Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Map

Prelude

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

Chapter XVI

Dragondex

The Weyrs in Order of Founding

The Major Holds as Bound to the Weyrs

The Principal Lords (and Their Holds)

Craftmasters and Mastercraftsmen

Owners of Fire-Lizards

Some Terms of Interest

Pernese Oaths

The People of Pern

Dedication

By Anne McCaffrey

About the Author

Map

Prelude

RUKBAT, IN THE Sagittarian Sector, was a golden G-type star. It had five planets, two asteroid belts, and a stray planet it had attracted and held in recent millennia. When men first settled on Rukbat’s third world and called it Pern, they had taken little notice of the stranger planet, swinging around its adopted primary in a wildly erratic elliptical orbit. For two generations, the colonists gave the bright red star little thought—until the desperate path of the wanderer brought it close to its stepsister at perihelion.

When such aspects were harmonious and not distorted by conjunctions with other planets in the system, the indigenous life of the wanderer sought to bridge the space gap to the more temperate and hospitable planet.

The initial losses the colonists suffered were staggering, and it was during the subsequent long struggle to survive and combat this menace dropping through Pern’s skies like silver threads that Pern’s tenuous contact with the mother planet was broken.

To control the incursions of the dreadful Threads (for the Pernese had cannibalized their transport ships early on and abandoned such technological sophistication as was irrelevant to this pastoral planet), the resourceful men embarked on a long-term plan. The first phase involved breeding a highly specialized variety of a life-form indigenous to their new world. Men and women with high empathy ratings and some innate telepathic ability were trained to use and preserve these unusual animals. The “dragons” (named for the mythical Terran beast they resembled) had two extremely useful characteristics: they could get from one place to another instantly and, after chewing a phosphine-bearing rock, they could emit a flaming gas. As the dragons could “fly,” they’d be able to char Thread mid-air, yet escape its worst ravages themselves. It took generations to develop to the full the use of this first phase. The second phase of the proposed defense against the spore incursions would take longer to mature. For Thread, a space-traveling mycorrhizoid spore, devoured organic matter with mindless voracity and, once grounded, burrowed and proliferated with terrifying speed.