VIII

“Aunt.”

It was not com; it was Hilfy in person, leaning over her bed, shaking at her. “Aunt.” Pyanfar came out of sleep with a wild reach to get her elbow under her, shook herself, stared into Hilfy’s dilated eyes. “It’s Starchaser,” Hilfy said. “They’ve come through. They’re in trouble. They can’t get dumped. The word just came in-“

“O gods.” Pyanfar kicked the coverlet off, scrambled out dressed as she was and seized Hilfy by the arm on her way out of the room. “Talk, imp: has anyone scrambled?”

“Station’s called miners in the path . . . some mention of an outbound freighter being able to change course. ...” Hilfy let herself be pulled through the doorway into the corridor and loped along keeping up with her on the way to the bridge. “They’re twenty minutes lag out, crossing Lijahan track zenith.”

“Twenty now?”

“About.”

Haral was on the bridge, standing by scan, with the area-light on her face, and her expression was grim when she looked around at their arrival. “They’ve got to get to the pod,” Haral said. “No way anyone can get to her in time. No way any rescue can haul that mass down, even if she’s stripped.”

“What’s our status?”

“We can’t get there,” Hilfy objected, plain logic.

“Not for rescue,” Pyanfar said quietly.

“Repairs underway,” Haral said. “Vane’s unsecured. If they’re running ahead of company-we’re in trouble.”

Tirun came limping in, loping haste, and there was a query from lowerdeck. “You’re getting all we’ve got,” Haral relayed to Geran and Chur below. “Can’t tell anything yet.”

“Come on,” Pyanfar muttered to the blip on systemic image. “Do it, Faha. Get out of there.” She sank down into the com cushion, an eye still toward the screen, and punched through the station op code. “This is The Pride of Chanur. Urgent relay the stationmaster, Pyanfar Chanur speaking: warn you of possible hostile pursuit on tail of incoming emergency. Repeat: warn you of possible hostile pursuit of incoming emergency.”

“This message receive clear, Pride of Chanur. Mahen ships answer emergency. Please stand by.”

She watched scan, rested a knuckle against her teeth and hissed a breath. Ships showed in the schematic, traffic at dead standstill compared to the incoming streak that was Starchaser, motion slowed enough to see only because of systemwide scale. Everything was history, the images on the scope, the voices from the zone of emergency. Unable to dump velocity, Starchaser would streak helplessly across the system and lose herself on an unaimed voyage to infinity. It was a long way to die.

“Lost the transmission,” Haral said. Hilfy edged in, looking desperate, tried the switches herself past Haral’s side. Pyanfar gnawed the underside of a^ claw and shook her head. The business of getting a jump-mazed crew on their feet and headed to the escape pod-in Starchaser’s type, high up on the frame- and get it away, all this within the minutes they had left. . .

Then they could only hope, if they could make it that far, that the pod’s engines could hammer down the velocity, give some jumpship the chance to match velocities and lock onto the pod’s small, manageable mass, so that they could be dumped down. That freighter out there was the best chance the crew had, if only they could get loose.

“Pod’s away!” Haral exclaimed, and Tirun and Hilfy were pounding each other on the back. Pyanfar clenched her two hands together in front of her mouth and stared flateared at the scan, where a new schematic indicated the probable course of the pod which had now parted company with doomed Star-chaser. Both dots advanced along the track, but a gap developed, the pod’s deceleration far from sufficient to rid itself of a jumpship’s velocity before it gave out, but doing what it could. The crew would likely black out in the stress: that was a mercy. Now it was a race to see if the freighter could overhaul the pod or whether the pod would leave the system.

“Mahe freighter?” Pyanfar asked.

Haral nodded.

The Pride was on station-fed transmission; and station had to be using the feed from ships farther out, the Lijahan mines, whatever was in a position to have data, and relative time was hard to calculate now. The freighter came up by major increments while the minutes passed, boosting itself on its jump field. The gap still narrowed with agonizing sluggishness, as scan shifted, keeping up with events which were now long decided.

Com sputtered, a wailing transmission. Knnn. “Gods,” Tirun said. “A knnn’s out there in it.”

Station command responded, a tc’a voice. There were other transmissions, knnn voices, more than one, a dissonance of wails.

“Chanur,” said a hani voice, clear and close at hand. “Is this also your doing?”

Pyanfar reached for it, punched in the contact, retracted the claw with a moral effort. “Tahar, is that a question or a complaint?”

“This is Dur Tahar. It’s a question, Chanur. What do you know about this?”

“I told you. Let’s keep it off com, Tahar.”

Silence. The Tahar were no allies of the Faha crew. It was a Chanur partisan in trouble, but if any ship at station could have moved in time, Moon Rising would have tried: she did not doubt it. It was a painful thing to watch, what was happening on scan. Close to her, Tirun had settled, and Hilfy, simply watching the screen while her Faha kinswomen and the wreckage that had been a Faha ship hurtled closer and closer to the boundaries of the pickup. After such a point insystem scan could not follow them. Station was getting transmission now from a different source, from the merchanter Hasatso, the freighter tracking Starchaser, the only ship in range. The blip that was Starchaser itself finally went off the screen.

“Chanur ship,” station sent. “Tahar ship. Advise you merchanter Hasatso have make cargo dump; do all possible.”

“Chanur and Faha will compensate,” Pyanfar replied, and hard upon that Moon Rising sent thanks to Hasatso via station. “Gods look on them,” Haral muttered-a cargo dumped, to close the gap, to close on an emergency not of their species.

Knnn wailed. Elsewhere there was silence. For a long while there seemed only one rhythm of breaths on The Pride, above and below.

“They’re nearly on it,” Hilfy breathed.

“They’ve got them,” said Tirun. “No way they can miss now.”

It went slowly. The transmissions from Hasatso became more and more encouraging; and at long last they reported capture. “Hani signal,” Hasatso told Kirdu Station, “in pod. Live.”

Pyanfar breathed out the breath she had been holding. Grinned, reached and squeezed Hilfy’s arm. Hilfy looked drained. “Tahar,” Pyanfar sent then, “did you receive that report?”

“Received,” Tahar said curtly.

Pyanfar broke it off, sat a moment with hands clasped on the board in front of her. A ship lost; a tradition; that deserved its own mourning. Home and life to the Faha crew, and that was gone. “Station,” she sent after a moment, “advise the Faha crew that Chanur sends its profound sorrow, and that ker Hilfy Chanur par Faha will offer the resources of The Pride of Chanur, such as they are.” \

“Advise them,” another voice sent directly, “that Dur Tahar o/Tahar’s Moon Rising also offers her assistance.”

That was courtesy. Pyanfar leaned back in the cushion, finally turned and rose with a stretch of her shoulders. “What can be done’s done. Go fetch something to drink, Hilfy; if I’m roused out, someone owes me that. Drink for all that want it. Breakfast. I’ll hear reports less urgent during.-Haral, who’s supposed to be on duty?”

“I am.”

“So. Then close down lowerdeck. Tirun, back you go.”

“Aye’ Tirun muttered, and levered herself up stiffly and limped off in Hilfy’s wake. Pyanfar settled against the com post counter and looked at Haral, seated at the number two spot.

“That knnn’s fallen into pattern about Lijahan,” Haral said, paying attention to the screens. “Still making commotion. A wonder they don’t try for the cargo salvage out there.”

“Huh. Only grant they all stay put.”

“Skimmer’s still working out there at our tail. They’ve got a crew outside working the connectors. The cable’s ready to secure. But fourteen panels were missing and six loose, and they estimate another twenty hours working shift on shift to get the new ones hooked up.”

“Gods.” Pyanfar ran a hand over her brow and into her mane, thinking of kif-of attack which had chewed Starchaser to scrap. There were others besides the knnn who might be expected to rush to that salvage out there; there were the onstation kif ... who showed no sign of moving. That was unnatural. No one was moving, except maybe a few miners out there with ambition. No one from station.

Word was out; rumor . . . had a wind up everyone’s back.

“The Tahar,” Haral said further, after a moment, “appealed that order to put out with an appeal to finish cargo operations. It was allowed.”

“Helpful. At least they’re here.”

“Helpful as the Tahar in general. Begging your pardon.”

“I’ll talk to them.”

“You think Tahar’d move to guard our tail?”

“No,” she said. “I don’t. Not unless they see profit in it. What are they doing? Not taking cargo.”

“Offloading. Stripping to run. Canisters pouring out like maggots.”

Pyanfar nodded. “Station wants that cargo safe then; and Tahar’s going to dump that out fast down to the bit she uses to stall with. The Personage has backed down, that’s what; got a few of his onstation companies wailing about losses, and Tahar’ll stay here as long as she likes. That’ll give me time.”

“Gods, the bill on this.”

“Expensive, our Outsider. In all senses.” She looked about as Hilfy came through the archway with a large tray, two cups and two breakfasts. “Thanks,” Pyanfar said, taking plate and cup . . . paused to look at Hilfy, who had stopped to look at the situation on the screen. They were still getting transmission relayed from Hasatso, with occasional breakup which indicated velocity dump. “Going to be a while,” Pyanfar said. “Unless they’ve got a medical emergency I doubt they’ll boost up again after turnover, just ride it slow in. Hours from now. Go on back to quarters. I mean it.”

A few ports ago Hilfy might have argued, might have laid her ears back and sulked. She nodded now and went. Pyanfar slid a glance at Haral, who stared after the retreating youngster and then nodded once, thoughtfully.

“Huh,” Pyanfar said, digging into the breakfast, and for some little time she and Haral sat and watched the scan and ate. “Tell you, cousin,” Pyanfar said finally, “you go off-watch and I’ll take it.”

“Not needful, captain.”

“Don’t be noble. I’ve got some things to do. One thing you can do for me. When you go down, look in on Tully. Make sure he’s all right.”

“Right,” Haral said. She stood up and gathered the dishes onto the tray. “But he’s all right, captain. Chur’s bedded down to keep an eye on him.”

Pyanfar had been finishing her last sip of gfi, to surrender the cup. She banged it down on the tray. “Gods blast-Did I or did I not order him separate?”

Haral’s ears dropped in dismay. “Chur said he was upset, captain; made herself a pallet in the washroom so’s he wouldn’t wake up by himself. She said-your pardon, captain-sedated, he looked so bad-You were in bed, captain. It was my discretion.”

Pyanfar exhaled shortly. “So. Well. Depressed, Chur Says.”

Haral nodded. “We’d take him,” Haral said. I

“Chur said.”

“Um.” Haral figured that train of things of a sudden and her mustache-hairs drew down. “Sorry, captain.”

“Him, for the gods’ sake.”

“Not as if he was hani, captain.”

“Not as if,” Pyanfar said after a moment. “All right. Put him where you want; that’s crew business, none of mine. Work him. He claims to be a scan tech. Let him sit watch. Who’s on next?”

“Ker Hilfy.”

“With someone of the experienced crew. Someone who’s made their mistakes.”

Haral grinned and rubbed the black scar which crossed her nose. “Aye. One of us will sort him out.”

“Off with you.”

Haral went. Pyanfar slid down off the counter and transferred the activity to her own board, sat down in her own deeply padded cushion and ran the incoming messages of hours past. There was nothing there but what Haral had said, Tahar’s argument about staying and the beginnings of Starchaser’s crisis. Sporadic information still came in: Hasatso sent word of four survivors. . . .

Four. A cold depression settled over her.

Four out of seven crew on that ship. It was more than the physical body of Starchaser lost out there, more even than a life or two in a crew kin-close. Four out of seven was too heavy casualties for a group to recover itself-not the way it had once been. Gods, to start over, having lost that heavily-

“Station,” she sent, “this is Pyanfar Chanur: confirm that transmission from Hasatso. Names of survivors.”

“Pride of Chanur,” station sent back to her, “Hasatso transmit four survivors good condition. No more information. We relay query.”

She thanked station absently, sat staring at the screen a moment. There was lagtime to contend with on that request, nothing to do but wait. She bestirred herself to run checks with the ships at repair on their own damages, to contact station market and to arrange a few purchases and deliveries via dockside courier services. There was delay on the communications: everyone at station seemed muddle-witted in the confusion, down to the jobbers in commodities.

“Station, what’s keeping that answer?” she sent main op.

“Crew refuse reply,” the answer came back. Communication failure there too. Nerves. Possibly shaken-up hani and mahe rescuers were at odds. Ship lost, cargoes lost, lives lost. An ugly business.

And one of the knnn had put out from station, putting out wailing transmission and wallowing uncertainly about station’s peripheries like a globe of marshfire, touching off ticking objections/accusations/ pleas? from the tc’a control.

Gods. The oxygen-breather command went silent for the moment. Tc’a chattered and hissed. Pyanfar reached for translation output, but it failed: tc’a translated best when it was simple docking instruction or operations which were common to all ships. This was something else, gods rot them.

There was silence finally, even from the tc’a. The knnn moved out farther and stayed there. Hasatso continued its slow inward progress. At last the mahendo’sat side of station came on again, quiet operational directions for the incoming freighter, nothing informational.

Pyanfar sent them no questions. No one did.

The news came when Hasatso entered final approach: four survivors, a fifth dead in the stress of the pod eject, of wounds, and allowed to go with the pod when Hasatso released it, not a hani choice, but mahe honor. Two went with Starchaser, dead in the attack or unable to get to the pod-the information was not clear. There was a name: first officer Hilan Faha, survivor; and another: Lihan Faha-the captain, the third casualty.

“Aunt,” Hilfy said, when Pyanfar called her to the bridge and told her, “I’d like to go down to the dock where they are. I know it’s dangerous. But I’d like to go. By your leave.”

Pyanfar set her hand on Hilfy’s shoulder. Nodded. “I’ll go with you,” she said, at which Hilfy looked both relieved and pleased. “Geran,” she said, turning to lean over the com board, putting it through on allship. “Geran.”

The acknowledgment came back.

“Geran, take watch again, lowerdeck op. New word’s come in. Starchaser captain is lost, and two of the crew. Hilfy and I are going to meet the rescue ship; we’ll bring the Faha back aboard if they’re so inclined. No sense them having to put up with mahe questions and forms.”

There was a moment’s delay, a sorrowful acknowledgment.

“Come,” Pyanfar said to Hilfy then, and they walked out toward the lift. Hilfy’s bearing was straight enough, her face composed . . . not good news, when she had gone to sleep thinking that things were better than they were; but they had something, at least, of the Faha crew, something saved; and that was still more than they had once hoped.

Another matter to the kif account, when it came to reckonings. But if there were kif out there now-and there might be, hovering at the system’s edges, the same game that they themselves had played at Urtur-then they were waiting some moment of advantage, some moment when there were not five armed mahendo’sat patrol ships cruising a pattern out there.

Allship had waked more than Geran. Tirun was up, sitting in op when they came down toward the lock; and Geran, who had been assigned the duty; and Chur was standing about with Tully, who looked vaguely distressed in this disturbance he likely failed to comprehend. Haral showed up in haste from farther down the corridor. “Going with you, by your leave,” Haral said, and Pyanfar nodded, not sorry of it. “Kif out there,” Pyanfar said. “I’m not getting caught twice the same way.”

“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 personnel were among them; and station officials, conspicuous by their collars and kilts.

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, connected lines, started the rampway out to meet the lock. It was an agonizingly slow process from the spectator ranks, and only the mahendo’sat found occasion to chatter.

And finally a distant whine and thump announced the breaching of the freighter’s hatch, first in procedure: station reciprocated, and the mahe crew escorted off four hani, exhausted hani, one with an arm bandaged and bound to her chest, all of them looking as if they were doing well to be walking at all. Necessarily the mahendo’sat officials moved in: there was signing of papers, mahe and hani; and Pyanfar took Hilfy by the shoulder, worked forward with her. Hilfy went the last on her own and offered an embrace to the refugees, an embrace wearily returned by the Faha, one after the other.

“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 scanned the dark places along their route, not the only one watching, she was sure. Inevitably there were the kif ships; and the kif were there, ten of them now . . . calling out in mocking clicks their insults and their invitation to come and ship with them. “We take you to your port,” they howled. “We see you get your reward, hani thieves.”

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.”

“We’ll accept,” Hilan Faha said, to Pyanfar’s consternation.

“Cousin,” Hilfy said in a voice carefully modulated. “Cousin, The Pride will put out quickly enough; and we need the help. We need you, cousins. You might find common cause in the company.”

“Tamun’s had all she can stand,” Hilan Faha said, with a protective move of her hand on her injured comrade’s shoulder. She looked toward the Tahar. “We’ll board, by your leave.”

“Come,” Dur Tahar said, and the Tahar fell about the four and escorted them across to their own access. Hilfy took a couple of steps forward, ears flat, stood there, hands fallen to her sides, and took a good long moment before she turned about again, with her kinswomen disappearing upward into the rampway of Moon Rising. Mortification was in every line of her stance, a youngster’s humiliation, that set her down as well as set her aside, and Pyanfar thrust hands into her waistband to keep them from awkwardness-no reaching out to the imp as if she were a child, no comfort to be offered. It was Hilfy’s affair, to take it how she would. “They’ve had a shock,” Hilfy said after a moment. “I’m sorry, aunt.”

“Come on,” Pyanfar said, nodding toward their rampway. There was a red wash about her own vision, a slow seething. She was bound to take the matter as it fell for Hilfy’s sake, but it rankled, all the same. She walked up first and Haral last, leaving Hilfy her silence and her dignity.

Cowards, Pyanfar thought, and swallowed that thought too for Hilfy’s sake. They desperately needed the added hands: that thought also gnawed at her, less worthy. They needed the Faha. But the Faha had had enough of kif.

And there were kif ships out there, waiting. She was increasingly certain of it-if not actually on the fringes of Kirdu System, which they might be, at least scattered all about, waiting the moment. More and more kif ships, a gathering swarm of them, unprecedented in their cooperation with each other.

She passed the airlock into the corridor, and Chur and Tirun who had turned out with the evident intention of welcoming their Faha guests-stopped in their exit from the op room,

simply stopped.

“Our friends changed their minds,” Pyanfar said curtly. “They 1 decided to take passage with Tahar. Something about an injury a one of them suffered, and the Tahar promised them a more direct route home.”

That put at least an acceptable face on matters for Hilfy’s sake. They retreated as Pyanfar walked into the op room, looked at Geran and Tully who sat there, Geran having well understood and Tully looking disturbed, catching the temper in the air, no doubt, but not understanding it. “Nothing to do with you.” Pyanfar said absently, settling into a chair at the far counter, looking at the system-image which Geran had been monitoring. Hilfy and Haral came in together, and there was a strained silence in the op room, all of them gathered there and Hilfy trying to keep a good face on.

“Well, good luck to them,” Tirun muttered. “Gods know they’ve seen enough.”

“There are kif out there on the dock,” Pyanfar said, “who  know too much. Getting cheeky about it. They’ve come in from Kita ahead of us, part of the bunch from Meetpoint or Urtur-Urtur, I’ll reckon, since I checked names and they weren’t the same as there. Just passing the message from one kif to the next. It’s getting tight here.”

“There’ll be more soon,” Haral said. “I’ll bet there’s some outsystem. Captain, think we can talk the mahe to run us escort to our jumppoint? Surely we’ve got leverage enough for that.”

“That story will go from station to station,” Pyanfar said bitterly. “Gods, but I don’t think we’ve got much choice. Get them to shepherd us out of here.”

“When we can get our tail put together again,” Tirun said glumly.

There was a noise from down the hall, a footstep in the airlock. Every head turned for the doorway and Pyanfar reached for the gun in her pocket and thrust her way past Tirun getting to the op room door and the corridor, clicking the safety off the gun.

It was hani-Hilan Faha, who flung up a startled hand and stopped at the sight of her. Pyanfar punched the safety back on with a clawtip and thrust the weapon back into her pocket, aware of others of her crew now behind her.

“Changed your mind of a sudden?” she asked the Faha.

“Need to talk to you. To my young cousin.”

“To your cousin, rot you; and to me. Come on inside. Neither she nor I’ll talk out here like dockside peddlers.”

“Ker Pyanfar,” the Faha murmured, manners which in no wise mollified her temper. Pyanfar waved the lot of them back into the op room-only then recalled Tully, who was trapped there in the corner, but there was nothing of secret in his presence on the ship, and no cause to send him slinking out past them all. Let the Faha talk in front of him; let her deliver her excuses under an Outsider’s stare-served her right.

And Hilan Faha stopped in the doorway at the sight of Tully, this naked-skinned creature hani-styled and hani-dressed sitting at the counter among the crew; and Hilan’s ears went flat. “This,” she said, rounding on Pyanfar, “this is that item the kif wanted-isn’t it?”

“His name is Tully.”

Hilan’s mouth tightened, am ominous furrowing of the nose. “A live item. By the greater gods, where have you been, Chanur, and what’s going on with this business?”

“If you were traveling on this ship you might ask and I might answer. As things are, you can learn when the Tahar do.”

“Rot you, Starchaser died in your cause, for this-“ She spat, swallowed down a surplus of words when Pyanfar stared at her sullenly. “It was the captain’s decision; we off-loaded everything at Urtur and tried to run to give you a break for it. But where were you then? Where was our help?”

“Blind, Hilan Faha-off in the dust and stark blind. We tried, believe that; but at the last we had to jump for it or risk collision; we hoped you could get off in what confusion we created.”

Hilan drew a quieter breath. “The captain’s decision, not mine. I’d not have budged out of dock: know that. I’d have sat there and let you sort it out with the kif, this so-named theft of yours. . . .”

“You take kif word above mine?”

“If you have an explanation I’ll be glad to hear it. My cousins are dead. We’re broken. We’ll not get another ship, not so likely. Great Chanur makes plans, but the likes of us-we’ll go on other Faha ships, wherever we can get a berth. I’ll reckon you know where the profit’s to be found, and, gods rot your conniving hide, you’ve stirred up what a lot of ships are going to bleed for. What a lot of small companies are going to go under for. They gave me a message to give you, Pyanfar Chanur-the kif gave me this to tell you: that what you’ve done is too much to ignore and too great to let pass. That they’ll come after you wherever you are in whatever numbers it takes-even to Anuurn. That they’ll make it clear to all hani that this prize of yours is no profit to you. This from their hakkikt. Akukkakk. Him from Urtur. His words.”

“Kif threats. I’d thought you had more nerve.”

“No empty threats,” Hilan said, eyes dilated, her nostrils flared and sweat-glistening. “Tell all hani, this Akukkakk says- desert this Pyanfar Chanur or see desolation . . . even to Anuurn space.”

“And where did you hear all this? From a scattering of ships and a kif who never caught us-who failed to catch you. Hilan Faha; and if we’d gotten together at Urtur-“

“No.-No. You don’t understand. They did catch us, Chanur. Did overhaul us. Killed two of my cousins doing it. At Kita. And they let us go ... but we broke down in the jump. They let us go to deliver that message.”

The Faha’s shame was intense. There was a silence in the room, no one seeming to breathe.

“So,” said Pyanfar, “do you believe all your enemies say?”

“I see this,” Hilan said, gesturing at Tully. “And all of a sudden the game looks a lot larger than before. All of a sudden I see reason that the kif might gather, and why they might not stop. Chanur’s ambition-has gone too far this time. Whatever you’re into, I don’t want part of it. My sister’s alive; and two of my cousins; and we’re going home.-Cousin,” she said, looking at Hilfy, “to you-I apologize.”

Hilfy said nothing, only stared with hurt in her eyes.

“Hilfy can leave with you if she likes,” Pyanfar said. “Without my blame. It might be a prudent thing to do ... as you point out.”

“I’d be pleased to take her,” Hilan said.

“I stay with my ship,” Hilfy said, and Pyanfar folded her arms over a stomach moiling with wishes one way and the other at once. And pride-that too.

“So,” Pyanfar said, “I wish you safe journey. Best we should travel together, but I’m sure that’s not in the Tahar’s mind now.”

“No. It’s not.” The Faha looked down, and up again, in Tully’s direction, a darkening of the eyes. “If you considered your relations to others, you wouldn’t have done this thing. You’ve taken on too much this time. And others will think so.”

“What I took on myself, arrived on our ship without a by your leave or my knowledge it existed. What would you do with a refugee who ran onto your ship? Hand him over to the kif at their asking? I don’t sell lives.”

“But you don’t mind losing them.”

“You throw away what they did,” Hilfy said suddenly, “with your smallness.”

The Faha’s ears flattened. “What are you to judge? Talk to me when you’ve got some years on you, cousin. This-“ She came dangerously near Tully, and Chur who had been sitting on a counter slid down to plant both feet, barring the way. Tully got out of his chair and stood as far back in the bend of the counter as he could get. The Faha shrugged, a careless gesture throwing away her intent. “I’ve another word,” the Faha said, looking straight at Pyanfar. “Whether or not you intended what you’ve involved yourself in-it just may be the finish. Your allies might have stood by you, but it’s all gotten too tangled. It’s gotten too risky. How long since you’ve been home?”

“Some few months.” Pyanfar drew in a breath and thrust her hands into her belt, with the taste of something bad coming- that ill feeling of a house at its height, in which any breath of change was trouble; and of a sudden she misliked that look on the Faha’s face, that truculence which melted into something of discomfort, a decent shame. “Maybe more than that,” Pyanfar said, “if you count that I didn’t go downworld last call. What is it, Faha? What is it you’re bursting to tell me?”

“A son of yours-has taken Mahn from Khym Mann. He’s neighbor to Chanur now. He has ambitions. The old Mahn is in exile, and Kohan Chanur is finding sudden need of all his allies.” Hilan Faha shrugged, down-eared and white about the nose and looking altogether as if she would wish to be elsewhere at the moment, instead of bringing such news to a Chanur ship. “My captain would have backed you; but what are we now, with one of our ships gone, one out of the three Faha owns; and what do we think when you take on something like this when you already have as much as Chanur can handle? You’ve lost your cargo; you’ve gotten yourself a feud with the kif, and kif threatening to go into Anuurn /ones, for the gods’ sake-how can Chanur hold onto its other allies when that starts? I’ve lost my ship, my captain, some of my cousins-and I have to think of my family. I can’t involve myself with you, not now: I can’t make Faha part of this and get our ships a feud with the kif. You’re about to lose everything. Others will decide the same, and Chanur won’t be there even if you get back. I’m going home, Ker Pyanfar, on the Tahar ship because I have to, because I’m not tangling what’s left of us in Chanur fortunes.”

“You’re young,” Pyanfar said, looking down her nose. “The young always worry. You’re right, your captain would have backed me. She had the nerve for it. But go your way, Hilan Faha. I’ll pay your debts because I promised; Chanur will reward the mahe who pulled you out. And when I’ve settled with that whelp Kara I’ll be in better humor, so I may even forget this. So you won’t worry how to meet me in future- don’t fear too much. I’ll not regard you too badly ... the young do grow; but by the gods I’ll never regard you the way I did your captain. You’re not Lihan, Hilan Faha, and maybe you never will be.”

The Faha fairly shook with anger. “To be paid the way you paid her-“

“She’d curse me to a mahe hell if she were here, but she’d not do what you’ve done. She’d not run out on a friend. Go on, Hilan Faha, leave my deck. A safe voyage to you and a quick one.”

For a moment the Faha might have struck out; but she was worn thin and hopeless and the moment and the courage went. “Her curse on you then,” she said, and turned and stalked out, not so straight in the shoulders, not so high of head as she had come in. Pyanfar scowled and looked at Hilfy, and Hilfy herself was virtually shaking.

“Kohan never said anything about this Mahn business in his letter,” Pyanfar said. “What do you know, niece?”

“I don’t,” Hilfy said. “I won’t believe it. I think the Faha’s been listening to rumors.”

“How much did you know about the estates when you were at home? Where was your head then, but on The Pride? Is it possible something was brewing and you didn’t hear?”

“There was always talk; Kara Mahn was always hanging about the district. He and Tahy. There-was some calling back and forth; I think na Khym talked to father direct.”

“Rot his hide, Kohan could have said something in that letter.”

“He sent me,” Hilfy said in a small, stricken voice. “When The Pride turned up in system I asked to go, and he said he’d never permit it; and then-the next night he gave me the letter and put me in the plane and gods, I was off to the port like that. Hardly a chance to pack. Said I had to hurry or The Pride would leave port and I’d miss my chance. Like that, at night; but I thought-I thought it was because ships don’t calculate day and night, and that shuttle was going up anyway.”

“O gods,” Pyanfar groaned, and sat down against the counter, looked up at all the ring of anxious faces. “Not yet that son of mine doesn’t. Gods blight the kif; we’ll settle them, but we’re going to take care of that small business at home; that’s first.”

Ears pricked. “We’re with you,” Haral said. “Gods, yes, home. Going to shake me some scruffs when I get there.”

“Hai!” Geran agreed, and Tirun; and Tully visibly flinched, calmed again as Chur patted his shoulder. He settled and Hilfy sat down beside him, put her hand on his other shoulder, two disconsolate souls who shared not much at all but their misery.

“We’ll straighten it out,” Pyanfar said to Hilfy. “We’ll do it on our terms. Agreed, niece?”

“He got me out of there,” Hilfy said. “I could have helped and he saw it coming and he moved me out.”

“Huh. You’re not old enough to know your father from my view, with all respect for your own. He thinks, some time before a problem comes on him-not much meditation during, gods know, but he sets things up like pieces on a board. Too rotted proud to call me downworld, ah, yes; too rotted smart to have young Hilfy Chanur at hand to get herself in a tangle with her Mahn cousins and to pitchfork that temper of Kohan’s into it ... don’t get your ears down at me, imp; we’re family here. The sun rises and sets on your shoulder so far as your father’s concerned, and that blasted son of mine would go right for the greatest irritance he could give your father if he wanted to take on Chanur-your precious inexperienced self. No, Kohan just cleared the deck, that’s all. Chances are he was wrong; he’s not immune to that either. I’d sooner have had you there; I think you’d have handled young Kara right enough; and Tahy with him. But if Moon Rising’s going home, it’s to carry the kind of news the Tahar have gotten here; it’s going to make trouble, no thanks to the Faha: and there’s a time past which Kohan’s going to be hard put. He’s got-what mates in residence? Your mother and who?”

“Akify and Lilun.”

“Hope your mother stands by him,” Pyanfar said heavily: the Kihan and the Garas were ornaments. She walked over to the counter and stared at the scan a moment. “No matter. Whatever’s going on, we’ll put it in order.”

“Pyanfar-“

Tully’s strange voice. She turned about and looked at him, recalled the pager and turned it on broadcast, not bothering with the plug.

“Question,” Tully said, and made a vague gesture toward the door where the Faha had left. “He fight.”

“She,” Pyanfar said impatiently. “All she.” Tully bit his lip and looked confused. “It’s nothing to do with you,” Pyanfar said. “Nothing you’d understand.”

“I go.” he offered, starting to slide from his place on the counter, but Chur held his shoulder. “No,” Chur said. “It’s all right, Tully. No one’s angry at you.”

“You’re not the cause,” Pyanfar said. “Not of this.” She walked to the door, looked back at the crew. “We’ll settle it,” she said to the crew, and turned and walked out, down the corridor and alone toward the lift.

Khym overthrown. Dead, maybe. At the least in exile. The loss of her mate oppressed her to a surprising degree. Mahn in young Kara’s hands would not be what it had been in Khym’s. Khym’s style had been easygoing and gracious and admittedly lazy: he was a comfortable sort of fellow to come back to, who liked fine things and loved to sit in the shade of his garden and listen to the tales she could spin of far “ports he would never see. Boundless curiosity, gentle curiosity. That was Khym Mahn. And the son he had indulged and pardoned had come back and taken his garden and his house and his name, while poor Khym-gods knew where he was, or in what misery.

She rode the lift up to main level and entered her own quarters, shut the door and sat down at the desk . . . forbore for a long time to pull out the few mementoes she bothered to keep, keeping home more in her mind than in objects. Finally she looked at what she had, a picture, a smooth gray stone- odd how pleasant a bit of stone felt, and how alien in this steel world; stone that conjured the Kahin Hills, the look and the sound of grass in the wind, and the warmth of the sun and the slick cold of the rain on the rocks which thrust up out of the grassy hillsides.

Her son . . . cast Khym out: moved in next to Chanur to threaten Kohan himself, to break apart all that she had done and built and all that Kohan held. Small wonder Kohan had wanted Hilfy out of harm’s way-out of a situation in which tempers could be triggered and reason lost.

Put some experience on her, Kohan had asked. And: Take care of her.

She put the things away, and sat thinking, because while repairs proceeded, there was little else she could do. They sat here locked into station’s embrace and hoping that the kif stayed off their vulnerable backside. Sat here while their enemies had time to do what they liked.

Strike at Anuurn itself-Akukkakk could not be so rash. He had not that many ships, that he could do such a thing. It was bluster, of the sort the kif always used, hyperbole ... of the sort they always flung out, hoping for more gains from an enemy’s panic than force could win. Unless the hakkikt was mad ... a definition which, between species, lacked precision. Unless the hakkikt commanded followers more interested in damage than in gain.

No hakkikt on record had ever stirred as wide a distance, involving so many ships. No one had ever done what this one had done, attacking a stsho station, harassing and threatening an entire starsystem and all its traffic as he had done at Urtur.

She sat and gnawed at her lip and reckoned that the threat might have substance to it after all. She checked scan finally, on her own terminal. Nothing showed but the expected. The knnn still hovered off from station: when she searched audio the singing came back, placid now and wavering over three discordant tones. The tc’a were silent, but one, which babbled static in tones as slow as the knnn’s. The prisoner? she wondered. Lamenting its fate? Beyond those voices there was only normal station noise, and the close-in chatter of the skimmer crews who had never ceased their work on The Pride’s damage. Normally some of these jump freighters would have put out: Hasatso’s venture out only to meet emergency had frozen everything. Not even the miners were stirring out from their berths with the orehaulers and those were snugged into orbit about Mala or Kilaunan.

She patched a call through to station services, complained about the late delivery on ordered goods: the courier service issued promises after the time-honored fashion, and she took them, reckoning on the usual carrier arriving about the time the rampway was about to close down.

Stasteburana-to used sense, at least; and the patrols stayed out, shuttling the system, alert against trouble. The mahe kept faith.

She expected less of the Tahar.

IX

Moon Rising pulled out in the off shift, a departure without word to them, in Pyanfar’s night. She ignored it, snarling an incoherency from out the bedclothes to the com at bedside when she was advised, and pulling the cover back over herself; it was not worth getting up to see, and she had no courtesies to pay the Tahar, who deserted another hani to strangers, crippled as they still sat. She was hardly surprised. Watch had their standing orders, and there was no need to wake up and deal with it. Hilfy slept: there was no need to rouse her out for what Hilfy also expected. Pyanfar burrowed into sleep again and shed the matter from her mind ... no getting her adrenalin up to rob herself of rest, no thinking about here, or home, or anything in particular, only maybe the repairs which were still proceeding, which ought to be virtually finished by the time she waked, all the panels in place now, and mahe working out on their tail checking all the sorry little connections on which their lives relied.

The dark took her back. She snugged down with a feeling of rare luxury.

“Captain. Captain, hate to disturb you, but we’re getting some movement out of the knnn.” She thrust an arm about, felt after the time switch. An hour and a half from wakeup. She kept moving, swinging her feet out.

“Captain.” That was Tirun on watch. “Urgent.”

“I’m with you. Feed it here. What’s happening?”

The screen lit in the darkened cabin. Pyanfar blinked and rubbed her eyes and focused on the schematic. Ship markers were blinking in hazard warning, too close to each other for safety. “Every knnn at dock,” Tirun said. “They’re breaking dock and the general direction-“

“After Moon Rising? Query station. What’s going on with them?”

“Did, captain; official no comment.”

“Rot their hides. Put me through.”

It took a moment. Pyanfar rummaged in the halflight from the screen after her breeches, pulled them on and jerked the ties.

“Station’s still refusing contact, captain: they insist communication by courier only.”

Pyanfar tied the knot and swallowed down a rush of temper. ‘My regards to them. What are the kif doing?”

“Sitting still. If they’re talking to each other it’s by runner or by line.”

“Just keep watching it. I’m awake.” She went to the bath, turned on the lights and washed, walked out again and took a look at the situation on the screen. Ten ships out of dock now, all chasing out after Moon Rising, as if that same rotted knnn had gotten utterly muddled which hani was which and convinced all the others-ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous; but humor failed her-there had been misunderstandings in the old days, before stsho had gotten the idea of the Compact across to the tc’a, and the tc’a in turn had gotten the knnn and chi to comprehend Compact civilization . . . enough to come and go in it without trouble; to trade with it; to avoid collisions and provocations and sometimes to cooperate. The methane-breathers were dangerous when stirred. She frowned over the image, combed, cut off the com and headed out down the corridor for the lift.

“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. Knnn have gone berserk. I don’t want us abed if they come this way.”

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 knnn behind.

“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 knnn at the station-“

The screen had changed, the dots parting on the scan, that which was Tahar going on, the knnn. . . .

“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 knnn developed other plans. Tully spoke, a flood of alien babble, but she had left the pager in her cabin. Chur turned hers to broadcast. “Enemy ship,” it rendered.

“Knnn,” Haral said. “Not an enemy. Neutral. But trouble. That’s Moon Rising. The knnn followed them; now they’ve quit.”

“Why?”

“Don’t know, Tully.”

Moon Rising made jump, a sudden wink off station scan- knnnless. “Gods,” Hilfy exclaimed, as the knnn bent a turn.

“Knnn maneuver,” Tirun said. “The bastards are showing out. They can jump boost and turn like that. It’d kill a hani. Any oxygen breather. Can’t outmaneuver them. Gods forbid, if we should have to shoot at one-comp plotting can’t hit one:  not programmed for their moves.”

“They don’t shoot at us. They aren’t armed.”

“In the old days,” Haral said, “they never caught the knnn shooting either. But ships turned up gutted. Before my time. But I heard they’d swarm a ship, jump it elsewhere-haul its mass off where they’d open it at their leisure-“

“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 knnn can synch like that.”

“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 knnn. A tc’a went on, presumably talking to the knnn.

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 knnn, who had stopped again, hovering off in utter violation of lanes and regulations. Station operations reported a ship coming in, a mahendo’sat freighter arriving in the zenith range: they had their own problems. So did the mahen freighter, coming in to what should be a safe haven and finding traffic snugged down and knnn gone berserk.

“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 channels. Defect vane yoke, the answer came back from the station office, and hard upon that, from Geran: “Got closeup; they’ve swarmed in on the vane collar, but I can’t tell much.” The image came through, two skimmers and three workers in eva-I pods grappled onto the afflicted vane where it attached to the strut, cables and vane and strut strung with red hazard lights to prevent accidents in shadow. It was a plausible repair, gods-nothing cheap; the damage that had blown the panels loose could have stressed it ... one of those systems for which there was no bypass, through which a third of the power of the jump drive passed. “Yoke,” Pyanfar sent to Geran, who was likely shivering her teeth loose in the bubble. “Come on inship; there’s no more we can do.”

It was a fifteen hour job. A gnawing suspicion worked at her gut. The defect should have shown up on the board: there were reasons why it might not-that it had blown as they camel in ... something had redlighted, so many things had redlighted at one instant and gone back to normal status . possibly, possibly it was real. Possibly too it was one of those demon touches, the mahendo’sat called them, that lost ships, something loose that contacted in stresses and killed. It was five to five they owed the mahendo’sat crew profound thanks; or they were being stalled, conned, set up. Check it now and ill was bound to redlight: the casing was off. She sat staring at the vid screen with her blood pressure up and a smoldering] rage with nowhere to send it.

“Haral,” she said into com.

“Captain?”

“That problem you fixed as we were coming in. Was the number one yoke involved? Could you tell?”

A long moment of silence. “Captain, we were losing the input; I put in a new board and we got it cleared. But that fade had stressed everything; the whole board was fouled. I couldn’t say beyond doubt. It was everywhere. I thought it was the panels. I’m sorry, captain.”

There was misery in Haral’s voice. Haral was not accustomed to be wrong. Ever. “It’s one of those things,” Pyanfar said, “that would redlight if the panels were overloaded; I’m not so sure you were wrong, Haral. I’m not at all sure you were wrong.”

“I’ll go out there,” Haral said.

“And do what? They’ve got it in a mess it takes skimmers to put back. Mahen skimmers. No. We sit it out.”

“Supplies arriving,” Chur informed her eventually via com from belowdecks. That was frozen fish off Kirdu IIs onworld ponds; and some stsho goods for Tully and some more translator tapes. She checked the time; after their originally scheduled departure. The courier service had been informed of the delay as quickly as they had been, which insolence sent her blood pressure up another several points. “Captain?” Chur asked. “Noted,” Pyanfar said coldly, and Chur broke the contact.

Another hour. The vid showed continual activity about the vane. Pyanfar diverted herself into board maintenance, burrowed into under-console spaces, checked and rechecked, surfaced now and again to dart a jaundiced look at the vid or to listen to some communication coming in. The station was getting back to normal; only the knnn . . . stayed out, fell into systemic drift, wailing still to each other.

The lift down the corridor hummed and opened doors: Pyanfar heard that and worked her way out of a finished job, stood up and wiped her hands and straightened her mane-soft quick footfalls in the corridor. “Aunt?”

She sat down on the armrest of her own cushion, scowled at her niece. Hilfy stood in the archway with a paper in her hand, came and offered it. “Just came. Couriered. Security seal.”

Pyanfar snatched it, hooked a claw in it, ripped it open, nose wrinkling. Stasteburana’s signature. Greetings, respects, and the assurance all possible was being done. “The stationmaster’s compliments,” Pyanfar translated sourly. “We get escort to our jump point when we go; departure’s firm for that fifteenth hour. Rot them, they knew about this, or they’d have been here asking for that tape. They want it, to be sure-before the job’s sealed off. Is the courier waiting?”

“No.”

“Rot them all.”

“Tully’s tape, you mean.”

She looked up at Hilfy, whose adolescent-bearded held a hint of a frown. “Is that a comment?”

“No, aunt.”

“I told the Outsider why.”

“Tully, aunt.”

Pyanfar sucked in a breath. “Tully, if you please. I told him why. Did I get through?”

“He-talked to Chur about it.”

“What did he say?”

“That he understood.”

“And the rest of you?”

Hilfy tucked her hands behind under her brow. “He senses much trouble’s going on. Last offshift, he tried to talk to all of us, gods, how he tried. Finally-“ Her ears went down, a second glance at the deck. “Finally he put his arms around Chur and then he went j from one to the next of us all and did the same, not-male-female, not like that. Just like he had something to say and he’ didn’t have any other way to say it.”

Pyanfar said nothing, jaw set.

“He’s started another tape,” Hilfy said. “The new manual.”

“Is he?” ,

“We gave it to him; he sat down with it in op and he’s feeding the words in as fast as he can go.”

Pyanfar frowned, taken aback.

“He liked the stsho shirts you came up with too. Warm, says, never mind the fancywork.”

“Huh.” Pyanfar thrust herself to her feet, poked an extended claw at Hilfy. “Nice fellow, this Tully, so understanding and grateful and all. I’ve been back and forth this route a few voyages, imp, and I’ve seen my share of con artists. In the1 first place, since we bring it up, I don’t like the Outsider bedding down with the lot of you. I permitted it in a moment of soft-headedness, because I didn’t like his moping about and I didn’t want himself killing himself the way, mark you, imp, the way he admits to killing a companion of his-for friendship’s sake.”

“It’s not fair to say that. It was brave, what he did.”

“Granted. And maybe he’s got a few more brave notions. The crew’s used to alien ways and I figured they’d keep their judgment, but I don’t like you down there. Gods know you’ve earned the right to be down there-that’s where I’d rather you were, all things equal, but they aren’t; there’s that rotted Outsider in the company, and he makes me nervous, niece, the way things make me nervous that just may blow up without warning. I don’t like you near him.”

Hilfy’s ears were plastered flat to her skull. “Pardon, aunt. If you order me to go back to my quarters, I will.”

“No,” Pyanfar said. “I’ll do you one worse. I’ll rely on your sense. I’ll just tell you to think what gets blown to ruin if some triviality sets our guest off at the wrong moment. Chanur, niece. You understand that?”

The ears came up. Hilfy’s nose wrinkled all the same, the shot gone home. “I know I want to get back to Anuurn, aunt; but I know too that I want to be proud of one side of the family when I get there.”

Pyanfar raised her hand-got that far with it, and stopped the blow and turned it into a gesture of dismissal. “Out, imp. Out.”

Hilfy turned on her heel and went. Pyanfar slid into the cushion and crumpled the stationmaster’s message with the other hand, punched claws through it. Gods rot it, to have leaned on the youngster in that matter . . . and to no point: to no point; underway, they would be back to wider spaces, to-gods knew what they would be up against.

She reached and keyed through the translator channel, heard Tully’s steady input, jabbed it out again.

After a moment she shook her head, smoothed out the paper and filed it in fax. Punched the translator key on again and listened to Tully, a quiet, familiar voice, putting word after word into memory.

Six hours; nine; twelve; thirteen. The day passed in meals-at-station, in checks and counterchecks; in enforced rest and secure-for-jump procedures and most of all in monitoring scan and com. Pyanfar reached the stage of pacing and fretting by the twelfth hour, fed and napped beyond endurance-wore off claw-tips on the flooring and disguised the anxiety when any of the crew came near on errands.

But Hilfy managed not to come. Stayed below, in what frame of mind or what understanding Pyanfar could not find a way to ask.

“Courier’s here.” Chur’s voice cracked out of the silence on the bridge, com from lowerdeck. “Asking the tape, captain.’

“Ask the courier,” Pyanfar said, “the finish time on the repair.”

A delay.

“The courier says within the hour, captain.”

“Understood.” Pyanfar caught her breath, looked left when she had laid the tape she had prepared, reached and pocketed the cassette and headed out for the lift, in such a fever that it was not till she had started the lift downward that she had thought again what it was she went down to trade: away from this place was all the thought; and the tape was a means to get free; and the shedding of the whole ugly necessity something she was only too glad to have done, to get The Pride free o: mahendo’sat and loose and on her way.

But Hilfy was down there. That recollection hit her. The lift stopped, the door opened, and she hesitated half a heartbeat in walking out, sucked up a breath she wanted all too much to spend on the mahe for the delay, and strode out quite bereft of the breath and the anger she wanted to loose.

Tully. Ye gods, Tully was in op too, off the corridor where any visitor to the ship not confined to the airlock would be brought as a matter of course.

She rounded the corner and found a gathering indeed-a dignified-looking mahe in a jeweled collar and kilt; a mahe attendant; Haral, Tirun, and Hilfy. She walked into the group suddenly conscious of her own informal attire, scowled and drew herself up to all her stature-none too tall in mahendo’sat reckoning.

“Bad mess,” the ranking mahe spat at her. “Big trouble you cause, hani. All same we fix ship.”

The Voice of the stationmaster, primed with accusations and bluster. The Voice looked her up and down, with grand hauteur. Jeweled and perfumed. Pyanfar flexed her claws, pointedly and with grander coolness turned her shoulder and looked toward her own. “Tully. Where’s Tully? Is he still in op?”

“You endanger the station,” the Voice railed on her dutifully. “Big trouble with tc’a; knnn bastard kidnap and extortion. You want take with you the eva-pod the knnn bring for trade for good tc’a citizen, hah? Got your name on it, hani Pride of Chanur, clear letters.”

“Tully! Get your rotted self out here. Now!”

“They don’t come into station now, the knnn, no, make navigation hazard all this system. All disturb. Mining stop. Trade stop. All business stand dead still. You use knnn signal, a? Upset the knnn; take kif property, upset the kif; get tc’a kidnap, tc’a upset; get fight stsho station, stsho make charge; hani don’t speak to you;-what for we deal with you, hani, a?”

Tully came out of the op room, Chur attending him. He had on his new stsho-made shirt, white silk and blue borders- looked immaculately civilized and no little upset in the shouting. “The papers, Tully,” Pyanfar said. “Show them to this kind mahe.”

He fished in his pocket for the folder, pale eyes anxious.

“I got no need cursed papers,” the Voice snapped. Tully had them all the same, held them open in front of the mahe, who waved them aside.

“You issued them,” Pyanfar said. “Property of the kif. Property of the kif, you say. You look at this fine, this honest, this documented member of an intelligent and civilized space-faring species and you talk about him with words like property of the kif? I call down shame on you; I ask you explain to him, you, in your own words, explain this property.”

The Voice flattened her ears, looked aside at her attendant, who proffered a scent bottle. In elaborate indirection the Voice unstopped it and inhaled, recollecting herself in retreat. Her face when next she looked down at them was tolerably mild.

“The tapes,” the Voice said. “The tapes you make deal cover some damage.”

“All the damages. No fines. No charges. No complaints.”

‘ ‘Starchaser rescue.”

“A separate matter. Chanur and Faha together will stand good for it when we reach home. As for the captain of the rescue ship, he has my guarantee, which is worth more than his losses. It’s settled.”

The Voice considered a moment, nodded. “The tape,” she said, holding out her hand. “This give, repair finish. Give you safe escort. Fair deal, Chanur.”

Pyanfar took it from her pocket, an uncommon warmth about her ears-looked aside at Tully. She thrust it at him. “You give it. Yours.”

Hilfy opened her mouth to say something, and shut it. Tully looked down at the cassette, looked up at the Voice and hesitantly handed the tape toward her. “Friend,” he said in the hani tongue. “Friend to mahe.”

The dark-furred hand closed on the cassette. The Voice laid back her ears and pursed her mouth in thoughtful consideration. Tully still had his hand out-his own kind of gesture, who was always touching; kept it out. Slowly the mahe reached out, alien protocol being her calling, and gamely suffered Tully to clasp her hand, took it back without visible flinching ... but with a subdued quiet unlike herself. She bowed her head that slightest degree of courtesy. “I carry your word,” she said.

And with a scowl and a glance at Pyanfar: “Undock one hour, firm. Kirdu Station give you all possible help. Urge you give us location of this good fellow homeworld-danger to lose you, him, all, this trip.”

“Beyond the kif is the location we presently suspect. Haven’t had the time to learn, honorable.”

“Stupid,” the Voice said with her professional license.

“Our unfortunate friend was dragged through miserable circumstances with the kif; hurt; not stupid-too wise to talk without understanding. Now there’s too little time. You help us get out of here and we’ll settle the kif sooner or later.”

“This hakkikt. . . . Akukkakk. We know this one. Bad trouble, Chanur captain.”

“What do you know?” Pyanfar asked, suddenly and not for the first time suspicious of every mahe .at Kirdu. “What do you know about this kif?”

“You undock one hour. Skimmers go now. You make good quick voyage, Chanur captain.”

“What do you know about the kif?”

“Good voyage,” the Voice pronounced, and bowed once and generally, collected her attendant and walked for the airlock.

“Hai,” Pyanfar said in vexation, and with a wave of her hand sent Haral striding after the Voice and her companion. She looked about at Hilfy, whose ears were somewhat down; and at Tirun and Chur and Tully. Tully looked disquieted. “Good,” Pyanfar said to him, clapping him on the arm. “Good touch, that ‘friend.’ You laid the burden on her, you know that? That’s the Voice that speaks to and for the Personage himself, the stationmaster of Kirdu; and by the gods you did it, my clever, my mannerly Outsider, you threw that one right in the stationmaster’s lap.”

Tully glanced down, made a small shrug, no less troubled-looking. She was not wearing the translator plug. “An hour, hear?” she said to the others, to Tirun and Hilfy and Chur- and Geran, who would be keeping watch in the op room with strangers running in and out of the ship: no way it was unattended. “An hour and we’re underway, out of here. Home.” “How are we doing it?” Geran called from out of the room. “Stringing the jumps like before?”

“Close as we can cut it,” Pyanfar said, and looked left as movement caught her eye, Haral’s return from the lock, as far as the beginning of the corridor.

“Seal us up, captain?” Haral shouted down the corridor.

“Seal us up,” Pyanfar confirmed, and stopped in mid-wave as a tall dark figure appeared in the corridor behind Haral “Ware!”

Mahendo’sat. Haral had already spun about, and the lanky, dark-furred mahe walked on in as if he belonged, flashing a gilt-edged grin.

“Ismehanan-“ Pyanfar shouted. “-Goldtooth, gods rot you, slinking into my corridors without a by your leave-Who let you in?”

The grin in no wise diminished. The mahe gave a sweeping bow and straightened as she strode up to him. “Got sudden business, Chanur, maybe same you course.”

“Whose business?”

“Maybe same you business.”

She swelled up with a breath and looked up at him, hands in the back of her waistband. “Maybe you talk straight, captain. Once.”

“Where you go?”

“Maybe I should broadcast it on the dock. For the kif.”

“Home, maybe? Ajir route?”

“Guess as you like.”

“Got Mahijiru weapons first rate; friend mine make port today, also got number-one rig. Wait over, Chanur.”

“Bastard!”

He stepped back, held a hand up, blunt-nailed; hers, lifted, was not. He grinned with the fending gesture. “Necessity, time mahe shed cargo.”

“You egg-sucking liars. Where I’m going has nothing to do with you; hani business, you hear that? Private business. You want a quarrel with the kif you go find your own.”

“Go home, do you?”

“Private business, I’m telling you.”

“Warn you,” Goldtooth said. “Once. Maybe now go make deal hani port; lots trade. You talk for your good friend there, yes?”

“Goldtooth, what game are you playing?”

He grinned and turned on his heel, walked off toward the lock, where Haral stood in scowling indignation.

“Goldtooth!”

He paused to wave. “Mahijiru you escort, captain. You got number one best.”

“Rot your hide, I’m not playing decoy in some mahen game with the kif!”

He was gone while the echoes were still ringing. Haral, lacking orders, looked back at her, and Pyanfar slung her arms to her sides, not reckoning on giving any. It was the mahe’s terms and there was nothing they could do to stop him from following. “Seal that lock,” she said. “Gods know what else might get in.” Haral went on the run. Pyanfar looked about at the others, at Tully, and Chur and Hilfy and Tirun; and Geran, who had stepped out of op.

“Mahijiru’s on,” Geran said. “Someone’s just hooked up a shielded line and we’re getting transmission. They claim they’ve got orders and they’re asking data.”

“We’re going home,” Pyanfar said shortly. “Home, by the gods. They’ve cost us time. If Stasteburana’s got notions of using us, rot him, two can play that game. I’ll give them our course; I’ll give them a leadin inside the Anuurn perimeter.”

“Chanur-“ Tirun objected quietly.

“More than Chanur’s got a stake in this. Maybe Anuurn needs to see that. We’ve got ourselves trouble. Widespread trouble. We don’t know how far it stretches. There ought to be hani here, do you mark that? Lots of hani ships coming and going here, not just Tahar. Here we are at one of the prime stops on our rivals’ route . . . and no hani ships but that one. Homebound. I’ll lay you odds, cousins, they’ve been staying home when they’ve come to port. That’s what’s vacated the track we’ve been on. Starchaser knew; word’s been passing, at every port, every contact.”

“Aye,” Chur murmured. “Aye. Gods. Six months they could have had at this-“

“I’m going to the bridge. Bridge crew this passage-Haral;

Geran; Chur. The rest of you take op station; and get Tully his sedative, now, before someone forgets.”

“Aunt!” Hilfy called after her. Pyanfar stopped and turned. “Captain,” Hilfy said in a quieter voice.

“Question?” Pyanfar asked, scowling. Hilfy’s chin went up. “No, captain, “ Hilfy said quite steadily. Pyanfar nodded, with a small tightening of the mouth, looked satisfaction into Hilfy’s clear eyes, then turned again and strode off to the lift.

Down the corridor, the lock boomed shut. The Pride had begun her separation.

X

“Getting pickup on the companion,” Chur said, snugged in com station. “They swear it’s a secure line.”

“Huh.” Pyanfar finished up the checks and reached for the contact flashing on her com module. “Chanur here.”

“Introduce you,” Goldtooth’s voice came back to her. “Captain Pyanfar Chanur, got link to Aja Jin. Captain Nomesteturjai.”

“Chanur,” a voice rumbled back. “Name Jik, here.”

“Number one fellow, Jik,” Goldtooth said. “Honest same you, Pyanfar Chanur.”

“Honest like stall me off; like delay me. Chanur’s fighting for its life, you rag-eared bastard, does that get through your head? Challenge; and I’m not there. In your spying about, do you know what that means?”

“Ah,” Goldtooth said. “Know this trouble. Yes.”

Pyanfar said nothing, forced the claws back in.

“Know where this Akukkakk too,” Goldtooth said. “Interested, hani captain?”

“After I’ve settled my own business.”

“Same place.”

“Anuurn?”

“Keep you alive, hani. We make slow maybe, but you make deal we want. More big than pearls and welders, a, hani?”

“You follow, rot you.” She keyed through the course and the graph on comp. “There’s the way.”

A mahen hiss came back, throaty and rueful. “You steer by luck, hani? You crazy mad, that course?”

“Do it all the time, mahe. Scare you?”

“Hani joke, a?”

“Got two kif docked down there. We go, they’ll go. You got that patrol alerted?”

“Got,” came that second voice.

“Ha,” Pyanfar muttered. “You got your data; got all you want. Enough. We’re getting out of here.”

“A.”

Assent. Pyanfar flung a glance toward Haral, across the separating console, and the contact went out. Chur flicked signals to the dock crew. “Got us prioritied out,” Chur reported. “No problem.” The lines were coming loose. Telltales began to flash, wanting ports sealed. Haral put the seals in function, straight down the sequence. Screens in front of number one post livened, Geran routing through the station scan image. The airlock grapple clanged into unlock, and the last of the seal-ports was firm. “Moving out,” Pyanfar warned over allship, and cleared The Pride’s own grapples, her grip on station independent of the station’s grip on her: those boomed into the housing, and undocking jets eased them clear.

It was a smooth parting, an easy push clear and a nosing toward an untrafficked nadir as g started up, a whine of the rotational engines. Comp flashed them their lane, and scan showed Mahijiru and Aja Jin moving down below the station rim off portside. The Pride gathered momentum, a solid g and a half now, outbound.

“Kif are breaking free,” Chur said, com monitor. “Station advises.”

“No scan confirmation,” Geran said.

Pyanfar was already reaching for the shielded weapons switch, uncapped it and flicked it on: a ripple of lights advised the gunports were clearing. “Stay on that,” she told Haral without taking her eyes off her own business. “No comp synch, not with the mahe in the way. Can’t be taking one of them by mistake.”

“Hope they’re as considerate,” Haral muttered.

“Huh.”

“Kif are moving out,” Geran said. “Number two screen.”

“Where’s our escort?” Pyanfar wondered glumly. “-Op deck, stay braced. Listen in and take your cues.”

“Escort moving,” Chur said. “They’re on intercept; station’s got them scan-blanked.”

“Understood.” She darted a look at station-sent scan, on which they themselves showed as an oversized wedge, massed blip of ships in synch. Geran sent another image. G continued, dragging at the gut, straining her arm back against the elbow brace. The kif were not gaining, were maintaining a sedate acceleration in their wake.

Goldtooth and this stranger Jik: escort. She did not, she admitted to herself, understand the mahen order of things, no more than outsiders understood the stsho. Trading with them was one thing. Figuring out the limits of a mahe like Stasteburana was another. Goldtooth and this mahe friend of his, this ship which had come kiting into system in the hour of Tahar’s exit-merchanters, maybe; but what she saw of Mahijiru and Aja Jin on vid was ominously lean, ominously trim with their cargo holds stripped off; a lot of space given to the power assembly on those two, a profligate lot of jump capacity masked by those missing holds, odd-shaped cores swelling in such fashion that they would cut into any reasonable geometry of tanks which had been strapped on. Vanes with strange dark interstices, like folding joints, vanes larger than ships of their mass ought to carry. It was a curious thing, that ships never saw “ach other; that they nosed up to station and stayed invisible behind station walls; that they existed as blips and dots and figures in comp, moving too fast for vid to pick up. Only now that they were in synch, a package moving at the same velocity and in sight of each other-

“Runner ships,” Pyanfar muttered to Haral. “Look at our escort, cousin.”

“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 runners. Hunter ships. Her mustache-hairs drew taut as if her nose had picked up something. Gods: Mahijiru, out prowling about Meetpoint, out on the fringes of stsho space-

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.

“Knnn,” Geran said suddenly; and vid went off and another image came in, sectorized on the mass of knnn ships, which were no longer stationary.

“Gods,” Chur muttered, “here we go.”

“Never mind the rotted knnn,” Pyanfar said. “Watch the kif; op, take that sectorized image and keep us posted.”

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 knnn,” Goldtooth’s voice cut in, transferred from Chur’s board.

“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 knnn-the knnn streamed along in a manic flood, accelerating as they went, a few points off their course.

“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 running at their tail: their nose they could take care of themselves. Best to flare through any ambush where they were going and not be the second or third ship in, as Starchaser had been at Kita, after the nest had been stirred and the kif wakened.

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: conniving liar.

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 running up their backsides, where that ship and its partner were aimed if they delayed dump.

“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 innermost of the two stations of Ahr System, that about Anuurn itself. The signal went out: the acknowledgment flashed back from one of the robot buoys, automatic routing, approach as routine as any incoming merchanter.

“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.”

“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 knnn tended to be: but here, in home-system, there was always traffic, from little ships which plied the system to the greater ones which jumped in from other stars; there was the huge null-g shipyard of Harn Station, where all hani ships were born and where they came for refitting and repair.

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.”

Knnn-song wailed out of com.

“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.

Knnn never called at Anuurn. Never, till now.

“It overjumped us,” Pyanfar said with-she reckoned- commendable calm. “If that’s our knnn, it just overjumped us by at least an hour.”

“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 channel.” Hilfy turned her pager onto broadcast. “Tully-we’re home now. Anuurn. Got trouble here.”

“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?”

That took a moment’s thought. He nodded then. “Get them other time,” he said confidently, waved a hand toward the wide infinite. “We go find kif other time pull their heads off.”

The mangled extravagance appealed to her; he did, with his clear-eyed insanity. She cuffed him harder and got a moment’s shock, not temper-like Khym, like her own easygoing Khym, where Kohan would have swung and cursed at the sting. She was reassured, that he was capable of restraint, that a cuff on the ears stood a chance of getting his attention; that blunt-fingered and slender as he was, a couple of them could hold him if they had to. “If we get out of this,” she promised him, “we go skin some kif. Next trip out. I take you with me.”

That was premature. They owned nothing to give away, least of all the disposition of the Outsider. Lose Chanur, she thought with a chill, and they could make no more promises at all; but confidence burned in Tully’s eyes, a trust that he was theirs.

Gods. Theirs. Theirs for managing, for using, for finding the location of his distant people before the mahendo’sat or the kif could do so, and making a wedge for Chanur trade. But it was Hilfy’s kind of a look he gave her. Worship ... not quite. Absolute belief. She looked at Hilfy to be sure and found the same. Looked disquietedly at the others, at Haral and Geran and Chur and Tirun, who had their own rights on this ship which was theirs as well as hers, who had been here longer and knew better and had to know what the odds were. It was there too-quieter, but as crazily trusting. She talked about going kif-hunting and they gave her that kind of stare.

“Keep it sane in here,” she said. “I’m going to clean up. Tully, for the gods’ sake, bathe.”

She stalked out. The Pride streaked on toward station. She had no least doubt that some of those ships out there were kif, and that there was at least the remote possibility that the kif might face about and start a run at them in some berserk notion of revenge.

If this Akukkakk saw no other possibility, he might. But his presence here, before her, indicated that he knew that she had to come here; and why; and that he had a chance of revenge far wider than one ship, a handful of deaths.

It was Chanur he was aiming at. His information was accurate enough to have brought him here. Somewhere, hani had talked; and he knew where to put the pressure on.

Faha, she thought unworthily, but the suspicion nagged at her. If not the Faha, others, who had talked too freely at some dock or-gods help them-Handur prisoners, taken alive at Meetpoint. She doubted the latter: the destruction had been thorough: and Goldtooth denied the chance of survivors. But someone, somewhere-had said enough in the wrong hearing. She put the thought away. It was too bitter.

She wore the red this time, red silk breeches and the best of her rings and the pendant pearl. Appearances. She combed and brushed until her mane and her beard gleamed red gold highlights. She splashed on perfume, reckoned that some sweeter scent would hardly hurt Tully, and pocketed one of several vials in the drawer.

For Hilfy she pocketed something too. She went back to the bridge then, distracted herself with current reports on their approach-Hilfy was not there, nor were Tully or Geran or Chur, but Tirun had taken the number three cushion next Haral. “No trouble,” Pyanfar observed.

“Routine so far,” Haral said.

“I’ll take it. Your turn.” Pyanfar slid in at her place and Haral slid out of hers, weary and staggering in the use of cramped muscles.

“Getting some kif transmission,” Tirun said after a moment. “Operational. They know we’re here. Nothing more said.”

“How many of them, do you reckon?”

“Station’s given us an accurate count. Seven.”

“Gods have mercy.”

“Aye.”

Pyanfar shook her head and called up the various images available to her screens. They were coming in under automatic at present, locked on station’s guidance. Vid image filled one screen, Anuurn itself, blue and marbled with cloud. Beautiful. It was always beautiful on approach, never so spectacular as Urtur, but full of life. It conjured blue skies; and grassy\plains and broad rivers and vast seas; it conjured colors; and scents; and textures; and a gut feeling which was different than all other words ... for hani.

She watched at her leisure: with The Pride under automatic there was little else to do. A sweep of their second vid camera showed their mahen escorts riding slightly aft, two sleek killers, so precise in position they might have been one single ship.

“Aja Jin advises he’ll drop back to guard as we go in,” Tirun said.

“Understood.”

“Still picking up signal from that knnn. Tried the translator on it. I get nothing but a docking matchup, aside from the singing.”

“They docked?”

“Quarter hour ago. Gods know what station’s going to do with them. No facilities except the emergency hookup. I don’t get any outside transmission on that problem.”

“Huh.”

“Not a word from anyone else in system. Unnatural quiet.”

“Kif docked?”

“All seven.”

“Thank the gods for that. You sure?”

“Station’s word on it.”

Pyanfar laid her ears back, scowled. It was too cooperative all round, kif who put into station . . . something was crooked here. Badly out of trim. It was far too late to turn about. And there was Kohan and all of Chanur below, who had no such options to turn and run. Therefore The Pride did not.

“Station requests all weapons shielded.”

Pyanfar considered a moment, reached to the board and complied. “Done,” she said, wishing otherwise. Presumably Mahijiru did the same. Aja Jin had dropped behind them now, in a defensive position at their vulnerable tails.

“Got plan?” Goldtooth’s voice reached her ears then, transferred from Tirun’s board.

“Want you with me when we go out,” she said. “You understand hani station rules. Know them all?”

“All,” Goldtooth confirmed.

“See you on the dock.”

Weapons, she meant to say: hani stations observed no weapons-rules. It was not a thing she wanted to discuss on com. She trusted that the mahe would turn up armed. It was certain the kif would.

XI

Automation took them in to the last, trued to the cone. It was an easy dock. The grapples touched and locked on both sides. The instruction came up to access the line ports; declined, she sent back, refusing that mandated service. It was not likely, considering the circumstances, that station would quibble. No objection came back, only a pressure reading for the station itself and a recommendation to use the ah- shunt in the lock.

“They know it’s trouble,” Pyanfar muttered. “Tirun, someone’s got to stay aboard. You’re it; you and Geran. Sorry.”

“Aye,” Tirun muttered unhappily. No discussion. “Shall I page Geran and advise her?”

“Do that.”

“Want both of you fit. If we can’t get back, take command, your own discretion. Take the ship and get out of here, pick up crew at Kirdu-mahendo’sat or anything else; and make it count, hear me?”

Tirun’s ears went down. “You’re not planning on it.”

“Gods no, I’m not planning on it. But if, if, old friend. If we lose-in any sense-neither hani nor kif sets hand to The Pride. That’s firm.”

“That’s firm,” Tirun said. “Tully-our problem or yours?”

“Mine,” Pyanfar said. “He’s walking evidence. And more problem than you need. You’ve got that tape; you’ve got an ally in the Kirdu stationmaster if it comes to that. I don’t leave you any instructions. If something goes wrong, make up your own rules.”

“Right,” Tirun said.

The order split the sister-teams down the middle. If it came to that-Tirun and Geran would be a wounded half. But that was the way it went: she wanted Haral’s size and strength with her, and Tirun was hardly fit for a fight. Chur was the smallest of the lot, but of the two remaining, the meanest temper. Pyanfar extended her hand in rising, pressed Tirun’s shoulder. Practicalities. Tirun knew.

They gathered belowdecks, all of them, clean and combed, excepting Tirun, who had never gotten her turn at washing up: Tully wore a white stsho shirt belted hiplength about him, and a better pair of blue breeches-Haral’s likely, who had been sharing clothes with him. Pyanfar looked the party over; and remembering the perfume in her pocket, took it out and tossed it at Tully. “All things help,” she said. Tully unstopped it and sniffed, wrinkled his nose and looked doubtful, but when she j mimed putting it on, he splashed some on his hand and wiped I his beard and his throat. He coughed, and thrust the bottle into his own pocket.

“Another matter,” Pyanfar said, and took a fine gold ring from the depth of her lefthand pocket, offered it to Hilfy and had the satisfaction of seeing the look in Hilfy’s eyes. “I won’t take you anywhere ringless. If we meet some kif, or even politer company-you’d better look like where you come from, hear, imp?”

“Thank you,” Hilfy said, looked uncertain with it, and flustered; but Geran tugged her head over on the spot and bit a I neat place for it, deftly thrust the earring through for her and fastened it. “Huh,” Pyanfar said, there being her niece with I her first gold shining in her ear and pride glowing in her eyes, j “Come on. Let’s find out what’s waiting out there.-Tirun, Geran, you keep that lock sealed for everyone but us, no matter how bad it gets to sound, no matter what they offer you. Get on the com in op. Tell Goldtooth to get moving.”

“Aye,” Tirun said. Neither Tirun nor Geran was pleased with the unship assignment-Geran was trying to be cheerful, and not well succeeding: “Take care,” Geran said, patted Chur’s shoulder. “Luck,” Tirun said, last, and Pyanfar nodded to the others and walked with them down the corridor, leaving Tirun and Geran to get to business: she and Haral and Chur, and Hilfy; and Tully, who looked back, when none of the rest of them did, with a forlorn expression.

Pyanfar went first into the airlock, waited for Tully, hand on the hardness of the pistol she had in her pocket-as all of them had but Tully; he hurried in with them and Haral closed the inner hatch. One further insane moment Pyanfar debated with herself, then made up her mind and opened the locker by the outer hatch, took out the pistol they kept there and gave it to Tully. “Pocket,” she said when he looked anxious surprise at her. “Pocket. Don’t touch it. Don’t think about it. If / fire, you can, hear? If you see me shoot, then you shoot. But I won’t. It’s civilized here. Hani don’t take nonsense from the kif and kif know that. If the kif get nasty they find themselves more hani than they know how to run from. Promise you. You draw that at the wrong time and I’ll skin you.”

“Understand,” Tully said fervently. He thrust the pistol into his pocket and put his hands demonstratively in his belt at his back. “I take orders. I don’t make mistake.”

“Huh.” She touched the bar. The airlock’s outer seal opened for them and her ears popped with the pressure change as the cold air of dockside sucked through the access tube. Sounds outside echoed, nothing out of the ordinary. Pyanfar led the way onto the ramp way plates, around the curve and down toward the grayness of the dockside, with all its metal and machinery.

The translator was out of pickup range now: Tully became effectively deaf and mute. Pyanfar looked askance at him as they walked out the arch of the farside lock, onto the dockside itself. He was sticking close to Chur and Hilfy, or they to him, while Haral brought up the rear, tall and solid and looking like business with her scars and her be-ringed left ear. Haral had instinctively planted herself back there to guard the rear and quite possibly to head off Tully if he should lose his head. The latter was not likely, Pyanfar thought with some assurance. Old hunter that she was, she had some sense which way things would dart in a crisis, and she had Tully figured for the other direction. She directed her attention sharply ahead, where dockworkers had set up cord barriers-where a station official, Llun house or one of half a dozen other Protected families which kept the station, made her body the gateway, guard enough for a hani station, where civilized folk knew what they would touch off if they harried a warder representing her family and her family’s post.

Llun, that guard, if the set of the ears was any true indication, a mature hani in the black breeches of officialdom immemorial. The Llun drew a paper from her belt as they approached her, and offered it, not without an ears-down look at Tully: but the Llun kept her dignity all the same. “Ker

Chanur, you’re requested for Gathering in the main meeting area. You’re held responsible for all the others of your party; it’s assumed the mahen ship is under your escort.”

“Accepted,” Pyanfar said, taking the paper. The Llun moved aside then to let them pass, impeccable in her neutrality. A little distance away, at the next berth, a similar barrier was set up about Mahijiru’s access. “Come,” Pyanfar said to the others, and walked in that direction, took the chance to scan the official summons. “Charges filed,” she said. “Compact violations and piracy.”

“Rot them,” Chur muttered.

“We’re going to get that shelved,” Pyanfar said, looked up again and let her jaw drop as Goldtooth led a good number of mahe down onto the dock, a Goldtooth resplendent in dark red collar and kilt, glittering with mahen decorations. “By the gods, look at him.”

“Merchanter,” Haral spat. “And I’m kif.”

“Come on,” Pyanfar said to her company. Goldtooth offered his papers to the hani on guard, but the guard waved him through unquestioned; the mahe and his crew walked out to join her in the walk toward the main dockside entry, a towering dark crowd of mahendo’sat. Sidearms, openly carried, businesslike heavy pistols strapped to the right leg. Decorations, worn by more than one of the group.

“Where we go?” Goldtooth asked.

“Gathering. Ihi. Place where we sort things out. Hani law here, mahe. Civilized.”

“Got kif here,” Goldtooth muttered. “Got Jik watch our tail.”

They entered the corridor. It stretched ahead, polished, clean, uncommonly vacant. No young ones about, precious few of anyone except officials in uniform, a very few hani dressed like spacers, who watched in silence and stepped well aside.

“Too few,” one of the mahe observed. Goldtooth made a low sound, uninformative.

“Too rotted few,” Pyanfar said. She turned a necessary corner, saw the doors of the meeting hall ahead, double-guarded. She took no more thought of her companions then, of mahe or Outsider or kinswomen, flicked her ears to settle the rings in place and waved a grand gesture to the black-trousered hani who stood there.

“Chanur,” one said. The doors whisked open, and a milling, noisy crowd of hani were gathered beyond-a crowd which retreated in growing quiet as they swept into the room. Pyanfar stopped in the midst, hands in her belt, looked toward the Cardinal point of the room, at the station authorities who gathered there, at Llun and Khai and Nuurun, Sahan and Maura and Quna, evident by their position and by the posted Colors in front of which they stood.

And kif, to their right, a cluster of black robes. A pair of stsho. Pyanfar’s nose wrinkled and her ears flattened, but she lifted them again as she faced the Llun, who stood centermost and prominent among the station families. She held up the paper and proffered it for a page who retrieved it and took it to the Llun senior.

“Chanur requests transport downworld,” Pyanfar said quietly. “Our claim has precedence over any litigation.”

The Llun senior-Kifas Llun herself, broad and solid and unmistakable in her gold and her dignity, unhurriedly took the paper, thrust it into her belt, and looked again at Pyanfar. “A complaint of piracy has been filed by Compact law; by treaty, this station has obligations which have precedence.”

“The rights of a family when questioned bear on treaty law and define the han. Our place is in question.”

The Llun hesitated, mouth taut. “Challenge hasn’t yet been issued.”

“Yet. But it will be now-won’t it, her Kifas? You know it; and I know it; and there are those here flatly counting on it. Point of equity, her Kifas. Point of equity.”

There was long silence. The Llun senior’s ears lowered and lifted. Her nose wrinkled and smoothed again. “Point of equity,” she declared. “The composition of the han is in fact in question. Family right takes precedence. The hearing is postponed until Chanur rights and Mahn have been settled.”

“No,” said a familiar, kifish voice. Among the tall, black-robed figures there was a stirring, and Pyanfar moved her hands to her hips and close to her pockets. More of the kif moved-to the outrage of the hall, the whole kifish contingent left the rim of the meeting hall and came out to the center of it. The stsho moved with them, gangling pale figures, sorrowfully gaunt, their pastel patterns asymmetric and erratic on their white skins, their persons in disarray and their heads drooping. And one kif stood taller than the rest, his stance that of authority among them. Pyanfar pursed her lips and slowly drew them back, eyes broadfocused on all the kif, well toward a dozen of them and, gods knew, armed beneath those robes.

“Akukkakk,” she said.

“We protest this decision,” the kif said to the Llun. Not whining, no: he drew himself up with borderline arrogance. “We have property in question. We’ve suffered damages. This Outsider and these mahe are in question. I claim this Outsider for kif jurisdiction; and I claim these mahe as well for crimes committed in our territories. They’re from the ship Mahijiru, which is wanted for crimes contrary to the Compact.”

“Tully,” Pyanfar said. “Papers.”

He moved up beside her and gave them to her, rigidly quiet. She offered the papers to the page, who took and read them.

“Tully. Listed by Kirdu Station authority as crew, The Pride of Chanur, with a mahen registration number.”

“The connection is obvious,” the kif said. “I charge this Outsider with attack on a kif ship in our territories; with murder of kif citizens; with numerous atrocities and crimes against the Compact and against kif law in our territories.”

Pyanfar tilted her head back with a small, unfriendly smile. “Fabrications. Is the Llun going to tolerate this move?”

“In which acts,” Akukkakk continued, “this Chanur ship and all its crew intervened at Meetpoint, with the provocation of a shooting incident on the docks, the killing of one of my crew; with the provocation of a hani attack in the vicinity of the station, in which we defended ourselves. In which attack this mahe intervened and took damage, a reckless act of piracy-“

“Lie,” Gold tooth said. “Got here papers my government charge this kif.”

“A wide-reaching conspiracy,” Akukkakk said, “in which Chanur has involved itself. Ambition, wise hani. Don’t you know the Chanur ... for ambition? I am kif. / have heard . . . the Chanur have maintained a tight hold over the farther territories where your ships go, private for themselves and their partisans. Now they deal with the mahe, on their own; now they make separate treaties with Outsider forces, contrary to the Compact, for their own profit. Kif relations with the mahe are not friendly; we know this particular captain and his companion who hovers armed and waiting just off the station perimeter, threatening our ships and yours. This is your law? This is respect for the Compact?”

“Llun,” said Pyanfar, “this kif is disregarding the station’s decision. I don’t need to specify the game he’s engaging in. The law protects the han from such outside manipulations. These charges are a tactic, nothing more.”

“No,” said a voice from the gallery behind. A hani voice. A voice she had heard. Pyanfar turned, ears flattened, pricked them up again as she saw a whole array of familiar faces on the other side of the hall. Dur Tahar and her crew; and the Faha beside her.

“This is not,” the Llun said, “a hearing. The kif delegation has its right to lodge a protest; but the matter is deferred.”

Dur Tahar walked forward, planted herself widelegged. “What I have to say has bearing on the protest. The kif s right that the Chanur’s gone too far, right that the Chanur’s made deals on her own. Ask about a translator tape the Chanur traded to mahendo’sat and denied to us. Ask about this Outsider the Chanur claims as crew. Ask about deals worked out in Kirdu offices which excluded other hani and created incidents from there to Meetpoint.”

“By the gods, ambition!” Pyanfar yelled, and crooked an extended claw at the Tahar’s person. “Ambition’s a spacer captain who’d side with a hani-killing kif to serve her house’s grab for power. Gods!” she shouted, looking about the room at strange faces, at unknowns, insystem crews and landless on Anuurn for the most part. “Is there anyone here from Aheruun? Anyone from that side of the world, someone here to speak for the Handur ship this kif killed at Meetpoint, while they were nose-to-dock and had no idea there was any trouble in the system? Ambition-is the Tahar, who left us at Kirdu crippled and alone and came running home to use the information to Tahar advantage, who sides with the kif who hit three hani ships and a fourth ship from outside our space, a kif who’s terrorized these wretched stsho into coming here with gods know what story, a kif who’s created a crisis involving the whole structure of the Compact. By the gods, I know what blinds the Tahar to the facts-but you, you, Faha-great gods, they killed your kin, and you stand there taking the part of the hakkikt who had you boarded? What’s happened to your nerve, Hilan Faha?”

Hilan opened her mouth to answer, stepping forward, ears back, eyes wild. The kif howled and clicked, drowning whatever she tried to say, and howled until Akukkakk himself lifted a bony gray arm and shouted, turning to the Llun. “Justice, hani, justice. This lying thief Chanur was involved from the beginning, private ally of the mahendo’sat, an agent of theirs from the beginning, involved with them in attacks, reckless attacks into our territory which we do not forget.”

“This kif,” Goldtooth roared, louder still, “hakkikt. Killer. Thirty ships his. Make all kif together, this hakkikt. Make move new kind trouble in Compact, got no care Compact, spit at Compact.” He strode forward, pulled a wallet from his belt and slammed it into the hands of the page. “Papers say from my government truth. Hani and mahe hunt this one, yes. Got kif run from mahe, move into territory this new Outsider, this Tully. Big territory. Big trouble. I make truth for the han; I make liar this Akukkakk Hinukkui. I witness at Meetpoint; this kif lie.”

“Danger our station,” the stsho stammered, thrust forward by the kif. “We protest-we protest this incident; demand compensation-“

“Enough,” the Llun said over all the uproar, and hani noise died quickly; kif commotion sank away likewise. -  “Llun.” Hilan Faha said in that new quiet.

“Enough,” the Llun said, scowling. “The kif has his right to protest and to advance a claim. But since that claim exists, all sides have a right to be heard. There’s a further statement entered in this cause.”

She took a card from her belt, thrust it out for the harried page, who took it in haste and thrust it into the wall slot which controlled the hall viewing screen. It flared to life, rapid printout.

stsho      kif knnn       (*)          hani        mahe     tc’a

station    ship       ship       ship       ship       ship       self

trade     kill        see        here       run        watch    know

fear       want      see        hani       escape   help       knnn

violation violation violation violation violation violation self CompactCompactCompactCompactCompactCompactCompact

help       help       help       help       help       help       help

Tc’a communication, matrix communication of a multipartite brain, simultaneous thought-chains. Pyanfar studied it, took a deeper breath, and Goldtooth looked, and the kif, and all the hani.

“It’s our shadow,” Haral murmured. “It’s the tc’a with that rotted knnn.”

“It got itself an interpreter, by the gods,” Pyanfar muttered, and a vast grin spread across her face. “Got itself that tc’a off Kirdu and it’s talking to us, gods prosper it-See that, kif? Your neighbors don’t like your company, and someone else saw what happened, someone you can’t corrupt.”

“We’ve got a major crisis thanks to you,” Dur Tahar cried, thrusting herself between her and the Llun. “Gods blast you, Chanur, that you can find anything encouraging in knowing the tc’a are involved in this mess. Knnn mobbed my ship outbound from Kirdu, knnn, like in the old days of dead crews and stripped freighters. Are you proud of that, that you’ve gotten them involved? I call for the detention of this Outsider pending judicial action; suspension of this mahe’s permit and papers; for the censure of the captain of The Pride of Chanur along with all her crew and the house that sponsors her meddling.”

“But nothing for the kif?” Pyanfar returned. “Nothing for a kif adventurer who murdered hani and mahe and provokes a powerful Outsider species, with all that might mean? Ambition, Tahar. And greed. And cowardice. What have you got from the kif? A promise Tahar ships will be safe if this dies down? I turned down a kif bribe. What did you do when they made you the offer?”

It was a chance shot, a wild shot; and the Tahar’s ears went back and her eyes went wide as if she had been hit hard and unexpectedly. Everyone saw it. There was a sudden hush in the room, the Tahar visibly at a loss, the kif drawing ever so slightly together, the stsho holding onto each other. It was bitter satisfaction, the sight of that retreat. “Bastard,” Pyanfar said, with a sudden rush of sorrow for the Tahar, and for the Faha who stood there in that company, ears fallen. Akukkakk stood with his arms folded, kifish amusement drawing down the corners of his mouth and lengthening his gray, wrinkled face.

“He’s laughing,” Pyanfar said. “At hani weaknesses. At ambition that makes us forget we don’t trade in all markets, in all commodities. And at his reckoning we’ll trade again to get our ships moving again outside our own home system-because there are more kif out there than you see, and hani won’t all fight. Hani never do. Hani never have. And I’ve been stalled long enough. I was promised transport downworld and I’m taking it. I’m going home and I’m coming back, master thief, master killer-and I’ll see you in that full hearing.”

Akukkakk no longer laughed. His arms were still folded. The kif were all very quiet. The whole room was. Pyanfar made a stiff bow to the Llun, turned and walked for the door, but Goldtooth and his crowd lingered, facing the kif. Tully slowed and looked back, and Pyanfar did, scowling.

“Goldtooth. You come. I’m responsible for you, hear? As the Tahar’s made herself responsible for this kif onstation. Come on.”

The Tahar said nothing to the gibe. That was the measure of their disarray.

“Got friend,” Goldtooth said to Akukkakk. “This time, got friend, and not at dock. You docked good, kif, got you nose to station. Maybe you ask hani give you safe escort, a?”

Akukkakk scowled. “Perhaps. And perhaps Chanur will be so kind as to do that herself. When she comes back from Anuurn.”

A chill wind went wandering across Pyanfar’s back. She stared a moment at the kif, thinking over the odds. The Llun and the insystem merchanters were thinking likewise, surely, what they might logically do with seven kif ships and two mahe hunters.

“Give me,” Akukkakk said, “the Outsider. Or the translation tape. It’s not so much. I can get it from the mahe, sooner or later.”

“Ha, like you get from hani?” Goldtooth muttered.

“What hani give,” Pyanfar said darkly and with distaste, “is a matter for the han. Consensus. Maybe, hakkikt. Maybe we’ll talk this thing out, with assurances on all sides. Before it damages the Compact more than it has already.”

The quiet persisted, on all sides. The stsho stared back at her from haunted pale eyes, the kif from red-rimmed dark ones, hani from amber-ringed black. Kif faith. She turned her back, retreated as far as the door of the chamber, and this time Goldtooth and his crew were with her-and Tully, whose face was pale and beaded with sweat.

The door opened and sealed again at their backs. They passed Llun guards. The corridor stretched ahead, empty.

“Going to my ship,” Goldtooth said. “Going to back off and keep watch these kif bastard.”

“Going to the shuttle launch,” Pyanfar said. “Got business won’t wait. Got stupid son and trouble in Chanur holding. Life and death, mahe.”

“Kif find you go, make one shot you shuttle. Jik make you escort, a? Run close you side, make orbit, get you back safe.”

She stared up at the mahe’s very sober face, reached and clasped his dark-furred and muscular arm. “You want help after this, mahe, you got it. Number one help. This kif lies. You know it.”

“Know this,” Goldtooth said. “Know this all time.”

Their ways parted at the intersecting corridor. Pyanfar pointed the way back to the dock, a straight walk onward, and Goldtooth took it, his crew with him, a dark-furred, tall body moving off down the hall. Pyanfar motioned her own group the other way, which curved toward the shuttle launch.

Steps hurried after them, clawed hani feet in undignified haste. Pyanfar looked about as the rest of her party did, saw a young and black-trousered stationer come panting toward her. The youngster made a hasty bow, looked up again, ears down in diffidence. “Captain. Ana Khai. The station begs you come. All of you. Quickly and quietly.”

“Station gave me leave for my own pressing business, young Khai. I’m due a shuttle downworld. I’m not stopping for conferences.”

“I was only given that word,” the Khai breathed, her eyes shifting nervously over them. “I have to bring you. The Llun is there. Quick. Please.”

Pyanfar glared at the young woman, nodded curtly and motioned the others about to follow the messenger. “Quick about it,” Pyanfar snapped, and the youngster hurried along at the limit of her strides, hardly keeping ahead of them.

It was, as the Khai had said, not far, one of the secondary meeting rooms at which door a whole host of stationers and no few insystem spacers hovered, a crowd which parted at their approach and swarmed in after them.

The Llun indeed. The old man of the station, sitting in a substantial cushioned chair and surrounded by mates/daughters/nieces and a few underage sons, without mentioning the client familiars, the black-trousered officials, the scattering of spacer captains. Kifas Llun was there, first wife, standing near him, and there were others of other houses. A Protected house; the Llun could not be challenged, holding too sensitive a post, like other holders of ports and waterways and things all hani used in common, and he had slid past his prime, but he was impressive when he got to his feet, and Pyanfar exchanged her scowl for a respectful nod to him and to Kifas.

“This trouble,” he said, and his voice shook the air, a bass rumbling. “This Outsider. Let me see him.”

Pyanfar turned and gathered Tully by the arm. There was a panicked expression in Tully’s eyes, a reluctance to go closer to the Llun. “Friend,” she said. “He.”

Tully went, then, and Pyanfar kept her claws clenched into his arm to remind him of manners. Tully bowed. He had that much sense left. “Male, na Llun,” Pyanfar said quietly, and the Llun nodded slowly, his heavy mane swinging as he did so and his mouth pursed with interest.

“Aggressive?” the Llun asked.

“Civilized,” Pyanfar said. “But mahe-like. Armed, na Llun. The kif had him awhile. Killed his shipmates. He got away from them. That’s where this started. We have a translator tape on him. We’ll provide it with no quibbles. I want it on record he gave it freely, for his own reasons. In the Tahar matter-that’s a han question. I didn’t trust the Tahar as a courier. Gods witness-I’ll be sorry to be right. And by your leave, na Llun, I’ll be back to answer your questions. There’s a matter of time involved. I was given leave to go.”

“Challenge has been given,” Kifas Llun said, and Pyanfar darted her a hard look. “Only now the word came up.”

Pyanfar thrust Tully back to Hilfy’s keeping and started away without a word.

‘Ker Chanur,” Kifas said, and she cast a burning look back. “A quicker way: listen to me.”

“I’ll want a com link,” Pyanfar said. “Now.”

“Listen, ker Chanur. Listen.” Kifas crossed the room to her and took her arm to stop her. “Our neutrality-“

“Gods rot your neutrality. Keep the kif off my back. I’ve got business downworld.”

“Got a ship,” one of the insystem captains said unbidden, a hani of Haral’s build. “She’s old, ker Chanur, but she can set down direct on Chanur land, that no shuttle can do. Tyo freight lander: Rau’s Luck. I’m willing to set her in the way of trouble if Chanur’s minded.”

Pyanfar drew in a breath and looked at the aging captain. Rau was no downworld house. Insystem hani, landless and unpropertied except for a ship or two, unless they were Tyo-based, colonials.

“Your word is worth something,” Kifas said, “Pyanfar Chanur. We’re bound by the Compact. We can’t do more than pin these kif at the station. You’ve got the mahe for help. You can do more than we can. Chanur has two more ships in that might be of use. Tahar-“

Kifas did not finish the statement; her ears flicked in discomfort.

“Yes,” Pyanfar said. “Tahar. I’m not so sure I’d rely on their ships either at the moment.”

“We can’t muster a defense,” Kifas said. “Your captains are downworld with most of the crews. So are others. We’ve got kif at dock for as long as we can keep them, but you said yourself-there may be others.”

“You’ve got the insystem captains.”

“Against jumpship velocity-“

Pyanfar looked about her, at the spacers present. “Go to the jumpships you can reach; you can fill out crews. Take orders. No matter what house. Get those ships able and ready. I’ll get the Chanur captains back here; and any others I can find. In the meantime, keeping those ships ready to go will be the best action with the kif.” She looked at Kifas Llun, grim sobriety. “Your neutrality is in rags. Give me one of your people. To bring witness down there to what’s going on. I have to get moving. Now. Mahijiru and Aja Jin will keep the kif pinned and the way open.-If I don’t move, ker Llun . . . the upheaval in the han is going to make differences, differences to more than Chanur. Tahar’s down there, I don’t doubt they are. Standing in line to get a share of the spoils. You’re already in it. I’m not going to let Chanur go under.”

“Rau,” Kifas Llun said. “You’re ready to go?”

“On the instant,” the Rau captain said.

“Ginas,” Kifas said, with a gestured signal to one of her people. “Go with the Chanur. Talk to them. Answer what you’re asked. You’re at her orders.”

The one singled out bowed. Kifas offered the door, a sweep of her hand. “Llun,” Pyanfar murmured in a quick bow of courtesy toward Kifas and toward na Llun, who had seated himself again. Then she turned and swept her own company, the Llun messenger included, toward the door, following the Rau captain. “This way,” the Rau said, indicating a turn which would take them toward the small-craft docks.

Kohan, Pyanfar persuaded herself, would not have taken challenge immediately as it was offered, not knowing that she had reached the system; and surely he knew by now: it was routine that a house was notified when a ship belonging to it made port. The timing of it argued that his enemies knew; and surely Kohan did. He was too wise to be catapulted into any such thing without some preliminaries: she relied on that, with all her hopes.

Two hours by plane from the shuttleport to the airport that served Chanur and Faha and the lesser holdings of the valley: with the Rau’s proposal they saved that much time: and on that too she relied.

And on a pair of mahe.

And gods grant Akukkakk saw some hope for himself. If one of those kif ships got a strike signal off, if the kif was bent on suicide-he might accomplish it, if there were more kif ships lying off out of scan range. Maybe five, six hours lag time for message and strike. With luck, the kif did not know that the hani ships gathered in system were on skeleton crew; with luck the kif would regard them as a threat ... if no one had talked.

“That ship of yours,” Pyanfar said to the Rau. “Armed?”

“Got a few rifles aboard,” the Rau said.