The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall Read Online Free Page A

the late-night tide. The Pernese Venturer and Captain Kaarvan had not yet reported in. She was the largest, a two-masted schooner with a deep draft, and slower than the other four.
    Once all the humans reported in, Jim tersely explained that, with one of the volcanoes about to erupt, Landing had to be evacuated and everyone must help to get as many supplies as possible to safety around Kahrain Head. The larger ships would be taking their loads as far as Paradise River Hold; although that would be too far for the smaller craft, everything that floated was to be used to shift matériel as far as Kahrain.
    “We’ve got to transport all that?” Ben Byrne cried in an aggrieved tone as he flung an arm toward the wharfside, where enormous piles of matériel were being deposited by sleds of all sizes. He was a small, compact man with crisp blond hair nearly white from sun bleach. His wife, Claire, who worked with him at Paradise River, stood at his side. “There aren’t that many ships of any decent size and if you think the dolphins can—”
    “We’ve only to get it to Kahrain, Ben,” Jim said, laying a steadying hand on the younger man’s shoulder.
    “Click! Click!” Teresa managed an ear-piercing shout for attention. “We do that, we do that!” Amadeus, Pha, and Kibby agreed, nodding vigorously.
    “Ye daft finnies, you’d burst yerselves,” Ben cried, incensed, wagging his arms at the dolphins facing him to be quiet.
    “We can, we can, we can,” and half the dolphins crowding the end of the wharf heaved themselves up out of the water to tailwalk in their enthusiasm. Somehow they managed not to crash into the seething mass of podmates who ducked out of the way underwater with split-second timing. Such antics were repeated by many, all across the waters of the bay.
    “Look what you started, Cap’n!” Ben cried in an extravagant show of despair. “Damned fool fin-faces! You wanna burst your guts?”
    Sometimes, Jim Tillek thought, Ben was as uninhibited as any of the whimsically impetuous dolphins he was supposed to “manage.” The difference between their enthusiasm and the reality of their assistance lay in the fact that all adult dolphins had spent a period training with human partners, learning to come to the aid of stranded swimmers and sailors and, occasionally, damaged sailing craft. They were delighted to have a chance to practice on such a scale.
    Harnesses from the training sessions were available—and more could be cobbled together—to hitch dolphin teams to any of the smaller sailing craft. A big yoke already existed, contrived for the ore barge that the dolphins had several times hauled from Drake’s Lake. But never had the settlers had to call on all the dolphins.
    “We’ve known something big was up,” Jan Regan said, her manner much calmer as befit the senior dolphineer. She gave a snort that was half-laugh. “They’ve been squee-ee ing like nutters about underwater changes around here,” she added, flicking her hand at the crowded bay. “But you know how some of them exaggerate!”
    “Hah! With Picchu blowing smoke rings, of course they’d know something’s going to happen,” Ben said, having recovered his equilibrium. “Question is, how much time do we have before Picchu blows?”
    “It isn’t Picchu that’s going to blow,” Jim began as gently as possible. He allowed the startled reaction to subside before he continued. “It’s Garben.”
    “Knew we shouldn’t have named a mountain for that old fart,” Ben muttered.
    Jim continued. “More important, Patrice can’t give us a time frame.” That stunned even the solid and unflappable Bernard Shattuck. “All he can do is warn us when the eruption is imminent.”
    “Like how imminent?” Bernard asked soberly.
    “An hour or two. The increasing sulfur-to-chlorine ratio means the magma is rising. We’ve two, maybe three days with just sulfur and ash—”
    “The ash I don’t mind. It’s the sulfur that’s so