"Don't ask."
"They think I'm crazy. For the gods' sakes, Py, you walk in here with news like that. Don't kill the human, please. Never mind the kif. Never mind the gods-be-blasted station's going to sue—"
"They say that?"
"Somewhere in the process. Py— I don't put my nose into Chanur business. But I know accounts. I was good at it. I know what you've put into this trip, I know you've borrowed at Kura for that repair—"
"Don't worry about it." She patted his arm, turned for the door in self-defense, and stopped there, her hand on the switch. She faced about again with a courtesy in her mouth to soften it; and met a sullen, angry look.
64
Chanur's Venture
"My opinion's not worth much," he said. "I know."
"We'll talk later. Khym, I've got work to do."
" Sure."
"Look." She walked back and jabbed a claw at his chest. "I'll tell you something, na Khym. You're right. We're in a mess and we're shorthanded, and you gods-rotted took this trip, on which you've gotten precious few calluses...."
The eyes darkened. "It was your idea."
"No. It was yours. You gods-rotted well chose new things, husband: this isn't Mahn, you're on a working ship, and you can rotted sure make up your mind you're not lying about on cushions with a dozen wives to see to the nastinesses. That's not true anymore. It's a new world. You can't have it half this and half that— you don't want the prejudice, but you gods-rotted well want to lie about and be waited on. Well, I haven't got time. No one's got time. This is a world that moves, and the sun doesn't come round every morning to warm your hide. Work might do it."
"Have I complained?" The ears sank. The mouth was tight in disaste. "I'm talking about policy."
"When you know the outside you talk about policy. You walk onto this ship after what happened in that bar and you walk into your quarters and shut the door, huh? Fine. That's real fine. This crew saved your hide, gods rot it, not just because you're male. But you sit in this cabin, you've sat in this cabin and done nothing—"
"I'm comfortable enough."
"Sure you are. You preen and eat and sleep. And you're not comfortable.
You're eating your gut out."
"What do you want? For me to work docks?"
65
Chanur's Venture
" Yes. Like any of the rest of this crew. You're not lord Mahn any more, Khym."
It was dangerous to have said. So was the rest of it. She saw the fracture-lines, the pain. She had never been so cruel. And to her distress the ears simply sank, defeated. No anger. No violence. "Gods and thunders, Khym.
What am I supposed to do with you?"
"Maybe take me home."
"No. That's not an option. You wanted this."
"No. You wanted to take on the han. Myself— I just wanted to see the outside once. That's all."
"In a mahen hell it was."
"Maybe it is now."
"Are they right, then?"
"I don't know. It's not natural. It's not—"
"You believe that garbage? You think the gods made you crazy?"
He rubbed the broad flat of his nose, turned his shoulder to her, looked back with a rueful stare.
"You believe it, Khym?"
"It's costing you too much. Gods, Py— you're gambling Chanur, you're risking your brother to keep me alive, and that's wrong, Py. That's completely wrong. You can't stave off times. I had my years; the young whelp beat me."
"So it was an off day."
"I couldn't come back at him. I didn't have it, Py. It's time. It's age. He's got Mahn. It's the way things work. Do you think you can change that?"
66
Chanur's Venture
"You didn't see the sense in another fight. In wasting an estate in back and forth wrangling. Your brain always outvoted your glands."
"Maybe that's why I lost. Maybe that's why I'm here. Still running."
"Maybe because you've always known it's nonsense and a waste. What happened to those talks we used to have? What happened to the husband who used to look at the stars and ask me where I went, what I'd seen, what outside the world was like?"
"Outside the world's the same as in. For me. I can't get outside the world.
They won't let me."
"Who?"
"You know who. You should have seen their faces, Py."
"Who? The stsho?"
"Ayhar."
"Those godforsaken drunks?"
"Last thing they expected— me in that bar. That's what the stsho owner said. 'Get away from me, get away from my place, don't go crazy here.' "
"Gods rot what they think!"
"So? Did I teach them anything? Stsho didn't want to serve me in the first place. And I'd had— well, two. To prove I wouldn't, you know— go berserk. And then the riot started. What good's that going to do you— or Kohan?"
"Kohan can take care of himself."
"You're asking too much of him. No, Py, I'm going back downworld when we get back."
67
Chanur's Venture
"To do what?"
"Go to Sanctuary. Do a little hunting."
"— be the target of every young bully who's honing up his skills to go assault his papa, huh?"
"I'm old, Py. It catches up with a man faster. It's time to admit it."
"Gods-rotted nonsense! You'll go back to Anuurn with a ring in your ear, by the gods you will."
He gave a smile, taut laugh, ears up. "Good gods, Py. You want my life there to be short, don't you?"
"You're not going downworld."
"I'll beg on the docks till I get passage, then."
"Gods-rotted martyr."
"Let me go home, Py. Give it up. You can't change what is. They won't let you change. Gods know they won't let me. Whatever you're trying, whatever grandstanding nonsense you've gotten into— give it up. Stop now. While there's time. I'm not worth it."
"Good gods. You think the sun swings around you, don't you? Ever occur to you I have other business than you? That I do things that don't have a thing to do with you?"
"No," he said, "because you're desperate. And that's my fault. Gods, Py—"
A small, strangled breath, a drawing about the mouth. "It's cost enough."
"You know," she said after a moment, "you know what's kept the System in power? The young expect to win. Never mind that three quarters of them die. Never mind that estates get ruined when some young fluffbrain gets in power over those that know better and tries to prove he's in charge.
The young always believe in themselves. And the graynoses flat give up, 68
Chanur's Venture
give up when they've got the estate running at its best— they get beaten and it's downhill again with a new lord at the helm. All the way downhill.
You know other species pass things on, like mahendo'sat: they train their successors, for the gods' sakes—"
"They're not hani. Py, you don't understand what it feels like. You can't."
"Kohan ignored you right well."
"Sure. Easy. I wasn't much. He still ignores me. How do you think I'm here?"
"Because I say so. Because Kohan's too old and too smart to hold his breath till I give in. And by the gods the next time some whelp comes at him with challenge we'll tear the fellow's ears off. First."
"Good gods, Py! You can't do that to him—"
"Keep him alive? You can lay money on it. Me. Rhean. Even his Faha wife. Not to mention his daughters. Maybe some son, who knows?
Someday."
"You're joking."
"No."
"Py. You remember the fable of the house and the stick? You pull the one that's loose and it gets another one—"
"Fables are for kids."
"— and another. Pretty soon the whole house comes down and buries you.
You start a fight like that in the han and gods know— gods know what it'll do to us."
"Maybe it might be better. You think of that?"
/> 69
Chanur's Venture
"Py, I can't take this dealing with strangers. I get mad and I can't stand it, I ache, Py. That's biology. We're set up to fight. Millions of years— it's not an intellectual thing. Our circulatory system, our glands—"
"You think I don't get mad? You think I didn't want to kill myself some kif out there? And I by the gods held my temper."
"Nature gave you a better deal, Py. That's all."
"You're scared. "
He stared at her, eyes wide in offense.
"Scared and spoiled," she said. "Scared because you're doing what no male's supposed to be able to do; and guilty that maybe that makes you unmasculine; and gods-rotted spoiled by a mother that coddled your tempers instead of boxing your ears the way she did your sister's. He's just a son, huh? Can't be expected to come up to his sister's standard. Let him throw his tantrums, and keep him out of his father's sight. Makes him potent, doesn't it? And gods, never let him trust another male. Rely on your sister, huh?"
"Leave my family out of this."
"Your sister hasn't done one gods-rotted thing to back you. And your worthless daughters—"
"My sister did back me."
"Till you lost."
"What's she supposed to do? Gods, what's it like for her, living in Kara's house with me running about as if I were still—"
"So she's uncomfortable. Isn't that too bad? Spoiled, I say. Both of you, in separate ways."
70
Chanur's Venture
His ears were back, all the way. He looked younger that way, the scars less obvious.
"You want," she said, "the advantages I have and the privileges you used to have. Well, they don't go together, Khym. And I'm offering you what I've got. Isn't it enough? Or do you want some special category?"
"Py, for the gods' sake I can't work on the docks!"
"Meaning in public."
"I'll work aboard." A great, gusting sigh. "Show me what to do."
"All right. You clean up. You get yourself to the bridge and Haral'll show you how to read scan. It's going to take more than five minutes." She sucked at her cheeks. She had not meant to make that gibe. "You can sit monitor on that. Our lives may depend on it. Keep thinking of that."
"Don't give me—"
"— responsibility? Nice, boring, long-attention-span jobs?"
"Gods rot it, Py!"
"You'll do fine." She turned and punched the door button with a thumb claw. "I know you will."
"It's revenge, that's what it is. For the bar."
"No. It's paying your gods-rotted bar bill same as any of us would."
She stalked out. The door hissed shut like a comment at her back.
71
Chanur's Venture
Chapter 4
Tully was at least on his feet— seemed to be feeling like Tully, which meant insisting on cleaning himself up if he wobbled doing it, crashing about the lowerdecks washroom talking to himself (or thinking that he was being understood) and generally insisting on his privacy from females even if they were of different species. Hilfy dithered between communications from Haral topside via the hallway com panel, frantic requests from Chur in the op room down the corridor (Tirun and Geran were busy down in cargo offloading canisters, with attendant booms and thumps up through the deck plates), and the barricaded washroom into which disappeared a pair of Haral's blue trousers and out of which issued steam and the indescribable mingle of human-smell, fruit, fish and disinfectant soap.
"You all right?" Hilfy asked, when a hairless arm snaked the offered trousers from around the corner of the door. "Tully, hurry it up. We've got other problems. Fast? Understand?"
A mumbled answer came back and the door went shut as if he had leaned on the control as soon as she had gotten her arm out. Hilfy looked round in desperation as Chur came trotting back from ops waving a pair of pocket coms and with a third clipped to her drawstring waist. "Got it," Chur said.
"Translator's up and running."
"Thank the gods." She pounded on the door again, whisked it open as Chur thrust a pocket com and earplug around the corner to their passenger and drew her arm back. "Tully—" she said to the unit Chur gave her. She put the earplug in with a grimace. "Tully? You hear me now?"
"Yes," the sound came back, mechanical, from the com loop to the translating computer. "Who talk?" The translator's syntax was far from perfect.
"Tully," Chur said, "it's Chur talking. Hilfy and I got other work, understand? Got to go. You hurry it up; we take you to quarters, get you settled in."
72
Chanur's Venture
"Got talk to Pyanfar."
"Captain's busy, Tully."
"Got talk." The door opened. He leaned in the doorframe, wearing blue hani trousers, which fit, but barely; and shirtless like themselves. His all but hairless skin was flushed from the heat inside and his mane and beard were dripping wet. "Got talk, come ## talk to Pyanfar."
"Tully, we've got troubles," Hilfy said. "Big emergency." She took him by the arm and Chur took the other, drawing him along despite his objections.
"Got cargo troubles, all kinds of troubles."
"Kif." He went stiff and stopped cooperating. "Kif are here?"
"We're still at dock," Hilfy said, keeping him moving. "We're sitting at Meetpoint and we're as safe as we're going to be. Come on."
"No, no, no." He turned and seized her arms with his blunt-fingered hands, let her go and shook at Chur. "# no ###"
Hilfy shook her head at the static breakup. The translator missed those words. Or never had them.
"Hilfy, Chur— mahen # take # ship # human. I bring papers from #. They ask # hani make stop these kif. Got danger. We're not safe # Meetpoint."
"What's he mean?" asked Chur, her ears gone lower, up again. "You catch that?"
"Go get hani fight these kif," Tully said.
"Good gods," Hilfy said.
"Friend," he said again, the hani word, that sent garble through the translator, less forgiving of his mangled pronunciation. His strange blue eyes were aflicker with fear and secrets. "Friend."
73
Chanur's Venture
"Sure," Hilfy said. She felt a cold lump at the pit of her stomach, hearing the clank and whine of cargo at work below. Things clicked into place of a sudden, that her aunt had committed them to something more than running an illegal passenger— being desperate, with Chanur's financial back to the wall.
It was more than human trade Tully brought. Trade might save their hides.
But entanglements with kif, deals with a mahendo'sat who was not the trader he gave out to be—
And the likes of Rhif Ehrran breathing down their backs all the while—she had heard it all from Chur.
The han would have their ears.
* * *
Pyanfar took the com to the shower with her, hung it on the wall outside. On the day's record so far, she expected calamities.
The first call brought her dripping from shower to the mat outside undried, mane and beard and hide cascading suds.
"Captain." Haral's voice.
"Trouble?"
"Na Khym's here. Says you said he should sit scan monitor."
"Show him what he needs."
Dead silence from the other end. Then: "Aye, captain. Sorry to bother you."
Back to the shower then, to wash the suds off. She slicked the mane back, flattened her ears and squinched her eyes and nostrils shut, face-on to the water-jet for one precious self-indulgent second. She sneezed the water 74
Chanur's Venture
clear and cycled from water to drier, fluffing out her mane and beard, enjoying the warmth.
The com beeper went off again.
"Gods rot." She left the heat and stood damp and shivering by the hook, fumbling the answer-slot. "Pyanfar."
"Captain." Haral again. "Got a kifish message couriered in. From one Sikkukkut. Says it's for you personally."
"Open it."
A long silence. "He's
offering partnership."
"Good gods." She forgot the physical cold for a deeper shock.
"Says he wants to talk with you face to face. Says— gods— he's talking specifics here. He names ships he says are after us. Says we have mutual enemies. He gets into kifish stuff here— pukkukkta."
"Gods-rotted pukkukkta changes meaning in every context— get linguistic comp on that. Get it on the whole thing— keep alert up there."
"Aye, captain. Sorry."
"All right." She sneezed and cut the com off, returned to the shower and recycled the dryer.
"Captain. Captain."
She left the staff and snatched up com. "For the gods' sake, Haral—"
"— Captain, sorry. That request for scheduling— it seems we're being sued. Got six lawsuits against us and station says it can't give clearance without—"
75
Chanur's Venture
She shut her eyes a moment, composed her voice and kept it very calm.
"Get the stationmaster online. Tell gtst to issue orders."
"By your leave, I've tried, captain. Call won't go through. The stationmaster's office says gtst is indisposed. The word was gstisi. "
Personality crisis.
"That gods-rotted white-skinned flutterbrain isn't going to Phase on us!
Countersue the bastards and start prep for manual undock as soon as they get that cargo clear. Get everyone on it down there. And send a message to the Director and say if gtst doesn't get this straightened out I'll give gtst new personality more damages to worry about, some of them to gtst person."
"Aye," Haral said.
She threw clothes on, her third-best trousers, green silk with moiré orange stripes in the weave; a belt with bronze bangles; the pearl for her ear. Her best armlet, the heavy one. The alien ring was on the counter, from the pocket of the red breeches. She considered, dropped it indecisively into her pocket, pocketed the gun again, clipped on the com and pattered out into the hall in haste, claws clenched, headed for the bridge.