Chanur's Venture cs-2

by Caroline J. Cherryh

  And kif. Of course there were kif. She had made a particular point to know those names before she put The Pride in dock.. names like Kekt and Harukk, Tikkukkar, Pakakkt, Maktikkh, Nankktsikkt, Ikhoikttr. Kif names, she memorized wherever she found them, a matter of policy — to recall their routes, their dockings, where they went and trading what.

  The kif watched her routes with as much interest this last year. She was very sure of that.

  She did not loiter on the docks, but she made no particular haste which might attract attention on its own. She stared at this and that with normal curiosity, and at the same general pace she strolled up to the nearest com booth along the row of dockside offices, keyed up Chanur credit and punched in the code for the station comlink to The Pride's bridge. She waited. The com whistled and clicked through nine cycles unanswered.

  There was a kif on the docks. She spied the tall, black-robed form standing over shipside in conversation with a stsho, whose pale arms waved emphatically. She stood with her back to the plastic wall and watched this exchange past the veil of other traffic, the passing of service vehicles, of pedestrians, mostly stsho, pale-robed and elegant; here and there mahen-do'sat, dark and sleek.

  Something winged whipped past, small and upward bound for the heights of the tall, cold dock.

  Gods only knew what that was.

  Click. "Pride of Chanur," the voice finally answered. "Deck officer speaking."

  "Haral, gods rot you, how long does it take?"

  "Captain?"

  "Who's out?"

  "Outside?"

  "I want that cargo inventoried. Hear? I want all of you on it, right now. No liberties. If anyone's out, get her back. Right now."

  "Aye," the voice came back, diffident. "Aye, Captain." There was question in the voice.

  "Just do it!"

  "Aye. But — Captain?"

  "What?"

  "Na Khym's out."

  "Gods and thunders!" Her heart fell through her feet. "Where'd he go?"

  "Don't know. To the free market, I think — There some kind of trouble?"

  "I'm coming back. Get him, Haral. I want him found."

  "Aye, Captain."

  She slammed the receiver down and headed back toward the ship in haste.

  Khym, for the gods' sake. Her mate, gone strolling out in fullest confidence that papers in order meant safety… on a stsho trading station, where weapons were banned, as he had gone out of ship at Urtur and Hoas among mahendo'sat; as he had gone wandering wherever he liked through the last two markets — male, and duty-less and bored. Gods. O gods.

  She remembered the kif then, looked back, one injudicious glance over her shoulder, breaking the rest of her precautions.

  The kif was still there, looking her way beyond the gesticulating stsho, looking black and grim and interested.

  She flung around again and moved as fast as a walk could carry her, past Mahijiru behind its darkened (malfunctioning?) registry board, past one berth and the other in the chill, stsho-made air.

  She was panting in earnest when she came within sight of The Pride's berth. Everything was stopped there. The machinery that ought to be offloading stood still with cans still on the ramp. Haral was outside waiting for her, red-gold figure in blue breeches; and spying her, came her way with scurrying haste.

  "Captain-" Haral skidded up and braked, claws raking on the plates. "We're looking."

  "Kif are out," Pyanfar said. That was enough. Haral's ears went flat and her eyes went wide.

  "With Ehrran clan in port. I want him back, Haral. Where'd he talk about going? Doing what?"

  "Didn't talk, Captain. We were all busy. He was there by us at the ramp. When we looked round — gone."

  "Gods rot him!"

  "Can't have gotten far."

  "Sure he can't." She took the pocket com Haral offered her and clipped it to her belt to match what Haral had. "Who's on bridge?"

  "No one. I stayed. Alone."

  "Hilfy's out there."

  "First."

  "Lock up. Come with me."

  "Aye!" Haral snapped, spun on her heel and ran.

  Pyanfar strode on.

  Market, she reckoned. Meetpoint's famed Free Market was far and away the likeliest place to look. Baubles and exotics. Things to see.

  He might have tried the restaurants before the market.

  Or the bars of the Rows.

  Gods rot him. Gods rot her soft-headedness in ever taking him aboard. On Anuurn they called her mad. At times like this she believed it, all the way.

  She was breathing in great side-aching gasps when Haral came pelting back to fall in at her side.

  "He's not here," Hilfy said — youngest of The Pride: her left ear one-ringed, her beard only beginning, her breeches the tough blue cloth of hani crew, though she was Ker Hilfy, Chanur's someday heir. She met Tirun Araun between two aisles of the dock bazaar, among the stacks of cloth, foodstuffs, the fluttering of stsho merchants. Fluting cries of exotic nonsapients legal here for trade, the shouts of traders and passersby, music from the bars of the Rows alongside the market-echoed off the lofty overhead in one commingled roar. Smells abounded, drowning other scents. Color rioted. "I've been down every aisle, Tirun-"

  "Try the Rows," said Tirun, older spacer. Her beard was full; her mane hung wild about her shoulders. Her left ear flicked, clashing half a dozen rings. "Come on. I take evens, you take odds. Hit every bar on the Rows. He might have, gods only know."

  Hilfy gulped air and went, not questioning the orders as Haral herself had not questioned what had happened, except that something had gone wrong. Very wrong. That had been a coded call to get off the docks. At once. Her ears kept lying back on their own; she pricked them up with spasmodic efforts, seeking a hani voice through the din, from out of the row of spacer bars that lined the marketplace.

  No sign of any hani in the first bar on the row. It was all mahendo'sat inside, honking music and the raucous screech and stamp of drunken spacers.

  She crossed Tirun's path on the walk on the way out and they split again into the third and fourth bar.

  Stsho, this den. But she spotted the red-gold of hani backs clustered about a bowl-table, dived through and slid to her knees on the rim. A senior hani spacer turned round and eyed her; other eyes turned her way, all round the table. She bobbed a hasty bow with hands gripping the rim.

  "Hilfy Chanur Par Faha, gods look on you — you seen a hani male?"

  Ears laid back and pricked in non-sobriety all round the table, six pairs of ears heavy with rings. "Gods — what you been drinking, kid?"

  "Sorry." That was a mistake. She scrambled to her feet and started away; but the spacer swayed erect, waved wildly for balance as she clawed her unsteady way up the plastic bowlseat to catch her arm. "Hani male, hey? Need help, Chanur? Where you see this vision, hey?"

  There were derisive laughs, curses — someone was trodden on. The rest of the hani came up on the seat and scrambled out of the pit. Hilfy tore loose and fled. "Hey," she heard at her back, hani-cough, a drunken roar.

  "Pay!" A shrill stsho warble from another side. "Pay, hani bastard-"

  "Charge it to Ayhar's Prosperity!"

  "O gods!" Hilfy dived for the exit, just as a pair of kifish patrons loomed in the doorway. Black musty robes brushed her with a smell that sent the wind up her back. She did not look back or pause as she dived past them both. "Hard rabble." she heard hissed behind her, the noise of drunken encounter mingled with kifish voices.

  She darted through the outer doors into the light of the market, blinked, hesitating on one foot, hearing above the market noise the sound of hani in full chase behind her — no sight of Tirun. She leaned into a run and plunged into the next odd-numbered bar — stsho again, not a sight of hani. She pelted back out the doors, through the incoming mass of Ayhar clan, who began a turnabout in that doorway in merry disorder.

  Still no Tirun. She dived into the next odd-number, another stsho den, saw a tall red shape, and heard the voices, a
deeper hani voice than this port had ever heard, the chitter of stsho curses, the snarl of mahendo'sat.

  "Na Khym," she cried in profoundest relief. "Na Khym!" She eeled her way through the towering crowd at the bar and grabbed him by the arm. "Uncle — thank the gods. Pyanfar wants you.

  Now. Right now, Na Khym."

  "Hilfy?" he said, far from focused. He swayed there, a head taller than she, twice her breadth of shoulder, his broad, scarred nose wrinkled in confusion. "Trying to explain to these fellows-"

  "Uncle, for the gods' sakes-"

  "He is," a hani voice cried from the door. "By the gods — what's he doing here?"

  Khym flinched, faced about with his back to the bar, starting with misgiving at the drunken Ayhar spacers.

  "Hey!" — A second hani voice, from among the Ayhar. "Chanur! You crazy, Chanur? What are you up to, huh, bringing him out here? You got no regard for him?"

  "Come on," Hilfy pleaded. "Na Khym-" She tugged at a massive arm, felt the tension in it.

  "For gods' sake, na Khym — we've got an emergency."

  Maybe that got through. Khym shivered, one sharp tremor, like an earthquake through solid stone.

  "Get, get, get!" a stsho shrilled in pidgin. "Get out he my bar!"

  Hilfy pulled with all her might. Khym yielded and kept walking, through the hani crowd that drew aside wide-eyed and muttering, past the black wall of curious mahendo'sat and the glitter of their gold.

  Another black wall formed athwart the brighter, outside light. Billowing robes blocked the path to the door, two tall, ungainly shapes.

  "Chanur," said a kif, a dry clicking voice. "Chanur brings its males out. It needs help."

  Hilfy stopped. Khym had, with a rumbling in his throat. "Don't," Hilfy said, "don't do it —

  Khym, for gods' sakes, just let's get out of here. We don't want a fight."

  "Run," the kif hissed. "Run, Chanur. You run from kif before."

  "Come on." Hilfy wrapped her arm tightly about Khym's elbow. She guided him through the crowd toward the doorway, past the first brush of robes, trying to look noncombatant, trying to watch the whereabouts of dark kifish hands beneath the dusky cloth.

  "Hilfy," said Khym.

  She looked up. The whole doorway had filled with kif.

  "It's got a knife!" A hani voice. "Look out, kid-"

  Something flew, trailing beer and froth, and hit a kifish head. "Got!" A mahen voice crowed delight. Kif lunged, Khym lunged. Hilfy hit a kif with claws bared and bodies tangled in the doorway.

  Yiiii-yinnnnn! a stsho voice wailed above the din. "Yeeiei-yi! Police, police, police!"

  "Yaooo!" (The mahendo'sat).

  "Na Khym!"

  Tirun's voice, a roar from outside the tangled doorway, inbound. "Hilfy! Na Khym! Chanur!"

  "Ayhar, ai Ayhar."

  "Catimin-shai!"

  Mugs and bottles sailed.

  * * *

  "He's on the Rows! Hurry!" Haral's voice came from the pocket com; and Pyanfar, delaying for a check of eat-shops outside the market, started to run for all she was worth, past startled mahendo'sat and stsho who leapt from her path, herself dodging round the confused course of a methane-breather vehicle that zigged away on another tack.

  Sirens sounded. The three-story bulkhead doors of the market sector were blinking with red warning lights. She put on a final burst of speed and dived through asprawl as the valves began to move.

  The edges met with a boom and airshock that shook the deck, drowning the din of howls beyond, and she gathered herself up off the deck plates and ran without even a backward look.

  The whole market was in turmoil. Merchants or looters snatched armfuls of whatever they could; aisles jammed. Animals screeched above the roar. A black thing darted past Pyanfar's legs and yelped at being trodden on. She vaulted a counter, scrambled on a rolling scatter of trinkets, found a clear aisle and ran toward the Rows where a moment's clear sight showed a heaving mass in the doorway. Stsho darted from that crowd, pale and gibbering; drunken mahendo'sat stayed to yell odds— a pair of hani arrived from the other direction: Chur and Geran headed full tilt toward the mass.

  She jerked spectators this way and that, careless of her claws. Mahendo'sat howled outrage and moved. A kif-shape darted past her, moving faster than clear sight. She caught at it and got only robe as she broke through to the center of the mob. Plastic splintered. Glass broke, bodies rolled underfoot.

  More kif ran from the scene, a scatter of black-robed streaks outward bound at speed.

  "Khym!" Pyanfar yelled and flung herself in the path of his wild-eyed rush after the kif. Behind him Haral and Geran added themselves; Chur and Tirun followed. Hilfy jumped last, atop the heap on Khym's shoulders as it all came down in front of her.

  They stopped him. They held him down until the struggles ceased.

  There was mahen laughter, quickly hushed. In prudence, mahe drew back to perimeters, while the noise of looting went on in the market, the crash of glass, the splintering of plastics, the polyglot wails of outrage and avarice.

  "Gods rot you!" Pyanfar yelled, with a claws-out swipe at anything too near. "Get!"

  Mahendo'sat gave her room. A small knot of hani spacers stood facing her. Ears were back.

  The Pride's crew gained their feet, Haral foremost, ears laid back and grinning. Khym levered himself to his feet with Tirun holding fast to his right arm and Hilfy locked to the other side. The last sounds of combat died inside the bar. A last glass broke.

  "Pyanfar Chanur," a broadnosed hani said in stark, disapproving tones.

  "Tell it to your captain," said Pyanfar. "Tell it proper. He's my husband. You hear? Na Khym nef Mahn. Hear me?"

  Ears flicked. Eyes showed whites. The news had not gotten this far out, what lunacy she had done. Now it did. "Sure," a younger hani said, backing up. "Sure, captain."

  And Chur, at her back: "Captain — we'd better get out of here."

  She heard the sirens. She looked about past the melting crowd, who sought other bars.

  Trampled bodies stirred within the doorway.

  There were cars coming up the dock, with the white strobe flash of Security.

  Chapter Two

  The door hissed back and revealed two guards, which at Meetpoint might have been any oxy-breathing kind but stsho, considering the stsho's congenital distrust of violence. They hired all their security. Fortunately for the peace at present, these were both mahendo'sat.

  Pyanfar stopped in her pacing of the narrow room — waiting area, they had called it: stsho euphemism. Other species had other names for such small rooms with doorlocks facing outward.

  "Where's my crew?" she spat at the mahendo'sat forthwith, ears flattened despite herself. "Gods rot it, where are they?"

  "Director wants," one said, standing aside from the door. "You come now, hani captain."

  She pulled in her claws and came, since something finally seemed in movement, and since neither of the two mahendo'sat were armed with more than nature gave them and showed no desire for confrontation. They would not talk, not this pair; not threaten or swerve from duty: mahendo'sat at punctilious, honest best.

  "Here," was their only other word, at a lift door some distance through the maze.

  More traveling. The lift went a long zigzag distance through Meetpoint's bowels, and let them out again in white, pastel-decorated halls. Lights obtruded here and there in seeming random — stsho, this section, not making apology to other species' tastes, all pastels and opal colors, vast spaces, odd-angled panels riddled with random holes and alcoves. The tall black-furred, black-kilted mahen guards and the splash of her own scarlet trousers and red-gold hide were equally alien here.

  A last door, a last hallway of twisting plasti-form shapes. She flicked her ears so that the rings chimed, flexed her claws with one deep breath as if she contemplated a leap from some height, and let herself be shown into a pearl-toned hall, a splendor of bizarre walls and white-upholstered depressions in the level, gleaming floor. One
gossamer-clad stsho stood to meet them, recorder in hand. Another sat serenely important in the central bowl. Gtst — (stsho had three sexes at one time, and neither he, she, nor it was really adequate) gtst was ornamented in subtlest colors ranging into hues invisible to hani eyes, but detectible at the verges, whites with low violet shimmerings on the folds. Gtst tattooings were equally illusory on gtst naturally pearly skin, and shaded off into green and violets. Pearl-toned plumes nodded from augmented brows, shading moonstone eyes. The small mouth was clamped in disapproving straightness and nostrils flared in busy alternation.

  Pyanfar bowed before this elegance, once and shortly. The stsho waved a languid hand and the servant-translator, it must be, came and stood near, gist own robes floating free on invisible breezes— stsho-silk and expensive.

  "Ndisthe," Pyanfar said, "sstissei asem sisth an zis-" with the right amount of respect, she reckoned. Feathery eyebrows fluttered. The assistant clutched gtst recorder and drew back in indecision.

  "Shiss." The Director motioned with one elegant jeweled hand. The translator stopped in gtst retreat. "Shiss. Os histhe Chanur nos schensi noss' spitense sthshosi chisemsthi."

  "Far from fluent," Pyanfar agreed.

  The Director drew breath. Gtst plumes all nodded in profound agitation. "Sto shisis ho weisse gti nurussthe din?"

  "Did you know-" The translator flung gtstself into belated action. "-the riot in the market took four hours to stop?"

  "— ni shi canth-men horshti nin."

  "— Forty-five individuals are treated in infirmary-"

  Pyanfar kept her ears erect, her expression sympathetic.

  "Ni hoi shisisi ma gnisthe."

  "— and extensive pilferage has taken place."

  "I do share," said Pyanfar, drawing down her mouth in yet more distress, "your outrage at this disregard for stsho authority. My crew likewise suffered from this kifish banditry."

  That got rendered, with much fluttering of hands.

  "Shossmeinn ti szosthenshi hos! Ti mahen-thesai cisfe llyesthe to mistheth hos!"