By the end of the evening Saska was exhausted. The two bronze riders had shown her all around the Gather, bought her bubbly pies and redberry juice, introduced her to so many people her head was spinning, and finally led her to the dance floor.

If she was uncertain of the steps at the beginning, by the end of the evening, full dark, with both moons shining, Saska could have danced the measures in her sleep.

She came to sit down, watching the dancing couples, tapping the beat from the musicians on the stage. Scraps and bits of conversations she had heard spun in her head, seemingly in time to the music.

"...all the way from Benden World..."

"...never been on a dragon before..."

"...wouldn't mind it with her when the dragons rise..."

"...don't know if they understand about that..."

"...pretty dress, I didn't think they dressed like that..."

"...thought they were all as weird as a holdless..."

Saska looked up as Pru came and sat down beside her, fanning herself, bringing drinks.

"You look too tired for sleep," Pru said.

"I'll be fine once I'm under the covers. This has been a wonderful day. I haven't had so much fun in years - turns."

"From what I learned about Terrvert, they don't go much on fun."

Saska smiled ruefully. "I'd say that's right on a superficial understanding of the colonies. There's a lot more hard science, so the teaching is more intense."

"What's Benden World like? There must be new diseases out there?"

"I would think so. Did the dragon riders bring back any diseases when they first colonised?"

"Not that I know about, here or in Southern, and the cold of between would have killed the bugs, I'm sure."

"Even when cocooned in a dragon-ship as we are now?"

Pru thought about that, and then nodded.

"Even then, I think, it would be safe. You might have been safely inside with breathable air, but the ship still travelled between, and that is all-pervasive, so I've understood. The main records at Healer Hall might tell you."

"That's at Fort, with Harper Hall?"

"Yes, over on the northern continent. Bone-achingly cold at the moment, so they tell me, those who can find an excuse to overwinter here."

"She was smiling, and Saska agreed the Southern Continent must be a target for anyone able to get here.

"Are there any records from here that you want to study, apart from Kitty Ping's original research?" Pru asked.

"I'd like a proper understanding of dragon numbers through the Passes and Intervals, if that was possible."

Saska covered her mouth to shield an eye-watering yawn, and Pru laughed and stood up.

"Bed for both of us, I think! You'll stay for the three days of the Gather, will you? I can introduce you to a lot more people that way, rather than you staying in Respite and trying to understand our culture."

Saska stood up as well and indicated a fair of fire lizards dancing to the music played on stage.

"There aren't any fire lizards at Respite."

"No. Myryn doesn't like them, or is afraid of them, or something. No one's ever been sure of the true reason, but any nests the dragon riders find are either left alone, or the eggs sent away to other places."

They walked down through the empty passages to the guest quarters and Pru showed her how to lock the door, and bade her good night.

Saska locked the door as a precaution, and then went to take a detox tab. She had been astonished when her father had put the packet in her luggage, but now as she sipped a glass of room temperature water and swallowed the tablet, she was grateful. Uninterrupted, she could start reading the book Aselan had left for her.

Standing in the room and looking around, Saska tried to imagine how it must have looked when the first settlers had cut it fresh, and made their home in it. This was where Tai had discovered how dragons used telekinesis, and the dragons later utilised that ability to move the dragon-ships from world to world. Distance was no object, she had already realised, and the time spent between varied only slightly on each flight.

Sitting down to study the Daybook of Tai, Saska found it was a copy, the number of times it had been copied noted in the front. It appeared Tai's descendants had copied it afresh in every generation, and this copy was Aselan's own. There was also a family tree, and Aselan and Lilim were descendants of F'lessan and Tai, but neither of them were dragon riders, unlike many of the line. In the lists of dragon riders of that time, a double line scored under several names showed riders and dragons who had been lost to Thread in that final Pass before the Red Star had swung away, never to return.

"300 turns," Saska murmured to herself. "That's less than the time Lessa spent fetching the Old Timers."

- it could be done again

Modeth?

- yes. I could fetch anyone from that past

why would you want to?

- it would be interesting. You give very good pictures

Modeth must have slept then, Saska only heard the vague murmuring in her mind that denoted many dragons. Hearing them in her childhood was a result of living on Benden World, but even when she had left that world, she could still feel the faint hiss of their presence, perhaps because of the Vector Point on G-Ed-4 which would probably be designated Terrvert Four in due course.

On impulse, Saska decided on an experiment.

Laroth?

- you speak to me from Pern. Is the big man pleased to see you?

yes, I think so. Laroth, how could you speak to me when I was working so far from Benden World?

- I could hear you, you have a very strong voice

can you hear the dragons here on Pern?

- only the ship-dragons like Modeth and Sosteth. Is it important?

I don't know. Give my regards to G'rat and M'tin

- I will do so

The contact was tenuous, Saska decided, much fainter than hearing Modeth or Lateth, and thinking of that, she wondered if that were true, that Myryn had stopped the Respite dragons speaking to her. The Weyrwoman was certainly unhappy at Saska's continuing presence, and although she had not concealed any records, she had dismissed most of them as being too trivial for consideration.

Saska leafed through the Daybook.

"...Today we managed to move small stones into a circle. Zaranth is much better at this than Golly. Thread fell over Covehold but Monaco dealt with it. F'lessan frets he cannot fly Golly and fight, but there are other things to occupy him here at Honshu..."

Saska turned several pages, feeling sympathy with F'lessan and Golanth, who had been injured by felines, so her history told her.

"...Today we swam with the ship-fish and heard from them of the great currents in the water. There may be currents in the air that would drive the dragon-ships forward..."

Saska gasped and turned back, but there was no indication of dates, nor of when the dragon-ships had been proposed.

"...We can build the little ships out of wood and Zaranth can move them above the clouds. The last one was found by a fisherman. Zaranth says she has moved the ships to the far skies..."

Realising that skipping through the pages would be useless, and time was at a premium, Saska spent time scanning the book into her notator. Occasionally she would stop and read a section, finding the passage where the Ninth Pass ended. F'lessan and Tai were past middle age by then, with their sons grown and with children of their own.

"The first generation with no knowledge of Thread," Saska murmured out loud.

The book continued after the death of Tai, Saska discovered, but gradually the entries became more disjointed, becoming mere lists of events at longer and longer intervals, until at last they ceased altogether.

Saska closed the book and slipped it into a drawer, and then closed her equipment, noting the power drain; she would have to put the collector out on a north facing sill during daylight hours. That would not be far off, and she crawled into bed and pulled the covers up and dropped instantly into sleep.