The Dolphins of Pern

CHAPTER VIII

“DOLL-FINS?” Lessa demanded, her eyebrows rising in black arcs of astonishment. She stared at Alemi, glaring fiercely until Masterharper Robinton laughed at her.

“Dolphins, Lessa.” Adroitly he corrected her pronunciation. “They have been mentioned. They came with the original settlers and have been happily plying the seas, saving lives when they could, and waiting until humans remembered them. Aivas is very interested in reestablishing the association.”

She blinked at the Harper. “Well, I suppose I do remember some mention of the sea creatures, but there’s been so much else going on …” Her tone chided him for bringing up a subject that she plainly considered irrelevant and immaterial.

“They’ve been around longer than dragons,” he said teasingly. “And they’re proving far more useful than, say, the fire-lizards.” He shot her a wicked glance for her well-known disgruntlement with fire-lizards pestering her gold dragon, Ramoth.

Lessa awarded him a very sour look until she caught sight of her golden dragon, Ramoth, splashing in the waters of Cove Hold, her bathing assisted by wild and tame fire-lizards alike.

“The dragons that have met them seem to like them, Lessa,” Alemi said, taking his cue from the Harper and not letting himself be intimidated by the diminutive but forceful Weyrwoman of Benden.

“Which ones?”

“First, Gadareth, the bronze of young T’lion from Eastern Weyr. He was conveying me the day I inadvertently summoned the Monaco Bay pod.” She accepted that with a flick of her fingers, so Alemi went on, “Master Oldive had a very puzzling patient, which the dolphins at Fort Sea Hold diagnosed as having an internal growth in the belly.”

“And that caused enough problems with his Hall,” she said dryly. “I really don’t like the idea of cutting into human bodies.” She gave a little shudder.

“No more than when a child is hard to birth,” Alemi said, knowing that Lessa had had to have that surgery. Probably why she disliked intrusive operations. “The woman’s recovering and most grateful. However,” he went on briskly, “the dolphins are certainly proving invaluable assets to my Craft.”

“I did hear Master Idarolan on the subject but now is not the time to go off half-cocked,” she said. “We must not let anything interfere with Aivas’s program.”

“No more will the dolphins,” Robinton said soothingly. “I’ve met one or two and they are charming. It’s so nice to see creatures smiling all the time.”

Lessa’s glare intensified and then, abruptly, she burst out laughing. “I have been a grouch, haven’t I?”

“Indeed you have,” Robinton said as cheerfully as any dolphin. “You should meet a few. They all have names.”

“Sea creatures with names?” Lessa exclaimed and her frown returned. That the dragons knew their own names at birth was an indisputable mark of their self-awareness and intelligence. To hear that the dolphins also had names smacked of heresy to the Weyr-woman.

“Each calf is named as it’s bora, I’m told,” Alemi hastily explained. “Aivas said those names are variations on the names of the original dolphins. They have traditions, too, you see.”

“I suppose the next thing will be the formation of yet another crafthall to take care of dolphins.”

“They seem to take very good care of themselves, my dear,” Robinton said, “if they’ve survived on their own in our seas all this while.”

“Hmmm, yes, well. I don’t want anything to detract from the priorities Aivas has set us.”

“This won’t,” Alemi said with such conviction that he won a smile from her.

She rose then. “If that’s all today?” she asked Master Robinton.

He rose, too, and his stiff movement gave Lessa a pang of concern for her valued friend. He’d never been quite as vigorous—though he protested constantly that he was well—since the heart attack he’d suffered at Ista Weyr. All this fuss with Aivas and the discoveries at Landing were not at all the sort of stimulation he needed. And yet …

“There’re several very engaging fellows out in the cove,” Robinton said, gesturing toward the beautifully colored waters of his bay,

She made a disgruntled noise, dismissing the notion. “I’ve more than enough to do as it is. And far more ‘visitors’ to meet and sort out than I can comfortably deal with.” She saw the disappointment on the Masterharper’s face and laid a kind hand on his arm. “Once we’ve finished Aivas’s grand scheme, I promise you I’ll make time to meet these doll—dolphins of yours.”

“Grand! You’ll love the games they play.”

“Games?” Once more Lessa’s frown returned.

“Games can be as necessary as work, Lessa,” Robinton said gently. “You don’t take enough time for yourself.”

“I don’t have enough time for what I have to do, much less myself,” she said, but she gave him an encouraging smile and left the cool, shady comfort of Cove Hold for the midday heat.

Ramoth waded out of the water to meet her. The sea creatures know where to scratch my belly just where it itches, she told her rider.

“They do?” Lessa looked out at the cove waters, where these dolphins were leaping and diving about her dragon as easily as tumblers did at a Gather. They did have smiles on their faces. “They were born that way,” she told herself. “C’mon, Ramoth, we have to see if another holding is feasible below the others on the Jordan River,” she said as she stepped up to Ramoth’s neck. The dragon had not completely immersed herself, since she knew they’d have to go between and Lessa would not like sitting on damp hide.

She’d been trying to find time to make this inspection for some weeks, but something more urgent always came up. Not that allocating lands to properly trained northerners from overcrowded Holds wasn’t also urgent. It was a matter of priorities. Since the Jordan River—flanked by all those fascinating ruins of the Ancients’ stakeholds—was so close to Landing, they had been able to explore it sufficiently to release holdings: none as large as the original but respectable properties. Still, sometimes one had to wait until there were sufficient representatives of each of the crafthalls to provide self-sufficiency within each new holding, and at least one journeyman or journey-woman healer who could tend the needs of several holds. Taking one last look at the lovely cove, Lessa reminded herself how deceptive the beauty and lush-ness of the Southern continent could be. It was just as well not to allow the settling of the new holds to be rushed. People had to be trained to recognize the dangers in this wilderness.

Back in Cove Hold, Alemi was berating himself for not mentioning the newest job that Jayge had suggested for the dolphins. The Paradise River Holder had been furious over the recent invasion of his holding. He was not the least bit mollified to know that he wasn’t the only one of the dozen confirmed Holds along the coast to suffer such depredations. He didn’t want any more! So he asked Alemi to find out if the dolphins could patrol the waters off his holding and warn of any more unauthorized landings.

“For a pail of fish, they’d be delighted to,” Alemi had reported to the Holder after he had explained this new work to the pod.

“Good ships and bad ships,” Afo had told him.

“The bad ships never have fish for dolphins?” Alemi asked, grinning.

“You right! Bad ships smell, leak ‘n’ leave badness in our water. Not nice.” She squirted from her blowhole to emphasize her distaste.

Alemi decided that was a fair enough measure of identification since invariably those masters willing to transport unauthorized passengers were those operating at the very fringes of their craft. Men like that would do anything for a few marks—well, a good heavy sack of marks, Alemi amended. The men who had tried to land on Paradise holding had paid a substantial amount to the captain to sail them south. The ship had not been in very seaworthy condition, its holds wet and dank, sails and hull patched, its bilges spewing wastes into the sea.

“As bad as the Igen caves,” one man had said in disgust. “With all this land down here, why can’t we have some?” he had demanded bitterly.

“You can if you do it in the proper fashion,” Jayge had told him.

“Ha! Dragonriders’re keeping the best parts for themselves.” But there was a wistful envy in his eyes as he looked over the fine situation of Paradise River.

“I’m no dragonrider and I hold this proper, with neighbors farther down the river who’ve proved up their lands.”

“And paid a great sack of marks to get it, like as not.”

“No, they did not,” Jayge snapped back. “They applied, and with the required number of crafthalls among ’em. That’s what’s required and if you lived here, you’d know that this Southern Continent’s not easy just because it’s warm.”

Jayge had walked off then, scowling deeply, Alemi following him. Although Alemi knew that Jayge and Aramina had been shipwrecked, they had proved the Hold long before they had been found by Piemur. He also knew that he’d been very lucky to be asked to start a fishman’s hold at Paradise River, and he certainly knew the dreadful conditions of the holdless, crammed into the caves at Igen and other, even less salubrious places in the North. He was also now aware that settlements were being established where ruins indicated that the Ancients had had holdings.

Lord Toric had accepted quite a large number of those wishing to immigrate south—even before the Council of Lord Holders and the Benden Weyrleaders had formalized the ways such settlements could be allowed. Toric had been choosy, preferring men and women who were proven hard workers and preferably at least of journeyman status in their Craft. The iron-handed Lord of Southern did not suffer fools and had already had one incident with renegades trying to settle the big island that happened to be part of his holding. He had tried to get dragonriders to help him flush the squatters out but had had no luck there. The policy of noninterference from the Weyrs had been reinforced a few Turns back by the Benden Weyrleaders. Alemi had approved. The dragonriders must be above partisan leanings, no matter what Hold or Hall they had been born in. But, even as he helped Jayge flush the intruders out, he had thought how much easier it would have been with dragons aloft to “encourage” the men to surrender without bloodshed.

Alemi was one of the few people to know for a fact that the dragonriders intended to have first choice of the lands in the Southern Continent. A stray remark by Master Idarolan had set his thinking in that direction, and nothing had happened to disabuse him of the notion. It stood to reason that, once Thread no longer fell on Pern, the dragonriders ought to have some reward for their long service to Hall and Hold—and what better one than their own Holds where they wanted to live?

As a Craftmaster, Alemi undoubtedly entertained a slightly different opinion to that held by the Lord Holders who could well feel that they should have the disposition of land, no matter where it was. Master Idarolan had remarked that there was far too much open land to bring folks to blows over who had what and how much. As he’d circumnavigated the Southern Continent, the Masterfishman certainly had a good idea of what vast expanses of land were available.

On the other hand, fishmen needed only enough land to tie up their ships in a safe harbor and sell their catches. More would be greedy. Alemi did not approve of being greedy.

“Well,” murmured the Masterharper, bringing Alemi back to the present, “that went off better than I expected. I adore Lessa of Benden Weyr but she tends to be … say, a bit too obsessed with draconic prestige.”

“Shouldn’t she be?” Alemi asked, startled.

“Yes, of course she should,” Master Robinton said quickly. “And she behaves as a Weyrwoman should. But occasionally, she does not consider other matters in quite the light you and I would. Now, tell me about this dolphin sea watch you wanted to set up to guard against more intruders?”

“I should have told the Weyrwoman about that …”

“Oh, no, I don’t think that was necessary or even a sound idea,” Robinton said, smiling slyly. “Let her get accustomed to the idea of dolphin intelligence first. Then spring this further evidence of their ingenuity on her. Don’t you think?”

“If you say so,” Alemi replied, not totally convinced.

“The Paradise River pod is organized now to repel intruders?”

“Yes, and I believe that T’gellan at Eastern Weyr has had young T’lion initiate a similar watch along that coastline. Although,” Alemi added with a grin, “I think the Weyr healer is doing as much work with the dolphins as T’lion.”

“Yes, tell me about that,” Robinton said, pouring wine for both of them and gesturing Alemi to sit beside him in the cool shade of the wide porch that surrounded Cove Hold. “They actually come to be treated by a human?”

Inside, other residents were preparing a light midday meal. Cove Hold had a changing population made up of the archivists and harpers who were organizing the vast amount of information that Aivas was constantly producing. It was unusual for there to be so few people demanding Master Robinton’s attention. D’ram and Lytol, who were his companions in the lovely Hold, were busy at Landing.

“Yes, they do,” Alemi said. “A bell can summon humans as well as dolphins.” He had put a good long sturdy chain on the bell at Paradise Head; the loose end hung well down into the water by the float, making it easy for the dolphins to pull it to summon him. Though it was usually one of the children who ran to answer the dolphins’ peal. And Alemi was as often approached by “his” podmembers while he was at sea.

“And they ring the bell in this Report sequence you mentioned?” Robinton was clearly fascinated.

“And keep ringing until someone comes,” Alemi said, with a twisty grin. He’d been roused out of his bed a time or two. Still, those occasions had been emergencies: Once, would-be settlers from the North being overturned in their totally inadequate skiff; the other time a dolphin with a nasty gash. Temma had sewn it up as neatly as a healer could have, and the dolphins had been very grateful.

“Aivas very kindly printed out medical information for any healers who encounter dolphins,” Alemi went on. Then he paused. “I remember once, finding six dolphins dead in a cove up Nerat way. We never did know what had affected them because there weren’t any visible marks. Dolphins can get just as sick as humans, and with the same sorts of problems, with digestion and lungs and hearts and kidneys and livers.”

“Really?” The Harper regarded Alemi with surprise. “One never thinks of fish—excuse me,” he corrected himself before Alemi dared to, “mammals … as being subject to the frailties that beset human flesh. What on earth would cause a heart attack in a dolphin?”

Alemi shrugged. “Stress, physical exertion, even birth defect, according to the report.” Then he remembered that stress and physical exertion had retired Master Robinton well before the man had been ready to step down. He stole a nervous look at the Harper, who was apparently considering the information he’d been given.

“Six heart attacks at the same time?” Robinton asked, surprised.

“No, that incident had to be caused by something else. Aivas’s report mentioned that ‘beachings’ were not uncommon on old Earth and were thought to have been caused by polluted waters that poisoned the dolphins. But our waters are clean and clear.”

“And they will stay that way!” Master Robinton said with unexpected vigor. “With Aivas to guide us we shall not repeat the mistakes our forebears made on their world.” He paused a beat and then went on with a wry grin. “At least not the same ones and for the same reason. We can—perhaps—be grateful that what the Ancients had, Pern’s resources will not provide. That will be our saving.”

“Oh?” Alemi wasn’t above a little prompting.

Master Robinton’s mobile face lit with a knowing smile. “Despite all we have endured since the Dawn Sisters took their orbit above us, this world has stayed remarkably well in the parameters set out by the colony founders. Of course, we couldn’t know that we were abiding by those precepts”—he grinned roguishly at Alemi—“but the fact of the matter is that we did keep to just the technology needed to survive. Once the threat of Thread is abolished, we can improve the quality of our lives and still remain within these precepts: a world that does not require as much of the sophisticated doodads and technology that so obsessed our ancestors. We’ll be the better for it.”

“And the Weyrs?” Alemi was burning to ask that.

Robinton’s smile abated but his expression was more pensive than anxious. “They will, of course, find a new level for themselves, but I sincerely doubt that dragons will disappear because Thread does.”

His smile returned, slightly mysterious as if he had information he would not impart to Alemi—which was fair enough, the Masterfishman thought. It was sufficiently comforting to be reassured by the Masterharper, however circumspectly.

Alemi was loath to leave the porch and the easy companionship of Master Robinton, but he was also aware that he couldn’t justify monopolizing the man’s attention for much longer that morning. There were so many other demands on the Harper’s time and his reserves of energy. Alemi felt much pride at being awarded as much of an interview as he had.

T’lion was, perhaps, a little indignant about being constantly warned by Weyrlingmaster H’mar not to neglect his dragon for his new enthusiasm, the dolphins. But he kept his tongue in his mouth, especially when Gadareth protested vehemently to him, and more importantly to bronze Janereth, that he was not for a moment being neglected and the dolphins were even helping “keep him clean.”

Most evenings, T’lion was the rider assigned to collect the Paradise River harper, Boskoney, and bring him to his work at Admin. He liked Boskoney, so the task was no burden. It also meant he could arrive a little early and spend a few moments getting to know the Paradise River pod, Kib, Afo, and exchange greetings from Natua, Tana, and Boojie. Sometimes he encountered Alemi, thanking the pod for good fishing or warnings on weather.

“The pod’s also sweep-swimming,” Alemi said, grinning at the alteration of the Weyr term, “along the Paradise holding to prevent any more intrusions. That way we won’t compromise you, T’lion, though I assure you we were very grateful to you for your help two months back.”

T’lion shrugged and grinned. “Just so long as my Weyrleaders don’t hear about it.”

“Of course not.”

Then T’lion frowned a bit. “But that only protects you.” He waved to the east. “There’s an awful lot of unpatrolled coast from here to Southern Hold.”

It was Alemi’s turn to shrug. “Well, that’s not my problem. Not that I won’t mention—where it will matter—if in my sailing I happen to see other incursions.”

“There’s such a lot of land here,” T’lion said, shaking his head slowly.

“Lad, you can’t worry about everything, though it’s a credit to you that you take additional responsibility. Now, help me feed these fish faces.”

“Sssh …” T’lion made an exaggerated gesture of dismay at the word. “They don’t like being called …” He mouthed the terrible word.

Alemi laughed. “I have dispensation. I’m a fish-man.” And he formally introduced T’lion.

“No need,” Kib told him, raising his head up out of the water. “Tana ‘n’ Natua tell. Good man, dragonrider.”

“Thanks,” T’lion said, rather pleased to be acknowledged so warmly.

“Stitch Boojie.” Kib ducked his nose in the water and flicked it at T’lion.

“I’ll get my death of a cold talking to dolphins,” T’lion said, wringing the front of his sopping shirt. “Oh, well, I’ve learned to carry a spare and he didn’t get my jacket”

“I’ve learned to not wear a thing,” Alemi remarked with an understanding grin, his tanned body bare to the folded clout so many wore in the hot season. “So where’s tomorrow’s fish, Afo?”

Afo gave the information, which included sonar “readings.”

“They know where the school is, but the only way they can express that to me is to give me the return time of their sonar responses,” Alemi said. “I’m getting good at figuring distances that way.”

“That’s—that’s amazing,” T’lion said, awed.

“Not as much as you getting Boojie stitched.” Alemi grinned at T’lion’s surprise. “Oh, we heard all about it. They can pass quite a bit of information around—if they feel like it.”

“Dragons are still the most responsible,” T’lion said, proudly glancing up at his splendid bronze.

“Don’t deny that for a moment, lad. Each to his own purpose on Pern.”

“Which reminds me, I’ll be late collecting Harper Boskoney.” T’lion clambered back up the ladder to the pier, tugging free his wet shirt as he made his way to his dragon. He finished changing to the dry one from his pack as Gadareth flew the short distance.

When he and Gadareth glided in to land in front of Boskoney’s cothold, the harper peered around the door at them.

“Be a moment,” he called.

T’lion knew these harper “moments” and laid his shirt out on the nearby bush to dry, then hunkered down to lean back against Gadareth’s haunch to wait.

A darkly tanned youngster came out and, grinning at the sight of a dragon, came confidently up to him.

“You must be T’lion and this is Gadareth.” The boy reached a hand up to the dragon’s muzzle. Gadareth touched it in polite greeting. “Boskoney said you’d come to collect him so I could run along now.”

“And you are?” T’lion asked, amused at the boy’s poise. He couldn’t be more than seven Turns.

“I’m Readis, son of Holders Jayge and Aramina. I wash Ruth, Lord Jaxom’s dragon, whenever he comes to visit. Can I wash Gadareth sometime, too?” Then he eyed the bulk of the bronze, who had not yet reached his full stature. “There’s a lot more of him than Ruth, but I could help.”

T’lion laughed. “You can, if we ever have a chance to stay long enough. Generally, though, the dolphins help me wash Gadareth.”

The boy’s ogle-eyed reaction made T’lion laugh.

“You’re speaking to dolphins?”

It was T’lion’s turn to be surprised: the boy not only knew that the dolphins spoke but he pronounced their name correctly.

“Have you spoken to dolphins?” T’lion asked. Maybe the boy answered the dolphin bell for Alemi. It would be a good task for a young lad and a Holder’s son.

“Only the day they saved my life. But Unclemi said they ask him how I’m doing.”

“They saved your life? Tell me how.” Sometimes T’lion missed the youngest of his brothers, Tikini, who had much the same ingenuousness about him as this Holder’s son. He and Tikini had been very close.

Just then Boskoney came out of his cothold, sweat breaking out on his forehead from the heavy flying jacket he was wearing. “You scoot on home now, Readis,” he said to the boy, “and let’s get above this heat, can we, T’lion?”

“I’ll see you around, Readis,” T’lion called as he speedily mounted Gadareth and then helped Boskoney aboard. Circling upward away from the sultry air of the steaming hold, T’lion saw the boy waving as long as he could be seen.

Over the next several weeks, in the course of T’lion’s collecting the harper, T’lion and Readis met again. Readis invariably asked what was new with his pod, and who was sick, and who had been cured, and T’lion was only too glad to talk to someone who avidly soaked up his tales. He hadn’t realized how much he had bottled up his interest in the dolphins until he began to talk to Readis, who responded enthusiastically, his eyes sparkling, his whole body almost vibrating in his intensity.

“Look, you can speak to the dolphins again, if you want to,” T’lion told Readis one day.

“I’m not ‘sposed to be near water alone,” Readis said. “I promised.”

“Well, if you’re with me and Gadareth, you’re scarcely alone.”

Readis considered this, thoughtfully and wistfully, digging at the sand with his bare toe, “Yes, a dragonrider and a dragon would keep me my promise.” He gave T’lion a radiant grin. “But where?” His arm swept to the wide expanse of the river mouth.

“Oh, that’s the easy part and very safe,” T’lion said. “D’you know where Master Alemi anchors? Are you allowed to go that far?”

Readis nodded vigorously, the dark curls on his head bouncing, his eyes solemn and his expression so eager it was hungry.

“You meet me there tomorrow afternoon, say, at the fourth hour, so we’d have a whole one before I’m due to collect Master Boskoney.”

“Oh, I will, I will, I will. Thank you!”

Begun innocently enough, the afternoon sessions with the dolphins became a happy routine for them both. If his mother asked Readis “Where have you been?” or “Who was with you?” he could honestly reply that he was with T’lion and Gadareth. The fact that he was also swimming with the dolphins off Alemi’s float simply was not mentioned.

T’lion was delighted not only with the boy’s fearlessness in the water and with the dolphins, but in how quickly Readis seemed to understand their odd speech. They, in turn, liked his high-pitched young voice and, having been warned by T’lion that the “calf was young and must be carefully handled, never swamped him or roughed him up, even when Readis dove under the water to swim with them.

“You’ve got lungs like a dragon to stay under so long,” T’lion said one afternoon when he had almost feared the boy had gone too deep, only to have him and Afo’s latest calf, Vina, burst out a good two dragonlengths from the float. “Don’t do that to me again, Ready,” he shouted. “Now, come on in. Take a breather!”

Laughing, Readis allowed Vina to tow him in to the float. He climbed up, grinning and thoroughly pleased with himself. “We got way far down but not to the bottom. Vina clicked it too far for us. So we surfaced. She’s great to swim with.”

“I can see why your folks want someone with you when you do swim,” T’lion said, still recovering from that long moment of fright. “You can promise me that you won’t stay under so long again.”

“Sure, I promise. But it was great fun. You try it. You can get ever so much deeper with a dolphin!”

“I’m sure, but next time, we’ll do it together! Promise?”

Then Readis looked irritably down at Afo, who was pushing her nose at his foot.

“T’orn. Bad t’orn,” she said, and squee’ed urgently up at T’lion.

“Your foot hurting you?”

Readis looked blankly at his friend, then down at the foot. “Oh, now and then. I stepped on somethin’ but it doesn’t hurt when I swim.”

“Lemme see.”

Readis swiveled on the float so he could obey. Though T’lion prodded the strong, callused foot, he didn’t strike a sore spot.

“Bad t’orn,” Afo insisted.

“Nothin’s there, Afo,” Readis insisted, and twisted so his face was on a level with hers. He reached out one hand and scratched her chin just where she liked it. “Nothin’ hurts.”

Afo ducked her head vigorously, scooping water at them with her nose.

“Maybe, Readis, you better show your foot to your mother, or your aunt Temma. She’s Hold healer, isn’t she?”

“Ah, it’s nothin’. Let’s swim again …”

“No,” T’lion said so firmly that Readis knew better than to coax him. “I’ve got to collect Boskoney.”

“He’s always late,” Readis said with good-humored scorn.

“That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be on time. C’mon now.”

It so happened that that day either they were later than they should have been or Boskoney was actually on time. T’lion deposited Readis on the ground and helped Boskoney up, so he had no time to remind the boy to get the foot seen to.

The next day he had to attend the Fall, delivering firestone sacks to the fighting wings far out over the huge inland lake. Then he was sent to collect Mastersmiths attending one of the endless discussions now held daily at Admin, so it was three days before he resumed conveying Boskoney. He arrived at Alemi’s float, eager to see Readis, but the boy didn’t come. When T’lion and Gadareth landed to collect Boskoney, he asked the harper if he’d seen the boy.

“No, he’s ill. Quite ill, I understand.”

T’lion experienced a pang of fear. Shard it! Readis had promised to see his aunt Temma.

“Got one of those swift high fevers that kids his age so often have,” Boskoney added, settling himself between the bronze’s neck ridges. “He’ll be fine in a day or two. Bright child.”

“Yes, he is,” T’lion replied, his anxiety only partially abated. One of his sisters had died of one of those swift high fevers, but she’d been younger than Readis and not nearly as sturdy as the Holder boy.

“Maybe a dolphin should look at him. They’re good at diagnosing.”

Boskoney laughed, giving the young rider’s shoulder a comforting pat. “Oh, I don’t think it’s anywhere near critical enough for your friends, T’lion, but it’s nice of you to be concerned.”

“I am. He’s like a brother to me.”

“I’ll tell him you were asking for him.”

“Do. Please.”

The next day, T’lion went to the float and rang the bell, asking for Afo when the first dolphin reported in.

“What kind of thorn was it in Ready’s foot, Afo?” he asked urgently.

“Swim w’us,” Afo squeed, clicking in excitement. “You not ring bell three suns now.”

“No, Readis is sick.”

“Bad t’orn. Told him.”

“A thorn could cause him to have a fever?”

“Bad t’orn. Sea t’orn, not land. Badder.”

“I’d better tell his mother, then,” T’lion said, and promptly had Gadareth fly him to the Holder’s cottage.

There, he found not only the boy’s parents and Aunt Temma but the Masterhealer from Landing as well. All looked anxious, the mother was drawn and haggard from sleeplessness. Even Jayge showed the strain of anxiety.

“I heard Readis was ill,” T’lion began, nervously clutching his flying cap, “Anything I can do? The dolphins are good at telling what’s wrong with people, you know.”

“Dolphins!” Aramina spat the word out. “He’s delirious about dolphins.” She turned her face up to Jayge. “He can’t possibly be reliving that rescue, can he?”

She’s afraid of dolphins, T’lion, Gadareth said.

Why should she be?

She’s just afraid of them for Readis,

That was when T’lion had his first inkling that he had perhaps done wrong in taking the boy to Alemi’s float. But he’d been very careful with him, and the boy hadn’t broken the promise he must have made his fearful mother.

The Masterhealer gave T’lion a keen glance. “You’re the bronze rider who’s helped Persellan at Eastern Weyr?”

“Yes, Master, T’lion, Gadareth’s rider.”

“You’re kind to offer, dragonrider, but this is a child’s fever. More tenacious than they usually are, it’s true, but nothing within the problems which the dolphins can solve.”

T’lion hesitated. “Isn’t he always running about the place, barefooted? I don’t mean that as a criticism, Holder Aramina,” he added hastily when he saw that she was bridling at his comment. “I wish I could.” he gestured to the heavy boots, in which his feet were perspiring. “But I know how nasty thorns are and it would be so easy …”

“His limbs are swollen,” the healer said slowly.

“Both legs,” Aramina said with such an irritated glance in T’lion’s direction that he shrugged as if he regretted making the suggestion.

“But the right foot is unusually swollen …” The healer spoke on his way down the wide corridor that led to the sleeping rooms, and Aramina and Temma hurried after him.

“I’d better go,” T’lion said to Jayge now that he’d done what he could. “I’ll come in again. I collect Boskoney every day.” He looked anxiously at Temma and Jayge.

“You’re good to be concerned, dragonrider,” Jayge said kindly, though it was obvious to T’lion that the Holder’s ears were pricked toward the sickroom.

“Not at all. Not at all. He’s such a friendly lad, like my brother …” T’lion made a hasty retreat, more concerned than ever. We didn’t do anything bad, did we, Gadareth? He wanted to speak to the dolphins, He already had spoken to the dolphins. But his mother was sure upset She heard dragons too much. We are careful not to speak too loud. It upsets her. Maybe dolphins upset hen too.

T’lion walked quickly across to Boskoney’s cot-hold. If he asked just the right questions, maybe he’d find out what he needed to know. But if he had done wrong, then he’d have to admit it. Or he’d be in real trouble with T’gellan. Being a dragonrider didn’t save him from making stupid mistakes sometimes. But how could he have known?

“Yes, there was no way you would have known,” Boskoney said with a heavy sigh when T’lion stumbled through his recital of events. “And I don’t think you’ve done wrong, exactly. It’s just unfortunate it’s turned out so badly. You say one of the dolphins ‘saw’ a sea thorn in his foot four days ago?” He sighed. They were both aware, having been raised in the tropics, how treacherous thorns could be in human flesh. The harper laid a reassuring hand on the young rider’s shoulder. “I’ll do what I can, lad. And I’ve canceled tonight’s meeting. They need me here right now. You go on. Speak to your Weyrleader. That’s the best thing to do now. I’ll find Alemi and tell him what you’ve told me.”

The upshot of the matter was that T’lion and Gadareth were assigned other duties, and a blue weyrling and his rider conveyed Harper Boskoney to and from Paradise River Hold. A sevenday later Boskoney appeared at Eastern Weyr on his way to Landing to tell the guilt-tormented bronze rider that Readis’s fever had broken and he would recover. Out of respect for T’lion’s feelings, the harper did not mention that the poison had affected the boy’s right leg, knotting the tendons so that he might never have full use of the limb.

“Alemi managed to insist that they take the boy to the dolphins, and Afo accurately identified the site of the thorn, and the poison which had traveled up to the knee by then. It could have traveled all the way to his heart, I’m told, and killed him.”

T’lion sank to the hammock on his porch, head in hands. “I should have told them then!”

“Now, lad, don’t take it so to heart. You told me and I told them.”

“Could … I go see him?”

Kindly the harper shook his head. “He’s too weak to see anyone, though he asked Alemi to tell you why he hadn’t been around.”

T’lion groaned again. “I—I—should have taken him right then to the Hold healer, right when Afo told us there was a bad thorn, but I was late to collect you …”

“And I was annoyed and rushed you off that day. It’s by no means all your fault, T’lion, and you mustn’t take it so hard. And”—the harper’s tone lightened and T’lion saw he was smiling wryly—“all the healers insist that Readis must swim every day to regain tone in the leg muscles.”

“They did?” Some of the heavy pressure in T’lion’s chest lightened.

“It’s the best chance he has to recover.”

“What does his mother say to that?”

Boskoney’s grin was even more ironic. “She has had to agree to the treatment. It is the only way he’ll walk again.”

“Ohhhhh!” T’lion buried his head in his hands again, shaking it from side to side. “He was like my brother …”

“Now, T’lion, enough of this guilt. It was an unfortunate concatenation of circumstances. However, I may say unreservedly that Readis is delighted. He finds it no chore to have to associate with dolphins daily. I heard him tell his mother that he walks in water better than he can on land!”

T’lion gave a rueful laugh. “He would, wouldn’t he? He’s such a brave lad.”

“He’ll be fine. You will be, too.”