Thread would fall today at Benden and over Keroon, south of Nuella’s wherhold. The sun would be rising as the Thread started to fall, so the watch-whers would not be able to help.

The sun rose three hours earlier over Keroon than over Fort Weyr, which was why Fiona and the rest had woken in the still of night.

She grabbed a spare mug and poured it full of klah, gulping the liquid as quickly as she could in spite of the heat.

“Good morning, weyrwoman,” Ellor, Fort Weyr’s headwoman greeted her.

Fiona nodded. “Everything ready?”

Ellor smiled. “We’ll be setting up the tables out in the Bowl as soon as it’s light.”

A cough, sickly and huge in the night air, reverberated around the Weyr, followed by another and another.

“We’ve eighteen for certain with the cough,” Cisca said as she entered the Bowl and spotted Fiona.

“Didn’t we have more?” Fiona asked in surprise. For three Turns back in time, Fiona had been able to forget about the sickness that had been killing the dragons. She hadn’t realized until now how much of a relief that had been for her.

“We did; they went between or died,” Cisca told her bleakly. “And more took their place.”

Without the dragons, Pern would be defenseless against Thread. With nothing to flame the Thread into char before it reached the surface, the live Thread would suck the life out of everything that grew, including humans. If the sickness couldn’t be cured soon, they would all die.

“I think we’ve got more,” Tintoval, the new Weyr Healer added as she entered the Kitchen and repeated Fiona’s action of grabbing a mug and filling it with steaming klah. She nodded to Fiona and Cisca in greeting, before continuing grimly, “I haven’t been able to identify them, nor have I heard anything more from Benden about a cure.”

“We’re set for firestone,” Fiona reported. She had directed a work party the day before in filling the sacks in preparation for the Fall. “They’ll fly out with three sacks each.”

Cisca nodded. “K’lior said that he’d detail a wing to bring more when needed.”

“I’ve got Terin and some of the younger weyrfolk assigned to help with the loading.”

“Good,” Cisca said. She turned to the Weyr Bowl, downed her klah, refilled the mug, and headed out. Fiona followed her.

The dark chill air absorbed most sounds and added an eeriness to the preparations.

Cisca found K’lior and passed the mug to him. He took it with a grateful look, downed it, and continued on his way, stopping to converse with one rider, patting another on the back, checking the harness of yet a third, passing up firestone sacks to a fourth.

Without prompting, Fiona followed suit, cheerfully greeting those she knew from Igen Weyr and politely encouraging those she knew only barely.