“Got consult stationmaster,” the agent said, and flipped his slate closed and walked off. Tiar stood staring after him, and turned and stalked back into the access, up the rampway to the hatch and the lower main corridor.
“Trouble?” Fala asked.
“Gods-be right we have trouble, we have bids breeding like crazy and we can’t get the gods-rotted customs to fill out the gods-rotted forms and clear the gods-be-feathered—”
It had been quiet for a very long time. And Trade in Agricultural Goods might be informative, and Hallan was willing to learn anything that gave him expertise in anything whatsoever to do with space and trade; but it was uninspired and highly repetitive.
Still, he read on, having had his shower and his lunch and all. He heard crew members going up and down the corridor outside, he listened hard, thinking that he might hear something, but most of all he heard a voice he thought was Tiar’s yelling about mahendo’sat and customs and blackmail.
So he thought something bad must have happened.
Then he heard the captain’s voice, he was relatively sure, yelling something about mahendo’sat and blackmail. So he didn’t think things were going well.
Probably it was not a good time to ask to be let out of the laundry. Probably he should read Trade in Agricultural Goods very slowly and thoroughly and make it last, because it might be all the entertainment he had for a while.
Home again, to read the gods-forsaken contract. To consult the legal program. The translation. The transcription of the original into mundane type, and into phonetic rendition.
7098 pages. Of which the computer identified 20 clauses as of particular application, regarding Unproven Subsequents.
And the pertinent dictionary and legal dictionary definition: Subsequent: a person who in substance whether in whole or in part may be in tenure of the same rights and legal entity as a named individual. See: Subsequent in Identity; Consequent.
Subsequent in Identity: a subsequent who has the same physical identity as a named individual.
Consequent: an individual who in substance whether in whole or in part is in tenure of legal rights and legal entity as a direct result of contact with or the actions of an individual or gtst subsequent.
… If the party receiving the goods be not the person stipulated to in subsection 3 section 1, and have valid claim as demonstrated in subsection 36 of Section 25, then it shall be the reasonable obligation of the party accepting the contract to ascertain whether the person stipulated to in subsection 3 section 1 shall exist in Subsequent or in Consequent or in Postconsequent, however this clause shall in no wise be deemed to invalidate the claim of the person stipulated to in subsection 3 section 1 or 2, or in any clause thereunto appended, except if it shall be determined by the party accepting the contract to pertain to a person or Subsequent or Consequent identified and stipulated to by the provisions of Section 5 …
However the provisions of Section 5 may be delegated by the party issuing the contract, following the stipulations of Subsection 12 of Section 5 in regard to the performance of the person accepting the contract, not obviating the requirements of performance of the person accepting the contract …
“We have a problem,” Hilfy said, over gfi, in the Legacy’s galley. She was maintaining, she felt, extraordinary control over her temper. Sober faces were opposite her, the whole crew—since no offloading was going on. Meanwhile gtst honor was lighting up the com board with requests to go out into the station, and whether Haisi had messed them up with station officials or whether Haisi had only fairly warned them what they were facing—customs had a hold on them.
“Have you told gtst honor?” Tiar asked, elbows on the table opposite her.
“Not yet. Haisi could be lying through his teeth.”
“If he isn’t? What about that contract? What’s it say, if we can’t find the bastard we’re supposed to give this to?”
She truly hated to say that. She did hate it. She leaned her own arms against the cold surface and regarded a tableful of more experienced traders—give or take Fala. “There’s a clause in there about Subsequents and Consequents. That we’re still bound to get it to the right party.”
“You mean that son of a stsho has transmogrified? Switched personalities? Disintegrated gtst psyche?”
“We don’t know that exactly.”
“We don’t know it, so we’re not responsible if gtst has gone crazy and shipped out of here.”
“We aren’t responsible if gtst does. But we do have a clause in there about finding out if there’s a Subsequent.”
“Oh, gods,” Tiar said, and her hand slid over her eyes.
“It said Urtur,” Fala Anify protested.
“It also said—find out if there’s a Subsequent. And we—I, I’m not passing the responsibility. I should have considered the possibility of gtst not staying at Urtur.”
“What possibility?” Chihin asked with a rap on the table-top. “Stsho don’t travel once in a—”
“Lifetime,” Hilfy said. “Which only holds true until someone spooks it into a new personality.”
“So what spooked the ambassador? We were through here, we dealt with gtst excellency at least indirectly to get our clearance for Meetpoint, we didn’t see anything wrong, did we?”
“I didn’t,” Hilfy said. “But I’m willing to bet Haisi has some remote thing to do with it. He was at Meetpoint when we came in, he was in a position to know what No’shto-shti-stlen knew …” A thought came to her, a summation, a time-table, that sent an outrageous anger rolling through her veins. “That son of an earless mother!”
“Haisi?”
“No! No’shto-shti-stlen!”
“You mean gtst knew we weren’t going to find gtst recipient here?”
“If gtst didn’t know, gtst had a gods-rotted good idea there was trouble here! And wrote that bit into the contract about obligating us to go on a Subsequent-hunt! Gods blast that skinny, painted, conniving—he wants us to go running around the immediate universe looking for this character!”
“Where would gtst go? Where would gtst be?”
“Who would gtst be? That’s the question! Haisi says Kita. But that won’t be gtst stopping-place—it hasn’t got amenities for them. And the mahendo’sat are all stirred up, or Haisi’s personage has got a lot of pull here, a lot of pull.”
“You don’t think it’s Pyanfar behind his personage.”
“I don’t know! I don’t know not! That’s the trouble getting involved in politics, nobody wears a name badge!”
“So what are we going to do, captain?”
Run for it? Haul their load clear to Kita, with no guarantee there was a profit there?
Hope the mahen stationmaster had traded heavily into the futures market here, and took a soaking when they yanked their cargo off the market and ran for it? Break a few regulations that made the speeding violation look like a mahen commendation?
Good way to make lasting enemies, in either case.
But deal with Haisi? He might be Pyanfar’s bosom friend. He might be working for her overthrow and with a mahen sense of humor, using her help to do it.
Get the truth out of Tlisi-tlas-tin? Not outstanding likely. And there was no way to consult No’shto-shti-stlen.
Continuing silence at the table. It was the crew’s moral refuge and her moral dilemma: the captain was thinking. The captain was going to get them out of what the captain, who was young enough to be Tiar’s daughter, had gotten them collectively into.
“We can pull out. We can stay. We’ve got two other hani in port with us. That’s Padur’s Victory and a Narn hauler, both slated for Hoas. But they’re marginal ships, they’re not up to this. If we involve them, they could be in big trouble, so that’s no help.”
“No threat to them.”
“None so far. We could get the kid aboard—”
“The kid’s in potential trouble.”
“The kid’s ship is at Hoas.”
“The kid’s ship is pro
bably on its way here right now, if we put him on one of them, he’ll miss his ship.”
It was true. And beyond Hoas, either ship might be on to Meetpoint, where he wasn’t welcome—and consequently they might not be.
“Tell you something else,” Tiar said. “Captain. That kid’s been on this ship.”
She understood what Tiar was getting at. She didn’t particularly want to listen to it.
“If you turn him out on the docks,” Tiar said, “the mahendo’sat are going to pick him up. There’s no question. They’ll assume he knows what they want to know.”
“He’s also not Chanur, not involved with us, he’s Sahern crew, they’re coming here, and if we’re holding him …”
“He doesn’t want to go to them. He wants to stay with Chanur.”
“He’s in love with my gods-forsaken aunt! He’s a fool kid, light-years from home on a notion—”
“A gods-forsaken ticking bomb,” Chihin said. “We have a stsho aboard this ship, a stsho that we daren’t upset. We have a kid with healthy hormones right around the corner from gtst honor and the Preciousness we’re now supposed to get to Kita—beyond which, there’s precious few choices where we’re going, captain.”
“If they’re Pyanfar’s, she’ll sort it out. If they’re not—and we help them, they’ll cut our throats.”
“What happens if our stsho fragments and decides gtst is the queen of the gods?”
“We have a problem,” Tarras said, which brought them back to point one.
“Honorable,” Hilfy said, not cheerfully. “I have news.”
A languid wave. Gtst was restoring gtst body-paint, carefully brushing a pattern down a white forearm. Gtst completed it with a flourish.
In strictest courtesy, Hilfy invited herself into the bowl-chair and sat down.
“There has been a complication,” she began.
“Then your honor can surely solve it. Are you not hired to do so?”
“Would your honor care for tea?” She made a slight wave of the hand toward the door, and Fala, with tea-service in hand.
“If your honor sees fit.” Gtst looked anxious, waving the newly painted arm, arranging gtst draperies.
With a species that tended to dissociate psychologically at grievous upsets—five rounds of tranquilizing tea seemed perhaps a good idea. Especially since it was their stsho and their contract, with the Preciousness enthroned in its case above their heads.
Five cups, in which Fala contrived not to spill anything on the white cushions, in which their juniormost acquitted herself with commendable self-possession.
“We hope your honor has been comfortable such as our hospitality has been able to provide.”
“We have survived. We are composed. The Preciousness in our possession is unmolested. We could not ask more of your meager circumstances.”
Snobbish son.
“May your honor,” gtst asked, “choose to inform us of the matter which troubles your peace?”
“Regarding the intended recipient of the oji.”
“The Preciousness.”
“The Preciousness. Would it surprise your honor in the least to know that the intended recipient has—em—quit gtst post?”
Shocked pale eyes lifted and centered on her face. “Impossible.”
So gtst did not know in advance. Perhaps her surmises were unjust and mistaken.
“Quit gtst post so far as the mahendo’sat have been willing to inform me. Should they have reason to lie? One of them has been quite forward in asking me to allow him access here.”
“No! A thousandfold no! This is insupportable. This is unthinkable!” Paint spilled as gtst jostled the bottle. “Oh, where are my servants? The paint, the precious pigments, —oh, my predecessors, oh, my honor, oh, my reputation, oh, I am wounded! I perish, wai! I perish!”
It was blotting furiously—impossible to tell whether the migration of Atli-lyen-tlas was the shock, or the paint, or the reference to mahendo’sat, but gtst was highly agitated, breathing in great gasps, and Fala came running, cups rattling on the tray, all the while the honorable was fighting for breath and clear as clear was the possibility of a dissolution before their eyes.
“Be calm!” Hilfy said, unsure whether to lay hands on the creature or not. “Be calm! Your honor is not in question, most honorable, most excellent! Calm yourself, breathe quietly—”
The stsho did listen. Moonstone eyes gazed at her in shock, a paint-spattered hand clutched a paint-stained fold of gtst robe to gtst breast, and it shook and trembled and lifted and lowered gtst plume-augmented crest in high agitation.
“We are empowered to search further!” Hilfy said, reaching for vocabulary. What was the ceremonial deferative singular for “personality disintegration” and was it appropriate to use it? “You are in no wise responsible for this, honorable! There is every possibility gtst excellency foresaw such an event—we find it in the contract!”
“In the contract.”
“In the contract, honorable.”
“But gtst excellency should have confided in me, gtst excellency has dishonored me—”
“Gtst excellency has entrusted you with the Preciousness. Has gtst not? Or should we not question that? Should we ask what is in that box?”
Moonstone eyes went wide and horrified. And gtst looked up and up and around, where the shipping box sat within its braces.
“Must we not be certain? Would you recognize the Preciousness if you saw it?”
“Of course! Of course! Oh, the villainy in your mind!” Tlisi-tlas-tin scrambled to an undignified exit from the chair, trailing paint-soaked robes over the white cushions and the tiles of the floor, gtst long fingers sought the shipping latches and undid them, waving Fala’s offered help away in indignation. Gtst undid the latches of the box itself, and Hilfy held her breath, unbearably driven to reach out restraining hands in case it should fall.
But there in the plush white liner sat a white, carved—vase, one supposed. Is this it? Hilfy wondered; Fala looked puzzled; but Tlisi-tlas-tin sank down with a sigh and fluttered gtst fingers, held a hand to gtst chest, and muttered,
“I am vindicated. I am vindicated, gtst excellency has not lied to me.”
“We had no doubt of your honor,” Hilfy ventured to say, and stood by as Tlisi-tlas-tin picked gtstself up off the pastel-smeared floor, in the wreckage of gtst finery. Gtst struck as belligerent and proud a pose as a creature could, that a gust of breath could shatter.
“But this is a pen for animals! I cannot possibly abide these circumstances! Look at me! The Preciousness cannot abide in this wreckage! My honor! My reputation!”
Hilfy thought of another word, but she bowed with great courtesy and smiled. “We are of course concerned. We will act instantly to rectify this unfortunate circumstance.”
“Immediately! I cannot abide this! Oh, the injustice, oh, the cruelty, oh, the perfidy!”
“What perfidy, honorable?”
“I demand to see the next highest stsho authority, I demand to have access to this individual!”
“Honorable, —”
“I am wronged, oh, predecessors and antecedents, I am wronged, most grievously!”
Fala made a glance toward the overhead. But in space there was no direction for heaven.
And the gods were probably busy with aunt Pyanfar.
Chapter Six
Potential spies everywhere, Haisi blackmailing them for access to the stsho they had contracted to protect, and the stsho in question wailing and moaning and lamenting betrayals on the part of the stsho ambassador to Urtur, and of the staff of said ambassador, who did not return calls.
And the honorable Tlisi-tlas-tin’s quarters were a shambles, gtst person was a shambles, gtst affairs were a shambles, and in a species that Phased under stress, into new and unpredictable psychological configurations… .
The Preciousness might end up in the hands of a completely different individual, for which—Hilfy hesitated even to send the legal program on another sear
ch through the contract and the handbook of Compact law looking for legal responsibility. Gtst honor was tottering on the edge of dissolution and gtst wanted the damage to gtst quarters repaired, gtst wanted the colors changed, gtst wanted new clothing, and a better diet, and entertainments and amenities.
Which meant scouring the market for stsho items, checking through what they had in cargo cans; and dealing with customs one more time.
“You got problem?” a mahen voice said; and Hilfy turned to find the scoundrel on her track—following her, gods rot him. Maybe not even doing the watching himself … just have some underling do it, and call him for the intercept.
“What do you want?”
“Want make deal. Hear you look for stsho stuff. Hear you want make buy stuff like deck tile, like ’vuli cloth, like …”
“How nice you got all these things to sell me! Good price, huh?”
“You funny. Amuse stsho?”
She started to walk away. He got in front of her.
“Hear you try talk stsho embassy. Not possible. Stsho shut down. Some go Meetpoint. Some Kita.”
“You’ve had yourself a main proper disaster here, haven’t you? You try to break off trade with the stsho? Try to screw up politic for my aunt?”
“I friend Pyanfar.” Hand on chest. “My personage friend with Pyanfar, number one try do good for you.” Haisi Ana-kehnandian glanced about as casual traffic passed, and he made an unwelcome catch at her elbow. “You want stsho stuff, I get for you. Easy done. Stuff all over embassy. Nice stuff, number one stsho furniture.”
“Breaking and entering? Pirated goods?”
“Shush, shush, don’t make noise ever’body hear. You come. I fix, you get.”
“You drove the whole gods-forsaken stsho embassy off Urtur, and you want to help me? No thanks! Go talk to the kif, they appreciate a pirate!”
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