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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?

“The masts’re unstepped,” Binness said, as if that made transport feasible. It would make them less unwieldy. “We can rig the hulls to be lifted like you did the nets. We got the line.”

F’lessan delayed his answer, wiping sweat off his face and neck. Did they have the time? He glanced at the two small craft, then at his watch. These seaholders were about to lose their cotholds, and neither of the dories was longer than a dragon’s body. He saw they were clap-sided, only the sharp V of the transom covered. They couldn’t weigh that much. Lias grabbed a cleat, slung a line quickly about it as if this proof would be sufficient to sway F’lessan’s doubt.

“You said dragons’re as strong as they need be! Be they strong enough, dragonrider?” Binness’s eyes were wide and fierce with an entreaty and a challenge that F’lessan could not resist.

F’lessan swallowed.

“Rope ’em, then. We’ll give it a try. Be quick about it.”

“Three dragons? Three sma’ little dories?” Binness cried, eyes suddenly full of hope again. “Outta the nine boats we got?”

F’lessan groaned. He couldn’t believe he was agreeing.

“Quick, a-fore he changes his mind,” Binness cried, sending off the four who were still gasping for breath. They turned to stagger back down the dune. He and Lias began to secure lines. He paused, tossed a coil of rope at F’lessan. “Start on the second one. Be sure the lines are the same length.”

And F’lessan found himself wrapping lines around cleats on the second dory.

“Everyone out of the holds? Everything you need?” F’lessan cried as the exhausted fishmen arrived with the third hull, collapsing against it, wheezing, their sweating bodies covered with sand where they’d stumbled.

“You, go check!” Binness ordered and the man crawled gamely to his feet and staggered toward the nearest cot. “Lias, tighten that line. You, rig the portside. You, do a running bowline through the anchor bracket. Make it real tight!”

When C’reel and Galuth arrived to find the first ship rigged to be conveyed, the brown rider obviously thought F’lessan was asking too much of them. All sorts of odds and ends, buckets, rakes, hand nets, a pair of sandals, more nets, fish spears, small buoys, floats, light anchors, and even some folded sails had been dumped in the dories.

“Nothing really heavy,” F’lessan said, peering over the new cargo as he wondered how all that had been stashed in when he was looking elsewhere.

“We can do it, C’reel. Galuth can do it! Up you go, Galuth!” And he gave the Wingleader’s signal to lift.