The Dolphins of Pern (3 page)

One eye on the drift toward the Great Current, Alemi hurried the process of reeling the redfin in, Readis cheering him along with reports of the immense size of the fish.

“Get ready with the net, boy!” Alemi called as he maneuvered his catch close to the port side of the skiff.

Readis was ready, but the straggling fish was too much for his young arms, and Alemi flung the rod aside to help. The moment they got the fish aboard, Alemi clouted it on the head, then stepped over it to get to the tiller and alter their course away from the Southern Current. They were close enough for him to see the rapid stream making its inexorable way through waters crowded with fish.

“Wheee, look at that, Unclemi!” Readis cried, pointing a blood-smeared finger at the school of red-fin. “Can’t we fish here?”

“Not in the Current, boy, not unless you want to take a much longer voyage and miss tonight’s Gather.”

“I don’t want to do tha …” Readis’s eyes widened and his mouth gaped as he looked astern. “O-oh!”

Alemi craned his head over his shoulder and caught his breath. Boiling up behind them, and far too close for them to reach the safety of the river mouth, was one of the black squalls that this part of the coast was famous for: squalls that defied even his well-honed seaman’s instinct for storm. A powerful gust of wind smacked into his face and made his eyes water. Even as he moved to secure the boom, gesturing for Readis to perform the emergency tasks drilled into him for just such a situation, Alemi cursed the freak weather, which gave none of the warnings he was used to noting in the Nerat Bay waters where he had been trained.

His father, Yanus, had often berated the folly of men who insisted on sailing the Great Currents when there were quieter waters that held just as many fish but without the hazards. Alemi, rather liking hazards,
had never agreed with his father on that score—among others.

Now he gave a brief tug at the ties of Readis’s vest, grinned a reassurance, and then payed out the sea anchor.

“So what do fishmen do in a blow, Readis?” he shouted above the rising wind that whipped the words from his mouth.

“Sail into it! Or run with it!” Readis was grinning with all the impudent confidence of his age. He leaned into the arm Alemi put around him as they braced themselves in the cockpit. “Which do we do now?”

“Run!” Alemi said, adjusting his course to the gusty pressure against the back of his head and keeping the bow in line with the wave pattern.

This dinghy was a frail craft in the high seas that a sudden squall like this could churn up. Devoutly Alemi hoped this would be a short blow. One large roller athwart the dinghy and they’d be swamped.

The shoreline had disappeared in the blackness of the encompassing storm, but that didn’t worry Alemi as much as getting caught in the Great Southern Current, which could take them dangerously far from land or ram them, all unseeing, into the headland above Paradise River Cove. Hauling the tiller over as far as he dared, he hoped the wind would blow them to starboard, away from the Current and toward land. But winds were as capricious as these seas. He
had
checked the barometer—one of the new tools that Aivas had supplied as a weather aid. Knowing himself more attuned to Nerat Bay’s more pacific waters, Alemi had availed himself of the device despite the
scoffing of other fishmen. He had also studied the weather charts and such information about these waters as the Ancients had amassed in Aivas’s seemingly inexhaustible “files.” Anything that would aid the crafthold and prevent loss of life and ship was not too bizarre to be tested by Alemi.

But the barometer had been steady on Fair when he had left to collect Readis. Too late to worry about that now, he thought as the skiff was bashed sideways by a whitecap. It then dropped down a huge trough, sinking his stomach on the way. Beside him, Readis laughed, even as he tightened his hands on the gunnel beside him. Alemi managed to grin encouragingly down at his brave shipmate.

On the upsurge, the wave seized the small boat and heaved it high on the next crest, then smashed it down again so that water walled them into a dark green pocket, the sea anchor trailing in the air behind them. The skiff lurched, its prow digging into the ascending sea cliff. They took on water and, when Readis would have dutifully reached for the bailing bucket, Alemi tightened his hold on him, shaking his head. The skiff could take on a good deal of water—which would make her somewhat heavier in the seas, all to the good—before she was in danger of sinking. He feared capsizing more. He was glad that he had drilled Readis on how to cope with an overturn. Now he had all he could do to hang on, for a cross rip of surging waves battered the skiff from side to side, as well as up and down. He clung, one hand to the ship and one on Readis, and prayed for the end of the squall. Storms like this one could stop almost as abruptly
as they began. That would be their only hope now: a quick end to the blow.

He saw the mast splinter and break, felt Readis’s tightened grip, and then abruptly they were upended as the cross waves slammed into the starboard side and decanted them into the roiled sea. His grip on Readis tightened, pulling the boy close in to his chest. Over the scream of the storm he heard the boy’s startled, frightened cry. Then they were being milled in the waters, Readis clinging to him like a gray limpet.

Alemi flailed his free arm, trying to reach the surface again. He managed to grab a breath just as another wave pushed them down. Readis struggled in his arms, and all he could do was tighten his grip. He mustn’t lose the boy. Then his scooping hand came hard against something. The upturned skiff? He clutched at a roundness that was not wooden, but firm and fleshed.

Shipfish? Shipfish! Through the driving rain and wash of seawater, he could see shapes all around them. How often they were said to rescue fishmen!

The hard edge of a dorsal fin filled his hand, and his body was swung against its long sleek shape just as another wave crashed over him. No, the shipfish was angling its agile body right
through
the wave and out the other side. Readis’s small body was on the outside, victim to the pull of the harsh waves. Hanging on, Alemi somehow shoved Readis to his side, against the shipfish. In between the sheets of water that covered them, he saw Readis’s hands trying to find some purchase on the sleek, slippery body.

“Shipfish, Readis!”
he shouted above the tumult of the storm winds.
“They’ll save us! Hang on!”

Then he felt another body nudge into him on the other side, wedging him and Readis even tighter, though how the creatures managed that feat in such rough water he didn’t know. But the additional support allowed him some respite; he reset his hand on the dorsal fin and even managed to work one of Readis’s small hands onto the sturdy edge.

Then it occurred to Alemi, as they passed through yet another wall of water, that Readis was small enough to
ride
on the shipfish’s back. It took three more waves before Alemi had hoisted Readis astride the shipfish. To his immense surprise, the shipfish seemed to be helping by maintaining as straight a line through the plunging seas as it could.

“Hold on! Hold on tight!”
Alemi cried, firmly wrapping Readis’s small arms around the fin. The boy, his face a scared white but his mouth set in a determined line, nodded and half crouched behind the fin, like the rider of a sea dragon.

A surge of relief caused Alemi to momentarily loosen his grip on the top of the fin, and he floundered about. Almost immediately, a blunt nose bumped him authoritatively, and the next thing he knew a dorsal fin was nudging his right hand. A wave crashed down on him, tumbling him in the water, away from the safety, and he had to fight his panic. But the shipfish was right beside him, pushing him upward With its snout. They both broke the surface together and Alemi thrashed toward the creature, grabbing the dorsal with both hands, only to be thrown sideways against the long body by the next
whitecap. This time he managed to retain a grip with one hand. He fought the panic that wanted both hands on this one source of stability offered in the stormy sea and, relaxing into the movement, found the courage to surrender to the shipfish. As they dipped and plunged through the next wave, he saw Readis, crouching over his mount’s back. He saw the phalanx of escort on either side and knew that their protection was solid.

Then it seemed as if the squall was lessening, or perhaps they had been conveyed to its fringes where the water was calmer. Either way, their passage improved. Looking in the direction he thought land should be, he saw the smudge of the shoreline and almost cried with relief.

“Wheeeeee!”

Startled by that cry, Alemi turned as he saw a shipfish launch itself above the waves in a graceful arc and reenter the water. Others began the same antic, all wheeing or squeeing.

“Wheee!” cried an unmistakably boyish voice, and Alemi looked over his left shoulder to see Readis, now sitting up straighter on his shipfish, grinning with delight at the exhibition. “That’s great!” the boy added. “Aren’t they great, Alemi?”

“Grrrreat!” But it was a shipfish who repeated the word, spinning the
r
out.

On all sides, shipfish were crying “Great!” as they continued their leisurely vaultings in and out of the sea. Alemi convulsively tightened his grip on the dorsal fin. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The stress of the storm, perhaps a blow to his head, or plain fear, had addled his faculties. His companion
raised its head and, water shooting up out of the blowhole in the top of its cranium, clearly said, “Thass great!”

“They’re talking, Unclemi, they’re talking.”

“How could they, Readis? They’re fish!”

“Not fish! Mam’l.” His rescuer got out the three words in a loud and contradictory tone. “Doll-fins,” it added clearly, and Alemi shook his head. “Doll-fins speak good.” As if to emphasize this, it began to speed forward, hauling the dazed Masterfisher along at a spanking pace.

Readis’s doll-fin and the guardian companions altered their course, too, and picked up speed, the flankers still performing their acrobatic above-the-water spins, vaults, and turns.

“Talk some more, will you?” Readis encouraged in his high-pitched young voice. This was going to make some Gather tale. And they’d have to believe what he said because Unclemi was here with him to vouch that what he said was true.

“Talk? You talk. Long tayme no talk,” a doll-fin swimming alongside Readis said very clearly. “Men back Landing? Doll-fin ears back?”

“Landing?” Alemi repeated, stunned. The doll-fins
knew the
ancient name? Wonder upon wonder.

“Men
are
back at Landing,” Readis said quite proudly, as if he had been instrumental in their return.

“Good!” cried one doll-fin as it executed a twist in midair, knifing back into the water without splashing.

“Squeeeeee!” another cried as it vaulted upward.

In the water all around him, Alemi heard excited clickings and clatterings. The area seemed so full of
shipfish bodies that he wondered how they could move without injuring each other.

“Look, Unclemi, we’re nearly back!” Readis said, jabbing his finger at the fast-approaching land.

They had been conveyed so rapidly and smoothly that Alemi struggled between relief that they were so close to dry land and regret that this incredible journey was ending. The forward motion of the shipfish slowed as they came to the first of the sandbanks. Some leaped over it, others followed Readis’s and Alemi’s mounts to the channel, while the majority altered their direction seaward again.

Moments later the smooth transport came to a complete halt and, tentatively lowering his feet, Alemi felt the firmness of the seabed, gradually sloping up to the shore. He released the dorsal fin and slapped the side of his mount, which turned and rubbed its nose against him, as if inviting a caress. Bemused, Alemi scratched as he would his dog or the small felines who were beginning to invade the Hold. Readis’s mount continued past him.

“Thanks, my friend. You saved our lives and we are grateful,” Alemi said formally.

“Wielcame. Uur duty,” the shipfish said clearly, and then, with a swirl, it propelled its body sinuously back out to the break in the sandbar, its fin traveling at ever-increasing speed as it rejoined its fellows.

“Hey!” Readis cried on a note of alarm. His mount had unceremoniously dumped him in shallows where, if he stood on tiptoe, he could just keep his chin out of water.

“Thank the doll-fin,” Alemi called, wading as fast as he could toward the boy. “Scratch its chin.”

“Oh? You like that, huh?” Readis, treading water, managed to use both hands to scratch the face presented him. “Thank you very much indeed for saving my life and giving me that great swim ashore.”

“Wielcame, bhoy!” Then the doll-fin executed an incredible leap over Readis’s head and followed its podmate out to sea again.

“Come back. Come back soon,” Readis called after it, raising himself up out of the water to project his invitation. A faint squeee answered him. “D’you think he heard me?” Readis asked Alemi plaintively.

“They seem to have very good hearing,” Alemi remarked dryly. Then he gave Readis as inconspicuous an assist up out of the water as he could. The boy had been magnificent throughout. He must tell Jayge that. A father sometimes didn’t see his son in the same light as an interested observer.

Tired as they were from the experience, the exhilaration of their rescue provided enough energy for them both to reach the dry sand of the beach before they had to sit and rest.

“They won’t believe us, will they, Unclemi?” Readis said with a weary sigh as he stretched full length on the warm beach.

“I’m not sure I believe us,” Alemi said, mustering a smile as he collapsed beside the boy. “But the shipfish unquestionably rescued us. No mistake about that!”

“And the shipfish—whadidhe call himself—mam’l? He did talk to us. You heard him. Wielcame! Uur duty.” And Readis made his voice squeakier in mimicry of the doll-fin. “They even got manners.”

“Remember that, Readis,” Alemi said with a weak chuckle.