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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?

Wansor, old Lytol, and D’ram were certainly working all out on updating orbits with Erragon down at Cove Hold. The skies currently above Pern had altered within Rukbat’s system since the colonists had first surveyed it twenty-five hundred and fifty-three Turns ago. Asteroids had collided, broken up into different pieces, spinning into new orbits. Perhaps one of them had been the Fireball. Others, like the erratic wanderer inaccurately called the Red Star had entered the system as comets or fragments. In the spare moments F’lessan had had, he’d reviewed his old astronomy notes from his classes with Aivas. A long-forgotten lesson reminded him that the Yoko got its information from what the Ancients had called “a southern array of satellites.” Aivas had once mentioned the absence of a northern array, which would have given a much clearer picture of minor planets, comets, and other orbiting bodies. He remembered that there were more telescopes stored in the Catherine Caves, which probably would have been set up in observatories to keep track of such objects. Old Earth certainly had known exactly what was in its solar system. But no one had anticipated the Red Star and Thread falling on Pern.

Thread must have sharded a lot of the colonists’ plans, F’lessan thought to himself.

To identify what now circled in Pern’s spatially near vicinity would need more than however many apprentices and journeymen currently worked at Cove Hold. The telescope in the ingenious observatory that old Kenjo had contrived was the type that required a computer and a screen to display what it saw. The 10×50mm binoculars he had wheedled out of Jancis worked well enough. With these he had been able to spot what were marked in the Aivas charts as minor planets and the larger objects in the asteroid belt. But to have an instrument that would produce images that one could study in detail! That would help enormously in charting the skies. He grinned, rubbing his cold arms. And maybe he’d get Tai to help him. Ah!

When the entire furor over the Flood had eased down, he was sure he could now get authorization from Master Wansor to withdraw the appropriate boards and crystals out of storage at Admin to be able to focus the primary mirror. Aivas had taught him how to assemble a computer. Benelek, another of his old friends and now Master of the Computer Hall, could probably be talked into helping him. Screens were harder to come by, but he might just cajole Stinar into giving him a spare one, if he promised regular reports of what the ancient Schmidt-type telescope detected.