Chanur's Legacy (18 page)

Where that ship might find legal problems waiting for them, unless they could get a release, and she
knew
the mahen politics waiting for them.

Hilfy sat and contemplated the screen; and sent back:

From toNarn’s Dawnmaker, the hand of Hilfy Chanur, to Kaury Narn, her attention:

Thank you for your offer. We fully understand. We will hold your proposal in reserve while we seek other safe disposition for— h
im.

The pronoun itself was unaccustomed out here. Ten, fifteen years ago, you didn’t by the gods
use
the male pronoun in a message between clans. It still felt queasy and indecent. It felt indecent to have one’s decades-senior aunt ahead of one’s self in pushing the conservative limits. When had
she
become the defender of hani propriety? the gentleman,she finished. If we don’t get back to you, we wish you a safe voyage.

And to Padur:

From toPadur’s Victory, the hand of Hilfy Chanur, to Tauhen Padur, her attention:

We are seeking other solutions. Please bear witness that we have attempted the honorable discharge of our reasonable obligations to Sahern and to Meras. Safe voyage.

She sat. And sat.

She
wished
she had not used the com in the approach to Sahern. Aunt
never
used com for clan to clan business if she could help it. Good, on the one hand, that the initial business with Sahern was on public record and overheard by two other clans. She did
not
regret that. But ... mahendo’sat who did not speak hani certainly had translators. So did the kif, of whom there were fifteen in system.

She had a prickly feeling all down her back, the same feeling the whole atmosphere at Urtur gave her— since the dust-up in customs, and the Personage’s too-easy dismissal of Ana-kehnandian, and every gods-be stsho on the station running for elsewhere when
she
had the Preciousness just itching to be delivered to somebody.

It had the feeling of powers at war, somewhere. And powers at war always went for the soft spots, the joinings between uneasy allies, the bribes, the coercions— the cooperations.

The feuds.

Ker
Chihin passed finger-pads over the panel surface, stooped and passed the same inspection over the floor, and evidently she found no fault with the job. Hallan put the vac away; and
ker
Chihin inspected that, too, then told him to take it to the laundry and stow it in the number 3 locker.

Then Chihin said, “Good job, kid.”

He looked back
from
the doorway, and bowed, hands full and all. He didn’t think he was called on to say anything, just to keep quiet and do what he was told; so he went and stowed the vac.

But
ker
Chihin hadn’t said about whether to come back or not. He thought he should; and came quietly back and stopped in the doorway, because Chihin was fixing a case back in the traveling brace, on the pedestal, and it might be fragile.

He waited until she had tightened the bolts and slid the cover off the box, which proved to hold a simple vase. Then he cleared his throat.

“Gods
rot
you!” Chihin cried, with a start, and knocked back into a bucket of construction trash and another of panel clips.

“I’m sorry,
ker
Chihin.”

“You didn’t see this thing.”

“Yes,
ker
Chihin.” He honestly wished he hadn’t. He thought maybe he was meant to get out, immediately, but Chihin started picking up loose bits and pieces of the scattered debris. He went to help, tentatively, and grabbed up loose panel clips as fast as he could find them, until he had a double handful.

“You be careful you don’t miss any of those. If one of those goes whizzing around here under v, you don’t want to know what it’d do to a body’s head.”

“I know,
ker
Chihin. I’m sorry.”

“It was my foot,” Chihin muttered, which was fairer than most ever were to him. He went back after more clips, and searched all around the edges of the cabin, and around the cushions and down in them, no matter how remote the chance.

No more of them. He came back and dumped what he had.

“Boy,—what got into you, wanting to come out here?”

“Captain said I could help ...”

“I mean
here.
I mean going to space.”

That
question. It always came up. “I
wanted
to.”

“I know that. But what’s a nice kid want to come out here and run over tc’a and get arrested for?”

Ker
Chihin didn’t think he belonged here. He was used to that. And you couldn’t argue with it. He shut up and kept his head down, already knowing the captain was going to throw him off the ship, so there was no use in arguing.

“Kid?”

“I wanted to go to space, that’s all.”

“Think you couldn’t have found yourself a spot on Anuurn? Don’t think there’s some niche you could have carved out? You’re a good-looking kid. You’d have gotten somebody’s attention.”

“I guess. Maybe. I don’t know.” He’d been through this too many times, with every ship he applied to, with the one that had taken him, with every member of the
Sun’s
crew, in one form or another. Sometimes he’d given answers to make them happy. He’d caught himself lying and sworn off it. But he didn’t want to argue with Chihin either. The day had already gone wrong enough.

“So what d’ you think?” Chihin asked. “Is space what you expected?”

“I don’t know.” Same stupid answer. He found a piece of debris and brought it back, thinking, and he said it: his back was to the wall and he couldn’t lose any more than he had. “But I don’t want to go back. And I’m getting better.”

“At what? Parking?” Chihin said, straight to the sore spot. He kept his head down and picked up the container of debris. “You know where to take that?”

“To ‘cycling. I guess it’s out by the lifts.”

“You guess right.” Which let him go, so he went out down the corridors and sorted the trash into the right chutes, plastics and metal bits apart, then wiped the bucket down and took it back to the only place he knew to take it.

“Goes in the maintenance locker/’ Chihin said. “That’s-“

“Lower Main 2. Next the lift. I spotted it.’‘

Chihin frowned at him and flattened her ears. He didn’t know whether Chihin was annoyed at him or not. “Sharp eyes we have.”

“Shall I put it up,
ker
Chihin?”

“Get,’‘ she said. He got, back to the area he had just been in. The lift was working. One of the crew coming down, he thought. He opened the locker, stowed the bucket, and was just latching the door when the lift door opened. He looked up, to say hello to whatever of the crew it was.

It wasn’t.

He saw the stsho in the same moment it saw him. He stared in shock; it let out a warbling shriek and ducked back into the lift.

He ducked back down the corridor. Fast. And around to where its cabin was.

“Chihin!” he stammered. And when Chihin looked at him: “I think it saw me. The stsho. It was in the lift.”

Chihin blasphemed in a major way and told him to go to his quarters. So he went there, and shut the door and sat down on the cushion.

He hadn’t thought things could get worse, or imagined that he could find another way to foul things up.

Oh,
gods,
he hadn’t thought so.

“Perfectly safe,” Hilfy said in her best stshoshi Trade. “I do assure your honor, this is a person who came aboard with references from
gtst
excellency gtstself ...”

“...
who lied!”
Tlisi-tlas-tin said from the speaker.

Hilfy leaned against the panel, kept her voice calm. “Your honor, occupying the lift is against all safety regulations designed for your comfort and well-being ...” She was down to quoting the primer lessons in the Trade. “Kindly bring the lift car back to lower decks and open the door.”

Gods rot the creature for taking it on gtstself to wander about the ship.

“Your honor, do you hear me? This is a civilized and well-mannered young person who was assisting a member of the crew in maintenance.”

“An immature male person? This ship has immature male persons performing life-critical maintenance? This ship has entrusted vital junctions to persons known for irrational behaviors and distasteful tendencies toward violence toward uninvolved bystanders?”

“This young male person was disposing of refuse.
Kindly
bring the car back to this deck.”

“We have been betrayed by all pertinent interests. How do we know if anyone is telling the truth regarding anything? How should we have anticipated this desertion ? How can we survive this devastation ? We are the prey of strangers and persons without discrimination! “

“Your honor, as the captain of this ship I require you to come to the lower level, for your own protection, your honor, as if there should be an emergency on-station the lift is not a safe place to be.”

There was no response. But stsho were not a valorous species where it came to bodily injury.

“Broken bones are possible,” she said, “should this station encounter some emergency.”

The lift thumped and whirred into motion.

“I think we got the son,” Chihin said.

“Don’t push our luck,” she said.

The lift reached lowerdecks. The door opened. Hilfy pushed the hold button, and bowed to the pale, tremulous creature at the back wall of the lift.

Gtst
bowed. She bowed.

Gtst
edged outward. And peered past her, cautiously.

“Will your honor view the quarters? Your honor certainly will not want to leave the
oji
unattended.”

A slippered toe edged across the line and into the corridor. Hilfy stood well back as
gtst
honor looked over the corridor.

And retreated.

“Your honor ...”

And advanced again, with a fluttering of
gtst
long fingers about the vicinity
of gtst
heart. Moonstone eyes looked toward the corridor, under feathery brows, and
gtst
honor advanced a pace.

“We are not certain, we are far from certain we can bear this stress. We have been affronted, we have been transported far from tasteful and familiar places, our presence has been assaulted by strange persons of male and violent gender—“

“If your honor please. You will be most favorably impressed by the tastefulness of your quarters. And the Preciousness is absolutely inviolate. Have we not promised?”

Step after step. Chihin backed aside. Hilfy gestured the stsho further and further and around the corner into the appropriate corridor, which
gtst
was willing to enter only after an advance look.

As far as the doorway at least,
gtst
advanced.
Gtst
craned
gtst
long neck around the doorframe to look left and right, and took a step inside.

And another.

“Spare,”
gtst
said. And advanced another pace, into a white, white, white cabin with white treelike shapes and the Preciousness enthroned in its case.

“Elegant,”
gtst
said, and sighed and walked further, from object to object, fluttering
gtst
hands and sighing and sighing again.

“A success,” Chihin muttered at Hilfy’s shoulder.

“A triumph,”
gtst
breathed. “How can a colored species have achieved it?”

One hardly knew whether to be complimented or not.

“Is your honor then comfortable?” Hilfy asked.

Gtst
turned full about, staring at all of it, no little of which was gotten at bid, from an abandoned stsho embassy and abandoned stsho apartments. And two mixed lots of white paneling, the only white paneling they had been able to find.

“Does this ... male person share nearby quarters?”

“By no means,” Hilfy said.

“Moderately acceptable,”
gtst
said. “Our sensibilities are relieved.”

The door shut.

“Put him in the lounge,” Hilfy said.

“Captain?” Chihin said.

“I said put Meras in the crew lounge! The crew can socialize in the galley! We can’t afford another incident!”

“Aye,” Chihin said quietly. And went.

“No question now,” Hilfy muttered, over gfi, at supper. “Hoas. Narn’s not happy about taking him, but they will. Leaving him here’s not a good idea. Let them think about it and somebody’II think up a lawsuit.”

Faces weren’t happy. “I’m against it,” Tiar said, foremost. “We have a responsibility, captain, we didn’t exactly ask for it, but this isn’t an experienced spacer we’re talking about. ...”

“We’re
all
against it,” Hilfy said. “We’d all
like
to leave him in better circumstances. We’d all
like
for Sahern to behave like a civilized clan and take care of its responsibilities, but that’s not going to happen. The only question is whether we throw him off our ship or we send him to Hoas where Narn will throw him off theirs. Maybe I can get a legal release out of the station office that’ll make it safer for him coming back through here—I’ll try that, in what time we’ve got, while we’re onloading...”

“Dangerous,” Chihin said. “Rattle a lawyer’s door and you get more lawyers, that’s what I say.”

“I know that. But we’ve at least got some influence to bring to bear, at least I’ve got a foot in the door with the personage of this system—not mentioning aunt Py—and the questions we can settle are questions that have to be answered, by any other ship that brings him back through here from Hoas. And Hoas it has to be. We can’t alter distances. There’s no way he can get back except through here.”

“He’s still safer with us,” Fala said, her young face earnest as might be.

“We’re
not
taking him.”

“I’ve backed a loader now and again,” Tarras said. “The docker chief was yelling to move it—the boy moved it. There’s not a one of us—“

“That’s fine. So we’re all occasionally guilty. We’re leaving the boy with Narn!”

“What if Ana-kehnandian thinks he knows something?” Tiar said.

And Chihin: “There’s—ah—a complication.”

“What complication?”

“The boy’s seen the vase.”