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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?

Ramoth saw this, too, Golanth told his rider in a muted tone. That’s when F’lessan recalled that Erragon had said that the Benden Weyrleaders and Wansor had been watching this on the conference room screen.

They weren’t all that lucky, after all, that the comet had missed the volcanic islands. A huge mass like that hitting open sea would cause a great deal of trouble. There’d be a shock wave, wouldn’t there? In how many more minutes? How much damage would that cause? Was Landing far enough away? Monaco Bay was at sea level. It’d be flooded to the hills and they were a long way up the sloping beachfront.

He tried to calm these thoughts, to resurrect the necessary information from lessons long past. He started to recall sentences, paragraphs, and irrelevant details.

A cold fear in his guts increasing with every second, F’lessan peered at the screen as the cloud boiled, red-brown, to occlude what was actually happening. They ought to know what was happening at sea level, the bronze rider thought; there was something—. Everyone in the office had now recovered their wits and their tongues. If everyone around him would only stop babbling excitedly about this spectacular event, he could think. Where was Tai? She might know. She should be here. So should T’gellan. The coast of the southern continent was not going to escape the effects of something so big dropping at that speed!

Suddenly the view on the screen altered, not only dropping the infrared screen but also presenting a new perspective, well back from the impact site. A discernible wave, a darkness of water, was moving outward, just faster than the flat-topped clouds boiling up and out. More data was being presented in margins. F’lessan blinked, unable to decipher the critical messages given.

F’lessan kept his eyes on the screen. The Yoko adjusted its viewpoint by pulling back at speed, back beyond the hump of one of the big rainforest islands just north of the impact point. It was burning! Burning? Oh, yes, memory informed F’lessan, the thermal flare of the comet would cause flash fires with the heat of its passing.

“We’re very, very lucky,” someone muttered. “It didn’t hit any landmass.”

“No, we’re not lucky,” F’lessan said savagely, watching the dark watery circle expand. “That island’s on fire!” Then he pointed to the map in the right-hand corner. “The one due south will be burning, too. And look at that gap between them! There’ll be sea pouring through that gap, circling out, spreading, and coming straight down to the southern coastline in a wall of water …” He paused, uncertainly, trying to recall the specific term.

“Tsunami!”