Chanur's Legacy

Chapter Eighteen

There was a time one was superfluous, and Hallan had learned to know it. He hovered near the doorway while Tarras gave orders to Fala, and Fala gave him looks while she was carrying this and carrying that.

"I do like you," he contrived to say, when Fala's fetching and carrying paused her near him. "I really do, Fala, I just—"

Fala retrieved the kit she was after and went across the small surgery to where Tarras was ministering to gtst excellency with small and delicate needles, murmuring words of encouragement, assuring gtst that it was exactly what the computer had said to do.

Fala didn't want to talk to him. He didn't entirely blame her. He didn't feel welcome here, where people who knew what they were doing were trying to save the stsho gentleman's — or lady's — life…

He found it more convenient to edge toward the door, and when no one seemed to notice that fact, to edge out it, and into the main lower corridor.

But ops was down there, and Chihin was working lowerdeck ops, and he didn't want to go down there; and did, desperately…

Except it was too desperate and dangerous a situation to cause anybody more trouble than he had.

He wanted to apologize to Fala; and, really, truly, he wanted to patch it up: yes, he was attracted to Fala, at least she was pretty and she was clever and she was somebody he wanted very much to have like him, except it wasn't anything like the feeling he got when he even thought about Chihin.

Which told him it was the last place in the universe he needed to be when things were at a crisis and Chihin was supposed to be doing her job and there was a problem between them.

No business on a ship, the captain had said; and he didn't want to prove that by creating another problem for the captain. The crew lounge was where the captain had appointed him to go when she wanted him out of trouble and out of sight, and he went down the corridor as carefully as under fire, avoiding Chihin and avoiding any chance of running into the stsho, and got as far as the lift and rode it topside.

Then he could draw an easier breath. Then he could feel as if he wasn't in the way. And he soft-footed it as far as the corridor that led to the lounge.

But it equally well led to the galley and the bridge, too; and he wasn't forbidden to be there: he actually could do something useful; and Tiar was there, she'd been talking back and forth with them from some ops station and he didn't think it was downside.

Tiar was on his side, she'd always been friendly to him, she hadn't made his life difficult — Tiar understood what was going on.

He tended cautiously up the corridor in the direction of the bridge. The captain was in her office. The door was shut and the light was on the lock panel that meant she was there and the door wasn't locked, if you wanted to risk your neck. He didn't. He walked softly past and through the galley and onto the bridge where, sure enough, Tiar was sitting guard over the boards, with most of hers live and the screens showing the docks outside, and the station's scan-feed, and the station's docking-schema, and inputs he didn't recognize, but they were analytical, he thought, probably running system checks on the engines or something he wasn't familiar with.

He went and sat down very quietly in Fala's usual place, next on Tiar's right, the other side being the captain's place, where to save his life he wouldn't dare trespass.

She glanced at him, and looked back at the boards. So there was silence for some few moments.

"Can I help?" he asked softly, so as not to break her concentration.

"We're getting a little warm-up in a circuit. Not ops-critical, but we've put a load on us this trip. It's just symptomatic of a long run with very little sitting time."

"Dangerous?" Getting lost in hyperspace wasn't a thought he wanted even to entertain.

"No."

He was anxious, all the same. He was just generally scared, of a sudden, or it was easier to worry about a remote chance of breakdown in subspace than to worry about things that were definitely wrong, and he recognized that mental diversion for what it was. He'd nerved himself to walk in here, Tiar wanted to talk machinery, and now he'd lost his opening, which went something like…

"How's the stsho doing?" she asked.

"Pretty weak. Excited about being here. Glad to get into clean air. I don't blame him."

Tiar wrinkled her nose, a grimace. "It does sort of cling to you."

He hadn't washed. Nobody had had time below. And he was embarrassed. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize it was that bad."

"Not. Stay. I want to talk to you anyway."

Oh, gods. Everything was out of control.

"What did I do?" he asked.

Tiar's ears flicked, an impressive flicker of rings. "Nothing you did."

"Oh."

"What's the score with you and Fala and Chihin?"

The blood drained to his feet. His brains went with it. He sat there a moment trying to think how not to offend anybody, or look like a thorough fool.

"Do you think Chihin likes me?"

Tiar tried very hard to keep a straight face. It wasn't quite, for a moment, and then she got it under control, quite deadpan. "I'd say it looked that way at Kshshti. Is she being a problem? Is that what's going on?"

"I—" Everybody wanted to blame Chihin. Everybody thought she was taking advantage. Which maybe ought to tell him that was the case.

Except he just didn't pick that up from her. He hadn't. He didn't, below, he had just made himself scarce, which he thought everybody appreciated, since they were busy and thinking about saving their lives, and following the captain's orders.

"You tell her back off," Tiar said. "There's no way she's going to vote for or against a berth on this ship for you on that basis. She's a bastard, but she's an honorable bastard — she just doesn't play the game like that. She's made Fala mad. But that's happened before. Mostly Fala's mad at Chihin playing games."

"You think so."

"Hey. You're not hard to look at, Fala's smitten, doesn't mean she's got proprietary rights. Tell her back off, if that's the way you feel. Then you can have her and Chihin annoyed at you for at least a week.

They'll live."

It sounded like good advice. Except it sat on his heart like lead where it came to Chihin; and he wasn't used to talking back to people, not at home, not on the Sun. He just hadn't mastered the art of saying no.

Hadn't grown up before he'd left home. And maybe hadn't yet, he thought. In spite of banging his head on shipboard doorways, and sitting in the chair he was in with more of him than the chair was designed to hold.

He just felt awkward. At everything. And he didn't know if he could say that to Chihin. Or even Fala. In which case things could only get worse.

"You don't like that advice," Tiar said.

He didn't know what to say. He shrugged, knew he wasn't going to follow her advice, which was stupid, and maybe could lose him his place on board. But he couldn't do it.

"I'm not good at telling people no," he said.

"You want me to tell them?"

That was cowardly. And it would hurt Chihin's feelings, in a major way, he kept thinking that, even when everybody else told him Chihin was having a joke at his expense. And it would last until about the next time the two of them were in the same area of the ship.

"I like Chihin," he said. "And I don't think she's joking."

"She's not joking, if you mean is she serious," Tiar warned him bluntly. But Tiar wasn't stupid, and she seemed to catch on, then. "You like her."

He nodded.

Tiar raked a hand through her mane, sat back and stared at the boards a second as if she were dumbfounded.

"I don't think," he said, in the chance she hadn't just dismissed him, "I don't think she's acting the way everybody says she is. I just don't think that."

Tiar looked in his direction, and slowly swung her chair around. "I've known her a long time. I know her in ways Tarras and Fala don't. And if that's what you're picking up — next serious question: do you want a rescue?"

He shook his head; and Tiar looked oddly, vaguely satisfied.

"You're sure."

He nodded; and Tiar frowned and seemed to have thoughts she wasn't saying.

Finally she did say: "You're gods-be young. You won't always understand her. But if you get to that side of her — good luck, you'll need it; and I'd like to see it happen. Just don't let her run over you.

She needs a full stop now and again. Keeps her honest."

He sat there a moment, trying to sort through that, and deciding it meant he wasn't crazy and things were the way he thought, and things could be the way he hoped for—

"But Fala," he said.

"But Fala," Tiar said. "I'll talk to her."

"No!"

"She'll live. You don't dislike her."

"No. I like her fine, just not—"

"People have to respect that, in clans, on ships, doesn't matter: there's serious and there's not-serious, and Fala will forgive me saying she'd run the other way from a real commitment. That's what I think. I've been wrong before, but I don't think I am. If you want my further advice, I'd say Fala's more interested in feeling she's not unattractive to young men."

"Fala? She's beautiful."

"Beautiful doesn't matter. She wants to be attractive. Doesn't everyone?" "I understand."

"So you pretty well know how to handle it, don't you?"

He was just not used to things going right. Something in him was still knotted up expecting disaster, like maybe the ship would fall apart in hyperspace just when things were about to sort themselves out. The gods didn't intend he should get absolutely everything he wanted. The captain was going to throw him off the ship. Chihin was going to decide she didn't like him.The kif were going to turn on them after all and all the ships around them were going to join in.

"I hope you're right," he said.

"Kid, you go follow your instincts — but don't present too much temptation to anybody till we get this ship out of this godsforsaken port in one piece."

"Yes, ker Tiar."

Besides, the stsho were down there. So he couldn't get to downside ops. He decided he should go clean up, and when he had showered, he was hungry. All of a sudden he had a ravenous appetite, when nothing had much appealed to him since before he was arrested on Meetpoint.

Even Kefk seemed wonderful to him of a sudden. He was grateful to Vikktakkht. He liked the stsho gentleman. He hoped the stsho would be all right and all of them would be happy. He liked everything and everyone around him, and he scrubbed the galley down and set up the meals for undocking, and did everything he could think of to do, the way everyone else aboard was seeing to every detail they could find…

He was absolutely happy. In this port, with kif all around them, and with the ship feeling the strain of a lot of quick turnarounds. Because when Chihin came topside and off duty he could talk to her.

And beyond that prospect he couldn't get his thoughts straight at all.

Gtstwas clean, at least. Gtst looked very feeble.

Wants to talk to you, Tarras had said, although in Hilfy's opinion Atli-lyen-tlas could do with a few hours of sleep and a minimum of excitement before they even talked about business or arranged what could become a very stressful meeting.

"Your excellency," Hilfy said. "I have the honor to introduce myself: Hilfy Chanur, captain of. How may I make your excellency welcome aboard? I apologize for the utilitarian nature of this present accommodation…"

"Most, most gracious." The voice was very faint. "You are more fluent than any hani I ever met."

“I was protocol officer and communications on The Pride. Please make requests of us for your comfort or information. I shall answer everything to your satisfaction, and not ask but one question myself, in order not to exhaust your excellency's strength at this moment. Please feel that you may be very direct and brief in your answer as we know your energy is limited. Were you fleeing us, with the kif? Please be assured we mean your excellency only help."

"Do you know of Paehisna-ma-to? "

"I have met one of her agents."

"This vile person…" A pause for breath. "This tasteless individual has committed violence against my staff at Urtur."

"Some of your staff left aboard a mahen ship."

"They dared not, dared not the darksomeness of a kifish vessel. I am greatly apprehensive for their lives and persons. The mahendo'sat are in fear of the Momentum."

Numa'sho: it was in the mahen psyche that a new force that suffered no setbacks had something — mystic about it; they were loath to fight against what had never been beaten.

"Paehisna-ma-to has met reverses. Her agents have resorted to extreme measures which may cause fear in some governments, but which have met brave resistance from the Personages of Urtur and Kshshti.

And we have eluded their efforts to divert us."

"This is excellent news," gtst whispered. "Most excellent news, as my staff relied on these individuals regarding the selection of transportation. Please accept my profound gratitude that you followed where few hani venture. The kif made small efforts at hospitality, and they would have conveyed me on to Meetpoint, but I should have perished by then. The long, long flight… the food… I cannot describe…"

"We will place your excellency in tasteful surroundings and delay in this port until your excellency is able to travel."

"Has No'shto-shti-stlen sent you? Is your ship the bearer of the oji?"

"Yes. I hope that this is a felicitous event for your excellency. Please advise me if otherwise."

A weak hand fluttered and fell. "I am otherwise. I shall make all effort to accept. But I fear that I have fled too far and lost too much."

"Your excellency will recover!"

"It is indelicate to say. Forgive me. Persons of my stage in life have lost all energies in such regard. I am Gtsta.”

Neuter?

Perhaps she let the dismay show. No'shto-shti-stlen sent a… whatever it was… and the object of gtst proposal was—

"Gtsta,"Atli-lyen-tlas said faintly. "I am incapable of accepting the inestimable distinction which gtst excellency of Meetpoint wished to convey. This — iiii— rarely changes."

"I should not wish to distress your excellency further. Please advise me where a hani might be ignorant, but be aware I view this as a personal matter of most extreme delicacy, and ask only for your excellency's welfare: Is there medical treatment which might avail?"

"Most excellent hani, it is age. To attempt to sustain the energies will take years from my life, yet I am motivated to do so. Paehisna-ma-to has conspired within stsho space itself to create disaffections and hesitations, which have threatened gtst excellency of Meetpoint, whom I most ardently have admired. I overestimated my endurance. I underestimated the persistence of the agents of Paehisna-ma-to. I can only hope to find the strength."

"Your excellency, gtst excellency of Meetpoint has sent a representative, one Tlisi-tlas-tin, as custodian of the Preciousness and arbiter of propriety. The Preciousness rests within gtst cabin and in such tasteful surroundings as we could best create."

"Take me there! I must see the Preciousness. Please assist me!"

She was apprehensive. She had visions of fragile bones breaking in the mere attempt to walk, of a stsho circulatory system failing in the effort.

But the will to live was important too. She looked at Tarras, who hovered in the neighboring surgery, ostensibly taking inventory, but watching. Tarras walked to the small screened area and Fala turned up with her.

"'Gtstexcellency wants to go to Tlisi-tlas-tin," she said. "I think it's important. Can gtst do it?"

"I don't know," Tarras said. "I don't know what I'm doing, but following the book. I… just don't know.

We can see."

"Try," she said, and Tarras and Fala came in and helped gtst to gtst feet, very gently, very carefully.

There was no other transport but a gurney, which would undoubtedly offend gtst dignity. And calling down na Hallan., gtst excellency Tlisi-tlas-tin would surely advise Atli-lyen-tlas that na Hallan was not an unusually tall crewwoman.

Which might be too much for gtst heart, or the system that passed for one.

The lift engaged, upward bound. And it might be the captain coming back topside, or it might be Tarras or Fala; but Hallan, polishing the chromalic of the galley to a fine gloss, paid attention, paid heart and mind and hope of finding it was Chihin.

And maybe it was the way the whole day had been going — it was. Ker Chihin came wandering onto the bridge by the outside corridor saying to Tiar something about a rest break, could she monitor downside ops; and Tiar saying — he eavesdropped shamelessly— that that was all right, everything was quiet, there wasn't a need for her down there, and why didn't she get a sandwich or something and take a break and then relieve her?

KerTiar knew he was topside, ker Tiar knew he was here, oh, gods, he wasn't quite ready to think and talk…

But Chihin walked in, did this little flick of the ears as a hello and looked into the fridge.

"Can I make you something?" Hallan asked in a small voice.

"I thought you weren't speaking."

"I don't — I didn't — I never meant you should think that."

"Oh?" Chihin said.

He was totally desperate. He said, "Ker Chihin, were you joking or not?''

"No," she said plainly. "Not really."

"I wasn't," he said.

Chihin's ears did a back and forth and finally didn't know where to settle.

His didn't.

"I really like you," he said desperately. "I really do."

He'd rather have faced his father with that intimacy. And that was the most dangerous hani he personally knew.

Hilfy pressed the button, signaled her presence, said, to the intercom: "Your excellency, I have the honor to present gtst excellency Atli-lyen-tlas of Urtur, would you kindly cause the door to be opened?''

There was silence.

“ Your excellency?''

Gods rot the son.

She pressed the button.

On a nestful of pillows and cushions, covered with a sheet, which showed—

One preferred not to think.

"What is this?" asked Atli-lyen-tlas.

There was movement beneath the sheet. She had given, she was sure, adequate time for whatever was going on decently to cease.

But Dlimas-lyi's head popped up. Gtsto went wide-eyed; and gtst head popped up beside, in a blossoming eruption of pillows.

While Atli-lyen-tlas fell back into Tarras' arms, murmuring, "Oh, the beauty, wai, the elegance of this appearance…"

Shefound no elegance. But gtsta breathed, "This is my offspring. This is my offspring. I have no further to see, I have no further to know. Wai, what ambition have you? Wai, the magnificence of this nest you have made!"

While Dlimas-lyi and Tlisi-tlas-tin scrambled up clutching the sheet about gtstselves and floundering among the pillows.

"Atli-lyen-tlas!" gtst said, and gtsto bowed profoundly, again and again. Hilfy stood ready to catch Atli-lyen-tlas should gtsta fall. But gtst excellency of Urtur seemed to draw strength from the encounter:

"Do not take distress of my presence," Atli-lyen-tlas said. "How is my offspring now known?"

"Dlimas-lyi," gtsto whispered, "may it add distinction to your excellency."

"I have resigned Urtur," Atli-lyen-tlas said. "And I have no more attachment to this time." "You are gtsta!"

"Just so. Nor need distress my serenity with what is beyond my reach. The oji is not for me now. This person Dlimas-lyi is not for me. I am free."

"Your holiness," Tlisi-tlas-tin whispered. "Please utter assurances of your good favor in our condition.''

"I do so. Please," Atli-lyen-tlas said, reaching a trembling hand toward Hilfy. "Please convey me to a place where I may rest. My course is clear now. I am without obligation of any tasteful sort and would not struggle to achieve more. I am completed."

Try that one through the translation program, Hilfy thought in dismay. There were things which one did not ask a stsho. Sex was right in the same class as Phasing. Gtst excellency and Dlimas-lyi stood naked as they were born and she now had a holiness of some kind on her hands, an aged stsho, resigned, retired, unmarriageable and sexless; and therefore not eligible to receive the Preciousness. Gods save them.

"We will find your holiness suitable and tasteful quarters immediately adjacent. It will take a time to prepare. Is this acceptable?"

"We should be very honored," said Tlisi-tlas-tin.

"Most profoundly," said Dlimas-lyi, "we beg your holiness to do so."

A flutter of fingers. "I am beyond needs. But yes, this would be pleasant. I have no cares. Free. All free."

Whereupon gtsta indicated gtsta would walk back in the direction from which gtsta had come.

Tarras and Fala offered tentative support; but gtsta said, "I am free of needs."

Fall on his holy rump, Hilfy thought distressedly. But whatever reserve of strength Atli-lyen-tlas had found, still held. Gtsta fingers had been burning hot when they had touched hers. Something metabolic was going on, whether healthy or not — the stsho medical diagnosis program would have to tell them that one.

Gtstawalked ahead of them, wandering a little in gtsta steps, taking time to examine the texture of the walls of the corridor, the wall-corn at the corner, gtsta fingered dials and button sockets gtsta had no claws to access, or there would have been loud-hail all over the ship, providing a most unwelcome and tasteless startlement to gtstself.

Holiness seemed to have a direct and negative effect on the brain, Hilfy decided. And on the tendency to push buttons and take walks, and the holiness' door was going to be locked, the minute they had gtsta inside.

"Guard gtsta," she muttered to Tarras and Fala. "Keep gtsta away from buttons and sharp objects."

"What do we do if gtsta wants something?" Tarras asked. "What's wrong with gtsta? What's going on?"

Tarras and Fala hadn't followed a word of it. One forgot.

"That's a holiness," she said. "Don't ask me whether gtsta is Phasing or what. I don't know. And I've read every gods-be book on the species."

"Nobody knows?" Fala asked.

"Nobody but the stsho," she said. "And they've refused to talk.''

"I… you know." Hallan didn't feel he was doing well. Chihin just kept watching him, the two of them standing in the galley, Chihin leaning back against the counter, himself with nowhere reasonable to put his hands. "I just… well, I didn't know what you thought." He didn't want to say that Chihin's own best friends had warned him: that wasn't kind. "I just wasn't sure you were really meaning what I thought you meant, so I didn't want to talk to you until I could sort of figure out…"

"Same," Chihin said. "You want to go back to the quarters? Sort it out where we don't have to be proper?"

"I—" He was going to hyperventilate. He wanted to take the invitation and he was unaccountably scared to, because it would change things, and change them all of a sudden and too fast. "I—"

"Don't trust me?"

He thought about what Tiar had said. That he wouldn't always understand her. But, Do you want a rescue? Tiar had asked; and he'd said no.

"All—" he began.

“ Chihin. Report downside. Pull the white paneling out of storage — move it, we're on short schedule.” Chihin scowled and said a word. "I was going to say all right," he said desperately. But the captain said hurry and Chihin left.

“ Hallan, Report downside. We need some equipment moved. Be extremely quiet. Remember the passengers. "

If he ran he might make the lift.

Thehakkikt Vikktakkht an Nikkatu to captain Hilfy Chanur, the hani merchant, at dock at Kefk, by courier: Has the stsho survived in any use-fid way? Ships arriving from Meetpoint say that the stsho of Llyene are creating sedition and division. We must soon deal blood upon the leaders of this movement. Give us an estimated time of departure.

The hani ship, to the hakkikt Vikktakkht an Nikkatu, of Tiraskhti, at dock at Kefk: We are making modifications necessary for the transport of this person. We are finding more rapid recovery than we had thought. What is a holiness? We lack reference.

Thehakkikt Vikktakkht an Nikkatu by courier to captain Hilfy Chanur, the hani merchant, at dock at Kefk: A stsho incapable of the reproductive act. A holiness has no ability to make the alliance on which our mutual ally has placed all gtst expectation. The agents of the rival Personage will immediately take advantage and by information lately come to us, have already moved against the mekt-hakkikt. Advise us of your departure and we will delight to accompany you. Peace is advantageous. We will eat the hearts and eyes of the enemy.

… it shall be the reasonable obligation of the party accepting the contract to ascertain whether the person stipulated to in Subsection 3 Section 1 shall exist in Subsequent or in Consequent or in Postconsequent, however this clause shall in no wise be deemed to invalidate the claim of the person stipulated to in Subsection 3 Section 1 or 2, or in any clause thereunto appended, except if it shall be determined by the party accepting the contract to pertain to a person or Subsequent or Consequent identified and stipulated to by the provisions of Section5…

Hilfy tapped a claw on the desk, glared at the monitor, and asked the library: Atli-lyen-tlas who is the recipient has become a holiness. What is the result to the terms of the contract?

It took an entire cup of gfi for the computer to run that request through translations, permutations, legal definitions, Compact law, stsho custom references, and the cursed subclauses.

Then it said: Answer to print? File? Both?

File,she said, having learned.

The answer, when it came up, said briefly: The person accepting the contract must designate a second recipient who exists as the nearest degree of consequence to the first named recipient; if, on the other hand, the party issuing this contract disapproves this recipient, the person accepting the contract is obligated to double indemnity and the return of the cargo.

Hilfy stared at it and stared at it, then got up and blazed a direct path down to gtst excellency's white, expensive nest, signaled her presence and opened the door without waiting — there being little of Tlisi-tlas-tin or Dlimas-lyi she hadn't seen.

"Your excellency, forgive a most hasty but necessary declaration! You must become the recipient!"

A tousled crest and wide moonstone eyes appeared from beneath the sheet.

"Of course," said Tlisi-tlas-tin. "Of course. Was this not understood?"

It was white. It was clean. There was carpet over the deck tiles and they'd contrived a plastic frame and some bent struts to improvise a stsho bed; they'd made a mattress out of plastic sheeting Chihin said she hoped to the gods didn't give way, but it held air, and it held water, and when they'd covered it in white drapery it would at least protect the old stsho, Hallan was sure it would. He crawled backward out of the pit with utmost care not to put a claw out and create a disaster.

Chihin gave him a hand on the escape, and sprawled, sitting, with a swipe of stiffened paint on her sore arm and plaster bits in her mane. She leaned against him, he leaned, they were all over with spatters and the way she looked at him, brow to brow and a little out of focus, said she was as tired and sore as he was.

And they had one thought, both, in that moment, it didn't take that much reading — his went something like a dread and an anxiousness to find out, and a fear of getting into what took time to discover and being called up short.

She said, "There's the downside shower. We can clean up, catch a snack…"

She wasn't young and rushing at things. He had that figured now, it wasn't on again, off again signals, it was just a sane sense of how things worked; and he didn't know where they could go to figure out the rest of it, but he tried to slow down his breathless haste and use his wits the way Chihin did and tell himself if they got involved in this room and didn't report in, the captain was going to ship them to the kif…

"Wonder if the mattress works," Chihin said. But he thought he could read her now, when she was serious, when she was being outrageous.

"I don't want to walk from Kefk," he said; and he must have guessed right, because she put her arms on his shoulders then and laughed and got up.

"Shower," she said, and left him with his burning haste to be a fool, a sense things could always go wrong from here, there might not be another chance… Chihin could come to her senses and decide something else, or they could die and chances might not come again.

"Tiar," she said, talking to the intercom. "Tiar, we're about finished. Give us a chance to get our objectionable selves out of the passenger corridor and you can ferry the old fellow in…"

"Thank the gods. Captain says get up here, we're in count, we're just about to clear the umbilicals."

Chihin's ears went flat. "In count! Gods rot, what kind of schedule does the captain think we're up to?

We got a dying stsho, we got us so tired we can't see straight… what in a mahen hell in gods-be count. …"

The thump and clang was the umbilical bundle coming clear. Chihin was upset, besides mad. She stopped arguing, cut off the com, and looked at him, and he didn't know what help to be, but that Chihin was worried, worried him about this departure they were making, the haste they were in.

"Are we running from the kif?" he asked.

“From dead stop at dock?'' She put her arms around him a moment. Stupid question, he thought. Totally stupid question, but he'd thought the situation might be more complicated than that. Maybe it was and she knew and wouldn't tell him, they never told you anything… it's not your business, boy, we'll take care of it, don't worry yourself…

He was scared of jump this time. He was really scared. "There were tc'a," he said. He could only be twice the fool. "In jump. When the alarm went off. I saw them go right through the ship and nobody was moving and I hit the alarm. In my dream, I did. And it was going off when we came out. I know it's stupid," he said, when she stood back to look at him in a worried way; and it was more disturbing that she didn't laugh, didn't offer the immediately obvious: You were dreaming, stupid kid.

"Nobody was moving," she said.

"In my dream."

"Chur dreams like that."

Chur Anify. On The Pride. Chur the map-maker. Chur, that they said could walk through hyperspace and see what kif saw and maybe knnn and tc'a…

He didn't believe that. People exaggerated, especially the world-bound ones who didn't know the limitations. You didn't expect it out of Chihin, who was Chur's cousin, if you reckoned it.

"What did you do?"

"I just got up and reached over and hit the alarm. But maybe it went off itself and I just dreamed—"

Chihin was looking at him in all seriousness, maybe thinking she didn't want to be associated with somebody that crazy.

"It's my fault, about the tc'a," he said. "Maybe that was why I dreamed it."

"Kid. If you punch any more buttons on my board you by the gods be sure what you're touching."

"Most adequate," gtsta pronounced, walking on strange bare feet onto the carpet they hadn't used in the decoration next door. Gods-be right, adequate, Hilfy thought, while the seconds ticked down in the count, and bare stsho toes curled into the white pile. "Most curious, the sensation."

"We assure you gtst excellency and gtst companion are next door," Hilfy said, while Fala and Tarras hovered near to prevent falls. "I must caution your holiness to watch your st—"

— on the rim, she had been about to say, but gtsta put a bare foot on the edge of the improvised bowl-chair, and Tarras made a futile grab as gtsta slid down the plastic foot-pad, plump! to what was surely multiple fractures.

Gtstasprawled and bounced, a tangle of legs and gossamer. Gtsta trilled some note that did not seem of pain and, flailing gtsta arms, made another bounce that made the whole mattress quiver.

And a third, while three very time-pressed hani hovered at the edge and tried to assess the damage.

Another bounce, and a quivering like jelly. Is gtsta able to get up? Hilfy wondered. But gtsta seemed not to be distressed. Crackpot idea, she thought, a bagful of water. But if it didn't pop and drown the old son during acceleration, gtsta had a chance. A water-filled bowl-chair… and all the essential nutrients they'd been able to pump into gtsta fragile veins.

"Pull the nets over," she said. Gtsta had already had the medication, Tarras had seen to that, and it seemed to be taking effect. Gtsta lay flat on the ripples and rebounds, waving a languid arm, gtsta mouth pursed and gtsta eyes half-open, while Tarras and Fala hauled the safety netting over the pit and made it fast with cord.

"Blessing," gtsta holiness said. "Well wishes. I see the tides of the many suns. I see the oneness of them.

I shall tell you their names…"

The tranquilizer definitely was taking hold. And she for one had rather rely on the navigational computer.

Chihin was saying Meras might be a sleepwalker, that the kid was spooked and seeing tc'a, and that that had been the alarm during system drop. They had a clearance from the kif for undock and a schedule they'd agreed to in a star system the kif were clearly touchy about protecting; and, gods save them, they had a Preciousness and a handful of stsho to get to Meetpoint alive to back up No'shto-shti-stlen against the allies of Paehisna-ma-to, — if the old son could live through the experience.

They had a contract to declare filled; and get out of there alive and solvent — because they'd been out nearly a year as stationers counted time, and Tahaisimandi Ana-kehnandian had routed himself straight to Meet-point out of Kshshti, three months ago — as Meetpoint counted time.

"Gtstahas gtsta nutrient packs, gtsta is comfortable…" Hilfy began; and gtsta murmured, "The oneness of it all. The ineffable contentment, after the darkness of my voyage. The light, go to the friendly light, for the sake of the peace…"

Pretty gods-be out, Hilfy thought, and squatted down and looked through the net to be certain gtsta nutrients pack was still wrapped about gtsta frail arm. For the sick and the frail one didn't depend on the strength to hunt for it: it would feed continually, or as continually as anything happened in hyperspace.

Ask the kid, Chihin said, and was spooked, herself. They had one in the family. And she'd watched Chur go thin and otherly and sometimes as sensible as gtsta, when she was tracking something. What do you see? was the logical question.

And gods save them, she recalled with a chill down her back, Chur had talked about the light and the tides…

They were underway, launched, outbound, so fast there was no time to wipe the dust off; and Chihin sat by him at her post, grinned at him, with a twitch of a white-smudged ear.

"I probably ought to tell the captain," Hallan said, not happily.

"I did," Chihin said. "It's all right. It's all right…"

"That's Tiraskhti," Fala said. "They're away."

"Salutations to the hakkikt," the captain said. "Send it."

Fala did that. He heard the lisped kifish. "The hakkikt says," Fala reported back, ‘“ hold your exact course.”Ssakkukkta sa khutturkht.' —Is that right?"

"That son's going to jump with us, I knew it. Tell him we copy. Gods-rotted payback for our dock at Kefk."

Surely not for that, Hallan thought. It was dangerous. Even kif cared about their own lives.

"Tarras, Tarras, do you copy?" That was Tiar talking to Tarras, who was down below doing something the captain had sent her after. "You're clear to move."

"Aye,"the answer came back, and in a moment more the lift worked and opened; and Tarras came stringing hand-line, clipping it into recessed rings along the way. So they could move if they had to, Hallan thought, without g or against acceleration. It wasn't something the Sun had ever done. It was a scary contemplation. And when Tarras got into her station, the captain ordered the arms board brought up to ready.

"NaHallan?" the captain said, startling him, and he was ready for the usual Be careful and keep your hands off things. 'Na Hallan, config to scan, Chihin, take a stand-down and trank out, I want you on-line when we come out."

"Aye, captain," Chihin said, and Hallan punched the requisite buttons to bring the aux board over to scan, his hands wanting to shake quite embarrassingly.

"Good night," Chihin said to him. "Good luck."

Panic quickened his breathing. No, not panic, healthy respect for his responsibility. Just a monitor-the-dots problem. But Chihin wasn't going to be there if anything went wrong this side.

"I'm here," Tarras said at his other elbow. "Take it easy, do your job, kid. You shouldn't get any input the computer doesn't recognize."

But in another minute or so a dot leaped on to his screen, at Kefk Station rim. His heart jumped. Chihin swore — but she'd just taken the drug. "That's number 10 berth," he read off his screen, trying to stay calm. "Mu~Muk-jukt, captain."

"Friendly to the hakkikt or what?" Fala wondered aloud.

"Ask the hakkikt," the captain said; and Fala did; and said, "He says, quote, he knows…"

Meanwhile another kif left the station. He reported it and he didn't push buttons.

"Gods-be kif show-outs," the captain muttered at one point. "They've got to see, they've got to be there, they'll cut Vikktakkht's throat if this goes wrong. His and ours."

You mean they're not taking orders? Hallan wondered to himself. It wasn't any hani way of doing things.

"Up v," the captain said. "Let's just put a little more push on it. They've got the pillows, below." They hadn't taken on cargo. They hadn't had the time. Or they hadn't trusted it.

They were just going, and Chihin murmured, drowsily, "Wake me if you see any pretty lights, kid.

Otherwise, see you otherside."

Another one and another one. Fala said, "Na Hallan, I forgive you."

"What did I do?" he asked, surprised out of his concentration, and between reports. Lines were converging. They were going, gods, they were going…

"Stand by," Tiar said sharply. "This isn't the standard drop, cousins. Let's not miss a stitch…"

… "Well, well," aunt Pyanfar said, arms folded, feet set, the very image of herself, "you've committed yourself to the kif, have you?"

Hilfy was not surprised at the appearance. She was surprised at herself, that questions leaped into her head, Have I done the right thing? Am I a total fool, aunt Py?… not angry, not resentful, not any of those things, just wishing she could ask across space and warped time… ask the real Pyanfar, not the one that came and went in her mind…

Like what was going on at Kefk, that kif kept Pyanfar’s doings behind a screen, a whole unguessed power that wasn't just The Pride, wasn't just one ship and a well-reputed hani who mediated the Compact's trade and treaty disputes…

Like: aunt Pyanfar, what have you gotten yourself into? Who are you, since you threw me out, down-world?

The mekt-hakkikt, indeed, the leader the kif could never find to unite them; the Personage of the mahendo'sat, with whatever religious mandate that conveyed — until some rival like Paehisna-ma-to came along; the President of the Amphictiony of Anuurn, no gray-nosed, doddering grandmother to quibble about two thousand year old privilege or ceremonial inheritance; that was not what was based at Kefk.

They were committed. They were beyond recall but not beyond disaster.

"Good luck," Tully said, remote from her. And she had too much on her mind, too much on her hands, to play those games of make-believe. He'd been right to walk away. He wasn't the property of some teen-aged child: it wasn't Tully's obligation to set her life in order, or to provide her some strange halfway creature to be, instead of hani: Take care of Chanur, Pyanfar had said, shoving her out of their midst, and wrapping time and black space about herself.

Who are you, aunt Pyanfar?

And what are you doing, in deep space, where the methane-breathers go?

Humans live in that direction. They don't come to trade. They might have; but they insisted we take sides in their war — thank you, we have enough trouble, aunt Pyanfar had said, and drawn a firm line, verbally at least.

But perhaps it was more substantial than one guessed; and vaster and more needful—

— of force? Of hunter ships at Kefk? Of spies and assassinations of hapless stsho and bombs on Kshshti dock?

… "Coming down," she heard Tiar say.

So they were there. Over the edge. In it up to their ears.

The song wavered, there and not there and there again. It seemed he'd heard it for a very long time; and he'd been anxious entering jump, but it was only the dream of a guilty conscience…

He only heard them now. And it wasn't a threatening song, just very different.

He tried to watch the screens, but they were garble. The ship was riding the fabric of space-time, skittering along the interface, to fall into the next dimple, that only a stellar mass could make, and he could see that interface going on and on and skirling anti-mass along the disturbance they were.

Maybe it was only, after all, a dream…

"Going down," he heard Tiar say,

He tried to capture it. The moment of dropping out of the interface. But a vast disturbance sheeted down around them, and he heard tc'a voices, or what passed for it… Heard a machine-voice saying: Proximity alert, proximity alert."

"Around us!" he tried to say, his eyes full of vision and dark, but Chihin said calmly, "Got it, got it, aux; Tiar, the system buoy's gone nuts and we got a heavy surplus on hunter ships out here…"

"I saw ships," he said, "ten, twenty — off in the dark-"

“Dark of where?'' the captain snapped. “This side, that side, where?"

"Otherside," he said, but he knew he was wrong, the ships were here, around them, arriving one after the other.