Then it seemed as if the squall was lessening, or perhaps they had been conveyed to its fringes where the water was calmer. Either way, their passage improved. Looking in the direction he thought land should be, he saw the smudge of the shoreline and almost cried with relief.
“Wheeeeee!”
Startled by that cry, Alemi turned as he saw a shipfish launch itself above the waves in a graceful arc and reenter the water. Others began the same antic, all wheeing or squeeing.
“Wheee!” cried an unmistakably boyish voice, and Alemi looked over his left shoulder to see Readis, now sitting up straighter on his shipfish, grinning with delight at the exhibition. “That’s great!” the boy added. “Aren’t they great, Alemi?”
“Grrrreat!” But it was a shipfish who repeated the word, spinning the r out.
On all sides, shipfish were crying “Great!” as they continued their leisurely vaultings in and out of the sea. Alemi convulsively tightened his grip on the dorsal fin. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The stress of the storm, perhaps a blow to his head, or plain fear, had addled his faculties. His companion raised its head and, water shooting up out of the blowhole in the top of its cranium, clearly said, “Thass great!”
“They’re talking, Unclemi, they’re talking.”
“How could they, Readis? They’re fish!”
“Not fish! Mam’l.” His rescuer got out the three words in a loud and contradictory tone. “Doll-fins,” it added clearly, and Alemi shook his head. “Doll-fins speak good.” As if to emphasize this, it began to speed forward, hauling the dazed Masterfisher along at a spanking pace.
Readis’s doll-fin and the guardian companions altered their course, too, and picked up speed, the flankers still performing their acrobatic above-the-water spins, vaults, and turns.
“Talk some more, will you?” Readis encouraged in his high-pitched young voice. This was going to make some Gather tale. And they’d have to believe what he said because Unclemi was here with him to vouch that what he said was true.
“Talk? You talk. Long tayme no talk,” a doll-fin swimming alongside Readis said very clearly. “Men back Landing? Doll-fin ears back?”
“Landing?” Alemi repeated, stunned. The doll-fins knew the ancient name? Wonder upon wonder.
“Men are back at Landing,” Readis said quite proudly, as if he had been instrumental in their return.
“Good!” cried one doll-fin as it executed a twist in midair, knifing back into the water without splashing.
“Squeeeeee!” another cried as it vaulted upward.
In the water all around him, Alemi heard excited clickings and clatterings. The area seemed so full of shipfish bodies that he wondered how they could move without injuring each other.
“Look, Unclemi, we’re nearly back!” Readis said, jabbing his finger at the fast-approaching land.
They had been conveyed so rapidly and smoothly that Alemi struggled between relief that they were so close to dry land and regret that this incredible journey was ending. The forward motion of the shipfish slowed as they came to the first of the sandbanks. Some leaped over it, others followed Readis’s and Alemi’s mounts to the channel, while the majority altered their direction seaward again.
Moments later the smooth transport came to a complete halt and, tentatively lowering his feet, Alemi felt the firmness of the seabed, gradually sloping up to the shore. He released the dorsal fin and slapped the side of his mount, which turned and rubbed its nose against him, as if inviting a caress. Bemused, Alemi scratched as he would his dog or the small felines who were beginning to invade the Hold. Readis’s mount continued past him.
“Thanks, my friend. You saved our lives and we are grateful,” Alemi said formally.
“Wielcame. Uur duty,” the shipfish said clearly, and then, with a swirl, it propelled its body sinuously back out to the break in the sandbar, its fin traveling at ever-increasing speed as it rejoined its fellows.
“Hey!” Readis cried on a note of alarm. His mount had unceremoniously dumped him in shallows where, if he stood on tiptoe, he could just keep his chin out of water.
“Thank the doll-fin,” Alemi called, wading as fast as he could toward the boy. “Scratch its chin.”
“Oh? You like that, huh?” Readis, treading water, managed to use both hands to scratch the face presented him. “Thank you very much indeed for saving my life and giving me that great swim ashore.”
“Wielcame, bhoy!” Then the doll-fin executed an incredible leap over Readis’s head and followed its podmate out to sea again.
“Come back. Come back soon,” Readis called after it, raising himself up out of the water to project his invitation. A faint squeee answered him. “D’you think he heard me?” Readis asked Alemi plaintively.
“They seem to have very good hearing,” Alemi remarked dryly. Then he gave Readis as inconspicuous an assist up out of the water as he could. The boy had been magnificent throughout. He must tell Jayge that. A father sometimes didn’t see his son in the same light as an interested observer.
Tired as they were from the experience, the exhilaration of their rescue provided enough energy for them both to reach the dry sand of the beach before they had to sit and rest.
“They won’t believe us, will they, Unclemi?” Readis said with a weary sigh as he stretched full length on the warm beach.
“I’m not sure I believe us,” Alemi said, mustering a smile as he collapsed beside the boy. “But the shipfish unquestionably rescued us. No mistake about that!”
“And the shipfish—whadidhe call himself—mam’l? He did talk to us. You heard him. Wielcame! Uur duty.” And Readis made his voice squeakier in mimicry of the doll-fin. “They even got manners.”
“Remember that, Readis,” Alemi said with a weak chuckle.
He knew he should get to his feet and go reassure Aramina that they’d survived the storm. Though, as he turned his head to look down the shoreline, he couldn’t see a soul Was it possible that no one on shore had noticed the sudden squall? That no one had even known they were in danger? Just as well not to unnecessarily mar what would still be a happy occasion in Swacky’s nameday Gather.
“Unclemi?” There was a disturbed wail in Readis’s voice. “We lost our redfins.” Then the boy added hastily, to show he was aware of the priorities, “And the skiff, too.”
“We have our lives, Readis, and we’ve a story to tell. Now, just get your breath a few more minutes.”
A few more minutes became an hour before either stirred, for the warm sand had taken the last of the squall’s chill from their bones, and the sea sounds and the light winds had combined with the fatigue of their recent labors to send them to sleep.
Except for the fact that Alemi was not given to fanciful tales, the rest of Paradise River Hold might not have believed the astounding tale the two of them told. By the next morning tide, however, pieces of the skiff were deposited on the beach.