Dolphins' Bell

by Anne McCaffrey

  "No. You got asked to stand in that circle," and Theo snorted. "They wanted younger riders. Like I said, I've done enough flying."

  "You're not old…"

  Theo's laugh was genuine amusement. "Maybe not from where you swim, granddad," she said but he took no offence from her teasing. He was after all in his sixth decade, twice her age, and should have been a grandfather… if he hadn't chosen a profession that would have denied him most of the pleasures of marriage and children. A month's home leave after sixteen or seventeen months' in space wasn't enough time for a wife or kids. He'd never tried for any more than casual relationships.

  As an emergency, Jim thought that Fall was rather a let-down but then he'd spent it safely in the water, and agreeably in Theo's company. Once or twice he had felt Thread plunk on the crown of his coolie hat and had inadvertently flinched, but the stuff had slid off the slick plastic and hissed into the sea. He'd swing his legs out of danger as the Thread continued down into the water deep enough to be swallowed by Dart or Peri's Pha or some of the schools of fish who flitted about to feast on the manna. Hunger made them fearless and Jim felt the caress of scales now and then on his bare skin: startling the first time and producing a knowing laugh from Theo who was completely accustomed to such contact. The result was that he felt as protected by the sea as by the man-made artifacts. And the fire-lizards. Theo had told him to look up through the semi-transparency of the cone's flange to see the first of the fire-lizards flaming around and above them, deflecting Thread from the deck of the Cross. Since the deck was made of teakwood he had imported as part of his allowable weight as Buenos Aires captain, he was particularly happy to see it protected from Threadscore.

  Then, almost too soon, the loud chuff-ings, squee-ings and ecstatic breechings of dolphins told him the danger had passed.

  "We'll do a quick tour," Theo told him, holding out her hand in the water for Dart to supply a dorsal fin and the tow. "Peri, you go to port, I'll go starboard."

  "Lemme know if there's been any scoring, especially any damage to the ships," he called after them. So many of the smaller craft had not even handsets but with the dolphineers so swift to respond to emergency signals, that had not yet posed a problem.

  Thinking on how well they had sur-vived this recurrent menace, Jim hauled himself back on board, stowed his hat within easy reach, dried off and ordered sail hoisted again.

  "The enemy has been met and… consumed," he muttered, grinning to himself at his paraphrase as he unlashed the helm that had been on a course diagonally away from the main Thread rain. But, oddly, he felt the better for that short brush and Theo's company. She was a sort of… comfortable person. He grinned again. That was not the sort of compliment a woman would appreciate.

  The second emergency was more life-threatening — a burst plank below the water-line nearly sank a six meter ketch, save for the quick action of the dolphins who all but swam it into shore on their own

  Theo's laugh was genuine amusement. "Maybe not from where you swim, granddad," she said but he took no offence from her teasing. He was after all in his sixth decade, twice her age, and should have been a grandfather… if he hadn't chosen a profession that would have denied him most of the pleasures of marriage and children. A month's home leave after sixteen or seventeen months' in space wasn't enough time for a wife or kids. He'd never tried for any more than casual relationships.

  As an emergency, Jim thought that Fall was rather a let-down but then he'd spent it safely in the water, and agreeably in Theo's company. Once or twice he had felt Thread plunk on the crown of his coolie hat and had inadvertently flinched, but the stuff had slid off the slick plastic and hissed into the sea. He'd swing his legs out of danger as the Thread continued down into the water deep enough to be swallowed by Dart or Peri's Pha or some of the schools of fish who flitted about to feast on the manna. Hunger made them fearless and Jim felt the caress of scales now and then on his bare skin: startling the first time and producing a knowing laugh from Theo who was completely accustomed to such contact. The result was that he felt as protected by the sea as by the man-made artifacts. And the fire-lizards. Theo had told him to look up through the semi-transparency of the cone's flange to see the first of the fire-lizards flaming around and above them, deflecting Thread from the deck of the Cross. Since the deck was made of teakwood he had imported as part of his allowable weight as Buenos Aires captain, he was particularly happy to see it protected from Threadscore.

  Then, almost too soon, the loud chuff-ings, squee-ings and ecstatic breechings of dolphins told him the danger had passed.

  "We'll do a quick tour," Theo told him, holding out her hand in the water for Dart to supply a dorsal fin and the tow. "Peri, you go to port, I'll go starboard."

  "Lemme know if there's been any scoring, especially any damage to the ships," he called after them. So many of the smaller craft had not even handsets but with the dolphineers so swift to respond to emergency signals, that had not yet posed a problem.

  Thinking on how well they had sur-vived this recurrent menace, Jim hauled himself back on board, stowed his hat within easy reach, dried off and ordered sail hoisted again.

  "The enemy has been met and… consumed," he muttered, grinning to himself at his paraphrase as he unlashed the helm that had been on a course diagonally away from the main Thread rain. But, oddly, he felt the better for that short brush and Theo's company. She was a sort of… comfortable person. He grinned again. That was not the sort of compliment a woman would appreciate.

  The second emergency was more life-threatening — a burst plank below the water-line nearly sank a six meter ketch, save for the quick action of the dolphins who all but swam it into shore on their own backs. As the cargo of the ketch was mainly irreplaceable orange coded supplies, its timely rescue was a double blessing.

  They anchored early that day so that they could not only find a replacement plank from those that Andi Gomez had extruded during the layover at Paradise River but also check sails and lines for Thread score. No human had received injury and even those who had doubted the efficacy of 'coolies' against Thread had been reassured by the experience.

  Though the ketch crew worked all night with the plastic experts, the flotilla did not make sail until noontime. A good wind helped make up lost time and certainly relieved Jim's frustrations. He missed Theo's company in the cockpit but she had this first watch off and was sleeping. It was a shame she was missing the best part of this fine day. Nothing, but nothing on any world, could be a more stimulating and satisfying occupation than sailing a good ship in a brisk wind down sparkling clear blue-green coastal waters. He wondered if Theo could appreciate that, too.

  At Malay River Stake, they had to take time for major repairs to sail, sheet and hulls, then rearrange cargoes again — to Desi's dismay. Crews put up with his fussing and checked and double-checked the bar coding until all records were to his satisfaction.

  * * *

  The tropical storm, brewing up sud-denly as they neared Boca, drove them back towards Sadrid.

  Jim's nautical instinct had been warning him since early morning as they sailed westward on the gentle swells. Wade Lorenzo had reminded him only the night before of the suddenness of squalls on this stretch of coast. So he was watching for those little signs the experienced sailor knows: a smudge on the horizon that wasn't Thread, the sudden drop of the barometer, a change in the color of the water, a sultry feeling of pressure in the air around him. He just had time to notice the alteration from blue-green to greyish green and the rippling change of the wave patterns.

  "Theo," he began as she was once more his cockpit companion, "I think…"

  The storm struck with a ferocity and suddenness he had rarely encountered on any previous seas. He had the impression of black suit and bare legs going over the side into the suddenly heavy sea as he tightened his hold on the helm. He didn't even have time to get the bow turned into the huge comber bearing down on them but the Cross had answered so that she wasn't hit br
oadside with four and five meters waves. His crew struggled to bring the sails down, reefing them even though they were all but washed off the deck — only the life-rails preventing their going overboard. As it was, young Steve Duff, struggling to tie down the boom, barely missed the lightning that flashed across the ship, slicing through the mast two thirds of the way up its length, snapping the mainstays into lethal lashes until they fell over the monel life-rail. With the help of Peri Cervantes, Jim managed to keep the bow turned into the towering seas as once again the Cross thudded into a trough left by the latest monumental wave. What was happening to the more vulnerable small craft of his fleet drove terror into Jim's heart until the more immediate threat to the lives of himself and his crew banished all thought but survival.

  Now and then, during the brief but thoroughly devastating squall, he caught sight of dolphins, hurtling mid-air across a seething watery surface, purpose in every line of their sleek bodies. Sometimes their partners clung to the dorsal fins, other times the dolphins seemed to be acting independently, but certainly in accordance with their training.

  Twice the Cross's crew threw lines and hauled people rescued by the dolphins out of the water to the dubious safety of the plunging deck. Once they overran the upturned hull of a capsized ship, feeling the grind as their keel sliced across plastic hull.

  As abruptly as it began, the storm vanished in the distance, a roiling dark vortex pierced by bolts of lightning.

  Exhausted and somewhat amazed to be alive, Jim was suddenly aware that his right arm was broken and he was bleeding from a variety of cuts on both arms, chest and bare legs from wind-flung debris. None of his crew were totally unscathed. One rescued girl had a broken leg and the boy was concussed, his face badly contused and a long wound giving his hair a new parting. In the sea, still heavy from the agitation of the squall, survivors clung to spars, half-sunk hulks or pallets in an expanse of destruction that nearly reduced Jim to tears.

  Ignoring his own wounds and his crew's urgings to attend to them, Jim scrabbled for the bull horn in the cockpit and released it from its brackets. He had Peri start up engines rarely used to conserve fuel. Ranging up and down wherever they saw flotsam, he shouted encouragements and orders, directing dolphineer rescues even as he wondered if all under his command could still be alive. And what cargo could be salvaged.

  "It came up out of nowhere, Ongola," Jim reported in an almost lifeless voice when Fort com answered his mayday. By then they'd managed to get a lot of the shipwrecked to the sandy beach. The dolphin teams were still searching the wreckage but he needed more assistance as soon as possible. He gazed with eyes that dared not focus too long on the human jetsam and the wreckage flung up on the long narrow strand that was the nearest landfall. His Southern Cross, five of the larger yawls and ketches and two small sloops had ridden out the storm. "Wade warned me about the way squalls brew up in this area so I was on guard. Not that it did me any good. It hit out of nowhere. A change of the wave color and pattern and then, bang! We'd no time to do anything except hope we'd survive. Some never had enough time to lower sail and steer into the wind. If it hadn't been for the dolphins, Zi, we'd've lost people, too." That might not be Joel Lilienkamp's first concern but it certainly would be Paul Benden's as it was Jim Tillek's.

  "Casualties?"

  "Yeah, too many," Jim said, absently smoothing the gelicast that now bound his broken arm. He had no recollection of breaking it. Only one of his cuts had needed stapling and Theo had done that, as well as apply the gelicast. Neither of them thought it was a compounded fracture. Then he'd applied the sealant to the scratches on Theo's bare legs and arms, earned while she tried to squeeze into wrecked cabins to aid survivors. They'd separated, first aid kits in hand, to attend the needs of others to the best of their abilities.

  Corazon Cervantes who had accompanied this section as medic diagnosed twelve with internal injuries and multiple fractures that the limited medical supplies she had couldn't handle. She had two coronary patients on the only life-support units that could be found in the Cross's cargo.

  There were more but they couldn't find the right cargo without a lot of shifting which they didn't have the time to do.

  "Can you send a sled for the worst injuries, Zi?"

  "Of course. One's already being loaded with medics and supplies and will fly out to you in the next sixty seconds. Give me your approximate location again?"

  "Somewhat east of Boca but west of Sadrid," Jim said wearily. "You can't miss us. The sea's filled with flotsam and overturned hulls. Has Kaarvan made port?"

  "Yesterday."

  "The Venturer would be mighty useful to carry salvaged cargo back to Fort as well as the extra folk who no longer have a ship to sail."

  "What's Ezra's condition?"

  "I haven't tried reaching him yet, Zi. He's a few days ahead of us and probably missed the storm or you've heard from him by now. There's really no point in sending him back: every one of his ships were loaded to the plimsoll line. His group'll do better finishing their journey."

  Cyra Holstrom stopped beside him and handed him a mug of hot klah, put on the crate he leaned against a twig-pierced fried fish from the tray she carried. She gave him a nod and moved on to the next person on the beach. Somehow she and her husband had managed to beach their seven meter sloop, cargo intact, but mast and sail gone.

  "And the Cross, Jim?" Ongola asked in genuine concern.

  "Battered but afloat," Jim said. The mast would have to be replaced, and the mainstays, but he still had all his canvas. Andi had already vowed that his new mast would be the first she'd make: she'd be making many if they were to sail any ships out of here. "Which reminds me: we got some lightning burn cases, too. Three of the barges sunk completely but the dolphins are busy resurrecting cargo. Right now, the injured are my first priority."

  "As they should be. Ah, yes," and On-gola broke off for a moment. "Joel urgently needs to know if you can estimate how much and what cargo is irretrievable?" Jim caught an indefinable note of regret in On-gola's voice that indicated he felt such a question was importunate. It was, however, totally in character for Lilienkamp and Jim was too weary to summon much rancour.

  "Hell, Zi, I haven't completed a head count! Desi Arthied's got broken ribs, had to be resuscitated, and Corrie says he probably had a coronary. But do reassure Joel that Desi's manifest recorder was tucked inside his life vest next to his heart. That ought to cheer him up." Jim couldn't keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "I gotta go."

  "Help is on its way, Jim. My sympathies. I'll report immediately to Paul. Is there someone you can keep on the com?"

  Bleary-eyed, Jim looked about him. The able-bodied were tending the injured, but he spotted Eba Dar propped up against a fallen tree, his emergency-splinted leg sticking out in front of him. He was chewing the last of the fish from its twig.

  "Eba? You well enough to keep the line open to Fort?" Jim asked, peering into the man's lacerated face and eyes for signs of concussion. Eba's naturally sallow skin did not show pallor and the cuts on his shoulders and chest were already sealed.

  "Sure. Nothing wrong with my mouth and my wits," Eba said with a droll grin and, tossing the empty twig, reached for the unit. "Who's on the other end?"

  "At the moment, Zi Ongola. They're sending a big sled for the serious casualties and Kaarvan'll sail the Venturer down to pick up whatever cargo we can save."

  Eba looked out at a sea once again calm where oddments could be seen bobbing to the surface or floating in on the tide. Soon enough Jim knew the shallow beach would be littered and he'd better find enough people to haul the jetsam safely above the high water mark. Shielding his eyes with his good hand, he peered seaward where dolphin fins cut from one upturned hull to another, their human partners hanging on to the dorsals, still searching for survivors.

  "Damn her," he said under his breath as he recognized Dart's smaller, distinctively marked body and Theo towed alongside. Small satisfaction that the sealant on those scrapes of hers should b
e stinging like hell. Was she mad, driving herself in that condition?

  "Dolphins're doing great, aren't they," Eba remarked. "Wonder if we'd've all been safer in the water with them."

  "The dolphins were okay, but not all their partners," Jim replied. "Besides, you farmer types couldn't hold your breath long enough, the way dolphins can." He gave Eba's shoulder a squeeze and limped off to see if, this time, he'd come up with a more accurate body count. Five people were still unaccounted for, three of them kids. He told himself that everyone had been wearing life-vests which had, indeed, saved lives.

  Eba'd been not far from wrong about being safer with the dolphins. Equipped with breathers and able to dive with their partners beneath the towering waves to escape the pummeling, the dolphineers had been lucky — at least during the squall. All of them, to one degree or another, had scrapes from underwater hazards and being tumbled against the sandy or rocky abra-siveness of the ocean floor. Now they risked themselves time and again to rescue unconscious or injured folk. Even before the storm ended, teams had followed sinking ships down to save those trapped on board. Many people owed their lives to the quick action of the dolphin swimmers who had, in some instances, torn off their breathers to give the drowning life-saving oxygen.

  It was also during those first few hectic hours after the storm had passed that dol-phineers received more serious injuries, broken bones and wounds. Pha had gone so far as to beach himself to get Gunnar to medical attention for a deep wound in his thigh, sustained when he'd pushed his way into a cabin to free a trapped child. Efram, Ben and Bernard had to be called in to haul Pha by the tail back into sea, Pha squee-ee-ing and complaining that they'd do him masculine damage.

  By the time the big sled from Fort arrived, Jim knew that, by some incredible miracle, there had been no loss of life. The five missing folk walked in from further down the beach where their ketch had been stranded: one of the teen-aged girls had a broken arm, the other a dislocated shoulder which the newly arrived medics instantly attended. They made the walking wounded sit and sip at restorative 'cocktails' that had been mixed and brought along.