Dolphins Of Pern Part 28

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

"Where the Bell rings is where we go. Is not Craft Hall?" asked Tursi. And Readis recognized him by the network of old sc.r.a.pes on his rostrum. He was very pleased that he was beginning to identify the individuals of the pod so early in their a.s.sociation.

"I wouldn't qualify then, I've got no bell,' Readis said.

"No Bell?" "No Bell!" "No Bell!" The phrase went from dolphin to dolphin.

"That's why I had to swim out to you, I had no bell to ring. Clicks and hisses, and much blowing out of their holes as they turned from one to another.

"Tomorrow Bell,' Cal said at the end of this cryptic discussion.

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

"Give good scritches,' she said, dropping her jaw and leaning just hard enough into his hand to get him to increase the pressure.

"We get Bell." Then she flipped up and over the rest of the pod and started out of the cavern.

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

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

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

His arms were stiff and sore where the vest had rubbed him.

He wondered what he could use from his small store of clothing to pad it adequately. He slipped his knife from his belt and peered out into the outer cave. Nothing, and no more sounds.

Delky snorted again but no longer frightened. He peered around the irregular opening to the outer ledge.

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

"A bell, my own bell,' he murmured to himself and he went to collect the hammer he had made and other rocks to use in place of proper chisels. A Dolphin Bell makes a proper Dolphin Hall.

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

He had to take a break to feed and water Delky. By his calculations, there'd be Threadfall sometime today and they'd better stay inside. He went as far as the patch of root vegetables to pull some to eat later: they were as tasty raw as cooked.

He cut enough of the stout gra.s.ses he could weave into rope, broke a branch of a hardwood to make into the clapper arm and picked up several sea-washed, smooth rocks that fit in his palm for the actual clapper. He paused long enough by the fish trap to remove two good-sized yellowtails. The trap had been one of his real successes and he blessed Unclemi for having taught him how to weave them properly.

He stirred up his fire, put his pot on the firestone to heat water and then returned to the laborious chipping, pausing now and then to rest or work on the clapper. He had that long before he had chipped down to the metal. The lip, once he got all the junk off it, was smooth but dull after its long immersion. He wondered if it would polish up. Was it bronze?

Or steel? The Ancients had had good steel. Maybe one of the other alloys that they had favored.

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

He woke with a start, but that was more from the discomfort of his chilly position on cold stone than from an exterior sound.

His bad leg was very stiff and spasmed, knocking against the bell. It gave a soft "bong' that delighted him. He picked up the clapper arm and very softly tapped the rock against the rim of the bell. Not quite a perfect sound but indisputably a bell ring! Would the dolphins have heard that muted sound? And he needed a belfry, too, and a long rope that would dangle in the water for them to pull.

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

He made himself eat the fish - it was tastier hot than cold before he rose, hand on the clapper and carried the bell to the water's edge. There was a protrusion near the entrance to the cavern. He put the bell down and returned to his supplies for more of the rope he had twisted in readiness. And hung the bell, wincing every time it issued a small complaint in the process.

Delky kept one wide, white eye on him, not quite sure what he was doing. He hoped she wouldn't panic when he rang the bell.

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

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

"Not bad,' he said as the still slightly sour "bong' echoed in his ears. Then he rang the "come in' sequence. Not that a "report' to celebrate the hanging of the bell wouldn't be appropriate but report' was urgent: "come in' gave them an option.

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

"Bell ring! Ring Bell!" "We come!" "We come!" "Reporrit!' "Reporrit !"

"No report, you silly fish faces,' Readis said, laughing with relief and delight, "I only rang "come in"."

"We come in!" "We come in!'

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

"Hey, hey,' Readis cried, grabbing for the clapper. The ringing was like thunder all around him in the confines of the cavern. He should probably place it outside or he'd be deafened. Delky was rearing and kicking, screaming with panic. "Easy, there, now.

Easy!" He meant the advice for both runner and dolphin. He was also none too sure that the gra.s.ses would hold under such ardent manipulations.

Then he knelt down at the side and delivered scratches on all the chins that were presented. "Where did you find that bell? I couldn't believe it when I saw it yesterday morning.

it took all day to clean it up."

"Bell long lost,' Cal said. "Long, long, long."

Readis grinned at the delphinic repet.i.tions. He really must teach them "good, better, best' though Cal's pod spoke very well: much better than even the Paradise River ones.

"Did you find it on the sea bottom?"

"We find. We bring. You fix. You ring,' Loki said, she with splotch on the side of her melon.

Loki! You're a poet! Did you know that? Readis exclaimed.

"Yes. I poet, I know it. See?"

Readis howled so with laughter he lost his balance and sprawled on the ledge, repeating her words while dolphin faces regarded him in their constant amus.e.m.e.nt and clicked and squeed.

"You have Bell now. Need long feet, mask, tank so you can swim far with pod!'

That sobered Readis almost instantly. "That would cost more marks than I have . . . " And Readis suddenly realized that such marks as he did have were back in his dormitory room. Or, if Master Samvel had taken his long absence as a withdrawal from the school, maybe his belongings had been returned home.

Either way, the marks were out of his reach as was the aqua lung. "And I don't have any to buy an aqua lung, even if one could be made."

"No thing left over?" Cal asked.

"If you mean diving stuff from the Ancients' time, no they didn't last the way the Bell did. Where did you find it?"

"Where storm sink Dunkirk s.h.i.+ps,' Cal said as if the event had taken place recently and not nearly twenty-five hundred Turns before.

"And you know where that was?"

"Still find man things when bad storm turn over,' Cal said and Readis was astonished. How had dolphins remembered such historical things.

"How could you remember something that happened so long, long, long ago?" he asked, absently scratching her chin again.

"The Tillek. She holds history in her head."

"Now don't tell me there's a dolphin who's twenty-five hundred Turns old."

"No, not tell what isn't true. But she knows from her Tillek.

"Oh, you've a sort of Harper Hall?"

"We have The Tillek,' Cal repeated firmly. "You must have lung to go see The Tillek. You must go see The Tillek."

"I'd love to. When I'm able, and Readis sighed. "If I ever am.

"If you be dolphineer, you meet The Tillek." Once again Cal spoke so definitively that Readis gave a wistful chuckle.

"I be a dolphineer, already. I have Bell, I have cave, I have you! Did you eat well yesterday on Thread?"

"Eat good, good, good,' squeed some of the other pod members. "Too bad, bad, bad, men don't eat."

"Well, that's the way it is, fellas,' Readis said. "And I'd better eat, he added as his stomach rumbled.

A large rainbow fish was flipped to the ledge and instinctively he grabbed it by the gills before it could wriggle off. A second one followed the first, and then a large leaf, two beautiful sh.e.l.l fragments and a barnacle-encrusted object.

"You eat, then we swim. Much to show you.

"I've no long feet, no lung. And my . . . "he started to mention the abrasions the vest had made and how loathe he was to put it back on and open those barely healed sc.r.a.pes.

"You dolphineer. Your pod swim you safe,' Tursi said with such authority that Readis could only laugh.

He did what he had to do, to keep Delky fed and watered, while the rainbow cooked. After his breakfast, he had to collect more wood for his fire, bank it with wet seaweed, until it was safe enough to swim. He also lavished scratches and pattings on the waiting pod. Occasionally one of them would pull the Bell, just to hear it ring. The good part of that was Delky got so accustomed to the sound that finally she didn't so much as twitch an ear when it rang.

The "much' the dolphins had to show him had to do with the coastline up to the mouth of the deep gorge of what the Ancients had called the "Rubicon River'. It required him to swim with the pod long but thrilling hours. When he needed to drink they seemed to know where little brooks and freshets drained into the sea. They would provide him with fish whenever he needed them, as well as their constant little presents of items that attracted them. Almost every morning there were offerings.

He'd only removed four bloodfish so he felt he hadn't earned any special gifts but he remained grateful for anything. Once they brought him a "man thing', a plastic crate with one side knocked in but the color as bright, when he cleaned off the clinging mud, as the day it had been made. They told him there were more where that came from. Over the next few weeks, he acquired seven, three of which were filled now with "treasures'.

Winter storms had set in so he also had days when it was inadvisable for him to swim with the pod. The sea would lash waves into floods over the ledge and he'd have to bring Delky inside with him. The wind found all kinds of crevices to howl into so that he often had to stuff his ears with plugs from the fibrous plants to diminish the awesome shrieks. Invariably, if he went to the ledge at low tide, there'd be a fish left high and relatively dry for him to eat. Occasionally branches with the tougher stemmed fruits clinging to them would be added as special "treats'. It amazed him that the dolphins knew what humans could eat.

During the first of those storms, he padded the rough spots of the vest. He wore it as a "man thing' - his excuse to them - but there were many occasions when the vest kept him from being half-drowned by the enthusiastic aquabatics of his companions.

They began to learn how to swim with him, not over or under or impeding his movements. They could not quite understand why he had to spend some time out of the water because his skin began to shrivel and slough off. He learned to qualify such matters as "man things' and opposed to "dolphin' or "sea and marine' things. He also tried experimenting with wood he carved into the best approximation of "long feet' he could arrive at, tied to his feet with a mixed gra.s.s and tail hair rope. But the devices were too c.u.mbrous and either twisted off - as he couldn't carve a pocket' for his feet without breaking off a piece of wood or banged into dolphin bodies. They never complained but he could see the darker marks on their skin which he knew he had caused with his wooden water shoes.

His days were so full now of sea work that he almost considered turning Delky loose. It wasn't fair to keep her standing in the cave. Declining to go with the pod one day, he used all the rope he had made to cordon off a pen for her, not far from the cave but with enough gra.s.s and shelter from the sun for her old hide and by one of the many brooks so she'd have water. As he kept a calendar on his cave wall to mark off Thread days, he could always keep her in when she might be in danger from Fall. That way, he didn't feel as bad about confining her. With no other runners to lure her away, Delky was content with these arrangements.

He was therefore horrified to return late one evening to find evidence of a b.l.o.o.d.y struggle, bushes knocked over and trees scarred with kick marks and no sign whatever of Delky.

Searching the little paddock to discover what had attacked her, he finally found clear paw prints and knew his old friend had fallen victim to one of the huge cats. He blamed himself and was disconsolate for days after Delky's removal. The size of the paw prints dissuaded him from going after the beast with only a belt knife to defend himself. His father had always rounded up all the men in the Hold to go after the big marauders. He missed her for more practical reasons later on when mourning turned to regret: he had no more of her long strong tail hairs to braid into rope.

He also had very few clothes left. It was also apparent that the dolphins had not informed people of his whereabouts. There were moments, despite his full and exciting life with the pod, when he could almost wish they had disobeyed him. But then, Cal or Tursi or Loki the Poet would do or say something and make him so glad that he was part of their lives, that his mood would swing up again.

The worst of the storm season pa.s.sed and he could gather some of the green shoots that supplied nutrients he didn't get from fish or what root vegetables remained in his immediate environs. He really ought to start a garden in the glade where he'd kept Delky. Her manure would be good fertilizer. He knew what to plant and where to get the starts and took some time off from the pod to organize his garden. That's when he came across Delky's tail. He almost didn't bring it back with him.

The urge to bury it as a tribute to its former owner was great but common sense overcame sentiment and he made a bundle of the long hairs and stuffed them in the pack he had with him.

On his way back he heard the Bell, heard the report sequence and broke into as fast a run as he dared with the precious starts and sprouting plants he had gathered. Constant swimming had improved the muscles in his bad leg so that he could achieve a respectable speed, but he was breathless by the time he reached his cavern.

There was only one dolphin, pulling the Bell, and that surprised him. It was also the largest dolphin he had ever seen. That should have warned him.

"I'm here, I'm here,' he blurted out breathless, propping his pack against the inner wall before approaching the pool. "Is someone hurt? Where's Cal? Tursi?"

"They come when I call,' the dolphin said, rearing her splendid head up, her flippers out of water.

"Are you hurt? Do you have a bloodfish?"

"Yes, I come to you to remove bloodfish,' she said. "It cannot be sc.r.a.ped off." She turned on her side and eased slowly by him until he saw the bloodfish, precariously near her s.e.x organs.

"Good thing I honed my knife, then,' he said and slipped into the water. "Over here. And what's your name, please?" he asked as he took three good strokes to where an underwater protuberance gave him a place to stand while he ministered to dolphin needs. "I like to know the name of my patients,' he added jovially in what he had decided was his "healering' mode.

"I was called Theresa," she said, gargling her words slightly as she remained heeled over as she placed herself close to him.

"That's a very fine name. One of the originals, isn't it?" he asked for he always talked to his patients to make them feel easier. "I'm Readis."

"Your name is well known. You call yourself the dolphineer.

"You speak really well, Theresa,' Readis went on, his fingers, now deft at this task, a.s.sessing the depth of the bloodfish's sucker. Often now he could get the whole thing out without severing the head first. If he punctured the thin skull at just the right point, the sucker released. He found the spot on the bloated body, inserted the thin knife point and, with a now deft flip of the point, the bloodfish came off with it. With a flip of the wrist, Readis sent the parasite flying to the wall. It slipped down on a trail of blood until it lay, with two final convulsions before it expired, gape-mouthed. "I'm always glad to get rid of those vicious things for you." He looked down at the minute hole and shoved water hard against her flank to rinse the puncture.

"There, that should close shortly.

"Thank you, that was well done, dolphin healer."

"Oh, 1'm not a healer by any means, though I can do small repairs now, Readis said, was.h.i.+ng his knife blade before returned it to its sheath. And he'd need a new one soon as the salt water was rotting the leather. Whatever had the Ancient dolphineers used? More of their versatile plastics?

"I had heard of major healings?" She eased herself back so that she could focus her eye on him.

He smiled down at her, accustomed to such dolphins manoeuvrings. She was one big mother. And old, judging by the scars on her melon, though all looked long healed. Could she be full of calf? Near to birthing? None of his pod were carrying young. He had very much wanted to be present during a birth.

It was such a magical moment, especially in the sea.

"Don't I wish I was able for major stuff,' Readis said, leaning back against the side of the pool, still supported underwater by the wide protuberance. "Maybe I could get more training. . . but I'd need to have more people working with me as dolphineers before I could take time off."