The Dolphins of Pern (28 page)

“No,” Lessa said with a devious smile, her eyes sparkling,
“they
will be beholden to us for the peace and tranquility after this Pass is over!” She liked that.

“We must still wait carefully for the appropriate moment, my heart,” he said, but he, too, smiled in anticipation.

“I wager you that it’s Toric who provides the excuse,” she said. “He’s greedy and he’s never forgiven us for deceiving him at the true size of the Southern Continent.” Her grin was sweetly malicious as she recalled that victory.

“You say that every time the subject comes up, so you’re probably right about him,” F’lar said equably. “Still, he’s done more to properly site new settlers than anyone else.”

“Especially that group that tried to take over his island.” Lessa gave a very girlish giggle of amusement. “He’ll never let us forget that one. Still, we were right not to interfere.”

“Then,” F’lar said in a significantly weighted tone. They’d reached the table where they’d been eating a
light meal, when Talmor had appeared. He lifted the klah jug and felt it. “Cold. Let’s see what’s going in the lower cavern. That way we’ll be harder to find.”

They grinned conspiratorially and, hand in hand, made their way back to the stairs of the weyr and down across the Bowl to the kitchens.

The dolphins gave warning, ringing the bells that were now situated in ten locations on the coasts. They rang the big bell at Tillek Sea Hold early that morning, though Tillek was farther north than the storm’s course. But the pod that swam in the great bays also knew that the Masterfishman Idarolan was pod leader for all fish boats and should know what affected his Craft. In appreciation of dolphin help to all seafarers, Master Idarolan had had built a really fine dolphin marina where they could bring the injured and sick animals of the Western Sea.

Idarolan himself answered the bell, well wrapped up against the chill of predawn.

“Bad blow, bad bad
bad
blow,” the pod leader told him, waggling her head while her podmates nodded emphatically. The dolphins couldn’t measure wind speeds in any gauge comprehensible to humans. They did not have to cope with winds, merely high seas, and then they’d either swim to calmer waters or
through
combers. In fact, they often delighted in the rougher seas as ways of testing their skills. But they did understand the dangers that such storms posed to humans.

“Ships can sink in bad bad bad blow. Blow against rocks.” Of which there were many on the less hospitable western coastline.

“Exactly where do you think it will hit?” Idarolan asked. He’d had a harper drawer make up a huge map of Pern, the seas in the bright primary color the dolphins could recognize as “sea” as opposed to the “dark” landmasses. He lowered this now, close enough for Iggy to nose out the storm’s course.

She indicated the vast expanse of water just below the Eastern Current and skidded her nose under Southern Boll, aiming it directly at Southern Weyr and Hold. “Blow big there. First land. Blow all day, all night, all day, all night. Looooong blow. Warm water, much cold air.” Iggy shook her head at the unfavorable mixture. “Blow blow blow bad bad bad.”

Her podmates squeeed high and loud to stress the dangers.

“We’ve some ships out …” Idarolan ran through the list of those he knew from this port. “Fishing …”

“We swim, we see, we tell,” Iggy promised. “We warn Iddie pod leader.” Iggy loved to say the Master-fishman’s name as it was so much like her own.

“I appreciate that very much, Iggy.” He held out the first fish from the pail always kept full by the bell, and she rose neatly to accept his offering. Then he flicked out thank-yous into the other waiting mouths. He had good aim and none of those who had accompanied the messenger were slighted.

Master Idarolan trundled back to his warm Hold and started writing messages for fire-lizards to carry. He sighed as he did so for it was likely that the fleet finny friends of the deep would relay the warning far faster than even fire-lizards could be dispatched. His first message went to Lord Toric, for that man would
batter his crafthall with complaints if such news was not sent first to him.

There had been rather a lot of storms in the past two Turns, and Master Idarolan had heard whispers that this was due to the alteration of the Red Star’s orbit. Master Wansor of the Smithcrafthall, who had made a study of the stars, and one of his own leading Seamasters who had learned the Craft of meteorology from Aivas had ridiculed the possibility, but that hadn’t kept it from being repeated, and credited by those without the specialized knowledge to recognize its fallacies. Idarolan had sat in on as many of Aivas’s lectures on weather formation, winds, and currents as he could make time for. There were valid reasons for the formation of both calm, clear weather and storms. The weather satellites established by the Ancients still gave back their information but not always were they read a-right. The dolphins were more reliable than instrumentation set at Landing, so far away from the point of the depression. Not for the first time, Idarolan wondered how they’d ever gotten along without dolphins.

Lord Toric was roused from a deep sleep by the chittering of a fire-lizard and the noise his own were making at the arrival of a newcomer. He wasn’t best pleased. He had worked late the previous night, going over the recent maps made by his scouts, checking and rechecking the organization of his next move. He had made contact with all those he had felt would be eager to assist in his dramatic move. He’d also sounded out which of the Lord Holders also felt that Benden Weyr should not have the gift of southern
lands. Even Lord Groghe had wavered slightly from his loyalty to the Weyrleaders. After all, he had ten sons to place to some advantage. At every Fort Gather over the past three Turns, Toric had been planting suggestions in the boys’ ears, intimating that they ought to have the same opportunity as Benelek or Horon. He’d put a flea in the ear of young Kern of Crom, Lord Nessel’s third son and Nabol’s second son. He’d selected older journeymen, competent and resenting the promotion of others to Mastery above them.

He cursed as he read Idarolan’s message about the storm—it meant he’d have to delay the start of his big plan. It could also mean more chance of someone—and his “someone” translated into “dragon-rider”—discovering his carefully concealed sites. Or questioning the provision of every one of the Hold’s small fishing fleet. So far, the young Weyrleader K’van had accepted the offhanded explanation that Toric was resupplying his southernmost mine sites before the hot season. The sites across the river had not been detected, hidden as they were in dense foliage. The dragonriders had long since surveyed the coast. All that land … and his Hold bursting with eager, new, hand-chosen settlers, determined to secure and improve their own holds, looking favorably on him because he had granted their most earnest desires.

He had had to swallow a great many slights and insults from the Benden Weyrleaders, who
thought
they were going to carve up all these lands to their own specifications. Well, they would find opinion against them now. Too many people were aware of the extent
of the Southern Continent and were discontented over the dragonriders’ claim of first choice. For Turns they had had the best that Pern had to offer. When the Pass was ended and their services were no longer needed, a far different tune would be struck for them to dance to. And he would make sure of that!

He heard the bell that his Fishcraftmen had insisted be installed in the deep harbor. The shipfish may have proved unexpectedly useful in telling fishmen where the schools were running, but he was not at all their advocate. He resented talking animals: speech was a human attribute. Mammals or not, the creatures were
not
equal to humans, and there was no way he would change his mind on that score. Humans planned ahead: dolphins only cooperated with humans because humans amused them, created “games” for them to play. Life was not a game! The very notion of providing amusement to an animal irritated Toric to the core. And he didn’t like their latest “game”: patrolling the coastline. He had his own plans for the coastline. He fingered his lips thoughtfully.

They’d seek safety in the Currents during this storm, then, and that might be the best time for him to make his move: before the storm was quite over and the dolphins had returned to their customary waters.

He rose then, pulling on his clothes, ignoring his wife’s sleepy murmurs. If he was to push this scheme through on the end of the gale, he had work to do.

When the storm swept down on the southern peninsulas protruding northward in the Southern Sea, its
battering winds were the fiercest experienced in most lifetimes. Even longtime fishmen were amazed. Though its eye was well south of Southern Boll and Ista, coastal holds were battered and the seas flooded low-lying lands, crashing up beaches to inundate seaside cotholds and fields that had always been high above ground. Coming as it did during the equinox, its fury was double that of normal storms, battering the lands right up to the hills.

Along the southern coast it uprooted the shallower rooted, flexible trees that generally bowed with wind. The storm rolled gigantic combers as high up the Weyr cliff as the Weyrhall, shredding part of the roof and demolishing many of the little buildings that housed riders. Nothing stood in its way. Especially Toric’s plans. The deep harbor, usually a safe enough anchorage, was as storm-tossed as the outer sea, and men struggled to save the ships, many half-laden for their “downriver” journey. Some crew, riding out the storm on their craft, took serious injuries and had to remain there, tended for three long days and nights as best their mates could manage, until the storm finally blew itself away from Southern.

It made good speed, and gathered more, as it headed obliquely south-southeast, blasting toward Paradise River and Cove Hold.

Although the warning served by the dolphin pods was immediately heeded, the exact definition of “bad bad bad” became all too apparent as the weather worsened and the whistling twisting winds pounded the coast. No one had anticipated such a lengthy and ferocious storm.

Paradise River ran high, flooding the line of cotholds
and forcing Jayge and his family to the nearest high ground, which was also threatened. The riverside farmlands were inundated, too. With the season’s crops all gathered in, at first everyone felt safe enough. But the storehouses were not much more than roofs on posts to keep the sun off material; most of those structures lost their roofs and had their contents blown away. It was too late to try to lash down bales and crates: the wind tossed these indiscriminately as lethal flying objects. Herd-and runnerbeasts who were pasturing in the more open fields were later found lodged in now leafless tree bolls, a strange fruit. It took days to round up those that had fled from the savagery of the storm. Some animals had to be destroyed when they were found with broken legs or wounds that had become infected during the three days in which they had been untended.

At Landing, the storm flag was flown from the mast that had once floated the ancient colors of a forgotten homeworld to the breeze. Somewhat protected by the three slumbering volcanoes and the fact that the storm was blowing itself inland, Landing suffered relatively little damage. Monaco Bay took heavy surf and lost the dolphin float, but not the bell that had clanged for hours in the gale. Eastern Weyr got lashing rain and high winds, but not the punishing blow that had devastated the coastline.

As soon as he could, Readis made a wet journey down to the bay, to ask Alta and Dar to find out if his folks at Paradise River were all right. Kami insisted on coming with him, because a frantic message from Cove Hold told them that Master Robinton’s house had been flooded and many of the things that the
Harper had valued had been destroyed. She was terribly afraid that Paradise River might also have been devastated. It took a long time for the dolphins to answer the Report sequence: Readis and Kami ended up taking turns at the bell rope.

When Alta finally answered, she told them that while some of the pod had remained on duty in case a ship had been out in the gales, the others had swum to the northern and quieter seas. She said she would sound a message to pass to the Paradise River pod. So Readis and Kami waited until nearly full dark before they received an answer. The blow had been bad bad bad but humans were well, wet, and tired.

“Dolphins hurt. You go help?”

“Badly?”

Alta ducked her head under the water and came up. “Don’t know. You go.”

Further distressed by such unexpected news, Readis thanked Alta and apologized for having no fish to give her.

“Ah, the fish run well and deep,” she told him, and then backflipped away.

“Who
got hurt?
How
badly?” Readis demanded of Kami, who remained silent as they started on the long walk back. “I wish they could be more explicit. Shards! It’ll be ages before we find out.”

“I’m sure Master Alemi is already helping, Readis,” Kami said soothingly.

They were both startled, and Readis cried out with relief, when they heard a dragon’s trumpeting above them, the sound almost lost in the still brisk after-storm wind. It was Gadareth and T’lion.

“Could you take us to Paradise River, T’lion?”
Readis begged when rider and dragon landed. “There’s been dolphin injuries, only Alta couldn’t say who or how badly.”

T’lion didn’t bother to dismount, leaning over to give them a hand up to Gadareth’s back.

“That’s bad news.” T’lion looked concerned and Gadareth turned his head back to show the orange of worry in his eyes. “I was just at Landing and heard you’d walked down here. Look, I’m supposed to report in at Cove Hold. It was badly flooded but I can certainly get you home first. At that, the wind’s only just died down enough for dragons to risk flying. Gaddie couldn’t lift far enough off the ground to go
between.
That storm was incredible!”

As soon as Gadareth lifted from the roadway, the three were buffeted by the winds—Readis clinging to T’lion, who had his safety straps buckled on, and Kami clutching Readis so hard she hurt his ribs. Dragon flight was usually smooth, but this morning even Gadareth was subjected to unexpected drops in the few moments it took him to reach transfer height.