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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?

Tai’s soft shocked voice behind him in the silence of the Interface office gave F’lessan the word he had been trying to remember. She stood with T’gellan and Mirrim against the wall. He hadn’t even seen them arrive. She stared with awed fear and fascination at what the monitor depicted.

The distant cloud expanded sideways and skyward, and the surface of sea was reacting in its depths and sending ominous black undulations out in all directions. And something swirled up and over the rainforest island. Then the view retreated to show a new aspect; the island had been subsumed! And a thick line of debris: the lush huge trees, some thirty meters tall, were now just sea wrack, bobbing until finally they would be tossed up on beaches as jetsam. The dark circle continued to spread outward, westward. East, too, F’lessan now realized, though the cloud obscured that fact. He checked with the radar screen and yes, the rings were heading east and south, right at unprotected lowlands, possibly as far as the Hook Islands, and certainly speeding right toward the lovely little bays that dotted the Monaco coast, and Monaco Bay itself, the Harbor, the busy boatyard with sheds, pier, and cotholds. And Cove Hold? Would the Kahrain Cape protect it?

“That’s what a tsunami does to what’s in its way,” F’lessan said, pointing to the wreckage, the shocking disappearance of two substantial islands. A shaft of cold, deep fear engulfed his bones. He urgently signaled Tai to join him.

“Tsunami?” Mirrim echoed in a surprise tinged with denial, fear, and resentment. She lifted her hand to stop Tai but F’lessan scowled at her as he waved the green rider to his side.

“I thought tsunami occurred with sea or earthquakes,” T’gellan said, stunned.

“Tsunami can also occur when something very hot and heavy falls out of the sky,” Erragon said in the tone of someone who wishes he did not have to announce such news. “And a comet just did!” He pointed to the grim Impactor Summary figures.

F’lessan shook his head, unable to deal with such incredible quantities as a mass of 17 million tons and a derived impact energy of 29.7 exajoules. Now that was a typically esoteric Aivas word. He was almost relieved to see Erragon and Stinar were also struggling to put such terms into Pernese contexts.

“What does all that mean?” Mirrim asked, her tanned skin pale. In all the Turns he had known her, F’lessan had never seen this confident woman so scared.

Erragon swiveled on his heel, giving her such a piercing look that she recoiled slightly against T’gellan. He gave his head a final shake, took a deep breath, and regarded the Monaco Weyrleader.