She bought two dozen of the sweets. And decided, well, there were the fish done up in salt crystals, a crate of those, deliver immediately. And the smoked ones. Practical, and a welcome change in the menu aboard. The stsho merchant offered samples, and, well, a box of those. And there was the herb and spice section, right adjacent, where a hani could inhale her way along, collect a bottle or two — she did no small bit of the cooking, and she felt inspired, here.
Then she thought, with her arm considerably weighted with parcels, well, the poor kid had come aboard with nothing in hand. He could use a few toiletries — such things as a young man might like. Brushes, yes.
A couple of combs. A mild cologne, something clean and pleasant.
A pair of scissors. A file — it was absolute hell to be without that, and have a claw that snagged.
Tooth-brash. Of course. Creme for hands and feet — Meetpoint air was dry by hani standards, and he had been in it for days. A good conditioner for all over, while she was at it, not spicy, something like sweet grass. Any young man would like that.
A kit-case to hold it all. Second-hand, with real silver ornament. Never mind the inscription was in mahen script, and probably some love sentiment, it was a nice piece and if nobody but mahendo'sat could read it, who cared?
"Hani officer. A word?"
She looked around, at a brown mahen belly; and up, quite a distance up, at a sober mahen face.
"Legacy?" the mahe said, laying a hand on his chest. "Friend to Chanur, I, long time, follow the Personage."
Gods, another one.
"Look…" Tiar shifted the packages in her arms and suddenly realized she was far along the Rows, she had spent longer than she intended collecting her odd items, and a mahendo'sat with religious enlightenment or a crackpot scheme either one was not going to get her home any sooner.
"I know, I know, too many come you ship talk crazy. Not me." A hand larger than her head applied itself to approximately a mahen heart.
"Goodfriend, name Tahaisimandi Ana-kehnandian, ship name Ha'domaren, dock right down there—"
"I'm late. Cap'n's going to skin me as is. Send a message."
''No, no.'' Said mahen hand landed on her arm, and it was drop the packages or listen. As a third alternative, she laid back her ears and stared up at the owner of said hand, who protested, "Important you listen."
"Important I get back, mahe."
"Call me Haisi.''
"Haisi. Get the hand off or I'll give it to you on a plate."
"Very serious! Listen. What you name?" "Never mind my name! You got a message for the Personage, save it for her! My captain's got her own troubles!"
"You take stsho deal?"
She shouldn't have reacted. But she had, she did, and she stood staring at the mahendo'sat. "Where'd you hear that?"
"Got ears."
"Got ears. Great. You want a word with the captain? I'll get you a word with the captain, you just go right down to berth 23 and use the com, like any civilized individual." "What you name?" "Tiar Chanur."
"Ah! Chanur officer!"
"Chanur officer, gods-rotted right, Chanur officer! You want to stay friends with the Personage, you get down to 23 and say what you've got to say—" "I carry package for you."
"I'm doing fine! Get! Don't walk with me! We got enough gossip!"
"You lot worry, Chanur officer. All fine. Name Haisi. Respectable, long-time come and go this station."
"Get!" She aimed a kick. Haisi escaped it. But Haisi went.
"So where did you hear about this deal?" Hilfy asked, as the mahe sipped expensive tea and lounged in her shipboard office, foot propped.
''When did you hear it?"
"What deal you want know?" A large mahen hand balanced a tiny cup, and the mahe regarded it closely.
"Nice porc'lain. Tiyleyn province, a? You got good taste."
"What do you want?"
"You so ab-rupt. So ab-rupt. How you deal with stsho?"
"I don't think you know anything. I swear to you, if you've talked your way onto my ship for some gods-rotted sales pitch, you can take yourself right out—"
Hand on throat. "You insult me?"
"I'm too busy to insult you! I have a ship to turn around, I have cargo all over my dockside because I can't get enough gods-rotted transports! If you know something, spill it!"
The mahe leaped to his feet. "I leave! I don't sit be insult!"
Hemight be serious. She regretted that, just long enough for him to reach the door and look back.
"You stupid hani let me walk out."
"I stupid hani let you sell me some damn deal! All right, all right, sit down, have another cup of tea."
"You say nice."
Rubbing salt on it. She pursed her mouth in pleasantness, pricked up her ears and made a gracious gesture toward the abandoned chair.
"Do sit down, Ana-kehnandian.''
"Nice." The mahe, gods rot his hide, sauntered over to the chair and sat down again, leaned far back and crossed his foot over his knee. "Nice you ship, hani captain."
"What deal?"
"You so sudden. I like more tea."
"Sorry. My entire staff of servants jumped ship at Hoas. The pot's right beside you."
A mahen grin. Only humans and mahendo'sat did that. It was life-threatening on a hani ship. And Tahaisimandi Ana-kehnandian took his time.
"So," Ana-kehnandian said, with a sip and a sigh. "You want know how I know?"
"I want to know what you know."
"You got fat deal, stsho with stsho. No'shto-shti-stlen got kif work for him. Same Urtur stsho. Lot big thing with kif. You tell Personage she need take quick look."
"Easy to propose. Not so easy to do. Why should the Personage be interested?"
"What word hotai?"
"Bomb. Explosion."
"Explos'. Damn right. Explos' like hell. I tell you, make good deal with you, you let us look this cargo."
She had felt a skip in her pulse from the instant the word kif came into the conversation. And this mahe was probing for information, playing a little information as if he was in it up to his ears. Let him look at this cargo indeed.
"Where did you learn about it, Ana-kehnandian?"
"Call me Haisi. We friend."
"Haisi. Where did you learn about it?"
"Cousin on Urtur."
"So this isn't exactly unexpected."
"No. Long time expect."
"Tell me."
"You let me see cargo."
No spacer. Not any merchant captain, if he was a captain, which she suspected: Ha'domaren, Tiar said.
And that fit: top of the line ship, fire-power concealed by panels, capable of dumping cargo and moving fast, with all the engine capacity of a freight-hauler. She'd seen mahen agents operate when she was with The Pride, and she folded her hands now easily on her middle, assuming a studied relaxation.
"Which Personage are you working for? Not my aunt. She'd not be so coy about it. And if you aren't working for my aunt, why should I let you look at anything?''
"You assume lot."
She pursed her mouth into a smile. "Gods-rotted right I do. Who are you working for, and is it anyone I should trust?''
"Absolute." Give him credit, cornered, presented with the case, he shifted directions. Which meant he had some authority from someone.
"Name?"
"Paehisna-ma-to."
Didn't tell her a thing. And if the mahe had good research on aunt Py's clan, he might know she had a slight sore spot about kif in general. So tell her the kif were interested.
But if the mahendo'sat were interested, and kif got wind of it, they would be sniffing around the situation.
It was their nature. Like breathing.
"So who is Paehisna-ma-to?"
"Wise woman."
"I'm glad. Tell her Hilfy Chanur keeps her contracts. Tell her if there's anything untoward about this contract, her representative should tell me before I sign the thing."
"You not sign yet?"<
br />
"Maybe I have, maybe I haven't."
"Don't do!"
"Maybe will, maybe won't. Right now I'm busy. No more time. Unless there's something else I should hear.''
"My ship Ha'domaren. You want talk, you send. Don't call on station com."
"I gathered that." She stood up and walked the mahe to the door and down the corridor toward the hatch, her crew being otherwise occupied — listening, and armed with a stranger on board, but occupied.
"You give my regards to your wise woman."
"Will," the mahe said, and bowed, and strolled off down the corridor to their airlock.
She stood there until she heard the lock cycle. "Is he gone?" she asked the empty air. "Down the ramp," Tiar said via com from the bridge. "Watching him all the way. Sorry about that, captain. I thought you 'd better have a face to face. " "No question," she said, and stared at nothing in particular, thinking how the most secret plans couldn't remain a secret once anybody talked to anybody at all.
Suspect anyone. The aide, the kifish guards, most especially them. Stsho refused, since the war, to take their ships out of stsho space, or. to trade anywhere with the younger species, except only at Meetpoint.
But there was a stsho ambassadorial presence on Urtur. There was a stsho presence even at Mkks nowadays. There would be one at Anuurn, if the han would permit it, but the han let no one in, secretive and protective of the homeworld, with recent reason.
Certainly whatever was going on between No'shto-shti-stlen and the stsho supposed to receive this whatever-it-was at Urtur had attracted someone's attention, or leaked at one end of the deal or the other, Point: Haisi was here. He had come here from elsewhere at sometime — and Urtur was as good as anywhere. While chance and taking advantage of a local leak of information might have brought him to their ship, it was just as possible he was telling part of the truth — and he had known it and come here knowing it. Which meant others might
They were offloading canisters as fast as the Legacy could cycle them out; and by tomorrow they had to be taking others aboard. They had to know as early as next morning whether they were going to pass over the Hoas cans and let another ship take the Hoas load. And that meant making a decision… that meant signing or not signing.
That meant solvency after this trip… or still being involved in the deal even if they turned it down, dammit, because being Pyanfar's niece, if she took the stsho object aboard, it said one thing; and if she refused, and it was some crazy stsho religious thing that brought down a friendly governor at Meetpoint — that was disaster.
For once she wished she could ask Pyanfar. But if leaks were happening, they would proliferate. If the mane agent knew, his crew knew something; if his crew knew something, it could get to the docks; if the kifish guard knew, the kif they might be in collusion with knew; and if things had gone out over station com, then the com operators in station control might know, and so might their associates…
In which case if she didn't sign it and didn't take the deal, and left here for Hoas, there were die-hards who would never believe they hadn't the object aboard, and that it wasn't all a ruse. So the minute one Haisi Ana-whatever knew anything about it — they were tagged with the stsho deal and the stsho object whether or not they actually had it.
At least if they signed the deal and took it, they got paid.
"Who we got to take the Hoas stuff?" she asked on com, when she got back to her office.
"We taking the deal, captain?" Chihin asked. "Looks as if. Who do we have?" "Mahen trader. Notaiji.
Just in, reputable ship. Regular runs to Hoas. Plenty of time to make the schedule and looking for a load.
They don't usually bid, just take what's going and ship when they're full-but this is up to their cap. Good deal for them."
She considered that an unhappy moment and two. Of course a mahen ship was all there was. Where was another hani ship, when a little obfuscation might have served them?
"There are kif outbound. And a t'ca may be. But I didn’t 't consider them as options.''
"No," she said. Almost she had rather the t'ca. But getting the address and the disposition of cargo straight with a matrix brain was an exercise in frustration.
And it might send the cans to OVo'o'ai, for all any of them could tell. It didn't bother a t'ca shipper so, as far as anyone could figure out their economics But it played hell with one's reputation with oxy-breathers.
Chapter Three
The kid hadn't had breakfast. He attacked the meat and eggs like a starveling, between trying to appreciate the kit, and the personal items.
"Thought you could use them," Tiar said, standing by the door, and due to be on other duties. But Hallan Meras was alternately shoving food in his mouth and opening packages. She had brought in nothing contraband, so far as she could figure, nothing he shouldn't be let loose with. The captain hadn't said anything about any restrictions, or given any impression she feared the kid would sabotage them. The captain hadn't thought overmuch about the kid, by what Tiar could tell, not delegated anybody to get him breakfast, even if the captain had remembered about the torn trousers and sent her off to the market to do something about his wardrobe. Small wonder — but still… where the kid sat, it hadn't been a good morning.
"Everybody thought you were still asleep," she said, by way of apology.
"I got up to work," he said, and swallowed a hasty mouthful, looking at the silver-trimmed box. "It's beautiful. What kind of writing is it?"
"Mahend. Formal. Probably lost in some dice game. Maybe in a mahen bar. Then down to the Rows.
Somebody needed cash. Anything you want, you can find it in that market, that's what they claim anyway. Anything you ever lose — ends up here eventually."
"I got to see it," the kid said.
"Got to see it, huh?"
Hallan's ears dropped by half. "That's where I got in trouble."
"Swung on somebody, what I hear."
"I didn't intend to!"
"Yeah. The police probably hear that one a lot here."
"I didn't! Ker Tiar… I wasn't drunk. They said I was drunk, but I wasn't. Somebody just started swinging, I don't even know who."
She found herself disposed to believe the boy — at least that he believed what he was saying; many the hani novice that had lost count of the cups. She could recall such a time. Or two.
"I want to work'' the boy said. "I do. I have my license. I used to fix the farm equipment…"
"That's not exactly qualification."
"… before I shipped on the Sun. I mean I learned mechanics. I can run the loaders, I can do anything with cargo…"
"Not that we can't use a hand, but part of the deal with the stsho was getting you off and out of here. I don't think the captain wants you on the docks attracting attention."
The kid's countenance fell, his shoulders slumped. More than disappointment. It was a need of something, there was no time, and Tiar told herself she was a fool for asking.
"Upset you. Didn't mean to. How?"
The kid shook his head. Interest in breakfast and the packages seemed gone. He didn't seem articulate at the moment, so rather than embarrass him she answered her question with a question.
"You want out there for some reason? Kid, it's romantic, but it's hardly worth your neck. There'll be other places."
He gave her a hurt look. So it touched on the nerve but didn't quite press it. "Somebody you want to meet out there?" Shake of his head, no.
"Something you want to find out there?"
Another shake of his head. Further and further from the sore point.
"You want to talk to me, kid?"
Third shake of his head, and a stare at the wall.
She never was able to walk away from a problem. She stood there, set hands on hips and looked at him a long, long time, figuring he'd collect himself.
"I want to work," he said finally, without looking at her. "I'll do anything…''
''I hate to bring this up," she said, wit
h the feeling she still hadn't heard what she was after, and might not, now. They had circled somewhere away from the substance. "But you know we're sort of ancestral enemies."
"Not with Meras!"
"But with Sahern."
"I know," the kid said faintly.
"Hey, it's not as if it's active, A couple hundred years since. We've got no present grudge. We'll get you back to your ship. We can be real civil to them, just let you off and wish them well. If we can't do that, we'll drop you at some station where they're due."
"How could I live? And I don't want to go back to them!"
It was a question, how they were going to install a hani male on anybody's quiet space station. Never mind he was a quiet, mannerly kid, the reputation of hani males for violence was well-established and the fear was there. And if anything did happen…
"Well, we'll think of something. Don't worry about it."
He did worry. He looked at her as if he faced an execution. Then looked down and shoved his breakfast around the plate.
They'd locked the door on him. They hadn't been certain of his disposition to stay put, or to take orders.
They hadn't been certain his sojourn in the station brig hadn't been justified and they still didn't know that.
But she had some judgment of the situation. And the captain might have her hide, but…
"What's your skill entail, son? Your license says tech. You do anything else?"
"Cargo. Maintenance. Galley. — I want to stay with Chanur.''
Stay with Chanur. An unrelated male. Nobody's husband. — Same mess he'd been in on the Sahern ship, to tell the embarrassing truth, and she wasn't going to ask. Young kid like that, too anxious and too gullible, who knew what his skills had entailed? "I can prove I know what I'm doing," he said. "I haven't said you didn't know what you were doing. I'm sure you do." "Then let me work!"
Plain as plain, his hope to impress hell out of them, to prove himself in some dazzling display and have the whole crew beg him to stay. And who wouldn't rather a Chanur ship than Sahern? Perfectly reasonable choice. Perfectly engaging kid. She'd had two sons-had cursed bad luck, that way. They were probably dead. She hadn't stayed planetside long enough to make it worse than it was. Had had them, one and the other, but the disappointment was there from the time the tests had shown they were male. Lot of women wouldn't have carried them. She didn't know why she had, tell the truth, but she was old-fashioned, and she had problems about that. Had regretted it for years. And here came this kid, about the age of her younger boy, in space, trying to overcome what Pyanfar Chanur and a lot of her own generation called stupid prejudice, and what a whole string of other generations from time out of mind called nature.
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