The Dolphins of Pern

CHAPTER IV

WHEN ALEMI RETURNED to Paradise Hold, he was bursting with his tidings and tracked Jayge down to make his report.

Perhaps what Jayge was doing—chopping down the verdant undergrowth that relentlessly encroached on the clearings about the holds, a sweaty, difficult job but one best done to inhibit growth during the coming hot season—made him sour. In any event, the Holder’s enthusiasm for Alemi’s new adventure with dolphins was less than appreciative.

Jayge paused in his labors, wiping the sweat that was overflowing the band on his forehead.

“That’s all very well and good, Alemi. I suppose”—Jayge hesitated—“it’s good. We’ve got fire-lizards and dragons, why not intelligent life in the seas? The Ancients apparently knew what would combine to make a perfect world, so these doll-fins had their role to play …” He hesitated again.

“But you’re worried about Readis?”

Jayge let out an explosive sigh. “Yes, I am. He’s still talking about his mam’l …”

“They are,” Alemi said, regaining his perspective on the matter, “mam-mals.” He repeated the word carefully, not glottalizing it into one syllable. “Creatures who give birth to live offspring and suckle them.”

Jayge gave him a long incredulous stare. “Underwater?”

Alemi grinned, appreciating his amazement. “Saw moving-picture records of a birth as well as the suckling so I can’t doubt it.”

“Aivas wastes time on such things?”

“I wouldn’t call it wasting time,” Alemi said wryly, “if the result is dolphins ready to rescue the shipwrecked.”

Jayge had the grace to flush and concentrated on honing the edge of his wide blade.

“Look, I’ll keep my findings to myself then. You didn’t mention my interview with Aivas to Readis, did you? No. All right. I certainly won’t, but I’d like your permission, as my Holder, to discreetly pursue a closer association with these creatures. With squalls like the one Readis and I were caught in, those at sea in these waters need all the help available.”

“And these doll-fins would always help?”

“According to what I saw and what Aivas said, water rescues are a dolphin’s responsibility and duty.”

“Humph. What does Master Idarolan say to this?”

“I’m only just back, Jayge. Haven’t told him yet, but I certainly shall. Most ships carry bells. If masters know what sequence summons dolphins to their assistance, we’d have just that much more of a chance in the water. You can’t deny that, can you?”

“No.” Jayge had been vividly recalling the storm that had tossed himself and Aramina overboard, and the shipfish who had rescued them. “I can’t. Ah, very well. Just be sure, Alemi, that Readis doesn’t get wind of all this. He’s much too young.”

Alemi nodded, perversely pleased that he could try to establish himself with the dolphins without having to share the experience. After all, they had that jetty now on the sheltered cove just around the headland. He could rig a bell there, and a float like the one he’d seen in the pictures, where he could meet the dolphins on the same level.

“I’ll take some of this heavier bambu away for you, Jayge,” Alemi offered, noting the size of the stalks the Holder was cutting.

“Your doll-fins eat vegetation?”

“No, but I’ve uses for this,” Alemi said, gathering up the lengths that were suitable for his purpose. With air bladders to increase their flotation, he’d have a platform similar to the one that used to ride the water at Monaco Bay—smaller, but adequate for one man. “Have you had any further word from the Benden Weyrleaders as to when we can expect the new settlers?”

“I should hear by the end of this sevenday.” Jayge paused to wipe his brow. “So they’ll probably be grateful for fish to lay in as supplies.”

“No problem there,” Alemi said, grinning. The delicious whitefish were running—and plentiful. They could be salted, pickled, or smoked and retain their flavor.

He knew that Jayge was looking forward to having a new hold farther down the river. He was, too. Jayge’s boundaries were confirmed; Alemi, Swacky, Temma, and Nazer had helped the dragonriders survey the new hold that would start on the eastern side of the river, below the bend that marked the end of his Paradise River Hold, and continue down to the origin of the river. The best site would be in the foothills, as the new arrivals were farmercraftsmen; they would round up and protect the wild runner-and herdbeasts, and grow the grain crops in the higher lands that did not grow along the coast.

Alemi had met the Keroon leaders, a large family complete with aunties and uncles, who had applied for the holding. Good solid men and women. He looked forward to having them as neighbors. And there was talk of another group interested in settling the southwestern bank of the Paradise.

Alemi didn’t have as much time for his new enthusiasm as he would have liked. He’d have to assign sailors to help ship the settlers’ belongings down the Paradise to the Bend, so his fishing crews would be shorchanded. With the whitefish running, he wanted to net as much as possible. He and his crews were out all the hours of the lengthening days, trawling and long-lining. Alemi was extra mindful of some of the precautions Aivas had mentioned—precautions Fishmen always observed but without knowing why: taking care for the size of the nets, as well as the old warnings of the “sin” of netting a shipfish. Even his father, who hadn’t the imagination to be superstitious, followed those precepts. Now Alemi knew the reason behind those practices, but he doubted his father would ever admit to it—much less admit that dolphins could talk and were intelligent. One more of the many gulfs between them.

Armed with Aivas’s confirmation of the intelligence of shipfish/dolphins, Alemi did inform Master Idarolan of his investigations and his plan to renew the partnership to mutual benefit—though he wasn’t sure what benefit the dolphins might derive. As he respected the Masterfishman and did not wish to lower himself in his Craftmaster’s estimation, he qualified his interest by virtue of his and Readis’s escape and the turbulence and unpredictability of these tropical waters. He sent that message off by Tork, his bronze fire-lizard. The creature’s speedy return pleased him: proof of his success at using Menolly’s sensible suggestions to train the fire-lizard. Alemi felt that if he had handled a fire-lizard’s instruction so well, he could certainly deal with the more intelligent dolphins.

Aware that water magnified sound, Alemi nonetheless felt he would need a larger bell than the one on his ship—which he was borrowing whenever she was at anchor. He wondered if the alarm triangle that Jayge had put up outside his hold after Thella’s invasion would also call the dolphins but quickly discarded that notion. A triangle just didn’t produce the same resonances.

So he needed a bell. He sent Tork on a second journey that day, to the Smithcrafthall in Telgar Hold, asking them to cast a bell for him, similar to the one at Monaco Bay.

The Mastersmith Fandarel sent back a message to Masterfishman Alemi that he would be happy to cast a bell of that splendid size, but that the commission would have to wait its torn, what with all the other work that the Halls were currently undertaking to the purpose of eliminating Thread. Alemi had to be content with the promise. In the meantime, Masterharper Robinton found him a small handbell, then later sent him a message by his fire-lizard Zair that the harper at Fort Hold thought he’d seen a big bell in the extensive storage area of the Hold’s lower levels.

Every evening Alemi studied the notes Aivas had given him until he had memorized the hand signals and the basic commands that he hoped had survived in shipfish memories. As he studied, he was occasionally given to fits of incredulous head shaking.

“Why does reading those sheets make you shake your head, Alemi?” Kitrin asked him with a sigh of exasperation.

“Wonder,” Alemi answered, leaning back in his chair. “Wonder that we missed every single clue the dolphins gave us that they wanted to be friends. Shards, they tried to tell us and we humans didn’t listen!” Kitrin made such a grimace that he laughed. He often knew her thoughts before she spoke them aloud. “Yes, indeed, I can just picture my good father, Yanus, listening to a shipfish!” He snorted.

“Exactly,” Kitrin said with some heat, for a moment abandoning the little wrapper she was hemming for their expected child. “I mean no disrespect—well, maybe I do,” she added with a rueful expression, “but he is sometimes …”

“Always,” Alemi amended firmly with a smile.

“So set in his ways. You know, neither he nor your mother have ever mentioned Menolly. Though your mother often remarks on ingratitude in my presence.” She sighed. “It’s as if Menolly never existed.”

“I think she prefers it that way,” Alemi said with a wry and slightly bitter grin, knowing all too well the treatment given his talented sister during her adolescence at Half Circle Sea Hold. “Both of them—mother and daughter.”

“Menolly’s never been back? Ever?”

“Not to the Sea Hold. Why should she?”

Kitrin shrugged. “It seems so … so awful … that they cannot accept her accomplishments.” Then she added shyly, “Sebell always remembers to send us copies of her latest songs. Alemi, when are we going to have a harper?”

He grinned, for he knew that had been the main reason for this trend of their conversation.

“Hmmm. I’ve asked Jayge and Aramina. Readis is growing old enough to learn his ballads and so are enough other youngsters, including our own, for the hold to have its own harper. Enough for a journeyman surely, and we can offer many benefits here: decent weather and property to develop.”

“Ask if they’ve asked,” Kitrin said with unusual force. “I’m not going to have the girls, or our son”—and she said this defensively, one hand on her gravid belly—“grow up ignorant of what they owe Hold, Hall, and Weyr.”

Alemi laughed. “Stoutly said.”

He did bring up the matter of a harper for the Hold the very next afternoon when he delivered the Holder’s best of the day’s catch: three grand big redfins.

“I could almost wish,” Jayge said with some acrimony, “that Aivas hadn’t been discovered! Everything depends on what he needs first!”

“But surely harpers …”

“Every harper who’s done his journeyman’s walk wants to have some part in transcribing Aivas’s information, which seems to be inexhaustible on every subject imaginable and all of it seemingly has to be done now!” The Holder rubbed an agitated hand across the stubble of his close-cropped black hair. He scowled. “I’ve asked and asked.”

“Master Robinton?” Alemi suggested hopefully.

Jayge dismissed that hope. “He’s worse than anyone else, stuck up there at the Admin.” Then he gave a snort of amusement. “Still has his finger in most pies! But I no more want Readis ignoring his duties—even if those, too, are apt to change with all these new gadgets and information—than you want your girls growing up untrained. Push comes to shove, the farmcrafters have an elderly harper who might be persuaded to travel up to us now and again, but …”

“If you don’t mind me doing so, I’ll drop a word to my sister,” Alemi offered.

A look of intense relief passed over Jayge’s tanned features. “I didn’t want to impose …”

“Why not?” Alemi grinned. “I haven’t fished for many favors from my well-placed Master of a sister. She’s got a child, too, you know. And another one on the way.”

Jayge gave him a stare and then winked. “Seems she does more than craft all the songs anyone sings these days.”

“It’s one way of being able to do just that, according to her, what with everything else harpers seem to be required to do right now.”

While it was the hot season on the Southern Continent, it was bitter cold in the North, and there were few who would turn down the opportunity to come south. So it came as no surprise that Alemi’s plea to Menolly for a harper to teach the children of Paradise River Hold resulted in the message that one was coming as soon as transport could be arranged. What no one at Paradise River expected was to see Menolly herself and her young son, Robse, carried by the sturdy, loyal, lack-witted Camo, stepping out of Master Idarolan’s longboat onto the beach.

On learning that a harper was being sent, Jayge had organized a work party to put up a neat three-room hold near the old storage shed. The shed could be used as the schoolroom, and the little hold was far enough away from other dwellings to give a harper privacy. When he discovered that the Masterharper Menolly had arrived, he was all set to oust one of the younger settler couples and give her better accommodations.

“Nonsense. It’s not as if I can make Paradise River a permanent home,” Menolly said to an embarrassed Jayge. “I can only stay until the babe is born. And that is solely,” she added wrinkling her nose in disgruntlement, “because even Sebell’s got tired of my complaining about being too cold to compose, much less play. See?” She held out her long fingers. “Chilblains!” She brushed past a dithering Jayge and onto the wide veranda, which had a hammock slung on its “breeze” corner. “Besides, down here you spend more time outside than in. There’s enough space for a small cot for Robse in my room and a room for Camo; he’s so good with Robse, who adores him, since he’s not much more than an overgrown baby himself. You’ve made a very nice kitchen, and I can always use the store shed, can’t I? If I need space to work in?”

“No problem. Or I can settle Camo in space in the store shed. That way, he’s near but not underfoot all the time.”

“Well, then, we move in here,” she said, turning on the ball of one foot to circle back to the house, hugging herself before she threw her arms out in an expansive gesture. “Oh, it’s so grand to be warm.”

Jayge gave her a cynical smile. “Wait till the hot weather really starts.”

“Whenever,” Menolly responded, tossing her thick mop of hair behind her, “but at least my blood is thawing.” She gave a convulsive shudder. “It’s never been so cold.”

Camo arrived then, pushing the barrow with the household effects she had brought with her, Robse perched on the top, hugging a lap harp case. A good third of the baggage consisted of musical instruments and an enormous supply of writing materials. Later Aramina told Jayge that Menolly had brought only two changes of clothing for herself and one long, elegantly embroidered “harpering” gown.

The gown was worn by Menolly the first evening, when Aramina and Jayge hosted her at a quickly organized Gather. Everyone living in or near Paradise River Hold wanted to meet Master Menolly. Only the new settlers at South Bend Holding were unable to attend—they were too busy raising a big stone beasthold—but two of their aunties came to help with the cooking. Jayge could be proud to host such a large crowd that night, for the inhabitants had increased over the past Turns, each new arrival bringing needed skills or crafts. Jayge had been able to be selective, though there was only one couple he had actually dismissed. So forty-seven Hold residents, adults and children, gathered that night along with the crew of the Dawn Sisters, anchored in the bay.

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.

Idarolan scrambled down the ladder to the float as neatly as Alemi did. Feeling a trifle self-conscious, Alemi grabbed up the small handbell and vigorously sent the peals of the Report sequence out across the gently lapping tide.

Both he and Idarolan flinched when two dolphins, crossing each other’s paths, leaped out of the water, finger-widths from the edge of the float.

“That’s jumping to with a vengeance, boy!” Idaro-lan said.

“Lemi, ring bellill! Reporrrit! Afo reporit!” The words came distinctly to both men.

“Kib reporrrit!” came from the second dolphin.

“As I live and breathe!” Idarolan gasped in a low, awed tone. Kneeling at the very edge of the float, he tried to follow the motion of the now submerged dolphins. He lurched back as one surfaced right in front of him, its rostrum nearly touching his chin. “My very word!” He stared at Alemi for a long moment.

“OOO rang?”

“Kib?” Alemi said, holding out an offering of bread. “You eat mans food?”

“No fish?”

“Not this morning.”

“He distinctly said ‘No fish?’ Interrogatory tone!” Master Idarolan exclaimed softly, rocking back on his heels.

Alemi grinned.

“No fish?” the second dolphin queried, bobbing up in front of Alemi, who put out his hand to scratch under the chin.

“Will scratching do? Or do you need bloodfish taken off?” He grinned as he explained to Idarolan about the parasites.

“Well, I never! And they let you scrape ’em off with your knife?”

“They seemed very pleased to get them off. I think I’ve done five in this pod. And they like to be scratched. Sometimes their skin sloughed off, but that’s normal. Skritching?” he asked again. “Or does someone have another bloodfish?”

“Skritch. Bloodfish.” The dolphin enunciated carefully as he raised his head. “Gooddee. Again!” The dolphin twisted his head so that the exact spot was under Alemi’s fingers.

“What do they feel like?” Master Idarolan asked, his hands twitching.

“Find out yourself. Give Afo a caress. Don’t touch the blowhole, but just about anywhere on the head—the melon—and the nose will please them.”

“They’re rubbery, but firm. Not at all slimy. Like a fish.”

“Not fish. Mammal!” was Afo’s instant response.

“Stars!” Idarolan lost his balance in surprise and sat down so heavily on the float that it bounced in the water and they got soaked by the backwave. “It knows what it is!”

Alemi chuckled. “Just like we do. Do you doubt their intelligence now?”

“No, I can’t,” Idarolan admitted. “I’m just gobsmacked, is what I am. All these Turns I’ve admired ’em and never thought to pass the time of day with ’em. Never thought the sounds they were making could be words so I didn’t listen! Oh, I’ve heard others who got rescued tell me what they thought …” He put a gnarled finger to his temple and twisted it in the old gesture of mental instability. “But a course, they’d have been under stress being nearly drowned and all—and the wind and storm so bad anyone could easily mistake the matter. But I’ve heard ’em now and no mistake.” He gave his head a decisive jerk. “So, what do we do now, young Alemi?”

“Reporrrit?” Kib asked, one eye on Alemi, mouth parted in a dolphin smile.

Both men laughed aloud at that, and the two dolphins tailed it, squeeing and clicking.

“Belllill? Belllill?” The cry sounded across the sea, and Alemi and Idarolan saw more dolphins heading toward them. “Bellill rrrring! Bellill ring!”

Idarolan shook his head from side to side. “They’re making ‘bell’ into two syllables.”

“And ‘oo’ is you. ‘Blufisss’ are the parasites.” Alemi grinned at the stupidity of not having understood such a common marine hazard. “A couple of other oddities, but I think if I just use the correct pronunciations, we’ll have them talking the way we do. What I’d like to do now, Master Idarolan, is consolidate this start. Aivas gave me instructions on how to proceed. You could use your ship’s bell at sea … use the sequence I rang, and ask them to report. Aivas said they know where fish are schooling, where rocks and reefs form, what the weather’s likely to be. We know they rescue the shipwrecked. But there were lots of other tasks that humans and dolphins did together.”

“Hmmm … check a ship for barnacles and holings. Check the current for speed … Aivas gave me the logs kept by a Captain James Tillek …”

“Tillek! Tillek! T’ere is a Tillek?” the dolphins cried with such passion and surprise that Alemi and Master Idarolan were startled.

“No, no Tillek here,” Alemi said. “James”—Alemi stressed the first name—“Tillek is dead. Long dead. Gone.” The dolphins nosed each other and a sad sort of sound came up from the group.

“Any rate, the captain”—Alemi grinned at Idaro-lan’s choice of words to forestall another violent del-phinic reaction—“was one of the first settlers to chart our Pernese waters. I’ve been reading about how the dolphins helped people get safely to the North after the volcanoes erupted. Amazing journey. Lots of small boats, and the dolphins saving everyone from drowning in one of those squalls you whip up down in these latitudes.” He gave Alemi a dour glance for such squalls. “Hmmm, smart as they are, maybe they could take messages now and then. Maybe not as fast as fire-lizards, but some of those distract easily—not smart enough to keep their minds on one thing at a time.”

The other dolphins had reached the float by then and were crowding about to be recognized, to speak their name and find out what Idarolan’s was.

“How do they tell us apart?” Idarolan wondered.

“Ezee. Mans color,” Kib said, gargling.

Alemi was positive the dolphin was laughing at them.

“These are clothes, Kib, clothes,” Alemi said, holding out the fabric of the light vest he wore with one hand and the sturdy sailcloth short pants.

“Dolphins … not…” Kib enunciated clearly, “dresssssss.” Then he rolled over and over in the water as if convulsed with mirth.

“Iddie” was what they could say of the Masterfish-man’s name, but the man didn’t feel at all insulted.

“I’m honored, you know. I’ve talked to an animal and it has understood my name,” Idarolan said, puffing out his broad chest a bit in pride. Then he went on more confidentially: “Never would I tell of this morning to Yanus of Half Circle Sea Hold! Never! But I shall enlist the assistance of those Masters I know would appreciate the connection.” He was nearly butted off his feet by an impetuous prod of a rostrum. “Excuse me, where was I?”

“Ski-ritch Temp,” he was told in a very firm request. “Ski-ritch Temp.”

Idarolan complied.

“This’s one thing I never thought I’d find myself doing,” he remarked in an undertone to Alemi.

“Nor me!”