Chanur's Legacy (23 page)

“Maybe . , .
Nogkokktik.”

“Why?”

“No’shto-shti-stlen got lot enemy. Plenty old, plenty smart. Enemy want
gtst
come home, give up be governor. That enough?”

“No’shto-shti-stlen is an old friend of my aunt. Why should I betray
gtst
interests?”

“No’shto-shti-stlen nobody friend. You know how long live stsho?”

It wasn’t a known fact. There were guesses ... in what she’d read.

“How long?”

“Maybe two hundred year. Hard make figure. Stsho change sex, change person, change everything, not remember. How you know when born, when change? Nobody sure. But what make stsho care? You Phase, same you dead. You don’t got memory who you were. Same like dead.”

“Who knows whether they remember who they were?”

“They say don’t remember. You don’t believe stsho?”

“I believe I got paid. And I get real nervous when people start asking questions about my business or about passengers on my ship.”

Another puff of smoke, green in the neon. “You want make contact local stsho?”

“Maybe I will. Maybe I’ll use the station com, like any civilized individual.”

Haisi grinned. “Maybe you don’t get answer. Damn scare’ this stsho.”

“Who is this?”

“Name not matter. Same aide to Atli-lyen-tlas, got real scare’, not go with kif. I got contact. You got
oji.
And No’shto-shti-stlen messenger.”

“So?”

“So you stsho make this stsho talk damn fast.”

Tempting. “I’m under contract. I can’t say what I can agree to. Interesting idea. I’ll say that. But I have to go back and take a look at the document I’ve signed.”

“Not safe place, Kita. Mahendo’sat upset, stsho upset ... kif upset. You want talk new governor at Meetpoint, lot change. Change make money, change lose money. Lot people got lot stress. Bad for health.”

It didn’t make one feel confident, sitting in a mahen bar, with a mahe with unknown interests bankrolling his ship and making deals through him with unknown parties with unknown intentions.

“I’ll get back to you,” she said, and got up and left him the bill.

2980-89
was
a phone number. And an address, that being the system on Kita Point Station. Which made it just about as easy to take a walk to the lift and a ride up to the residential levels, up to Deck 2, Section 80.

Not a bad neighborhood, Tiar said to herself, seeing the immaculate paneling and the neat plastic address plates, and the plastic signs that said, in the universal alphabet,
Silimaji nan nil Ja’hai-wa.

Meaning, for a mahen maintenance worker who might not speak the pidgin,
Through traffic prohibited.

No clutter, no smudges, none of the graffiti endemic on the dockside. Pricey.

She rang at no. 89, and waited, while optics in the wall doubtless advised the occupants of a hani in spacer blues in the spotless corridor.

“Who? Identify!”

“Ker
Tiar Chanur, of the merchant freighter
.
I had a notice to call.” Electronic and manual locks clicked. The door shot wide. A stsho was standing there, taller than most, painted in curlicues of palest lime and mauve, about
gtst
plumy crest and moonstone eyes. “Chanur, honorable Chanur. Protect us! You must protect us!”

It was hardly a conversation for a hallway. But she had no desire to let a door close her in some stranger’s apartment, either. “In what way? From what?”

Hands waved, trying to beckon her inside. “In, in, the danger, the danger, honorable hani.”

“Danger of
what?”
She backed up, evading the white, beseeching fingers. “I don’t know you. If you want help ... come to the ship.”

“Most excellent hani! I have little baggage, very little, please, please, you will bring me safely aboard your ship ...”

“I didn’t say that! The captain has to clear any passengers!”

“But if the distinguished captain admits this honest person, where will my baggage be? How shall I live? What should I do? I must have certain things necessary for my existence! All is ready, all is gathered, I need only gather it up, oh, please,
please,
estimable hani, most honorable ...”

“Get the gods-be bags! Hurry, if there’s danger!”

Gtst
wailed,
gtst
dashed back as fast as a stsho could move, and, indeed,
gtst
dragged out bags and bundles in feverish haste, from lockers, from cabinets, from various quarters of the pastel room, until it made a sizable pile.

“You can’t carry all that.”

“This honest person had hoped, had most earnestly hoped that a strong, a most excellent and trustworthy hani would be kindly disposed to ...”

“Gods rot it.” She went in, not without a wary glance about, grabbed up the heaviest bundles by their strings and handles and left the stsho to manage the rest, on her way out the door while
gtst
was still filling
gtst
arms.

“I’ll take this lot,” Tiar said over her shoulder, “you take the rest and don’t look like you’re with me, if you don’t want publicity. And if the captain doesn’t like the look of you, you and this whole pile are out on the dock, hear me?”

“Oh, most clever, most wise hani, most excellent...”

“Stow it! Close the gods-be door!” The creature had no concept of intrigue.
Gtst
shoved a note in an alien stranger’s trousers and never thought an open door might raise questions.

So might a lift full of baggage, a hani, and a panicked, muttering stsho. A mahe with a child in tow got on at Deck One, and rode down with them. The child bounced around the walls, grinning at its own cleverness, and managed to knock into both of them in the short time before the doors opened on the cold gray-ness of the docks. Perhaps the mahe meant to space its offspring. Perhaps the mahe hoped someone else would do it. Tiar clutched the bundles and dragged them past the overanxious doors, held them for the weak-limbed stsho, and snarled, “Move, kid!” in such a tone the mahe grabbed the brat out of their path.

The stsho was clearly impressed.
Gtst
pale eyes were very wide.
Gtst
murmured, “Kindly restrain the offspring. It is very annoying,” and followed her out.

For a stsho toward a stranger, that was amazing.
She
was impressed.
Gtst
had more fortitude than seemed evident. “Berth 10,” she said, and led off at a moderate stride, a moving obstruction on the docks, in the abundant foot traffic.

She looked back, just to be sure the stsho was still following. And
gtst
was, slogging along with
gtst
swinging, pendant baggage of small bundles, limping on lime-slippered feet.

“Go on, go on,”
gtst
panted, shaking
gtst
crest from
gtst
eyes. “We are in great danger. I shall seem not to know you. It will be a ruse. Please, keep walking!”

She walked. There were kif about. There were mahendo’sat. Not another hani, not another stsho. Of a sudden their dissociation seemed exceedingly naive and dangerous.

“Come on,” she said. “Hurry it! I don’t like this.”

She was ever so glad to see the
Legacy’s
number on the display board, and to see the first of the transports already arrived. The hold was open, the ramp gate was showing green for unlocked.

“We’re all right,” she panted, hoping for the sight of Tarras or Chihin. There was the stsho, valiantly (for a stsho) struggling after.

There were three kif, just standing, watching them.

She was never so glad to walk up the ramp and find the gate opening to her request. The stsho was gasping at the bottom of the incline, trying to gather up
gtst
baggage, the cords of which had tangled with
gtst
robes. One of the kif was headed toward them, with deliberation in its moves.

“Get up here!” she said, regretting the laws that meant the nearest gun they owned was in the locker in the airlock. “Now!”

Gtst
stumbled and limped
gtst
way up. The kif stopped, and for a moment looked straight at her, a stare that made the hair stand up on her nape as she shepherded the struggling stsho into the chill of the ramp.

“Oh, the cold!” it breathed.

“Kif,” she said. “Move!” She dropped the baggage in the rampway, on the
Legacy’s
side of the doors, and ran for the airlock and the locker. The stsho shrilled a protest at the desertion. She heard it attempting to run, wailing and gasping.

She hit the airlock controls, waited through the cycle and, inside, used her first and third claws in the sockets that opened the locker. She seized the gun inside, clicked the safety off, and scared ten years of life out of the stsho that came gasping and struggling through the airlock.

“I’m going back after the baggage,” she said.
“You
stay in the airlock.”

Gtst
wailed,
gtst
gasped,
gtst
sobbed. “Let us through! Let us through! Oh, murder, oh, vilest murder on us ...”

Gtst
was still wailing as Tiar walked back to get the baggage. The fragile tube was no place to start shooting; but her eye was toward the gates down there, that anyone with a key could open. And if a kif did, he was in dire trouble, by the gods, he was.

... it shall be the obligation of the ship’s captain to secure the item and to maintain its safety and its confidentiality from all unauthorized persons ...

... the representative of the person issuing the contract shall be the final arbiter of the disposition of the object unless the person who has been the representative of the person issuing the contract shall be determined to be no longer in substance or in fact the same individual entrusted and declared by the contract to be the individual representing the person issuing the contract.

Gods.

Hilfy raked a hand through her mane, stared at the screen. Final arbiter of the disposition of the object. The representative of the person issuing the contract.

Meaning Tlisi-tlas-tin representing No’shto-shti-stlen. Meaning ask Tlisi-tlas-tin, as the final arbiter.

She keyed out, got up from the desk in lower deck ops, and went to see the representative of
gtst
excellency ... who, one hoped, was capable of assuming responsibility, or at least of discussing the matter in a sane and reasonable fashion.

She should tell
gtst
about Ana-kehnandian. She had never contemplated working in any close way with a stsho.
No one
contemplated working closely with a stsho. They were only preferable to the methane-breathers, in reason.

But if she had an ally now who could explain anything it was Tlisi-tlas-tin.

She went to the door and signaled her presence. “Your honor?
Ker Hilfy
Chanur. A word with you.”

It took a little for a stsho to respond—a little longer to rise and arrange gtstself and walk to the door. In unusually short order the door slid back and
gtst
honor Tlisi-tlas-tin gave a languorous ripple of
gtst
fingers in respect.

“Most honorable captain.”

She didn’t even have time to break the news. The lock cycled, and a shrill warbling entered the main corridor.
Gtst
honor’s eyes went wide and
gtst
ducked back within the doorframe.

“Who is that?”
gtst
cried. “Oh, murder, oh, mischief! What distress is that?”

She had not a thing in her hands. It sounded like murder, and something was in the ship that did not belong there.

Something turned out stsho, and disheveled and woefully frightened, a figure hung about incongruously with parcels and strings and tangled pastel garments.

And behind that apparition, cousin Tiar, gun in hand.

“Refuge!” the stsho cried. Tlisi-tlas-tin’s door shut, quickly, and Tiar got between, motioning the panicked stsho to stay still, casting a disturbed and hasty look in Hilfy’s direction.

“What’s going on?” she demanded of Tiar. Guns, for the god’s sake, and a stranger on their deck.

“Kif,” Tiar breathed. “Captain, I’m
sorry.
I was out on the docks—this ... person ... wanted help...”

Her heart was thumping doubletime. But
seeing
a stsho, finally, proved they did exist here, stsho seemed on the receiving end of the trouble in mahen space, and this one was no threat ... terrified, rather, distraught, exhausted, at the visible limit of
gtst
resources.

“Help for what?”
Kif was
still echoing in her ears, but if the inner hatch had opened, the outer hatch had shut; and no kit’ was getting in here.

“Oh, great hani,
kindly
hani person ... please, refuge from this terrible place, please, violence, terrible violence ...”

Four stsho dead, Haisi had said.

And beside her the door opened and Tlisi-tlas-tin put
gtst
head out. “Oh, woe! Oh, distress! Is this the person? Is this the one?’‘

“Captain,” Tiar tried to say, but there was too much stsho wailing from both sides, and Tiar gestured helplessly with the gun in hand. “Kif, watching the ship!”

And Tarras and Chihin about to open up the hold for the dockers.

“Have we got a docking crew out there? Have we got any station security on the cargo lock?”

“Just the dockers...”

The intruder had edged forward, toward Tlisi-tlas-tin, babbling and bowing ... was all but at the door, and that set off old, war-honed instincts. Hilfy put out a warning hand and laid her ears back, by no means eager to let
gtst
near the
oji.

But the intruder-stsho bowed and bobbed and babbled in manic frenzy,
gtst
moonstone eyes wide and bright, paint streaked on
gtst
face and arms and onto
gtst
pastel robes ...
gtst
reached Tlisi-tlas-tin,
gtst
honor nothing protesting, with the parcels dangling about
gtst
limbs, but Tlisi-tlas-tin had retreated inside
gtst
cabin, and the intruder seemed overcome, hanging on the doorway and wailing.

Tlisi-tlas-tin hissed and straightened
gtst
robes, a hand on the pedestal of the
oji.
“This is by no means Atli-lyen-tlas!”
gtst
declared. “This is a juvenile! What unseemliness has turned an unformed individual loose without face-saving escort?” ... or something to that effect. It was a barrage of high stshoshi, indignant and outraged, and the intruder covered
gtst
face and cowered.