Then it wasn’t a thought-out thing at all, they were just holding on to each other, and the bomb still hadn’t blown up. Tarras was asking, via com,
“Are you all right? Chihin? Na Hallan?”
But holding on seemed more important than making sense, and breathing more important than answering, and Chihin was all right, that was what he kept thinking, Chihin was the senior officer, she ought to answer if she wanted to.
“Chihin? Na Hallan?”
He hadn’t any breath at all to answer.
“They look all right,” he heard Tarras say, almost off mike.
And someone else, a younger, outraged voice: “Gods rot her!”
He knew he was in trouble then, he didn’t want to make Fala mad, but he didn’t know how to extricate himself, he didn’t even try—he wasn’t thinking quite clearly, and knew it.
“Is it a bomb?” the captain’s voice said, off mike.
“I think they’re calling in the bomb disposal people. The customs agent left.”
“I think we’re going for Kefk.”
“Now?”
“We’re off-loaded all but two cans. We call the dealer, say we’re unable to deliver those two, we deduct the price, we get our tails out of this hellhole, right now. Advise gtst excellency and gtst—whatever.—Can you get those two fools out of the airlock?”
The captain was up there. Fala was. Tarras. Everybody. There was a bomb on the dock as large as a country haystack and the ship was going to leave. And all he could think of was the face, the very mature face of someone he couldn’t believe was attracted to him.
“Got to get inside,” Chihin said. And he was scared of the ship going or the can blowing up outside, but more vivid was the thought that Chihin was too different and too common-sense and too steeped in spacer morals to realize he cared for her, he truly, really cared for Chihin—who, with every prejudice she had, honestly made the effort to understand him.
“You gods-rotted idiots, get topside, report in immediately, do you hear me?”
That was the captain. Chihin said a word his sisters never said, then with the rake of a claw through his mane, breathed, “We better do it, kid. Or she’ll make us hike to Kefk.”
Chapter Fifteen
It was one way to get out of station—station traffic control couldn’t rightly refuse an emergency undock, a fire squad had their last two lines shut down, and they were on their way.
With empty holds and running light; with Ha’domaren and the kif still at dock and trying to get clearance, Hilfy was sure: one could imagine the messages flying back and forth. If they hadn’t a stsho aboard, if they weren’t for other reasons reluctant to demonstrate to the universe at large what the Legacy could do unladed, they could kite out of here.
As it was they put as much push on it as they dared use and listened to Kshshti try to solve its problem.
With nervous ships trying to bolt, the doors of that section of dock shut, and the whole population of Kshshti under seal-failure warning … station police were looking for the driver, who had disappeared, the truck was registered to a warehouse two sections away, no one they’d dealt with, it was stolen, so far as the manager claimed, and the can, which could match almost any ship’s ink-written sequence-number for the manifest, didn’t match anyone’s serial numbers in the embedded ID, that a laser reader would pick up: the manufacturer was Ma’naoshi on Ijir. Mahendo’sat. But cans scattered from their point of manufacture, by the very nature of carrying freight. It could be anybody’s; and being a cold-can, and being handled only by robot and by gloved personnel, any exterior biological contact could go all the way back to the day of manufacture, or to some truck driver on Gaohn station three years ago.
“Probably some load of frozen vegetables,” Tarras said.
“Funny thing they haven’t cleared anybody to leave the station,” Tiar said. “I’m surprised they cleared us.”
Station hadn’t been at all happy when they declared themselves outbound. Station had threatened them with legal action. But station was silent on that point now that they’d entered the all but vacant traffic pattern and declared course for Kefk.
“We’re getting the traffic advisories,” Tiar said.
“Guess they’ve decided not to sue,” Chihin said.
There was a markedly subdued atmosphere on the bridge—na Hallan hadn’t said a thing, Chihin had been remarkably quiet, and Fala maintained a business-only report on the comflow.
One could say one had foreseen this situation, one could toss na Hallan off the bridge and lock him in the laundry, except if anyone deserved to be locked in the laundry the senior scantech ought to be first for that accommodation.
“They’re saying,” Fala said with a sudden edge of alarm in her voice, “they’re saying there’s something electronic in the can. They’re taking it real seriously. Wondering if they should jettison it out the nearest lock.”
“Could be a pressure trigger,” Tarras said. “That’s a cold-hold can. Could be vacuum sets it off, could be thermal… .”
“Thermal’s the better bet,” Tiar said, “rig it through the environmental sensors. Think they want advice?”
“They’ve probably thought of it,” Hilfy muttered, “but gods know … relay that, Fala. If they’re going to kick it out, better they maneuver it out sun-side… .”
“Thing could be thermonuclear for all we know,”
Chihin said. “Somebody’s out of their godloving mind. They didn’t think we were going to let that thing aboard.”
“Enough if it’s sitting on our dock when it …”
“… goes off. Plain gods-be timer fuse. They should quit messing around and kick it out of there.”
Fala was relaying that, too, she could hear the gist of it. It was useless. Kshshti had to know its possibilities, a few more, maybe, than they could think of.
But the perpetrators had to be on the station or on one of those ships still at dock.
“Methane ship’s hit system.”
“Gods, that’s the brick too many on this load.”
Add the confusion of an inbound methane-breather to a stationside catastrophe and there was no telling what could happen.
“They are going to jettison the can,” Fala reported. Station wasn’t answering its traffic inquiries, wasn’t acknowledging calls, evidently … station’s internal calls were probably reaching crisis proportions. What was coming back to them was the ops channel station made available to nervous ships at dock.
“Tiraskhti is breaking dock. The kif have given station five minutes to shut down their lines. Station isn’t happy.”
“One gets you ten Ha’domaren is next.”
“Won’t take that bet,” Tarras said.
“Oh, good … gods …”
Number two screen. A white light flashed on Kshshti’s side, flashed and died.
Like a lot of innocent station workers.
There was quiet on the bridge. Station ops com was dead. Then some other channel came through, reporting a major explosion, the decompression of sector 8, ordering Kshshti citizens to remain calm and stay put, ordering ships not to complicate matters by launching.
“Those sons are going anyway,” Chihin said. “Gods rot it, there’s—”
“Methane-breathers are going out,” Fala said.
“They’re talking to the one inbound, I’m not getting any sense on the translator—all that comes clear is destruction and hani and stsho, kif and mahendo’sat.”
Chilling message. You could read a methane-breather’s many-brained matrix output in any direction at all. And it all said the same thing.
Chihin said, “Got more than you bargained for, na Hallan. Nice quiet trading voyage …”
“Let him alone,” Fala snapped.
“Touchy. Touchy.”
“Cut it out,” Hilfy said. “You want to end up as a dust cloud, let’s just have an argument in ops.”
“She—” Fala began.
“I don’t care!” Hil
fy said. “I don’t care who did what. Shut it down! People are dead back there. Let’s have attention to what’s important, shall we? The ones that did that don’t by the gods care who else they kill. Does that fact reach you?”
“Tiraskhti’s away,” Chihin reported. “Going slow. No real hurry. Tc’a are away. Two of them. I’m looking for ID on our station chart. Station’s not giving good output, I think they’re confused. Hallan, double me, I’ve got my hands full.”
“I want those gods-be ID’s,” Hilfy said. “Hallan! Acknowledge, rot you!”
“I’m watching, captain.”
“Ha’domaren’s delivered an ultimatum to station. They get the lines shut down or they let them fall… .” Fala was back on the job. With her whole brain, hope to the gods.
Vectors were shaping up. Tiraskhti for Kefk, no question. Ha’domaren … Ha’domaren was going askew from that.
Meetpoint, Hilfy thought, about the time Tiar said it and Tarras swore.
“What’s he up to?”
“I don’t know.” They could do it, unladed as they were. They could burn off V and go the other direction, as Ha’domaren was headed. They could arrive at Meetpoint with their contract unfilled, in debt for money part of which they’d spent, and have No’shto-shti-stlen suing them, along with Kshshti and Urtur. Or they could go to Kefk, alone with the kif.
“Fala. I want to talk to that son Haisi.”
“Aye,” Fala said. And made the try. It took a while. They were not cooperative.
Then Fala said, “They say he’s not available. He’s asleep.”
“And I’m the Personage of Iji. Tell his crew I had a message for him, but it’s not available either.”
Fala did that. Of course they offered to take it.
“They—” Fala said.
“No. I’ll talk to him.”
There was a delay. And they were still headed for Kefk.
Then Haisi came through, loud and clear. “You damn fool, hani. What message?”
“What’s the matter? Tired of our company?”
“You not learn lesson? Go kif? Good luck. Have nice funeral. What message?”
“What message? Regards from gtst excellency. What was it you wanted to know?”
“You chief number one bastard, you know!”
“By the gods right I know, mahe! I know you didn’t level with me. So I know and you don’t. Good luck yourself.”
What followed was mahen dialect, and the gist of it was not polite. It was Haisi who broke off the contact, with: “I don’t tell you go hell, Chanur. You already got course set.”
“Not happy,” Tiar said.
Out of Vikktakkht’s ship, Tiraskhti, not a word.
“Tc’a!” Fala said, and matrix-com shaped up on the number 4 screen.
Tc’a tc’a tc’a chi hani hani
birth chi rescue birth go go
danger danger danger danger danger danger
see join make divide danger danger
“What’s this ‘birth’ business?” Tarras muttered. “I don’t like that.”
Neither did she, all considered. “Urtur,” she said, of the inbound tc’a. “That son’s from Urtur.”
“Mama,” Tiar said. “Not son. That’s mama.”
The hours ran on, and the tc’a sent the same message, over and over, an accusing presence on the number four screen persistent as the presence on the scan display. No one said any more about it, but they didn’t have to. It was in the tail of Hallan’s vision, and the scan display showed the tc’a moving on their heading, not accelerating, but definitely tending toward a meeting of the incomer and the two local ships, and all three tc’a vessels transmitting that same message again and again.
It’s my fault, he thought. They blame us.
He had heard how the methane-breathers would attach themselves to a ship, and how they could change vector in jump, which physicists couldn’t explain, but tc’a and knnn could do; and chi, who always traveled with the tc’a, aboard their ships, but no one knew whether they were allies or pets… .
The captain had warned him. The captain had said he was a fool and the ship could be in danger. Now it was in danger, from the methane-breathers, in addition to everything else, and the tc’a might follow them into hyperspace, where the gods only knew what might happen—if they could change directions, they could do things in hyperspace, and having them attack the ship there, he didn’t want to think about… .
Besides which there was the station back there with a hole in it; and Fala was upset with him, he could see it in every move she made … not that he’d done anything or promised anything. But she thought he’d insulted her—which he hadn’t meant to do. And the crew was feuding with each other, just the way they said would happen with men on ships.
Besides which—gods, he only had to think about Chihin to think how he’d felt down in the airlock, and that was just stupid, he didn’t want to do what he’d done, he didn’t want to feel what he felt, he wanted to use his common sense and straighten things out … probably nothing was even wrong in Chihin’s eyes, except for Fala: Chihin probably didn’t think it meant anything more than the crewwomen on the Sun had thought it did. But Chihin was like them and unlike, so unlike and so different in the way she dealt with things that he knew the spacerfarers he’d thought existed, both tough and kind, did exist …
And she might not care. That wasn’t as important as her existing.
“Stand by for jump,” ker Tiar said.
They were going. This part always scared him. And the tc’a were still there. The kifish ship Tiraskhti was pacing them. People were still dead back there.
“… here we go.”
Fala said, “Why was I so unimportant? Is there something wrong with me?”
He didn’t know how to answer that. But Chihin did.
“Nothing but youth,” Chihin said, “and time cures that, if you don’t make fatal mistakes.”
“Let me alone!” Fala said.
He was dreaming. He knew he was, and he could make it stop. He wanted Chihin and Fala not to quarrel. He looked away.
But he could see the ship around him as if it were made of glass. And a shadow of a ship rode close beyond the hull.
Serpent bodies moved and twined within that ship, transparent as their own. He heard sound too low for sound. It quivered through deckplates and through bone, and shrieked until it passed above hearing.
Another ship came dangerously near them, within the proscribed limit, wailing. He leaped up, passed behind Chihin’s frozen shape and reached past her shoulder. There was a warning button on that console and he pushed it.
Lights flared red. A siren wailed.
“Go away!” he shouted in this dream, as the shadow loomed larger. It was coming at them. Foolishly he waved his arms to warn it off.
But it swept right through them, with a dimming of the lights, a rumbling of sound, a feeling unlike any heat or cold he remembered.
Then all the ships were beyond them and retreating, the rumbling gone fainter as they became a triple shadow against the stars, smaller and smaller and fainter.
He dropped into his cushion, breathless and numb—raked his fingers through his mane and caught a frantic breath.
People had dreams in jump. That was surely all it was.
“… Welcome to sunny Kefk,” Chihin was saying. “A friendly sodium burner, no planet, but then, we can’t have every convenience… .”
“Look alive,” the captain snapped. “Where’s the tc’a?”
“There’s Tiraskhti,” Chihin said, and Hallan saw that, and murmured so, but, searching the scan for the tc’a ships … nothing showed. An alarm had gone off in hyperspace. One of those anomalies, Chihin called it. Sometimes things happened.
There were things she’d rather lose track of than a clutch of methane-breathers bearing on their tail at three quarters light. “Gods-be snakes could drop out right on top of us,” Hilfy muttered, when scan persistently showed nothing but their kif esco
rt.
“With real luck,” Tarras said, “they’ll drop on Tiraskhti.”
“Don’t count on it,” Tiar said, and toggled a screen change, view of the mass itself: Kefk, sullen apricot orange.
Then it was real to her. The wan sun evoked that reflection on steel bars, that spectrum cast triple shadows on the decking of a kifish prison, lit distant objects in a deathly imitation of sunlight, recalled the clangs and clash of doors and the working of machinery. And over all the smell of it …
Sunny Kefk, Chihin said—leading edge of kifish territory, first of a nest of same-generation suns they favored. Pirate territory, before the treaty, space no other species ever wanted to see.
Well, so, this is an experience, Hilfy thought to herself. The young kid that had come to space with Pyanfar had longed after the strange and the dangerous. And found it once. And now again.
You fool, she said to herself—you utter fool, Hilfy Chanur.
It must be all right, Hallan decided. Everything was normal on the boards. He felt after the nutrients pack. His hands were shaking. He’d never come out of jump so dehydrated or so wobbly. He could scarcely handle the pack without sticking holes in it, he couldn’t make his fingers work.
Truth was, he was scared—because there was nothing he could do for himself, because there was, beneath the ordinary and necessary chatter the crew made, a grimness that hadn’t been there on the jump before this. And it might very reasonably be because it was a kifish port and their lives were in imminent danger, and they’d lost track of the tc’a ships, all of which was very good reason to be upset.
But there was just this subtle turning of the shoulder Fala did toward him, and somehow she avoided looking at him or at Chihin at all. Everybody was upset with Chihin, the captain had been angry on the starting side of jump, and tempers might be a little cooler on this side—time passed, in hyperspace, a lot of time; and you didn’t come out of it as intense about most things as you’d gone in, even if it felt like only an hour later. It was a lot more than that, the body had had a chance to cool down, and the angers and the fears had a chance to settle and evaporate if they had no reason to start up again on this side of jump.
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