New figures at 1200 seconds, from the Yoko'ssynchronic orbit over Pern, gave coordinates of Range 71377km, Yokolatitude 45.IN, Yokolongitude 118.4m. The magnitude was -5, which was bright enough and getting brighter and the fireball was suddenly moving a degree every minute. He stepped right beside Stinar and Erragon.

"Where will it impact?" F'lessan murmured for their ears only.

"We still don't know that it will," Stinar said softly, restlessly shifting his feet, turning his head sideways so that his words just reached F'lessan.

"There's a three-hundred-kilometer range error," Erragon said as if that was significant.

"Where?" Stinar demanded.

"Right now, the range extends along the farther Eastern Island Ring."

"On the islands themselves, or in the sea?"

Stinar took the hand-control unit from his pocket and punched in a command. The monitor opened a small window in the right corner, while the Probability Impact percentage rose steadily into the 50's and the error ellipse-that narrow band along the far islands to which the fireball was inexorably aimed-got smaller. The new window showed the Eastern Sea as it must be seen from Yoko,and the scattered islands of both Eastern Rings. A wide band was superimposed over the upper islands.

"Looks more like the islands," Stinar said with a little shrug.

F'lessan knew that the islands were uninhabited, too far out in the Eastern Ring Sea to be attractive for anyone, even Tone, to hold; except whichever island currently housed the Abominator exiles-and no one but N'ton knew where that was.

"I don't like that," Erragon said, stiffening.

"Why?"

"Those islands are all volcanic. An impact on them might trigger eruptions all along that chain," he said, pointing.

"Then we'll just hope it falls in the sea," Stinar said with a slightly nervous laugh.

"That will produce other hazards," Erragon said solemnly.

F'lessan caught his breath. He'd seen volcanoes erupt; the one Piemur had discovered off the westernmost tip of Southern Hold blew up periodically, sending clouds of gray ash to blot the sun and stifle even the rich tropical vegetation. The one in the near Eastern Ring, which the Ancients had called Young Mountain, liked to send immense boulders skyward and great lava flows down its side, spinning burning chunks onto its neighbors. The islands that the comet was heading for were much larger and he shuddered at the thought of all of them becoming active. They would cause tidal waves, which could have a disastrous effect on coastal areas-like Monaco.

"It could still justgraze," Erragon murmured to Stinar, in a tone that gave F'lessan no confidence in that possibility at all.

He glanced up at the legend, numbers whirring into new configurations all the time, as Yokotelemetry updated them.

"It's only got a few minutes to change course," F'lessan said.

Erragon glanced at him, blinking, as if he'd forgotten the bronze rider's presence. "Did you know your Weyrleaders are in the conference room with Master Wansor?"

Lessa and F'lar were also here? When-and why-had they arrived? Obscurely he was glad they had, especially the way this event was proceeding.

"No, but I'd rather be in here and know the worst," F'lessan said, watching Erragon's shoulders twitch in startled reaction to the last word. "Where will it hit us?"

"We don't know yet," but F'lessan saw Erragon's eye flick to the Impact Probability, which flickered onto 60 percent.

All three men caught their breath as the percentage jumped in a matter of seconds to 100 percent.

"That's still a consequence of the grazing impact,"

Erragon said but F'lessan didn't think he believed that. "The ellipse is shrinking. Can you adjust Yoko'svisuals?"

On the map in the right-hand corner, the figures flickered in latitude and longitude, following the last downward plunge of the comet. Filling that screen at maximum magnification, the tuberlike shape of the comet nucleus showed geysers and jets blowing into space; chunks breaking off, floating slowly away. F'lessan was amazed since he knew the speed at which the comet was traveling and that eerie, almost dignified, breakup of its parts was like a Gather dance.

"It's going to miss…" Stinar whispered, unconsciously pushing both hands in a deflecting motion.

"Just a few more degrees…" Erragon, too, was taut as if, by exerting sufficient willpower, he could shift the plummeting fireball south and east.

"It's got to be far enough away…" F'lessan was adding his tension in an unconscious effort to affect a descent that no effort could now alter.

F'lessan found himself squinting at the sudden brightness of the picture-the brightness of sunlit sea or the comet. The magnitude of its dust trail now registered an eye-blinding intensity of -9!

A new message imposed itself prominently: 120 seconds to perigee–705 seconds to impact.

The monitor altered abruptly, darkening, and F'lessan saw the line on the sidebar that indicated Yokowas displaying a constructed image, made up of the optical, infrared, microwave, and other print capabilities that Erragon had once tried to describe to F'lessan. The nucleus of the comet looked suddenly darker but the reduction of the glare relieved his eyes. Ominously the message now read 60 seconds to atmosphere.

Another read 20 seconds to impact, Angle 12°: magnitude of dust trail -9.

People splayed fingers in front of their eyes. The glare-reduced optical version saved them from the splintering whiteness that erupted, which the monitor hastily continued to reduce. A screen flicked to a new image-identified as "synthetic radar"-as Yokoattempted to see through the clouds.

Twenty seconds couldn't have elapsed, F'lessan thought and then realized that Yokowas slightly behind in its reporting. Where had it impacted? The island chain or the sea?

No one spoke. All seemed to be holding their breath. The silence was broken by printers churning out reams of hard copy that fell unnoticed into baskets or spilled to the floor. As the comet was spilling its substance onto the sea? Flaming molten debris down on the nearest Ring islands?

Even the image on the screen seemed to recoil from the incredible brightness. Squinting through his fingers, F'lessan saw the radar image showing the surface topography-and a series of rings on the ocean. Waves traveled outward from the impact point, immediately followed by a much higher fountain of water as the sea fell back into the impact crater. Then he had the distinct impression of a wall moving out with astonishing speed and saw a column of red-brown steam spreading down to the sea, with black bits whirling up and out, and then vast billows rushing out from it across the sea.

Still the silence in the Interface office was broken only by machines doing what they were programmed to do: disgorge columns of figures. The human observers struggled to absorb what they had just seen, were still witnessing as retinal afterimages: the creation of a storm of staggering proportions, blossoming up and outward. Steam, gas vapor, and whatever the head of the fireball had been composed of were part of the storm. The fireball had extinguished itself and then hit the sea, F'lessan repeated, making his mind believe what his eyes had seen: it made a hole that made a wave, which fell back, and sent up a fountain of water. Abruptly the data on the screen changed.

Impactor Summary

Probable cometary origin

Impact velocity 58.51 km/sec

Dimensions 597 times 361 times 452 meter ellipsoid

Volume 51 million cubic meters

Average Density 0.33 (+-0.11)