The World of Pern - 6. Eighth Interval/Ninth Pass Pern

Eighth Interval/Ninth Pass History

At the beginning of the Ninth Pass of the Red Star, there is only one remaining Weyr of dragons - Benden Weyr, in the north east of the continent. All of the other five Weyrs have been empty and abandoned since just after the end of the Eighth Pass, when all of the inhabitants - dragons, riders and weyrfolk - disappeared overnight. No-one knows what happened to them.
Normally, Thread falls every 200 Turns. However, 400 Turns have gone by since the end of the Eighth Pass (later books give it as 450, but in 'Dragonflight' it's 400, so I'm sticking to that), making most people believe that Thread is never going to return. This has caused some profound changes to the way of life on Pern. Holders and Crafters no longer regard dragonriders with awe and many are questioning whether they should continue to send tithes to the Weyr when it's clear to them that dragons are no longer necessary to protect them from a non-existent threat.

Over the 400 Turns, many Holds have expanded far beyond their previous boundaries, there is much more cultivated land and huge areas have been planted with trees. Many people no longer keep to the old customs which required a wide area around dwellings to be kept free of greenery (to stop Thread getting close to human habitation if it reached the ground).

A greedy warlord - Fax - has taken over several Holds; something else that would have been unheard of in the past, when the rule was 'one Lord, one Hold', due to the necessity of keeping a Hold and its people safe during Threadfall. The last Hold he invades is Ruatha, from which many renowned Weyrwoman have come throughout history. Fax slaughters the entire family and the Ruathan bloodline is believed to be extinct.
Over the Turns during which Benden has been the only Weyr, many changes have occurred, chief among them being that they have become used to only one queen dragon being alive at any one time. (Presumably at some point several queens died at once due to injury or illness). Due to the excessively long Interval, Weyrwoman Jora's dragon, Nemorth, rarely rises to mate and produces only small clutches. The population of dragons has steadily declined.
R'gul, who has been Weyrleader at Benden for 10 Turns, also believes that Thread will not return (despite evidence to the contrary) and his policy has been to keep dragons and riders out of the public eye as much as possible so as not to remind the Holders they still exist.
Jora's Nemorth rises to mate for the last time and lays her final clutch before dying, leaving one last golden egg on the Sands.

F'lar, a young bronze rider whose father was the previous Weyrleader (murdered by Fax's men) believes that Thread will return and is afraid the Weyr will be unprepared. On Search for candidates to stand for Nemorth's last clutch, he discovers Lessa at Ruatha. She is the last of the Ruathan bloodline and has been living as a drudge since her family were killed, vowing vengeance for their deaths. She is also a powerful telepath and the dragons sense her strength and ability.
F'lar kills Fax in a duel and brings Lessa to the Weyr, where she Impresses Ramoth. There commences a waiting game until Ramoth grows old enough to breed. R'gul is still Weyrleader and still thinks that Thread has gone forever. The Weyr is falling further into disfavour. Everything looks bleak.
Then Ramoth rises and is flown by F'lar's Mnementh, making him Weyrleader. Within a few months, the Ninth Pass of the Red Star begins. After the first battle against Thread, it becomes obvious to F'lar and Lessa that there is no way one single, underpopulated Weyr can hope to cover the area previously protected by six. Pern looks as if it is doomed.

Thankfully, there is a solution - of sorts. Lessa has discovered (by accident) that dragons can go between times as well as places. It's decided that once Ramoth's first clutch of eggs hatch, they will send the young dragons back ten Turns, giving them plenty of time to mature and join the fighting force. Ramoth has also produced another golden egg, so the plan is to send the new queen back as well. In ten Turns, she will be able to lay many clutches of eggs. Yay! They're saved!
Only it doesn't turn out quite as well as they think. Dragons aren't affected by living in two times simultaneously, but their riders are. The weyrfolk sent to the southern continent are permanently exhausted and the experiment has to be abandoned after just four Turns, bringing them all back to the current timeline - although Kylara's Prideth has provided them with thirty-two more young dragons by then (among them H'rek's Rioth).

Lessa, meanwhile, has had another idea. She listens to the mysterious 'Question Song', written by the Masterharper at the time the other five Weyrs vanished and finds a clue in the line - 'Gone away, gone ahead'. She works out the reason why they all disappeared was that they came forward to the present time. The only flaw is that someone needs to go back to tell them they are needed in the future. But Lessa figures that since they all disappeared, someone must already have gone back to make it happen and that the someone must be herself and Ramoth. She uses an ancient tapestry to give Ramoth the necessary picture of how Ruatha Hold looked at the end of the Eighth Pass and goes back, almost dying in the process as she hadn't realised that such a huge between time jump would take far, far longer than going between places.
However, she makes it, persuades the Weyrleaders of the past that she's not mad and they all embark on the trip back to the future, coming together to fight Thread over Telgar in a triumphant show of strength and unity.
(This is the point at which 'Dragonflight', the first book in the 'Dragonrider of Pern' series, ends.)

It looks as if everything is going to be fine, except that, for the weyrfolk from the past, the world has become a place that looks familiar, but in which so much has changed. The modern Holders don't give them the deference they were used to even though they are giving their lives to protect the ungrateful so-and-so's. Benden Weyr has been alone for so long, many of their customs have altered too. The Weyrleaders have a meeting in which it's agreed they will lend 'enough odd-wing riders' to Benden, until they are up to full strength again.
The stage is set for D'gar and H'rek to meet...