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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?

The white dragon might be asleep on Ruatha’s fire-heights, but he’d respond to her mental call from any place. Meer and Talla arrived, midair, mouths open to shriek panic, but Sharra’s stern command aborted that instinct.

“I don’t know who, Oldive,” she said, dropping her voice to a whisper, “but there are people crashing about in the stillroom as if they thought no one would hear them.”

Once again the intrepid Masterhealer attempted to leave the room and she caught him by the arm.

“There shouldn’t be anyone else here but us,” he said grimly. He had given leave to even the lowliest apprentice to enjoy this last day of Turn’s End.

“But there are,” she said, her eyes sparkling with anger as she opened the door to the noise of considerable destruction. A shadow fell across the long window of the laboratory and she grinned, pointing. “However, we shall deal with it.”

Oldive gasped at the sight of a white body, wings outstretched, all but plastered against the glass, his eyes flashing the red and orange of alarm.

Ruth! Sharra said, relieved that he had responded so quickly. Tell the Hold’s fire-lizards to attack the intruders. Fire-lizards held Ruth, the white dragon, in awed respect and would obey him without question. She gave him a very clear mental image of what she had seen in her brief glimpse down the hall. Meer and Talla cheeped once and disappeared. Scant seconds later, both she and Oldive heard loud cries, angry fire-lizard bugles, shouts of pain, and more banging and crashing.

Sharra opened the door wide enough to see down the hall. A mass of fire-lizards was trying to enter the stillroom. Then the mass split into several groups, which zipped off, screeching challenge, swooping down the stairwells at each end to the other levels of the hall.

There are several groups throwing things about in the Hall, Ruth told her. That is wrong. Fort dragons come.

She and Oldive watched as the fire-lizards drove four people out of the stillroom. They could hear human cries echoing from other points. Oldive groaned in dismay.

“They’ll be damned sorry they ever thought of this,” she told him angrily as she started purposefully down the hall. “Damned sorry.”

“I never thought of—intrusions—when we built here,” Oldive murmured, shaking his head in bitter denial of the event as he followed. He’d been so proud of this new Hall, with its marvelous equipment, its spacious and well-organized facilities. The previous quarters had been better protected in the angle between the Harper Hall and Fort Hold. But the Healer Hall was usually so busy that, on a normal day, no unauthorized persons would have been on this floor.