The Dolphins of Pern (15 page)

I
love you, T’lion
, Gadareth said in such a vehement tone that T’lion was a little comforted. Until he saw the triumphant expression on K’din’s face. He closed his eyes, trying to close his ears against the joyous sounds of squeeing and clicking the two dolphins were making as he waded out of the water. I like
the dolphins
, Gadareth said.
They have such fun and make things fun for us, too.

Don’t talk to me about doll-fins right now, Gaddie. You don’t know what they’ve just done.

I know. Path knows. Path is glad if her rider is to have a baby.

T’lion groaned as he obeyed T’gelian’s hand signal to mount the young bronze.

“You’ll come, too, K’din,” T’gellan said, and his expression was suddenly severe. “I want you where I can see you. We’re flying straight.”

Mirrim had mounted Path, water dripping from her wet legs and clothing and running down the green’s sides.

“Keep it a low flight,” she said. “We’ll dry out as we go, but I don’t want it fast either.” She did not so much as look in T’lion’s direction, which depressed him even further.

Schools of fish and warnings of shoals and squalls were well within a dolphin’s abilities, but this? T’lion allowed his body to move with Gadareth’s upward leap, but he felt wooden, and scared, and totally miserable. How could Natua and Tana treat him so? Just when he needed them to show at their very best. He’d never even had a chance to ask them about weather bearing down on them, or schools in the sea off Eastern Weyr …

The straight flight, though it wasn’t actually that far, seemed to take ages. His clothes were dry and his nose burned enough to hurt by the time they reached Landing. K’din’s smugness became slightly tinged with awe as he followed his leaders into the Admin and right up to the table where D’ram was currently serving as visit monitor.

“T’gellan, Mirrim, how very good to see you!
Monarth and Path are well? And here’s T’lion again, and this is your older brother, isn’t it, T’lion? A noticeable family resemblance.”

“Good day, D’ram, Tiroth looks fat and fine up there in the sun,” T’gellan said pleasantly but with an unmistakable urgency in his tone.

“A problem?”

“Yes, and one which only Aivas can solve for us. Is there any free time to query him?”

“Yes, certainly. Try the small conference room. T’lion knows the way.”

T’lion would have given anything right now not to be so well known to D’ram. As the ex-Istan Weyr-leader gave him a smiling permission to proceed, T’lion shrank in on himself.

“Lead on, T’lion,” T’gellan ordered, an indefinable expression on his face as he followed.

T’lion trudged disconsolately toward the conference room and utter humiliation, a short walk that seemed as long as the flight straight.

Monarth said they would like to have a baby
, Gadareth told him in a cheerful tone.
Path agrees.

But what if Tana can’t know? What if she’s wrong? I’ll die!

No
, Gadareth said, his tone chiding him for rashness,
because you would not like me to die, too, would you?

No, of course not!
T’lion gave himself a shake. Whatever happened now, he still had Gadareth. No one could part him from his dragon.

He pushed open the door.

“Aivas, it’s T’lion here with Weyrleader T’gellan and green Path’s rider, Mirrim,” he announced to the
screen. Only when he had caught a reproving glance from T’gellan did he mutter K’din’s name.

“What is the topic of your discussion today? The dolphins?”

“How did he know?” Mirrim asked in an undertone.

“Because T’lion usually reports on the progress of his meetings with the dolphins, Mirrim,” Aivas said, and Mirrim winced, having forgotten the acuteness of the facility’s “hearing.”

Mirrim came straight to the point. “One of the dolphins, Tana, said I was pregnant”

“If the dolphin noticed an alteration in your womb, she is likely to be accurate.”

A profound silence fell on the small conference room.

“Well, now, how? I didn’t even know myself, Aivas,” Mirrim said, easing herself onto a chair. “I mean …”

“Dolphin sonar—”

“That was the word she used!” T’gellan exclaimed. “Sonar … What is that?”

“Dolphin sonar is the means by which they navigate across the oceans of Pern, sending out signals and reading the sound waves that return to them. Sonar also informs the dolphin of minute changes in body mass. Dolphins accurately diagnose not only pregnancy but bodily tumors and growths and often other illnesses in their early stages. Medics—healers in your current parlance—relied on dolphin diagnostics as unique and correct.”

“You mean, Mirrim
is
pregnant?” T’gellan asked.

“If a dolphin has pronounced it, indubitably she is with child.”

T’lion looked from the radiant smile that suffused Minim’s face to T’gellan’s proud posture. Out of the corner of his eye he caught the grimace on his brother’s face, but he was careful not to exhibit his elation at Aivas’s verdict. He didn’t want to prod K’din into further acts of retaliation. It was enough that he, T’lion, was right, and he mentally kicked himself for doubting the dolphins. But he hadn’t had any idea they could “see” into human bodies!

“Perhaps this facet of dolphin abilities has been overlooked?” Aivas asked after T’gellan and Mirrim had shared a happy embrace.

T’gellan looked at T’lion, who shrugged.

“I think we should ask the Weyr healer to look into the matter,” T’gellan said. “Would the dolphins see infections that lie under the skin and then erupt?”

“The records so indicate. Do you refer to a puncture wound?”

“Yes, I do. M’sur nearly lost his leg because it wasn’t until he saw the red lines of blood poisoning that he realized he had a severe injury. Persellan had a time saving his life and his leg!” Then T’gellan turned to T’lion. “I think we’d best inform the Healer Hall at Fort about this.”

“D’you think they’ll believe you?” Mirrim said with a laugh. Her left hand hovered on her belt, fingers spread over her belly as if she still couldn’t credit the diagnosis.

T’gellan shrugged, grinning. “They can or cannot as they so choose but I’ve a duty to inform them.”

“There’s a healer here at Landing, isn’t there?” Mirrim asked. “Oh, thank you, Aivas, for your time.”

“You are welcome, dragonrider Mirrim.”

“My gratitude, Aivas, on several counts.” T’gellan gave T’lion a reassuring grin. “That meeting with your dolphin friends took a most unexpected turn, lad. We thank you. Mirrim’s lost two babes because she didn’t know she was pregnant. We don’t want to lose another. Come.” He put one hand on Mirrim’s waist, guiding her out the door. “We’ll inform D’ram of this. He’ll see that the Healer Hall is informed.”

“Yes, best coming from him,” Mirrim agreed, but she beckoned for T’lion to walk beside her on their way out.

It took a moment or two for D’ram to absorb the astonishing news; then he rose from his chair and heartily shook T’gellan’s hand, beaming at Mirrim.

“It’s always been a problem for Weyrwomen to know when they have conceived … and stay out of
between
in the first few months. You’ll have women flocking to the shores to speak to dolphins.”

“I’m not sure that’s what we want,” T’gellan said, somewhat alarmed.

“Oh, well, yes, but I shall inform the Healer Hall and they can make what arrangements they find useful.”

“If they believe the story,” Mirrim said.

“Oh, I know a few who are open-minded enough to investigate—especially if Aivas has verified the matter. First I shall ask Aivas to give me what information he has on the diagnostic abilities of the dolphin. Nothing like the printed word to reassure.”
Then the old Weyrleader turned to T’gellan. “You were wise to confirm this with Aivas instead of dismissing the matter.”

“It was certainly worth the trouble of flying here straight,” T’gellan agreed, smiling fondly down at his weyrmate. “Though I won’t deny I found it hard to credit. Sorry about that, T’lion.”

“Oh, that’s all right, T’gellan.” T’lion could honestly say now that his friends were vindicated. “I didn’t believe it myself, you know.”

If T’lion found himself appointed as dolphin liaison—a word Kib suggested to him from his revived vocabulary of Ancient terms—for the skeptical medics who did come, sometimes with patients, more often not, he had no objections. It kept him out of K’din’s way and made it less likely that any tale K’din might concoct would discredit him in the Weyrleader’s eyes. Persellan, the Weyr’s healer, a journeyman from the southernmost tip of South Boll, was nearly scornful as he announced that it was impossible to detect a pregnancy so soon after conception. But Tana neatly demolished his disbelief when she pinpointed yet another festering puncture wound in the arm of a weyrchild who kept complaining that his arm hurt. The headwoman had been sure it was an attempt to avoid his chores. Not only was Tana correct about the infection, but she touched her nose on exactly the point that the skeptical Persellan was to poultice. The next morning the infection had come to a head, and in it could clearly be seen the needle-fine thorn that had caused the problem.

Thorns from a variety of vegetation on the Southera
Continent were a constant problem to the healers. Most people wore little in the hot summers, so there was more bare flesh that could be invaded by a casual brush against leaves and plants. Even tough dragon hide was not impervious, though the protective layer just under the skin was rarely penetrated. More often it was the rider, scrubbing his dragon, who found a thorn embedding itself in a water-soaked hand.

Not by any means thoroughly convinced of this method of diagnosing pregnancy, Persellan did bring women in various stages of
known
pregnancy to test Tana and other members of her pod, who seemed eager to prove their abilities.

It was, however, a broken bone that persuaded Persellan. A broken bone, moreover, that had healed badly just below the elbow, inhibiting the free use of the woman’s right arm. She had come to discover if she was pregnant again, a condition she didn’t wish to continue since she considered that three children were more than enough to saddle the Weyr with.

“Bone broke. Healed wrong,” Tana told Persellan. “Here.”

“What about a baby, fish?” the woman, Durras, demanded even as Persellan seized her arm, his trained hands finding the thickened joint. “I’ve had no bleeding in two months.”

“How long ago did that happen?”

Durras jerked her arm out of his grip, scowling at the healer. “I didn’t come about the arm. I was a child when it broke. Fish, what about the baby?”

“No babbee, but full womb. Not good. Needs cleaning out.”

“What?”
The woman backed out of the water and ran up the sands and away from the dolphin.

“What do you mean? Full womb? Needs cleaning out?” Persellan asked. He had been startled by Durras’s reaction but, in his long apprenticeship, there had been not infrequent occasions of interrupted flows where the patient had later had severe and constant abdominal pains, and several instances where the woman had died—and where his only recourse had been heavy doses of numbweed to ease the pain.

“Growwwwsse,” Tana said, trying to enunciate a difficult word. “Bad things.”

“Growths?” Persellan asked. Intrusive surgeries were not a facet of healing, though he knew that some specially trained healers were actually cutting into a human body to relieve some conditions. Aivas had had much to tell the Healer Hall, but very few had actually undertaken operations. He’d heard that the Hall had authorized after-death examinations. Even thinking about such intrusions made him shudder, but valuable information had resulted. “Did the Ancients cut into a body to remove growths?”

“No need. Opening is there. Clean out. Then have babbee.”

“How? What opening?”

“Main one down below. Way babbee comes.”

Persellan shuddered again. The very idea of entering by that passage was repugnant. Still, a healer was often required to perform measures unpleasant, and even hurtful to the patient, to restore health.

The next surprise Persellan had came later that eventful morning when T’lion came to summon him to the bay.

“They’re bringing in an injured dolphin. Natua and Tana say you’ll need to sew him up.”

“Sew up a dolphin?” Persellan halted in the act of reaching for his healer’s bag. “Really, T’lion! That’s enough!”

“Why?” T’lion demanded. “You do dragons when they’re cut.”

“But … fish?”

“They are not fish, Healer, they’re mammals, same as humans, and Boojie won’t heal properly unless you stitch the wound.”

“Have you seen it?”

“No, but Tana asked. She’s helped you, now you help her.”

Persellan could not fault that argument, but he muttered under his breath all the way down to the beach about having to extend his practice to heal sea creatures. The moment he saw the long deep gash he was set to turn right about and return to his Weyr.

“There’s no way I could close that Why, the—creature would bite me … or something. The pain would be intense.”

“Numbweed,” T’lion said, stubbornly blocking Persellan’s path and sending Gadareth an urgent plea to come help.

“How do I know numbweed would help? It might even be dangerous!”

“Tana told me. She said Boojie’s too young to die, but he will if that wound is not closed.”

“How’d he gouge himself like that?” Persellan continued to argue even as T’lion pulled him toward the water and the swarm of dolphins clumped together
in the shallower water. “I don’t even know if stitching’s the answer.”

“Sew Boojie,” Tana said. Then, daring water almost too shallow for her to swim in, she pushed the healer with her nose toward the injured dolphin, being kept afloat by podmates.

“Come
on
, Persellan,” T’lion said, up to his chest in the water.

“How can I possibly … It’s so absurd!” the healer cried, but a stiff nose in his crotch pushed him forward. “Stop that!” And he batted his free hand at Tana’s importunate melon. “I simply don’t know how to go about … Shock from such a wound, not to mention suturing … I mean, I’ve never
done
anything like this in my life.”