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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?

“Oh, Aivas had a powerful sense of humor. You know the kind of pause that means someone’s laughing inside? Well, Aivas would pause, wait a beat, and go on with what he was saying. Piemur was sure Aivas laughed to himself in such beats, but Jancis was horrified by the mere suggestion of a machine that could laugh.”

Tai couldn’t see his face but, though sometimes he made jokes about his Turns under Aivas’s supervision, his voice was tinged with a respect that he didn’t accord even his Weyrleaders. She’d been so young, fresh from Keroonian hills when her mother and father had come south to work at Landing, and painfully naïve. Told over and over what a splendid chance she was getting in a Landing education, she had concentrated on learning as much as she could to avoid disappointing anyone, including Aivas. She had never questioned anything then. Now, and in the presence of F’lessan, she felt able to ask.

“Why would Aivas be amused that you had discovered this valuable instrument and a power generator?”

“I suspect,” and F’lessan climbed a few more steps before answering, “because Kenjo had been very clever about so many things. Like saving fuel in sacks each trip down from the Yoko so he could fly the little plane he built. And using the stone-cutters far more extensively than any other colonist. Yet what a beautiful place he designed—although, come to think of it, his wife, Ita, was artistic and it’s likely she did the murals in the Hall and some of the tapestries.”

“Here we are,” he said and she could hear the relief in his voice. Dragonriders were more accustomed to flying heights than climbing them.

She didn’t mind showing that the narrow winding stairs had winded her. Her thighs felt heavy, and she had an ache in the calf of her left leg. She gave it a quick massage as he fiddled a key into the locked door they had climbed so high to reach.

At first, Tai saw nothing but the smooth sides of the vertical shaft’s creamy rock, eerily lit from small guide lights. She could feel a light breeze sweeping upward, cooling legs, body, and even the sweat on her forehead, and then a door opened just above her eye level. F’lessan lifted himself through, for a moment blocking her view. He moved to one side and, in the light from the shaft, she saw more creamy rock. She clattered up the last few steps and walked into such a splendid space that she just stood, looking around in amazement. A large dark brooding mass dominated the center of a wooden floor.

F’lessan pressed plates on one side of the door and lights blinked on, one by one, girdling the room about F’lessan’s height from the floor. She could also feel more fresh air circulating.