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Back The Dragonriders of Pern
Chapters (55)
  1. Title Page
  2. Map
  3. Prologue
  4. VOLUME I: DRAGONFLIGHT
  5. Dedicatory Note
  6. PART I Weyr Search
  7. PART II Dragonflight
  8. PART III Dust Fall
  9. PART IV The Cold Between
  10. VOLUME II: DRAGONQUEST
  11. Dedication
  12. I Morning at Mastercrafthall, Fort Hold / Several Afternoons Later at Benden Weyr / Midmorning (Telgar Time) at Mastersmithcrafthall, Telgar Hold
  13. II Evening (Fort Weyr Time). Meeting of the Weyrleaders at Fort Weyr
  14. III Morning over Lemos Hold
  15. IV Midday at Southern Weyr
  16. V Midmorning at Ruatha Hold / Early Evening at Benden Weyr
  17. VI Midmorning at Southern Weyr / Early Morning at Nabol Hold: Next Day
  18. VII Midmorning at Benden Weyr / Early Morning at the Mastersmithcrafthall, Telgar Hold
  19. VIII Midmorning at Southern Weyr
  20. IX Afternoon at Southern Weyr: Same Day
  21. X Early Morning in Harpercrafthall at Fort Hold / Afternoon at Telgar Hold
  22. XI Early Morning at Benden Weyr
  23. XII Morning at Benden Weyr / Predawn at High Reaches Weyr
  24. XIII Night at Fort Weyr: Six Days Later
  25. XIV Early Morning at Ruatha Hold / Midday at Benden Weyr
  26. XV Evening at Benden Weyr: Impression Banquet
  27. XVI Evening at Benden Weyr / Later Evening at Fort Weyr
  28. VOLUME III: THE WHITE DRAGON
  29. Dedication
  30. I At Ruatha Hold, Present Pass, 12th Turn
  31. II Benden Weyr, Present Pass, 13th Turn
  32. III Morning at Ruatha Hold, and Smithcrafthall at Telgar Hold, Present Pass, 15.5.9
  33. IV Ruatha Hold, Fidello’s Hold, and Various Points Between, 15.5.10-15.5.16
  34. V Morning in Harpercraft Hall, Fort Hold, Afternoon in Benden Weyr, Late Afternoon in Harpercraft Hall, 15.5.26
  35. VI Ruatha Hold and Southern Hold, 15.5.27-15.6.2
  36. VII Morning at Ruatha Hold, 15.6.2
  37. VIII Ruatha Hold, Fort Weyr, Fidello’s Hold, 15.6.3-15.6.17
  38. IX Early Summer, Harpercraft Hall and Ruatha Hold, 15.7.3
  39. X From Harpercraft Hall to the Southern Continent, Evening at Benden Weyr, 15.7.4
  40. XI Late Morning at Benden Weyr, Early Morning at Harpercraft Hall, Midday at Fidello’s Hold, 15.7.5
  41. XII Ruatha Hold, Fidello’s Hold, Threadfall, 15.7.6
  42. XIII A Cove in the Southern Continent, 15.7.7-15.8.7
  43. XIV Early Morning at Harpercraft Hall, Midmorning at Ista Weyr, Midafternoon at Jaxom’s Cove, 15.8.28
  44. XV Evening at Jaxom’s Cove and Late Evening at Ista Weyr, 15.8.28
  45. XVI At the Cove Hold, 15.8.28-15.9.7
  46. XVII Fort Hold, Benden Weyr, at Cove Hold, and at Sea aboard the Dawn Sister, 15.10.1-15.10.2
  47. XVIII At the Cove Hold the Day of Master Robinton’s Arrival, 15.10.14
  48. XIX Morning at the Cove Hold, Star-gazing in Late Evening, Next Morning, Discovery at the Mountain, 15.10.15-15.10.16
  49. XX At the Mountain and at Ruatha Hold, 15.10.18-15.10.20
  50. XXI Next Day at the Mountain, Cove Hold, and the Southern Hatching Ground, 15.10.21
  51. Afterword
  52. Dragondex
  53. Other Books by Anne McCaffrey
  54. To learn more about other great titles from Ballantine Books . . .
  55. Copyright

“I’ll tell him. I’ll tell him, but not in the middle of the night.”

With a wing of riders to direct between time for larval sacks the next day, his promise slipped F’nor’s mind until late that evening. Rather than distress her with his forgetfulness, he asked Canth to bespeak N’ton’s Lioth to pass the theory on to N’ton. If the Fort Weyr bronze rider saw anything that gave Brekke’s premise substance, then they’d tell F’lar.

He had a chance to speak to N’ton the following day as they met in the isolated valley field which Larad of Telgar Hold had picked to be seeded by grubs. The field, F’nor noticed with some jaundice, was planted with a new hybrid vegetable, much in demand as a table luxury and grown successfully only in some upland areas of Telgar and the High Reaches Hold.

“Brekke may have something, F’nor,” N’ton admitted. “The watchriders have mentioned that Nabol will stare for a long time into the distance-viewer and then suddenly stare into his fire lizard’s eyes until the creature becomes frantic and tries to rise. In fact, last night the poor thing went between screaming. Nabol stalked off in a bad mood, cursing all dragonkind.”

“Did you check what he’d been looking at?”

N’ton shrugged. “Wasn’t too clear last night. Lots of clouds. Only thing visible was that one gray tail—the place that resembles Nerat but points east instead of west. It was visible only briefly.”

F’nor remembered that feature well. A mass of grayness formed like a thick dragon tail, pointing in the opposite direction from the planet’s rotation.

“Sometimes,” N’ton chuckled, “the clouds above the star are clearer than anything we can see below. The other night, for instance, there was a cloud drift that looked like a girl,” N’ton made passes with his hands to describe a head, and a few to one side of the air-drawn circle, “braiding her hair. I could see her head, tilted to the left, the half-finished braid and then the stream of free hair. Fascinating.”

F’nor did not dismiss that conversation entirely for he’d noticed the variety of recognizable patterns in the clouds around the Red Star and often had been more absorbed in that show than in what he was supposed to be watching for.