"I am pleased to make your acquaintance,' Menolly said in slow formal tones, nodding her head at each smiling shipfish face in the circle.

"G'day, Nolly,' several chorused at her. She was unable to suppress laughter any longer. "Nolly, has babbee inside."

"My word! I know I'm big with child but how would they know?" she exclaimed, pausing in her attempt to get her awkward pregnant body arranged in a sitting position on the edge of the pier.

"They know or, as they put it, "member" rather a lot about humans. "Nolly! That's a fair nickname."

"The dolphins may, but you may not,' she said sternly.

"What're you discussing?"

"I'm getting tomorrow's weather and a fish report, he told his sister.

"Really?"

"The dolphins have been very helpful over the past few weeks.

We've never had better hauls. They know exactly where schools are feeding and lead us right to them. My men are delighted since it means less time at sea as well as sufficient warnings on squalls."

"Oh, yes, that would be helpful, wouldn't it?" Menolly made herself as comfortable on the hard planking as she could. "Readis told me all about your dramatic rescue.

Alemi grinned. "I don't think he's embroidered it much from the last time I heard him tell it. And it really happened, sister.

Only,' and he waved his hand at the raft and dolphins, "Aramina would rather Readis forgot that adventure."

"So Kitrin told me and now I know, I can divert him. "Mina should have told me."

Alemi shrugged. "She's still recovering from the shock of your appearance, Master Harper sister dear."

"Oh? She seems pleased "Of course she is. Who wouldn't want a harper of your talent to teach their children?"

"Teach? Teach?" asked two shipfish.

"Oh, sorry, fell as,' Alemi said, turning back to the bottlenoses.

"Where were we? I teach them new words . . . or rather get them to remember them."

"You? Teaching'?"

"C'mon, Menolly, I was Petiron's pet student until you came along.

"Oh, and you've sung to your new friends?"

"No,' Alemi refused to rise to her bait, "you're the singer in the family. And the teacher!'

Menolly shot her brother a close look. Alemi had a teasing streak in him but he was quite sincere.

"Go on. You sang to the fire-lizards, why not to dolphins? I'll do the tenor line, if you'll sing something I know.

"Very well,' and she launched into one of the sea songs she had composed not long after she had walked the tables as a journeywoman. Alemi's well-placed voice joined immediately in harmony. After the first startled squees and clickings, her audience was silent. Beauty, Rocky and Diver appeared suddenly in the air, settling on pilings, eyes whirling fast with curiosity as they saw her audience.

"Zea zong, one of the shipfish said when the last notes died away. "Nolly zing zea zong." The sibilants were drawn out.

"Zeee, squeee zong,' another added and Menolly laughed.

"Sea song, you silly creatures. Sea, not ZEE."

Then abruptly the shipfish began an intricate maneuver in and over the sea's surface, all the time squeeing "ssseee song, scee song' and on several tones so that it was almost a chord to what she and Alemi had sung. Delighted at their antics and the apparent compliment, Menolly clapped her hands. Two shipfish splashed water with their flippers as if imitating her action.

"They are intelligent, "Lemi. Do they mean to be funny?"

"Just look at their smiling faces. They're right rascals when they want to be,' Alemi said, hauling himself up off the float to sit beside her.

"Sing song, Nolly? Sing two song, Nolly?"

"All right, but settle down. You can't hear me when you're splashing around like that."

Beauty now a.s.sumed her usual perch on Menolly's shoulder, wrapping her tail about her neck, but being careful to place her talons on the fabric of the light top Menolly was wearing.

Menolly put up a caressing hand as she began one of the traditional ballads. Menolly was accustomed to respectful listeners but the attentiveness of these sea creatures was the most intense she had ever encountered. They listened with eye, body and whole being. They didn't even seem to breathe. Softly, in her ear, she heard Beauty begin her usual soft descant. The shipfish heard it, too, for their eyes turned slightly to her left and their grins, if anything, seemed to widen. Menolly had had many rare musical experiences with audiences but this surely was the most unique. She would have to tell Sebell all about it.

She would never forget this evening! From the expression on his face, she doubted Alemi would either.

Darkness came with the usual tropical immediacy and suddenly they were enclosed in the dark of full night, the attentive dolphin heads gleaming silvery in the light of Timor just rising over the sea.

"Thank you one and all,' Menolly said in a voice vibrant with grat.i.tude. "I shall never forget meeting you."

"Thank you, Nolly. Love men song.

"In this case it is a woman song,' Alemi said in wry correction.

Nolly song. Nolly song!" was the rejoinder.

"Diff'rent, better, best,' Afo added, ducking her head and flipping a spray at them with her nose in farewell.

Menolly and Alemi watched as the six plunged seaward, leaping and diving gracefully until they could no longer be seen.

"Well, that was much more than I could ever have antic.i.p.ated,' Menolly said as they walked slowly back toward the hold, Alemi holding the glow basket which he had learned to bring for the dark return walk. "It's almost a shame, really."

"What?"

"That there's all this fuss and industry over Thread when Aivas has so much more to offer us.

"What could be more important than getting rid of Thread forever?" Alemi asked, surprised by her comment. "Interest in the dolphins is likely to be limited to my Hall and totally ignored by land dwellers. No, I'm glad to keep them as useful allies, like dragons or fire-lizards. They're far more intelligent than runner beasts, or even the canines, and are far more use to us than fire-lizards. Especially since they can communicate, verbally, rather than mentally the way dragons do or the limited range of fire-lizards."

"No, let's not belittle fire-lizards, not to she who has ten and uses all. Does Master Idarolan know of these - " she laughed, "sea-dragons of yours?"

"Of course. He was the first person - besides Aivas - I talked to. I send him regular reports on my progress with this pod "Pod?"

"Yes, that's the name for individual units. Pods. Each one has waters it prefers to fish and play in. They're great ones for games, dolphins are. Alemi laughed indulgently. As far as they're concerned, I'm just a new game they're playing."

"But you said that they give you information about fishing and squalls?"

"Oh, they do, but reporting's more like a game to them. "Oh, I see."

Don't discount the usefulness of such a game, Menolly,' he added earnestly.

"No, I won't but I do see that their appeal would be, should be limited. They're certainly not as easy to take home as firelizards."

"True, Alemi said, chuckling. "But they are endlessly interesting with their observations. They're much more their own selves than fire-lizards or even dragons. If they're not interested, they go off." Alemi shrugged.

"Like children .

"Yes, very much like children at times."

"Well, fire-lizards have proved useful,' Menolly said with a tinge of irritation in her tone. Some people discounted the many ways in which fire-lizards were useful.

"Easy, "Nolly,' Alemi said, and his tone made her look up at him, his white teeth showing in his grinning face. "And it was your method of teaching a fire-lizard manners that has helped me make meaningful contact with the dolphins."

"Sorry, brother,' Menolly said sheepishly.

"We have much to be thankful to the Ancients for,' Alemi said in an expansive tone.

"Though I wonder,' Menolly replied thoughtfully, "if we will say the same in a few Turns' time when Aivas unleashes all the wonders stored up."

"I thought harpers were applauding all the - what is it Aivas calls it - input?"

"Knowledge is sometimes two-edged, Alemi. You learn about all the marvels that used to be and they set the standard for what can be, and maybe shouldn't be."

"Are you worried?"

"Oh,' she said and shook herself, "put my fancies down to pregnancy. There's so much we don't know, don't remember, have lost. Like shipfish . . . excuse me, doll fins being able to speak intelligently. Every time I visit Cove Hold, D'ram or Lytol or Master Robinton have something newly remarkable to recount. The mind can only absorb so much.

"Isn't it up to the Harper Hall and the Benden Weyrleaders to see that we learn only the best of what there is?" He was half teasing, half serious.

"Indeed it is,' and she was very solemn. "A great responsibility, I a.s.sure you.

"You must find it dull living here in such a backwater."

"Not at all, "Lemi,' and she paused, catching his arm and giving him a little shake. "Frankly, living here and teaching your lovely children has given me a much needed respite and a chance to gain some perspective on all that's happening to our way of life."

"It's improved, that's what's happened.

"Ah, but is it really improvement?"

"You're in an odd mood, Menolly."

"I think of more things than the next song to write.

"I never said you didn't."

"No, you never did. Sorry, "Lemi. Night-time confessions and doubts generally are regretted in daylight."

Alemi put his arm about her shoulders in rea.s.surance. "Don't ever doubt yourself, Menolly. You've come such a long way.

She chuckled. "Yes, I have, haven't I?" She clasped his hand on her shoulder, suffused with warm feelings for this favorite brother.

"But you can see, as a harper and a sea-bred holder, how helpful the relationship with dolphins can be."

"Yes, indeed I can, above and beyond my grat.i.tude for their rescue of you and Readis."

"Mind you,' and his fingers squeezed her shoulders in warning, "don't mention this evening to Readis or Aramina, will you?"

"No, of course not. But I'd like to tell Sebell and Master Robin ton.

"Them, of course."

She declined his invitation to join him and Kitrin for an evening cup of klah or wine. He saw her safely to her holding despite her protests that she was able to see her way clear to her own door. She had every intention of sitting down and writing of the evening's surprises to Sebell, but the sight of the hammock swinging lightly in the night breeze was irresistible and she sank into it only for a moment - she thought, and fell instantly asleep.

Afo ecstatically reported the Nolly singing to them. Dolphins had songs of their own which all The Tilleks had taught so well they were imbedded in their memofles: which they sang remembering the waters they had come from. Sometimes the songs were sad - from the times when many dolphins died in nets that entangled them. Sometimes the sadness came from missing the mans, the great work that had been done and the happy partnerships. The happy songs were from the things dolphins had learned to do with mans, the Dun kirk, the Crossing of the Great Currents, the Swimming of the Whirlpool, or the finding of mans things that got into the water and shouldn't stay there; the saving of mans in storms. There were many songs dolphins would sound. Sometimes every pod would join in, weaving the sounds back and forth across the seas of Pern That darktime many songs floated on the Great Currents.

That they disturbed the sleep of two women and one small boy at Paradise River Hold was something that ended on the morning tide. But the song remained, a faint and pleasant memory, not a sad one as it had been at other times.

Chapter Six.

allthough Aramina suspected that Alemi spent a great deal of time talking to the doll fins, he never mentioned it to anyone in her hearing. Gradually, Readis' adventure with the shipfish faded as other experiences - such as learning his traditional ballads under the guidance of Master Menolly, the birth of her second son, Olos, and Kitrin's longawaited son, Aleki - superseded that occasion. She began to relax again.

Readis was a very strong young swimmer, but she had no wish to see his strength overtaxed by further direct a.s.sociation with the sea creatures - mammals or whatever they were - luring him out beyond his depth. Readis was to succeed his father as Holder of Paradise River, though she secretly harbored the thought that he might be Searched for a dragonrider to the Eastern Weyr. He might be what she hadn't had the courage to pursue. He certainly enjoyed the company of the many dragons that came to Paradise River Hold: he'd scrubbed many a hide in the warm waters, and most often Lord Jaxom's white Ruth who appeared to have a special affinity for her son. It wasn't beyond the realm of possibility, really, she thought, that Readis couldn't have the same extraordinary option of being both rider and Holder that Lord Jaxom had enjoyed. Although, with all the plans to rid Pern of Thread forever, there'd be less objection to his dual role. From time to time, she wondered - as many did on Pern - if Weyrs would be disbanded after Thread no longer plagued them.

Of course, if Readis became a dragon rider, he would still be quite young - in his early thirties - when this Pa.s.s ended: more reason for him to be both rider and holder. After all, Jayge was a vigorous man and likely to last well past the end of Thread.

So Readis could ride and hold.

Then, too, dragons would speak to him, a momentous concession even if he didn't realize it yet in his youthful innocence.

He wouldn't know how much their willingness to do so gladdened her heart. Maybe that would weigh in their accepting him as a Candidate on the Hatching Sands. She wasn't at all sure how Jayge would view her ambitions for her son. But that didn't mean she couldn't have them. Readis' case was entirely different to hers in every respect. There was no reason not to consider that tantalizing future for her son.

The new harper came, appointed by Menolly herself to succeed her: a journeyman named Boskoney, in his early twenties and bred in a fishing hold on Ista so he was accustomed to the climate and occupations of Paradise River. She'd done the Paradise "River Holders the courtesy of presenting several candidates.

"I'm not going to let those lovely children be saddled by some journeyman who only wants to warm his bones in this climate,' she told them. "They have to have someone as alert, eager, and -" she smiled, "as adventurous and understanding of this environment as possible. We do have a lovely girl finishing her apprenticeship, if you wouldn't mind a woman harper Menolly had c.o.c.ked her head at her friends with a sly grin and a twinkle in her eye.

"Of course, we wouldn't mind,' Jayge and Alemi said in unison, then grinned at each other for the force of their response.