Chanur's Homecoming (30 page)

"They threw me back in here. I was up walking, captain."

Her ears pricked up. "Want you to think about that one double-jump, about getting to the other side of it. It's all easy after that. Home. You hear me?"

"Promised my sister," Chur said. The voice grew strained with the effort of lifting her head. "Gods-be machine trying to put me out again. No sense of proportion. No sense."

"Cousin." She shut the door and went on, next door to her own cabin, leaned on it and pushed the open button. It let her in. She left it on autoclose, crossed the floor to her bed and flung herself onto it facedown and fully clothed. She reached blind and fumbled after the safety net. It hummed across.

Chur.

Jik could still be setting us up.

Tauran-got to make them understand.

We got Skkukuk down there lunching on little animals, we got Tully stark scared and sitting next Armaments, if he could read the keys; we got Urtur-

-o gods, Urtur.

"Py. Py." A gentle shake at her shoulder. She gasped air and blanket fluff and came out of it with a swimming-motion, a wild flailing of her arm for the bed-edge. It would be an emergency. Everything was an emergency.

She clawed her way to the edge and a hand helped her upright, two hands held her there by the shoulders. She flicked her ears with a chiming of rings she had not taken off; and blinked into her husband's face.

"They need you," he said. "It's all done, we're inertial. I'm one of the ones going offshift. Haral said they need every experienced hand they have up front for this one. They got two Tauran-clan at the boards. I'm just going to have a nap myself. All right?"

He was so calm. She stared at him stupidly. She had slept through undock? Slept through all the clank and thump and I he shift of gravity? Haral had handled the ship gentle as eggshells.

Then Haral had evidently told her husband to give up his post and get off the bridge: more, to shut himself up alone in here and wait out the worst jump they had ever made; so her Khym just came back and explained it all calmly? He was terrified. He had to be. She was.

Of a sudden she felt a great tenderness toward him; she reached up and touched his face, nosed him in the ear. "Huh. Good job. Real good job." Nothing more than that, no compliment for following orders; he deserved having that part taken for granted.

Going home. If they lived to get there it was no good place for him. If they lived past Urtur.

"Don't do that," he said in his lowest voice. "You don't want to be late."

"Uhhn." She scrambled past him.

She came onto the bridge still raking her mane into order, still with sleep fogging her brain.

Everything done, the man said. Haral had let her sleep, that was what; Haral had gone and run everything her own way, the competency of which she trusted with her life, high and wide and inside out. But there was more than a handful of lives riding on it this time. And she had wanted her hand on it.

There was Tauran crew in Chur's seat. Skkukuk was in place. Another young Tauran sat at the com, in Tully's place. Haral and Tirun, Geran and Hilfy; and strangers. Sirany Tauran rose from her seat, forward. Her gut knotted in spite of everything.

"Tauran," she murmured, offering a dip of the ears by courtesy to the tawny-hided westerner. "Sorry, dreadfully sorry. I meant to be up here long before this."

"Your First told me you'd run without sleep." Tauran lowered her own ears; they stayed half-down, an attitude of reservation, jaw jutting. She swept an arm about. "My cousin Fiar Aurhen at com. Sifeny Tauran at scan: call her Sif. I'll be heading down."

"Haral explained-"

"As well as she could." Tauran gave a hitch at her breeches. "I took you on credit, ker Pyanfar. I'm still doing that. I'd better get moving. We're coming up on our jump."

"Right," she murmured. "Ker Sirany." At Sirany Tauran's departing back. The Tauran went off in some haste. The whole bridge crackled with necessity.

"Entering count," Haral's voice said over the intercom. "That's five minutes."

Pyanfar went to her chair and settled into it. The food and the water was in the appropriate clip. She powered the frame into position, adjusted the restraints, swung the arm-brace up and locked it.

"Four," Haral said, flicking switches. They were by the hook on this one: too many strangers aboard. "You want it, captain?"

"You got it, do it." She was checking displays. Tirun was switching at the moment, Haral having her hands full with the count and the last-minute power-ups. The Pride upped her rotations a bit, a little more G dragging them into the seats, for comfort's sake when they made drop at Urtur.

"We got our escort," Haral said. "That's Chakkuf, Nekekkt, Sukk. None I know."

"Me neither."

Message sent," Hilfy said. "They're on final to jump, on schedule."

"My captain's secure," said a strange voice from across the bridge.

"Clear to go," Tirun said.

"Mark," Geran said. "We got everyone on the mark back there."

They were moving, a field of blips going with them, while another field, stationary, shifted color downward. They were leaving Sikkukkut and company behind. Gods help the station and the stsho.

"Steady on," Haral said. "How're you doing, captain?"

"You going to take it amiss if I ask what in a mahen hell we got set up?"

A dip of Haral's ears. "Same as you planned, captain. I got a checklist, your four." Haral pushed a button and two screens flashed and changed displays. "Tauran asked questions, I answered as I could, no apparent problems. We're shift on and off with Tauran down in crew quarters; sent Tully down to ride it out in ops. Tauran was going to get upset about him. He said it was all right. And na Khym, by your leave. I figured we needed senior crew up here on this one-''

Haral let her voice trail off. And men and aliens were an issue, was the unspoken part.

"Did right," Pyanfar said. Gods rot them, Tully all by himself down there, contrary to her orders, because a priggish lot of hani balked at having him in crew quarters even with opposite shifts. Same sheets and blankets. Gods rot them all.

Couldn't put him with Khym. Or in Skkukuk's stinking quarters. Sirany Tauran got Jik's, captain's privilege, private cabin.

No room with Chur. Except in the same bed. Gods, and the protection might be worth it. Chur-.

Gods, let her make it. This is the hard one, gods. Get her through it.

Let me get her home. She's so small a matter in the balance. One hani. While You're doing all the rest, gods of my mothers-can't you just keep her with us?

You want my cooperation, gods?

No, no, not the way to go about it. The gods traded too sharp.

She scanned the list, flicked a glance over at number three monitor on her board, where augmented scan showed nine ships moving with them. Five hani, Aja Jin, and three kifish ships. The list showed tests run, checkout made, Tauran's agreement to crew assignment and quarters, status on Chur, and the fact that ops-com was open all over the ship for anyone who wanted to access it.

Course plot: affirm.

She affirmed. Plotting came up, splitscreen with data.

It was an illegal course, skipping to Urtur's zenith, braking hard, and jumping again from the incoming range. No passage through the dust-and-gas soup of the accretion disc at the ecliptic. No high-V passage through that.

It was also where trouble would be waiting. Best of all if they could have skipped directly nadir; but few stars had such a relative axial tilt that made that maneuver possible. The Meetpoint Mass and Urtur were not two of them; and trying it would probably pull them at high-V right into the worst of the disc.

If it did not drop them instead right into the heart of the well, into the bosom of Urtur's sullen yellow sun.

"We running calc on our collective?" she asked, while the chronometer ticked down. "Where is it?"

"We got it," Haral said. "It's going. We're sequenced two minutes apart, you want it closer?"

"Gods, no." They were going to make one long streamer through hyperspace as it was, which was going to put some additional push on all of them, and that meant being very careful on the braking capacity. There was fuel-mass to worry about. They could not afford wastage. Little Starwind had particular trouble in that regard. The Pride had large fuel cap, but also a larger mass with that new engine pack; and as for the rest, freighters were designed to haul, not do stop-and-turns under fire, even if the super-sized tanks and small unladed mass were in their favor on this run. All tanks and engines and hollow holds. But no extra shielding. It was going to be touchy. In all departments. She pulled the figures up-telemetry was flowing between ships now, fast and furious, catching up on status advisements. Their weakest was Lightweaver, with Star of Tauran and Vrossaru's Outbounder both left behind at dock. Lightweaver had to trail them; no other position for a ship with that mass/engine ratio.

The three kif ran ahead, indubitably with live armaments and kifishly intent on the business in front of them. A chance for distinction. For advancement. A proof of the hakkikt's favor.

And doubtless having their own instructions: the ops log had a separate note from Hilfy: a great deal of kifish chatter had gone on between Harukk and the ships of the escort.

Coded, to be sure.

"Give me Jik's map."

"Your three," Haral said, and it displaced the display on that screen.

She studied it, watched it flick through its dated changes, the moving and spreading of kifish power over decades; and mahen actions; and the sudden intrusion of humanity. . . .

... the slow ebb of hani influence.

Gods rot you, Jik-

Her pulse quickened, watching it through again. It was truth, unpalatable, plain, and simple. Jik had made a political statement, telling her more than she asked, more than timetables: the information went into history as well as the imminent future.

"Ker Fiar. Ker Sifeny." Her mind had two spare moments, amid the scramble to catch up. "This is Pyanfar Chanur; welcome aboard."

"Captain," a double murmur came back. Gods knew what their captain had instructed them-before she abandoned The Star and they boarded. Things like: keep an eye on the bastards? Wait my orders? Keep your heads down and be polite?

We'll take the ship if we have to, and mahen devils take the kif and all foreigners?

"We're not a by-the-book ship," she said. "You can guess that, the way things have been running. The second you get something my First better know about, you sing out Priority-priority and you get it; interstation com's usually free for crew chatter, meanwhile, station-station or all-stations, same as my own crew, no differences on this deck. We got non-hani aboard, same rules, and men on this ship get no special courtesy, no discourtesy either. We got a long trip and a hard one and Chanur's grateful for all the help we got; we need it at the other end too. You want to know anything, you ask, we'll answer; you have any trouble, you come to me same as your own captain. You won't have any trouble. If you do, I want to know about it. Hear?"

"Aye," the double voices came back.

Probably unconvinced.

"There's Chakkuf jumped," Sif Tauran said.

"Got that," Haral said.

"Priority," Geran snapped, and scan flashed to monitor one. "We got movement incoming, bearing 05, 35, 19, point zero zero 3 by 5 Gs-"

An object was out there, coming out of concealment and accelerating as if devils were behind it.

"Time we got out of here," Pyanfar muttered. "Gods and thunders, it had to be on our side of the system-"

"Priority," Geran said, "Sikkukkut's moving."

Scan showed the color-shift.

"Tirun-" Pyanfar said. "Intercept calc, all along that vector."

"I'm on it," Tirun said, "coming up. They can't do it, can't do it, nowhere along our line, beam or missile, b'gods, the incomer's lost us, but it's gods-be close."

Close for intercepting fire, pegged anywhere along their track; sweat broke out all over her.

"Priority." Geran's voice, booming out over the com on override. "We got another incoming-"

Pyanfar overrode with a priority master and a button on intercom. "Priority, priority," from Sifeny. "That's two more."

"Got that," Pyanfar said "Tirun: recalc."

"They're farther down, we're all right, I'm checking it anyhow, cap'n."

"Priority!" The monitor screen blinked alarm: space was blossoming with ships.

"Kkkkt!" Skkukuk cried over station-to-station. "Priority, this pattern is gktokik! This is methane-breather, this is tc'a and chi! Avoid output!"

"F'godssakes-" -Shut up on my bridge, you gods-be lunatic!

"Clear on our vector," Tirun said, "we got it, we got it clear, go, go."

"Sikkukkut's got visitors and we're not waiting for this to unfold around us. Out of here, as the schedule goes. Stay by it!"

"Priority," Hilfy said.

Comflow was coming over from Tahar, hani and obscene. Her heart lurched. "Hilfy, I got it, I got it. Send. Tahar! This is Pyanfar, what's happened back there?"

"Chanur," the answer came back, "we got a glitch in final-check. We're trying to fix it. You got to go, go. We'll come in as we can."

A sick feeling hit her stomach. Irony, maybe. It was a jump-lost ship that had started the Faha-Tahar feud. And it was a Faha-kinship crew and Tahar riding together on a ship that might not make it this time.

"Yeah, I hear that, Dur. How much lag?"

"Feathered if I know. We're tracing it. Give us a quarter hour down if we're lucky. If not-"

"If not, yeah."

"Hey, I speak kifish real good, Chanur. I'll turn 'round and hail 'em all. Got a message?"

"Luck to you. Luck, Tahar, hear?"

"Same to you."

Moon Rising cut communications. Dur Tahar had her hands full, with her own crew doing well to be working at all.

She dropped her head against a shaking hand and drew a deep breath and tried to get herself in order.

Gods and thunders, the best we got-the ones I could trust-The best and the only friends we got except Jik-that gods-be pirate-and Vrossaru with her. Gods, don't let us lose 'em now.