“I don’t give anything, mahe. I’m not a charity. I got it, I keep it. Maybe I take it to my aunt.”
“Make big mess. Meanwhile you got go out there tell kif sorry you make mistake. You look real bad, hani. You look like dessert. Maybe like hos-tage, a? Kif go make deal Pyanfar, hey, you want? You pay. You got experience that game.”
Trying to shake her nerve, he was. She wrinkled her nose, not a friendly gesture. Or a patient one. “Maybe I get along with them just fine.”
“Then you two time fool. You got chance win big here. Pyanfar got lot commitment No’shto-shti-stlen. You make new deal, be friend new gov’ment, all fine, easy new gov’ment be friend Pyanfar. You big important. Lot good deal for you.”
She stared at him, thought about the directions power would run in the Compact, asked herself what was in it for Paehisna-ma-to, and came up with: “double-cross.” Not quite a coup for Paehisna-ma-to, but no prosecution for the explosion at Kshshti, they’d blame that one on the kif; no absolute gain of power but no stop to the Momentum of Paehisna-ma-to either. Net gain, no loss, No’shto-shti-stlen out of the way, net gain there, too, putting Meetpoint in the hands of someone more attuned to other voices.
Gods, she did hate politics. And hated worse being suckered.
But if Haisi tossed off a kifish strike force of twenty hunter ships as a “we fix,” Haisi had a lot of firepower out there hidden in the system—
“So?” Haisi asked her. “You want be logical? No good, the oji, got no value ’cept to stsho. Chanur don’t want lose face. We don’t want lose face. ‘Specially Vikktakkht don’t want lose face: what you got do is make him look good, make him go ’way.”
So maybe there wasn’t such a large mahen force. And Haisi was one good negotiator.
“You want me to tell him to go away, huh? You worried?”
A quick frown. Haisi snatched the smoke-stick from his mouth to jab it in her direction. “You want peace? You not want? That are whole question. You not just stupid hani captain, you Chanur. You got youself in politic, all right, you play smart. You only damn one can get that kif go ’way now. You only one can save Vikktakkht sfik so he don’t get throat cut by own follower. Kif damn fragile, all time damn fragile. You got save him, or we got fight. I rather not fight. I rather not have this kif sit point gun at Meetpoint. Lot nervous people here.”
Maybe Haisi was saying the same about himself—he was in a bind, a serious one. He wanted a way out.
So she’d done him damage. She had that.
“I have to give him something,” she said. “I have to bring him in on the negotiations. I have to be there. This has to save face for everybody. You understand me?”
Haisi looked relieved. “Number one fine. You got million credit deal. You walk away clear. What more want?”
“No, no, no, it doesn’t work that way. We’ve got to talk to the stsho. We’ve got to have a slice of this, so does Vikktakkht.”
“What you want? You dumb hani captain, no make gov’ment.”
“I’m Chanur, mahe. You’ve been using that, that’s the game you’ve been playing, and I demand to have something out of this that’s going to satisfy that kif out there, that’s going to satisfy our honor, and not have any trouble with our papers, our cargoes, or the Personage’s affairs. I have an obligation to her friends. I have a contractual obligation to No’shto-shti-stlen. That’s gtst property. I can’t just hand it over. I’ve got, for that matter, an obligation to that kif out there, who’s played tolerably fair with me. So you’ve got what you want here, you haven’t got what I have, you’re not secure until you’ve got it, and you’d better damn well settle with our honor, and our claims, and our—pardon me—finance, because anything else is going to be expensive to the stsho and to this station, which isn’t going to make the stsho damn happy with you, a?”
“So what you got have?”
“In trade? First off, not to have that stsho contract hanging over my head. I’ve got to have trade agreements with the new government, including trade agreements for Vikktakkht’s interests. I’ve got to have Chanur’s friends out of here: we’re not leaving any hostages in anybody’s hands.”
“What friend you talk about?”
“No’shto-shti-stlen.”
“No, no, no good deal.”
“What no good deal? What threat is gtst to anybody if he’s not the governor?”
A few rapid puffs of smoke. The whole dockside was unnaturally silent. “You give oji, I present deal to stsho.”
“No. You give me No’shto-shti-stlen, or no oji.”
“You no damn position to bluff, hani. You want see Chanur take bad damage, you go ahead. Meetpoint dock get blow to hell, all you fault, you bring kif in. Look damn bad. We throw out kif guard for stsho, you bring back, blow up dock… .”
“I could destroy the oji. So nobody gets it.”
Brows went up. “Not good. Holy antiquity. Belong big stsho fam’ly.”
“So somebody gets badly upset if anything happens to this oji, huh?”
“Stop play game! We talk about you trade agreement. We get damn kif leave this system!”
“Agreements with the kif too.”
“We talk.”
“You want him out of here, right you talk. You talk damn serious. No doublecross.”
“First give oji.”
“First give No’shto-shti-stlen.”
“Simul-taneous.”
“All right. You bring No’shto-shti-stlen, I bring the oji.”
“Maybe so you got Atli-lyen-tlas. Maybe you think pull trick. I tell you, we see stsho, that stsho dead before foot touch this deck. Same hani.”
Now the masks were off. Now they knew the players. She stared at the mahe as eye to eye a hani could, at a species head and shoulders taller. “I’ve said what we have to have. Simultaneous transfer. Then we start talking—and talking seriously, mahe, no damn tricks on your side either.”
“You got pocket com? You crew follow all this?”
What’s he up to? she wondered; and said aloud: “They’re listening, damned right.”
“Same mine. Same stsho. We stand here, you crew bring oji, stsho bring No’shto-shti-stlen. All fine.”
“Fine.” She folded her arms. “Tiar?”
“Aye, captain,” the answer came back.
“When I see No’shto-shti-stlen on the dock, I’ll advise you. Nothing leaves the ship before then.”
“Aye, captain.”
“Advise the hakkikt we’re in negotiation and we’ll keep him posted.”
“I’ll do that, captain.”
She gave a wave of the hand. “Your turn.”
A casual puff of smoke. Haisi rattled off a string of mahendi language she didn’t follow that well. But it contained words like No’shto-shti-stlen, gtst, and stsho.
There was argument.
Haisi said, “Stsho want know no guns.”
“No guns.” She switched to stshoshi, figuring on Haisi’s bug to pick it up. “I wish to establish friendly relations with the most distinguished representatives from Llyene. I should in no wise wish to perform a tasteless act of violence or to endanger them in any way.”
Haisi didn’t understand all of that, either. It was not altogether Trade-tongue.
Haisi looked just a little uneasy. So the stsho weren’t prisoners. And, being stsho, they were probably treating No’shto-shti-stlen tolerably well, so long as events were uncertain, so long as there was the remotest chance of anything going contrary to their plans.
Probably too, No’shto-shti-stlen, the canny old fellow, had held out hope, so long as he had a throw of the dice left. Haisi had said gtst, and maybe it was the standard, safe term, and maybe it was something else. Some stsho might have Phased under such stress. But she fully expected to see gtst in possession of gtst name, gtst dignity, and gtst claim to the oji.
And the stsho would not be safe from gtst until they had the oji, that seemed likely from the persistence with which Haisi wanted to
lay hands on it.
When that went into hostile hands, this emblem of whatever gender it was, evidently No’shto-shti-stlen posed no threat. And she wished she knew she was doing the right thing.
But time passed, and passed, here in the dockside cold with, she was sure, a good many eyes on every breath they took. Haisi smoked one smoke-stick down to a stub, extinguished it with a pinch and put it in the pouch of his kilt, from which he took out another and lit it with a good deal of fuss.
“That can’t be good for you,” she said, and Haisi let out the breath he had been drawing in while lighting it, put the lighter away and laughed.
“Not good,” he said. “Keep want quit. How you? Got no bad habit?”
“Husbands,” she said. “Just got my second.”
Another laugh. “You marry! Heard same. Maybe you cheat on husband, we get together next port. Big party.”
“With you? No thanks. I have some taste.”
Haisi grinned wide. “I bet you good.”
“Number one right I’m good. Ask me again sometime, oh, three, four years. I might be in the mood for a pirate.”
“Honest citizen. I tell you, Hilfy Chanur, you got learn tell difference, quit lie down with kif.”
She’d heard about every nasty comment on that topic there was. She put on a perfect smile. “What is the difference? Hah?”
“Cute hani. Pretty nose. Pretty eyes.”
“You are a bastard, Haisi. A charming bastard. But you are a bastard.” There had been movement just then, across the dock, on the merchant strip, a pale-robed shadow, and another, now. “Looks like stsho.”
Haisi didn’t turn his head to look. He angled his whole body, to watch her and Tarras up by the gate; and to see what was happening.
“They bring No’shto-shti-stlen. Where oji?”
“So how do we do this? Meet halfway?”
Haisi stretched out his arm to the left. “Halfway there, you bring oji.” And to the right: “Same halfway there, No’shto-shti-stlen. We take, you take, all fine.”
“Fair,” she decided, and touched the pocket com. “Tiar, they’re coming. Did you follow that? We’re to bring the oji out and put it down on the dock at about the same pace they bring No’shto-shti-stlen to a similar place some little removed. You can bring it as far as the gate, now.”
Haisi was talking to his own crew, and then, apparently to the stsho, saying much the same thing.
There was the chance of a switch. But it was not a time to argue. It was highly unlikely one stsho would place gtstself in jeopardy by posing as another and it was unlikely the stsho with gtst would risk their lives by bringing a substitute. And if she slowed down the proceedings Haisi would do exactly the same, at which point everything could come unraveled. People could get shot. Including No’shto-shti-stlen.
Which was still a possibility, once Haisi had the oji, which was one reason Tarras was up there, in a high position relative to the dockside.
One thing she would bet on: no one in the han could read stsho signatures. She couldn’t, with any certainty. It was within the realm of possibility they would have shown the marriage document to stsho, to Haisi’s stsho, for verification … so it was within possibility that the Llyene stsho knew that Atli-lyen-tlas was a holiness: signatures did indicate Mode, Phase, and Gender, among other Life Events of significance. It was within possibility that the Llyene stsho recognized the identities of Tlisi-tlas-tin and Dlimas-lyi, and their relationship. And the negotiations had still gone as they had gone, which didn’t prove one way or the other that the stsho had told everything they knew to Ana-kehnandian … but by all she knew of stsho, Tahaisimandi Ana-kehnandian was in their estimation not to be confided in. Nor wholly in power over the situation: therefore not to be confided in. Perfectly logical stsho reasoning, who held self-preservation and tasteful behavior paramount.
She knew just enough to know how much she didn’t know. But there was no choice, absolutely no choice. She’d done the best trading she could with the goods she had. She thought she’d come away as best she could—but she never thought that Ana-kehnandian was going to play fair.
Not by the gods likely, Haisi.
Haisi gave her a nod and walked off to stand at the appointed spot to receive the oji, where others of his crew showed up, armed … of course: they replaced the kif as station police.
She walked off toward the stsho, to receive No’shto-shti-stlen. And she said, into com, which doubtless was being monitored on Ha’domaren, by electronics the mahendo’sat had had time to install around the dock, “Is it in position?”
“Aye, captain,” Tiar said.
“Everything’s on schedule. Bring it on out, down to the dock. They start walking, we start walking, that’s the way it works. I’m going out onto the dock to wait for No’shto-shti-stlen. When you carry it out, go toward Ana-kehnandian and his crew at the same rate you see No’shto-shti-stlen going toward me. When gtst reaches me, you set down the case and go back to the lock.”
“Got that,” Tiar said. The instructions were for Fala. But Tiar understood. “She’s coming out now. You’d better see them moving, captain.”
She didn’t turn to see. She had her attention divided between the stsho, who did begin tentatively to move, and Haisi and his lot, and the possibility of snipers somewhere about the dock—which was a fearful lot of real estate to monitor/At a certain point one just hoped to the gods.
“They’re moving,” she said.
Stsho were not going to dash into possible danger. It was a nervous, sometimes halting advance. She could see Fala now, doing almost pace for pace the same thing as the stsho, with the black case within her arms. And she could pick out the one she thought must be No’shto-shti-stlen, among the gleaming gossamer of the others, a figure no less richly dressed, no less adorned and painted, but less interested in the surroundings than looking toward her, only toward her, as if she were the destination of hope.
Closer and closer.
“Your excellency?” she asked. “No’shto-shti-stlen?”
There were bows, a deep one from the one stsho, nervous ones from the others.
“Wai, most gracious hani,” said the one, in stshoshi, which the others might not know she understood. It was the only proof she could look to have … gtst looked right. Gtst sounded right.
“Please accompany me with all tasteful speed,” she said, and added, for the others, “Please abandon this exposed place. There is danger.”
No’shto-shti-stlen was willing. She struck out for the Legacy’s dock at a fair pace, the others were dithering, and of a sudden all the stsho were bolting with her.
Herd-mind, Vikktakkht had said, My gods! She didn’t know what to do but run, all the stsho were running, and Fala sprinted for the ramp, but no shots came. Hilfy stopped there, a momentary pause, in the middle of a lot of stsho who were probably wishing they had bolted the completely opposite direction. “Get gtst into the ship!” she ordered Fala. “Your excellency, go with her!”
As she saw Haisi with the box on the decking, yonder, saw the stsho with her begin to go uncertainly in that direction. But Haisi was bound to check out the goods—to be sure of them.
Haisi opened the box. A silver spheroid rolled out—a small one. And if their wiring worked right—
Haisi dived for the cover of a station girder, right behind his men. The stsho shrieked with one voice and retreated the only direction they could, toward the Legacy. A moment later the silver ball exploded with a fearsome shock, a ball of upward-wafting fire, and a huge cloud of smoke.
Stsho yelped into silence, Haisi was sprawled flat not quite into cover, and just then apparently realizing the explosion behind him had not done major damage.
Thank the gods of space.
Haisi was getting up, beginning to figure it, and glared at her. She laughed and laughed harder, in spite of the fact snipers were possible. The smoke was beginning to clear and a shape to appear out of it, a pale, twisted structure tall as he was, twice
as wide, lacy, white, with subtle ochers.
“Exploding rocks,” she said, and shouted it, she couldn’t resist it. “Exploding rocks, Haisi, you son of an earless mother!”
She herded the stsho for the Legacy’s rampway, just a little out of the way of snipers, or a direct shot from Haisi, who was just standing there, probably with his brain rattled from the shockwave, and maybe adding up the fact that that hadn’t been the oji, which was still on the Legacy, and that she had, presumably, No’shto-shti-stlen, and that, thanks to stsho instincts, she had the Llyene officials uncertainly sheltering in the shadow of the Legacy’s access.
And she had a lot of kif allies out there.
“Pray go inside,” she said to the stsho, “where your excellencies will find more safety. This mahe is of uncertain mood and possibly tastelessly violent behavior.”
“What is this object?” a stsho asked.
She hadn’t exactly decided what to call it. But she threw it another look, standing there wreathed in the smoke of its birth, and said, considerately, “An … artwork, actually, most excellent, and never of any hazard to the station.”
“An artwork,” one said, and something she couldn’t catch. “An artwork,” another said, or a variant on that. There was a sound among them she’d never heard the species make, with waving of hands and bobbing of heads, and a general milling about.
Then a mass “Iiiii,” of uncertainty, but not a thing more, as she and Fala together urged them into the rampway chill, away from snipers, please the gods, away from imminent attack.
“Advance to the airlock,” she advised them above their murmuring and hesitations. “All will be well.” She certainly hoped so.
Tarras had the gun discreetly out of view behind the gate: “Tiar,” she said to the pocket com, once they were through, with Tarras still keeping a careful eye on the docks, “Tiar, shut that gate and open the airlock, we’re in, we’re all in, we’re clear.”
She was breathlessly glad when that gate slid shut: no way to lock it against somebody stationside with a key or a master control, but she heard the lock open, out of sight around the curve of the tube—safety and their own deck was that close, and if nobody started an interstellar war while they were traversing this very fragile tube she vowed she would turn religious.