Chanur's Legacy (8 page)

Nothing is. Everything might be.

Or something of the sort—in classical mode. Hilfy sipped tea and pricked up her ears and laid them flat in deference when it was done.

“Extraordinary view of a delicate perception,” she said. “How extraordinary to be afforded such an honor. Are you the poet, excellency?”

No’shto-shti-stlen positively glowed ... for a stsho. Painted lids fluttered over moonstone eyes and long fingers made wave patterns. “I have that small distinction.”

“I am touched to the heart by such an honor. Would it be indelicate to ask your excellency for a copy?”

“Not in the least!” Fingers ripped at the aide, who fluttered off in a cloud of gossamer drape and nodding plumes. “You inspire me to thought. And . , .”

No’shto-shti-stlen produced the gift box from among
gtst
gossamer robes, and delicately lifted the lid, on a little item she had brought from Anuurn—from Haorai, a carved alabaster box, and within it a single carved
ua
stone ball. And within that—another ball and another and another.

No’shto-shti-stlen opened it; and
gtst
crest flattened and lifted.

“An
oji
of sorts. The ball and box have passed hand to hand for a hundred sixty-three years since it left the artist, of Tausa, in Haor, in Sfaura’s eastern sept, on Anuurn. There’s a small card that traces its provenance, if your excellency finds it of interest.”

“Extraordinary!”

“Each is unique. One bestows the stone on ceremonial occasions. This stone came into the hands of Chanur and thus into mine as clan head—a Sfaura clan object, as the design indicates. Luran Sfaura had it made for her fifteenth birthday celebration; and it passed at her decease to her daughter, and so down to the end of that line in Haor; thus to Sfaura’s western sept, part of the unsecured gifts—the explanation is on the card—which has gone back and forth between Sfaura and its tributaries at weddings, oh, a hundred years before it came to me, as a birthday gift from my prospective husband.” It was white and it had a history, which she had written up in florid and dramatic detail. It had last been her late husband’s, and such historical trinkets impressed the stsho.

Clearly No’shto-shti-stlen was pleased. The creature bowed numerous times where
gtst
sat. Hilfy felt constrained to bow.

And there was, necessarily, yet another round of tea, after which she bade farewell for the second time, and walked out with the kifish guards and out into the foyer and took the lift down to the docks.

Feeling rather pleased with herself, truth be known. She had scored with that gift. She knew the stsho, in a way most hani did not. The governor had given hersomething monetarily valuable and ceremonially valuable in the cases of tea. But she had given
gtst
something ceremonially and personally and
historically
valuable—so there, she thought, walking out onto the dockside. So there. Remember
me,
stsho, remember
me
and my crew.

She was in such a good mood she decided against taking the public transport. It wasn’t that far, down to the Legacy’s berth. She was still in a good mood when she threaded her way through the maze of loaders and cargo transports to reach the
Legacy’s
personnel access. She walked on up the rampway into the yellow, uncertain tube, with its coating of frost, and she walked into the
Legacy’s
lower decks and operations area in an expansive, happy mood, after what she had had to do. She had at least an assurance it was going to work.

Then she put her head into ops and saw Hallan Meras.

“What in hell is he doing here?”

“Captain,” Meras said, standing up at once.

“Not bad, actually,” Tiar said; and Chihin, managing the number two console, said, “Begging the captain’s pardon.”

“Get him back to his quarters!”

“Aye,” Tiar said. “But he is a licensed spacer. And we are short-handed.”

She was not in a mood for reason. Disasters were still possible. “He’s not been out on the docks, has he?”

“No, captain,” Hallan said at once, and got up from the chair he was occupying, very respectful.

Which made her the villain in the case.

“Gods rot it, he’s not crew! He goes back to quarters!”

“Aye,” Tiar said. “But he’s a help, captain.”

“Not right now!” she said. Gods, they had outside messengers likely coming aboard. They didn’t need Hallan Meras underfoot. Even with that soulful look in his eyes.

“Captain,” he said.

“Don’t ‘captain’ me! You’re a passenger on this ship. Chihin, take him back where he belongs.”

“I—“ he was still saying.

“Kid’s done all right” Tiar muttered, as Chihin took him by the arm and drew him out the door. “He’s not had a good day, cap’n, go easy.”

“He’s not had a good day. We’re going with the number 1 load. Skip the alternates. Berths full of kif. Snooping police. I want the gods-rotted deck clear out there, I want the fueling done—we’ve got three loads coming in tonight and we’re going to be working straight through the watch!” She was on nervous overload, on her own way to the door. ‘Tm going to run the nav-calc, I want it checked and triple checked— we’re hurrying, if you haven’t noticed. We haven’t got time for shopping tours and mahendo’sat with a deal and stray boys who’ll be reporting our ship cap to Sahern, next thing we know, keep him the hell out of stations!”

“He doesn’t want to go back to Sahern.” She swung around, hand on the door frame, finding herself in the middle of somebody’s completely foreign dealings, that possibly went against her own. “He says. Don’t cut him any deals, cousin! You don’t know what he did, you don’t even know he isn’t a total mistake—‘Take this poor lost boy,’ the stsho say. In the same gods-rotted conversation with their deal—and / don’t know what connection if any the two have, I don’t know why they didn’t give this deal to Sahern except their boy was out breaking up the station market, I don’t know what connection it has to anything, and maybe it doesn’t, but gods rot it! let’s not complicate matters. We get to Urtur, he goes off the ship, he waits for whoever he likes, his ship, somebody else’s ship, a passing knnn trader, I don’t care, but we don’t need to activate the feud with Sahern, and we
will
if we keep him—“

“How’s he going to live?”

She had not gotten that far. Not at all.

Tiar asked: “What’s he going to do? Urtur isn’t going to let any male hani aboard. Do we give him to the police to hold till his ship gets there? That’s no better than he had.”

She hadn’t exactly put
that
together either, in her concentration on the contract. “They can’t arrest him without cause.”

“They’ll find one.”

“Hell. —There’ll be a hani ship there. There always is. ... Don’t make him any promises, don’t let him near our boards, don’t complicate our lives, d’ you hear me? He’s going off this ship!”

“Aye,” Tiar said, which didn’t mean a thing, except Tiar heard her.

“I have to lock the door,” Tarras said, looking apologetic, and that was better than had been this morning, at least. Hallan told himself so, and told himself that politeness was obligatory.

Even when he was shaking mad. He kept his ears up and murmured a thank you.

“Ship’s just real busy,” Tarras said. A smallish hani with a wavy mane that said eastern blood, from the viewpoint of someone from west of the Aon Mountains. Tarras had one ear notched, and a lot of rings that meant a lot of major voyages ... you only got those when you’d risked your neck on a trip. Which meant Tarras for all her slight size was a person to respect. “Captain’s a little quick-fused just now. We’ll sort it out with her.”

“I appreciate that,” he said, and tried to quit shivering and most of all not to have Tarras see that he was. Women were allowed to have a temper. If he did, he was unreliable and a danger to everyone around him. “I’m not Sahern. I’m not related to them. Even by marriage.”

“Wouldn’t matter. Captain took you aboard. She would have if you’d been Sahern head of clan. So would we.
Don’t try
to talk against Sahern. You won’t impress us,”

“I’m not!” Gods, everything got twisted. “I never said that. I never said anything against them.”

Tarras just looked at him a moment, making him wonder if she believed him.

“How’d you get arrested?” Tarras asked. “The straight story.”

He wondered how much
was
in whatever report they had gotten from the kif. “I was fighting.”

“That’s nothing new. Doesn’t always get you arrested. What was the fight about?” “Me. Being there. In this bar.” Surely she could get the idea. Maybe she had. He didn’t want to volunteer more details and he hoped she wouldn’t ask. He didn’t want to remember them.

“Captain wouldn’t leave you in any foreign jail,” Tarras said. “She’s pretty brusque sometimes. But you being here was her idea. Wouldn’t leave anybody where you were. You copy that?”

He had, already. He wasn’t willing to think badly about Hilfy Chanur. He knew that, being Chanur, she was inclined to believe he had a right to be here. Chanur was the clan that stood up for his right to be here. Only, even in Chanur, the attitudes weren’t universal, the change hadn’t changed every mind; and he was used to that. He had to be used to that. Things as they were gave him no better choice and no court of appeal.

He said, while Tarras was there to listen, “I’d not do anything against Chanur. Ever. Tell the captain that.”

Tarras didn’t say a thing, just shut the door. And locked it.

Pumps were thumping away, pouring water and other liquids into the
Legacy’s
reservoirs. Fueling was in progress. Tiar slid a cup under Hilfy’s inert, poised hand. And reaching the fingers after it seemed a move too much. Hilfy extended a claw, snagged the handle, and dragged it into her weary hand.

“We made it’’ Tarras said, dropping her bulk into a chair, gfi in hand. “Every gods-blessed one of those babies.”

“Course comped,” Tiar said.”

“Got to be the one that makes it. Pay the ship off and go into the profit column.”

“Somebody feed the kid this time?”

“Fala’s seeing to it.”

“What’s our launch, cap’n, we ever get ‘im clear?”

“First watch, topside. We take her through, we get our rest at Urtur.”

“Gods, that’s brutal.”

“Mahendo’sat sniffing around us, this hardship case turns up and No’shto-shti-stlen just happens to want him out of here. I don’t like it. 1 don’t like it and I wish I hadn’t agreed to take him on.”

Tiar’s ears flattened. “What do you think, he’s some deal of No’shto-shti-stlen’s?”

“I think the old son knows more about why he’s here than
gtst
is saying. I’m not doubting
gtst
wants him off this station: the stsho don’t want trouble and he’s trouble. I don’t know whose, that’s the problem. I don’t know who’s behind him.”

“There are coincidences, captain.”

“They become increasingly less when the mahendo’sat show up with deals.
That’s
what I don’t like. ‘Let us look at it!’ That bastard’s on someone’s payroll.”

“Not
ker
Py’s.”

It was a thought that had occurred to her. “If he was hers, why not say so?”

“Good question,” Tiar said. “But I don’t think the boy’s involved. It’s perfectly understandable.”

“What? Leaving him in the brig?”

“Understandable that he doesn’t
like
Sahern clan.”

“That’s what he says. Sahern is
not
our friend. Other interests aren’t our friends, for my aunt’s sake,for reasons that have to do with decisions she’s made that affect things we have no way to know about. We don’t know who could have hired her, we don’t know who could have hired him, we don’t know what side this Haisi person is on, we don’t even know that No’shto-shti-stlen’s on the up and up or what
gtst
is up
to.
The news got to Urtur and this Haisi person had a chance to get here and offer us a bribe for a look at the object. So why hadn’t the news the time to get to Sahern clan, and maybe Sahern lay out some game that would inconvenience us? Ha?”

“Why would No’shto-shti-stlen give you the boy?”

“Because hani aren’t as frequent here as they used to be. Because if
gtst
has had a political object dumped in
gtst
lap, No’shto-shti-stlen is going to want rid of it in the way most guaranteed to absolve
gtst
of responsibility.
Gtst
couldn’t dump him on aunt Py,
gtst
couldn’t return him to Sahern, and here we come, Pyanfar’s close relatives, just so convenient to hand him to ... I don’t know that’s the case, but thinking about it is going to cost me sleep, this trip, it’s going to make me uncomfortable until he’s off our deck and out of our lives, and I
don’t
want him loose gathering data at our boards, hear me?”

“Let me understand—you think Sahern
planted
him here?”

“I think it’s a possibility. Maybe to create an embarrassment, maybe it’s something else. I think it’s a possibility there’s something more to him than he’s showing us ...”

“Captain, he’s a kid!”

“I don’t like where he was, I don’t like anybody dropped into a kif-run jail and I don’t like Sahern dragging hani clear to this pit on the backside of the universe to drop him, where, if they wanted rid of him, they could at
least
have dropped him at Urtur. It smells to me like a captain with a god-complex, but I don’t swear that’s the case; there are all the other possibilities, some of which aren’t pretty and aren’t conducive to good sleep, but that’s the way I see it, that’s the way I know how to call it, and that’s the only way I know to keep this ship out of trouble. We’ve got enough problems going, let’s not take any additional chances, shall we?”

“Trouble?” Fala asked from the doorway to the little galley.

“No trouble. I trust you locked that door.”

“I locked it. I don’t see, begging the captain’s pardon, why he’s—“

Hilfy leaned her forehead on her hand.

“Tell you later,” Tarras said.

“We’re in count,” Hilfy said, leaning back and looking at the clock. “Load’s got to be finished by 2300. Gods, I want out of this port.”