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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?

As he hurriedly slid the door open to leave, he heard Mirrim sputtering behind him. He bumped into T’gellan who looked thin and haggard despite a night’s sleep.

“No matter what Mirrim says, ‘Gell, Golanth says Tai’s not lying. Good flying today.”

He raced down the stairs and out the wide door to the main terrace before he sat down to put on boots and jacket, allowing Golanth time to arrive from wherever he had weyred that night. Slits of blue and green dragon eyes on the terraces above watched him mount but closed again before Golanth tilted off the ledge and made his first wingstroke. Far to the east was the brightening of the sky on a new day.

And what does it have in store for us? F’lessan wondered.

Tai was telling the truth.

I know.

Zaranth saved the pelts.

I suppose, F’lessan said facetiously, because she didn’t know which books and notes to save.

Quite likely. Ramoth calls me.

With that, the bronze went between.

Considering what filled the day, it was not at all surprising F’lessan did not dwell on that exchange. He and Golanth conveyed people and necessities to various Benden coastal holdings, reporting on how the flooded areas were draining, occasionally using dragon strength to shift wave-driven debris, and everywhere he had to explain that the dragons could not have stopped the Fireball from hitting nor held back the tsunami. He was repeatedly asked why Thread was still falling now that the Red Star was supposed to be gone. Few understood that the Red Star had only shepherded Thread close to Pern and what was falling now was what the Red Star had dragged in behind it.

At first he’d used diagrams on the sand, in the dirt, or on a piece of paper: a big circle for the Sun, a much smaller one for Pern, tiny ones for the two moons. He’d draw the orbit of the Red Star, and show how it swooped down and around Pern, then out, carrying with it the cloud of Thread.

“Why does it take so long?” he was asked.

“Thread’s been on its way and it takes between forty-five and fifty of our Turns to get past it again.”

Then he’d be asked why the Fireball had dropped. He answered that by saying it had been a leftover fragment from the Turnover Ghosts, lost trying to follow the others. (That might not be exactly the truth; Masters Wansor, Idarolan, and the newly promoted Master Erragon still had to deliver an official verdict, but at least most people had seen Ghosts and could accept the little fiction.) He’d drop another stone—the Fireball—into the water and show them how the tsunami was like the ripples. It was, he knew, an explanation, not an answer. He didn’t know what the answer was, especially for those who’d lost a lot to “ripples.”