Chanur's Venture

by C. J. Cherryh

  "Can we cover it?" Tirun's voice, over com. "Later?"

  "Huh. That's still Goldtooth's problem."

  "What's going on?" asked Khym.

  Silence, except for ship noise, the long misery of acceleration.

  "What's going on?" he asked again.

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  "Just a business arrangement," she said. "Hold onto your stomach. We're coming up on two-range. Going to give ourselves a boost."

  "Pyanfar—"

  "Tell you later. Haral, set her up."

  "Captain, got another ship undocked," Chur said from scan.

  "Gods rot. Who?"

  "Can't tell yet. Station's not talking. Stand by."

  They were not yet far enough and fast enough for g to play havoc with information: not far enough and fast yet by far to be out of range of that sleek kif ship back there.

  That ship could start out a day late and be waiting for them on Urtur rim.

  No question. She drew quiet small breaths against the g and calculated. A rush after them made no sense, for a ship that fast.

  It was not kif that had undocked. She was willing to bet not kif. It had no need to race, being able to guess their course.

  "Ship is knnn."

  "Oh, good gods."

  "What's the matter?" (Khym.)

  Knnn. Methane-breathing, dangerous and lunatic in their moves. No one wanted the knnn stirred up.

  And kif trouble might. Any trouble might.

  "What's the matter?" (Khym again.)

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  "Long explanation," Pyanfar muttered. "Hold the questions, Kyhm. We're busy."

  "Com coming up," Hilfy said.

  An insane wailing came over com, knnn-song, which announced to the universe and other knnn whatever it was the knnn thought good to say.

  Or it was simply singing for its own amusement, and putting it out on com out of thinking as obscure as the rest of its logic.

  "Bearing zero two by fourteen."

  Askew for them. That meant nothing. Knnn ships obeyed different laws.

  "Stand by that cycle," she said, and listened for Haral's acknowledgment.

  "Take it twice. We're getting out of here."

  Vanes cycled in, a brief, stomach-wrenching lurch to a higher energy state.

  Nausea threatened. Instruments recycled with a flurry of lights, recalibrating. She checked the nav fix on Urtur.

  "Knnn no change," Chur said.

  Second pulse.

  "Helm to one." Controls flashed live under her hands as Haral handed it over. They were up to v, outbound. "Stand by jump. Fix on that knnn to the last gods-rotted second."

  Knnn had policy, somewhere in their moves. Black hair-snarls animate on long thin legs, they built good ships— far better ships than oxygen-breathers could survive, unless things also went on in them that played games with stress. Nothing could talk to knnn but the leathery, serpentine tc'a, and tc'a brains were manifold matrices.

  Nothing could reason with knnn but tc'a. Time was, knnn took anything they liked, stripped ships in midcourse, raided the earliest stations: so 102

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  stsho said. It was before the hani came. Tc'a got through the concept of trade— at least so knnn left something in their forays. Now they darted manic-fast into methane-breather sectors, deposited some object, which might be anything, and skittered off again with whatever they wanted—which might, again, be anything.

  Tc'a coped. Chi did, one supposed; but chi, looking like a collection of yellow, rapid-moving sticks, were crazier than knnn. And tc'a themselves were hazy on trade-concepts. Gods knew how they ran their worlds. No outsider did.

  "Mark to jump: five minutes."

  "How's that knnn?"

  "Still— it just cycled, captain."

  "I want better news. That's four and counting."

  "Continuing to cycle. That's into our lag-time—" Meaning that in the lag of lightspeed information the knnn might be doing other things.

  "Rot the book." She shoved the jump cycle in.

  — dropped

  — seatfirst—

  — topside down—

  — rightside up

  — back again in here and now, and the stomach still wanting to turn itself inside out—

  There was that wretched halfway-there, while senses swam, fingers took an hour clenching on controls, instruments underwent a slow ripple of lights that took a subjective day arriving at nothing special at all—

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  Solidity then, with one focus, sharp-edged and dreadful as the soft uncertainties before, with endless fascination in the angles of counters, the colors, the textures. A mind could get lost in the endless detail of a counter-edge.

  Pyanfar swallowed against the dry mouth and copper taste that came with compressed time, flexed hands that had not flexed for three-odd weeks local. The chronometers showed a dubious 3.2 days. The body reacted: would shed hair and old skin within the hour as if entropy had hit, not quite three days' worth, but some: and Tully's drugs would wear off, while the bowels and kidneys had other, later consequences, and blood sugar went through loops and dives, obscuring sense and hazing senses and doing things to the stomach.

  Beep went controls.

  She shoved the dump down hard.

  Second phasing in and out of hyperspace, bleeding off velocity in the process.

  Third.

  Her stomach heaved. She held her jaw clenched. The copper taste was worse.

  Beep.

  "That's Urtur beacon confirmed," Haral read off. "Heading zero, nine, two."

  Automatic alarms went off in her skull, memories she had forced there weeks ago. "Geran! 'ware of kif. Do we have company?"

  "Checking."

  Three subjective days since she had done out-bound at Meetpoint and she felt the ache in her shoulders. "Khym. You all right?"

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  An incoherent answer; he sounded alive.

  "Got Urtur beacon," Haral said. "Tirun. Sort it."

  "Aye." That was Urtur beacon information coming in, constant-send, giving incoming ships the exact position of objects insystem so far as known. Course assignment would come, as soon as bounce-back time had delivered their presence to Urtur's robot outrange beacon and its automated systems computed them a lane.

  "Advise Beacon," Pyanfar said, "that we're through-traffic. Get your star-fix." Her hands shook. Crew would be in no better state. She wanted a drink, imagined floods of liquid, iced, deluges of flavors. Even tepid.

  Brackish. Anything.

  "Fix on Kirdu," Haral said. "Affirmative. Laying course for Maing Tol via Kita Point."

  "Message sent," Hilfy said.

  "How long to station signal?"

  "About two hours," Tirun said. "That's 2.31. Beacon doesn't show any ship in the range. It's not picking us up."

  "Beacon signal," Hilfy said. "Aunt— we're getting a code-call off beacon.

  We've got a message waiting. Stand by."

  "Huh." A cold feeling settled to Pyanfar's stomach. "Put it through on one." The beacon robot had output something triggered by The Pride's automatic ID, like a tripline. They came into system, beacon affirmed their identity and spat out what it held memory-stored for them. Expensive mail. Very.

  And the robot scan was still not showing them added to image of Urtur system. It was not direct scan-image. It was computer-generated; and the computer failed to put their existence on the screen.

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  "We've got an error," Haral said. "Bastard beacon's giving us Kshshti heading, wants us to take star-fix on Maing Tol. Put that lane request through again, Hilfy. It's gone crazy."

  "Hold that." Pyanfar stared at the message coming up on her number one screen. She keyed the Print on: it hummed and spat out hardcopy into the documents bin. Strings and strings of codes. More codes. Theirs.... Ana Is
mehanan-min, it said, to good friend. Advise you got bad trouble Kita Point. Beacon give you now new heading. I fix with Urtur authority, number one good.

  Go Kshshti route. Know got close kif, but Kita got too many kif. Mahen ship, kif ship, got two hand number ship. Mahen ship not got be everywhere too quick. Sorry this trouble.

  You one-jump Kshshti number one fine, no trouble, no stop middle of dark like Kita. You reach Kshshti you give authorization code Hasano-ma.

  You do good; Know you number one quick thinker. Kif not catch.

  "You egg-sucking bastard!" The restraint held her seated and half cut off her wind. She took a clawed swipe at the tray and slammed the printout onto the clearspace of the panel; but the screen kept on feeding codes and the printer kept on going in idiot persistence.

  "Message from beacon," Hilfy said, carefully unperturbed. "Blinker alarm advises us acknowledge and accept new heading."

  She cut the screen output. The printer, undefeated, hummed and spat out yet another sheet.

  Second message. More codes. Urtur station advise you course change big urgent. You not be register on system scan. Beacon blank you image give you cover. Go quick.

  "Beacon's not malfunctioning," she muttered. "It means it. That bastard Goldtooth set something up with Urtur. They're routing us to Kshshti."

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  "Kshshti's half kif," Geran protested. "We go in there—"

  "It's a one-jump. He's right in that, if Kita's blocked. At least we won't be out in the dark nowhere with the kif.... Call up Records: what's Kshshti got for muscle?"

  "Searching," Chur said. ".... Got two hunter-ships assigned from Maing Tol; stats show ten percent stsho calls, sixteen t'ca-chi, thirty-two kif, fifty-one mahendo'sat— I don't get any assurance on those hunter-ships being there. Based there, it says."

  "Fine." She gnawed at her mustaches and twitched her ears while the beacon went into its acknowledge-comply routine and com flashed warning lights. Tick-tick. Tick. Tick-tick-tick. Haos was still possible. So was Kura. The stsho. The han. "We go with it. Don't see what else to do.

  Beacon's going to blow a circuit otherwise."

  "We're pretty deep in the well," Haral said, understated caution. The star had them firmly now: vector shift meant total dump. Meant a rough reacquisition, fighting to get more v back than a star wanted to give them.

  "Got no choice, have we? Advise Tully. Can't wait around."

  Hilfy relayed. "Tully's coherent. He says go."

  "Set it," Pyanfar said, and raked the last printout from the bin.

  And stared. It was not the comp readout she had expected. That was on the bottom of the tray. Another beacon-sending had come in, autoed into the printout bin.

  No codes this time. Perfect hani.

  Hani ship The Pride of Chanur: avoid Kita. Akkhtimakt has established watchers there. You will not come alive through that space.

  Be no fool.

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  A shiver went over her skin.

  "Hilfy."

  "Aunt?"

  "You read that number-three message?"

  A silence. Hilfy searched her bin.

  "Who sent that? " Hilfry wondered, quiet and hoarse.

  "Someone fast," she said.

  "Brace for dump," Haral said.

  The vanes cycled in, a dizzying pulse half-forming their hyperspace bubble, a ripple like vision through oil.

  It let them go and Haral began their realspace course-change then, a long sickening hammering of correcting directionals and mains. G hauled at an already outraged gut.

  "Got the Maing Tol fix," Haral said. And a long, long while later, when the engines reached null- v and kept burning: "We just passed null."

  And later, as bodies ached in one long misery: "Closing on mark."

  "Go when ready," Pyanfar said. Urtur's dust had not hit the hull yet, but the place always sent the wind up her back.

  Blanked off station scan, for the gods' sake. A ship hurtling dark and unreported through Urtur system with Urtur Station's collusion, a risk to other ships—

  Fearing what? Kif insystem?

  "Stand by the pulse." Haral's voice cracked with fatigue.

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  "Want me to take it?"

  "I've got it set. Stand by."

  Another pulse, another queasy moment neither here nor there. There was the bloody smear of a red light on the board.

  "Vane two red," Pyanfar muttered. "Stop it there."

  "We're a shade off v."

  "What blew?" (Khym, weakly.) "There something wrong?"

  "Regulator in the vane column," Pyanfar said, blinking it all into focus again. Her bones ached. "Ship doesn't like all this change of mind. Tirun, I want an interrupt check on that vane."

  "Right." Tirun's voice shook with exhaustion. No complaints. "Sure like to know why it didn't cut off."

  "Solve it from inside."

  "Urtur's no gods-rotted place for a walk."

  "We in trouble?" Khym asked.

  "Just got a little mechanical problem. Still got one backup left on that system. Regulator ought to have shut the vane down short of blowing what blew. I think our problem's there. That's an in-hull problem. No big trouble." But it was trouble. Something made it blow. And Kshshti was a long, long one-jump. Big stress. If that vane went— "What's our transit time?"

  "Got—" Haral said, "— 48.4 hours to next jump."

  "We'll find the glitch by then." She powered the chair back, needing room to breathe. Another quarter turn of the chair and she saw Khym sitting there, head leaned back against the cushion, breathing in slow, careful 109

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  intakes, looking her way with a bleak curiosity. He had not been sick. Was not. Was plainly determined not to be.

  Holding it, she guessed.

  "Tully wants to come topside," Chur said.

  "Fine." She was numb, with a certain insulation between herself and calamities back at Meetpoint, and the one back there on their tail. She looked aside as all number-four screens acquired an image from The Pride's outside eyes, habit when they arrived at a place. Haral had done that, reflex or a statement: no panic. Just routine operations.

  Urtur was spectacle enough, to be sure, one great fried egg of a star and system magnified in their pickup, a yellow star for a yolk that glowed hellishly in the flattened disk of dust that surrounded it. Planets swept dark orbits in the disk, accreted rings of their own. Urtur's worlds were mostly gas giants, with a few well-cratered smaller planets buried in the muck.

  No place for a walk indeed. Particles would hole even a hardsuit in short order.

  Mahendo'sat owned Urtur system, doing mahen things like poking about in the dust hunting clues to why Urtur was like it was— for pure curiosity, which was why mahendo'sat did a great many peculiar things. But at the same time and practically, they maintained a case for the methane-breathers, who thought methane-dominant Elaji a fine fair place, with its clouds aglow with the constant flicker of lightnings and meteors making streaks by the minute in an atmosphere already greenhoused by previous impacts. Oxygen-breathers got photos of the surface. Tc'a revelled in it, and mined rare metals, and had industry in that hell.

  Knnn too.

  And where, she wondered, considering that deficient scan image, was their own private knnn?

  Blocked off scan the same as they, and out of range of their own pickup?

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  Gone, perhaps. Off their track entirely.

  She did not trust that. Not finding the knnn simply meant they had not found it.

  The Pride did a minor course correction, a gentle push at her left. For any ship going crosswise to the dust circulation, Urtur transit was a matter of finding the most useful hole in the debris and presenting as little as possible of the vane surface to the particles during ecliptic transit.

  They had damage enough to contend
with, gods knew.

  "Get her set and we go auto for a while. You can do those checks after we get some food in you, Tirun. Who's on galley?"

  "Me," said Hilfy.

  "Get on it." And not without thought: "Crew-youngest always gets the extra duty. You help her, Khym."

  Khym just stared at her from the oblique, a desperate, half-drowned stare.

  Hilfy turned her chair, released her restraints and levered herself out of it.

  Khym moved then, got up like a drunk and held onto the chairback for a moment.

  Work, indeed work.

  And he followed Hilfy without a backward look, by the gods, the ex-lord of Mahn on galley duty, no complaints.

  She drew a long slow breath and remembered youth, Mahn, its fields, the house with the spring.

  And a tired elder hani who tried to begin all over. At bottom. In a dimension he hardly understood.

  "Going to be one lot of mad shippers," Tirun muttered. "Remember that rush order from that factor?"

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  "Bet Ayhar nabs it," Chur said.

  Pyanfar released her restraints and got to her feet. Her joints ached and there was fire down her back.

  She stopped in midstretch. Tully was there in the doorway, ghostlike silent in the white noise of The Pride's working. He rested one arm on the doorframe, and stood there, barefoot, in simple crewwoman's breeches and nothing else, looking wan and cold. No more friend, no more Py-anfar.

  Just that bruised, cornered look that wondered if anyone had time for him.

  "I know," she said. "We get you fed."

  "Safe?" he asked. He knew ships, enough to feel The Pride faltering— and himself alone and knowing all too much. "Ship—" He made a helpless motion. "Break?"

  "Got it under control," she said. "Fine. Safe, all fine."