The Dolphins of Pern (9 page)

With a Gather to attend, Masterfishman Idarolan was quite willing to stop over a day to see these “doll-fins” of Alemi’s.

“Catch two fish on the one hook,” he said drolly to his craftsman, his eyes surveying the neat fishhold that Alemi and his two journeymen had constructed.

Alemi had had to sternly keep under control his eagerness to prove dolphins’ intelligence to Master Idarolan because, of course, Menolly’s arrival had to be celebrated. It had never once occurred to Alemi that his
sister
would appear to harper at Paradise River. It had certainly thrown everyone into intense and exciting surprise. Keenly aware of the prestige of her husband’s sister, Kitrin had been all for giving up her beloved house, but Alemi had laughed.

“Menolly’d refuse to accept the offer, dear heart,” he told his wife, “especially with you further along in pregnancy than she is.”

“But she’s the Masterharper!”

“She’s also Menolly, my sister, and hasn’t really let her exalted position go to her head.”

So Kitrin launched into a full-scale baking and cooking operation to prepare for the evening’s eating.
“After all, we can’t be lacking in any courtesy to a Masterharper, especially your
sister
Masterharper.”

Alemi laughed and left her organizing the other fishmen’s wives to produce the specialties that abounded in Paradise River Hold at this time of the year.

It was a very late evening, but tremendously enjoyed by all the Paradise River holders, hungry for new songs and new faces. Menolly had sung and sung, request after request, as well as the newest songs. Without, Alemi noticed, mentioning which she had herself composed, though somehow he knew which those were. Her style was inimitable. She’d made him harmonize with her on some of the sea songs they had both learned from Harper Petiron as children. Alemi was genuinely glad that they’d have a long-delayed chance to enjoy each other’s company—in ways they had not when living at Half Circle Sea Hold.

As Alemi, done with duets and back in the audience with Kitrin, listened to his sister’s lovely, rich deep voice lilting up and down octaves, he was more amazed than ever that no one at Half Circle Sea Hold—with the exceptions of old Petiron and himself—had recognized her talents and encouraged her. He had been furious with his parents’ vindictive attitude when she’d cut her hand on a venomous packtail fish and it looked as if the injury might prevent her ever playing again. They had been so
pleased!

“Why are you grimacing like that, ’Lemi?” Kitrin asked in a low voice during a brief pause in the singing
while Menolly had a sip of juice and chatted with her audience.

“What you said about my parents,” he replied cryptically.

“What? When?” she asked, surprised.

“Oh, their lack of appreciation of our Menolly.”

“Oh, that!” Her tone was scoffing. “What they miss, we can enjoy the more. You two sounded well together. You ought to sing more often at Gathers. And that was such a lovely ballad about Landing. Imagine! People just like us made that incredible journey across skies to begin a new life here. Just as we have at Paradise River, in a way. And we didn’t have to sleep fifteen Turns to get here.”

Alemi patted her shoulder and chose not to remind Kitrin of how difficult she had found settling into their new hold. Menolly’s song was doing its job, he thought, and his grin broadened. He had always respected his sister’s abilities as a singer; now he respected the song for its subtleties. Still, that was what harpering was all about, wasn’t it? Getting people to think and feel and, most of all, learn. The Fishercraft fed bodies, but the Harpercraft fed souls.

Having had Master Menolly for a spell, would Paradise River be able to cope with whatever journeyman was willing to come to such an isolated place? Well, he’d still be singing the good songs she introduced.

Maybe—and here Alemi allowed his mind to spiral upward with aspiration as Menolly struck a rousing chord on her gitar—maybe the dolphins would make Paradise River that much more attractive. He must give that notion more thought. First, he reminded
himself, he had to convince the Masterfishman that the dolphins could become more than acrobatic … mammals … that liked to outswim ships.

Though Alemi hadn’t had much time, he had used his ship’s bell one evening—sort of tentatively, almost afraid to ring it loudly for fear no dolphin would answer the summons. He waited and, when nothing happened, he gave the bell one final ring in the Report sequence mentioned in the instructions Aivas had printed out for him. It probably wasn’t loud enough to attract dolphins.

“Bellilll! Bellilll!”

He had to listen hard to be sure he wasn’t imagining the cry, ringing across the evening waters. The setting sun was in his eyes and dancing across the water, obscuring his view. He heard the unmistakable cry again and saw the leaping bodies of half a dozen dolphins, speeding shoreward. He nearly sank to his knees on the float in relief. He genuinely hadn’t thought he’d get a response.

“Bellill! Squeeeeee!” “Bellilll! Reeeppppporrr-eett!”

The gladness in the cry repaid Alemi’s efforts.

As the instructions had indicated, the dolphineer should reward respondents, and so he had provided himself with a pail of small fishes that weren’t worth the effort of salting or smoking. Since dolphins were quite capable of catching as much as they needed for themselves, he wondered about the custom. Still, it was a hospitable gesture. Humans offered klah or fruit juice to every visitor, when everyone had the same commodities in their own homes. It was the principle of the offer.

“Who’s here?” he asked. “I’m Alemi.”

One dolphin, his gray skin colored pinkish by the setting sun, wriggled up out of the water. “Know you! Sayve you ‘n’ caff!”

Alemi tossed him a fish. “Thank you again.”

“Sayve mans me, too!” squeaked a second dolphin, winding itself out of the water on its tail.

“And a fish for you! A fish for all you who answered the bell!”

“Bellill! Bellill.” The dolphins seemed to put another vowel in the word, and Alemi laughed as he threw fish to them.

“Reporit?” one of them asked. Alemi thought it was the first one that had spoken to him, but he couldn’t be sure: they all seemed to look the same in the dusky light. But by the time he had emptied the pail, he had noticed distinguishing scars on several head domes—he thought some were similar to ones he’d noticed at sea in the dolphin vanguards—and that they were actually different sizes and somewhat different shapes.

“I just wondered if you’d come if I rang the bell.”

“Bellill bring pod. Aw-ways! Heyar bellill, come.” While Alemi understood the words they were saying to him, he could see what Aivas had meant about language shifts. Did they really understand what he said to them? Should he correct their pronunciation? Aivas hadn’t said anything on that account Well, he could only try, and it was better for him to speak as he normally would and maybe improve their speech as he went along. “Good! Please come always when you hear the bell. I’m getting a bigger one made.”

“OO-we ring? Oo-we ring bell. Mans answer?”

Alemi burst out laughing at that cocky query and was bold enough to reach out and rub the nose of the dolphin who had spoken.

“Gooddee. Gooddee. Skraaaabb blufisss now? …” There were those odd words again, which apparently were very important to the dolphins.

“Blufisss?” he repeated. “What are blufisss?”

“Deese …” Kib rolled half over so that his lighter-colored belly was visible. There, stuck to his side, was a nasty-looking patch that Alemi, when he peered more closely at it, recognized as a bloated sucker fish, a creature every seaman knew would cling to an open wound.

“Bloodfish … Of course, blufisss!” Alemi said, mimicking the dolphin’s higher-pitched tone. “How could I have been so dense!” He slapped his hand to his forehead. He grabbed the bloodfish by its head and tried to dislodge it, but it seemed glued to the dolphin’s side. “Well and truly sucking, isn’t it? I don’t have a fire out here …” Sailors usually touched the head with an ember or a brand.

Kib turned faceup and raised his upper body out of the water. “Nifff.”

“Won’t a knife just make the wound worse?”

“Oooold fisss. Small hole.”

“It’ll hurt,” Alemi replied, wincing.

“No eeeeert more good gone.”

“If you say so …”

“Ooo-ee ssay so. Good good good. Mans do good good good for dolphins.” And Kib heeled over so that Alemi could attack the parasite.

His knife blade was sharp enough to shave the bloodfish off. He had to dig slightly to remove the
sucker, but that left only a small hole in the longer-healed gash.

Two more ecstatic dolphins had him remove bloodfish, one very close to the dolphin’s genitalia. When he had excised the parasites, each dolphin did happy aerial rotations and dove and jumped about. He also got to notice them as individuals. Kib had a healed slash along his lower jaw and was the largest male. Mul had blotchy coloring and had had the parasite near her tail. Mel had the longest nose, while Afo was the smallest female. Jim seemed the most acrobatic—certainly he displayed it by walking a long distance on his tail when Alemi had rid his belly of the pests—and Temp was definitely fatter than the others. Aivas’s notes had remarked that dolphins had a thick layer of blubber just under their skin, which kept them warm in cooler waters and generally provided temperature controls.

When the quick tropical dusk deepened into full dark, with the tree whistlers beginning to sound off, he bade them good night

“Good night,” he called as he climbed up the short ladder to the pier head.

“Tanks for blufisssing cuttings. T’anks good good good. Nigh … nigh … su-leap tigh …”

He heard, more than saw, the shapes leaping easily in and out of the water and heading back out to the Currents.

Once again Afo’s pod had good news to sound to all quarters, to tell that the mans had taken off troublesome bloodfish. Mans had not forgotten their duty to dolphins. They heard other good newses on the sonar
echo, for now several ships would feed the dolphins who escorted them out to fish. Sometimes, though, the ships did not follow the dolphins once they were far offshore so that the places of the best fishing went untouched. The Tillek was asked how to teach mans to do the right Dolphins remembered. Why did not mans?

Afo could say with pride that her mans remembered. He had had to be reminded and shown but he had taken out his steel and done the service. A few more needed to be freed of the parasites but he was one mans and there were many in the pod which already had had good good good luck They had a bell at Pardisriv and they had had one removal Alta and Dar sounded that the bell was not yet up where the Moncobay pod could ring it. Soon. The Tillek sounded back that they must be patient. When the bell was up, she would come to see mans now they were back to their First Place. Perhaps there would be a Tillek among the mans who would remind mans of their part of the Bargain.

Although Master Idarolan had imbibed as deeply as everyone else at the Gather, he rowed himself ashore from the
Dawn Sisters
as the sun lifted above the horizon. A gentle following sea made the journey easy. Alemi was there to meet him, a cup of hot steaming klah in his hand. Turns of early mornings had made it almost impossible for Alemi to sleep past daybreak.

“Thanks, lad. Ah, that’s a grand cup,” Idarolan said, smacking his lips after his first judicious sip of the hot liquid.

Alemi offered him a basket of fruit and some of the leftover Gather breads.

“Didn’t think there’d be a morsel after my crew took their haul from the tables,” he said, helping himself to pastry. Unobtrusively he was peering into the wide windows of the hold. “Nice place you’ve made here. As neat as the yard! Shipshape. I like to see that, not that a son of your father would be anything else.”

“Ah, mention of Master Yanus, ah … I trust, Master Idarolan, that … ah, you would be …”

“Not mention your doll-fins to your sire?” Idarolan laughed, his eyes crinkling into well-established wrinkles, carved by wind and sun. “Not likely, though I like to see a man accept something new and different—now and then. Someone who latches on to just any newfangled—”

“The association of humans and dolphins is not newfangled …” Alemi said firmly.

“Certainly not if you got your information from Aivas itself!” And now Idarolan did chuckle, deep in his chest. “Masterholder Yanus is a fine seaman, trains up a good apprentice, has a good feel for Nerat Bay weather and a solid knowledge of his own coastline …” Idarolan paused, then glanced sideways at Alemi, his eyes twinkling. “But, as a man to accept a new idea … oh, no. Doesn’t trim sail that way.” He leaned closer to Alemi, at the same time dipping his hand into the bread basket again. “Between you and me, lad, he doesn’t believe there
could
be such a … creature, a device, like Aivas. No, there can’t be such a
thing
as this Aivas.”

Alemi rubbed the back of his head, grinning. “Doesn’t surprise me a bit.”

“Surprises me that Yanus and Mavi could produce children like you and Master Menolly.”

“She’s
the real surprise.”

Idarolan shot his craftsman a quick look. “At least
you’re
proud of her.”

“Very!”

“You’re why she came, you know. Told me one night she’d never had a chance to get to know you but you were the best of the lot.”

Alemi stared back at his Master. “She said that? About me?” He felt his throat get tight with pride and love of her.

“Not that ship journeys don’t get people saying things they’d never admit to on solid ground,” Idarolan added slyly. “Come, lad, pour me another cup of klah and then show me these doll-fins of yours.”

“Dolphins.” Alemi absently corrected the pronunciation as he refilled both cups. He reached for the second pail—with the half-eaten breads and cakes. He hadn’t any fish left over from yesterday’s catch to give and didn’t know if the dolphins would accept human food. Then he led the way, taking the track that crossed directly from his house to the jetty.