Chanur's Venture (19 page)

The mahe waved her own lank black-furred hand. "Get you fix, you take this

cargo."

"I'm telling you you can't get that vane fixed fast enough. Two hundred, three

hundred work hour fix that vane. We sit here we got kif positioned all round

this system. Plenty time for that. Mahe, we've got knnn loose!"

"God--!"

"Not our fault. Mahendo'sat set this up, all the way. Your own precious

Personage at Maing Tol. We got routed here. Number one usual mahen foulup, like

Meetpoint, like got Kita blocked, like desert me with no support--"

"Ship come. Meanwhile get you fix. Lousy hani engineering, huh?"

"Gods rot, you route a ship through Urtur and throw a course change at it and

see how it holds!"

Minuscule mahen ears twitched. The nose wrinkled and the Voice lifted a

deprecating hand. "Technical not my business. Personage say: Find damage, fix,

send this fool away quick before got kif organize. We fix. You hold this cargo."

"Can't do!"

"Want repair?"

The breath strangled her. "I'm due repair, you bastard. I've got the paper says

so. I can't stall the deputy. . . ."

The Voice frowned. Her small ears folded, twitched as she looked up and jabbed

again with the finger. "We take care this cargo. We take him station center, big

inquiry, lot fluff. Get you fix, bring back cargo -- twenty hour."

"Can't be done in twenty hours."

The mahe lifted one finger. "Bet?"

She stared at the mahe, thinking treachery,

thinking double-cross; and all the same her pulse raced. She threw a look at

Tirun, saw her cargo chief/engineer with that same wary, heart-thumping thought.

"They'd have to replace the whole gods-rotted tail to make that schedule," Tirun

muttered. "No patch job."

"Got good system," the Voice said. "Better. Mahen make. Match up you systems no

trouble. Twenty hour, you run. We fix han deputy. We confiscate this cargo. Let

deputy go Maing Tol make complaint."

"Gods, you know what you let me in for?"

"How much already, hani? You think. How much you got?"

"We'd still have kif." She gnawed a hangnail and stared at the Voice.

"Always got kif."

"You know a ship named Harukk?"

"Know. One bastard."

"He's been with us since Meetpoint. He knows what we've got. Ship named Ijir.

Our backup. It's gone. Kif have got it."

"Damn, hani!"

"Kif got whatever it had. They know whatever it knew."

The mane's mouth made a hard line as she looked down and up again. "You run

fast, hani. We get you fix, you burn tail get hell out Kshshti. Maybe arrange

small accident this Harukk. Maybe skimmer bump vane, huh? Maybe multiple

collision."

"All three? You want kif feud?"

"Raindrop in ocean, hani. You make deal?"

She gnawed her mustaches, looked at the deck plates, looked up at the mahe.

"Deal. You handle the deputy. You stop her. Caught between local government and

a han order-I can't very well contest a confiscation, can I -- if it gets here

first."

"We get car. Take custody." The mahe drew a watch from amid the clutter of her

belts. "Time now 1040. You expect action, maybe -- half hour."

"I want a Signature on that repair order."

Small ears twitched. "You doubt word?"

"Records get lost. I'd be in a mess later if that happened -- wouldn't I?"

"So." The mahe wrinkled her nose, made a grimace more hani grin than primate,

whipped up a tablet. She scribbled and affixed a Signature. "Repair authorize,

charge Maing Tol authority. Got. You satisfied?"

Pyanfar took it, waved a hand toward the outbound corridor. "Speed, huh?"

"Twenty hour," the mahe said, fixed her with a hard stare that held something of

mirth in it. Then she turned on her heel and walked off toward the outbound

corridor.

Pyanfar drew another breath, inhaled the mahe's lingering perfume. Blew it out

again and looked at Tirun.

"Got a chance," Tirun muttered.

"Gods know what they'll pin on our tail. Or what they'll stand by when the

inquiry board meets. We just agreed to get shot at. You know that?"

"Better odds than ten minutes ago."

"Huh." But her heart was still pounding against her ribs. It was hope,

unaccustomed in. the last two years. The Pride, back in prime-condition. Finish

this job, get the hold loaded on credit at Maing Tol before the other bills came

in. It was a chance, one chance -- and if the human mess settled down and the

human trade materialized, if that came through -- She waved an arm at the exit.

"Shut that. We've got kif out there."

Meanwhile -- meanwhile there was one difficult thing to do.

The smell of gfi went through the bridge, ordinary and comforting; voices

drifted out of the galley, noisy and normal. But Haral was back at her post,

damp from a hasty shower, and turned a solemn look back while Pyanfar slid the

tablet's Signature codestrip into comp.

Comp talked to ship-record, to station comp, back and forth in a rapid flurry of

codes. "Checks out," Pyanfar said, while Tirun came and draped an arm over her

sister's seatback, two sober, weary faces. Haral had heard. There was no

question about that: Haral always listened when there were strangers on the

deck.

"Tully listen in?" Pyanfar asked.

"No."

"Where is he?"

A nod toward the galley. "Everyone's there."

"Huh." She drew her shoulders up as against some cold wind and looked that way.

She tucked her hands into the belt of her trousers. "Come on. Both of you. Let

the damage list go."

They followed, two shadows at her back-- Cursed lot of nonsense, Pyanfar

thought, screwing her courage up. Gods, where was common sense, that breaking

one small bit of unpleasantness upset her more than facing down the hem?

There was noise, chatter, Khym's deeper voice wanting something from the

cabinet-- "Sit down, Tully," Chur said. "For godssakes, na Khyrn-- Hilfy,

where's the tofi got to? Can you find it?" And glanced around at Pyanfar.

"Captain."

"Sit," Pyanfar said sharply, stilling voices, the tofi-search, the opening and

closing of cabinets. Geran came and put a cup in her hand. "You too. Sit down,

Khym." --as he made one last foray into a cabinet. He snatched a substitute and

subsided scowling into the middle of the benches, shaking the spice into his cup

and concentrating on that while others found their seats left and right of him.

Pyanfar braced herself at the galley corner where stable footing existed

in-dock, foot braced at the edge of the shifting step-up of the gimballed table

section. Khym sulked, in general foul humor, and pretended full occupation. She

leaned there, sipped the liquid and felt the warmth coil through a boding chill

at her stomach. Others were still, not the rattle of a spoon, only a shifting as

Tirun and Haral nudged Tully over and slid into the benches.

"I'll make this fast," Pyanfar said. "I've got to. Tully, is that translator

picking me up?"

He touched his ear, where the plug was set. Looked at her with those bright,

worried eyes. "I hear fine."

She came and sat down on the jumpseat, leaned her elbows on the table, the cup

between her hands. She faced all of them. But Tully most directly.

"You'll know," she said, "we never did fix that thing at Urtur. Shut up, Khym--"

before Khym could quite get his mouth open. "Tully, there wasn't a way to fix

it. Hear? So we made it in. One vane is gone. Takes time to fix. Understand? Now

we got a little trouble. There's a hani here wants to take you on her ship. You

understand? Hani authority."

The pale eyes flickered with -- perhaps -- understanding. One was never sure.

Fright: that, certainly. "Go from you?" he asked. "I go? Go new ship?"

"No. Now listen to me. I don't want them to take you. This is a mahen station.

Mahendo'sat, understand? Mahendo'sat take you to the center of the station, keep

you safe, fix the ship. Twenty hours. You understand? They're going to take you

with them into the center of the station."

"Kif. Kif here--"

"I know. It's all right. They won't get near you. The mahendo'sat will bring you

back when we're ready to move. This way we keep the other hani from taking you

to their ship. We keep you safe, understand?"

"Yes," he agreed. He held the cup in front of him, in both his hands, looking as

if he had lost his appetite and his thirst.

"Got to move fast, Tully. Get down below. Take whatever you need. Clothes. A car

is coming."

"Car."

"No nonsense this time. You'll be under guard all the way. Not like the stsho.

Not like Meet-point. Mahendo'sat have teeth."

"One of us," Hilfy said quietly, "one of us could ride along. Make sure they

understand him."

There were a lot of unspoken questions around the table, a lot of worried looks

from hands who knew what damage existed in the vane. No one was questioning.

"Listen," Pyanfar said, moving the cup on the table out of her way. "Truth:

twenty hours. We're going for a first-class job. Whole new assembly back there."

"Gods," Geran breathed in reverence. Chur blinked; and Hilfy stared.

"They say twenty hours. They want us headed out of here for their own reasons.

Now move it. We've got to have him down at the dock in ten minutes, packed and

out."

"One of us ride along?" Chur asked.

"You and Hilfy." So the two of them had always fussed over Tully. Keep them both

happy. "Armed. This is Kshshti."

"I'll go," Khym said.

She glanced his way with a furrowing of the brow. Honest offer. Feckless lunacy.

"If there was trouble," he said.

"No."

"If--"

"No." She stood up and tossed the cup into the disposal. "Get it moving. Nine

minutes."

Crew hurried. Haral took Tully in tow, her hand hooked about his elbow, and

headed for the bridge.

"Pyanfar," Khym said, working his own way out from between bench and table.

"Pyanfar, listen to me."

"If you want to sulk go to your quarters and get out of the way."

"Is it Ehrran?"

"I haven't time." She brushed past his arm and headed for the bridge, spun on

one foot as she heard him following and brought him up short. "Use some

judgment, Khym."

"I'm trying to help!"

She gave him one long desperate look, and watched his expression go from anger

to desperation too. Anguish. She sorted a dozen jobs. All of them took skill.

"You want to help, I want Kshshti data pulled from comp. Go do that." She spun

about again and headed bridge-ward, for the papers she had under security.

That had to go. It was all one package, Tully and that envelope. If Ehrran knew

about Tully she likely knew he came with documents. And all of it had to go into

mahen custody. Fast. She could keep the deputy off the bridge: the law gave her

that.

But since the kif hit Gaohn, since a great many changes had happened in the

han--

One took no chances. Gods knew what Prosperity would swear to. It had gotten to

that. Distrust of foreigners. Distrust of hani who defied the conventions.

Foreign ways, they said. Hani males outside Anuurn: the keepers of the home,

learning there were things outside the hon, friends stauncher than other hani,

outsider-ways of thought.

She reached the bridge, opened the security bin beside Haral and took out the

precious packet-committed treason by that if not before. She slammed the bin

shut.

Haral looked round at her, her scarred face quite, quite calm.

Khyrn was there too, just watching, from the side, as staunchly downworld in his

own way as Ehrran's clan.

Worried. And silent now.

"Got something coming outside," Haral said, whose eyes and ears were partly The

Pride's from where she sat. And whose discretion was absolute. "Two minutes,

captain."

Chapter Eight

She headed down the corridor from the lift in haste, keyed the airlock to

inside-manual and looked back as Hilfy and Chur and Geran came hurrying along

with Tully in their midst.

"Car's on the dockside," Harral advised them from the general address. "You

operating that on manual?"

"I've got it," Pyanfar said, touching the pickup by the lock controls. "Just

keep a sharp lookout up there."

The four arrived, Tully dishevelled looking and disreputable in a white stsho

shirt half tucked into the blue hani trousers. The shirt was far too big, the

trousers too small; and for luggage he clutched a white plastic sack of the

219

C. J. Cherryh

kind they used for utility -- a change of clothes, toiletries, gods knew what

they had thrown together for him in so short a time.

"Got the translation tapes?"

"Got," Tully answered for himself, patting the bundle.

"Here." She handed him the packet. "Tuck that in too. For the gods' sakes don't

give it to the mahendo'sat."

He knew what it was. She saw the disturbed look, the doubt.

"Go on," she said, and triggered the inner lock. It hissed open with an

exhalation of cold air. "Chur, Hilfy, you watch it. You watch it coming back.