"Yes, captain."
"With luck someone will come through here and I can send you home."
He hoped not. He truly hoped not. He knew that the captain was angry and that she had absolutely good reason.
"I want more than anything," he said, "to help. I don't want to go back to Anuurn. I never want to go back to Anuurn."
"We can do better," she said, "without your help. Stay out of it, do you hear me?"
"Yes, captain."
With which she walked out. And shut the door. He sat down again. It was not an uncomfortable place to be. And he didn't get his hopes up. She'd said — there might be another ship. He truly hoped not. He hoped he would have another chance.
He sat down and thought and thought how he might have done differently about the accident; and the stsho; and how he could, still, if he could just get one break, prove to the captain that he was qualified — if they would just let him work cargo. He wouldn't back up any more trucks. But they wouldn't believe that. He wouldn't be in any corridors he wasn't supposed to be in. But Chihin had told him go there. So he'd thought it was safe…
Maybe Chihin had set him up. But he didn't want to think so. She'd been fair, about him startling her.
She'd taken shots at him, but everybody did. He didn't want to think Chihin had done it to him. And she certainly hadn't been responsible for the truck. That was all his doing.
Tiar brought him supper soon after, which was stew. Tiar asked him if the captain had explained things to him and he said that she had. Tiar said don't take the captain too seriously, and said that the captain yelled when she was upset, but that she was fair when she calmed down.
"I'm sorry about scaring the stsho," he said, and Tiar said it wasn't hard to scare the stsho, the harder problem was keeping it happy, which they had to do. And Tiar said he'd done all right, except not to take any chances, even if it seemed people were yelling at him — don't let them rattle him or make him move faster than he could think.
In other words, he thought, Calm down. It was what women said to misbehaving boys, stupid boys, who at about thirteen started having shaking mad temper fits, and their sisters said, 'That's all right, just calm down, Hallan,' and papa got irritable and refused to have him around any more, and youngest sister said, 'Try to think, Hal, just use your head about things, everybody feels like that.'
(Then oldest sister said, after he was sixteen, 'He thinks too much. He can't survive out there.' Or at home either: papa had told him get out, the girl his sisters had tried to fix him up with said he wasn't a match for her brothers, and his sisters had spent all their savings to get him a ticket to station, to a place they'd never seen, and hadn't any interest in going to; but it was everything he wanted, and they gave him that very expensive chance — for which he adored them. He couldn't come back and be sent down in disgrace they'd know about, to an exile he'd die in, because he'd trained himself to be here, that was all, and he'd rather die here than there.)
He didn't have much appetite for the stew Tiar left him. But he told himself that was male temper too, upsetting his stomach. He told himself stop it and think how he was going to feel in an hour or two; and how if they were going for jump this soon, he had to get the food down, as much as he could make his stomach take.
So he finished it down to the last, and set the dishes by the door.
There were vid tapes to watch. There were books to read. He wished they would let him bring his things from below.
But he didn't ask. He didn't use the com. He didn't make himself a problem to them. He found himself a blanket in the storage locker in the lounge and he tucked up and watched bad vids while the loader worked. Clank. Clank-clank.
It didn't stall. So they had listened to him. And Tarras at least knew he'd been right.
Chapter Nine
The Legacy eased out of dock and away — put her bow to solar nadir in the dusty environs of Urtur system and took a leisurely start-up, a leisurely acceleration at g-normal for their stsho passenger. The Legacy's hold was not full, the cargo was light-mass, the crew on watch was minimal to the safety requirements, and as soon as they hit their assigned lane for the outward run, the crew was snug in beds, sound asleep, except for the captain, who had the sole watch, who was propping her eyes open and seeing ghosts in the shadows of the bridge.
She never had done such a turnaround since she came to the Legacy, never hoped to do another. And when they had gotten out past the worst of the dust, and the rocks that attended the planetary vicinity, the captain set autopilot, tilted the cushion to flat relative to the accel plane and wrapped herself in a blanket for a rest.
Musing on tc'a and outraged stsho, wandering in a mental wilderness of white on white…
Thinking of The Pride and the human aboard her, thinking of a friendly face and eyes of unhani color.
Tully wouldn't have turned on her, Tully wouldn't have attacked poor cousin Dahan and broken his head.
She hated her late husband; and hated cousin Harun. If she'd had her way, Harun Chanur wouldn't be lounging his oversized body in her father's chair, sitting by her father's fire, and slapping the younger cousins around; Rhean would be back in space aboard Fortune where she wanted to be; she, for her part, would be on The Pride, with Tully, clear of all of it: the gods only knew who'd be managing the clan's business, then. Which showed how impractical it all was.
But she wouldn't be thinking of the Meras kid, then, and thinking how his expression had reminded her all too much of Dahan's, kind and confused, and upset and hurt when she'd yelled at him. She had never thought she agreed on principle with Chihin, she'd stood more with Pyanfar on the question of culture versus instincts; but she found herself with Chihin this time: Meras didn't belong in space, Meras didn't think, didn't think first, at least. Like backing the truck, because some mahen foreman yelled do it. That the foreman hadn't meant him just hadn't tripped a neuron in his brain.
Imagine cousin Harun in a position of responsibility. Imagine Harun having to use his head rather than his hands.
Men that did think had gotten killed, for thousands of years, that was the way biology had set up the hani species. Other species were luckier, maybe, and other species might be better at handling politics between the sexes, but hani hadn't been civilized long enough to sort out mate-getting by any other means. Nobody had told her when she was growing up that every attitude and opinion she had learned was going to be obsolete when she was twenty-five. Nobody had told her the whole world was going to be set on its ear and the way hani did business with outsiders was going to change. Evidently nobody had told the rest of the home planet, either, because they were still doing things the old way. Same with the kid in the crew lounge… nobody had told him things were going to change, until aunt Pyanfar had lured him off in the promise of a miraculous change in the universe.
(Wrong, kid. It doesn't work that way. Narn won't have you, Padur won't have you, we don't want the complications you pose and the crew that took you aboard in the first place wasn't looking at your resume, were they, kid? Hani are hani. People with power aren't going to give it up. Fair isn't fair, not among hani, not elsewhere. And no sister ever taught you to think before you jump.)
Nice-looking boy. That's all anybody had thought. That's all anybody would ever think. She had no personal illusions about changing the way hani were, or worked, or thought: that was aunt Pyanfar's pet project, not hers, she had never asked to carry any banner for reforming anything, or anyone, except that hani shouldn't be so gods-be xenophobic and so set on their own ways.
And don't say Pyanfar Chanur got beyond biology when it came to personal choices either. Pyanfar had dumped Chanur in her lap and run off to do as she pleased, free as she pleased, with na Khym — It's your turn, niece. You go be responsible.
Nothing in her life she had planned had ever worked and no living person she had ever trusted or wanted had ever come her way. Tell that to the jealous rivals who thought Hilfy Chanur got everything she ever wanted at
no cost and no effort.
She was on a self-pity binge. She recognized it when she hit the chorus. She tried to get her mind out of the track and stared at lights reflected in the overhead, listened to the small constant sounds of the ship under way, and thought how so long as they were out of ports and so long as she had the Legacy, she was safe-how she didn't have to go back to Anuurn ever again if she didn't want to, how space was all she wanted, all she ever had wanted, and to a mahen hell with planets and the attitudes that grew up on them.
So occasionally she ran into other hani ships and had to meet the world-bound mindset out here, in people like Narn, who ought to know better, who ought to be free enough to spit at the han and the old women back home — but she didn't, and wouldn't: you couldn't expect it of most of the clans, and you didn't see it taking rapid hold of the spacerfarers. Quite to the contrary, there was a conservative backlash. That was the disappointment.
Which told her how badly she personally wanted to crack heads and knock courage into Narn and Padur, and how badly she wanted the universe to be different, and play by civilized rules, and not by the gods care whether a young fool wanted to fight biology and go to space, but things didn't work that way either.
So Meras hadn't asked for what had happened. Neither his upbringing nor his apprenticeship had taught him what he needed to know, and maybe she hadn't been fair with him, either: she hadn't exactly given him any parameters, just a general instruction to go out there and do what he claimed he knew how to do, as if those papers of his really meant more than a license to sit and watch the boards while a licensed spacer took a break.
There were ships that treated apprentices like that. There were ships that treated female apprentices like that — a lot of them, more the pity. The Pride had turned her out knowing what she was doing — and most ships never met what The Pride had on her tour: there wasn't much she hadn't met or done or seen in the years of running communications on Pyanfar Chanur's intrigue-bound dealings.
The kid hadn't had any such break. The kid was in the lounge watching vids, the only one of them who wasn't falling down tired; they were stuck with him for a little while; and the more she thought about it, the more she felt uneasy with herself for the family temper and an extravagant expectation of an apprentice she'd sent onto that dockside, thanks to the lack of a coat — rather than down in the hold, also true, where he could lose an arm or a neck in the machinery. But the dust-up with the Urtur authorities hadn't been entirely the lad's fault… he hadn't known his limitations, he'd probably imitated a bad habit he'd seen somebody else do — Tarras was right in that.
And he'd go off the Legacy no smarter and no better than he was if nobody knocked the need-to-knows into his head. He'd been the Sun's responsibility; somehow he'd gotten to be theirs, and by the gods, she had a certain vanity where it came to the Legacy's operating and the Legacy's way of doing business.
Her papa hadn't been stupid. Uncle Khym wasn't stupid. Young men were stupid, while their hormones were raging and their bodies were going through a hellacious growth spurt that had them knocking into doorways and demolishing the china. Then was when young men left home, and went out and lived in the outback, and fought and bashed each other and collected the requisite scars and experience to come back formidable enough to win a place for themselves. Seven or so years and a gangling boy all elbows came back all shoulders and with muscle between his ears.
But Hallan Meras didn't seem to have as much of that as, say, Harun Chanur. Light dose Meras had been given. Illusions he was a girl. Trying to act like one and use his head, at his age.
She angled the couch upright, straightened her mane and flicked her earrings into order with a snap of her ears. She punched in the lounge com and called Meras forward; so he came, diffidently, as far as the middle of the bridge, darting glances here and there about the crew less stations.
"Used to the environment, are you?"
"I've — seen the bridge, yes, captain."
"Seen the bridge. You're a licensed spacer and you've seen the bridge? That's remarkable."
"I mean I've seen the bridge on the Sun. "
"Not worked it?"
"I got my papers in cargo management, down in—"
"You're a specialist, then. A real specialist. — What's that station?"
"That's scan, captain."
"Congratulations. Ever read the screen?"
"Not actually."
Figured. "Who in a mahen hell gave you your papers?"
Ears flagged. "The authorities at Touin."
"Did they speak the Trade? Did you take a test? Did they interview you?"
"I think they took her Druan's word."
"Druan Sahern."
"Hanurn, actually. Ker Druan Hanurn nef Sahern. She helped me. She showed me things."
Aunt Pyanfar had had no patience. Under her captaincy, an apprentice sat every board on the bridge, somewhere before aunt Py signed any application for a license. Emergencies don't wait for the experts, aunt Pyanfar had used to say. Gods-be right you learned every board, every button, and every readout.
You could be the only one that could reach the seat. The whole ship could depend on you in a station you didn't ordinarily work.
"I haven't changed my mind. I'm still kicking you off this ship first chance I get. But I don't think we're apt to find a thing at Kita, it's not a place I'd leave anybody, and, by the gods, nobody's going off my ship and having the next crew say we didn't teach him anything. You understand me?" Ears were up, eyes shining. "Thank you, captain." "Thank me, hell. Keep me awake. We've got six hours to jump, my eyes are crossing, I'm sore down to my fingertips, I'm out of patience with fools and I want you to sit down over there at the scan station and read me off what you see happening on that board and on that screen."
"Yes,captain!" He went and dropped into the seat, and started rattling it off, the numbers and the names and the lane designations. Not by the gods bad, actually. Most critical first and right along their laid course which was plotted there, for somebody who could read the symbols.
"Who taught you the codes?"
"I had this book."
"You had this book. What book?"
"The general licensing manual. Ker Dru let me study it."
"She let you study it. Nice of her. So you read up on more than cargo operations."
"Everything. I read all of it."
"You remember everything you read?"
"I read it a lot."
Her pulse ticked up. It sounded familiar, sounded by the gods familiar; in the same way, she'd had the manual downworld, aunt Py had slipped her the copy, and she'd studied and studied and kept it out of her father's sight, because he had gotten upset about her studying. He had wanted her to stay downworld and be papa's favorite daughter; but she'd memorized every bit, every chart — memorized boards she'd never seen and operations she'd never watched.
Because she'd wanted it so much it was physical. And some gods-be hormone-hazed boy thought he could want something that much?
"What's in quadrant 3?"
"That's a buoy."
"What buoy?"
"That's the insystemer code."
"Quadrant 4?"
"That's an ore freighter."
"How do you know?"
"Its prefix is a mining designation. A lot of letters."
Brilliant. A lot of letters. But the kid was, essentially, right. That was how the peripheral vision made the sort-out. That was what the system of IDs was set up to do.
"Captain, something's just away from station. I think it's mahendo'sat."
Her thoughts left young fools and proceeded immediately down darker tracks. "Can I ask comp?" he asked. "Is this the toggle?"
"Below the screen, left bank? Punch it."
"Ha'domaren."
"Of course it is. On our heading?'‘
"I think so, captain. It looks like it."
"Approximately. Anywhere headed out, Kita vector."
"I think it is. Yes. I'
m pretty sure." So here sat the two of them, watching a mane up to no gods-be good. Alone, on a mostly darkened bridge. Witness to collusion, intrigue, things that smelled like Personages at war.
But Hallan had no least idea. HaIIan Meras gave her a puzzled, worried look and didn't exactly ask what was up, but he must have caught something from her expression. His face grew troubled.
"This isn't a mane I trust," she said. "This one's been on our tail since Meetpoint."
"Why?" he asked faintly. "Do you know?"
"Meras, do you know what we have aboard?"
"No, captain. A stsho person."
She had to smile. She, gods help her, had to smile. And so few living souls could make her laugh. She gazed at his sober, foolish face, and thought, How in the gods' sweet name could he hope to make it out here? Could a naive boy learn the control boards from a book, and not learn where the power was that runs the Compact, or what betrayal was?
No. He already knew what betrayal was. Betrayal was a ship that left him stranded in a foreign jail.
Betrayal was a ship that had signed him on without his best interests at heart, and used him for the menial work, the work somebody had lied about to get him licensed.
And he must not have made the captain happy. The captain had had to make the decision that had stranded him.
"You shouldn't look away from the boards when you're on duty," she said. "You don't do that on this ship.''
"Yes, captain. I'm sorry." He turned around immediately, and watched what she had told him to watch.
And she watched him, thinking… she was not even certain what. Not thinking about him. Thinking about one Ana-kehnandian, and what he possibly had to gain. And about the stsho belowdecks who had said something about betrayals.
A white vase. A vase carved over all its surface with non-representational bas-relief, that made sense to stsho, one was certain. Maybe even ancient writing. There was a lot the stsho kept secret. And one was certain not to get any sense out of Tlisi-tlas-tin.
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