“You tell me this: is a kif going to damage a ship he’s on?”
Hilfy thought about that one too. Her ears dropped and lifted again. “No,” she said. “Not when you put it that way. But there is a point he’d turn on us.”
“He’d be alone. Crew wouldn’t go along with him the way it might on a kifish ship. Kifish crew’d turn on their captain and mutiny. Hani won’t. I think maybe Skkukuk’s got a glimmering of that. It’ll make him behave.”
Again a dip of Hilfy’s ears. One ring swung there. But the eyes were not that young any longer. “I tell you what that son’s thinking. He’s thinking the crew’s conserving its own position and it’s rallied around you out of fear of him. That’s what he’s thinking. He’s thinking if we got into trouble we’d do a real stupid thing, standing by you just for fear of him. He thinks if we prove tough enough other hani will join us on Sikkukkut’s side. It’s all very simple to him. One thing I’ve found the kif astonishingly free of is species-prejudice.”
“I think you’re right.”
That seemed to soothe some raw spot in Hilfy. The ears came up again, pricked in an expression that made her look young again. And they flagged when she looked at Tully.
So you’re not a fool, Pyanfar thought. Thank the gods great and lesser. And did not miss that distracted look that passed between those two. No species-prejudice there either. Too little species prejudice. O Hilfy, you’re a long way from home and gods-be if I care if you’re two outright fools in that regard. I ought to be shocked. I can’t even find it anymore. Gods save you both, I hope you’ve done what I don’t even want to think about. I hope you’ve had a little bit of what I’ve had forty years of.
And what kind of thinking’s that?
* * *
Khym was sleeping when she came into their quarters. She dropped the trousers on the floor, quietly, pocket-gun and all; and came and got into the bowl-shaped bed, down in the middle of it where he was, a huge warm lump all hard with muscle and tucked up like a child. She put her arms around his back, buried her head against his shoulder. He turned over and nuzzled her shoulder.
Sleep, she wished him, with a bit of regret. Among pleasures in life a warm bed and a nap in her husband’s arms was not the least. She had not the heart to wake him, not when he was this far gone.
“Py,” he murmured, in that breathy rumble of his voice at whisper. And bestirred himself, perhaps for his own sake, perhaps just in that way a man would who knew he was wanted: matter of kindness, for a tired wife who came to him for refuge. What they did had nothing to do with time of year. That would have shocked the old gray whiskers back home. Wives and husbands were a seasonal matter: men were always in and wives got around to it when they were home, by ones and twos and, in spring, a confounded houseful of women with hairtrigger tempers and demands on a single, harried man; then the house lord got round to driving out all the young men who had overstayed their childhood, before some scandal happened: young women went to roving, older sisters heaved out any near-adult brother the lord happened not to take exception to. It was housecleaning, annual as the spring rains.
A spacer missed the seasons. She just came home when she got the chance, and tried to make it coincide with spring, a little visit to her brother Kohan, who was glassy-eyed and distracted with affairs in Chanur at such a time, she paid a little courtesy to his wives and any sister or cousin who lived in the house or just happened to be home—
—then it was up in decent leisure to Mahn in the hills, where Khym and his groundling wives held court. His other wives had never much gotten in her way: they were outfought and knew it, and hated her cordially in that way of rivals who knew she would be gone within a week or two, back to her ship and her gadding about again: if one had to have a rival one could not shove out, best at least she be the sort who was seldom home.
Now where were those wives? Hating her still, because she had him to herself at last and he was not decently dead, in his defeat? They would pity him and hate her, and call it all indecent, as if he himself had not had a choice in the world about being snagged up onto a Chanur ship and carried away to a prolonged and unnatural preservation. It ruined his reputation. It touched on their honor. Likely they imagined just such lascivious and libertine unseasonal things as she had led him into, or worse, that he was the prize of all the crew.
She thought about that. “What do you think,” she said into his ear, “do you think you’d object to one of the crew now and again? How do you feel about that?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I mean—they’re—” He was quiet a long time. “They’re friends.”
“I don’t mean you should.” She brushed his mane straight, dragged a clawtip along beside his ear. “I never meant that. I was asking if you ever wanted to.”
“They’re your friends.”
She felt his heart beating faster. Like panic. And cursed herself for bringing it up at all. “They never asked. Gods, what a mess. Don’t even think about it. I’m sorry I said it. I just felt sorry for them.”
“So do I. I’d do it. Tell them that if you want to. Like friends. I think they’d be sensible about it. I think I could be.”
Ask sensible of a man. Trust him. Gods, that’s what’s changed, isn’t it? He’s steady as a rock. He wouldn’t play games about it. They wouldn’t, with him. They respect him. They’d treat him like a sister—in crew matters. Not one of them is petty and not one is the sort that has to prove a point in bed or after. You know that about women you work with for forty years; and they’d know he was a loan. I’d take that risk for them.
But what’s good for him, that matters; that, they’d never question. Gods know I wouldn’t.
“I think you could trust them,” she said. “It’s all of them if it’s one, you understand that. I’m just telling you it’s all right with me. Won’t make me happy or unhappy. I just thought—well, if it ever does happen, you don’t have to slip around about it.”
“I never—!”
“I know that. I’m just telling you how I feel. If it’s ever one, it’s all. Remember it. Gods, back home I’d drop in on you for a hand of days and shove your other wives out; been the longest five days yet, hasn’t it? I’m feeling guilty about hanging onto you so long. It’s getting obsessive. I thought maybe, if things settle down again—” Thoughts crowded in that made it all remote and hopeless and stupid even to talk about it; but it was peace that she had come here for: she shoved Meetpoint aside and pretended. “Well, I thought I ought to give you a little breathing room. I shove you into my room, I don’t give you much choice, do I? I want you to know you’ve got a berth on this ship. On your own. As much as you want to be. Or where you want to be. You want not to share my bed a while, that’s fine. I’d miss you. But I don’t want you ever to think that’s what you’re aboard for.”
“I’m aboard because I’m a total fool.” A frown was on his face, rumpling up his brow. “The rest came later. Py, don’t talk like this.”
“Gods, you don’t understand.”
“I don’t own this ship. It’s Kohan’s. I can’t come here, bed his kin—”
Male thinking, hindend-foremost and illusionary. Down-world thinking. It infuriated her in him, when so much else was extraordinary. “This ship is mine, gods rot it, Kohan’s got nothing to do with it. And if you want to bed down with Skkukuk, he’s mine, too. I’ll also shred your ears.”
That struck him funny. And wrinkled his nose in disgust.
“I didn’t consult with Kohan,” she said. “I don’t consult. You know gods-be well how the System works, how it always worked, your sweat and your blood and you never owned a gods-be thing. Now you really do. Something you can’t lose. You can do as you gods-blessed please, and you do it, husband. Forty years I’ve been out here. You’ve been here two and already your thinking’s skewed. You at least listen to my craziness. All those years in Mahn, you used to ask me what the stars were like. Now you know what I come from, why I didn’t get along with the r
est of the women . . . why I never could make our daughter understand me. Tahy thinks I’m crazy. Some kind of pervert, probably. Kara knows I am. I just can’t get excited about what they think down there. I don’t have those kind of nerves anymore. Their little laws don’t seem important to me. That’s dangerous, I think. I don’t know how to get back to where I was. None of us do. Haral’s got a bastard daughter off in Faha; Tirun’s got a son somewhere still alive, left him in Gorun. Gods know they usually take precautions. But they’ve never married; they never will; they just take their liberties down in Hermitage with whatever takes their fancy, and I don’t ask. You know why they do that? I was lucky. My sister Rhean—one spring that we coincided down in Chanur I asked her how her husband was, you know, not a loaded question. But she got this look like she was dying by inches: ‘Pyanfar,’ she said, ‘the man doesn’t know where Meetpoint is. He doesn’t know what it is. That’s how my husband is.’ And I never asked her. That’s lord Fora she was talking about.”
“He’s not stupid, I knew him in Hermitage.”
“No, he’s not stupid. Rhean just can’t talk to him. Her world isn’t where he lives. His isn’t where she lives. Nowadays she comes home as little as she can. If she could go to Hermitage and do her planet-time there, I think she would far rather. A man you pick up in the hills, he’ll pretend you’re all his dreams, won’t he?”
“You ever do it?”
She hesitated. Which was as good as yes. She shrugged. “Not after we were married.”
“A Morhun found me like that; and left me a week later. Me, a kid out in the bush, hoping for an ally. Playing games with a boy like that—that’s cruel.”
“I was honest about it. I said I was down on leave. When I was. When I was younger than that I was honestly looking.”
“No boy of that age’d know you meant gone in the morning. No boy would know that that ship’s worth more to you than he ever could be. No boy would know he couldn’t follow you where you’d go, that the territory you want isn’t—isn’t something he could take for you. And he’d want to lay the whole world in your lap, Py, any man would want to, and he’d try to talk to you and maybe learn by morning he couldn’t give you anything you cared about. That’s a hard thing, Py. It was hard for me.”
“You were lord of Mahn!”
“I was lord of the place you used to go hunting, the house you lived in when you wanted a rest. I was a recreation. I never could give you anything. And I wanted to give you everything.”
“O gods, Khym. I said I was lucky.”
“But I could never give you anything. And I wanted to. When I went up to Gaohn to fight for you, gods, it was the first time I ever felt I was worth anything. When you wanted me to go with you—well, I followed you off like some boy out of Hermitage, didn’t I? Go off and fight our way up in the world like two teenaged kids? Didn’t know then the size of the farm you had picked out for me to take. Gods, what an ambition you’ve got! Give you a space station or two, shall I?”
“Gods, I wish you could.” For a moment Meetpoint was back in bed with them. The room felt cold. His arms tightened. He gave her what he had, and she still did not know whether it was out of duty or out of his own need; but at least it was a free gift, not something she demanded by being there. That was what she hoped they had won, after all these years, and this far removed from all the rules.
“You never were a recreation,” she said. “You were my sanctuary. The place I could go, the ear that would listen.”
“Gods help me, my other wives always knew who I was waiting for. Who I was always waiting for. They took it out on Tahy and Kara. I tried to stop that. Py, I spent thirty-odd years buying my other wives off our kids’ backs and it didn’t work.”
It was like a light going on, illuminating shadow-spots. Corners of the old house at Mahn she had never seen. The reason of so many things, so evident, and so elusive. “You never told me, rot it.”
“The times you were home—were too good. And you couldn’t stay. I knew that. I did what I could.”
Gods, I poisoned the whole house. All the other marriages. Ruined my kids—hurt Chanur in the long run, when my daughter turned on Khym and took our staunchest ally out. My doing. All of it mine.
He sighed, a motion of his huge frame against her. “I didn’t mean to say that. Gods blast, Py, I just fouled it up, is all.”
That was his life. That was why he walked on eggshells round those women, lost the kids. O gods. Lost Mahn alone, finally. And came back to Chanur like a beggar when I finally came home. Alienated his sisters. Everything. His sisters—for an outsider. They couldn’t forgive that. And the wives’ clans too. All for one wife. That’s crazy.
But, gods, what I’ve done—for a husband. I think I love this great fool. Isn’t that something? Love him like he was clan and kin. Like he was some part of me. It’s gotten all too close. He needs someone else for balance. Some sense of perspective. So do I. And I’m not interested. Handsomest man on Anuurn could walk in stark naked, I’d rather Khym. Always would. And he’d rather me. I never saw that part of it. I never saw that that was always what was wrong with us, and look what it did. We did so much damage, never meaning to; I did so much to him. Gods, I wish I could turn him over to the others.
They wouldn’t know how to treat him but they’d try. Even Tirun.
He wants so much to be one of them. That’s what he really wants. And they’d forget that. They’d forget because I can’t tell them any way I could make them understand what goes on in him.
Haral would. Haral might make a dent in Tirun, the old reprobate: gods, Khym, if you knew what good behavior Tirun’s been on—not laid a hand on you, has she? Because you’re mine. She’d go off and get drunk with you and take you home nice as milk, she would, because she’s onship and you’re offlimits and gods know she likes you, thinks you’re something special. I don’t know. She might be the real lady with you, you’re so much the gentleman. Funny what a crooked line we walk.
No, if you knew either side of Tirun, really knew her, you’d like her.
Geran and Chur—gods. I wish you’d known them before this mess. So pretty. But deep water, both of them. And dark. You don’t ever pick a fight with either. But they’ve got a gods-rotted broad sense of humor . . . never told you those stories. Not planetside. They don’t go down so much. Not comfortable around groundlings. That’s the awful thing: sometimes you want the land under your feet and the sun on your back, and then you’ve got to deal with the people that live there.
And Hilfy—you see what’s going on, her and Tully? My poor, conservative, ex-groundling man—not a flicker. We’re too well-bred. We don’t see. We don’t know what to do about it, so we don’t see; and we wish them by the gods well, because you and I, Khym, we’re on the downside of our years and we’ve got enough to do just to do for ourselves, in the mess we’re in.
You couldn’t sleep with Hilfy; never her. She’s the odd one out. Species she can get across. But the generations she can’t bridge. Can’t figure me out; gods, she can’t figure herself out. You’d confuse everything. And you’re uncle to her, you always will be, even if you haven’t a corpuscle in common. You’re her substitute for Kohan. She loves her father so much. That’s why she fusses over you like a little grandmother.
Bring her out here, never give her a stopover at home, and her in the growing years— She takes what she can. It was all so pat for us. And we wasted so much time. Good for her, I think. Good for Hilfy.
Thank the gods you’re here.
* * *
2342 and The Pride was stretching muscles, electronic impulses sending tests down to systems aft and bringing internal support up full, while lights on the bridge flickered and instruments blipped, routine departure-prep.
Given a kifish ship still stationary over station axis, bow-down so that its guns were constantly in line with every ship on the rotating station, but most notably the ones whose systems were now live, the ones full of non-kif who thought non-kifis
h and unpredictable thoughts.
But they kept com flowing naturally between The Pride and station central, which was partly Harukk personnel. And com operations went on likewise between The Pride and Aja Jin and Tahar’s Moon Rising, nothing compromising in any fashion, just the necessary coordination of three ships which planned to put out close together. There was still the coder they might have used. There were languages the kif might not understand.
There was also that ship over their heads, and mindful of that and of the firepower here gathered, they refrained from all such options.
“Hilfy,” Pyanfar said, “take message on your three: first thing at Meetpoint, auto that escape course out to both our partners.”
“Aye,” Hilfy said. “Understood.”
Hilfy and Haral and Tully were all settled in, Khym was settling. Haral was still running Geran’s station from the co-pilot’s board, but that was all perfunctory: there was not one gods-be thing scan could tell them at this point. If the kif decided to fire, they fired. That was all. And lost part of their station doing it.
“Geran come,” Tully said, doing—gods witness, the service Hilfy had drilled him on at that board: he had a pick to use where his poor clawless fingers had not a chance, he stuck it into the right holes in the right sequence, and he was at least adequate to keep an ear to internal operations. Even trusting him with that was taking a chance: Tirun was downside with Skkukuk and Jik was loose, but Pyanfar got a firm grip on her nerves and figured that (gods save them from such insanity) Tirun and Skkukuk between them could handle Jik if he had something inventive in mind.
While Tully, in a good moment and with the gods’ own luck on his side, might handle an emergency call down there: The Pride’s autorecognition was set on the word Priority, which no one let past their teeth during ops if it was not precisely that: Priority got flashed to Hilfy’s board and Haral’s simultaneously, and Tully would have to make an unlikely sequence of mistakes to take the lower corridors off wide open monitor.