“I’m not good at telling people no,” he said.
“You want me to tell them?”
That was cowardly. And it would hurt Chihin’s feelings, in a major way, he kept thinking that, even when everybody else told him Chihin was having a joke at his expense. And it would last until about the next time the two of them were in the same area of the ship.
“I like Chihin,” he said. “And I don’t think she’s joking.”
“She’s not joking, if you mean is she serious,” Tiar warned him bluntly. But Tiar wasn’t stupid, and she seemed to catch on, then. “You like her.”
He nodded.
Tiar raked a hand through her mane, sat back and stared at the boards a second as if she were dumbfounded.
“I don’t think,” he said, in the chance she hadn’t just dismissed him, “I don’t think she’s acting the way everybody says she is. I just don’t think that.”
Tiar looked in his direction, and slowly swung her chair around. “I’ve known her a long time. I know her in ways Tarras and Fala don’t. And if that’s what you’re picking up—next serious question: do you want a rescue?”
He shook his head; and Tiar looked oddly, vaguely satisfied.
“You’re sure.”
He nodded; and Tiar frowned and seemed to have thoughts she wasn’t saying.
Finally she did say: “You’re gods-be young. You won’t always understand her. But if you get to that side of her—good luck, you’ll need it; and I’d like to see it happen. Just don’t let her run over you. She needs a full stop now and again. Keeps her honest.”
He sat there a moment, trying to sort through that, and deciding it meant he wasn’t crazy and things were the way he thought, and things could be the way he hoped for—
“But Fala,” he said.
“But Fala,” Tiar said. “I’ll talk to her.”
“No!”
“She’ll live. You don’t dislike her.”
“No. I like her fine, just not—”
“People have to respect that, in clans, on ships, doesn’t matter: there’s serious and there’s not-serious, and Fala will forgive me saying she’d run the other way from a real commitment. That’s what I think. I’ve been wrong before, but I don’t think I am. If you want my further advice, I’d say Fala’s more interested in feeling she’s not unattractive to young men.”
“Fala? She’s beautiful.”
“Beautiful doesn’t matter. She wants to be attractive. Doesn’t everyone?”
“I understand.”
“So you pretty well know how to handle it, don’t you?”
He was just not used to things going right. Something in him was still knotted up expecting disaster, like maybe the ship would fall apart in hyperspace just when things were about to sort themselves out. The gods didn’t intend he should get absolutely everything he wanted. The captain was going to throw him off the ship. Chihin was going to decide she didn’t like him.
The kif were going to turn on them after all and all the ships around them were going to join in.
“I hope you’re right,” he said.
“Kid, you go follow your instincts—but don’t present too much temptation to anybody till we get this ship out of this godsforsaken port in one piece.”
“Yes, ker Tiar.”
Besides, the stsho were down there. So he couldn’t get to downside ops. He decided he should go clean up, and when he had showered, he was hungry. All of a sudden he had a ravenous appetite, when nothing had much appealed to him since before he was arrested on Meetpoint.
Even Kefk seemed wonderful to him of a sudden. He was grateful to Vikktakkht. He liked the stsho gentleman. He hoped the stsho would be all right and all of them would be happy. He liked everything and everyone around him, and he scrubbed the galley down and set up the meals for undocking, and did everything he could think of to do, the way everyone else aboard was seeing to every detail they could find… .
He was absolutely happy. In this port, with kif all around them, and with the ship feeling the strain of a lot of quick turnarounds. Because when Chihin came topside and off duty he could talk to her.
And beyond that prospect he couldn’t get his thoughts straight at all.
Gtst was clean, at least. Gtst looked very feeble.
Wants to talk to you, Tarras had said, although in Hilfy’s opinion Atli-lyen-tlas could do with a few hours of sleep and a minimum of excitement before they even talked about business or arranged what could become a very stressful meeting.
“Your excellency,” Hilfy said. “I have the honor to introduce myself: Hilfy Chanur, captain of Chanur’s Legacy. How may I make your excellency welcome aboard? I apologize for the utilitarian nature of this present accommodation… .”
“Most, most gracious.” The voice was very faint. “You are more fluent than any hani I ever met.”
“I was protocol officer and communications on The Pride. Please make requests of us for your comfort or information. I shall answer everything to your satisfaction, and not ask but one question myself, in order not to exhaust your excellency’s strength at this moment. Please feel that you may be very direct and brief in your answer as we know your energy is limited. Were you fleeing us, with the kif? Please be assured we mean your excellency only help.”
“Do you know of Paehisna-ma-to?”
“I have met one of her agents.”
“This vile person …” A pause for breath. “This tasteless individual has committed violence against my staff at Urtur.”
“Some of your staff left aboard a mahen ship.”
“They dared not … dared not the darksomeness of a kifish vessel. I am greatly apprehensive for their lives and persons. The mahendo’sat are in fear of the Momentum.”
Numa’sho: it was in the mahen psyche that a new force that suffered no setbacks had something—mystic about it; they were loath to fight against what had never been beaten.
“Paehisna-ma-to has met reverses. Her agents have resorted to extreme measures which may cause fear in some governments, but which have met brave resistance from the Personages of Urtur and Kshshti. And we have eluded their efforts to divert us.”
“This is excellent news,” gtst whispered. “Most excellent news, as my staff relied on these individuals regarding the selection of transportation. Please accept my profound gratitude that you followed where few hani venture. The kif made small efforts at hospitality, and they would have conveyed me on to Meetpoint, but I should have perished by then. The long, long flight … the food … I cannot describe …”
“We will place your excellency in tasteful surroundings and delay in this port until your excellency is able to travel.”
“Has No’shto-shti-stlen sent you? Is your ship the bearer of the oji?”
“Yes. I hope that this is a felicitous event for your excellency. Please advise me if otherwise.”
A weak hand fluttered and fell. “I am otherwise. I shall make all effort to accept. But I fear that I have fled too far and lost too much.”
“Your excellency will recover!”
“It is indelicate to say. Forgive me. Persons of my stage in life have lost all energies in such regard. I am gtsta.”
Neuter?
Perhaps she let the dismay show. No’shto-shti-stlen sent a … whatever it was … and the object of gtst proposal was—
“Gtsta,” Atli-lyen-tlas said faintly. “I am incapable of accepting the inestimable distinction which gtst excellency of Meetpoint wished to convey. This—iiii—rarely changes.”
“I should not wish to distress your excellency further. Please advise me where a hani might be ignorant, but be aware I view this as a personal matter of most extreme delicacy, and ask only for your excellency’s welfare: Is there medical treatment which might avail?”
“Most excellent hani, it is age. To attempt to sustain the energies will take years from my life, yet I am motivated to do so. Paehisna-ma-to has conspired within stsho space itself to create disaffections and
hesitations, which have threatened gtst excellency of Meetpoint, whom I most ardently have admired. I overestimated my endurance. I underestimated the persistence of the agents of Paehisna-ma-to. I can only hope to find the strength.”
“Your excellency, gtst excellency of Meetpoint has sent a representative, one Tlisi-tlas-tin, as custodian of the Preciousness and arbiter of propriety. The Preciousness rests within gtst cabin and in such tasteful surroundings as we could best create.”
“Take me there! I must see the Preciousness. Please assist me!”
She was apprehensive. She had visions of fragile bones breaking in the mere attempt to walk, of a stsho circulatory system failing in the effort.
But the will to live was important too. She looked at Tarras, who hovered in the neighboring surgery, ostensibly taking inventory, but watching. Tarras walked to the small screened area and Fala turned up with her.
“Gtst excellency wants to go to Tlisi-tlas-tin,” she said. “I think it’s important. Can gtst do it?”
“I don’t know,” Tarras said. “I don’t know what I’m doing, but following the book. I … just don’t know. We can see.”
“Try,” she said, and Tarras and Fala came in and helped gtst to gtst feet, very gently, very carefully. There was no other transport but a gurney, which would undoubtedly offend gtst dignity. And calling down na Hallan … gtst excellency Tlisi-tlas-tin would surely advise Atli-lyen-tlas that na Hallan was not an unusually tall crewwoman.
Which might be too much for gtst heart, or the system that passed for one.
The lift engaged, upward bound. And it might be the captain coming back topside, or it might be Tarras or Fala; but Hallan, polishing the chromalic of the galley to a fine gloss, paid attention, paid heart and mind and hope of finding it was Chihin.
And maybe it was the way the whole day had been going—it was. Ker Chihin came wandering onto the bridge by the outside corridor saying to Tiar something about a rest break, could she monitor downside ops; and Tiar saying—he eavesdropped shamelessly—that that was all right, everything was quiet, there wasn’t a need for her down there, and why didn’t she get a sandwich or something and take a break and then relieve her?
Ker Tiar knew he was topside, ker Tiar knew he was here, oh, gods, he wasn’t quite ready to think and talk …
But Chihin walked in, did this little flick of the ears as a hello and looked into the fridge.
“Can I make you something?” Hallan asked in a small voice.
“I thought you weren’t speaking.”
“I don’t—I didn’t—I never meant you should think that.”
“Oh?” Chihin said.
He was totally desperate. He said, “Ker Chihin, were you joking or not?”
“No,” she said plainly. “Not really.”
“I wasn’t,” he said.
Chihin’s ears did a back and forth and finally didn’t know where to settle.
His didn’t.
“I really like you,” he said desperately. “I really do.”
He’d rather have faced his father with that intimacy. And that was the most dangerous hani he personally knew.
Hilfy pressed the button, signaled her presence, said, to the intercom: “Your excellency, I have the honor to present gtst excellency Atli-lyen-tlas of Urtur, would you kindly cause the door to be opened?”
There was silence.
“Your excellency?”
Gods rot the son.
She pressed the button.
On a nestful of pillows and cushions, covered with a sheet, which showed—
One preferred not to think.
“What is this?” asked Atli-lyen-tlas.
There was movement beneath the sheet. She had given, she was sure, adequate time for whatever was going on decently to cease.
But Dlimas-lyi’s head popped up. Gtsto went wide-eyed; and gtst head popped up beside, in a blossoming eruption of pillows.
While Atli-lyen-tlas fell back into Tarras’ arms, murmuring, “Oh, the beauty, wai, the elegance of this appearance… .”
She found no elegance. But gtsta breathed, “This is my offspring. This is my offspring. I have no further to see, I have no further to know. Wai, what ambition have you? Wai, the magnificence of this nest you have made!”
While Dlimas-lyi and Tlisi-tlas-tin scrambled up clutching the sheet about gtstselves and floundering among the pillows.
“Atli-lyen-tlas!” gtst said, and gtsto bowed profoundly, again and again. Hilfy stood ready to catch Atli-lyen-tlas should gtsta fall. But gtst excellency of Urtur seemed to draw strength from the encounter:
“Do not take distress of my presence,” Atli-lyen-tlas said. “How is my offspring now known?”
“Dlimas-lyi,” gtsto whispered, “may it add distinction to your excellency.”
“I have resigned Urtur,” Atli-lyen-tlas said. “And I have no more attachment to this time.”
“You are gtsta!”
“Just so. Nor need distress my serenity with what is beyond my reach. The oji is not for me now. This person Dlimas-lyi is not for me. I am free.”
“Your holiness,” Tlisi-tlas-tin whispered. “Please utter assurances of your good favor in our condition.”
“I do so. Please,” Atli-lyen-tlas said, reaching a trembling hand toward Hilfy. “Please convey me to a place where I may rest. My course is clear now. I am without obligation of any tasteful sort and would not struggle to achieve more. I am completed.”
Try that one through the translation program, Hilfy thought in dismay. There were things which one did not ask a stsho. Sex was right in the same class as Phasing. Gtst excellency and Dlimas-lyi stood naked as they were born and she now had a holiness of some kind on her hands, an aged stsho, resigned, retired, unmarriageable and sexless; and therefore not eligible to receive the Preciousness.
Gods save them.
“We will find your holiness suitable and tasteful quarters immediately adjacent. It will take a time to prepare. Is this acceptable?”
“We should be very honored,” said Tlisi-tlas-tin.
“Most profoundly,” said Dlimas-lyi, “we beg your holiness to do so.”
A flutter of fingers. “I am beyond needs. But yes, this would be pleasant. I have no cares. Free. All free.”
Whereupon gtsta indicated gtsta would walk back in the direction from which gtsta had come. Tarras and Fala offered tentative support; but gtsta said,
“I am free of needs.”
Fall on his holy rump, Hilfy thought distressedly. But whatever reserve of strength Atli-lyen-tlas had found, still held. Gtsta fingers had been burning hot when they had touched hers. Something metabolic was going on, whether healthy or not—the stsho medical diagnosis program would have to tell them that one.
Gtsta walked ahead of them, wandering a little in gtsta steps, taking time to examine the texture of the walls of the corridor, the wall-com at the corner, gtsta fingered dials and button sockets gtsta had no claws to access, or there would have been loud-hail all over the ship, providing a most unwelcome and tasteless startlement to gtstaself.
Holiness seemed to have a direct and negative effect on the brain, Hilfy decided. And on the tendency to push buttons and take walks, and the holiness’ door was going to be locked, the minute they had gtsta inside.
“Guard gtsta,” she muttered to Tarras and Fala. “Keep gtsta away from buttons and sharp objects.”
“What do we do if gtsta wants something?” Tarras asked. “What’s wrong with gtsta? What’s going on?”
Tarras and Fala hadn’t followed a word of it. One forgot.
“That’s a holiness,” she said. “Don’t ask me whether gtsta is Phasing or what. I don’t know. And I’ve read every gods-be book on the species.”
“Nobody knows?” Fala asked.
“Nobody but the stsho,” she said. “And they’ve refused to talk.”
“I … you know.” Hallan didn’t feel he was doing well. Chihin just kept watching him, the two of them standing in t
he galley, Chihin leaning back against the counter, himself with nowhere reasonable to put his hands. “I just … well, I didn’t know what you thought.” He didn’t want to say that Chihin’s own best friends had warned him: that wasn’t kind. “I just wasn’t sure you were really meaning what I thought you meant, so I didn’t want to talk to you until I could sort of figure out …”
“Same,” Chihin said. “You want to go back to the quarters? Sort it out where we don’t have to be proper?”
“I—” He was going to hyperventilate. He wanted to take the invitation and he was unaccountably scared to, because it would change things, and change them all of a sudden and too fast. “I—”
“Don’t trust me?”
He thought about what Tiar had said. That he wouldn’t always understand her. But, Do you want a rescue? Tiar had asked; and he’d said no.
“All—” he began.
“Chihin. Report downside. Pull the white paneling out of storage—move it, we’re on short schedule.”
Chihin scowled and said a word.
“I was going to say all right,” he said desperately.
But the captain said hurry and Chihin left.
“Hallan. Report downside. We need some equipment moved. Be extremely quiet. Remember the passengers.”
If he ran he might make the lift.
The hakkikt Vikktakkht an Nikkatu to captain Hilfy Chanur, the hani merchant Chanur’s Legacy, at dock at Kefk, by courier: Has the stsho survived in any useful way? Ships arriving from Meetpoint say that the stsho of Llyene are creating sedition and division. We must soon deal blood upon the leaders of this movement. Give us an estimated time of departure.
The hani ship Chanur’s Legacy, to the hakkikt Vikktakkht an Nikkatu, of Tiraskhti, at dock at Kefk: We are making modifications necessary for the transport of this person. We are finding more rapid recovery than we had thought. What is a holiness? We lack reference.
The hakkikt Vikktakkht an Nikkatu by courier to captain Hilfy Chanur, the hani merchant Chanur’s Legacy, at dock at Kefk: A stsho incapable of the reproductive act. A holiness has no ability to make the alliance on which our mutual ally has placed all gtst expectation. The agents of the rival Personage will immediately take advantage and by information lately come to us, have already moved against the mekt-hakkikt. Advise us of your departure and we will delight to accompany you. Peace is advantageous. We will eat the hearts and eyes of the enemy.