Pyanfar tied the knot and swallowed down a rush of temper. “My regards to them. What are the kif doing?”
“Sitting still. If they’re talking to each other it’s by runner or by line.”
“Just keep watching it. I’m awake.” She went to the bath, turned on the lights and washed, walked out again and took a look at the situation on the screen. Ten ships out of dock now, all chasing out after Moon Rising, as if that same rotted knnn had gotten utterly muddled which hani was which and convinced all the others — ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous; but humor failed her — there had been misunderstandings in the old days, before stsho had gotten the idea of the Compact across to the tc’a, and the tc’a in turn had gotten the knnn and chi to comprehend Compact civilization… enough to come and go in it without trouble; to trade with it; to avoid collisions and provocations and sometimes to cooperate. The methane-breathers were dangerous when stirred. She frowned over the image, combed, cut off the com and headed out down the corridor for the lift.
“No change?” she asked when she walked in on Tirun in op.
“No change,” Tirun said. Her injured leg was not propped, though thrust out at an angle as she leaned to tap the screen. “They’re all in a string, all ten of them, all after the Tahar.”
“Gods,” Pyanfar muttered. “A mess.”
“They’ve got id signals — they have to know that’s not us.”
Pyanfar shrugged helplessly. She walked back to the door. “I’m going to get the others. About time for you to go off, isn’t it?”
“Half an hour.”
“Who’s up next?”
“Haral.”
“So we start early.” Pyanfar walked out and down the corridor toward the large cabin that was in-dock crew quarters, pushed the bar to open the door and inside, the one that started dawn-cycle on the lights. “Up. Got a little disturbance. Knnn have gone berserk. I don’t want us abed if they come this way.”
There was a general stirring of blanketed bodies in the half-light, on a row of bunks under the protective netting of the overhead; bunks and cots — Tully was at the left, curtained off, but not from her vantage, a tousled head and bewildered stare from among the blankets — and Hilfy… Hilfy was on the other side of the room, stirring out with the rest, naked as the rest, as Tully, who was getting out of bed on his side of the curtain. Gods. Anger coursed her nerves, a distaste for this upset in order which had swept The Pride. They voyaged celibate. In her mind she could hear Tahar gossip — something else that would be told on Anuurn. And gods, she could see the look in Kohan’s eyes. She scowled. “Hilfy. Breakfast on watch, half an hour. Move!”
“Aunt.” Hilfy stood up and jerked up her breeches with dispatch.
Pyanfar stalked out, headed back to the op room, shook off her distaste in self-reproach. So Hilfy had resigned the privilege of guest quarters and snugged in with the crew; she guessed why — with the parting of ways with the Faha. And the crew had invited: that was territory in which the invitation came from inside and she did not intervene. In their eyes,
I hen, Hilfy belonged.
As they had taken Tully in.
Gods. Her nape prickled.
“Breakfast and relief is coming,” she told Tirun as she arrived.
“No change,” Tirun said. “Same courses, all involved. Not a move from the kif, not a word.”
“Huh.” Pyanfar sat down sideways on the counter. “Confused likewise. I hope.”
“They couldn’t be in communication with them.” Tirun turned a disquieted stare toward her.
“I’m out of the assumption market.”
The rout progressed, Moon Rising proceeding outsystem with ii mahe escort at great distance and a manic flood of knnn behind.
“They’re mad,” Tirun said.
Pyanfar sat and watched, glaring at the screen.
Haral arrived, with Hilfy and breakfast; the others showed up hard on their heels, a procession, Geran and Chur and Tully carrying their own trays. “What’s going on out there?” Haral asked.
“Tahar,” Tirun said, “leading every scatterwitted knnn at the station—”
The screen had changed, the dots parting on the scan, that which was Tahar going on, the knnn…
“They’re stopping,” Hilfy said.
“Wonderful,” Pyanfar muttered, took up her cup of gfi and sipped it, watching as the gap widened. Turnover eventually, she reckoned; the knnn developed other plans. Tully spoke, a flood of alien babble, but she had left the pager in her cabin. Chur turned hers to broadcast. “Enemy ship,” it rendered.
“Knnn,” Haral said. “Not an enemy. Neutral. But trouble. That’s Moon Rising. The knnn followed them; now they’ve quit.”
“Why?”
“Don’t know, Tully.”
Moon Rising made jump, a sudden wink off station scan — knnnless. “Gods,” Hilfy exclaimed, as the knnn bent a turn.
“Knnn maneuver,” Tirun said. “The bastards are showing out. They can jump boost and turn like that. It’d kill a hani. Any oxygen breather. Can’t outmaneuver them. Gods forbid, if we should have to shoot at one — comp plotting can’t hit one: not programmed for their moves.”
“They don’t shoot at us. They aren’t armed.”
“In the old days,” Haral said, “they never caught the knnn shooting either. But ships turned up gutted. Before my time. But I heard they’d swarm a ship, jump it elsewhere — haul its mass off where they’d open it at their leisure—”
“Haul it between them?” Hilfy’s face mirrored disbelief.
“Among them. A dozen. All synched. So I heard. Hani ships’d tear each other to junk; but knnn can synch like that.”
“Huh,” Pyanfar said. It was an old bunk yarn, like ghost ships. Like aliens outside the Compact. She stared at Tully and thought about that. Ate her dried chips and washed it down with gfi. On com, station sent instructions to its patrol to stay out of the way of the knnn. A tc’a went on, presumably talking to the knnn.
And a message light blinked on their own board, something directed at them.
Revise estimate, the letters crept across the screen when Tirun keyed it. 75 hours repair additional. Regret. Mahe more worker this job. Two team. Repeat …
“Gods help us.” Pyanfar snatched the mike and punched in station op. “What kind of trouble this? What fifteen hours? Fifteen more hours?”
Station routed the complaint, one to the next, to the almost incomprehensible mahe skimmer supervisor. “All skimmer station work,” was the answer, three times repeated, in rising volume, as if loudness improved communication. “Thanks,” Pyanfar muttered. “Out.” She ran a hand through her mane, put the mike down, looked around at staring eyes and managed a better face.
“Well,” Haral said in a quiet voice, “at least they found it before they sent us out with it.”
“I’ll go out the aft lock,” Geran said, “and check them out on it.”
“No,” Pyanfar said. “I don’t doubt you’ll find damage. Longshot it from the observation dome. And by the gods, if there’s something new I want to know about it.” She composed herself a moment. “No, gods rot them, the mahe’d gouge us on fines and charges, but if I’ve got the measure of that foreman she’s not the type. Still… Do the check anyhow.”
“Right.” Geran snatched up the tray and headed out, down the corridor for the bubble access, a cold trip to the frame. Pyanfar thought of going herself, delayed to finish her breakfast and watched the knnn, who had stopped again, hovering off in utter violation of lanes and regulations. Station operations reported a ship coming in, a mahendo’sat freighter arriving in the zenith range: they had their own problems. So did the mahen freighter, coming in to what should be a safe haven and finding traffic snugged down and knnn gone berserk.
“I’m going to main,” she said finally. “Go off down here. Rest. Haral, I’ll take it, up there. I’ll key you.”
“Captain—” Haral started to object, swallowed it, having a sense about such things. �
��Right.”
Pyanfar walked out, hitched up the trousers which had gotten too loose in recent days, headed for the lift. Go in person to station offices and take the place apart? It tempted. At the moment she wanted something breakable within reach. But it would hardly mend matters. Fifteen hours. It was hardly surprising; repairs for all of time and to all ends of the Compact ran behind schedule and over estimate. And then it was sixteen and seventeen and another twenty—
She took the lift up, ensconced herself in her cushion on the bridge and sent rapid inquiry through all appropriate channels. Defect vane yoke, the answer came back from the station office, and hard upon that, from Geran: “Got closeup; they’ve swarmed in on the vane collar, but I can’t tell much.” The image came through, two skimmers and three workers in eva-I pods grappled onto the afflicted vane where it attached to the strut, cables and vane and strut strung with red hazard lights to prevent accidents in shadow. It was a plausible repair, gods — nothing cheap; the damage that had blown the panels loose could have stressed it… one of those systems for which there was no bypass, through which a third of the power of the jump drive passed. “Yoke,” Pyanfar sent to Geran, who was likely shivering her teeth loose in the bubble. “Come on inship; there’s no more we can do.”
It was a fifteen hour job. A gnawing suspicion worked at her gut. The defect should have shown up on the board: there were reasons why it might not — that it had blown as they camel in… something had redlighted, so many things had redlighted at one instant and gone back to normal status. possibly, possibly it was real. Possibly too it was one of those demon touches, the mahendo’sat called them, that lost ships, something loose that contacted in stresses and killed. It was five to five they owed the mahendo’sat crew profound thanks; or they were being stalled, conned, set up. Check it now and ill was bound to redlight: the casing was off. She sat staring at the vid screen with her blood pressure up and a smoldering] rage with nowhere to send it.
“Haral,” she said into com.
“Captain?”
“That problem you fixed as we were coming in. Was the number one yoke involved? Could you tell?”
A long moment of silence. “Captain, we were losing the input; I put in a new board and we got it cleared. But that fade had stressed everything; the whole board was fouled. I couldn’t say beyond doubt. It was everywhere. I thought it was the panels. I’m sorry, captain.”
There was misery in Haral’s voice. Haral was not accustomed to be wrong. Ever. “It’s one of those things,” Pyanfar said, “that would redlight if the panels were overloaded; I’m not so sure you were wrong, Haral. I’m not at all sure you were wrong.”
“I’ll go out there,” Haral said.
“And do what? They’ve got it in a mess it takes skimmers to put back. Mahen skimmers. No. We sit it out.”
“Supplies arriving,” Chur informed her eventually via com from belowdecks. That was frozen fish off Kirdu IIs onworld ponds; and some stsho goods for Tully and some more translator tapes. She checked the time; after their originally scheduled departure. The courier service had been informed of the delay as quickly as they had been, which insolence sent her blood pressure up another several points. “Captain?” Chur asked. “Noted,” Pyanfar said coldly, and Chur broke the contact.
Another hour. The vid showed continual activity about the vane. Pyanfar diverted herself into board maintenance, burrowed into under-console spaces, checked and rechecked, surfaced now and again to dart a jaundiced look at the vid or to listen to some communication coming in. The station was getting back to normal; only the knnn… stayed out, fell into systemic drift, wailing still to each other.
The lift down the corridor hummed and opened doors: Pyanfar heard that and worked her way out of a finished job, stood up and wiped her hands and straightened her mane — soft quick footfalls in the corridor. “Aunt?”
She sat down on the armrest of her own cushion, scowled at her niece. Hilfy stood in the archway with a paper in her hand, came and offered it. “Just came. Couriered. Security seal.”
Pyanfar snatched it, hooked a claw in it, ripped it open, nose wrinkling. Stasteburana’s signature. Greetings, respects, and the assurance all possible was being done. “The stationmaster’s compliments,” Pyanfar translated sourly. “We get escort to our jump point when we go; departure’s firm for that fifteenth hour. Rot them, they knew about this, or they’d have been here asking for that tape. They want it, to be sure — before the job’s sealed off. Is the courier waiting?”
“No.”
“Rot them all.”
“Tully’s tape, you mean.”
She looked up at Hilfy, whose adolescent-bearded held a hint of a frown. “Is that a comment?”
“No, aunt.”
“I told the Outsider why.”
“Tully, aunt.”
Pyanfar sucked in a breath. “Tully, if you please. I told him why. Did I get through?”
“He — talked to Chur about it.”
“What did he say?”
“That he understood.”
“And the rest of you?”
Hilfy tucked her hands behind under her brow. “He senses much trouble’s going on. Last offshift, he tried to talk to all of us, gods, how he tried. Finally—” Her ears went down, a second glance at the deck. “Finally he put his arms around Chur and then he went j from one to the next of us all and did the same, not — male-female, not like that. Just like he had something to say and he didn’t have any other way to say it.”
Pyanfar said nothing, jaw set.
“He’s started another tape,” Hilfy said. “The new manual.”
“Is he?”
“We gave it to him; he sat down with it in op and he’s feeding the words in as fast as he can go.”
Pyanfar frowned, taken aback.
“He liked the stsho shirts you came up with too. Warm, says, never mind the fancywork.”
“Huh.” Pyanfar thrust herself to her feet, poked an extended claw at Hilfy. “Nice fellow, this Tully, so understanding and grateful and all. I’ve been back and forth this route a few voyages, imp, and I’ve seen my share of con artists. In thefirst place, since we bring it up, I don’t like the Outsider bedding down with the lot of you. I permitted it in a moment of soft-headedness, because I didn’t like his moping about and I didn’t want himself killing himself the way, mark you, imp, the way he admits to killing a companion of his — for friendship’s sake.”
“It’s not fair to say that. It was brave, what he did.”
“Granted. And maybe he’s got a few more brave notions. The crew’s used to alien ways and I figured they’d keep their judgment, but I don’t like you down there. Gods know you’ve earned the right to be down there — that’s where I’d rather you were, all things equal, but they aren’t; there’s that rotted Outsider in the company, and he makes me nervous, niece, the way things make me nervous that just may blow up without warning. I don’t like you near him.”
Hilfy’s ears were plastered flat to her skull. “Pardon, aunt. If you order me to go back to my quarters, I will.”
“No,” Pyanfar said. “I’ll do you one worse. I’ll rely on your sense. I’ll just tell you to think what gets blown to ruin if some triviality sets our guest off at the wrong moment. Chanur, niece. You understand that?”
The ears came up. Hilfy’s nose wrinkled all the same, the shot gone home. “I know I want to get back to Anuurn, aunt; but I know too that I want to be proud of one side of the family when I get there.”
Pyanfar raised her hand — got that far with it, and stopped the blow and turned it into a gesture of dismissal. “Out, imp. Out.”
Hilfy turned on her heel and went. Pyanfar slid into the cushion and crumpled the stationmaster’s message with the other hand, punched claws through it. Gods rot it, to have leaned on the youngster in that matter… and to no point: to no point; underway, they would be back to wider spaces, to — gods knew what they would be up against.
She reached and
keyed through the translator channel, heard Tully’s steady input, jabbed it out again.
After a moment she shook her head, smoothed out the paper and filed it in fax. Punched the translator key on again and listened to Tully, a quiet, familiar voice, putting word after word into memory.
Six hours; nine; twelve; thirteen. The day passed in meals-at-station, in checks and counterchecks; in enforced rest and secure-for-jump procedures and most of all in monitoring scan and com. Pyanfar reached the stage of pacing and fretting by the twelfth hour, fed and napped beyond endurance — wore off claw-tips on the flooring and disguised the anxiety when any of the crew came near on errands.
But Hilfy managed not to come. Stayed below, in what frame of mind or what understanding Pyanfar could not find a way to ask.
“Courier’s here.” Chur’s voice cracked out of the silence on the bridge, com from lowerdeck. “Asking the tape, captain.’
“Ask the courier,” Pyanfar said, “the finish time on the repair.”
A delay.
“The courier says within the hour, captain.”
“Understood.” Pyanfar caught her breath, looked left when she had laid the tape she had prepared, reached and pocketed the cassette and headed out for the lift, in such a fever that it was not till she had started the lift downward that she had thought again what it was she went down to trade: away from this place was all the thought; and the tape was a means to get free; and the shedding of the whole ugly necessity something she was only too glad to have done, to get The Pride free o: mahendo’sat and loose and on her way.
But Hilfy was down there. That recollection hit her. The lift stopped, the door opened, and she hesitated half a heartbeat in walking out, sucked up a breath she wanted all too much to spend on the mahe for the delay, and strode out quite bereft of the breath and the anger she wanted to loose.
Tully. Ye gods, Tully was in op too, off the corridor where any visitor to the ship not confined to the airlock would be brought as a matter of course.
She rounded the corner and found a gathering indeed — a dignified-looking mahe in a jeweled collar and kilt; a mahe attendant; Haral, Tirun, and Hilfy. She walked into the group suddenly conscious of her own informal attire, scowled and drew herself up to all her stature — none too tall in mahendo’sat reckoning.
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