Chanur's Venture cs-2

by Caroline J. Cherryh

  "How courteous of them. They give you any trouble?"

  "Kept us locked up filling out forms," said Geran. "Sent us out about an hour ago."

  "Huh." She sat down in her own place, at The Pride's controls, swung the chair about in its pit to look at the solemn row of faces. Hilfy, her niece, young and white about the eyes just now. Haral and Tirun, tall, wide shouldered, daughters of an elder Chanur cousin; Geran and Chur, wiry and deft, daughters to Jofan Chanur, her third cousins. A row of earnest, sober stares. She gazed last and steadily at her brother Kohan's favorite daughter, at Hilfy Chanur par Faha with a scratch down her comely nose and her ears, gods forfend — plasm on a nick in the left one. Heir to Chanur's mercantile operations, while-and-likely-after Kohan Chanur ruled at home. On the last edge of adolescence. Fearfully proud.

  Once and silently she wished Hilfy safe at home, but she did not say that. Home was a long, long way away and Chanur interests were at stake.

  "I want a watch on com," she said. "I want scan set to alarm if something comes in, if something budges from this station. I don't care what it is. I want to know."

  "Aye," said Haral.

  "Tally's back."

  Ears went up. Eyes went wide. Hilfy sat down.

  "Good gods," Chur said.

  "Mahijiru's here. Was here. Goldtooth's cut loose and run." There were other things to break to them, like being backed into agreements, like a fool of an aging captain who had believed for one moment in a way out of what she had gotten Chanur into, a way into human trade and all it meant.

  "He was going to slip us a canister with a special cargo. Don't blame me-" She waved a hand.

  "Goldtooth's originality, gods help us. But the stsho are playing power games. That can's tied up in red tape in customs. I think I've got it fixed."

  Chur and Tirun sank into seats where they were, ears back.

  "Sorry," Pyanfar said tautly. "Sorry, cousins."

  "Got a chance?" Haral asked. Meaning lost trade. Lost chances. A whole variety of things, in loyalty too old to be completely blind. "The mahendo'sat've come through?"

  "Don't know. They just headed out and left us the package. There's worse news. The kif are onto it."

  "Gods." Geran leaned onto the back of Chur's couch. "And the bar fight-"

  "Set up. Absolutely it was a set-up." She recalled with chagrin the kif watcher while she had been on the docks. "Maximum confusion. Goldtooth kited out. Under what circumstances- gods know.

  Messages were going up and down that dock like chi in a fire drill. Maybe it was a kifish smash-and-grab. Maybe not. Likely it was targeted at the stsho. They've sure got the pressure on."

  "The kif know about that can?" Tirun asked.

  "Gods-rotted mahe shoved a shipment out in the middle of bolting dock like their tail was afire

  — what else could they guess? Gods know who's been bribed. Gods know how long the bribes will hold.

  — Khym all right, is he?"

  Silence for a moment. Haral shrugged uncomfortably. "Guess he is," Haral said.

  "He have anything to say?"

  "Not much."

  "Huh."

  "Said he'd be in his quarters."

  "Fine." She bit it off. They were blood kin, she and the crew. All Chanur. All with the same at stake, excepting Khym, Mahn-clan, male, past his prime and his reason for living and belonging anywhere. Her brother Kohan Chanur relied on her, back home. Meetpoint in ruins. Kif on the loose.

  Stsho facing her down. The Pride nose-deep in it again. She had gone softheaded as well as softhearted. Hani everywhere muttered to that effect. Only her long-suffering crew would not say it, even yet. And Hilfy, of course Hilfy. Worship shone undimmed in those young eyes.

  Fool kid, she thought. And to the crew at large: "What happened with our cargo out there?"

  "Cans on the dock were gone when we got back," Tirun said. "We filed a theft report with station. Cans still inside are safe."

  "Kif are fast. Power her up. We go on using station's hookups, but we keep our own online. Look sharp, hear? Don't ask me how long this goes on. I don't know. Contact customs. I want to know where that incoming shipment is."

  No one mentioned costs or what the stsho might do. No one mentioned licenses, and the docking rights and routes it had cost too much to regain. No one mentioned Khym, a private folly that had long since become a public one. Not a backward look. No protests. Just a quiet moving toward stations, the whine of chairs receiving bodies all about her as she powered her own chair about and keyed in the old com messages.

  From a mahendo'sat, unidentified: "I leave paperwork, leave cans same station office. Good voyage. Got go quick. Same you."

  She drew one long, quivering breath.

  From Ayhar's Prosperity: "Banafy Ayhar to Pyanfar Chanur: We have a matter between us.

  I suggest we keep it private. I suggest you bring your witnesses to my deck. Expecting immediate reply."

  "In a mahen hell."

  "Captain?"

  She restrained herself from violence to the board. "Reply to Ayhar: Tell it to the kif."

  "Captain-"

  "Send it."

  Geran ducked her head and bent to the keys. Other messages crawled past, mostly stsho: a dozen threats of lawsuit from irate bazaar merchants; two scurrilous letters from stsho vessels in port, impugning Chanur sanity; others were rambling. Four were anonymous congratulations in mahen pidgin, some sounding inebriate, one babbling obscure mahen religious slogans and offering support.

  From Vigilance, not a word.

  "Tirun," said Chur behind her. "Got that customs contact." And a moment later:

  "Captain," Tirun said. "Got the customs chief on. Claims the papers aren't in order on that shipment."

  She spun the chair about. "The Director cleared that! Tell gtst so."

  "The customs chief says you have to come and sign."

  "I signed that god-rotted thing!"

  Tirun relayed as much, politely phrased. Amber eyes lifted. Ears flicked. "Gtst says that was the customs release. Now they want a waiver against claims by the consignor-"

  She punched it in on her own com. "This is Pyanfar Chanur. If I come over there I bring my whole ship's company. Hear? And you can explain that to the Director, you flat-bottomed bureaucrat!"

  Silence from the other end.

  She broke the contact. "Tirun: you and Geran get across that dock to that office and watch those cans all the way."

  "Kif," Tirun said.

  "Gods-rotted right the kif. They've got their bluff in on the stsho."

  "Customs is back on," Chur said. "Give it to five." She punched it in. "Well?"

  "I have schedule, hani."

  "You just put us at the head of it. Hear? I'm sending my own security. I've been robbed once at this forsaken station. Not again!"

  She broke the connection, leaned back and exhaled a long, long breath, staring at Tirun.

  "Get!"

  "Aye!" Tirun and Geran scrambled up and headed for the door.

  "Arm and take a pocket com!" she shouted after them. "And be gods-rotted discreet about it!" She spun the chair left to Haral. "I want that forward hold warmed and pressurized."

  "How long's Tully been in there?" Hilfy asked.

  Pyanfar shot a glance at the chronometer overhead. "Figure six hours. At least."

  "How good's that lifesupport?"

  "The way Goldtooth's set up the rest of this mess — who knows?" She shoved her chair around and keyed up comp, hunting cargo lists, mass records. "This list updated?"

  "No," Hilfy said.

  "I need that list, gods rot it, niece." "I'm on it," Chur said, "Scan to your number four, captain."

  She smoothed her nose with an effort, twitched her ears and heard the jingling of the several rings. Experience, they meant. Wealth. Successful voyages. She sat and watched for anything untoward, monitoring station corn, scan, every pulse and breath of information Meetpoint central let them have.

  Their own systems s
howed live in a series of amber lights.

  "Pressure's coming up," Haral said.

  "Estimate of mass loss to three, captain."

  She shunted it to Records. Comp brought up the revision. "Fine that down, Chur. Navcomp's taking main five." "You've got them."

  Nav's five segments unified themselves in comp and shunted other programs to different banks: command screens acquired nav's displays. Maing Tol. From Meetpoint that was Urtur to Kita Point to Maing Tol at best.

  "We can't singlejump." she said at last. "Not with the cargo we've still got, not anything like it."

  Silence all round. "Aye," — finally, from Haral.

  She sat staring at the graphs. "Aunt," Hilfy murmured, and turned her chair with a wide-eyed look and the comset pressed in her ear. "Aunt, it's Geran. Says customs has those cans loaded and out already; they have a bunch of mahen security on it, too."

  "Good gods. Something's going right. How long?"

  "How long?" Hilfy relayed; and her eyes flickered as she listened. "They're coming now."

  "How's that pressure?"

  "Pressure's good," Haral said.

  "Captain-" Chur. "Someone's down at the access com — It's Banny Ayhar, captain. She wants to talk to you."

  "Gods rot!" She punched in all-ship com. "Ayhar, get clear, hear me!"

  "Who is this?"

  "Pyanfar Chanur, rot your eyes, and clear my dock! There's an emergency in progress."

  "What emergency? Chanur, I'm not in a mood for more connivances. You hear me, Chanur-"

  "I've got no time for this." She spun the chair about and left it. "Haral, stand by to open up that hold. And tell Ayhar get herself out of the way. Hilfy, Chur, come on."

  They heeled her down the corridor at an almost run, into the lift for downdecks. She hit the button.

  Com snapped from the panel above the lift controls, at the first lurch of the car down.

  "Captain." Haral's voice. "Geran's on. They've got kif out there."

  She put a claw in the slot before the lift had a chance to pass the next level and stopped the car right there, on a level with the airlock. "Hilfy!" she said in leaving, before Hilfy had a chance to follow her and Chur. "Go on below and get that bay opened up."

  "Aunt-" One youthful protest, hands lifted, before the door closed between.

  They ran all-out, she and Chur, stopping only for the weapons-locker and the com-panel in the hall.

  "Get that hatch open!" Pyanfar yelled at Haral, and headed for the lock.

  Chapter Three

  They hit the access tube running and came round the bend headon into hani coming up the accessway, a broad, scarred hani captain flanked by two senior crew.

  Pyanfar evaded collision.

  "Gods rot you-" Banny Ayhar yelled, and Chur cursed; there was the thump of impact.

  "Gods rot you!" Pyanfar yelled, whirling about, outraged, as Chur recovered from her stagger and spun about at her side. "I told you clear my dock!"

  "What's it take to bring Chanur to its senses?" Banny Ayhar yelled. "When's it stop, hey? -

  You listen to me, ker Pyanfar! I've had enough being put off-"

  "We've got kif after my crew, blast your eyes."

  "Chanur!"

  She spun and gathered Chur and ran, with the thump of running Ayhar at their heels at least as far as the passageway's exit onto the downward ramp.

  "Cha-nur!" Banny Ayhar roared at her back, waking echoes off the docks; but Pyanfar never stopped, down the ramp-way and past the frozen cargo ramp and the gantry that hell The Pride's skein of station-links.

  "Chanur." Far behind them.

  There was a curious absence of traffic on the chill, echoing docks, and that silence itself was a warning. Trouble was in sight even from here, around a big can-loader grinding its slow way beside the ship accesses four berths distant.

  An odd crowd accompanied it — a half dozen mahendo'sat in station-guard black strode along beside. Two red-pelted hani in faded blue breeches rode the flatbed with the tall white cans, while a dozen black-robed kif stalked along in a tight knot; and if any stsho customs officer was involved at all gist was either barriered inside the cab or fled for safety.

  "Come on," Pyanfar said to Chur — no encouragement needed there. Chur kept beside her as they crossed the space at a deliberate jog, not out to provoke trouble, not slow to meet it either. Her hand was in her spacious pocket, clenched about the butt of the gun she tried to keep still and out of sight, and her eyes were constantly on that knot of kif, alert for anything kif-shaped that might show itself from ambushes among the maze of gantries and dock-side clutter to the right and the office doors to the left.

  "Hai," she yelled with great joviality, when they were a single berth apart. "Hai, you kif bastards, about time you came out to say hello."

  The kif had seen them coming too. Their dozen or so scattered instantly all about the moving can-carrier, some of them screened by it. But from the carrier's broad bed, from beside the four huge cans, several mahen guards dropped down to stand at those kif's backs.

  "Good to see you," Pyanfar gibed, halting at a comfortable distance. Kifish faces were fixed on her in starkest unfriendliness. "I was worried. I thought you'd forgotten me."

  "Fool," one hissed.

  She grinned, her hand still in her pocket, her ears up, her eyes taking in all the kif. Two moved, beyond the moving can-carrier, and she shifted to keep them in sight. The smell of them reached her.

  Their dry-paper scent offended her nostrils with old memories. The long-snouted faces peering from within the hooded robes, the dark-gray hairless skin with its papery wrinkles, the small, red-rimmed eyes — set the hair bristling on her back. "Do something," she wished them. "Foot-lickers. Riffraff. Petty thieves. Did Akkukkakk turn you out? Or is he anywhere these days?"

  Kifish faces were hard to read. If that reference to a vanished leader got to them, nothing showed. Only one hooded face lifted, black snout atwitch, and stared at her with directness quite unlike the usual kifish slink. "He is no longer a factor," that one said, while the carrier groaned past under its load of canisters and took itself from between them and four more kif.

  More soft impacts hit the deck beside her. From the tail of her eye she saw a red-gold blur.

  Tirun and Geran had dropped off the flatbed rear. They took up a position at her left as Chur held the right.

  "Get back," she said without looking around at her two reinforcements. "Go on with the carrier. Hilfy's in lower ops. Get that cargo inside." The mahen station guards had moved warily into better position, several dark shadows at the peripheries of her vision, two of them remaining in front of her and behind the kif.

  "You carry weapons," that foremost kif observed, not in the pidgin even the cleverest of mahe used. This kif had fluency in the hani tongue, spoke with nuances — dishonorable conceaied weapons, the word meant. "You have difficulties of all kinds. We know, Pyanfar Chanur. We know what you are transporting. We know from whom it comes. We understand your delicate domestic situation, and we know you now possess something that interests us. We make you an offer. I am very rich. I might buy you — absolution from your past misjudgments. Will you risk your ship? For I tell you that ship will be at risk — for the sake of a mahendo'sat who is lost in any case."

  She heard the carrier growling its way out of the arena, out of immediate danger. Chur had stayed at her side. So had the six mahendo'sat station guards. "What's your name, kif?"

  "Sikkukkut-an'nikktukktin. Sikkukkut to curious hani. You see I've studied you."

  "I'll bet you have."

  "The public dock is no place to conduct delicate business. And there are specific offers I would make you."

  "Of course."

  "Profitable offers. I would invite you to my ship. Would you accept?"

  "Hardly."

  "Then I should come to yours." The kif Sikkukkut spread his arms within the cloak, a billowing of black-gray that showed a gleam of gold. "Unarmed, of course."

/>   "Sorry. No invitation."

  The kif lowered his arms. Red-rimmed eyes stared at her with liquid thought. "You are discourteous."

  "Selective."

  The long gray snout acquired a v-form of wrinkles above the nostril slits, a chain slowly building, as at some faint, unpleasant scent. "Afraid of witnesses?"

  "No. Just selective."

  "Most unwise, Pyanfar Chanur. You are losing what could save you. . here and at home. A hani ship here has already witnessed — compromising things. Do I hazard a guess what will become of Kohan Chanur — of all that Chanur — precariously — is, if anything should befall The Pride? Kohan Chanur will perish. The name will have never been; the estates will be partitioned, the ships recalled to those who will then take possession of Chanur goods. Oh, you have been imprudent, ker Pyanfar.

  Everyone knows that. This latest affair will crush you. And whom have you to thank, but the mahendo'sat, but maneuverings and machinations in which hani are not counted important enough to consult?"

  The transport's whining was in the distance now. She heard another sound, the hollow escaping-steam noise of the cargo hatch opening up, the whine of a conveyer moving to position and meshing; old sounds, familiar sounds: she knew every tick and clank for what they were. "What maneuverings among kif?" she asked the gray thief. "What machinations — that would interest me, I wonder."

  "More than bears discussion here, ker Pyanfar. But things in which a hani in such danger as you are would be interested. In which you may — greatly — be interested, when the news of Meetpoint gets to the han. As it surely will. Remember me. Among kif — I am one who might be disposed toward you, not against. Sikkukkut of Harukk, at your service."

  "You set us up, you bastard."

  The long snout twitched and acquired new wrinkles in its papery gray hide. Perhaps kif smiled.

  This one drew a hand from beneath its robe and she stepped back a pace, the hand on the gun in her pocket angling the gun up all at once to fire.

  It offered her a bit of gold in its gray, knobbed claws. She stared at it with her finger tight on the trigger.

  "A message," it said, "For your — cargo. Give it to him."