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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?

Maps hung on the conference room walls behind them. She skewed herself around and saw the big map that Aivas had called a Mercator projection. “Faulty,” she remembered him saying, “in that the polar areas are larger than their actual size but it gives you a coherent grasp of the disposition of land and sea masses.” She wished with all her being that somehow Aivas’s deep quiet voice would issue from the speakers, informing them how to deal with this crisis. But Aivas was gone! Whatever problem this fireball presented was theirs and D’ram had suggested a way in which they could—in an emergency—reduce the potential damage. Master Idarolan had once told her about seeing a huge wall of water drowning an island; a tsunami, he called it.

“If it’s coastline we need to protect, we will need Master Idarolan’s experience and knowledge,” she murmured to D’ram. “He still has his charts of deep harbors and shallow moorings.”

“What are you two whispering about, Lessa?” F’lar asked as quiet-spoken as they.

“If that thing,”—she gestured to the fireball and it suddenly looked a lot less amusing—“falls on us, we need to be prepared.”

“But …” F’lar began.

“Besides,” she went on, intensifying her glance at him and giving an indolent shrug, “even if it misses, this is a phenomenon that would fascinate Idarolan. He’ll see it better from here than from his deck at Nerat’s Ankle.”

“You say,” and Wansor’s light voice turned excited, “that the probability reads fifty-eight percent?”

“Go, F’lar. And give Idarolan enough time,” she said, stressing the word, “to bring all the records he might need.”

“I’ll be—” F’lar grinned at her, “right back.”

Lessa glanced over at the wall clock: 11:35!

“Is he going to—” D’ram began, stopping in surprise. “But you don’t encourage—”

“No, I don’t, but, as I said, if we prepare for the worst, we can be pleasantly—rather than unpleasantly—surprised. Something about that—.” She regarded the fireball. “When a dragon’s eyes are that color, she’s at her most dangerous.”

D’ram looked at the screen. “Yes, you’re right.”

Seven elapsed minutes later, when the clock registered 11:42, F’lar and Idarolan swung into the conference room. Both of them were laden with bags of chart rolls and looked as if they had been running. Idarolan’s eyes swept those gathered, then were held by the monitor as he swung his burden to the tabletop.

“I see that I am in time,”—his roughened seaman’s voice caressed the word—“to be of use.”

“Oh, yes, Idarolan, yes, I’m glad you’re here,” Wansor said excitedly. “I don’t think the cometary fragment is going to miss us.” He sounded as if this were an achievement to be relished. “What’s the object’s magnitude right now?”