Chanur's Venture (2 page)

She weighed that. Mahijiru in trouble. A mahen hunter-ship with more kif

troubles than it could handle. "So you got. Where you go now?"

"Best thing you don't ask."

"Human space?"

"Maybe deep in stsho territory. Read packet. Read packet. Friend."

"Rot you."

"Rot you too," Goldtooth said soberly. His ears stayed up. There were fine

wrinkles round his dark eyes. "God save us. Need you, Pyanfar. Need bad."

"Huh." She flicked her ears up with a light chiming of their rings. "I'm not a

gods-blessed warship, mahe."

"Know that."

"Sure. Sure." She walked off a pace to get clear breath, looked at Tully, who

understood -- perhaps a little. Always more than he spoke.

Tully would not lie to her. That much she believed. His silence, his level,

unflinching stare now, that vouched for his own honesty in this. "When bring to

you?" Goldtooth asked. She turned back to him. "Got an appointment in station

office. Got to make that. Got to advise my crew. Got to tell them -- You give me

lot of problems, hear? And you be careful." She extruded a claw and poked

Goldtooth hard in the chest, so she saw him wince. "You be careful this package.

You be gods-rotted careful, hear?" She meant two things.

"Hear," Goldtooth said, full soberly. He heard both things. She knew.

"Got three days this port," she said. "Got stall three days with gods-rotted kif

sniffing round. I pull The Pride out sooner, big trouble. Lot of attention. When

you go?"

"Deliver package, wait awhile, then go. Got no cargo but fake cans I give to

you."

"So." She turned away, met Tully's eyes, patted him very gently on his arm,

recalling his fragile skin. "Safe, understand. You do what they say. No fear.

These mahendo'sat bring you to me. Understand?"

"Yes," Tully said, and looked at her in that way he had, his pale stare

desperately intense.

Her ears twitched, her nostrils widened with the scent of something more than

Meetpoint-sized amiss, more than a corrupt stsho and closed routes and xenophobe

stsho councils back in Llyene, atwitter over humanity that wanted through stsho

space. Mahen connivances. Kif greed. She looked back at Goldtooth. "Presents.

One fine present. Ha!"

Goldtooth lifted his head, his brown eyes half-lidded. "Tell you this, old

friend. Kif don't forget. They hunt me. Soon hunt you. Not revenge. Kif-thought.

Skikkik. Hunt me, hunt you. Tully come here -- Got one fine trouble this time.

This business Tully bring us only -- hurry things. Make timetable ours, not

kif's."

"Huh," she said. "So I take this gift. I don't like things coming at my back.

You watch yourself. You run far, mahe. You do good. Wish you luck."

"You got," Goldtooth said. "Wish you luck, hani."

She flicked her ears, indecisive, turned and stalked out the airlock through the

parting crowd of tall mahendo'sat.

Luck.

Luck indeed.

Her mind was not in it as she walked on down the dock. It kept sorting troubles

past and troubles future -- dangerous, she thought, catching a whiff of some

scent not mahendo'sat nor stsho, but something she could not, in this large,

cold space . . . identify.

Cargo, maybe. Maybe something else. It set her nose to twitching and set an itch

between her shoulderblades.

She did not look about, here on Meetpoint's docks, padding along the cold

deckplates, beside the gapings of ship accesses, out of which wafted more

friendly scents. There were other hani ships at Meetpoint. She had read the list

before she had put The Pride into dock: Marrar's Goiden Sun; Ayhar's Prosperity;

oh, yes, and Ehrran's Vigilance. That ship. That one, that Goldtooth had

mentioned, but not by name . . . that han's eyes, which were doubtless on other

business at the moment, but which were capable of catching small furtive moves

-- like a Chanur captain paying calls on mahen ships.

There were a dozen other mahen vessels in port: Tigimiransi, Catimin-shai,

Hamarandar were some she had known for years. And familiar stsho names, like

Assustsi, E Mnestsist, Heshtmit and Tstaarsem Nai. Round the wheel of Meetpoint,

beyond the great lock that separated oxy- from methane-breathers, ships went by

stranger titles: tc'a and knnn and chi names, if knnn had names at all. Tho'o'oo

and T'T'Tmmmi were tc'a/chi ships she had seen on docking lists before.

And kif. Of course there were kif. She had made a particular point to know those

names before she put The Pride in dock . .. names like Kekt and Harukk,

Tikkukkar, Pakakkt, Maktikkh, Nankktsikkt, Ikhoikttr. Kif names, she memorized

wherever she found them, a matter of policy -- to recall their routes, their

dockings, where they went and trading what.

The kif watched her routes with as much interest this last year. She was very

sure of that.

She did not loiter on the docks, but she made no particular haste which might

attract attention on its own. She stared at this and that with normal curiosity,

and at the same general pace she strolled up to the nearest com booth along the

row of dockside offices, keyed up Chanur credit and punched in the code for the

station comlink to The Pride's bridge. She waited. The com whistled and clicked

through nine cycles unanswered.

There was a kif on the docks. She spied the tall, black-robed form standing over

shipside in conversation with a stsho, whose pale arms waved emphatically. She

stood with her back to the plastic wall and watched this exchange past the veil

of other traffic, the passing of service vehicles, of pedestrians, mostly stsho,

pale-robed and elegant; here and there mahen-do'sat, dark and sleek. Something

winged whipped past, small and upward bound for the heights of the tall, cold

dock.

Gods only knew what that was.

Click. "Pride of Chanur," the voice finally answered. "Deck officer speaking."

"Haral, gods rot you, how long does it take?"

"Captain?"

"Who's out?"

"Outside?"

"I want that cargo inventoried. Hear? I want all of you on it, right now. No

liberties. If anyone's out, get her back. Right now."

"Aye," the voice came back, diffident. "Aye, Captain." There was question in the

voice.

"Just do it!"

"Aye. But -- Captain?"

"What?"

"Na Khym's out."

"Gods and thunders!" Her heart fell through her feet. "Where'd he go?"

"Don't know. To the free market, I think -- There some kind of trouble?"

"I'm coming back. Get him, Haral. I want him found."

"Aye, Captain."

She slammed the receiver down and headed back toward the ship in haste.

Khym, for the gods' sake. Her mate, gone strolling out in fullest confidence

that papers in order meant safety ... on a stsho trading station, where weapons

were banned, as he had gone out of ship at Urtur and Hoas among mahendo'sat; as

he had gone wandering wherever he liked through the last two markets -- male,

and duty-less and bored. Gods. O gods.

She remembered the kif then, looked back, one injudicious glance over her

shoulder, breaking the rest of her precautions.

The kif was still there, looking her way beyond the gesticulating stsho, looking

black and grim and interested.

She flung around again and moved as fast as a walk could carry her, past

Mahijiru behind its darkened (malfunctioning?) registry board, past one berth

and the other in the chill, stsho-made air.

She was panting in earnest when she came within sight of The Pride's berth.

Everything was stopped there. The machinery that ought to be offloading stood

still with cans still on the ramp. Haral was outside waiting for her, red-gold

figure in blue breeches; and spying her, came her way with scurrying haste.

"Captain--" Haral skidded up and braked, claws raking on the plates. "We're

looking."

"Kif are out," Pyanfar said. That was enough. Haral's ears went flat and her

eyes went wide. "With Ehrran clan in port. I want him back, Haral. Where'd he

talk about going? Doing what?"

"Didn't talk, Captain. We were all busy. He was there by us at the ramp. When we

looked round -- gone."

"Gods rot him!"

"Can't have gotten far."

"Sure he can't." She took the pocket com Haral offered her and clipped it to her

belt to match what Haral had. "Who's on bridge?"

"No one. I stayed. Alone."

"Hilfy's out there."

"First."

"Lock up. Come with me."

"Aye!" Haral snapped, spun on her heel and ran.

Pyanfar strode on.

Market, she reckoned. Meetpoint's famed Free Market was far and away the

likeliest place to look. Baubles and exotics. Things to see.

He might have tried the restaurants before the market.

Or the bars of the Rows.

Gods rot him. Gods rot her soft-headedness in ever taking him aboard. On Anuurn

they called her mad. At times like this she believed it, all the way.

She was breathing in great side-aching gasps when Haral came pelting back to

fall in at her side.

"He's not here," Hilfy said -- youngest of The Pride: her left ear one-ringed,

her beard only beginning, her breeches the tough blue cloth of hani crew, though

she was Ker Hilfy, Chanur's someday heir. She met Tirun Araun between two aisles

of the dock bazaar, among the stacks of cloth, foodstuffs, the fluttering of

stsho merchants. Fluting cries of exotic nonsapients legal here for trade, the

shouts of traders and passersby, music from the bars of the Rows alongside the

market-echoed off the lofty overhead in one commingled roar. Smells abounded,

drowning other scents. Color rioted. "I've been down every aisle, Tirun--"

"Try the Rows," said Tirun, older spacer. Her beard was full; her mane hung wild

about her shoulders. Her left ear flicked, clashing half a dozen rings. "Come

on. I take evens, you take odds. Hit every bar on the Rows. He might have, gods

only know."

Hilfy gulped air and went, not questioning the orders as Haral herself had not

questioned what had happened, except that something had gone wrong. Very wrong.

That had been a coded call to get off the docks. At once. Her ears kept lying

back on their own; she pricked them up with spasmodic efforts, seeking a hani

voice through the din, from out of the row of spacer bars that lined the

marketplace.

No sign of any hani in the first bar on the row. It was all mahendo'sat inside,

honking music and the raucous screech and stamp of drunken spacers.

She crossed Tirun's path on the walk on the way out and they split again into

the third and fourth bar.

Stsho, this den. But she spotted the red-gold of hani backs clustered about a

bowl-table, dived through and slid to her knees on the rim. A senior hani spacer

turned round and eyed her; other eyes turned her way, all round the table. She

bobbed a hasty bow with hands gripping the rim.

"Hilfy Chanur par Faha, gods look on you -- you seen a hani male?"

Ears laid back and pricked in non-sobriety all round the table, six pairs of

ears heavy with rings. "Gods -- what you been drinking, kid?"

"Sorry." That was a mistake. She scrambled to her feet and started away; but the

spacer swayed erect, waved wildly for balance as she clawed her unsteady way up

the plastic bowlseat to catch her arm. "Hani male, hey? Need help, Chanur? Where

you see this vision, hey?"

There were derisive laughs, curses -- someone was trodden on. The rest of the

hani came up on the seat and scrambled out of the pit. Hilfy tore loose and

fled. "Hey," she heard at her back, hani-cough, a drunken roar.

"Pay!" A shrill stsho warble from another side. "Pay, hani bastard--"

"Charge it to Ayhar's Prosperity!"

"O gods!" Hilfy dived for the exit, just as a pair of kifish patrons loomed in

the doorway. Black musty robes brushed her with a smell that sent the wind up

her back. She did not look back or pause as she dived past them both. "Hard

rabble." she heard hissed behind her, the noise of drunken encounter mingled

with kifish voices.

She darted through the outer doors into the light of the market, blinked,

hesitating on one foot, hearing above the market noise the sound of hani in full

chase behind her -- no sight of Tirun. She leaned into a run and plunged into

the next odd-numbered bar -- stsho again, not a sight of hani. She pelted back

out the doors, through the incoming mass of Ayhar clan, who began a turnabout in

that doorway in merry disorder.

Still no Tirun. She dived into the next odd-number, another stsho den, saw a

tall red shape, and heard the voices, a deeper hani voice than this port had

ever heard, the chitter of stsho curses, the snarl of mahendo'sat.

"Na Khym," she cried in profoundest relief. "Na Khym!" She eeled her way through

the towering crowd at the bar and grabbed him by the arm. "Uncle -- thank the

gods. Pyanfar wants you. Now. Right now, na Khym."

"Hilfy?" he said, far from focused. He swayed there, a head taller than she,

twice her breadth of shoulder, his broad, scarred nose wrinkled in confusion.

"Trying to explain to these fellows--"

"Uncle, for the gods' sakes-"

"He is," a hani voice cried from the door. "By the gods -- what's he doing