Chanur's Venture (6 page)

"We've got kif after my crew, blast your eyes."

"Chanur!"

She spun and gathered Chur and ran, with the thump of running Ayhar at their

heels at least as far as the passageway's exit onto the downward ramp.

"Cha-nur!" Banny Ayhar roared at her back, waking echoes off the docks; but

Pyanfar never stopped, down the rampway and past the frozen cargo ramp and the

gantry that hel$I The Pride's skein of station-links.

"Chanur." Far behind them.

There was a curious absence of traffic on the chill, echoing docks, and that

silence itself was a warning. Trouble was in sight even from here, around a big

can-loader grinding its slow way beside the ship accesses four berths distant.

An odd crowd accompanied it -- a half dozen mahendo'sat in station-guard black

strode along beside. Two red-pelted hani in faded blue breeches rode the flatbed

with the tall white cans, while a dozen black-robed kif stalked along in a tight

knot; and if any stsho customs officer was involved at all gist was either

barriered inside the cab or fled for safety.

"Come on," Pyanfar said to Chur -- no encouragement needed there. Chur kept

beside her as they crossed the space at a deliberate jog, not out to provoke

trouble, not slow to meet it either. Her hand was in her spacious pocket,

clenched about the butt of the gun she tried to keep still and out of sight, and

her eyes were constantly on that knot of kif, alert for anything kif-shaped that

might show itself from ambushes among the maze of gantries and dock-side clutter

to the right and the office doors to the left.

"Hai," she yelled with great joviality, when they were a single berth apart.

"Hai, you kif bastards, about time you came out to say hello."

The kif had seen them coming too. Their dozen or so scattered instantly all

about the moving can-carrier, some of them screened by it. But from the

carrier's broad bed, from beside the four huge cans, several mahen guards

dropped down to stand at those kif's backs.

"Good to see you," Pyanfar gibed, halting at a comfortable distance. Kifish

faces were fixed on her in starkest unfriendliness. "I was worried. I thought

you'd forgotten me."

"Fool," one hissed.

She grinned, her hand still in her pocket, her ears up, her eyes taking in all

the kif. Two moved, beyond the moving can-carrier, and she shifted to keep them

in sight. The smell of them reached her. Their dry-paper scent offended her

nostrils with old memories. The long-snouted faces peering from within the

hooded robes, the dark-gray hairless skin with its papery wrinkles, the small,

red-rimmed eyes -- set the hair bristling on her back. "Do something," she

wished them. "Foot-lickers. Riffraff. Petty thieves. Did Akkukkakk turn you out?

Or is he anywhere these days?"

Kifish faces were hard to read. If that reference to a vanished leader got to

them, nothing showed. Only one hooded face lifted, black snout atwitch, and

stared at her with directness quite unlike the usual kifish slink. "He is no

longer a factor," that one said, while the carrier groaned past under its load

of canisters and took itself from between them and four more kif.

More soft impacts hit the deck beside her. From the tail of her eye she saw a

red-gold blur. Tirun and Geran had dropped off the flatbed rear. They took up a

position at her left as Chur held the right.

"Get back," she said without looking around at her two reinforcements. "Go on

with the carrier. Hilfy's in lower ops. Get that cargo inside." The mahen

station guards had moved warily into better position, several dark shadows at

the peripheries of her vision, two of them remaining in front of her and behind

the kif.

"You carry weapons," that foremost kif observed, not in the pidgin even the

cleverest of mahe used. This kif had fluency in the hani tongue, spoke with

nuances -- dishonorable conceaied weapons, the word meant. "You have

difficulties of all kinds. We know, Pyanfar Chanur. We know what you are

transporting. We know from whom it comes. We understand your delicate domestic

situation, and we know you now possess something that interests us. We make you

an offer. I am very rich. I might buy you -- absolution from your past

misjudgments. Will you risk your ship? For I tell you that ship will be at risk

-- for the sake of a mahendo'sat who is lost in any case."

She heard the carrier growling its way out of the arena, out of immediate

danger. Chur had stayed at her side. So had the six mahendo'sat station guards.

"What's your name, kif?"

"Sikkukkut-an'nikktukktin. Sikkukkut to curious hani. You see I've studied you."

"I'll bet you have."

"The public dock is no place to conduct delicate business. And there are

specific offers I would make you."

"Of course."

"Profitable offers. I would invite you to my ship. Would you accept?"

"Hardly."

"Then I should come to yours." The kif Sikkukkut spread his arms within the

cloak, a billowing of black-gray that showed a gleam of gold. "Unarmed, of

course."

"Sorry. No invitation."

The kif lowered his arms. Red-rimmed eyes stared at her with liquid thought.

"You are discourteous."

"Selective."

The long gray snout acquired a v-form of wrinkles above the nostril slits, a

chain slowly building, as at some faint, unpleasant scent. "Afraid of

witnesses?"

"No. Just selective."

"Most unwise, Pyanfar Chanur. You are losing what could save you . . . here and

at home. A hani ship here has already witnessed -- compromising things. Do I

hazard a guess what will become of Kohan Chanur -- of all that Chanur --

precariously -- is, if anything should befall The Pride? Kohan Chanur will

perish. The name will have never been; the estates will be partitioned, the

ships recalled to those who will then take possession of Chanur goods. Oh, you

have been imprudent, ker Pyanfar. Everyone knows that. This latest affair will

crush you. And whom have you to thank, but the mahendo'sat, but maneuverings and

machinations in which hani are not counted important enough to consult?"

The transport's whining was in the distance now. She heard another sound, the

hollow escaping-steam noise of the cargo hatch opening up, the whine of a

conveyer moving to position and meshing; old sounds, familiar sounds: she knew

every tick and clank for what they were. "What maneuverings among kif?" she

asked the gray thief. "What machinations -- that would interest me, I wonder."

"More than bears discussion here, ker Pyanfar. But things in which a hani in

such danger as you are would be interested. In which you may -- greatly -- be

interested, when the news of Meetpoint gets to the han. As it surely will.

Remember me. Among kif -- I am one who might be disposed toward you, not

against. Sikkukkut of Harukk, at your service."

"You set us up, you bastard."

The long snout twitched and acquired new wrinkles in its papery gray hide.

Perhaps kif smiled. This one drew a hand from beneath its robe and she stepped

back a pace, the hand on the gun in her pocket angling the gun up all at once to

fire.

It offered her a bit of gold in its gray, knobbed claws. She stared at it with

her finger tight on the trigger.

"A message," it said, "For your -- cargo. Give it to him."

"Probably has plague."

"I assure you not. I handle it. See?"

"Something hani-specific, I'm sure."

"It would be a mistake not to know what it is. Trust me, ker Pyanfar."

It was dangerous to thwart a kif in any whim. She saw this one's pique, the

elegant turn of wrist that held the object -- it was a small gold ring -- before

her.

She snatched it, the circlet caught between her claws.

"Mistrustful," said Sikkukkut.

Pyanfar backed a pace. "Chur," she said, and with a back-canted ear heard the

whisper of Chur's move back.

Sikkukkut held up his thin, soot-gray palms in token of non-combatancy. His long

snout tucked under. The red-rimmed eyes looked lambent fire at her.

"I will see you again," Sikkukkut said. "I will be patient with you, hani fool,

in hopes you will not be forever a fool."

She backed up as far as put all the mahen guards between herself and the kif,

with Chur close by her. "Don't turn your backs," she advised the mahendo'sat.

"Got order," said the mahe in charge. "You go ship, hani. These fine kif, they

go other way."

"There are illicit arms," said another kif in coldest tones. "Ask this hani."

"Ours legal," said the mahe pointedly, who had heard, perhaps, too much of

mahendo'sat involvement from this kif. The mahendo'sat stood rock firm: Pyanfar

turned her shoulder, taking that chance they offered, collected Chur in haste

and headed across the dock, all the while with a twitch between her

shoulderblades.

"They're headed off," said Chur, who ventured a quick look over her shoulder.

"Gods rot them."

"Come on." Pyanfar set herself to a jog, not quite a run, coming up to The

Pride's berth, to the whining noise of the cargo gear. The loader crane had a

can suspended in midair, stalled, while three hani shouted and waved angry

argument at her crew beside the machinery.

"Ayhar!" Pyanfar thundered. "Gods rot you, out." She charged into the midst and

shoved, hard, and Banny Ayhar backed up with round eyes and a stunned look on

her broad, scarred face.

"You earless bastard!" Ayhar howled. "You don't lay hands on me!"

She knew what she had done. She stood there with the crane whining away with its

burden in fixed position, with Tirun and Chur and Geran lined up beside her as

the two Ayhar crew flanked their captain. Thoughts hurtled through her mind, the

han, alliances, influences brought to bear.

"Apologies." It choked her. "Apologies, Ayhar. And get off my dock. Hear?"

"You're up to something, Pyanfar Chanur. You've got your nose in it for sure,

conniving with the mahendo'sat, gods know what -- I'm telling you, Chanur, Ayhar

won't put up with it. You know what it cost us? You know what your last lunatic

foray cost us, while ships of the han were banned at Meetpoint, while our docks

at Gaohn were shot up and gods be feathered if that mahen indemnity covered

it--"

"I'll meet you at Anuurn. We'll talk about this, Banny, over a cup or two."

"A cup or two! Good gods, Chanur!"

"Geran, Tirun, get those cans moving."

"Don't you turn your back on me."

"Ayhar, I haven't time."

"What's the hurry?" A new ham voice, silken, from her side: Ayhar crew's

impudence, she thought, and turned on it with her mouth open and the beginnings

of an oath.

Another captain stood there, her red-gold mane and beard in curling wisps of

elegance; gold arm-band; gold belt; breeches of black silk unrelieved by any

banding. Immune Clan color. Official of the han. "Rhif Ehrran," that one named

herself, "captain, Ehrran's Vigilance. What's the trouble, Chanur?"

Her heart began slow, painful beats. Blood climbed to her ears and sank toward

her heart. "Private," she said in a quiet, controlled tone. "You'll excuse me,

captain. I have an internal emergency."

"I'm in port on other business," the han agent said. "But you've almost topped

it, ker Chanur. You mind telling me what's going on?"

She could hand it all to the Ehrran, shove the whole thing over onto the han's

representative in port.

Give Tully to her. To this. Young, by the gods young, ears un-nicked, bestowed

with half a dozen rings. And cold as they came. Gods-rotted walking recorder

from one of the public service clans, immune to challenging and theoretically

nonpartisan.

"I'm on my way home," she said. "I'll take care of it."

Ehrran's nostrils widened and narrowed. "What did the kif give you, Chanur?"

A cold wind went down her back. Distantly she heard the crane whining away,

lifting a can into place. "Dropped a ring," she said, "in the riot. Kif returned

it." The lie disgusted her. So did the fear the Ehrran roused, and knew she

roused. "This what the han's got to? Inquisitions? Gathering bad eggs?"

It scored. Ehrran's ears turned back, forward again. "You've about exited

private territory, Chanur. You settle this mess. If there are repercussions with

the stsho, I'll become involved. Hear me?"

"Clear." Breath was difficult. "Now you mind if I see to my business, captain?"

"You know," Ehrran said, "you're in deep. Take my advice. Drop off your

passenger when you get back to Anuurn."

Her heart nearly stopped while Ehrran turned and walked away; but it was Khym

Ehrran had meant. She realized that in half a breath more, and outrage nearly

choked her. She glared at Banny Ayhar, just glared, with the reproach due

someone who dragged the like of Ehrran in on a private quarrel.

"Not my doing," Ayhar said.

"In a mahen hell."

"I can't reason with you," Ayhar said, flung up her hands and stalked off.

Stopped again, to cast a look and a word back. "Time you got out of it, Pyanfar

Chanur. Time to pass it on before you ruin that brother of yours for good."

Pyanfar's mouth dropped. Distracted as she was she simply stared as Ayhar spun