The Skies of Pern (25 page)

“
Look!
” One of the youngsters had noticed the dolphins. “Da, da, the dolphins! They’re squeaking their warning calls. But there’s no storm! What’s wrong with them?” So the boy was the first to see the dragons out of the corner of his eye, heard the grunts as dragon feet made contact and skidded in the soft sand, backwinging adroitly to a halt.

“
They are warning you
,” F’lessan shouted, hands cupped about
his mouth. “
That fireball in the sky. It will land in the sea and cause tidal waves. Worse than the worst storm you’ve ever been in
.”

“We can hear you, dragonrider,” said one of the men, turning slightly toward F’lessan without taking his eyes off the fascinating orange ball that was far more of a spectacle than three dragons.

“They’ve gone!” cried the youngster with keen disappointment. He whirled at the dragonriders as if their appearance had frightened the dolphins.

F’lessan was intensely relieved that not a single dorsal fin remained visible. They might be cutting it fine to reach safe depths, but they’d kept their pact with humans once again in giving an alarm.

“The dolphins … the shipfish,” he continued in a voice loud enough to reach those still mesmerized by the vision, “are warning you. Surely you know they consider that their duty to all sea folk.” He pointed at the man who had challenged him.

“Yeyah, they let us know where fish schools, when squalls’re coming, but never seen ’em act like that before.” The man preferred to watch the sinking fireball than attend the dragonrider.

“Look, man, it’s not just Thread that falls from the skies!” F’lessan said. “We’re here to move you to the cliffs, up there, high enough to be away from the wave.”

“Wave?” Another man walked toward F’lessan, his expression patronizingly amiable. “We’re well above the high tide …”

“Not this one,” F’lessan said.

“Ah, now, bronze rider, I can see you ain’t even wearing Monaco’s badge. What call have you to—”

“We’re Monaco!” C’reel said and St’ven nodded emphatically “Listen to F’lessan, Golanth’s rider!”

“We’re evacuating you,” St’ven added. “All the coastal holds. Every Weyr is helping!”

F’lessan swung his leg over and slid down, gesturing for the brown riders to dismount. Maybe face-to-face, not perched on a bronze dragon, he could instill some urgency for the present crisis.

“Who’s Seaholder?” he asked, striding as fast as he could across the soft sand to the crowd.

“Me!” The first man jerked a thick, scarred thumb at his tanned
chest. He wore the customary sleeveless top and shorts. He had strong hairy legs and was barefoot, toes splayed in the sand. “Binness, Journeyman, FishCraftHall!”

“Journeyman Binness, we are acting under orders from T’gellan, your Weyrleader and—” F’lessan had a sudden surge of inspiration—“MasterFishman Curran, to evacuate all your people to high ground.” He gestured broadly to the western arm of the cliff, higher by a half dragon-length than the eastern one.

Binness chortled. “Don’t try that one on me, bronze rider. The Master’s way east at Tillek as he should be.”

“It makes no difference where he
should
be, Journeyman,” C’reel said, losing patience. “He
is
at Landing, meeting with everyone trying to save lives.”

“Binness, wake up and listen!” F’lessan said. “When that thing hits the ocean,” and he pointed to the bit of the fireball still visible on the horizon, “the biggest wave you ever had nightmares about is going to come straight to this bay. There’s no Ring island in its way to break its crest and this holding is going to be
drowned
!” He scissored both hands together to indicate the totality of the disaster. He caught sight of his watch, visible as his jacket cuff pulled up. “In one minute, that fireball hits the ocean. You might be able to see the cloud of steam that the impact creates!” Again he pointed northward.

“It’s gone!” a woman cried, flagging her hand in a pathetic farewell to the novelty the fireball had presented to an isolated community.

F’lessan closed his eyes at the waste of time. Two hours to move over a hundred people, and whatever possessions they could grab, and he hadn’t even managed to get them to see the gravity of their peril.

“You’ve a far-seer,” he shouted, abruptly noticing the one slung in a holster at Binness’s side. “Take a
good
look!”

Binness did use the glass, more as an accommodation to the dragonrider’s whim than because he expected to see anything. It took him more precious time to focus the instrument. Only because F’lessan knew exactly in which direction to look did he see the top of the rising cloud.

“Sompin’s there, Binness,” one of the net-bearers said. “He’s right about that. You know my far-sight’s good.”

“Yeyah,” Binness grudgingly admitted. “Probably a storm.” He collapsed the telescope and returned it to its keeper.

“Dolphins was warning us then,” another fisherman put in his opinion.

“Why … will … you … not … believe … me?” F’lessan demanded, spacing his words as he sensed the passage of such valuable time. “Pack your belongings! We’ll convey children, your aunties and uncles first.”

The reaction of the women was to hug their children to their legs, suddenly frightened of his presence. F’lessan struggled to control his aggravation. Didn’t they trust dragonriders? T’gellan was a good Weyrleader.

“Look, spread out that fishnet,” he said, pointing to the nearest man with one draped across his shoulder. “That will carry a lot.”

“Ever had a ride a-dragonback?” C’reel asked, hunkering down by the youngster who had seen the dolphins.

F’lessan kept checking his watch. Maybe he’d just have to wait for the shock wave to hit to prove that an emergency existed. Being nearer the point of impact, this Seahold would feel it a lot sooner and harder here. It’d be seismic, wouldn’t it, traveling ten times faster than sound along the rock of the seabed. They’d feel it, then hear it!

Right up through his boots—and the bare feet of most of the seaholders—came the shake! A
boom
that beat eardrums with its intensity. Several people fell to the sands; even the dragons were unbalanced, raising wings to steady themselves.

“D’you believe me now, Binness?” F’lessan demanded, brushing sand off his leathers.

Two of the women began to keen, nearly as unnerving a sound as dragons made when one of their kind died.

“Believe you, dragonrider!” The Journeyman could also see the disturbed ripple of the waves in the bay. “
Go! Go!
Pack!” Wide gestures of his arms sent the women scattering. “Lias, spread that net. Lads, go with your mothers. Collect everything you can carry. Petan, get the other nets. You sure your dragons are strong, bronze rider?”

“As strong as they need to be, Journeyman,” F’lessan replied, grinning. He gestured for C’reel and St’ven to help spread nets. “We’ll need rope …”

“Line …” C’reel corrected him when Lias looked puzzled.

“Line, then, in the corners, to make a knot for the dragons to lift the nets with. Where’s the most sheltered place up on those cliffs, Binness? Are there woods? You’ll need shelter. There will be winds and rain, not to mention the high seas.”

“Plenty shelter a-top,” Binness said, deftly flipping another net wide on the sands.

A lad came running up with a rocking chair.

“No, no, furniture will come last,” F’lessan cried, waving the boy and the chair to one side. “Bring pots, pans, food, necessities,” he called as the scared boy dropped the chair and sprinted back to the largest cothold.

“That’s my old dam’s chair,” Binness said, pausing to prop his fists challengingly against the wide belt, which had knife sheaths as well as the telescope holster.

“Where is she?” F’lessan demanded.

“Coming. Lady Medda’s coming.” Binness pointed to the largest cothold. Two women, their hands making a seat, were hurrying out with an old woman, white braids bouncing. “Joint-ail but she runs us right well!”

“She can be the first to go.” If the woman managed the hold, then F’lessan would station her where she could do some good.

“She’ll show you where!” Binness shouted back, grinning maliciously before he grabbed a piece of line and tied it to the back of the rocking chair. “Where?” he asked F’lessan.

Shards! But it wasted time to argue with him. F’lessan swung his arm in Golanth’s direction. “Loop it on the third neck ridge. I’ll take her myself and the two carrying her.”

He ended up with far more draped on his bronze than the delighted Lady Medda, whose wrinkled face suggested nine or ten decades of living. She was in high spirits as she settled on Golanth’s back, shouting orders to those who jumped to obey.

“Use tablecloths for the food and loose things. Bring the water skins. Stuff each pot with what comes to hand. Dragonriders don’t haul empty space when you can fill it with something useful.”

C’reel’s brown Galuth had two younger women on his back, with two children apiece, and rough packs hung from the neck ridges and trailed down his backbone. St’ven was leaning over Mealth’s side at a dangerous angle to be sure nothing was spilling out of the first of the packed nets the dragon lifted from the sand.

It took much more time to disencumber the dragons on the summit. To his disgust, F’lessan found the knots with which Binness had tied the rocking chair were hard to undo. Awaiting her usual seat, Lady Medda was upright on the trunk of a fallen tree and continued her stream of succinct orders, using a frond to keep the biting insects from her. Beyond her, Mealth carefully maneuvered his net to the ground, and landed beyond it to let his passengers off. The old lady gave a whoop of a cheer for such precise flying. F’lessan struggled with the knot until the youngster who’d seen the dolphins came running over. With a pitying look and a flip of one trailing end, the boy released the knot and the rocking chair was loose.

“You should know how!” he accused F’lessan and ran the chair to his grandmother.

F’lessan rued not his ignorance of sea knots but the time consumed fussing with them. Time! Time! He vaulted—not as effortlessly as usual—astride Golanth. The bronze ran toward the precipice, wings wide, and fell off the edge. When F’lessan heard shocked cries of alarm from behind him at Golanth’s timesaving exit, he grinned.

Binness and the other men had filled two more nets and held up the knots for the browns to grab. F’lessan managed five children, two more women, and a string of sacks down Golanth’s back on the next trip. He could see women and girls filing up the uneven steps zigzagging up the cliffside, everyone laden with so many bundles he wondered how they moved.

On his way back down to the sands, he saw that one of the fishing dories had been manhandled up over the dune high-tide barrier. Four men were racing seaward, obviously to get a second one. “Don’t let them talk you into conveying their boats,” T’gellan had warned him.

“We can’t handle
that
!” F’lessan cried, leaping off Golanth’s
back to confront a belligerent Binness. Beside him was Lias, equally determined.

“No boats, no fish, we starve.”

“We sailed ’em all the way down from Big Bay, dragonrider,” Lias put in, his wizened face fierce. “Days of sailing. We can’t abandon them.”

Gasping for breath, the other four arrived with a second dory.

“The masts’re unstepped,” Binness said, as if that made transport feasible. It would make them less unwieldy. “We can rig the hulls to be lifted like you did the nets. We got the line.”

F’lessan delayed his answer, wiping sweat off his face and neck. Did they have the time? He glanced at the two small craft, then at his watch. These seaholders were about to lose their cotholds, and neither of the dories was longer than a dragon’s body. He saw they were clap-sided, only the sharp V of the transom covered. They couldn’t weigh that much. Lias grabbed a cleat, slung a line quickly about it as if this proof would be sufficient to sway F’lessan’s doubt.

“You said dragons’re as strong as they need be! Be they strong enough, dragonrider?” Binness’s eyes were wide and fierce with an entreaty and a challenge that F’lessan could not resist.

F’lessan swallowed.

“Rope ’em, then. We’ll give it a try. Be quick about it.”

“Three dragons? Three sma’ little dories?” Binness cried, eyes suddenly full of hope again. “Outta the nine boats we got?”

F’lessan groaned. He couldn’t believe he was agreeing.

“Quick, a-fore he changes his mind,” Binness cried, sending off the four who were still gasping for breath. They turned to stagger back down the dune. He and Lias began to secure lines. He paused, tossed a coil of rope at F’lessan. “Start on the second one. Be sure the lines are the same length.”

And F’lessan found himself wrapping lines around cleats on the second dory.

“Everyone out of the holds? Everything you need?” F’lessan cried as the exhausted fishmen arrived with the third hull, collapsing against it, wheezing, their sweating bodies covered with sand where they’d stumbled.

“You, go check!” Binness ordered and the man crawled gamely
to his feet and staggered toward the nearest cot. “Lias, tighten that line. You, rig the portside. You, do a running bowline through the anchor bracket. Make it
real
tight!”

When C’reel and Galuth arrived to find the first ship rigged to be conveyed, the brown rider obviously thought F’lessan was asking too much of them. All sorts of odds and ends, buckets, rakes, hand nets, a pair of sandals, more nets, fish spears, small buoys, floats, light anchors, and even some folded sails had been dumped in the dories.

“Nothing really heavy,” F’lessan said, peering over the new cargo as he wondered how all that had been stashed in when he was looking elsewhere.

“We can do it, C’reel. Galuth can do it!
Up
you go, Galuth!” And he gave the Wingleader’s signal to lift.

Golanth added a roar and Galuth was aloft so fast C’reel’s head snapped, but the brown dragon had the knot in his claws and the dory was rising, swinging erratically in the air. Galuth waited until its swaying lessened and slowly rose, leading the sway slightly. If he didn’t get the height, the ship could be dashed to bits on the cliff. It just cleared the edge. The fishmen cheered and then Mealth positioned himself to receive the knot for the second.