Chanur's Homecoming

by C. J. Cherryh

  She lay there and breathed quietly a moment, ran that situation through her aching skull once and twice and a third time.

  Vigilance positioning itself where it could go head on with them or strike at their tail if they docked.

  You gods-be fool, I got thirty, forty kif out there!

  Bring kif against the han? O my gods, my gods. That fool’s going to call bets and I can’t bluff, those kif back there don’t know where to stop and I can’t hold them else. I can’t bluff, Ehrran! Don’t try to call it.

  “Mahendo’sat. Where are they?”

  “They’re braking. Holding steady relative to the kif. Keeping an eye on ’em.”

  “And no sign of Jik.” That pain was back again. It hurt to blinding. “Gods rot the luck.” He’s got to be alive. Out there somewhere. Preserving his options. Saving his own people. He has no choice. And I did it, I, I gave it to him. “Ayhar arrested.”

  “Aye, cap’n. We inquired. We got a communication from Llun, onstation. They’re real sorry, they got no choice.”

  Old friends, the keepers of Gaohn station. Old allies. Under a lot of pressure. “That all they said?”

  “Says plenty, doesn’t it, cap’n?”

  There was a time they were Py and Hal and Tirun. Across every accessible dock in the Compact. Here they were, graynosed and at wits’ end and Haral was sticking by formalities. Haral had held that line ever since the day she got set upstairs, command post, being heir to Chanur; and Haral, equally qualified, being sub-sept, got the second seat. It was the System.

  “Captain?”

  “Yeah. It says plenty. It says every gods-rotted thing wrong with us.” She shoved herself up on her hand and an elbow, flung her feet for the side of the bed. Blood was moving in her veins again. Her vision cleared. “I’ll have Ehrran’s ears, b’gods if I don’t. My own hands. In the condition I’m in, I could take that blackbreeched prig! I’ll kill her!”

  “We got other word,” Haral said, and braced her back, setting her down with both hands. Held onto her. “Rhean sent on com—says Chanur’s fallen. Kohan’s exiled. Mahn’s got the estate. Rhean’s broken with the blockade out there. She and Anfy—coming in hard behind us with Fortune and Light. Pyruun—Pyruun got Kohan to safety somewhere. They swear that. So it’s not all lost onworld, and we got help on the way if we just hold and wait. Sirany’s up there trying to keep the thing from blowing to a—”

  “Mahn.” She shook her head, blinked. Tried to focus on it. “My gods-rotted conniving son?”

  “Our godsrotted conniving son,” Khym said at her back, his voice a low rumble. “And our twice conniving daughter.”

  “With Ehrran!”

  “With their own interests, Py, when were they ever anything wider?”

  “Gods. Gods!” She flung off Haral’s hands and slapped Khym’s interference aside. Hit the floor with both feet wide and swayed there till she had shaken the fog out of her eyes. Then she headed for the door.

  The corridor.

  The bridge, where Tauran crew filled the seats.

  “Give me com,” she snarled, coming up over Sif Tauran’s shoulder. Sif hesitated, throwing a startled glance her way.

  “Captain—”

  “Give it to her,” Sirany said. “Ker Pyanfar, I’ll give you your chair.”

  “Keep it. We got troubles.” She slipped into the vacant post between Sif and Fiar. “Get me Gaohn station. Are armaments still live?”

  “We’re shut down, captain.” Nasany Tauran, down at Tirun’s post. “Reactivate?”

  “Do it.” The com light signaled available and she punched in on the frequency.

  “Pride of Chanur hailing the station,” Sif was saying. Trying to raise a response. Another light was blinking, another channel active. Sif punched it in, on a momentary pause. “That’s a call from Vigilance, captain. They advise us we’re under arrest.”

  “Tell Ehrran there’s a threat to Gaohn and we’re not it. Standby. That’s all.”

  The message went.

  “Gaohn station,” she said on her own. “This is Pyanfar Chanur, The Pride of Chanur. Stand by to record and relay.” Gaohn was hearing: that was beyond doubt: every official on that vulnerable and threatened station would be prioritied onto their transmissions. “Llun, you’ve just seen the first and smallest wave of our assault on Akkhtimakt’s ships. The next one is incoming. Naur, there’s no time for your politics. Your treaty with the stsho may have destroyed the whole species, hear me? Your relations with the mahendo’sat are tottering. Attack on our own world is possible and imminent. It is possible that no life will survive on Anuurn surface. I appeal to you, I beg you, anyone who can get their menfolk off world right now, do it, get us a chance, for the gods’ own sake, get to shuttles and get to shelters. There are still three large groups of ships unaccounted for and one of them has threatened attack on Anuurn itself.”

  Static. Sputter. “Pyanfar Chanur, retreat from this course.”

  “Is that Ehrran? Gods rot you, is that Rhif Ehrran?”

  Static and squeal. “This is Rhif Ehrran, Chanur. Take your kif and go deal with your owner.”

  “Is that what you’re going to tell the next attack that comes rolling in here? Are you going to arrest it? You absolute and total lunatic, get that ship out there on Kura-incoming where it can do some good and stay out of my way before I blow you out of space! Deny my crew medical attention! Turn tail and run at Kefk! What do you write in those gods-be reports of yours? By the gods nowhere near not the whole story, not the part where you take stsho bribes and connive with the kif against the han! Get that ship out where it belongs!”

  No response. From anyone. Not Ehrran, not Gaohn Station. Not from Anuurn itself, while lagtime ran on.

  “They’re Immune,” Sirany said, a low voice from her other side. “You’re challenging an Immune, Chanur.”

  “Arm. Target.”

  “Ker Pyanfar, they’re hani!”

  “They’ve arrested Banny Ayhar. They’ve arrested the courier that just risked her by the gods neck and Ayhar clan’s whole livelihood getting word to the mahendo’sat and getting word back here again, bringing back the captains and the crews from Maing Tol all the way home— Where do you think those ships out there with the mahendo’sat came from? They’ve swept in out of mahen space, that’s where! With the mahendo’sat! We got the gods-be hakkikt coming in here, we got this blackbreeched prig quoting rules from Naur and all their godscursed pets downworld—”

  Sirany spun the command chair about, facing her. “I said I’d surrender this. I’ll do it. I don’t agree with what they’re doing. But let me talk to Harun. Give Ehrran a chance to back up, for godssakes, Chanur, back off! Give ’em time to react, they have to have a way to save something!”

  She clenched her hands on the leather of the chair arm, hit the control, and turned it to face Sirany. No. Muscle reaction jerked her mouth. Stopped breath. Put a black ring around Sirany’s taut figure. Time, for the gods’ sakes, the godscursed fool, the fatherforsaking bastard—Pride, pride above the han, Ehrran’s precious face— A breath then. A sane breath. “All right.” Another. “All right. Let’s talk to the spacing clans. Let’s talk to Harun and Pauran and Shaurnurn and my sisters out of Chanur, and all the ships back there. They’ve arrested Banny Ayhar. The ships back there—they know what got them home. Tell them about Ayhar, tell them the rest of it, b’gods, we got it for them, the whole gods-be thing!” She spun the chair about, activated comp at that station and exhumed a log record. Accurately, first try. No one on The Pride was going to forget that date, that hour, that time.

  Kshshti station: Ehrran trying to take Tully by force, kifish attack coming from two sides on the station docks, Akkhtimakt and Sikkukkut, Banny Ayhar’s dispatch to Maing Tol carrying a message from a three-sided conference: herself, Jik, Rhif Ehrran.

  Ehrran agreeing to go with them into kifish territory.

  Second log segment: another date, another moment: exchange between The Pride and Ehrran’
s Vigilance, kin-request for medical aid, denied, made contingent on surrender of Tahar crew from Chanur sanctuary. Granted when they logged a false emergency and got in touch with Aja Jin.

  “Capsule it,” she told Sif. “Every hani ship out here. Then capsule the whole gods-be log and shoot it over to Gaohn hard afterward. Tell them beam it down to Anuurn archives. File petition for Ayhar’s release. Let’s see if for once, one time, the han can understand what’s going on out here. Put our wrap on that log transmission. There’s a lot we can’t say in front of kifish witnesses, but there’s by the gods enough there to hang that fool. Brake to standby reply.”

  “B’gods there is,” Sirany said. “Sif. Send: Industry and all the rest. Slow to standby. Transmission follows.”

  Alarm rang. The take-hold. The Pride prepared itself for braking. Other bodies hit the seats, Chanur crew, Haral and Khym and Geran, on upper decks and close enough to make it to vacancies. Blind-tired. Gods, yes. Her own head was too heavy to hold up. Her hands shook on the boards. There was not a critical control she would trust herself to handle.

  Thank gods for Tauran.

  “Captain.” Tirun from the com, voice strained by the decel. “Give us a window, we’ll get up there.”

  “Negative, negative, stay down there. You want scan on monitor down there you got it. I want you rested. Hear?”

  “Captain—”

  “Do it, Tirun. Don’t fight me. Trank out if you got to. I need you later, hear me?”

  Delay.

  “Trank. I mean it, Tirun. I got to come down there?”

  “No, cap’n. Loud and clear. We don’t need the trank, though. Can I ask—”

  “Gods help me.” Her voice faded and breath all but failed her. “Get off the com, f’godssakes, cousin, give me a rest.”

  “Out, cap’n.” Short and quiet and off the com. Instantly.

  She ducked her head into her hands. Was I short? I didn’t mean to be short. Call ’em back. Tell ’em— O gods. Tell ’em what?

  Brain won’t work. That’s all. I can’t think. Call ’em back, they’ll know I’m off.

  That’d make ’em rest real easy, wouldn’t it, Pyanfar?

  Professionals down below there. Not kids. Not stationsiders. Tirun knows what I mean. She’ll trank if she has to. Professional.

  Got to sit on Hilfy and Tully. My young fools. My devoted young fools.

  Where’s Chur? Where’s Chur in this shaking-about?

  “Geran, is somebody with Chur?”

  Dip of the ears. “They took her downside. Crew quarters.”

  Safe, then, and not alone. One detail not on my shoulders.

  Then:

  “Transmission from Vigilance,” Sif murmured. Data flowed onto her number one screen. Wordage abundant.

  It was what she expected. Selected log entries. Two ships firing log segments back and forth like beamfire. Truth and counter-truth. “Gods-be fool,” she murmured. Some of it was potentially explosive with the kif.

  “We sot that interview with Sikkukkut,” Haral said.

  “Save it,” she said. “We got kifish ears out there. If Sikkukkut loses face here, we may have troubles we can’t handle.”

  “Sfik,” Khym said. “It’s Chakkuf we have to worry about, isn’t it? That’s the leader.”

  “You got it.” A chill and a warmth went through her. Her husband, on target and calm and having picked up more on the way than she gave him credit for, the way he always did. On the bridge, in a seat beside Tauran crew, and no Tauran twitching an ear at it. Do you know what you’re hearing. Tauran? It’s change. It’s power tilting and sliding. And there’s one way in all the universe I can outdo that bastard over there commanding Chakkuf. Take and hold. Grab with both hands.

  A kif well understands this exchange of messages.

  A kif understands what I’m asking the spacer clans to do, and he understands Ehrran’s position, that it’s eroding, fast. The kif aren’t meddling in this, thank the gods, they know this is a situation they can foul up if they lay a hand on it and they don’t want to do anything. They’re waiting for me. Of course they’re waiting for me. Thanks, husband.

  “Message: priority.” Data leapt from Sif’s monitoring to monitor one, a flood of mahen log output, off a ship named Hasene.

  Mahendo’sat. My gods. They’re affirming Ayhar’s story.

  “Priority, priority.”

  Color-shift had begun on certain ships on far-scan, positions relayed and matrixed via continuous dopplered interlink from ships in position to pick them up. Certain ships were disentangling themselves from that welter of dots out there where the kif-kif-hani battle had wound down to stasis.

  Stasis no longer.

  “Priority.”

  Six of the spacing clans were moving. Coming in behind Chanur’s Fortune and Chanur’s Light. Faha kin and Harun clan were among them.

  “Inbound,” Haral murmured. “Gods hope they’re on our side.”

  “Stand by armaments. We don’t know what that lunatic Ehrran’s going to do.”

  “That’s spacers at Ehrran’s back,” Haral muttered. “Those five ships out from station behind her. I’d worry, in Ehrran’s place. I’d worry right fast.”

  “Priority! That’s a burn, Ehrran’s maneuvering—”

  Unmistakable on the passive-scan, the little flicker of the directionals; then mains cutting in, a deluge of energy from Vigilance, while the ships behind her stayed still.

  Ehrran kept on with the burn, accelerating on an insystem vector, while information continued to shoot this way and that through the system. Then Ehrran shut down to inertial: they were leaving, but not at any great pace. Vigilance still had plenty of option to turn around. Or roll and fire.

  “Bastard,” Geran hissed.

  Still dangerous. Very.

  Sudden, heart-stopping flares showed from one of Ehrran’s backers. But that was rollover, turning nose toward Gaohn and home, the same direction as the incoming ships.

  “That’s Raurn’s Ascendant,” the Tauran First said.

  Hares from the others, one and the other, and the next and the next. Rollover in each case.

  Pyanfar clenched her hands and flexed the claws and gnawed her mustaches. I haven’t got the strength to stay on the bridge. I can’t do this. I can’t last it. My gods, what am I going to do?

  When it was most critical. When hani existence rode on it.

  “Medkit,” she said, fighting down a wave of nausea. “Fiar. Get me the medkit. Stimulant. I’d better have it.”

  “Captain,” Haral said hoarsely, in hardly better shape.

  “Don’t. Don’t. Get me the stuff, get me a sandwich. I got to, Hal.”

  “You got it,” Haral said. While Fiar was off at the cabinet getting the kit.

  “I’ll get the sandwich,” Khym said. “Gfi. Whatever you want.”

  His cooking. Gods. Not the tofi. She turned a dull and helpless glance his way. “Thanks. Hold the gods-be sweet stuff, huh? Just make it fast and simple.”

  “Fast and simple.” He got out of his seat, grabbed the seat back for balance and headed up toward the galley, about the time Fiar came back with the kit, laid it out on the counter, and pulled a syringe out.

  She held out an arm. Held it there while the needle went in, while Sirany’s voice whispered out of the distance, talking to other ships.

  “You can’t do this twice,” Haral was saying. “Hear me. I’ll put you out, cap’n.”

  She gave Haral a bleak stare. It was an honest threat, meant to save her life. The stimulant hit with a wave of giddiness, sending her heart thudding. For a moment her own pulse was all she could hear, and if she moved she would drift free off the floor, disoriented.

  Harder and harder pulse. She drew a great breath. A second. “I’m all right,” she said. And knew she had better not get up. The bridge spun and swung as if ship rotation had gone totally erratic.

  Food arrived. Sandwich first. Cup of water. Fiar ran courier. The water went down best. S
he forced a single bite of the sandwich.

  “Worse shape than Chur,” Haral muttered at her side. “Gods, go off, we got running time, take it.”

  “Get some food yourselves. You. Geran. Get. We got everything covered. Get, hear. Want a tour with the kif?”

  Haral’s ears flattened. Old threat. Old joke. Not a joke, nowadays. She cleared the chair and took hold of Geran’s arm when Geran got up and staggered. Both of them were out on their feet.

  And leagues and leagues to go for Anuurn’s sake.

  It was a knifing pain when she let her mind shift to home, and Kohan, and a refuge which did not exist any longer. The bright blue world was there. Chanur was not. Dissolved. The estate legally in the hands of her son Kara Mahn.

  And her son firmly under the influence of her daughter Tahy, who was groundling to the depths of her shortsighted, narrow heart.

  I never knew you! Tahy’s voice, Tahy’s face, nose wrinkled in anger. That ship, always that ship—

  And Kara, big lad, inheriting height from both Khym and herself.

  And brains from neither.

  The gfi arrived, in Fiar’s careful hand. She sipped it. It was overstrong. It hit her stomach like acid. But the warmth comforted. That much.

  “Send to Gaohn,” she said. “Pyanfar Chanur to the Llun. We call on Gaohn station to release the Ayhar ship and crew. The ships out here constitute sufficient of the han to make a temporary quorum. You have that authority. Officers of the han will respect this order or deliver themselves to the protection of Llun Immunity. We take possession of the station in the name of the han. End message. List the clans out here. Put all of them signatory to it.”

  It was a drunken, arrogant move. It was also fast, and it gave the down world han no time to organize or decree.

  “Good bet the han’s in session,” Sirany said. “Down there.”

  “They would be. Yes. Let ’em debate what to do. Let ’em debate till the sun freezes. Dither and stew and argue. We’ve got an emergency out here. Send my apologies to the other ships for using them on signature, we got no time for transmission lag. We’re operating under stress out here. Ask them to send a confirm and back me. Tell them we’ve got to get into Gaohn and get Banny Ayhar out of there.”