“Course, I wasn’t doing that as a professional man, and there wasn’t much call for a sailor on First yet, so this expedition was my chance to ply my hobby as trade, as ’twere,” he confided. “Damned glad I came!” He inhaled deeply. “The air here’s fabulous. What we used to have back on Earth. Used to think it was the ozone! Take a deep breath!”
Sorka inhaled happily. Just then Bay Harkenon emerged from the cabin, looking much better than she had when she had hastily descended to be nauseated in private.
“Ah, the pill worked?” Jim Tillek inquired solicitously.
“I cannot thank you enough,” the microbiologist said with a tremulous but grateful smile. “I’d no idea I was susceptible to motion sickness.”
“Had you ever sailed?”
Bay shook her head, the clusters of gray curls bobbing on her shoulders.
“Then how would you know?” he asked affably. He squinted into the distance, where the peninsula and the mouth of the Jordan River were already visible. Portside, the towering Mount Garben—named after the senator who had done so much to smooth the expedition’s way through the intricacies of the Federated Sentient Planets’ bureaucracy—dominated the landscape, its cone suitably framed against the bright morning sky. There had been some lobbying to name its three small companions after Shavva, Liu, and Turnien, the original EEC landing party, but no decision had yet been made at the monthly naming sessions held around the evening campfire after the more formal official sittings of the council.
Captain Tillek dropped his gaze to the charts and, using his dividers, measured the distance from the jetty to the river mouth, and again to the land beyond.
“Why do the colors stop here?” Sorka asked, noticing that the bulk of the chart was uncolored.
Grinning in approval, he tapped the chart. “Fremlich did this for me from the probe pics, and they’ve been accurate to the last centimeter so far, but as we ourselves walk across the land and sail the coast, I color it in appropriately. A good way of knowing where we’ve been and where we’ve yet to go. I’ve also added notations that a sailor might need, about prevalent winds and current speeds.”
It was only then that Sorka noticed those additional marks. “It’s one thing to see, and another to know, isn’t it?”
He tweaked one of her titian braids. “Indeed, it is being there that matters.”
“And we’ll really be the first people—here?” She laid the tip of her forefinger on the peninsula.
“Indeed we shall,” Tillek said with heartfelt satisfaction.
Jim Tillek had never been so contented and happy before in a life that had already spanned six decades. A misfit in a hightech society because of his love of seas and ships, bored by the monotonous Belt runs to which his lack of tact or incorruptible honesty restricted him, Tillek found Pern perfect, and now he had the added fillip of being one of the first to sail its seas and discover their eccentricities. A strongly built man of medium height, with pale blue, far-seeing eyes, he looked his part, complete with visored cap pulled down about his ears and an old guernsey wool sweater against the slight coolness of the fresh morning breeze. Though the Southern Cross could have been sailed electronically from the cockpit with the touch of buttons, he preferred to steer by the rudder and use his instinct for the wind to trim the sheets. His crew were forward, making all lines fair on the plasiplex decks and going about the routine of the little ship.
“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 acknowledgement.
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 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.