"You too," she said. And for a moment the lids half-lowered on his eyes, the faintest of warnings.
Don't give me orders, that was to say. I've had enough.
Well, it was Jik, and he was only trying to recover a bit of his dignity. She let her ears dip: all right.
Then he unfolded his arms, pried his stiffening frame out of the chair and gave himself up to Tirun Araun, who indicated the galleyward corridor.
Fool, she told herself again. It was not just Jik she was trusting. It was a mahe the mahendo'sat put ultimate confidence in, one of a few who were turned loose in the field to make decisions across lightyears too many for the central government to be consulted on every twitch and adjustment of policy-places where agents had no time to consult, and a hunter-captain like Jik had to make up his own law and make treaties and direct local ships with the authority of the whole mahen government behind him.
Personage was more than an individual back in Maing Tol and another at Iji. It was the whole concept on which the mahendo'sat concluded anything: when a mahe was right he was right as law, and when he made a mistake he fell from power. His superiors would disown him. And if he made too great a mistake the superior who appointed him might falclass="underline" so there might be more than one agent in the field making contradictory arrangements.
The most viable would be acknowledged, the agents who stood too visibly for the nonviable policies would fall from power, and the mahen government went smoothly on.
Doublecross was the standard order of business. Betrayal of each other, of everyone but the superior. That he protected his own agents was Jik's saving honesty, and Goldtooth's, who had run and left Jik because he had to. It took this many years in space for an old hani to understand how it worked and to understand that it worked.
And there was still the question whether Jik might turn back on an agreement he had made, and repudiate it himself.
He had made a hard one, gods knew, with Sikkukkut.
And a contradictory one with her.
She frowned, and walked on the way others had gone, into the galley, where Tirun had gotten Jik seated at table and where Haral and Hilfy and Khym and Tully were all delving into the cabinets and the freezer hunting quick-fix edibles. There was the bitter odor of dry gfi in the air: Tirun was filling a pot. There was the rattle of plastic: disposables. Pyanfar leaned on the table with both hands and looked Jik in the eyes.
"Got a question for you. Say you got two agreements, you, yourself. And the people you made them with-get at odds. How do you resolve that?"
Jik frowned. His eyes still wept. His sweat smelled of ammonia and drug even yet. "You, Sikkukkut?"
"Me and Sikkukkut."
"I keep best agreement."
"The one that serves the mahendo'sat best."
"A." He blinked and gazed at her like a tired child. "Always."
"Just wondered," she said. "In case."
Something else occurred to her, when she turned to the cabinet and took a packet of dried meat out of the storage.
Jik had just, for whatever reason, told the truth. Against his own Personage and all those interests. Which made him, in mahen terms, a dishonest man.
Gods, what's gotten into us on this ship? We got nobody aboard who hasn't gone to the wrong side of her own species' business-Tully, Skkukuk, all us of Chanur and Malm: now Jik's sliding too.
Treason's catching, that's what it is.
She got a cup, wrinkled her nose as Khym dosed his gfi with tofi. She poured her own from the fastbrewer, looked back at their unlikely crew crowded into the galley. At Jik sitting disconsolate and hurting and trying his best to choke down a sandwich and a cup of reconstituted milk; no one in Chanur put off any temper on him, not Hilfy and not Khym either.
So. Crew was going to give him a chance. For their own reasons, which might include latitude for the captain's judgment; but maybe because of past debts.
It was hard, being hani, not to think like one. There were times they had been as glad to see Jik as he had surely been to see her come after him on Harukk. Even if on his side it was all policy and politics. He had saved their skins many a time.
Even if it was always to bet them again.
Chur slitted open her eyes, wrinkled her nose and blinked sleepily at her sister. Her heart sped a bit. She had dreamed of black things in the corridors, had dreamed of something loose on the ship. Noise in the corridors. It felt as if some time had passed.
And Geran had noted that little increase in pulse rate. Geran had this disconcerting habit of taking glances at the monitors while she talked, and whenever she reacted to anything. Geran's be-ringed ears flicked at what she saw now; and it was a further annoyance that the screen was hard to see from flat on one's back.
"We got Jik out," Geran said.
Chur blinked again. So much that came and went was illusion and it was the good things she most distrusted, the things she really wanted to believe. "He all right?"
"Knocks and bruises and the like. Told Tirun he'd run into a wall trying to leave. Likely story. You know you never get the same thing twice out of him. How are you feeling?"
"Like I ran into the same wall. What'd you do to that gods-be machine? You put me out?''
"Got pretty noisy around here. I thought you might need the sleep." •
"In a mahen hell you did!" Chur lifted her head and shoved her free elbow under her. "You want my heartbeat up?"
"Lie down. You want mine up?"
"What happened out there?" She sank back, her head swimming, and tried to focus. "Gods, I still got that stuff in me. Cut it out, Geran. F'gods sakes, I'm tired enough, hard enough to go against the wind-"
"Hey." Geran took her by the shoulder.
"I'm awake, I'm awake."
"You want to try to eat something?"
"Gods, not more of that stuff."
Foil rustled. A sickly aroma hit the air, which was otherwise sterile and medicated. Food, any food was a trial. Chur nerved herself and cooperated as Geran lifted her head on her arm and squirted something thin and salty into her mouth. She licked her mouth and took a second one, not because she wanted it. It was enough.
"Not so bad," she said. It was so. She had missed salt. It did something more pleasant in her mouth than the last thing Geran had brought her. She cautiously estimated its course to her stomach and felt it hit bottom and lie there gratefully inert. She looked up at Geran, who had a desperately hopeful look on her face. "You worried about something, Gery?"
The ears flicked. "We're doing all right."
Lie.
" Where's those gods-be black things?"
"Got 'em all penned up again." Change of subject. Geran looked instantly relieved. And the traitor machine beeped with an increased heartbeat. Geran looked back at it and the facade fell in one agonized glance.
"We under attack?" Chur asked.
"We're prepping for jump," Geran said.
Scared Gods, Gery, you'd send a monitor off the scale-
"Huhn," Chur said. "What're you thinking? That I won't make it?"
"Sure, you'll make it."
"How far're we going?"
Geran's ears went flat and lifted again. There was a drawing round her nose, like pain. "Home, one of these days."
"Multiple jump?"
"Don't think so."
"Maybe, huh?"
"Gods rot it, Chur-"
/ haven't got the strength. I can't last it out. Look at her. Gods, look at her. "Listen. You mind your business up for'ard f'godssakes, what d'you want, me make it fine and you marry this ship up with a rock? You pull it together. Me, I'm fine back here. Back here feeding me-" The monitor started going off again. She let it. "When'd you eat, huh? Take care of yourself. I got to worry whether you're doing your job up there?".