Dolphins Of Pern Part 11

T'lion trudged disconsolately toward the conference room and utter humiliation, a short walk that seemed as long as the flight straight.

Monarth said they would like to have a baby, Gadareth told him in a cheerful tone. Path agrees.

But what if Tana can't know? What if she's wrong? !"ll die!

No, and Gadareth's tone chided him for rashness, because you would not like me to die, too, would you?

No, of course not! T'lion gave himself a shake. Whatever happened now he still had Gadareth. No-one could part him from his dragon.

He pushed open the door.

"Aivas, it's T'lion here with Weyrleader T'gellan and green Path's rider, Mirrim,' he announced to the screen. Only when he had caught a reproving glance from T'gellan did he mutter K'din's name.

"What is the topic of your, discussion today? The dolphins?"

"How did he know?" Mirrim asked in an undertone.

"Because T'lion usually reports on the progress of his meetings with the dolphins, Mirrim,' Aivas said and Mirrim winced, having forgotten the acuteness of the facility's "hearing'.

"One of the dolphins, Tana, said I was pregnant." Mirrim came straight to the point.

"If the dolphin noticed an alteration in your womb, she is likely to be accurate."

A profound silence fell on the small conference room.

"Well, now, how? I didn't even know myself, Aivas,' Mirrim said, easing herself on to a chair. "I mean - "Dolphin sonar - "That was the word she used "Sonar What is that?"

"Dolphin sonar is the means by which they navigate across the oceans of Pern, sending out signals and reading the sound waves that return to them. Sonar also informs the dolphin of minute changes in body ma.s.s. Dolphins accurately diagnose T'gellan exclaimed.

"to not only pregnancy but bodily tumors and growths and often other illnesses in their early stages. Medics - healers in your current parlance - relied on dolphin diagnostics as unique and correct.

"You mean, Mirrim is pregnant?" T'gellan asked.

"If a dolphin has p.r.o.nounced it, indubitably she is with child.

T'lion looked from the radiant smile that suffused Mirrim's face to T'gellan's proud posture. Out of the corner of his eye he caught the grimace on his brother's face but he was careful not to exhibit his elation at Aivas' verdict. He didn't want to prod K'din into further acts of retaliation. It was enough that he, T'lion, was right and he mentally kicked himself for doubting the dolphins. But he hadn't had any idea they could "see' into human bodies!

"Perhaps this facet of dolphin abilities has been overlooked?" Aivas asked after T'gellan and Mirrim had shared a happy embrace.

T'gellan looked at T'lion who shrugged denial.

"I think we should ask the Weyr Healer to look into the matter,' T'gellan said. "Would the dolphins see infections that lie under the skin and then erupt?"

"The records so indicate. Do you refer to a puncture wound?"

"Yes, I do. M'sur nearly lost his leg because it wasn't until he saw the red lines of blood poisoning that he realized he had a severe injury. Persellan had a time saving his life and his leg!' Then T'gellan turned to T'lion. "I think we'd best inform the Healers Hall at Fort about this."

"D'you think they'll believe you?" Mirrim said with a laugh.

Her left hand hovered on her belt, fingers spread over her belly as if she still couldn't credit the diagnosis.

T'gellan shrugged, grinning. "They can or cannot as they so choose but I've a duty to inform them."

"There's a healer here at Landing, isn't there?" Mirrim asked.

"Oh, thank you, Aivas, for your time.

"You are welcome, dragonrider Mirrim."

"My grat.i.tude, Aivas, on several counts, and he gave T'lion a rea.s.suring grin. "That meeting with your dolphin friends took a most unexpected turn, lad. We thank you. Mirrim's lost two babes because she didn't know she was pregnant. We don't want to lose another. Come,' T'gellan said, one hand at Mirrim's waist, guiding her out the door. "We'll inform D'ram of this.

He'll see that the Healer Hall is informed."

"Yes, best coming from him,' Mirrim agreed, but she beckoned for T'lion to walk beside her on their way out.

It took a moment or two for D'ram to absorb the astonis.h.i.+ng news, then he rose from his chair and heartily shook T'gellan's hand, beaming at Mirrim.

"It's always been a problem for Weyrwomen to know when they have conceived and stay out of between in the first few months. You'll have women flocking to the sh.o.r.es to speak to dolphins."

"I'm not sure that's what we want, T'gellan said, somewhat alarmed.

"Oh, well, yes, but I shall inform the Healer Hall and they can make what arrangements they find useful."

"If they believe the story,' Mirrim said.

"Oh, I know a few who are open minded enough to investigate especially if Aivas has verified the matter. First I shall ask Aivas to give me what information he has on the diagnostic abilities of the dolphin. Nothing like the printed word to rea.s.sure. Then the old Weyrleader turned to T'gellan. "You were wise to confirm this with Aivas instead of dismissing the matter."

"It was certainly worth the trouble of flying here straight,' T'gellan agreed, smiling fondly down at his weyrmate. "Though I won't deny I found it hard to credit. Sorry about that, T'lion."

"Oh, that's all right, T'gellan,' T'lion could honestly say now that his friends were vindicated. "I didn't believe it myself, you know.

If T'lion found himself appointed as dolphin liaison - a word Kib suggested to him from his revived vocabulary of Ancient terms - for the sceptical medics who did come, sometimes with patients, more often not, he had no objections. It kept him out of K'din's way and made it less likely that any tale K'din might concoct would discredit him in the Weyrleader's eyes. Persellan, the Weyr's healer, a journeyman from the southernmost tip of South Boll, was nearly scornful as he announced that it was impossible to detect a pregnancy so soon after conception.

But Tana neatly demolished his disbelief when she pinpointed yet another festering puncture wound in the arm of a weyrchild who kept complaining that his arm hurt. The headwoman had been sure it was an attempt to avoid his ch.o.r.es. Tana not only was correct about the infection but she touched her nose on exactly the point which the skeptical Persellan was to poultice.

The next morning the infection had come to a head and in it could clearly be seen the needle fine thorn which caused the problem.

Thorns from a variety of vegetation on the Southern continent were a constant problem to the healers. Most people wore little in the hot summers so there was more bare flesh which could be invaded by a casual brush against leaves and plants. Even tough dragon hide was not impervious to the problem though the protective layer just under the skin was rarely penetrated.

More often it was the rider, scrubbing his dragon, who found a thorn imbedding itself in a water-soaked hand.

Not by any means thoroughly convinced of this method of ascertaining pregnancy, Persellan did bring women in various stages of a known pregnancy to test Tana and other members of her pod who seemed eager to prove their abilities.

It was, however, a broken bone that persuaded Persellan. A broken bone, moreover, that had healed badly just below the elbow, inhibiting the free use of her right arm. The woman had come to discover if she was pregnant again, a condition she didn't wish to continue since she considered that three children were more than enough to saddle the Weyr with.

"Bone broke. Healed wrong,' Tana told Persellan. "Here."

"What about a baby, fish?" the woman demanded even as Persellan seized her arm, his trained hands finding the thickened joint. "I've had no bleeding in two months."

"How long ago did that happen?"

Durras jerked her arm out of his grip, scowling at the Healer.

"I didn't come about the arm. I was a child when it broke.

Fish, what about the baby?"

"No babbee, but full womb. Not good. Needs cleaning out.

"WHAT?" The woman backed out of the water and ran up the sands and away from the diagnostician.

"What do you mean? Full womb? Needs cleaning out?" Persellan asked. He had been startled by Durras' reaction but, in his long apprentices.h.i.+p, there had been not infrequent occasions of interrupted flows where the patient had later had severe and constant abdominal pains and several instances where the woman had died: where only heavy doses of numbweed had eased the resultant pain.

"Growwwwsse,' Tana said, trying to enunciate a difficult word. "Bad things.

"Growths?" Persellan asked. Intrusive surgeries were not a facet of healing, though he now knew that specially trained healers were actually cutting into a human body to relieve some conditions. Aivas had had much to tell the Healer Hall but very few had actually undertaken operations. He'd heard that the Hall had authorized after-death examinations. Even thinking about such intrusions made him shudder but valuable information had resulted. "Did the Ancients cut into a body to remove growths?"

"No need. Opening is there. Clean out. Then have babbee.

"How? What opening?"

"Main one down below. Way babbee comes.

Persellan shuddered again. The very idea of entering by that pa.s.sage was repugnant. Still, a healer was often required to perform measures unpleasant, and even hurtful to the patient, to restore health.

The next surprise Persellan had came later that eventful morning when T'lion came to summon him to the bay.

"They're bringing in an injured dolphin. Natua and Tana say you'll need to sew him up.

"Sew up a dolphin?" Persellan halted in the act of reaching for his healer's bag. "Really, T'lion! That's enough!'

"Why?" T'lion demanded. "You do dragons when they're cut."

"But fish?"

"They are not fish, Healer, they're mammals, same as humans, and Boojie won't heal properly unless you st.i.tch the wound."

"Have you seen it?"

"No, but Tana asked. She's helped you, now you help her.

Persellan could not fault that argument but he muttered under his breath all the way down to the beach about having to extend his practice to heal sea creatures. The moment he saw the long deep gash he was set to turn right about and return to his weyr.

"There's no way I could close that. Why, the . . . creature would bite me or something. The pain would be intense."

"Numbweed,' T'lion said, stubbornly blocking Persellan's path and sending Gadareth an urgent plea to come help.

"How do I know numbweed would help? It might even be a dangerous "Tana told me. She said Boojie's too young to die but he will if that wound is not closed."

"How'd he gouge himself like that?" Persellan continued to argue even as T'lion pulled him toward the water and the swarm of dolphins clumped together in the shallower water. "I don't even know if st.i.tching's the answer."

"Sew Boojie,' Tana said, then daring water almost too shallow for her to swim, pushed the healer with her nose toward the injured dolphin which podmates kept afloat.

"Come on, Persellan,' T'lion said, up to his chest in the water.

"How can I possibly It's so absurd,' the healer cried but a stiff nose in his crotch pushed him forward. "Stop that!' And he batted his free hand at Tana's importunate melon. "I simply don't know how to go about Shock from such a wound, not to mention suturing I mean, I've never done anything like this in my life."

"Didn't they tell you life in a Weyr would never be boring?" T'lion said, silly with relief that the healer was complying.

He almost gagged when he saw the depth of the wound, the flesh laid bare to several levels. The moment of nausea pa.s.sed because he was fascinated that any creature so badly injured had survived the journey here. Boojie was barely breathing, too exhausted to make so much as a soft squee. Only the gleam in the visible left eye, as intelligent as ever, despite the wound, was evidence that the bottlenose lived. T'lion placed a hand close to the lung, far enough away from the ghastly slice not to cause any additional pain, and felt the rumble of activity within the dolphin's body.

"If you're going to do something, you better do it now, Persellan,' he murmured. "Boojie's just hanging on."

"How on earth am I going to do any suturing in the ocean?"

Seeing the problem, for the dolphin nurses had to prop the patient and that made it difficult for Persellan to reach a useful position, T'lion called Gadareth.

"Dragon claws were made useful,' he told Persellan. "Gaddie will cradle Boojie, just enough in the water, but with his side turned to you."

A flurry as the bronze dragon, perceiving from his rider's mind what had to be accomplished, entered the water and approached the group.

"Gaddie'Il help, Tana. Tell the others to let him take Boojie. He won t harm him. You know dragons wouldn't harm a dolphin."

Tana clicked, squeed and spouted water so urgently that the maneuver was deftly accomplished, though it took a bit to get Boojie angled just right for the repair.

"By the first sh.e.l.l, will you look at this?" Persellan exclaimed and pointed to the thick layer of blubber lying just under the dolphin's rubbery skin. "I suppose it's normal? Would she know? Come to think of it a very fat herd beast has a fatty layer. I suppose it's all right. Oh, well, it can only bite me." Keeping up a running monologue - which T'lion rightly had the sense not to answer - and muttering darkly about a most unusual healing, Persellan began to smear numbweed on the lips of the wound. "Don't know if the stuff will penetrate enough to do any good but the Master Farmer always uses it on injured animals so I don't see why I can't use it on a sea creature." His dabbings were tentative at first, but his motions became more confident when his patient did not twitch or move during the procedure.

T'lion helped when he saw what to do, and his smaller fingers managed to ease the paste all along the edges of the wound.

"I've never done anything so bizarre in my life,' Persellan muttered as he paused, the long thin needle he used for dragon flesh poised for the first st.i.tch. "I've never heard of anything so weird as suturing a fish "Boojie's not a fish,' T'lion corrected but he was grinning.

"He's a mammal."

"Put your hands on either side, would you, and see if you can't push the lips together?"

It was not an easy job Persellan asked of T'lion and toward the end, though the healer worked swiftly, the young rider's muscles began to spasm in protest. But together the humans finished closing the gash.

"Three hands long "Persellan said, measuring and shaking his head. "I doubt he'll live. Shock alone Although salt water wounds do heal well . . - He shook his head again as he scrubbed the remaining blood from his hands before pa.s.sing the brush to his equally gory a.s.sistant. He also washed the needle and replaced it in its leather and what was left of the fine strong thread he had used back in his wet healer's bag. He'd forgotten all about it during the procedure and now clicked his tongue.

"So what do we do with this Boojie now, T'lion? Nurse him here, in the shallows? I'm water-pocked from the waist down.

"Afo, what now?" T'lion asked, seeing her in the circle of observant dolphins grouped on either side of Gadareth who still held Boojie in his talons.

"You do good. Tell dragon to let Boojie go. We care him."

Ordinarily T'lion would have corrected her phrase but he understood what she meant. With a sharp series of whistles, she organized her helpers, Gar, Jim and Tana among them, T'lion noticed, as Gadareth obediently and very carefully lowered his forearms into the water until Boojie's body floated free. T'lion was relieved to notice a slight motion of fins as Boojie wearily responded to his freedom. Then his podmates renewed their support and pointed him seaward.

"T'ank you! T'ank you! T'ank you!" came the unexpected chorus as the group headed slowly out to sea.