The Dragon Variation

by Sharon Lee

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, perhaps to calm herself. Eyes still closed, she said, flatly, "Paragraph eight makes you the king of the world."

  "No, only recall those very painstaking lists of duty! I'm very little more than a tightly-channeled—what is the phrase?—feral trump?"

  "Wild card." She opened her eyes. "You do acknowledge the—the Captain's melant'i? You consider yourself the overseer of the whole world—of all the passengers?"

  "I must," he said quietly. "The Contract is in force."

  She expelled air in a pouf, half laugh, half exasperation. "A completely Liaden point of view!"

  Daav lifted a brow. "My dear child, I'm no more Liaden than you are."

  Her eyes came swiftly up, face tensing—and relaxing into a smile. "You mean that you've been a Scout. I grant you have more experience of the universe than I ever will. Which is why I find it so particularly odd—the Council of Clans must have forgotten the Contract even exists! A thousand years? Surely you're putting yourself—the clan—at risk by taking on such a duty now?"

  "Argued very like a Liaden," Daav said with a grin, and raised a hand to touch the rough twist of silver hanging in his right ear. "It does not fall within the scope of Korval's melant'i to suppose what the Council may or may not have forgotten. The second copy of the Contract was seen in open Council three hundred years ago—at the time of the last call upon Captain's Justice."

  "Three hundred years?"

  He nodded, offering her the slip of a smile. "Not a very arduous duty, you see. I oversee the passengers' well-being as I was taught by my delm, guided by Diaries and Log—and anticipate no opportunity to take on the melant'i of king."

  Silence. Anne's eyes were fixed on a point somewhat beyond his shoulder. A frown marred the smoothness of her brow.

  "I have not satisfied you," Daav said gently. "And the pity is, you know, that the delm can do no better."

  She fixed on his face, mouth curving ruefully. "I'll work on it," she said, sounding somewhat wistful. "Though I'm not sure I'm cut out for talking Trees and thousand-year Captains."

  "It's an odd clan," Daav conceded with mock gravity. "Mad as moonbeams. Anyone will say so."

  "Misspeak the High House of Korval? I think not." Anne grinned and stood, holding out her hand. "Thank you for your time. I'm sorry to be such a poor student."

  "Nothing poor at all, in the scholar who asks why." He rose and took her hand. "Allow me to walk you to your car. Your lifemate still intends to bear me company tonight, does he not? I won't know how to go on if he denies me his support."

  "As if he would," Anne said with a shake of her head. "And you'd go on exactly as you always do, whether he's with you or not."

  "Ah, no, you wrong me! Er Thom is my entree into the High Houses. His manners open all doors."

  "Whereas Korval Himself finds all doors barred against him," she said ironically.

  "That must be the case, if there were more students of history among us. But, there, scholarship is a dying art! No one memorizes the great events anymore—gossip and triviality are all."

  Halfway across the sun-washed patio, Anne paused, looking down at him from abruptly serious brown eyes.

  "How many is 'several'?"

  He lifted a brow. "I beg your pardon?"

  "You said you'd had to memorize 'several' documents, besides the Contract. I wondered—"

  "Ah." He bowed slightly. "I once calculated—in an idle moment, you know!—that it would require three-point-three relumma to transcribe the material I have memorized. You must understand that I have committed to memory only the most vital information, in case the resources of Jelaza Kazone's library be—unavailable—to me."

  "Three-point-three . . ." Anne shook her head sharply. "Are you—all right?"

  "I am Korval," Daav said, with an austerity that surprised him quite as much as her. "Sanity is a secondary consideration."

  "And Er Thom—Er Thom has had the same training."

  So that was what distressed her of a sudden. Daav smiled. "Much of the same training, yes. But you must remember that Er Thom memorizes entire manifests for the pleasure of it."

  She laughed. "Too true!" She bent in a swoop and kissed his cheek—a gesture of sisterly affection that warmed him profoundly. "Take care, Daav."

  "Take care, Anne. Until soon."

  She crossed the patio with her long stride and slipped into the waiting car. Daav watched until the car went 'round the first curve in the drive, then reluctantly went back into the house, to his desk and the delm's work.

  Chapter Three

  Those who enter Scout Academy emerge after rigorous training capable of treating equitably with societies unimaginably alien, some savage beyond belief

  Scouts are by definition courageous, brilliant, supremely adaptable and endlessly resourceful.

  —Excerpted from "All About the Liaden Scouts"

  "THE QUESTION we address in this scenario," Aelliana replied sharply, "is not, 'am I able to perform this level of math without a computer lab to back me up?' but, 'shall I acknowledge the effort to be impossible, and give myself up to die'?"

  The six students—five Scouts and a field engineer—exchanged glances, doubtless startled by her vehemence. So be it. If startlement bought them life, their instructor had served them well. She inclined her head and continued.

  "I consider that any student still enrolled at this point in the course will possess sufficient memory and strength of will to win through to life, provided they also possess a ship with a functioning Jump unit."

  Her students looked at her expectantly.

  "Availability of the ven'Tura Tables is useful, but the full tables are not required if the following can be determined: Your initial mass within three percent. Your initial Jump charge to within twenty percent as long as it falls within the pel'Endra Ratio—which, as you know by now, may be derived using the local intrinsic electron counterspin and approximate mass-curve of the nearest large mass. If you are outside a major gravity well you may ignore the Ratio and proceed." She paused to consider six rapt faces, six pairs of avid eyes, before concluding the list of necessaries.

  "You must, finally and most importantly, have lines one through twenty and one-ninety through one-ninety-nine of the basic table memorized."

  Someone groaned. Aelliana suspected Var Mon, youngest and least repressible of the six, and fixed him with a stern eye.

  "Recall the problem: You are stranded in an unexplored sector, coordinates lost, main comp and navigation computer destroyed or useless. Your goal must be to arrive within hailing distance of one or more space-going worlds. You will break many regulations by applying the approach I outline, but you will adhere to the highest regulation: Survive."

  She paused.

  "This approach requires thought before implementation: You must know the system-energy coordinates of the location you will be Jumping to before you arrive. There is opportunity for error here, as the Jump equation requires you to transform your current mass-energy ratio into one exactly equivalent to that of the rescue destination. Therefore, the initial definition, including the first assumption, must be exact to within several decimal places, to assure a match of both magnetic and temporal magnitudes."

  Once more Aelliana surveyed their faces; saw several pair of doubtful eyes. Well for them to doubt. The danger was real: A mismatched equation meant implosion, translation into a mass, explosion—death, in a word. It was hers to demonstrate that such a situation as the problem described—all too common in the duty the Scouts took for themselves—was survivable. She raised a hand.

  "A demonstration," she said. "Please provide the following: Rema—an existing system equation."

  It came, a shade too glib. Aelliana 'scribed it to the autoboard behind her via the desk-remote, sparing a mental smile for Scout mischief. Every class thought they would catch her out with a bit of clever foolery. Every class learned its error—eventually.

  "Var Mon—a reasonable mass and
charge for your ship—" He supplied it and she called on the others, bringing the portions of the equation together and transcribing them to the autoboard. Now.

  "Overlooking for the present that one marooned in Solcintra Port might just as easily call a taxi—this is a survivable situation. One could indeed Jump from Solcintra to the outer fringe of Terra system by deriving the spin rates from the tables—note line fourteen and its match in line one-ninety-seven, part three for the proof."

  There was sheepish titter from the class, which Aelliana affected not to hear. Really, to assume she would fail of knowing the coords for the largest spaceport on the planet! She raised her hand, demanding serious attention.

  "To our next meeting you will bring the proof just mentioned, with an illustration of derived figures. Also, an explanation of the most dangerous assumption made by the student supplying the Terran system equations."

  She looked around the half-circle. Several students were still 'scribing into their notetakers. Scout Corporal Rema ven'Deelin, who had an eidetic memory, was staring with haze-eyed intensity at the autoboard.

  "Questions?" Aelliana murmured as the chittering of note-keys faded into silence.

  "Scholar Caylon, will you partner with me?" That was Var Mon, irrepressible as always.

  "I fear you would find me entirely craven in the matter of fighting off savage beasts or in conversing with primitive peoples," she said, bending her head in bogus scrutiny of the desk-remote.

  "Never should I risk losing such a piloting resource to savage beasts! You should stay snug in the ship, on my honor!"

  Rema laughed. "Don't let him cozen you, Scholar—he only wants someone to do the brain work while he sleeps. Though it is true," she added thoughtfully, "that Var Mon is uniquely suited to—ahh—grunt-work—eh, Baan?"

  Scout Pilot Baan yo'Nelon moved his shoulders expressively as Var Mon slid down in his chair, the picture of mortification.

  "Never, never, never shall I overlive the tale," he groaned. "Scholar Caylon, have pity! Rescue me from these brutes who call themselves comrades!"

  But this was only more of Var Mon's foolery, entirely safe to ignore. Aelliana did so, rising to signal the end of the session.

  Her class rose as one student and bowed respect.

  "Thanks to you, Scholar, for an astonishing lesson," said Field Technician Qiarta tel'Ozan, who, as eldest, was often spokesperson for the class. "It is, as always, a delight to behold the process of your thought."

  Prettily enough said, but inaccurate—deadly inaccurate for any of these, whose lives depended upon the precision of their calculations. Aelliana brought her hand up sharply, commanding the group's attention.

  "Beholding the process of my thought may delight," she said, shaking her hair away from her face and looking at them as they stood before her, one by solemn one. "But you must never forget that mathematics is reality, describing relationships of space, time, distance, velocity. Mathematics can keep you alive, or it can kill you. It is not for the weak-willed, or—" she glanced at Var Mon, to Rema's not-so-secret delight—"for the lazy. The equations elucidate what is. Knowing what is, you must act, quickly and without hesitation." Her hand had begun to shake. She lowered it to her side, surreptitiously curling cold fingers into a fist.

  "I do not wish to hear that one of my students has died stupidly, for want of the boldness to grasp and use what the calculations have clearly shown."

  There was a moment's silence before the field tech bowed again: Honor-to-the-Master. "We shall not shame you, Scholar."

  Aelliana inclined her head; her hair slipped forward, curtaining her face. "I expect not. Good-day. We meet again Trilsday-noon."

  "Good-day, Scholar," her students murmured respectfully and filed out, Rema and Var Mon already involved in some half-whispered debate.

  Aelliana sank back into the instructor's slot, dawdling over the simple task of clearing the autoboard and forwarding copies of the lecture to her office comp and to Director Barq.

  Chonselta Technical College employed Scholar of Subrational Mathematics Aelliana Caylon with pride, so the director often said. Certainly, it prided itself on her seminar in practical mathematics. What a coup for the college's melant'i, after all, that Scout Academy sent its most able cadets to Chonselta Tech for honing.

  Such reputation for excellence earned her a bonus, most semesters, a fact she had never seen fit to mention to her brother. Ran Eld liked it best when she bowed low and gave him "sir" as she surrendered her wages. Indeed, he had once struck her for her infernal chattering, which action had, remarkably, earned him the delm's frown. But Aelliana took good care never to chatter to her brother again.

  The copies were made and sent, the autoboard was clear. The hall beyond the open door was empty; she sensed no patient, silent Scout awaiting her. They learned quickly enough that she was tongue-tied and graceless outside of class. This far into the semester no one was likely to disturb her uneasy peace with an offer of escort.

  Yet she sat there, head bent, eyes on her hands, folded into quiet on the desk. She bore no rank within Mizel; her single ring was a death-gift from her grandmother. Aelliana stared at the ancient weavings and interlockings until the scarred silver blurred into a smear of gray.

  How could she have been so foolish? Her mind, released from the discipline of instruction, returned to its earlier worries. Whatever was she thinking, to challenge Ran Eld's authority, to call his judgment into question and shame him before the delm? The last half year had seen a decrease in her brother's vigilance over herself. She had dared to believe—and now this. A slight that held no hope of passing unavenged, born of three words, whispered in a lapse of that essential wariness . . . Aelliana bit her lip.

  Peace lay in meekness, safety in invisibility. To care—about anything!—to lift up her face and challenge the dreary, daily what-is—that was to become visible. And in exposure to Ran Eld's eye lay an end to both safety and peace.

  In the warm classroom, Aelliana shivered. Resolutely, she unfolded her hands, placed the remote precisely into its place and rose, going down the hall silent and unnoticed, head bowed and eyes fixed on the floor directly before her.

  CRAVEN, she had tarried long in her office and returned home in the cool evening, ghosted across the dim foyer and up the front stairway, toward her rooms.

  He burst from the shadows on the second floor landing, catching her hard around the wrist.

  Aelliana froze, wordlessly enduring the touch. His fingers tightened, ring-bands cutting into her flesh.

  "We missed you at Prime Meal, sister," he murmured and she could not quite damp her shudder. Ran Eld laughed.

  "How you hate me, Aelliana. Eh?" He shook her wrist, rings biting deeper. "You were bold enough at breakfast, were you not? Raised your head and stared me in the eye. I fancied I saw a bit of the old wildness there, but mayhap it was a trick of the light. Best to be certain, however, so one knows how to proceed."

  That quickly he moved, knotting her hair in his free hand and wrenching her head up.

  She gasped—a whispered scream—and closed her eyes against a surge of sick panic. Thus had her husband handled her, time and again, until her body grew to loathe the touch of any hand, kindly or severe.

  "Look at me!" Ran Eld snapped. Precisely thus had he commanded her. Twice, perhaps, in the very beginning, she had willfully kept her eyes closed. He very soon broke her of such nonsense.

  Half-strangled with fright, she forced her eyes open.

  For an age she hung suspended in the malice of her brother's glare, the mauling of her wrist and the misuse of scalp and neck muscles reduced by terror to the veriest nothings.

  "So." He twisted her knotted hair more tightly, perhaps hoping for another outcry. When none came forth, he brought his face close to hers, eyes glittering in the dimness of the landing.

  "It occurs to me, sister," he purred, breath breaking hot against her cheek, "that you give very little toward the upkeep of this clan. Such paltry wages as
you bring me from your teaching are hardly more than might be made by one or two well-considered contracts."

  Her heart lurched. She forced herself to swallow, to hang limp in his grasp and keep her eyes open against the sear of his anger.

  "The delm," she whispered, voice trembling, "the delm gave me her Word. I am acquitted of more marriages."

  "So you are," Ran Eld murmured, eyes glinting. "However, a new delm may very well hold a new understanding of the clan's necessities and the duty owed by—some." He smiled suddenly, eyes raking her face.

  "Why, I do believe you had not thought of that! Poor Aelliana, did no one tell you that nadelms become delms?"

  Her face must have shown the full measure of her dismay for he laughed then and released her with a shove that sent her reeling against the landing-rail.

  "I am delighted we have had this opportunity for discussion," Ran Eld said, bowing with broad irony. "It would have been a dreadful thing, indeed, to allow you to continue on with no anticipation of the pleasant future to sustain you."

  He laughed once more and shook his lace into order. Aelliana huddled where she had been flung, hands gripping the rail so tightly her fingers cramped.

  Her brother turned to go; turned back.

  "Ah, yes, there was something else," he said with studied negligence. One hand moved; four coins flashed in the dimness, falling. "Your quarter-share."

  He smiled.

  "Invest wisely, sister. And do remember to give me a written report on the progress of your portfolio every twelve-day. I would be behindhand in my duty if I did not closely oversee so chancy a venture." He bowed. "Good-night, Aelliana. Dream well."

  He was gone. At last she shut her dry eyes, listening as his footsteps faded down the stairs and crossed the stone-floored foyer. A moment later she heard the door to the parlor creak on its ancient hinges, hesitate, and fall closed.

  Aelliana sank to her knees on the thin carpet. Gods, how could she have been so stupid? How could she have forgotten, when from that single irrefutable fact came all that she was today: Nadelms became delms.