The Dolphins of Pern Read Online Free PDF Page A

never heard shipfish!”
    “Even when they rescued you and Da?”
    “In the middle of a storm?” she asked skeptically.
    “Mine didn’t start talking until
after
the storm.”
    His mother glanced again at Alemi for confirmation.
    “It is true, Aramina. They spoke.”
    “Their noises may have just
sounded
like words, Alemi,” she tried to insist.
    “Not when they said ‘wielcame’ after I said ‘thank you,’” Readis went on hotly, and Alemi nodded vigorously under Aramina’s outraged eyes. “And they know that the Ancients called the place Landing and they’re mam’ls, not fish!”
    “Of course they’re fish!” Aramina blurted out. “They swim in the sea!”
    “So do we and we’re not fish!” Readis retorted in disgust with her disbelief, and stormed out of the room, refusing to return when she called him.
    “Now see what you’ve done!” Aramina said to Alemi, and then she, too, left Temma’s kitchen.
    Alemi regarded the older woman blankly.
    “If you say they spoke, ’Lemi, they spoke,” the former trader said with a definitive nod of her head. Then she grinned at his confused expression. “Don’t worry about Ara. She’ll calm down, but you gotta admit you frightened the life out of her. And none of us here even knowing there’d been a bad squall. Here!” She handed him a cup of freshly brewed klah, to which she added a dollop of the special brew she kept for emergencies.
    “Ha!” Alemi said, smacking his lips after a long swig. “I needed that!” He handed back the cup, with a quizzical expression.
    “You don’t need any more or you won’t be able to regale the Gather tonight with your adventure,” Temma said with a wink.
    The pod swam back into their customary waters full of elation that they had once again saved land-folk. This was worth relaying to the Tillek now, instead of waiting until the year turned and pods gathered at the Great Subsidence to watch the young males attempt the whirlpool and exchange the news each pod gathered in its waters. The southern pods did not have as many occasions as the northern ones did to perform traditional duties. So the sounds wentout and were broadcast that Afo and Kib had played with mans lost at sea. It had been a great moment For they had spoken to mans in Words and mans had spoken to them, using the ancient Words of Courtesy. So Kib rehearsed the tale, murmuring into the waters as he swam the Words of his Reporrit. He sent the sounds out to be repeated from pod to pod until they came to the hearing of the Tillek. Maybe this was the time that the Tilleks had promised would come: when mans once more remembered to speak to seafolk and became partners again.
    The sounds traveled to the Tillek, who had them repeated from one end of the seas to the other, to all the pods in all the waters of Pern. There was envy at such good luck, and some even wished to join the fortunate pod, Afo, Kib, Mel, Temp, and Mul swam fast and proud, with great leaps. And Mel wondered if mans would still know how to get rid of bloodfish, for he had one sucking him that he could not seem to scrape off, no matter how he tried.

CHAPTER II
    R EADIS FELL ASLEEP that night some time after his third repetition of their adventure.
    “He’s got it down as pat as any harper,” his father said with some chagrin.
    “Just so long as you’ve made it
plain,”
Aramina said, emphasizing the word, “that he isn’t to swim out or go sailing—”
    “Skiff’s gone, remember?” Jayge put in reassuringly.
    “—to try and find those shipfish again,” she finished, glaring at him.
    “You heard him promise, ’Mina, that he wouldn’t go too near the water without a companion. He’s a child of his word, you know.”
    “Hmmm,” Aramina said ominously.
    But, as she kept strict track of her son’s whereabouts for the next two days, he did not disobey, though she saw him often shielding his eyes from the sun, gazing out across the restless waters of the Southern Sea.