Chanur's Venture (17 page)

.

But the intellect knew what the will forgot. The mind was primed with a sequence

of things she had waited two months to do. The right hand reached the control

she had meant two months ago to reach and brought the field up while they still

had power, long before they had gotten buoy signal. The eyes sought instruments,

diverging lines that had to meet--

The fields of Mahn, yellow in the sun, the woods, the dappled shade. . . .

The vine outside the wall of Chanur, that branched like a river, from one great

gnarled trunk; and generations of Chanur had climbed it, branch to branch to

branch--

"We're on." That was Geran's mumble confirming destination. "We're in the jump

range."

Location: need the vector.

"We're alive," Hilfy murmured. "We're going to make it, going to make it--"

--as if she were utterly surprised.

There it was, that red line trued right on.

"Huh." Pyanfar coughed her throat clear and blinked away the haze.

"Of course we did," Geran said. "Have any doubt, kid?"

There were safety procedures for a ship to follow when coming in from

dust-ringed Urtur and they were not following them. They were coming into a

system with C-charged dust in their company. Some of it would slip the smaller

field of their dump and go through Kshshti system like a hard-radiation storm.

"One more dump," she murmured, pleaded with the ship. "Stand by" -- thinking of

a ship she had seen die -- of a ship which had had a vane shot to flinders, and

jumped without a chance in a mahen hell of slowing down.

Nothing to do then but capsule the crew and hope--

She shoved the dump in and felt her eyes roll as the field cycled up. . . .come

on, come on, ship, hold it--

More failure lights blinked and held steady. Branches on the wall. . . ."Got to

be that Y unit," she muttered to Haral, to no one in particular, and had visions

of that dying ship again.

None of that crew was alive now. Those the mahendo'sat had hauled down in their

capsule and saved -- they had died at Gaohn, standing off the kif.

She moved an arm and did a third dump, watching in blear-eyed fascination as the

lines on the scopes crept together and merged like silken threads, red and blue,

as The Pride dragged at the interface and let the bubble go.

Down again, and the wail of alarms calling her back to life.

"Still over mark," Haral muttered. "That's twenty."

"I know. We've got it, we've got it left with the mains." She shoved the jump

drive off and sent The Pride into an axis roll, canceled G and threw the mains

on to finish the job the drive had failed. There was margin left. "Kif. Are

there kif? Look alive back there."

"Scan's clear," Chur's voice returned. "Kshshti positive; got the beacon. Stand

by course input."

Monitors changed priorities. The course change flashed in, very little off their

present heading. She put the bow down and trued up.

"That's luck," Haral said of the course they had been handed.

"Huh," she said. "That's priority for you." Rotational G picked up again as the

vector change took effect. "Find out what we lost."

"Stand by," Tirun said.

There was long silence, while comp ran diagnostics under Tirun's hands.

"It didn't hold?" Khym's voice, sounding plaintive and a bit shaken. "Did we

lose that vane again?"

"Didn't hold," Geran said. "But we're all right."

"Not leaving here real quick, are we?"

He was trying. And getting harder to deceive. Pyanfar swallowed hard, and took

the damage summary as it came flickering to the screen. "We're all right," she

heard Hilfy say, which was probably into the com, for Tully. "We're through. We

just had trouble with that unit. Sit still down there."

"Blew two holes in final-backup," Pyanfar muttered to Haral, in

conversation-tone.

"Gods," Haral said. That was all. And sent Kshshti system image her way, onto

all the screens. "Not much, this place."

"Huh."

It was not. A dull orange sun with only moons for company, moons and a station.

Small mining, sufficient for its needs. Some trading. Mostly mahendo'sat

maintained it because it would be someone's, situated as it was; and best it

should be theirs, when it was a connection on a route straight for Maing Tol

from Kefk, inside kif space. With a shipyard facility, thank the gods.

"Lot of traffic," Pyanfar muttered, picking up the com chatter. "Gods-rotted lot

of traffic to be out here at this hole."

"Kita," Haral reminded her.

"Kita for sure. Word got spread uncommon fast, didn't it? Or we lost more time

than we ought in that jump."

"Huuuhn." No comment. Not here, not now. Not with Khym on the bridge.

Twenty stars were The Pride's regular ports of call. Not Kshshti. It was not a

port any hani sought.

"Nasty little place," Geran muttered from back along the counter. "Real nasty."

* * *

There was time. There was time for a great many things as The Pride came limping

in toward Kshshti--

Time to hear the chatter of the station before their wavefront reached station

and station's then-wave reached them: the chitter and wail of methane-breathers

in confused conference, the clicking sounds of kif whose uncoded remarks were on

ordinary kifish business, terse and uninfprmative. No hani voices. No sign of

hani at all.

"Station answering," Hilfy said as that wave came in. The feed was routine,

coldly businesslike transmission. It might have been any approach to a mahen

station, less lively than some. "Queer quiet," Haral muttered. "I'd've expected

a curse to a mahen hell and back again, the way we came in."

"Huh," Pyanfar said. "Bet you to a mahen hell all of this is set up from the

start. We're expected and they're not rattling this thicket, no."

That got a look from Haral. Not a happy one.

So they glided closer and closer to Kshshti with the noise of methane-breathers

whispering over com.

Rimstation. Border station. Kif claimed the star; mahendo'sat had built the

station and held it with the tc'a and chi, whose mining had no particular

profit. Nothing at Kshshti did . . . except its nuisance value to kif ambitions

across the line.

"Where's that shiplist?" she asked of Hilfy. "I want names, imp."

"I'm still trying," Hilfy said. "Station says they've got computer trouble."

"Sure they do. Like the board at Meetpoint."

"Beg pardon, aunt?"

"Gods-rotted lot of malfunctions lately. Get that list. Tell them read it off by

voice and cut the nonsense."

"Don't know what we can do," Haral muttered beside her. And that was truth. The

vane systems boards flickered steady disaster under Tirun's probes. It was all

down. Everything.

"We'll manage," she said, "something--" but her gut was knotted up in one

unceasing panic. She fished the repair authorization out of safekeeping and

shifted to put that in her pocket, braced for arguments with mahen officials.

There would be outcries, howls, delays if she could not face them down.

And if there was no ship for Tully, if there were the wrong kif, and no help --

Not leaving here real quick, no.

"List is in," Hilfy said.

"To your one," Haral said and put it to the screen.

14 Iniri-tai: Maing Tol

9 Pasunsai: Idunspol

7 Nji-no: Maing Tol

30 Canoshato: Kshshti: insystem

29 Nisatsi-to: Kshshti: insystem

2 Ispuhen: Maing Tol: repair

32 Sphii'i'o: V'n'n'u

34 T'T'Tmmmi: N'i'i

40 A'ohu'uuu: Tt'a'va'o

49 knnn

50 knnn

51 knnn

52 knnn

10 Ginamu: Rlen Nle

20 Kekkikkt: Kefk

21 Harukk: Akkt

22 Inikktukkt: Ukkur

8 Ehrran's Vigilance: Anuurn

15 Ayhar's Prosperity: Anuurn

3 The Pride of Chanur: Anuurn: enroute

"Gods," Haral muttered.

"Party, huh?" She drew down her mouth as at a bad taste.

"Kekkikkt. Remember that one?"

"Couldn't forget. A whole list of good news, isn't it?"

"Got help. " She scanned the mahen section again. "Insystemers and

short-hoppers. Ever hear of Iniri-tai?"

"No."

"Pasunsai?"

"No. Neither of them."

"Gods rot, there's supposed to be a hunter ship here."

"Got Vigilance," Haral said dryly.

"Huh." She rose to the humor, but there was ice at her stomach.

"What do we tell them?"

She remembered what she had told them at Meetpoint, the final message. Kif on

our trail. No explanation possible. "Something inventive. We'd better."

"Ayhar," Tirun muttered between her teeth. And that was the second good

question.

"That scrapheap never beat us here on the Urtur route, that's sure."

"How'd they know?"

"Want to guess?"

Haral made a sound in her throat, not a pleasant one.

"Rhif Ehrran's got a lap pet."

"What do we do?"

"Huh. I'm thinking about it." Meaning she did not know. Meaning there was

nothing they could do but bluff and Haral already knew that much. Vigilance had

gathered itself a witness, that was what -- footed the bill to divert a merchant

carrier like Prosperity off its normal run. They had dumped cargo at Meetpoint,

same as themselves.

And knew where to intercept them. Same as Harukk had known.

Gods, were they the only ones running blind in this business?

"Stsho? Stle stles stlen?

Gtst knew Goldtooth's plans.

If gtst had talked--

"Captain," Hilfy said. "Tully's asking to come up."

More questions. Pointed ones. She drew a deep breath and downed the panic. "Tell

him yes. Tell him--" --watch his step. But he knew how to move in a ship

underway. He had felt the uncertainty in their dump, had understood more surely

than Khym had that they were in trouble, and what kind they were in -- that they

had escaped dying outright. But they were lame -- at Kshshti. With the kif.

Now what, now what we do, huh, Py-an-far?

Tully did not take long about it. Pyanfar turned her chair from his reflection

overhead to the solidity standing in the doorway.

He looked worried. He glanced about him, scanned the monitors with an eye that

knew what it was looking for, that could read more off the graphics than he

could understand in words.

"Safe," she said to him. "We're safe in Kshshti. Got help here. Big hani ship."

He nodded. He did hope. That was in the look he gave her. But something else was

in the slump of his shoulders as he turned and sought the seat Hilfy offered

him, observer, beside her post.

Quiet, thank the gods..She was ashamed of herself, remembering that he never did

go to masculine extremes. Professional. It was hard to remember that, that

Tully, whatever else he was, was not prone to hysterics. There, she thought,

Khym. That's how. That's how it's done. You can do it--

The way she had believed it once, having voyaged with Tully, so that she hoped--

Khym was looking at her now, one hard, unforgiving stare.

Sure, Khym. It's fixed.

Tully, perhaps, had never fallen for that lie in the first place.

And Khym had, perhaps, just seen that shiplist.

She turned back to controls. Blinking lights and mahen chatter had no

accusations.

The metal speck that was Kshshti became a star, a globe, resolved itself into

torus shape in the vid; became an aggregate of plates and flashing lights as The

Pride moved in and fell into rotating pattern with the wheel. "In lane," Haral

said. "Autos on."

"Take her in." Of a sudden the hours mounted up like leaden weight. She spun

about and faced the bridge as a whole, saw Khym sitting there with his elbows on

the console facing the scan.

Tully's pose was much the same. But he turned to face her, with that haunted

look he had worn for days.

"We'll get that repair done here," she said. "Kshshti can handle it."

Hilfy looked her way. So did Khym. And Khym's stare was dark.

Another lie? she read the backslant of one ear, the flare of nostrils.

Her own pulse raced. She held herself in place, silent, with nothing to say to

either of them.

Lies and lies and lies.

"When we get in," she said to Hilfy, looking straight at her, "I want a mahen

courier in here. I don't care who it is. Dock manager will do. Don't shake

things up, but get us someone who can get us someone else. Shouldn't be hard.

Suggest we've got a cargo difficulty."

Khym sat there. It occurred to her that in his life he had never told a witting

lie . . . being downworld hani, dealing with hani and believing in the han. And

it had never occurred to her that in dealings off-Annum she had had many faces