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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?

“He had no call to mess up our time,” the first man insisted, rather more vehemently.

“Who?” Second was confused. “He? It?”

“Aivas, that’s who or it.”

“Whaddya mean?”

“Well, he did, didn’t he? Back in ’38—which should be only 2524.” The holder scowled, his thick black brows coming together across the wide bridge of his thick nose. “Made us add some fourteen Turns allasudden.”

“He was regulating time,” Second corrected, surprised at his companion’s vehemence. The holder had seemed a pleasant enough companion, knowledgeable about music and knowing all the words to even the latest songs the harpers were playing. With his third wineskin, his temper had deteriorated. And possibly his wits, if time or how folk numbered Turns was bothering him.

“Made me older’n’ I was.”

“Didn’t make you smarter,” Second said with a rude snort. “ ’Sides, Masterharper himself said it was all right on account there were dis- ah- disk—” He paused and used a belch as an excuse while he recalled the exact phrasing. “—there’d been inaccurate timekeeping because of Thread falling only forty Turns once instead of fifty, like it usually did, and people forgetting to account for the disk—”

“Discrepancies,” the third man put in, regarding them superciliously.

Second gave a snap of his fingers and beamed at Third for finding the word he couldn’t recall.

“The problem is not what it did,” First went on. “It’s what it’s continuing to do. To all of us.” He made a flourish that included everyone at the Gather, all laughing and singing, oblivious to the dangers in this continuation.

“Continuing to do?” A woman who had been standing nearby slipped into a seat several places down the long Gather table, on the opposite side from First and Second.

“Pushing things on us whether we want ‘improvements’ or not,” First said slowly, eyeing her in what illumination dimly reached their side table. He saw a thin woman, with an unattractive face, a pinched mouth, a recessive lower jaw, and huge eyes that glowed with an inner anger or resentment.

“Like the lights?” Second asked, gesturing toward the nearest one. “Very useful. Much more convenient than messing with glowbaskets.”

“Glowbaskets are traditional,” the woman said and her petulant tone carried into the shadows beyond the table. “Glows were put here for us to cultivate and protect.”

“Glows are natural, and have lighted our holds and halls for centuries,” said a deep, censorious voice. Startled, the woman gasped and put her hand protectively to her throat.