Pride of Chanur (24 page)

"Three berths," Pyanfar said. "Together. Tell them to clear something if they don't have it. Talk them into it."

It was a long interval. They still had lagtime from station. "Stationmaster," Chur said finally, "intervened to grant it. We've got twenty through twenty-two."

"Comment?"

"Nothing," Chur reported.

Trouble. Pyanfar's ears flicked. If they could demand ships shunted about and get their request it was because they had a right to it; and if they had a right to it, then there was an emergency in progress. Homecoming kin had right-of-way . . . in situations of death; of challenge; of disasters.

"System's quiet," Chur reported. "I'm not getting idle chatter. They're not volunteering any information, captain."

"Kif," Pyanfar said. "Outsiders present."

Tully said something from belowdecks. Went silent. Hilfy's voice followed, talking to him, low and urgent.

"Let's not have any panic down there," Pyanfar said. "Tully. Quiet. Take orders, hear?"

"Understand," Tully said.

The minutes crawled past. Jik's Aja Jin came into position, so that The Pride went flanked by the mahe. "Goldtooth,"

Pyanfar said. "You come onstation with me; want your friend stay out of dock and watch, a?"

"A," the answer came back, short and sweet; from Jik no word. He would do it, Pyanfar thought. Station was sending specific instructions: Haral was attending that, inputting it for comp. She hit the shunt which dumped the data onto Haral's screens, with a blinking warning that control of the ship came with it: Haral nodded, accepting it without missing a keystroke. Pyanfar loosed her restraints, swung her cushion about and assayed to get her feet under her.

"Get to the bridge," she told those below, leaning over com. "Aye," Tirun sent back. Pyanfar walked about a bit, unsteady on her feet, bent down enough to get some of the dried food out of storage by her own console. Chips and bottles of salts. She opened them, put them in reach of Haral and Geran and Chur, chewed on a bit of dried meat and washed it down with half a bottle of the liquid. Dehydrated. The jumps took some time off bodies. She walked about trying to get the needling pains out of her joints, heard the lift in function and then steps coming down the corridors.

"Captain."

Knnn-song wailed out of com.

"Gods and thunders!" Pyanfar spat. "Location on that."

"Ahead of us," Geran said. "One of those ships moving up on station."

Tirun and Hilfy and Tully had arrived, stood together in the archway which opened onto the bridge, silent in the grating sound which ran the scale.

Knnn never called at Anuurn. Never, till now.

"It overjumped us," Pyanfar said with-she reckoned- commendable calm. "If that's our knnn, it just overjumped us by at least an hour."

"Fast bastard," Tirun muttered.

"Mahijiru," Chur said, "asks if we notice."

"Cut that thing off," Pyanfar said. "Tell Mahijiru yes, we did notice." She pricked up her ears with an effort, flicking the rings into order on the left. "Hilfy. Tully's channel." Hilfy turned her pager onto broadcast. "Tully-we're home now. Anuurn. Got trouble here."

"Kif," Tully said. "I hear. Hani-make deal with them?"

"Papers," Pyanfar said sharply, and when Tully's hand went to his left pocket: "You keep those with you. You're registered; you've got a number in the Compact. No. No way the kif can take you by law. Going to have one lot of mad kif, maybe; maybe some mad hani. But they can't take you, except by force."

"Fight them."

"You take my orders. My crew, my orders."

"Pyanfar." Tully thrust out his hand to stop her from turning away. "I don't go from you."

Pyanfar flattened her ears, staring up into Tully's pale, distraught eyes. "I don't need someone making me conditions. You do what I tell you."

"Do. Yes. I go on this ship. With you. #### give ### hani I quick dead."

"We've got troubles enough, Outsider. Hani troubles as well as kif. Let be."

"With you. Long time voyage. With you."

"I'm not your kin, rot you. You come on my ship, you make me trouble-what in a Mahen hell do I owe you?"

"Dead, outside. Need you."

"Huh." Male. The shout left a quiet after it. Alien male, but all the same she saw the line drawn, the edge past which there was no thinking . . . their patient, docile Outsider. She cuffed his arm, claws not quite pulled. "You listen, friend Tully; you think, rot your hide. We go off this ship; we; you; we come back, you come back with us. Hear?"

"Come with you?"

"I say it."

He flung his arms about her; sweaty, reeking as he was, as they both were, he hugged her with abandon. She freed one arm and the other and shoved him off in indignation, which in no wise changed the look in his eyes.

"Do all you say," he said.

"By the gods you'll do it. You do something wrong and I'll notch your ears for you. You keep that brain of yours working or I'll rattle it like a gourd. Can you do that? Can you look at a kif and not go crazy?"

That took a moment's thought. He nodded then. "Get them other time," he said confidently, waved a hand toward the wide infinite. "We go find kif other time pull their heads off."

The mangled extravagance appealed to her; he did, with his clear-eyed insanity. She cuffed him harder and got a moment's shock, not temper-like Khym, like her own easygoing Khym, where Kohan would have swung and cursed at the sting. She was reassured, that he was capable of restraint, that a cuff on the ears stood a chance of getting his attention; that blunt-fingered and slender as he was, a couple of them could hold him if they had to. "If we get out of this," she promised him, "we go skin some kif. Next trip out. I take you with me."

That was premature. They owned nothing to give away, least of all the disposition of the Outsider. Lose Chanur, she thought with a chill, and they could make no more promises at all; but confidence burned in Tully's eyes, a trust that he was theirs.

Gods. Theirs. Theirs for managing, for using, for finding the location of his distant people before the mahendo'sat or the kif could do so, and making a wedge for Chanur trade. But it was Hilfy's kind of a look he gave her. Worship ... not quite. Absolute belief. She looked at Hilfy to be sure and found the same. Looked disquietedly at the others, at Haral and Geran and Chur and Tirun, who had their own rights on this ship which was theirs as well as hers, who had been here longer and knew better and had to know what the odds were. It was there too-quieter, but as crazily trusting. She talked about going kif-hunting and they gave her that kind of stare.

"Keep it sane in here," she said. "I'm going to clean up. Tully, for the gods' sake, bathe."

She stalked out. The Pride streaked on toward station. She had no least doubt that some of those ships out there were kif, and that there was at least the remote possibility that the kif might face about and start a run at them in some berserk notion of revenge.

If this Akukkakk saw no other possibility, he might. But his presence here, before her, indicated that he knew that she had to come here; and why; and that he had a chance of revenge far wider than one ship, a handful of deaths.

It was Chanur he was aiming at. His information was accurate enough to have brought him here. Somewhere, hani had talked; and he knew where to put the pressure on.

Faha, she thought unworthily, but the suspicion nagged at her. If not the Faha, others, who had talked too freely at some dock or-gods help them-Handur prisoners, taken alive at Meetpoint. She doubted the latter: the destruction had been thorough: and Goldtooth denied the chance of survivors. But someone, somewhere-had said enough in the wrong hearing. She put the thought away. It was too bitter.

She wore the red this time, red silk breeches and the best of her rings and the pendant pearl. Appearances. She combed and brushed until her mane and her beard gleamed red gold highlights. She splashed on perfume, reckoned that some sweeter scent would hardly hurt Tully, and pocketed one of several vials in the drawer.

For Hilfy she pocketed something too. She went back to the bridge then, distracted herself with current reports on their approach-Hilfy was not there, nor were Tully or Geran or Chur, but Tirun had taken the number three cushion next Haral. "No trouble," Pyanfar observed.

"Routine so far," Haral said.

"I'll take it. Your turn." Pyanfar slid in at her place and Haral slid out of hers, weary and staggering in the use of cramped muscles.

"Getting some kif transmission," Tirun said after a moment. "Operational. They know we're here. Nothing more said."

"How many of them, do you reckon?"

"Station's given us an accurate count. Seven."

"Gods have mercy."

"Aye."

Pyanfar shook her head and called up the various images available to her screens. They were coming in under automatic at present, locked on station's guidance. Vid image filled one screen, Anuurn itself, blue and marbled with cloud. Beautiful. It was always beautiful on approach, never so spectacular as Urtur, but full of life. It conjured blue skies; and grassy\plains and broad rivers and vast seas; it conjured colors; and scents; and textures; and a gut feeling which was different than all other words ... for hani.

She watched at her leisure: with The Pride under automatic there was little else to do. A sweep of their second vid camera showed their mahen escorts riding slightly aft, two sleek killers, so precise in position they might have been one single ship.

"Aja Jin advises he'll drop back to guard as we go in," Tirun said.

"Understood."

"Still picking up signal from that knnn. Tried the translator on it. I get nothing but a docking matchup, aside from the singing."

"They docked?"

"Quarter hour ago. Gods know what station's going to do with them. No facilities except the emergency hookup. I don't get any outside transmission on that problem."

"Huh."

"Not a word from anyone else in system. Unnatural quiet."

"Kif docked?"

"All seven."

"Thank the gods for that. You sure?"

"Station's word on it."

Pyanfar laid her ears back, scowled. It was too cooperative all round, kif who put into station . . . something was crooked here. Badly out of trim. It was far too late to turn about. And there was Kohan and all of Chanur below, who had no such options to turn and run. Therefore The Pride did not.

"Station requests all weapons shielded."

Pyanfar considered a moment, reached to the board and complied. "Done," she said, wishing otherwise. Presumably Mahijiru did the same. Aja Jin had dropped behind them now, in a defensive position at their vulnerable tails.

"Got plan?" Goldtooth's voice reached her ears then, transferred from Tirun's board.

"Want you with me when we go out," she said. "You understand hani station rules. Know them all?"

"All," Goldtooth confirmed.

"See you on the dock."

Weapons, she meant to say: hani stations observed no weapons-rules. It was not a thing she wanted to discuss on com. She trusted that the mahe would turn up armed. It was certain the kif would.

XI

Automation took them in to the last, trued to the cone. It was an easy dock. The grapples touched and locked on both sides. The instruction came up to access the line ports; declined, she sent back, refusing that mandated service. It was not likely, considering the circumstances, that station would quibble. No objection came back, only a pressure reading for the station itself and a recommendation to use the ah- shunt in the lock.

"They know it's trouble," Pyanfar muttered. "Tirun, someone's got to stay aboard. You're it; you and Geran. Sorry."

"Aye," Tirun muttered unhappily. No discussion. "Shall I page Geran and advise her?"

"Do that."

"Want both of you fit. If we can't get back, take command, your own discretion. Take the ship and get out of here, pick up crew at Kirdu-mahendo'sat or anything else; and make it count, hear me?"

Tirun's ears went down. "You're not planning on it."

"Gods no, I'm not planning on it. But if, if, old friend. If we lose-in any sense-neither hani nor kif sets hand to The Pride. That's firm."

"That's firm," Tirun said. "Tully-our problem or yours?"

"Mine," Pyanfar said. "He's walking evidence. And more problem than you need. You've got that tape; you've got an ally in the Kirdu stationmaster if it comes to that. I don't leave you any instructions. If something goes wrong, make up your own rules."

"Right," Tirun said.

The order split the sister-teams down the middle. If it came to that-Tirun and Geran would be a wounded half. But that was the way it went: she wanted Haral's size and strength with her, and Tirun was hardly fit for a fight. Chur was the smallest of the lot, but of the two remaining, the meanest temper. Pyanfar extended her hand in rising, pressed Tirun's shoulder. Practicalities. Tirun knew.

They gathered belowdecks, all of them, clean and combed, excepting Tirun, who had never gotten her turn at washing up: Tully wore a white stsho shirt belted hiplength about him, and a better pair of blue breeches-Haral's likely, who had been sharing clothes with him. Pyanfar looked the party over; and remembering the perfume in her pocket, took it out and tossed it at Tully. "All things help," she said. Tully unstopped it and sniffed, wrinkled his nose and looked doubtful, but when she j mimed putting it on, he splashed some on his hand and wiped I his beard and his throat. He coughed, and thrust the bottle into his own pocket.

"Another matter," Pyanfar said, and took a fine gold ring from the depth of her lefthand pocket, offered it to Hilfy and had the satisfaction of seeing the look in Hilfy's eyes. "I won't take you anywhere ringless. If we meet some kif, or even politer company-you'd better look like where you come from, hear, imp?"

"Thank you," Hilfy said, looked uncertain with it, and flustered; but Geran tugged her head over on the spot and bit a I neat place for it, deftly thrust the earring through for her and fastened it. "Huh," Pyanfar said, there being her niece with I her first gold shining in her ear and pride glowing in her eyes, j "Come on. Let's find out what's waiting out there.-Tirun, Geran, you keep that lock sealed for everyone but us, no matter how bad it gets to sound, no matter what they offer you. Get on the com in op. Tell Goldtooth to get moving."