"You got the Southern Cross, I got Dart."

"We also have each other?" Jim made the sentence not quite a query, certainly not a statement. He was suddenly rather more anxious than he felt a man his age should be to hear her reply.

"So we do," she said in the most equable of tones, calmly gazing at the Southern Cross as they neared her.

Grinning with relief, Jim put his back into the last few pulls on his oars.

A happy event—the birthing of Carolina's calf-helped raise the morale of the fleet survivors, tediously repairing storm damage. Malawi and Italia had been her midwives, and the three of them brought the new female close enough into shore to be admired. The dolphin nurses and mother were shouting some name between their chuffs and other excited noises. Theo had to stay on shore, but Carolina's swimmer got far enough out to be able to identify what the dolphins were trying to communicate.

"Atlanta! Atlanta!" Bethann called, between strokes back to the shore. "People don't believe me when I tell them my dolphin knows as much as they do about old Earth."

Everyone on the beach then began waving at the dolphins and chanting the name to show their approval.

"Most appropriate. I'm sort of surprised we haven't had one named that before now," Jim said as a grinning Bethann joined him and Theo. "Did you help Carolina pick the name?"

The girl grinned, wringing out her long hair. "Sort of. Carrie wanted to name her calf after something big and wet." Jim let out a guffaw, and she smiled again. "Well, it's close enough to ‘Atlantic.' I tried to tempt her with a-ending states and countries and stuff because I couldn't think of any big lakes with a endings. Even the colonies don't have feminine lakes or oceans."

"You made a good compromise," Jim said with warm approval.

The next day, a team of dolphins and dolphineers swam the new mast out to the Cross. With much ceremony and a lot of hard work, it was properly stepped, new mainstays put in place, the boom rehung, and the patched canvas threaded onto the sheet and dutifully raised to flap in the light breeze.

In Jim's experience, events had a habit of occurring in threes. The third one came from Paul Benden and his almost incoherent account of the reappearance of the seventeen dragons and their riders. After helping in the evacuation of Landing, Sean, Sorka, and the other dragonriders had been asked to fly some supplies across the southern continent to Key Largo, even as Jim's flotilla was sailing offshore. Contact had broken down somehow, and what had happened to the young riders and their priceless dragons had caused everyone understandable anxiety. Jim took the call at his makeshift beach office, where he was figuring out how and what to load on the ships that would soon be ready to continue their westward journey.

"They just appeared in the skies above Fort, Jim," Paul said, the astonishment and elation in his voice such a tonic that Jim changed the setting to wide range so that everyone nearby could hear the account. "The dragons were spouting flame, charring Thread, diving into tangles, disappearing, and reappearing. The riders of the queens were carrying flamethrowers. The males chewed firestone and belched flame until they ran out of stone—just about the time Thread got up into the Range, where it can't hurt rock much.

"And then," Paul went on with a ring in his voice, "those devious young rogues landed and demanded numb-weed and medical supplies for their dragons before they paid any attention to my orders to report to me on the double."

Jim grinned, as did many of the other listeners. The seaman thought of his ship first, his own safety second: the dolphineer of his mammalian partner, the rider his dragon. He exchanged a significant glance with Theo.

"That done, damned if young Sean Connell didn't march ‘em smartly right up the entrance to the Hold. Then he had the impudence to introduce me to what he called ‘the dragonriders of Pern'!"

Jim laughed as he leaned toward the speaker unit. "Well that's, what they are, aren't they, Paul?"

"Indeed! Now I'm sure we'll make it, Jim. I'm sure!"

"So are we all." Jim circled his hand to raise three cheers from the audience. "Give them our compliments, too. Such news gives us new heart, as well."

He was surprised to see Theo wiping tears from her eyes and, later, when they lay beside each other in the double bunk, asked her why.

"Look, swimming with Dart is the best thing—well, almost the best thing," she modified, grinning at him, "that ever happened to me. But I think flying a fighting dragon would be a notch—well, maybe several notches above that, given the fact they're our equivalent of the battle of Dunkirk. So few against so much."

All the work seemed to finish up at the same time, which Kaarvan said was the result of good planning and Jim was equally certain was due to the boost in morale. So they loaded the Pernese Venturer with the last of the more important items and distributed the remainder, unreadable bar codes notwithstanding, among the ships that were to sail west again. The Venturer could make a swift trip north and be ready to sail back to escort Jim across both Great Currents.

When he finally reached Key Largo, Jim conferred with Paul, who was taking no chances and had sent all four of the large ships, Pernese Venturer, Mayflower, Maid, and Perseus, to await their arrival at the jump-off point. It had become a matter of honor to the now well-seasoned skippers of the small craft in his flotilla to bring their ships into the new port. But few of them were capable of sailing across the two Great Currents without some assistance, and for that, the four ships with more powerful auxiliary engines would escort them. Jim had thought long and hard on how to maneuver the flotilla past this hazard and was pleased when the other captains agreed with him. The plan was to sail in the quieter coastal water from Key Largo, beyond the point where the Eastern Current was at its closest to the Western one. Then they'd turn bravely in to the Eastern Current and let it carry the vessels a good day's sail away from their final destination, where they'd slip across the current into the calm dividing waters. Then, using outboard engines and the big ships towing the ones that didn't have the speed or bulk to cross the Western Current, they'd maneuver that hazard until they reached the safe waters at the end of the Boll peninsula. The coastal sail up to the Fort harbor ought then to be routine.

They sent dolphins ahead to check on incoming weather. Then, assured of fair weather and decent wind, they set out on the dangerous Crossing. This time luck was with them: they experienced no heart-stopping moments on the Crossing and made the quieter northern coastal waters. Some powered ships even had a little fuel left. Dolphin teams had swum in constant escort in case of engine failure. Then it was plain sailing. Almost anticlimactic, Jim thought, as the Southern Cross slid majestically into the darker northern waters bound for her last port of call.

Not quite her last, he amended. While stopping at Key Largo, he and the other skippers had had a long talk about plans for the future and how to protect their ships during Threadfall.

"They built us a sort of boat shed under the wharf," Kaal an said, sketching the facility as he spoke. "Masts have to be unstepped, of course, but that's neither here nor there. Venturer just fits, with two other big ships or four of the smaller ones."

"Those'd be enough to supply Fort with fresh fish when there're clear days," Sejby said, scrubbing at the bristle on his chin and gazing thoughtfully at Jim.

Jim caught the unspoken words. Lifting his gelicast arm, he managed a grin. "Well, this'll keep me out of action for a while."