Chanur's Venture cs-2

by Caroline J. Cherryh

  "Did you expect different?" She jabbed him hard. It took a lot to get through a male's skin when he had that look in his eyes. "Are they right?"

  "Who's right?"

  "The stsho in that bar."

  His nostrils dilated, closed, dilated, and his nose went pale round the edges. "I don't see what that has to do with it."

  "Hilfy back there. You hear a question out of her?"

  He looked over his shoulder, where Hilfy was closing cabinet latches, click, slam, click, one after the other; and Tully was folding the table up. He looked round again and his ears were flat.

  "Go help Tirun," she said.

  "I asked a question."

  "No. You questioned, and by the gods that's different. You want Haral's rights, you by the gods earn them."

  He brushed past her and stalked off bridge-ward. And stopped, about half a dozen paces on — faced her, to her relief and her dismay. At least he had not retreated to his cabin. And gods, not more argument.

  He stood there. Cold, deliberate protocol.

  "Help Tirun and Haral," she said. "The rest of us haven't got a death-wish. That vane's got to be fixed."

  That was the way, mention the word. Dead, dead. Death. Hit him between the ears with it. Her stomach churned.

  "Fine," he said, bowed, turned and talked off, a massive shadow against the lights of the bridge beyond.

  She spun on her own heel and walked back into the galley proper, to Tully and Hilfy, who stood idle. "Out," she said to Hilfy, and Hilfy scrambled past her. Footsteps pelted bridgeward.

  Tully stood trapped against the cabinets, leaned there with elbows on the counter behind him.

  "All right," she said, "Tully, I want the truth."

  "Maing Tol."

  "I scare you, huh? Maing Tol, Maing Tol. Listen to me. You don't play stupid. You gods-rotted well understand me. You wanted to talk. You wouldn't give me peace of it. So talk. And keep talking."

  Maybe the translator garbled that. He had that look.

  "Talk, Tully. You want to be friends, by the gods you deal straight with me."

  "I sit," he said, and ebbed down onto the mess table bench as if his legs would no longer hold him.

  "Truth." She came closer in his silence, leaned both hands on the table and glared into his face.

  "Now, hear?"

  He flinched. He smelled of fear and human sweat, like when she had held him, when his heart had beat so hard she could feel it like hammer-strokes. She reached out pitilessly and pinned his arm with claws out. "You risk my crew, Tully. You risk Chanur. By the gods you don't lie to me. Where you come from, huh?"

  "Friend," he said.

  "You want I rattle your brain?"

  He drew several rapid breaths. "Maing Tol. Go Maing Tol."

  She stared, at arm's length from his face, stared a good, long while. "You come find me.

  Need, you say. Need what? You talk, now you talk, Tully. Need what? Number one fool? Where you been, Tully?"

  "Human space. Want come. Want, Pyanfar."

  "So you come to the mahendo'sat."

  "Mahe come human space."

  "Goldtooth?"

  "Name Ino. Ijir."

  She drew a long, long breath. "Double-crossing bastard." Meaning Goldtooth, mahen trade and a towering great lie.

  "Say again." Blue eyes looked at her with vast worry.

  She lifted her hand from his arm and patted his face ever so gently, claws pulled. "Keep talking. More. How did this Ijir come into the business, huh? Was it trading in human space."

  "Human ship-" He made diagrams on the tabletop. "Human. Kif. Mahe. Not good go so- kif.

  Three human ship. Gone. Not see. Not come home. Try go stsho. Mahe come-go." He drew route-pictures, mahen traders reaching human space. "Ijir come. Say want bring human come talk mahe. Want I come. I, Tully." His mouth twisted in a strange expression. "I small, Pyanfar. Human lot mad. They same send me. I small. Mahe think me big. Want. Take. Human think me make trouble. Shut up, Tully. What you know?" Another intersecting line as Ijir moved out of human space toward the Compact. "Gold-tooth come. Lot talk, Ino, Goldtooth. Goldtooth want talk me, not talk lot other human, other human lot mad." He drew a great breath, looked up at her as if to see whether she understood his babble, and there was pain in his expression.

  "Politics," she said. "And protocols. Same there, huh?"

  He blinked, confused.

  "Go on."

  "Goldtooth want talk me. Want me go Goldtooth ship. I say go find you, you friend, good friend. Not know Goldtooth. Want help. Want you talk these mahe."

  "That bastard."

  Another blink of skyblue eyes.

  "So," she muttered, "the mahe wanted you, huh? And set up a rendezvous. Wanted you.

  Someone they could talk to. Someone who would talk, huh? What about that paper? What's in it? Why Maing Tol?"

  "I spacer." Tully's mouth trembled in that way he had when he was upset. "I never say I #, Pyanfar."

  "What about the paper, Tully? Whose is it? What's in it?"

  "Ijir meet Goldtooth, he say make paper — same paper human on Ijir got-"

  "Copy the paper, you mean."

  His head bobbed vehemently. "Same. Yes. Say he take me go find you, go talk stsho, go bring paper Maing Tol, help human-" He held up the hand that bore the ring. "Kif got them. Kif got Ijir, got paper same you got-"

  "How long time?"

  He shook his head. "I don't know." His look grew desperate. "I ask come hani, ask, ask many time. Goldtooth friend? He friend, Pyanfar?"

  "Good question," she said, and puzzled him.

  She reached and patted his shoulder, tapped him with a clawtip. "Safe, understand. Tell me.

  Why Maing Tol? And why me?"

  He shivered, palpably, and reached across the table to grip her retreating hand, ignoring the reflexive jerk of claws. "Big trouble. Lot human ship, lot go Maing Tol soon."

  "Across kif space? There's knnn out there! How many ship, huh, how many human ships are you talking about? Three? Four? More than that?"

  "Paper say — we make stop kif come human space, take human ship. But Goldtooth say me-

  Goldtooth say- think now maybe not kif got human ship. Maybe knnn."

  "O good gods." The heart sank in her. If there had been a bench under her she would have sat down. As it was she just stared.

  "Goldtooth say message got go Maing Tol make stop mahe, make stop kif, go fight-"

  "Fight? Gods-rotted humanity can't tell knnn from kif?"

  "Not."

  "Well, for the gods' sake you know knnn.' Did you teJI them, did you telJ them the difference?"

  "Who I? They don't hear. Shut up, Tully. I'm small person, small, not #, Pyanfar!"

  "Gods and thunders."

  "Pyanfar-"

  "Lunatics!"

  "Goldtooth friend?" he asked again. "I do good?"

  She stared at him a long, long time and he just looked scared. Scared and on the other side of a half-functioning translator. And the gulf of other minds.

  "Goldtooth's mahendo'sat," she said flatly. "And he's got a Personage breathing down his neck. They went to get you, friend, because they wanted trade. I'll bet on that. And those human ships weren't getting through. Ijir's no common trader, no way. They wanted to get you to a rendezvous —

  find out what humanity's up to. That was the game. But they found out too gods-rotted much and now Goldtooth's scared. Scared, understand? Kif, the mahe can handle. But if knnn have their small black feet in this — o gods, Tully — you lunatics."

  "Got lot ship come — lot, Pyanfar. Got fight kif, got make stop knnn."

  "No one fights the knnn! Gods and thunders, you don't pick a fight with something you can't talk to!"

  Wide eyes looked back at her in distress.

  "Where's Goldtooth, Tully? You know?"

  A shake of an uncomprehending head.

  "Huh." She shoved back from the table feeling her knees gone jellylike. And still that blue-eyed stare
was on her. Lost.

  Don't go to the han, Goldtooth had said; and Beware of Goldtooth-from Goldtooth's stsho ally-

  With Vigilance in the selfsame port.

  Suspicions occurred to her, vague and circular, that the han ship might have gotten wind of the clearing of Chanur papers, of mahen money passed to stsho-

  — that that ship's presence and Goldtooth's might have had connections Goldtooth would not say. . han/mahen consultations. Stsho like Stle sties stlen, with slippered feet well into it. .

  And self-interested betrayals, at more than financial depths-

  Knnn. Gods, stsho the ultimate xenophobes, and knnn the ultimate reason. . living right next door — living, or traveling, or whatever it was knnn did with those ships of theirs.

  Perhaps, hani had whispered, stung by stsho references to the mahendo'sat bringing hani into space to balance kif — perhaps a great deal that the stsho knew came from methane-breathers. Tc'a were likely.

  But had limbless serpents originated their own tech?

  Or had chi, who might be parasites — or slaves — or pets — to the tc'a? Not likely.

  Goldtooth had reason to run scared. And being mahe he had done a mahen thing: he had gone for the contacts that he knew. Same as the whole mahen species had: bring Tully. Go get him. While with trouble in the offing Goldtooth had wanted her. Not the han. Not Ehrran. The han knew the mahendo'sat, by the gods: it was why the law existed against taking foreign hire. Mahendo'sat went for Personage. For the Known Quantity. They set up powers. Tore them down. Tied hani rules in knots and brought down powers by ignoring them in crises.

  Here's unlimited credit-friend. Tell us what you know. Same as they worked on humans.

  Send for Tully.

  Gods, they'd drained him dry. Even kif had failed at that.

  (I do good? Tully asked. With that blue-flower stare.)

  They had her by the beard, that was sure. Had her, and maybe Stle stles stlen himself.

  Until humanity launched ships at the Compact, and knnn objected.

  "Trouble?" Tully asked.

  She lifted her ears, turned on him the blandest of looks. "We'll fix it. Just go back to your quarters, huh?"

  "I spacer. I work." He patted his pocket. "Got paper, Py-an-far."

  He did. That was truth. Citizen of the Compact, licensed spacer. More mahen maneuverings.

  He could not handle controls. He needed a pick to reach the buttons and he was illiterate in hani.

  So they locked him up below and shoved him this way and that. He had looked for better from them. Gods knew he must have looked for better.

  "Na Khym's aboard," she said, feeling the flush all the way to her ears. "Male, Tully."

  "Friend."

  The flush went hotter. "As long as you aren't in the same room, fine. Go where you like. Just stay out of his way. Males are different. Don't argue with him. Don't talk to him if you can avoid it. Just duck your head and for gods-sakes keep your hands off him and us."

  Blankest confusion.

  "Hear?"

  "Yes," he said.

  "Get." She turned him loose and watched him go for the bridge.

  She waited for the explosion — realized she was waiting, claws flexed, and drew them in.

  There was the dust-whisper, high-pitched with their velocity, reminding her of movement, of The Pride's hurtling toward a jump she had to make now.

  No way out but that.

  The bridge lights were still on, with all of them snatching sleep where they could, going back to quarters for rotating breaks and coming back to the paper-snowed number-two counter, while the dust whispered and the occasional impact of larger fragments hit the hull. ("We'll shine like a new spoon when we get through this," Hilfy had said early on; "We'll be cratered like Gaohn," Tirun had replied, which they were not yet.) The dust screamed now and again, V-differential. Now and again The Pride's particle-sensors and automated systems sent the trim jets into action, little instabilities in G which put a stagger into a walk down a corridor. Now and again The Pride's scan showed her something major and the ship moved to take care of it.

  But hani work went on too. And human: a section of the comp still had the working light on that meant Tully was still at it, doing what he could do — working away with linguistics from his terminal in his quarters. He hunted words. Equivalencies. Fought the translator into fewer gaps and spits. Learned hani. That was what he did, far into the hours.

  And Khym, shambling red-eyed and shivering from out the corridor-errand to the so-called heated hold: "Got the stores moved down," he said, and cast a worried eye over boards he could not read, at backs turned to him and work still underway. "Go on to bed," Pyanfar said. "Hot bath. You've done all you can."

  "We're still in trouble, aren't we?"

  "We're working on it. Go. Go on. Need you later. Get some sleep."

  He went, silent, with one backward, worried glance.

  She sighed. Heard other sighs from crew, rubbed her aching eyes and felt a twinge of shame.

  "Suppose he secured that?" Tirun wondered.

  "He'll remember." But there were his habits in galley — dishes left, a cabinet latch undone. She walked over and keyed in security check. All doors showed closed and a sense of panic still gnawed at her.

  On the monitors the numbers still rolled up bleak information. Constant operation. No matter what they tried. They went deeper into the dust, into the well, and station information showed four kif docked, one loose and outward bound, two mahen freighters and six tc'a miner/processors.

  Bad odds.

  "Gods rot." From Haral.

  Another theory failed.

  "Go on break," she muttered, back on the bridge the third time, finding Tirun still in the huddle of three heads round the console: Hilfy had changed with Chur; and Haral was back after shift with Geran; while she had stood two straight herself. "Gods rot it, Tirun, didn't I tell you get?"

  "Sorry, captain." Tirun's voice was hoarse, and she never looked up from the papers and the moving stylus. "Got this one more idea."

  She subsided onto the counter edge, steadied herself through another of The Pride's attitude corrections. She gnawed at her mustaches and waited, wiped her eyes. The stylus scratched away on the paper.

  "There's the YR89," Haral said, putting out a hand to point. "If it went-"

  "Huuuh." The snarl was hoarse and vexed and Haral got the hand out of Tirun's way. Fast.

  Scratch-scratch went the stylus.

  More silence. The dustscream on the hull grew louder. The Pride corrected. There was a resounding impact.

  "Gods rot!" (Hilfy.) Ears went down in embarrassment. She ducked her chin back to her arm on the counter-edge and tried to pretend former silence.

  Tirun shoved a strip under the autoreader. The slot took it. Lights rippled as if nothing at all were wrong. Tirun's shoulders slumped.

  "Anything left untried?" Pyanfar asked.

  "Nothing," Haral said quietly.

  "It's a ghosty thing," Tirun said. Her voice cracked. Her ears flagged. "I can't turn it up."

  "Stress-produced?"

  "Think so. Always possible the unit was rotten. Remember that fade at Kirdu."

  Pyanfar heaved a breath and stared at Tirun, reading that grudging mistrust of an unclean system. "We've still got one backup," she said.

  "We'll be down to none at Kshshti. Enough for braking. If we're lucky."

  Pyanfar thought about it. Thought through the whole vane system. "Back to the regulator," she said.

  "You want to replace that Y unit?"

  A long, long worming up the vane column, with The Pride yawing and pitching under power. A long, dark solo job fishing a breaker out of the linkages, where the system was already in failure. From inside-because the particles would strip a suit.

  "No. I want all of us to see Kshshti, thanks." She drew a deep breath. "We put in for repair when we get there, that's all."

  Noses drew down. Ears sank.

  "Well, wha
t else can we do?"

  "I'd try the column," Hilfy said.

  "Hero's a short-term job, kid." And to Haral: "We go on schedule."

  "If it would get us-" Hilfry said.

  "I'd gods-rotted put Chur up that thing if it'd work: at Jeast she'd know the system."

  Ears sank; shoulders slumped.

  "If someone gets killed up there," Tirun muttered, "gods-rotted lot of trouble getting you out of the works. Might fry the system along with you. Captain's right the first time."

  "Sure takes out the Kura option," Haral said.

  "Huh," Pyanfar said. "Isn't an option."

  "There's Urtur."

  "There's Urtur." She let go a long, long breath and thought about it as she had thought about it the last ten hours. Spend days on Urtur. With five kif, two mahendo'sat freighters and six tc'a who were apt to do anything. Or nothing, while the kif blew them apart or boarded.

  "The mahendo'sat," she said, "want us at Kshshti. Goldtooth does. You looked at that scan image? You want to bet Sikkukkut's not passed the word along?"

  "Kif got the dice," Haral said. "No bets. You get anything out of Tully to tell us what this is?"

  Pyanfar slumped against the cabinet back and stared at Haral. "Big. Real big. You want to hear it? Mahendo'sat tried to get humankind in the back door. Humans lost some ships. I think this Ijir's a hunter-ship. It went in and got Tully — typical mahen stunt. They wanted to figure out what was going on and they wanted Tully in their hands. He'd talk. He'd trust them. He'd tell them anything they asked."

  "O good gods," Hilfy murmured.

  "That's not the end of it, niece. Humanity wanted to send their real authorities to the mahendo'sat, I'm guessing, because they had trouble. Mahendo'sat wanted Tully, because they have trouble. Here it gets complicated. I think this whole thing's touched off the knnn." No one moved. Eyes dilated to thinnest amber rings. "I think," Pyanfar said, patiently, quietly, "humans failed a promised trade, mahendo'sat investigated, sent a ship — humans from their side blame the kif, and Tully's not high up enough that humanity would've told him much beyond that. He couldn't know the knnn angle. So the mahendo'sat got Tully and rendezvous'd with Goldtooth at some point beyond Tvk, I'm guessing. For questions. Gods know. Tully said the delegation was vexed that Goldtooth wouldn't talk to them; just to him. And Goldtooth took him aboard alone, Ijir went for Maing Tol, Goldtooth went gods know where, and meanwhile our papers miraculously got cleared, when stsho had refused us for months, and Goldtooth and we together ended up at Meetpoint."