You go han they make big mess. I know. You know. You go han they turn all politic. Instead go mahen Personage like good friend, take Personage message in number one tape. Sorry this coded. We all got little worry.
Now give bad news. Kif hunting you. Old enemy Akkukkak sure dead, but some kif bastard got ambition take Akkukkak's command. We got another hakkikt coming up, name Akkhtimakt. I think this fellow lieutenant to Akkukkak, got same ugly way make trouble, want prove self more big than Akkukkak. How do this? Revenge on knnn not good idea. Revenge on human another kind thing; same revenge on you and me. Ship in port name Harukk, captain name Sikkukkut. This number one bastard claim self enemy this Akkhtimakt, want offer deal. This smell many day dead.
You add all same up, run mahen Personage. Paper good. You make number one deal mahendo'sat this time. You got big item. Forget other cargo. Be rich. Promise. You hani enemies not touch.
Wish all same luck. I got business stsho space. Got fix thing.
Goldtooth Ana Ismehanan-min a Hasanan-nan, same give you my sept name.
She looked up, ears flat.
"What's it say?" asked Haral, in all diffidence.
"Goldtooth wished us luck. Promises help. He's bribed the stsho. Someone got those papers fixed to get us here and gods-be if any of it was accident." She gnawed a filthy hangnail. It tasted of fish and human. She spat in distaste and clipped the papers into her data bin. "Tell Tirun and Geran get out cargo unloaded. Get Chur on it. Fast."
"All of it?"
She turned a stare Haral's way. It was a question, for sure; but not the one Haral asked aloud.
"All of it. Call Mnesit. Tell them get an agent down here to identify what's theirs. Tell Sito sell at market and bank what's ours."
"They'll rob us. Captain, we've got guarantees; we've got that Urtur shipment promised —
We've got the first good run in a year. If we lose this now-"
"Gods rot it, Haral, what else can I do?" Embarrassed silence then. Haral's ears sank and pricked up again desperately.
So they prepared to run. Prepared — to lose cargo that meant all too much to Chanur in its financial straits, trusting a mahen promise... for the second time. And for the first time in memory Haral Araun disputed orders.
"I'm going for a bath," she said.
"Do what with the incoming cargo?" A faint, subdued voice.
"Offer it to Sito," she said. "Warehouse what he won't take. So maybe things work out and we get back here." Likely the stsho would confiscate it at first chance. She did not say what they both knew.
She got out of the chair and headed out of the bridge, no longer steady in the knees, wanting her person clean, her world in order; wanting — gods knew what.
Youth, perhaps. Things less complicated.
There was one worry that wanted settling — before baths, before any other thing shunted it aside.
She buzzed the door of number one ten, down the corridor from her own quarters, down the corridor from the bridge. No answer. She buzzed again, feeling a twinge of guilt that set her nerves on edge.
"Khym?"
She buzzed a third time, beginning to think dire thoughts she had had half a score of times on this year-long voyage — like suicide. Like getting no answer at all and opening the door and finding her husband had finally taken that option that she had feared for months he would.
His death would solve things, repair her life; and his; and she knew that, and knew he knew it, in one great guilty thought that laid her ears flat against her skull.
"Khym, blast it!"
The door shot open. Khym towered there, his mane rumpled from recent sleep. He had thrown a wrap about his waist, nothing more.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
"Sure. Fine." His pelt was crossed with angry seams of scratches plasmed together. His ears, his poor ears that Gaohn Station medics had redone with such inventive care and almost restored to normalcy — the left one was ripped and plasmed together again. He had been handsome once. . still was, in a ruined, fatal way. "You?"
"Good gods." She expelled her breath, brushed past him into his quarters, noting with one sweep of her eye the disarray, the bedclothes of the sleeping-bowl stained with small spots of blood from his scratches. Tapes and galley dishes lay heaped in clutter on the desk. "You can't leave things lying." It was the old, old shipboard safety lecture, delivered with tiresome patience. "Good gods, Khym, don't. Don't do these things."
"I'm sorry," he said, and meant it as he did all the other times.
She looked at him, at what he was, with the old rush of fondness turned to pain. He was the father of her son and daughter, curse them both for fools. Khym once-Mahn, lord Mahn, while he had had a place to belong to. Living in death, when he should have, but for her, died decently at home, the way all old lords died; and youngsters died, who failed to take themselves a place — or wander some male-only reserve like Sanctuary or Hermitage, hunting the hills, fighting other males and dying when the odds got long. Churrau hanim. The betterment of the race. Males were what they were, three quarters doomed and the survivors, if briefly, estate lords, pampered and coddled, the brightness of hani lives.
He had been so beautiful. Sun-shining, clear-eyed-clever enough to get his way of his sisters and his wives more often than not. And every hani living would have loved him for what he did at Gaohn, rushing the kif stronghold, an old lord outworn and romantically gallant in the eternal tragedy of males-
But he had lived. And walked about Gaohn station with wonder at ships and stars and foreignness. And found something else to live for. She could not send him home. Not then. Not ever.
"It was a good fight," she said. "Out there."
His nose wrinkled. "Don't patronize, Py."
"I'm not. I'm here to tell you it wasn't your fault. I don't care how it started, it wasn't your fault.
Kif set it up. Anyone could have walked into it. Me, Haral, anyone." His ears lifted tentatively. "We've got one other problem." She folded her arms and leaned against the table edge. "You remember Tully."
"I remember."
"Well, we've got ourselves a passenger. Not for long. We take him to Maing Tol. A little business for the mahendo'sat."
The ears went down again, and her heart clenched. "For the gods' sakes don't be like that.
You know Tully. He's quiet. You'll hardly know he's here. I just didn't want to spring that on you."
"I'm not 'being like that.' For the gods' sakes I've got some brains. What 'business for the mahendo'sat'? What have you gotten yourself into? Why?"
"Look, it's just a business deal. We do a favor for the mahendo'sat, it gets paid off, like maybe a route opens. Like maybe we get ourselves that break we need right now."
"Like the last time."
"Look, I'm tired, I don't want to explain this all. Say it's Goldtooth's fault. I want a bath. I want — gods know what I want. I came to tell you what's happened, that's all."
"That kif business. . have anything to do with this?"
"I don't know."
"Don't know?"
Aliens and alien things. He was downworlder. Worldbred. "Later. It's under control. Don't worry about it. You going to be all right?"
"Sure."
She started then to go.
"I was remarkable, Py. They arrested me and I didn't kill even one of them. Isn't that fine?"
The bitterness stopped her and sent the wind up her back. "Don't be sarcastic. It doesn't become you."
"I didn't kill anyone, all the same. They were quite surprised."
She turned all the way around and set her hands on her hips. "Gods-rotted stsho bigots. What did they say to you?"
"The ones in the bar or the ones in the office?"
"Either."
"What do you expect?"
"I want an answer, Khym."
"Office wouldn't speak to me. Said I wasn't a citizen. Wanted the crew to keep me quiet.
They wanted to put restraints on me. Crew said no. I'd have let t
hem go that far."
She came back and extended a claw, straightened a wayward wisp of mane. He stood a head taller than she; was far broader-they had at least put weight back on him, from that day she had found him, gone to skin and bones, hiding in a hedge outside Chanur grounds. He had been trying to find his death then, had come to see her one more time, in Chanur territory, with their son hunting him to kill him and Kohan apt to do the same. . if Kohan were not Kohan, and ignoring him for days: gods, the gossip that had courted, male protecting male.
"Listen," she said. "Stsho are xenophobes. They've got three genders and they phase into new pysches when they're cornered. Gods know what's in their heads. You travel enough out here and you don't wonder what a stsho'll do or think tomorrow. It doesn't matter. Hear?"
"You smell like fish," he said. "And gods know what else."
"Sorry." She drew back the hand.
"Human, is it?"
"Yes."
He wrinkled his nose. "I won't kill him either. See, Py? I justify your confidence. So maybe you can tell me what's going on. For once."
"Don't ask."
"They think I'm crazy. For the gods' sakes, Py, you walk in here with news like that. Don't kill the human, please. Never mind the kif. Never mind the gods-be-blasted station's going to sue-"
"They say that?"
"Somewhere in the process. Py — I don't put my nose into Chanur business. But I know accounts. I was good at it. I know what you've put into this trip, I know you've borrowed at Kura for that repair-"
"Don't worry about it." She patted his arm, turned for the door in self-defense, and stopped there, her hand on the switch. She faced about again with a courtesy in her mouth to soften it; and met a sullen, angry look.
"My opinion's not worth much," he said. "I know."
"We'll talk later. Khym, I've got work to do."
"Sure."
"Look." She walked back and jabbed a claw at his chest. "I'll tell you something, na Khym. You're right. We're in a mess and we're short-handed, and you gods-rotted took this trip, on which you've gotten precious few calluses…." The eyes darkened. "It was your idea."
"No. It was yours. You gods-rotted well chose new things, husband: this isn't Mahn, you're on a working ship, and you can rotted sure make up your mind you're not lying about on cushions with a dozen wives to see to the nastinesses. That's not true anymore. It's a new world. You can't have it half this and half that — you don't want the prejudice, but you gods-rotted well want to lie about and be waited on. Well, I haven't got time. No one's got time. This is a world that moves, and the sun doesn't come round every morning to warm your hide. Work might do it."
"Have I complained?" The ears sank. The mouth was tight in disaste. "I'm talking about policy."
"When you know the outside you talk about policy. You walk onto this ship after what happened in that bar and you walk into your quarters and shut the door, huh? Fine. That's real fine. This crew saved your hide, gods rot it, not just because you're male. But you sit in this cabin, you've sat in this cabin and done nothing-"
"I'm comfortable enough."
"Sure you are. You preen and eat and sleep. And you're not comfortable. You're eating your gut out."
"What do you want? For me to work docks?"
"Yes. Like any of the rest of this crew. You're not lord Mahn any more, Khym."
It was dangerous to have said. So was the rest of it. She saw the fracture-lines, the pain. She had never been so cruel. And to her distress the ears simply sank, defeated. No anger. No violence.
"Gods and thunders, Khym. What am I supposed to do with you?"
"Maybe take me home."
"No. That's not an option. You wanted this."
"No. You wanted to take on the han. Myself — I just wanted to see the outside once. That's all."
"In a mahen hell it was."
"Maybe it is now."
"Are they right, then?"
"I don't know. It's not natural. It's not-"
"You believe that garbage? You think the gods made you crazy?"
He rubbed the broad flat of his nose, turned his shoulder to her, looked back with a rueful stare.
"You believe it, Khym?"
"It's costing you too much. Gods, Py — you're gambling Chanur, you're risking your brother to keep me alive, and that's wrong, Py. That's completely wrong. You can't stave off times. I had my years; the young whelp beat me."
"So it was an off day."
"I couldn't come back at him. I didn't have it, Py. It's time. It's age. He's got Mahn. It's the way things work. Do you think you can change that?"
"You didn't see the sense in another fight. In wasting an estate in back and forth wrangling.
Your brain always outvoted your glands."
"Maybe that's why I lost. Maybe that's why I'm here. Still running."
"Maybe because you've always known it's nonsense and a waste. What happened to those talks we used to have? What happened to the husband who used to look at the stars and ask me where I went, what I'd seen, what outside the world was like?"
"Outside the world's the same as in. For me. I can't get outside the world. They won't let me."
"Who?"
"You know who. You should have seen their faces, Py."
"Who? The stsho?"
"Ayhar."
"Those godforsaken drunks?"
"Last thing they expected — me in that bar. That's what the stsho owner said. 'Get away from me, get away from my place, don't go crazy here.' "
"Gods rot what they think!"
"So? Did I teach them anything? Stsho didn't want to serve me in the first place. And I'd had — well, two. To prove I wouldn't, you know — go berserk. And then the riot started. What good's that going to do you — or Kohan?"
"Kohan can take care of himself."
"You're asking too much of him. No, Py, I'm going back downworld when we get back."
"To do what?"
"Go to Sanctuary. Do a little hunting."
"— be the target of every young bully who's honing up his skills to go assault his papa, huh?"
"I'm old, Py. It catches up with a man faster. It's time to admit it."
"Gods-rotted nonsense! You'll go back to Anuurn with a ring in your ear, by the gods you will."
He gave a smile, taut laugh, ears up. "Good gods, Py. You want my life there to be short, don't you?"
"You're not going downworld."
"I'll beg on the docks till I get passage, then."
"Gods-rotted martyr."
"Let me go home, Py. Give it up. You can't change what is. They won't let you change. Gods know they won't let me. Whatever you're trying, whatever grandstanding nonsense you've gotten into —
give it up. Stop now. While there's time. I'm not worth it."
"Good gods. You think the sun swings around you, don't you? Ever occur to you I have other business than you? That I do things that don't have a thing to do with you?"
"No," he said, "because you're desperate. And that's my fault. Gods, Py-" A small, strangled breath, a drawing about the mouth. "It's cost enough."
"You know," she said after a moment, "you know what's kept the System in power? The young expect to win. Never mind that three quarters of them die. Never mind that estates get ruined when some young fluffbrain gets in power over those that know better and tries to prove he's in charge.
The young always believe in themselves. And the graynoses flat give up, give up when they've got the estate running at its best — They get beaten and it's downhill again with a new lord at the helm. All the way downhill. You know other species pass things on, like mahendo'sat: they train their successors, for the gods' sakes-"
"They're not hani. Py, you don't understand what it feels like. You can't."
"Kohan ignored you right well."
"Sure. Easy. I wasn't much. He still ignores me. How do you think I'm here?"
"Because I say so. Because Kohan's too old and too smart to hold his breath till I give in. A
nd by the gods the next time some whelp comes at him with challenge we'll tear the fellow's ears off. First."
"Good gods, Py! You can't do that to him-"
"Keep him alive? You can lay money on it. Me. Rhean. Even his Faha wife. Not to mention his daughters. Maybe some son, who knows? — someday."
"You're joking."
"No."
"Py. You remember the fable of the house and the stick? You pull the one that's loose and it gets another one-"
"Fables are for kids."
"— and another. Pretty soon the whole house comes down and buries you. You start a fight like that in the han and gods know — gods know what it'll do to us."
"Maybe it might be better. You think of that?"
"Py, I can't take this dealing with strangers. I get mad and I can't stand it, I ache, Py. That's biology. We're set up to fight. Millions of years — it's not an intellectual thing. Our circulatory system, our glands-"
"You think I don't get mad? You think I didn't want to kill myself some kif out there? And I by the gods held my temper."
"Nature gave you a better deal, Py. That's all."
"You're scared."
He stared at her, eyes wide in offense.
"Scared and spoiled," she said. "Scared because you're doing what no male's supposed to be able to do; and guilty that maybe that makes you unmasculine; and gods-rotted spoiled by a mother that coddled your tempers instead of boxing your ears the way she did your sister's. He's just a son, huh?
Can't be expected to come up to his sister's standard. Let him throw his tantrums, and keep him out of his father's sight. Makes him potent, doesn't it? And gods, never let him trust another male. Rely on your sister, huh?"
"Leave my family out of this."
"Your sister hasn't done one gods-rotted thing to back you. And your worthless daughters-"
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