Chanur's Legacy

Chapter Seventeen

The docks at Kefk had only sodium glare in the overheads, were all gray paint — kif didn't see color, at least not the way hani did; didn't see the yellow of warning signs, just the dark-light pattern; and on Kefk, it was only pattern that identified the conduits, and pattern that said walk here and not there. In all this gray and black universe, oddly tinted by the glare of apricot light, there arrived the color of hani, bronzed: Hilfy's trousers went a peculiar muted red; the spacer blues went a grayed blue; and rifle barrels and gunbelt metal on their five man escort acquired apricot highlights, while the matte graphite gray of kifish hands and kifish snouts, all that showed from beneath the robes, actually took on a livelier shade.

Do the kids credit, Hilfy thought, they didn't balk at their escort, they didn't sightsee or wrinkle their noses in disgust at the ammonia tang in the breath-frosting air; they paid attention to their surroundings, and Hilfy watched everything that passed in front of her and in the periphery of her vision, where neon signs lit a spacer's row no different than any services zone on any station trying to attract customers, except the words were kifish, and never ask what delicacies those establishments offered, and what entertainments they advertised. The neon signs were white, or the sickly color of kifish daylight; or they were neon red: ask what kifish vision responded to.

While all down the dockside, black-robed, weapons-bristling bystanders clustered in small groups and watched, talking behind their hands, talking with the turn of a shoulder.

Look at the fools, they might be saying.

They passed two berths where not a thing was going on; the ships might be in count, or, Hilfy thought, might be primed and ready to pull out on a second's notice; passed a third berth, where canisters were going in, but they were all the ship's-supply sort, with accesses for hoses and dispenser attachments; and just pulling up on a transport truck, cages of live animals, that squealed a thousand irate protests when a loader jolted them, and swarmed like a flow of ink up the sides of the fine mesh cage.

Akkhtish life, a kif had once said: as voracious and fast-breeding and nasty as a species had to be to have stayed alive on the kifish homeworld — the only species in the universe, in her opinion, that deserved the kif for predators.

"This way," the kif officer said, with a flourish of a hand from within the sleeve, and directed them to an access gate beside which a board burned with the kifish letters Tiraskhti.

Here we go, Hilfy thought, and climbed up the ramp in the lead, taking two kids into what could be a very, very bad situation. The kids would be the pressure point, if something went wrong. The kif understood the use of hostages, in some convolute way that had nothing to do with sentiment and maybe a lot to do with taking a valuable item and diminishing the sfik of the opposition by withholding it.

The airlock opened ahead, dimly lit. The ammonia stink inside was far stronger. But not improbably kif smelled hani presence just as strongly: as for the lighting, they hated the light of yellow suns, and disliked the noon even of their own. So the theorists held.

They occupied the lock, a tight, uneasy company, less the two that took up guard at the outside of the airlock; the lock cycled them through to a corridor, and more crew and personnel than a hani ship needed-met them there.

"Kkkkt," they said, that odd sound that betokened interest. Or a preface to attack — calm, she wished herself, thinking if she could get the youngsters through this corridor without incident they would be safer in wider spaces, out of the convenient, curious reach of a kifish claw. "Kkkt," ran like a wave beside their presence, as their escort shoved a way through the crowd, ahead of and beside them on their way through to the hall where a kifish dignitary entertained, and held court, and whatever other business the hakkikt had in mind.

That was where they came, through a door into a wide space ringed about with armed kif — she knew this place, or its exact likeness; and suffered a confusion of time, as if no years had intervened. There was the kifish prince, in silver-edged black; there was the same low table, with two chairs, there was the inevitable ring of witnesses about them, in light so dim a hani eye could not pick out the edges of shapes.

"You don't sit," she muttered to Fala and na Hallan, and walked as far as the table, seeing here, not the flashbacks on another ship, another place: no place to act spooked, she told herself, no place to get spooked: she had two kids to get out of here alive. The hakkikt had to score points, had to, now that she'd called his bluff all the way to this table, but he couldn't get everything without her cooperation, or he wouldn't have called her here.

She pulled a chair back, sat down across the round table from Vikktakkht, with Fala and Hallan behind her, and settled back in deliberate casualness.

Vikktakkht sat with one thin arm over the low back of his chair, his face shadowed within the silver-edged hood, except the snout — except the fine modeling of vein and muscle in what one could imagine was a very handsome, very fearsome type of his species.

"Kkkt. Captain. And Meras. Meras may sit with us."

"NaHallan," she said without looking, and the boy carefully lowered his huge frame into the remaining empty chair.

"Meras," Vikktakkht said. "Ask your next question."

"Sir," Hallan said, in a quiet, respectful voice, and hesitated.

For the gods' sake, boy, Hilfy thought, remember the question.

"What do you know," Hallan asked, "about Atli-lyen-tlas?"

Kkkt, the murmur ran around the room. And Hallan, to his credit, didn't flinch.

"A broad question." The hakkikt's arm lifted. A silver bracelet showed on a bare dark wrist, as he made a gesture about him. "I defer that answer for a moment — and offer another question."

Don't improvise, Hilfy thought. Boy. Don't try.

"May I ask a favor of you, sir?"

She hadn't expected that turn. She translated it frantically into kif, looked for ambiguities. The room murmured with startlement, seemed to hold its breath, and a few muttered, "K-k-k-kkkt," in a surly tone: they would not have dared that; and her heart was beating doubletime, her brain trying to figure what she could say.

But Vikktakkht made a casual motion of his hand. "Audacious. Make a request of me. If you amuse me, I may do it."

Hilfy stopped breathing, thinking, Careful, na Hallan. Think, boy.

Kif edged closer to them, listening, hissing at each other for room and silence. She felt Fala's presence closer at the back of her chair — dared not caution her, hoped the kid didn't shove back.

"I'd like you to understand, sir, I don't belong to Chanur. They weren't even at Meetpoint when I was arrested. They tried to get me back to my crew, that's all. So nothing I've done is their fault."

"Kkkt,"broke out from a hundred throats, and died in hisses. Hilfy translated that one into kifish, running it down path after path of logic. "Offended" had too many ramifications to track.

"Kkkt," Vikktakkht said softly. "So, Meras? Is that your request? My understanding?"

While Hilfy thought: "Understand" doesn't mean "forgive." Boy, give it up. Stop there.

"If you're Pyanfar Chanur's friend, they need— they…"

Gods, boy, don't assign him a job in front of his followers… "Hakkikt," she said, but Vikktakkht made a preemptive move of his hand.

"Meras?"

A silence. Then: "They think you can find the stsho," Hallan said.

"Is that your request?"

Yes! Hilfy thought. Gods, bail out, boy!

"Yes, sir."

"Isn't that two requests?"

"Then the second, sir. But I just wanted to clear that first up, in case that wasn't in your record."

"Kkkt." A motion of the hand. A servant hastened to put a cup in it. Vikktakkht didn't drink. Instead, a motion of the cup ending in their direction. "What motives, this hunger for responsibility? Is this a challenge? Is that the word?"

"No, sir. It is the word, but Fm not challenging you. At all, sir. It's my obligation to Chanur, to make clear-"

"He's saying—" Hilfy began desperately, and the preemptive hand moved sharply, then made a second gesture.

"Translate, Chanur. I recall you have some fluency."

"Nakkot ahigekk. Sh'sstikakkt Chanur.”

"Now he follows Chanur, you mean."

"Yes."

"And what does Chanur want?"

"Nakkot shatik nik'ka Atli-lyen-tlas. "

"Ah. And what opposes you? What do you suppose opposes you?"

"Paehisna-ma-to."

The long jaw lifted. The hakkikt stared at her down a long, dangerous nose.

"Kkkt. But the mahendo'sat support the mekt-hakkikt. ''

She couldn't be wrong. She could not be wrong, and have followed the wrong ship. "Do they?"

"What does Hilfy Chanur think?"

"I didn't come here because I believed Ana-kehnandian."

"Kkkt. You came here because we have Atli-lyen-tlas."

"Do you?"

"Kkkt. Kkkt. The flat-toothed stsho face every breeze. They attempt to please Chanur. They launch an initiative in this direction, in that direction. Gak-kak."

"Herd creatures."

"Herd tactics, Exactly. They launch an initiative at Chanur's presence. They launch initiatives to mahendo'sat of rank. But the mahendo'sat are not gakkak. They go all directions. If you chase one, others. escape, and another may join you. Thus, Paehisna-ma-to."

"Not a friend of Chanur."

"Not well-disposed to kif. Some say Hilfy Chanur is not well-disposed to kif. Some say — Hilfy Chanur would be the logical ally of Paehisna-ma-to. The logical successor to Pyanfar Chanur."

She drew in a slow, ammonia-tainted breath. "Where is the mekt-hakkikt?"

A vague move of the hand. "Where the mekt-hakkikt chooses. Recently at Meetpoint. As you know."

Assassins, after aunt Py? Mahen assassins?

"Who blew up Kshshti docks? Who fired shots at us?"

"What do you think?"

"There aren't any kifish dockworkers at Kshshti."

"As happens there are not."

"Difficult for you to get into a warehouse and steal a can."

"Not impossible."

"But why would you need to stop me? I'd agreed to go to Kefk."

"Hani have not always done as promised."

"The bomb would have heavily damaged us, without destroying the ship. And the sniper wasn't of your quality. While Kshshti wouldn't let a mahen hunter ship undock. Those ships have priority in any situation. Wouldn't you think they'd let them leave, if they let us leave?"

"But we are historic enemies."

"Kshshti put bureaucratic delays in a hunter ship's path. It more than suspected Ana-kehnandian. I haven't heard of this Paehisna-ma-to. So she's new. A rising power. Urtur — was cautious with Ana-kehnandian. Kshshti was bravely cautious… nakkti skskiti."

"Kkkt." This time it was laughter, laughter that shook Vikktakkht's stillness, and rippled around the room. "Nakkti skskiti. That is Kshshti. A banner for all winds."

"I'm not. And I'm not such a fool I think kif think like hani. Or that a hakkikt of your stature, who wished to contact us, would make two attempts designed to scare us without killing us."

"Kkkt." A motion of Vikktakkht's hand. "You think we have no subtlety?"

"Blowing out a docking port on Kshshti?"

More laughter, that clicked and hissed all around the room.

"Salutation," Vikktakkht said, "from the mekt-hakkikt. Who assured me you would not be diverted by her rival."

By Paehisna-ma-to, he meant; and meant that Pyanfar leaned to the kif, to kifish support, which would always be loyal, while they feared the subordinates that feared her…

She felt queasy at the stomach, having reasoned her way to that truth, having looked at it from all sides, and having decided that this was a place Pyanfar expected her mail delivered — however dark the paths Pyanfar traveled these days.

Maybe Paehisna-ma-to had reason, the thought came fluttering to the surface.

And drowned. Whoever had shot Chihin was not her friend. Whoever had killed innocent stsho and mahen security personnel was not her friend.

"And No'shto-shti-stlen?" she asked.

"An ally with enemies in Llyene. Hence gtst moved to form an alliance with the ambassador to Urtur, of a nature which you doubtless know and Ana-kehnandian does not."

"I don't know."

"You've not seen the object."

Caution held her tongue. Even with this so-named ally of Pyanfar's. "What would that tell me if I could?"

"The nature of the alliance. No'shto-shti-stlen's position within it, which of three."

"You mean sex?"

"An emblem of proposed gender."

She hoped she kept her mouth closed. Kif, fortunately, had no embarrassment in such matters.

"You have come here to present this to Atli-lyen-tlas. Is this not so?"

"Yes, hakkikt,"

"We have provided the ambassador such comforts as we found possible. But I think the ambassador would be far more comfortable on your ship."

"Possibly so, hakkikt."

''Sagikkt aku gtst!''

Bring the stsho! the hakkikt said, and with no delay whatsoever a door opened, admitting the blinding spectrum of a paler sun. There was a moderate commotion in that quarter. Hilfy turned her head cautiously and saw, past Hallan's shoulder, kif moving within that light. A waft of perfume came out, and kif made soft sounds of disgust.

Then came the spindly outline of a stsho body, gtst gossamer robes backlit against the glare in her watering eyes. She was blind, as the stsho seemed to be, hesitatingly as gtst moved; so likewise the kif.

Perhaps, she thought, it was eloquent of the condition within the Compact itself.

But the creature did not seem to get gtst equilibrium in the dark, and had to be guided by gtst kifish attendants. Something's wrong, Hilfy thought, rising from her chair. Something's vastly wrong with this stsho.

"Perhaps," Vikktakkht said, "your care will restore gtst. The practice of medicine is not a priority among our species. One argues for it. But medicine is still a secretive matter, practiced upon oneself. There is not, on this entire station, a medical facility, only a few supplies."

"I would first suggest," she said, she thought politely, "that gtst not be required to walk."

Not in time. Gtst collapsed. Fala made an instinctive move to assist and safeties went off guns all around the room. Fala froze. Hallan lurched for his feet.

"Hakkt!" Vikktakkht said sharply, that untranslatable word that meant something like Off guard, and safeties went back on, a more random clicking.

"And if you would tell your crew to go back on station power," Vikktakkht said, "station central control would be far more easy in its dealings."

"They're coming back," Tiar breathed, and only then realized the degree to which her nerves were wound, when she heard the advisement from Tiraskhti com, on aural-only.

"/'ll trust it when they gel into the airlock, " Chihin said in her ear, on ops com; and Tarras: "They're saying they've got gtst excellency!"

"I'll believe that when I see it," Tiar said. And made up her mind she would start believing it when she heard from the captain's own pocket com, and when there didn't come any of the codewords for coercion that were in the Manual. She sat gnawing her mustaches to ragged ruin, and then got that thin, static-fractured advisement:

"This is Legacy One, You're going to see a transport truck pull up. Only bus this station runs. We 're all right, we 're coming home, we got our addressee, put on a pot of gfi, we could use it."

"That means it's really all right,"Tarras said, the edge of excitement beginning to grow in her voice. And the Manual was on the bridge: they'd fed into com voice analysis every codeword that might come through. If Tarras said it was clear it was clear, and there was a next step.

"Chihin, get down to the lock, arm, don't open till they're on it, we don't trust it."

"I'm gone’' Chihin said, and cleared her board to Tarras.

Everybody was all right. There was a little tremor in Tiar's hand as she reached to key aux monitoring over to her two low-level screens.

Everybody was all right. They'd gotten the stsho, ker Hilfy had pulled it off somehow and they could go to Meetpoint with Chanur honor intact.

Please the gods it didn't blow up in their faces.

But she didn't think she should advise gyst excellency yet, stsho being the easily worried creatures they were. She didn't think they should provide any good news until they knew there were no catches.

And even after the captain and the rest of them were secure in the airlock she wasn't going to be able to leave station. According to the Book, which had gotten them through it this far, the senior officer parked herself in the number one station, kept systems up, kept a close monitor on transmissions around them, whether or not they could decode them, the number of coded transmissions versus non-coded: and if anything surged out of recent parameters-Then the senior officer was permitted to panic.

Gtstexcellency Atli-lyen-tlas was not at all in good shape — half-dead, to Hilfy's eyes; and when the driver pulled up in front of the Legacy's berth (most adamantly, she had insisted neither Hallan nor Fala drive) she called on na Hallan to vault down to the deck and stand ready to receive gtst excellency into his arms.

"She is a very large hani," gtst excellency was heard to mutter. "She will not drop us."

"She won't," Hilfy said, and na Hallan shut his mouth and reached up his hands. "She's a very competent person." At which na Hallan gave her a startled look, as if to ask did she possibly mean that.

But she had her hands full of fragile stsho at the moment, and together she and Fala lowered Atli-lyen-tlas into Hallan's arms.

"I have your honor," Hallan assured gtst.

Hilfy clapped Fala on the shoulder, and the two of them jumped down. A whole squad of kif had turned up, with rifles evident, and that was worrisome, but their driver got out and waved a black-sleeved arm toward the ramp and the waiting kif.

"Essscort," the driver said. "The hakkikt's. Sssafe."

It wasn't how she defined safe, but they walked and the kif didn't threaten them and didn't move, so she supposed there were no orders on the part of the hakkikt to try to rush the airlock. "Watch their hands,"

she said to Fala. "Rule of measured threat. You did just fine in there. Let's get home."

Fala didn't say anything but "Aye, captain." The kids were trying to be right. They walked past the kif, with the half-fainting stsho, and up the rampway. The access gate opened for them, which argued somebody was observing from where they'd been ordered to be, and possibly someone was waiting for them downside, which they were supposed to be. That gate shut, meaning, however fragile the tube that connected them to their ship, they were alone behind seal, and there was, one hoped, no kifish guard at their lock.

"Nobody behind us," Fala said, having actually cast a look back to see.

"Bravo, kid, you're learning." She punched in the pocket-corn. "Tiar, Chihin, Tarras?"

"We're on it, captain, lock's about to open. "

Upon which, it did, pale and inviting light.

Things happened, things happened on schedule and with checks, if the crew had had to do it with the manual in one hand and thumbing from page to page. She found her own anxiety like a spring slowly let go — as if somehow she didn't have to check up, she didn't have to wonder was anything unseen-to: things were getting checked, and when the airlock shut behind them, and the air was cycling, she could feel a queasy confidence someone was monitoring the situation outside, without her — to her giddy relief — having to think of everything at once and give the orders.

She by the gods resented it. Py scored a point, and she was absolutely scowling when the airlock door opened and it was Chihin facing Fala and Hallan with a double armload of stsho.

"We need the gurney," she said shortly. "We need gtst excellency to the sickbay and we need the medical supplies, probably vitamin and mineral supplements—"

"A bath," gtst breathed, "oh, estimables, a bath, among first things, cleanly light, wai, the distress and the suffering I have endured—"

"Gtstshows improvement," Hilfy said dryly. "Na Hallan, never mind the gurney, just carry gtst, "

"Aye, captain," he said, and walked on.

"Tarras," Hilfy said, "to the dispensary." "She's down there," Chihin said. "She's already setting up."

Good gods, initiative. Right decisions. The crew knew what was going on, the crew all of a sudden knew it was their responsibility to move in advance of orders: it wasn't — it never had been that they didn't know what they were doing. Three of them had come in with experience.

The captain hadn't. And the old women had been right: Rhean had been right: she hadn't had the experience.

Mark another one for aunt Pyanfar. The crew wasn't unhappy, the crew suddenly had the latitude to do what it reasonably thought it ought to, the crew might be a little gods-be scared at the moment, but it was by the ever-living gods functioning ahead of the game for the first time in recent memory.

"I want a—" — thorough check against stsho parameters, she was about to say when she faced Tarras in the lab, but Tarras said to Hallan: "Put gtst excellency there, I've got the tests set up."

She could on the one hand feel superfluous. On the other she had enough on her hands — like getting the entire conversation down as she recalled it, like running it through the kifish translation program, looking for significances and omissions.

The captain wasn't strictly speaking a flight officer on this ship, but the captain with her head clear could make judgment calls that a protocol officer could make — and if there was a time to make them it was now.

Tell gtst excellency Tlisi-tlas-tin that gtst excellency Atli-Iyen-tlas was lying disreputable in sickbay?

Not yet. Not until they knew whether gtst excellency was going to live or die — or whether gtst excellency was still Atli-lyen-tlas.