All at once his pulse was racing. Everyone said never trust such a creature, and it had to want something—kif didn’t do you favors. Everyone said so. There had to be a catch.
“Who are they, sir?”
“Relatives of the mekt-hakkikt. Chanur clan. And they have agreed to take you in custody. I hope this is agreeable to you.”
Agreeable. He folded his arms to keep from shaking. “Yes, sir. Absolutely.” Chanur. Gods, oh, gods, if it could possibly be true …
“You wonder why one of my rank would be interested?”
“Yes, sir.”
“My name is Vikktakkht. Can you say that?”
“Vikktakkht.”
“Can you remember it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You understand gratitude.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then do me a favor. When it occurs to you … repeat my name where it seems appropriate.”
“I beg pardon—?”
The kif came close to him, and laid a black-clawed hand on his arm. It was as tall as he was, and he had a most uncomfortable look within the hood, into narrow, red-rimmed eyes that gazed deeply and curiously into his.
“Go with the officers. Cause no trouble. Remember my name. Never forget it. At some time you will want to ask me a question.”
Sheets dropped into the printout tray. One … two … three …
… ten … eleven. The thing was a monster.
… forty nine … fifty …
My gods, was the printer on a loop?
… one hundred … one hundred one …
Out of paper. Tarras reloaded the bin and Hilfy sat and stared glumly at the stack. She refused to start reading until it was done.
… two hundred twenty-six … two hundred twenty-seven.
The ready light went off. The binder whirred. She extracted from the bin a contract almost as heavy as the cargo it represented and flipped through the minuscule print.
The computer started into the translation program then, and started displaying the result. She was looking at the stsho script, page after closely written page.
The intercom blurted out: “Security is here, captain.”
“Get outside,” she said to Tarras. “Get a check on those papers. Tiar knows what I mean.”
“Security?” Tarras asked, ears up again.
“Delay the offloading for an hour. You’re going to query station on this one.”
“What’s security got to do with it?”
She was trying to read stsho script. On this screen it was a challenge to the eyesight. “I committed an act of mercy. The gods’ penance for fools.” The translator was already querying for conflict resolution. And she had to do it. Tiar knew enough stsho to handle customs. Tiar didn’t read the classical mode. Which this was.
And when you had a contract, you by the gods read it. Demand it in hani? Better to pin down the contract-giver in native expression—or gtst could claim deception on your part. Better to be able to claim deception by them against you. The courts did give points for that.
Was there a non-performance clause? And on which side was the penalty?
Was there a contingency for breakage? For war and solar events and piracy?
Did it cover personality alteration? And gender switching? Stsho did that, under stress, and in trauma.
Did it cover death or change of the designated recipient before accepting the object?
Did it provide a sure identification for the object?
The translator kept interrupting, begging resolution. She foresaw a sleepless watch, and irritably split-screened the display, stsho and hani versions.
One did not translate a formal stsho contract into Trade tongue: it only developed ambiguities. One did not tell the translator to solve its own conflicts. The first wrong logic branch could start it down the road to raving lunacy.
“Captain. Sorry to interrupt you. They say we can’t access the legal bank without an authorization from admin—”
“Get it. Call the governor’s aide. Tell them the difficulty. Tell them I’ve just spoken to gtst excellency and been assured this would not happen.”
“Aye,” Tiar said cheerfully, and the com went out.
Did it stipulate a deadline for delivery?
Did it set damages and arbitration?
“Captain.”
Gods. “Tiar?”
“The station office won’t put the call through without an authorization from you.”
An addendum to the contract. Access. For every last member of the crew.
“I’m going to shoot the kif. Tell them that. Tell them …” No, she was not going to invoke aunt Py’s name or her perks or her reputation. “Tell them I’m putting the call through. Personally.”
“Aye, captain.”
She did it. Very patiently. She resolved a conflict for the translation program, then punched through to station com, and drawled, “This is captain Hilfy Chanur, Chanur’s Legacy, to No’shto-shti-stlen, governor of Meetpoint, and so on—fill in the formalities. Excellency: some individual in lower offices is obstructing your orders. —Relay it! Now!”
“Chanur captain.”
“Yes?”
“Chanur captain, let us not be hasty. Can this person assist?”
“Possibly.” She took on far sweeter tones. “If you can get a copy of that entire dossier my crewwoman just requested, and relay us an affidavit that the case in question is settled as of this date … in case something proliferates through files at some other station. Should we be inconvenienced by this, in doing a favor for the governor? I think we should not.”
“Notable captain. —A matter of moments. A formality only. Every paper you want.”
“In the meanwhile—hold that message ready to send. One quarter hour, to have those papers on the dock, at our berth. This should have been done, do you understand that? This was No’shto-shti-stlen’s own order!”
“Esteemed, a quarter hour. Less than that!”
“The quarter hour is running now, station com. Good luck to you.”
There was the clause regarding payment. 1,000,000 haulage and oversight. And there was the clause regarding delivery of the cargo, to a stsho in the representative office on Urtur Station.
So far so good. She read through the succeeding paragraphs.
“Captain. We got it.”
“Good. Thank station com.”
“Captain. His clan is Meras. But he’s off a Sahern ship.”
Her head came up. The translator was stuck again. She ignored it. She had ignored the situation with the boy—not wanting to walk out that hatch and deal with a party of kif and a hostage. It wanted a cooler disposition than she could manage at the moment.
But Sahern, was it?
Not friends. A clan with whom they had a centuries-old, formally filed feud.
Thank you, gods. Penance for mercy indeed.
“I’ll see him.”
She solved the translator’s problem, let it run and read until she heard the hatch cycle. Then she leaned over and killed displays, swung the chair around toward the door.
Boy, she had said. So many were, that had gone to space. But he was older than that. He had his full growth—at least in height; had to duck his head coming through the door. His shoulders were wide enough to put the consoles in jeopardy. Handsome lad—a statue had to notice: and a spacer crew months out on a run was going to notice. Shy, scared, all those things a young man might be, dropped in the midst of a strange clan, and him in the wrong—it took a moment before he decided he had to look at her.
“Na Meras. Welcome aboard.”
“Thank you, ker Chanur. I’m very grateful to be here.”
“I don’t doubt. I hesitate to ask why your ship found it necessary to leave.”
“I don’t know, ker Chanur.”
“Captain will do. And don’t you?”
Ears lowered. The boy found a spot on the deck of interest. “I don’t remember what I did. They say I broke
some pottery. And hit a kifish gentleman.”
“A kifish gentleman.” The boy was delicately bred. “I don’t remember that part,” he said. Add new to drink and bars.
“You weren’t in communication with your ship.”
“No, captain.”
“Not since?”
“No, captain.”
“And you’ve no notion why your captain suffered a lapse of memory either.”
“No, captain.”
“Na Meras, that answer could get very tiresome over the next several months. Possibly even by tomorrow.”
“I’m sorry, captain.”
“What’s your name, na Meras?”
A glance up, ears half-lifted. “Hallan, captain. From Syrsyn. —I—I met your aunt once, on Anuurn dock. And ker Haral …”
Her ears went down. She remembered a dockside, at Anuurn, too, a parting with the crew. A handful of bitter words.
There was absolute adoration on the boy’s face—not, she was sure, cultivated on any Sahern ship. And sensitivity enough to realize he had just trod on dangerous ground. Bewilderment … confusion. He had the sense to shut up, give him that.
“Are you married in Sahern, lateral kin, … what’s the relationship?” It was a measure of how often and how long she had been downworld that she did not track the lineages any longer. He could be related to the Holy Personage of Me’gohti-as for all she knew.
“No relation,” he said, managing to locate that spot on the deck again.
So a tasteful person would stop asking. Look at the boy. Figure a kid wanted a berth. And Sahern gave him one.
She shot a glance up at Tiar. “I think the lad could stay in passenger quarters.”
“I can work maintenance. I have my license.”
“That’s to prove. In the meanwhile—” Practicalities occurred to her. “I don’t suppose you came with baggage.”
“Everything—” The boy made a despairing gesture. “Everything’s aboard the Sun.”
“Sun Ascendant? —Tellun Sahern?”
“Yes, captain.”
More bad news. “We’ll get you caught up to your ship, or drop you where you can make connections …”
“I want to stay here.”
“On Meetpoint?.”
“No, captain. On this ship. I want to stay with you.”
“The Legacy has a full complement. No berths.” She saw the ears go flat, the frowning attitude of not quite resignation, and ticked down a Watch this boy, a little sense of resistance there. Of … one was not certain what. “You want my long-term advice? Ship home. Go back, work insystem cargo if you’re so dead set on space.”
“No, captain.”
A little flare of temper. A set of the mouth. Gods-rotted fool kid, she thought, and glared. What did I do to deserve this?
Chapter Two
The stack from the translator was 532 pages thick … counting the alternative translations successively rendered. That was the first pass the comp had made. The legal advisement program advised that its analysis of the translation would be 20588 pages in length and did the Operator want it simply to summarize?
“Apparently the thing is a vase,” Hilfy said. Four hani faces, four worried hani faces, stared back, and blinked in near unison.
“A ceremonial vase,” Tiar said. “Somebody’s grandmother buried in it?”
“Not from what I figure. I’ve run oji through every cognate and every derivation I can find. It means ‘ceremonial object with accumulated value’ and it’s related to the word for ‘antique’ and ‘relic’ Its transferred meanings and derivatives seem to mean ‘ceremonial object with social virtue,’ ‘communal high tea,’ …”
“You’re kidding.”
“… and ‘inheritance.”’
“No’shto-shti-stlen’s going to die?” Fala asked.
“Who knows?” A shrug was not politic, but it was close company, here. “Maybe gtst is designating a successor. Maybe the old son is going home to die.”
“They do that,” Chihin said. “Stsho won’t die in view of strangers. Bad taste.”
“It’s pay in advance. Gtst can’t change gtst mind.”
“That’s for certain.”
Hilfy stared at the stack. “Pay in advance. Gods, it pays. You just keep asking yourself why.”
“What can go wrong?” Fala asked, and got a circle of flat-eared looks and a moment of silence.
“There’s an encyclopaedia entry,” Hilfy said, “under oijgi, related substantive, to the effect that an object like that can’t be paid for, that it just transfers, and money can’t touch it directly. Mustn’t touch it directly. It’s all status. Of some kind. It could account for the extravagance.”
“We could outright ask somebody,” Tarras said.
“No. Not when we don’t know what we’re dealing with—or how explosive it is. No’shto-shti-stlen has ears in every wall in this station.”
“Electronically speaking,” Tiar said.
“I certainly wouldn’t bet the contract against it.”
“So you’re leaning toward signing?”
“Once every quarter hour. Elsewhen I’m inclined to take our cargo on to Hoas and forget I ever heard about it. Why in a mahen hell does this thing have to go rush-shipment to Urtur? Why not a slow trip via Hoas in the first place? Does the governor have to be difficult? Does the thing explode on delivery?”
“You want my opinion?”
“What?” she asked.
“I say if we take the contract, we get all our cargo buys nailed down in advance. And stall signing to the very last moment. Gossip’s going to fly the moment that check hits the bank. They’ll jack the prices on us.”
“Give the old son no time,” Tarras said, “to frame us for anything. Because you can bet the next trip’s take that bastard No’shto-shti-stlen is thinking how to get that money back before it hits our pockets. On gtst deathbed gtst would make that arrangement. Gtst isn’t the richest son this side of space for no reason.”
“Trouble is,” Chihin said, “—we’ve got to take certain cargo for Urtur if that’s where we’re going. And unless old No’shto-shti-stlen’s been uncommonly discreet, there are stsho on this station who know what the deal is; and if they know, security’s already shot. If we’re going to deal, we’d better deal fast, because I’ve got a notion if this thing is that important to the stsho, it could be important to No’shto-shti-stlen’s enemies, too. If it is, figure on spies reporting what we buy, and what we deal for, and what we’ve got contracts on—if we sneeze, it’s going into somebody’s databank and right to No’shto-shti-stlen’s ears for a starter.”
“And elsewhere simultaneously,” Hilfy said. Aunt Py had dealt with the stsho. And still did; what was aunt Py’s expression? Never trust the stsho to be hani? They weren’t. They wouldn’t be. No more than hani would play by stsho rules; or mahen ones; and the stsho had been cosmopolitan enough to know that single fact before the han or the mahendo’sat ever figured it out. Add to it, that a hani who happened to be fluent in stsho trade tongue and its history might deceive herself in special, personal blind spots related to the interface between languages and world-views.
“I want,” Hilfy said, extruding claws one after the other to signify the items: “an estimate on a list of things I’ve left on file, under ‘Urtur.’ I’m betting on goods that originate from beyond Meetpoint, that no one’s going to bring in from the other direction. Things we know Urtur’s short on. And I want a search on the manifests for ships going out of here. We can’t account for what might come in from Kshshti—so let’s concentrate on stsho and t’ca goods.”
“Gods, not another methane load.”
“It pays. It pays and they have their own handlers.”
“It’s who else might be interested in it worries me,” Tiar said.
“It’s a straight shot to Urtur. If we just do a fast turnaround here, and get ourselves out of port …”
Tiar made a visible shudder, and waved a hand in surre
nder. “It pays.”
“So we agree?”
A murmured set of agreements. Hilfy watched the expressions, wondering whether they might be agreeing against better judgment, because of kinships, because of loyalty.
“I want opinions!” she snarled. “I want someone to disagree if they’re going to disagree!”
No one moved. She waited. And no one said anything.
“No opinions to the contrary.”
“No, captain,” Tiar said, with a flat, unmoved stare. And added: “I’ll check methane ship departures. See what their trade’s been. If it looks like there’s a niche for us, aye, we do it. We’ll pay out the ship on this run. That’s worth a chance.”
“Do it tomorrow,” she said, with the weight of the day on her shoulders. “I want that Hoas cargo done, too, who’s going out we can dump it on. Again, quietly.”
“I’ll check on that,” Chihin said. “We’ll just pull a big general dataload from the station … costs, but nosy neighbors can’t tell anything out of one big request.”
“Do that,” Hilfy said. Specific records-searches would tip off the curious. 15,000 credits. Minimum, for that datadump. But they could re-sell it at Urtur, get back five, six thousand, as moderately comprehensive information. Maybe 10,000. They stood to own the highest currency of information coming in. With a full dataload. She found herself thinking, with increasing solidity: at Urtur. Not Hoas, as they had been bound. At Urtur. They had the advantage of having just been through there, they had the uncommon situation of having the funds to buy their own cargo. That meant the profit was theirs, not some shipping company’s.
And Hallan Meras still had a chance to catch his ship. Gods. One more problem than they needed.
“You’re not staying on watch,” Tiar said.
“No.”
“I’d better.”
“Get some sleep, I said. I want a crew with brains tomorrow. Good night.”
“’Night, cap’n.” From Tiar. At the door, hindmost. Still registering objection, in that backward glance. But Tiar went.
Tiar was right. If they were half practical they would keep one of them on watch from now on until they parted company with Meetpoint. If they had enemies, things would develop in files on their off watch and proliferate through their sleep. Anyone who had prospects had trade rivals here, and they could have plenty, if No’shto-shti-stlen’s shipment was general knowledge … which, of course, they could not ask to find out.