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Chapters (64)
  1. Other titles by Anne McCaffreyPublished by Ballantine Books:
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Contents
  6. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  7. INTRODUCTION
  8. PROLOGUE
  9. At a Gather—6.15.30
  10. Part 1
  11. Turnover at Landing—1.1.31 Present Pass Aivas—Aivas Adjusted Turn 2553
  12. Benden Weyr—1.1.31
  13. Southern Hold—1.1.31
  14. Healer Hall—1.1.31
  15. Back at Landing—1.2.31
  16. Fort Hold—late night—1.1.31
  17. Fort Hold Runner Station—1.2.31
  18. Keroon Printer Hall—1.3.31
  19. Benden Weyr—midday—1.3.31
  20. Monaco Bay Weyr—five days later—1.8.31
  21. Part 2
  22. Ruatha Hold—local time 12:04 in the morning—1.9.31
  23. Telgar Weyr—local time 4:04 in the morning—1.9.31
  24. Benden Weyr—local time 6:04 in the morning—1.9.31
  25. Harper Hall—local time 1:00 in the morning—1.9.31
  26. Landing—local time 10:12 mid-morning—1.9.31
  27. In the Conference Room at Landing—1.9.31
  28. Monaco Weyr—10:22 in the morning—Timing it
  29. In the Conference Room at Landing—local time 1:10–1.9.31
  30. Sunrise Cliff Seahold—timed-back
  31. In the Conference Room—local time 2:12 at Landing—1.9.31
  32. Back at Landing—local time—3:40
  33. Harper Hall—5:00 in the morning, and Southern Hold—2:00 in the morning–1.9.31
  34. Landing—late afternoon—1.9.31
  35. Same time at Keroon Printer Hall—local time 11:15—1.9.31
  36. Later, on an unusually bright evening at Landing, Sunrise Cliff, and Honshu Hold—1.9.31
  37. Part 3
  38. Honshu—1.10.31
  39. Circle Runner Station—1.18.31
  40. Harper Hall
  41. Benden Weyr—
  42. Benini Hold—east Monaco and Honshu—1.20.31
  43. Harper Hall—1.28.31
  44. Honshu Hold—2.1.31
  45. Fort Hold—2.13.31
  46. Printer Hall at Wide Bay—same night
  47. Honshu Hold—2.9.31
  48. Night at Wide Bay—2.9.31
  49. Ruatha Hold—late evening—2.9.31
  50. Core Hold—two days before Council Meeting—2.26.31
  51. Part 4
  52. Honshu Weyrhold—2.26–27.31
  53. Council Meeting at Telgar Hold—3.1.31
  54. Honshu Weyrhold—3.01.31
  55. Interim at Benden and elsewhere
  56. Honshu Weyrhold—time passing slowly
  57. Landing—3.21.31
  58. Honshu Weyrhold—3.21.31
  59. Southern Hold—3.23.31
  60. Honshu Weyrhold—3.27.31
  61. Benden Weyr—3.27.31
  62. Cove Hold—same day, same approximate time
  63. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  64. What’s next onyour reading list?

The brightest stars never changed. He recognized the sparkle of Vega—or was it Canopus? He couldn’t remember the names of the other stars in the spring sky. In trying to recall those names and when he had learned them, his mind inexorably returned to Aivas and all that … that thing … had done to him. He’d only recently heard, in a repetition of very old news, that his father had been exiled to an island in the Eastern Sea with the Lord Holders and other craftsmen who had tried to stop the Abomination.

Now that the source was silenced, they’d be able to talk men and women into returning to their senses. The Red Star brought Thread. The Dragonriders fought Thread in the skies, and people lived comfortably enough between Passes. That had been the order of life for centuries—an order that should be preserved. When he had heard that the Masterharper of Pern, a personage Shankolin had admired, had been abducted, he had been deeply disturbed. But his ears had been blocked for Turns before he gradually recovered some hearing and learned about that part of the incident. He had never clearly heard why the Masterharper had been found dead in the Abomination’s chamber. But it, too, had been dead—“terminated,” one of the miners said. Had Master Robinton come to his senses and turned off the Abomination? Or had the Abomination killed Master Robinton? He felt eager to discover the truth.

Once he got down Crom’s river—perhaps Keogh Hold would be far enough—he could make plans and see just how badly the Abomination had interfered with Pern’s traditions and way of life.

Gathers began in springtime, when the roads dried of winter snow and mud, and he could simply blend into the crowds, and perhaps find more answers. He was hearing more and more these days, even the shrill song of avians. Once he caught up on current news, he would be able to plan his next moves.

Surely not everyone on Pern would want tradition degraded or would believe the lies that the Abomination had spouted. He called to mind those whom he knew had been seriously disturbed by the so-called improvements promulgated by Aivas. By now, eleven Turns since the Abomination had terminated, some right-minded, thinking folk would realize that the Red Star had not changed course simply because three old engines had blown up in a crack on its surface! Especially when Thread continued to fall on the planet—as indeed it should, to be sure that all Pern was united against the menace of its return, century after century.

At a Gather—6.15.30

“I don’t know why it had to mess up time,” said the first man, morosely fingering a pattern in the spilled gravy in front of him.

“You’re messing up the table,” the second man said, pointing.