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Back The Skies of Pern
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?

F’lessan caught his breath. He’d seen volcanoes erupt; the one Piemur had discovered off the westernmost tip of Southern Hold blew up periodically, sending clouds of gray ash to blot the sun and stifle even the rich tropical vegetation. The one in the near Eastern Ring, which the ancients had called Young Mountain, liked to send immense boulders skyward and great lava flows down its side, spinning burning chunks onto its neighbors. The islands that the comet was heading for were much larger and he shuddered at the thought of all of them becoming active. They would cause tidal waves, which could have a disastrous effect on coastal areas—like Monaco.

“It could still just graze,” Erragon murmured to Stinar, in a tone that gave F’lessan no confidence in that possibility at all.

He glanced up at the legend, numbers whirring into new configurations all the time, as Yoko telemetry updated them.

“It’s only got a few minutes to change course,” F’lessan said.

Erragon glanced at him, blinking, as if he’d forgotten the bronze rider’s presence. “Did you know your Weyrleaders are in the conference room with Master Wansor?”

Lessa and F’lar were also here? When—and why—had they arrived? Obscurely he was glad they had, especially the way this event was proceeding.

“No, but I’d rather be in here and know the worst,” F’lessan said, watching Erragon’s shoulders twitch in startled reaction to the last word. “Where will it hit us?”

“We don’t know yet,” but F’lessan saw Erragon’s eye flick to the Impact Probability, which flickered onto 60 percent.

All three men caught their breath as the percentage jumped in a matter of seconds to 100 percent.

“That’s still a consequence of the grazing impact,” Erragon said but F’lessan didn’t think he believed that. “The ellipse is shrinking. Can you adjust Yoko’s visuals?”

On the map in the right-hand corner, the figures flickered in latitude and longitude, following the last downward plunge of the comet. Filling that screen at maximum magnification, the tuberlike shape of the comet nucleus showed geysers and jets blowing into space; chunks breaking off, floating slowly away. F’lessan was amazed since he knew the speed at which the comet was traveling and that eerie, almost dignified, breakup of its parts was like a Gather dance.

“It’s going to miss …” Stinar whispered, unconsciously pushing both hands in a deflecting motion.

“Just a few more degrees …” Erragon, too, was taut as if, by exerting sufficient willpower, he could shift the plummeting fireball south and east.

“It’s got to be far enough away …” F’lessan was adding his tension in an unconscious effort to affect a descent that no effort could now alter.

F’lessan found himself squinting at the sudden brightness of the picture—the brightness of sunlit sea or the comet. The magnitude of its dust trail now registered an eye-blinding intensity of –9!