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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?

She blinked furiously, tears spattering onto his hand. “I … I can’t remember. The fireball was always there,” and she cast a frantic glance to her right, to the north.

He massaged her taut hands and fingers, doing his best to soothe her, to relieve her inexpressible grief.

“Every dragon here did what he or she could do. I’ll wager there’re hundreds of exhausted dragons here. We did all we could!” He thought of his son, barely fifteen Turns, taking his dragon on the longest trip between they’d yet made, to serve food and drink. “We didn’t lose a dragon, did we?” No, he would have known. Dragons made a terrible noise when one of them died.

She shook her head. He continued to stroke her hands as he looked out over the resting dragons, most of them Monacan, though he recognized a few from Telgar and High Reaches Weyrs.

“How much more do they expect of us?”

“The fireball fell. And made tsunami,” she said, her tone utterly bereft. Zaranth crooned sympathetically, encouragingly.

F’lessan reached out and pulled the dejected green rider into his arms. Her skin was cold beneath his hands. He snagged one of the feline pelts from the ground by Zaranth.

“How in the name of the First Egg could dragons have stopped the fireball dropping or the tsunami from starting?” he demanded bitterly. “We did what we could!” Once again he used Golanth’s shoulder as a backrest and made Tai as comfortable against him as he could. He felt Golanth’s sympathetic rumbling and Zaranth shoved her nose over to give Tai’s arm a brief lick. F’lessan felt the reassurances of both dragons humming through him. Tai lay motionless, her breathing gradually easing from despairingly ragged to a calmer rhythm.

“You’ll see, Tai. We’ll be more famous than Moreta and her ride. There were thousands of us doing it.”

We mustn’t say that we timed it, F’lessan, Golanth whispered.

“We’re not to say we timed it, F’lessan,” murmured Tai in the same breath.

“Another little miracle of the day covered up, huh?” F’lessan felt rancor building in him. What did it matter if half the population of Pern knew dragons could go between time as well as place? It’s not as if people could learn how. On the other hand, he’d had enough timing it these last few hours—felt more like days—with that damned fireball hanging over his shoulder.

Tai, who had begun to relax against him, now tensed again and struggled to sit upright.

“Did you save these?” She held up one leg of spotted pelt.

“Me? No. Are these the ones you skinned in Cardiff? Beauties.”

“How did they get here?”

Tai’s eyes widened, her mouth dropped open and she stared at Zaranth who now looked very uncomfortable and dropped her head from her rider’s arm, hiding her eyes.