There was also that ship over their heads, and mindful of that and of the firepower here gathered, they refrained from all such options.
"Hilfy," Pyanfar said, "take message on your three: first thing at Meetpoint, auto that escape course out to both our partners."
"Aye," Hilfy said. "Understood."
Hilfy and Haral and Tully were all settled in, Khym was settling. Haral was still running Geran's station from the co-pilot's board, but that was all perfunctory: there was not
one gods-be thing scan could tell them at this point. If the kif decided to fire, they fired. That was all. And lost part of their station doing it.
"Geran come," Tully said, doing- gods witness, the service Hilfy had drilled him on at that board: he had a pick to use where his poor clawless fingers had not a chance, he stuck it into the right holes in the right sequence, and he was at least adequate to keep an ear to internal operations. Even trusting him with that was taking a chance: Tirun was downside with Skkukuk and Jik was loose, but Pyanfar got a firm grip on her nerves and figured that (gods save them from such insanity) Tirun and Skkukuk between them could handle Jik if he had something inventive in mind.
While Tully, in a good moment and with the gods' own luck on his side, might handle an emergency call down there: The Pride's autorecognition was set on the word Priority, which no one let past their teeth during ops if it was not precisely that: Priority got flashed to Hilfy's board and Haral's simultaneously, and Tully would have to make an unlikely sequence of mistakes to take the lower corridors off wide open monitor.
Geran arrived, she saw that in the conveniently reflective monitor, a shadow arriving from the main topside corridor, larger and larger until the bridge lights picked out Geran's red-brown coloring and the glint of the gold in her ear-rims. "H'lo," Geran said. After putting Chur to bed, and walking out of that room. With all the chance of finality. H'lo, to Hilfy, when Geran normally said nothing at all when she walked on-shift. I'm all right, that meant. Don't doubt I'm on.
"We're routine right now," Hilfy said quietly. Which was the right tack to take with Geran. No fuss. No emotional load. Pyanfar kept an ear to it all and keyed an acknowledgment to dockside's advisement they were about to withdraw power.
"Tirun," Tully said.
"I've got it," Khym said, second-com, picking that up; and: "Right. I'll tell him. Na Jik, you'll come topside now; Tirun's on her way."
"Geran," Pyanfar said on bridge-com, "Jik's in your charge. Best I can do." There was the matter of Jik's hands, which would heal of injuries in the several day subjective transit before systemfall; but recuperation and jump was not a matter she wanted to open up with Geran at the moment. "I don't much want him on your elbow, but I haven't got a place else to put him."
"I'll watch him."
Enough said, then. If Geran buckled there was still Tirun on Jik's other side. And that left Tully down at that end of the boards with Skkukuk. She might have put Khym in that seat. But Khym was getting used to the com board; he was actually worth something with it in a pinch. Putting Khym at Tirun's confusing second-switcher post handed him a system that had a completely different set of access commands, Tully could learn a sequence from scratch; Khym, jump-muzzy and in emergency, might touch a control he thought he knew. Disastrously.
"Yes, Harukk-com," Hilfy said. "That data is current. Captain, they're inquiring again on departure time and routing."
"It stands as instructed."
Uncoupling began, a series of crashes as The Pride disengaged itself from dock under Haral's signal to the other side of that station wall, and Haral's touch at the controls of her board. There was the low drone of Khym's voice, making routine advisements to the dockers and station com, and Hilfy's voice talking quietly to Aja Jin and Moon Rising. "Captain," Tully said, "Tirun come."
"Got that," Pyanfar murmured.
If Tirun was on her way, that was the last and they were going to make schedule easily. So much the better with nervous kif all about. Pyanfar flicked her ears and settled her nerves, while The Pride's operating systems made noise enough to mask the lift and rob them of other cues to movement in the ship. There were the telltales on the board-if she chose to key the matrix over to access-monitor. Her nose twitched at the mere thought of Skkukuk in proximity. She dared not take the allergy pills. She needed her reflexes. She rubbed her itching nose fiercely with the back of her hand, curled her lip, and looked up at the convenient reflection in a dead monitor as the gleam of the lift's internal light reflected a motley assortment of silhouettes in the distance down the corridor at her back.
Her eyes flicked to the chrono.
2304.
"Moon Rising reports all ready," Hilfy said.
"Got that," Haral said.
Tahar was showing off. Flouting the schedule on the short side. Which took work.
Tahar clan was Tahar clan, even when it owed Chanur its mortgaged hide.
The lift door had closed back there. The shadows in the reflective glass had come closer. Pyanfar slowly rotated her chair to face the last-comers. Courtesy. Tirun walked beside Jik, Jik beside Skkukuk's dark-robed shape. They had washed Jik's clothes for him, had not even dared have clean ones couriered over from Aja Jin, for fear of rousing kifish suspicions. And someone of the crew must have lent him the bracelet on his arm. The kif had robbed him of the gaudy lot of chain he usually wore.
"This person," Skkukuk said the moment he got through the door, "this person refuses your order, hakt'."
"He means the gun," Tirun said.
"We don't carry firearms up here," Pyanfar said patiently. With spectacular patience, she thought. "Nor do we change captains under fire." With an internal shudder and a thought toward Jik: / hope. "Tirun will give you instructions. If you're that good, prove it.''
So much for kifish psych.
But the son moved. Jik was still looking at her.
"How my ship?" he asked, very quiet, very civilized. She would not have been that restrained, under similar circumstances.
"Hilfy, give his station that comflow on receiving only."
"Aye," Hilfy said. "It's in."
"That's scan two," Pyanfar said, meaning seat assignment; and he gave a short, more than decent nod of his dark head and went to belt in, wincing a bit as he sat down. He spoke quietly to Geran; and Pyanfar found her claws clenched in the upholstery: she released her grip, carefully; and turned her seat around again.
2313.
"We're on count," Haral said. "Aja Jin reports ready. We're on."
"Stand by."
''We going to show the hakkikt punctuality?''
She considered the potential for provocation. Considered the kif. And considered another possibility as she put their engines live. There was another set of switches by her hand, safety-locked by a whole string of precautions which they had a program now to bypass. Input three little codes and that set of key-slots would light. And The Pride would have a last chance to take out a space station full of kif, a handful of innocent methane-breathers; a doublecrossing allied ship that held one of two plans for a mahen hegemony over the Compact; a kif who was very close to having a kifish hegemony, and who with cold intent, threatened the whole hani species. Half the whole problem in the Compact was sitting right here at this station, with the solution within reach of her hand; and for one ship to take out half the problems in the immediate universe was not a bad trade, as trades went.