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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?

Shading her eyes, she saw that two dragons were still aloft, chasing felines away from the safety of the thick vegetation bordering the plateau. She counted eight dragons on the ground, waiting for their treats to be skinned. Three more were already eating. Dust settling off to the northeast indicated that the herdbeasts, stupid as they were, had stopped running. It was a good-sized herd. Then she caught sight of bright-colored shirts and galloping Runners streaming down toward them: the Cardiff herders catching up with the stampede. Brave of them, she thought, since they could still be attacked by any of the remaining pride. One of them hailed Tai on the hillock and turned his mount toward her. Slung across his back were a short bow and a weyrhide carrier full of the sort of barbed arrows that would be needed to bring down felines.

“Our thanks for such a prompt response,” he said, halting beside her and swinging down. “Tai, isn’t it? And Zaranth? We been following the herd since dawn. Got stampeded by last night’s heat lightning, and with the smarts only such dumb critters possess, they headed right toward the thickest congregation of felines anywhere in Cardiff. We keep huntin’ ’em, but they keep producing. And you got two. Big mothers!”

“You said it. Both were nursing cubs.”

He cursed under his breath, wiping his forehead on his red sleeve. “More of the sharding killers to get. And getting smarter all the time.”

“Dragons’re even smarter,” Tai said, grinning with pride. But quickly she shut her mouth tightly so as not to inhale any of the fresh insect clouds that zoomed in on both of them and the sweaty mount. She swept her frond in a wider arc to discourage the swarm.

“Miserable things, ain’t they?” he commented with a rueful smile, using his broad-brimmed hat as a fan and tugging a big, dirty cloth from a leg pocket to mop his sweaty, sun-weathered face. She didn’t recognize him, but she wasn’t surprised that he knew who she was; Cardiff holders were punctilious about knowing the riders who weyred at Monaco Bay.

“I’m Rency, Cardiff Hold Journeyman,” he said, squinting against the sun glare. “Ain’t easy to bring down two,” he added, impressed.

“We flushed the first by chance,” she said easily. “Zaranth’s fast.”

“Obviously.”

“The other didn’t see its partner go down and we came up behind her.”

He chuckled appreciatively, but her disclaimer did not lessen his respect for her double kill.

“Heard tell you’re as good bringing down vandals,” he said, touching his own face to indicate he had noticed her healing cheek. He untied the water bottle from the back of his saddle and handed it to her. As she drank, he kept fanning.