Chanur's Homecoming

Chapter Fifteen

The docks at Gaohn were deserted, with the profound chill that came of seals cutting off the air circulation, the deckplates so cold they burned the feet; and Pyanfar limped a bit-had been limping since she rolled out of bed stiff and sore and knowing what there was yet to face.

There had been a little leisure, on the way back to Gaohn, a little time for The Pride to run at a decent, safe rate; for aching crew to tend their own needs and the ship's, and to catch a nap and a hot meal.

She went in spacer's blues. It was all she had left, and that was borrowed. She went with her own crew about her, and left The Pride in Sirany's capable hands.

Another lostling had turned up. Dur Tahar had quietly showed up on-scope, blinking in with an ID signal and turning out not to be a piece of hurtling wreckage. "Friggin' hell," Tahar had said when they got her on com: "you don't think I'm going to run my ID, us, while we got you standing off half the Compact and most every hani ship out here ready to blow us to dust and gone. I'm not coming in yet, Chanur. I'll meet with you or one of your ships, I'll let Vrossaru and her crew off, but I'm not going to go in to dock ... not this old hunter. I'll just watch awhile."

"You running with Goldtooth? Or Sikkukkut?"

"Me? Gods upside down, Chanur, you got an exaggerated idea how fast we are. I got out on your tail, been following your emissions trail like a highway clear from Meetpoint, firing like hell to catch you up, but I blew two more systems making that gods-be Urtur shift: sorry if you had any fondness for that kif. Me, I owed him. Plenty." 5 "You godsforsaken lunatic! You could have blown us all."

This during two hours of timelagged exchange. And after a longer than usual pause, in which she had thought Tahar might have quit talking: "Chanur, if you ever trusted that kif, you got something yet to learn. He made you too powerful, haven't you got it yet? So did the mahendo'sat. Do I have to tell you?"

She had sat there then, after Dur Tahar had in fact quit talking, a decisive signoff. She sat there receiving the infor­mation from Gaohn that a half dozen little light-armed freight­ers had scattered down the Ajir route with a precious cargo of hani lives, the men and children of the Syrsyn clans.

Seeds on a stellar wind.

And she looked Khym's way, her husband sitting backup duty at a quieter time on the bridge, taking his time at scan while exhausted senior crew took theirs at washup and rest. He did not notice that glance: his face, dyed with the light from the scope, was intent on business.

Whatever we lose here, she had thought then. For all we failed in, one thing we did.

There was one other man there on the bridge. And he did look her way. She thought she had seen every expression Tully's alien face had to offer. But this, that all the life seemed to have left him, no more of fight, as if something in him had broken and died. Except that the eyes lighted a moment, glistened that way they did in profoundest sorrow; and looked-O gods-straight at her. While Hilfy, leaving the bridge, paused to put her hand on his shoulder. For comfort. For-

''Come on," Hilfy had said. ''Tully.''

You know, don't you? Pyanfar had thought then. You know she'll leave you now. Her own kind, Tully. She's Chanur now. The Chanur. And you're ours; even when you go back, your people won't forget that, will they? Ever.

Gods help you, Tully. Whatever your name really is. What­ever you think you are and wherever you go now.

Like Tahar. They don't ever quite forget.

I'm no fool, that look of his said back to her. Neither of us are. We're friends.

And perhaps some other human, unfathomably complicated strangeness she could not puzzle out.

Tully came with them onto the docks this time. It was the second time for him onto Gaohn station, among staring and mistrustful hani, in a confrontation where he was a show­piece, an exhibit, a pawn. They gave him weapons. The same as themselves. So he would know another important thing in a way the sputtering translator could not relay.

Last of all she had caught hold of him in the airlock, taken him by the arm and made sure he was listening: "Tully. You can go with the human ships. You're free, you understand that. You know free?"

"I know free," he had said. And just looked at her with that gentle, too-wise expression of his.

Down the docks where a line of grim-looking Llun had set the perimeters of this meeting, the towering section seals in place on either end of this dock. There were stationer clanswomen, spacer clans. And a delegation from the han had come thundering up from the world, only just arrived. There were weapons enough. And Llun guards enough to discourage anything some hani lunatic might try.

The Llun marshals were no protection against the hunter-ships which had come in, snugged their deadly sleek noses up into Gaohn's vulnerable docking facilities, and disgorged their own guards and their own very different personnel. Three mahendo'sat, a human ship, and a trio of kif: besides The Pride and Harun's Industry: that was the final agree­ment. Aja Jin, Mahijiru, then one other mahen ship named Pasarimu, that had come in after Jik; Nekkekt, Chakkuf, Maktakkt, and finally something unpronounceable that Tully said for them three times and they still could not manage. The Human Ship, they called it by default.

The gathering on the dock was very quiet, and all too careful. Even Jik, who had on a dark cloak and kilt so unlike

his usual gaud it took a second look to know it was Jik. Only a single collar, a solitary bracelet. An AP on his hip and a knife beside it. That was usual. Soje Kesurinan was there, brighter-dressed and no less armed. And with them some Personage walked with the captain of Pasarimi, complete with Voice, with all the appropriate badges. Official, yes. Indisputably.

There was Goldtooth, in the same dark formality. And his own escort. Not a flicker of communication passed between him and his partner.

Harun and Llun, a tired crew in spacer-blues, with Kauryfy herself in green and the Llun all in Immune black.

Another lot came in black: a mass of Shadow drifted out from the perimeters, all alike in their robes, their hoods, their utter sameness to hani eyes, all bristling with weapons. One of them would be Skkukuk, but she could not find him by the clues she knew, the gait, the small gestures. There was a tall kif evidently in charge, one the others evidently gave place to.

Who is that? Is it my kif?

She feared it was altogether another. In one sense or another.

And the humans, from whatever-it-was. She had seen the like once before: different kinds of humans; different shapes; any species had that. But these varied wildly, some handsome in a Tully-way; some just strange. They all wore dark gray, all glittered with silver and plastics, body-fitting, skin-covering suits: even the hands covered. Not one was armed with anything that looked like a weapon. Com equipment. Plenty of that. They remained an enigma. And stopped, at about the distance everyone else had stopped, like points of a star.

Fear grew thick on this dockside: it was evident in the set of hani ears, in the way kif and mahendo'sat moved. In the way that Tully stayed right at their side, and no human advanced beyond the mahen perimeter.

There was another thing in the system. There was a very real knnn and a tc'a out there, singing to each other in harmonics of which the computer-translators which were sup­posed to handle such things, made no sense but positional

data. It was significant and ominous that the matrix of the harmonics had the position of Gaohn station in it.

The knnn were interested. That was more than enough to account for the fear.

But the representatives from downworld would hardly com­prehend that much: they would, most likely, be getting their first look at a mahendo'sat, let alone kif or humans. And perhaps they had a resolution in their hands; or perhaps the debating was still going on, and Naur and Tahy Mahn par Chanur and others of that worldbound mindset were still arguing protocols and policies. Gods knew. If she let herself think about it she grew cold, killing mad.

They had set out a huge table, for godssake, a table and chairs there on dockside, the Llun's council furniture moved out, that was what it was, hani council furniture, as if all these factions could be gotten together, as if in all the chaos and amid ships moving in with major damage and injured, some fool (from Anuurn surface most likely) had time to insist on tables and chairs which would hardly even accom­modate the anatomy of some of the invaders. With knnn running around the neighborhood, and ships still at standoff out there in the zenith range, over fifty of them determined to force an issue and get passage through, others determined to move kif who would literally die of the shame, and kif who were as doggedly determined to resist.

Gods-cursed groundling fools. If that knnn out there comes calling, we won't survive it. Do your resolutions understand that?

Humans have fired on them. Tully says.

Jik's played politics with the tc'a. Gods! does he know what that is out there, is it something that's come for him, for the mahendo'sat?

Tables. My gods, we're lucky to get these species within shouting distance of each other! The kif never do anything without the scent of advantage, they're here on a thread, on the least thread of a suspicion that I'm their best way out.

And Jik and Goldtooth aren't talking, they're not looking at each other, the crews don't mix-and who in their own hell is the Personage Pasurimi came in with?

Came in with the ships out of mahen space, not the Kura route. Came in, my gods, from Iji, that's where he's from. That's someone from the homeworld.

That's Authority. That, with the Voice and the badges and the robes. And he hasn't introduced himself. The Voice hasn't spoken a word. The han's been insulted and they don't even know it.

They're frozen. No one's not moving. It's the kif they distrust.

"Skkukuk," she guessed, taking the risk. And the fore­most kif lifted his face the least degree, then lowered it, belligerence and manners in two breaths. Even amiability. For a kif.

“Mekt-hakkikt,'' that one said. So she knew it was Skkukuk. But he took it for a summons, and a panic seized on her, instinctive aversion as that band of kif crossed the deck plating and got between her and the mahendo'sat and the humans. And swung their weapons into line as they went.

''Weapons down, for godssake.'' The panic made her voice sharp. Skkukuk instantly hissed and clicked an order to his company. Weapons lowered. She grabbed the chance two-handed. "There's not going to be any shooting. On any side." One of the Llun came too close and she flattened her ears and rumpled her nose. "Get back, gods rot it." But the mahendo'sat had come closer too. Suddenly there were a great many guns, her own crew with their own rifles slung conspicuously toward level. "Back off!" Haral snapped at a gray nosed hani who moved in with foolhardy authority. And shoved with the gunbutt.

"Chanur!" that hani shouted.

And faced three kifish rifles.

"Hold it! Sgokkun!" Her heart all but stopped. She physi­cally struck a kifish rifle up, out of line; and that kif got back and stood clicking and gnashing its inner teeth, its fellows likewise confused.

"Mekt-hakkiktu sotoghotk kefikkun nakt!" Skkukuk snap­ped; there was quick silence.

Quiet then. Even the downworld hani had it figured how precarious it was.

"We don't need any shooting," Pyanfar said, her own heart lurching and thumping and her knees shaking. Her

voice gathered itself somewhere at the bottom of her gut. Khym was by her, close by her; between her and the hani, thank gods for his wits and his instincts. She waved a hand to clear the kif back and get a view of where the humans were, where the various mahendo'sat had gotten to; and the humans had stayed where they were, a good distance back. Goldtooth and his armed group had followed up all too close and Jik maneuvered to the side, both of them between the kif and the Personage. "Use your gods-be heads! Skkukuk, just stand there. Just stand. Goldtooth. Ana. We're all right here. You're not going to be using those guns; let's just all calm down, can we?"

"We come here talk. Same settle this mess;." Goldtooth's dark brow was knit. He waved a hand indicating the perime­ters. "We got knnn out there all upset. You got lousy mess, Pyanfar. Now I talk with you, you make big mistake."

"Yeah. I found out about that. Nice of you to tell me what you were doing. Nice of you to tell Jik, too.",

"Jik got no choice. Got important hani, got human, all same mess at Kefk. Try to pull you out. You got go pull Tahar out, we don't 'spect same. Bad surprise, Pyanfar. Bad surprise. All same come out. We got Sikkukkut, got Akkhtimakt, both. We got no more worry with kif, a? So you let these fine kif go back to ship. They want go home, we let go. Best deal they got."

"Have no dealings with this person," Skkukuk said, be­side her. "Our ships are the defense of this system. We are faithful, mekt-hakkikt."

No threats, no untoward move. The hair prickled down her back. It was not subservience in this kif. Just quiet. The intimation of power, but not quite enough power: the kif was here, talking. It was a move Sikkukkut excelled at, but this kif was smoother, and Goldtooth was giving good advice, O gods, if there were a power that could shove the kif back to their borders and keep them there.

That power was standing right in front of her. A mahen-human association.

If she did not know what she knew, from Tully, about what humans stood to gain. About human powers currently at each others' throats, and spread over an area that would,

could! (a single look at the starcharts told that) dwarf the Compact.

"I have to know," she said, quietly, reasonably, to Goldtooth, "what happened to the stsho." Like it was gentle concern. It was desperation. It was suddenly their bulwark on that side, their trading-point. Without them-

Does he see? Does he suspect why I ask? He's no fool, was never a fool, O gods, this is one of half a dozen minds that rules the whole godshelpus Compact, he always was, he's one of those the mahendo'sat just turn loose to do things on the borders, things that echo years across civilized space. He still is. Even with a Personage here.

"We do fine." An unlooked-for voice.' Jik had pulled out one of his abominable smokes and was in the process of lighting it, as if those dark eyes of his were not alert to every twitch from hani and kif. "Ana tell me he get there number one fine, three, four day fight. Chew up Sikkukkut good. Fine for us here. Our friend Sikkukkut-" He capped the lighter and drew in a second lungful of smoke. "He know then damn sure he got trouble. We owe damn lot to Banny Ayhar. Same you, friend. Same all hani come spread alarm."

"The stsho-"

"Little damage. Lot confuse. Methane-folk take care real good." A gesture with the back of the hand with the smokestick, vaguely outward. "Same knnn. Offi-cial, a? With tc'a interpreter. Same be tc'a been long time with."

"The same from Mkks?"

"A. Same all way from Kshshti. Tt'om'm'mu been real co-operative."

"Then it is your agent."

A wave of the fingers, amid a hani and a kifish murmur­ing. "Same talk lot people, a? I tell you, Ana-shoshi na hamuru-ta ma shosu-shinai musai hasan shanar shismenanpri ghashanuru-ma shesheh men chephettri nanursai sopri sai."

Dialect, thick and impenetrable. It had as well be coded. But Goldtooth's face went guarded, his eyes darker, with the least small shift toward the left.

Toward Tully. Just that little twitch.

It was a guess what Jik had said. Or how much. A second shift of the eyes, that little degree that showed a white edge around the brown. Back to her this time. "Nao'sheshen?"

"Meshi-meshan." Jik tilted his head back, a gesture be­hind him. "Meshi nai sohhephrasi Chanuru-sfik, a?"

It did not please Goldtooth, whatever it was. "Shemasu. We talk. We talk plenty. We tell Personage. You tell these kif go. Now. We deal with methane-folk. You fix stuff here.

"Fix stuff!" She caught her breath and her wits in the same gulp after air, saw backs stiffen left and right and lowered her voice instantly. The han was back there. The Llun. There was a deafening silence.

"Kkkt," Skkukuk said. "Kk-kkt. This mahe does not dictate here. There will be no escort. There will be no mahen ships in our territory. Do not be deceived."

"We talk later," Goldtooth said, and got one step.

Weapons came up. In one move. So did mahen weapons.

"Hold it!" Pyanfar yelled, and shoved a rifle barrel. A kif’s. It was momentarily safer.

"Chanur," a hani voice began.

"Shut up," Tirun said.

"Let us begin it here," Skkukuk said. While Jik put himself between the kif and Goldtooth. Carefully.

"Let's not." Out of the peripheries of her vision she saw a human movement, a quiet melting away of certain of that group toward cover. "Tully! Stop them."

Tully shouted out, instant and shockingly alien and fluent. With an uplifted hand. And that motion stopped.

"Cease this!" the Voice snapped, and said something else in mahensi, too fast and too accented to follow.

"Withdraw them," a hani said. Downworlder, graynosed. Elderly and overweight. My gods, Rhynan Naur. That gray, that old. The voice rang with something of its old authority in the han. "We will not have our space violated. We will not countenance-"

Skkukuk's rifle swung that way. "Don't," Pyanfar said sharply. "Gods rot it-shut up, Naur. Everybody. Don't anybody move."

"You Personage," Jik said at her left, at Skkukuk's. "You want stop, you got stop. Shemtisi hani manara-to hefar ma nefuraishe'ha me kif."

"Trust that we will do that," Skkukuk said, all hard and with jaw lifted ominously. "We do not intend to take any voyage in your company."

"We got solution." Jik winced and pinched out the smokestick that had burned down to his fingers. "Pasuru nasur. Kephri na shshemura, Ana-he. Meshi."

"Meshi ne'asur?"

"Lot better. Same I say." Jik looked her way. "We got spacer hani, same. Sikkukkut be damn fool doublecross you, a? Damn fool. All time I say you lot smart. Got whole lot sfik, whole lot stuff, Pyanfar Chanur-same like I say. Same Ana here find you, same Sikkukkut want you-damn good. Now you got say like Personage, you got make decide."

"Decide, decide, fgodssakes, there's no decide. We got you and the kif trying to blow each other to the hereafter all through our solar system-"

"You Personage. You got kif. You want deal for the han?"

"I don't deal for the hani I'm telling you, me, Pyanfar, you talk to your Personage and tell him what Tully told us."

"I do." Jik looked at her in a strange and maddening way. "You not be han. You be Personage. Send hakkikt back to kif-how you guarantee, a? Stoheshe, Ana." With a glance at Goldtooth. And back again. "The han decide this, decide that. You do what you want with han. But the han be for Anuurn. You be Personage for hani, Personage for kif, same Tt'om'm'mu want save you life. You got the Person-thing. Born with. You understand this?"

"What are you talking about, for godssakes?"

"You no damn fool. You see. You see clear. Sikkukkut get power by create little hakkikt and take what they got. Let them do work. He lot smart kif. Till he make you hakkikt and try take what you got. You got the Person-thing. He think he got more, he damn lot mistake. We don't mistake. This kif here don't mistake. You got whole thing in you hands. Me, / recognize. Same like this kif. Long time."

"No. My gods, no!" She waved her hand, cast a look at the hani behind her, at her crew and back again.

"War, friend. What I tell you happen? Not war like ground war. War like new kind thing. Like crazy thing."

"Then send your gods-be human friends home! Out! Turn those ships around, restore the balance, for godssake!"

"How you guarantee Anuurn be safe, a? How you heal stsho? How you 'splain these human we got change mind? How you deal with knnn, a?"

A sense of panic closed in on her. Not alone because it was all logical, and the pieces were there. She looked around again at the hani lines, at her own people, at some faces gone hard and ears gone flat. At others, spacers, who just looked worried. Like her crew.

Like Goldtooth.

And not a sound from the kif.

The politicians would hang her, eventually, when all the furor died down. It was the last shred of Chanur's reputation they asked for.

"Yeah," she said. "Well, it's clear, isn't it? We just tell these humans they have to leave. That you consulted with some high Personage and there's a lot of trouble and they just have to turn those ships around and get back the other side of that border. Which we can do, can't we? It just might give Skkukuk here a good chance to go home in style, number one fine-a whole shift in policy, a new mekt-hakkikt, a new directive. I'm not real interested in going into kifish space, Skkukuk my friend: I'm just real pleased for you to be hakkikt over all the kif you can get your hands on. And all you have to do is hold that border tight once the humans cross it outbound."

"Kkkt." Skkukuk drew in a hissing breath. "Mekt-hakkikt, you justify my faith in you."

"You won't cross into mahen territory."

"They won't cross into ours."

"They won't." Looking at Jik. And Goldtooth. Goldtooth lowered his small ears and bowed his head slowly, with reluctance.

"I hear," he said quietly. And made the same gesture to Jik, and to the Personage as he turned away.

Something's wrong with him. Something mahen and crazy, and something I don't know: I've done something to him. I've beaten him.

Two plans. Two treaties. The mahendo'sat rise and fall on their successes; and they disown the failures.

"If I've got to run this business for a while," she said to Jik, "I want him. What would he think about it?"

Jik's eyes flickered and something lightened there. "He tell you you got damn fine fellow."

"This Personage of yours-" She tilted a careful ear to­ward the robed mahe with the Voice. "Iji?"

"Same. I talk for him. He don't got good pidgin. Same his Voice. He also Personage, see you got same Person-thing, lot strong. He say-God make Personage. He-" Jik gave a helpless gesture. "He say God make lot peculiar experiment."

She laid her ears back, trying to put that on one side or the other. "Tell him-gods, just tell him I'll do what I have to. First thing-" She put her hands in the waist of her trousers. They were icy; her feet were numb from the decking. And it was still raw fear. "Tully."

"Captain?"

The humans were first. She kept her shoulder to the han representatives and to the Llun; and felt a dull shock to find Skkukuk's armed presence a positive comfort on her left, where it regarded breaking that news.

"What we do, we talk a little trade, talk up all the trouble they got to watch out for. I figure maybe they've seen enough to worry about. Maybe we just tell them it gets worse up ahead."

"They go," Tully said finally, coming out of that small fluorescent-lit room on Gaohn dockside, where mahendo'sat and kif and humans and hani argued. Armed. Every one of them, since the kif were worse without their weapons at hand than with. And they went at it in shifts, till Tully came out in a waft of that godsawful multispecies stale air, and leaned against the doorframe. "They go." He looked drowned. Sweat stuck his hair to his forehead and his eyes looked bruised. After three days at this back-and-forth, herself out of the room for clean air and a new grip on her temper, agree­ment was like the floor going away.

"Go? Leave? They say yes?"

Gods, who threatened them? What happened? What went wrong? Belligerence was not the strategy she chose. Discour­agement was. She had hammered this home with Skkukuk until the deviousness and the advantage of the tactic slowly blossomed in his narrow kifish skull, and his red-rimmed eyes showed a distinctive interest, which, gods help them all, might turn up as something new in kifish strategy.

"They say yes," Tully said, and made a ship-going motion with his flat hand. "Go way home. Kif and mahendo'sat go with. First mahendo'sat, then kif, with few hani. You got find hani ship go. Make passage 'long kif territory."

"That bastard." Meaning Skkukuk, who had ulterior mo­tives in running a parade of exiting humans right through kifish territory. It was also the shortest route. And Tully just hung there against the wall blinking in his own sweat and smelling godsawful no matter how much perfume he dosed himself with. He picked it up off the others. They all did. But overheated human still had its own distinctive aroma.

"Good?" he asked.

"Gods." She drew a deep breath and took him by the shoulder on her way to the door. He had to go back in. They still needed him. The mechanical translators were a disaster. And he looked all but out on his feet. "Yes. Good. Thank gods. Can you go a little longer? Another hour?"

"I do." Hoarse and desperate-sounding.

"Tully. You can go with them. You understand. Go home."

He blinked at her. Shook his head. He had that gesture back. "Here. The Pride."

"Tully. You don't understand. We got trouble. We're all right now. After this-I can't say. I don't know that Chanur won't be arrested. Or worse than that. I have enemies, Tully. Lot of enemies. And if something happens to me and Chanur you'd be alone. Bad mess. You understand that? I can't say you'll be safe. I can't even say that for myself or the crew."

He did not understand. The words, maybe. But not the way the han paid off people like Ayhar, like Tahar, who was still not in a mood to come in. Gods knew what they reserved for Chanur.

"I friend."

"Friend. Gods. They owe you plenty, Tully. But you got to get out of here with somebody."

His mobile eyes shifted toward the door, the same as a hani slanting an ear. They. "Not good I go with."

It made sense then. Too much. "They got the han's way of saying thanks, huh? Same you, same me with the hani. Gods-rotted mess, Tully."

He just looked at her.

And they went in one after the other. To get down to charts and precise routes.

Across the table from a tired, surly lot of humans.

Tully talked again, from his seat halfway down the table. In a quiet, colorless tone.

What came back sounded heated. But not when Tully rendered it. Simply: "They go. Want us come home with."

"No," the Llun said, before the mahen Personage got a word in. Skkukuk just sat and clicked to himself.

"This isn't a good time," Pyanfar said. Being an old trader. Tully rendered that in some fashion. "Knnn out there." And he rendered that, which got surlier frowns.

"Kkkkt," Skkukuk said, lifting his jaw, which they proba­bly failed to understand.

Tully said something. It was probable that Tully did understand.

They were disposed to go to their ships after that.

"We've got it," she said to the Llun, after, herself and Tully outside in the corridor again with the Llun guard, when it was all adjourning. They were somewhat kin, she and the Llun senior. They kept it remote: the Immunes cherished their neutrality.

"We expect," the Llun said, "that the mahendo'sat may come up with some reparations."

Pyanfar's ears went down. Her jaw dropped. "My gods, we just got the kif and the mahendo'sat settled-"

"You have a peculiar position."

She went on staring at the Llun.

"Unique influence," the Llun said.

Trading instincts took over. In a blinding flash. My gods. They need something, don't they?

Gods save us. The mahendo'sat.

/ can get The Pride running again. Maybe get clear of this port. Bluff them out of arresting us.

"It occurs to the han and the Immunes collectively," the Llun said, "that if you can do this, you can do other things. You have an extreme influence with the mahendo'sat."

My gods, my gods, they don't see yet! The mahendo'sat, the mahendo'sat are all they can see. The stsho and the mahendo'sat. Their precious trading interests. She walked away, stared off down the corridor where her own multispecies escort waited, rattling with weapons. Like the knnn and the tc'a out there, which Jik and Goldtooth swore was a tolerably friendly presence. And a pirate ship which was lying very quiet, but assuredly listening. She knew Tahar, that she would go on listening till she knew it was time to run for it. I'm dangerous. I'm a plague and a danger to them. But they're mistaken what the danger is.

"Chanur. The han is offering you your land back."

She turned around, blinked and stared at the Immune. "You mean my son is giving it up. Surrendering the land? Or the han is just confiscating it?"

"They'll work something out. They're disposed to work something out."

"Gods-be greedy eggsucking bastards! What are they ask­ing? What are they buying? Who in a mahen hell do they think they're trading with?"

"I don't think they know either. I don't think they imag­ine. / do. The spacer clans do. They're saying they'll fight if the han lays a hand on you. They know what it would mean with the kif and the mahendo'sat. I know."

"They're crazy!"

"You're in a position. What will happen if you aren't? Tell me that."

Skkukuk being what Sikkukkut wanted to be. Jik discred­ited. Shakeups in the mahen government. More craziness.

It was not what she wanted to think of. It lay there day and night in her gut like something indigestible.

So did the solution.

"So the han just wants me to come down there and play politics and pay the bar tab, huh? Cozy up with the Naur."

"I didn't say that. I don't say the Naur won't try." The Llun looked as if she had something sour in her mouth. "I don't say you'll have to listen to them. You've got friends. That's what I'm trying to say. Unofficially."

"Because I won in there."

"I'll be honest. Some clans would have stood by you. The Llun couldn't have. We have other considerations. I'm not talking to a political novice. I'm not one either."

"Meaning you know what I could do."

"You're hani. You came back here. You came back here like Ayhar did. Like all the rest. That's some assurance what you'll do."

"The land's the rest, is it?"

"Some accommodation can be worked out."

Her heart hurt. Acutely. It took several breaths to dispel enough of the pain to talk. "I'm too honest, Llun. I'm too gods-be honest to take that deal. I'm too honest to do that to the han, and I mean us, not what sits on its broad backside down in that marble mausoleum and tries to play politics in a universe it doesn't by the gods understand. I'm the best education they're ever likely to get. You're right. You and your guards don't lay a hand on me or mine. You know what it would set off.''

The Llun's ears had gone flat. "Is that a threat? Is that what I take it for?"

"Don't worry about me. I'm not Ehrran. Or Naur. I don't keep notebooks. And I'm going to be a lousy houseguest. You understand that? I can't drag that kind of politics into the han. I can't sit in the han and handle the kif. Or the mahendo'sat. Or the stsho. That isn't what the kif and the mahendo'sat created. I don't have any kin anymore. I can't have. I can't pay those kinds of debts. Come on, Tully."

She walked past the Llun, away from her and down the corridor without a backward look. She hurt inside. There were only foreigners waiting for her. And the crew she had to face. And explain to.

"Wrong?" Tully asked.

"No." She felt better, having said that. Having decided it. She laid a hand on his shoulder as they walked. "Friend," she said, and discovered that felt better too.

"Pyanfar." He stopped, faced her, pulling something from

his hand and, taking hers palm up, pressed that something into it. She opened her fingers. It was the little gold ring. The one from lost Ijir. From some other friend of his. "You take." He reached out and touched the side of her ear. "So."

It was the most precious thing he owned, the only thing he really owned, the only link he had with his dead. "My gods, Tully-"

"Take."

She clenched her hand on it. He seemed pleased at that, even relieved, as if he had let something go that had been too heavy to carry.

"You want to stay or go? Tully?"

"Stay. With The Pride. With you. With crew."

"It's not the same! It won't be the same! Gods rot it, Tully, I can't make you understand what you're walking into. The crew may leave. Hilfy will have to. I don't know where we'll be. I don't know how long this will last before it gets worse."

"Need me."

She opened her mouth and shut it. Of all the crew she reckoned might be steadiest, she had never even reckoned him. Like the ring, it was too profound a gift.

"Come on," she said.

"We're doing all right," she said, on a full stomach, in the crowded galley-the Tauran had gone, with Vrossaru, aboard Mahijiru, trailing the humans out. There was a matter of getting back to Meetpoint and picking up their ships and cargoes. Ayhar's Prosperity had a guaranteed run in that direction too, with a full hold, which Meetpoint might direly need. And, good or bad news, one never knew, the knnn had disappeared with the tc'a, off on a vector which ought to get it lost in limbo, if it were not a knnn, and capable of making jumps that other ships could not. Toward stsho space, it looked like. At best guess.

"We got word from Tahar," Haral said. "They got the message."

"What'd they say about it?"

"Said thanks. They said they'll believe in a han amnesty when they get it engraved, but they say they plan to shadow us awhile. Till the word gets around."

"Huh." It was prudent. Dur Tahar was that. She let go a small sigh. "We got some business at Meetpoint too, soon as they get our tail put back together." She took a sip of gfi. There was a vacancy at table. Hilfy was off doing Chanur business. Which was the way it had to be. Married, within the year: that was what Hilfy had to do, find herself some young man strong enough to take her cousin Kara and pitch him clear back to Mahn territory.

In that choice she had burned to give advice; but what was between her and Hilfy had gotten too remote for that, too businesslike. It was her own hardheaded, closemouthed pride. She saw it like a mirror. Hilfy knew everything; more than Hilfy might ever know when she was a hundred.

Then: "Hey," Hilfy had said to her when she left, not captain-crew formal, but a level, adult look eye to eye. "I'm not going hunting round in Hermitage. I'm just putting the word out I'm looking. Me. Heir to Chanur. And the winner gets a shuttle ticket up to Gaohn. I don't care if he's hand­some. But he's by the gods going to have to have the nerve to come up here and meet my father."

"Huh," she had said to that. Since she had resolved to disentangle herself from clan business as long as the Person­age business persisted. She did not, likewise, offer advice to Rhean or Anfy or any of the others.

"I'm telling you," she said now, to the crew, to her cousins, her husband, and a human, "you don't have to go out on this one. You want some ground time, gods know you've got it coming." With a look under her brows at Chur, who had it coming doubly. "Or station. Or discharge. To Fortune; to Light. Anywhere. I'm the gods-be Personage of Anuurn, I can get you any post you want, it ought to let me do some things I want to do."

Long silence. "No," Haral said. And: "No," like an echo from Tirun.

"World's not safe," Chur said, and shrugged uncomfort­ably. "But I met this Llun fellow. Immune. Quiet. Real quiet."

"You want your discharge. Or just some leave time?"

Chur sighed, a heave of her shoulders. "Gods, I want till we get the tail fixed, that's all."

Geran had looked worried. Terrified for a moment The shadow passed.

Khym looked Chur's way. And back to her, with a quiet and considerate expression. Sometimes the thoughts went through his eyes so plain she could read them. After all these years.