“That’s the incoming mail,” Chihin said. “It’s autoed. Com incoming isn’t feeding to any computer that’s connected to anything; it’s deloused before it’s available to read and it won’t store. Don’t worry.”
Hilfy keyed up the file list, wondering what in all reason messages could be waiting for the Legacy at Kefk.
Pyanfar’s mail.
Of course it was.
Chapter Sixteen
The hoses coupled on, the pumps started their heartbeat thumping. Are we safe to do that? Hallan wondered nervously, as he’d begun to worry about every contact with this station. But the crew was busy, there were probably safeguards engaged he didn’t know about, and if the ship had to refuel, it had to, for them ever to get out of this port; and there was no use asking stupid questions in that department.
Na Vikktakkht had invoked his name again, and meant to talk to the captain through him, and he didn’t know why. Maybe it was something to do with the incident on Meetpoint. Maybe they just wanted to get him off the ship where they could arrest him, after which … after which he had heard very gruesome stories about kifish habits.
But maybe he wasn’t as scared of that as he ought to be. And maybe he shouldn’t be upset about what Tarras had said about Chihin. Chihin wasn’t upset. She explained things to him where he was ignorant. She acted as if everything was all right. Fala was still ignoring him, but Fala was too busy to pursue a feud, and he didn’t know whether she was madder at him or at Chihin. Fala was somebody who wanted anybody; that was the way he read her, fair or not. While Chihin didn’t need anybody, Chihin didn’t expect favors, either, she just did what came into her head and she was honest, it didn’t matter that he wasn’t the most important thing that had ever happened to her, he was just—
—out of his gods-cursed head when he thought about her being beside him; and he didn’t know why, or what the logic was. It was certain enough she could live without him, he never doubted that. It was—
It was that Chihin just didn’t expect to have anything, and people didn’t get close to her, because of her jokes, and if somebody told her back off now, she probably would.
And if she backed away, he couldn’t stand seeing her every day, and putting up with Fala, who’d have been … nice, if there wasn’t Chihin just out of reach.
It was going to take hours to do the fueling and all the coming and going, and he didn’t want to confront anybody about anything, and he didn’t want to be around Chihin, in case she was making a joke, and was going to make a bigger fool of him before she was done—she didn’t always know when to stop.
He wished they’d hurry and go talk to the kif, and he could go with them, and maybe—maybe just have a whole new set of worries besides this one. The kif might want him. If Chihin didn’t, maybe that was better than living here.
Maybe the captain would just say Fine, all right, good luck. Hoping he’d foul up with them, and cost them money.
“Na Hallan,” the captain said, “filter check, life-systems check, don’t drag your feet. We don’t know how much time we’ve got. We could have to go out of here at any minute. With no undock procedures.”
“No undock” got his attention. “Aye, captain,” he said, galvanized into movement; he went to do that, obscurely relieved that the captain found something useful for him to do besides slit his wrists.
He could be mad, if he really wanted to think about it. He could really be mad, and he didn’t even know who to aim it at, not Tarras, not Chihin, not Fala. Not the captain, who might be rough with him, but who’d given him chance after chance after he’d fouled up beyond all reasonable limits.
Certainly not Tiar, who had done nothing to him but good.
Maybe he was just mad at himself, for not being better, or smarter, or more able to handle things. He hoped to redeem himself. He did. He tried to think of the best question he could ask the kif, since the kifish lord had said he would have at least one more chance.
But he had no inspiration, no understanding that would help him. And maybe after all, it wasn’t the real issue. Maybe it never had been. The kif had drawn the captain in by curiosity and used him, and maybe it was nothing but that same ploy again. The kif had the stsho, or the stsho was dead, and they were in a place surrounded by a very dangerous species.
He just hadn’t been much help to anyone.
“Your excellency?”
Silence.
“Your excellency?” They were alive inside. Hilfy signaled intent to enter the cabin, waited a moment for decency, and opened the door.
The sleeping-drape was still over the bowl-chair. Completely over the bowl-chair. There were two lumps under it, and they moved.
They weren’t sick. The tea service beside the pit that had not spattered itself into bits and pieces during dock proved someone had been up and about, undoubtedly Dlimas-lyi … was gtst excellency going to bestir gtstself to work? Not in her experience.
She cleared her throat. “Your excellency, I have the honor to report our safe arrival at Kefk. Does your excellency require anything? We will negotiate with the persons who may have the person of Atli-lyen-tlas as soon as fueling is complete.”
A muted squeal from beneath the cover. A white head popped above it, crest tousled, wide-eyed. “Your honor is very kind. Gtst excellency will wait.”
“Has—” Gods rot the creature. “Has gtst excellency any influence at this port? Any contacts to pursue? Any knowledge of stsho personnel in this area? We are in a port foreign to us in which we have neither introduction nor credentials, and a kif named Vikktakkht an Nikkatu who has led us here with dubious promises now wishes to speak with a young male crewmember regarding gtst excellency Atli-lyen-tlas.”
A second head popped up, as disheveled. “With a male person? A juvenile male person? Could this possibly be the juvenile male person who assaulted our sensibilities in the corridor, the carrier of refuse, the unstable and aggressive individual? The same?”
“This Vikktakkht wishes to talk to this same individual. I disapprove. I am insulted. However I will not permit this strategem to distract me from the fulfillment of the contract. I shall go. I shall prompt this young male person in his answers to this outrageous provocation. I shall learn by that means and determine my course of action.”
“Most resolute! Most deserved on his part! Let him speak to the juvenile carrier of refuse!”
Not exactly the impression she’d wanted to convey of na Hallan; but argument with two sheet-wrapped stsho seemed precarious. “The object, however, is the presence of Atli-lyen-tlas, safely on this deck, which I shall attempt, against all obfuscation and misdirection. I should, however, caution your excellency that every other ship in this port is kif, they are not honest trading vessels who are here, and there is the remote but not disregardable possibility of a precipitous and scarcely warned undocking and high velocity departure which would render, for instance, that most exquisite tea set a cluster of projectiles of great hazard. An alarm will sound in the event of emergency. It will be a very loud and unmistakable siren. In that eventuality, abandon all decorum, cast any loose objects into the nearest locker, preferring your own safety above all. I shall provide an abundance of unfortunately inelegant cushions, which you may pack within your bowl-chair while fastening safety belts.”
“These are frightening precautions!”
“Far less so than a departure inadequately protected. If there is time, a member of my crew will assist you. But if your excellency will excuse my forwardness, which is motivated only by our deepest regard for your safety, I wish to have conveyed these cushions into this cabin immediately. I wish to take no chances.”
Tlisi-tlas-tin waved an urgent hand. “At once, at once! Dlimas-lyi, assist the honorable crewmember!”
“Most gracious!”
“How like your thoughtful and hospitable self to take extravagant precaution!”
Interesting sight. She had never seen a stsho without a stitch of clothing. Dlimas-lyi scrambled o
ut and hurried, bowing often. One tried not to show startlement, except to return the bow.
Every pillow on the ship, as happened. Hers. The crew’s. Every pillow out of storage, including those from the dismantled passenger cabins, and mahendo’sat slept in nests of pillows, so there were no few in reserve. Plus a couple of inflatable air bags for emergency use.
“In the lift,” she said, and did not say, Would your honor care to dress, we are not in that great a hurry. But she was unsure of the proprieties, and only put the door at Open-Hold.
“I remind your excellency that a face-upward reclination on any safety cushion is safest during any sustained engine use, to keep breathing passages unobstructed.”
“This is a dire contemplation!”
“Think of it as a hopeful one, as in the worst and most violent eventuality your excellency and gtst companion will rest in a serene and safe nest.”
“Your concern and foresight on behalf of your passengers is most greatly appreciated! You are white to my eyes!”
“I am deeply touched.” Actually, she was. It was a far step for Tlisi-tlas-tin. “I have profound regard for your excellency’s opinion.”
As pillows and airbags arrived in great abundance, hasty waddling bundles of them, on two different-hued sets of legs.
The filters were all right, except one: Hallan pulled that one to wash it in the galley, which had to serve, since the downside was proscribed stsho territory. He rinsed it clean and looked around in startlement as someone strolled into the galley.
Oh, gods. Chihin. He didn’t want to be here. He even considered flight. Locking himself in the crew quarters. But dignity kept him set on his job, and he only hoped she’d come after a sandwich or something and wouldn’t say anything.
He kept working at the sink, drying things off. Chihin leaned past him after a bag of chips from the cabinet over his head, bodily leaning on him, resting her hand on his shoulder. And he didn’t believe then it was chips she was after—but he didn’t know whether it was affection, a joke at his expense, or whether she was asking him to reciprocate or what. She got the chips. She opened them and she left, and he didn’t yet know what to do or what he should have done. His stomach was upset. He wanted to make sense of things and not to make matters worse, and now he didn’t know at all what was going on, except just having her near him was enough to send his temperature up a point and make him short of breath, forget any clear sense, and she might have wanted him, and she might have thought he was trying to ignore her.
And if that was the case Chihin wasn’t going to come back for another rejection, if she felt rebuffed. He could have hurt her feelings … if he even had a hope of understanding somebody like her. He was lost. He was just lost.
The sensors read what was going in as untainted and completely proper. And to Hilfy’s small surprise, the station paid for the datadump like a civilized port, a relatively fair price, fifty-fifty with Tiraskhti’s competing arrival; and deducted it from the fuel bill, which likewise wasn’t exorbitant for a place like Kefk, which didn’t have overmuch surplus.
No trouble on the bank certificates: the kif sent a representative to the airlock to accept the certificates; and sent again at each major fraction of the load—which was more cooperation than you might get at Urtur. Tarras, delivering the certificates, was armed; the kif was clearly armed: Hilfy watched the entire exchange from the lower deck ops station on vid, with a pistol beside her hand, quite ready to shut the lock from there and trap a kif bent on mischief of any kind.
Not a hint of trouble.
And of Pyanfar’s purified mail, here, among kif, the religious cases were completely absent, the entrepreneurs were nonexistent—there were numerous individuals offering the assassination of whatever enemies she might designate, some on speculation. There were numerous individuals listing their credentials, which might read like a police report in another society; but murder was not a prosecutable offense under kifish law. There were no prosecutable offenses between individuals under kifish law, only offenses against necessary collective institutions. It was, for instance, against the law for a kif or a group of kif to attack the bank and rob it; or to take independent action against a foreign government or against the kifish government, or to attack a space station in contravention of the dignity of the mekt-hakkikt. Pyanfar had probably dictated that one herself—since there was no kifish legislature, as such, merely a general consent to follow a given hakkikt so far as it looked advantageous, and what the hakkikt said was law so far as the hakkikt’s influence went. Violate it and find oneself delivered to the offended hakkikt, who might demonstrate his or her sfik above that of the offender by having the offender for dinner. Literally.
And of all the ranks aunt Pyanfar held, that she leaned the most heavily on her authority among the kif—might simply be that she had to exert it, constantly, to stay mekt-hakkikt, without which—all her laws were null and void; and that without her in that post, there would be no peace.
But it occasioned no few shakes of the head among hani on Anuurn, who were only disturbed that kif were constantly about Pyanfar Chanur. Of the realities inside kifish space, no one came here to learn.
Except Pyanfar Chanur.
Did she ever take any of these offers, Hilfy found herself wondering uneasily. If you were offered universal peace, and someone was in the way of that peace, grievously in the way of it, and you had this many offers, from a species that truly, earnestly didn’t mind murder, either of its own kind or someone else—would one begin to weigh relative evils?
Oh, gods, aunt, what a daily set of choices, what a difficult No, to say time after time—or is it always No, with the peace at stake … when the potential violator might be kif?
What a narrow ledge to walk, aunt. Why ever did you take it?
Except no one else could have, in that day, at that time… .
Pyanfar, one message said, got talk you. Got wife no sense. A.J.
A.J? Who went by A.J? Why no header? No date. She didn’t know any—
A.J? Aja Jin?
Jik?
That was a Personage among the mahendo’sat. And Aja Jin was a hunter ship. Wife no sense? Woman no sense? It was ambiguous in mahendi.
Jik wasn’t married, last she knew. Jik … with more turns than a tc’a … was still, if he had held loyal, one of aunt Py’s number one agents, and Aja Jin was one of those ships that didn’t file its course with any trade office, or carry cargo. Aja Jin, like The Pride, just showed up here, and showed up there, and how far it could go at a jump and where it refueled was something aunt Py probably knew, but probably nobody else did.
Not even the bother to code it. And left here, at Kefk, across a border only fools crossed?
What in a mahen hell was this she’d let herself be maneuvered into? Aunt Py’s private mailbox? A place … if one thought about it … where a ship like Aja Jin could kite in on the sudden, drop a message in plain mahen Trade, not even troubling to code it, beyond the necessity to know who A.J. was … because kif had no motive to go to anybody but another kif with the news: kif high up enough to use it were either loyal to aunt Py or outright plotting against her, but in no case would they deliver what they knew to empower any random outsider. It was just not in their interest to do so.
And make a move against the mekt-hakkikt, where she picked up her mail? Consider all those messages of hopeful underlings, desperate for some credit with the highest authority in kifish space.
But Vikktakkht wanted Hilfy Chanur here?
Necessary to tread very, very carefully. You flatter me, Vikktakkht had said when she addressed him as hakkikt at Kshshti—but here his message before docking had used the title: The hakkikt Vikktakkht an Nikkatu, no quibble about it.
The hakkikt said here they would find Atli-lyen-tlas, and here he would assist them, and here was where everything had to be, in what if an absolutely wild guess was right, was a place Pyanfar came, and a place presently full of hunter ships, and nothing else; and a place it
was going to be very difficult for the Legacy to leave against this hakkikt’s will.
On the one hand, it was possible a mahen lunatic with domestic problems had left Pyanfar an inane appeal for assistance.
But there were 248 messages already in Pyanfar’s message stack, and more were backed up waiting for the computer’s version of bomb detection. This was not a place that had low expectations of seeing Pyanfar Chanur. No few of said messages had points of origin like Mkks, and Akkti, and distant Mimakkt, all in kifish space—messages sent to Kefk.
On the one hand this could be Pyanfar’s kifish base of operations.
On the other hand—it might not be. And that ‘might not be’ held the most dire possibilities.
The screen flashed blue: the computer spat up a message with a keyword.
The hakkikt Vikktakkht to captain Hilfy Chanur, at dock at Kefk: Contact me.
The message before dock was halfway cordial. This, after dock, was terse, guarded against insult, a simple and moderate demand which a mere captain would be extremely ambitious to refuse.
On kifish terms, a very clear and entirely reasonable warning: fueling was nearly complete. The hakkikt gave her a way to both comply and save her own sfik, having held off a superior force this long.
Definitely time to comply, if one didn’t wish to challenge him outright.
Step by step down the kif agenda. And no question but that the kif wanted her, in person.
She didn’t let her mind dwell on that scenario. It would come. It wasn’t on her to-do list at the moment.
She swung the chair around and keyed in the com function.
The hani ship Chanur’s Legacy, at dock at Kefk, captain Hilfy Chanur, head of Chanur clan, her hand, to the hakkikt Vikktakkht an Nikkatu, the kif hunter Tiraskhti, at dock at Kefk: We are pleased to open communication.
A moment, then:
The hakkikt Vikktakkht to captain Hilfy Chanur, at dock at Kefk: I have the person you seek. Bring Meras.
She did not like that juxtaposition. And every second of delay was a possibility of a blow-up, a loss of sfik, an unwanted challenge of the kif’s intentions … the ramifications were wide and rapid.