Dragon's Time

Dragon's Time

The way forward is dark and long. A dragon gold is only the first price you’ll pay for Pern.

Cold. Black. Silent.

Deadly.

Between. That strange nothingness where dragons can go that can only be described as “between one place and another.”

“Between only lasts as long as it takes to cough three times.” For a short journey, yes. For a journey from one place to another, anywhere on Pern--yes, three coughs is enough. But when traveling between one time and another--it takes longer. A cold, silent, freezing longer that saps life.

Lorana felt nothing, not the warmth of the queen dragon beneath her, not even the tiny, tender presence that warmed her womb.

I’m sorry! Lorana cried, her hand going to her belly. There was no other way!

No response.

Pern was dying, there were too few dragons and riders to protect it from Thread. Slowly, steadily, inexorably, the protection of Pern was being eroded, was dying out. The dragonriders, including Weyrleader T’mar, Weyrwoman Fiona, and all the Weyrleaders of the four other Weyrs, had tried their best, had developed new tactics, had kept adapting, kept striving, kept searching for some way out of their trap. But the problem was that there were too few dragons, less than a third the number required, and more were being lost each Fall.

The dragons’ numbers were so few because of the strange sickness that had come upon them just before the start of this new Pass of the Red Star. Lorana, with Kindan’s stout aid, had succeeded in finding help from the distant past and that help had led them to a cure for the sickness. In the meantime, however, too many dragons had succumbed to the sickness--and more to Thread--leaving too few dragons to protect the planet. In desperation, because no one could conceive of getting further help from the past, Lorana had decided to jump forward in time, to jump ahead to a time after the Third Pass and beg for aid from the future.

She was the only one with a sure sense of time and place--a gift, she thought, from her special link with all the dragons of Pern--and only she could make the journey forward to such an unknown, unseen time. She used the Red Star to guide her, picturing it and the stars in their stations where they would be fifty Turns from her present.

Using her gift came at a price, however. A jump of this length would be a terrible strain on her and gold Minith. But it would be fatal to the life stirring inside her.

Lorana wailed silently. Go back! she urged herself. Go back before it’s too late.

I can’t, she decided a moment later. It’s too late. I’m all alone.

I’m here! Minith called to her feebly, her touch full of support. You are not alone.

Excerpted from Dragon's Time by Anne McCaffrey and Todd McCaffrey. Copyright © 2011 by Anne McCaffrey. Excerpted by permission of Del Rey, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.