The Pride of Chanur

XI

Automation took them in to the last, trued to the cone. It was an easy dock. The grapples touched and locked on both sides. The instruction came up to access the line ports; declined, she sent back, refusing that mandated service. It was not likely, considering the circumstances, that station would quibble. No objection came back, only a pressure reading for the station itself and a recommendation to use the ah — shunt in the lock.

“They know it’s trouble,” Pyanfar muttered. “Tirun, someone’s got to stay aboard. You’re it; you and Geran. Sorry.”

“Aye,” Tirun muttered unhappily. No discussion. “Shall I page Geran and advise her?”

“Do that.”

“Want both of you fit. If we can’t get back, take command, your own discretion. Take the ship and get out of here, pick up crew at Kirdu — mahendo’sat or anything else; and make it count, hear me?”

Tirun’s ears went down. “You’re not planning on it.”

“Gods no, I’m not planning on it. But if, if, old friend. If we lose — in any sense — neither hani nor kif sets hand to The Pride. That’s firm.”

“That’s firm,” Tirun said. “Tully — our problem or yours?”

“Mine,” Pyanfar said. “He’s walking evidence. And more problem than you need. You’ve got that tape; you’ve got an ally in the Kirdu stationmaster if it comes to that. I don’t leave you any instructions. If something goes wrong, make up your own rules.”

“Right,” Tirun said.

The order split the sister-teams down the middle. If it came to that — Tirun and Geran would be a wounded half. But that was the way it went: she wanted Haral’s size and strength with her, and Tirun was hardly fit for a fight. Chur was the smallest of the lot, but of the two remaining, the meanest temper. Pyanfar extended her hand in rising, pressed Tirun’s shoulder. Practicalities. Tirun knew.

They gathered belowdecks, all of them, clean and combed, excepting Tirun, who had never gotten her turn at washing up: Tully wore a white stsho shirt belted hiplength about him, and a better pair of blue breeches — Haral’s likely, who had been sharing clothes with him. Pyanfar looked the party over; and remembering the perfume in her pocket, took it out and tossed it at Tully. “All things help,” she said. Tully unstopped it and sniffed, wrinkled his nose and looked doubtful, but when she j mimed putting it on, he splashed some on his hand and wiped I his beard and his throat. He coughed, and thrust the bottle into his own pocket.

“Another matter,” Pyanfar said, and took a fine gold ring from the depth of her lefthand pocket, offered it to Hilfy and had the satisfaction of seeing the look in Hilfy’s eyes. “I won’t take you anywhere ringless. If we meet some kif, or even politer company — you’d better look like where you come from, hear, imp?”

“Thank you,” Hilfy said, looked uncertain with it, and flustered; but Geran tugged her head over on the spot and bit a I neat place for it, deftly thrust the earring through for her and fastened it. “Huh,” Pyanfar said, there being her niece with I her first gold shining in her ear and pride glowing in her eyes, j “Come on. Let’s find out what’s waiting out there. — Tirun, Geran, you keep that lock sealed for everyone but us, no matter how bad it gets to sound, no matter what they offer you. Get on the com in op. Tell Goldtooth to get moving.”

“Aye,” Tirun said. Neither Tirun nor Geran was pleased with the unship assignment — Geran was trying to be cheerful, and not well succeeding: “Take care,” Geran said, patted Chur’s shoulder. “Luck,” Tirun said, last, and Pyanfar nodded to the others and walked with them down the corridor, leaving Tirun and Geran to get to business: she and Haral and Chur, and Hilfy; and Tully, who looked back, when none of the rest of them did, with a forlorn expression.

Pyanfar went first into the airlock, waited for Tully, hand on the hardness of the pistol she had in her pocket — as all of them had but Tully; he hurried in with them and Haral closed the inner hatch. One further insane moment Pyanfar debated with herself, then made up her mind and opened the locker by the outer hatch, took out the pistol they kept there and gave it to Tully. “Pocket,” she said when he looked anxious surprise at her. “Pocket. Don’t touch it. Don’t think about it. If / fire, you can, hear? If you see me shoot, then you shoot. But I won’t. It’s civilized here. Hani don’t take nonsense from the kif and kif know that. If the kif get nasty they find themselves more hani than they know how to run from. Promise you. You draw that at the wrong time and I’ll skin you.”

“Understand,” Tully said fervently. He thrust the pistol into his pocket and put his hands demonstratively in his belt at his back. “I take orders. I don’t make mistake.”

“Huh.” She touched the bar. The airlock’s outer seal opened for them and her ears popped with the pressure change as the cold air of dockside sucked through the access tube. Sounds outside echoed, nothing out of the ordinary. Pyanfar led the way onto the ramp way plates, around the curve and down toward the grayness of the dockside, with all its metal and machinery.

The translator was out of pickup range now: Tully became effectively deaf and mute. Pyanfar looked askance at him as they walked out the arch of the farside lock, onto the dockside itself. He was sticking close to Chur and Hilfy, or they to him, while Haral brought up the rear, tall and solid and looking like business with her scars and her be-ringed left ear. Haral had instinctively planted herself back there to guard the rear and quite possibly to head off Tully if he should lose his head. The latter was not likely, Pyanfar thought with some assurance. Old hunter that she was, she had some sense which way things would dart in a crisis, and she had Tully figured for the other direction. She directed her attention sharply ahead, where dockworkers had set up cord barriers — where a station official, Llun house or one of half a dozen other Protected families which kept the station, made her body the gateway, guard enough for a hani station, where civilized folk knew what they would touch off if they harried a warder representing her family and her family’s post.

Llun, that guard, if the set of the ears was any true indication, a mature hani in the black breeches of officialdom immemorial. The Llun drew a paper from her belt as they approached her, and offered it, not without an ears-down look at Tully: but the Llun kept her dignity all the same. “Ker Chanur, you’re requested for Gathering in the main meeting area. You’re held responsible for all the others of your party; it’s assumed the mahen ship is under your escort.”

“Accepted,” Pyanfar said, taking the paper. The Llun moved aside then to let them pass, impeccable in her neutrality. A little distance away, at the next berth, a similar barrier was set up about Mahijiru’s access. “Come,” Pyanfar said to the others, and walked in that direction, took the chance to scan the official summons. “Charges filed,” she said. “Compact violations and piracy.”

“Rot them,” Chur muttered.

“We’re going to get that shelved,” Pyanfar said, looked up again and let her jaw drop as Goldtooth led a good number of mahe down onto the dock, a Goldtooth resplendent in dark red collar and kilt, glittering with mahen decorations. “By the gods, look at him.”

“Merchanter,” Haral spat. “And I’m kif.”

“Come on,” Pyanfar said to her company. Goldtooth offered his papers to the hani on guard, but the guard waved him through unquestioned; the mahe and his crew walked out to join her in the walk toward the main dockside entry, a towering dark crowd of mahendo’sat. Sidearms, openly carried, businesslike heavy pistols strapped to the right leg. Decorations, worn by more than one of the group.

“Where we go?” Goldtooth asked.

“Gathering. Ihi. Place where we sort things out. Hani law here, mahe. Civilized.”

“Got kif here,” Goldtooth muttered. “Got Jik watch our tail.”

They entered the corridor. It stretched ahead, polished, clean, uncommonly vacant. No young ones about, precious few of anyone except officials in uniform, a very few hani dressed like spacers, who watched in silence and stepped well aside.

“Too few,” one of the mahe observed. Goldtooth made a low sound, uninformative.

“Too rotted few,” Pyanfar said. She turned a necessary corner, saw the doors of the meeting hall ahead, double-guarded. She took no more thought of her companions then, of mahe or Outsider or kinswomen, flicked her ears to settle the rings in place and waved a grand gesture to the black-trousered hani who stood there.

“Chanur,” one said. The doors whisked open, and a milling, noisy crowd of hani were gathered beyond — a crowd which retreated in growing quiet as they swept into the room. Pyanfar stopped in the midst, hands in her belt, looked toward the Cardinal point of the room, at the station authorities who gathered there, at Llun and Khai and Nuurun, Sahan and Maura and Quna, evident by their position and by the posted Colors in front of which they stood.

And kif, to their right, a cluster of black robes. A pair of stsho. Pyanfar’s nose wrinkled and her ears flattened, but she lifted them again as she faced the Llun, who stood centermost and prominent among the station families. She held up the paper and proffered it for a page who retrieved it and took it to the Llun senior.

“Chanur requests transport downworld,” Pyanfar said quietly. “Our claim has precedence over any litigation.”

The Llun senior — Kifas Llun herself, broad and solid and unmistakable in her gold and her dignity, unhurriedly took the paper, thrust it into her belt, and looked again at Pyanfar. “A complaint of piracy has been filed by Compact law; by treaty, this station has obligations which have precedence.”

“The rights of a family when questioned bear on treaty law and define the han. Our place is in question.”

The Llun hesitated, mouth taut. “Challenge hasn’t yet been issued.”

“Yet. But it will be now — won’t it, her Kifas? You know it; and I know it; and there are those here flatly counting on it. Point of equity, her Kifas. Point of equity.”

There was long silence. The Llun senior’s ears lowered and lifted. Her nose wrinkled and smoothed again. “Point of equity,” she declared. “The composition of the han is in fact in question. Family right takes precedence. The hearing is postponed until Chanur rights and Mahn have been settled.”

“No,” said a familiar, kifish voice. Among the tall, black-robed figures there was a stirring, and Pyanfar moved her hands to her hips and close to her pockets. More of the kif moved — to the outrage of the hall, the whole kifish contingent left the rim of the meeting hall and came out to the center of it. The stsho moved with them, gangling pale figures, sorrowfully gaunt, their pastel patterns asymmetric and erratic on their white skins, their persons in disarray and their heads drooping. And one kif stood taller than the rest, his stance that of authority among them. Pyanfar pursed her lips and slowly drew them back, eyes broadfocused on all the kif, well toward a dozen of them and, gods knew, armed beneath those robes.

“Akukkakk,” she said.

“We protest this decision,” the kif said to the Llun. Not whining, no: he drew himself up with borderline arrogance. “We have property in question. We’ve suffered damages. This Outsider and these mahe are in question. I claim this Outsider for kif jurisdiction; and I claim these mahe as well for crimes committed in our territories. They’re from the ship Mahijiru, which is wanted for crimes contrary to the Compact.”

“Tully,” Pyanfar said. “Papers.”

He moved up beside her and gave them to her, rigidly quiet. She offered the papers to the page, who took and read them.

“Tully. Listed by Kirdu Station authority as crew, The Pride of Chanur, with a mahen registration number.”

“The connection is obvious,” the kif said. “I charge this Outsider with attack on a kif ship in our territories; with murder of kif citizens; with numerous atrocities and crimes against the Compact and against kif law in our territories.”

Pyanfar tilted her head back with a small, unfriendly smile. “Fabrications. Is the Llun going to tolerate this move?”

“In which acts,” Akukkakk continued, “this Chanur ship and all its crew intervened at Meetpoint, with the provocation of a shooting incident on the docks, the killing of one of my crew; with the provocation of a hani attack in the vicinity of the station, in which we defended ourselves. In which attack this mahe intervened and took damage, a reckless act of piracy—”

“Lie,” Gold tooth said. “Got here papers my government charge this kif.”

“A wide-reaching conspiracy,” Akukkakk said, “in which Chanur has involved itself. Ambition, wise hani. Don’t you know the Chanur… for ambition? I am kif. / have heard… the Chanur have maintained a tight hold over the farther territories where your ships go, private for themselves and their partisans. Now they deal with the mahe, on their own; now they make separate treaties with Outsider forces, contrary to the Compact, for their own profit. Kif relations with the mahe are not friendly; we know this particular captain and his companion who hovers armed and waiting just off the station perimeter, threatening our ships and yours. This is your law? This is respect for the Compact?”

“Llun,” said Pyanfar, “this kif is disregarding the station’s decision. I don’t need to specify the game he’s engaging in. The law protects the han from such outside manipulations. These charges are a tactic, nothing more.”

“No,” said a voice from the gallery behind. A hani voice. A voice she had heard. Pyanfar turned, ears flattened, pricked them up again as she saw a whole array of familiar faces on the other side of the hall. Dur Tahar and her crew; and the Faha beside her.

“This is not,” the Llun said, “a hearing. The kif delegation has its right to lodge a protest; but the matter is deferred.”

Dur Tahar walked forward, planted herself widelegged. “What I have to say has bearing on the protest. The kif s right that the Chanur’s gone too far, right that the Chanur’s made deals on her own. Ask about a translator tape the Chanur traded to mahendo’sat and denied to us. Ask about this Outsider the Chanur claims as crew. Ask about deals worked out in Kirdu offices which excluded other hani and created incidents from there to Meetpoint.”

“By the gods, ambition!” Pyanfar yelled, and crooked an extended claw at the Tahar’s person. “Ambition’s a spacer captain who’d side with a hani-killing kif to serve her house’s grab for power. Gods!” she shouted, looking about the room at strange faces, at unknowns, insystem crews and landless on Anuurn for the most part. “Is there anyone here from Aheruun? Anyone from that side of the world, someone here to speak for the Handur ship this kif killed at Meetpoint, while they were nose-to-dock and had no idea there was any trouble in the system? Ambition — is the Tahar, who left us at Kirdu crippled and alone and came running home to use the information to Tahar advantage, who sides with the kif who hit three hani ships and a fourth ship from outside our space, a kif who’s terrorized these wretched stsho into coming here with gods know what story, a kif who’s created a crisis involving the whole structure of the Compact. By the gods, I know what blinds the Tahar to the facts — but you, you, Faha — great gods, they killed your kin, and you stand there taking the part of the hakkikt who had you boarded? What’s happened to your nerve, Hilan Faha?”

Hilan opened her mouth to answer, stepping forward, ears back, eyes wild. The kif howled and clicked, drowning whatever she tried to say, and howled until Akukkakk himself lifted a bony gray arm and shouted, turning to the Llun. “Justice, hani, justice. This lying thief Chanur was involved from the beginning, private ally of the mahendo’sat, an agent of theirs from the beginning, involved with them in attacks, reckless attacks into our territory which we do not forget.”

“This kif,” Goldtooth roared, louder still, “hakkikt. Killer. Thirty ships his. Make all kif together, this hakkikt. Make move new kind trouble in Compact, got no care Compact, spit at Compact.” He strode forward, pulled a wallet from his belt and slammed it into the hands of the page. “Papers say from my government truth. Hani and mahe hunt this one, yes. Got kif run from mahe, move into territory this new Outsider, this Tully. Big territory. Big trouble. I make truth for the han; I make liar this Akukkakk Hinukkui. I witness at Meetpoint; this kif lie.”

“Danger our station,” the stsho stammered, thrust forward by the kif. “We protest — we protest this incident; demand compensation—”

“Enough,” the Llun said over all the uproar, and hani noise died quickly; kif commotion sank away likewise. — “Llun.” Hilan Faha said in that new quiet.

“Enough,” the Llun said, scowling. “The kif has his right to protest and to advance a claim. But since that claim exists, all sides have a right to be heard. There’s a further statement entered in this cause.”

She took a card from her belt, thrust it out for the harried page, who took it in haste and thrust it into the wall slot which controlled the hall viewing screen. It flared to life, rapid printout.

stsho kif knnn (*) hani mahe tc’a

station ship ship ship ship ship self

trade kill see here run watch know

fear want see hani escape help knnn

violation violation violation violation violation violation self

Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact

help help help help help help help

Tc’a communication, matrix communication of a multipartite brain, simultaneous thought-chains. Pyanfar studied it, took a deeper breath, and Goldtooth looked, and the kif, and all the hani.

“It’s our shadow,” Haral murmured. “It’s the tc’a with that rotted knnn.”

“It got itself an interpreter, by the gods,” Pyanfar muttered, and a vast grin spread across her face. “Got itself that tc’a off Kirdu and it’s talking to us, gods prosper it — See that, kif? Your neighbors don’t like your company, and someone else saw what happened, someone you can’t corrupt.”

“We’ve got a major crisis thanks to you,” Dur Tahar cried, thrusting herself between her and the Llun. “Gods blast you, Chanur, that you can find anything encouraging in knowing the tc’a are involved in this mess. Knnn mobbed my ship outbound from Kirdu, knnn, like in the old days of dead crews and stripped freighters. Are you proud of that, that you’ve gotten them involved? I call for the detention of this Outsider pending judicial action; suspension of this mahe’s permit and papers; for the censure of the captain of The Pride of Chanur along with all her crew and the house that sponsors her meddling.”

“But nothing for the kif?” Pyanfar returned. “Nothing for a kif adventurer who murdered hani and mahe and provokes a powerful Outsider species, with all that might mean? Ambition, Tahar. And greed. And cowardice. What have you got from the kif? A promise Tahar ships will be safe if this dies down? I turned down a kif bribe. What did you do when they made you the offer?”

It was a chance shot, a wild shot; and the Tahar’s ears went back and her eyes went wide as if she had been hit hard and unexpectedly. Everyone saw it. There was a sudden hush in the room, the Tahar visibly at a loss, the kif drawing ever so slightly together, the stsho holding onto each other. It was bitter satisfaction, the sight of that retreat. “Bastard,” Pyanfar said, with a sudden rush of sorrow for the Tahar, and for the Faha who stood there in that company, ears fallen. Akukkakk stood with his arms folded, kifish amusement drawing down the corners of his mouth and lengthening his gray, wrinkled face.

“He’s laughing,” Pyanfar said. “At hani weaknesses. At ambition that makes us forget we don’t trade in all markets, in all commodities. And at his reckoning we’ll trade again to get our ships moving again outside our own home system — because there are more kif out there than you see, and hani won’t all fight. Hani never do. Hani never have. And I’ve been stalled long enough. I was promised transport downworld and I’m taking it. I’m going home and I’m coming back, master thief, master killer — and I’ll see you in that full hearing.”

Akukkakk no longer laughed. His arms were still folded. The kif were all very quiet. The whole room was. Pyanfar made a stiff bow to the Llun, turned and walked for the door, but Goldtooth and his crowd lingered, facing the kif. Tully slowed and looked back, and Pyanfar did, scowling.

“Goldtooth. You come. I’m responsible for you, hear? As the Tahar’s made herself responsible for this kif onstation. Come on.”

The Tahar said nothing to the gibe. That was the measure of their disarray.

“Got friend,” Goldtooth said to Akukkakk. “This time, got friend, and not at dock. You docked good, kif, got you nose to station. Maybe you ask hani give you safe escort, a?”

Akukkakk scowled. “Perhaps. And perhaps Chanur will be so kind as to do that herself. When she comes back from Anuurn.”

A chill wind went wandering across Pyanfar’s back. She stared a moment at the kif, thinking over the odds. The Llun and the insystem merchanters were thinking likewise, surely, what they might logically do with seven kif ships and two mahe hunters.

“Give me,” Akukkakk said, “the Outsider. Or the translation tape. It’s not so much. I can get it from the mahe, sooner or later.”

“Ha, like you get from hani?” Goldtooth muttered.

“What hani give,” Pyanfar said darkly and with distaste, “is a matter for the han. Consensus. Maybe, hakkikt. Maybe we’ll talk this thing out, with assurances on all sides. Before it damages the Compact more than it has already.”

The quiet persisted, on all sides. The stsho stared back at her from haunted pale eyes, the kif from red-rimmed dark ones, hani from amber-ringed black. Kif faith. She turned her back, retreated as far as the door of the chamber, and this time Goldtooth and his crew were with her — and Tully, whose face was pale and beaded with sweat.

The door opened and sealed again at their backs. They passed Llun guards. The corridor stretched ahead, empty.

“Going to my ship,” Goldtooth said. “Going to back off and keep watch these kif bastard.”

“Going to the shuttle launch,” Pyanfar said. “Got business won’t wait. Got stupid son and trouble in Chanur holding. Life and death, mahe.”

“Kif find you go, make one shot you shuttle. Jik make you escort, a? Run close you side, make orbit, get you back safe.”

She stared up at the mahe’s very sober face, reached and clasped his dark-furred and muscular arm. “You want help after this, mahe, you got it. Number one help. This kif lies. You know it.”

“Know this,” Goldtooth said. “Know this all time.”

Their ways parted at the intersecting corridor. Pyanfar pointed the way back to the dock, a straight walk onward, and Goldtooth took it, his crew with him, a dark-furred, tall body moving off down the hall. Pyanfar motioned her own group the other way, which curved toward the shuttle launch.

Steps hurried after them, clawed hani feet in undignified haste. Pyanfar looked about as the rest of her party did, saw a young and black-trousered stationer come panting toward her. The youngster made a hasty bow, looked up again, ears down in diffidence. “Captain. Ana Khai. The station begs you come. All of you. Quickly and quietly.”

“Station gave me leave for my own pressing business, young Khai. I’m due a shuttle downworld. I’m not stopping for conferences.”

“I was only given that word,” the Khai breathed, her eyes shifting nervously over them. “I have to bring you. The Llun is there. Quick. Please.”

Pyanfar glared at the young woman, nodded curtly and motioned the others about to follow the messenger. “Quick about it,” Pyanfar snapped, and the youngster hurried along at the limit of her strides, hardly keeping ahead of them.

It was, as the Khai had said, not far, one of the secondary meeting rooms at which door a whole host of stationers and no few insystem spacers hovered, a crowd which parted at their approach and swarmed in after them.

The Llun indeed. The old man of the station, sitting in a substantial cushioned chair and surrounded by mates/daughters/nieces and a few underage sons, without mentioning the client familiars, the black-trousered officials, the scattering of spacer captains. Kifas Llun was there, first wife, standing near him, and there were others of other houses. A Protected house; the Llun could not be challenged, holding too sensitive a post, like other holders of ports and waterways and things all hani used in common, and he had slid past his prime, but he was impressive when he got to his feet, and Pyanfar exchanged her scowl for a respectful nod to him and to Kifas.

“This trouble,” he said, and his voice shook the air, a bass rumbling. “This Outsider. Let me see him.”

Pyanfar turned and gathered Tully by the arm. There was a panicked expression in Tully’s eyes, a reluctance to go closer to the Llun. “Friend,” she said. “He.”

Tully went, then, and Pyanfar kept her claws clenched into his arm to remind him of manners. Tully bowed. He had that much sense left. “Male, na Llun,” Pyanfar said quietly, and the Llun nodded slowly, his heavy mane swinging as he did so and his mouth pursed with interest.

“Aggressive?” the Llun asked.

“Civilized,” Pyanfar said. “But mahe-like. Armed, na Llun. The kif had him awhile. Killed his shipmates. He got away from them. That’s where this started. We have a translator tape on him. We’ll provide it with no quibbles. I want it on record he gave it freely, for his own reasons. In the Tahar matter — that’s a han question. I didn’t trust the Tahar as a courier. Gods witness — I’ll be sorry to be right. And by your leave, na Llun, I’ll be back to answer your questions. There’s a matter of time involved. I was given leave to go.”

“Challenge has been given,” Kifas Llun said, and Pyanfar darted her a hard look. “Only now the word came up.”

Pyanfar thrust Tully back to Hilfy’s keeping and started away without a word.

’Ker Chanur,” Kifas said, and she cast a burning look back. “A quicker way: listen to me.”

“I’ll want a com link,” Pyanfar said. “Now.”

“Listen, ker Chanur. Listen.” Kifas crossed the room to her and took her arm to stop her. “Our neutrality—”

“Gods rot your neutrality. Keep the kif off my back. I’ve got business downworld.”

“Got a ship,” one of the insystem captains said unbidden, a hani of Haral’s build. “She’s old, ker Chanur, but she can set down direct on Chanur land, that no shuttle can do. Tyo freight lander: Rau’s Luck. I’m willing to set her in the way of trouble if Chanur’s minded.”

Pyanfar drew in a breath and looked at the aging captain. Rau was no downworld house. Insystem hani, landless and unpropertied except for a ship or two, unless they were Tyo-based, colonials.

“Your word is worth something,” Kifas said, “Pyanfar Chanur. We’re bound by the Compact. We can’t do more than pin these kif at the station. You’ve got the mahe for help. You can do more than we can. Chanur has two more ships in that might be of use. Tahar—”

Kifas did not finish the statement; her ears flicked in discomfort.

“Yes,” Pyanfar said. “Tahar. I’m not so sure I’d rely on their ships either at the moment.”

“We can’t muster a defense,” Kifas said. “Your captains are downworld with most of the crews. So are others. We’ve got kif at dock for as long as we can keep them, but you said yourself — there may be others.”

“You’ve got the insystem captains.”

“Against jumpship velocity—”

Pyanfar looked about her, at the spacers present. “Go to the jumpships you can reach; you can fill out crews. Take orders. No matter what house. Get those ships able and ready. I’ll get the Chanur captains back here; and any others I can find. In the meantime, keeping those ships ready to go will be the best action with the kif.” She looked at Kifas Llun, grim sobriety. “Your neutrality is in rags. Give me one of your people. To bring witness down there to what’s going on. I have to get moving. Now. Mahijiru and Aja Jin will keep the kif pinned and the way open. — If I don’t move, ker Llun… the upheaval in the han is going to make differences, differences to more than Chanur. Tahar’s down there, I don’t doubt they are. Standing in line to get a share of the spoils. You’re already in it. I’m not going to let Chanur go under.”

“Rau,” Kifas Llun said. “You’re ready to go?”

“On the instant,” the Rau captain said.

“Ginas,” Kifas said, with a gestured signal to one of her people. “Go with the Chanur. Talk to them. Answer what you’re asked. You’re at her orders.”

The one singled out bowed. Kifas offered the door, a sweep of her hand. “Llun,” Pyanfar murmured in a quick bow of courtesy toward Kifas and toward na Llun, who had seated himself again. Then she turned and swept her own company, the Llun messenger included, toward the door, following the Rau captain. “This way,” the Rau said, indicating a turn which would take them toward the small-craft docks.

Kohan, Pyanfar persuaded herself, would not have taken challenge immediately as it was offered, not knowing that she had reached the system; and surely he knew by now: it was routine that a house was notified when a ship belonging to it made port. The timing of it argued that his enemies knew; and surely Kohan did. He was too wise to be catapulted into any such thing without some preliminaries: she relied on that, with all her hopes.

Two hours by plane from the shuttleport to the airport that served Chanur and Faha and the lesser holdings of the valley: with the Rau’s proposal they saved that much time: and on that too she relied.

And on a pair of mahe.

And gods grant Akukkakk saw some hope for himself. If one of those kif ships got a strike signal off, if the kif was bent on suicide — he might accomplish it, if there were more kif ships lying off out of scan range. Maybe five, six hours lag time for message and strike. With luck, the kif did not know that the hani ships gathered in system were on skeleton crew; with luck the kif would regard them as a threat… if no one had talked.

“That ship of yours,” Pyanfar said to the Rau. “Armed?”

“Got a few rifles aboard,” the Rau said.