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Prelude

RUKBAT, in the Sagittarian Sector, was a golden G-type star It had five planets, two asteroid belts, and a stray planet it had attracted and held in recent millennia When men first settled on Rukbat’s third world and called it Pern, they had taken little notice of the stranger planet, swinging around its adopted prienerations, the colonists gave the bright red star little thought—until the desperate path of the wanderer brought it close to its stepsister at perihelion

When such aspects were harmonious and not distorted by conjunctions with other planets in the systee the space gap to the more temperate and hospitable planet

The initial losses the colonists suffered were staggering, and it was during the subsequent long struggle to survive and coh Pern’s skies like silver threads that Pern’s tenuous contact with the mother planet was broken

To control the incursions of the dreadful Threads (for the Pernese had cannibalized their transport ships early on and abandoned such technological sophistication as was irrelevant to this pastoral planet), the resourceful -terhly specialized variety of a life-forh es and some innate telepathic ability were trained to use and preserve these unusual anions” (named for the mythical Terran beast they reseet fro a phosphine-bearing rock, they could eons could fly, they’d be able to char Thread enerations to develop to the full the use of this first phase The second phase of the proposed defense against the spore incursions would take longer toanic rounded, burrowed and proliferated with terrifying speed

The originators of the two-stage defense program did not coical effect of visible exterically reassuring and deeply satisfying to the endangered Pernese to see the menace charred to impotence in mid-air Also, the southern continent, where the second phase was initiated, proved untenable and the entire colony was e from the Threads in the natural caves of the northern nificance of the southern hele to establish new settlements in the north Recollections of Earth receded further froeneration until end or myth and into oblivion

The original Fort constructed in the eastern face of the great West Mountain range soon grew too small to hold the colonists Another settlereat lake conveniently nestled near a cave-filled cliff Ruatha Hold, too, becaenerations

Since the Red Star rose in the East, it was decided to start a holding in the eastern mountains, provided suitable accommodations could be found Suitable accommodations now meant caves, for only solid rock and ht supply) were i score of Thread

The winged, tailed, fiery-breathed dragons had now been bred to a size which required more space than the cliffside Holds could provide The ancient cave-pocked cones of extinct volcanoes, one high above the first Fort, the other in the Bendenonly a few improvements to be made habitable However, such projects took the last of the fuel for the great stonecutters (which had been progra operations, not wholesale cliff excavations), and subsequent holds and weyrs were hand-hewn

The dragons and the riders in their high places and the people in their caves went about their separate tasks and each developed habits that became custom, which solidified into traditions as incontrovertible as law

Then came an interval—of two hundred Turns of the planet Pern around its primary—when the Red Star was at the other end of its erratic orbit, a frozen, lonely captive No Thread fell on Pern’s soil The inhabitants began to enjoy life as they had thought to find it when they first landed on the lovely planet They erased the depredations of Thread and grew crops, planted orchards, thought of reforestry for the slopes denuded by Thread They could even forget that they had been in grave danger of extinction Then the Threads returned for another orbit around the lush planet—fifty years of danger froain thanked their ancestors, now ons who seared the dropping Thread mid-air with their fiery breath

Dragonkind, too, had prospered during that interval; had settled in four other locations, following the et coainst Thread

By the third Pass of the Red Star, a complicated sociopolitical-economic structure had been developed to deal with this recurrent evil The six Weyrs, as the old volcanic habitations of the dragonfolk were called, pledged theraphical section of the northern continent literally under its wings The rest of the population would tithe to support the Weyrs since these fighters, the dragonmen, did not have any arable land in their volcanic hoonkind to learn other trades during peaceti Passes

Settlements, called Holds, developed wherever natural caves were found; soically placed than others It took a strongThread attacks; it took wise ad could safely be grown, and extraordinary measures to control population and keep it useful and healthy until such time as the , ani

(such as there was), weaving, fore Hold and looked to one Mastercrafthall where the precepts of their craft were taught, and craft skills preserved and guarded froeneration to another So that one Lord Holder could not deny the products of the Crafthall situated in his Hold to others of the planet, the Crafts were decreed independent of a Hold affiliation, each Craftiance to the Master of that particular craft (an elected office based on proficiency and administrative ability) The Mastercraftsman was responsible for the output of his halls, the distribution, fair and unprejudiced, of all craft products on a planetary rather than parochial basis

Certain rights and privileges accrued to the different leaders of Holds and Masters of Crafts, and naturally, to the dragonriders to who Threadfalls

The Red Star would swing inexorably close to Pern, but it would also Pass again, and life could settle into a less frenzied pattern Occasionally, the conjunction of Rukbat’s natural five satellites would prevent the Red Star froh to Pern to drop its fearful spores Sos will, Pern’s sister planets seemed to draw the Red Star closer still and Thread rained relentlessly on the unfortunate victim Fear creates fanatics and the Pernese were no exception Only the dragonmen could save Pern, and their position in the structure of the planet became inviolable

Mankind has a history of forgetting the unpleasant, the undesirable By ignoring its existence, it can make the source of past Terror disappear And the Red Star did not pass close enough to Pern to drop its Threads The people prospered andmore holds out of solid rock, and so busy with their pursuits, that they did not realize that there were only a few dragons in the skies, and only one Weyr of dragonriders left on Pern The Red Star wasn’t due back for a long, long while Why worry about such distant possibilities? In five generations or so, the descendants of the heroic dragonends of past braveries and the very reason for their existence fell into disrepute

When, in the course of natural forces, the Red Star began to spin closer to Pern, winking with a baleful red eye on its intended, ancient viction, Mnementh, believed that the ancient tales had truth in them His half-brother, F’nor, rider of brown Canth, listened to his argu than the dull ways of the lone Weyr of Pern When the last golden egg of a dying queen dragon lay hardening on the Benden Weyr Hatching Ground, F’lar and F’nor seized this opportunity to gain control of the Weyr Searching through Ruatha Hold for a strong wo queen, F’lar and F’nor discovered Lessa, the only surviving member of the proud Bloodline of Ruatha Hold She I Ramoth, the new queen, and became Weyrwoman of Benden Weyr When F’lar’s bronze Mne, F’lar becaonmen The three riders, F’lar, Lessa and F’nor forced the Lord Holders and Craftser and prepare the ally obvious that the scant two hundred dragons of Benden Weyr could not defend the sprawling settlements Six full Weyrs had been needed in the olden days when the settled land had been on between one place and another, Lessa discovered that dragons could teleport between ti her life as well as Pern’s only on, Lessa and Ramoth went back in time, four hundred Turns, before the mysterious disappearance of the other five Weyrs, just after the Last Pass of the Red Star had been completed

The five Weyrs, seeing only the decline of their prestige and bored with inactivity after a lifetireed to help Lessa’s Weyr and came forward to her Turn