Scholar's Plot Read Online Free PDF Page B

they’re not trying these formulas on people?”
    “Of course not.” Benton sounded shocked at the very idea. “First they have to find something that works on one species, then they have to try it on many others, to be as certain as they can that it’s safe before they even start testing it on humans. They’re a long way from that. Although they did seem to be getting some results from the formulas based on my notes. That’s why they wanted me around. Or at least, Professor Stint did. He’s the one who’s actually creating the formulas. Once I turned over my research, I wasn’t much use.”
    “But,” said Kathy, “’tis a project that’s bringing the university a lot of money, and if it succeeded would bring them even more. I’ve been talking to Benton for three days now, and there’s nothing else in his life that gives anyone even a shadow of a motive to do this.”
    So she’d written to me even before she’d spoken much with Benton? That was sufficiently flattering that I wished I had some brilliant idea for what to do next.
    “Kathy, have you spoken to this librarian? Asked him about finding this faked dissertation? Or about who knew where he was working, and could have planted it for him to find?”
    Like our father, Kathy does have the Gift for reading people, and she cast me an exasperated glance. “You know it doesn’t work like that. Even if I could tell something about him, ’twould more likely be that he’s allergic to parsnips or hates pink, rather than anything useful. And I tried to see him day before yesterday. He refused to see me, just as he’s refused to talk to Benton.”
    “He sent a message, that he’d said all he had to say at my hearing,” Benton put in. “He doesn’t believe me. I can understand that. I’m just glad the two of you…”
    His voice husked into silence.
    “Of course we believe you,” I said. “You care about your ancients too much to cheat on them. You’d feel as if you’d dishonored them.”
    Which probably made him as crazy as most of my relatives think me.
    “And you’re the worst liar in the family,” Kathy added. “If you were lying, ’twould show.”
    “Thanks,” said Benton. “I think.”
    But there were tears of gratitude in his eyes. I could see this, because both he and Kathy were looking at me now.
    “Well…” I cast desperately for another idea. And then it occurred to me: What would Fisk do? “If this Master Hotchkiss won’t speak to us, mayhap a look around his office would prove enlightening.”
    So that was how I found myself roving the campus in the dark, trying to figure out how to break into a locked building without getting caught. And failing miserably. Despite his claims to hate burglary, such enterprises were always Fisk’s idea.
    Well, usually.
    Soon I would be able to tap his expertise once more. I was eager to speak with him … so of course, the lecture went on interminably. When it finally came to an end, and the crowd poured out into the square, Benton was surprised at the speed with which I swept him out the gates. But once I’d explained, he not only told me where to find the town lockup, and reminded me to give him the student’s coat I’d borrowed, he also handed over his purse to add its contents to mine.
    He wasn’t carrying much. I carried all the coin 
I owned, and the total was still rather small — but 
it should be enough to buy Fisk out of his cell until 
some final reckoning of his debt was pronounced. 
Assuming the charge against him wasn’t more serious than it appeared.
    Between that unsettling thought, and my uncertainty as to what I might say to bridge the gap between us, I was somewhat agitated as I approached the lockup. ’Twas near the town hall, in the cellar of the guard barracks, though it had a separate entrance and offices above it. ’Twas also conveniently near both the university and Benton’s lodging … where Kathy had been given the only bedroom, and Benton was to