“Expensive, our Outsider. In all senses.” She looked about as Hilfy came through the archway with a large tray, two cups and two breakfasts. “Thanks,” Pyanfar said, taking plate and cup. . . paused to look at Hilfy, who had stopped to look at the situation on the screen. They were still getting transmission relayed from Hasatso, with occasional breakup which indicated velocity dump. “Going to be a while,” Pyanfar said. “Unless they’ve got a medical emergency I doubt they’ll boost up again after turnover, just ride it slow in. Hours from now. Go on back to quarters. I mean it.”
A few ports ago Hilfy might have argued, might have laid her ears back and sulked. She nodded now and went. Pyanfar slid a glance at Haral, who stared after the retreating youngster and then nodded once, thoughtfully.
“Huh,” Pyanfar said, digging into the breakfast, and for some little time she and Haral sat and watched the scan and ate. “Tell you, cousin,” Pyanfar said finally, “you go off-watch and I’ll take it.”
“Not needful, captain.”
“Don’t be noble. I’ve got some things to do. One thing you can do for me. When you go down, look in on Tully. Make sure he’s all right.”
“Right,” Haral said. She stood up and gathered the dishes onto the tray. “But he’s all right, captain. Chur’s bedded down to keep an eye on him.”
Pyanfar had been finishing her last sip of gfi, to surrender the cup. She banged it down on the tray. “Gods blast—did I or did I not order him separate?”
Haral’s ears dropped in dismay. “Chur said he was upset, captain; made herself a pallet in the washroom so’s he wouldn’t wake up by himself. She said—your pardon, captain—sedated, he looked so bad—you were in bed, captain. It was my discretion.”
Pyanfar exhaled shortly. “So. Well. Depressed, Chur says.”
Haral nodded. “We’d take him,” Haral said.
“Chur said.”
“Um.” Haral figured that train of things of a sudden and her mustache-hairs drew down. “Sorry, captain.”
“Him, for the gods’ sake.”
“Not as if he was hani, captain.”
“Not as if,” Pyanfar said after a moment. “All right. Put him where you want; that’s crew business, none of mine. Work him. He claims to be a scan tech. Let him sit watch. Who’s on next?”
“Ker Hilfy.”
“With someone of the experienced crew. Someone who’s made their mistakes.”
Haral grinned and rubbed the black scar which crossed her nose. “Aye. One of us will sort him out.”
“Off with you.”
Haral went. Pyanfar slid down off the counter and transferred the activity to her own board, sat down in her own deeply padded cushion and ran the incoming messages of hours past. There was nothing there but what Haral had said, Tahar’s argument about staying and the beginnings of Starchaser’s crisis. Sporadic information still came in: Hasatso sent word of four survivors. . . .
Four. A cold depression settled over her.
Four out of seven crew on that ship. It was more than the physical body of Starchaser lost out there, more even than a life or two in a crew kin-close. Four out of seven was too heavy casualties for a group to recover itself—not the way it had once been. Gods, to start over, having lost that heavily—
“Station,” she sent, “this is Pyanfar Chanur: confirm that transmission from Hasatso. Names of survivors.”
“Pride of Chanur,” station sent back to her, “Hasatso transmit four survivors good condition. No more information. We relay query.”
She thanked station absently, sat staring at the screen a moment. There was lagtime to contend with on that request, nothing to do but wait. She bestirred herself to run checks with the ships at repair on their own damages, to contact station market and to arrange a few purchases and deliveries via dockside courier services. There was delay on the communications: everyone at station seemed muddle-witted in the confusion, down to the jobbers in commodities.
“Station, what’s keeping that answer?” she sent main op.
“Crew refuse reply,” the answer came back. Communication failure there too. Nerves. Possibly shaken-up hani and mahe rescuers were at odds. Ship lost, cargoes lost, lives lost. An ugly business.
And one of the knnn had put out from station, putting out wailing transmission and wallowing uncertainly about station’s peripheries like a globe of marshfire, touching off ticking objections/accusations/pleas? from the tc’a control.
Gods. The oxygen-breather command went silent for the moment. Tc’a chattered and hissed. Pyanfar reached for translation output, but it failed: tc’a translated best when it was simple docking instruction or operations which were common to all ships. This was something else, gods rot them.
There was silence finally, even from the tc’a. The knnn moved out farther and stayed there. Hasatso continued its slow inward progress. At last the mahendo’sat side of station came on again, quiet operational directions for the incoming freighter, nothing informational.
Pyanfar sent them no questions. No one did.
The news came when Hasatso entered final approach: four survivors, a fifth dead in the stress of the pod eject, of wounds, and allowed to go with the pod when Hasatso released it, not a hani choice, but mahe honor. Two went with Starchaser, dead in the attack or unable to get to the pod—the information was not clear. There was a name: first officer Hilan Faha, survivor; and another: Lihan Faha—the captain, the third casualty.
“Aunt,” Hilfy said, when Pyanfar called her to the bridge and told her, “I’d like to go down to the dock where they are. I know it’s dangerous. But I’d like to go. By your leave.”
Pyanfar set her hand on Hilfy’s shoulder. Nodded. “I’ll go with you,” she said, at which Hilfy looked both relieved and pleased. “Geran,” she said, turning to lean over the com board, putting it through on allship. “Geran.”
The acknowledgment came back.
“Geran, take watch again, lowerdeck op. New word’s come in. Starchaser captain is lost, and two of the crew. Hiify and I are going to meet the rescue ship; we’ll bring the Faha back aboard if they’re so inclined. No sense them having to put up with mahe questions and forms.”
There was a moment’s delay, a sorrowful acknowledgment.
“Come,” Pyanfar said to Hilfy then, and they walked out toward the lift. Hilfy’s bearing was straight enough, her face composed. . . not good news, when she had gone to sleep thinking that things were better than they were; but they had something, at least, of the Faha crew, something saved; and that was still more than they had once hoped.
Another matter to the kif account, when it came to reckonings. But if there were kif out there now—and there might be, hovering at the system’s edges, the same game that they themselves had played at Urtur—then they were waiting some moment of advantage, some moment when there were not five armed mahendo’sat patrol ships cruising a pattern out there.
Allship had waked more than Geran. Tirun was up, sitting in op when they came down toward the lock; and Geran, who had been assigned the duty; and Chur was standing about with Tully, who looked vaguely distressed in this disturbance he likely failed to comprehend. Haral showed up in haste from farther down the corridor. “Going with you, by your leave,” Haral said, and Pyanfar nodded, not sorry of it. “Kif out there,” Pyanfar said. “I’m not getting caught twice the same way.”
“Take care,” Tirun wished them as they went, and in the airlock, while Haral opened the outer hatch, Pyanfar delayed to take the pistol from its secure place in the locker by com and to slip it into her pocket.
“No detectors to pass,” Pyanfar said. “Come on.”
The hatchway stayed open behind them; they walked out the ribbed rampway and down onto the dockside. Engines whined on their left: Moon Rising was still about her offloading, and canisters were coming off into the hands of mahendo’sat dockworkers, not hani crew.
“They may have gone to meet the Faha too,” Pyanfar judged, marking the total absence o
f a hani supervisor outside. It was a courtesy to be expected, politics aside in a hani-ship’s misfortune.
“Not much stirring,” Haral said.
That was so. Where normally the vast docks would have had a busy pedestrian traffic up and down the vast curve, there was a dearth of casual strollers, and the activity about Moon Rising was the only activity of any measure in sight. Dockworkers, service workers, mahe with specific business underway paused to stare at them and after them as they walked. Stsho huddled near their accesses and whispered together. The kif were out about, predictably, clustered together near the accessway of one of the ships, a mass of black robes, seven, eight of them, who lounged near their canisters and clicked insults after them.
And at one of those insults Pyanfar’s ears flicked, and she stopped the impulse in mid-twitch, trying to make believe she had not heard or understood. He knows, hani thief. How many more hani ships will you kill?
“Captain—” Haral murmured, and Hilfy started to turn around. “Front, gods—” Pyanfar hissed and seized Hilfy by the arm. “What do you want to start, at what odds?”
“What do we do?” Hilfy asked, walking obediently between them. “How can he know?”
“Because one of those kif ships is his, imp; came in here from Kita; and now Akukkakk’s enlisted other ships to help him. They’ll scatter out of here like spores when we go, and gods help us, we’re stuck till we get that repair done.”
“They as good as hit Starchaser themselves. I’d like to—”
“We’d all like to, but we have better sense. Come on.”
“If they catch us on the dock—”
“All the more reason we get the survivors aboard and get off the docks. Afraid you’re not going to get that station liberty here either, imp.”
“Think I can do without,” Hilfy muttered.
They kept walking, down among the gantries, past idle crews, as far as number fifty-two berth, where a surplus of bystanders gathered, a dark crowd of mahendo’sat, sleek-furred, tall bodies which made it difficult to see anything. Medical personnel were among them; and station officials, conspicuous by their collars and kilts.
And hani, to be sure. Elbowing through the gathering, Pyanfar caught sight of bronze manes and a glitter of jewels on a hani ear, and she made for that group with Haral and Hilfy behind her.
“It’s high time you showed up,” Dur Tahar said when she arrived.
“Mind yourself,” Pyanfar said. “My niece behind me is Faha.”
Dur Tahar slid a glance in that direction without comment. “Hasatso’s due to touch any moment,” she said.
“We’ve got some kif getting together down the dock. I’d watch that if I were you.”
“Your problem.”
“A warning, that’s all.”
“If you start something, Chanur, don’t look for our help.”
“Gods rot you, you give me no encouragement to be civil.”
“I don’t need your civility.”
“A mutual hazard, Tahar.”
“What, are you asking favors?”
The claws twitched. “Asking sense, rot you.”
“I’ll think on it.”
Hasatso touched, a crashing of locks and grapples. Gantries slid up and crews opened station ports one after another in response to the ship, connected lines, started the rampway out to meet the lock. It was an agonizingly slow process from the spectator ranks, and only the mahendo’sat found occasion to chatter.
And finally a distant whine and thump announced the breaching of the freighter’s hatch, first in procedure: station reciprocated, and the mahe crew escorted off four hani, exhausted hani, one with an arm bandaged and bound to her chest, all of them looking as if they were doing well to be walking at all. Necessarily the mahendo’sat officials moved in: there was signing of papers, mahe and hani; and Pyanfar took Hilfy by the shoulder, worked forward with her. Hilfy went the last on her own and offered an embrace to the refugees, an embrace wearily returned by the Faha, one after the other.
“My captain,” Hilfy said then, “my aunt Pyanfar Chanur; my crewmate Haral Araun par Chanur.”
There were embraces down the line. “Our ship is open to you,” Pyanfar told the first officer, whose haggard face and dazed eyes took her in and seemed at the moment to have too much to take in, with the mahe offering medical assistance, station wanting immediate statements. Pyanfar left the Faha momentarily to Hilfy and to the Tahar who had moved up to offer their own condolences, and herself took the hands of the mahe rescue crew one after the other, and those of the apparent captain, a tall hulking fellow who looked as bruised and bewildered as the Faha, who was probably at the moment reckoning his lost cargo and the wrath of companies and what comfort all this gratitude was going to win him when the shouting died down and the bills came in.
“You’re captain, mahe?” Pyanfar asked.
A sign of the head.
“I’m Pyanfar Chanur; Chanur has filed a report in your behalf at Kirdu; Chanur company will give you hani status at Anuurn: you come there, understand? Make runs to Anuurn. No tax.”
Dark mahe eyes brightened somewhat. “Good,” he said, “good,” and squeezed both her hands in a crushing grip, turned and chattered at his own folk—likely one of those mahe who could scarcely understand the pidgin, and good might be about half his speaking vocabulary. He seemed to make it clear to the others, who broke out in grins, and Pyanfar escaped through the crush toward Hilfy and the others, got her arm about Hilfy and got the whole hani group moving through the pressure of tall mahendo’sat bodies. The Tahar made a wedge with them, and they broke into the clear.
“This way,” Pyanfar said, and first officer Hilan Faha took the other elbow of her injured companion and made sure of the other two, and they started walking, escaping the officials who called after them about forms—Chanur, Faha and Tahar in one group up the dock, toward the upcurved horizon where The Pride and Moon Rising were docked.
“How far?” the Faha officer asked in a shaking voice.
“Close enough,” Hilfy assured her. “Take your time.”
The way back seemed far longer, slower with the Faha’s pace; Pyanfar scanned the dark places along their route, not the only one watching, she was sure. Inevitably there were the kif ships; and the kif were there, ten of them now. . . calling out in mocking clicks their insults and their invitation to come and ship with them. “We take you to your port,” they howled. “We see you get your reward, hani thieves.”
A wild look came into Hilan Faha’s eyes. She stopped dead and turned that stare on them. “No,” Pyanfar said at once. “We’re here on station’s tolerance. This isn’t our territory. Not on the docks.”
The kif howled and chirred their abuse. But the Faha moved, and they made their way farther with the kif voices fading in the distance, past the stsho, who stared with large, pale eyes, up past a comforting number of mahendo’sat vessels, and virtual silence, dock crews and passers-by standing quietly and watching and respectful sympathy.
“Not so much farther,” Pyanfar said.
The Faha had not the breath to answer, only kept walking beside them, and finally, at long last, they had reached the area of The Pride’s berth. “Faha,” Dur Tahar said then, “Moon Rising has no damage, and The Pride does. We offer you passage that’s assuredly more direct and quicker home.”
“We’ll accept,” Hilan Faha said, to Pyanfar’s consternation.
“Cousin,” Hilfy said in a voice carefully modulated. “Cousin, The Pride will put out quickly enough; and we need the help. We need you, cousins. You might find common cause in the company.”
“Tamun’s had all she can stand,” Hilan Faha said, with a protective move of her hand on her injured comrade’s shoulder. She looked toward the Tahar. “We’ll board, by your leave.”
“Come,” Dur Tahar said, and the Tahar fell about the four and escorted them across to their own access. Hilfy took a couple of steps forward, ears flat, stood there, hands fallen to her si
des, and took a good long moment before she turned about again, with her kinswomen disappearing upward into the rampway of Moon Rising. Mortification was in every line of her stance, a youngster’s humiliation, that set her down as well as set her aside, and Pyanfar thrust hands into her waistband to keep them from awkwardness—no reaching out to the imp as if she were a child, no comfort to be offered. It was Hilfy’s affair, to take it how she would. “They’ve had a shock,” Hilfy said after a moment. “I’m sorry, aunt.”
“Come on,” Pyanfar said, nodding toward their rampway. There was a red wash about her own vision, a slow seething. She was bound to take the matter as it fell for Hilfy’s sake, but it rankled, all the same. She walked up first and Haral last, leaving Hilfy her silence and her dignity.
Cowards, Pyanfar thought, and swallowed that thought too for Hilfy’s sake. They desperately needed the added hands: that thought also gnawed at her, less worthy. They needed the Faha. But the Faha had had enough of kif.
And there were kif ships out there, waiting. She was increasingly certain of it—if not actually on the fringes of Kirdu System, which they might be, at least scattered all about, waiting the moment. More and more kif ships, a gathering swarm of them, unprecedented in their cooperation with each other.
She passed the airlock into the corridor, and Chur and Tirun who had turned out with the evident intention of welcoming their Faha guests—stopped in their exit from the op room, simply stopped.
“Our friends changed their minds,” Pyanfar said curtly. “They decided to take passage with Tahar. Something about an injury one of them suffered, and the Tahar promised them a more direct route home.”
That put at least an acceptable face on matters for Hilfy’s sake. They retreated as Pyanfar walked into the op room, looked at Geran and Tully who sat there, Geran having well understood and Tully looking disturbed, catching the temper in the air, no doubt, but not understanding it. “Nothing to do with you.” Pyanfar said absently, settling into a chair at the far counter, looking at the system-image which Geran had been monitoring. Hilfy and Haral came in together, and there was a strained silence in the op room, all of them gathered there and Hilfy trying to keep a good face on.