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That kind frequented Urtur too, miners who worked without lifesupport in the methane hell of the moon Uroji and found it home. Odd folk in all senses, many-legged nests of hair, black and hating the light. They came to a station to dump ores and oddments, and to snatch furtively at whatever trade was in reach before scuttling back into the darknesses of their ships. Tc’a might understand them… and the chi, who were less rational… but no one had ever gotten a clear enough translation out of a tc’a to determine whether the tc’a in turn made any sense of the k
And they were out here drifting with kif and rocks and a k
“Hearing that too. What are Hilfy and Haral doing about the Outsider?”
“They’ve gone after him; I’m picking that up. He’s not making any trouble.”
“Understood. They’re on their way up here. Keep your ear to the outside comflow; going to be busy up here.”
“Yes, captain.”
The link broke off. Pyanfar dialed the pager to pick up the translator cha
He came like an apparition against the brighter corridor light beyond, tall and angular, with two hani shapes close behind him. He walked hesitantly into the dimness of the bridge itself, clear now to the eyes… startlingly pale mane and beard, pale skin mottled with bruises and the raking streaks of his wound, sealed with gel but angry red. Someone’s blue work breeches, drawstring waisted and loose-kneed, accommodated his tall stature. He walked with his head a little bowed, under the bridge’s lower overhead — not that he had to, but that the overhead might feel a little lower than he was accustomed to — he stopped, with Hilfy and Haral behind him on either side.
“Come ahead,” Pyanfar urged him farther, and rose from her place to sit braced against the comp console, arms folded. The Outsider still had a sickly look, wobbly on his feet, but she reached back to key the lock on comp, which could only be coded free again, then looked back again at the Outsider… who was looking not at her, but about him at the bridge with an expression of longing, of — what feeling someone might have who had lately lost the freedom of such places.
He came from a ship, then, she thought. He must have.
Hilfy stood behind him. Haral moved to the other aisle, blocking retreat in that direction should he conceive some sudden impulse. They had him that way in a protective triangle, her, Hilfy, Haral; but he leaned unsteadily against the number-two cushion which was nearest him and showed no disposition to bolt. He wore the pager at his waist, had gotten the audio plug into his ear, however uncomfortable it might be for him. Pyanfar reached up and tightened her own, dialed the pager to receive, looked back at him from her perch against the counter. “All right?” she asked him, and his face turned toward her.
“You do understand,” she said. “That translator works both ways. You worked very hard on it. You knew well enough what you were doing, I’ll reckon. So you’ve got what you worked to have. You understand us. You can speak and make us understand you. Do you want to sit down? Please do.”
He felt after the bend of the cushion and sank down on the arm of it.
“Better,” Pyanfar said. “What’s your name, Outsider?”
Lips tautened. No answer.
“Listen to me,” Pyanfar said evenly. “Since you came onto my ship, I’ve lost my cargo and hani have died — killed by the kif. Does that come through to you? I want to know who you are, where you came from, and why you ran to my ship when you could have gone to any other ship on the dock. So you tell me. Who are you? Where do you come from? What do you have to do with the kif and why my ship, Outsider?”
“You’re not friends to the kif.”
Loud and clear. Pyanfar drew in a breath, thrust her hands into her waistband before her and regarded the Outsider with a pursed-lip smile. “So. Well. No, we’ve said so; I’m not working for the kif and I’m no friend of theirs. Negative. Does the word stowaway come through? Illegal passenger? People who go on ships and don’t pay?”
He thought that over, as much of it as did come through, but he had no answer for it. He breathed in deep breaths as if he were tired… jumped as a burst of k
“Just one of the neighbors,” Pyanfar said. “I want an answer, Outsider. Why did you come to us and not to another ship?”
She had gotten his attention back. He looked at her with a thoughtful gnawing of a lip, a movement finally which might be a shrug. “You sit far from the kif ship. And you laugh.”
“Laugh?”
He made a vague gesture back toward Hilfy and Haral. “Your crew work outside the ship, they laugh. They tell me no, go ####no weapons toward me. ### I come back ###.”
“Into the rampway, you mean.” Pyanfar frowned. “So. What did you plan to do in my ship? To steal? To take weapons? Is that what you wanted?”
“##### no ####”
“Slower. Speak slower for the translator. What did you want on the ship?”
He drew a deep breath, shut his eyes briefly as if trying to collect words or thoughts. Opened them again. “I don’t ask weapons. I see the rampway… here with hani, small afraid.”
“Less afraid of us, were you?” She was hardly flattered. “What’s your name? Name, Outsider.”
“Tully,” he said. She heard it, like the occasional com sputter, from the other ear… a name like the natural flow of his language, which was purrs and moans combined with stranger sounds.
“Tully,” she repeated back; he nodded, evidently recognizing the effort. She touched her own chest. Pyanfar Chanur is my name. The translator can’t do names for you. Py-an-far. Cha-nur.”
He tried. Pyanfar was recognizable… at least that he purred the rhythm into his own tongue. “Good enough,” she said. She sat more loosely, linked her hands in her lap. “Civilized. Civilized beings should deal with names. Tully. — Are you from a ship, Tully, or did the kif take you off some world?”
He thought about that. “Ship,” he admitted finally.
“Did you shoot at them first? Did you shoot at the kif first, Tully?”
“No. No weapons. My ship have no weapons.”
“Gods, that’s no way to travel. What should I do with you? Take you back to what world, Tully?”
His hands tightened on the back of the cushion. He stared at her bleakly past it. “You want same they want. I don’t say.”
“You come onto my ship and you won’t tell me. Hani are dead because of you, and you won’t tell me.”