"Not can do! Not can do! Brake!"
"Have Paehisna-ma-to's adherents so little nerve?" Vikktakkht cut in over com. "We, on the other hand, are braking. And our weapons remain live.''
Credit to the hakkikt, not one word about the missile they had armed, which with his systems he most probably knew about.
"Thank you, hakkikt."
"You stop, you stop, I call superior!"
"Like give us access to No'shto-shti-stlen?"
"You stop, I try!"
"Are we calc'ed, Tiar?"
"We're steady on."
"Sorry, Meetpoint. Not in the mood now. Maybe we'll take that missile off-line. Maybe not."
"You bluff!"
"Oh, yes, sometimes. Not all the time." She shut off that corn-link. "Shut it down, Tarras."
"Gray hairs," Chihin muttered, "forty of ‘em."
"Just put us in soft," she said.
Hallan's mouth was moving. Reading numbers or committing himself to the gods, Hilfy thought. And punched in the take-hold.
"You damn fool break Jive hundred law!"
"He's hysterical," Hilfy said, accidentally into a live mike. "Take care of that, Tiar." And cut the contact.
"Your excellency, I report a safe dock. You may move about now. Felicitations on your excellency's return to Meetpoint. We are now attempting to make contact with gtst excellency the governor, but mahendo'sat have occupied station offices…"
"Wai!"
"We believe by the number of stsho ships here at dock who are not traders that some treachery is contemplated. There are han officials who have historical antipathy toward Chanur; there are mahendo'sat including Ana-kehnandian; but the ship of his excellency the hakkikt Vikktakkht is holding position off the station with the threat of weapons and of the Treaty and of the displeasure of the mekt-hakkikt. As to gtst excellency No'shto-shti-stlen, these outrageous persons are withholding contact with gtst excellency. We are in fear for gtst safety at this moment, or wonder if your excellency might have a word with these individuals."
"I shall execrate them. "
"Please prepare to do so. I am putting your intercom in direct radio contact with Meetpoint communications. For obvious reasons we are not accepting the umbilicals, most particularly the com lines."
"We are prepared. "
"You are in contact," she said, and pushed the button and eavesdropped, chin on fist.
“ Outrageous and shameless behavior,'' was the opener, at a pitch that made the indicators spike.
While on a wavelength belonging to hani official business: ", put me in contact with Hilfy Chanur."
"You are there," Hilfy answered. "Good day. Is this Ehrran clan?"
"Insolence will not improve your case with thehan.' You are personally and as a crew charged with piracy, kidnapping, rape, and murder; you are as a head of clan charged with treason, sedition, violation of Treaty law,
"Speeding. You forgot speeding and irregular docking procedure, Ehrran. This is a political show and we both know it. Gods, is there a dirty business this side of Ajir you don't have your hand in?"
'' I demand to speak to Hallan Meras. On behalf of Meras clan and Sahern.''
That was bound to come. Hallan threw her a desperate look, Chihin looked like thunder.
Hilfy punched the transmit again. "Demand what you like, Ehrran. Chanur doesn't permit it."
Captain, Hallan was saying soundlessly. She shook her head.
"Do I have that for the record, Chanur?"
"Absolutely you do, Ehrran."
"Captain," Hallan said distressedly.
"You're married. Shut up."
"I'm—" — married, the jaw said.
"As of about half an hour ago. Signed by a stsho official, a stsho holiness, an impartial witness and me as captain of this ship. Congratulations and don't disgrace us."
"Who—?" Hallan shut up again. The Eyes of the Ban was reading more charges on com.
"Better be me," Chihin said darkly.
"First listed," Hilfy said. "Excuse us we didn't ask preferences. You were calculating approach and I thought they'd pull this."
"But," Hallan said. Before Chihin shut him up. Ehrran was repeating some question. She just transmitted the document in facsimile. And the one charging Sahern with desertion, abandonment, public insult, public indecency, malicious suit, and nine infractions of the common law of Compact space.
"And I'm adding conspiracy and defamation under the law of the Amphictiony; and conspiracy to commit breach of the Peace under Treaty law, Ehrran, against the captain and crew of Sahern's Star Ascendant. If she wants to go to court, by the gods, I have names and dates logged."
Strange the silence that followed that. The contact broke off. Somebody was consulting somebody.
She punched in on the conversation on the other channel. Indicators were still hitting high levels.
Let it run, she thought, and shoved back to give her legs a stretch. "I think we'll stand down a while. Put us on alarm, Chihin. Put the recording on. Go clean up… do whatever takes your fancy. Good luck, na Hallan, congratulations, welcome to the clan, we'll give you the formal party when we get out of this."
There was a general clearing out. She didn't ask to where. She sat down again, and started reviewing the messages that they weren't admitting receiving.
Not everyone had left. She saw the shadow in a dead monitor, looked back at Tiar over her shoulder.
"Need any help?"
"Might."
"The han's not through yet."
"The han's not through yet and Paehisna-ma-to hasn't even started."
"The bribes have to be flying. Paehisna-ma-to to the stsho, to the kif off-station, the kif on-station…"
"The hakkikt has been loyal to aunt Py for a long time."
"Some of them could be getting restive. Including the hakkikt.''
"I have thought of that."
"They say you can buy anything at Meetpoint."
"Except certain things. I'd say maybe the Precious-ness isn't on the open market. Maybe a holiness isn't.
The stsho are fragile people. They'd never take a chance that wasn't forced on them. They're hanging back now, I'm betting on it, trying to see where advantage lies."
"Politicians."
"Not all bad, politicians. The stsho are good at it. They'd have been a mouthful for somebody long since if they weren't. And if they weren't a prime source of goods; and if they hadn't ties with the methane folk."
"The tc'a business? That was extremely odd."
"It was very extremely odd. Py sent that in symbol-set. The tc'a that received it didn't read it in the ordinary way. It thought the sentences were separate-brain paths. It interpreted them that way and just nearly got us all in trouble."
"You think she's near here?"
She considered that answer a long moment. Then: "No. I don't. I think she knows what's going on but she can't get here in time."
"You can't transmit in hyperspace!"
"You can't change vector and you can't transmit. Correction. We can't."
Tiar made a rumbling in her throat and shook her head. "If you could do that—"
"— to blazes with the futures market, the whole way we trade? Yes to that, too. Aunt took a big chance getting that message here. Possibly Vikktakkht knows. Possibly it surprised him. Possibly he won't rush to the nearest gathering of kif and tell what he just heard. I have the feeling it scared hell out of him."
"Keep the fear in him?"
"Certainly it shook him. Certainly it made him think. Certainly we've got one ally out there that's got something new to think about. That's why I'm inclined to make a bet that we've got a little leeway with Vikktakkht. And I may do something I wouldn't dare, if gtst excellency can't find gtst excellency very soon now."
"What's that?"
"Surrender our stsho passengers."
"They are reprehensible individuals!" gtst excellency cried, waving gtst arms. "They are covered in shame and perfidy!"
; "Your excellency could not then discover the whereabouts of No'shto-shti-stlen? Or is it tasteful for me to ask—"
"Your honor has every attribute of taste! Your honor is the only whiteness in a thousand worlds, wai! the treachery, wai! the reckless and shameless behavior of individuals who were born with better advantage!"
"What is the condition of No'shto-shti-stlen?"
"Dire. Gtst bravely holds gtst post. But gtst confides to me that gtst despairs. The influence of Paehisna-ma-to has reached even to Llyene, and the capital has lost confidence in gtst excellency, the capital has sent out other persons to displace gtst that may be more pleasing to Paehisna-ma-to."
"And not pleasing to the mekt-hakkikt?"
"One can hardly please both, as gtst excellency foresaw. I must take the Preciousness, I must advance onto the station, I must show these emissaries that I am disdainful of them and their gross displays of foreign force, these—"
Gtstran out of breath and subsided onto the pillows, while Dlimas-lyi tried with gentle touches to calm gtst.
"I shall go with gtst," Dlimas-lyi looked up to say. "I shall not permit gtst alone to venture among strangers."
"your excellency," Hilfy said in all honesty, "your tastefulness and good qualities make me admire you exceedingly. You are the most excellent of stsho."
"You are likewise the most excellent of hani," Tlisi-tlas-tin declared, reaching up a thin, white hand.
"I value your estimation."
Was it possible a hani could grow fond of gtst excellency? She thought so, quite profoundly fond of the fellow and gtst nestmate.
She knelt down, to bring herself eye to eye with gtst excellency, who gazed at her with no lowering of lashes or nodding away.
"Your excellency, may I ask the most extreme trust? The most reckless trust? And perhaps something of great delicacy?"
"Ask."
"May I — em — transport the Preciousness elsewhere for perhaps an hour or two? May I do things in your name which I may try to perform tastefully, but which, if I fail, will attach only to me and my ignorance? In no wise would I risk your excellencies' honor or your reputations."
Eyes lowered, hands fluttered. "You ask a most dire favor!”
"I am — aware of the nature of the Preciousness, and I will treat the Preciousness as if it were my own honor in question."
It seemed gtst excellency might faint or Phase, so great was gtst agitation. Then gtst seized her hand with all gtst slight strength.
"Gtstamight handle the Preciousness! In this fashion would our honor be kept!"
"Most resourceful of stsho!" she said, and leaped up in a thoroughly tasteless haste, on her way to the door before she remembered a courteous bow.
"Wai, go!" gtst excellency cried, waving gtst gossamer sleeve. "Go, at all necessary speed, dear hani, and work necessary disarrangements upon our enemies!"
Chapter Twenty
For a while there was just no thinking, even about hazards around them. It helped that Chihin was crazy; or as crazy as he was, with everything that had happened, and it helped that the other four of his wives didn't insist on conjugal privileges…
But for a while one's brain just shorted out, and then wouldn't work, and when common sense finally came back, the two of them seemed to find it together.
"I think—" Hallan tried to say.
"Yeah’' Chihin breathed.
"I think maybe we better get back…"
"I think so too," Chihin said, and started getting up, so he did. He thought, We could be killed. We could all be arrested. What kind of fools are we, acting like this?
But Chihin looked at him and he straightway lost his good sense again, until she made a face and swore and shoved him out the door, where the air was colder and clearer and the ship-sounds in the corridor reminded anybody with a brain at all that there were urgent operations going on.
They went to the bridge but only Tiar was there. Tiar twitched an ear back to take in their presence, Chihin flung herself into station and punched buttons — he settled into his chair more carefully, and didn't.
"What's up?" Chihin asked.
"Captain's downside, talking to the mahendo'sat."
"What, talking to the mahendo'sat? What have we got to say to the mahendo'sat? Blow their—"
"That's what they're doing," Tiar said. "Fala's got ops lowerdeck, Tarras is with the captain, and, well, we know where you two were."
"Don't give me that! What in a mahen hell's going on?"
"Main ops channel," Tiar said.
"Well, well, now we got make deal." Haisi stood, arms folded, on the dockside, at the bottom of the Legacy's ramp, and blew smoke into the frosty air. "You give oji, we give you clear undock, go home, safe, no trouble… small difficulty with kif, same we fix."
"Fix like you fixed things at Kshshti." "Not us, hani, you got bad information. You got real close experience with kif. You forget?" "No. But it doesn't matter to the bottom line." "What matter?" Another puff of smoke, green and blue against the neon of some shop along the Rows. "What make matter? You in one damn bad mess, hani. You look bad, Pyanfar Chanur look bad. You got find way out, because if that kif out there attack this station, who bring same here? If you start shoot, who got trouble? You got."
"You say. Looks to me like we're both here." "Wrong." With hand on large expanse of dark-furred chest. "We here with invitation stsho government. We got word maybe kif problem, stsho from Llyene ask us come in here, toss out kif guard on account of no good deal No'shto-shti-stlen make with marry Atli-lyen-tlas. Atli-lyen-tlas got too many 'so-ciations with kif. Llyene government have got embarrass' by No'shto-shti-stlen, official come here, examine record, got prepare replace gtst, maybe severe reprimand. Meanwhile here come kif. Damn right here come kif. Want old job back. Want commit little piracy, a? You been number one suckered, hani."
She laid her ears back. "If you're so friendly with the stsho, how come you had to come ask me about the oji. How come that? A?"
"You know stsho. Three sex. Gtst do politic, gtste and gtsto very private, do sex, no public.
No'shto-shti-stlen and Atli-lyen-tlas both gtst. So somebody got to step down from politic. Stsho at Llyene don't like Atli-lyen-tlas, long time want gtst come back stsho space, long time No'shto-shti-stlen protect same, now want marry gtst. So what sex No'shto-shti-stlen be? Gtst propose same in the oji.
Maybe if No'shto-shti-stlen stay gtst, stsho at Llyene not upset enough come here make new government. But stupid hani won't answer question, so they come. They say you give them the oji, all fine."
"So where are they?"
"They watch. I promise same. Not worry."
"Where's No'shto-shti-stlen?"
"With stsho. We not touch. I tell you, you give oji, everybody go away happy. 'Cept maybe kif. You no worry. We fix kif."
"Vikktakkht's a friend of my aunt."
A laugh. A long draw at the smoke-stick and a slow exhale. "Vikktakkht kif. Nobody friend. Don't got word, 'friend.' Just 'advantage.' Just stab in you back when you no more scare him. Why he not come in station, a? He wait. Let stupid hani fight the mane. Tell you what. You give oji, stsho at Llyene happy, we happy, no problem."
"I don't give anything, mahe. I'm not a charity. I got it, I keep it. Maybe I take it to my aunt."
"Make big mess. Meanwhile you got go out there tell kif sorry you make mistake. You look real bad, hani. You look like dessert. Maybe like hos-tage, a? Kif go make deal Pyanfar, hey, you want? You pay. You got experience that game."
Trying to shake her nerve, he was. She wrinkled her nose, not a friendly gesture. Or a patient one.
"Maybe I get along with them just fine."
"Then you two time fool. You got chance win big here. Pyanfar got lot commitment No'shto-shti-stlen.
You make new deal, be friend new gov'ment, all fine, easy new gov'ment be friend Pyanfar. You big important. Lot good deal for you."
She stared at him, thought about the directions power would run in the Compact, asked her
self what was in it for Paehisna-ma-to, and came up with: "double-cross." Not quite a coup for Paehisna-ma-to, but no prosecution for the explosion at Kshshti, they'd blame that one on the kif; no absolute gain of power but no stop to the Momentum of Paehisna-ma-to either. Net gain, no loss, No'shto-shti-stlen out of the way, net gain there, too, putting Meetpoint in the hands of someone more attuned to other voices.
Gods, she did hate politics. And hated worse being suckered.
But if Haisi tossed off a kifish strike force of twenty hunter ships as a "we fix," Haisi had a lot of fire-power out there hidden in the system—
"So?" Haisi asked her. "You want be logical? No good, the oji, got no value 'cept to stsho. Chanur don't want lose face. We don't want lose face. 'Specially Vikktakkht don't want lose face: what you got do is make him look good, make him go 'way,"
So maybe there wasn't such a large mahen force. And Haisi was one good negotiator.
"You want me to tell him to go away, huh? You worried?"
A quick frown. Haisi snatched the smoke-stick from his mouth to jab it in her direction. "You want peace? You not want? That are whole question. You not just stupid hani captain, you Chanur. You got youself in politic, all right, you play smart. You only damn one can get that kif go 'way now. You only one can save Vikktakkht sfik so he don't get throat cut by own follower. Kif damn fragile, all time damn fragile. You got save him, or we got fight. I rather not fight. I rather not have this kif sit point gun at Meetpoint. Lot nervous people here."
Maybe Haisi was saying the same about himself— he was in a bind, a serious one. He wanted a way out.
So she'd done him damage. She had that.
"I have to give him something," she said. "I have to bring him in on the negotiations. 1 have to be there.
This has to save face for everybody. You understand me?"
Haisi looked relieved. "Number one fine. You got million credit deal. You walk away clear. What more want?"
"No, no, no, it doesn't work that way. We've got to talk to the stsho. We've got to have a slice of this, so does Vikktakkht."
"What you want? You dumb hani captain, no make gov'ment."
“I’m Chanur, mahe. You've been using that, that's the game you've been playing, and I demand to have something out of this that's going to satisfy that kif out there, that's going to satisfy our honor, and not have any trouble with our papers, our cargoes, or the Personage's affairs. I have an obligation to her friends. I have a contractual obligation to No'shto-shti-stlen. That's gtst property. I can't just hand it over. I've got, for that matter, an obligation to that kif out there, who's played tolerably fair with me. So you've got what you want here, you haven't got what I have, you're not secure until you've got it, and you'd better damn well settle with our honor, and our claims, and our — pardon me — finance, because anything else is going to be expensive to the stsho and to this station, which isn't going to make the stsho damn happy with you, a?"
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