Chanur's Homecoming

by C. J. Cherryh

  “We’re already getting confirms on that quorum call,” Sif said.

  It hit slowly. Like a wave of cold and heat. My gods, it’s going to work. What do I do?

  Jik! gods rot you, Jik, what do I do?

  “Call the clans in front of us. Ask them would they return to Gaohn and secure Ayhar’s safe release.”

  “Aye,” Sif said. “Sending.” And a moment later: “Llun responds. Ayhar crew is in process of release already. Prosperity is being serviced. Llun sends its compliments, ker Pyanfar, and asks what about the kif, quote, What are we facing? End quote.”

  The relief was giddy. She probed it a moment, replayed the statement that echoed in her skull, whether it was real or stim-induced hallucination. Good news, my gods, it’s still working.

  “We’re coming in. Tell them that. Tell them I’m coming in for conference and if any of the han downworld want to get themselves up on the next shuttle, they’re welcome. Tell them no danger from forces with me, repeat, with me. End message. Just that way, ker Sifeny.”

  “Understood. Re-request on order to the ships in front of us?”

  “Tell them stand by. Does Llun need help onstation? Query them that while you’re at it.” I’m muddling. Not thinking of things. I’m dangerous up here. “Ker Sirany. I’m resigning operationals. Policy I’ll handle. Refer to yourself and the other captains—all other—” She gave a desperate wave of her hand. “—stuff.” And fumbled after the belt and tried to stand up.

  “Help, cap’n?” Sif reached and grabbed her arm. “Ker Haral!”

  I’m doing quite all right, thank you.

  And the whole bridge went gray and dark.

  Operations chatter. Quiet stuff. She got to her feet hanging onto the chair and held to the back of it.

  All in gray. Dark a moment. And the blood rushing in her ears.

  Someone got to her. Someone held onto her. “You want to walk,” Haral said.

  “I’m walking.” Legs insensate as dead meat. Equilibrium gone. Haral had one side, Khym had the other.

  It was a long, long walk to her quarters. The corridor lights writhed like the spine of a glowing snake.

  “Just gone too far,” Haral said. “Knew her like this once at Ajir.”

  Liar. I was drunk then. I’m scared, Hal. I haven’t got anything left and they need me.

  “I got her.” When the whole universe did a sharp and sudden tilt. Khym hauled her along with an arm about her. Might as well have been flying, upside down and sideways.

  Bed then. Mattress. Sheets. Pillow.

  “Chur’s room,” Geran’s voice said, hoarse and panting and utterly exhausted. “Haral, tell ’em. We can fall in there.”

  A body landed beside her. Thump. The safety restraint hummed and clicked.

  Dark then.

  Till the gravity shifted and she came awake with a reflexive clench of the claws into what was not mattress, but her husband; he hissed and shifted and jerked as he came awake weighing less than he ought and with gravity not where it ought to be.

  “Uuuh!”

  “Docking. It’s all right, it’s all right, we’re at Gaohn.” Mumble. Even that was not sufficient goad to get the body moving. The brain dimmed down again, with too great a load to push. More G-shifts. Clang and thump. Not safe to stand, in the condition she was. Prudent just to lie there and catch the few extra moments of drowse she could. Before the clangs and thumps of contact told her the grapples were secure. Then was time to get on her feet and clean up.

  Safety hummed into retraction. It was Fiar standing over them, with a tray in her hands and an ears-back worried look on her face. The ship was miraculously stable and quiet. “Captain. M’lord. You want to try to eat something?”

  We aborted dock? Backed off?

  I slept through the grapple-noise? The connects? Gods, we’re not on rotation.

  She levered herself up on her arms. Khym stayed unconscious beside her. The place smelled. They did. Everything did. Her eyes were sticky and her mouth felt awful. “Situation,” she said.

  “We’re in, captain. Berth thirteen. Got a solid line of our ships out there beyond us. Just everybody sitting, except us, except our lot—Harun and Pauran and Faha and all, we’re in dock right together. So’s ker Rhean and Chanur’s Fortune. Ehrran too. Anfy Chanur held ’em under her guns on the way to dock, she’s still got Light standing out right nearby, but Ehrran’s still talking for Naur and them, but spacers are mad, captain, they’re not having any of it. They want to see you. We told ’em you were in no fit condition. But my captain asks, she says maybe you should get up there and see ’em soon as you can, captain—we got a whole lot of kif and a whole lot of hani eyeball-on out there around Tyar; but she wants you to have a breakfast and take it slow, her word, captain.”

  “Gods.” She shut her eyes with force and opened them again, trying to focus. Fiar looked exhausted, ears flagging in a curious, lopsided way that made her look younger than she was. Stable at dock. Other ships having had time to make it in. Anfy and Ehrran in standoff. She reached and took the offered cup. Biggest they had. Full of savory soup, steam going up like a wish to the gods. “Unnnhh.” She took a sip. Blinked the kid back into focus. “Ayhar. Where in a mahen hell’s Ayhar?”

  The ears sank. “They still got them hostage, captain.”

  “Where?”

  “Up in station. Ker Rhean and Harun and my captain, they’re working on it, but there’s some holdup, and they got fighting at the shuttleports downworld, some on our side and some on theirs, and they can’t launch, except a couple got away— The Llun are mediating that, captain says, trying to get the shuttles clear to launch, and some of the Immunes onworld, they’re trying to negotiate—”

  “A mahen hell with that.”

  “Meanwhile your crew is coming on, captain said they should take their orders from ker Haral, and ker Haral said—”

  “The kif. Where’s the kif?”

  “They’re just staying out there. That kif Skkukuk wanted to talk to them. My captain said no. Ker Haral said no.”

  “No,” she said, and took a careful mouthful of soup as Khym moaned and rolled over and lifted himself on his elbows. “Food,” she said. “Khym.” The soup was hot as Ahr’s fires. Instant stuff. Wonderful stuff. They were still alive and the cabin was staying still and the worst things were far from as bad as they might be. No major confrontations. Kif staying where they belonged. Everybody where they belonged. Excepting Ehrran and a set-to at the shuttledock. And Ayhar; and gods knew where Sikkukkut was. Alarm bells kept going off all down her nerves. That bastard Sikkukkut pulled a surprise arrival at Meetpoint. Does he need originality? She shivered convulsively, blinked, and guarded herself as Khym shook the mattress getting himself propped up. “Here.” She gave him her cup and took the other, the tray more convenient for her, then glanced up at Fiar’s anxious, dutiful face. “Llun’s fending rocks, is she?”

  “Lots of rocks,” Fiar said. And dipped her ears in nervous respect. Embarrassed, now that Khym was awake. She was young. “But my captain told them on station lines, about the kif, about the methane-breather we saw. About all those stations shut down. About the humans and the mahendo’sat. Everything. Figuring they might not have had time to sort the log out, they better know.”

  “Good. Thank her. I’ll be there fast as I can.”

  “Yes, captain. You want anything—”

  “You want to turn that monitor there on, on your way?”

  “Aye, captain.” Fiar hugged her tray under her arm, flipped the switch on the wall monitor mounted next the bath, and dived out again. The door shut.

  “Uhhhn,” Khym moaned around a swallow of soup.

  The system schema on the monitor showed what the young spacer had said: a lot of hani ships within spit of Gaohn station and a lot of kif and hani and a scatter of mahendo’sat staring at each other farther out on the fringes. All at relative stop.

  No Jik. Not showing himself. He wouldn’t.

  Not dead,
not dead, gods rot it. He jumped and got himself after those bastards or he’s out there calling the moves and waiting for Sikkukkut. Has to be. We got too many mahendo’sat in this system just sitting there cooperating. He’s going to use my whole by the gods solar system for a mahen battlezone.

  She reached to the console and punched the com. The tick and chatter of bridge operations invaded the cabin. Quiet talk. Reassuring in its monotony. Llun clan was in charge of the station, fair and sane: trouble in the corridors, but Llun had central, and sanity was making progress out there. Against Ehrran’s best efforts.

  “We’re all right,” she said.

  All right. My gods, Pyanfar. Where’s Kohan? What’s happening out on dock, onworld, what are we going to do?

  “Uhhn,” Khym said again. Drinking soup in constant little sips as if it was going straight to the veins, direct transfusion. They had both shed all over the sheets. Fright. Exhaustion. Depletion.

  “Bath,” she said. It was the thing she wanted most, more than food, more than sleep. She set the cup down on the table console, crawled out of bed, and left her breeches on the floor on her way.

  Straight into the shower cabinet and on with the water and the soap. Lots of soap. A deluge of soap and hot water.

  A shadow showed up against the transparent door, tall and wide and hani. She opened the door and let him in.

  Both of them then, soaked, soaped, and by the gods clean, just standing propped against each other under the warm water jets until she found her eyes shut. Falling asleep again. “Gods. We got to go, husband.”

  “Uhhhn.” Like mornings downworld. Incoherent for half an hour at best.

  She got out, cleaned her teeth, dodging sore spots, dried halfheartedly with a towel and hunted up the last pair of clean breeches in the drawer.

  And the pocket pistol. Gods, yes, that.

  Out into the chill of the corridor still tying the cords, the deck cold under her feet.

  “Captain,” she said.

  Sirany was still at her post, on a mostly deserted bridge, just herself and her First. The place smelled of unwashed hani. And Sirany’s face as she swung the chair about, was marked with fatigue and strain. “Ker Pyanfar.” The voice was hoarse. “We’re doing all right, but we have a lot of questions backed up. Whole lot of people want to talk to you. I want to talk to you. What do we expect?”

  “We expect another wave of kif in here. Meanwhile I’m wondering where in a mahen hell a certain pair of mahen hunter ships have got to and where we misplaced about half a hundred human ships that are doubtless armed and meaning things we don’t want to think about.”

  It was maybe more than Sirany wanted to think about. Her face had that kind of look.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’ve been wondering these things. Maybe I’ve been hoping you didn’t. But in a way I wish you did.”

  “Different truth once we got to dock, once we threw Akkhtimakt on to the mahen side of the line?”

  “I don’t mean I thought you were lying.” Ears lowered in apology and rolled flatter as the jaw took on a harder line. “That’s a lie. I still don’t know. But I don’t think so. I’m betting everything on it. But what choice have I got? There aren’t any sure things out here. I tell you something, ker Pyanfar. They tell all kinds of stories about you. Since Gaohn. Since you took out the way you did and kept—” Ear-twitch. “—kept na Khym and all. And wouldn’t lick-foot to the han. I heard a lot more stories on Meetpoint, while we were stuck there. Stsho are scared of you. They call you changeable, the stsho do.”

  “They’ll call me worse than that. I figured a crew that had the nerve to come aboard this ship had the nerve to handle the boards under fire. Way we’ll have to yet, maybe. Even against hani, if you had to. I’m telling you the truth now. I’m working only our side. The mahendo’sat have doublecrossed us so many times you need a chart to track it. But they’re the best allies we’ve got all the same, and I’m hoping that conniving friend of mine is still alive out there beyond system edge.”

  “Waiting for the rest of the kif?”

  “I think b’gods sure he is. That ship’s equipped. Lots of com equipment. I’ve never been onto that bridge, but I got the idea it’s not a small place. Lot of crew and techs. Ability to short-jump. Goldtooth’s Mahijiru has a lot more facilities, but I don’t think it gives much to Aja Jin in abilities. We lost track of more than one ship in that flurry out there, and I’m not sure any of ’em are dead. Kif have this concept. Pukkukkta. Revenge. Destruction. That kif Sikkukkut has launched ships down all the lanes. Into all sorts of space. He’s prepared to take civilization out. He says. He gives the impression it’s no use to him. I think otherwise and I think he knows it, but I don’t want to put it to the proof. We’ve lost track of kifish ships too and it worries me. I want a count if anyone can get it.”

  “Maybe they met each other out there. Maybe that’s where Aja Jin is.”

  “If we were lucky.” She tightened her mouth. Headache still bothered her. “If we were real lucky. But whatever happens we’ve got to handle what’s coming in from Meetpoint, whoever survived that set-to back there. If it’s the kif we’re dealing with it’s got to be one voice talking here. One.”

  “I understand you.” Sirany’s hand trembled on the arm of the chair, jerked in a small tic. She gripped the chair arm till the tendons stood out.

  “You want to bring the captains aboard?”

  “We got no room in dock. Have to stack ’em in lower main. No. I’m going outside and hope to all the gods I live through this. I’d be expensive to lose. Real expensive. I can talk to that kif. My kif can talk to those bastards out there. Where is he?”

  “Lowerdecks. Well-fed, I might add. I wonder he can move.”

  “Gods.” She walked over to the com console and punched in the number. “Skkukuk. What’s this you want to tell those kif out there?”

  “Is this you, hakt’?”

  Hani voices. Different voices. “Gods-rotted sure it is, skku of mine.”

  “Kkkkt! I am delighted!”

  “Worried about me, were you?” Gods, a change of captains aboard, possibility of mutiny in the air, the kif like a lit fuse and she had never picked it up. “I told you hani are a peculiar lot. You asked contact with the kif out there. What were you going to do, in particular?”

  “Call them in, hakt’, to take this ship.”

  Gods, gods, and gods. Perfectly logical. Her own crew exhausted, in his eyes perhaps acquiescing to this threatening change of authority on the bridge. Ships were moving and threatening everywhere. And here was one little constant light of kifish loyalty, a kif who knew no other hani would tolerate him and who planned to serve her interests through his.

  “I’m in command here. No problems. What do you think ought to be done, regarding those kif out there?”

  “Kkkt. Put me in command over them. That is your best action, hakt’. I am a formidable ally.”

  “Skkukuk. What rank did you hold? Is it proper to ask that?”

  “Kkkkt. Kkkkt.”

  “Not proper. All right. Let me point out something to you, Skkukuk. Sikkukkut is a bastard, a real bastard, with a sense of humor. I think if he ever did get his hands on you again you might never get out with a whole hide. Despite your cleverness. He’s too clever not to know you’re clever. Do you understand me?”

  “Hakt’, you are completely correct. What will you do?”

  “Why, I’m going to give you all those kifish ships out there, and a treaty with the mahendo’sat and the hani, skku of mine, and tell you that if you will take my orders very closely you may fare very well. But first you have to take those ships and hold them.”

  “You will see, you will see, mekt-hakt’.”

  She leaned over the First’s panel and unlocked doors. “There you are. You can just go down to ops, down to the auxiliary command right down the corridor to your left, and you can use com in there. You call yourself one of those ships for transport, and you pack up your Dinner and
any weapons you think you need, and you get yourself out there and remember how far you are from kifish territory, and who your friends are. Hear me?”

  “Kkkkt. Kkkkt. I will give you Sikkukkut’s heart!”

  “You take orders! Hear me?”

  “What you will, what you will, Chanur-hakkikt.”

  Promoted, by the gods.

  There was a deep, gnawing cold at her gut. Raw terror.

  Just made my will and testament. To Sikkukkut, should some fool stationer pick me off out there. To my beloved enemy: a new and kifish problem.

  Enjoy it, bastard.

  She looked at Sirany, who was staring at her in dismay. “One thing about the kif. When they’re on your side they’re on it. And they’re on it as long as they’re profiting by it. That’s a real happy kif down there.”

  “I hope to the gods you know what you’re doing.”

  “I’ll tell you. If something happens to me, if you have to take charge of this mess, rely on my crew and threaten Skkukuk within fear of death, then turn him loose. Best insurance in the world. He’ll respect you for it.” She had an impulse toward the weapons locker, for one of the APs, remembered it was Gaohn out there, civilized, home; and then went and did it anyway, pulled the heavy piece out and belted it on. “Tell my crew meet me belowdecks. Tell the captains I’ll see them in dock offices.”

  Off the open docks, out of the way of snipers. She had gotten wary in her new profession. Learned the hard way, like any fool. “Khym stays aboard. So does Chur. You can tell them that in the appropriate quarters, too. Tell ’em it’s an order. Skkukuk’s calling a kifish ship in. We don’t want any more hani ships sitting at dock than we can help.”

  “Relay that,” Sirany said to her First. And glanced back again. “Take care, for godssakes.”

  “Huh.” She leaned over the com console, punched in on station. “Llun. Want to talk to you.”

  “Chanur. Pyanfar.” The station-Immune’s voice was calm and quiet. “It’s a trap, Pyanfar, it’s a—”

  Something hit the mike at the other end. And silence, then.

  Sirany rose from her seat. The First turned in hers.