The Dragon Variation

by Sharon Lee

  She looked down at her clenched fists, puzzled. It had all been so long ago. Her mother had died three years ago, peacefully in her bed. Richard was a pilot in his own right, and his last letter had been full of someone named Rosie, whose parents he was soon to meet. And Anne was a professor of comparative linguistics, with several scholarly publications to her name, teaching a Liaden Lit seminar that was filled to capacity every session.

  Anne shook her head and wearily bent to pick up the scattered cards. Jerzy was right; she was tired. She needed a good meal, a full night's sleep. She'd been pushing things a little too hard lately. She needed to remember to relax, that was all. Then, everything would be fine.

  WEARILY, Er Thom climbed the curving marble staircase that led to the Administrative Center for University's Northern Campus. It was slightly warmer in the building than it had been outside, but still cool to one used to Liad's planetary springtime. He left his leather pilot's jacket sealed as he approached the round marble counter displaying the Terran graphic for "Information."

  A Terran woman of indeterminate years came to the counter as he approached. She had a plenitude of dark hair, worn carelessly loose, as if fresh-tousled from bed, and her shirt was cut low across an ample bosom. She leaned her elbows on the pinkish marble and grinned at him.

  "Hi, there. What can I do for you?" she asked, casually, and with emphasis on "you".

  He bowed as between equals—a flattery—and offered a slight smile of his own.

  "I am looking for a friend," he said, taking extreme care with the mode-less and rough Terran words. "Her name is Anne Davis. Her field is comparative linguistics. I regret that I do not know the name of the department in which she serves."

  "Well, you're on the right campus, anyhow," the woman said cheerfully. "You got her ident number, retinal pattern, anything like that?"

  "I regret," Er Thom repeated.

  She shook her head so the tousled dark curls danced. "I'll see if it flies, friend, but it's not much to go on with the size of the faculty we've got . . ." She moved away, muttering things much like her counterparts in the East and West offices had muttered. A few meters down-counter she stopped and began to ply the keypad set there, frowning at the screen suspended level with her eyes. "Let's see . . . Davis, Davis, Anne . . ." She turned her head, calling out to him over her shoulder. "Is that 'Anne' with an 'e' or not?"

  He stared at her, unable to force his weary mind to analyze and make sense of the question. "I—beg your pardon."

  "Your friend," the clerk said, patiently. "Does she spell her name with an 'e' or without an 'e'?"

  An "e" was the fifth letter of the Terran alphabet. Surely, he thought, half-panicked, surely he had at some time seen Anne's written name? He closed his eyes, saw the old-fashioned ink pen held firmly in long, graceful fingers, sweeping a signature onto the mauve pages of an ambassadorial guest book.

  "A—" he spelled out of memory for the clerk's benefit. "n, n, e. D, a, v, i, s."

  "Hokay." She turned back to her board as Er Thom opened his eyes, feeling oddly shaken.

  The clerk muttered to herself—he paid her no mind. Terran naming systems, he thought distractedly, Terran alphabet, and, gods help him, a Terran woman, bold and brilliant—alien. But a woman still, with Terran blood in her and genes so far outside the Book of Clans that—

  "Okay!"

  Er Thom shook himself out of his reverie as the clerk's cry of jubilation penetrated, and stepped forward.

  "Yes?"

  She looked up at him, lashes fluttering, and he saw that she was not so young as he had thought. Cosmetics had been used to simulate the dewy blush of first youth across her cheek and her eyes were artfully painted, with silver sequins sprinkled across her lashes. Er Thom schooled his face to calm politeness. Local custom, he reminded himself sternly. As a trader he dealt with local custom in many guises on many worlds. So on this world faces were painted. Merely custom, and nothing to distress one.

  "Don't know if this is your friend or not," the woman was saying, "but she's the only Davis in Comparative Ling. Wait a sec, here's the card." She frowned at it before handing it over. "Lives in Quad S-two-seven-squared. You know where that is?"

  "No," he said, clutching the card tightly.

  The woman stood, leaning over the counter to point. Her breasts flattened against the marble, and swelled toward the margin of the low-cut blouse. Er Thom turned to look along the line of her finger.

  "Go back out the way you came," she told him, "turn right, walk about four hundred yards. You'll see a sign for the surrey. Go down the stairs and hit the summonplate. When the surrey comes, you sit down and code in this right here, see?" She ran her finger under a string of letters and numbers on the card he held.

  "Yes, I see."

  "Okay. Then you lean back and enjoy the ride. The surrey stops, you get out and go upstairs. You'll be in a big open space—Quad S. Best thing to do then is either ask one of the residents to help you find the address or go to the Quad infobooth, punch up your friend's code—that's right under the name, there—and tell her to come get you. Clear?"

  "Thank you," said Er Thom, bowing thanks and remembering to give a smile. Terrans set great store by smiles, where a Liaden person would merely have kept his face neutral and allowed the bow to convey all that was necessary.

  "That's Okay," said the woman, flashing her silvered lashes. "If your friend's not home, or if it turns out it's not your friend, come on back and I'll see if I can help you some more."

  There was an unmistakable note of invitation there. Hastily, Er Thom reviewed his actions, trying to determine if he had inadvertently signaled a wish for her intimate companionship. As far as he could determine, he had indicated no such thing, unless the smile was to blame. Bland-faced, he bowed once more: gratitude for service well-given, nothing else.

  "Thank you," he said, keeping his voice carefully neutral. He turned on his heel and walked away.

  Behind him, the Information clerk watched him wistfully, twining her fingers in her hair.

  THE SURREY RIDE was longer than he had expected from the clerk's explanation. Er Thom sat rigid in the slippery plastic chair, clutching the thin plastic card and occasionally looking down at it.

  "Anne Davis," the Terran letters read. "ID: 7596277483ZQ." He committed the ID to memory, then the Quad code, department number and assignment berth. It did not take long; he had a good head for cargo stats, manifest numbers and piloting equations. After checking himself three times, he put the card in his belt-pocket with infinite care and tried to relax in the too-large, Terran-sized seat, hands tightly folded on his knee.

  It had been a weary long trip from Liad to University—three Jumps, which he had taken, recklessly, one after the other, pushing the reactions and the stamina of a master pilot to their limits. And at the end of that reckless journey, this endless day of searching, campus to campus, through a bureaucracy that spanned an entire planet—

  To this place. Very soon now he would see Anne—speak to her. He would—for the last time in his life—break with the Code and put his melant'i at peril.

  He would speak to one to whom he had given nubiath'a. The heart recoiled, no matter that necessity existed. Necessity did exist—his own, and shame to him, that he use his necessity to disturb the peace of one who was not of his clan.

  A tone sounded in the little cab, and a yellow light flashed on the board. "Approaching Quad S. Prepare to disembark," a man's pleasant voice instructed him.

  Er Thom slid forward on the seat as the surrey slowed. He was on his feet the instant the door slid open and had run halfway up the automated stairs by the time it closed behind him.

  The local sun was setting, bathing the tall buildings that enclosed the quad in pale orange light. Er Thom stopped and looked about him, spinning slowly on one heel, suddenly and acutely aware of his empty hands. It was improper of him to go giftless to an evening call; he had not thought.

  There must be shops, he thought. Mustn't ther
e?

  A group of four tall persons was crossing the Quad a few yards to his right. He stretched his legs to catch them, fishing in his belt for the plastic card.

  His dilemma produced a slight altercation among three of his potential aides. It seemed that there were several ways to arrive at the dwelling indicated; the question addressed was which of several was the "best" way. Er Thom stood to one side, having rescued his card from one gesticulating well-wisher, and tried to cultivate patience. He heard a low laugh and turned to look at the fourth member of the party, a shortish Terran male—though still a head taller than Er Thom—with merry dark eyes and a disreputable round face.

  "Listen to that bunch and you'll get lost for sure," he said, dismissing his companions with a flutter of his fingers. "I live a couple halls down from your friend's place. I don't guarantee it's the best way, but if you follow me, I can get you there."

  "Thank you," said Er Thom, with relief. "And—I regret the inconvenience—if there would be a shop selling wine?"

  "Oh, sure," said his guide, turning left. "There's the Block Deli, right where we get the lift. Step this way, and keep an eye out for falling philosophers."

  Chapter Four

  Relations between Liad and Terra have never been cordial, though there have been periods of lesser and greater strain. Liad prefers to thrash Terra roundly in the field of galactic trade—a terrain it shaped—while Terra gives birth to this and that Terran-supremacist faction, whose mischief seems always to stop just short of actual warfare.

  —From "The Struggle for Fair Trade,"

  doctoral dissertation of Indrew Jorman,

  published by Archive Press, University

  THE SURREY'S ding woke her; she got a grip on her briefcase and went up the autostairs in a fog.

  On the Quad, the sharp night breeze roused her and she stopped to stretch cramped leg and back muscles, staring up into a sky thick with stars. It was a very different night sky than Proziski's, with its gaggle of moons. She and Er Thom had counted those moons one night, lying naked next to each other on the roof of the unfinished Mercantile Building, the end of a bolt of trade-silk serving as coverlet and mattress. She liked to think Shan had come from that night.

  She shook her head at the laden sky and took one last deep breath before turning toward the block that held her apartment.

  She walked past the darkened deli and rode the lift to the seventh floor, trying to remember if she had eaten the last roll that morning for breakfast. She recalled a cup of coffee, gulped between feeding Shan and getting him ready for his trip to Jerzy's place. She remembered having to go back for her notes for the afternoon's lecture.

  She didn't remember eating breakfast at all, and she had been too busy with a promising research line to break off for lunch . . .

  Anne sighed. You need a keeper, she told herself severely. The lift door cycled and she stepped out into the hallway.

  A slim figure turned from before her door and began to walk toward her, keeping scrupulously to the center of the hall, where the lights were brightest. Anne hesitated, cataloging bright hair, slender stature, leather jacket—

  "Er Thom." She barely heard her own whisper, hardly knew that she had increased her stride, until she was almost running toward him.

  He met her halfway, extending a slim golden hand on which his amethyst master trader's ring blazed. She caught his fingers in hers and stood looking down at him, wide mouth curved in a smile no dimmer than the one he had treasured, all this time.

  "Er Thom," she said in her rich, lilting voice. "I'm so very happy to see you, my friend."

  Happy. What a small word, to describe the dazzling, dizzying joy that threatened to engulf him. He hung onto her hand, though it would have been more proper to bow. "I am—happy—to see you, also," he managed, smiling up into her eyes. "They keep you working late . . ."

  She laughed. "A departmental meeting—it dragged on and on! I can't imagine what they found to talk about." She sobered. "Have you been waiting long?"

  "Not very long." Hours. He had despaired a dozen times; walked away and returned two dozen . . . three . . . He showed her the bag he held. "Are you hungry? I have food, wine."

  "My thoughtful friend. Starved. Come in." She tugged on his hand, turning him back toward the anonymous door that marked her dwelling place. "How long are you stopping, Er Thom?"

  He hesitated and she looked at him closely.

  "More than just today? Don't tell me that stupid meeting has kept me away for half your visit!"

  "No." He smiled up at her. "I do not know how long I am staying, you see. It depends upon—circumstances."

  "Oh," she said wisely, "circumstances." She let go his hand and lay her palm against the door's lockplate. With a grand, meaningless flourish, she bowed him across the threshold.

  Just within and to one side, he stopped to watch her cross the room, past the shrouded half-chora to the wall-desk, where she lay her briefcase down with a sigh. It struck him that she moved less gracefully than he recalled, and nearly gasped at the sharpness of his concern.

  "Anne?" He was at her elbow in a flicker, searching her face. "Are you well?"

  She smiled. "Just tired, my dear—that absurd meeting." She reached out, touching his cheek lightly with the tips of her fingers. "Er Thom, it's so good to see you."

  He allowed the caress. Kin and lifemates alone touched thus: face-to-face, hand-to-face. He had never told her so; he did not tell her now. He turned his face into her palm and felt the icy misery in his chest begin to thaw.

  "It is good to see you, also," he murmured, hearing the pounding of his heart, wanting—wanting . . . He shifted slightly away and held up the bag. "You are tired. I will pour you wine—is that proper?—and you will sit and rest. All right? Then I will bring you some of this to eat." He pointed to a dark alcove to the right. "That is the kitchen?"

  She laughed, shaking her head. "That's the kitchen. But, my friend, it can't be proper to put a guest to work."

  "It is no trouble," he told her earnestly. "Please, I wish to."

  "All right," she said, astonished and bewildered at the way her eyes filled with tears. "Thank you. You're very kind."

  "Rest," he murmured and disappeared into the kitchen corner. The light came on, adding to the dim illumination of the living area. Anne sighed. There were signs of neglect everywhere: dust, scattered books and papers, discarded pens. Under the easy chair a fugitive rubber block crouched, defiant.

  She turned her back on it deliberately, pulled off her jacket and curled into a corner of the couch, long legs under her, head resting on the back cushions. She heard small sounds from the kitchen as Er Thom opened and closed cabinets. The air filtering unit thrummed into sluggish life . . .

  "Anne?"

  She gasped, head jerking up. Er Thom bit his lip, violet eyes flashing down to the glass he held and back to her face.

  "I am inconvenient," he said solemnly, inclining his head. "Perhaps I may come again to see you. When you are less tired. Tell me."

  "No." Her changeable face registered guilt, even panic. "Er Thom, I'm sorry to be a bad host. I'd like you to stay. Please. You're not inconvenient—never that, my dear. And if you leave now and your circumstances mesh, then you might not be able to come again. You could be gone again tomorrow."

  He set the glass aside, caught the hand she half-extended and allowed himself to be drawn down to sit beside her.

  "Anne . . ." Fascinated, he watched his fingers rise to her cheek, stroke lightly and ever-so-slowly down the square jaw line to the firm chin.

  "All will be well," he said, soothing her with his voice as if she were a child instead of a woman grown. "I will be here tomorrow, Anne. Certainly tomorrow. And you—my friend, you are exhausted. It would be wrong—improper—to insist you entertain me in such a case. I will go and come back again. Tomorrow, if you like. Only tell me."

  Her eyes closed and she bent her head, half-hiding her face from him. He held onto her hand and she did
not withdraw it, though her free hand stole upward, fingers wrapping around the pendant at the base of her throat.

  Er Thom's eyes widened. She wore the parting-gift, even now; touched it as if it were capable of giving comfort. And he, he here by her, touching her, speaking on terms that would lead any to assume them lovers, if not bound more closely still.

  The magnitude of his error staggered; the cause that had brought him here suddenly showing the face of self-deception. He should never have given Anne nubiath'a.

  He should never have sought her out again . . .

  "Er Thom?" She was looking at him, dark brown eyes large in a face he thought paler than it might be.

  "Yes, my friend?" he murmured and smiled for her. Whatever errors were found in this time and place were solely his own, he told himself sternly. Anne, at least, had behaved with utmost propriety.

  "I—I know that I'm not very entertaining right now," she said with a tentativeness wholly unAnne-like, "but—unless you have somewhere else you need—would rather be—I'd like you to stay."

  "There is no other place I wish to be," he said—and that was truth, gods pity him, though he could think of a dozen places he might otherwise be needed, not forgetting his mother's drawing room and the bridge of the trade ship orbiting Liad.

  He picked up the wineglass and placed it in her hand as he rose. "Drink your wine, my friend. I will be back in a moment with food."

  IT WAS SOME time later, after the odd sweet-spicy food was eaten and the wine, but for the little remaining in their glasses, was drunk, before she thought to ask him.

  "But, Er Thom, what are you doing on University? Another trade mission? There isn't anything to trade for here, is there?"

  "To trade for? No . . ." He took a sip of the sticky yellow wine, then, with sudden decision, finished the glass.

  "I am not here to trade," he told her, watching as if from a distance as his traitor body slid closer to her on the sofa and his hand lifted to fondle her hair. "What I am doing is seeing you."