The Dolphins of Pern

PROLOGUE

KIBBE GAVE the bell rope one last pull. He and Corey had been taking turns all morning, but now the sun was descending over the high ground and still no one answered them. Usually someone came out of Man’s place on the dock, even if only one of the boat people. But the boats rocked at anchor under the high wharf, and it was obvious that no one had gone out in them, even to bring in fish, for some time.

Corey clicked at him in disgust. The others of their pod had long gone fishing on their own, too bored to see if there might be humans to feed them when there were plenty of small fish to be gleaned at this time of year from the rich northern waters. She “blew” her hunger at him, so annoyed with the lack of human attention that she refused to Speak.

“There has been illness. Ben told us that,” Kibbe reminded her.

“He was not well,” Corey replied, reluctantly employing Speech to impart the concept. “Humans can die.”

“They do. It is true.” Pod Leader, and one of the oldest in their pod, Kibbe had had two dolphineers as partners. He still fondly remembered Amy, his first one, She had been as much fish as he, even if she had to wear the long-feet and had no fins. She had given the best chin scratches and knew exactly where she had to slough off old skin. When he had been injured, she had stayed in the water by his cradle through the days and nights until she knew that he would recover. He would never have survived that long gash if she hadn’t sewn it up and given him the human medicines that prevented infection.

Corey had had only one person, and she hadn’t seen him in a long time. That accounted for why she was so skeptical. She hadn’t had the long association with humans that Kibbe had enjoyed. He missed it. They had worked well together; and there were still many long stretches of coastline to be mapped, and the locations of fishing schools to be determined. The work had seemed more like fun, and there had always been time for games. Lately all he had been able to do to keep the Dolphin Contract with men was to follow the ships, to be sure no one fell overboard without a dolphin to assist his rescue. He wasn’t even sure if his warnings about imminent storms were heeded: humans sometimes disregarded advice, especially if the fish were running well.

Kibbe was one of those who had been chosen to serve time up near the northwestern subsidence, where lived the Tillek, chosen of all the pods for her wisdom. The name given the pod leader was also traditional. He had been taught, as had other dolphin instructors, why dolphins had followed humans to this world, far from the waters of Earth, where they had evolved: the chance to inhabit clean waters of an unpolluted world and live as dolphins had before technology (he had learned to pronounce that word very carefully) had spoiled the Old Oceans of humankind. He knew, and taught this despite the astonishment it caused, that dolphins had once walked on land. That was why they were air breathers and were required by Nature to surface to inhale oxygen. He listened to tales so old not even those who had taught the Tillek knew their origins: that dolphins had been special messengers of the gods, escorting those buried at sea to their special “underworld” place. As dolphins considered the seas to be underworld, this caused some confusion. The humankind underworld was where “souls” went—whatever “souls” were.

One of Kibbe’s favorite tales was the one the Tillek recounted with great pride: how dolphinkind had once honored those who had died when one of the spaceships had been wrecked in the sea-sky. Since then, the dolphins of Pern had honored those burial rites with their escort. It was a ceremony the humans had not asked the dolphins to include in their traditions, but they always seemed grateful for it.

Learning the names of the dolphins who had slept the Great Sleep and accompanied humankind to these clean new seas of Pern was an important lesson. From these names came the ones chosen for the new calves, to celebrate those first dolphins and those that were born in the Years Before Thread. The names had been set to dolphin music and could be sung on longer journeys in the Great Currents; the name song was always sung before the young dolphins attempted to cross the great whirlpool at the northwestern subsidence, or even the smaller one in the Eastern Sea.

There were some matters taught by the Tillek that had to be learned simply because they mattered as details to the whole story. The Great Sleep, for instance, puzzled even the cleverest calf, male or female, because dolphins did not require sleep. To have slept for fifteen years was an incredible thing. Although they knew to call the sparkling light points in the skies “stars,” there seemed to be a very great many of them, and the Tillek could not tell them which had been Old Earth. Humans had had a device that allowed them to see longer, but because stars were in the air, dolphins could not sound them. There were three points of light, at dawn, and again at twilight, which were constant. The Tillek said those points were the spaceships that had brought humankind and dolphinkind to Pern. They must take this on faith, she said, for she had had to learn these facts from the Tillek who had taught her. This was fact as well as faith and must be believed, though never experienced. It was History.

And History was another of the Great Gifts humankind had given dolphinkind. History was memory of things past For the sake of History, dolphinkind had been given the Greatest Gift: the ability to speak. For with the Greatest Gift they could repeat the words of History: words that were sounded as humankind sounded speech, not as dolphins did. And they could speak to humans and to themselves the things that were made of words and not sea sounds.

Kibbe had been very good at learning all the words that humans had used with dolphins, and all their special underwater signals. He was good at singing the words, too, so that the young ones of his pod were familiar with them should they be chosen to go to the waters of the Tillek and complete their training. Kibbe knew the traditions by which humans and dolphins lived in a special relationship: Dolphins would protect humans on or in the water to the best of their abilities, in whatever weather and unsafe conditions, even to the giving up of dolphin life to save the frailer humans; they would apprise humans of bad weather conditions, show them where the schools of preferred fish were running, and warn them off sea hazards. The humans promised, in return for these services, to remove any bloodfish that might attach themselves to dolphin bodies, to float any stranded dolphin, to heal the sick and treat the wounded, to talk to them and to be partners if the dolphin was willing.

In the early days on Pern, humans and dolphins had taken great pleasure in exploring the new seas, and those had been momentous years: the years of the life of the human Tillek whom all had revered. A dolphins’ bell had been sited at Monaco Bay, and land and sea beings had promised to answer the bell whenever it was rung. In those days the young dolphins had each had a human partner, to help with the exploration, to explore the seas and the deep abysses and the Great Currents, the Two Subsidences, Greater and Smaller, and the Four Upwellings. There had been courtesy, each to the other, land-and seafaring humans.

The Tillek always spoke respectfully of humans, and severely disciplined any calf who used the term “long-foot” or “finless.” When the silly fins complained that humans no longer kept their end of the ancient agreement, the Tillek would tell them, at her sternest, that that did not absolve dolphinkind from practicing theirs. Humankind had had to stop exploring Pern in order to guard the lands against the Thread.

This would set the silliest to clicking nonsense noises of amusement. Why didn’t humans eat Thread the way dolphins did?

The Tillek’s reply was that humans had to live on land, where Thread did not drown but attacked human flesh like bloodfish, sucking the life out of it. And not over a long period of time but immediately, so that all life was gone from the body in the course of several breaths—indeed, the flesh of the human body was completely consumed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“They have dragons who fly.”

“Not everyone has dragons to fly.”

“Do dragons like us?”

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

“How can they swim with those great wings?”

“They fold them to their backs.”

“Odd creatures.”

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

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

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

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

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