“Well, good luck to them,” Tirun muttered. “Gods know they’ve seen enough.”
“There are kif out there on the dock,” Pyanfar said, “who know too much. Getting cheeky about it. They’ve come in from Kita ahead of us, part of the bunch from Meetpoint or Urtur—Urtur, I’ll reckon, since I checked names and they weren’t the same as there. Just passing the message from one kif to the next. It’s getting tight here.”
“There’ll be more soon,” Haral said. “I’ll bet there’s some outsystem. Captain, think we can talk the mahe to run us escort to our jumppoint? Surely we’ve got leverage enough for that.”
“That story will go from station to station,” Pyanfar said bitterly, “Gods, but I don’t think we’ve got much choice. Get them to shepherd us out of here.”
“When we can get our tail put together again,” Tirun said glumly.
There was a noise from down the hall, a footstep in the airlock. Every head turned for the doorway and Pyanfar reached for the gun in her pocket and thrust her way past Tirun getting to the op room door and the corridor, clicking the safety off the gun.
It was hani—Hilan Faha, who flung up a startled hand and stopped at the sight of her. Pyanfar punched the safety back on with a clawtip and thrust the weapon back into her pocket, aware of others of her crew now behind her.
“Changed your mind of a sudden?” she asked the Faha.
“Need to talk to you. To my young cousin.”
“To your cousin, rot you; and to me. Come on inside. Neither she nor I’ll talk out here like dockside peddlers.”
“Ker Pyanfar,” the Faha murmured, manners which in no wise mollified her temper. Pyanfar waved the lot of them back into ops—only then recalled Tully, who was trapped there in the corner, but there was nothing of secret in his presence on the ship, and no cause to send him slinking out past them all. Let the Faha talk in front of him; let her deliver her excuses under an Outsider’s stare—served her right.
And Hilan Faha stopped in the doorway at the sight of Tully, this naked-skinned creature hani-styled and hani-dressed sitting at the counter among the crew; and Hilan’s ears went flat. “This,” she said, rounding on Pyanfar, “this is that item the kif wanted—isn’t it?”
“His name is Tully.”
Hilan’s mouth tightened, am ominous furrowing of the nose. “A live item. By the greater gods, where have you been, Chanur, and what’s going on with this business?”
“If you were traveling on this ship you might ask and I might answer. As things are, you can learn when the Tahar do.”
“Rot you, Starchaser died in your cause, for this—” She spat, swallowed down a surplus of words when Pyanfar stared at her sullenly. “It was the captain’s decision; we off-loaded everything at Urtur and tried to run to give you a break for it. But where were you then? Where was our help?”
“Blind, Hilan Faha—off in the dust and stark blind. We tried, believe that; but at the last we had to jump for it or risk collision; we hoped you could get off in what confusion we created.”
Hilan drew a quieter breath. “The captain’s decision, not mine. I’d not have budged out of dock: know that. I’d have sat there and let you sort it out with the kif, this so-named theft of yours. . . .”
“You take kif word above mine?”
“If you have an explanation I’ll be glad to hear it. My cousins are dead. We’re broken. We’ll not get another ship, not so likely. Great Chanur makes plans, but the likes of us—we’ll go on other Faha ships, wherever we can get a berth. I’ll reckon you know where the profit’s to be found, and, gods rot your conniving hide, you’ve stirred up what a lot of ships are going to bleed for. What a lot of small companies are going to go under for. They gave me a message to give you, Pyanfar Chanur—the kif gave me this to tell you: that what you’ve done is too much to ignore and too great to let pass. That they’ll come after you wherever you are in whatever numbers it takes—even to Anuurn. That they’ll make it clear to all hani that this prize of yours is no profit to you. This from their hakkikt. Akukkakk. Him from Urtur. His words.”
“Kif threats. I’d thought you had more nerve.”
“No empty threats,” Hilan said, eyes dilated, her nostrils flared and sweat-glistening. “Tell all hani, this Akukkakk says—desert this Pyanfar Chanur or see desolation. . . even to Anuurn space.”
“And where did you hear all this? From a scattering of ships and a kif who never caught us—who failed to catch you. Hilan Faha; and if we’d gotten together at Urtur—”
“No. No. You don’t understand. They did catch us, Chanur. Did overhaul us. Killed two of my cousins doing it. At Kita. And they let us go. . . but we broke down in the jump. They let us go to deliver that message.”
The Faha’s shame was intense. There was a silence in the room, no one seeming to breathe.
“So,” said Pyanfar, “do you believe all your enemies say?”
“I see this,” Hilan said, gesturing at Tully. “And all of a sudden the game looks a lot larger than before. All of a sudden I see reason that the kif might gather, and why they might not stop. Chanur’s ambition—has gone too far this time. Whatever you’re into, I don’t want part of it. My sister’s alive; and two of my cousins; and we’re going home. Cousin,” she said, looking at Hilfy, “to you—I apologize.”
Hilfy said nothing, only stared with hurt in her eyes.
“Hilfy can leave with you if she likes,” Pyanfar said. “Without my blame. It might be a prudent thing to do. . . as you point out.”
“I’d be pleased to take her,” Hilan said.
“I stay with my ship,” Hilfy said, and Pyanfar folded her arms over a stomach moiling with wishes one way and the other at once. And pride—that too.
“So,” Pyanfar said, “I wish you safe journey. Best we should travel together, but I’m sure that’s not in the Tahar’s mind now.”
“No. It’s not.” The Faha looked down, and up again, in Tully’s direction, a darkening of the eyes. “If you considered your relations to others, you wouldn’t have done this thing. You’ve taken on too much this time. And others will think so.”
“What I took on myself, arrived on our ship without a by your leave or my knowledge it existed. What would you do with a refugee who ran onto your ship? Hand him over to the kif at their asking? I don’t sell lives.”
“But you don’t mind losing them.”
“You throw away what they did,” Hilfy said suddenly, “with your smallness.”
The Faha’s ears flattened. “What are you to judge? Talk to me when you’ve got some years on you, cousin. This—” She came dangerously near Tully, and Chur who had been sitting on a counter slid down to plant both feet, barring the way. Tully got out of his chair and stood as far back in the bend of the counter as he could get. The Faha shrugged, a careless gesture throwing away her intent. “I’ve another word,” the Faha said, looking straight at Pyanfar. “Whether or not you intended what you’ve involved yourself in—it just may be the finish. Your allies might have stood by you, but it’s all gotten too tangled. It’s gotten too risky. How long since you’ve been home?”
“Some few months.” Pyanfar drew in a breath and thrust her hands into her belt, with the taste of something bad coming—that ill feeling of a house at its height, in which any breath of change was trouble; and of a sudden she misliked that look on the Faha’s face, that truculence which melted into something of discomfort, a decent shame. “Maybe more than that,” Pyanfar said, “if you count that I didn’t go downworld last call. What is it, Faha? What is it you’re bursting to tell me?”
“A son of yours—has taken Mahn from Khym Mahn. He’s neighbor to Chanur now. He has ambitions. The old Mahn is in exile, and Kohan Chanur is finding sudden need of all his allies.” Hilan Faha shrugged, down-eared and white about the nose and looking altogether as if she would wish to be elsewhere at the moment, instead of bringing such news to a Chanur ship. “My captain would have backed you; but what are we now, with one of
our ships gone, one out of the three Faha owns; and what do we think when you take on something like this when you already have as much as Chanur can handle? You’ve lost your cargo; you’ve gotten yourself a feud with the kif, and kif threatening to go into Anuurn zones, for the gods’ sake—how can Chanur hold onto its other allies when that starts? I’ve lost my ship, my captain, some of my cousins—and I have to think of my family. I can’t involve myself with you, not now: I can’t make Faha part of this and get our ships into a feud with the kif. You’re about to lose everything. Others will decide the same, and Chanur won’t be there even if you get back. I’m going home, ker Pyanfar, on the Tahar ship because I have to, because I’m not tangling what’s left of us in Chanur fortunes.”
“You’re young,” Pyanfar said, looking down her nose. “The young always worry. You’re right, your captain would have backed me. She had the nerve for it. But go your way, Hilan Faha. I’ll pay your debts because I promised; Chanur will reward the mahe who pulled you out. And when I’ve settled with that whelp Kara I’ll be in better humor, so I may even forget this. So you won’t worry how to meet me in future—don’t fear too much. I’ll not regard you too badly. . . the young do grow; but by the gods I’ll never regard you the way I did your captain. You’re not Lihan, Hilan Faha, and maybe you never will be.”
The Faha fairly shook with anger. “To be paid the way you paid her—”
“She’d curse me to a mahen hell if she were here, but she’d not do what you’ve done. She’d not run out on a friend. Go on, Hilan Faha, leave my deck. A safe voyage to you and a quick one.”
For a moment the Faha might have struck out; but she was worn thin and hopeless and the moment and the courage went. “Her curse on you then,” she said, and turned and stalked out, not so straight in the shoulders, not so high of head as she had come in. Pyanfar scowled and looked at Hilfy, and Hilfy herself was virtually shaking.
“Kohan never said anything about this Mahn business in his letter,” Pyanfar said. “What do you know, niece?”
“I don’t,” Hilfy said. “I won’t believe it. I think the Faha’s been listening to rumors.”
“How much did you know about the estates when you were at home? Where was your head then, but on The Pride? Is it possible something was brewing and you didn’t hear?”
“There was always talk; Kara Mahn was always hanging about the district. He and Tahy. There—was some calling back and forth; I think na Khym talked to father direct.”
“Rot his hide, Kohan could have said something in that letter.”
“He sent me,” Hilfy said in a small, stricken voice. “When The Pride turned up in system I asked to go, and he said he’d never permit it; and then—the next night he gave me the letter and put me in the plane and, gods, I was off to the port like that. Hardly a chance to pack. Said I had to hurry or The Pride would leave port and I’d miss my chance. Like that, at night; but I thought—I thought it was because ships don’t calculate day and night, and that shuttle was going up anyway.”
“O gods,” Pyanfar groaned, and sat down against the counter, looked up at all the ring of anxious faces. “Not yet, that son of mine doesn’t. Gods blight the kif; we’ll settle them, but we’re going to take care of that small business at home; that’s first.”
Ears pricked. “We’re with you,” Haral said. “Gods, yes, home. Going to shake me some scruffs when I get there.”
“Hai!” Geran agreed, and Tirun; and Tully visibly flinched, calmed again as Chur patted his shoulder. He settled and Hilfy sat down beside him, put her hand on his other shoulder, two disconsolate souls who shared not much at all but their misery.
“We’ll straighten it out,” Pyanfar said to Hilfy. “We’ll do it on our terms. Agreed, niece?”
“He got me out of there,” Hilfy said. “I could have helped, and he saw it coming and he moved me out.”
“Huh. You’re not old enough to know your father from my view, with all respect for your own. He thinks, some time before a problem comes on him—not much meditation during, gods know, but he sets things up like pieces on a board. Too rotted proud to call me downworld, ah, yes; too rotted smart to have young Hilfy Chanur at hand to get herself in a tangle with her Mahn cousins and to pitchfork that temper of Kohan’s into it. . . don’t get your ears down at me, imp; we’re family here. The sun rises and sets on your shoulders so far as your father’s concerned, and that blasted son of mine would go right for the greatest irritance he could give your father if he wanted to take on Chanur—your precious inexperienced self. No, Kohan just cleared the deck, that’s all. Chances are he was wrong; he’s not immune to that either. I’d sooner have had you there; I think you’d have handled young Kara right enough; and Tahy with him. But if Moon Rising’s going home, it’s to carry the kind of news the Tahar have gotten here; it’s going to make trouble, no thanks to the Faha: and there’s a time past which Kohan’s going to be hard put. He’s got—what mates in residence? Your mother and who?”
“Akify and Lilun.”
“Hope your mother stands by him,” Pyanfar said heavily: the Kihan and the Garas were ornaments. She walked over to the counter and stared at the scan a moment. “No matter. Whatever’s going on, we’ll put it in order.”
“Pyanfar—”
Tully’s strange voice. She turned about and looked at him, recalled the pager and turned it on broadcast, not bothering with the plug.
“Question,” Tully said, and made a vague gesture toward the door where the Faha had left. “He fight.”
“She,” Pyanfar said impatiently. “All she.” Tully bit his lip and looked confused. “It’s nothing to do with you,” Pyanfar said. “Nothing you’d understand.”
“I go.” he offered, starting to slide from his place on the counter, but Chur held his shoulder. “No,” Chur said. “It’s all right, Tully. No one’s angry at you.”
“You’re not the cause,” Pyanfar said. “Not of this.” She walked to the door, looked back at the crew. “We’ll settle it,” she said to the crew, and turned and walked out, down the corridor and alone toward the lift.
Khym overthrown. Dead, maybe. At the least in exile. The loss of her mate oppressed her to a surprising degree. Mahn in young Kara’s hands would not be what it had been in Khym’s. Khym’s style had been easygoing and gracious and admittedly lazy: he was a comfortable sort of fellow to come back to, who liked fine things and loved to sit in the shade of his garden and listen to the tales she could spin of far ports he would never see. Boundless curiosity, gentle curiosity. That was Khym Mahn. And the son he had indulged and pardoned had come back and taken his garden and his house and his name, while poor Khym—gods knew where he was, or in what misery.
She rode the lift up to main level and entered her own quarters, shut the door and sat down at the desk. . . forbore for a long time to pull out the few mementoes she bothered to keep, keeping home more in her mind than in objects. Finally she looked at what she had, a picture, a smooth gray stone—odd how pleasant a bit of stone felt, and how alien in this steel world; stone that conjured the Kahin Hills, the look and the sound of grass in the wind, and the warmth of the sun and the slick cold of the rain on the rocks which thrust up out of the grassy hillsides.
Her son. . . cast Khym out: moved in next to Chanur to threaten Kohan himself, to break apart all that she had done and built and all that Kohan held. Small wonder Kohan had wanted Hilfy out of harm’s way—out of a situation in which tempers could be triggered and reason lost.
Put some experience on her, Kohan had asked. And: Take care of her.
She put the things away, and sat thinking, because while repairs proceeded, there was little else she could do. They sat here locked into station’s embrace and hoping that the kif stayed off their vulnerable backside. Sat here while their enemies had time to do what they liked.
Strike at Anuurn itself—Akukkakk could not be so rash. He had not that many ships, that he could do such a thing. It was bluster, of the sort the kif alway
s used, hyperbole. . . of the sort they always flung out, hoping for more gains from an enemy’s panic than force could win. Unless the hakkikt was mad. . . a definition which, between species, lacked precision. Unless the hakkikt commanded followers more interested in damage than in gain.
No hakkikt on record had ever stirred as wide a distance, involving so many ships. No one had ever done what this one had done, attacking a stsho station, harassing and threatening an entire starsystem and all its traffic as he had done at Urtur.
She sat and gnawed at her lip and reckoned that the threat might have substance to it after all. She checked scan finally, on her own terminal. Nothing showed but the expected. The knnn still hovered off from station: when she searched audio the singing came back, placid now and wavering over three discordant tones. The tc’a were silent, but one, which babbled static in tones as slow as the knnn’s. The prisoner? she wondered. Lamenting its fate? Beyond those voices there was only normal station noise, and the close-in chatter of the skimmer crews who had never ceased their work on The Pride’s damage. Normally some of these jump freighters would have put out: Hasatso’s venture out only to meet emergency had frozen everything. Not even the miners were stirring out from their berths with the orehaulers and those were snugged into orbit about Mala or Kilaunan.
She patched a call through to station services, complained about the late delivery on ordered goods: the courier service issued promises after the time-honored fashion, and she took them, reckoning on the usual carrier arriving about the time the rampway was about to close down.
Stasteburana-to used sense, at least; and the patrols stayed out, shuttling the system, alert against trouble. The mahe kept faith.
She expected less of the Tahar.
Chapter 9
Moon Rising pulled out in the offshift, a departure without word to them, in Pyanfar’s night. She ignored it, snarling an incoherency from out the bedclothes to the com at bedside when she was advised, and pulling the cover back over herself; it was not worth getting up to see, and she had no courtesies to pay the Tahar, who deserted another hani to strangers, crippled as they still sat. She was hardly surprised. Watch had their standing orders, and there was no need to wake up and deal with it. Hilfy slept: there was no need to rouse her out for what Hilfy also expected. Pyanfar burrowed into sleep again and shed the matter from her mind. . . no getting her adrenalin up to rob herself of rest, no thinking about here, or home, or anything in particular, only maybe the repairs which were still proceeding, which ought to be virtually finished by the time she waked, all the panels in place now, and mahe working out on their tail checking all the sorry little connections on which their lives relied.