The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall by Anne McCaffrey Read Free Book Online

in his dry fashion, but he clamped an affectionate hand on Jim’s shoulder as he peered over at the recorder’s data.
    “Not all the stuff’s been lifted out of Landing yet,” Joel said, poking his head in through the door. “I’m organizing all available sleds to bring up the last. Can I get the dra—”
    Emily held up her hand. “They’ll be back on line tomorrow, Joel!”
    Joel scrunched his eyes shut and grimaced. “Sorry. Tomorrow’ll be good enough.” And he was gone again.
     
    “There was a fleet like this once before,” Jim said to Theo Force, who was the dolphineer on duty at the time the Southern Cross was leading the way out of Kahrain Cove.
    “Like that?” Theo jerked her thumb over her shoulder at the strung-out line of ill-assorted vessels. Dressed in her body wet suit, breather flung over one shoulder to be ready for use instantly, she had stretched out her strong tanned legs on her side of the cockpit. Jim had an eye for a shapely leg, even one generally showing scars from many brushes with underwater obstacles. He was also becoming accustomed to Theo’s subtly attractive face. Well into her third decade, she was not a conventionally pretty woman, but her rather plain features nevertheless indicated her strong character and purposefulness.
    “Yup, something like the odd-bods fleet we have here,” Jim said, squinting at the way the mainsail was filling with a wind that was more capricious than he liked for the beginning of this bizarre escort duty. “Long time back now, but one of those bright moments in human history when people rise to an almost impossible challenge.”
    “Oh?” Theo never found Jim Tillek boring, especially when he started yarning. She knew that he had sailed every sea on old Earth and some on the newer colony planets, as well, in between his interstellar voyages as the captain of a drone freighter. Over the past few days she’d had a chance to admire the qualities of a man she’d barely chatted with before. Now, keeping as watchful an eye on their convoy as he did, she listened with pleasure as he warmed to his tale.
    “Half an army was pinned down on a beach, strafed by enemy aircraft, and likely all would have been killed there if the small-craft skippers of that era hadn’t saved ’em. Dunkirk, that was the name of the beach they were trapped on, with safety across a channel a mere thirty-four kilometers away.”
    “Thirty-four klicks?” Theo repeated in surprise, the dark thick arcs of her eyebrows rising. “Anyone could swim that.”
    Jim grinned at her. “Some athletes did, sort of a rite of passage trial or for the helluvit, but not three hundred thousand troops in full battle gear. And—” He waggled his finger at her. “—no dolphins.”
    “But dolphins have been around for yonks!”
    “Not as we know them, Theo. Let’s see, where was I?”
    Theo scrunched down on the cockpit seat, grinning at the subtle reprimand. His face had a lot of sun wrinkles, which made him look older, but his body in the tank top and shorts was lean, fit, and tanned. As usual on board, his feet were bare, showing long, prehensile toes. Once or twice, she’d seen him hold a line tight with just his toes.
    “Ah, yes, the Germanics had three hundred thousand British troops pinned down on the sands of Dunkirk, which was on the European continent, and since the Brits had no wish to spend the rest of their lives in a prisoner-of-war camp, they needed to be evacuated across the channel to their homeland, England.”
    “How’d they get across the channel in the first place?”
    Jim shrugged. He had broad, bony shoulders, and only a sprinkling of hair on his chest, which she preferred to the full pelt she’d seen on so many other men. “Troopships convoyed ’em over when the hostilities broke out, but those ports were already in the hands of the Germanics. One crucial problem with Dunkirk was that the beach was very shallow for a good distance before it shelved off into