Chanur's Venture

Chapter Three

They hit the access tube running and came round the bend headon into hani coming up the accessway, a broad, scarred hani captain flanked by two senior crew.

Pyanfar evaded collision.

"Gods rot you-" Banny Ayhar yelled, and Chur cursed; there was the thump of impact.

"Gods rot you!" Pyanfar yelled, whirling about, outraged, as Chur recovered from her stagger and spun about at her side. "I told you clear my dock!"

"What's it take to bring Chanur to its senses?" Banny Ayhar yelled. "When's it stop, hey? -

You listen to me, ker Pyanfar! I've had enough being put off-"

"We've got kif after my crew, blast your eyes."

"Chanur!"

She spun and gathered Chur and ran, with the thump of running Ayhar at their heels at least as far as the passageway's exit onto the downward ramp.

"Cha-nur!" Banny Ayhar roared at her back, waking echoes off the docks; but Pyanfar never stopped, down the ramp-way and past the frozen cargo ramp and the gantry that hell The Pride's skein of station-links.

"Chanur." Far behind them.

There was a curious absence of traffic on the chill, echoing docks, and that silence itself was a warning. Trouble was in sight even from here, around a big can-loader grinding its slow way beside the ship accesses four berths distant.

An odd crowd accompanied it — a half dozen mahendo'sat in station-guard black strode along beside. Two red-pelted hani in faded blue breeches rode the flatbed with the tall white cans, while a dozen black-robed kif stalked along in a tight knot; and if any stsho customs officer was involved at all gist was either barriered inside the cab or fled for safety.

"Come on," Pyanfar said to Chur — no encouragement needed there. Chur kept beside her as they crossed the space at a deliberate jog, not out to provoke trouble, not slow to meet it either. Her hand was in her spacious pocket, clenched about the butt of the gun she tried to keep still and out of sight, and her eyes were constantly on that knot of kif, alert for anything kif-shaped that might show itself from ambushes among the maze of gantries and dock-side clutter to the right and the office doors to the left.

"Hai," she yelled with great joviality, when they were a single berth apart. "Hai, you kif bastards, about time you came out to say hello."

The kif had seen them coming too. Their dozen or so scattered instantly all about the moving can-carrier, some of them screened by it. But from the carrier's broad bed, from beside the four huge cans, several mahen guards dropped down to stand at those kif's backs.

"Good to see you," Pyanfar gibed, halting at a comfortable distance. Kifish faces were fixed on her in starkest unfriendliness. "I was worried. I thought you'd forgotten me."

"Fool," one hissed.

She grinned, her hand still in her pocket, her ears up, her eyes taking in all the kif. Two moved, beyond the moving can-carrier, and she shifted to keep them in sight. The smell of them reached her.

Their dry-paper scent offended her nostrils with old memories. The long-snouted faces peering from within the hooded robes, the dark-gray hairless skin with its papery wrinkles, the small, red-rimmed eyes — set the hair bristling on her back. "Do something," she wished them. "Foot-lickers. Riffraff. Petty thieves. Did Akkukkakk turn you out? Or is he anywhere these days?"

Kifish faces were hard to read. If that reference to a vanished leader got to them, nothing showed. Only one hooded face lifted, black snout atwitch, and stared at her with directness quite unlike the usual kifish slink. "He is no longer a factor," that one said, while the carrier groaned past under its load of canisters and took itself from between them and four more kif.

More soft impacts hit the deck beside her. From the tail of her eye she saw a red-gold blur.

Tirun and Geran had dropped off the flatbed rear. They took up a position at her left as Chur held the right.

"Get back," she said without looking around at her two reinforcements. "Go on with the carrier. Hilfy's in lower ops. Get that cargo inside." The mahen station guards had moved warily into better position, several dark shadows at the peripheries of her vision, two of them remaining in front of her and behind the kif.

"You carry weapons," that foremost kif observed, not in the pidgin even the cleverest of mahe used. This kif had fluency in the hani tongue, spoke with nuances — dishonorable conceaied weapons, the word meant. "You have difficulties of all kinds. We know, Pyanfar Chanur. We know what you are transporting. We know from whom it comes. We understand your delicate domestic situation, and we know you now possess something that interests us. We make you an offer. I am very rich. I might buy you — absolution from your past misjudgments. Will you risk your ship? For I tell you that ship will be at risk — for the sake of a mahendo'sat who is lost in any case."

She heard the carrier growling its way out of the arena, out of immediate danger. Chur had stayed at her side. So had the six mahendo'sat station guards. "What's your name, kif?"

"Sikkukkut-an'nikktukktin. Sikkukkut to curious hani. You see I've studied you."

"I'll bet you have."

"The public dock is no place to conduct delicate business. And there are specific offers I would make you."

"Of course."

"Profitable offers. I would invite you to my ship. Would you accept?"

"Hardly."

"Then I should come to yours." The kif Sikkukkut spread his arms within the cloak, a billowing of black-gray that showed a gleam of gold. "Unarmed, of course."

"Sorry. No invitation."

The kif lowered his arms. Red-rimmed eyes stared at her with liquid thought. "You are discourteous."

"Selective."

The long gray snout acquired a v-form of wrinkles above the nostril slits, a chain slowly building, as at some faint, unpleasant scent. "Afraid of witnesses?"

"No. Just selective."

"Most unwise, Pyanfar Chanur. You are losing what could save you. . here and at home. A hani ship here has already witnessed — compromising things. Do I hazard a guess what will become of Kohan Chanur — of all that Chanur — precariously — is, if anything should befall The Pride? Kohan Chanur will perish. The name will have never been; the estates will be partitioned, the ships recalled to those who will then take possession of Chanur goods. Oh, you have been imprudent, ker Pyanfar.

Everyone knows that. This latest affair will crush you. And whom have you to thank, but the mahendo'sat, but maneuverings and machinations in which hani are not counted important enough to consult?"

The transport's whining was in the distance now. She heard another sound, the hollow escaping-steam noise of the cargo hatch opening up, the whine of a conveyer moving to position and meshing; old sounds, familiar sounds: she knew every tick and clank for what they were. "What maneuverings among kif?" she asked the gray thief. "What machinations — that would interest me, I wonder."

"More than bears discussion here, ker Pyanfar. But things in which a hani in such danger as you are would be interested. In which you may — greatly — be interested, when the news of Meetpoint gets to the han. As it surely will. Remember me. Among kif — I am one who might be disposed toward you, not against. Sikkukkut of Harukk, at your service."

"You set us up, you bastard."

The long snout twitched and acquired new wrinkles in its papery gray hide. Perhaps kif smiled.

This one drew a hand from beneath its robe and she stepped back a pace, the hand on the gun in her pocket angling the gun up all at once to fire.

It offered her a bit of gold in its gray, knobbed claws. She stared at it with her finger tight on the trigger.

"A message," it said, "For your — cargo. Give it to him."

"Probably has plague."

"I assure you not. I handle it. See?"

"Something hani-specific, I'm sure."

"It would be a mistake not to know what it is. Trust me, ker Pyanfar."

It was dangerous to thwart a kif in any whim. She saw this one's pique, the elegant turn of wrist that held the object — it was a small gold ring — before her.

She snatched it, the circlet caught between her claws.

"Mistrustful," said Sikkukkut.

Pyanfar backed a pace. "Chur," she said, and with a back-canted ear heard the whisper of Chur's move back.

Sikkukkut held up his thin, soot-gray palms in token of non-combatancy. His long snout tucked under. The red-rimmed eyes looked lambent fire at her.

"I will see you again," Sikkukkut said. "I will be patient with you, hani fool, in hopes you will not be forever a fool."

She backed up as far as put all the mahen guards between herself and the kif, with Chur close by her. "Don't turn your backs," she advised the mahendo'sat.

"Got order," said the mahe in charge. "You go ship, hani. These fine kif, they go other way."

"There are illicit arms," said another kif in coldest tones. "Ask this hani."

"Ours legal," said the mahe pointedly, who had heard, perhaps, too much of mahendo'sat involvement from this kif. The mahendo'sat stood rock firm: Pyanfar turned her shoulder, taking that chance they offered, collected Chur in haste and headed across the dock, all the while with a twitch between her shoulderblades.

"They're headed off," said Chur, who ventured a quick look over her shoulder. "Gods rot them."

"Come on." Pyanfar set herself to a jog, not quite a run, coming up to The Pride's berth, to the whining noise of the cargo gear. The loader crane had a can suspended in midair, stalled, while three hani shouted and waved angry argument at her crew beside the machinery.

"Ayhar!" Pyanfar thundered. "Gods rot you, out." She charged into the midst and shoved, hard, and Banny Ayhar backed up with round eyes and a stunned look on her broad, scarred face.

"You earless bastard!" Ayhar howled. "You don't lay hands on me!"

She knew what she had done. She stood there with the crane whining away with its burden in fixed position, with Tirun and Chur and Geran lined up beside her as the two Ayhar crew flanked their captain. Thoughts hurtled through her mind, the han, alliances, influences brought to bear.

"Apologies." It choked her. "Apologies, Ayhar. And get off my dock. Hear?"

"You're up to something, Pyanfar Chanur. You've got your nose in it for sure, conniving with the mahendo'sat, gods know what — I'm telling you, Chanur, Ayhar won't put up with it. You know what it cost us? You know what your last lunatic foray cost us, while ships of the han were banned at Meetpoint, while our docks at Gaohn were shot up and gods be feathered if that mahen indemnity covered it-"

"I'll meet you at Anuurn. We'll talk about this, Banny, over a cup or two."

"A cup or two! Good gods, Chanur!"

"Geran, Tirun, get those cans moving."

"Don't you turn your back on me."

"Ayhar, I haven't time."

"What's the hurry?" A new ham voice, silken, from her side: Ayhar crew's impudence, she thought, and turned on it with her mouth open and the beginnings of an oath.

Another captain stood there, her red-gold mane and beard in curling wisps of elegance; gold arm-band; gold belt; breeches of black silk unrelieved by any banding. Immune Clan color. Official of the han. "Rhif Ehrran," that one named herself, "captain, Ehrran's Vigilance. What's the trouble, Chanur?"

Her heart began slow, painful beats. Blood climbed to her ears and sank toward her heart.

"Private," she said in a quiet, controlled tone. "You'll excuse me, captain. I have an internal emergency."

"I'm in port on other business," the han agent said. "But you've almost topped it, ker

Chanur. You mind telling me what's going on?"

She could hand it all to the Ehrran, shove the whole thing over onto the han's representative in port.

Give Tully to her. To this. Young, by the gods young, ears un-nicked, bestowed with half a dozen rings. And cold as they came. Gods-rotted walking recorder from one of the public service clans, immune to challenging and theoretically nonpartisan.

"I'm on my way home," she said. "I'll take care of it."

Ehrran's nostrils widened and narrowed. "What did the kif give you, Chanur?"

A cold wind went down her back. Distantly she heard the crane whining away, lifting a can into place. "Dropped a ring," she said, "in the riot. Kif returned it." The lie disgusted her. So did the fear the Ehrran roused, and knew she roused. "This what the han's got to? Inquisitions? Gathering bad eggs?"

It scored. Ehrran's ears turned back, forward again. "You've about exited private territory, Chanur. You settle this mess. If there are repercussions with the stsho, I'll become involved. Hear me?"

"Clear." Breath was difficult. "Now you mind if I see to my business, captain?"

"You know," Ehrran said, "you're in deep. Take my advice. Drop off your passenger when you get back to Anuurn."

Her heart nearly stopped while Ehrran turned and walked away; but it was Khym Ehrran had meant. She realized that in half a breath more, and outrage nearly choked her. She glared at Banny Ayhar, just glared, with the reproach due someone who dragged the like of Ehrran in on a private quarrel.

"Not my doing," Ayhar said.

"In a mahen hell."

"I can't reason with you," Ayhar said, flung up her hands and stalked off. Stopped again, to cast a look and a word back. "Time you got out of it, Pyanfar Chanur. Time to pass it on before you ruin that brother of yours for good."

Pyanfar's mouth dropped. Distracted as she was she simply stared as Ayhar spun on her heel a second time and stalked off along the dock with her two crewwomen; and then it was too late to have said anything without yelling it impotently at a retreating Ayhar back.

The first can boomed up the cargo ramp into the cradle; Tirun and Geran kicked their own balky Loader around with expert swiftness, raised the slot's holding sling and snagged it into the moving ratchets that vanished into The Pride's actinic-lighted hold. The can ascended the ramp, while Chur, beside the crane operator on the loader, shouted at the aggrieved mahe, urging her to speed.

"Chur!" Pyanfar yelled, headed for the ramp-way and the tube beyond. Chur left off and scrambled after, leaving the docksiders to their jobs. Pyanfar jogged the length of The Pride's ramp and felt a stitch in her side as Chur came up beside her in the accessway.

A han agent on their case.

A chance to get rid of Tully into the keeping of that same agent and she had turned it down.

Gods. O gods.

They scrambled through the lock, headed down the short corridor to the lift, inside. The door hissed shut as Pyanfar hit the controls to start the car down, rim-outward of The Pride's passenger-ring.

"Got it?" Haral's voice came to them by com.

"Gods know," she said to the featureless com panel, forcing calm. "Keep an eye on those kif back there — hear me?"

"Looks as if the party's broken up for good out there."

"Huh." It was a small favor. She did not believe it.

"Aye," Haral agreed, and clicked out of contact. The lift slammed into the bottom of the rotation ring and took a sudden jolt afterward for the holds.

"Know which can?" Chur panted beside her, clinging to the rail.

"Gods, no. You think Goldtooth labeled the gods-rotted thing? Couldn't use the small cans, no. Couldn't consign it direct to us. Had to trust the stsho. Gods-rotted mahen lunatic."

The lift accelerated full out, lurched to a second stop and opened its door on a floodlit empty cavern of tracks below the operations platform where they stood. Their breaths frosted instantly.

Moisture in the hold's lately acquired air formed a thin frost on all the waiting cans and the machinery.

The cold of the deckplates burned bare feet. The gusting blasts of the ventilation system brought no appreciable relief to unprotected hani skin and nose linings.

"Hilfy?" Pyanfar shouted, leaning on the safety railing to look down into the dark.

Hilfy-Hilfy-Hilfy the echo came back in giant's tones.

"Aunt!" A figure in a padded cold-suit crouched far below the operations scaffold, a glimmer of white in the shadow of the first can to reach its cradle at hold's end. "Aunt, I can't get this cursed lid off! It's securitied!"

"Gods fry that bastard!" Pyanfar ignored the locker with the coldsuits and went thumping down the steps barefoot and barechested. The air burned her lungs, froze her ribs. She heard noise behind her, a locker-door rattle. "Get those suits!" she yelled at Chur, and her breath was white in the floodlight glare.

Another can locked through with a sibilance of pressurized air and a resounding impact with its receiving cradle as she came down beside the can-track rails that shone pewter-colored in the general dark. The incoming can rumbled past like a white plastic juggernaut and boomed into the cradle-lock as she arrived. Hilfy scrambled to the side of it and jerked the lever that secured the lid. Internal-conditions dials glowed bright and constant on the top-plate.

"Locked too," Hilfy said in despair, rising, her voice muffled by the cold-mask she wore, overwhelmed by the crash of another arriving can headed up the outside ramp. "That Goldtooth give us any key-code?"

"Gods know. The stsho might have it." Pyanfar shivered convulsively as Chur came pelting up with coldsuits and masks and thrust a set into her numb hands. She stared distractedly as the third can locked through, ignoring the coldsuit, thinking of stsho treachery the while the can rode the hydraulics down and jolted into the third cradle. She shouldered aside Hilfy's move to check its lid and tried it herself. Locked too.

"Gods-rotted luck," Pyanfar said, rising, fumbling the slot-apertured cold-mask into place with fingers that refused to set their claws. The pads of her feet felt the burn of the decking plates. She stared helplessly at Chur, who had gotten her own mask on and held out the cold suit she had dropped. "It has to be the last one, that's all."

"What if there is a key?" Hilfy asked. Her teeth chattered fit to crack, despite the cold-suit.

"And the stsho have got it.

"Number four's coming in," Chur yelled over the rising thunder of machinery, and the fourth can locked through and rumbled down the track toward them as they scrambled to meet it. Chur got to it first, crouched down and tugged fruitlessly at the lid. "It's locked too."

"Gods and thunders!" Pyanfar yanked her pistol from her pocket and fired past Chur into the lid mechanism, stalked down the row and fired at the next and the next and the next. Maintenance lights on the lids went out. The smoke of burned plastics curled up in the actinic light, mingling gray with their breaths. "Get torches if you have to! Get those lids off."

"It's coming!" Chur cried, tugging at the smoking lid, and Hilfy dived to help, past Pyanfar's own numb-footed advance on the can.

It was fish, a flood of dried fish, that sent its stench into the supercooled air; the next one, dried fruit. The third-

"This is it," said Chur, pawing past the cascade of stinking warm shishu fruit, for a second white lid showed through the spilling cargo. She reached it on her knees and wrenched the lock lever down, tugged with all her might at the lid and tumbled back as it came free.

A form like some insect in its cell lifted a pale, breather-masked face in a cloud of steam as the inner air met outer. With a muffled cry Tully began to writhe outward, in a frosting stench of heat and human sweat that almost overcame the fish and fruit. Chur helped, kneeling — seized Tully's white-shirted shoulders and dragged him free in a tumble and slide of fruit, in a cloud of breath and steam from his overheated body.

He gasped, struggled wild-eyed to his feet, hands flailing.

"Tully," Pyanfar said-he was blinded by the lights, she thought; he looked half-drowned in the heat that narrow confinement had contained. "Tully, it's us, it's us, for the gods' sake."

"Pyanfar," he cried and threw himself into her arms. "Pyanfar!" — losing breather-cylinder and hoses and stumbling through the stinking fruit in which he had slid outward. He pressed his steaming self against her, his heartbeat so violent she felt it through his ribs.

"Easy," she said. Hunter instincts. Her heart tried to synch with his. "Careful, Tully." She kept her ears up all the same, carefully disengaged his shaking arms and pushed him back. His eyes were wild with fear. "You safe. Hear? Safe, Tully. On The Pride."

He babbled in his own tongue. Water poured from his eyes and froze on his face. "Got," he said. "Got-" and abandoned her to dive back into the can, pawing amid the tangle of discarded breathing apparatus and trampled fruit, to stagger up again with a large packet in his grasp. He held it out to her, wobbling as she took it from his hands.

"Goldtooth," he said, and something else that did not get past his chattering teeth.

"He's going to freeze," said Chur, throwing one of the two coldsuits about his thinly clad, hairless shoulders.

And perhaps he only then recognized the others, for he cried "Chur," and staggered a step to fling his arms about her, shivering visibly as the cold disspated the last of his heat. "Hilfy!" — as Hilfy unmasked herself; he reached for her.

But his legs went and he slid almost to the ground before Hilfy and Chur could save him.

"Hil-fy!" — foolishly, from a sitting posture on the burning cold deck, with Hilfy's arms about him.

"Get him up," Pyanfar snapped at them both. "Get him to the lift, for the gods' sakes!" — waving them that way with the packet in one hand, for her feet were freezing and Tully's wet clothes were stiffening, with crystals in his hair.

He made shift to walk when they had pulled him up. He hung on them the long, long course down the tracks to the platform stairs, and labored the metal steps with them supporting him on either side and Pyanfar shoving from behind. He faltered at the top, recovered as they heaved him up with his arms across their shoulders.

"Hang on." Pyanfar reached the lift and punched the button for them, held the door open on that blast of seeming heat and the glare of light while Hilfy and Chur between them dragged Tully in and held him on his feet. A dull white frost formed on the lift surfaces.

"Paper," Tully mumbled, lifting his head.

"Got." She closed the door after her and sent the car hurtling forward. Chur held Tully tight against her body and Hilfy pressed close on the other side as the car reached the forward limit and started its topside climb.

"Get him to sickbay," Pyanfar said as it went. "Get him warm and for the gods' sakes get him washed."

That brought a lifting of Tully's head. His beautiful golden mane was wet with melting frost and clung to the naked skin about his eyes. He stank abysmally of fish and fruit and scared human.

"Friend," he said. It was his best word. He offered that, and that frightened look. In distress Pyanfar reached out and patted his shoulder with claws all pulled.

"Sure. Friend."

Gods, not to be sure of them. And to have come this far on hope alone.

"Got — Pyanfar, got-" His teeth chattered, no improvement to his diction. "Come see you —

Need — need-''

The lift stopped on lower decks, hissed its doors open. "Take care of him," Pyanfar said, standing firm to stay aboard. "And do it fast. I want you on other business. Hear?"

"Aye," said Chur.

"Pyanfar!" Tully cried as they dragged him out. "Paper-"

"I hear," she said, and held the packet as the door closed between them. "I got it," she muttered to herself; and remembering another matter, put a hand into her pocket and felt the ring beside the gun barrel, a ring made for fingers, not for ears. Only mahendo'sat and stsho wore finger rings, having no under-finger tendon to their non-retractile claws; having one more joint than hani had. Or kif. Not to mention t'ca and knnn and chi.

A human hand was mahe-like. Tully had been in kifish hands once. They had gotten him from them. And gods knew he would not forget it.

Gods-rotted Outsider. A few minutes dealing with him and she was shaking all over. He had a way of doing that to her.

"He's all right?" Haral asked as she arrived sore-footed on the bridge.

"Will be. Shaken. I don't blame him." She settled to her chair, filthy as she was, and curled her frost-singed feet out of contact with the floor. Haral, immaculate, had the diplomacy not to wrinkle her nose. "You hear that Ehrran business?"

"Some."

"Got ourselves one fat report going home, I'll bet. Tirun and Geran in?"

"They're dumping out that fish and fruit. Getting rid of the stuff. Spoiled cargo, we call it. Send it out as garbage."

"Huh." She leaned back into the chair, hooked a claw into the plastic seal of the packet and ripped it open.

"What's that?"

"Expensive," she said.

The fattish packet yielded several clips of papers, a trio of computer spools. She read labels and drew a deep breath at finding the document Goldtooth had given into Tully's hands — virtually indecipherable mahen scrawl, a printed signature, and hand-printed at the top: Repair authorization in crabbed Universal Block.

". . good repair. .", she made out. That the rest of it was unreadable gave her no comfort at all.

Another document, pages thick, swarming with neat humped type in alien alphabet. She flipped through the pages with further misgivings.

Human? She guessed as much.

The third document (typed):

Greeting, it said. Sorry go now, leave you this.

Got lot noise on dock, got kif, got trouble, got one mad stsho give me trouble. I send can customs, trust stsho Stle stles stlen not much far. He Personage on this station, got faint heart, plenty brain. If, Stle stles stlen, you reading this I promise cut out you heart have it for last meal.

Tully come big trouble. Mahen freighter Ijir same find his ship, human give him come. "Bring Pyanfar," he say, all time "Pyanfar" not got other word. So I bring. One stubborn fellow.

I know he ask hani help. Also I know the han, like you know han, lot politic, lot talk, lot do nothing. Lot make trouble you about this mate business — forgive I mention this, but truth. You stupid, Pyanfar, one stupid-bastard hani give jealous hani chance bite your ankles. That translate? I know what you do. You too long go outworld, got foreign idea, got idea maybe hani male worth something. You sometime crazy. You know Chanur got personal enemy, know got lot hani not like mahendo'sat, same got lot hani got small brain, not like change custom, same got hani lot mad with stsho embargo. What you try, save time, fight all same time? Hope you get smart, eat their hearts someday. But someday not now.

You go han they make big mess. I know. You know. You go han they turn all politic. Instead go mahen Personage like good friend, take Personage message in number one tape. Sorry this coded. We all got little worry.

Now give bad news. Kif hunting you. Old enemy Akkukkak sure dead, but some kif bastard got ambition take Akkukkak's command. We got another hakkikt coming up, name Akkhtimakt. I think this fellow lieutenant to Akkukkak, got same ugly way make trouble, want prove self more big than Akkukkak. How do this? Revenge on knnn not good idea. Revenge on human another kind thing; same revenge on you and me. Ship in port name Harukk, captain name Sikkukkut. This number one bastard claim self enemy this Akkhtimakt, want offer deal. This smell many day dead.

You add all same up, run mahen Personage. Paper good. You make number one deal mahendo'sat this time. You got big item. Forget other cargo. Be rich. Promise. You hani enemies not touch.

Wish all same luck. I got business stsho space. Got fix thing.

Goldtooth Ana Ismehanan-min a Hasanan-nan, same give you my sept name.

She looked up, ears flat.

"What's it say?" asked Haral, in all diffidence.

"Goldtooth wished us luck. Promises help. He's bribed the stsho. Someone got those papers fixed to get us here and gods-be if any of it was accident." She gnawed a filthy hangnail. It tasted of fish and human. She spat in distaste and clipped the papers into her data bin. "Tell Tirun and Geran get out cargo unloaded. Get Chur on it. Fast."

"All of it?"

She turned a stare Haral's way. It was a question, for sure; but not the one Haral asked aloud.

"All of it. Call Mnesit. Tell them get an agent down here to identify what's theirs. Tell Sito sell at market and bank what's ours."

"They'll rob us. Captain, we've got guarantees; we've got that Urtur shipment promised —

We've got the first good run in a year. If we lose this now-"

"Gods rot it, Haral, what else can I do?" Embarrassed silence then. Haral's ears sank and pricked up again desperately.

So they prepared to run. Prepared — to lose cargo that meant all too much to Chanur in its financial straits, trusting a mahen promise... for the second time. And for the first time in memory Haral Araun disputed orders.

"I'm going for a bath," she said.

"Do what with the incoming cargo?" A faint, subdued voice.

"Offer it to Sito," she said. "Warehouse what he won't take. So maybe things work out and we get back here." Likely the stsho would confiscate it at first chance. She did not say what they both knew.

She got out of the chair and headed out of the bridge, no longer steady in the knees, wanting her person clean, her world in order; wanting — gods knew what.

Youth, perhaps. Things less complicated.

There was one worry that wanted settling — before baths, before any other thing shunted it aside.

She buzzed the door of number one ten, down the corridor from her own quarters, down the corridor from the bridge. No answer. She buzzed again, feeling a twinge of guilt that set her nerves on edge.

"Khym?"

She buzzed a third time, beginning to think dire thoughts she had had half a score of times on this year-long voyage — like suicide. Like getting no answer at all and opening the door and finding her husband had finally taken that option that she had feared for months he would.

His death would solve things, repair her life; and his; and she knew that, and knew he knew it, in one great guilty thought that laid her ears flat against her skull.

"Khym, blast it!"

The door shot open. Khym towered there, his mane rumpled from recent sleep. He had thrown a wrap about his waist, nothing more.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"Sure. Fine." His pelt was crossed with angry seams of scratches plasmed together. His ears, his poor ears that Gaohn Station medics had redone with such inventive care and almost restored to normalcy — the left one was ripped and plasmed together again. He had been handsome once. . still was, in a ruined, fatal way. "You?"

"Good gods." She expelled her breath, brushed past him into his quarters, noting with one sweep of her eye the disarray, the bedclothes of the sleeping-bowl stained with small spots of blood from his scratches. Tapes and galley dishes lay heaped in clutter on the desk. "You can't leave things lying." It was the old, old shipboard safety lecture, delivered with tiresome patience. "Good gods, Khym, don't. Don't do these things."

"I'm sorry," he said, and meant it as he did all the other times.

She looked at him, at what he was, with the old rush of fondness turned to pain. He was the father of her son and daughter, curse them both for fools. Khym once-Mahn, lord Mahn, while he had had a place to belong to. Living in death, when he should have, but for her, died decently at home, the way all old lords died; and youngsters died, who failed to take themselves a place — or wander some male-only reserve like Sanctuary or Hermitage, hunting the hills, fighting other males and dying when the odds got long. Churrau hanim. The betterment of the race. Males were what they were, three quarters doomed and the survivors, if briefly, estate lords, pampered and coddled, the brightness of hani lives.

He had been so beautiful. Sun-shining, clear-eyed-clever enough to get his way of his sisters and his wives more often than not. And every hani living would have loved him for what he did at Gaohn, rushing the kif stronghold, an old lord outworn and romantically gallant in the eternal tragedy of males-

But he had lived. And walked about Gaohn station with wonder at ships and stars and foreignness. And found something else to live for. She could not send him home. Not then. Not ever.

"It was a good fight," she said. "Out there."

His nose wrinkled. "Don't patronize, Py."

"I'm not. I'm here to tell you it wasn't your fault. I don't care how it started, it wasn't your fault.

Kif set it up. Anyone could have walked into it. Me, Haral, anyone." His ears lifted tentatively. "We've got one other problem." She folded her arms and leaned against the table edge. "You remember Tully."

"I remember."

"Well, we've got ourselves a passenger. Not for long. We take him to Maing Tol. A little business for the mahendo'sat."

The ears went down again, and her heart clenched. "For the gods' sakes don't be like that.

You know Tully. He's quiet. You'll hardly know he's here. I just didn't want to spring that on you."

"I'm not 'being like that.' For the gods' sakes I've got some brains. What 'business for the mahendo'sat'? What have you gotten yourself into? Why?"

"Look, it's just a business deal. We do a favor for the mahendo'sat, it gets paid off, like maybe a route opens. Like maybe we get ourselves that break we need right now."

"Like the last time."

"Look, I'm tired, I don't want to explain this all. Say it's Goldtooth's fault. I want a bath. I want — gods know what I want. I came to tell you what's happened, that's all."

"That kif business. . have anything to do with this?"

"I don't know."

"Don't know?"

Aliens and alien things. He was downworlder. Worldbred. "Later. It's under control. Don't worry about it. You going to be all right?"

"Sure."

She started then to go.

"I was remarkable, Py. They arrested me and I didn't kill even one of them. Isn't that fine?"

The bitterness stopped her and sent the wind up her back. "Don't be sarcastic. It doesn't become you."

"I didn't kill anyone, all the same. They were quite surprised."

She turned all the way around and set her hands on her hips. "Gods-rotted stsho bigots. What did they say to you?"

"The ones in the bar or the ones in the office?"

"Either."

"What do you expect?"

"I want an answer, Khym."

"Office wouldn't speak to me. Said I wasn't a citizen. Wanted the crew to keep me quiet.

They wanted to put restraints on me. Crew said no. I'd have let them go that far."

She came back and extended a claw, straightened a wayward wisp of mane. He stood a head taller than she; was far broader-they had at least put weight back on him, from that day she had found him, gone to skin and bones, hiding in a hedge outside Chanur grounds. He had been trying to find his death then, had come to see her one more time, in Chanur territory, with their son hunting him to kill him and Kohan apt to do the same. . if Kohan were not Kohan, and ignoring him for days: gods, the gossip that had courted, male protecting male.

"Listen," she said. "Stsho are xenophobes. They've got three genders and they phase into new pysches when they're cornered. Gods know what's in their heads. You travel enough out here and you don't wonder what a stsho'll do or think tomorrow. It doesn't matter. Hear?"

"You smell like fish," he said. "And gods know what else."

"Sorry." She drew back the hand.

"Human, is it?"

"Yes."

He wrinkled his nose. "I won't kill him either. See, Py? I justify your confidence. So maybe you can tell me what's going on. For once."

"Don't ask."

"They think I'm crazy. For the gods' sakes, Py, you walk in here with news like that. Don't kill the human, please. Never mind the kif. Never mind the gods-be-blasted station's going to sue-"

"They say that?"

"Somewhere in the process. Py — I don't put my nose into Chanur business. But I know accounts. I was good at it. I know what you've put into this trip, I know you've borrowed at Kura for that repair-"

"Don't worry about it." She patted his arm, turned for the door in self-defense, and stopped there, her hand on the switch. She faced about again with a courtesy in her mouth to soften it; and met a sullen, angry look.

"My opinion's not worth much," he said. "I know."

"We'll talk later. Khym, I've got work to do."

"Sure."

"Look." She walked back and jabbed a claw at his chest. "I'll tell you something, na Khym. You're right. We're in a mess and we're short-handed, and you gods-rotted took this trip, on which you've gotten precious few calluses…." The eyes darkened. "It was your idea."

"No. It was yours. You gods-rotted well chose new things, husband: this isn't Mahn, you're on a working ship, and you can rotted sure make up your mind you're not lying about on cushions with a dozen wives to see to the nastinesses. That's not true anymore. It's a new world. You can't have it half this and half that — you don't want the prejudice, but you gods-rotted well want to lie about and be waited on. Well, I haven't got time. No one's got time. This is a world that moves, and the sun doesn't come round every morning to warm your hide. Work might do it."

"Have I complained?" The ears sank. The mouth was tight in disaste. "I'm talking about policy."

"When you know the outside you talk about policy. You walk onto this ship after what happened in that bar and you walk into your quarters and shut the door, huh? Fine. That's real fine. This crew saved your hide, gods rot it, not just because you're male. But you sit in this cabin, you've sat in this cabin and done nothing-"

"I'm comfortable enough."

"Sure you are. You preen and eat and sleep. And you're not comfortable. You're eating your gut out."

"What do you want? For me to work docks?"

"Yes. Like any of the rest of this crew. You're not lord Mahn any more, Khym."

It was dangerous to have said. So was the rest of it. She saw the fracture-lines, the pain. She had never been so cruel. And to her distress the ears simply sank, defeated. No anger. No violence.

"Gods and thunders, Khym. What am I supposed to do with you?"

"Maybe take me home."

"No. That's not an option. You wanted this."

"No. You wanted to take on the han. Myself — I just wanted to see the outside once. That's all."

"In a mahen hell it was."

"Maybe it is now."

"Are they right, then?"

"I don't know. It's not natural. It's not-"

"You believe that garbage? You think the gods made you crazy?"

He rubbed the broad flat of his nose, turned his shoulder to her, looked back with a rueful stare.

"You believe it, Khym?"

"It's costing you too much. Gods, Py — you're gambling Chanur, you're risking your brother to keep me alive, and that's wrong, Py. That's completely wrong. You can't stave off times. I had my years; the young whelp beat me."

"So it was an off day."

"I couldn't come back at him. I didn't have it, Py. It's time. It's age. He's got Mahn. It's the way things work. Do you think you can change that?"

"You didn't see the sense in another fight. In wasting an estate in back and forth wrangling.

Your brain always outvoted your glands."

"Maybe that's why I lost. Maybe that's why I'm here. Still running."

"Maybe because you've always known it's nonsense and a waste. What happened to those talks we used to have? What happened to the husband who used to look at the stars and ask me where I went, what I'd seen, what outside the world was like?"

"Outside the world's the same as in. For me. I can't get outside the world. They won't let me."

"Who?"

"You know who. You should have seen their faces, Py."

"Who? The stsho?"

"Ayhar."

"Those godforsaken drunks?"

"Last thing they expected — me in that bar. That's what the stsho owner said. 'Get away from me, get away from my place, don't go crazy here.' "

"Gods rot what they think!"

"So? Did I teach them anything? Stsho didn't want to serve me in the first place. And I'd had — well, two. To prove I wouldn't, you know — go berserk. And then the riot started. What good's that going to do you — or Kohan?"

"Kohan can take care of himself."

"You're asking too much of him. No, Py, I'm going back downworld when we get back."

"To do what?"

"Go to Sanctuary. Do a little hunting."

"— be the target of every young bully who's honing up his skills to go assault his papa, huh?"

"I'm old, Py. It catches up with a man faster. It's time to admit it."

"Gods-rotted nonsense! You'll go back to Anuurn with a ring in your ear, by the gods you will."

He gave a smile, taut laugh, ears up. "Good gods, Py. You want my life there to be short, don't you?"

"You're not going downworld."

"I'll beg on the docks till I get passage, then."

"Gods-rotted martyr."

"Let me go home, Py. Give it up. You can't change what is. They won't let you change. Gods know they won't let me. Whatever you're trying, whatever grandstanding nonsense you've gotten into —

give it up. Stop now. While there's time. I'm not worth it."

"Good gods. You think the sun swings around you, don't you? Ever occur to you I have other business than you? That I do things that don't have a thing to do with you?"

"No," he said, "because you're desperate. And that's my fault. Gods, Py-" A small, strangled breath, a drawing about the mouth. "It's cost enough."

"You know," she said after a moment, "you know what's kept the System in power? The young expect to win. Never mind that three quarters of them die. Never mind that estates get ruined when some young fluffbrain gets in power over those that know better and tries to prove he's in charge.

The young always believe in themselves. And the graynoses flat give up, give up when they've got the estate running at its best — They get beaten and it's downhill again with a new lord at the helm. All the way downhill. You know other species pass things on, like mahendo'sat: they train their successors, for the gods' sakes-"

"They're not hani. Py, you don't understand what it feels like. You can't."

"Kohan ignored you right well."

"Sure. Easy. I wasn't much. He still ignores me. How do you think I'm here?"

"Because I say so. Because Kohan's too old and too smart to hold his breath till I give in. And by the gods the next time some whelp comes at him with challenge we'll tear the fellow's ears off. First."

"Good gods, Py! You can't do that to him-"

"Keep him alive? You can lay money on it. Me. Rhean. Even his Faha wife. Not to mention his daughters. Maybe some son, who knows? — someday."

"You're joking."

"No."

"Py. You remember the fable of the house and the stick? You pull the one that's loose and it gets another one-"

"Fables are for kids."

"— and another. Pretty soon the whole house comes down and buries you. You start a fight like that in the han and gods know — gods know what it'll do to us."

"Maybe it might be better. You think of that?"

"Py, I can't take this dealing with strangers. I get mad and I can't stand it, I ache, Py. That's biology. We're set up to fight. Millions of years — it's not an intellectual thing. Our circulatory system, our glands-"

"You think I don't get mad? You think I didn't want to kill myself some kif out there? And I by the gods held my temper."

"Nature gave you a better deal, Py. That's all."

"You're scared."

He stared at her, eyes wide in offense.

"Scared and spoiled," she said. "Scared because you're doing what no male's supposed to be able to do; and guilty that maybe that makes you unmasculine; and gods-rotted spoiled by a mother that coddled your tempers instead of boxing your ears the way she did your sister's. He's just a son, huh?

Can't be expected to come up to his sister's standard. Let him throw his tantrums, and keep him out of his father's sight. Makes him potent, doesn't it? And gods, never let him trust another male. Rely on your sister, huh?"

"Leave my family out of this."

"Your sister hasn't done one gods-rotted thing to back you. And your worthless daughters-"

"My sister did back me."

"Till you lost."

"What's she supposed to do? Gods, what's it like for her, living in Kara's house with me running about as if I were still-"

"So she's uncomfortable. Isn't that too bad? Spoiled, I say. Both of you, in separate ways."

His ears were back, all the way. He looked younger that way, the scars less obvious.

"You want," she said, "the advantages I have and the privileges you used to have. Well, they don't go together, Khym. And I'm offering you what I've got. Isn't it enough? Or do you want some special category?"

"Py, for the gods' sake I can't work on the docks!"

"Meaning in public."

"I'll work aboard." A great, gusting sigh. "Show me what to do."

"All right. You clean up. You get yourself to the bridge and Haral'll show you how to read scan. It's going to take more than five minutes." She sucked at her cheeks. She had not meant to make that gibe. "You can sit monitor on that. Our lives may depend on it. Keep thinking of that."

"Don't give me-"

"— responsibility? — Nice, boring, long-attention-span jobs?"

"Gods rot it, Py!"

"You'll do fine." She turned and punched the door button with a thumb claw. "I know you will."

"It's revenge, that's what it is. For the bar."

"No. It's paying your gods-rotted bar bill same as any of us would."

She stalked out. The door hissed shut like a comment at her back.