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“Station scan,” Geran said, “is showing a lot of ships. A lot of ships.”
Pyanfar looked. Six major planets about Ahr: Gohin; Anuurn itself; Tyo; Tyar; Tyri and Anfas — with assorted moons, rings and planetoids. Anuurn alone was comfortably habitable; and Gaohn Station circled it; and there was Kilan Station which supported the little colony on Tyo. There was always traffic. Hani were not the colonists that mahendo’sat” and stsho and even k
But there were twice the usual number, easily twice, ships in offlanes positions, waiting; ships in clusters; ships by groups of four and five. “I don’t like that,” Haral said.
“Not all ours,” Pyanfar said. And after a moment: “He’s here. Goldtooth said it; the kif at Kirdu said it. Hinukku’s come here. After revenge.”
No one said anything. The minutes crept up on the chronometer. The Pride was sending her own signal, computer talking to computer. A telltale flashed and a signal came over com. “Mahijiru,” Chur said. “Aja Jin, Both moving up on our track.”
“Blink them a comeahead,” Pyanfar said. “Tightbeam; nothing more.”
“Permission to move about,” Tirun sent from lowerdeck. “Denied. Got a situation here. Stay put.” “Understood,” Tirun answered.
Chur leaned down, opened the cabinet by her post and brought out a bottle, sucked a bit from it and passed it on; it went to Geran and to Haral; finally into Pyanfar’s hand with an exact quarter visible through the opaque plastic. She sipped at it, her mouth like paper and tasting days stale; her hand left shed fur on the moist bottle when she dropped it into the wasteholder. The salt and the moisture helped, took some of the shakes from her limbs. There was still a misery in her back and in her joints, a tendency for her eyes to blur. Not easy on the body, double-skipping. Bodies were not designed for such abuses. She thought of docking, of having to walk about, to deal with possible trouble—
To get a shuttle and to get downworld with all else hovering about them…
Something clenched about her gut, protesting. She looked at scan, their own, tight scan, number four screen, where a friendly blip was moving up into intercept. Another blip showed on the edge of the screen.
“Got synch,” Goldtooth’s voice came through. “Jik come up otherside.”
“Got too many ships,” Pyanfar said, signaling Chur to put the transmission through. “Want you where you are, mahe.”
A mahen chuckle. “A.”
“Rot your hide.”
She shut it down.
“Got station contact,” Chur said. “They don’t say anything out of the way; normal approach instructions.”
“Three berths,” Pyanfar said. “Together. Tell them to clear something if they don’t have it. Talk them into it.”
It was a long interval. They still had lagtime from station. “Stationmaster,” Chur said finally, “intervened to grant it. We’ve got twenty through twenty-two.”
“Comment?”
“Nothing,” Chur reported.
Trouble. Pyanfar’s ears flicked. If they could demand ships shunted about and get their request it was because they had a right to it; and if they had a right to it, then there was an emergency in progress. Homecoming kin had right-of-way… in situations of death; of challenge; of disasters.
“System’s quiet,” Chur reported. “I’m not getting idle chatter. They’re not volunteering any information, captain.”
“Kif,” Pyanfar said. “Outsiders present.”
Tully said something from belowdecks. Went silent. Hilfy’s voice followed, talking to him, low and urgent.
“Let’s not have any panic down there,” Pyanfar said. “Tully. Quiet. Take orders, hear?”
“Understand,” Tully said.
The minutes crawled past. Jik’s Aja Jin came into position, so that The Pride went flanked by the mahe. “Goldtooth,”
Pyanfar said. “You come onstation with me; want your friend stay out of dock and watch, a?”
“A,” the answer came back, short and sweet; from Jik no word. He would do it, Pyanfar thought. Station was sending specific instructions: Haral was attending that, inputting it for comp. She hit the shunt which dumped the data onto Haral’s screens, with a blinking warning that control of the ship came with it: Haral nodded, accepting it without missing a keystroke. Pyanfar loosed her restraints, swung her cushion about and assayed to get her feet under her.
“Get to the bridge,” she told those below, leaning over com. “Aye,” Tirun sent back. Pyanfar walked about a bit, unsteady on her feet, bent down enough to get some of the dried food out of storage by her own console. Chips and bottles of salts. She opened them, put them in reach of Haral and Geran and Chur, chewed on a bit of dried meat and washed it down with half a bottle of the liquid. Dehydrated. The jumps took some time off bodies. She walked about trying to get the needling pains out of her joints, heard the lift in function and then steps coming down the corridors.
“Captain.”
K
“Gods and thunders!” Pyanfar spat. “Location on that.”
“Ahead of us,” Geran said. “One of those ships moving up on station.”
Tirun and Hilfy and Tully had arrived, stood together in the archway which opened onto the bridge, silent in the grating sound which ran the scale.
K
“It overjumped us,” Pyanfar said with — she reckoned — commendable calm. “If that’s our k
“Fast bastard,” Tirun muttered.
“Mahijiru,” Chur said, “asks if we notice.”
“Cut that thing off,” Pyanfar said. “Tell Mahijiru yes, we did notice.” She pricked up her ears with an effort, flicking the rings into order on the left. “Hilfy. Tully’s cha
“Kif,” Tully said. “I hear. Hani — make deal with them?”
“Papers,” Pyanfar said sharply, and when Tully’s hand went to his left pocket: “You keep those with you. You’re registered; you’ve got a number in the Compact. No. No way the kif can take you by law. Going to have one lot of mad kif, maybe; maybe some mad hani. But they can’t take you, except by force.”
“Fight them.”
“You take my orders. My crew, my orders.”
“Pyanfar.” Tully thrust out his hand to stop her from turning away. “I don’t go from you.”
Pyanfar flattened her ears, staring up into Tully’s pale, distraught eyes. “I don’t need someone making me conditions. You do what I tell you.”
“Do. Yes. I go on this ship. With you. #### give ### hani I quick dead.”
“We’ve got troubles enough, Outsider. Hani troubles as well as kif. Let be.”
“With you. Long time voyage. With you.”
“I’m not your kin, rot you. You come on my ship, you make me trouble — what in a Mahen hell do I owe you?”
“Dead, outside. Need you.”
“Huh.” Male. The shout left a quiet after it. Alien male, but all the same she saw the line drawn, the edge past which there was no thinking… their patient, docile Outsider. She cuffed his arm, claws not quite pulled. “You listen, friend Tully; you think, rot your hide. We go off this ship; we; you; we come back, you come back with us. Hear?”
“Come with you?”
“I say it.”
He flung his arms about her; sweaty, reeking as he was, as they both were, he hugged her with abandon. She freed one arm and the other and shoved him off in indignation, which in no wise changed the look in his eyes.
“Do all you say,” he said.
“By the gods you’ll do it. You do something wrong and I’ll notch your ears for you. You keep that brain of yours working or I’ll rattle it like a gourd. Can you do that? Can you look at a kif and not go crazy?”