Страница 34 из 60
“Take care,” Tirun wished them as they went, and in the airlock, while Haral opened the outer hatch, Pyanfar delayed to take the pistol from its secure place in the locker by com and to slip it into her pocket.
“No detectors to pass,” Pyanfar said. “Come on.”
The hatchway stayed open behind them; they walked out the ribbed rampway and down onto the dockside. Engines whined on their left: Moon Rising was still about her offloading, and canisters were coming off into the hands of mahendo’sat dockworkers, not hani crew.
“They may have gone to meet the Faha too,” Pyanfar judged, marking the total absence of a hani supervisor outside. It was a courtesy to be expected, politics aside in a hani-ship’s misfortune.
“Not much stirring,” Haral said.
That was so. Where normally the vast docks would have had a busy pedestrian traffic up and down the vast curve, there was a dearth of casual strollers, and the activity about Moon Rising was the only activity of any measure in sight. Dockworkers, service workers, mahe with specific business underway paused to stare at them and after them as they walked. Stsho huddled near their accesses and whispered together. The kif were out about, predictably, clustered together near the accessway of one of the ships, a mass of black robes, seven, eight of them, who lounged near their canisters and clicked insults after them.
And at one of those insults Pyanfar’s ears flicked, and she stopped the impulse in mid-twitch, trying to make believe she had not heard or understood. He knows, hani thief. How many more hani ships will you kill?
“Captain—” Haral murmured, and Hilfy started to turn around. “Front, gods—” Pyanfar hissed and seized Hilfy by the arm. “What do you want to start, at what odds?”
“What do we do?” Hilfy asked, walking obediently between them. “How can he know?”
“Because one of those kif ships is his, imp; came in here from Kita; and now Akukkakk’s enlisted other ships to help him. They’ll scatter out of here like spores when we go, and gods help us, we’re stuck till we get that repair done.”
“They as good as hit Starchaser themselves. I’d like to—”
“We’d all like to, but we have better sense, Come on.”
“If they catch us on the dock—”
“All the more reason we get the survivors aboard and get off the docks. Afraid you’re not going to get that station liberty here either, imp.”
“Think I can do without,” Hilfy muttered.
They kept walking, down among the gantries, past idle crews, as far as number fifty-two berth, where a surplus of bystanders gathered, a dark crowd of mahendo’sat, sleek-furred, tall bodies which made it difficult to see anything. Medical perso
And hani, to be sure. Elbowing through the gathering, Pyanfar caught sight of bronze manes and a glitter of jewels on a hani ear, and she made for that group with Haral and Hilfy behind her. .
“It’s high time you showed up,” Dur Tahar said when she arrived.
“Mind yourself,” Pyanfar said. “My niece behind me is Faha.”
Dur Tahar slid a glance in that direction without comment. “Hasatso’s due to touch any moment,” she said.
“We’ve got some kif getting together down the dock. I’d watch that if I were you.”
“Your problem.”
“A warning, that’s all.”
“If you start something, Chanur, don’t look for our help.”
“Gods rot you, you give me no encouragement to be civil.”
“I don’t need your civility.”
“A mutual hazard, Tahar.”
“What, are you asking favors?”
The claws twitched. “Asking sense, rot you.”
“I’ll think on it.”
Hasatso touched, a crashing of locks and grapples. Gantries slid up and crews opened station ports one after another in response to the ship, co
And finally a distant whine and thump a
“My captain,” Hilfy said then, “my aunt Pyanfar Chanur; my crewmate Haral Araun par Chanur.”
There were embraces down the line. “Our ship is open to you,” Pyanfar told the first officer, whose haggard face and dazed eyes took her in and seemed at the moment to have too much to take in, with the mahe offering medical assistance, station wanting immediate statements. Pyanfar left the Faha momentarily to Hilfy and to the Tahar who had moved up to offer their own condolences, and herself took the hands of the mahe rescue crew one after the other, and those of the apparent captain, a tall hulking fellow who looked as bruised and bewildered as the Faha, who was probably at the moment reckoning his lost cargo and the wrath of companies and what comfort all this gratitude was going to win him when the shouting died down and the bills came in.
“You’re captain, mahe?” Pyanfar asked.
A sign of the head.
“I’m Pyanfar Chanur; Chanur has filed a report in your behalf at Kirdu; Chanur company will give you hani status at Anuurn: you come there, understand? Make runs to Anuurn. No tax.”
Dark mahe eyes brightened somewhat. “Good,” he said, “good,” and squeezed both her hands in a crushing grip, turned and chattered at his own folk — likely one of those mahe who could scarcely understand the pidgin, and good might be about half his speaking vocabulary. He seemed to make it clear to the others, who broke out in grins, and Pyanfar escaped through the crush toward Hilfy and the others, got her arm about Hilfy and got the whole hani group moving through the pressure of tall mahendo’sat bodies. The Tahar made a wedge with them, and they broke into the clear.
“This way,” Pyanfar said, and first officer Hilan Faha took the other elbow of her injured companion and made sure of the other two, and they started walking, escaping the officials who called after them about forms — Chanur, Faha, and Tahar in one group up the dock, toward the upcurved horizon where The Pride and Moon Rising were docked.
“How far?” the Faha officer asked in a shaking voice.
“Close enough,” Hilfy assured her. “Take your time.”
The way back seemed far longer, slower with the Faha’s pace; Pyanfar sca
A wild look came into Hilan Faha’s eyes. She stopped dead and turned that stare on them. “No,” Pyanfar said at once. “We’re here on station’s tolerance. This isn’t our territory. Not on the docks.”
The kif howled and chirred their abuse. But the Faha moved, and they made their way farther with the kif voices fading in the distance, past the stsho, who stared with large, pale eyes, up past a comforting number of mahendo’sat vessels, and virtual silence, dock crews and passers-by standing quietly and watching and respectful sympathy.
“Not so much farther,” Pyanfar said.
The Faha had not the breath to answer, only kept walking beside them, and finally, at long last, they had reached the area of The Pride’s berth. “Faha,” Dur Tahar said then, “Moon Rising has no damage, and The Pride does. We offer you passage that’s assuredly more direct and quicker home.”