The Dolphins of Pern (36 page)

“I have found caves that lead to the sea and the pools that would be perfect places for dolphins to come to talk to me, where dolphins who were sick could come to be healed. I can take off bloodfish, too. And stitch wounds. D’you want to see?”

“See, see,” squee’ed the dolphins.

“Give me a ride in?” Readis asked, lifting his right hand in the position to grasp a fin.

“Me!” cried Cal, and squirmed her way through to take up Readis’s hand.

There was a bit of splashing and bodies trying to push him away from Cal.

“Hey, wait a bit! You can take turns, swimming me
in,” Readis shouted, and got a mouthful of water. He couldn’t clear his air passage and if not for the vest would have been helpless to remain above the surface.

Almost instantly the scramble ended. Two dolphin bodies supported him until he got his lungs clear, though the seawater he had swallowed nauseated him.

“All right, now, pod, let’s take it easy on this poor human. You take turns so I don’t tire you out. Huh?”

“Tire? What tire?”

“Ummmm, get weary, lose strength,
exhaust.”
Readis made motions of difficulty in swimming. “Like men you rescue, all tired from ship going down.”

Scornful fountains rose from blowholes, and two rolled in contempt for the notion.

“Dolphins swim all around Pern and not weary,” Cal said, her smile deeper than ever. “Swim you to shore is easy. Easy, easy, easy,” Gal said, gently brushing the side of his face with her nose. “We go now. We change. You keep hand up.”

And so he was towed to shore, actually at a much reduced speed than he remembered them taking him and Unclemi into shore after the storm. He changed supports, and there was always a new one, waiting for him to switch. He realized that Cal had come back for a second turn by the time the shore loomed above them.

“To starboard …” Readis gestured right with his left hand. “To the right.”

“Know starboard. Know port. Cal is smart.”

“Cal certainly is. Have you been in these caves?”

“Yessss, been in pools here. Good place. Readisss smart to find good place.” Her voice echoed in the stone cave, and Delky whinnied in fear.

“It’s okay, Delky,” Readis called, worried lest she break his vine rope in her panic.

“You have horsss?” Cal asked, carefully raising herself far enough above the water to put an eye on the startled beast.

“Horss?” Readis laughed. “Delky’s a runnerbeast. And a weed at that. Easy there, girl. It’s all right.”

“Looks horsssish,” Cal insisted. “Name Delky? Delky, I Cal.”

“Runnerbeasts can’t talk, Cal.”

“Pity. We can talk better now we got you to talk to.”

“I think you speak pretty well already, Cal,” Readis said, hauling himself out of the water. The vest had held him up all right, but it had rubbed badly underarm and on his shoulders and neck. He’d have to find something to pad it there. Right now the abrasions stung. He also needed a drink. “Stay put, will you, Cal?”

He rose and had to grab at the wall to keep upright. He hadn’t realized how tired he was, and his bad leg was not in good working order at all. That was the first time he realized that the dolphins never commented on his wizened leg. At least they didn’t seem to care.

Grabbing the nearest of his homemade water bottles, he returned to the pool and found it stuffed full of dolphins.

“Is the entire pod inside?”

“Yes, want to see man’s land place,” Delfi said,
raising her body out of the water to peer about her. “Nice place.” And she dropped back.

“Anybody need a bloodfish scraped off?” Readis asked, wanting to reinforce his usefulness. He was tired enough to be grateful that his offer was not taken up.

“We strong pod,” Cal said with an understandable pride. “Maybe later. When we swim closer in, where reefs and things make cuts.”

“Well, I’m willing to help whenever I can,” Readis said.

“Can’t be dolphineer to whole pod,” Cal said. “Not right. One to one is tradition.”

“Until I can find more folks who want to be dolphineers, I guess I’ll have to be one for the whole pod.”

Readis was surprised to discover that dolphins had a covetous streak in them. But then, dragons and fire-lizards were possessive, one way or another, of the humans they looked to. Runnerbeasts didn’t much care who got on their backs, though Readis had always considered Delky to be especially his, since she’d been a gift. The canines responded better to some folks than to others, so maybe it was one of those universal attributes he’d learned of from reading in the Aivas files.

“How people know to be dolphineers if no one knows who you are?” Delfi asked.

If Readis had needed any confirmation of how intelligent dolphins were, that remark certainly clinched it.

“Well now, you have a point, Delfi,” he said, settling more comfortably on the ledge, his feet dangling.
“Just tell folks that there is now a dolphineer and a dolphin crafthall.” Readis wasn’t exactly certain how one established a crafthall, but Master Benelek had and so had Master Hamian, when he decided to specialize in the plastic materials that the Ancients had made so much use of. Someone had to start someplace, sometime, and for a good reason. He believed that he had one; the care of the dolphins who had been neglected by humans for so long in their struggle to survive Threadfall “Was there a dolphin crafthall at Landing?”

“Where the bell rings is where we go. Is not crafthall?” Tursi asked. Readis recognized him by the network of old scrapes on his rostrum. He was very pleased that he was learning to identify the individuals of the pod so quickly.

“I wouldn’t qualify then—I’ve got no bell,” Readis said.

“No bell?” “No bell!” “No bell!” The phrase went from dolphin to dolphin.

“That’s why I had to swim out to you, I had no bell to ring.”

Clicks and hisses, and much blowing out of their holes as they turned from one to another.

“Tomorrow bell,” Cal said at the end of this cryptic discussion.

“Sure thing,” Readis said amiably, grinning and reaching down to scratch Cal under her chin.

“Give good scritches,” she said, dropping her jaw and leaning just hard enough into his hand to get him to increase the pressure. “We get bell.” Then she flipped up and over the rest of the pod and started out of the cavern.

Tursi had lifted his head for similar attentions; but, as abruptly, he pulled away and followed her out, the rest of the pod streaming behind, starting their characteristic leapings only when they were clear of the rock formations.

Readis watched them go, relieved that he had made such a good start and wondering what they were up to. Bells didn’t grow on trees, after all. And so far dolphins had shown no real interest in human artifacts. He was also relieved to see them leave be-cause fatigue was settling in on him, and hunger. He checked Delky’s water and refilled it, gathered enough dry grass to keep her through the night, and finished the last of the previous day’s fish stew before he gratefully laid himself down, dreaming dolphin songs.

Odd sounds roused him at dawn. By now he was accustomed to the various water noises made as the sea flowed in and out of the main cavern, so this unusual thunk, plus Delky’s distressed snort, got him out of bed.

His arms were stiff and sore where the vest had rubbed him. He wondered what he could use from his small store of clothing to pad it adequately. He slipped his knife from his belt and peered out into the outer cave. Nothing, and no more sounds. Delky snorted again, but she no longer seemed frightened. He peered around the irregular opening to the outer ledge.

There on the stone was a lump, dripping. There were wet patches, too, suggesting that the lump had been deposited by wet bodies. Readis didn’t see a dorsal fin in the cavern, nor could he see one outside.
Straightening up and replacing his knife in the sheath, he went to examine the lump. Halfway to it, he realized it was rounded on the top, and he semijumped in his excitement to examine it. The heavy lump
was
indisputably bell-shaped, misshapen by centuries of encrustations. And it had no clapper, only the stout bar across the inside of the dome where a clapper could be hung. First he’d have to clean it up.

“A bell, my own bell,” he murmured to himself, and he went to collect the hammer he had made, along with other rocks to use in place of proper chisels. “A dolphin bell makes a proper Dolphin Hall.”

While he chipped away the accumulated layers, he kept one eye on the waters leading into the cavern. Dolphins were endlessly curious. Surely they’d come back to see how their offering had been received: to check that he was awake, to see what he did with the bell. He was almost sorry that no single fin cut the water.

He had to take a break to feed and water Delky. By his calculations, there’d be Threadfall sometime today and they’d better stay inside. And not only safe from Thread. He went as far as the patch of root vegetables to pull some to eat later: they were as tasty raw as cooked. He cut enough of the stout grasses to make a rope, broke a branch of a hardwood to make into the clapper arm, and for the actual clapper, picked up several sea-washed, smooth rocks that fit in his palm. He paused long enough by the fish trap to remove two good-sized yellowtails. The trap had been one of his real successes, and he blessed
Unclemi for having taught him how to weave them properly.

He stirred up his fire, put his pot on the firestone to heat water, and then returned to the laborious chipping, pausing now and then to rest or work on the clapper. He hadn’t that long before he had chipped down to the metal. The lip, once he got all the junk off it, was smooth but dull after its long immersion. He wondered if it would polish up. Was it bronze? Or steel? The Ancients had had good steel Or maybe it was one of the other alloys they had favored.

It took him most of the day to clear the exterior, and then he had a time getting his tools in to scour the inside. He stopped only briefly when he heard Delky’s fearful squeal and saw her swinging as far inside the cavern as possible. Outside, the gray rain of Threadfall hissed against the surface of the water. He saw fish heads protruding to eat of the skyborne bounty, but not a single dolphin. He checked Delky’s tether, but it was firm, and she wasn’t likely to bolt out of safety no matter how scared she was. Then he returned to his work. He was constantly scraping his knuckles, and they got bloody and sore from the knocking. He couldn’t quite get the stuff at the very top of the bell but managed to clear the hanging bar so he could attach the grass thong to hold the clapper. So, by the light of his fire, he wove grasses about the roundest of the stones he’d picked up and attached it to the hanger. He had trouble getting the grasses over the bar, partly because the light from the fire had died down so much that he couldn’t really see. Finally, when he realized he hadn’t eaten, he put his work aside, determined to finish that night and have a
proper dolphin bell to ring the next morning, but by the time he had grilled a yellowfish, chewing on a root vegetable while it cooked, and eaten it, he could barely keep his eyes open. His scraped and bruised knuckles hurt, his shoulder muscles were knotted from the laborious chip-chipping, and he never even made it to his bed, curling up by the remains of his fire and falling instantly asleep.

He woke with a start, but that was more from the discomfort of his chilly position on cold stone than from an external sound. His bad leg was very stiff and spasmed, knocking against the bell. It gave a soft
bong
that delighted him. He picked up the clapper arm and very softly tapped the rock against the rim of the bell. Not quite a perfect sound, but indisputably a bell ring! Would the dolphins have heard that muted sound? He needed a belfry, too, and a long rope that would dangle in the water for them to pull.

Quickly, he stoked up the fire, gutted and filleted the second yellowtail, and put it on the cooking rock. Then he picked up the bell and the clapper. His fingers were slightly swollen from the previous day’s exertions, and it took him quite a time—he nearly lost his temper twice—to get the grass around the hanging bar and secure the clapper arm. And then the bell pull.

He made himself eat the fish—it was tastier hot than cold—before he rose, hand on the clapper, and carried the bell to the water ledge. There was a protrusion near the entrance to the cavern. He put the bell down and returned to his supplies for more of the rope he had twisted. At last he hung the bell, wincing every time it issued a small complaint in the process.
Delky kept one wide, white eye on him, not quite sure what he was doing. He hoped she wouldn’t panic when he rang the bell.

The sun was only just up in the east, he noted, so the pod would have finished its morning feed. He couldn’t have timed it better if he’d tried.

Taking a deep breath, he grabbed the pull rope and listened critically to the sound that reverberated through the cave.

“Not bad,” he said as the still slightly sour
bong
echoed in his ears. Then he rang the Come-in sequence. Not that a Report to celebrate the hanging of the bell wouldn’t be appropriate, but Report was urgent: Come-in gave them an option.

As if they’d been waiting just outside the cave for the slightest bell sound, sleek gray bodies glistened under the pool water and heads lifted right under him.

“Bell ring! Ring bell!” “We come!” “We come!” “Reporrit!” “Reporrit!”

“No report, you silly fish faces,” Readis said, laughing with relief and delight. “I only rang Come in.”

“We come in!” “We come in!”

Then the bell rope was yanked out of his grasp and enthusiastically pulled as a dolphin discovered it hanging down in the water.

“Hey, hey,” Readis cried, grabbing for the clapper. The ringing was like thunder all around him in the confines of the cavern. He should probably place it outside or he’d be deafened. Delky was rearing and kicking, screaming with panic. “Easy, there, now. Easy!” He meant the advice for both runner and dolphin.
He was also none too sure that the grasses would hold under such ardent manipulations.

Then he knelt down at the side and delivered scratches on all the chins that were presented. “Where did you find that bell? I couldn’t believe it when I saw it yesterday morning. It took all day to clean it up.”