The Dolphins of Pern

CHAPTER III

IF ARAMINA secretly hoped that Lord Jaxom would forget so trivial a matter as speaking to Aivas about her son’s adventure, she was mistaken. However, it was Masterfishman Alemi who was asked to come and recount the event to the Artificial Intelligence Voice-Address System.

Jayge was somewhat irritated that Readis would miss an opportunity to meet this astounding artifact of the original colonists, but Aramina thought it was much the best thing.

“He’s only just settled down, Jayge. Seeing this Aivas thing would upset him. And how much would a boy of his age understand? I mean, it’s not as if he were meeting a living person he could relate to, is it?”

“I could insist that Readis accompany me,” Alemi said, not wishing to cause bad feelings between holder and lady. His initial elation had been much dampened by realizing that his young friend was being excluded from the interview. He had been to the Admin with other Fishmasters, and had been awed by the vast amount of still-relevant information the facility had on ocean currents and deeps. The boy would be so proud of having been granted such a privilege.

“No!” Aramina said with some force. “It’s enough he had the adventure. He tends to magnify things out of proportion, and I don’t want him thinking of swimming with those shipfish again. You go. Find out what this Aivas knows. We can decide then if Readis is to be told. Right now, I’d rather the whole affair was forgotten.”

“Forget that we owe the doll-fins our son’s life?”

“We owe them ours, too!” she snapped at him. “But I’m not out looking at the sea to see fins all day. Readis has to learn to deal with life on the land, not the sea.” She gave Alemi a quick glance and added in a gentler tone, “I mean, for a boy his age, he already knows a good deal about the fishman’s Craft, and I’m grateful you wanted to teach him.” Then she let out a gush of held breath and said in a fierce tone, “He’s only seven Turns old! He’s got a lot more to do with dragons than with doll-fins.”

The two men exchanged glances and a silent understanding was reached.

“I’ll go to Landing then,” Alemi said calmly. “See what Aivas has to say about these creatures. I must admit, I’m some fascinated with them myself. And,” he added with a wry grin, “I saved some fish to feed them with on this latest sail. You know, I hadn’t realized just how often they have escorted my ship. And how often they’ve saved lives. Each of my older hands had some tale to tell: in their family or from other crews they’ve sailed with. Oly said that once he was certain doll-fins had kept his skiff afloat until he was close enough to land to swim. The boat sank the moment he left it.”

“Do me a favor, Alemi?” Aramina asked, her expression severe.

“What?”

“Don’t tell Readis any of those tales.”

“Ara …” Jayge began in protest.

She wheeled on him. “I know all too well, Jayge Lilcamp, what can happen to a child who gets its head full of notions!”

Jayge pulled back and gave her a sheepish expression. “All right, Ara, I take the point. Alemi?”

“Oh, aye, I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

There was an awkward pause and then Aramina relented. “If he asks, tell him the truth. I won’t have him lied to or put off.”

“You want it both ways?” Jayge asked.

She gave him a scowl, then relaxed a bit with a rueful smile on her lips. “I guess I do. But he’s only seven and the least said the best as far as I can see.”

They were all of one mind before Alemi left the house that evening. He arranged for his first mate to take the sloop out the next day to trawl for redfins, which were still running. What he couldn’t sell fresh, they’d smoke, so he didn’t want to lose the day because he was asked to go to Landing.

Kitrin didn’t wish him to be away from her at all.

“I’m longer gone on the ship fishing, dear,” he gently reminded his wife. She was well gone in her pregnancy and apt to fret. He took her hand and pulled her into his embrace, stroking her fine dark hair. “And I promise I shan’t even look at those forward girls who work at Landing.”

They both felt the baby kicking at her belly and smiled at each other.

“You’ve only to send Bitty after me,” he assured her, nodding at the little bronze fire-lizard curled up in a sunny patch on their veranda. “Returning from Landing is much easier done than from the sea.”

“I know, I know,” she said, and settled against the curve of him.

If Alemi were truthful—and this was not the time to be with Kitrin so uneasy in herself—he would have admitted that being asked to visit Landing, to speak to Aivas itself, was an excitement he didn’t wish to miss, and one he would have preferred to share with no qualifications. He could, indeed, understand and appreciate Aramina’s anxieties about Readis. The boy was adventurous enough and sufficiently self-confident, perhaps, to undertake more than he was truly able to. Alemi had planned to tell him all that he had observed on this latest sail of the doll-fins: how he had taken up a position on the prow of the ship to hail the shipfish, to see if others would talk to him, to feed them the fish he had saved as thank-you. He had done this every morning and evening. To his own amazement he had begun to notice differences in the colors, even in the scars on their muzzles, so that they were distinguishable one from another. It occurred to him that doll-fins, like dragons, could be identified once one knew what to look for: like differences in shade and scar tissue.

Alemi was also delighted at the opportunity to ride a dragon. He hadn’t had that many chances. His initial ride between had been at his sister Menolly’s request. She’d heard from her Master, Harper Robinton, of the settlement at Paradise River and thought Alemi might well consider sailing south and founding his own Hold. How well his sister had read his circumstances, had seen him chafing at his father’s conservatism. So he’d been conveyed a-dragonback for the initial meeting with the recently confirmed Holder, Jayge Lilcamp, and they had liked each other enough to take hold on it. He’d been conveyed twice since then to various Fishcraft meetings in the Tillek Masterfishmen Hall. Although Menolly had repeatedly told him that, as a Mastercraftsman, he had the right to call for a dragon to convey him whenever that was needful, he did not abuse the privilege.

He had often sailed to what was now called Monaco Bay, with tithes for the Weyr and supplies for the growing population at Landing. Excavations were still going on, and he had acquired a thing or two of use from the Catherine Caves when those were being shared out.

For this appearance at Landing, he dressed in his new formal tunic, embroidered with his Master’s emblem, and in the Paradise River Hold colors, and newly braided Master’s shoulder knots. Kitrin had a deft needle and did much of the special handwork for the entire Hold.

He had asked the dragonrider to collect him on the sea side of his holding, where Readis would not be likely to see him leave. Alemi was somewhat surprised by the youth of the bronze rider, who appeared exactly on the time set.

“I’m T’lion, Masterfishman, to collect you,” the boy said from his high perch on the bronze’s neck.

“This is Gadareth, my dragon.” His voice was vibrant with deep affection and pride. “Do you need help mounting, Master Alemi?”

“I think not,” Alemi said, keeping his features composed even as he wondered if this was the first time the lad had been sent to convey a passenger “If Gadareth will oblige me by a knee up,” he added. The bronze had not achieved his full growth yet, so mounting was not the problem it would soon become.

“Oh, yes, sorry about that, Master.” The boy’s features set as he “spoke” to his dragon.

Gadareth had his head turned toward Alemi, his eyes whirling a trifle faster than the speed Alemi thought of as normal to these huge beasts. Then he raised his left foreleg slightly.

“If you’d lean your hand down?” Alemi suggested.

“Oh, that’s right,” young T’lion said, flushing.

He leaned so far over that he had to clutch at the neck ridge to keep from tipping himself out of his perch. So Alemi sprang to the offered knee, touched the hand only enough to give him an upward surge, and swung himself in the slot between the two neck ridges aft of the rider.

“Nothing to it, really,” Alemi said, settling himself.

“No, Master, there isn’t, is there?”

When they had sat there a few moments longer, Alemi cleared his throat. “I’m all set. Whenever you’re ready?” he asked in a gentle prompt.

“Oh, yes, well, fine. We’re just going. Gadareth!” Now he spoke with more conviction and no hesitation.

As Gadareth sprang from the ground, Alemi had a moment’s doubt about the boy’s expertise and devoutly hoped they wouldn’t end up somewhere unknown, far from familiar coordinates. He had heard tales …

Abruptly they were in the cold of between, and Alemi caught his breath … one … two … three … fo…. They were high above water—at least that was right—and then Gadareth veered, pivoting on his right wing tip, and the magnificent crescent strand of Monaco Bay appeared in front of them. The young bronze swooped down, gliding straight for the ground in a maneuver that made Alemi hold his breath and sit as hard into the neck ridge as he could, jamming his feet down and his knees against the neck of the dragon as hard as he could.

The landing was achieved with great ease, however, and Alemi wasn’t even bumped about as the dragon backwinged and settled to the firm surface in front of the Admin Building, which housed Aivas.

Alemi knew the story of its discovery—it had been a harper’s tale at many a gather. It had been one of the last of the Ancients’ buildings to be excavated, a task undertaken by Mastersmith Jancis, Journeyman Harper Piemur, and Lord Jaxom—on a whim, it was said. And Ruth had helped. Then they had found the curiously reinforced end of the building, which had suggested that something special had been carefully protected … and discovered the Artificial Intelligence Voice-Address System left by the first settlers on Pern: an intelligence that could tell them much of the first years of human habitation on this planet, and much about Thread. Aivas, as the intelligence preferred to be called, had also promised to help destroy the menace of Thread forever.

Of course, the building had been extended, since Aivas was teaching so much of the lost knowledge of every craft Alemi wasn’t sure how this Aivas could teach so much and to so many. He was more than pleased that he would have a special interview with the intelligence,

Dismounting from the young bronze, Alemi remembered to thank them both for the conveyance.

“We’re to wait and take you back, Master Alemi,” T’lion said. Then, glancing over his shoulder to see other dragons spiraling down to land, he hastily added, “We’ll be up on the ridge where the others are waiting.” He pointed in the right direction. “Give us a wave.”

The bronze was already lifting himself out of the way of those wanting to land, and the boy’s words were carried away in the breeze. Alemi waved his hand to show that he’d heard. Then he turned to the entrance of the Admin Building. Just inside the door was a desk at which sat no lesser a personage than Robinton, the Masterharper of Pern. Alemi gawked a bit, but Robinton smiled a warm welcome, rising from his table to hold out his hand to the young Masterfishman.

“Ah, Master Alemi, how good to see you. And on such an errand. You and young Readis were so fortunate to be rescued in that extraordinary fashion.”

“You know about it?” Alemi was amazed. But then, the Masterharper, even if he was now retired from active duty, had a way of “knowing” a great deal that went on all around Pern.

“Of course I do,” Robinton said emphatically. “Lord Jaxom himself told me. But why isn’t young Readis with you?”

“Oh, yes, well, his mother decided that she doesn’t want him involved just yet. He’s only a few months over seven Turns. She feels that’s just too young …” Alemi heard his own disagreement with that decision in his tone and wished he was better able at dissembling.

“I see. Well, Aramina might have reservations about associating with just a mere dolphin.” The Harper smiled sympathetically about maternal misgivings. “In any event, you’re here. Aivas has much to tell you, too, about the shipfish. He was delighted to know that they have prospered so and have remembered how to speak. If you’ll just come this way—” The Harper gestured to the left-hand corridor. “Have you been here before, Alemi? Yes, well, then you’ll see how much we’ve expanded,” he continued as they made their way past rooms occupied by small groups intent on screens to a smaller room at the end. “Here.” He stepped aside to let Alemi enter.

“Aivas is in here, too?” the Masterfishman said, rotating on one heel as he looked about a room that held only chairs of the same ancients’ design as the two Alemi had acquired for his hold. Then his eyes stopped at the blank screen centered in the long outside wall. A little red light blinked in its corner.

“Good morning. Masterfishman Alemi. It is good to see you again,” said a deep bass voice.

“He remembered me? I never even spoke to him the first time.”

Master Robinton chuckled. “He remembers everyone and everything.” And he left.

The screen brightened, and an active scene of shipfish plunging and diving filled the space.

“Were there not to be two attending this meeting? Yourself and your young companion during the incident?”

“Yes, well,” Alemi said, and explained Aramina’s hesitations. They sounded even weaker than ever in the presence of such an august audience.

“Mothers are reputed to know what is best for their offspring,” Aivas said and Alemi did not suspect a “machine” of irony. “The young are able to learn language skills much more quickly, having fewer inhibitions. It would have been useful to have a younger student. To the discussion at hand: It was good to learn that the dolphins have not forgotten their duties during the long years—Turns—that have passed. Please be seated, Master Alemi. The input of your experience with the dolphins would help update that apparently overlooked segment of the original colonizing team.”

Struggling to absorb the concept that the dolphins, too, had been original colonists on this world, Alemi stumbled into the nearest chair and seated himself, eyes glued to the scene. There was something … not quite … right about the scene he was viewing. The dolphins were correct but—and then the concept of seeing moving pictures of living creatures staggered him.

“How do you do that?” he asked. In the previous meeting the screen had only shown maps, or what Aivas had called “sonar” readings, not these glimpses of dolphins, doing what he had observed them doing, disporting in the seas, most of his life.

“This is but one of the many tapes available to this facility,” the Aivas said. “Moving pictures were an integral part of the information services of your ancestors’ culture.”

“Oh!” Alemi was fascinated by dolphin antics. “I’ve seen them do that! That’s—that’s exactly what the shipfish do!” he said excitedly as the scene shifted to the creatures escorting a ship, diving along its forward wake.

“This tape was taken more than twenty-five hundred of your Turns in the past,” Aivas said in a gently instructive tone.

“But—but they haven’t changed!”

“Evolutionary changes take much longer than twenty-five hundred Turns, Master Alemi, and zoologists are of the opinion that this species has gone through several changes in the developmental path to this present form.”

“Including speaking?” Alemi blurted out.

“The dolphins which accompanied the colonists to Pern had been treated with mentasynth to enhance their empathic abilities and to assist them in learning human speech. It was reported that you heard them speak understandable words?”

“Readis and I both heard them speak.” Alemi chuckled. “Readis was far more credulous than I,” he admitted ruefully.

“The boy was considered too young to attend.”

“Yes,” Alemi agreed with a sigh. “I’ll tell him you asked.”

There was a brief pause. “As you wish. It is reassoring to know that dolphins have not forgotten either speech or their duties.”

“Duties?”

“One of their prime functions was to perform sea rescue operations.”

“Well, they not only saved Readis and me, but since then, every crewman in my hold has some tale to relate about doll-fins rescuing folks.”

“Elucidate, please.”

“You mean, explain?”

“Yes, if you please.”

“For a machine, you’re very polite,” Alemi said, trying to master his awe for this amazing creation of the ancients.

“Courtesy is essential in all dealings with humans.”

“Especially between humans,” Alemi added drolly.

“Would you be kind enough to detail your recent personal experience with the dolphins?”

“Of course, although really you should have had Readis tell you. He’s got it all down pat.”

“So Lord Jaxom said.”

“You’ve a sense of humor?”

“Not as you know it. Relate your experience.”

“I’m not harper trained …”

“You were there. Your firsthand account will be greatly appreciated.”

Though there was no hint of censure or impatience in Aivas’s tone, Alemi obeyed. To his own amusement, he found himself repeating phrases that Readis had used in describing the adventure. The boy did have a gift for the dramatic. He must remind Jayge to apply for a harper at Paradise River Hold. Fleetingly he regretted Aramina’s decision for Readis.

“They called themselves ‘mam’ls,’” Alemi added as he concluded the actual events. “Not fish.”

“They are,” Aivas said in an uncontradictable tone, “mammals.” He emphasized the correct pronunciation.

“What, then, are mammals?”

“Mammals—m-a-m-m-a-l-s—are life-forms that bear live young and suckle them.”

“In the seas?” Alemi demanded incredulously.

The picture on the screen altered to one of swirling waters and tails, and suddenly Alemi was conscious that he was watching the birth of a shipfish. He gasped as the tiny creature emerged from its mother’s body and then was assisted by two other shipfish to the surface.

“As you see, oxygen is important and essential to the dolphins as to all sea-living mammals,” Aivas remarked.

The next scene showed the little creature suckling from its mother’s teat.

“On Earth,” Aivas continued, “there were many mammalian life-forms living in the sea, but only the dolphins, of the family Delphinidae, the bottle-nosed variation, the tursiops tursio, were transported from Earth to Pern. By the time this facility was put on hold, they had already multiplied and prospered well in the Pernese waters. The volume of sea available on this planet was the reason for including the dolphins in the colonial roster. It is good to know that they have survived and seem to be in great numbers now. A census is being taken of pod sightings. Estimates of populations have not been completed, since they seem to have developed a migratory culture.”

Through this brief synopsis, the screen showed the wondering seaman more dolphins with young calves.

“That’s nowhere on Pern,” Alemi said, pointing to the screen, suddenly realizing what was “wrong” with the pictures, “at least that I’ve ever seen,” he added.

“A keen observation, Master Alemi, for this footage was taken on Earth in an area called the Florida Keys. These are the ancestors of your dolphins in their natural habitat. I shall now play scenes of how those dolphins worked with their human partners, called dolphineers.”

“Doll-fin ears?” Alemi exclaimed, slapping his knee with one hand as he saw men and women working with the dolphins, both undersea and being propelled across the surface of the water alongside their unlikely mounts. “Like dragons and their riders?”

“Not as close a bond as I am told that is. There is no ceremony similar to Impression as dragons and riders undergo. The association between humans and dolphins was of mutual convenience and consent, not lifelong, though congenial and effective.

“Certain groups of dolphins—there were more than twenty varieties of the species known on Earth—agreed to the mentasynth treatment in order to form a close working partnership with humans. Those that came on the spaceships with the colonists, twenty-four in number, were experienced in such matters and undertook to explore the oceans and provide certain services to the humans. Up until the eruption of Mounts Picchu and Garben, a high standard of communication was possible between humans and dolphins.”

“If they like to work with humans, then as a sea captain I’d like to work with them, if I could,” Alemi said. “I owe them my life—and others have. Readis was highly amused that the … d-dol … phins”—he made an effort to say those syllables as one word—“had such good manners.”

“Courtesy has been observed in the interactions of many species and not necessarily in vocal expression. Other abstract concepts, however, require semantics and suitable attitudes and postures adapted to convey cultural differences.”

“What would I have to learn to talk to dolphins?” Alemi was pleased to hear how firmly the word came out.

“There has been a linguistic shift over the centuries,” Aivas began, “but both species can adapt to the changes. Here is an example of humans interacting with dolphins.”

A scene unrolled in which a human and a dolphin were checking fish traps of some kind. The human wore some sort of apparatus on his back and a short-sleeved, short-legged black garment with brilliant yellow stripes. The picture was as fresh as if Alemi were at a window looking out onto the lagoon. He leaned forward, not wishing to miss a single detail.

Alemi watched, fascinated, murmuring to himself phrases exchanged between the pair. The dolphin towed the man, who gripped the dorsal fin, among the traps, inspecting the line. Briefly he wondered what his reactionary father would say to the idea that shipfish could talk.

“How do you get them to talk to you, Aivas?”

“It is frequently a matter of record, mentioned by numerous dolphineers, that getting the mammals to stop talking was considered more of a problem.”

“Really?” Alemi was delighted.

“Dolphins apparently have an unusual ability to delay ‘work’ in favor of ‘games.’”

The screen shifted to a new picture and Aivas recognized Monaco Bay—but the bay as he had never seen it: populated with sailing craft of many sizes and types, with vehicles zooming about in the sky like squat, rigid, ungraceful dragons. A huge wharf dominated the farther tip of the Monaco Bay crescent, and then he was looking at a solid plinth, a large bell atop it.

“I’ve seen that,” Alemi exclaimed, pointing to the bell. “It was hauled up from the seafloor.”

“Yes. It is being scaled of the encrustations. This bell was rung by dolphins to summon humans when they had messages to deliver, and by humans to summon the dolphins.”

“The dolphins summoned humans?” Alemi was delighted by the notion. “D’you think they would respond to a bell now?”

“It is recommended that you use that means of convening them,” said Aivas. “It would be interesting to see if current dolphins would recognize old imperatives. The printed sheets are summaries of files on the subject of dolphins and dolphineers. They also contain the hand signals which the dolphineers used to communicate underwater—which you might find useful—as well as a vocabulary list in the dolphin lexicon.”

Suddenly thin sheets of the new writing material that the Masterwoodsman Bendarek had been making began to extrude from a slot at the base of the screen.

“Instructions on how to conduct yourself in reestablishing a meaningful contact with the dolphins, Master Alemi. A report on your progress would be appreciated.”

Alemi gathered the sheets with careful hands, awed by the responsibility he somehow found himself eager to accept. He had always half envied riders their dragons, though, unlike many of his boyhood friends, he had never aspired to be a dragonrider: the sea was already in his blood. He found his sister Menolly’s fair of fire-lizards engaging, as well as useful creatures, but the thought that he could have contact with an intelligent sea creature was irresistible: creatures as awesome in the medium of water as dragons were in the air.

As he left the Admin Building, absently responding to the Harper’s farewell, he wondered where he could find a bell that would call dolphins.

Young T’lion had been watching from his vantage point on the hill behind the Admin Building, so he and Gadareth were landing before Alemi could signal them.

“How did you know I was here?” Alemi asked, surprised and gratified.

The boy flushed. “Well, sir, I saw you leave Admin. You walk different. You sort of roll.”

Alemi laughed. “Look, are you required to be back at the Weyr right away?”

“No, sir, I’m on duty for you today.”

“Good. Could we go down to the bay?” Alemi pointed in the general direction of the distant unseen crescent of Monaco Bay. He wanted to see how big the dolphin bell was.

“Certainly.” T’lion reached his hand down as Alemi neatly jumped to Gadareth’s raised forearm and settled himself between the neck ridges.

“Do we have to go between?” Alemi asked. “Would it be too long to fly straight?”

“No, not at all,” T’lion replied.

So, when Gadareth reached a cruising height, he began to glide toward the sea, now visible as a sparkle on the horizon. Alemi had never had a chance to see much of the Landing area, where so many marvels from the early days of Pern’s settlement had been unearthed over the last Turns. Now he had a panoramic view of the excavated buildings, the old “landing field” and its crumpled tower, even the ship meadow where the three ancient aircraft had been unearthed. They continued over thick forestry that no longer could be destroyed by Thread, protected as it was by the grubs that had spread in the Southern Continent to neutralize the deadly organism.

T’lion turned his head occasionally to be sure his passenger was riding comfortably; Alemi gave him a thumbs-up signal that he was, and a big grin. This was the longest he had ever flown on a dragon, and he was enjoying it immensely, not even feeling slightly guilty about monopolizing the services of a dragon and his rider for personal reasons. But there was a purpose to the trip, Alemi reminded himself, and felt for the sheaf of instructions he had tucked into his jacket pocket.

Then the superb vista of the almost perfect orescent of Monaco Bay came into view and what was left of the pier jutting out on its easterly tip. It must have been built of that almost indestructible material the ancients had used. At that, Alemi had heard from Masterfishman Idarolan that half of its original length had been sheered off. Pictures from Aivas’s archives had shown a substantial building at the sea end, floating docks and machinery of some kind. Alemi sighed. There were fishmen out on the deeper waters offshore, plying their ancient trade, which Master Idarolan had said had been conducted in the first days of Pern much as it was now. Some basic skills did not change. Still, so many others had benefited by processes and ideas that had become lost, or disused, during the darker Turns.

Then, from his lofty perspective, Alemi saw on the beach the long column and what had to be the bell. He touched T’lion’s shoulder and pointed down at it. T’lion nodded his understanding. A moment later, Gadareth angled downward, veering to the right and swinging around so that he landed neatly a few lengths from the flotsam. Despite himself, and hoping he wasn’t hurting the dragon, Alemi tightened his grip on the neck ridge.

A thick coating of barnacles on the long plinth distorted its actual shape, Alemi noted as he walked its length. The bell, which rested on a stand, was of a generous size—fully four of his hand spans across its mouth. A good deal of the encrustations had been chipped off, and someone was polishing the metal. The clapper was missing. He pinged the bell with an irreverent snap of his index finger and thumb and was mildly surprised to hear a muted tolling, slightly distorted.

“Here, use this,” T’lion suggested, handing Alemi a fist-sized rock.

Alemi got a much better sound with that, a mellow rich sound that rolled resonantly out across the bay.

T’lion grinned. “Nice sound!” So, picking up a larger rock, he clouted the bell, getting a more forceful peal. Grunting, Alemi bent over and peered up inside the bell, trying to figure out how large the original clapper must have been.

“Mine was louder,” T’lion said, offering his rock to Alemi.

Alemi hefted both rocks in his hands and then clattered first one, then the other, against the bell, turning his ear to catch the echoes of the lovely sound. Suddenly T’lion exclaimed, looking up at his bronze dragon, whose eyes were beginning to whirl with excitement. T’lion swung his torso halfway toward the water and then stood bolt upright, staring at the bay.

“Shards! Gadareth’s right! Look!” he cried, urgently pointing.

Alemi, his back to the water, craned his neck and saw a phalanx of dolphins racing toward the shore, leaping and vaulting out of the water. The waters beyond seemed to be full of dorsal fins and leaping shipfish. The Masterfishman rose to his feet, gawping at the noises that drifted to him.

“Bellill! Squee! Bellill! Bellill rings! Squeee! Bellill! Bellill!”

Alarmed by their headlong charge straight to the strand, Alemi raced to the edge of the water, waving his hands. “No, be careful! You’ll beach yourselves! Careful!”

He doubted his words could be heard over their babbling of “bell” and their squeeing. So he waded out into the water, hoping to turn them aside. Instead, he was butted and knocked off his feet by the many bodies that roiled the waters about him. Then he was uplifted by one dolphin body, nose-prodded by half a dozen more, and seemed to be flipped from one to another of the exultant creatures.

“Easy! Take it easy! You’ll drown me,” Alemi yelled, half laughing, half sputtering at these exuberant antics.

A huge shadow compressed the air above him, and he saw bronze Gadareth hovering, his claws extended as if he intended to pluck Alemi bodily from the attentions of the dolphins.

“I’m all right, T’lion, I’m all right. Call Gadareth off!”

“They’ll drown you,” T’lion shrieked, jumping up and down on the beach in his concern.

Simultaneously, Alemi tried to reassure the dolphins, fend off Gadareth, who still saw the human endangered, and reassure the young rider.

“Belay this!” Alemi roared.

Abruptly the commotion about him ceased and bottle-nosed faces were turned up at him in a tight circle, an even larger ring just beyond them and more dorsal fins and leaping bodies homing in on him from farther out in the bay.

“I am Alemi, fishman. Who are you?” He pointed to a dolphin whose nose brushed his thigh.

“Naym Dar.” The dolphin squeed happily.

Two words, then, Alemi realized, hearing the first word as a distorted “name.” He was delighted that his question had been understood. “Who leads this pod?”

A second dolphin did a wiggle and came closer. “Naym Flo. Long … “And the creature used a word that Alemi didn’t recognize.

“I do not speak good dolphin,” Alemi said. “Say again, please?”

A ripple of squeeing and clicking greeted that admission.

“We titch. You listen,” Flo said, turning one eye on him so that he could see the happy curve of its mouth. “Bellill ring? Trub-bul? Do blufisss?”

“No, no trub-bul,” Alemi said with a laugh. “I didn’t mean to ring the bell to call you,” he added. And then shrugged because he didn’t understand their last question.

“Good call. Long listen. No call. We … [a word Alemi didn’t catch] … bell. Pul-lease?” She cocked her head—Alemi didn’t know why, all at once, he decided she was a female, but something about her seemed to give that clue to her gender. He was also peripherally aware of how much he had actually absorbed from the pictures that Aivas had shown and the explanations of these … mammals. That was going to shock the conservative fishmen. His father especially. “Fish” had no right to be intelligent, much less answer humans.

“That bell”—Alemi pointed back to the shore—“is … not working. I will get a bell that works. I will put it at Paradise River Hold. I will call you from there. Can you hear me anywhere?”

There were squeeings and clickings and noisy blowings out of their airholes as they seemed to be trying to understand him.

Suddenly Flo reared up out of the water, holding herself aloft by what Alemi decided could only be sheer determination. She tilted her head, her left eye regarding him. “Lemi ring bellill. Flo come. You oo-ait? ’Mis you oo-ait? Flo come!” She emphasized the last word with a flick of her tail before she sank into the water.

“’Mis you wait?” Alemi repeated.

“I tell you I come. I come,” Flo said with a burble and a whoosh from her blowhole. Everyone about her clicked and squee’ed in tones so emphatic that Alemi grinned broadly at their insistence. “Ooo skraaaabb blufiss?” Flo sounded hopeful.

The last thing he had expected was the eager participation of the dolphins in reestablishing contact with humans. He tried repeating her last query just as he’d heard it. “Ooo” meant “you” but what “skraaaabb” or “blufiss” were sounds for, he couldn’t even guess. Beside him, Flo turned over and over in the water. He had to laugh at her antics: they were childlike, almost. Then he became aware of being uncomfortably hot, in water now up to his chest, and weighed down by the sodden heavy jacket.

“Let me go ashore, will you?” he asked, indicating that he needed to pass by the dolphin bodies pressing about him. He put out his arms to swim and found himself crowded by helpful sleek forms. “I can swim. Let me.”

“Suwim, mans suwim, mans suwim …” Suddenly the ring about him parted, dolphins flipping up and overhead, out of his way.

Dragon and rider were at the water’s edge, dubiously surveying the incredible scene.

“’Member! ’Member! Oooo ring. Oo-ee come!” a dolphin shouted as Alemi waded out of the bay. “Oooo do blufiss.”

He nodded enthusiastically as he turned, waving at the dolphins crisscrossing each other as they made for deeper water. There seemed to be an incredible number occupying the bay waters. Then, as the chorus was picked up by other voices, he cupped his hands. “I ring. You come. I wait.”

T’lion looked at him in blank amazement. “They were talking? Speaking to you?”

Alemi nodded, slipping out of his soaking jacket while he worked his sodden boots off his feet. “That’s what I saw Aivas about—the dolphins. I never thought we’d get that sort of response, just tapping a bell.”

T’lion shook his head slowly from side to side. “Me neither!” He let his breath out with a sigh and took Alemi’s coat from him, draping it on the bell, as Alemi now stripped off his shirt and began wringing it out. “I better go get you some dry clothes. Even in the midday sun, it’s going to take time to dry ’em, and you can’t go between in wet clothes.”

“No, I can’t, and I would appreciate dry things. Is that a problem?”

T’lion sized him up for a moment and shook his head. “No. It’ll only take a few minutes,” he said as he vaulted to his dragon’s back. “I’ll borrow some from a rider your size. We always have spares.”

Sand briefly showered Alemi as the young bronze leaped from the beach.

“Shards!” Alemi said, diving for the Aivas papers in his jacket.

With shaking hands he opened the wet sheath, but the writing appeared not to have suffered. Carefully, using pebbles to hold them down, he spread the sheets out on the sand to dry in the hot sun.

Now it was the turn of Flo, pod leader at Moncobay, to sound the news far and wide that the bell had been rung. Not exactly as it should be rung, but it had been rung and they had swarmed to answer, to prove to mans that they would reply when they heard the bell It had been so long since that sound had been heard upon the waters or under them. No member of the pod, even Teres, who was the oldest and had to be accompanied when she fed in the schools of fish, had ever heard the bell But they had remembered to remember. Those at Pardisriv were not the only ones to talk to mans and use the Words.

The mans had been two and they had sent happy feelings to the pod. There had been scratches and pats that had long been denied the dolphins. The entire pod had been made glad to answer the bell They had shown their appreciation with great leaps and tail walks and flips and deep divings. Mans had said they would scrape off the bloodfish, which was the best news of all That evening as they rested in the Great Current, Teres repeated the old tales that she had learned from the Tillek in her time at the Great Subsidence, before she had swum cleanly through the whirlpool and been considered worthy of bearing dolphin calves. When mans had swum alongside dolphins, above and below the surface, and they had accomplished many wonderful things together. And now there would be mans to heal the wounded and keep the stranded from dying on the sands. There would be good Work to be done. The sea had changed the land in the time since humankind and dolphinkind had come to these waters. Humankind should know. Dolphins could show mans where the shore had changed, and the Currents, and where the biggest schools of fish were. And there might even be games to play.