Chanur's Legacy (39 page)

Station was still objecting. From
Tiraskhti,
moving in just behind them, there was silence that meant, one hoped, observant respect, waiting to see whether they could justify the defiance of station control, respect that grew or died a dangerous death on the skill with which they touched that docking cone.

And bet that the station wouldn’t be quick to warn them of an impending mismatch.

“Rotation shutdown,” Tiar announced, and the next queasy part started, as the
Legacy
gave up its own internal
g
and the ring coasted into null. They were coming very slowly, at a tangent to the station’s scarify rapid spin. This was the point where panic could set in, and a point where, as an insystemer, you were either licensed to do this or you linked to tenders who were, and got cabled in.

Or you docked, like the ore carriers, in null at the mast.

A long hauler didn’t have either option. Just the mobile cone that gave you a little guide and a tangential approach, and took you up at a distance that wouldn’t let you crack the bulkheads, before the grapple snagged you and the docking assembly took you into sudden 1.2
g
sync with the station’s rotation.

Tiar made a lightning reach: the
Legacy’s
portside thrusters shoved her one way and then braked that motion null. A quick flurry of small adjustments truing up with the calculated appearance of the cone. You didn’t track the cone until the last moment, didn’t see it until it was too late to brake: and station computers weren’t talking to theirs: theirs was just talking to their engines, now that it had the intercept plotted.

There was the cone. The last correction to put the probe right down its throat and a brisk shove from the mains that put the
Legacy
into the guide zone at intercept with the station’s rate. The jolt of capture rang through the bow; the contact moved the whole passenger ring for a stomach-wrenching second and pressed them down in their seats. Grapples banged, the braces touched and boomed against the hull ...

“And we are in,” Tarras declared.

In. At a kifish station. Solo. Wonderful. “Good job,” Hilfy said in the collective breath that followed.

“Good job. The crew earns one for that.”

By the Book, Fala was already sending her fueling request, arguing in the Trade with the Kefk dock authority.

And by the Book, by aunt Py’s lately sacred and mandated Book, there would be no bending on that point: fueling and offloading of wastes before the
Legacy
ever opened an airlock, aunt Py’s procedures, in places Pyanfar didn’t trust; and a very good idea, in Hilfy’s present estimation—but meanwhile a kifish
hakkikt
would, publicly, be compelled to wait on his hearing until that fuel was in, and that was a dangerous slight, in a game of volatile egos:
sfik,
kifish elegance, was life: offend it, and expect attack, as they expected a move of you under like circumstances. Kif were much on etiquette ... their own etiquette, to be sure, a pricklish protocol of arms.

An air of competency, of hauteur, of willingness to take extreme action ... with the firepower to back it up: those were assets; while generosity was the gesture of a superior to a servant; kindness fell in the same category; and loyalty lasted as long as a leader had
sfik
intact.

Courage? Fierceness in a fight was a plus. But so was deviousness. Self-preservation was the highest virtue, and risking one’s neck could be self-preservation—if it demonstrated an arrogant competency to potential rivals.

A whole other universe, Hilfy thought to herself, a very solitary, dark, and aggressive universe. You could do anything you could carry off with style—or at least with sufficient firepower on your side. That counted.

Come to Kefk, Vikktakkht had insisted, certainly aware that she had been a prisoner among his kind, and perhaps, as many kif were surprisingly educated, aware that hani minds, prone to emotional might-have-beens and what-ifs entirely alien to his species, might come adrift from what was, and wander into delusion ...

Vikktakkht might hope for that.

But there was a benefit to fluency in other languages. She could
think
in kifish: see things from kifish perspective—and, so doing, feel the shift in her heartbeat, the change from twice a month hunter to hair-triggered, hard-wired round the clock predator.

If they expected her to have balked at corning here— not likely.

To panic at being here—she had yet to reach that state.

Here I am,
na
kif. What am I thinking? What will I do? Do you know me that well?

You made me half crazy. If I’m here alone, I must be one tough bastard of a hani.

And you know I don’t like you much. So
you’re
taking the chance,
na
kif. You’d better pay off.

Because by your rules—if you cross me, I can only start a war by
not
blowing you to hell.

“They’re going to fuel us,” Fala said. “They say they want payment transferred at the same moment they start pumping.”

“That’s fine. We’ll transfer it bit by bit. They reach an eighth of our load, they get an eighth of the payment. In international trading certificates, and
they
can run courier and check the authenticity.
No
computer links to their bank. And we’re not talking to Vikktakkht or anybody of his ilk until those tanks are full.” Gods, did she know this routine! In her sleep, along with the nightmares. “—Tarras, get a bid on the data dump. We’re still traders, that’s what we’re here for, let’s not give them any other ideas. And everything in cash.”

Hallan, quietly: “There’s some sort of light keeps blinking on com.”

“That’s the incoming mail,” Chihin said. “It’s au-toed. Com incoming isn’t feeding to any computer that’s connected to anything; it’s deloused before it’s available to read and it won’t store. Don’t worry.”

Hilfy keyed up the file list, wondering what in all reason messages could be waiting for the
Legacy
at Kefk.

Pyanfar’s mail.

Of course it was.

The hoses coupled on, the pumps started their heartbeat thumping. Are we safe to do that? Hallan wondered nervously, as he’d begun to worry about every contact with this station. But the crew was busy, there were probably safeguards engaged he didn’t know about, and if the ship had to refuel, it had to, for them ever to get out of this port; and there was no use asking stupid questions in that department.

Na
Vikktakkht had invoked his name again, and meant to talk to the captain through
him,
and he didn’t know why. Maybe it was something to do with the incident on Meetpoint. Maybe they just wanted to get him off the ship where they could arrest him, after which ... after which he had heard very gruesome stories about kifish habits.

But maybe he wasn’t as scared of that as he ought to be. And maybe he shouldn’t be upset about what Tarras had said about Chihin. Chihin wasn’t upset. She explained things to him where he was ignorant. She acted as if everything was all right. Fala was still ignoring him, but Fala was too busy to pursue a feud, and he didn’t know whether she was madder at him or at Chihin. Fala was somebody who wanted anybody; that was the way he read her, fair or not. While Chihin didn’t
need
anybody, Chihin didn’t expect favors, either, she just did what came into her head and she was honest, it didn’t matter that he wasn’t the most important thing that had ever happened to her, he was just— out of his gods-cursed head when he thought about her being beside him; and he didn’t know why, or what the logic was. It was certain enough she could live without him, he never doubted that. It was—

It was that Chihin just didn’t expect to have anything, and people didn’t get close to her, because of her jokes, and if somebody told her back off now, she probably would.

And if she backed away, he couldn’t stand seeing her every day, and putting up with Fala, who’d have been ... nice, if there wasn’t Chihin just out of reach.

It was going to take hours to do the fueling and all the coming and going, and he didn’t want to confront anybody about anything, and he didn’t want to be around Chihin, in case she
was
making a joke, and was going to make a bigger fool of him before she was done—she didn’t always know when to stop.

He wished they’d hurry and go talk to the kif, and he could go with them, and maybe—maybe just have a whole new set of worries besides this one. The kif
might
want him. If Chihin didn’t, maybe that was better than living here.

Maybe the captain would just say Fine, all right, good luck. Hoping he’d foul up with
them,
and cost them money.

“
Na
Hallan,” the captain said, “filter check, life-systems check, don’t drag your feet. We don’t know how much time we’ve got. We could have to go out of here at any minute. With no undock procedures.”

“No undock” got his attention. “Aye, captain,” he said, galvanized into movement; he went to do that, obscurely relieved that the captain found something useful for him to do besides slit his wrists.

He could be mad, if he really wanted to think about it. He could really be mad, and he didn’t even know who to aim it at, not Tarras, not Chihin, not Fala. Not the captain, who might be rough with him, but who’d given him chance after chance after he’d fouled up beyond all reasonable limits.

Certainly not Tiar, who had done nothing to him but good.

Maybe he was just mad at himself, for not being better, or smarter, or more able to handle things.

He hoped to redeem himself. He did. He tried to think of the best question he could ask the kif, since the kifish lord had said he would have at least one more chance.

But he had no inspiration, no understanding that would help him. And maybe after all, it wasn’t the real issue. Maybe it never had been. The kif had drawn the captain in by curiosity and used him, and maybe it was nothing but that same ploy again. The kif had the stsho, or the stsho was dead, and they were in a place surrounded by a very dangerous species.

He just hadn’t been much help to anyone.

“Your excellency?”

Silence.

“Your excellency?” They were alive inside. Hilfy signaled intent to enter the cabin, waited a moment for decency, and opened the door.

The sleeping-drape was still over the bowl-chair. Completely over the bowl-chair. There were two lumps under it, and they moved.

They weren’t sick. The tea service beside the pit that had not spattered itself into bits and pieces during dock proved someone had been up and about, undoubtedly Dlimas-lyi ... was
gtst
excellency going to bestir
gtstself
to work? Not in her experience.

She cleared her throat. “Your excellency, I have the honor to report our safe arrival at Kefk. Does your excellency require anything? We will negotiate with the persons who may have the person of Atli-lyen-tlas as soon as fueling is complete.”

A muted squeal from beneath the cover. A white head popped above it, crest tousled, wide-eyed. “Your honor is very kind.
Gtst
excellency will wait.”

“Has—“ Gods
rot
the creature. “Has
gtst
excellency any influence at this port? Any contacts to pursue? Any knowledge of stsho personnel in this area? We are in a port foreign to us in which we have neither introduction nor credentials, and a kif named Vikktakkht an Nikkatu who has led us here with dubious promises now wishes to speak with a young male crewmember regarding
gtst
excellency Atli-lyen-tlas.”

A second head popped up, as disheveled. “With a
male
person? A juvenile male person? Could this possibly be the juvenile male person who assaulted our sensibilities in the corridor, the carrier of refuse, the unstable and aggressive individual? The same?”

“This Vikktakkht wishes to talk to this same individual. I disapprove. I am insulted. However I will not permit this strategem to distract me from the fulfillment of the contract. I shall go. I shall prompt this young male person in his answers to this outrageous provocation. I shall learn by that means and determine my course of action.”

“Most resolute! Most deserved on his part! Let him speak to the juvenile carrier of refuse!”

Not exactly the impression she’d wanted to convey of
na
Hallan; but argument with two sheet-wrapped stsho seemed precarious. “The object, however, is the presence of Atli-lyen-tlas, safely on this deck, which I shall attempt, against all obfuscation and misdirection. I should, however, caution your excellency that every other ship in this port is kif, they are not honest trading vessels who are here, and there is the remote but not disregardable possibility of a precipitous and scarcely warned undocking and high velocity departure which would render, for instance, that most exquisite tea set a cluster of projectiles of great hazard. An alarm will sound in the event of emergency. It will be a very loud and unmistakable siren. In that eventuality, abandon all decorum, cast any loose objects into the nearest locker, preferring your own safety above all. I shall provide an abundance of unfortunately inelegant cushions, which you may pack within your bowl-chair while fastening safety belts.”

“These are frightening precautions!”

“Far less so than a departure inadequately protected. If there is time, a member of my crew will assist you. But if your excellency will excuse my forwardness, which is motivated only by our deepest regard for your safety, J wish to have conveyed these cushions into this cabin immediately. I wish to take no chances.”

Tlisi-tlas-tin waved an urgent hand. “At once, at once! Dlimas-lyi, assist the honorable crewmember!”

“
Most
gracious!”

“How like your thoughtful and hospitable self to take extravagant precaution!”

Interesting sight. She had never seen a stsho without a stitch of clothing. Dlimas-lyi scrambled out and hurried, bowing often. One tried not to show startlement, except to return the bow.

Every pillow on the ship, as happened. Hers. The crew’s. Every pillow out of storage, including those from the dismantled passenger cabins, and mahendo’sat slept in nests of pillows, so there were no few in reserve. Plus a couple of inflatable air bags for emergency use.