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Authors: Anne McCaffrey

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Is everyone here to see us?
Carenath asked shyly. The bronze turned his left wing so that Sean could reach a particularly wide score and sighed in audible relief as anesthetic cream was slathered on.

“I don’t know how we got so lucky,” Sean muttered to himself when he was certain that all Carenath’s injuries had been attended to. He looked around him, checking to see that all the other dragons had been treated. Sorka gave him a thumbs-up signal and grinned at him, her face smeared with blood and soot. He returned her sign with both fists. “Sheer fluke we got out of that with just sears and scores. We didn’t even know what we were doing. Blind luck!” His mind roiled with ways to avoid any sort of scoring and ideas for drills to improve how much Thread a single breath could char. Their fight had been, after all, only the first, brief skirmish in a long, long war.

“Hey, Sean, you need some, too,” one of the medics said pulling off his helmet to anoint his cheeks. “Got to get you looking spruce. The admiral’s waiting!”

As if her words were a cue, a murmurous silence fell over the plain. The riders converged together and moved forward to the foot of the ramp where Paul Benden, in full uniform of a fleet admiral, with Ongola and Ezra Keroon similarly attired flanking him, awaited the seventeen young heroes.

In step, the dragonriders walked forward, past people grinning foolishly in their pride. Sean recognized many faces: Pol and Bay looking about to burst with pride; Telgar, tears streaming down his cheeks, Ozzie and Cobber on either side of him; Cherry Duff upheld by two sons, her black eyes gleaming with joy. He caught sight of the Hanrahans, Mairi holding up his small son to see the pageantry. There was no sign of Governor Emily Boll, and Sean felt his heart contract. What Peter Chernoff had said was true, then. This moment would not be the same without her.

They reached, the ramp, and somehow the queen riders had dropped a step behind the others and Sean stood in the center. When they halted, he took a step forward and saluted. It seemed the correct thing to do. Admiral Benden, tears in his eyes, proudly returned the salute.

“Admiral Benden, sir,” said Sean, rider of bronze Carenath, “may I present the Dragonriders of Pern?”

THREADFALLS—TERRITORY COVERED

 

FIRST 
dangerous 
FALL:
  
4
 
 
Starts over Jordan Province
Hits    
Monaco Bay
TZ14-TZ11
 
Landing
22S-48S
 
Starts over Jordan Province
 
Oslo Landing
 
Amsterdam
 
Bavaria
 
Milan
 
Tuareg Camp Site
 
SECOND FALL:
Double Hit 5
TZ11-TZ8
 
Macedonia
2N-30S
 
Oversea until end
 
Hits
Sadrid
 
   (
Thessaly & Roma
warned)
 
Second wave falls over unoccupied
Bordeaux
—unexpectedly
 
THIRD FALL:
Cathay Province: 6
TZ11-TZ8
 
 
19A-49S
 
Clips edge of
Malay River
 
Mexico
on
Maori Lake—stops mid-lake
 
FOURTH FALL:
Double Fall: 7
TZ42-TZ8
 
Araby to Barrier Range: observed
 
Sea at Equator TZ8-TZ5: observed
 
FIFTH FALL:
A Baddie: 8
TZ8-5
 
 
20S-485
 
Macedonia
—Dorado
 
Drake’s Lake
 
Yukon
 
Narrowly misses
Suweto
 
Smack on
Karachi
Camp
 
SIXTH FALL:
Double Hit: 9. Ends just on edge of Kahrain
 
TZI3 at sea—observed
 
Hits Cathay,
Maori Lake
again TZ8-d.o.
 
SEVENTH FALL:
Double Hit: 10
 
Jordan—hits TZ14-13. 30S- river
 
Hits
Cardiff
, southern edge of Landing
 
Calusa & Bordeaux
TZ5-2, 20S-485
 
Dorado—hits
Seminole
& just misses
Ierne
 
EIGHTH FALL:
Double hit—11, just tip of Kahrain unoccupied end of
Karachi
Camp—mountains
 
Longwood area of
Ierne
 
NINTH FALL:
Kahrain-Cathay—12
TZ13-l0/
 
 
15S-44S
 
Paradise River
right in the center
 
TENTH FALL:
Double Hit—13
TZ13-11.50
 
 
TZ10-7
 
Kahrain & Delta
 
  
Killarney
(unoccupied)
 
  
Boca River
 
ELEVENTH FALL:
14—Sea and
Cathay
TZ10-7
 
Just misses
Malay River
 
Tips southeast edge of
Thessaly
 
TWELFTH FALL
15—Double
TZ10-7
 
Araby/Cathay
 
Just misses
Maori Lake
 
Clips into
Seminole
East

PROFOUND
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book could not have been written without the advice, assistance, and aid of Dr. Jack Cohen, D.Sc., lately Senior Lecturer of Reproductive Biology at Birmingham University, England, whose expertise and enthusiasm helped me
create
the dragons of Pern, and attendant botany/biology/ecology. Jack made fact out of myth, and science out of legend. I am not the only writer of his acquaintance who owes him a tremendous debt of gratitude.

I am also indebted to Harry Alm, Naval Engineer of New Orleans, Louisiana, for his configuration of the Thread Fall Patterns, based on only casual remarks in various of my books. To his wife, Marilyn, I owe the patient and correct transmission by Compuserve of this incredible technical data.

Anne McCaffrey
was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She graduated cum laude from Radcliffe College, majoring in Slavonic Languages and Literatures. Before her success as a writer, she was involved in theater. She directed the American premiere of Carl Orff’s
Ludus de Nato Infante Mirificus
, in which she also played a witch. Her first novel,
Restoree
, was written as a protest against the absurd and unrealistic portrayals of women in science fiction novels in the 50s and early 60s. Ms. McCaffrey is best known, however, for her handling of broader themes and the worlds of her imagination, particularly in her tales of the Talents and the fourteen novels about the Dragonriders of Pern.

 

McCaffrey lives in a house of her own design, Dragonhold-Underhill, in County Wicklow, Ireland. Visit the author online at
www.annemccaffrey.org.

Books by Anne McCaffrey

 

Decision at Doona

Dinosaur Planet

Dinosaur Planet Survivors

Get Off the Unicorn

The Lady

Pegasus in Flight

Restorree

The Ship Who Sang

To Ride Pegasus

Nimisha’s Ship

Pegasus in Space

 

THE CRYSTAL SINGER BOOKS

Crystal Singer

Killashandra

Crystal Line

 

THE DRAGONRIDERS OF PERN
®
BOOKS

Dragonflight

Dragonquest

The White Dragon

Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern

Nerilka’s Story

Dragonsdawn

The Renegades of Pern

All the Weyrs of Pern

The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall

The Dolphins of Pern

Dragonseye

The Masterharper of Pern

The Skies of Pern

 

By Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough:

Powers that Be

Power Lines

Power Play

 

With Jody Lynn Nye:

The Dragonlover’s Guide to Pern

 

Edited by Anne McCaffrey:

Alchemy and Academe

 

 

 

To learn more about other great ebook titles from Ballantine, please visit
www.randomhouse.com/BB/ebooks.htm.

 

To enjoy other great science fiction and fantasy titles visit
www.delreydigital.com.

 

THE DRAGONRIDERS OF PERN is a trademark of Anne McCaffrey. Reg. U.S. Pat. & Tm. Off.

 

A Del Rey Book

Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group

Copyright © 1988 by Anne McCaffrey

 

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

 

Del Rey and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

 

www.randomhouse.com/delrey/

 

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 88-47806

 

eISBN: 978-0-345-45398-3

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