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“No change?” she asked when she walked in on Tirun in op.
“No change,” Tirun said. Her injured leg was not propped, though thrust out at an angle as she leaned to tap the screen. “They’re all in a string, all ten of them, all after the Tahar.”
“Gods,” Pyanfar muttered. “A mess.”
“They’ve got id signals — they have to know that’s not us.”
Pyanfar shrugged helplessly. She walked back to the door. “I’m going to get the others. About time for you to go off, isn’t it?”
“Half an hour.”
“Who’s up next?”
“Haral.”
“So we start early.” Pyanfar walked out and down the corridor toward the large cabin that was in-dock crew quarters, pushed the bar to open the door and inside, the one that started dawn-cycle on the lights. “Up. Got a little disturbance. K
There was a general stirring of blanketed bodies in the half-light, on a row of bunks under the protective netting of the overhead; bunks and cots — Tully was at the left, curtained off, but not from her vantage, a tousled head and bewildered stare from among the blankets — and Hilfy… Hilfy was on the other side of the room, stirring out with the rest, naked as the rest, as Tully, who was getting out of bed on his side of the curtain. Gods. Anger coursed her nerves, a distaste for this upset in order which had swept The Pride. They voyaged celibate. In her mind she could hear Tahar gossip — something else that would be told on Anuurn. And gods, she could see the look in Kohan’s eyes. She scowled. “Hilfy. Breakfast on watch, half an hour. Move!”
“Aunt.” Hilfy stood up and jerked up her breeches with dispatch.
Pyanfar stalked out, headed back to the op room, shook off her distaste in self-reproach. So Hilfy had resigned the privilege of guest quarters and snugged in with the crew; she guessed why — with the parting of ways with the Faha. And the crew had invited: that was territory in which the invitation came from inside and she did not intervene. In their eyes,
I hen, Hilfy belonged.
As they had taken Tully in.
Gods. Her nape prickled.
“Breakfast and relief is coming,” she told Tirun as she arrived.
“No change,” Tirun said. “Same courses, all involved. Not a move from the kif, not a word.”
“Huh.” Pyanfar sat down sideways on the counter. “Confused likewise. I hope.”
“They couldn’t be in communication with them.” Tirun turned a disquieted stare toward her.
“I’m out of the assumption market.”
The rout progressed, Moon Rising proceeding outsystem with ii mahe escort at great distance and a manic flood of k
“They’re mad,” Tirun said.
Pyanfar sat and watched, glaring at the screen.
Haral arrived, with Hilfy and breakfast; the others showed up hard on their heels, a procession, Geran and Chur and Tully carrying their own trays. “What’s going on out there?” Haral asked.
“Tahar,” Tirun said, “leading every scatterwitted k
The screen had changed, the dots parting on the scan, that which was Tahar going on, the k
“They’re stopping,” Hilfy said.
“Wonderful,” Pyanfar muttered, took up her cup of gfi and sipped it, watching as the gap widened. Turnover eventually, she reckoned; the k
“K
“Why?”
“Don’t know, Tully.”
Moon Rising made jump, a sudden wink off station scan — k
“K
“They don’t shoot at us. They aren’t armed.”
“In the old days,” Haral said, “they never caught the k
“Haul it between them?” Hilfy’s face mirrored disbelief.
“Among them. A dozen. All synched. So I heard. Hani ships’d tear each other to junk; but k
“Huh,” Pyanfar said. It was an old bunk yarn, like ghost ships. Like aliens outside the Compact. She stared at Tully and thought about that. Ate her dried chips and washed it down with gfi. On com, station sent instructions to its patrol to stay out of the way of the k
And a message light blinked on their own board, something directed at them.
Revise estimate, the letters crept across the screen when Tirun keyed it. 75 hours repair additional. Regret. Mahe more worker this job. Two team. Repeat …
“Gods help us.” Pyanfar snatched the mike and punched in station op. “What kind of trouble this? What fifteen hours? Fifteen more hours?”
Station routed the complaint, one to the next, to the almost incomprehensible mahe skimmer supervisor. “All skimmer station work,” was the answer, three times repeated, in rising volume, as if loudness improved communication. “Thanks,” Pyanfar muttered. “Out.” She ran a hand through her mane, put the mike down, looked around at staring eyes and managed a better face.
“Well,” Haral said in a quiet voice, “at least they found it before they sent us out with it.”
“I’ll go out the aft lock,” Geran said, “and check them out on it.”
“No,” Pyanfar said. “I don’t doubt you’ll find damage. Longshot it from the observation dome. And by the gods, if there’s something new I want to know about it.” She composed herself a moment. “No, gods rot them, the mahe’d gouge us on fines and charges, but if I’ve got the measure of that foreman she’s not the type. Still… Do the check anyhow.”
“Right.” Geran snatched up the tray and headed out, down the corridor for the bubble access, a cold trip to the frame. Pyanfar thought of going herself, delayed to finish her breakfast and watched the k
“I’m going to main,” she said finally. “Go off down here. Rest. Haral, I’ll take it, up there. I’ll key you.”
“Captain—” Haral started to object, swallowed it, having a sense about such things. “Right.”
Pyanfar walked out, hitched up the trousers which had gotten too loose in recent days, headed for the lift. Go in person to station offices and take the place apart? It tempted. At the moment she wanted something breakable within reach. But it would hardly mend matters. Fifteen hours. It was hardly surprising; repairs for all of time and to all ends of the Compact ran behind schedule and over estimate. And then it was sixteen and seventeen and another twenty—
She took the lift up, ensconced herself in her cushion on the bridge and sent rapid inquiry through all appropriate cha