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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?

They did, careful to ease it over the stitches that closed the horizontal lid, gently pulling it to the rim of the eye. They removed the stitches from the second lid. Peeling it back was slow and disheartening. The first facets were revealed; the inner circles scarred black by the pointed claws that had irreparably damaged them. But, as Tai worked the upper lid, and F’lessan the lower, they could see that not all the facets were dark. The outer band, to the third facet in, showed a cloudy green; on the upper rank, four octagons were clearer. Along the dragon’s nose, six more were brightening. Golanth had lost at least three-quarters of the sight in that eye. He might see directly in front of him in a narrow band and catch motion on the left and perhaps make out objects overhead.

Now, slowly, Golanth turned his head to his rider and Tai, and focused on them what remaining vision he had.

I see you, F’lessan. I see you, Tai. I see!

Dragons do not weep. F’lessan did, burrowing into his dragon’s neck, clasping Tai’s hand so tightly in his that some of her tears were for pain as well as joy.

Neither Wyzall nor Oldive, nor any of the beastmasters and healers they had consulted had thought that Golanth would have any use of the left eye. Nor did they know if the undamaged eye could compensate! While dragons often got their eyes full of stinging char and occasionally a direct score, the nictitating lids could close so quickly that rarely had more than a few facets been hurt.

I do not see much. But I see with two eyes.

Tai began to hiccup with sobs. F’lessan was gasping and hissing more than sobbing, sagging against his dragon, his injured leg sticking out to one side.

“I had to see, I had to know,” he murmured.

Tai tried to support him, but he kept slipping, exhausted by his efforts, tears running down his face in a quiet despair that was far worse to hear than his initial sobs of relief.

Zaranth, put us in his room.

Where?

The bed!

Being moved telekinetically by Zaranth was not at all the same thing as going between. If anything, Tai thought, it was between between.

Notsofast! Tai heard Golanth say, like a tiny distant sound deep in her ear, not a phrase said aloud. And the breathless propulsion down the corridor eased somewhere in between the start and the finish, and by its finish, they were slowly falling onto a bed. The larger bed they had shared—a logical enough destination for Zaranth, who would have recognized from Tai’s mind that this bed was preferable to the narrow one that F’lessan had left. Tai was able to ease F’lessan’s descent to the mattress.