Pride of Chanur (19 page)

"If they catch us on the dock-"

"All the more reason we get the survivors aboard and get off the docks. Afraid you're not going to get that station liberty here either, imp."

"Think I can do without," Hilfy muttered.

They kept walking, down among the gantries, past idle crews, as far as number fifty-two berth, where a surplus of bystanders gathered, a dark crowd of mahendo'sat, sleek-furred, tall bodies which made it difficult to see anything. Medical personnel were among them; and station officials, conspicuous by their collars and kilts.

And hani, to be sure. Elbowing through the gathering, Pyanfar caught sight of bronze manes and a glitter of jewels on a hani ear, and she made for that group with Haral and Hilfy behind her. .

"It's high time you showed up," Dur Tahar said when she arrived.

"Mind yourself," Pyanfar said. "My niece behind me is Faha."

Dur Tahar slid a glance in that direction without comment. "Hasatso's due to touch any moment," she said.

"We've got some kif getting together down the dock. I'd watch that if I were you."

"Your problem."

"A warning, that's all."

"If you start something, Chanur, don't look for our help."

"Gods rot you, you give me no encouragement to be civil."

"I don't need your civility."

"A mutual hazard, Tahar."

"What, are you asking favors?"

The claws twitched. "Asking sense, rot you."

"I'll think on it."

Hasatso touched, a crashing of locks and grapples. Gantries slid up and crews opened station ports one after another in response to the ship, connected lines, started the rampway out to meet the lock. It was an agonizingly slow process from the spectator ranks, and only the mahendo'sat found occasion to chatter.

And finally a distant whine and thump announced the breaching of the freighter's hatch, first in procedure: station reciprocated, and the mahe crew escorted off four hani, exhausted hani, one with an arm bandaged and bound to her chest, all of them looking as if they were doing well to be walking at all. Necessarily the mahendo'sat officials moved in: there was signing of papers, mahe and hani; and Pyanfar took Hilfy by the shoulder, worked forward with her. Hilfy went the last on her own and offered an embrace to the refugees, an embrace wearily returned by the Faha, one after the other.

"My captain," Hilfy said then, "my aunt Pyanfar Chanur; my crewmate Haral Araun par Chanur."

There were embraces down the line. "Our ship is open to you," Pyanfar told the first officer, whose haggard face and dazed eyes took her in and seemed at the moment to have too much to take in, with the mahe offering medical assistance, station wanting immediate statements. Pyanfar left the Faha momentarily to Hilfy and to the Tahar who had moved up to offer their own condolences, and herself took the hands of the mahe rescue crew one after the other, and those of the apparent captain, a tall hulking fellow who looked as bruised and bewildered as the Faha, who was probably at the moment reckoning his lost cargo and the wrath of companies and what comfort all this gratitude was going to win him when the shouting died down and the bills came in.

"You're captain, mahe?" Pyanfar asked.

A sign of the head.

"I'm Pyanfar Chanur; Chanur has filed a report in your behalf at Kirdu; Chanur company will give you hani status at Anuurn: you come there, understand? Make runs to Anuurn. No tax."

Dark mahe eyes brightened somewhat. "Good," he said, "good," and squeezed both her hands in a crushing grip, turned and chattered at his own folk-likely one of those mahe who could scarcely understand the pidgin, and good might be about half his speaking vocabulary. He seemed to make it clear to the others, who broke out in grins, and Pyanfar escaped through the crush toward Hilfy and the others, got her arm about Hilfy and got the whole hani group moving through the pressure of tall mahendo'sat bodies. The Tahar made a wedge with them, and they broke into the clear.

"This way," Pyanfar said, and first officer Hilan Faha took the other elbow of her injured companion and made sure of the other two, and they started walking, escaping the officials who called after them about forms-Chanur, Faha, and Tahar in one group up the dock, toward the upcurved horizon where The Pride and Moon Rising were docked.

"How far?" the Faha officer asked in a shaking voice.

"Close enough," Hilfy assured her. "Take your time."

The way back seemed far longer, slower with the Faha's pace; Pyanfar scanned the dark places along their route, not the only one watching, she was sure. Inevitably there were the kif ships; and the kif were there, ten of them now . . . calling out in mocking clicks their insults and their invitation to come and ship with them. "We take you to your port," they howled. "We see you get your reward, hani thieves."

A wild look came into Hilan Faha's eyes. She stopped dead and turned that stare on them. "No," Pyanfar said at once. "We're here on station's tolerance. This isn't our territory. Not on the docks."

The kif howled and chirred their abuse. But the Faha moved, and they made their way farther with the kif voices fading in the distance, past the stsho, who stared with large, pale eyes, up past a comforting number of mahendo'sat vessels, and virtual silence, dock crews and passers-by standing quietly and watching and respectful sympathy.

"Not so much farther," Pyanfar said.

The Faha had not the breath to answer, only kept walking beside them, and finally, at long last, they had reached the area of The Pride's berth. "Faha," Dur Tahar said then, "Moon Rising has no damage, and The Pride does. We offer you passage that's assuredly more direct and quicker home."

"We'll accept," Hilan Faha said, to Pyanfar's consternation.

"Cousin," Hilfy said in a voice carefully modulated. "Cousin, The Pride will put out quickly enough; and we need the help. We need you, cousins. You might find common cause in the company."

"Tamun's had all she can stand," Hilan Faha said, with a protective move of her hand on her injured comrade's shoulder. She looked toward the Tahar. "We'll board, by your leave."

"Come," Dur Tahar said, and the Tahar fell about the four and escorted them across to their own access. Hilfy took a couple of steps forward, ears flat, stood there, hands fallen to her sides, and took a good long moment before she turned about again, with her kinswomen disappearing upward into the rampway of Moon Rising. Mortification was in every line of her stance, a youngster's humiliation, that set her down as well as set her aside, and Pyanfar thrust hands into her waistband to keep them from awkwardness-no reaching out to the imp as if she were a child, no comfort to be offered. It was Hilfy's affair, to take it how she would. "They've had a shock," Hilfy said after a moment. "I'm sorry, aunt."

"Come on," Pyanfar said, nodding toward their rampway. There was a red wash about her own vision, a slow seething. She was bound to take the matter as it fell for Hilfy's sake, but it rankled, all the same. She walked up first and Haral last, leaving Hilfy her silence and her dignity.

Cowards, Pyanfar thought, and swallowed that thought too for Hilfy's sake. They desperately needed the added hands: that thought also gnawed at her, less worthy. They needed the Faha. But the Faha had had enough of kif.

And there were kif ships out there, waiting. She was increasingly certain of it-if not actually on the fringes of Kirdu System, which they might be, at least scattered all about, waiting the moment. More and more kif ships, a gathering swarm of them, unprecedented in their cooperation with each other.

She passed the airlock into the corridor, and Chur and Tirun who had turned out with the evident intention of welcoming their Faha guests-stopped in their exit from the op room,

simply stopped.

"Our friends changed their minds," Pyanfar said curtly. "They 1 decided to take passage with Tahar. Something about an injury a one of them suffered, and the Tahar promised them a more direct route home."

That put at least an acceptable face on matters for Hilfy's sake. They retreated as Pyanfar walked into the op room, looked at Geran and Tully who sat there, Geran having well understood and Tully looking disturbed, catching the temper in the air, no doubt, but not understanding it. "Nothing to do with you." Pyanfar said absently, settling into a chair at the far counter, looking at the system-image which Geran had been monitoring. Hilfy and Haral came in together, and there was a strained silence in the op room, all of them gathered there and Hilfy trying to keep a good face on.

"Well, good luck to them," Tirun muttered. "Gods know they've seen enough."

"There are kif out there on the dock," Pyanfar said, "who
 
know too much. Getting cheeky about it. They've come in from Kita ahead of us, part of the bunch from Meetpoint or Urtur-Urtur, I'll reckon, since I checked names and they weren't the same as there. Just passing the message from one kif to the next. It's getting tight here."

"There'll be more soon," Haral said. "I'll bet there's some outsystem. Captain, think we can talk the mahe to run us escort to our jumppoint? Surely we've got leverage enough for that."

"That story will go from station to station," Pyanfar said bitterly. "Gods, but I don't think we've got much choice. Get them to shepherd us out of here."

"When we can get our tail put together again," Tirun said glumly.

There was a noise from down the hall, a footstep in the airlock. Every head turned for the doorway and Pyanfar reached for the gun in her pocket and thrust her way past Tirun getting to the op room door and the corridor, clicking the safety off the gun.

It was hani-Hilan Faha, who flung up a startled hand and stopped at the sight of her. Pyanfar punched the safety back on with a clawtip and thrust the weapon back into her pocket, aware of others of her crew now behind her.

"Changed your mind of a sudden?" she asked the Faha.

"Need to talk to you. To my young cousin."

"To your cousin, rot you; and to me. Come on inside. Neither she nor I'll talk out here like dockside peddlers."

"Ker Pyanfar," the Faha murmured, manners which in no wise mollified her temper. Pyanfar waved the lot of them back into the op room-only then recalled Tully, who was trapped there in the corner, but there was nothing of secret in his presence on the ship, and no cause to send him slinking out past them all. Let the Faha talk in front of him; let her deliver her excuses under an Outsider's stare-served her right.

And Hilan Faha stopped in the doorway at the sight of Tully, this naked-skinned creature hani-styled and hani-dressed sitting at the counter among the crew; and Hilan's ears went flat. "This," she said, rounding on Pyanfar, "this is that item the kif wanted-isn't it?"

"His name is Tully."

Hilan's mouth tightened, am ominous furrowing of the nose. "A live item. By the greater gods, where have you been, Chanur, and what's going on with this business?"

"If you were traveling on this ship you might ask and I might answer. As things are, you can learn when the Tahar do."

"Rot you, Starchaser died in your cause, for this-" She spat, swallowed down a surplus of words when Pyanfar stared at her sullenly. "It was the captain's decision; we off-loaded everything at Urtur and tried to run to give you a break for it. But where were you then? Where was our help?"

"Blind, Hilan Faha-off in the dust and stark blind. We tried, believe that; but at the last we had to jump for it or risk collision; we hoped you could get off in what confusion we created."

Hilan drew a quieter breath. "The captain's decision, not mine. I'd not have budged out of dock: know that. I'd have sat there and let you sort it out with the kif, this so-named theft of yours. . . ."

"You take kif word above mine?"

"If you have an explanation I'll be glad to hear it. My cousins are dead. We're broken. We'll not get another ship, not so likely. Great Chanur makes plans, but the likes of us-we'll go on other Faha ships, wherever we can get a berth. I'll reckon you know where the profit's to be found, and, gods rot your conniving hide, you've stirred up what a lot of ships are going to bleed for. What a lot of small companies are going to go under for. They gave me a message to give you, Pyanfar Chanur-the kif gave me this to tell you: that what you've done is too much to ignore and too great to let pass. That they'll come after you wherever you are in whatever numbers it takes-even to Anuurn. That they'll make it clear to all hani that this prize of yours is no profit to you. This from their hakkikt. Akukkakk. Him from Urtur. His words."

"Kif threats. I'd thought you had more nerve."

"No empty threats," Hilan said, eyes dilated, her nostrils flared and sweat-glistening. "Tell all hani, this Akukkakk says- desert this Pyanfar Chanur or see desolation . . . even to Anuurn space."

"And where did you hear all this? From a scattering of ships and a kif who never caught us-who failed to catch you. Hilan Faha; and if we'd gotten together at Urtur-"

"No.-No. You don't understand. They did catch us, Chanur. Did overhaul us. Killed two of my cousins doing it. At Kita. And they let us go ... but we broke down in the jump. They let us go to deliver that message."

The Faha's shame was intense. There was a silence in the room, no one seeming to breathe.

"So," said Pyanfar, "do you believe all your enemies say?"

"I see this," Hilan said, gesturing at Tully. "And all of a sudden the game looks a lot larger than before. All of a sudden I see reason that the kif might gather, and why they might not stop. Chanur's ambition-has gone too far this time. Whatever you're into, I don't want part of it. My sister's alive; and two of my cousins; and we're going home.-Cousin," she said, looking at Hilfy, "to you-I apologize."

Hilfy said nothing, only stared with hurt in her eyes.

"Hilfy can leave with you if she likes," Pyanfar said. "Without my blame. It might be a prudent thing to do ... as you point out."

"I'd be pleased to take her," Hilan said.

"I stay with my ship," Hilfy said, and Pyanfar folded her arms over a stomach moiling with wishes one way and the other at once. And pride-that too.