The Pride of Chanur

  “This kif,” Goldtooth roared, louder still, “hakkikt. Killer. Thirty ships his. Make all kif together, this hakkikt. Make move new kind trouble in Compact, got no care Compact, spit at Compact.” He strode forward, pulled a wallet from his belt and slammed it into the hands of the page. “Papers say from my government truth. Hani and mahe hunt this one, yes. Got kif run from mahe, move into territory this new Outsider, this Tully. Big territory. Big trouble. I make truth for the han; I make liar this Akukkakk Hinukkui. I witness at Meetpoint; this kif lie.”

  “Danger our station,” the stsho stammered, thrust forward by the kif. “We protest—we protest this incident; demand compensation—”

  “Enough,” the Llun said over all the uproar, and hani noise died quickly; kif commotion sank away likewise.

  “Llun.” Hilan Faha said in that new quiet.

  “Enough,” the Llun said, scowling. “The kif has his right to protest and to advance a claim. But since that claim exists, all sides have a right to be heard. There’s a further statement entered in this cause.”

  She took a card from her belt, thrust it out for the harried page, who took it in haste and thrust it into the wall slot which controlled the hall viewing screen. It flared to life, rapid printout.

  Tc’a communication, matrix communication of a multipartite brain, simultaneous thought-chains. Pyanfar studied it, took a deeper breath, and Goldtooth looked, and the kif, and all the hani.

  “It’s our shadow,” Haral murmured. “It’s the tc’a with that rotted knnn.”

  “It got itself an interpreter, by the gods,” Pyanfar muttered, and a vast grin spread across her face. “Got itself that tc’a off Kirdu and it’s talking to us, gods prosper it—see that, kif? Your neighbors don’t like your company, and someone else saw what happened, someone you can’t corrupt.”

  “We’ve got a major crisis thanks to you,” Dur Tahar cried, thrusting herself between her and the Llun. “Gods blast you, Chanur, that you can find anything encouraging in knowing the tc’a are involved in this mess. Knnn mobbed my ship outbound from Kirdu, knnn, like in the old days of dead crews and stripped freighters. Are you proud of that, that you’ve gotten them involved? I call for the detention of this Outsider pending judicial action; suspension of this mahe’s permit and papers; for the censure of the captain of The Pride of Chanur along with all her crew and the house that sponsors her meddling.”

  “But nothing for the kif?” Pyanfar returned. “Nothing for a kif adventurer who murdered hani and mahe and provokes a powerful Outsider species, with all that might mean? Ambition, Tahar. And greed. And cowardice. What have you got from the kif? A promise Tahar ships will be safe if this dies down? I turned down a kif bribe. What did you do when they made you the offer?”

  It was a chance shot, a wild shot; and the Tahar’s ears went back and her eyes went wide as if she had been hit hard and unexpectedly. Everyone saw it. There was a sudden hush in the room, the Tahar visibly at a loss, the kif drawing ever so slightly together, the stsho holding onto each other. It was bitter satisfaction, the sight of that retreat. “Bastard,” Pyanfar said, with a sudden rush of sorrow for the Tahar, and for the Faha who stood there in that company, ears fallen. Akukkakk stood with his arms folded, kifish amusement drawing down the corners of his mouth and lengthening his gray, wrinkled face.

  “He’s laughing,” Pyanfar said. “At hani weaknesses. At ambition that makes us forget we don’t trade in all markets, in all commodities. And at his reckoning we’ll trade again to get our ships moving again outside our own home system—because there are more kif out there than you see, and hani won’t all fight. Hani never do. Hani never have. And I’ve been stalled long enough. I was promised transport downworld and I’m taking it. I’m going home and I’m coming back, master thief, master killer—and I’ll see you in that full hearing.”

  Akukkakk no longer laughed. His arms were still folded. The kif were all very quiet. The whole room was. Pyanfar made a stiff bow to the Llun, turned and walked for the door, but Goldtooth and his crowd lingered, facing tbe kif. Tully slowed and looked back, and Pyanfar did, scowling.

  “Goldtooth. You come. I’m responsible for you, hear? As the Tahar’s made herself responsible for this kif onstation. Come on.”

  The Tahar said nothing to the gibe. That was the measure of their disarray.

  “Got friend,” Goldtooth said to Akukkakk. “This time, got friend, and not at dock. You docked good, kif, got you nose to station. Maybe you ask hani give you safe escort, a?”

  Akukkakk scowled. “Perhaps. And perhaps Chanur will be so kind as to do that herself. When she comes back from Anuurn.”

  A chill wind went wandering across Pyanfar’s back. She stared a moment at the kif, thinking over the odds. The Llun and the insystem merchanters were thinking likewise, surely, what they might logically do with seven kif ships and two mahe hunters.

  “Give me,” Akukkakk said, “the Outsider. Or the translation tape. It’s not so much. I can get it from the mahe, sooner or later.”

  “Ha, like you get from hani?” Goldtooth muttered.

  “What hani give,” Pyanfar said darkly and with distaste, “is a matter for the han. Consensus. Maybe, hakkikt. Maybe we’ll talk this thing out, with assurances on all sides. Before it damages the Compact more than it has already.”

  The quiet persisted, on all sides. The stsho stared back at her from haunted pale eyes, the kif from red-rimmed dark ones, hani from amber-ringed black. Kif faith. She turned her back, retreated as far as the door of the chamber, and this time Goldtooth and his crew were with her—and Tully, whose face was pale and beaded with sweat.

  The door opened and sealed again at their backs. They passed Llun guards. The corridor stretched ahead, empty.

  “Going to my ship,” Goldtooth said. “Going to back off and keep watch these kif bastard.”

  “Going to the shuttle launch,” Pyanfar said. “Got business won’t wait. Got stupid son and trouble in Chanur holding. Life and death, mahe.”

  “Kif find you go, make one shot you shuttle. Jik make you escort, a? Run close you side, make orbit, get you back safe.”

  She stared up at the mahe’s very sober face, reached and clasped his dark-furred and muscular arm. “You want help after this, mahe, you got it. Number one help. This kif lies. You know it.”

  “Know this,” Goldtooth said. “Know this all time.”

  Their ways parted at the intersecting corridor. Pyanfar pointed the way back to the dock, a straight walk onward, and Goldtooth took it, his crew with him, a dark-furred, tall body moving off down the hall. Pyanfar motioned her own group the oher way, which curved toward the shuttle launch.

  Steps hurried after them, clawed hani feet in undignified haste. Pyanfar looked about as the rest of her party did, saw a young and black-trousered stationer come panting toward her. The youngster made a hasty bow, looked up again, ears down in diffidence. “Captain. Ana Khai. The station begs you come. All of you. Quickly and quietly.”

  “Station gave me leave for my own pressing business, young Khai. I’m due a shuttle downworld. I’m not stopping for conferences.”

  “I was only given that word,” the Khai breathed, her eyes shifting nervously over them. “I have to bring you. The Llun is there. Quick. Please.”

  Pyanfar glared at the young woman, nodded curtly and motioned the others about to follow the messenger. “Quick about it,” Pyanfar snapped, and the youngster hurried along at the limit of her strides, hardly keeping ahead of them.

  It was, as the Khai had said, not far, one of the secondary meeting rooms at which door a whole host of stationers and no few insystem spacers hovered, a crowd which parted at their approach and swarmed in after them.

  The Llun indeed. The old man of the station, sitting in a substantial cushioned chair and surrounded by mates/daughters/nieces and a few underage sons, without mentioning the client familiars, the black-trousered officials, the scattering of spacer captains. Kifas Llun was there, first wife, s
tanding near him, and there were others of other houses. A Protected house; the Llun could not be challenged, holding too sensitive a post, like other holders of ports and waterways and things all hani used in common, and he had slid past his prime, but he was impressive when he got to his feet, and Pyanfar exchanged her scowl for a respectful nod to him and to Kifas.

  “This trouble,” he said, and his voice shook the air, a bass rumbling. “This Outsider. Let me see him.”

  Pyanfar turned and gathered Tully by the arm. There was a panicked expression in Tully’s eyes, a reluctance to go closer to the Llun. “Friend,” she said. “He.”

  Tully went, then, and Pyanfar kept her claws clenched into his arm to remind him of manners. Tully bowed. He had that much sense left. “Male, na Llun,” Pyanfar said quietly, and the Llun nodded slowly, his heavy mane swinging as he did so and his mouth pursed with interest.

  “Aggressive?” the Llun asked.

  “Civilized,” Pyanfar said. “But mahe-like. Armed, na Llun. The kif had him a while. Killed his shipmates. He got away from them. That’s where this started. We have a translator tape on him. We’ll provide it with no quibbles. I want it on record he gave it freely, for his own reasons. In the Tahar matter—that’s a han question. I didn’t trust the Tahar as a courier. Gods witness—I’ll be sorry to be right. And by your leave, na Llun, I’ll be back to answer your questions. There’s a matter of time involved. I was given leave to go.”

  “Challenge has been given,” Kifas Llun said, and Pyanfar darted her a hard look. “Only now the word came up.”

  Pyanfar thrust Tully back to Hilfy’s keeping and started away without a word.

  “Ker Chanur,” Kifas said, and she cast a burning look back. “A quicker way: listen to me.”

  “I’ll want a com link,” Pyanfar said. “Now.”

  “Listen, ker Chanur. Listen.” Kifas crossed the room to her and took her arm to stop her. “Our neutrality—”

  “Gods rot your neutrality. Keep the kif off my back. I’ve got business downworld.”

  “Got a ship,” one of the insystem captains said unbidden, a hani of Haral’s build. “She’s old, ker Chanur, but she can set down direct on Chanur land, that no shuttle can do. Tyo freight lander: Rau’s Luck. I’m willing to set her in the way of trouble if Chanur’s minded.”

  Pyanfar drew in a breath and looked at the aging captain. Rau was no downworld house. Insystem hani, landless and unpropertied except for a ship or two, unless they were Tyo-based, colonials.

  “Your word is worth something,” Kifas said, “Pyanfar Chanur. We’re bound by the Compact. We can’t do more than pin these kif at the station. You’ve got the mahe for help. You can do more than we can. Chanur has two more ships in that might be of use. Tahar—”

  Kifas did not finish the statement; her ears flicked in discomfort.

  “Yes,” Pyanfar said. “Tahar. I’m not so sure I’d rely on their ships either at the moment.”

  “We can’t muster a defense,” Kifas said. “Your captains are downworld with most of the crews. So are others. We’ve got kif at dock for as long as we can keep them, but you said yourself—there may be others.”

  “You’ve got the insystem captains.”

  “Against jumpship velocity—”

  Pyanfar looked about her, at the spacers present. “Go to the jumpships you can reach; you can fill out crews. Take orders. No matter what house. Get those ships able and ready. I’ll get the Chanur captains back here; and any others I can find. In the meantime, keeping those ships ready to go will be the best action with the kif.” She looked at Kifas Llun, grim sobriety. “Your neutrality is in rags. Give me one of your people. To bring witness down there to what’s going on. I have to get moving. Now. Mahijiru and Aja Jin will keep the kif pinned and the way open. If I don’t move, ker Llun. . . the upheaval in the han is going to make differences, differences to more than Chanur. Tahar’s down there, I don’t doubt they are. Standing in line to get a share of the spoils. You’re already in it. I’m not going to let Chanur go under.”

  “Rau,” Kifas Llun said. “You’re ready to go?”

  “On the instant,” the Rau captain said.

  “Ginas,” Kifas said, with a gestured signal to one of her people. “Go with the Chanur. Talk to them. Answer what you’re asked. You’re at her orders.”

  The one singled out bowed. Kifas offered the door, a sweep of her hand. “I Llun,” Pyanfar murmured in a quick bow of courtesy toward Kifas and toward na Llun, who had seated himself again. Then she turned and swept her own company, the Llun messenger included, toward the door, following the Rau captain. “This way,” the Rau said, indicating a turn which would take them toward the small-craft docks.

  Kohan, Pyanfar persuaded herself, would not have taken challenge immediately as it was offered, not knowing that she had reached the system; and surely he knew by now: it was routine that a house was notified when a ship belonging to it made port. The timing of it argued that his enemies knew; and surely Kohan did. He was too wise to be catapulted into any such thing without some preliminaries: she relied on that, with all her hopes.

  Two hours by plane from the shuttleport to the airport that served Chanur and Faha and the lesser holdings of the valley: with the Rau’s proposal they saved that much time: and on that too she relied.

  And on a pair of mahe.

  And gods grant Akukkakk saw some hope for himself. If one of those kif ships got a strike signal off, if the kif was bent on suicide—he might accomplish it, if there were more kif ships lying off out of scan range. Maybe five, six hours lag time for message and strike. With luck, the kif did not know that the hani ships gathered in system were on skeleton crew; with luck the kif would regard them as a threat. . . if no one had talked.

  “That ship of yours,” Pyanfar said to the Rau. “Armed?”

  “Got a few rifles aboard,” the Rau said.

  Chapter 12

  There was no access ramp for an insystem workhorse, only a dark tube into a chill and dimly lit interior directly off the dock. The Rau dived in first and shouted to her crew, a thundering and booming of feet on the uncushioned plates. The air was foul, stinging to the nose. Pyanfar came aboard seconds after the captain of the Luck, put a hand on the hatchway as she stooped to enter and drew the hand back damp with condensation—seals leaked somewhere in the recycling systems. Gods knew what the margin was on lifesupport. She worked her way past lockers to the control pit of the probe, trusting Haral and Chur to get everyone else aboard and settled.

  “Name,” she asked of the Rau captain, dropping down into the three-cushion pit, waist-high, and ducking under the overhead screens. “Nerafy,” the captain said, nodded back toward her presumed copilot and navigator who were dropping into the pit on the other aide. “Tamy; Kihany.”

  “Got us an escort,” Pyanfar said. “Mahe’s going to see we get there and back; move it. No groundlings in this lot. Will you give me com?”

  “We’re going,” Nerafy said, sinking into her cushion. The hatch boomed shut, deafening. “Kihany: it’s Anuurn we’re headed for; get the captain that link.”

  Repulse cut in. Pyanfar hand-over-handed her way around the back of the cushions to the com/navigation board and braced herself with feet and a hand on the rim to lean over the board. “I want,” she said, ignoring the contrary slams of g against which she shifted without thinking, “relay to Aja Jin. Mahe. Get that ship first.”

  It took a moment. A mahe voice came crackling through. They lost g as Rau’s Luck executed a wallowing maneuver, acquired it again. “Aja Jin. Have you got us in watch? Track this signal.”

  “Got,” the comforting answer returned. “Got. We watch.”

  “Out,” Pyanfar said. She broke it off, not anxious to have long conversations with kif to pick them up. The mike in hand, she tapped the harried navigator on the shoulder. “Next call: satellite to ground station Enafy region, area 34, local number 2-576-98; speak to anyone who answers.”

  The navigat
or threw her a desperate glance, shunted her functions to the copilot and started working, no questions, no objections: “What landing?” the copilot was asking; “First we get there,” Narafy said. “Got ourselves a rescue run. Speed counts.”

  “Map Coordinates 54.32/23.12,” Pyanfar said, listening to the one-sided com. They were in contact with Enafy. In a moment more the navigator held up a finger and she tucked the plug into her ear and applied herself to the mike. “Chanur,” she said, shaking; but that was from the cold. “Is Chanur answering?”

  “Here,” said a voice from the world, distant and obscured by a bad pickup. “This is Chanur Holding.”

  “This is Pyanfar. We’re on our way in. Who’s speaking?”

  There was a moment’s silence in which she thought the contact was lost. “It’s Aunt Pyanfar,” that voice on the other end hissed within the mike’s pickup. “For the gods’ sake, tell Jofan and hurry!”

  “Never mind Jofan, whelp! Get Kohan on and hurry up, you hear me?”

  “Aunt Pyanfar, it’s Nifas. I think ker Jofan’s coming. . . The Tahar are here; the Mahn have challenged; Kara Mahn has; and Faha’s gone neutral except Huran’s still here; and Araun and Pyruun have called that they’re coming. Everyone’s gathered here. They knew—Aunt Jofan, it’s—”

  “Pyanfar.” Another voice assumed the mike. “Thank the gods. Get here.”

  “Get Kohan on. Get him. I want to talk to him.”

  “He’s—” Jofan’s voice trailed off or static obscured it. “I’ll try. Hold on.”

  “Holding.” Pyanfar rested the back of the hand which held the mike against her mouth, shifted her body in pain: they were under acceleration now. The rim of the pit was cutting into her back. She achieved a little relief, found all her limbs shaking against the strain, the physical effort of the position she maintained. She watched the screens, seeing something else moving on scan. Aja Jin, she hoped. It had better be.