Free The Dragon Variation by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee Page B

her voice. "Fabulously wealthy?"
    Marilla eyed her and gave an elaborate shrug. "Well, you know—everyone assumes Liadens must be rich. All those cantra. And the trade routes. And the clans, too, of course. Terribly old money—lots of investments. Not," she finished, glancing off screen, "that it's any of my business."
    That much was true, Anne thought tartly, and was immediately sorry. It's only Marilla, she told herself, doing her yenta routine.
    "Rilly, I've got to go. Class."
    "All right, sweetheart. Call and let me know your plans." The screen went dark.
    My plans? Anne thought, gathering together the pieces of Comp Ling One's final. What plans?
     
    DURING HER FREE period , she banged back into her office for an hour's respite, juggling a handful of mail, the remains of Liaden Lit's exam and a disposable plastic mug full of vending-machine soup.
    Dumping the class work into the "Out" basket near the door, she sat down at her desk, pried the top off the plastic mug and began to go through her mail.
    Notice of departmental meeting— another one? she thought, sighing. Registrar's announcement of deadline for grades. Research Center shutdown for first week of semester break. Request for syllabi for next semester. A card from the makers of Mix-n-Match , offering to upgrade Shan's model to something called an Edu-Board . A—
    Her fingers tingled at the touch—a gritty beige envelope, with "Communications Center" stamped across it in red block letters that dwarfed her name, printed neatly in one corner.
    A beam-letter. She smiled and snatched it up, eagerly breaking the seal. A beam-letter meant either a note from her brother Richard or a letter from Learned Doctor Jin Del yo'Kera, of the University of Liad, Solcintra.
    The letter slid out of the envelope—one thin, crackling sheet. From Richard then, she decided, unfolding the page. Doctor yo'Kera's letters were long—page upon page of scholarly exploration, answers to questions Anne had posed, questions re-asked, re-examined, paths of thought illuminated . . .
    It took her a moment to understand that the letter was not from Richard, after all.
    It took rather longer to assimilate the message that was put down, line after line, in precise, orderly Terran, by—by Linguistic Specialist Drusil tel'Bana, who signed herself "colleague."
    Scholar tel'Bana begged grace from Professor Davis for the intrusion into her affairs and the ill news which necessity demanded accompany this unseemly breaking of her peace.
    Learned Doctor yo'Kera, Scholar tel'Bana's own mentor and friend, was dead, the notes for his latest work in disarray. Scholar tel'Bana understood that work to be based largely, if not entirely, on Professor Davis' elegant line of research, augmented by certain correspondence.
    "It is for this reason, knowing the wealth of your thought, the depth of your scholarship, that I beg you most earnestly to come to Liad and aid me in reconstructing these notes. The work was to have been Jin Del's life-piece, so he had told me, and he likened your own work to an unflickering flame, lighting him a path without shadows."
    Then the signature , and the date, painstakingly rendered in the common calendar: Day 23, Standard year 1360.
    Anne sat back, the words misting out of sense.
    Doctor yo'Kera, dead? It seemed impossible that the death of someone she had never physically met, who had existed only as machine-transcribed words on grainy yellow paper should leave her with this feeling of staggering loss.
    In the hallway, a bell jangled, signaling class-change in ten minutes. She had an exam to give.
    Awkwardly, she folded Drusil tel'Bana's letter and put in her pocket. She gathered up Comp Ling Two's exam booklets, automatically consulting the checklist. Right.
    The five-minute bell sounded and she left the office, taking care to lock the door behind her, leaving the vending-machine soup to congeal in its flimsy plastic mug.
     

Chapter Nine
The delm of any given clan, when