“Not necessarily,” Jacob replied. “And they don’t really look like fish. They look like … well, I don’t know what they look like,” he admitted. The life-form seemed to have layers of fins along its side, some of which were in constant motion. “Hairy, they look.”

“All I know is we didn’t see anything like ’em in the tanks at the hatchery,” Chung said. Taking out a specimen bottle, he lowered himself to the edge of the pool to catch one.

Though Jacob was able to get one of the bladders into a jar, and three samples of the many-legged species almost leaped into captivity, the finger fish eluded both boys.

When Sorka’s suggestions for capture were dismissed, she wandered farther down the beach. Around a second pile of boulders, she found a massive outcropping that resembled a man’s heavy-featured head, complete with brow ridges, nose, lips, and chin, though part of the chin was buried in the sand and lashed by the waves. Delighted and awed, Sorka stood in rapt admiration. It was wonderful, and she had found it. One of the girls in her own Asian Square had fallen down a hole that turned out to be one of the many entrances to a series of caves to the south and west of Landing. They had been officially named the Catherine Caves after their inadvertent discoverer.

Sorka’s Head? She murmured the title under her breath. No, people might think it was her head, and she didn’t look like that at all. As she pondered the question she glanced above the splendidly imposing cliff. It was then that she saw the creature, seemingly suspended in the air. She gasped in wonder, for in that moment the sun caught and dazzled the creature into a golden statue. Abruptly it dove and swooped out of sight, behind the pate of the stone head.

No one had shown her anything that resembled that marvelous creature, and Sorka was filled with excitement. She would have something stupendous to report when she got back to the hatchery. She ran toward the vast head, which was beginning to lose its illusory resemblance. That no longer mattered to Sorka. She had discovered something far more important: a creature of Pern.

She had to scramble up a series of boulders to reach the summit. She paused just before she reached the top and peered over, hoping to catch a closer glimpse of the winged life-form. But she stood up in disappointment. There was nothing visible but naked rock, pitted here and there by faults and holes. She drew back hastily when the surf, beating against the cliff face, became a fountaining plume through one of the holes, showering her with cold seawater.