The Dolphins of Pern (33 page)

“I think all of these can come out,” Persellan said, his voice not half so accusatory now. “It’s a jagged
enough seam, but I perceive that it was also a jagged wound. Who’s this?”

“Cori,” T’lion said, almost white with relief.

“Cori. Well, you’re a lucky … young dolphin,” Persellan said, just catching himself before saying “young girl.”

He had relaxed enough now that he even smiled as he neatly severed and pulled through each suture. He stroked Cori’s side before giving her a farewell scratch under her chin. She squeed and clicked as she swam free, but turned back to him and, looking up in his face, said quite clearly:

“Perslan good man. T’ank you, t’ank you, t’ank you.”

Just then, her dam, Mel, pushed herself against T’lion. “Tlon, hand,” she said.

“Hand?” T’lion held both up, looking puzzled.

“Hold your hand open under water,” Alemi said, having a notion what was to happen.

“My hand?” But the dragonrider had done so, and in an instant Mel dropped something from her mouth into his hand. He held up a smooth oval varicolored shell that glistened in the light. “Oh! It’s lovely,” he said, and forgot his disgraced state long enough to hold the gift up for the others to see.

“That’s one of those bivalve shells,” Temma said, impressed. “You don’t see many unbroken ones,”

“Thank you, Mel, I will treasure it,” T’lion said, and Mel’s bright eye watched him as he carefully tucked it under his clout waistband.

Then Angie presented herself before Persellan and surprised everyone by lifting herself out of the water high enough to touch her nose to Persellan’s lips. “I
kiss t’ank you. I clever-member old t’ank you.” At which point she dove down and away as if embarrassed by her actions.

“My word, my word,” Persellan said through the fingers of his hand that he had raised in surprise to his lips.

“You’re more popular with the dolphins than the weyrchildren, Persellan,” T’gellan said with a laugh. “Maybe you ought to let T’lion copy those animal treatment files as well as the ones that got soaked.”

“Well, I’m not sure about that, Weyrleader,” Persellan replied, but from the expressions fleeting across his face, it could be assumed that he might be reconsidering. He glanced in T’lion’s direction, though he didn’t quite look at him. “I was far more upset that the boy had borrowed without permission what he knew was invaluable …” T’lion looked down at the ripples breaking against his legs, making futile hand motions as Persellan continued. “But, in all honesty, now that I see how well he used the information in the book—despite its damage—I cannot hold the grudge.”

Relief and disbelief shining in his eyes, T’lion looked up. “I am sorry, Persellan, but I didn’t know what else to do and there was no one to ask …” The bronze dragonrider held his hands out to the healer in entreaty.

“Ask the next time,” Persellan said, once more stern. “But I think next time we should both be more knowledgeable about the necessary procedures. You did say there was considerable documentation on the treatment of dolphin ailments and injuries?”

“Yes, there is. And D’ram said that I could copy anything you felt you needed …”

“Readis was to do the copying,” Jayge said.

T’lion, still flushed with absolution, looked anxiously at the Holder. “I thought he’d be here. It’s not like him to be absent. Or …”

“I was hoping that he would be here, too,” Jayge said quietly.

In the sudden silence, T’gellan cleared his throat and started wading out of the water. Alemi, Persellan, and Temma followed him.

“But he went back to the Hold with you,” T’lion said, anxiety clouding his eyes. He looked up and down the strand as if he momentarily expected Readis to burst through the thick vegetation.

“He left the Hold the day after and has not been seen since.”

“Oh!” T’lion looked anywhere but at Jayge’s face.

“You haven’t seen him?” Jayge asked, though he knew now that the answer would be negative.

T’lion shook his head. “I’ve spent every free moment up at Landing. Persellan insisted that since I borrowed the book, I should copy it, not Readis. I thought you’d just made him stay here”—T’lion gestured toward the Hold—“to help clean up.”

Jayge shook his head.

“Oh, that’s not like Readis, sir,” T’lion said earnestly. He opened his mouth to ask another question and closed it without speaking. “If you asked T’gellan, maybe he’d let me and Gaddie sweep-ride?”

Jayge made eye contact and saw the concern in T’lion’s eyes. He gave a nod. “I will ask. I would appreciate
the help. The last I saw of him he was crossing the bridge and heading west on Delky.”

“Oh, if he’s on Delky, I’m sure Gadareth and I can find him.”

Then they waded out of the water to where the others were drying off and dressing. Jayge asked T’gellan if T’lion could be spared to do an errand.

T’gellan gave Jayge a long look before he flicked his fingers to grant permission. “T’lion has an appointment at Landing for his evening’s stint of copying, but he may do your errand until then.”

T’lion was so certain that he and Gadareth would find the truant in a short sweep down the coastline that he went off in very good spirits indeed. Readis would be so glad to know that all had ended well; that Persellan had grudgingly approved the suturing and would now learn more about dolphin medicine. The next step would be to get Persellan to let him assist and maybe even work as an apprentice—at least in the dolphin healing. There wasn’t a Hall for sea-creature medicine, and Masterfarmer Andemon had made it very plain that he didn’t consider them part of his Craft’s mandate. But if dolphins could get hurt, they had the right to be healed. He and Readis might be the only two on Pern to consider that imperative, but two were better than none,

How far could he have got, Gaddie? Even on Delky’s back?
T’lion asked his dragon as they skimmed the treetops—where treetops still existed. This part of the coast had taken a ferocious beating. T’lion thought that should make it easier to find Readis.

When an hour’s flight along the coastline failed to turn up any sign of his friend, T’lion had Gadareth turn slightly inland and fly a second search pattern. They coursed back and forth, occasionally landing in a likely clearing to see if there’d been a fire or anything that suggested human presence. They startled a very large furry creature at one point, and only the size of the bronze dragon deterred the beast from charging at T’lion. Instead, it went crashing away from them as fast as it could run.

Darkness came and a weary and discouraged T’lion stopped briefly at Paradise River Hold to inform Jayge that he had had no success in his search.

“I’ll ask T’gellan to let me try again tomorrow. He can’t have gone too far from here in just three days, sir. He might not have realized it was me and Gad-die, and hidden. I’ll try again and we’ll call for him. And—” T’lion had the good sense to break off there when Aramina appeared on the porch, hoping for good news. “I couldn’t go as far as I should have, perhaps,” he added in a self-deprecating tone of voice. Readis’s mother had been crying and she looked awful, T’lion thought. “I’ll try again tomorrow. I know I’ll find him. Don’t you worry now. Got to get back to my Weyr before T’gellan flays me.” T’lion backed off the porch with that sentence and raced for Gadareth before he could be questioned. He certainly had no answers.

B
ELJETH
, Adrea’s queen, forwarded the alert to Ramoth, whose immediate reaction—a stentorian bugle—reverberated around the Bowl of Benden Weyr, startling everyone and bringing the riders out of the Lower Caverns, where they had been eating.

Lessa, K’van says now is the time
, said the queen.

“Toric would, wouldn’t he?” Lessa said. They had been just about to sit down to a fine late lunch. “Sailing on the dawn tide, is he? I’ll
enjoy
giving Toric his just desserts.”

F’lar wistfully eyed the meat pie that was steaming on the table, and the assortment of early vegetables that would accompany it, the hot fresh bread and the sweet berries that would have made an excellent meal. With long strides, he collected their riding gear and deposited Lessa’s in her arms.

“I knew we should have eaten when the others did,” he muttered, breaking off some of the bread and stuffing a hunk in his mouth. Then he grabbed a handful of the berries and crammed them in, too. The
juices dribbled down his chin as he went to get Mnementh’s harness down from its peg.

Lessa followed his example, and stuck the rest of the bread into a half-closed jacket before she took down Ramoth’s harness. The queen was swinging from side to side, her head low, waiting for her rider to slip the harness on.

Does every rider know where he or she is to go?
Lessa asked Ramoth as the golden queen shivered the harness down her neck into place. Lessa buckled the straps, then pulled on her gloves.

Yes
, and Ramoth dragged out the sibilant vocally as well as telepathically. Her eyes were bright, shot with orange eagerness.
This will be fun. Not like fighting Thread.

“Just don’t get to like it too much, my fine queen,” Lessa said. She closed her jacket, wrapped her single braid around her head, and jammed on her riding cap, fastening the chin strap. With a jump to Ramoth’s forearm, she deftly snagged the one dangling strap, and pulled herself into place between the last two neck ridges. “I devoutly trust we won’t have to do this exercise more than once!” Then she grinned. “Well, this
is
the second time.”
Let’s go, dear heart.

Ramoth walked the last few lengths to the ledge of her weyr. Mnementh was above her to the right, F’lar already mounted.

The half-dozen bronze dragons and the other Benden queens who were to take part in this “lesson” were making their way to the rim of the Bowl. Mnementh asked Lessa if everyone involved had been alerted, and Ramoth said that Beljeth had conveyed
the message to every other Weyr. Lessa grinned.

F’lar says we should move out now
, Mnementh informed the Weyrwoman.

Ramoth gave one more bugle and sprang into the air, spiraling upward, upward above the rim of Bowl, outlined against the farther hills by the late-afternoon sun.

Mnementh flew proudly beside his queen, looking over at her.

Admiring your queen, Mnementh?
Lessa asked.

We fly well together
was the response, and she grinned as she heard the smugness in the bronze dragon’s tone. No other had even come close to catching Ramoth in her mating flights, despite the fact that every bronze, and two very audacious browns, had tried.

As soon as F’lar judged them far enough above the Weyr, Mnementh gave Ramoth the order to go
between.

This day’s maneuver took a little longer than F’lar’s capture of Hold ladies the day that the Hold Lords had attempted to storm Benden Weyr. This time, it was the Lord Holders who were being peremptorily required to accompany the Leaders of every Weyr while bronze riders awaited their arrival at each of the fraudulently settled sites. The golden queens would see that the ships that had set sail so blithely from Toric’s harbor tacked right back the way they had come.

F’lar and Lessa checked at all eight illegal sites to be sure that each had been inspected by a Lord Holder and Weyrleader, and that the men and women
found there were loaded on dragons for transportation back to Southern Hold. The queens who were on ship duty told Ramoth that they’d never had so much fun. The ships had not gone so far from their home port that they would delay the confrontations the Weyr-leaders had planned for Toric.

The Lord Holder of Southern heard the shouts and cries of alarm where he sat in his hall, eating a belated morning meal. He had seen the ships leave port and been well satisfied with the sight of their sails billowing with the brisk eastward wind. Without knowing why Toric had asked to know when the weather would be fine for a long sail, Master Idarolan had sent a fire-lizard message that the winds would be propitious today and the weather fair for several days. Toric had even noticed the dolphins who escorted the ships out of the harbor, leaping and plunging in their witless fashion. Then he had come back inside and spent a pleasurable hour figuring out the profit on this enterprise and realizing that it would, as he had hoped, offset the expenses of establishing new Holds on the Seminole peninsula. He disliked resorting to the Ancients’ names—they’d had their chance and lost it to Thread—but since Aivas had identified places by what it had in its memory, the old names for the Southern Continent had been seized upon with great enthusiasm as “a link with their heritage.” Toric was not of that mind. He had the future to plan for and that was what he’d been doing while everyone else on the planet seemed to be wallowing in ancestral accomplishments and striving to reconstruct all sorts of devices. He was probably
one of the few who did not regret the silence of Aivas or the demise of the old Harper—who had been a meddler of the first order.

As Toric had weeded out the “right” sort of settler from the ones who had come, purse in hand, he was reasonably sure he wouldn’t have a repetition of the Denol treachery. Those whom he had chosen to stay on Southern would listen and obey him. And he had sufficient knowledge of the ones he had shipped off to know they would have to obey him when the time came. That was all he required of
them!
Obedience to his orders. Or else. He smiled to himself. Once this Pass was over …

His smile died as he became aware that the noise outside his Hold had changed in pitch, rising more often to an angry babble and punctuated with shouts or cries. Not at all the sort of sounds that should go with the event that had been inaugurated this morning. While he was well aware that the residents of the Hold had been complaining for months about the overcrowding by the settlers he’d planted in their quarters, the extra bodies were now gone. His holders should be happy to have regained their privacy now that the ships and their passengers had sailed off.

He was on his feet, annoyed that his contemplation as well as his meal were being interrupted by some stupidity when the Benden Weyrleaders appeared in his doorway.