Chap. 112 Recovering

Chap. 112  Recovering

K'ndar found a spot on a very solid, non-moving section of the wharf. It was far enough from the many ships tied up to the docks to give him some privacy, yet close enough that he could hear the laughter of the many fisherfolk going about their business. While all of them couldn't be laughing at him, he felt they were, indeed, he could feel their surreptitious glances and snickers. 

Siskin had arrived within seconds and was curled around his neck. He crooned to K'ndar, knowing that his master was upset. 

Raventh was concerned, too.

What happened? I felt you being sick!

I was! I am! I'm sick!

Why?

I don't know! I was on the boat. Suddenly I was sick, like the one or two times I tried to drink. But I've not had anything to drink! Maybe I've caught something?  I can hear people laughing, I think they're laughing at me. Or about me. No one else was sick, maybe something is wrong.

It felt familiar to me, like when I haven't had a chance to get rid of firestone ash in my stomach. Did you eat something bad? 

No! I've never felt anything like it.  One moment I was fine and the next…. I still feel bad, but not like on the ship. 

I always felt better after I threw up firestone ash. Siskin, too, felt it. He was very worried. 

Like me.

I'm feeling better now, but…it had something to do with the ship. I have no idea WHAT. But I don't ever want to go on a ship again. 

Why would you want to? What a strange way to move about. So SLOW! Get on me and we are across the world in a moment.

I know. Being your rider is the best thing of all. 

If a dragons' forelegs were arms, Ravenths were around him. Comforting. Just like the blue fire lizard, protecting him, consoling him.

Siskin purred his love. He gave the blue a skritching. He began to feel better, at least physically.

He felt reassured. He wasn't egotistical, but sometimes, a man's pride got very publicly shot dead in the arse, and it hurt. To have the love and devotion of a dragon, and a fire lizard…now that was something to treasure, to use as a touchstone. Their love was unconditional. No matter what, he had them to depend on, to rely on, without fear of rejection.

I don't HAVE to go on the boat, he thought, I have a dragon. What was it about a ship that made him sick and nobody else?

Siskin raised his head, alerted.

K'ndar looked behind him to see Rahman, the astronomer.

The elderly man looked down on him with an expression of bemusement..and sympathy.

"Well, lad, seems as if you've made a name for yourself, here on the docks," he said.

K'ndar hung his head. Even Rahman?

"Thanks," he said, sarcastically. "What are they saying?"

"Well, to be honest, they're laughing about the Man Who Got Seasick on the Dock."

"' Seasick'? Is that what they call it? When I'm not even on the sea? I might die from this and they think it's funny?"

"You're not going to die. Trust me. You aren't going to die, although it makes you WANT to. Please, don't take what I say as criticism or worse, amusement. Sometimes I speak with a harsher tone than I mean. I'm sympathetic, is all."

"Really." It was not a question, it was a retort. 

Rahman heard it. 

"Do you think you're the only one on the planet who gets seasick?"

"I have no idea. I don't know what 'seasick' is. It felt like it did when I tried to drink, and I haven't. I can't drink alcohol; it makes me sick, like this, this morning. I'd never even knew it existed until now, and no one else seemed to be bothered by it except me."

"Well, you're not…"

K'ndar, testily, interrupted. "What IS 'seasick'? It just HIT me. What IS it? Should I see a healer?"

Rahman let K'ndar's rudeness pass. 

"That's unnecessary, K'ndar. What seasickness IS, is a reaction from your cochlear canal, a mechanism in your inner ear, that tells you which way is up. It is how you balance yourself, every minute of your life. The canal has fluid in it, like water in a goblet, or the sea. It always seeks to find level. When you're on a ship, it doesn't get the chance to level without being turned over or sideways, and one is affected in other parts of the anatomy, like the stomachs.

 Your brain thinks something is very wrong, so it makes you empty out. Very soon you will feel normal again, but now you know, you are subject to 'seasickness'," Rahman said, gently.

"How…well, I apologize for interrupting, but how can it be that you know about it and yet you don't have it?"

"Oh, K'ndar, there you are wrong. You note that I was NOT aboard the ship. Because, my lad, I get seasick, too."

K'ndar stood up. "You do?"

The old man chuckled. 

"Aye, my lad, although I am not as smart as you, smart enough to get seasick where I'm able to immediately get off the ship. Nay, my cochlear canal stays silent because I'm not on the ship until the last moment.  My stomach lies to me, tells me this time I'll be fine, then, when we're hours out to sea, too late to return to port to put me off, then I'm sick. I'm sick for the length of the voyage. I can always count on losing weight and sleep anytime I'm on a ship, for I can't keep a thing down. It's the closest I ever come to committing suicide-drowning seems a far kinder way to end the suffering of seasickness. I've been told that eventually one adapts-and as is evident, hundreds of people here HAVE adapted. But it's never been soon enough for me," he said, shaking his head ruefully.

K'ndar felt his rancor melt away. You couldn't stay angry at the kindest of people, Rahman, a man who'd introduced him to science-and gave him books. He owed Rahman more than just an apology, he owed him courtesy and respect. K'ndar nodded. 

"Again, sir, I apologize. I…I was just scared about this, I had no idea what was going on. Being hit so suddenly, so out of the blue, without a reason that I could see…that's what scared me. Yet, I can't tell you how many times I've had a rough ride on Raventh when we would be fighting Thread, and not once, never did I feel sick."

"I have no idea the why of it, K'ndar. None. Why is it you can ride a dragon without ill effects, but being on a ship you get seasick? I think that's a question that will never be answered, at least not by me, an astronomer. But I know enough that I hate being seasick. It's why I've always requested dragon transport. I don't get sick riding a dragon. I am here partly to sympathize with you, but also to request transport on your Raventh."

He is a good man, K'ndar. We've transported him before. I am ready to take him wherever he might need to go. So that he doesn't get sick, too.

"Sir, there is always a spot for you on Raventh's back. I'd be honored-as is he-to take you wherever and whenever you want."

"Thank you, and convey my thanks to Raventh as well."

I heard. 

"K'ndar, right now your pride is wounded, and you think folks on the docks are laughing at you. They are, for now. It's not going to hurt anything more than your pride…and reputation. But there are worse reputations to have," Rahman said. 

K'ndar nodded.  

"Now, let's think like good scientists, because I just had something dismaying rise in my mind, and I want to see if you can corroborate my conclusion. Can you tell me why, were I to try and drown myself to relieve my misery of being seasick, why I would NOT die?" 

K'ndar looked at him, quizzically. "You're a good swimmer?" he guessed.

"Nay, at least not good enough to survive rough seas. Recall...the idea is to drown quickly, rather than die slowly from seasickness.  Think, K'ndar. Where are you, right this moment?"

"Um…on a rock by the ocean?"

"K'ndar…" Rahman said, in a tone usually used by disproving parents or taskmaster weyrlingmasters.

"OK, I'm on a solid, perfectly rectangular, unmoving rock by the ocean at Tillek Sea Hold."

"Correct. And Tillek is famous for what?"

"Ships. Fish. Dolphins." 

"Correct with the last. Dolphins. Dolphins are everywhere here. With my luck, I'd throw myself overboard, hoping to die quickly, only to be rescued by dolphins so that I have to go through it all over again."