Then just as the foremost of the flock of stsho rounded the curve of the tube toward the airlock, they stopped dead in their tracks and exclaimed in startlement, refusing to budge as the back ranks crowded up against them.
A totally naked stsho was walking down the tube, bearing the Preciousness in gtsta hands, as inane and as happy an expression on gtsta face as she had ever seen on a stsho.
“No’shto-shti-stlen!” gtsta exclaimed delightedly. “Blessed be the receiver of the gift, blessed be the bearer of young, blessed be you, O most excellent of excellences!”
No’shto-shti-stlen—it was gtst—came and took the Preciousness in gtst arms, and bowed and bowed-there being nothing the captain, walled away from the proceedings by a phalanx of murmuring and bobbing stsho, could do to object to the situation.
Gtsta then walked, naked as the day gtsta was born, through the yielding wall of stsho, and past them … since the stsho did not stop gtsta, it hardly seemed safe for a hani captain to do so: she held Fala with a press of her hand, as gtsta walked blithely past them and on down the yellow-ribbed shadow of the rampway.
“Better open the outer gate again,” Hilfy said to Tiar. “Gtsta wants to go out there, and we’ve got no right to argue.”
“But—” cried No’shto-shti-stlen, standing the other side of the parted stsho, “but, Holiness, who have I married?”
Gtsta swung about, walking backwards, and waved gtsta spindly arms. “Tlisi-tlas-tin and Dlimas-lyi, my Dlima-lyen-lyi, my egg, my loveliest, most favored, most blessed—”
Gtsta was out of sight, then, warbling something to gtstaself, and the stsho around them were apparently congratulating No’shto-shti-stlen, No’shto-shti-stlen bowing and bowing, and holding the Preciousness.
It was time to get the whole party out of this tube, Hilfy said to herself, to get them somewhere safe, like the passenger quarters, if that was tasteful … at this point a hani was definitely out of her social depth and proceeding on guess and luck.
She worked her way through the crowd with a great deal of bowing and apologies for tasteless dutiful necessities, … “Including your excellencies’ personal safety. Please urge everyone toward the ship, please make some decorous haste. There are infelicitous persons outside and the gate is open.” Tarras and Fala, thank the gods, had taken up guard at the rear and one of them had disappeared, probably to see if gtsta was clear of the gate.
Evidently gtsta was. She heard it shut.
“We’re sealed,” Tiar said, breathing a sigh, and looked around to her crewmates. Who were congratulating each other, and probably not listening.
She gave her attention back to the dockside camera hook-up, which was operating, of a sudden, stsho officials having seemingly decided that it should. There was not a notable lot going on, except a completely naked stsho who was walking around and around the object that, reacting with the station’s oxygen, had expanded into a pillar of lace.
Gtsta seemed delighted with it. Gtsta ran fingers over it, gtsta examined it high and low and from every angle. Eventually another couple of stsho showed up, fully dressed, bowing repeatedly, and likewise admiring the accident.
Not a sign of Haisi and his crew. Not a transmission out of Ha’domaren, which was at dock, tightly sealed.
Of a sudden, though, they were getting real station information, real system information. She contacted her opposite number aboard Tiraskhti, and found herself in direct communication with Vikktakkht.
“Things are quiet right now,” she said, “hakkikt. We have the oji, we have No’shto-shti-stlen, the Llyene stsho are apparently aboard, and I haven’t heard from my captain yet, but I think they’re making some sort of contact with the stsho we have aboard.”
“We have station output. Is this truthful?”
“I think it is, hakkikt. I’ve no way to be sure that’s the case, we’re not in direct communication with station authorities.”
“Most probably you have them aboard.”
“Yes, hakkikt.”
“Kkkt. Amusing. I wonder if Ana-kehnandian has a notion of calling in his forces … or what those ships out there will do as soon as the wavefront reaches them. I will offer him safe passage—for the next several hours. Advise your captain to abide by this.”
“Yes, hakkikt, I will tell her.” Arrogant son. But thank the gods they were talking about safe retreats now. In her guess, Ha’domaren was trying to figure out what to do, and what it had left, and whether a fight to the death right now was in Paehisna-ma-to’s interest.
Or if there was a way to recover the initiative.
Not that this hani could see. Not from the moment that son had realized he’d let No’shto-shti-stlen and the Preciousness get together.
She eavesdropped on the passenger cabin. There was a great deal of stsho ooohing and warbling going on. There were numerous people in there.
“What are they up to?” Chihin asked.
“Weddings breaking out all over,” Tiar said, not without a thought that, by the gods, the han had not a word to say: and Meras clan, remote and rural, and probably old-fashioned, was going to find itself in alliance with powerful, now solvent Chanur—
Counting a can full of what was beginning to draw a curious crowd out there; and a franchise.
Sahern was not going to say a word else on the Meras affair, by the gods not, unless they wanted an active feud with Chanur, which didn’t look like a smart bet for anyone at the moment.
So a few more years for the enemies to regroup. But it didn’t mean Chanur would be sitting still.
She didn’t let her guard down, didn’t stop paying attention to the screens. Chihin and Hallan took over watching station scan, and eventually reported outward movement out of the mahen ships that were now clearly identified on scan.
“Leaving him, they are.” That was worth a call belowdecks. “Captain.”
“Problem?”
“Mahendo’sat appear to be leaving system, not real organized. Gtsta holiness has drawn a crowd out there around the rock. No apparent trouble on the docks. I think the hakkikt’s going to stay where he is until he’s sure what Ha’domaren’s doing, but he’s offered Haisi a safe passage, I’m supposed to tell you that.”
“Haisi take it?”
“He hasn’t budged. Hasn’t made a move. —No, wait.” There was a change on the station schema. “Son’s just appeared as in count for departure. He’s going.”
“Ha!” the captain said. “We got him.”
Chapter Twenty-one
It surfaced like a diver in an upside-down ocean, breached near the system buoy, and dived again—up—into the interface and perhaps deeper. It was there long enough to have gathered a system map: the buoy output one; and to sing a message of its own, in its harmonic voices. This one was simple.
tc’a stsho kif mahendo’sat hani
hani hani hani hani hani
peace peace peace peace peace
Chanur Chanur Chanur Chanur Chanur
Meras Meras Meras Meras Chanur
peace peace peace peace peace
“Well, look at that,” Tiar said.
“How did it know my name?” Hallan asked.
“Famous, I suppose,” Chihin muttered. “The kif certainly know you. They set you up. And I’m beginning to wonder about the tc’a.”
“I wonder where that son’s headed.”
“Same place The Pride is,” Chihin said.
“Or maybe they don’t have to,” Tiar said. “I’d about bet you cousin Pyanfar knows what’s just happened. I’ll bet you that son just transmitted.”
Chihin shook her head. “If we start talking through the tc’a, gods save us. It’s no way to run a trading business.”
“Back to trade and thank the gods,” Tiar said. “Enough of politics. We got the wedding party off our deck, the Preciousness and all, we got Tlisi-tlas-tin for governor, No’shto-shti-stlen’s a happy bride, and we’ve got a can of exploding rocks to sell.”
“Another Kita run, to nail
down that franchise,” Chihin muttered. “The stsho love the idea. I’ve a notion we can sell it to the mahendo’sat—”
“Kif might have an interest. To each their own uses.”
Tiraskhti was in. The rest of the kif still hovered, firmly under the hakkikt’s command, one could trust, since the effort was a success. High-level stsho turned out to welcome the hakkikt, to bid him to the intimate offices, along with Chanur. This was, perhaps, an unusual reception, kif and hani at once. Possibly it was unprecedented.
Or perhaps not.
“Honor to you,” Hilfy said, with her escort, Tarras and Fala; and Vikktakkht with his dark-robed crew, meeting at the lift.
“Death to our enemies,” Vikktakkht said courteously, and as the car arrived: “We will share.”
Faktkht. Share-prey, it meant: but Vikktakkht put sotk with it, meaning territory. Unprecedented idea in kifish, so far as she knew.
And it solved the question of precedences, with a kif who outranked a mere captain. Polite.
“You first,” Hilfy said. Which required trust, of a species that didn’t like to be followed.
“Kkkkt,” the guards said, uneasy. So they sorted it out, with a kifish thumb on the hold button: Vikktakkht, then her, then his guard, then hers.
They stood on opposite sides of the car. There were probably weapons under the kifish robes. There were, inside their own dress-uniform belts.
The car rose.
“Profitable,” Vikktakkht said, “this peace, this sharing. We will eat the hearts of those that oppose it. Ana-kehnandian will not go to his Personage with this failure. He must find a new service. I am considering taking him up myself.”
“He made mistakes,” Hilfy said. Kif hardly tolerated such. She was amazed that Vikktakkht was secure enough to propose such a thing. Most would not. Most would not dare.
“He was badly instructed,” Vikktakkht said. “And he knows Paehisna-ma-to and her agents. Not a bad acquisition. Perhaps he will take instruction. Perhaps not. If not, his loss. I will have the information, honor to the mekt-hakkikt. He has not many ports of refuge. I will make him an offer.”
“Generous of you.”
“Extremely. And he will know it. Our guards return to duty here—our agreements are bettered. Paehisna-ma-to is now an uncertain influence at best. The Momentum is reversed. He would have no future in her service.”
The car stopped, and opened its doors onto the white, nacre curtained formal hall of the governor’s offices. And kifish guards were in evidence, bowing and showing all respect—to the hakkikt, if not to a hani captain.
Vikktakkht brushed them aside with a sweep of his sleeve. “Our escort will stay here,” he said in the Trade. “The guards will stay here.”
A bow from the guards, profound and quick. So much for the stsho’s hired security. “Wait here,” Hilfy said, wondering what the kif was up to, and somewhat glad of the pistol in her belt—wondering if there might be some kifish purpose against the governor, and if they might not, after all, have a piece of treachery on their hands.
But she played the game. She walked beside him, innocent as a stroll in the country, past the arches, the freeform white statues, the blowing drapery.
“We know each other,” Vikktakkht remarked as they walked side by side; and, before she could leap to the unpleasant and hostile conclusion, of her own captivity, and her kifish guards: “We were crew on the same ship.”
My gods, Hilfy thought. The kifish slave. Skkukuk. From aboard The Pride.
But this wasn’t at all the place to recall that name.
“Why didn’t you simply say—” She started to ask. “No. Of course not. Stupid question.”
“Indeed,” Vikktakkht said. “It would have given Paehisna-ma-to her best opening. Had I claimed that, you would have doubted me instantly. You would have rushed to ally with Ana-kehnandian.”
A member of The Pride’s crew. Amazing.
“Not rushed,” she said, and still wondered if this kif was loyal to Pyanfar. He seemed to have acted in Pyanfar’s interest. “But I would have doubted your intentions.”
“Kkkkt. As you do now?”
Never mince words with a hakkikt. “I respect your evident power.”
“Admirable discretion. But if I aspired to be mekt-hakkikt the peace would end. And I find it, as I say, profitable. I am hakkikt hakkiktun. In the name of the mekt-hakkikt I stand first among kif. There is nothing more a kif can gain.”
“Indeed,” she said conservatively. “As in Chanur. I prefer where I am.”
They strolled through the last arch, into the presence of bowing stsho.
“Kkkt. Profitable. Profitable to both, Chanur.”
C. J. Cherryh, Chanur's Legacy
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