“I’m not certain I know, my lady, but I discovered them while scanning the heavens last night—or this morning. The Red Star is not the only globe above us. There is this one, too, which became visible toward morning, didn’t it, N’ton?” The young bronze rider nodded solemnly but there was a gleam of amusement in his blue eyes for the glassman’s manner of exposition. “And very faintly, but still visible as a sphere, is this third heavenly neighbor, to our northeast, low on the horizon. Then, directly south—it was N’ton’s notion to look all around—we found this larger globe with the most unusual cluster of objects moving with visible speed about it. Why, the skies around Pern are crowded!” Wansor’s dismay was so ludicrous that Lessa had to stifle her giggle.

F’lar took the leaf from the glassman and began to study it while Lessa pushed Wansor onto the stool by the sick man. F’lar tapped the circles thoughtfully as though this tactile contact made them more real.

“And there are four stars in the skies?”

“Indeed there are many more, Weyrleader,” Wansor replied. “But only these,” and his stained forefinger pointed to the three newly discovered neighbors, “appear so far as globes in the distance-viewer. The others are merely bright points of light as stars have always been. One must assume, then, that these three are also controlled by our sun, and pass around it, even as we do. For I do not see how they could escape the force that tethers us and the Red Star to the sun—a force we know to be tremendous…”

F’lar looked up from the rude sketches, a terrible expression on his face.

“If these are so near, then does Thread really come from the Red Star?”

“Oh dear, oh dear,” moaned Wansor softly and began caressing his fingertips with his thumbs in little fluttery gestures.

“Nonsense,” said Lessa so confidently that the three men glanced at her in surprise. “Let’s not make more complications than we already have. The ancients who knew enough to make that distance-viewer definitely stipulate the Red Star as the origin of Thread. If it were one of these others, they’d have said so. It is when the Red Star approaches Pern that we have Thread.”

“In that drawing in the Council Room at Fort Weyr there is a diagram of globes on circular routes,” N’ton said thoughtfully. “Only there are six circles and,” his eyes widened suddenly; he glanced quickly down at the sheet in Wansor’s hand, “…one of them, the next to the last, has clusters of smaller satellites.”

“Well, then, except that we’ve seen it with our own eyes, what’s all the worry?” demanded Lessa, grabbing up the klah pitcher and mugs to serve the newcomers. “We’ve only just discovered for ourselves what the ancients knew and inscribed on that wall.”