Chanur's Homecoming cs-4

by Caroline J. Cherryh

  Thank gods for a backup crew on this one.

  We're laying ourselves wide open, Tahar and Chanur both-to mutiny and murder. You'll understand us at close range or you'll kill us on the way home.

  That was what she implied in that offer. And all the captains knew it; while presumably Sikkukkut and even Skkukuk just thought she had all her compatriots sufficiently bluffed.

  Gods hoped they understood, because one hani ship would not be able to talk anything but ops with another of their ships so long as they had their kifish escort; and that meant all the way home.

  She watched the red and green marks grow on the screen as Jik built the patterns, and sipped her drink and ate her sandwich.

  And slowly the wider implications of what Jik was constructing dawned on her.

  Longtime moves. Very longtime moves.

  The kif had not lied: the mahendo'sat scheme had been aimed at the kif from the start, a series of operations stretching back to the days when Akkukkak had been the threat. And even before that. Mahendo'sat owned far more than the few hunter-ships they were supposed to have, which meant shipbuilding and secrecy-heavy secrecy, to have kept the whisper of that construction out of the rumor mill.

  Gods knew what the kif had been doing during that time. Or what the mahendo'sat knew and what the kif knew about their own intentions that they were not telling and that even Jik might not know the truth of.

  Gods knew too, what both kif and mahendo'sat knew about humanity; or how long ago they had known it; and how much truth anyone was telling in that department.

  And right now and to this hour, if Jik could get his hands on Tully, she feared, in some dark corner of The Pride, Jik would ask him some very hard questions; and perhaps Goldtooth had done that, when he had had Tully aboard Mahijiru, and, irony of ironies, gotten distrust. Likely Tully had done his don't-understand-you act. He was very good at it. And gods knew-perhaps Tully's instincts about when to use that silence were better than any of them believed.

  Tully had asked her once, with distress wrinkling up his smooth brow, whether Goldtooth was on their side or not. She had not suspected the full implications of it then, or the extent of the pressure Goldtooth might have been putting on him. Or why Goldtooth had jerked him alone away from the human crew that was traveling on the mahen ship Ijir, before it fell into Akkhtimakt's grasp.

  Being taken off that foredoomed ship was Tully's good fortune; indisputable. But she remembered his face when he had seen her aboard Mahijiru, remembered an expression she could read a little better now in retrospect, the terrible stress and the relief with which he had flung himself toward her and wrapped his arms around her, shivering and smelling of fear.

  Friend, he had said over and over, said it repeatedly, with a worried look, during that early part of the voyage; but he had kept what he had known behind his teeth. . . . while dissension among them, the normal stresses of the crew, any hint of violence-had sent Tully into a panic that was not at all reasonable in their old friend. He had become afraid of them, in the isolation of his translator-interpreted environment, missing virtually all the nuances and the subtleties of what was said around him. He had lived in doubt of them right down to the moment he betrayed his own kind with a warning not to trust humanity.

  Tully's was a treason unlike Jik's complicated diagrams. But not simple at all. She watched Tully sitting at scan-monitor, his face-gods, she had even gotten used to it- intent on that screen, seeming lost in his autistic world while the alien babble went on. He was listening; she would bet a great deal on it. He was a great deal like Jik on some levels. That was the anomaly. He did his work. He came with her time and again onto a kifish ship, which had to be terrible to him. But kif were not his greatest fear. She sensed that in a thousand little moves, little twitches of expression, the way his face and his whole body reacted when there was some momentary false alarm.

  It's something not here present. Akkhtimakt's only another kif. He hates Sikkukkut but Sikkukkut doesn't panic him. There's Goldtooth and the mahendo'sat for him to worry about. There's his own kind.

  We might end up in a fire-or-die case of mistaken identity: that's certainly to fear, if humanity comes breaking in here.

  Or is it something he knows they'll do? Or that he'll have to do?

  Or does he see a day-no matter who wins-that someone might take him into that dark corner and start asking questions he won't want to answer?

  Gods, why'd he do it? Why'd he help us, even when he's afraid of us, over his own kind? He knows loyalty. He knows friendship. He commits himself to us like kin. It doesn't make sense. What kind of people could create him, and still make him betray them?

  A people varied as we are. A people in internal conflict.

  A chill went through her. A bit of sandwich went down hard. She washed it down with gfi and focused on Jik's dark, red-rimmed eyes. He had asked her something. Got? she realized belatedly. She glanced at the diagrams, at the instructions inbuilt to the comp. She had followed him, followed maybe more than Jik thought. The data and the model were both in their library now and connected to Nav, the probability of mahen ships being anywhere in this zone.

  "Backside," she said. Meaning the hinder side of hani-mahen space. "Where's the stats on that, hah?"

  "Not got. Not mine."

  A fool would believe this mahendo'sat. But he had shown her too much, confirmed too much, admitted too much. And he knew she could put it together.

  The whole mahen-hani treaty was in rags with what he had handed over. And as much as she could ever believe him, it had harm enough in it to be most of the truth he had.

  "No way we can make that rendezvous with your ships at Urtur," she said. "And remember, we got two of Sikkukkut's ships running hours in front-days, with these merchant rigs dragging at us, if they don't keep the pace we tell them."

  "Cost us five day. We got five day?" A weary blink. "World can die in five hour. I got crew shoot message out."

  "You mean when we go through there? You got a beeper?'"

  "Silent till got mahen ID. 'Spensive. I try. Mahen ship come through there, they get, if we don't get kif notice."

  Truth, something said again. "Jik. Truth about those short-jumps. Can you do it? Can the kif do it?"

  "Got limit like maybe two day light, precise. You try farther you don't come down ever."

  "Two days. Then Goldtooth is short of that. Out there turning around."

  "Same." A flicker of dark eyes, a little withholding of truth. "We try fix other end, a?"

  "You going to run on me?"

  "No," he said, and looked her in the eyes when he said it. Reached and grasped her wrist where it lay on the counter. "You, me do lot work get inside this business. We got high priority stay there. You understand? Ana be outside. We be inside. He use us way we want to be use', number one good deal. Best. I tell you I damn smart." Ghost of a grin. His hand squeezed her hand. She tolerated it. Gods-be mahendo'sat never figured what pressure did to retractile claws. Same as Tully. "I tell you. You valu'ble. Damn valu'ble. You don't lake chance. Hear. All spacer hani be precious stuff."

  She retrieved her hand. "You better get back. While you can. Before I change my mind."

  "You got good nerve," he said. "Mahendo'sat got no better."

  "Same you, gods rot you." Mawkish sentiment overcame her. She laid her ears down. They burned. Crew was witness. But it occurred to her she might never have the chance. "That was quick thinking in there, on Harukk."

  "A." He tapped his head. "Number one stuff." He levered himself wearily to his feet and caught himself on the cabinet. "See you otherside, a?"

  "Get. Geran, walk him down."

  She watched him go, tall black mahe and smallish red-maned hani, off the bridge and down the corridor. A shiver came over her. She drank the last of the gfi and got up to toss the cup. Haral got it from her. They treated her as if she were glass.

  "Captain," Haral said, "you want to go lie down, catch a nap, I'll get Tauran settled. I've had m
y off-shift, you're-"

  "I'll take you up on that," she murmured, and wandered off, toward the corridor. There was a thump from below. That was the airlock cycling, too soon to be Jik. Tauran was arriving. They were about to take boarders. They had about time to get them settled in and then they started their outsystem run. It was discourtesy to Tauran, not to be there to meet them.

  But to dump her ship into system at Urtur, into kifish fire and Urtur's dust, herself helplessly groggy, she could not do that either.

  Neither could she trust a strange pilot at Urtur. It had to be her or Haral. Tirun at a pinch. No one else. Not with The Pride's new rig, either. O gods. I've got to brief Tauran on systems, she's not used to that much power. Haral's got course auto'ed in, gods know all we have to do is persuade Tauran's pilots to keep hands off the autos and ride with it, o gods, I hope they take orders.

  She turned and trekked the weary, staggering way back tothe bridge, over to com, leaned there, over Hilfy's shoulder. "Give me lowerdecks main." And when the light lit: "Tauran. Ker Sirany?"

  "I'm here," the answer came back.

  "Pyanfar Chanur here. Welcome aboard. I'm about to go off shift awhile. I'd do briefing myself but I'll be taking us through jump. I want you to sit topside during undocks; Meetpoint system is the best chance we have for you to check out our boards, on the run out. Appreciate it if you'd make a quick settle-in and come up to bridge, let my onshift crew show you the rig."

  "Understood."

  "We're running wobbly, ker Sirany. Out on my feet. Profoundest apologies."

  "We'll be up there directly, ker Pyanfar."

  "Thanks." She clicked them out. Shoved back from the board and wandered off with the sour, distressed feeling of proprieties slighted and gods know what she had just said or how it sounded or whether it did any good or not. And no one had explained to Tauran clan about Khym's crew status.

  No. They would have heard. Everyone at Meetpoint would have heard plenty about Khym and the riot and the kif. The Pride and Chanur had become notorious. They would have heard about Khym, about Tully, even before they saw him. Only Skkukuk had startled them.

  They were spacers, not groundlings. Not Immunes, black-breeched and arrogant with power like Ehrran and her ilk.

  She stopped by Chur's cabin, shot the door open a moment. Chur was awake, there in her bed with the silver machinery there by the wall and all the tubes going into her arm and out. "You doing all right?" she asked as Chur lifted her head. "We're going home, you hear that? Got crew from The Star of Tauran coming on board. You're going to hear strange voices on the bridge. Didn't want you to worry."

  "Aye," Chur said. "Been keeping up with things, captain." A difficult wrinkling of her nose. "You look like you could 'bout as well trade places with me."

  "Hey, we're all right, we got Jik out. Got his charts and some cooperation for a change. He's back on his ship. We got the whole lot of kif backing us. We're going back home, to make sure nothing of Akkhtimakt's gets that far. Minor matter to the kif, but it may be just our size, huh? We got this one turn at Urtur. Then easier. How are you doing?"

  "They threw me back in here. I was up walking, captain."

  Her ears pricked up. "Want you to think about that one double-jump, about getting to the other side of it. It's all easy after that. Home. You hear me?"

  "Promised my sister," Chur said. The voice grew strained with the effort of lifting her head. "Gods-be machine trying to put me out again. No sense of proportion. No sense."

  "Cousin." She shut the door and went on, next door to her own cabin, leaned on it and pushed the open button. It let her in. She left it on autoclose, crossed the floor to her bed and flung herself onto it facedown and fully clothed. She reached blind and fumbled after the safety net. It hummed across.

  Chur.

  Jik could still be setting us up.

  Tauran-got to make them understand.

  We got Skkukuk down there lunching on little animals, we got Tully stark scared and sitting next Armaments, if he could read the keys; we got Urtur-

  -o gods, Urtur.

  "Py. Py." A gentle shake at her shoulder. She gasped air and blanket fluff and came out of it with a swimming-motion, a wild flailing of her arm for the bed-edge. It would be an emergency. Everything was an emergency.

  She clawed her way to the edge and a hand helped her upright, two hands held her there by the shoulders. She flicked her ears with a chiming of rings she had not taken off; and blinked into her husband's face.

  "They need you," he said. "It's all done, we're inertial. I'm one of the ones going offshift. Haral said they need every experienced hand they have up front for this one. They got two Tauran-clan at the boards. I'm just going to have a nap myself. All right?"

  He was so calm. She stared at him stupidly. She had slept through undock? Slept through all the clank and thump and I he shift of gravity? Haral had handled the ship gentle as eggshells.

  Then Haral had evidently told her husband to give up his post and get off the bridge: more, to shut himself up alone in here and wait out the worst jump they had ever made; so her Khym just came back and explained it all calmly? He was terrified. He had to be. She was.

  Of a sudden she felt a great tenderness toward him; she reached up and touched his face, nosed him in the ear. "Huh. Good job. Real good job." Nothing more than that, no compliment for following orders; he deserved having that part taken for granted.

  Going home. If they lived to get there it was no good place for him. If they lived past Urtur.

  "Don't do that," he said in his lowest voice. "You don't want to be late."

  "Uhhn." She scrambled past him.

  She came onto the bridge still raking her mane into order, still with sleep fogging her brain.

  Everything done, the man said. Haral had let her sleep, that was what; Haral had gone and run everything her own way, the competency of which she trusted with her life, high and wide and inside out. But there was more than a handful of lives riding on it this time. And she had wanted her hand on it.

  There was Tauran crew in Chur's seat. Skkukuk was in place. Another young Tauran sat at the com, in Tully's place. Haral and Tirun, Geran and Hilfy; and strangers. Sirany Tauran rose from her seat, forward. Her gut knotted in spite of everything.

  "Tauran," she murmured, offering a dip of the ears by courtesy to the tawny-hided westerner. "Sorry, dreadfully sorry. I meant to be up here long before this."

  "Your First told me you'd run without sleep." Tauran lowered her own ears; they stayed half-down, an attitude of reservation, jaw jutting. She swept an arm about. "My cousin Fiar Aurhen at com. Sifeny Tauran at scan: call her Sif. I'll be heading down."

  "Haral explained-"

  "As well as she could." Tauran gave a hitch at her breeches. "I took you on credit, ker Pyanfar. I'm still doing that. I'd better get moving. We're coming up on our jump."

  "Right," she murmured. "Ker Sirany." At Sirany Tauran's departing back. The Tauran went off in some haste. The whole bridge crackled with necessity.

  "Entering count," Haral's voice said over the intercom. "That's five minutes."

  Pyanfar went to her chair and settled into it. The food and the water was in the appropriate clip. She powered the frame into position, adjusted the restraints, swung the arm-brace up and locked it.

  "Four," Haral said, flicking switches. They were by the hook on this one: too many strangers aboard. "You want it, captain?"

  "You got it, do it." She was checking displays. Tirun was switching at the moment, Haral having her hands full with the count and the last-minute power-ups. The Pride upped her rotations a bit, a little more G dragging them into the seats, for comfort's sake when they made drop at Urtur.

  "We got our escort," Haral said. "That's Chakkuf, Nekekkt, Sukk. None I know."

  "Me neither."

  Message sent," Hilfy said. "They're on final to jump, on schedule."

  "My captain's secure," said a strange voice from across the bridge.

&nb
sp; "Clear to go," Tirun said.

  "Mark," Geran said. "We got everyone on the mark back there."

  They were moving, a field of blips going with them, while another field, stationary, shifted color downward. They were leaving Sikkukkut and company behind. Gods help the station and the stsho.

  "Steady on," Haral said. "How're you doing, captain?"

  "You going to take it amiss if I ask what in a mahen hell we got set up?"

  A dip of Haral's ears. "Same as you planned, captain. I got a checklist, your four." Haral pushed a button and two screens flashed and changed displays. "Tauran asked questions, I answered as I could, no apparent problems. We're shift on and off with Tauran down in crew quarters; sent Tully down to ride it out in ops. Tauran was going to get upset about him. He said it was all right. And na Khym, by your leave. I figured we needed senior crew up here on this one-''

  Haral let her voice trail off. And men and aliens were an issue, was the unspoken part.

  "Did right," Pyanfar said. Gods rot them, Tully all by himself down there, contrary to her orders, because a priggish lot of hani balked at having him in crew quarters even with opposite shifts. Same sheets and blankets. Gods rot them all.

  Couldn't put him with Khym. Or in Skkukuk's stinking quarters. Sirany Tauran got Jik's, captain's privilege, private cabin.

  No room with Chur. Except in the same bed. Gods, and the protection might be worth it. Chur-.

  Gods, let her make it. This is the hard one, gods. Get her through it.

  Let me get her home. She's so small a matter in the balance. One hani. While You're doing all the rest, gods of my mothers-can't you just keep her with us?

  You want my cooperation, gods?

  No, no, not the way to go about it. The gods traded too sharp.

  She scanned the list, flicked a glance over at number three monitor on her board, where augmented scan showed nine ships moving with them. Five hani, Aja Jin, and three kifish ships. The list showed tests run, checkout made, Tauran's agreement to crew assignment and quarters, status on Chur, and the fact that ops-com was open all over the ship for anyone who wanted to access it.