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“Ru
“Got that,” Haral said quietly. “Got that, Captain.”
Something new among the mahendo’sat. Something which had to have been very quiet for a long time. Ships like the kif ru
Hunting rumors? A crew lounging on the dock, loud and visible with repair they could have done inside as well. Two sets of hunters on the docks besides the kif themselves, and they had come sniffing round each other, each so cleverly assaying the other, she and the mahe —
“That goldtoothed bastard knew something,” Pyanfar said. “From the very start he knew. Knew this Akukkakk; knew those kif ships; knew what was stirring out here.”
Haral shot her a disquieted look.
“K
“Gods,” Chur muttered, “here we go.”
“Never mind the rotted k
It vanished from her screen; Tirun acknowledged recept below. Behind them, on the image which turned up, the kif started now to move.
“Got us k
“Nuisance,” Pyanfar said. “You know more than that, mahe? What more do you know? About how you were hunting trouble at Meetpoint?”
“Got no need hunt. Hani in port.”
“Captain.” Tirun’s voice. “Decreased interval.”
She was watching it. Flexed her claws carefully on the togglegrip. “Moving out,” she told the mahe. “Going to boost up and test; clear my field, understand? No more time here.”
“A.”
She moved the control. The Pride kicked up to widen the interval between herself and the mahe. The number one screen flicked from scan to a bracketed star; the images shifted one screen over and dumped the vid entirely. On scan the kif fell farther and farther behind, chancing nothing with the patrol.
And the k
“Interval achieved,” Haral said.
“Boosting up,” Pyanfar warned the others. She hit the jump pulse, lightly, swallowed against the queasiness and saw the instruments sorting themselves out at the new velocity.
“Clear,” Haral said. “All stable. Coming up on jump.”
“Stand by the long one,” Pyanfar advised the crew below. Cast a last and frantic look at scan, where Mahijiru and Aja Jin had fallen behind on estimated-position. No communication possible now: they were too much lag apart. It was the position she wanted, the mahe ru
Luck, she wished the mahe. In spite of other things. In spite of deceits; in spite of mahen purposes which had nothing to do with hers. Luck, she thought; and: co
The course was flashing on the screen, a jump first for Ajir System, and through it to Anuurn itself, the straightest course and the most vulnerable to ambush; but they were out of time for finesse.
“Ready,” she warned the crew.
They reached their point. Mahijiru would be after them, gliding on their tail; and Aja Jin, that other of Goldtooth’s ilk…
…all the way.
A wail from com as they came up, a buoy, Ajir marker dopplered into nonsense. Mahendo’sat/hani cooperative, this station, full of traffic and hazards in the jump range for a lunatic chase to come streaking through, velocity unchecked: a second time to try the maneuver that had failed at Kita, had failed, with damage to the ship. Gods help any other incomer who chanced to be in the way.
ALERTALERTALERT, The Pride wailed, capsuled transmission: mahe escort behind. Likely hostile action. Beware of kif insystem and out. Launch all system defense. Take precaution. Two ships following us are escort. Next is trouble. Casualties in previous attacks: Handur’s Voyager; Faha’s Starchaser. Kif attack on non-Compact unarmed ship, three alien casualties. ALERTALERTALERT…
Chaos would break loose at Ajir: kif at dock might take exception to it; Handur might be here to hear it; and Faha.
If the kif were not waiting here, in ambush already…
The mass that was Ajir, a yellow sun, loomed ahead: Ajir, askew from most stars of the region, wearing its belt of worlds and debris rakishly aslant — hazard, Pyanfar’s memory kept warning her, distant and fogged in the muddle of postjump, of extreme velocities and instruments feeding them only the skim of reality, too fast, too fast…
“Where is it?” she asked of Haral — for the gods’ sakes, homestar… a blind newborn could sense it from Ajir, could feel it, head for it however shaken in jump: their bow was toward it.
“Locked on,” Haral’s slow voice purred through the madness, slow, when they were pushing c and the system was whipping past in unreality, moving while they drifted through movements: one dopplered star was clear for them, zeroed in the brackets, and all the rest had gone mad…
Home.
Weeks, in the time/notime of jump…
They were in. Hard to think, to begin the dump sequences. The ship would take over when manual intervention failed utterly; would dump velocity and glide them to an outsystem halt, still within return range. Easier to let it slide, let the system blur past, let the machinery take over—
No. They were on manual override from the last one. Machine-rules were already violated. Pyanfar lifted the arm, saw with her dazed vision Haral, who had begun the same desperate struggle, slow and sickly in the aftermath of their arrival. A warning light was blinking, not the same malfunction, but outside alert: com recept — beacon-
They dumped down and went totally blind for an instant. Anuurn beacon welcomed them out of it; their own alert was still going, crying havoc where they went. She got her hand up, signaled Chur with a blinker; after an interminable moment it went out.
Second dump. There was Tully’s voice over the open com; and Hilfy’s comforting him — Hilfy, who not so long ago had ridden sickly through the jumps, and now steadied their passenger.
“Getting image,” Geran said. “There are ships out here.”
None in their way: Geran would not be so calm. They were zenith of everything and everyone.
“Getting course input,” Haral said; and the screen shifted, lines blinking and calling for matchup, the lane assignment from the buoy.
Third dump. Pyanfar swallowed heavily and looked at scan again as it sorted itself out. “Image aft,” Geran said: it went to number two screen. Mahijiru. The wavefront was ru
“Too close, mahe,” Pyanfar muttered.
Final dump. They hit course, down the slot and true, on Kilan Station’s guidance. “Transmit intent to dock at Gaohn,” Pyanfar said: that was the i
“Dump behind us,” Chur said. “Second arrival; both our I friends are in.”
“Transmit instructions to ignore routing and stay on our tail. Give them a signal.”