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

deep water. No proper docking or wharves for the big-draft ships to tie up at. Only a long wooden pier, which the Germanics strafed with their warplanes. Men were so desperate that they waded out, swimming the last part to climb up nets put down the sides of the ships to help ’em board. Then, someone had the bright idea of getting all available craft from the island, especially pleasure craft with low drafts, so they could sail further in to the beach to pick up troops. Records have it that even sailing dinghies, no more than three meters long, made the passage successfully. And not just once but time and again until the crews succumbed to exhaustion. But the three hundred thousand men were all evacuated. Quite a feat of seamanship and courage.”
    “It’s no thirty-four klicks of a channel we have to navigate, Jim Tillek, but the coastline of half a world,” Theo said with some acerbity.
    “Yes, but we don’t have a war going on around us,” Jim said cheerfully.
    “We don’t?” Theo asked and gestured over her shoulder to the east, signifying the menace of Thread.
    “You’ve got a point there,” Jim admitted. “Though it’s not a people-shooting war. But I believe in starting every journey with a high heart and in good spirits—and would you send Dart after that fool sloop with the spotted sail? Where do they think they’re going? They’re to tack right back into position.”
    He finished his remarks to empty air, for Theo had dived as neatly as her dolphin could over the safety rail and into the water, to be towed swiftly toward the miscreant vessel by Dart.
    It was amazing what heights the human spirit could rise to, Jim thought as he did a visual check through his binoculars. Theo and Dart reached their destination, and he could almost hear the blistering reprimand she was issuing. She had her arms over the rim of the craft, gesticulating to leave no doubt in the young skipper’s mind as to where he had erred. He watched as she trod water, one hand lightly on the dolphin’s melon, while the little craft tacked back in line. When he saw her begin to swim back toward the Cross, Dart skipping alongside her, he put the binoculars down.
    Squinting to the fore of the flotilla, he could see the pennon on the mast of the five-meter yawl that had been put at Ezra Keroon’s disposal as convoy leader. Ezra hadn’t much actual sea experience, but he was a superb navigator through any medium. Jim had himself done the sea charts on this coastline and knew the waters intimately. There were no reefs or unexpected dangers to cause problems for the inexperienced. As long as no ships ventured too far out where the Great Eastern Current could catch them, sea hazards were minimal. Once they got to Key Largo, every one of them would be seasoned enough for the open-water run across both the Great Currents to the safety of Fort.
    The coast beyond Sadrid to Boca was not that well known to him, but he was counting on the fishermen at Malay and Sadrid, and on Ju Adjai Benden at Boca, to be familiar with local problems. The sailors at Key Largo Hold had also done a fair bit of charting in their coastal waters. Barring the weather, they should make it, no matter how slowly.
    And the weather, he thought, leaning forward to tap the barometer, could be an acute problem. Volcanic eruptions played havoc with weather conditions. There had already been some freak winds, squalls, and higher-than-normal tides, but Kahrain Cove had sheltered them from the worst. They would probably arrive in the North just in time for the ash fallout that was already beginning to filter into the upper air currents to be pushed around the planet. He wondered if the volcanic activity would have any effect on Threadfall. If one had to find some good out of bad, that would be the option he’d pick—if he had one.
    Two hours later he had to give the orders for the small craft to land and the bigger ships to hove to and anchor in a cove. Winds were picking