you, Mother,” he murmured, his throat blocked with the surge of relief and happiness.

“You’re in for a lot more training before you can become a Craftmaster, young Readis,” Master Idarolan said, “but you’ve made a fine start. Ahemm …” He cleared his throat. “However, the Tillek plans to instruct you herself, which is why she has come all the way down from her natural habitat.”

“She will?” Readis closed his mouth as soon as he realized that it had dropped open in surprise.

“She has insisted,” Sebell said with a wry grin. “She is the living repository of all delphinic history, tradition, and knowledge.”

“She speaks the best of any dolphin I’ve ever heard,” Readis said.

“She claims it’s because she has had to repeat the Words and the History every spring to all the new dolphins wishing to take the Test. I gather that’s swimming across the Great Subsidence whirlpool.”

Readis nodded and then asked softly, “I wouldn’t have to do that, would I? I mean, I’m a good enough swimmer but …”

Sebell wasn’t the only one to chuckle. “She’ll set her own test, and you should know that you’ve already passed the critical entrance examination.”

“I did?”

“You did. That’s why she brought you to us.”

“You’d have all just gone home?” Readis was astonished.

“No, we’d’ve gone in and brought you back home, lad,” Alemi said, “and no blame.”

“Oh!”

“Listen!” Menolly said, holding up one hand. “Listen!”

“To what?” Idarolan asked, but now Sebell held up his hand, too, and they fell silent. Even the sailors in the rigging and on deck stopped what they were doing, as the odd but melodious sound reached their ears,

“Music, but where is it coming from?” Sebell said, glancing around the ship.

“I’ve heard that before,” Aramina murmured to Jayge, and leaned close to him. “Only it’s not—quite—the same.”

“It’s not so lonely a sound,” Menolly said as she swung slowly to face the sea. That’s when those on deck saw the wedge of leaping dolphins coming alongside. Suddenly Menolly jumped back in surprise as a loud squee was clearly heard.

“The big one’s back, Master,” one of the seamen in the rigging said, pointing. He, too, involuntarily flinched away as the Tillek reared high from the sea.

“Readis,” she said plainly before she fell back into the water.

“Coming,” he said, and started toward the rail. Then he paused, startled by his own compliance, and not sure he could just leave the eminent company on the Dawn Sisters’ deck. “Do I just go?”

“When your Master calls, lad, you go,” Idarolan said, grinning, and giving him an encouraging push on his way.

“We’ll drop the supplies off at your caves,” Alemi shouted after him.

“Listen well, learn hard,” Sebell added.

“We’re proud of you, son,” his father said just as Readis arched himself in a dive over the railing and into the sea, carefully aiming at the space left free for him by the dolphins waiting there.