Chapters (64)
- Other titles by Anne McCaffreyPublished by Ballantine Books:
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- INTRODUCTION
- PROLOGUE
- At a Gather—6.15.30
- Part 1
- Turnover at Landing—1.1.31 Present Pass Aivas—Aivas Adjusted Turn 2553
- Benden Weyr—1.1.31
- Southern Hold—1.1.31
- Healer Hall—1.1.31
- Back at Landing—1.2.31
- Fort Hold—late night—1.1.31
- Fort Hold Runner Station—1.2.31
- Keroon Printer Hall—1.3.31
- Benden Weyr—midday—1.3.31
- Monaco Bay Weyr—five days later—1.8.31
- Part 2
- Ruatha Hold—local time 12:04 in the morning—1.9.31
- Telgar Weyr—local time 4:04 in the morning—1.9.31
- Benden Weyr—local time 6:04 in the morning—1.9.31
- Harper Hall—local time 1:00 in the morning—1.9.31
- Landing—local time 10:12 mid-morning—1.9.31
- In the Conference Room at Landing—1.9.31
- Monaco Weyr—10:22 in the morning—Timing it
- In the Conference Room at Landing—local time 1:10–1.9.31
- Sunrise Cliff Seahold—timed-back
- In the Conference Room—local time 2:12 at Landing—1.9.31
- Back at Landing—local time—3:40
- Harper Hall—5:00 in the morning, and Southern Hold—2:00 in the morning–1.9.31
- Landing—late afternoon—1.9.31
- Same time at Keroon Printer Hall—local time 11:15—1.9.31
- Later, on an unusually bright evening at Landing, Sunrise Cliff, and Honshu Hold—1.9.31
- Part 3
- Honshu—1.10.31
- Circle Runner Station—1.18.31
- Harper Hall
- Benden Weyr—
- Benini Hold—east Monaco and Honshu—1.20.31
- Harper Hall—1.28.31
- Honshu Hold—2.1.31
- Fort Hold—2.13.31
- Printer Hall at Wide Bay—same night
- Honshu Hold—2.9.31
- Night at Wide Bay—2.9.31
- Ruatha Hold—late evening—2.9.31
- Core Hold—two days before Council Meeting—2.26.31
- Part 4
- Honshu Weyrhold—2.26–27.31
- Council Meeting at Telgar Hold—3.1.31
- Honshu Weyrhold—3.01.31
- Interim at Benden and elsewhere
- Honshu Weyrhold—time passing slowly
- Landing—3.21.31
- Honshu Weyrhold—3.21.31
- Southern Hold—3.23.31
- Honshu Weyrhold—3.27.31
- Benden Weyr—3.27.31
- Cove Hold—same day, same approximate time
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- What’s next onyour reading list?
“Now you’ve finished your klah, boys and girls, we’ve a lot to do before daylight. Smear the retardant on anything wooden. The gloves may be clumsy but they’ll save your skin. Work quietly, if you please. I don’t want even to hear the slap of brushes on the wood. You’ve all had practice.”
While two of the group gathered the cups and set them in the sink, the others went out, collecting their supplies and quietly leaving by the kitchen porch. Tagetarl glanced out the window and, in the dim predawn light, could barely see the other side of the wide court.
“Stuff’s dark going on, dries transparent. Don’t worry,” Pinch said, rising to refill the kettle from the tap at the sink and put it back on the stove. As he swung his leg over the stool, he took a sheet from a pocket and smoothed it on the table in front of Tagetarl. “Seen him around here lately?”
Tagetarl frowned. “That’s the same man you drew the last time you were here. I thought he looked familiar. I thought it odd of him to ask for a copy of Teaching Ballads. I’d actually filled an order for Lord Kashman and had none in stock. Told him to come back in a sevenday.”
Pinch nodded as if that wasn’t news to him. “Tomorrow.”
“You mean, he plans to just walk in here …” Tagetarl was appalled when he remembered the incident. “I showed him through the Hall. It seemed only courteous.”
Pinch’s smile was sardonic. “I hope you limited it to the Hall.”
“I did, but I also mentioned how many apprentices I’m training.” Tagetarl slammed his forehead with his hand. How naïve of him! Had he lost all his Harper-trained acuity? He had seven lads, none of them fully grown except Marley, and three girls, who were all of them light-boned, hired for their quick fingers. Add in the eight Pinch had brought—
“Don’t fret,” Pinch said soothingly. “You’d no cause—then—to suspect anything. No reason not to be courteous. You are, after all, offering a special service. Even if the Abominators don’t like it.”
Tagetarl swallowed, the hot klah cooling too rapidly in his belly to give him the comfort it usually did. “How many were there in that attack on the Healer Hall? Ten? No, fifteen.”
“I’d say there’d have to be at least ten for the job here,” Pinch said casually, as if that made no difference. “Had any other ‘curious’ visitors lately?”
Tagetarl buried his face in his hands, rubbing it and then scrubbing his scalp with his knuckles. “Quite likely and all of them seemed perfectly reasonable folk.”
“They may well be,” Pinch remarked amiably, “except those who get a notion that you’re a wicked tool of the Abominator because you can turn out whole books in days instead of months.”
Tagetarl groaned.