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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?

One of the disadvantages of living in the open was the insect population, in myriad forms: some scratched, even burrowed in flesh if possible; some merely moved in straight lines, like the trundlebugs that were the object of Zaranth’s current inspection. A straight line for a trundlebug could also be perpendicular to the ground. They had been observed maneuvering up to the crown of a frond tree and down the other side. Right now, a very large trundlebug—the creatures could become quite large if no natural hazard ended their existence—was under intense draconic surveillance. This one had no fewer than five young still attached behind it, in various stages of maturation in the trundlebug’s peculiar reproductive process. Their bodies collected pollen from low-growing shrubs and vines—also the occasional tree—and shed it in their progress to whatever unknowable goal trundlebugs had. What other purpose they served Tai did not know, but they were less of a nuisance than some crawlies and rather curious to watch. Single-mindedness was exemplified in the trundlebug. It had been suggested there was only a female of the species.

Trundlebugs were a good reason to sleep in a hammock. Humans used sticky-goo tapes around the trunks of hammock trees and the base of any living accommodation. Most buildings were on stilts as another deterrent to invading creepy-crawlies; in lowlying coastal areas, stilts also kept dwellings above high tide floods. Tai’s little house was just beyond her hammock: all its shutters were open to let in what wind there was, the fine-net screens preventing the entry of airborne insects. The afternoon breeze generally wafted away those clinging to the material. The diurnal ones departed at dusk; the nocturnal ones were noisier but photosensitive. A tall spire of solar panel provided Tai with what power she needed: for lights, the warmer plate, the cold box, and for the occasional hot air during the worst of the cold weather—which, to her, was never as cold as it had once been in Keroon’s foothills.

In the Southern hemisphere, some dragonriders preferred to live in companionable clusters or with their mates, but Tai loved seclusion. She had handcrafted such furnishings as she had, shelves, bedstead, worktop, hooks, and the chest where she kept her clothing.

Zaranth knew Tai was awake, but the green dragon was watching the trundlebug. Abruptly the inexorable path of the trundlebug—which would take it into Zaranth’s left nostril—ended. Tai blinked. Had Zaranth exhaled from the victim nostril, tumbling the trundlebug and her offspring away from her? Movement out of the corner of her eye showed her that the trundlebug was now marching in an easterly direction, an exact forty-five degrees from its original course and at least a full dragon-length from its previous path.

How’d you do that? Tai asked, not sure she had seen what she had seen.

I did not care for it to crawl into my nose. I moved it.