Chanur's Legacy

by C. J. Cherryh

  “It’s not our problem! He’s not signed with us, he signed with them.”

  Silence from Tarras and Fala. Glum stares.

  “Aye,” Tiar conceded from the bridge, not happy.

  So no one was. She wasn’t. Meras wasn’t. But neither, one could suppose, was the tc’a.

  Meanwhile Sun Ascendant was inbound, in contact with Urtur control. “To work,” she said, and, in peace, composed a polite message for merchant captain Tellun Sahern, to rest in her message file.

  From Chanur’s Legacy to Sahern’s Sun Ascendant, the hand of Hilfy Chanur, to Tellun Sahern, her attention:

  We are pleased to report that—

  No, scratch that. Sahern would find a way to take it wrong.

  Meetpoint authorities, having dropped all charges against Hallan Meras, requested us to ferry him as far as Urtur where he might rejoin his ship. We will be glad to escort him to your dockside at your earliest convenience or to turn him over to your escort here if that is your wish.

  From Sahern’s Sun Ascendant to Chanur’s Legacy, the hand of Tellun Sahern, to Hilfy Chanur, her attention:

  We trade for a living, we don’t take secret money or run without cargo.

  It’s clear you had a motive in buying him free of the stsho. As you’ve surely learned by now, he has no data on our ship to give you. I doubt he could even falsify credible numbers. Chanur has made its bargains. We will not rescue you from your folly.

  The message slipped into the tray in printout. It burned on the screen. Hilfy pushed the button to capture to log, took the printout and slipped it into physical file.

  The message she thought of sending was: Earless bastard, I thought your reputation had hit bottom.

  The message she sent was:

  From Chanur’s Legacy to Sahern’s Sun Ascendant, the hand of Hilfy Chanur, to Tellun Sahern, her attention:

  We require a release from apprenticeship signed by you, under Sahern seal, and we will seek passage or assignment for him elsewhere.

  From Sahern’s Sun Ascendant to Chanur’s Legacy, the hand of Tellun Sahern, to Hilfy Chanur, her attention:

  Too late, Chanur. We’ve been following the news since we entered system. We accept no legal liability for the actions of a fool we left in stsho custody and you conveyed here and let loose on Urtur docks. You bought him. He’s yours.

  Although I thought your personal preferences lay outside your species.

  From Chanur’s Legacy to Sahern’s Sun Ascendant, the hand of Hilfy Chanur, to Tellun Sahern, her attention:

  Daughter of a nameless father, if this young man wishes to file a complaint against you for desertion in a foreign port, I will swear to particulars.

  As to my personal tastes, at least I have preferences.

  Possibly she had made a mistake. Temper had gotten the better of her. She should not have offered legal backing. She sat contemplating the screen, and thinking black and blacker and blackest thoughts.

  “Captain?” Tiar asked from the bridge. “We got all that on log.”

  “Good.”

  “Kid never got a fair break, captain.”

  “The universe doesn’t guarantee fair breaks, and I don’t want any apprentice under any circumstances! Something’s gone wrong with this whole business, we’ve got a nervous stsho on our hands and Kita is no place to take a novice. I want you to contact Narn and Padur—no, never mind. I will.”

  “Captain. Can I say a word?”

  “I know what you’re going to say, and I’m not listening.”

  “Captain, on behalf of the crew …”

  “We’re not taking any apprentice! His apprentice papers are over on a Sahern ship, they’re not going to give them to Chanur, they’re out to cause us whatever trouble they can, the whole radical right is looking for a Cause against Chanur, and I was a fool ever to agree to take him aboard—I thought Sahern would be reasonable, but clearly not.”

  She beeped off the contact, and composed another message—thought about couriering this one over to avoid public commotion and public pressure, and thought about the hazards of sending Legacy personnel alone and within reach of station police, angry merchants—or Ana-kehnandian.

  No. No such chances.

  From Chanur’s Legacy to Padur’s Victory, the hand of Hilfy Chanur, to Tauhen Padur, her attention:

  We have advised Sahern of the presence of their apprentice crewman, Hallan Meras, on our ship. They have refused responsibility for this young man, who has been cleared of all charges which caused him to be detained by stsho authorities, and further, they have refused him access to their ship in harsh terms, preferring to recall an ancient feud with Chanur, no fault of this young man of Meras clan, a licensed spacer, who has traveled under our protection.

  While Padur has no obligation, Chanur would be obliged if Padur could take this young man under its protection and possibly find a berth for him.

  From Padur’s Victory to Chanur’s Legacy, the hand of Tauhen Padur, to Hilfy Chanur, her attention:

  Padur while friendly to Chanur and altogether desirous of maintaining Chanur’s good will, under the circumstances of the recent accident on Chanur dockside must regretfully decline to incur the possibility of legal liabilities under mahen law.

  From Chanur’s Legacy to Narn’s Dawnmaker, the hand of Hilfy Chanur, to Kaury Narn, her attention:

  We have advised Sahern of the presence of their apprentice crewman, Hallan Meras, on our ship. They have refused responsibility for this young man, who has been cleared of all charges which caused him to be detained by stsho authorities, and further, they have refused him access in harsh terms, preferring to recall an ancient feud with Chanur, no fault of this young man of Meras clan, who has traveled under our protection.

  While Padur has declined our solicitation, we hope and Chanur would be obliged if Narn could take this young man, a licensed spacer, under its protection in any sense whatsoever.

  From Narn’s Dawnmaker to Chanur’s Legacy, the hand of Kaury Narn, to Hilfy Chanur, her attention:

  I have my sister’s young daughter aboard: I could not in good conscience expose her or Meras clan to the consequences of taking on this young man. Nor do we have passenger facilities. However, Narn is willing, under appropriate safeguards, and at Chanur’s request and assumption of all consequent responsibility to Meras, to convey the young gentleman under close supervision as far as Hoas, where he may await a ship with familial connections.

  Read that: lock him in the laundry and turn him over to Hoas authorities. At least no worse accommodation than he had, and a station where (gods hope!) he had no legal problems. But going to Hoas took him back toward Meetpoint, and he would have to come back through Urtur again.

  Where that ship might find legal problems waiting for them, unless they could get a release, and she knew the mahen politics waiting for them.

  Hilfy sat and contemplated the screen; and sent back:

  From Chanur’s Legacy to Narn’s Dawnmaker, the hand of Hilfy Chanur, to Kaury Narn, her attention:

  Thank you for your offer. We fully understand. We will hold your proposal in reserve while we seek other safe disposition for—

  —him.

  The pronoun itself was unaccustomed out here. Ten, fifteen years ago, you didn’t by the gods use the male pronoun in a message between clans. It still felt queasy and indecent. It felt indecent to have one’s decades-senior aunt ahead of one’s self in pushing the conservative limits. When had she become the defender of hani propriety?

  —the gentleman, she finished. If we don’t get back to you, we wish you a safe voyage.

  And to Padur:

  From Chanur’s Legacy to Padur’s Victory, the hand of Hilfy Chanur, to Tauhen Padur, her attention:

  We are seeking other solutions. Please bear witness that we have attempted the honorable discharge of our reasonable obligations to Sahern and to Meras, Safe voyage.

  She sat. And sat.

  She wished she had not used the com in the approa
ch to Sahern. Aunt never used com for clan to clan business if she could help it. Good, on the one hand, that the initial business with Sahern was on public record and overheard by two other clans. She did not regret that. But … mahendo’sat who did not speak hani certainly had translators. So did the kif, of whom there were fifteen in system.

  She had a prickly feeling all down her back, the same feeling the whole atmosphere at Urtur gave her—since the dust-up in customs, and the Personage’s too-easy dismissal of Ana-kehnandian, and every gods-be stsho on the station running for elsewhere when she had the Preciousness just itching to be delivered to somebody.

  It had the feeling of powers at war, somewhere. And powers at war always went for the soft spots, the joinings between uneasy allies, the bribes, the coercions—the cooperations.

  The feuds.

  Chapter Eight

  Ker Chihin passed finger-pads over the panel surface, stooped and passed the same inspection over the floor, and evidently she found no fault with the job. Hallan put the vac away; and ker Chihin inspected that, too, then told him to take it to the laundry and stow it in the number 3 locker.

  Then Chihin said, “Good job, kid.”

  He looked back from the doorway, and bowed, hands full and all. He didn’t think he was called on to say anything, just to keep quiet and do what he was told; so he went and stowed the vac.

  But ker Chihin hadn’t said about whether to come back or not. He thought he should; and came quietly back and stopped in the doorway, because Chihin was fixing a case back in the traveling brace, on the pedestal, and it might be fragile.

  He waited until she had tightened the bolts and slid the cover off the box, which proved to hold a simple vase. Then he cleared his throat.

  “Gods rot you!” Chihin cried, with a start, and knocked back into a bucket of construction trash and another of panel clips.

  “I’m sorry, ker Chihin.”

  “You didn’t see this thing.”

  “Yes, ker Chihin.” He honestly wished he hadn’t. He thought maybe he was meant to get out, immediately, but Chihin started picking up loose bits and pieces of the scattered debris. He went to help, tentatively, and grabbed up loose panel clips as fast as he could find them, until he had a double handful.

  “You be careful you don’t miss any of those. If one of those goes whizzing around here under V, you don’t want to know what it’d do to a body’s head.”

  “I know, ker Chihin. I’m sorry.”

  “It was my foot,” Chihin muttered, which was fairer than most ever were to him. He went back after more clips, and searched all around the edges of the cabin, and around the cushions and down in them, no matter how remote the chance.

  No more of them. He came back and dumped what he had.

  “Boy,—what got into you, wanting to come out here?”

  “Captain said I could help …”

  “I mean here. I mean going to space.”

  That question. It always came up. “I wanted to.”

  “I know that. But what’s a nice kid want to come out here and run over tc’a and get arrested for?”

  Ker Chihin didn’t think he belonged here. He was used to that. And you couldn’t argue with it. He shut up and kept his head down, already knowing the captain was going to throw him off the ship, so there was no use in arguing.

  “Kid?”

  “I wanted to go to space, that’s all.”

  “Think you couldn’t have found yourself a spot on Anuurn? Don’t think there’s some niche you could have carved out? You’re a good-looking kid. You’d have gotten somebody’s attention.”

  “I guess. Maybe. I don’t know.” He’d been through this too many times, with every ship he applied to, with the one that had taken him, with every member of the Sun’s crew, in one form or another. Sometimes he’d given answers to make them happy. He’d caught himself lying and sworn off it. But he didn’t want to argue with Chihin either. The day had already gone wrong enough.

  “So what d’ you think?” Chihin asked. “Is space what you expected?”

  “I don’t know.” Same stupid answer. He found a piece of debris and brought it back, thinking, and he said it: his back was to the wall and he couldn’t lose any more than he had. “But I don’t want to go back. And I’m getting better.”

  “At what? Parking?” Chihin said, straight to the sore spot. He kept his head down and picked up the container of debris. “You know where to take that?”

  “To ’cycling. I guess it’s out by the lifts.”

  “You guess right.” Which let him go, so he went out down the corridors and sorted the trash into the right chutes, plastics and metal bits apart, then wiped the bucket down and took it back to the only place he knew to take it.

  “Goes in the maintenance locker,” Chihin said. “That’s—”

  “Lower Main 2. Next the lift. I spotted it.”

  Chihin frowned at him and flattened her ears. He didn’t know whether Chihin was annoyed at him or not. “Sharp eyes we have.”

  “Shall I put it up, ker Chihin?”

  “Get,” she said. He got, back to the area he had just been in. The lift was working. One of the crew coming down, he thought. He opened the locker, stowed the bucket, and was just latching the door when the lift door opened. He looked up, to say hello to whatever of the crew it was.

  It wasn’t.

  He saw the stsho in the same moment it saw him. He stared in shock; it let out a warbling shriek and ducked back into the lift.

  He ducked back down the corridor. Fast. And around to where its cabin was.

  “Chihin!” he stammered. And when Chihin looked at him: “I think it saw me. The stsho. It was in the lift.”

  Chihin blasphemed in a major way and told him to go to his quarters. So he went there, and shut the door and sat down on the cushion.

  He hadn’t thought things could get worse, or imagined that he could find another way to foul things up.

  Oh, gods, he hadn’t thought so.

  “Perfectly safe,” Hilfy said in her best stshoshi Trade. “I do assure your honor, this is a person who came aboard with references from gtst excellency gtstself …”

  “… who lied!” Tlisi-tlas-tin said from the speaker.

  Hilfy leaned against the panel, kept her voice calm. “Your honor, occupying the lift is against all safety regulations designed for your comfort and well-being …” She was down to quoting the primer lessons in the Trade. “Kindly bring the lift car back to lower decks and open the door.”

  Gods rot the creature for taking it on gtstself to wander about the ship.

  “Your honor, do you hear me? This is a civilized and well-mannered young person who was assisting a member of the crew in maintenance.”

  “An immature male person? This ship has immature male persons performing life-critical maintenance? This ship has entrusted vital functions to persons known for irrational behaviors and distasteful tendencies toward violence toward uninvolved bystanders?”

  “This young male person was disposing of refuse. Kindly bring the car back to this deck.”

  “We have been betrayed by all pertinent interests. How do we know if anyone is telling the truth regarding anything? How should we have anticipated this desertion? How can we survive this devastation? We are the prey of strangers and persons without discrimination!”

  “Your honor, as the captain of this ship I require you to come to the lower level, for your own protection, your honor, as if there should be an emergency on-station the lift is not a safe place to be.”

  There was no response. But stsho were not a valorous species where it came to bodily injury.

  “Broken bones are possible,” she said, “should this station encounter some emergency.”

  The lift thumped and whirred into motion.

  “I think we got the son,” Chihin said.

  “Don’t push our luck,” she said.

  The lift reached lowerdecks. The door opened. Hilfy pushed the hold button, and b
owed to the pale, tremulous creature at the back wall of the lift.

  Gtst bowed. She bowed.

  Gtst edged outward. And peered past her, cautiously.

  “Will your honor view the quarters? Your honor certainly will not want to leave the oji unattended.”

  A slippered toe edged across the line and into the corridor. Hilfy stood well back as gtst honor looked over the corridor.

  And retreated.

  “Your honor …”

  And advanced again, with a fluttering of gtst long fingers about the vicinity of gtst heart. Moonstone eyes looked toward the corridor, under feathery brows, and gtst honor advanced a pace.

  “We are not certain, we are far from certain we can bear this stress. We have been affronted, we have been transported far from tasteful and familiar places, our presence has been assaulted by strange persons of male and violent gender—”

  “If your honor please. You will be most favorably impressed by the tastefulness of your quarters. And the Preciousness is absolutely inviolate. Have we not promised?”

  Step after step. Chihin backed aside. Hilfy gestured the stsho further and further and around the corner into the appropriate corridor, which gtst was willing to enter only after an advance look.

  As far as the doorway at least, gtst advanced. Gtst craned gtst long neck around the doorframe to look left and right, and took a step inside.

  And another.

  “Spare,” gtst said. And advanced another pace, into a white, white, white cabin with white treelike shapes and the Preciousness enthroned in its case.

  “Elegant,” gtst said, and sighed and walked further, from object to object, fluttering gtst hands and sighing and sighing again.

  “A success,” Chihin muttered at Hilfy’s shoulder.

  “A triumph,” gtst breathed. “How can a colored species have achieved it?”

  One hardly knew whether to be complimented or not.

  “Is your honor then comfortable?” Hilfy asked.

  Gtst turned full about, staring at all of it, no little of which was gotten at bid, from an abandoned stsho embassy and abandoned stsho apartments. And two mixed lots of white paneling, the only white paneling they had been able to find.