Free The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall by Anne McCaffrey Page B

her arm and rose. “I gotta go. Good to see you’ve got your appetites back.” And with a nod to each, she pushed back the foliage again.
    Jim caught a reassuring glimpse of the beach and the people moving about. “Leave it open, can you, Betty?”
    “I suppose so.” She found a string that had been left for such a purpose and tied back the branch. “Keep an eye on him, Theo.”
    “Glad to,” the dolphineer said with a deep chuckle.
    “Oh, one last bit of news, Jim,” Betty said. “Kaarvan sailed the Venturer out of Fort last night on the tide. He’ll come straight down. Be here in a couple of days.”
    Not long after, they both heard the swish of a powered sled rising and craned their necks out their impromptu door to see the rear of the big airborne sled as it flew northwest toward Fort. Jim was just gathering himself to rise when Beth Eagles appeared.
    “You both should have been on that sled,” she said without preamble, staring down at them with an expressionless face. “Unfortunately, Dart refuses to work with Anna Schultz”—Theo looked almost happy about that noncompliance as Beth turned to Jim—”and Paul said that you’d probably crucify anyone else who tried to sail your precious Cross, so we’d better get you well enough to captain her. Kaarvan’s bringing more supplies and enough technicians so you can get this ridiculous fleet floating again.”
    “It isn’t ridiculous,” Jim said, leaning back and sighing with relief.
    “However,” Beth continued, kneeling to run an instrument over his body, “I think the sooner you’re out on that boat—”
    “Ship,” Jim corrected automatically.
    “Ship, then, the more likely you are to rest.”
    “But I have to . . .” He waved at the activity he could plainly see.
    “You have to rest, same as Theo here, or you won’t be any good to any of us, and Paul doesn’t need anything else to worry him—like the recuperation of Captain James Tillek!” She turned her back on him to check Theo. “And you’re going out to the Cross with him so that little mammal of yours can see you. But Teresa, Kibby, Max, and Pha have been told to make sure she won’t let you in the water until you’ve got skin again. Hear me, Theo Force?”
    “How could I avoid it?” There was a ripple of laughter in the dolphineer’s husky voice.
     
    That evening they were carefully escorted—they refused to be carried, though Theo walked stiff-legged and had turned very white under her tanned skin—to a dinghy and towed by Dart and Pha out to the Southern Cross. After being hoisted aboard by Efram and one of the crew, Jim managed a dignified descent to his own cabin, which he noticed had been set to rights after the storm had thrown his few possessions around. Theo had to be carried to her bunk, unable to bend her abraded knees to get down the short companionway.
    “We’re sleeping aboard,” Efram said, handing Jim a handunit, “but if you’ve any problems, just give a shout.”
    “Or call that Dart,” Anna Schultz said, poking her head around the door. She made a grimace, but it wasn’t ill-natured. “She’s on patrol around the ship. I just hope she doesn’t keep Theo awake, banging her nose into the hull by her bunk.”
    Both dolphineers had scrapes and bruises where their bodysuits hadn’t adequately protected them, but neither had sustained the serious injuries Theo had.
    “I’m cook,” Anna went on, “but I’ve orders not to wake you for breakfast, so it’ll be laid out in the wardroom whenever you do get up.”
    When the Venturer arrived, she dropped anchor near the Southern Cross and Kaarvan rowed over to pay his respects to Jim Tillek, who was trying to schedule repairs and set the next day’s duty roster. Kaarvan stood in the doorway for a long look, then grunted when he saw what Jim was doing.
    “As I heard it, you’re supposed to be convalescing. You don’t look even that fit.”
    Jim laughed. “Old sailors never