BooksBarbecue
Back The Dragonriders of Pern Save as PDF
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

“Red has always meant danger, a convention we undoubtedly learned from the ancients,” he said. “Green we will therefore try first!” His thick forefinger hesitated a moment longer and then stabbed at the green button.

At first nothing happened. Jaxom felt a clenching, like a cold hand on his guts, the prelude to intense disappointment.

“No, look, it’s opening!” Piemur’s keen eyes caught the first barely perceptible widening of the crack.

“It’s old,” the Smith said reverently. “A very old mechanism,” he added as they all heard the faint protest of movement.

Slowly the door moved inward and then, astonishingly, it moved sideways, into the hull of the ship. A whoosh of rank air sent them reeling and gasping backward. When they looked again, the door was fully retracted, sunlight streaming onto flooring, darker than the ship’s hull but, when the Smith rapped it with his knuckles, apparently made of the same peculiar material.

“Wait!” Fandarel restrained the others from entering. “Give fresh air a chance to circulate. Did anyone think to bring glows?”

“There’re some at the Cove,” Jaxom said, reaching for his flying gear and jamming his helmet on his head as he raced to Ruth. He never did bother to belt up and the frigid moment of between was a shocking cooler after the exertions of digging. He got as many glow baskets as he could carry. On his return, he realized no one seemed to have moved in his brief absence. Awe of the unknown beyond that great entrance had restrained them. Awe and perhaps, Jaxom decided, a reluctance to repeat the disappointment of the Plateau.

“Well, we will never know anything standing out here like numbwits,” Robinton said, taking a glow basket from Jaxom and unshielding it as he strode forward into the ship.

It was mete, Jaxom thought, as he passed out the other baskets, that the Masterharper should have the honor of entering first. Fandarel, F’lar, F’nor and Lessa walked abreast through the opening. Jaxom grinned at Piemur and Menolly as they fell in behind.

Another great door, with a circular wheel for locking thick bars to ceiling and floor, lay open and inviting. Master Fandarel was making inarticulate noises of praise and awe as he touched the walls and peered at what looked to be control levers and more colored circles. As they penetrated farther, they came upon two more doors, an open one on the left and one closed on their right which would lead, Fandarel was certain, to the rear, tube-encircled end of the vehicle. How could tubes make a cumbersome, snub-winged thing like this fly? He simply had to bring Benelek here, if no one else was to see it.

They all turned to the left and entered a long narrow corridor, their boots making muffled noises on the non-metallic floor.