Michael Whelan

The greatest dream of the dragonriders was to find a way to eradicate Thread completely, so that never again would their beloved Pern be threatened with destruction.

Deadly spores threaten the human colony of Pern unless the colonists, with help from geneticist Kitti Ping, can develop fire-breathing dragons to combat the menace The beautiful planet Pern seemed a paradise to s new colonists -- until unimaginable terror turned it into hell Suddenly deadly spores were falling like silver threads from the sky, devouring everything -- and everyone -- in their path. It began to look as if the colony, cut off from Earth...

All seems well on Pern until a mysterious ailment strikes killing myriads of holders, craftsmen, and dragonriders. Pern is left in mortal danger with no one to rise to char the prarasitic Thread. The dragonriders of Pern are in danger from a mutated strain of influenza.

Like Earth, the space colony of Destiny has its trading caravans, except on Destiny they don't deal in spices but speckles, an ingredient necessary for mental health. The hero is a member of a caravan and as the novel follows his adventures it describes the colony's unusual culture.

Before Man and insectlike Thranx had become allies, when the reptilian AAnn were just occasional raiders of Thranx colony worlds, one young Thranx agricultural expert lived a life of quiet desperation. A dreamer in a world of sensible, stable beings, Ryo buried himself in his work -- reclaiming marshland from a tenacious jungle -- until he came across a letter describing a relative's encounter with horrid, two-legged, soft-skinned space-going beasts....