"My sister did back me."
"Till you lost."
"What's she supposed to do? Gods, what's it like for her, living in Kara's house with me running about as if I were still-"
"So she's uncomfortable. Isn't that too bad? Spoiled, I say. Both of you, in separate ways."
His ears were back, all the way. He looked younger that way, the scars less obvious.
"You want," she said, "the advantages I have and the privileges you used to have. Well, they don't go together, Khym. And I'm offering you what I've got. Isn't it enough? Or do you want some special category?"
"Py, for the gods' sake I can't work on the docks!"
"Meaning in public."
"I'll work aboard." A great, gusting sigh. "Show me what to do."
"All right. You clean up. You get yourself to the bridge and Haral'll show you how to read scan. It's going to take more than five minutes." She sucked at her cheeks. She had not meant to make that gibe. "You can sit monitor on that. Our lives may depend on it. Keep thinking of that."
"Don't give me-"
"— responsibility? — Nice, boring, long-attention-span jobs?"
"Gods rot it, Py!"
"You'll do fine." She turned and punched the door button with a thumb claw. "I know you will."
"It's revenge, that's what it is. For the bar."
"No. It's paying your gods-rotted bar bill same as any of us would."
She stalked out. The door hissed shut like a comment at her back.
Chapter Four
Tully was at least on his feet — seemed to be feeling like Tully, which meant insisting on cleaning himself up if he wobbled doing it, crashing about the lowerdecks washroom talking to himself (or thinking that he was being understood) and generally insisting on his privacy from females even if they were of different species. Hilfy dithered between communications from Haral topside via the hallway com panel, frantic requests from Chur in the op room down the corridor (Tirun and Geran were busy down in cargo offloading canisters, with attendant booms and thumps up through the deck plates), and the barricaded washroom into which disappeared a pair of Haral's blue trousers and out of which issued steam and the indescribable mingle of human-smell, fruit, fish and disinfectant soap.
"You all right?" Hilfy asked, when a hairless arm snaked the offered trousers from around the corner of the door. "Tully, hurry it up. We've got other problems. Fast? Understand?"
A mumbled answer came back and the door went shut as if he had leaned on the control as soon as she had gotten her arm out. Hilfy looked round in desperation as Chur came trotting back from ops waving a pair of pocket corns and with a third clipped to her drawstring waist. "Got it," Chur said.
"Translator's up and running."
"Thank the gods." She pounded on the door again, whisked it open as Chur thrust a pocket com and earplug around the corner to their passenger and drew her arm back. "Tully-" she said to the unit Chur gave her. She put the earplug in with a grimace. "Tully? You hear me now?"
"Yes," the sound came back, mechanical, from the com loop to the translating computer.
"Who talk?" The translator's syntax was far from perfect.
"Tully," Chur said, "it's Chur talking. Hilfy and I got other work, understand? Got to go. You hurry it up; we take you to quarters, get you settled in."
"Got talk to Pyanfar."
"Captain's busy, Tully."
"Got talk." The door opened. He leaned in the doorframe, wearing blue hani trousers, which fit, but barely; and shirtless like themselves. His all but hairless skin was flushed from the heat inside and his mane and beard were dripping wet. "Got talk, come # # talk to Pyanfar."
"Tully, we've got troubles," Hilfy said. "Big emergency." She took him by the arm and Chur took the other, drawing him along despite his objections. "Got cargo troubles, all kinds of troubles."
"Kif." He went stiff and stopped cooperating. "Kif are here?*'
"We're still at dock," Hilfy said, keeping him moving. "We're sitting at Meetpoint and we're as safe as we're going to be. Come on."
"No, no, no." He turned and seized her arms with his bluntfingered hands, let her go and shook at Chur. "# No # # #"
Hilfy shook her head at the static breakup. The translator missed those words. Or never had them.
"Hilfy, Chur — mahen # take # ship # human. I bring papers from #. They ask # hani make stop these kif. Got danger. We're not safe # Meetpoint."
"What's he mean?" asked Chur, her ears gone lower, up again. "You catch that?"
"Go get hani fight these kif," Tully said.
"Good gods," Hilfy said.
"Friend," he said again, the hani word, that sent garble through the translator, less forgiving of his mangled pronunciation. His strange blue eyes were aflicker with fear and secrets. "Friend."
"Sure," Hilfy said. She felt a cold lump at the pit of her stomach, hearing the clank and whine of cargo at work below. Things clicked into place of a sudden, that her aunt had committed them to something more than running an illegal passenger — being desperate, with Chanur's financial back to the wall.
It was more than human trade Tully brought. Trade might save their hides.
But entanglements with kif, deals with a mahendo'sat who was not the trader he gave out to be-
And the likes of Rhif Ehrran breathing down their backs all the while — she had heard it all from Chur.
The han would have their ears.
Pyanfar took the com to the shower with her, hung it on the wall outside. On the day's record so far, she expected calamities.
The first call brought her dripping from shower to the mat outside undried, mane and beard and hide cascading suds.
"Captain." Haral's voice.
"Trouble?"
"Na Khym's here. Says you said he should sit scan monitor."
"Show him what he needs."
Dead silence from the other end. Then: "Aye, captain. Sorry to bother you."
Back to the shower then, to wash the suds off. She slicked the mane back, flattened her ears and squinched her eyes and nostrils shut, face-on to the water-jet for one precious self-indulgent second.
She sneezed the water clear and cycled from water to drier, fluffing out her mane and beard, enjoying the warmth.
The com beeper went off again.
"Gods rot." She left the heat and stood damp and shivering by the hook, fumbling the answer slot. "Pyanfar."
"Captain." Haral again. "Got a kifish message couriered in. From one Sikkukkut. Says it's for you personally."
"Open it."
A long silence. "He's offering partnership."
"Good gods." She forgot the physical cold for a deeper shock.
"Says he wants to talk with you face to face. Says — gods — he's talking specifics here. He names ships he says are after us. Says we have mutual enemies. He gets into kifish stuff here — pukkukkta."
"Gods-rotted pukkukkta changes meaning in every context — get linguistic comp on that.
Get it on the whole thing — Keep alert up there."
"Aye, captain. Sorry."
"All right." She sneezed and cut the com off, returned to the shower and recycled the dryer.
"Captain. Captain."
She left the staff and snatched up com. "For the gods' sake, Haral-"
"— Captain, sorry. That request for scheduling — It seems we're being sued. Got six lawsuits against us and station says it can't give clearance without-"
She shut her eyes a moment, composed her voice and kept it very calm. "Get the station-master online. Tell gtst to issue orders."
"By your leave, I've tried, captain. Call won't go through. The stationmaster's office says gtst is indisposed. The word was gstisi."
Personality crisis.
"That gods-rotted white-skinned flutterbrain isn't going to Phase on us! Countersue the bastards and start prep for manual undock as soon as they get that cargo clear. Get everyone on it down there. And send a message to the director and say if gtst doesn
't get this straightened out I'll give gtst new personality more damages to worry about, some of them to gtst person."
"Aye," Haral said.
She threw clothes on, her third-best trousers, green silk with moire orange stripes in the weave; a belt with bronze bangles; the pearl for her ear. Her best armlet, the heavy one. The alien ring was on the counter, from the pocket of the red breeches. She considered, dropped it indecisively into her pocket, pocketed the gun again, clipped on the com and pattered out into the hall in haste, claws clenched, headed for the bridge.
"Captain." The pocket com again, this time from her belt. "Captain, I got the stationmaster on."
"I'm coming," she said, and hastened, down the corridor into the open door. Haral looked about; Khym sat at the righthand station, intent on the scan, the light flickering off his dutiful, martyred scowl.
Haral handed her the transcription. "Gtst is out. A new individual is in power. I think it's still the last one, in a personality shift. The new Director wants payment in full. Says we got the better of the last director, drove gtst into a crisis that wasn't due for twenty years, and this one's determined to get gtst money up front. Intends to impound all offloaded cargo."
"Gods rot-" She swallowed it, seeing the movement of Khym's all-too-hearing ears backward at her voice. She read the demand for payment. "Four hundred million-"
"Nine hundred with the lawsuits. I think that's the problem. Someone important has sued and gtst has to do something."
"I could guess who."
"Gods. Kif. Possible." Haral rubbed her scarred nose, looked up from under her brow. "You thinking of breaking port?"
"Maybe."
"If we do it they'll blackball us. Every stsho port. Every stsho facility. They'll never lift the ban."
"Same if we don't pay."
"Aye, captain," Haral said morosely. And lifting her ears: "Captain, we could offer them the profit. Earnest money, like. Offer to give them more'on next trip. Gods know how we'll pay off the shippers — but that's tomorrow. And it'll be tied up in litigation anyway, soon as it hits Site's warehouse."
"Maybe." Pyanfar combed her beard with her claws, looked distractedly toward Khym's broad back. Shook her head as at some heavy blow.
"How's that unloading going?" She missed the sound of the conveyors of a sudden. "Finished down there?"
"Sounds like."
"Rot their eyes." Meaning stsho. She sucked in her mustache ends and gnawed at them.
"Pukkukkta."
"Captain?"
"Pukkukkta. What did comp say it meant?"
"Like trade of services." Haral snatched up a printout and offered it to her hand. "Like revenge. This is the item. Over regular channels, it was."
Greeting, the message said, Chanur hunter. Beware Parukt; Skikkt; Luskut; Nifakkiti.
Most of all beware Akkhtimakt of Kahakt. These aspire; that one aspires most. I Sikkukkut am with you in pukkukkta for this cause and speak to you in words which precisely describe kif, therefore ambiguity of translation lies at your feet.
I Sikkukkut know about your passenger and likewise say this: wisest to give this passenger to me. You would then be rich. But I Sikkukkut know the sfik of hunter Pyanfar that this passenger has sfik-value and will be defended. Therefore I Sikkukkut say to the sfik of Pyanfar Chanur that she must give this word to this passenger: I Sikkukkut will speak with him at an appropriate time.
Shelter by my side, hunter Pyanfar. Together we might make a fine pukkukkta, and the cost is less today than tomorrow.
Signal me and I Sikkukkut shall come to the dock where we shall find a quiet place to talk.
"Kif bastard," Pyanfar said, and crumpled the paper. "He wants Tully. That's what he wants.
That's what would buy him status."
She looked at Khym, who sat listening to it all, saying nothing; but his ears were back.
"Consign a can at random to Harukk. Tell them and then tell the stsho."
"To the kif?" Haral gasped, and Khym turned round at his post with the whites of his eyes showing.
"As a gift. To one Sikkukkut, captain of Harukk. Let the stsho sue him."
A thoughtful, wicked look came into Haral's eyes, bewilderment to Khym's.
"No one sues the kif," Khym said.
"No," Pyanfar said, "they won't. And let Sikkukkut and the station worry what's in that can, whether it's valuable or not. If he won't take it he'll have to wonder. If he does and finds nothing but trade goods — kif have remarkably little sense of humor, where face is involved. Sfik. And gods know if he has one of his cronies pick it up he'll have to wonder whether he got all that was in it. Kif don't trust each other. They can't."
"But-" Khym said.
"No time. Do it, Haral."
"Aye." Haral sat down at com, stuck the receiver in her ear and punched out a blinking light.
"Captain, that's Tully again. He's called up here a dozen times. Keeps asking something about a packet of papers. He wants to come up here and discuss it with you."
"Gods." She raked at her beard distractedly and stared round her at the bridge, at Khym's broad back as he kept dutifully to the board, proving — proving things to her. Deliberately. Stubbornly.
Then she realized what she was thinking and thrust the thought away. Male and male, same space. Old ways of thinking died hard. He's not hani, for the gods' sakes. And they're on the same ship.
"Tell him come up," she said. "Tell everyone get up here soon as they secure the hold. Prep ops for undock. And send that message."
"Aye." Haral's voice droned the communications in sequence. She punched from one to the other channels without amenities. Then in snarling stsho: "Meetpoint Central Control, this is the hani ship The Pride of Chanur, berth 6, responding to your notification regarding cargo: must inform you can 23500 has already been consigned to berth 29, Harukk-"
"Get through to Sikkukkut," Pyanfar said to her back. "Tell him there's a shipment for him in the hands of the stsho."
"You can't afford to lose that cargo," Khym said, swinging round. "To stsho or to kif.
Pyanfar-"
"Captain," she said, folding her arms. His eyes burned. She stood her ground. "You're on the bridge. It's captain. Eyes to that board."
He visibly trembled. The sigh gusted through his nostrils like the breath of a furnace. And he turned back to the board.
"Huh," she said, her worst anticipations overturned.
"The stationmaster wants to talk to you," Haral said. "I think it's gtst interpreter."
"I'll take it." She sat down in her place at controls and stuck a com plug in her ear, leaned toward the board pickup and punched the blinking light. "This is Pyanfar Chanur. Have you a question, esteemed director?"
"The director informs you-" the reply came back "-this high-handed threat will not suffice.
We have your signed acknowledgment of responsibility, but this does not cover lawsuits and our liabilities. We wish payment now."
"Is that so?" Her lips drew back as if she had the director in sight. "Tell the director gtst new Phase is a scoundrel, a liar and a pirate."
A pause. "-Our demand is just. The damages of four hundred million must be paid and the lawsuits must be settled-"
"Collect it from the kif."
"— If The Pride of Chanur undocks without payment it will violate treaty and application for reparations will go to the hem. Now this message would be more convenient than usual to deliver."
She sucked in her breath. Gods. For a stsho, the old bastard had a certain flair.
"— Your response."
"Bargain. On the one hand we will countersue. If we lose we will appeal to the court at Llhie nan Tie, to Tpehi, to Llyene, and the case will go on for years — while gtst remain legally responsible for holding our goods in warehouse while litigation proceeds."
"— This might be acceptable."
"On the other hand-on the other hand, esteemed director-"
"— Get quickly to this other hand."
; "If the request for payment were otherwise phrased, and if Meetpoint makes itself responsible for all present and future lawsuits out of the settlement, money might be forthcoming."
"— Please restate. Was this an offer of payment?"
"The station assumes full financial responsibility for present and future suits and reparations arising from the riot, releases all cargo claims, trades with our factors at listed station exchange rates, and provides us one unified bill for The Pride's damage repair."
"Please restate, Chanur captain. This translator understood 'ship damage repair.'"
"You have it right."
A delay. "-This smacks of illegality."
"Absolutely not. We will swear to damages suffered by The Pride during the disturbances.
Never mind what kind. I'm sure you have the talent to word it so we can both sign it."
"Please; please, this translator must be correct"
"You've got it. You clear our record, expedite us out, and pad that gods-rotted bill as much as you want. I'll meet you on the dock with the credit authorization in a quarter hour."
"— This is subterfuge. Chanur is known destitute."
"Revise your information, esteemed director. Chanur just called in a debt."
Prolonged silence.
"Well?"
"Excuse, esteemed Chanur captain. This will take consideration."
"You by the gods get me out of here."
More silence. "Please be discreet."
"Would the esteemed director contact me on an unsecure channel? The esteemed director is no fool. It would not be profitable for gtst to appeal to the han, in whatever form. This would surely tie up the funds in litigation." She turned and motioned furiously at Haral. "Legal release," she said into the pickup; and to Haral, and her eyes fell on Khym once-lord-Mahn, on a tense expression turned her way. She motioned at him, listening with one ear to stsho dithering. Do it, she mouthed. "-Listen, I told you, pad the bill all you want. I'm not coming to the office again. You're coming to the docks and you're going to sign a release for all damages, hear that?"
There was frantic activity to her right. Haral had comp reeling up legal forms and Khym was leaning over her shoulder muttering corrections and wordings.
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