Dolphins' Bell

by Anne McCaffrey

  Some injuries were still life-threatening, two heart attacks and three strokes from exposure and exhaustion, but no one, Basil Tomlinson announced, who wouldn't respond to treatment and therapy, even those who had had to be resuscitated.

  Of the ships sunk, the dolphins had been able to locate all of them and buoys now marked their positions. Most could be raised but the three small ships thrown up on the beach by the heavy seas were too badly damaged to be worth repair. The barges, unwieldy craft at best, had sunk so quickly that they hadn't been battered by the high waves. Efram with Kibby, Jan with Teresa, and Ben with Amadeus reported that the cargoes were still lashed in place, though the barges had been full of low-priority freight, safe enough where it was for now.

  As to cargo, no one paid much attention to what they grabbed and hauled into piles well above the high tide mark: it was enough to keep the jetsam on the beach. Too much to identify what was what. Jim was calling for more people to help with salvage when he noticed three of the medics walking towards him where he leaned wearily against a waterlogged and battered crate.

  "Look, Paul, I'm damned sorry to add this to your problems," Jim said wearily.

  "It's not one I expected, certainly," Paul replied in the oddest voice. Jim heard the defeated tone and responded by couching his report in the most optimistic manner he could muster. He rubbed at his face, stiff from brine. "Actually, Paul, the way the stuff is floating in on the tide, I wouldn't be at all surprised if we'll salvage most of it. Some's too waterlogged to estimate any damage but generally the packaging held. As to the ships, Andi's already figuring out repair lists…"

  "No jury rigs, dammit, Jim. You've leagues to go yet to reach Key Largo and Kaarvan told me it's no picnic crossing the two Currents."

  "I have no intention of setting sail again until all craft are seaworthy, shipshape and Bristol fashion as they used to say." Jim spoke with all the conviction he could manage, adding that old seaman's tag to show he was in good spirits.

  He was aware of shadows lengthening, covering the light from the westering sun. He turned slightly away from them, not wanting his conversation overheard. "Hell, by that time, all the cargo will have dried out, too. Only a few of the cocooned storage containers got torn open. Tomorrow we'll have dolphin teams start hauling up what was too heavy to surface on its own. You wouldn't believe what those critters can manage. I'll report in again later, Paul. Don't worry about us. Sled brought us all the help we needed."

  As he closed the comunit, someone cleared a throat and, surprised, Jim looked up to see Corazon Cervantes, Beth Eagles and Basil Tomlinson regarding him with an odd sort of amusement.

  "He's still on his feet," Corazon remarked to the others.

  Seeing how tired she looked made Jim aware of his own weariness.

  "Only because he's leaning on that crate," Beth said in her pragmatic way. She looked tired, too.

  "Old sailors never die, they just fade away," Basil said in a pontificating voice. "No matter, Theo was right," he added, pointing. "He's ricked the gelicast around and split the staples. What's your opinion, doctors?"

  "Repair, then bed rest," Beth said and before Jim could protest, she pressed a hypo-spray against his arm. As his legs folded and his vision darkened, he heard her add, "You know I don't think he realizes when it's time to take a break."

  * * *

  The smell of roasting food roused him but his body was unwilling to respond to the initial commands he gave to leave the horizontal position. He was on his back, under a canopy of woven fronds, which was certainly rustically unusual. Under him, however, was an air mattress and a light cover kept the cool of the shade from chilling him. He made an slight error in judgment by rolling onto his right side, preparatory to rising. The sudden weight on a heavy and awkwardly covered right arm was painful enough to force a groan from his lips.

  "Ah, you're awake, too, are you?" a voice said from his left.

  He twisted about to see Theo lying beside him. She gave him a cocky grin.

  "You sicced that unholy trio on me," he accused, not appreciating that justice had similarly immobilized her.

  "Dart informed on me," she said with a shrug. "So I figured I'd at least see I had decent company in my ward." In gesturing to their surroundings, she displayed a right arm marred by four heavily stapled and sealed spiral gashes that looked to have been deep.

  He reached over and took her hand, gently lowering her arm to her side. "How'd you get those?"

  She glanced in thoughtful surprise at her arm. "I don't rightly remember. I think we were checking out that five meter ketch Bruce Olivine sailed. Dart was trying to poke her nose into the for'ard hatch when the whole ship shifted and something snagged me by the arm."

  "How're your legs?"

  She kicked one free of the light cover. It, too, glistened with sealant. Dispassionately, she regarded the raw scratched flesh that ran from the top of her thigh to her ankle. The inside of her leg was only bruised. "I used to be better able to squeeze through tight places. Should've been okay if I'd had on a full wet-suit. It's only to regrow the skin I lost. But I gather we will spend some time here at our pleasant seaside resort."

  "Who's taking charge then?"

  "The medics," she said with a rude laugh. "Hey, someone," and she lifted her voice. "We're hungry in here."

  "Coming," a cheerful voice answered.

  Jim groaned again as he levered himself up.

  "Hey, they are coming," Theo said in alarm. She even sat up as he headed toward the thick shrubbery behind their temporary accommodation. "Oh! Always did think you guys had the best of the deal in circumstances like this."

  That short but critically necessary excursion proved to Jim Tillek that he had less strength than the fronds bowing to the light wind. It was going to take more time than he had to spare to recover from yesterday's exertions.

  "Yesterday's?" Theo laughed lustily, making him aware that he had spoken out-loud. "Jim, m'lad, you've been out for the full thirty-six. Today's the day after yesterday."

  "My God, then who's…"

  She grabbed his hand and gave one pull: sufficient to make his weak knees buckle. The air mattress cushioned his sudden descent but the jolt reminded him that he had other injuries as well as the broken arm. "Paul sent another sled, with plenty of people to muscle the salvage and a team of Joel's apprentices to run bar codes through their recorders. Where there are bar code patches left, that is."

  Jim groaned just as the obscuring foliage was pushed aside and Betty Musgrave arrived with a laden tray which she set in the space between them.

  "Hi, feel better, Jim? Theo?" she said with none of the forced cheerfulness that Jim would have found egregious.

  "He's had a nice long sleep and a nice long…" Theo chuckled as Jim's half-growl cut off the rest of her sentence.

  "Good, everyone'll be glad to hear that," Betty said with genuine relief. "And I won't have to ditch some of the urgent stuff Joel begged me to take to make room for his body. Eat. You're lucky to get room service today."

  She settled back then on her heels and Jim got the impression that she wasn't going to move until they finished what she'd brought: klah, of course, and slices of fresh fruit, rolls that were still warm when he picked one up. That was enough to make him attack the meal ravenously, and he mumbled gratitude.

  "Yes, we've civilized your camp since you're likely to be here long enough to appreciate a few…" she paused, making a funny grimace, "comforts."

  "What's happening at Fort?" Jim said, pinning Betty with a stern eye.

  She raised her eyebrows and lifted her hands in a gesture that told him she didn't care to go into any great detail.

  "There's good — we're safe in Fort. There's bad — we haven't enough power packs left for sleds to mount any sort of defence against Fall." She shrugged. "So we'll sit tight. Safe enough in a cliff Thread can't penetrate."

  "Emily?"

  Betty pulled mouth and head to one side and rocked a hand. No wonder Paul h
ad sounded so defeated: he and Emily made a superb team, each supporting the other. Without her active participation, Paul Ben-den would have a great deal to cope with even with Ongola's help.

  "She's some better," the pilot said, "but it'll be a long convalescence. Pierre's taking real good care of her. Ongola's a rock as always and, if Joel would only stop yapping about losing so much cargo…"

  "We haven't lost it," Jim and Theo said in chorus.

  Betty chuckled. "If you two won't give up, I don't see that Paul should. And so I'll tell him." She looked down at the wide digital on her arm and rose. "I gotta go. Good to see you've got your appetites back." And with a nod to each, she pushed back the foliage again.

  "Leave it open, can you, Betty?" Jim asked because he'd caught a reassuring glimpse of the beach and the people moving about.

  "I suppose so." She found a string that had been left for such a purpose and tied back the branch. "Keep an eye on him, Theo."

  "Glad to," Theo said with a deep chuckle.

  "Oh, one last bit of news, Jim," Betty said, "Kaarvan sailed the Venturer out of Fort last night on the tide. He'll come straight down. Be here in a couple of days."

  Not long after, they both heard the swish of a powered sled rising and craned their necks out their impromptu door to see the rear of the big airborne sled as it flew northwest toward Fort. Jim was just gathering himself to rise when Beth Eagles appeared.

  "You both should have been on that sled," she said without preamble, staring down at them with an expressionless face. "Unfortunately, Dart refuses to work with Anna Schultz," she said to Theo who almost looked happy about such non-compliance, "and Paul said that you'd probably crucify anyone else who tried to sail your precious Cross so we'd better get you well enough to captain her. Kaarvan's bringing more supplies and enough technicians so you can get this ridiculous fleet floating again."

  "It isn't ridiculous," Jim said, leaning back and sighing with intense relief. He had had a very nasty moment when Betty Musgrave had brought his breakfast. She never shirked hard duty and he'd been sure she'd meant to include him in her passenger list.

  "However," and Beth knelt to run an instrument over his body, "I think the sooner you're out on that boat…"

  "Ship," Jim corrected automatically.

  "Ship, then, the more likely you are to rest."

  "But I have to…" and he waved at the activity he could plainly see.

  "You have to rest, same as Theo here, or you won't be any good to any of us, and Paul doesn't need anything else to worry him… like the recuperation of Captain James Tillek!" She turned her back on him to check Theo. "And you're going out to the Cross with him so that little mammal of yours can see you. But Teresa, Kibby, Max and Pha have been told to make sure she won't let you in the water until you've got skin again. Hear me, Theo Force?"

  "How could I avoid it?" There was a ripple of laughter — and something else which Jim couldn't identify, in the dolphineer's husky voice.

  * * *

  That evening they were carefully escorted — they refused to be carried though Theo walked stiff-legged and had turned very white under her tanned skin — to a dinghy and towed by Dart and Pha out to the Southern Cross. Efram and Corte Poel caught each under the arms and lifted them aboard. Jim managed a dignified descent to his own cabin which he noticed had been set to rights after the storm had thrown his few possessions around. Theo had to be carried to her bunk, unable to bend her abraded knees to get down the short companionway.

  "We're sleeping aboard," Efram said, handing Jim a handunit, "but if you've any problems, just give a shout."

  "Or call that Dart," said Anna Schultz, poking her head around the door. She made a grimace but it wasn't ill-natured. "She's on patrol around the ship. I just hope she doesn't keep Theo awake, banging her nose into the hull by her bunk."

  Both dolphineers had scrapes and bruises where their body suits hadn't adequately protected them, but they didn't seem as worse for wear as Theo.

  "I'm cook," Anna went on, "but I've orders not to wake you for breakfast so it'll be laid out in the wardroom whenever you do get up."

  When the Venturer arrived, she dropped anchor near the Southern Cross and Kaar-van rowed over to pay his respects to Jim Tillek who was trying to schedule repairs and set the next day's duty roster. Kaarvan stood in the doorway for a long look, ducked his head and, in one short step for such a big man, grunted as he saw what Jim was doing.

  "As I heard it, you're supposed to be convalescing. You don't look even that fit."

  Jim laughed. "Old sailors never die…"

  "But they fade away, my friend," and deftly, without offence, Kaarvan removed the notepad from the desk. "This is my job for now."

  Since even the minor decisions he'd had to make to get half-way through the schedule had tired him, Jim threw up his hands and grinned cheerfully up at the swarthy skipper. It was only sensible to let Kaarvan take over. But each evening, the unsmiling Kaarvan came on board the Cross to report the day's achievements, how much the dolphin teams had retrieved from the sea bed, and to discuss the next day's schedule of repair. Jim appreciated that in Kaarvan: he felt less a supernumerary and somewhat involved in the restoration of his 'command'.

  During the day, he went topside to watch through his binoculars the temporary ship-yard and without any aids the antics of the working dolphins. Since Theo said the sun and fresh sea air promoted healing, she somehow got herself on deck and stretched out on the cockpit, trailing a hand over the side for Dart to nudge from time to time. Theo had talked her into 'cooperating temporarily' with Anna.

  The dolphins were tireless, finding netted material and pallets that had been rolled considerable distances away on the ocean floor by the tide; coming back to ask for harnesses to haul their finds back to the beach.

  "They're wearing us out," Efram told Jim one evening, so tired that raising his fork to his face was an effort.

  "You all need some time off," Anna said severely. "Give us apprentices a chance to see how the dolphins do underwater salvage. They know. We should."

  Jim raised that point with Kaarvan that evening and he immediately gave all the regular dolphineers three days' shore leave. Not being affected by that order since she was a substitute swimmer, Anna continued to berth on the Cross when the others went ashore, but Jim took over the cooking and prided himself on being able to make a decent meal out of their limited supplies.

  "How come you know how to cook so well?" Theo asked, having complimented him once again on the stuffed fish roll-ups he had served her. "You were married?"

  "Me? No, that's why I know how to cook." He grinned at her.

  He enjoyed those days, fishing for their dinner to supplement the provisions and nets of fresh fruit which Dark brought them. He also enjoyed Theo's undemanding company, especially after she asked him for the loan of his reader and the historical tape that mentioned the Dunkirk Evacuation.

  "I think we've sort of turned it all around, the flotilla being rescued by men and dolphins," she said, "but those troops must have experienced the same sense of amazed wonder that they survived!"

  Jim grinned down at her, knowing exactly what she meant. In fact, he was beginning to half wish their convalescence could last a long time. But he was getting stronger, able to do several laps around the Cross even though the gelicast arm was awkward. Beth remarked that he was putting a little flesh on his old bones and the break was knitting nicely. At Theo's insistence, she reinforced the sealants on her wounds and let her join Jim in their laps, Dart now squeeing joyfully to accompany her partner.

  "Dart's better than the Cross," Theo remarked one day after she had carefully and slowly climbed the rope ladder. The rake wounds made her movements stiff on land: in the sea she regained some of her usual grace.

  "How so?" Jim replied, surprised.

  "Dart talks back," Theo said with a grin as she gingerly arranged herself on the cockpit cushion.

  "And you think my ship doesn't communicate with
me?"

  "Does she?"

  "In her own fashion. Like right now," he said, feeling the alteration of the waves under her. He leaned across and tapped the barometer. Just then the comunit buzzed.

  "Squall's on its way, Jim," Kaarvan said. "Estimate it'll arrive in an hour, give or take five minutes. Need any help?"

  Suddenly Dart breached the water, walking on her tail and talking so agitatedly that Jim didn't understand her. Theo did.

  "She said," and Theo grinned, "sea is changing and will get rough. Storm coming."

  "Now we know itls true," and Jim grinned back. "I'll just close the for'ard hatches. We are anchored properly to ride out a squall so that doesn't need to be altered."

  "Need any help?"

  "No, you get below before we get any choppy water."

  Theo grimaced but swung her legs around and pushed herself up.

  As he battened down the hatches and checked other gear on the deck, Jim saw that the beach dwellers were also taking precautions. Dolphin fins zipped about the area, landing partners. An unaccompanied group — and Jim thought it was Kibby leaping at the head of the pod — headed toward the storm to bring a report back to Kaarvan.

  "I'd feel safer out there with Dart," Theo said, scowling at Jim when he joined her in the wardroom. She had fixed some klah and laid out some food.

  "You know, Eba Dar remarked on that." Jim slid in to his usual seat at the end of the table.

  "We were safer because we could just go deeper, to calmer water. I'd plenty of oxygen in my breather," Theo said, sipping her klah. Her right arm was regaining flexibility but she still couldn't raise it all the way to her mouth. "I knew you lot were having a helluva time topside but we kept watch below."

  Jim covered her right hand, soothing fingers that twitched impatiently. "I know you did. The reason we'd no loss of life was you dolphineers!"

  "That's our job," she said with a cocky grin and a jerk of her head. She let her fingers lie still in his grasp.