The Pride of Chanur

VII

“Aunt.”

It was not com; it was Hilfy in person, leaning over her bed, shaking at her. “Aunt.” Pyanfar came out of sleep with a wild reach to get her elbow under her, shook herself, stared into Hilfy’s dilated eyes. “It’s Starchaser,” Hilfy said. “They’ve come through. They’re in trouble. They can’t get dumped. The word just came in—”

“O gods.” Pyanfar kicked the coverlet off, scrambled out dressed as she was and seized Hilfy by the arm on her way out of the room. “Talk, imp: has anyone scrambled?”

“Station’s called miners in the path… some mention of an outbound freighter being able to change course…” Hilfy let herself be pulled through the doorway into the corridor and loped along keeping up with her on the way to the bridge. “They’re twenty minutes lag out, crossing Lijahan track zenith.”

“Twenty now?”

“About.”

Haral was on the bridge, standing by scan, with the area-light on her face, and her expression was grim when she looked around at their arrival. “They’ve got to get to the pod,” Haral said. “No way anyone can get to her in time. No way any rescue can haul that mass down, even if she’s stripped.”

“What’s our status?”

“We can’t get there,” Hilfy objected, plain logic.

“Not for rescue,” Pyanfar said quietly.

“Repairs underway,” Haral said. “Vane’s unsecured. If they’re running ahead of company — we’re in trouble.”

Tirun came limping in, loping haste, and there was a query from lowerdeck. “You’re getting all we’ve got,” Haral relayed to Geran and Chur below. “Can’t tell anything yet.”

“Come on,” Pyanfar muttered to the blip on systemic image. “Do it, Faha. Get out of there.” She sank down into the com cushion, an eye still toward the screen, and punched through the station op code. “This is The Pride of Chanur. Urgent relay the stationmaster, Pyanfar Chanur speaking: warn you of possible hostile pursuit on tail of incoming emergency. Repeat: warn you of possible hostile pursuit of incoming emergency.”

“This message receive clear, Pride of Chanur. Mahen ships answer emergency. Please stand by.”

She watched scan, rested a knuckle against her teeth and hissed a breath. Ships showed in the schematic, traffic at dead standstill compared to the incoming streak that was Starchaser, motion slowed enough to see only because of systemwide scale. Everything was history, the images on the scope, the voices from the zone of emergency. Unable to dump velocity, Starchaser would streak helplessly across the system and lose herself on an unaimed voyage to infinity. It was a long way to die.

“Lost the transmission,” Haral said. Hilfy edged in, looking desperate, tried the switches herself past Haral’s side. Pyanfar gnawed the underside of a^ claw and shook her head. The business of getting a jump-mazed crew on their feet and headed to the escape pod — in Starchaser’s type, high up on the frame — and get it away, all this within the minutes they had left…

Then they could only hope, if they could make it that far, that the pod’s engines could hammer down the velocity, give some jumpship the chance to match velocities and lock onto the pod’s small, manageable mass, so that they could be dumped down. That freighter out there was the best chance the crew had, if only they could get loose.

“Pod’s away!” Haral exclaimed, and Tirun and Hilfy were pounding each other on the back. Pyanfar clenched her two hands together in front of her mouth and stared flateared at the scan, where a new schematic indicated the probable course of the pod which had now parted company with doomed Star-chaser. Both dots advanced along the track, but a gap developed, the pod’s deceleration far from sufficient to rid itself of a jumpship’s velocity before it gave out, but doing what it could. The crew would likely black out in the stress: that was a mercy. Now it was a race to see if the freighter could overhaul the pod or whether the pod would leave the system.

“Mahe freighter?” Pyanfar asked.

Haral nodded.

The Pride was on station-fed transmission; and station had to be using the feed from ships farther out, the Lijahan mines, whatever was in a position to have data, and relative time was hard to calculate now. The freighter came up by major increments while the minutes passed, boosting itself on its jump field. The gap still narrowed with agonizing sluggishness, as scan shifted, keeping up with events which were now long decided.

Com sputtered, a wailing transmission. Knnn. “Gods,” Tirun said. “A knnn’s out there in it.”

Station command responded, a tc’a voice. There were other transmissions, knnn voices, more than one, a dissonance of wails.

“Chanur,” said a hani voice, clear and close at hand. “Is this also your doing?”

Pyanfar reached for it, punched in the contact, retracted the claw with a moral effort. “Tahar, is that a question or a complaint?”

“This is Dur Tahar. It’s a question, Chanur. What do you know about this?”

“I told you. Let’s keep it off com, Tahar.”

Silence. The Tahar were no allies of the Faha crew. It was a Chanur partisan in trouble, but if any ship at station could have moved in time, Moon Rising would have tried: she did not doubt it. It was a painful thing to watch, what was happening on scan. Close to her, Tirun had settled, and Hilfy, simply watching the screen while her Faha kinswomen and the wreckage that had been a Faha ship hurtled closer and closer to the boundaries of the pickup. After such a point insystem scan could not follow them. Station was getting transmission now from a different source, from the merchanter Hasatso, the freighter tracking Starchaser, the only ship in range. The blip that was Starchaser itself finally went off the screen.

“Chanur ship,” station sent. “Tahar ship. Advise you merchanter Hasatso have make cargo dump; do all possible.”

“Chanur and Faha will compensate,” Pyanfar replied, and hard upon that Moon Rising sent thanks to Hasatso via station. “Gods look on them,” Haral muttered — a cargo dumped, to close the gap, to close on an emergency not of their species.

Knnn wailed. Elsewhere there was silence. For a long while there seemed only one rhythm of breaths on The Pride, above and below.

“They’re nearly on it,” Hilfy breathed.

“They’ve got them,” said Tirun. “No way they can miss now.”

It went slowly. The transmissions from Hasatso became more and more encouraging; and at long last they reported capture. “Hani signal,” Hasatso told Kirdu Station, “in pod. Live.”

Pyanfar breathed out the breath she had been holding. Grinned, reached and squeezed Hilfy’s arm. Hilfy looked drained. “Tahar,” Pyanfar sent then, “did you receive that report?”

“Received,” Tahar said curtly.

Pyanfar broke it off, sat a moment with hands clasped on the board in front of her. A ship lost; a tradition; that deserved its own mourning. Home and life to the Faha crew, and that was gone. “Station,” she sent after a moment, “advise the Faha crew that Chanur sends its profound sorrow, and that ker Hilfy Chanur par Faha will offer the resources of The Pride of Chanur, such as they are.”

“Advise them,” another voice sent directly, “that Dur Tahar o/Tahar’s Moon Rising also offers her assistance.”

That was courtesy. Pyanfar leaned back in the cushion, finally turned and rose with a stretch of her shoulders. “What can be done’s done. Go fetch something to drink, Hilfy; if I’m roused out, someone owes me that. Drink for all that want it. Breakfast. I’ll hear reports less urgent during. — Haral, who’s supposed to be on duty?”

“I am.”

“So. Then close down lowerdeck. Tirun, back you go.”

“Aye” Tirun muttered, and levered herself up stiffly and limped off in Hilfy’s wake. Pyanfar settled against the com post counter and looked at Haral, seated at the number two spot.

“That knnn’s fallen into pattern about Lijahan,” Haral said, paying attention to the screens. “Still making commotion. A wonder they don’t try for the cargo salvage out there.”

“Huh. Only grant they all stay put.”

“Skimmer’s still working out there at our tail. They’ve got a crew outside working the connectors. The cable’s ready to secure. But fourteen panels were missing and six loose, and they estimate another twenty hours working shift on shift to get the new ones hooked up.”

“Gods.” Pyanfar ran a hand over her brow and into her mane, thinking of kif — of attack which had chewed Starchaser to scrap. There were others besides the knnn who might be expected to rush to that salvage out there; there were the onstation kif… who showed no sign of moving. That was unnatural. No one was moving, except maybe a few miners out there with ambition. No one from station.

Word was out; rumor… had a wind up everyone’s back.

“The Tahar,” Haral said further, after a moment, “appealed that order to put out with an appeal to finish cargo operations. It was allowed.”

“Helpful. At least they’re here.”

“Helpful as the Tahar in general. Begging your pardon.”

“I’ll talk to them.”

“You think Tahar’d move to guard our tail?”

“No,” she said. “I don’t. Not unless they see profit in it. What are they doing? Not taking cargo.”

“Offloading. Stripping to run. Canisters pouring out like maggots.”

Pyanfar nodded. “Station wants that cargo safe then; and Tahar’s going to dump that out fast down to the bit she uses to stall with. The Personage has backed down, that’s what; got a few of his onstation companies wailing about losses, and Tahar’ll stay here as long as she likes. That’ll give me time.”

“Gods, the bill on this.”

“Expensive, our Outsider. In all senses.” She looked about as Hilfy came through the archway with a large tray, two cups and two breakfasts. “Thanks,” Pyanfar said, taking plate and cup… paused to look at Hilfy, who had stopped to look at the situation on the screen. They were still getting transmission relayed from Hasatso, with occasional breakup which indicated velocity dump. “Going to be a while,” Pyanfar said. “Unless they’ve got a medical emergency I doubt they’ll boost up again after turnover, just ride it slow in. Hours from now. Go on back to quarters. I mean it.”

A few ports ago Hilfy might have argued, might have laid her ears back and sulked. She nodded now and went. Pyanfar slid a glance at Haral, who stared after the retreating youngster and then nodded once, thoughtfully.

“Huh,” Pyanfar said, digging into the breakfast, and for some little time she and Haral sat and watched the scan and ate. “Tell you, cousin,” Pyanfar said finally, “you go off-watch and I’ll take it.”

“Not needful, captain.”

“Don’t be noble. I’ve got some things to do. One thing you can do for me. When you go down, look in on Tully. Make sure he’s all right.”

“Right,” Haral said. She stood up and gathered the dishes onto the tray. “But he’s all right, captain. Chur’s bedded down to keep an eye on him.”

Pyanfar had been finishing her last sip of gfi, to surrender the cup. She banged it down on the tray. “Gods blast — Did I or did I not order him separate?”

Haral’s ears dropped in dismay. “Chur said he was upset, captain; made herself a pallet in the washroom so’s he wouldn’t wake up by himself. She said — your pardon, captain — sedated, he looked so bad — You were in bed, captain. It was my discretion.”

Pyanfar exhaled shortly. “So. Well. Depressed, Chur says.”

Haral nodded. “We’d take him,” Haral said.

“Chur said.”

“Um.” Haral figured that train of things of a sudden and her mustache-hairs drew down. “Sorry, captain.”

“Him, for the gods’ sake.”

“Not as if he was hani, captain.”

“Not as if,” Pyanfar said after a moment. “All right. Put him where you want; that’s crew business, none of mine. Work him. He claims to be a scan tech. Let him sit watch. Who’s on next?”

“Ker Hilfy.”

“With someone of the experienced crew. Someone who’s made their mistakes.”

Haral grinned and rubbed the black scar which crossed her nose. “Aye. One of us will sort him out.”

“Off with you.”

Haral went. Pyanfar slid down off the counter and transferred the activity to her own board, sat down in her own deeply padded cushion and ran the incoming messages of hours past. There was nothing there but what Haral had said, Tahar’s argument about staying and the beginnings of Starchaser’s crisis. Sporadic information still came in: Hasatso sent word of four survivors…

Four. A cold depression settled over her.

Four out of seven crew on that ship. It was more than the physical body of Starchaser lost out there, more even than a life or two in a crew kin-close. Four out of seven was too heavy casualties for a group to recover itself — not the way it had once been. Gods, to start over, having lost that heavily—

“Station,” she sent, “this is Pyanfar Chanur: confirm that transmission from Hasatso. Names of survivors.”

“Pride of Chanur,” station sent back to her, “Hasatso transmit four survivors good condition. No more information. We relay query.”

She thanked station absently, sat staring at the screen a moment. There was lagtime to contend with on that request, nothing to do but wait. She bestirred herself to run checks with the ships at repair on their own damages, to contact station market and to arrange a few purchases and deliveries via dockside courier services. There was delay on the communications: everyone at station seemed muddle-witted in the confusion, down to the jobbers in commodities.

“Station, what’s keeping that answer?” she sent main op.

“Crew refuse reply,” the answer came back. Communication failure there too. Nerves. Possibly shaken-up hani and mahe rescuers were at odds. Ship lost, cargoes lost, lives lost. An ugly business.

And one of the knnn had put out from station, putting out wailing transmission and wallowing uncertainly about station’s peripheries like a globe of marshfire, touching off ticking objections/accusations/ pleas? from the tc’a control.

Gods. The oxygen-breather command went silent for the moment. Tc’a chattered and hissed. Pyanfar reached for translation output, but it failed: tc’a translated best when it was simple docking instruction or operations which were common to all ships. This was something else, gods rot them.

There was silence finally, even from the tc’a. The knnn moved out farther and stayed there. Hasatso continued its slow inward progress. At last the mahendo’sat side of station came on again, quiet operational directions for the incoming freighter, nothing informational.

Pyanfar sent them no questions. No one did.

The news came when Hasatso entered final approach: four survivors, a fifth dead in the stress of the pod eject, of wounds, and allowed to go with the pod when Hasatso released it, not a hani choice, but mahe honor. Two went with Starchaser, dead in the attack or unable to get to the pod — the information was not clear. There was a name: first officer Hilan Faha, survivor; and another: Lihan Faha — the captain, the third casualty.

“Aunt,” Hilfy said, when Pyanfar called her to the bridge and told her, “I’d like to go down to the dock where they are. I know it’s dangerous. But I’d like to go. By your leave.”

Pyanfar set her hand on Hilfy’s shoulder. Nodded. “I’ll go with you,” she said, at which Hilfy looked both relieved and pleased. “Geran,” she said, turning to lean over the com board, putting it through on allship. “Geran.”

The acknowledgment came back.

“Geran, take watch again, lowerdeck op. New word’s come in. Starchaser captain is lost, and two of the crew. Hilfy and I are going to meet the rescue ship; we’ll bring the Faha back aboard if they’re so inclined. No sense them having to put up with mahe questions and forms.”

There was a moment’s delay, a sorrowful acknowledgment.

“Come,” Pyanfar said to Hilfy then, and they walked out toward the lift. Hilfy’s bearing was straight enough, her face composed… not good news, when she had gone to sleep thinking that things were better than they were; but they had something, at least, of the Faha crew, something saved; and that was still more than they had once hoped.

Another matter to the kif account, when it came to reckonings. But if there were kif out there now — and there might be, hovering at the system’s edges, the same game that they themselves had played at Urtur — then they were waiting some moment of advantage, some moment when there were not five armed mahendo’sat patrol ships cruising a pattern out there.

Allship had waked more than Geran. Tirun was up, sitting in op when they came down toward the lock; and Geran, who had been assigned the duty; and Chur was standing about with Tully, who looked vaguely distressed in this disturbance he likely failed to comprehend. Haral showed up in haste from farther down the corridor. “Going with you, by your leave,” Haral said, and Pyanfar nodded, not sorry of it. “Kif out there,” Pyanfar said. “I’m not getting caught twice the same way.”

“Take care,” Tirun wished them as they went, and in the airlock, while Haral opened the outer hatch, Pyanfar delayed to take the pistol from its secure place in the locker by com and to slip it into her pocket.

“No detectors to pass,” Pyanfar said. “Come on.”

The hatchway stayed open behind them; they walked out the ribbed rampway and down onto the dockside. Engines whined on their left: Moon Rising was still about her offloading, and canisters were coming off into the hands of mahendo’sat dockworkers, not hani crew.

“They may have gone to meet the Faha too,” Pyanfar judged, marking the total absence of a hani supervisor outside. It was a courtesy to be expected, politics aside in a hani-ship’s misfortune.

“Not much stirring,” Haral said.

That was so. Where normally the vast docks would have had a busy pedestrian traffic up and down the vast curve, there was a dearth of casual strollers, and the activity about Moon Rising was the only activity of any measure in sight. Dockworkers, service workers, mahe with specific business underway paused to stare at them and after them as they walked. Stsho huddled near their accesses and whispered together. The kif were out about, predictably, clustered together near the accessway of one of the ships, a mass of black robes, seven, eight of them, who lounged near their canisters and clicked insults after them.

And at one of those insults Pyanfar’s ears flicked, and she stopped the impulse in mid-twitch, trying to make believe she had not heard or understood. He knows, hani thief. How many more hani ships will you kill?

“Captain—” Haral murmured, and Hilfy started to turn around. “Front, gods—” Pyanfar hissed and seized Hilfy by the arm. “What do you want to start, at what odds?”

“What do we do?” Hilfy asked, walking obediently between them. “How can he know?”

“Because one of those kif ships is his, imp; came in here from Kita; and now Akukkakk’s enlisted other ships to help him. They’ll scatter out of here like spores when we go, and gods help us, we’re stuck till we get that repair done.”

“They as good as hit Starchaser themselves. I’d like to—”

“We’d all like to, but we have better sense, Come on.”

“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 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.

“So,” Pyanfar said, “I wish you safe journey. Best we should travel together, but I’m sure that’s not in the Tahar’s mind now.”

“No. It’s not.” The Faha looked down, and up again, in Tully’s direction, a darkening of the eyes. “If you considered your relations to others, you wouldn’t have done this thing. You’ve taken on too much this time. And others will think so.”

“What I took on myself, arrived on our ship without a by your leave or my knowledge it existed. What would you do with a refugee who ran onto your ship? Hand him over to the kif at their asking? I don’t sell lives.”

“But you don’t mind losing them.”

“You throw away what they did,” Hilfy said suddenly, “with your smallness.”

The Faha’s ears flattened. “What are you to judge? Talk to me when you’ve got some years on you, cousin. This—” She came dangerously near Tully, and Chur who had been sitting on a counter slid down to plant both feet, barring the way. Tully got out of his chair and stood as far back in the bend of the counter as he could get. The Faha shrugged, a careless gesture throwing away her intent. “I’ve another word,” the Faha said, looking straight at Pyanfar. “Whether or not you intended what you’ve involved yourself in — it just may be the finish. Your allies might have stood by you, but it’s all gotten too tangled. It’s gotten too risky. How long since you’ve been home?”

“Some few months.” Pyanfar drew in a breath and thrust her hands into her belt, with the taste of something bad coming — that ill feeling of a house at its height, in which any breath of change was trouble; and of a sudden she misliked that look on the Faha’s face, that truculence which melted into something of discomfort, a decent shame. “Maybe more than that,” Pyanfar said, “if you count that I didn’t go downworld last call. What is it, Faha? What is it you’re bursting to tell me?”

“A son of yours — has taken Mahn from Khym Mann. He’s neighbor to Chanur now. He has ambitions. The old Mahn is in exile, and Kohan Chanur is finding sudden need of all his allies.” Hilan Faha shrugged, down-eared and white about the nose and looking altogether as if she would wish to be elsewhere at the moment, instead of bringing such news to a Chanur ship. “My captain would have backed you; but what are we now, with one of our ships gone, one out of the three Faha owns; and what do we think when you take on something like this when you already have as much as Chanur can handle? You’ve lost your cargo; you’ve gotten yourself a feud with the kif, and kif threatening to go into Anuurn /ones, for the gods’ sake — how can Chanur hold onto its other allies when that starts? I’ve lost my ship, my captain, some of my cousins — and I have to think of my family. I can’t involve myself with you, not now: I can’t make Faha part of this and get our ships a feud with the kif. You’re about to lose everything. Others will decide the same, and Chanur won’t be there even if you get back. I’m going home, Ker Pyanfar, on the Tahar ship because I have to, because I’m not tangling what’s left of us in Chanur fortunes.”

“You’re young,” Pyanfar said, looking down her nose. “The young always worry. You’re right, your captain would have backed me. She had the nerve for it. But go your way, Hilan Faha. I’ll pay your debts because I promised; Chanur will reward the mahe who pulled you out. And when I’ve settled with that whelp Kara I’ll be in better humor, so I may even forget this. So you won’t worry how to meet me in future — don’t fear too much. I’ll not regard you too badly… the young do grow; but by the gods I’ll never regard you the way I did your captain. You’re not Lihan, Hilan Faha, and maybe you never will be.”

The Faha fairly shook with anger. “To be paid the way you paid her—”

“She’d curse me to a mahe hell if she were here, but she’d not do what you’ve done. She’d not run out on a friend. Go on, Hilan Faha, leave my deck. A safe voyage to you and a quick one.”

For a moment the Faha might have struck out; but she was worn thin and hopeless and the moment and the courage went. “Her curse on you then,” she said, and turned and stalked out, not so straight in the shoulders, not so high of head as she had come in. Pyanfar scowled and looked at Hilfy, and Hilfy herself was virtually shaking.

“Kohan never said anything about this Mahn business in his letter,” Pyanfar said. “What do you know, niece?”

“I don’t,” Hilfy said. “I won’t believe it. I think the Faha’s been listening to rumors.”

“How much did you know about the estates when you were at home? Where was your head then, but on The Pride? Is it possible something was brewing and you didn’t hear?”

“There was always talk; Kara Mahn was always hanging about the district. He and Tahy. There — was some calling back and forth; I think na Khym talked to father direct.”

“Rot his hide, Kohan could have said something in that letter.”

“He sent me,” Hilfy said in a small, stricken voice. “When The Pride turned up in system I asked to go, and he said he’d never permit it; and then — the next night he gave me the letter and put me in the plane and gods, I was off to the port like that. Hardly a chance to pack. Said I had to hurry or The Pride would leave port and I’d miss my chance. Like that, at night; but I thought — I thought it was because ships don’t calculate day and night, and that shuttle was going up anyway.”

“O gods,” Pyanfar groaned, and sat down against the counter, looked up at all the ring of anxious faces. “Not yet that son of mine doesn’t. Gods blight the kif; we’ll settle them, but we’re going to take care of that small business at home; that’s first.”

Ears pricked. “We’re with you,” Haral said. “Gods, yes, home. Going to shake me some scruffs when I get there.”

“Hai!” Geran agreed, and Tirun; and Tully visibly flinched, calmed again as Chur patted his shoulder. He settled and Hilfy sat down beside him, put her hand on his other shoulder, two disconsolate souls who shared not much at all but their misery.

“We’ll straighten it out,” Pyanfar said to Hilfy. “We’ll do it on our terms. Agreed, niece?”

“He got me out of there,” Hilfy said. “I could have helped and he saw it coming and he moved me out.”

“Huh. You’re not old enough to know your father from my view, with all respect for your own. He thinks, some time before a problem comes on him — not much meditation during, gods know, but he sets things up like pieces on a board. Too rotted proud to call me downworld, ah, yes; too rotted smart to have young Hilfy Chanur at hand to get herself in a tangle with her Mahn cousins and to pitchfork that temper of Kohan’s into it… don’t get your ears down at me, imp; we’re family here. The sun rises and sets on your shoulder so far as your father’s concerned, and that blasted son of mine would go right for the greatest irritance he could give your father if he wanted to take on Chanur — your precious inexperienced self. No, Kohan just cleared the deck, that’s all. Chances are he was wrong; he’s not immune to that either. I’d sooner have had you there; I think you’d have handled young Kara right enough; and Tahy with him. But if Moon Rising’s going home, it’s to carry the kind of news the Tahar have gotten here; it’s going to make trouble, no thanks to the Faha: and there’s a time past which Kohan’s going to be hard put. He’s got — what mates in residence? Your mother and who?”

“Akify and Lilun.”

“Hope your mother stands by him,” Pyanfar said heavily: the Kihan and the Garas were ornaments. She walked over to the counter and stared at the scan a moment. “No matter. Whatever’s going on, we’ll put it in order.”

“Pyanfar—”

Tully’s strange voice. She turned about and looked at him, recalled the pager and turned it on broadcast, not bothering with the plug.

“Question,” Tully said, and made a vague gesture toward the door where the Faha had left. “He fight.”

“She,” Pyanfar said impatiently. “All she.” Tully bit his lip and looked confused. “It’s nothing to do with you,” Pyanfar said. “Nothing you’d understand.”

“I go.” he offered, starting to slide from his place on the counter, but Chur held his shoulder. “No,” Chur said. “It’s all right, Tully. No one’s angry at you.”

“You’re not the cause,” Pyanfar said. “Not of this.” She walked to the door, looked back at the crew. “We’ll settle it,” she said to the crew, and turned and walked out, down the corridor and alone toward the lift.

Khym overthrown. Dead, maybe. At the least in exile. The loss of her mate oppressed her to a surprising degree. Mahn in young Kara’s hands would not be what it had been in Khym’s. Khym’s style had been easygoing and gracious and admittedly lazy: he was a comfortable sort of fellow to come back to, who liked fine things and loved to sit in the shade of his garden and listen to the tales she could spin of far “ports he would never see. Boundless curiosity, gentle curiosity. That was Khym Mahn. And the son he had indulged and pardoned had come back and taken his garden and his house and his name, while poor Khym — gods knew where he was, or in what misery.

She rode the lift up to main level and entered her own quarters, shut the door and sat down at the desk… forbore for a long time to pull out the few mementoes she bothered to keep, keeping home more in her mind than in objects. Finally she looked at what she had, a picture, a smooth gray stone — odd how pleasant a bit of stone felt, and how alien in this steel world; stone that conjured the Kahin Hills, the look and the sound of grass in the wind, and the warmth of the sun and the slick cold of the rain on the rocks which thrust up out of the grassy hillsides.

Her son… cast Khym out: moved in next to Chanur to threaten Kohan himself, to break apart all that she had done and built and all that Kohan held. Small wonder Kohan had wanted Hilfy out of harm’s way — out of a situation in which tempers could be triggered and reason lost.

Put some experience on her, Kohan had asked. And: Take care of her.

She put the things away, and sat thinking, because while repairs proceeded, there was little else she could do. They sat here locked into station’s embrace and hoping that the kif stayed off their vulnerable backside. Sat here while their enemies had time to do what they liked.

Strike at Anuurn itself — Akukkakk could not be so rash. He had not that many ships, that he could do such a thing. It was bluster, of the sort the kif always used, hyperbole… of the sort they always flung out, hoping for more gains from an enemy’s panic than force could win. Unless the hakkikt was mad… a definition which, between species, lacked precision. Unless the hakkikt commanded followers more interested in damage than in gain.

No hakkikt on record had ever stirred as wide a distance, involving so many ships. No one had ever done what this one had done, attacking a stsho station, harassing and threatening an entire starsystem and all its traffic as he had done at Urtur.

She sat and gnawed at her lip and reckoned that the threat might have substance to it after all. She checked scan finally, on her own terminal. Nothing showed but the expected. The knnn still hovered off from station: when she searched audio the singing came back, placid now and wavering over three discordant tones. The tc’a were silent, but one, which babbled static in tones as slow as the knnn’s. The prisoner? she wondered. Lamenting its fate? Beyond those voices there was only normal station noise, and the close-in chatter of the skimmer crews who had never ceased their work on The Pride’s damage. Normally some of these jump freighters would have put out: Hasatso’s venture out only to meet emergency had frozen everything. Not even the miners were stirring out from their berths with the orehaulers and those were snugged into orbit about Mala or Kilaunan.

She patched a call through to station services, complained about the late delivery on ordered goods: the courier service issued promises after the time-honored fashion, and she took them, reckoning on the usual carrier arriving about the time the rampway was about to close down.

Stasteburana-to used sense, at least; and the patrols stayed out, shuttling the system, alert against trouble. The mahe kept faith.

She expected less of the Tahar.