Chanur's Homecoming (34 page)

-aren't we coming out?

-Gods and mahen devils, what are they doing up there? Is that the drop?

It was. The Pride came down with a vengeance; Khym moaned; and she did; and heard the curses over com about the inlaid program in Nav, about the fools who had laid it in and the condition of Tauran stomachs.

Got to get up there. Second dump, I got to.

They had laid in food stores in the room, pinned to the console. She groped after them, packets the same as they used on the bridge. Dared not retract the net. Not till she got an all-clear.

Then over com: "Gods fry it to a mahen hell! What is that thing?"

She jabbed the com button, fighting with the net. "What is it? What's going on up there? This is Pyanfar Chanur, gods rot it, what's going on?"

Delay.

"Gods blast you, don't you give me authorizations on my own ship! Give me Sirany! What in a mahen hell's going on up there?"

"Chanur. We're stable. Proceed with crew change."

"Gods be." She retracted the safety restraint, rolled over and got her stiffened legs off the edge and hauled her sore torso upright. "Oh, gods." Never, never make love in jump, oh my ribs, my back, o gods. She got herself upright, swallowed down a rush of nausea and reeled and staggered, limping, toward the door.

A black streak shot down the hall, about ankle-high, squealing as it went.

''Gods and thunders!''

The Dinner was loose again.

She came reeling and limping her way onto the bridge with the crew-call sounding out over the general address, and grabbed the back of observer-two seat to steady herself while she got a look at the monitors, at scan, at a situation that looked tranquil enough, except for the kif running silently ahead of them. No firing here. No output from station either.

They were in hani space, and Kura, the second-largest station in that space, was dead silent at least as far as buoy output went.

"Kif've tripped a warning," she surmised suddenly, and staggered her way toward Sirany Tauran, grabbing the back of her seat to hold herself steady. "That's where buoy went. Shut itself up the moment it got kifish ID. Which kifish ID it got and how long ago, that worries me. Has our escort made it in? Did they overjump us?"

"Neat and sweet, they did, about two hours' worth. Got plenty of power on those ships, and their emissions trail's strong and clear. Covering up everything."

"Have we got a message going out? I auto'ed a message for Kura."

"Aye, captain," the com officer said. "We're three minutes out of response time."

"It tells Kura what we can. Advising any ships here to get home. Fast."

"Same I sent," Sirany said. "Same all the others been sending, their own ships' wrap on it. The mahe's been transmitting coded stuff, long burst just before we left Urtur.''

"Huh." More than huh. But not with Sirany. Worry broke out all over again. Jik's still with us. Still on our side. She scanned the monitors and saw the positioning of ships, the still-broken pattern, the hole where Tahar ought to be and was not. "No sign of Tahar."

"No sign."

She gnawed her mustaches and waited, eye on the chrono. "We get any response?"

"Negative."

"We got some godsrotted vermin run through here," Sirany said.

"I know it. We cleaned it out once. Skkukuk's gods-cursed food supply. Something's got loose again."

"F'godssakes. What are the things eating?"

"The ventilation filters."

"Lifesupport?"

"We got an electrical screen on the main systems from last time. We got it covered. Don't worry about it. The problem's in our watch. Just a stray, more'n likely. We'll get it."

"You thought of sabotage? That gods-be kif-"

"Is crew."

"Not in my watch, captain. That door of his is locked from the boards."

Question my judgment! On my bridge, in my chair, rot your hide!
 
It was also a sane and reasonable suspicion. She restrained herself and got her voice quiet. "That kif," she said, "is our translator. Protocol officer and a gods-be decent one. Crew." It half-choked her. Get your backside out of my chair, Tauran. "He takes orders. Takes 'em fine. He's had a lot of chances to kill one or the other of us. Saved my hide back at Kefk." And I don't let him loose either, but he's not risking his neck in those corridors hunting vermin. "Shift. I'll spell you, work with yours and spell 'em off as mine come in. You did a marvel, Tauran, got us here through that soup, real fine job and strange boards-" Compliment the graynosed bastard. Keep us friendly. It was a good job. We're alive. We still got all our ships behind us, Jik and Harun and the rest, and all three kif out to front, and she's trying real hard to be polite, isn't she, Pyanfar Chanur? More suspicious than young Fiar. Wiser and harder and she has to be. She's got to push me a little. Got to keep her eyes clear and play the hardnose and try to get at truth, that's what she's after. She didn't fail us. Hasn't failed us.

"Fancy stuff," Sirany said, still sitting., "Mahen-make. Real fancy. That comp's a wonder."

What'd you pay for it, Chanur? What buys equipment like this, state of the art, class one stuff, when Chanur's broke and bankrupt and all space knows it?

What's this we hear about you and mahendo'sat and the Meetpoint stsho?

Before we go to sleep again-what kind of ship are we on?

"We got our tail shot up. Emergency patch at Kshshti. The mahendo'sat wanted us out of there real bad. It's this passenger of ours."

"The kif or the human or the mahendo'sat?"

Pushing hard now. Her pulse hammered and her ears flattened as Sirany turned in her seat to look up at her.

Out in the dark places too long, maybe, Chanur?

"I'll argue that in the han,''
 
Pyanfar said. "But our records are unlocked. Had a look, have you?"

"I've been busy," Sirany said. "Real busy." Her ears were flat. "Interesting stuff. But the important thing's still to get home, isn't it? We do it your way. Your rules. You want that kif in on com, that's fine. We got two more jumps to go. You want us to bed down with the gods-be kif, if you want to vouch for his manners, I'll take your word on it."

"Listen. I mean this. Don't expect him to be hani. He'll take your hand off if he thinks you're pushing me. Tully's quieter, but he's scared of you and he's got troubles youdon't know about; let him be. And my husband-let me tell you, ker Sirany, since you've said not a word on it, let me tell you: my husband's steady as anybody at the boards, and gods help him, you won't shock him, not after this trip, he knows what ship life is; he knows how to take orders, and you don't have to worry about him. Or Tully. They work together in galley. No problem with tempers. They like each other."

Sirany's ears went down and struggled bravely erect. "I saw the ring."

"Didn't win it in a fight. Won it sitting the boards doing his job while Haral Araun had her finger on a destruct button. And he'll take your orders, or mine, or any senior's. That's how it is. I want your help, ker Sirany. It's good we've got someone aboard who doubts us. And every word in that log is true. You understand me?"

Sirany's ears went half-flat. White showed at the corners of her eyes and her jaw was hard. Then the ears came up. "We'll worry about that when we're through this alive."

"I'm fighting for the han. They'll call me a traitor. They'll put that on my tomb if I get one. You understand me yet? It's one thing to be a gods-be hero. If we get through this alive, I want someone, I want one hani else to know this crew's not what they'll say we are."

Fear showed in Sirany's face. Undisguised. "What do you want, company?"

"I want your influence. We got two fights. One's in space. The other's with that fool Ehrran and all her ilk. The han tucks its collective head down and the kif have got the axe hanging over it. You hear me, Tauran? I'll do whatever I have to. If you see what I see, you'll be with me. Whatever else you think about me."

"You're a lunatic!"

"I'm doing something. What in a mahen hell has the han done right lately? What has anybody done about it?" A claw popped through the seat-leather as her hand clenched tighter. A second. "Tauran, how long do you think we can sit still while the Compact's blown to a mahen hell? Humanity's coming in on us. Mahendo'sat've done something stupid, they've done something that's touched off humans and got something started that they don't understand and I'm not sure the humans do: Tully's witness to that, and he warned us. Jik's tried to do something to save us all, and it's cost him. He at least knows his people've been fools. Like the stsho. Like hani. And the kif. And maybe the tc'a, gods save us. And even the humans may know by now. Most of 'em are fools by doing something. Ehrran just got us a brand-new treaty with the stsho, did you know that? And look where they are. Look what we're into. The kif just took 'em. We got kif backing into hani space. We got Kura not answering here. We got Akkhtimakt in such a mess that hani space is the only thing left he can get to, because ^Sikkukkut's sent out ships to every jump-point in reach and blocked his other routes. Meanwhile there's a major mahendo'sat push coming down out of Kshshti, which if Akkhtimakt's spies are worth anything, he knows and Sikkukkut doesn't-he's been at Kita and up by Kshshti. That bastard's going to let Sikkukkut take the hit from the mahendo'sat while he pulls off into hani space and conies up again at the mahen underbelly, straight up at Iji.
 
You know the mahendo'sat, you know they'll fragment if the Personage goes out.
 
They won't have a defense. And humanity's going to be right in the middle of mahen territory with a whole lot of ships, ships that can jump short, just like our friends the mahendo'sat and just like the kif,
 
ships that can shorten the time between strikes like nothing we want to imagine. But we won't worry about it. We'll be lucky to have a world left. And we'll belong to whoever wins. With nothing to say about it. If we survive at nil. We got one of our men in space. One, and you know how safe this ship is, with half the kif in the universe hunting us and the other half about to. The whole rest of our species is on Anuurn. And it takes one big rock, Sirany Tauran, one C-charged rock, and we're all widows and brotherless. Forever. You hear me? You know what I'm saying?"

Tauran said nothing. The ship hurtled on, crossing planetary diameters in every few heartbeats. In silence, all about them, inside the ship, inside the space between them.

"Tauran."

"I hear you. This is all crazy."

"Tauran's a spacing clan. Three generations. You know what I'm talking about. That mess you got into at Meetpoint. Could you even explain to those old old women in the han why you couldn't take out running? What chances you had getting up to V or what those distances are like? How many of 'em understand a stsho?"

"Who understands a stsho?"

"How do they formulate policy with them, make a treaty with them, tell us who live out here that we're supposed to stand off the kif, do I guess-that they expect us to dispose of the kifish problem, because it's going to take them ten, twenty years to change their concept of the way kif behave, or what the mahendo'sat are likely to do, and gods save us when they start dealing with the humans and their three governments, all fighting each other? What in a mahen hell are they going to do right now when Akkhtimakt comes into system? Order the Llun to bar them from station? Put hegemony sanctions on them? Study the problem?"

"It's too much-"

"I'm asking another clan to damn itself. With me. I'm asking all the rest of you. I'm asking those who know what I'm talking about to do something about it. We're not dealing with scattered pirates anymore. Hani out here'll do the right thing. I'm betting all we've got on that. Traders'll have stripped down, some go home, some scatter like seeds on a high wind. Everywhere. They're warned. But it won't save us from a rock. It won't protect us if some kif decides to take our species out. I can't get to the han to tell them what I'm telling you. I can't explain what happened at Meetpoint- gods know what's happened at Meetpoint. Or what's going to follow us. Or when. If Sikkukkut sent a ship out we don't know about, and some bastard's tailing us, they might pick up our directional transmissions. We can't do anything but what we've done."

"I read your running orders. I got your message from Sif. And I'm not a fool."

"I never took you for one. I got that impression early on. And I've got to go on walking the track I've been walking. Inside. Same as Jik's done. Till we've got Akkhtimakt stopped. There aren't enough hani ships in all space to do what we have to do, against hunter-ships and gods know what. We need the kif s firepower, even at the risk we're running. That's the game I'm playing, Tauran, and you know what I'll hear from the han if I can even get to 'em. Illegal contacts. Violation of treaties. Illegal personnel for the eternal gods' sake, on my ship. If somehow we live through this and the han's still operating, they'll probably hit us both with a charge of registry violations. That's how much they understand. You know who we're dealing with. Those old women are up with every twitch and power shift in the insystem markets, they know who's leaning where in the vote, they know every move and current in Anuurn affairs, and every dustup in history between the River Hegemony and the Amphictiony of Pesh and every other gods-be particle of past history that isn't going to matter a whole lot, Tauran, if one incoming rock kills every living thing on the planet back to the bugs and the worms, is it? A whole lot of expertise that's by the gods useless in the only question that matters, which is what are we going to by the gods do, Tauran, with what we know and where we are, and what we got behind us and ahead of us that we know about and they don't?"

"I'm hearing you," Sirany said. There had been a quiet stir about. Chanur crew was up. Tauran crew was still in place. But it was very quiet now. "I'm hearing you. I'm agreeing with you. But I've still got to think about this, Chanur."

"Think all the way to Kura Point. I'm going to send you Sifeny and Fiar back to your shift; let you all work it out. Take my own back to the boards. Human and my husband and the kif and all. With my thanks, her Sirany. They're good. I don't like to mess with teams that work. Yours or mine. And we need some crew rested full. For contingencies."