The stsho was clearly impressed. Gtst pale eyes were very wide. Gtst murmured, "Kindly restrain the offspring. It is very annoying," and followed her out.
For a stsho toward a stranger, that was amazing. She was impressed. Gtst had more fortitude than seemed evident. "Berth 10," she said, and led off at a moderate stride, a moving obstruction on the docks, in the abundant foot traffic.
She looked back, just to be sure the stsho was still following. And gtst was, slogging along with gtst swinging, pendant baggage of small bundles, limping on lime-slippered feet.
"Go on, go on," gtst panted, shaking gtst crest from gtst eyes. "We are in great danger. I shall seem not to know you. It will be a ruse. Please, keep walking!"
She walked. There were kif about. There were mahendo'sat. Not another hani, not another stsho. Of a sudden their dissociation seemed exceedingly naive and dangerous.
"Come on," she said. "Hurry it! I don't like this."
She was ever so glad to see the Legacy's number on the display board, and to see the first of the transports already arrived. The hold was open, the ramp gate was showing green for unlocked.
"We're all right," she panted, hoping for the sight of Tarras or Chihin. There was the stsho, valiantly (for a stsho) struggling after.
There were three kif, just standing, watching them.
She was never so glad to walk up the ramp and find the gate opening to her request. The stsho was gasping at the bottom of the incline, trying to gather up gtst baggage, the cords of which had tangled with gtst robes. One of the kif was headed toward them, with deliberation in its moves.
"Get up here!" she said, regretting the laws that meant the nearest gun they owned was in the locker in the airlock. "Now!"
Gtststumbled and limped gtst way up. The kif stopped, and for a moment looked straight at her, a stare that made the hair stand up on her nape as she shepherded the struggling stsho into the chill of the ramp.
"Oh, the cold!" it breathed.
"Kif," she said. "Move!" She dropped the baggage in the rampway, on the Legacy's side of the doors, and ran for the airlock and the locker. The stsho shrilled a protest at the desertion. She heard it attempting to run, wailing and gasping.
She hit the airlock controls, waited through the cycle and, inside, used her first and third claws in the sockets that opened the locker. She seized the gun inside, clicked the safety off, and scared ten years of life out of the stsho that came gasping and struggling through the airlock.
"I'm going back after the baggage," she said. "You stay in the airlock."
Gtstwailed, gtst gasped, gtst sobbed. "Let us through! Let us through! Oh, murder, oh, vilest murder on us…"
Gtstwas still wailing as Tiar walked back to get the baggage. The fragile tube was no place to start shooting; but her eye was toward the gates down there, that anyone with a key could open. And if a kif did, he was in dire trouble, by the gods, he was.
… it shall be the obligation of the ship's captain to secure the item and to maintain its safety and its confidentiality from all unauthorized persons…
… the representative of the person issuing the contract shall be the final arbiter of the disposition of the object unless the person who has been the representative of the person issuing the contract shall be determined to be no longer in substance or in fact the same individual entrusted and declared by the contract to be the individual representing the person issuing the contract.
Gods.
Hilfy raked a hand through her mane, stared at the screen. Final arbiter of the disposition of the object. The representative of the person issuing the contract.
Meaning Tlisi-tlas-tin representing No'shto-shti-stlen. Meaning ask Tlisi-tlas-tin, as the final arbiter.
She keyed out, got up from the desk in lower deck ops, and went to see the representative of gtst excellency… who, one hoped, was capable of assuming responsibility, or at least of discussing the matter in a sane and reasonable fashion.
She should tell gtst about Ana-kehnandian. She had never contemplated working in any close way with a stsho. No one contemplated working closely with a stsho. They were only preferable to the methane-breathers, in reason.
But if she had an ally now who could explain anything it was Tlisi-tlas-tin.
She went to the door and signaled her presence. "Your honor? Ker Hilfy Chanur. A word with you."
It took a little for a stsho to respond — a little longer to rise and arrange gtstself and walk to the door. In unusually short order the door slid back and gtst honor Tlisi-tlas-tin gave a languorous ripple of gtst fingers in respect.
"Most honorable captain."
She didn't even have time to break the news. The lock cycled, and a shrill warbling entered the main corridor. Gtst honor's eyes went wide and gtst ducked back within the doorframe.
"Who is that?" gtst cried. "Oh, murder, oh, mischief! What distress is that?"
She had not a thing in her hands. It sounded like murder, and something was in the ship that did not belong there.
Something turned out stsho, and disheveled and woefully frightened, a figure hung about incongruously with parcels and strings and tangled pastel garments.
And behind that apparition, cousin Tiar, gun in hand.
"Refuge!" the stsho cried. Tlisi-tlas-tin's door shut, quickly, and Tiar got between, motioning the panicked stsho to stay still, casting a disturbed and hasty look in Hilfy's direction.
"What's going on?" she demanded of Tiar. Guns, for the god's sake, and a stranger on their deck.
"Kif," Tiar breathed. "Captain, I'm sorry. I was out on the docks — this… person… wanted help…"
Her heart was thumping doubletime. But seeing a stsho, finally, proved they did exist here, stsho seemed on the receiving end of the trouble in mahen space, and this one was no threat… terrified, rather, distraught, exhausted, at the visible limit of gtst resources.
"Help for what?" Kif was still echoing in her ears, but if the inner hatch had opened, the outer hatch had shut; and no kit' was getting in here.
"Oh, great hani, kindly hani person… please, refuge from this terrible place, please, violence, terrible violence…"
Four stsho dead, Haisi had said.
And beside her the door opened and Tlisi-tlas-tin put gtst head out. "Oh, woe! Oh, distress! Is this the person? Is this the one?'‘
"Captain," Tiar tried to say, but there was too much stsho wailing from both sides, and Tiar gestured helplessly with the gun in hand. "Kif, watching the ship!"
And Tarras and Chihin about to open up the hold for the dockers.
"Have we got a docking crew out there? Have we got any station security on the cargo lock?"
"Just the dockers…"
The intruder had edged forward, toward Tlisi-tlas-tin, babbling and bowing… was all but at the door, and that set off old, war-honed instincts. Hilfy put out a warning hand and laid her ears back, by no means eager to let gtst near the oji.
But the intruder-stsho bowed and bobbed and babbled in manic frenzy, gtst moonstone eyes wide and bright, paint streaked on gtst face and arms and onto gtst pastel robes… gtst reached Tlisi-tlas-tin, gtst honor nothing protesting, with the parcels dangling about gtst limbs, but Tlisi-tlas-tin had retreated inside gtst cabin, and the intruder seemed overcome, hanging on the doorway and wailing.
Tlisi-tlas-tin hissed and straightened gtst robes, a hand on the pedestal of the oji. "This is by no means Atli-lyen-tlas!" gtst declared. "This is a juvenile! What unseemliness has turned an unformed individual loose without face-saving escort?"… or something to that effect. It was a barrage of high stshoshi, indignant and outraged, and the intruder covered gtst face and cowered.
"Aide to gtst excellency!" gtst protested. "I am no juvenile! I am an honorable person, gainfully employed and competent!"
"What," demanded Tlisi-tlas-tin, "what is your wretched and undistinguished name?''
What had gtst done? Hilfy wondered, stunned by the viciousness of Tlisi-tlas-tin's attack. Stsho w
eren't violent. Stsho avoided conflict, and unpleasantness, and gtst attacked a stsho gtst called a juvenile…
who hovered in the doorway murmuring,
"Oh, the beauty, oh, the elegance, oh, oh!"
Tlisi-tlas-tin's crest lowered and lifted. Gtst blinked rapidly, and the young stsho bowed repeatedly, and turned and patted Hilfy's arm.
"Tell gtst excellency, tell gtst excellency I am overwhelmed, I cannot remember the unworthiness in the face of this magnificence, I admire gtst excellency, please say this!"
"Gtstsays…"
"Gtstisi,oh, gtstisi!"
Gtstisi.The Indeterminate. The Transitory.
They had a gods-be Phasing stsho on their hands, a personality overwhelmed and disintegrating.
"Gtstisisays… gtstisi is overwhelmed." It was all of it she could construct. It was all that made sense.
But Tlisi-tlas-tin turned gtst back and walked a few steps before gtst deigned to answer.
And gtstisi — assuming it was Phasing — crouched on the floor at the doorway.
"Your honor," Hilfy said, trying to attract gtst attention. "Is this—" One could not directly refer to the former identity of a stsho in fragmentation — it was abominable manners. "Is this someone with whom your honor might have business?
Gtstwas clearly agitated, pacing and wringing gtst long, white fingers. "Excellency," gtst had the presence of mind to declare, promoting gtstselff a notch, for the visitor's benefit, one could think. "I do not notice this distasteful event. If gtstisi remains, gtstisi remains. Where is Atli-lyen-tlas, what am I to think?"
"Excellency, I have had a report gtst moved on, likely to Kshshti. This could not possibly., possibly … be the identical person, please forgive my forwardness."
"A servant," gtst said, at which the intruder wailed and covered gtstisi head with locked arms. "Take this juvenile from my sight. It is insane."
One hesitated to make any disposition of the wretched creature. One hesitated to lay hands on it: stsho were fragile, and bones might break. But she took it by a fold of cloth and tugged, wondering what she might do with it, thinking of the accommodation they might improvise out of the remaining passenger cabin next door, and recalling that cabin was dark gray and a definite blue.
It might drive the creature over the edge, or pry its last grip loose from reality. Final arbiter, the contract said, of the disposition of the Preciousness. And that was the loader clanking into motion, those hydraulics were the cargo hatch unsealing the Legacy to the dock-side and the dockers and kifish bandits, by Tiar's report.
"White paint," she said, and cast about desperately after resources of personnel or energy. "White paint.
Panels. There have to be some pieces in storage."
"I think there were," Tiar said.
"Get on the com. Advise Tarras and Chihin there's kif out there. Get—" She had the stsho in hand, Meras topside, gtst honor in the passenger quarters… and gtstisi was wilting in her grip, wiping at its body paint and its crest indiscriminately. "Lost, lost," gtstisi wailed. "I was someone and I forget, I forget, oh, the misery I have had, and I forget!"
"Get on it!" Hilfy said, and dragged the fainting stsho to the neighboring cabin. "This is temporary," she said. "It has no taste, no distinction. It will change."
"Oh, the despair!" gtstisi cried, and slumped inside. "I die, I perish, oh, woe and obliteration… where is my name to be? What shall I become?"
"An honest stsho!" she said irritably, and shut the door and locked it.
And leaned against the wall, surveying over her left shoulder a scattered trail of small abandoned parcels.
Tiar was not in sight. Probably Tiar would gladly be several lights away at the moment, and the hold was not far enough.
But she could not blame Tiar entirely. Nor blame Hallan Meras for this disaster. This one came of being here, came of kif stalking them, came of dealing with a scoundrel of a mane who wouldn't tell her what she needed to know.
She had the most sinking feeling that this was the stsho Haisi had claimed was still available and knowledgeable, this was the source of knowledge still available to them, and gtst had just lost touch with gtst own mind — was, in effect, dying to the stsho gtst had been, and becoming another entity, if gtst could pull the bits and pieces of a personality together.
But gtst might not remember once gtst had made that transition. Gtst — gtstisi. Indeterminate, desperately trying to sort out its reality, and locked, within that storage compartment, in an environment that could lend it no cues.
She shoved herself away from the wall, opened Tlisi-tlas-tin's door without gtst permission and met shocked, offended eyes. "A mahe named Tahaisimandi Ana-kehnandian has been following us since Meetpoint. He said that some of Atli-lyen-tlas' staff remained…"
Gtsthonor… gtst excellency, as gtst lately styled gtstself… flinched. "This is extremely distasteful."
"Because that unformed person is Atli-lyen-tlas?’’
"No! A thousand, thousand nos. This is a person beneath our tasteful notice. We would not undertake a mission to such an individual. Do not distress us further. This is a juvenile. Atli-lyen-tlas has abandoned gtst post and fled in our face. The treachery, the abysmal treachery! I perform heinous insults upon this gift of gtst shapeless servant! It will not dissuade me!"
"You mean gtstisi—"
"Is surely a servile leaving of gtst excellency. Can you look at the magnificence of my surroundings and affront me with that disheveled and untidy person? Gtstisi may serve here. The lack of servants offends my dignity, which surely your honor knows. I will accept this individual as resident in my quarters, but gtstisi must be clean and respectful!"
"I will inform gtstisi of your — ah, excellency's offer."
"My order!"
"Exactly." She kept her expression sweet and her ears up, and bowed politely and went to the neighboring cabin to run gtst new excellency's errand. "Gtst excellency wants you," she said to the huddled figure inside. "But I suggest you make yourself presentable. There is a thoroughly tasteless place where you may find water and organize your baggage. Follow me."
"Oh, oh," was all gtstisi managed to say. "Despair and disaster."
But gtstisi followed, through the litter of the abandoned baggage, while thumps and bangs and the action of the loader heralded the exit of cargo from the hold, and, one could hope, not the entry of kifish pirates off the unregulated docks.
She saw the nameless stsho to the washroom, let gtstisi gather up gtstisi trail of baggage that was strewn from Tlisi-tlas-tin's door to the airlock, and meanwhile used the com at the intersection of the corridors to call the cargo lock.
"Tiar? Are you alive out there?"
"Things look quiet,"Tiar said. "They're gone. "
"Are you armed?"
"Gun's right here in the lock. We're legal. "
Thank the gods for favors. She called the bridge:
"Fala. Where's Meras?"
"Doing the filters."
"Remind him keep off lower decks. We've got a problem."
"What kind of problem, captain?"
"Twostsho. One's Phasing. Ours, thank the gods, is still sane. There are kif on the docks, Tiar's working outside, they know she brought the stsho here… where's Tarras?"
"Right here, captain. You need some help down there?"
"Just be my eyes and ears on dockside. And investigate cargo for Kshshti. Don't agree to anything yet.'‘
"Kshshti!"
"I know, I know, best I can do. I'll be on com. I've got a scoundrel to call."
"Aye, captain."
"So can you still deliver what you asked about?’’ Hilfy asked, and the scoundrel in question said, via station com:
"You number one bastard thief! How you find?"
It was the only pleasant moment in a disgusting day. "Guess."
"What you propose now, hani bastard?"
"Manners, manners, Haisi. We all lose a few.’'
"Repeat: what you propose?"
&nb
sp; "We might have something to talk about. But now we have the information and you're buying."
There was a moment of silence on the com. Hilfy leaned her arms on the ops station counter, and flicked her ears to listen to the rings jangle.
"What you offer?"
"I don't know. Let me think about it."
"You head for trouble. I number one good friend. Who else you trust?"
"Dear friend. Good friend. You don't want to rash my decision, do you? You want to give me time. We have to maintain good relations."
Now and again there were mahen words she hadn't heard. There followed some. Then: "Of course.
Number one fine. Talk to you later, pretty captain."
Tarras was looking up cargo for Kshshti. And if they didn't want to be charged with abducting the Precious-ness, if they didn't want to pay back a million credit deal… Kshshti looked to be where they were going.
And out of Kshshti…
Out of Kshshti, Maing Tol, or back to Kita… or worse choices. Kshshti lay in the Disputed Territories.
It was still a mahen station.
But it was too close to the kif… far too close for comfort.
And gtst excellency had taken a kifish ship at Kita Point?
Or the kif had taken gtst excellency. Certainly the young stsho Tiar had rounded up on station might have told them what the facts were, if the young stsho had not been driven straight out of gtst mind, either by the harrowing run to the ship, gtst conditions on the station, or the sight of Tlisi-tlas-tin. The fact was, they didn't know and might never know what had been the triggering event, or whether it bore on what had already happened.
So they had to go on. But she would feel ever so much better if she knew how far they were going to have to chase this Atli-lyen-tlas, or into what.
Hallan really, truly did not want to make another mistake. He knew how to clean the filters and maintain equipment, but he had read the manual and the instructions just the same, to be absolutely, unmistakably certain what he was doing. He didn't think speed was going to impress anyone… since he was sure they had given him the job to keep him out of the crew's way; and because it would save the crew a little time. He wished he could find a disaster in the making, that he could fix, and by that, impress the captain and make up for what he had done at Urtur.
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