“We’ll put in at dusk, probably about here, where the chart tells me there’s a deep harbor in a cove. More color to be added. We might even find what we’re looking for there, too.” He winked at Sorka and Bay Harkenon.
When the Southern Cross was anchored in six fathoms, Jim took the shore party to the beach in the little motorboat. Sean, who had had quite enough company for a while, told Sorka to search for dragonet nests to the east while he went west along the beach. His two browns circled above his head, calling happily as they flew. Galled at the way Sean ordered the girl about, Jim Tillek was about to take the lad to task, but Pol Nietro sent him a warning look and the captain subsided. Sean was already ducking into the thick vegetation bordering the strand.
“We ll have a hot meal for you when you return,” Pol called after the two youngsters. Sorka paused to wave acknowledgment.
When they returned at dusk for the promised food, both children reported success.
“I think The first three I found are only greens,” Sorka said with quiet authority. “They’re much too close to the water for a gold. Duke thinks so, too. He doesn’t seem to like greens. But the one we found farthest away is well above high-tide marks, and the eggs are bigger. I think they’re hard enough to hatch soon.”
“Two green clutches and two I’m positive are gold,” Sean said briskly, and began to eat, pausing only to offer his two browns their share of his meal. “There’s a lot of ‘em about, too. Are you going to take back all you can find?”
“Heavens, no!” Pol exclaimed, throwing both hands up in dismay. His white hair, wiry and thick, stood out about his head like a nimbus giving him a benign appearance that matched his personality. “We won’t make that mistake on Pern.”
“Oh, no, never,” Bay Harkenon said, leaning toward Sean as if to touch him in reassurance. “Our investigative techniques no longer require endless specimens to confirm conclusions, you know.”
“Specimens?” Sean frowned, and Sorka looked apprehensive. “Representative would perhaps be the better word.”
“And we’d use the eggs . . . of the green, of course,” Pol added quickly, “since the female greens do not appear to be as maternally inclined as the gold.”
Sean was confused. “You don’t want a gold’s eggs at all?”
“Not all of them,” Bay repeated earnestly. “And only a dead hatching of the other colors if one can be obtained. We’ve had more than enough green casualties.”
“Dead is the only way you’d get one,” Sean muttered.
“You’re likely correct,” Bay said with a little sigh. She was a portly woman in her late fifth decade but fit and agile enough not to hinder the expedition. “I’ve never been able to establish a rapport with animals.” She looked wistfully at Sorka’s bronze lying in the total relaxation of sleep around the girl’s neck, legs dangling down her chest, the limp tail extending almost to her waist.
“A dragonet’s so hungry when it’s born, it’ll take food anywhere it can,” Sean said with marked tactlessness.
“Oh, I don’t think I could deprive someone of – ”
We’re all supposed to be equal here, aren’t we?” Sean demanded. “You got the same rights as anyone else, y’know.”
“Well said, young nipper,” Jim Tillek said. “Well said!”
“If the dragonets were only a little bigger,” Pol murmured, as much to himself as to the others, and then he sighed.
“If dragonets were only a little bigger what?” Tillek asked.
“Then they’d be an equal match for the wherries.”
“They already are!” Sean said loyally, stroking one of his browns. If he had named them, he kept their names to himself. He had trained them to answer his various whistled commands. Sorka felt too shy to ask him how he had done it. Not that Duke ever disobeyed her – once he had figured out what she wanted.
“Perhaps you’re right,” Pol said, giving his head a little shake.
“Tinkering isn’t something lightly undertaken. You know how many efforts abort or distort.” Bay smiled to ease her gentle chiding.
“Tinker?” Sean came alert.
“They didn’t mean you, silly,” Sorka assured him in a low voice.
“Why would you want to . . . ahem . . . manipulate,” Jim Tillek asked, “critters that have been doing quite well in protecting themselves for centuries. And us.”
“Out of the stew of creation so few survive, and often not the obvious, more perfectly designed or environmentally suited species,” Pol said with a long patient sigh. “It is always amazing to me what does win the evolutionary race to become the common ancestors of a great new group. I’d never have expected anything as close to our vertebrates as wherries and dragonets on another planet. The really strange coincidence is that our storytellers so often invested a four legged, two-winged creature in fantasy, although none ever existed on Earth. Here they are, hundreds of light-years away from the people who only imagined them.” He indicated the sleeping Duke. “Remarkable. And not as badly designed as the ancient Chinese dragons.”
“Badly designed?” the seaman asked, amused.
“Well, look at him. It’s redundant to have both forelimbs and wings. Earth avian species opted for wings instead of forelimbs, though some have vestigial claws of what had once been the forefinger before the limb became a wing. I’ll grant you that a curved rear limb is useful for springing off the ground – and the dragonet’s are powerful, with muscles into the back to provide assistance – but that long back is vulnerable. I wonder how they arrange their mechanics so that they can sit up for so long without moving.” Pol peered at the sleeping Duke and touched the limp tail. “There is one slight improvement: the excretory hole in the fork of the tail instead of under it. And there are dorsal nostrils and lungs, which are a distinct improvement. Humans are very poorly designed, you know,” he went on, happy to be able to exercise his favorite complaint to a rapt audience.
“I mean, surely you can see how ridiculous it is to have an air pipe – ” He touched his nose. “ – that crosses the food pipe. He touched his rather prominent Adam’s apple. “People are always choking themselves to death. And a vulnerable cranium: one good crack, and the concussion can cause impairment if not fatality. Those Vegans have their brains well protected in tough internal sacs. You’d never concuss a Vegan.”
“I’d rather have bellyaches in my middle than headaches,” Tillek said in a droll tone. “Though, from what I saw once, some of the other Vegan operating mechanisms are exceedingly unhandy, particularly the sexual and reproductive arrangements.”
Pol snorted. “So you think having the playground between the sewers makes more sense?”
“Didn’t say that, Pol,” Jim Tillek answered hurriedly with a glance at the two children, though neither were paying the adults much heed. “It’s a bit handier for us, though.”
“And more vulnerable. Oh my, oh my, there I go again, falling into the lecture attitude. But there are endless ways in which we humans could be profitably improved . . .”
“We are doing that, though, aren’t we, Pol, dear?” Bay said kindly.
“Oh, yes, cybernetically we do, and in vitro we can correct certain gross genetic mistakes. It’s true that we are allowed to use the Eridani mentasynth, though personally I don’t know whether our response to it is a boon or not. It makes people too empathic with their experimental animals. But we can’t do much yet, of course, with the laws that the Pure Humans forced through to prohibit drastic changes.”