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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?

“All right, usually a Pass is fifty years. This time Aivas definitely said it would be less. We know from our own Records that that has happened several times before. So there’re sixteen more Turns to go till the end of this Pass. If it ends in sixteen Turns, then grant that Aivas knew more than we ever could: that when he gave a definite answer, it’ll be proved truth. He said the dragonriders accomplished what he set them out to do—alter the Red Star’s orbit so it can never come close enough to Pern to drop Thread on us again.”

Haligon was rather surprised by his own intensity. He’d only been on the fringes of the massive effort that had occupied the planet for nearly five Turns. But, in his own heart, he’d believed in Aivas’s solution to Pern’s cyclical problem. He’d wanted—needed—to believe in it.

“I may live another sixteen Turns to the end of this Pass,” Torlo replied. “So will you, but it’ll take another two hundred to be sure that Aivas was right.”

“The point is, Stationmaster, there are so many smaller miracles available to us right now to give Aivas credibility.”

Torlo’s cynical smile was lopsided. “Like making dragons—and Runners—unnecessary? If dragons won’t be needed against Thread, they’ll be looking for other things to do. Runners’ll be unnecessary!”

“Runners unnecessary?” Haligon exclaimed, throwing up his hands in dismay. He knew the dragonriders were working hard on their own future but Runners had an assured one. “Why, your Craft started serving a need before the dragons had their first Weyr. Right now, Runners’re making traces and Stations in the south. Your Craft, like all the others, is expanding.”

Torlo leaned forward across the table, his eyes sparking with anger. “Not when there are dragonriders taking messages and packing people and parcels.”

Haligon countered quickly. “How many small halls and holds can afford to hire a dragon? Running a message costs only a thirty-second of a mark. There are currently six thousand two hundred and forty dragons, and half of them are brown, bronze, and gold who wouldn’t consider running messages. You’ve that many Runner families working all the hours of a Turn and using youngsters on the short runs to keep up with the demand, not to mention what’ll happen when the traces are laid in the south. The queens aren’t flying to mate as often or clutching as many, scaling down now that the end of this Pass is in sight, so I don’t really see greens and blues in competition with Runners. You’ve never been upset about fire-lizards.”

Torlo snorted. “Only a few of them can be trusted to deliver messages.”