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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?

Just like that?

Just like that.

Do you do it often?

Now and then. That … and Zaranth moved her chin slightly toward the redirected trundlebug, does not belong where it was going. The dragon lost her pose of indolence; her eyes were wide open, and she was magically on her feet. Felines! We’re needed!

Tai scrambled from the hammock, leaping into her quarters, pulling on trousers, stomping into boots, shrugging into her riding jacket—and bother a sleeved shirt—and carrying the dangling safety straps out to slip the harness over Zaranth’s eager head. It was as dangerous to hunt felines as to fly Thread. Zaranth shrugged the leathers to the base of her broad neck and lifted her leg for Tai to clip them together.

Who sent for help?

Cardiff. Fire-lizard message. T’gellan’s called half the wing.

Tai vaulted between the last two neck ridges, and clipped the safety harness onto her broad belt.

I know where, the green dragon said and took off so quickly Tai’s head snapped. They were barely above the trees when Zaranth went between.

They were back in the moist southern air, a half dozen other dragons erupting nearby.

Cardiff herder spotted the pride. A big one.

They had come out low above the rolling highland plateau where the ancients had turned loose their grazers and ruminators, unable to transport more than breeding stock to the north. The herds had multiplied over the centuries and mutated slightly from their northern relatives, affording them some protection against the local parasites and poisonous plants. The Master-Herder had found the alterations “fascinating.” Right now, a huge herd of mixed varieties was stampeding from the edge of the jungle where the predators lurked to ambush the unwary.

As a relatively new southern Hold, Cardiff did its best to oversee its grasslands, but the hundred or so herders could not always protect the far-ranging stock. Watched by no more than three or four men or women, the beasts covered wide tracts in their search for edible grasses. Thunder, lightning, or the occasional jungle fire could send them into terror-stricken stampedes, which occasionally ended with masses of them falling over cliff edges or into ravines. Now they had been spooked by felines. The southern continent had a lot of problems with the big predators, the product of an ill-advised zoological experiment by one of the Charterers. Like the abandoned herdbeasts, they had flourished, too, and ranged freely through the jungles, grasslands, and up into the southern foothills. Humans avoided the felines whenever possible; dragons were thrilled by the challenge of hunting them.