Chanur's Legacy

by C. J. Cherryh

  So, distressful as it might be to outsiders, outsiders were advised to ignore their personal scruples and to be as arbitrary, as harsh, as demanding as a stsho of rank might be, because, contrary to mahen expectation, and, as it happened, contrary to hani attitudes, the stsho in question would not hold a grudge, would scarcely remember, and would probably benefit by the experience.

  So they said.

  So she settled into the cushions, accepted the tea, ceremoniously served, at the foot of the pedestal on which the Preciousness rested, while the loaders worked and the cargo left their hold.

  While Haisi was doubtless scouring the station for answers he might suspect she had. And while Tlisi-tlas-tin was discussing the poor but essentially necessary service gtst had acquired, “by the good offices of the esteemed hani captain.”

  “Has this individual discussed … hem, … any smallest detail of gtstisi former life?”

  A distressed waggle of fingers. “I should never accuse the esteemed hani captain of a lapse in taste, but I really cannot discuss these distressing matters. Obviously this life contained affairs which gtstisi could not organize in any tasteful or useful fashion. These are … iiii … biological matters. Is enough understood?”

  Hilfy thought; and thought; and thought in widening circles … with the confusions that came of studying alien language and custom much of her life, and not least among them the stsho. When everything else failed, the maxim ran … ask the alien how to ask the question.

  “Then,” she said carefully, and paused while Dlima poured; and paused further while Dlima served Tlisi-tlas-tin. “Then how shall I ask what information you might have gained in this port?”

  “Nothing is easier.”

  “How shall I ask? I wish to benefit from your unquestionable good taste and elegant gracefulness. You have shown most extraordinary virtues …” Never attribute exact words like frankness to a species which might not value it. “… in dealing with the stresses of this voyage. And I am moved to wonder if your resourcefulness and intelligence might have gained information which would make your person far safer if the captain of this ship should learn it.”

  Moonstone eyes blinked several times, and the tiny mouth sipped at the delicate cup. “You have discovered a graciousness uncommon in your species.”

  And other species could be, by other species’ standards, great boors. But she smiled and kept hani opinions behind her teeth, as invalid in this venue, even on her ship. “I thank your honor.”

  “As to the answer to your question, I think it very clear that the nameless person of no distinction was at one time a close associate of a person who has behaved tastelessly. Whether this abandonment was intentional or not, it is equally clear that this movement is not coincidence. The designated recipient of the Preciousness has gone to Kshshti.”

  “Could your excellency possibly enlighten me further as to the doubtless impeccable reasoning that has led your excellency to that conclusion?”

  “Kif are involved. They would not readily convey this person closer to mahen centers of power. They had rather seek areas where circumstances are more favorable to them.”

  Meaning the border, the Disputed Territories that were still, despite aunt Pyanfar’s good offices, a matter of disagreement between kif and mahendo’sat. She had no quarrel with that reasoning. She was only glad to hear it confirmed.

  “But, enlighten me again, excellency: how has this individual known we were coming? How has gtst managed to evade us not once but consecutively? Or is this gtst doing?”

  Tlisi-tlas-tin carefully set down gtst cup, with that twist of the wrist that signaled an end of tea, and a seriousness approaching severe.

  “I cannot say.”

  “I have trespassed. But may I ask: do you advise us to continue as we are, and pursue this individual to Kshshti? And is there reasonable likelihood that there we may discharge our responsibilities and increase our respectability?”

  “We must continue. We must go to Kshshti. There is no question.”

  “I thank your excellency for your most extreme good will. I am always enlightened and invigorated by your discourse. As your excellency knows, there is a mahe pressing us closely, who has offered us bribes and threats in his insistence to view the Preciousness… .”

  “Unthinkable!”

  “I take it our refusals of this individual are wise.”

  “Villainy, utter villainy. Avoid this person!”

  “He thought he could lay hands on your excellency’s servant and extract information. The foresight of my crewwoman prevented him doing this. I therefore suspect he does not have the full cooperation of the directors of this station, or he could have laid hands on gtstisi. I think that he knew of gtstisi existence here, but not the exact whereabouts, nor could he discover it before we did … quite unexpectedly and by the forwardness of this juvenile person, and thanks in no part to the mahe in question.”

  “Most impressive.” Tlisi-tlas-tin gave a slight glance aside to the servant. “Most desperate.”

  “I understand from this mahe that stsho were murdered here, most recently. He implied this was connected to the disappearance of Atli-lyen-tlas.”

  “Distressing. Most distressing. Is there other information which may be tastefully asked?”

  “He implied that the sight or even information about the nature of the Preciousness might enable him to make a critical judgment of its meaning.”

  Gtst crest fluttered, lifted and lowered. “Unmitigated and unjustified arrogance!”

  “I take it your excellency does not approve of his proposal.”

  “I perform indignities upon his graceless proposal.”

  “Is he possibly telling a falsehood?”

  “In a most shameless fashion. This is a trading style well-known among mahendo’sat, this obtaining piece after piece of what one wants.”

  “A mahe could not possibly understand the meaning in the sending of the Preciousness.”

  “You are far more tasteful than he and you do not comprehend.”

  “Most certainly so, excellency.”

  White fingers reached for the cup again, and turned it. The conversation was ended. “A symmetry of information has been reached,” gtst said. “Do you agree?”

  There were a handful of questions she would ask that would not get answers—questions like: what part are the kif playing? Are they working for anyone but themselves?

  The stsho might think they were. That was the trouble. Everything was the stsho’s estimate of what was going on … and the stsho had had their fingers burned before. The stsho might be the last to know what was going on. The stsho might be the last to know that they were understood by the mahen scientists who wrote treatises on their psyche.

  Gtst excellency said that no mahe could comprehend the nature of the Preciousness—but Haisi chased them from star to star trying to learn what it was?

  One could conclude that a mahen Personage might not be the only player in this contest … that the information Haisi wanted might be going to someone who could interpret it.

  “I have a thought, excellency.”

  One did not break the symmetry of a conversation. Tlisi-tlas-tin’s brow knit and gtst mouth drew thin in displeasure.

  “Would a stsho hire a mahe to ask us about the Preciousness?”

  The frown deepened and lifted.

  “Or enter into collusion with some mahe for that purpose?”

  Another frown settled on Tlisi-tlas-tin’s brow.

  “These are disturbing questions,” gtst said.

  “Are they wise questions, excellency?”

  There was no immediate answer.

  She cleared her throat. “Graceless as it might be, I might purvey him false information, and I would for your excellency’s protection do so, if it would not offend you. But I would not know what falsehood might be believed by whoever hired him.”

  Tlisi-tlas-tin’s respiration increased markedly. “These are most distressing ideas. I must con
sider them.”

  That the stsho would deceive … was well-established. But lying was not a word one tossed about carelessly, dealing with other species. Some species did. Some didn’t. Some would, individually. Some would, collectively. And what some called lying others called an answer for indecent curiosity. Meddling with reality or its perception was, at least among oxy-breathers thus far studied, what intercultural scientists called a potential flashpoint—a ticking bomb in any interspecies dealings: the more alien, the worse in potential.

  “I take my leave of your excellency. I entrust matters to your wisdom and discretion. Should I fail in elegance, I trust that your grace and most excellent sense will advise me to a more proper course.”

  “Most gracious.”

  “Most excellent and enlightening.”

  She hated bowing and backing. It wasn’t hani. And she didn’t do it all the way to the door, not quite. Being hani.

  No question then where they were going—and since they had missed that wretch Atli-lyen-tlas twice due to gtst damnable haste in going wherever gtst was going (one suspected now, away from them) speed might be of the essence. Which meant no delay in loading cargo, no great mass to what they could take, and no time to fuss about the niceties of what they took.

  “Got a few possibilities, captain,” Tarras said. “Kshshti not being an unusual destination out of here.” Meaning that they couldn’t be too picky on that account either.

  Hilfy read the list. It was a matter of figuring what they could load quickly, and one of the best answers was something light and valuable and easily disposed of in a port that bordered kif territory (she shuddered to think, and refused to carry small edible animals) and likewise lay on the receiving end of two lanes coming out of mahen territory, and one port away from stsho space and tc’a.

  Methane load, maybe, which she hated almost as much as the small edible animals.

  Or pharmaceuticals. She read the latest market reports from a ship inbound from Kshshti, ran it through the computer program that could spot the relative bad deals and bargains compared to markets elsewhere, factored with points of origin for the goods in question, plus a set of keywords like shortage and various diseases and rise and fall of prices in the business news. It advised, at least, it read news faster than a mortal eye could scan it, and it liked the pharmaceuticals possibility, the radioactives (another load she was not fond of, since one was at the mercy of the company in question’s packaging practices, inspection was not easy, and some of them were appallingly naive about what a loader did to cans.) But Kita was an importer of such materials, while Kefk, one step further on from Kshshti, was a moderate exporter of said materials and reasonably would be shipping them to Kshshti … figuring trade possibilities was a headache on a border, because you couldn’t get thoroughly accurate information across said border: traders lied, governments lied, and the black market flourished, but a well-known ship was ill-advised to play that game.

  You wanted something … something that you knew about that the rest of the universe didn’t. And the only thing they knew about that the rest of the universe didn’t was the exact nature of the Preciousness, and (at least as regarded the average trader) that they carried some sort of stsho psychological …

  … event.

  She punched in data with sudden energy and factored in political uncertainty and instability: stsho … and even, thinking about Tahaisimandi Ana-kehnandian and his meddling personage … instability: mahendo’sat.

  The computer silently worked and worked, and came up with a whole new set of projections. Under those conditions, a person wanted essentials in store and a government or a station wanted information and strategic necessities in greater abundance than ordinary. And it projected price rises and scarcities in different patterns.

  The only difficulty with that scenario, the glaringly clear difficulty, was that inside information didn’t do you a bit of good if the people making the decisions to buy weren’t also privy to it. It was good for playing the futures game. But perfectly smart investments could bankrupt you if the secret stayed secret. As, contractually, it was supposed to.

  Strategic metals, strategic materials, and out of a place like Kita, which was a quasi-star of so new a generation it hadn’t heavy elements and wouldn’t exist except that it provided services and repairs, and that those services and repairs had employed people who wanted first food and then luxuries to ameliorate their barren lives, and then employees who served up the luxuries, and then food to feed the purveyors of the unnecessary, an ecosystem of elegant simplicity beginning to run to the baroqueries common to civilization.

  All of which told you, as every trader knew, that Kita was a place that imported as much for its own use as it could afford to have, and exported surplus luxuries, which it might well have; surplus necessities, which it was more reluctant to release; surplus people, who wanted out of Kita Point; and finally the final layers on the developing economy of a new station, Kita served penultimately as a cheap warehouse for speculators to store what could be imported from its neighbors and unloaded at a more advantageous time, at a higher price; and most baroque of all, it manufactured things out of the pieces, parts, and materials which the speculators warehoused; and employed workers who in turn began to want luxuries, and so on, and so on …

  Dreadfully crazed, a developing economy. But Kita did produce some of the damndest things, geegaws, items in incredibly bad taste, the product of idle minds and fertile imaginations, and occasionally, just occasionally, some product that actually had unanticipated popularity in some other port.

  She scanned the lists for materials in future necessity, for materials all species tended to hoard in time of trouble, and idly, finally, for odd items that might prove an inspiration to some local merchant … least reliable: never, as a through-passing trader, gamble heavily on fads.

  But you never knew what might lurk there, and along with the life and comfort necessities … a methane-side curiosity, a compression-jewel that, exposed to oxygen and water … blossomed and ablated unpredictably.

  Perhaps she’d been dealing with stsho too long. Perhaps she’d been speaking stshoshi too long.

  But there was a word: niylji, art-by-irreproducible-chance.

  The image of the exploded object was … white with pale mineral stains.

  And the legend said you didn’t know what you’d get until you uncased it. Or detonated it, as the case might be. An electronic fuse. Pull the tab to admit oxygen, and run for your life.

  Art by explosion.

  How big were the things? Palm-sized. The finished—pieces—were unpredictable. Some went to fragments. Some just puffed up to about the size of one’s head.

  Done on methane-side, under pressurized oxygen, they mostly eroded to a fist-sized mess. Done on oxygen-side, they absolutely … flowered. Somebody on Kita must have found it out the hard way, because it was certainly the first time she had seen the offering. The picture and explanation of the exotic was intriguing, although you could expect the entrepreneur who had actually dealt with methane-side (an accomplishment) to get the globes manufactured there, had picked the biggest of the lot.

  Certainly worth a try … they had the franchise. It was a mahen company, trying to market them as geological curiosities, cross-listed under collector’s market. They were willing to enter a partnership agreement with a company that could deal in a can lot … gods, that was no small number.

  Inexperienced entrepreneur. They hadn’t found any takers. Kita got mostly kif, tc’a, and, mostly, mahen-do’sat in the trades associated with industrial companies, and traders, a lot of traders.

  Call the fellow. See if he’d deal.

  The merchant ship Chanur’s Legacy, captain Hilfy Chanur, to Ehoshenai Karpygijenon. In exchange for exclusive trading franchise under your patent of creation we meet your price and will contract with you for future shipments based on sales and returns, patent holder to assume legal liabilities relating to manufacture and compliance with Compa
ct safety codes. We are at dock for the next 12 hours.

  That was a short time frame. But either the seller had the merchandise or he didn’t. Either the seller had been waiting long enough with his funds tied up … or he hadn’t. If it was inexpertly packed, they were making very low-G passage, for reasons other than that cargo, which most merchant carriers would worry about.

  The merchant ship Chanur’s Legacy, captain Hilfy Chanur, to Tabi Shipping. Order for purchase: item #2090-986, 4 cans. Item #9879-856, 10 cans. Please confirm availability. Order valid for delivery within 12 hours or cancel.

  That would hurry them. But it was a fair-sized order.

  The merchant ship Chanur’s Legacy, captain Hilfy Chanur, to Aisihgoshim Shipping. Order for purchase …

  And so on, with three more companies.

  Then she called Haisi.

  “Haisi?”

  “I hear, pretty hani.” It was not a cheerful mahe. “What fine double-cross deal you got?”

  “By what I can figure,” she said, “you’re right.”

  “What you mean ‘right’? What mean, ‘right’?”

  Agitated, he was. “You know and I know you know. So let’s not play games, Haisi. We’re headed out, you know we are, and I’ve got a list of futures I’d recommend to you if you want to play the market.”

  “Want talk.”

  “I’ll bet you do. Safe voyage, Haisi. See you.”

  Drive him crazy, that would. She had not an inkling what Haisi knew. But aunt Pyanfar always said, If you’re up against a smart opponent, make him think himself to death… .

  Com came live, an excited, effusively grateful Ehoshenai Karpygijenon, who spoke very little Trade interspersed with an obscure mahen dialect.

  “Find same one time go bang I unload geo-logics. I say why not sell, lot people want like collect, like make go bang, like real lot many… .”

  And more like that. The entrepreneur in question was a dock worker who’d sunk his whole savings into buying this can of rocks from a tc’a trader and hiring tc’a to assemble them into tolerably high-pressure methane/nitrogen globes. Detonators came separate. Put them on with double-sided tape. That was very nice to hear. The mahe was not an utter fool.