Scared. Plenty scared.
She got into the car at Jik's side in back, surrounded by mahe whose musky flavor got past the perfumes. A guard caught her eye, one curly-furred and smallish, and alarms rang.
"That one," she said to Jik, digging claws into his knee, "outside—"
"Name her Tginiso," Jik said, ducking his head to look past her out that window. "Eseteno aide."
"She was with the car when Hilfy went. Her fur's not singed." For a moment the air seemed very close, the scent of mahendo'sat all-enveloping, and she knew who she was talking to, hunter-captain, mahe with mahen interests very much at stake. She felt Jik's arm shift across the seatback.
"Move," he said to the driver in the mahen tongue. The car leapt forward with a burr of the motor, wheels bumping on the plates like a panicked heartbeat.
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Not a word from Jik, only a shifting of his eyes from one side to the other, watching everything along the sides.
Pyanfar watched him, among the rest. Friend. Companion. Along with Rhif Ehrran.
The car thumped along, dodged pedestrians. Jik took out his pistol and thoughtfully took the safety off in his lap, no small piece like her pocket gun, no, nearly as long as his forearm, with a black, wicked sheen. The mahe on the other side drew hers and kept scanning the surrounds, the whisk of gantries past, of lines, machinery, canisters, all places for ambushes.
Berth five passed. Jik spoke to the driver in something mahen and obscure.
"We go close," Jik said. "Want you go fast up ramp."
"Gods rot it, my whole lower deck's occupied."
He pressed her knee. "Same good get you safe in ship." The car veered: a ship access and guards loomed into the way and the car veered again, bringing the door even with the access. The door flew up and Pyanfar scrambled out with Jik and the crewwoman close behind.
Up the ramp then, a slower pace, the long, chill walk through that yellow gullet with the L bend to the lock. Pyanfar looked back, looked round again as they reached the lock and Jik laid a hand on her shoulder.
"Safe. Safe here."
"Sure. The stationmaster's handpicked aides—"
"Listen. I know you safe."
" You know. What's in that ID, Jik? Who are you? Who are you working for?"
Both hands settled on her shoulders. There was nowhere to look but dark mahen eyes, a plain mahen face. "You got watch on you deck, understand, got number one good watch."
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"Who? What are you talking about?"
Jik's lips went tight. " Mahe take orders somewhere else. Same good tech, a? Not make mistake."
"Like that aide? Safe like that?"
"I fix."
That left cold after it. Jik lifted his hands from her shoulders, held one finger up.
"Then," Jik said, "get good sleep."
* * *
"Ayhar's jumped," Khym said, who sat monitor on com, and the board checks paused for the moment. He scribbled furiously on the lightpad and his florid scrawl came up on screen three as Haral punched it through, a string of numbers meaningless to him, but he got them down with speed. Heading, velocity, strength of field.
"It's on its way," Tirun muttered, and Pyanfar felt a twinge of relief as the full scan input went to the number two: no pursuit.
There was a tc'a out. T'T'Tmmmi. Outbound on the same heading, none too quietly.
TC'ATC'ATC'ATC'ATC'ATC'ATC'A
...its transmission said, with ship-function babble in all its harmonics, a tc'a ship fully occupied with tc'a business and the speaker thinking only of its/their jobs. Tc'a did not lie, so the story ran, could not. Once a tc'a began to output, the underminds had to be there or the harmonics failed and the whole matrix fell into gibberish.
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So someone non-tc'a had reckoned, from what gtst thought tc'a had claimed, a hundred years ago.
She went back to work, running checks through the systems, resetting failsafes and running them again and again, putting comp through one and the other simulation as it reprogrammed itself.
"Pride." Khym's low voice, answering some call, in the profound silence, the click of keys, the sometime shift of a body in a leather seat. "First is busy. Can you—" The shift of a heavier body. " Ker Tirun. It's Vigilance.
They want a crew member."
Tirun muttered something and took it. "Gods rot," she said. "You don't need to go up the line for that, Ehrran.... That was a crew member."
Pyanfar turned around.
"Fine," Tirun said, and punched the contact out. "That's a confirm on the Ayhar jump."
Pyanfar said nothing. There was nothing to say. Tell Khym to stand his ground and ignore a request for higher authority? But next time it might be something that truly had to get someone more knowledgeable. Log the discourtesy? Who would read it but the han?
Khym was busy already, a look of concentration on his broad, scarred face the while he listened to station chatter that flowed past him like so much babble, sorting for anything of interest, anything of tc'a or knnn, anything of kif or mahendo'sat. Doing the best he could.
In Hilfy's vacant post.
Pyanfar turned back again, twisted in her seat a third time as she heard the lift work down the corridor.
"Captain!" Tirun spun her chair as she did, as she came out of her chair reaching for her pocket and Khym was out of his place.
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"Identify." Haral had usurped com function to her panel and keys clicked to freeze locks, but the lift door opened all the same.
Hani. Hani and smallish and one of their own.
"Geran," Pyanfar muttered, and the gun went back. No rejoicing, not from any of them. It was not that kind of time, an hour to go and Geran out of place.
"Something wrong?" Pyanfar asked as Geran walked onto the bridge.
"Chur all right, Geran?"
"Left her below, snugged in."
"Gods and thunders!"
Geran shrugged, padded over to main scan, rested a hand on her seatback and looked round again, ears at half, and obduracy in the stare she gave back. "Don't like to cross those docks, captain. Scary place out there."
It took a good long moment of even breathing to cope with that.
"Geran—" in a tone quiet enough to warn a chi. "We've got one hour, one gods-rotted hour to get things sorted out. You two—"
"Captain, please." Geran's voice sank to the same level, but all wobbly.
"Chur'd kill me for saying it, but she's scared. Gut-scared. Being left here— the ship and all— where'd she be? What good's two of us— here?
By ourselves? Where's home, but The Pride?"
Something superstitious settled into her own gut, nothing reasonable.
"Look. We're not after suicide, hear me? Jik's in port. He's got Vigilance on our side for what she's worth. We're going to Mkks to do some good.
Hear me? Now get Chur back where she belongs."
"She is. Same as me." Geran's claws sank into the chairback, tendons stark on the backs of her hands. "What's all this new stuff worth with half a 221
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crew, huh? Chur can walk— walked across that dock out there from the lift, she did, just fine."
"Good gods."
"The plasm took; the wound won't tear. Got her packed in real good and the time-stretch'll give her a good few days to heal. Might be on her feet by the time we get to Mkks—"
"The gravity-drop'll kill her."
"No. Not Chur."
She folded her ears down and Geran stood her ground, meant to stand it, gods knew. And they needed that pair of hands. Needed hands that could fit hani-specific controls, fit a hani crewwoman's space. "Gods rot," she muttered and walked off the other way with a wave of her hand. "Bring her topside. Put her in my cabin. Put her close to us. Pack a med kit in there."
"My cabin," Khym said. "She can have
mine."
"Do it."
"Thanks," Geran said, all heartfelt. "Thanks, captain."
"And get yourself back here. We've got a tight schedule, huh?"
"Aye!" Geran scrambled and took Khym with her.
Pyanfar looked at Tirun and Haral. Tirun's face carefully showed nothing; Haral's was toward the boards, occupied with business.
"Odds just went up," Tirun said, "captain."
"We need crazy people on our side?" She threw herself into the chair, powered it about again, feeling a shameful comfort to know one more seat 222
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was filled. The lift hummed, Khym and Geran going down to see to the transfer.
"Getting a confirmation from Aja Jin, " Haral said, who still had com.
"Getting a readoff on course. They're putting us out gods-rotted deep in the well."
She looked at the figures that flashed onto monitor one. "Huh." She keyed that data set into the simulator and watched the lines tick across the screen, affirmative, affirmative, can-do. It was still The Pride's boards, but something alien answered from aft, up the circuit-synapses through the metal spine. "Huh." It made her nervous, in a way that camera-view did not, that picked up the wider vanes, the rakish lines of the vane-columns.
That was plain to inspection. The heart and core of it was not, that added some twenty percent to their unladed mass and threw varied percentages into the figures of moving that mass. Old familiar reckonings went by the board. They had to lean on comp entirely, trust it without the dead-reckoning knowledge what the answers ought to be, when it told them The Pride could make a jump that she could never in a mahen hell have survived half a week before.
"We go with it," she said.
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Appendix
Species of the Compact
The Compact
The Compact is a loose affiliation of all trading species of a small region of stars who have agreed by treaty to observe certain borders, trade restrictions, tariffs and navigational procedures. It is an association, not a government, has no officials and maintains no offices, except insofar as all officials of the various governments are de facto officers of the Compact.
The Hani
Native to Anuurn, hani may be among the smaller species of the Compact, but the size range, particularly among males, is so extreme that individual hani may overreach and outbulk the average of other, taller species. Their fur is short over most of their bodies except for manes and beards. It ranges in color from red-gold to dull red-brown with blackish edges, and in texture from crimped waves to curls to coarse straightness.
Hani were a feudal culture divided into provinces and districts a few centuries previous to the events of The Pride of Chanur. They had well-developed trade and commerce when they were contacted by the spacefaring mahendo'sat (qv) and flung from their middle ages, with its flat-earth concept and territoriality, into interstellar trade.
The way of life previous to that age had been this: that individual males carved out a territory by challenge and maintained it with the aid of their sisters, currently resident wives and female relatives of all sorts, so long as the male in question remained strong enough to fend off other challengers.
Actual running of the territory rested with a lord's sisters and other female relatives, at least a few of whom, if he was fortunate, would prove skillful traders, and whose marriages with outclan males would form profitable links with the females of other clans. Such males as lived to become clan lords were sheltered and pampered, kept in fighting trim at the urging of their female relatives and generally took no part whatsoever in interclan 224
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dealings or in mercantile decisions, which were considered too exacting and stressful for males to cope with. The male image in most households was that of a cheerful, unworldly fellow mostly involved in games and hunts, and existing primarily for the siring of children and, in time of challenge, idolized for those natural gifts of irrational temper and berserker rage which would greet the sight of another male. The females stood between him and all other vicissitudes of life. Much of hani legendry and literature, of which they are fond, involves the tragic brevity of males; or the cleverness of females; or the treks and voyages of ambitious females out to carve out territory for some unlanded brother to defend.
Under the management of certain great females, vast estates grew up.
Certain estates contained crucial trade routes, shrines, mountain passes, dams— things which were generally the focus of ambition. Certain clans formed amphictionies, associations of mutual interest to assure the access of all members to areas of regional importance, which was usually done by declaring the area in question protected. Out of such protected zones grew the concept of the Immune Clan; that is, a clan whose hold over a particular resource must not change, because of the need of the surrounding clans to have that resource managed over the long term by a clan with experience and peculiar skill: such clans devoted themselves to public service and dressed distinctively. Immune males enjoyed great ceremonial prestige and were generally cloistered and pampered, while the sons of Immune houses were without hope of succession except by the death of the lord by natural causes. To attack an Immune male was a capital offense, bringing all the area clans to enforce the law.
This form of regional government proved successful in bringing Enafy province, where the Llun Immune had its seat, to preeminence in the great plains of the Llunuurn River. Enafy province spread its influence through trade into other regions and other amphictionies sprang up, some less benevolent. The concept of amphictiony spread to other continents and races and, while other cultures survived, generally they were small, or so divided that they managed little growth: the Enafy and Enaury of Anuurn's largest continent spread their culture by trade and occasionally by intrigue and by marriage and alliance.
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Into this situation came the mahendo'sat, who chose for their landing site the Llunuurn basin, as the most extensive river system on the planet and the area with the most developed roads and habitations. Because of this selection, initial contact happened to be with the largest and oldest amphictiony, in the lordship of na Ijono Llun.
Na Ijono's sister ker Gifhon Llun went out to meet the intruders, since they were neither hani nor (as Gifhon assumed incorrectly in several cases) male. By the time she understood what she was dealing with, dealing had begun, trade had been offered, and the world, without Gifhon's clearly realizing it for some years, had forever changed.
Other amphictionies felt threatened by this relationship of Enafy province to the mahendo'sat and the elevation of the Llun clan from supervisors of the dams of the lower Llunuurn tributaries, to supervisors of a starfaring shuttleport and station. The mahendo'sat played one against the other and snared all the hani leaders into trade.
The hani amphictionies, however, whether or not it accorded with mahen intentions (and perhaps it was the intent of the mahendo'sat from the start) began to deal with each other in the concept of a much larger amphictiony, one with Anuurn itself as the Resource which had to be protected.
So the han was created, the council of councils, the heart and center of hani government, microcosm of the world in which alliance, province, clan and Immunity still played their role— as, indeed, han has another meaning as a collective meaning All Hani. Theoretically every hani lord was ceremonially part of the body: some actually attended and addressed the assembly. The seats, one to each clan, belonged to the female heads of household, or, in practice, to any senior female in the vicinity of the several meeting halls, one of which existed and exists in every province.
The han is thus composite, and only infrequently holds a true general meeting, the location of which is subject to intense negotiation.
Hani relations with other starfaring folk were not generally positive. The stsho (qv) were not in accord with the mahendo'sat intervention on Anuurn: thei
r motives might be judged to be several— unwillingness to see the mahen sphere of influence increase; the fact that they and the hani shared a territorial border; their distrust of all virtually exclusive 226
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carnivores based on their experience with the kif (qv); their fears of instability in the Compact; or other reasons which like minds might comprehend. The kif understood the arrival of the hani on the scene as opportunity, in the exercise of which they were driven back by mahendo'sat and hani combined. The opinion of the compact's other species was never solicited nor received.
Hani territory included originally Anuurn system. The name of their home star is Ahr. The planets of Ahr system are, in order: Gohin, a hot and barren world without atmosphere; Anuurn itself; Tyo, a cold, barren world partially terraformed for a hani colony; the gas giants Tyar and Tyri; and frozen Anfas. Gaohn station was built by mahendo'sat in orbit about Anuurn and turned over to Llun, whose males were the only hani males ever to leave the surface. Kilan station was built in orbit about Tyo, never particularly prosperous; and Harn station was built as a shipyard facility.
The Chanur Family
A very old clan of Enafy province, occasionally obscure but more often involved in the amphictiony of Enafy under a series of ambitious leaders, Chanur sprang into considerable prominence as one of the first clans to see the benefits of offworld trade.
Kohan Chanur is current lord: his principle mates are Huran Faha, Akify Llun, Lilun Sifas. Actual manager of the estate is his aunt Jofan Chanur par Araun. His sisters are Pyanfar, Rhean and Anfy Chanur, whose mates are of clan Mahn, Anury and Quna respectively, and who captain the ships The Pride of Chanur, Chanur's Fortune and Chanur's Light. His daughters are: Hilfy, by Huran; Nifas, by Akify, among others; and two sons (exiled).
Araun is a tributary clan, rated as cousins to Chanur; other cousin clans are Tanan, Khuf and Pyruun. Jisan Araun par Chanur was mother to Haral and Tirun through an obscure tributary clan lord from remote Llunuurny, long since defeated and replaced by a male Haral and Tirun declined to support, leaving him to his numerous if unambitious sisters. Nifany Pyruun, Jofan Chanur's blood cousin, is birth-mother to Chur and Geran and a son in exile. She is administrator of Chanur offices in the port authority.
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