Chanur's Venture

Chapter Five

There was quiet on the bridge, a great deal of calm and quiet, considering the situation, Khym brimming with questions, and a handful of exhausted crew. No one said a word. Six pairs of eyes were on her, expecting her to come up with something remarkably clever.

1.2 billion credits. Hilfy still looked to be in shock.

"Got a few problems," Pyanfar said, sinking into her chair, which was turned to face the bridge at large. "I think we'd better take that docking clearance the stsho promised and get ourselves our of here before they change their minds. Chur, Hilfy, you sure Tully's set, got his drugs, knows to stay put."

"Aye," Chur said.

"I don't promise we get a calm ride out of here. And we're going to push it hard. We're headed for Urtur. We're stripped. We can one-jump it. When we come in there we keep our ears pricked and get the news. Gods send it isn't kif. - Questions?"

Dead quiet.

She picked up a courier cylinder from the document pocket on the side of the chair. "Chur."

"Aye."

"Get one of the docking crew to shoot that through the pneumat. Fast."

Chur took it, whirled and headed out of the bridge with a scrape of claws. So that was seen to. If Stle sties stlen did not have all their messages intercepted, rot his pearly hide.

"Crew to stations. - Khym-" She stood up and in the general mill of crew taking seats she took Khym's arm and took him into the small nook of quiet in the corridor outside.

"For this one I recommend the tranquilizer," she said. "Tully takes it. Topside med kit still has it."

"I don't need it," he muttered, his ears gone down. "I don't need-"

"Listen to me. Old hands lose their stomachs in this kind of thing. G like planetary lift; we'll be cycling the vanes-"

"I'm not going to my cabin. Look, you wanted me on the bridge, work, you said-"

"You're not staying on the bridge."

"There's the observers' seats."

"No."

"Please, Py." His voice sank to its lowest pitch. His amber eyes were quick and large.

"Captain. Win a ring, you said. In front of them, for the gods' sake, Py. I won't make trouble. Won't."

Her ears fell; her heart went over. "Gods rot it, this isn't a simple hop from port to port."

"Part of the crew. Isn't that what you meant?"

"This isn't a question-"

"Pride's pride, Py. You put me there; you by the gods leave me there. Or do you think the crew won't have it?"

Soft-headed, that was what.

"You take number one observer," she said. "You watch Geran watch scan and if you get sick in the cycles you by the gods reach the bags undercabinet, I don't care what else is going on. If you haven't ridden through a high-v vector change with someone heaving up you haven't seen a mess. Got it?"

She jabbed him with one sharp claw, saw him go tight around the nose. "Besides, it fogs the screens."

Without a word he ducked back into the bridge.

She went back behind him, while he set himself into the first of the three observer posts, at Geran's elbow: Geran gave him a look, betraying no dismay, but a look all the same. He fumbled after belts and began fastening them-not nervous, no. He only missed the insert twice.

She slipped into her own place, snapped the restraint one-handed and powered the chair about all in one smooth sequence, because she could, and failed to realize why she did it until she had.

She argued him onto the bridge for one reason and turned surly when he put himself there.

And knew it. Gods.

"Ready to disengage the probe," Haral said. "Chur's still down there. Hilfy, advise Vigilance they've got a message coming."

"Aye." A small delay. "They acknowledge. That's all."

She gave Rhif Ehrran that, she was not prone to destructive chatter.

Advise you, that couriered message said, kif on our trail. Stop at nothing, even attack on han deputy. Do not attract interest. Station at hazard. Ours more. We take evasive measures, best possible. No explanation possible.

Well to be out of port when that hit Ehrran's lap.

A series of thumps rang up from the bow, The Pride's own language of clangs and bumps, reliable as her telltales: docking probes had retracted; vents were sealed. Outside the station hull, the grapples disengaged.

"Gantry's clear," Haral said, busy with the prep sequences.

"Where's Chur? She make it?"

Com relayed. "She's coming," Tirun said. "All clear."

"Give me out-schedule."

"Up," Tirun said, and: "Huh."

Banny Ayhar's Prosperity was on the list, outbound for Urtur via Hoas Point. So was Marrar's Golden Sun.

There went gossip on its way to Anuurn, fast as a loaded merchant ship could travel and carry an Ehrran message.

Likewise a stsho ship had gone outbound half an hour ago, one E Mnestsist, Rhus flisth' ess commanding. Hoas-bound for Urtur.

So every ship bound from Meetpoint to mahen-hani space had to go to Urtur via Hoas.

Unless they were doing it cargo-stripped, to make Urtur in a single jump. The Pride's own course showed Urtur-via-Hoas, which was a lie.

There were other possibilities from Meetpoint: Nsthen in stsho space, where only stsho and methane-breathers were allowed. The tc'a border-port of V'n'n'u; the tc'a port of Tt'a'va'o: methane-breather/stsho again. The kif port of Kefk, the one kifish corridor to Meetpoint; Kshshti in the Disputed Territories. Messages could go a great many ways from Meetpoint, that being the nature of Meetpoint in its conception.

And a tight-beamed lightspeed message could get to an outbound ship like E Mnestsist before it had time to jump. It could still do a vector change… if one Stle sties stlen had something gtst wanted relayed.

Conniving bastard.

The Pride of Chanur was listed departure —, without a time. They had been bumped up ahead of Prosperity and Golden Sun.

That would not sweeten Barmy Ayhar's mood, no question at all.

And there was not a single kif listed.

"No telling what's been delayed off that list," she muttered. "Could have a raft of kif leaving ten minutes behind us. Station that can't keep its registry boards running dockside, gods know what it does with out-schedules when money changes hands- Power up, Haral: keep us null for outbound."

"Up," Haral said; she heard the distant sound of the pumps delivering their load; the electric whump! of startup normally followed by the louder crash of cylinder-lock going off; but it stayed locked.

They would have no G but after-thrust on this system transit. Safer that way. It made sudden moves safer.

She heard the sound of running feet scramble into the bridge at her back; heard a body hit a seat.

"Chur's in."

"Message went," Chur said over the com, above the noise. "Saw it go into the slot."

"Helm to one." Helm to her own board. She pushed buttons, let the auto-interlock stay in during the undock, the computer reckoning their mass and how hard to push to stay inside legal parameters. The holds were empty. The thrust-indicator was way down. The ordinary mark would have hit The Pride like a hard kick at an empty can.

"Aunt." That was Hilfy at com one. "Question."

"Ask it."

"That bill-"

"What about that bill?"

"Mahendo'sat paying that?"

"Huh. Yes."

"They know it?"

"Tell you something, imp. There's two strong reasons for one-jumping this. One of them's the kif."

"Gods, aunt-"

"Tirun, you teaching the kid to swear?"

"How do we pay it?"

"It's paid. Goldtooth paid it. He just doesn't know it yet. Stand by the vector shift. We're not going out of here like last time. By the book, at least till we get running room."

They reached the l-zone limit, two-vectored as they were with station's spin and their own bow-thrust, headed tailfirst across the invisible mark. She gave the port thrust a ten-second burn that slewed the bow about in the same line as spin and gave comp its heading.

"But, aunt-"

The comp did the next burn, trueing up. "Put it this way. All of you listening? There's a little matter with the mahendo'sat. They're paying the bar bill. Hear? — Put her zero two on mark, Haral. Get the cameras working port-side."

"Want a look at that kif?"

"Number one right, cousin. Geran, handle that."

"Got it. Image to your four."

The image came to fourth screen on her board, clear, fine color, the outside of Meetpoint Station, a portion of its torus shape, the huge painted dock numbers obscured here and there by ships nose-on to station. "Main that," she said. The drifting image went to all stations, the strange shape of a stsho trader, the sleek, wicked silhouette of kif, leaner than they had to be; and one, one with uncommonly large vanes and a series of tanks about the waist.

"Those tanks will blow off real easy," she said. "Take a good look, Hilfy, Khym. A real good look."

"Hunter-ship," Hilfy said.

"No trader. That's for sure. Gods-rotted kif hunter. That's Harukk, no need to look for numbers." She keyed the safety systems to *ADVISE ONLY* and pushed the mains in hard.

G hit, pressed her elbow into the brace and triggered the over-arm lock that held her hand within reach of the board. New system. It worked. She had rigged The Pride with what protections they could afford, since Gaohn; handholds, line-rigs, braces at all boards. A few extra firearms, quietly acquired.

"That's the kif reason," she said against the G. "And the other one for putting a little hurry on — I'd like to beat a certain check to the bank."

"Can we cover it?" Tirun's voice, over com. "-Later?"

"Huh. That's still Goldtooth's problem."

"What's going on?" asked Khym.

Silence, except for ship noise, the long misery of acceleration.

"What's going on?" he asked again.

"Just a business arrangement," she said. "Hold onto your stomach. We're coming up on two-range. Going to give ourselves a boost."

"Pyanfar-"

"Tell you later. Haral, set her up."

"Captain, got another ship undocked," Chur said from scan.

"Gods rot. Who?"

"Can't tell yet. Station's not talking. Stand by."

They were not yet far enough and fast enough for G to play havoc with information: not far enough and fast yet by far to be out of range of that sleek kif ship back there.

That ship could start out a day late and be waiting for them on Urtur rim. No question. She drew quiet small breaths against the G and calculated. A rush after them made no sense, for a ship that fast.

It was not kif that had undocked. She was willing to bet not kif. It had no need to race, being able to guess their course.

"Ship is knnn."

"Oh, good gods."

"What's the matter?" (Khym.)

Knnn. Methane-breathing, dangerous and lunatic in their moves. No one wanted the knnn stirred up.

And kif trouble might. Any trouble might.

"What's the matter?" (Khym again).

"Long explanation," Pyanfar muttered. "Hold the questions, Kyhm. We're busy."

"Com coming up," Hilfy said.

An insane wailing came over com, knnn-song, which announced to the universe and other knnn whatever it was the knnn thought good to say.

Or it was simply singing for its own amusement, and putting it out on com out of thinking as obscure as the rest of its logic.

"Bearing zero two by fourteen."

Askew for them. That meant nothing. Knnn ships obeyed different laws.

"Stand by that cycle," she said, and listened for Haral's acknowledgment. "Take it twice. We're getting out of here."

Vanes cycled in, a brief, stomach-wrenching lurch to a higher energy state. Nausea threatened. Instruments recycled with a flurry of lights, recalibrating. She checked the nav fix on Urtur.

"Knnn no change," Chur said.

Second pulse.

"Helm to one." Controls flashed live under her hands as Haral handed it over. They were up to V, outbound. "Stand by jump. Fix on that knnn to the last gods-rotted second."

Knnn had policy, somewhere in their moves. Black hair-snarls animate on long thin legs, they built good ships — far better ships than oxy-breathers could survive, unless things also went on in them that played games with stress. Nothing could talk to knnn but the leathery, serpentine tc'a, and tc'a brains were manifold matrices.

Nothing could reason with knnn but tc'a. Time was, knnn took anything they liked, stripped ships in midcourse, raided the earliest stations: so stsho said. It was before the hani came. Tc'a got through the concept of trade — at least so knnn left something in their forays. Now they darted manic-fast into methane-breather sectors, deposited some object, which might be anything, and skittered off again with whatever they wanted — which might, again, be anything.

Tc'a coped. Chi did, one supposed; but chi, looking like a collection of yellow, rapid-moving sticks, were crazier than knnn. And tc'a themselves were hazy on trade-concepts. Gods knew how they ran their worlds. No outsider did.

"Mark to jump: five minutes."

"How's that knnn?"

"Still- It just cycled, captain."

"I want better news. That's four and counting."

"Continuing to cycle. That's into our lag-time-" Meaning that in the lag of lightspeed information the knnn might be doing other things.

"Rot the book." She shoved the jump cycle in.

— dropped — seatfirst — topside down — rightside up — back again in here and now, and the stomach still wanting to turn itself inside out —

There was that wretched halfway-there, while senses swam, fingers took an hour clenching on controls, instruments underwent a slow ripple of lights that took a subjective day arriving at nothing special at all —

Solidity then, with one focus, sharp-edged and dreadful as the soft uncertainties before, with endless fascination in the angles of counters, the colors, the textures. A mind could get lost in the endless detail of a counter-edge.

Pyanfar swallowed against the dry mouth and copper taste that came with compressed time, flexed hands that had not flexed for three-odd weeks local. The chronometers showed a dubious 3.2 days. The body reacted: would shed hair and old skin within the hour as if entropy had hit, not quite three days' worth, but some: and Tully's drugs would wear off, while the bowels and kidneys had other, later consequences, and blood sugar went through loops and dives, obscuring sense and hazing senses and doing things to the stomach.

Beep went controls.

She shoved the Dump down hard.

Second phasing in and out of hyperspace, bleeding off velocity in the process.

Third.

Her stomach heaved. She held her jaw clenched. The copper taste was worse.

Beep.

"That's Urtur beacon confirmed," Haral read off. "Heading zero, nine, two."

Automatic alarms went off in her skull, memories she had forced there weeks ago.

"Geran! 'ware of kif. Do we have company?"

"Checking."

Three subjective days since she had done out-bound at Meetpoint and she felt the ache in her shoulders. "Khym. You all right?"

An incoherent answer; he sounded alive.

"Got Urtur beacon," Haral said. "Tirun. Sort it."

"Aye." That was Urtur beacon information coming in, constant-send, giving incoming ships the exact position of objects insystem so far as known. Course assignment would come, as soon as bounce-back time had delivered their presence to Urtur's robot outrange beacon and its automated systems computed them a lane.

"Advise Beacon," Pyanfar said, "that we're through-traffic. Get your star-fix." Her hands shook. Crew would be in no better state. She wanted a drink, imagined floods of liquid, iced, deluges of flavors. Even tepid. Brackish. Anything.

"Fix on Kirdu," Haral said. "Affirmative. Laying course for Maing Tol via Kita Point."

"Message sent," Hilfy said.

"How long to station signal?"

"About two hours," Tirun said. "That's 2.31. Beacon doesn't show any ship in the range. It's not picking us up."

"Beacon signal," Hilfy said. "Aunt — We're getting a code-call off beacon. We've got a message waiting. Stand by."

"Huh." A cold feeling settled to Pyanfar's stomach. "Put it through on one." The beacon robot had output something triggered by The Pride's automatic ID, like a tripline. They came into system, beacon affirmed their identity and spat out what it held memory-stored for them. Expensive mail. Very.

And the robot scan was still not showing them added to image of Urtur system. It was not direct scan-image. It was computer-generated; and the computer failed to put their existence on the screen.

"We've got an error," Haral said. "Bastard beacon's giving us Kshshti heading, wants us to take starfix on Maing Tol. Put that lane request through again, Hilfy. It's gone crazy."

"Hold that." Pyanfar stared at the message coming up on her number one screen. She keyed the Print on: it hummed and spat out hardcopy into the documents bin. Strings and strings of codes. More codes. Theirs...

Ana Ismehanan-min, it said, to good friend.

Advise you got bad trouble Kita Point.

Beacon give you now new heading.

I fix with Urtur authority, number one good.

Go Kshshti route.

Know got close kif, but Kita got too many kif.

Mahen ship, kif ship, got two hand number ship.

Mahen ship not got be everywhere too quick.

Sorry this trouble.

You one-jump Kshshti number one fine, no trouble, no stop middle of dark like Kita.

You reach Kshshti you give authorization code *Hasano-ma*.

You do good; Know you number one quick thinker. Kif not catch.

"You egg-sucking bastard!" The restraint held her seated and half cut off her wind. She took a clawed swipe at the tray and slammed the printout onto the clear space of the panel; but the screen kept on feeding codes and the printer kept on going in idiot persistence.

"Message from beacon," Hilfy said, carefully unperturbed. "Blinker alarm advises us acknowledge and accept new heading."

She cut the screen output. The printer, undefeated, hummed and spat out yet another sheet.

Second message. More codes.

Urtur station advise you course change big urgent.

You not be register on system scan.

Beacon blank you image give you cover. Go quick.

"Beacon's not malfunctioning," she muttered. "It means it. That bastard Goldtooth set something up with Urtur. They're routing us to Kshshti."

"Kshshti's half kif," Geran protested. "We go in there-"

"It's a one-jump. He's right in that, if Kita's blocked. At least we won't be out in the dark nowhere with the kif. . Call up Records: what's Kshshti got for muscle?"

"Searching," Chur said.". . Got two hunter-ships assigned from Maing Tol; stats show ten percent stsho calls, sixteen t'ca-chi, thirty-two kif, fifty-one mahendo'sat-I don't get any assurance on those hunter-ships being there. Based there, it says."

"Fine." She gnawed at her mustaches and twitched her ears while the beacon went into its Acknowledge-comply routine and com flashed warning lights. Tick-tick. Tick. Tick-tick-tick. Haos was still possible. So was Kura. The stsho. The han. "We go with it. Don't see what else to do. Beacon's going to blow a circuit otherwise."

"We're pretty deep in the well," Haral said, understated caution. The star had them firmly now: vector shift meant total dump. Meant a rough reacquisition, fighting to get more V back than a star wanted to give them.

"Got no choice, have we? Advise Tully. Can't wait around."

Hilfy relayed. "Tully's coherent. He says go."

"Set it," Pyanfar said, and raked the last printout from the bin.

And stared. It was not the comp readout she had expected. That was on the bottom of the tray. Another beacon-sending had come in, autoed into the printout bin.

No codes this time. Perfect hani.

Hani ship "The Pride of Chanur": avoid Kita.

Akkhtimakt has established watchers there.

You will not come alive through that space.

Be no fool.

A shiver went over her skin.

"Hilfy."

"Aunt?"

"You read that number-three message?"

A silence. Hilfy searched her bin.

"Who sent that?" Hilfry wondered, quiet and hoarse.

"Someone fast," she said.

"Brace for dump," Haral said.

The vanes cycled in, a dizzying pulse half-forming their hyperspace bubble, a ripple like vision through oil.

It let them go and Haral began their realspace course-change then, a long sickening hammering of correcting directionals and mains. G hauled at an already outraged gut.

"Got the Maing Tol fix," Haral said. And a long, long while later, when the engines reached null- V and kept burning: "We just passed null."

And later, as bodies ached in one long misery: "Closing on mark."

"Go when ready," Pyanfar said. Urtur's dust had not hit the hull yet, but the place always sent the wind up her back.

Blanked off station scan, for the gods' sake. A ship hurtling dark and unreported through Urtur system with Urtur Station's collusion, a risk to other ships-

Fearing what? Kif insystem?

"Stand by the pulse." Haral's voice cracked with fatigue.

"Want me to take it?"

"I've got it set. Stand by."

Another pulse, another queasy moment neither here nor there. There was the bloody smear of a red light on the board.

"Vane two red," Pyanfar muttered. "Stop it there."

"We're a shade off V."

"What blew?" (Khym, weakly.) "There something wrong?"

"Regulator in the vane column," Pyanfar said, blinking it all into focus again. Her bones ached.

"Ship doesn't like all this change of mind. Tirun, I want an interrupt check on that vane."

"Right." Tirun's voice shook with exhaustion. No complaints. "Sure like to know why it didn't cut off."

"Solve it from inside."

"Urtur's no gods-rotted place for a walk."

"We in trouble?" Khym asked.

"Just got a little mechanical problem. Still got one backup left on that system. Regulator ought to have shut the vane down short of blowing what blew. I think our problem's there. That's an in-hull problem. No big trouble." But it was trouble. Something made it blow. And Kshshti was a long, long one-jump. Big stress. If that vane went- "What's our transit time?"

"Got-" Haral said, "-48.4 hours to next jump."

"We'll find the glitch by then." She powered the chair back, needing room to breathe. Another quarter turn of the chair and she saw Khym sitting there, head leaned back against the cushion, breathing in slow, careful intakes, looking her way with a bleak curiosity. He had not been sick. Was not. Was plainly determined not to be.

Holding it, she guessed.

"Tully wants to come topside," Chur said.

"Fine." She was numb, with a certain insulation between herself and calamities back at Meetpoint, and the one back there on their tail. She looked aside as all number-four screens acquired an image from The Pride's outside eyes, habit when they arrived at a place. Haral had done that, reflex or a statement: no panic. Just routine operations.

Urtur was spectacle enough, to be sure, one great fried egg of a star and system magnified in their pickup, a yellow star for a yolk that glowed hellishly in the flattened disk of dust that surrounded it.

Planets swept dark orbits in the disk, accreted rings of their own. Urtur's worlds were mostly gas giants, with a few well-cratered smaller planets buried in the muck.

No place for a walk indeed. Particles would hole even a hardsuit in short order.

Mahendo'sat owned Urtur system, doing mahen things like poking about in the dust hunting clues to why Urtur was like it was — for pure curiosity, which was why mahendo'sat did a great many peculiar things. But at the same time and practically, they maintained a case for the methane-breathers, who thought methane-dominant Elaji a fine fair place, with its clouds aglow with the constant flicker of lightnings and meteors making streaks by the minute in an atmosphere already greenhoused by previous impacts. Oxy-breathers got photos of the surface. Tc'a revelled in it, and mined rare metals, and had industry in that hell.

Knnn too.

And where, she wondered, considering that deficient scan image, was their own private knnn?

Blocked off scan the same as they, and out of range of their own pickup?

Gone, perhaps. Off their track entirely.

She did not trust that. Not finding the knnn simply meant they had not found it.

The Pride did a minor course correction, a gentle push at her left. For any ship going crosswise to the dust circulation, Urtur transit was a matter of finding the most useful hole in the debris and presenting as little as possible of the vane surface to the particles during ecliptic transit.

They had damage enough to contend with, gods knew.

"Get her set and we go auto for a while. You can do those checks after we get some food in you, Tirun. - Who's on galley?"

"Me," said Hilfy.

"Get on it." And not without thought: "Crew-youngest always gets the extra duty. You help her, Khym."

Khym just stared at her from the oblique, a desperate, half-drowned stare. Hilfy turned her chair, released her restraints and levered herself out of it. Khym moved then, got up like a drunk and held onto the chairback for a moment.

Work, indeed work.

And he followed Hilfy without a backward look, by the gods, the ex-lord of Mahn on galley duty, no complaints. She drew a long slow breath and remembered youth, Mahn, its fields, the house with the spring.

And a tired elder hani who tried to begin all over. At bottom. In a dimension he hardly understood.

"Going to be one lot of mad shippers," Tirun muttered. "Remember that rush order from that factor?"

"Bet Ayhar nabs it," Chur said.

Pyanfar released her restraints and got to her feet. Her joints ached and there was fire down her back.

She stopped in midstretch. Tully was there in the doorway, ghostlike silent in the white noise of The Pride's working. He rested one arm on the doorframe, and stood there, barefoot, in simple crew-woman's breeches and nothing else, looking wan and cold. No more friend, no more Py-anfar.

Just that bruised, cornered look that wondered if anyone had time for him.

"I know," she said. "We get you fed."

"Safe?" he asked. He knew ships, enough to feel The Pride faltering-and himself alone and knowing all too much. "Ship-" He made a helpless motion. "Break?"

"Got it under control," she said. "Fine. Safe, all fine."

The pale eyes flickered.

"Fix soon," she said. Fear looked back at her, habitual and patient. She beckoned him and he left the door and walked all the way inside. Mobile blue eyes flicked this way and that, scanning monitors for what they could read, quick and furtive move. They centered on her again.

"Got talk." He had gotten a little hani. She grew accustomed to his slurring speech. The translator spat useless static. "Got talk, please got talk."

"Maybe it's time we do." A great uneasiness came over her, things out of joint. Males and tempers and their old friend Tully, whose alien face had that strange, distracted movement of the eyes.

Fear of them as well as well as kif? And suspicious reprobate that she was: Lies, Tully? Or plain self-interest from the start?

"Sure," she said. She stank, reeked; she thought instinctively of baths, of males and quarrels and a thousand lunatic distracted things like impacts at this speed, and the vane that showed intact in the image on Tirun's screens (but it was not, inside, and that could be bad news indeed.) Urtur. Docking with, likely, kif about. And not a hope of help. Urtur had no muscle adequate to fend off anything.

Poor human fool, we could lose us all here, don't you know? They'd move in, take what they liked, you foremost - "Gome on," she said to the crew at large, who were all tremble-handed at their work.

"Break it off. We eat, get some sleep." She caught Tully by the arm. "You come and tell me, huh?"