“Meaning Vigilance.”
“No argument from me.”
“Huh.” An orange glare flooded in from overhead as the lighter hatch whined open. She turned and reached for the ladder without a courtesy to the kifish crew, as Haral scrambled up it ahead of her, where the pale circle of The Pride’s hatch was mated up to the dark access-clamps. Haral whipped a wad of kifish cloth from her pocket, grasped the space-cold lever and yanked. The hatch retracted in a puff of unmatched airpressure, a breath of clean cold wind. Haral looked down from the top of the ladder, in a bath of white light; Pyanfar waved her on, protocols be hanged; and Haral clambered up and through.
Pyanfar scrambled after, feeling the ladder shake as someone else hit it in haste. She came up in the brilliant white light of The Pride’s emergency airlock, turned round with Haral to pull Tirun through, and Geran next, and Tully, and Hilfy, and Khym with his arm bleeding again after the quick plasm-spray the kif had given it. She forgot, she outright forgot and had straightened to see to Khym when she heard something else hit the ladder and saw a shadow scramble up to them.
She bent and offered her hand: Haral was not about to. Skkukuk’s dark, bony fingers hooked to hers and he sprang up into the hatch with kifish agility, head up and wide-eyed.
So the captain helped him with her own hand. Skkukuk’s eyes glittered and his nostrils flared in excitement, and she felt a frustrated disgust. The hatch whined down and thumped into seal undernHara’l’s pushbutton command. The inner hatch shot open on the E-corridor. “Geran,” Pyanfar said on the instant, turning. “Get!”
“Aye!”
And the smallish woman headed out of the lock at a dead run ahead of them. “Seal us!” Pyanfar yelled at the crew in general, leaving security to them, and lit out on Geran’s heels, headed for topside, for—gods help them, whatever there was to find up there on the bridge.
She heard the hatch seal. Lights came on in the corridor ahead as the monitor picked up the sound of Geran’s running footsteps and stayed on to the sound of hers.
The E-lift was in place, automatically downsided by the hatch-open command. The lift door opened instantly to Geran’s push of the call button, and Pyanfar skidded in after and emergencied the door shut as Geran punched the code to send them on their way, up and then sideways as the car shot down the inner tracks for the main lift shaft.
Geran was panting. Her ears were laid flat, her eyes showing white at the corners. She was close to panic and she would not look Pyanfar’s direction, staring only at the sequencing marker-lights as the lift ran its course up, up-ship and up again to the main lift-shaft and the corridor to the bridge.
There was no time for comfort now. And no use in it.
* * *
They hit the main-corridor running—a small, dark thing squealed and eeled away down a side passage, and another scuttled ahead of them in panic—gods, what is it?—Pyanfar let it go, her mind on one thing and only that; and one quick glance into the open door as they passed Chur’s borrowed room—showed where Chur was not. The bed was empty, sheets flung back, tubes left hanging, the lifesupport machinery flashing with malfunction lights. Pyanfar spun on one foot and ran all-out after Geran, on and pellmell onto the bridge, where a thin, red-brown figure lay slumped in Hilfy’s chair, head-down on the counter. A pistol lay by Chur’s shoulder. Her arm hung limp over the chair arm.
Geran brought up, hand against the chair, and lifted Chur’s head—used both hands to prop her back against the seat. Chur’s jaw hung slack. Pyanfar reached to offer what she could of help, her own hands shaking.
Chur’s ears twitched, the jaw shut, the eyes opened half, and she made a wild lunge for the counter and the gun.
Pyanfar caught her. “‘S all right, it’s all right,” Pyanfar said, bracing her up and putting her face where the wild fix of Chur’s eyes could register who it was. “It’s us.”
“Gods,” Geran said, and sank down to her knees on the spot, against the chair. Her ears were back. She was shaking visibly as she clung to the chair arm. “Gods rot it, Chur—What’re you doing here?”
Chur’s ears twitched and slanted her sister’s way as she turned her head. “Everybody get out?” she asked, the faintest ghost of a voice.
The lift was cycling. “They’re on their way up,” Pyanfar said. “Even got Skkukuk back, worse luck.”
“He with you?” Chur asked thickly. “Gods, I thought he was loose on the ship. Been seeing things—little black things—couldn’t find anybody aboard—gods.” Chur lay back against the seat-back and blinked, licked her mouth. “Vigilance—went, captain. I tried to get the guns to bear, tried to stop ‘er. Missed my fix. Armament’s still live—” She made a loose gesture toward Haral’s seat. “Got back here—I don’t remember—gods-be little black things in the corridors—”
* * *
Pyanfar got up and walked over to her own post. The armament ready-light was flashing red on the boards. She shut it down and capped it and looked up as the lift door opened down the hall and their ill-assorted crew came running, kif and all. “She’s all right!” she yelled out to them from the bridge, violating her own cardinal rule; and went back to Chur, only then realizing Chur had not a stitch on. “Migods,” she muttered, with not a blanket to be had and two men—no, three—arriving on the bridge; and then decided no one cared. They were all crew. Even the kif Skkukuk, brought along willy-nilly. Tully came rushing over among the rest, and Chur grinned and reached up and patted his anxious face right in front of Khym and everyone.
“Let’s get you back to bed,” Pyanfar said. “Gods-be med-machine’s blowing its fuses in there.”
“Uhhnn.” Chur put a hand on the chair arm to lever herself up, and fell back. “Goldtooth,” she said suddenly, hazily. “Goldtooth.”
“What about Goldtooth?”
“Took out after Ehrran—blasted out this message—”
“You get it?”
Chur waved her hand at the com board. “In there somewhere. In the decoding—function—”
Pyanfar started to bring it through on the spot; and stopped with her hand on the board, remembering Skkukuk standing there. She turned and waved a hand at the crew. “Tirun, take station. I want a systems checkout. Fast. Geran, Hilfy, get Chur to bed. Haral, Khym, Tully, take Skkukuk to his room, then go wash up, patch up, and get back here double-quick. We got ops to run.”
Haral’s ears slanted. “You’re worse hurt than I am.”
The metal particles stung at every move; most of her exposed fur was matted with blood from pinprick punctures. Her battered skull throbbed with so many impacts she had gotten used to the pain. It was likely true she was the worse case. But: “Get,” she said, because there was that message from Goldtooth in the decoder; and Haral read her by that silent way they had of thinking down the same line. Protest filed, Haral turned and made to gather up Skkukuk as she went.
“I am a valued ally,” Skkukuk said, drawing himself up in offense. “Captain, I am not to have my door locked, I am not—”
“Shut up,” Hilfy said, facing him by Chur’s side. “Move it.”
“This one means harm,” Skkukuk said. “Kkkt. Kkkt. Captain—” He dodged as Khym reached for his arm. “They have taken my weapons! I warn you their intentions—”
“Get!” Pyanfar said. Skkukuk flinched and ducked his head, and Haral motioned to him again. Shouldn’t have yelled, Pyanfar thought. I shouldn’t have yelled; the son did save my life, fair and plain.
But he’s kif.
They led him out and down the corridor, Haral and Tully and Khym together. And Hilfy and Geran turned Chur’s chair about and with tenderest care bent down and lifted Chur out of it. “I can walk,” Chur said. “I c’n walk, I just got tired—” But they swept her off her feet between them and carried her anyway, off the bridge and down the corridor, Chur mumbling protests all the way, only then and loudly realizing she had forgotten her breeches.
Pyanfar sank into the vacated chair and punched the recycle o
n the com-system. Nothing came up. Frustration welled up, changes in the systems, every time they looked, some new gewgaw in the works. “Gods-be, what’s access on the decoder?”
“That’s CVA12,” Tirun said from Haral’s post. “To your one, I got it, I’m getting it.”
It ran.
“Gods rot, it’s in mahensi!” She cycled it again and sent it through the translator.
“Situation deteriorating,” came the translator’s droning voice. “Advise you human destination Meetpoint. Same mine. I got talk to one Stle stles stlen. Make maybe deal. Ehrran go; I go, same. Keep company. You clear dock number one fast, both. Got little fracas start.”
“Gods blast him!”
“—Best chance I can give.”
“Blast him to his own hell! You know what you did, you smug bastard, you know where you left your partner?”
The message ended. Pyanfar cut it off with a shaking hand.
Sat there with both fists clenched, until the black edges cleared from her vision. Then she carefully punched in another call. “Aja Jin, this is Pyanfar Chanur, come in.”
Not on coder program. The kif down the row, the kif in station command—were undoubtedly monitoring even the so-called shielded-line. Everything. It was not politic to be too closely associated with Aja Jin just now. Or to talk in secret.
“Captain, this Soje Kesurinan, Aja Jin. You back? You got news?”
“Bad news, Kesurinan. Your captain’s been detained. Him. Those with him. In the hakkikt’s custody. I think your personnel are going to be released. No word like that on your captain. The hakkikt—” Keep it neutral, keep it ambiguous, tip Kesurinan off to the situation as much as she could read between the lines. “—the hakkikt sort of wants to assure Aja Jin’s good behavior. After Mahijiru lit out. And to discuss the matter. You got any news on that?”
“They jump,” Kesurinan said after a moment. “Confirm. You got word captain’s status?”
“Just that the hakkikt, honor to him, wanted to talk to him. Alone. I left him in good health.”
Honor to him. We’re being spied on, Kesurinan. Remember that, we’re in real trouble. Don’t press me with questions.
A long pause on the other side. “You got suggestion, captain?”
“I suggest if you’ve got a good explanation what Mahijiru’s up to with Ehrran, it sure might help.”
“I get,” Kesurinan said. The strain came through the accent and the com-garble. “I do number one quick.”
“If you learn anything let us know double-quick. I think your captain’s situation is extremely delicate. I don’t think he knows what the hakkikt, praise to him, wants from him. If you can come up with that it might help. Understood? We’ll use what good influence we have.”
A second long pause. “Yes, understand. Thank you, Chanur captain. Thank you call us.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, heartfelt, and broke the transmission. Propped her throbbing head on her hands and winced helplessly at touching one of several lumps on her skull. It bled. She felt the dampness and looked at the stain on the fur between her pads. She began to shiver. “I’m going to wash up,” she told Tirun. “Can you carry on a while?”
“Aye,” Tirun said without turning around. On the boards rapid checks were going, searches after surreptitious exterior damage which, if not the kif, Ehrran might have done to them.
Or Mahijiru. She could not believe in Mahijiru’s desertion. Could not believe Goldtooth had turned on them.
But it was politics. Like han politics, like the scramble for power that put herself and Ehrran at odds. In this case it was two partners who violently disagreed on how to deal with the kif—Jik who wanted compromise, and Goldtooth who played some other game, involving knnn; a game in which the stakes were perhaps too high, too unthinkably high, to put friendship anywhere in the equation.
The affairs of rulers, of Personages. Hani had never tolerated any divine right but the right of clans to decide their own affairs; or the rights of groups of clans to hold a territory: and hani never by the gods bent the knee to anyone but kin and house lord.
Honor to him. Honor to a prince of pirates who tortured her friends and laughed inside when a hani had to mouth politeness to him.
I’d pay him any pretty speech he likes for Jik’s life; and I’ll pay him something by the gods else, the first chance I get.
Likely he knows it too.
He wanted me before he wanted the mahendo’sat. Offered me alliance back at Meetpoint. He couldn’t trust the mahendo’sat. He knew that. He knew how a hani could be snared: he appreciates what Chanur could be and do—the way the han appreciates it, oh, yes, the han wants our hides on the wall. The han saw it before the kif did. . . what we were capable of after we took out Akkukkak, after we contacted humans. They saw it coming. . . if we were ambitious. And they thought we were. And they pushed us to it.
She walked off the bridge, paused for a moment at the door of Chur’s room, where Hilfy and Geran had settled Chur in again.
“Gods-cursed needles,” Chur said to her.
“Sure. You tear loose of that again I’ll have a word with you.”
“Goldtooth’s message.”
“Ambiguous as ever.” She saw the glance Hilfy and Haral gave her. “I don’t know what he’s up to.” They would not have told Chur about Jik and his companions, not spilled any more bad news on her than they could avoid. “Stay put, huh?”
“Where’s he going?”
“He thinks he’s going to Meetpoint. So’s everyone else we know. Big party going to happen.”
“We?”
“Oh, yes. You can lay bets on that, cousin. We’ll be there.”
Chur blinked, turned her head to the side, where Geran was taping tubes at her elbow. “Captain’s not telling all of it, is she?”
Geran pursed her mouth. Said nothing.
“Conspiracy,” Chur muttered. And shut her eyes, exhausted.
“She did a good job,” Pyanfar said, reckoning Chur could hear that.
“Yes,” Geran said.
Pyanfar lingered there a moment, studied the three of them. Chur; Geran; Hilfy. None of them the same as they had been, excepting Chur, excepting maybe Chur. Geran’s movements were quiet, economical, delicate; her manner was wry cheerfulness, and it was a mask. Chur sensed it, surely, knew the killing rage buried under it, Geran of the knife, Geran the silent one. Geran who smiled with the mouth nowadays and not with the eyes. And Hilfy. Hilfy had gone to whipcord and hair-triggered temper. No more young Hilfy; no more young at all. Hilfy had gone fine-honed and when she was quiet there was always a shadowplay behind the eyes, where things moved Hilfy Chanur did not talk about. There was sodium-fire and dark; and no bath took away the ammonia-stink and the blood.
But Hilfy had sat there in that all listening to her tread the narrow line with this kif, the same as Geran had sat there consumed with worry about her sister and never betrayed it; and Tirun had done her job down to the line same as Haral, where they were needed.
And sitting there side by side in that dark council hall—Tully, answering the kif calmly; and Khym, whose self-control had never broken, two males who had held their anger quiet inside and waited for orders from their captain. Crew. Same as the rest of them. The best. The Pride. Something the kif would never own.
“Huh,” Pyanfar said, summation, and walked away down the corridor.
APPENDIX
SPECIES OF THE COMPACT
The Compact
The Compact is a loose affiliation of all trading species of a small region of stars who have agreed by treaty to observe certain borders, trade restrictions, tariffs and navigational procedures. It is an association, not a government, has no officials and maintains no offices, except insofar as all officials of the various governments are de facto officers of the Compact.
The Hani
Native to Anuurn, hani may be among the smaller species of the Compact, but the size range, particularly among males, is so extreme that individua
l hani may overreach and outbulk the average of other, taller species. Their fur is short over most of their bodies except for manes and beards. It ranges in color from red-gold to dull red-brown with blackish edges, and in texture from crimped waves to curls to coarse straightness.
Hani were a feudal culture divided into provinces and districts a few centuries previous to the events of The Pride of Chanur. They had well-developed trade and commerce when they were contacted by the spacefaring mahendo’sat (qv) and flung from their middle ages, with its flat-earth concept and territoriality, into interstellar trade.
The way of life previous to that age had been this: that individual males carved out a territory by challenge and maintained it with the aid of their sisters, currently resident wives and female relatives of all sorts, so long as the male in question remained strong enough to fend off other challengers. Actual running of the territory rested with a lord’s sisters and other female relatives, at least a few of whom, if he was fortunate, would prove skillful traders, and whose marriages with outclan males would form profitable links with the females of other clans. Such males as lived to become clan lords were sheltered and pampered, kept in fighting trim at the urging of their female relatives and generally took no part whatsoever in interclan dealings or in mercantile decisions, which were considered too exacting and stressful for males to cope with. The male image in most households was that of a cheerful, unworldly fellow mostly involved in games and hunts, and existing primarily for the siring of children and, in time of challenge, idolized for those natural gifts of irrational temper and berserker rage which would greet the sight of another male. The females stood between him and all other vicissitudes of life. Much of hani legendry and literature, of which they are fond, involves the tragic brevity of males; or the cleverness of females; or the treks and voyages of ambitious females out to carve out territory for some unlanded brother to defend.
Under the management of certain great females, vast estates grew up. Certain estates contained crucial trade routes, shrines, mountain passes, dams—things which were generally the focus of ambition. Certain clans formed amphictionies, associations of mutual interest to assure the access of all members to areas of regional importance, which was usually done by declaring the area in question protected. Out of such protected zones grew the concept of the Immune Clan; that is, a clan whose hold over a particular resource must not change, because of the need of the surrounding clans to have that resource managed over the long term by a clan with experience and peculiar skill: such clans devoted themselves to public service and dressed distinctively. Immune males enjoyed great ceremonial prestige and were generally cloistered and pampered, while the sons of Immune houses were without hope of succession except by the death of the lord by natural causes. To attack an Immune male was a capital offense, bringing all the area clans to enforce the law.