Chanur's Legacy (27 page)

He hadn’t thought that was particularly clever. But she started to laugh, until the all-ship blared out:

“ Fala ? Where’s that systems check ? We ‘re in count, gods rot it!”

“I’ve got to go,” she said, and scrambled for the door. But she stopped there and looked back. “Can I bring you anything? Gfi? A sandwich?”

“No. No, I’m fine.”

“Fala!”

She ran for it—
not
using the com unit by the crew lounge door. The door shut. He found himself exhaling a pent breath and feeling as if he should adjust the cabin temperature.

So they were in count for leaving this port. That was fast. That was very fast. And he was anxious to get out in space where there was something maybe the captain would let him do, so he had an excuse not to be cornered.

They were in count and the clanks and thumps of offloading cargo kept going. That was a first too, so far as his experience went.

But usually crews wanted to take a few days’ rest and liberty on the docks. And the
Legacy
had urgent business, very urgent business, with
two
stsho aboard, now, one of them crazy and the other apt to go that way if
gtst
met him again.

He was absolutely, resolutely, positively resolved he was not going to make one single more mistake on this voyage and he was not going to do anything the captain would disapprove of. ...

Which meant not getting caught with Fala Anify in the crew lounge. The door opened. Fala put her head in. “You have the
prettiest
eyes,” she said. And ducked out.

He dropped his head into his hands. His career in space hung by a thread, he had nothing to think about but stupid tape dramas and the aux boards manuals he was
trying
to din into his reflexes so he wouldn’t foul up the next chance the captain gave him, and he had a junior and Chanur relative trying to get his attention.

Gods,
please
let the captain keep her busy.

“Well, there’s
Ha’domaren.”

That from Chihin, at scan. Four hours out from Kita docks and they were approaching jump.

“I don’t think I’m surprised,” Hilfy said, pursing her mouth. “I
wonder
what he made of the rocks.”

“One real happy mane,” Tarras said. “Karpygijenon, I mean. Not our Haisi-lad.”

Laughter on the bridge. It was a good sound. Except it was a slightly off-color joke, involving Haisi’s morals, and
na
Hallan was probably mortified.

Well, let him be. He could adjust. He would have to.

“You know,” Tiar said, “whoever’s backing him has got to wish he’d carry cargo.”

“I wouldn’t bet
where
his mass is. He’s shorting his jumps. He probably could do Urtur-Kshshti direct.”

“Unless he’s carrying a mortal lot of armament,” Tarras said—their own gunner ... if, the gods forbid, they ever had to use what they carried.

Propulsion stuff, Tarras was implying. And that jogged a very bad thought. “Heavy stuff is all government issue.”

“So they’ve got a permit?” Fala asked.

“If they’re running with a heavy missile load.”

“I wish,” Hilfy said, “that we had a source for this Paehisna-ma-to that son claims he’s with. I’d like to know if she’s in the government.”

“If she is,” said Chihin, “she’s a whole different kind of bad news.”

“Probably he’s just shorting the jumps,” Hilfy said. “Doesn’t want to show off to the locals.”

“They’ve got to ask,” Tiar said, “the local officials, that is ... why this ship doesn’t offload or on-load.”

“Gods, no, they’re not going to ask,” Chihin said. “That son reeks of influence. That ship’s probably real well known here and there.”

“Suppose
ker
Pyanfar knows him?” Fala asked.

“Wish
ker
Pyanfar would come get him,” Tarras said.

“I
don’t
like the idea he’s got government ties,” Chihin said. “If the mahendo’sat go unstable ... and the stsho already are ... that’s not good.”

“We’re out and away,” Hilfy said, “and I’ll tell you how I’m betting. We’re bought into staples and strategics, and as soon as sell it, I’d rather warehouse it on Kshshti for a sale when the stsho do go crazed ...
or
find some reseller I can talk into taking the whole lot at enough profit.”

“Rocks and all?”

“Are we serious about the rocks?” Fala asked plaintively. People put jokes over on Fala. Long, elaborate and sober-faced ones. And Fala wasn’t willing to fall for another one.

“They’re tc’a eggs,” Chihin said. “That’s what they really are.”

Wicked dig at
na
Hallan, that was. Hilfy looked in the reflection on a dark screen, and saw Hallan Meras trying to look as if he were utterly absorbed in the boards.

“No tc’a jokes!” Fala said.

“Was that a tc’a joke?” Chihin asked.

“Ker
Chihin,” Fala said sternly.

Getting serious, it was. And Fala hadn’t the rank. “Chihin,” Hilfy said.

“Aye, captain. No tc’a.”

“Na
Hallan?”

“Aye, captain?”

Kept his temper, he had. She saw his reflection looking at her, ears at half mast, then pricked up respectfully as she delayed answering.

“You may hear about tc’a from time to time. Do you take jokes,
na
Hallan?”

“Yes, captain.”

“Can you make them?”

“I—don’t think of one, off-hand, captain, I’m sorry.”

“Tc’a,” Chihin said.

“Chihin!” Fala said.

“I was just suggesting.”

“Chihin,” Hilfy said, and saw Chihin dip her ears and lift them again. No gods-be way to stop her but an AP at point blank range. Or losing her temper, which didn’t work with Chihin Anify, no more than it had with her cousins.

“Tc’a,” Hallan said gravely, and Tarras sneezed, or laughed. Chihin scowled, and Fala grinned at her boards.

“I think that was a joke,” Tiar said.

“You’ve got to tell me,” Chihin said.

“That was a joke,” Tarras said dryly.

Chihin’s ears twitched. Chihin’s mouth pursed into what might have been a smile. You could want to kill her. But Chihin was as ready to take it as give. Not from strange men, be it noted. Not from men in general, that
she
knew. Or most wouldn’t try: definitely old school, Chihin was, and radiated her willingness to notch ears. Not unlike her cousins.

Fact was, Hilfy thought suddenly, and for no particular reason but many bits and tags,
Chihin
was pushing in a very odd way, for Chihin. Gods-be patient, she was.

And she
knew
the looks young Fala threw in
na
Hallan’s direction.

It could get down to a sticky situation trying to get
na
Hallan’s highly attractive self off the ship. Which by the gods she was twice determined to do. They had a smoothly functioning crew. They got along. The ship didn’t need the scandal, Chanur didn’t need the gossip, Meras didn’t need it, and if she had her hands on
ker
Holy Righteousness Sahern at this moment she’d give her a lasting remembrance of Hilfy Chanur.

The crew was nattering at each other again. Quibbling over the jump, which was all right—exactitude saved fuel and saved money.

But they were coming up on the mark.

“Stow it. We’re away, on the count. Are our passengers set, Fala?”

“Gtst
excellency says they are.”

“On the mark. How’s our shadow?”

“Just blazing right along. I
wish
that son’d give us more room. We don’t need to bump him in the drop.”

“That son or his pilot is probably just too gods-be good. He could jump that ship onto a dinner-plate, you want to lay odds? They don’t give just any captain a hunter-ship. And that’s by the gods what it is.”

“I’d lay odds our stsho passenger might know more about that son than
gtst
is saying.”

“I’d lay odds our other stsho passenger did know more than
gtst
is sane enough to say. But we’ve no guarantee
gtstisi
is going to sort out anything like the stsho that was.”

“Spooky,” Tarras said. “Spooky lot. / wouldn’t want to go through jump with a crazy person.”

“I wouldn’t want to be a crazy person in jump,” Tiar said. “Can you imagine?”

“I’d rather not,” Hilfy said. “Are we watching where we’re going, please? We’re coming up ...”

The coordinates blinked.

She punched the button. The
Legacy ...

... dropped out of Kita Point space ...

... “Well, well,” Pyanfar said.

“Go away,” Hilfy said. She didn’t
want
her aunt. It frightened her that it
was
her aunt who kept disturbing her dreams—and it was beyond any doubt a dream, it was that comfortable thing the mind did when it didn’t want to handle space that wasn’t space. Except her gods-rotted aunt wouldn’t stay out of them lately. Maybe it was the political stench about the
Legacy
on this voyage. Maybe it was her good sense trying to tell her she’d made a mistake. She wasn’t superstitious about the illusions.

Not much, anyway.

“You’re indulging yourself,” Pyanfar said, sitting on something or another—furniture and rocks materialized when you wanted to sit. And Pyanfar usually sat down when she was going to meddle, parked herself like a gravity sink and insisted on affecting things around her. “Woolgathering’s a bad habit, slows your reflexes, fogs your thinking...”

She tried to imagine Pyanfar into the encompassing gray haze.

Pyanfar said, obstinately present: “You
live
in jump, don’t you? Just your own little place where you can have your way with Tully and nobody can object. Not even Tully.”

Her subconscious was getting vicious.

“Try living in realspace,” Pyanfar said. “Try living where you are, Hilfy-girl. Try your own species, for starters.”

“Gods rot your interference!” She was as mad as she’d been in years. “If you’d stayed out of my business I wouldn’t have married that gods-cursed fool—“

“You’re not listening. This isn’t a life, niece. Life’s not this. Your cousin Chur doesn’t time out. Your cousin Chur
sees
the stars in a way I almost can. And you spend your time wishing for what wasn’t.
Wasn’t,
niece, wasn’t ever, and wouldn’t be, and couldn’t be in a thousand years, and if you want me to say more, I will.”

She didn’t. That rarely stopped Pyanfar Chanur. But her aunt tilted her chin up in that lock-jawed way she had when she knew she’d won a point, and changed subjects.

“That’s a hunter ship out there. And it wants what you’ve got. It could blame things on the kif. It could be rid of you, get hold of your passengers and the
oji,
pin the raid on kif pirates, and
still
show up in civilized ports smelling like a spring morning. Think about that. They could be lying silent when you show up at Kshshti. They could clip a vane and strand you, for a least thing they could do. Kshshti’s not going to investigate. You
know
what Kshshti is...”

She was on Kshshti docks—red lights flashing, black-robed shadows closing in on them in some trading company’s dingy freight access, fighting for their lives, and Tully going down-She didn’t want the rest of that memory. She tried to come out of it. She hadn’t flinched at going to Kshshti when she’d known she had to, she hadn’t let what had been affect what would be ... she wasn’t a coward, she hadn’t been and wouldn’t run scared. She’d
go
there, she hadn’t given herself time to think and none to recall the jump out of there, the absolute black despair of a kifish hold...

Kshshti was where it had started. That was where she had made the worst mistake of her life, when the kif had been waiting for nothing so much as a chance at any of them. Leave it to the kid.

She’d been younger then. Hormones in full spate. A fool.

A kif leaned close to the cage, and talked to her, its speech full of clicks from inner and outer rows of teeth. A kif reached into a cage and devoured small live creatures that squealed and squeaked pathetically. Kif were delicate eaters. Their appetites failed, with other than living food. And nothing went down their gullets but liquids—of whatever viscosity. She wanted out of this dream... But it was forever before she heard the beep of the alarm, telling her they were making the drop ..... here and now.

* * *

“That’s first dump,” she said. And remembered the hunter-ship. “Where’s
Ha’domaren?
Look alive! Can you spot him?’’

“Got the buoy,” Fala murmured.

And from Chihin and a deeper voice almost simultaneously, a set of coordinates, as Tiar’s switching sent the buoy system-image to her number one screen.

She was relieved to know where that son was, damned sure.

Meanwhile Fala was talking to
gtst
excellency, who seemed to be alive, and Tiar was handling a message to station.

“Rocks didn’t blow,” Tarras said.

“That’s nice. Advise
gtst
excellency we’re going down again.”

Pulling the dumps close together. But they’d come in close. Showy precision. She pulled a nutrient pack from the clip and downed it in three gulps.

“Kshshti Station,” Tiar was saying, talking to a station central that wasn’t going to hear them for another hour. “This is
,
inbound.”

Not
The Pride.
Now wasn’t then. Maybe on Kshshti docks a stsho was running for cover. Maybe they’d caught Atli-lyen-tlas this time, maybe
gtst
hadn’t had time to get out of port. A stsho didn’t have the constitution for consecutive spaceflights.
Gtst
had to be feeling the strain of the chase by now.
Gtst
had to be saying to
gtstself
that maybe running wasn’t worth it.

Gods-for-sure certain no
kifish
captain had provided
gtst
the comforts they’d given Tlisi-tlas-tin. That kifish ship held the dark kifish eyes preferred, the sullen glow of sodium lights, the perpetual stink of ammonia …

... on anyone who dealt with them...

A stsho couldn’t flourish in the dark.
Gtst
sanity would go.

On the other hand ... considering Kita Point ... maybe it already had. Maybe there
wasn’t
an Atli-lyen-tlas by now, just a body, and compliance to kifish orders, and no knowledge who
gtst
had been.