It went out on the push of a button. It would probably take time for a response. The computer was set to listen for a message from gtst excellency.
Meanwhile the messages were pouring in. From customs. That had to be answered. From routings. Had to be answered. From the stationmaster. Had to be answered. From name after name of ships and individuals she had no idea who. Anything that contained the name Pyanfar Chanur automatically routed over to the auxiliary stack — otherwise their operations could drown in the deluge, and important operations could stall.
The Pyanfar stack had hit 105 messages and added four more while she checked it for bombs and known names.
Somebody had to read them. After customs. After the stationmaster. After dealing with the freight office and getting on the lists for goods. The futures market had already reacted to the arrival of a ship out of Meet-point, to the arrival — the sharper traders had surely figured — of a ship that had just come from Urtur round trip; and the knowledgeable types were basing their bids on what they thought she might know, what they thought she might carry, and whether or not they thought by the way the Legacy had entered system they were carrying mass. And she had the definitive answers, which mahen rules let her give before customs — figuring that if a captain didn't like the result of customs, it was only a matter of sufficient fines or sufficient bribes, or court, all of which was fodder for the gamblers on the market. Old mahendo'sat lounged in their station apartments and bet their retirement checks on the system. Hustlers bet on it in bars. Businessmen prayed for it and burned incense to whatever fad religion they thought guaranteed their luck.
And, having that answer, she keyed it through and watched on separate screens as the futures market reacted, as bids started coming in, as customs notified her that she had inspection officers on the way to expedite her cargo in what was clearly a move to stifle disruptive speculation on the reason a hani ship came straight in from Meetpoint.
Tiar's job, handling the inspectors, going through the forms. Meanwhile the bids were looking good.
Hard not to let the pulse quicken and the fever set in. But the hani captain that took to gambling on the market herself — that was marginally legal, and ultimately foolish. She watched. She had the computer set to analyze the trend — and she could interrupt at any moment by taking the bid of a particular company; with a bond, before customs, without one, after.
Historically speaking, she preferred after. The market knowledgeables would know that too, and play their serious bids accordingly.
"Felicitations,"came a message from the station-master, on the more private communications possible now that they had a station communications line physically tapped into their interface. "You come back much soon than expect, Legacy. You got trouble?"
"No trouble. Personal choice. Felicitations, station-master. Chanur's compliments."
"You wait customs before exit. "
"I understand they're on their way."
"You come big emergency?"
"No problems, thank you. All fine. On an express run."
"Express run. Who?"
"No'shto-shti-stlen." It was no more than Ha'domaren was going to tell them. "Gtst excellency wanted a message carried, diplomatic privilege." Freely translated, not legally your business, station-master.
"Expensive. "
"Yes."
"Congratulation' you safe arrival, Chanur ship. Felicitate you pilot. ''
"Thank you, sir. I have."
Station seemed satisfied. Meanwhile there was a bleep from the computer, which had found a trigger word in an incoming live communication.
She keyed it in: got:
"H'lo, you, Legacy! What delay you?"
Grinning bastard. It wasn't worth an answer. Not one she wanted to give over station com.
"Got talk you,Legacy."
She wasn't about to.
"You clear paper with that haul,Legacy? / got rumor customs got question, back at Meetpoint. "
At Meetpoint. In a mahen hell there was a question! "That's the oldest scam in the book, Ha'domaren!
You try to tie me up with some gods-be He, I'll have your ears! You know gods-rotted well we have clear papers on everything aboard!"
“ On what they see. I got rumor not ever 'thing seen. Got stsho arti-fact no papers.''
"Diplomatic! It doesn't need papers, you—" It wasn't politic or productive. She shut up. Fast. "Cute joke. Cute joke, Haisi. You still got those charges pending at Mkks, or what?"
"Lot funny, Chanur captain. You want meet for talk business now? You want talk Atli-lyen-tlas, a? I got bad news. Real bad news. "
The stationmaster hadn't said that name. She hadn't said that name to anyone at Meetpoint, nor to anyone at Urtur until a scant few moments ago, that she'd keyed out a message for that individual. She had never so much as heard the name aloud on this leg of the trip — but she knew gtst as the well-reputed stsho ambassador to Urtur, the addressee in the contract, the intended recipient of the Preciousness.
"You want meet for drink?" the mane said, "You going need same."
"Atli-lyen-tlas quit," Haisi said, taking a puff of one of those cursed mahen smoke-sticks. And exhaling, what was worse. "Same quit, go—" A move of Haisi's large, bare-palmed hand, a glance of dark mahen eyes about the indefinite perimeters of the lounge — the lounge next the trade office, as happened. Hilfy was not about to go onto Ha'domaren, or take Haisi Ana-kehnandian's hospitality, or be subject to whatever esoteric truth-seekers Haisi might have installed. Haisi's eyes roamed the implied infinite and came back to solidity, to her — the poetic hand returned to lie above Haisi's heart, and Haisi smiled.
"So, so difficult figure alien mind."
"So where did gtst go?" Hilfy's ears were flat. She made no pretense of pleasantness.
"You do me small favor."
"What favor?"
"I tell you," Haisi said, "I do work in files, all hours I wait talk with you, you know? What for you got arrest here? I curious."
"I never got arrested here."
"You all same got police record. File on list. Hilfy Chanur. That you? Sound like you."
"Then you just better let it lie there. You go digging in that dirt, you're going to need the bath, because it's nothing Urtur Station wants to find. And how patient is your personage with foulups?''
Maybe she scored one. Haisi took another puff and seemed to think about it, blowing smoke from his nostrils like some brazen image.
"I might call your personage," she said, "and tell her — it is her, isn't it? We got one mahe being damn fool. Call him home before he embarrasses you."
"Personage might say, Who you talk fool, Hilfy Chanur? You got thing aboard you don't know what is, you don't know what does, you got stsho play politic, use you name, use you ship… Big fool."
"What do you want? Outright, mahe, what do you want?"
"You bring me 'board you ship. You let me talk stsho."
"You want to send a message, I might take it. You let the stsho ask to talk to you. If gtst wants to, I'll bring you aboard."
"I tell you no good you come here. Stsho you look for — gone."
"Gone since how long? Since you found out about the shipment? Since you were here last and you learned about it?"
"You not bad guess."
"What is it to you? What do you care what the stsho do with each other?"
"Ask why stsho care what I do."
"Why, then?"
"Maybe rise and fall Personages."
"Which personages? Stsho? Mahendo'sat?"
"Maybe so. Maybe."
"Gods rot you, give me a plain answer!"
"No more you give me, Chanur captain. Which side you?"
"I'm on the side of making a living, I'm on the side of running an honest trade and shipping operation! If somebody's got cargo going, and it's not live and it's not illegal, I haul it, that's all! I'm not a personage, I'm not a fool, I'm a ship captain."
"You think that, you be number one fool, Chanur
captain. Wherever you go, politic. All time politic.
You want tuck head under arm not see what is, you do. But maybe all same Urtur find old arrest warrant. Maybe search ship…"
"You want an incident with the stsho, you go right on and try that. You want an incident with Chanur, you want an incident with the han, you want me to sue you clear back to your ancestors, you earless bastard—"
The lifting of an empty mahen hand. "Want no incident. Want know what thing No'shto-shti-stlen send Atli-lyen-tlas."
"What in your ninety-nine hells difference does it make what gtst sent?''
"You not know that?"
"I have no interest in that!"
"Then why you ask?"
Murder occurred to her. Most vivid murder.
"Because I got a large hairy fool being a fulltime pain in the—"
"You know what No'shto-shti-stlen send? Or you take gtst word what you carry? Sloppy way pass customs."
"Until it comes off my ship, customs can wonder."
"Unless it universal contraband. Like run guns. Like run—"
"I'm bored. I'm leaving."
"You not know."
"Goodbye."
"You want know where Atli-lyen-tlas go?"
"Where?"
"What you give me?"
"I'll look it up in station records."
"Kita. Go Kita Point. Easy jump. You want data on Kita market? Got. Real cheap. Great bargain. Give you break. Get you futures reports maybe two month back."
Futures in a deeper mahen market where the mahendo'sat knew best what they had and didn't.
Speculation there was asking for trouble, hired hauling was the only sure thing, and information at the narrow downside end of mahen trade routes wasn't going to tell you what goods might already have arrived there from points upstream.
And there was a worse problem with Kita.
"You want deal?" the mahe asked.
"I'll think about it." She stood up and walked for the door.
"Not real long time think," Haisi said. "You got stsho deal, not good you break promise. Cargo get lost, stuff screw up at Meetpoint… Personage not real damn happy with you, Chanur captain. Big mess. You go ahead. You do. You make. Talk me later I see if rescue you worth while."
"You captain?"
"Me? Not."
"Ha'domarenyour ship?"
"Not. Belong cousin."
"You got cousins everywhere, don't you?"
"Big fam'ly."
"I'll bet." She did walk out, shoved her hands in her pockets and thought how this had more and more the smell of trouble, such that she wasn't seeing Urtur's garish lights, she was seeing what used to be, and missing the weight of the pistol she had worn in those days before the disarmament agreement, before the peace.
It didn't feel like peace. Not at all.
"We got check," the mahen customs agent said, and Tiar jabbed the slate in question and said, politely,
"It's on our ship. Until it comes off our ship it isn't your province. That's in your regulations. Until it's offered for sale it isn't merchandise. It's an item in the possession of gtst honor under diplomatic privilege and it stays on this ship until we find the addressee. In which case you can work out the problems with the stsho delegation. It's not our problem!"
"Got consult stationmaster," the agent said, andflipped his slate closed and walked off. Tiar stood staring after him, and turned and stalked back into the access, up the rampway to the hatch and the lower main corridor.
"Trouble?" Fala asked.
"Gods-be right we have trouble, we have bids breeding like crazy and we can't get the gods-rotted customs to fill out the gods-rotted forms and clear the gods-be-feathered—''
It had been quiet for a very long time. And Trade in Agricultural Goods might be informative, and Hallan was willing to learn anything that gave him expertise in anything whatsoever to do with space and trade; but it was uninspired and highly repetitive.
Still, he read on, having had his shower and his lunch and all. He heard crew members going up and down the corridor outside, he listened hard, thinking that he might hear something, but most of all he heard a voice he thought was Tiar's yelling about mahendo'sat and customs and blackmail.
So he thought something bad must have happened.
Then he heard the captain's voice, he was relatively sure, yelling something about mahendo'sat and blackmail. So he didn't think things were going well.
Probably it was not a good time to ask to be let out of the laundry. Probably he should read Trade in Agricultural Goods very slowly and thoroughly and make it last, because it might be all the entertainment he had for a while.
Home again, to read the gods-forsaken contract. To consult the legal program. The translation. The transcription of the original into mundane type, and into phonetic rendition.
7098 pages. Of which the computer identified 20 clauses as of particular application, regarding Un-proven Subsequents.
And the pertinent dictionary and legal dictionary definition: Subsequent: a person who in substance whether in whole or in part may be in tenure of the same rights and legal entity as a named individual. See: Subsequent in Identity; Consequent
Subsequent in Identity: a subsequent who has the same physical identity as a named individual.
Consequent: an individual who in substance whether in whole or in part is in tenure of legal rights and legal entity as a direct result of contact with or the actions of an individual orgtst subsequent.
, ..If the party receiving the goods be not the person stipulated to in subsection 3 section 1, and have valid claim as demonstrated in subsection 36 of Section 25, then it shall be the reasonable obligation of the party accepting the contract to ascertain whether the person stipulated to in subsection 3 section 1 shall exist in Subsequent or in Consequent or in Postconsequent, however this clause shall in no wise be deemed to invalidate the claim of the person stipulated to in subsection 3 section 1 or 2, or in any clause thereunto appended, except if it shall be determined by the party accepting the contract to pertain to a person or Subsequent or Consequent identified and stipulated to by the provisions of Section 5…
However the provisions of Section5 may be delegated by the party issuing the contract, following the stipulations of Subsection 12 of Section 5 in regard to the performance of the person accepting the contract, not obviating the requirements of performance of the person accepting the contract…
"We have a problem," Hilfy said, over gfi, in the Legacy's galley. She was maintaining, she felt, extraordinary control over her temper. Sober faces were opposite her, the whole crew — since no offloading was going on. Meanwhile gtst honor was lighting up the com board with requests to go out into the station, and whether Haisi had messed them up with station officials or whether Haisi had only fairly warned them what they were facing — customs had a hold on them.
"Have you told gtst honor?" Tiar asked, elbows on the table opposite her.
"Not yet. Haisi could be lying through his teeth."
"If he isn't? What about that contract? What's it say, if we can't find the bastard we're supposed to give this to?"
She truly hated to say that. She did hate it. She leaned her own arms against the cold surface and regarded a tableful of more experienced traders — give or take Fala. "There's a clause in there about Subsequents and Consequents. That we're still bound to get it to the right party."
"You mean that son of a stsho has transmogrified? Switched personalities? Disintegrated gtst psyche?"
"We don't know that exactly."
"We don't know it, so we're not responsible if gtst has gone crazy and shipped out of here."
"We aren't responsible if gtst does. But we do have a clause in there about finding out if there's a Subsequent."
"Oh, gods," Tiar said, and her hand slid over her eyes.
"It said Urtur," Fala Anify protested.
"It also said — find out if there's a Subsequent. And we— I, I'm not passing the responsibility.
I should have considered the possibility of gtst not staying at Urtur."
"What possibility?" Chihin asked with a rap on the table-top. "Stsho don't travel once in a—"
"Lifetime," Hilfy said. "Which only holds true until someone spooks it into a new personality."
"So what spooked the ambassador? We were through here, we dealt with gtst excellency at least indirectly to get our clearance for Meetpoint, we didn't see anything wrong, did we?"
"I didn't," Hilfy said. "But I'm willing to bet Haisi has some remote thing to do with it. He was at Meet-point when we came in, he was in a position to know what No'shto-shti-stlen knew…" A thought came to her, a summation, a time-table, that sent an outrageous anger rolling through her veins. "That son of an earless mother!''
"Haisi?"
"No! No'shto-shti-stlen!"
"You mean gtst knew we weren't going to find gtst recipient here?"
"If gtst didn't know, gtst had a gods-rotted good idea there was trouble here! And wrote that bit into the contract about obligating us to go on a Subsequent-hunt! Gods blast that skinny, painted, conniving — he wants us to go running around the immediate universe looking for this character!''
"Where would gtst go? Where would gtst be?"
"Whowould gtst be? That's the question! Haisi says Kita. But that won't be gtst stopping-place — it hasn't got amenities for them. And the mahendo'sat are all stirred up, or Haisi's personage has got a lot of pull here, a lot of pull."
"You don't think it's Pyanfar behind his personage."
"I don't know! I don't know not! That's the trouble getting involved in politics, nobody wears a name badge!"
"So what are we going to do, captain?"
Run for it? Haul their load clear to Kita, with no guarantee there was a profit there?
Hope the mahen stationmaster had traded heavily into the futures market here, and took a soaking when they yanked their cargo off the market and ran for it? Break a few regulations that made the speeding violation look like a mahen commendation?
Good way to make lasting enemies, in either case.
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