That wasn’t what Py had said. Maybe it was her own mind organizing things. The brain did strange things in jump. It dreamed. It worked on problems. At times it argued with itself, or with notions it couldn’t admit wide awake.
Most people forgot what they dreamed. It was her curse to remember. Mostly, she thought, she remembered because she wanted to be there. She wanted to be back on The Pride, before the kif, before anything had happened.
“Time to come back,” Pyanfar said.
—Alarm was sounding. Wake, wake, wake.
They were in Urtur space, with the alarm complaining and the yellow caution flashing. The computers saw dust ahead.
“You there?” she asked. “Tiar?”
“I’m on it. We’re close in. Going for secondary dump.”
—You can be a gods-be fool, aunt Py was hanging about to say. Because there’s no way you’re not being followed.
“Ship out there,” Tarras said, on scan.
“Ha’domaren?”
“Sure the right size and vector.”
She reached after the nutrients pack, bit a hole in it and drank down the awful stuff. They were, as their bodies kept time, days away from Meetpoint. On Meetpoint docks, on Urtur station, it was more than a month. As light traveled, it was years. And the body complained of such abuses. You shed hair, you lost calcium, you dehydrated, your mouth tasted of copper and you wanted to throw up, especially when the nutrient liquid hit your stomach and about a quarter hour later when the iron hit your bloodstream. But you got used to it and you learned to hold it down, or you didn’t, and you didn’t last as a deep-spacer.
“You all right?” she heard Fala ask of Meras, below, heard him answer, brightly, “I’m fine.”
Like hell, she thought. It wasn’t fair if he was. The stsho would be coming out from under … stsho and humans had to sedate themselves for the trip, whatever those completely different brains had in common—though Tully could survive without; had had to prove it … once, at least; and was still sane… .
Woolgathering, Pyanfar called it, and damned the habit. She didn’t have her hands on controls. She’d been ship’s com tech, protocol officer, and that didn’t have a thing to do with running the ship. But she followed the moves, she knew in her gut when it was time for Tiar to kick in the third V dump, and lip-synched the order, tense until Tiar gave it, and then satisfied.
She could do it herself. She was tolerably sure of it. But she never bet the ship on it. And certainly not on this jump.
“Fine job,” she said to Tiar.
“We’re in a little closer than I wanted.”
“Still,” she said. First class equipment, first class navigator in Chihin and first-class pilot in Tiar. It wasn’t any run of the lot ship could single-jump as they’d done. The older pilots, the navigators of Chihin’s age … they’d done it in the war years, they’d the kind of reflexes and system-awareness that could come out of it with a critical sense where they were.
So, most clearly, did Ha’domaren’s crew. That told you something. That told you, at least, the quality of that crew and equipment, that it carried no cargo, and that whoever was at the helm had done this before.
That they were overjumped, that somebody had actually overhauled and passed them in hyperspace, that said that was one bastard who didn’t mind the navigation rules or care about the dust hazard in Urtur system.
Chapter Five
Urtur was a smaller port than Meetpoint—heavily industrial. Its star was veiled in murk and dust, a ringed star, with gas giant planets sweeping the veil into bands of crepe and gas and ice; with miner-craft both crewed and otherwise running the dusty lanes in the ecliptic; with refineries and mills and shipyards operating at the collection points—
And the main station, under mahendo’sat governance, devoted itself to manufacture, shipping, and entertainment for the miners and makers of goods. You wanted culture? Go to Idunspol. You wanted religion? Go to forbidden, god-crazed Iji. You wanted iron and heavy metals, you wanted sheet and plate and hydrogen, you wanted a raucous good time and a headache in the morning? Urtur was the place for it.
You said Chanur here, and certain authorities’ ears pricked up and twitched—by an irony of things as they were, there were outstanding warrants here that could not quite be forgotten, by mahen law: every situation was subject to change and every administration could be succeeded by some new power diametrically opposed to the last. So charges stayed on the books, something like reckless endangerment, public hazard, speeding, unlawful dumping, and damage to public property. The Pride of Chanur had had its less popular moments.
And supposedly the charges included the name of Hilfy Chanur, crewwoman. But she paid no more attention to them than aunt Py did, coming and going as she pleased these days in regal empowerment.
So she ordered the Legacy shut down and the hatch opened to Urtur; and she completed the formalities with station control, signing this and signing that—advised station control of the existence of their full-scale dataload and its date of provenance from Meetpoint; and got a bid of 3000, which wouldn’t go higher—counting that rag-eared son of a mahen outlaw had beaten them in by eight hours.
But with their fragile passenger and gtst fragile object, they couldn’t have made it in at anything like that speed.
“That’s five thousand that son Haisi’s cost us,” she muttered. “Maybe eight.”
“Couldn’t have done better,” Tiar said. “Better take it.”
“Out of his hide,” she said, signaled acceptance, and switched channels to gtst honor Tlisi-tlas-tin. “Honorable, we’re ready to make contact with your party on Urtur. We’re pleased to announce arrival and opening of station business. We will have the distinction to contact the excellency immediately and advise gtst of your presence and mission.”
“We acknowledge. We are in preparation. We would like our meal now, if your honor will instruct her aides.”
“We will, honorable. Stand by.” A sigh as she cut the connection.
“Gtst could have eaten it when we fixed it,” Tarras muttered.
“Gtst mission is to be a pain,” Hilfy said. “Check on the other passenger while you’re at it. Make sure he didn’t crack his head.”
They’d been up and about for hours. They had had their lunch, but the stsho had been too exhausted and too sick to, as the stsho put it, ‘burden the stomach with uncertain and foreign preparations.’
Hell.
Meanwhile she had been putting together a message to advise gtst excellency Atli-lyen-tlas to contact her on an urgent basis.
To the most excellent Atli-lyen-tlas, emissary of gtst excellency No’shto-shti-stlen, the honorable Hilfy Chanur, captain of the hani ship Chanur’s Legacy, head of the ancient and honorable Chanur clan, sends her respectful greetings and has the distinction and honor to advise and inform your excellency that she has a message of extreme importance for the attention of your excellency personally, which can only reflect well upon the achievement and elegance of your excellency for the future.
It went out on the push of a button. It would probably take time for a response. The computer was set to listen for a message from gtst excellency.
Meanwhile the messages were pouring in. From customs. That had to be answered. From routings. Had to be answered. From the stationmaster. Had to be answered. From name after name of ships and individuals she had no idea who. Anything that contained the name Pyanfar Chanur automatically routed over to the auxiliary stack—otherwise their operations could drown in the deluge, and important operations could stall.
The Pyanfar stack had hit 105 messages and added four more while she checked it for bombs and known names.
Somebody had to read them. After customs. After the stationmaster. After dealing with the freight office and getting on the lists for goods. The futures market had already reacted to the arrival of a ship out of Meetpoint, to the arrival—the sharper traders had surely figured—of a ship that had just come from Urtur round trip; and the knowledgeab
le types were basing their bids on what they thought she might know, what they thought she might carry, and whether or not they thought by the way the Legacy had entered system they were carrying mass. And she had the definitive answers, which mahen rules let her give before customs—figuring that if a captain didn’t like the result of customs, it was only a matter of sufficient fines or sufficient bribes, or court, all of which was fodder for the gamblers on the market. Old mahendo’sat lounged in their station apartments and bet their retirement checks on the system. Hustlers bet on it in bars. Businessmen prayed for it and burned incense to whatever fad religion they thought guaranteed their luck.
And, having that answer, she keyed it through and watched on separate screens as the futures market reacted, as bids started coming in, as customs notified her that she had inspection officers on the way to expedite her cargo in what was clearly a move to stifle disruptive speculation on the reason a hani ship came straight in from Meetpoint.
Tiar’s job, handling the inspectors, going through the forms. Meanwhile the bids were looking good. Hard not to let the pulse quicken and the fever set in. But the hani captain that took to gambling on the market herself—that was marginally legal, and ultimately foolish. She watched. She had the computer set to analyze the trend—and she could interrupt at any moment by taking the bid of a particular company; with a bond, before customs, without one, after.
Historically speaking, she preferred after. The market knowledgeables would know that too, and play their serious bids accordingly.
“Felicitations,” came a message from the stationmaster, on the more private communications possible now that they had a station communications line physically tapped into their interface. “You come back much soon than expect, Legacy. You got trouble?”
“No trouble. Personal choice. Felicitations, stationmaster. Chanur’s compliments.”
“You wait customs before exit.”
“I understand they’re on their way.”
“You come big emergency?”
“No problems, thank you. All fine. On an express run.”
“Express run. Who?”
“No’shto-shti-stlen.” It was no more than Ha’domaren was going to tell them. “Gtst excellency wanted a message carried, diplomatic privilege.” Freely translated, not legally your business, stationmaster.
“Expensive.”
“Yes.”
“Congratulation’ you safe arrival, Chanur ship. Felicitate you pilot.”
“Thank you, sir. I have.”
Station seemed satisfied. Meanwhile there was a bleep from the computer, which had found a trigger word in an incoming live communication.
She keyed it in: got:
“H’lo, you, Legacy! What delay you?”
Grinning bastard. It wasn’t worth an answer. Not one she wanted to give over station com.
“Got talk you Legacy.”
She wasn’t about to.
“You clear paper with that haul, Legacy? I got rumor customs got question, back at Meetpoint.”
At Meetpoint. In a mahen hell there was a question! “That’s the oldest scam in the book, Ha’domaren! You try to tie me up with some gods-be lie, I’ll have your ears! You know gods-rotted well we have clear papers on everything aboard!”
“On what they see. I got rumor not ever’thing seen. Got stsho arti-fact no papers.”
“Diplomatic! It doesn’t need papers, you—” It wasn’t politic or productive. She shut up. Fast. “Cute joke. Cute joke, Haisi. You still got those charges pending at Mkks, or what?”
“Lot funny, Chanur captain. You want meet for talk business now? You want talk Atli-lyen-tlas, a? I got bad news. Real bad news.”
The stationmaster hadn’t said that name. She hadn’t said that name to anyone at Meetpoint, nor to anyone at Urtur until a scant few moments ago, that she’d keyed out a message for that individual. She had never so much as heard the name aloud on this leg of the trip—but she knew gtst as the well-reputed stsho ambassador to Urtur, the addressee in the contract, the intended recipient of the Preciousness.
“You want meet for drink?” the mahe said. “You going need same.”
“Atli-lyen-tlas quit,” Haisi said, taking a puff of one of those cursed mahen smoke-sticks. And exhaling, what was worse. “Same quit, go—” A move of Haisi’s large, bare-palmed hand, a glance of dark mahen eyes about the indefinite perimeters of the lounge—the lounge next the trade office, as happened. Hilfy was not about to go onto Ha’domaren, or take Haisi Ana-kehnandian’s hospitality, or be subject to whatever esoteric truth-seekers Haisi might have installed. Haisi’s eyes roamed the implied infinite and came back to solidity, to her—the poetic hand returned to lie above Haisi’s heart, and Haisi smiled.
“So, so difficult figure alien mind.”
“So where did gtst go?” Hilfy’s ears were flat. She made no pretense of pleasantness.
“You do me small favor.”
“What favor?”
“I tell you,” Haisi said, “I do work in files, all hours I wait talk with you, you know? What for you got arrest here? I curious.”
“I never got arrested here.”
“You all same got police record. File on list. Hilfy Chanur. That you? Sound like you.”
“Then you just better let it lie there. You go digging in that dirt, you’re going to need the bath, because it’s nothing Urtur Station wants to find. And how patient is your personage with foulups?”
Maybe she scored one. Haisi took another puff and seemed to think about it, blowing smoke from his nostrils like some brazen image.
“I might call your personage,” she said, “and tell her—it is her, isn’t it? We got one mahe being damn fool. Call him home before he embarrasses you.”
“Personage might say, Who you talk fool, Hilfy Chanur? You got thing aboard you don’t know what is, you don’t know what does, you got stsho play politic, use you name, use you ship … Big fool.”
“What do you want? Outright, mahe, what do you want?”
“You bring me ’board you ship. You let me talk stsho.”
“You want to send a message, I might take it. You let the stsho ask to talk to you. If gtst wants to, I’ll bring you aboard.”
“I tell you no good you come here. Stsho you look for—gone.”
“Gone since how long? Since you found out about the shipment? Since you were here last and you learned about it?”
“You not bad guess.”
“What is it to you? What do you care what the stsho do with each other?”
“Ask why stsho care what I do.”
“Why, then?”
“Maybe rise and fall Personages.”
“Which personages? Stsho? Mahendo’sat?”
“Maybe so. Maybe.”
“Gods rot you, give me a plain answer!”
“No more you give me, Chanur captain. Which side you?”
“I’m on the side of making a living, I’m on the side of running an honest trade and shipping operation! If somebody’s got cargo going, and it’s not live and it’s not illegal, I haul it, that’s all! I’m not a personage, I’m not a fool, I’m a ship captain.”
“You think that, you be number one fool, Chanur captain. Wherever you go, politic. All time politic. You want tuck head under arm not see what is, you do. But maybe all same Urtur find old arrest warrant. Maybe search ship …”
“You want an incident with the stsho, you go right on and try that. You want an incident with Chanur, you want an incident with the han, you want me to sue you clear back to your ancestors, you earless bastard—”
The lifting of an empty mahen hand. “Want no incident. Want know what thing No’shto-shti-stlen send Atli-lyen-tlas.”
“What in your ninety-nine hells difference does it make what gtst sent?”
“You not know that?”
“I have no interest in that!”
“Then why you ask?”
Murder occurred to her. Most vivid murder.
&
nbsp; “Because I got a large hairy fool being a fulltime pain in the—”
“You know what No’shto-shti-stlen send? Or you take gtst word what you carry? Sloppy way pass customs.”
“Until it comes off my ship, customs can wonder.”
“Unless it universal contraband. Like run guns. Like run—”
“I’m bored. I’m leaving.”
“You not know.”
“Goodbye.”
“You want know where Atli-lyen-tlas go?”
“Where?”
“What you give me?”
“I’ll look it up in station records.”
“Kita. Go Kita Point. Easy jump. You want data on Kita market? Got. Real cheap. Great bargain. Give you break. Get you futures reports maybe two month back.”
Futures in a deeper mahen market where the mahendo’sat knew best what they had and didn’t. Speculation there was asking for trouble, hired hauling was the only sure thing, and information at the narrow downside end of mahen trade routes wasn’t going to tell you what goods might already have arrived there from points upstream.
And there was a worse problem with Kita.
“You want deal?” the mahe asked.
“I’ll think about it.” She stood up and walked for the door.
“Not real long time think,” Haisi said. “You got stsho deal, not good you break promise. Cargo get lost, stuff screw up at Meetpoint … Personage not real damn happy with you, Chanur captain. Big mess. You go ahead. You do. You make. Talk me later I see if rescue you worth while.”
“You captain?”
“Me? Not.”
“Ha’domaren your ship?”
“Not. Belong cousin.”
“You got cousins everywhere, don’t you?”
“Big fam’ly.”
“I’ll bet.” She did walk out, shoved her hands in her pockets and thought how this had more and more the smell of trouble, such that she wasn’t seeing Urtur’s garish lights, she was seeing what used to be, and missing the weight of the pistol she had worn in those days before the disarmament agreement, before the peace.
It didn’t feel like peace. Not at all.
“We got check,” the mahen customs agent said, and Tiar jabbed the slate in question and said, politely, “It’s on our ship. Until it comes off our ship it isn’t your province. That’s in your regulations. Until it’s offered for sale it isn’t merchandise. It’s an item in the possession of gtst honor under diplomatic privilege and it stays on this ship until we find the addressee. In which case you can work out the problems with the stsho delegation. It’s not our problem!”