“Out,” she said. She handed the mike back, a strain of her arm against acceleration, let the arm fall back and shivered as it sank in how long that conversation had been, how clear it was who was speaking from this shell of a ship. They were on directional to the satellite: perhaps no one had picked it up.
“Got it set up,” Narafy said.
“I’m going back to my crew,” Pyanfar said. She edged her way out of the pit, one foot against the bulkhead. “Safety line,” the captain advised her; she saw it, and tucked down, gained the braking clip on the line and wrapped her hand into it. Launched herself down the long pit of the central corridor, past moisture-dewed metal and aged plastic lighting panels, her own weight and a half on her arm. She reached the barriered recess of cushions where the others had snugged in and Haral snagged her, hauled her with difficulty over the padded safety arm which closed off the compartment, and in several hands, one pair alien, she let herself collapse into the cushions with the rest of them. “Got contact with Kohan,” she breathed, sorting her limbs out from among the rest of them. “He’s going to stall.”
Hilfy’s face. She saw that tight-lipped relief and felt a little dismay for the girl who had come onto The Pride a voyage ago j and the woman who stared back at her, self-controlled and reckoning the odds.
“Got contact with the mahe too,” Pyanfar said. “They’re with us.” She cast a look past Chur and Haral to the Llun, Ginas, who nodded, a flat-eared and anxious stare in return “You don’t,” Pyanfar said, “have to make the return trip There’s no reason for you to, ker Llun. We just get you down safe the one time, that’s all.”
“Appreciated,” the Llun said tautly.
“Captain.” Haral thrust a package of chips into her hands, and a bottle of drink. Pyanfar braced the bottle in her lap and hooked a claw into the package, hands trembling with the prolonged strain, used the claw to punch double holes on the., plastic bottlecap and spout. The food helped, however difficult to swallow in the acceleration stress. She offered to the others.
“We’ve had ours,” Chur said. Bodies squirmed down the I line, everyone settling. Tully tried to talk, hand signs and mangled words, and Hilfy and Chur communicated with him as best they could, speaking slowly, something to do with the ship and atmosphere. He was cold; they held onto him and settled finally. Pyanfar rolled a strained glance at Haral and then closed her eyes, numbed by misery.
There was no more that she could do for either situation, the one on the ground or the one on station. Kohan’s nerves would be on the ragged edge by now. This go-and-stop-again psyching for challenge would wear at him by the hour. Like nerving oneself for a jump and walking back from it. The second effort was a harder one. A from-the-heart effort. Gods knew how long the situation had been sawing at Kohan’s nerves. Months. Since the night Hilfy left. Since before that — when he saw Khym Mahn likely to fall to challenge. There was a point past which he would heave up any food he tried to eat, awake all night, wearing his strength down with pacing, with the constant adrenalin high which would wear him to skin and bone within days. Huran and some of the other mates had stayed. There were his youngest couple of sons, who had run for the borders if they had any sense, not to linger within his reach. There were a score of daughters, who might muster worth enough to see he ate and slept as much as possible approaching this time. Daughters, mates, and with the captains % in, several more half-sisters, who were most reliable of the lot. But there were grown Chanur males who might come straying back from exile to key up the situation further — returned from Hermitage, from wandering, from gods knew what occupations which filled the lives of males in the sanctuaries. Always, at challenge, there were those, hopeless, keyed up, and dangerous, hanging about the fringes.
As for young Kara Mahn, he was probably good. He had taken Khym, who had survived thus far more by wit than by strength. Kara had promised both size and intelligence, the last time she had seen him. Chanur blood, after all, Chanur temperament. She cursed her own stupidity, in seeking after a mate like Khym, a quiet and peaceful domicile, a mountain hideaway and Khym, a resting place, a garden like a dream. Khym had listened to her stories, soothed her nerves, made her laugh with his wit; an ideal mate, without threat to Chanur’s interests. But gods, she had never thought what she left behind in that place, her own Chanur-blooded offspring, larger than Khym’s daughters and sons of local wives; larger; and stronger; and — if such things could be inherited — quarrelsome and demanding.
Nothing like family loyalty. Her son yearned after his Chanur heritage so much he wanted to take it for his own.
Betterment of the species, hani philosophers had called it. Churrau hanim. The death of males was nothing, nothing but change happening: the han adjusted, and the young got sired by the survivors. One man was as good as another; and served his purpose well enough.
But by the gods it was not true; there were the young and the reckless who might, on a better opponent’s off day, win; there were challenges like the one shaping up against Chanur, which involved more than one against one.
And sometimes — gods — one loved them.
She slept somewhat, in the steady acceleration, in sensations so uncomfortable numbness was the best refuge; and in the confusion of jump and time, her body was persuaded it was offshift or perhaps the shift past that.
A new sensation brought her out of it, weightlessness and someone hauling her out of a drift as a light flashed. “About to make descent,” Haral said, and Pyanfar reached for a secure hold in preparation.
It was a rough descent: she expected nothing else. She had no idea of the shape of the lander, but it was not one of the winged, gliding shuttles. The lander hammered its way down after the manner of its kind, vibrating stress into the marrow of living bones and vibrating skin and tissues and eyes in their sockets, so that there was nothing to do but ride it down and wish desperately that there was a sight of something, something to do with the hands, some sequence which wanted thinking about and managing.
There was a time she simply shut her eyes and tried to calculate their probable position; she had, she decided, no love of riding as a passenger. Then the sound increased and the stresses changed — gods, the noise. She heard what she fervently hoped was the landing pods extending.
They were in straight descent now, a vibration of a rhythmic sort.
Touch, one pod and then the others, a jolt and a series of smaller jolts, and silence.
Pyanfar flicked her ears with the sudden feeling that she was deaf, looked about her at her shaken comrades. Down was different than before: the gimbaled passenger section had reoriented itself and the central corridor was flat and walkable. “Out,” Pyanfar said. “Let’s see where they set us down.”
Hilfy unlocked the padded safety barrier, and they went. Hydraulics operated noisily and when they had come as far as the control pit, daylight was flooding in onto the metal decking from the open lock.
The others descended. Pyanfar delayed for an instant’s courtesy, a thanks for the Rau crew who were climbing out of their pit, their ship secured. “If you come,” Pyanfar said, “well; you’re welcome in Chanur land. Or if you stay here — we’ll be bringing more passengers as quickly as we can.”
“We’ll wait,” Nerafy Rau said. “We put you close, Chanur. We’ll have the ship ready for lift; we’ll be waiting.”
“Good,” she said. That was her preference. She ducked under the conduits and swung down onto the extended ladder, scrambled down to the rocky flat where they had landed, in the generally wedge-shaped shadow of the lander. The air smelled of scorch and hot metal; the ship pinged and snapped and smoke curled up from the brush nearby.
Midday, groundtime. The shadows showed it. Pyanfar joined the others and looked where Chur pointed, to the buildings which showed on a grassy horizon: Chanur Holding; and Faha was farther still. And the mountains which hove up blue distances on their right — there lay Mahn Holding. Close indeed.
“Come on,” Pyanfar said. She had mad
e herself dizzy with that outward gaze, and shortened her focus to the rocky stretch before her. Horizons went the wrong.way; and the colors, gods, the colors… The world had a garish brightness, a plenitude of textures; and the scents of grass and dust; and the feel of the warm wind. One could get drunk on it; one had enough of it in a hurry, and the sight filled her with a moment’s irrational panic, a slipping from one reality to the other.
“Not so far,” Hilfy panted, latest from the world. “They’ll have heard that landing. He’ll know.”
“He’s got to,” Haral agreed.
So will others, Pyanfar thought, deliberately slowing her pace. Rushing up exhausted — no; that was not the wise thing to do. Tully checked his long strides as they did; the Llun who had trailed behind them caught up. Manes were windblown, Tully’s most of all. The sun beat down with a gentle heat: autumn, Pyanfar realized, looking about her at the heavy-headed grasses, the colors of the land. Insects started up in panic, settled again.
“They’ll surely send a car,” Chur said. “If they’ve spotted us.”
“Huh,” Pyanfar said; it was her own hope. But none had showed thus far, no plume of dust, nothing of the sort. “They may,” she said, “have their hands full. No good any of them leaving, not if things are heating up.”
No one answered that. It called for nothing.
She kept walking, out to the fore of the others. Familiar ground, this. She had known it as a child. They reached a brook and waded it ankle deep, came up the other side, and by now Tully was limping — “He’s cut his foot,” Chur said, supporting him while he lifted it to examine it. “You come,”
Pyanfar said unforgivingly, and he nodded, caught his breath and kept going.
Not so far now. They joined the road that led to the gates, easier going for Tully, for all of them. Pyanfar wiped her mane from her eyes and surveyed the way ahead, where the gold stone outer walls of Chanur Holding stretched across the horizon, no defense, but a barrier to garden pests and the like — the open plains lapped up against it in grassy waves. Beyond it — more buildings of the same gold stone. There would be cars… the airport was behind them, down the road; they would have come in from there, all the interested parties and the hangers-on, save only the adventurers from the hills, from Hermitage and sanctuaries, who would come overland and skulk about the fringes; vehicles would have driven in along this road, gone through the gates, parked on the field behind the house… that was where they always put visitors.
When their uncle had fallen to Kohan—
The years rolled back and forward again, a pulse like jump, leaving her as unsettled. Homeward… with all the mindset which took things so easily, so gods-rotted eagerly.
Nature. Nature that made males useless, too high-strung to go offworld, to hold any position of responsibility beyond the estates. Nature that robbed them of sense and stability.
Or an upbringing that did.
The grillwork gates were posted wide, flung open on a hedge of russet-leaved ernafya, musky-fragrant even in autumn, that stretched toward the inner gates and the house, an unbroken and head-high corridor. She passed the gate, looked back as the others overtook her, and in turning—
“Pyanfar.” Someone came from among the hedge, a rustling of the leaves; a male voice, deep, and she spun about, hand to her pocket, thinking of someone out of sanctuary. She stopped in mid-reach, frozen by recognition a heartbeat late — a voice she knew, a bent figure which had risen, bedraggled and disfigured.
“Khym,” she murmured. The others had stopped, a haze beyond her focus. The sight hurt: impeccable and gracious, that had been Khym; but his right ear was ripped to ribbons and his mane and beard were matted with a wound which ran from his brow to chin; his arms were laced with older wounds, his whole body a map of injuries and hurts, old and new. He sank down, squatting on the dust half within the hedge, his knees thrusting out through the rags of his breeches. He bowed his filthy head and looked up again, squinting with the swelling of his right eye.
“Tahy,” he said faintly. “She’s inside. They’ve burnt the doors down… I waited — waited for you.”
She stared down at him, dismayed, her ears hot with the witness of her crew and of the Llun — on this wreckage which had been her mate. Who had lost that name too, when he lost Mahn to their son.
“They’ve set fires in the hall,” Khym stammered, even* his voice a shadow of itself. “Chanur’s backed inside. They’re calling on na Kohan — but he won’t come out. Faha’s left him, all but — all but ker Huran; Araun’s there, still. They’ve used guns, Pyanfar, to burn the door.”
“Kohan will come,” Pyanfar said, “now. And I’ll settle Tahy.” She shifted her weight to move, hesitated. “How did you get to Chanur? Kohan knows?”
The whole eye looked up at her; the other ran water, squinted almost shut. “Walked. Long time ago. Forget how long. Na Kohan let me… stay. Knew I was here, but let me stay. Go on, Pyanfar. Go on. There’s no time.”
She started away, down that road which led to the house, not without looking back; and Hilfy walked beside her, and Chur and the Llun, but Tully — Tully had lingered, stared down at Khym, and Khym reached out a hand to stay him, only looking…
Khym, who had delighted in the tales she brought him, of strange ports and Outsiders, and he had never seen a ship, never seen an Outsider, until now—
“Tully!” she called, and Haral caught him by the arm and brought him quickly. And then: “Khym—” she called. For no reason. For shame. Kohan had been as soft… when Khym had strayed here in his exile, hunting some better death than strangers.
He looked up at her, a slow gathering of hope. She nodded toward the house, and he picked himself up and came after them: that much she waited to know. She turned on the instant and set a good pace down the dusty road, eyeing the hedges which followed its bending. Ambush, she thought; but that was an Outsider way, something for kif and mahe, not hani on Gathering.
Still…
“Scatter,” she said, with a wave of her arm to her crew. “The garden wall: get there and we’ll settle this daughter of mine. Hilfy: with Haral; Tully — Chur, you take him. Ker Llun, you and I are going through the gate.”
Ginas Llun nodded, her ears flat with distress, and while the others scattered in opposite directions through the hedge, Pyanfar thrust her hands into her belt and strode along at a good pace around the bending of the road and toward the inner gates. A step scuffed behind her, and that was Khym: she turned to look, to encourage him with a nod of her head, herself in gaudy red silk; her companion in official black; and Khym — grimy rags that might once have been blue. He came near her, beside her, limping somewhat; and gods, the waft of infection in his wounds — but he kept their pace.
They could hear it now, the murmur of voices, the occasional shout of a voice louder than the others. Pyanfar’s ears flattened and pricked up again; a surge of adrenalin hit fatigued muscles and threatened them with shivers. “It’s not challenge,” she muttered, “it’s riot.”
“Tahar’s here,” Khym said between breaths. “Na Kahi and his sisters. That’s second trouble. It’s set up, Pyanfar.”
“I can bet it is. Where’s our son’s brains?”
“Below his belt,” Khym said. And a few steps later, with the sounds of disorder clearer in the air: “Pyanfar. Get me past Tahy and her crowd and I can make a difference in this… take the edge off him. That much, maybe.”
She wrinkled her nose, gave him a sidelong glance. It was not strict honor, what he proposed. Neither was what Tahar intended. Their son — to end him by such a maneuver—
“If I can’t stop it,” she said, ” — take him.”
Khym chuckled, a throaty rattle. “You always were an optimist.”
They rounded the last curve, the gate ahead, wide open toward the gardens, the aged trees, the vine-covered goldstone of the Holding itself. A crowd surged about the front of the house, trampling the plantings and the vines. They shouted, taunts and derision
toward Chanur; they rattled the bars of the windows.
“Rot them,” Pyanfar breathed, and headed for the gate. A handful of Mahn spotted her and set up an outcry, and that was all she wanted: she yelled and bowled into them with/ Khym at her side, and the Mahn retreated for reinforcements in the garden. “Hai!” she yelled, and of a sudden there were Hilfy and Haral atop the wall, and a peppering of shots into the dirt in front of the Mahn, who scrambled for cover.
“Get the door,” Pyanfar yelled, waving at them, and they jumped and started running: more of the Mahn and some of their hangers-on were on the colonnaded porch, and of a sudden Chur and Tully were on the low garden wall which flanked that, Chur yelling as if encouraging a whole band of supporters. The Mahn darted this way and that, herdwise, and scattered from the door in the face of the three-way charge. Pyanfar raced up the steps and converged with Haral and Chur, gun in hand, burst through the doorway half a step ahead of them, into dimmer light and a chaos of bodies and the reek of smoke. It was a huge room, lit from barred windows, the wreckage of double doors at the end: hani there turned and faced their rush in a sudden paralysis, a hundred intruders who stared at leveled Chanur guns.
Some moved; young women put themselves into the fore of things. Others shifted about the fringes, carefully. Voices echoed deep within the halls. Pyanfar kept the pistol braced in her two hands, her eyes wide-focused, taking in all the movements.
That young woman — her own image, red-gold mane and stature more than her Mahn sisters: Tahy. Her focus narrowed. The young man — gods, tall and straight and broad-shouldered… years since she had seen them. Longer years for her planetbound daughter and son, growing-up years; and they had allies… a score of Mahn youths, male and female; and about the walls of the room — Kahi Tahar, na Kahi, the old man, Chanur’s southern rival; and others — senior women of holds she suspected as Enaury and others of Tahar’s hangers-on, here for the scavenging.
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