"Good. Thank station com."
"Captain. His clan is Meras. But he's off a Sahern ship.''
Her head came up. The translator was stuck again. She ignored it. She had ignored the situation with the boy — not wanting to walk out that hatch and deal with a party of kif and a hostage. It wanted a cooler disposition than she could manage at the moment.
But Sahern, was it?
Not friends. A clan with whom they had a centuries-old, formally filed feud.
Thank you, gods. Penance for mercy indeed.
"I'll see him."
She solved the translator's problem, let it run and read until she heard the hatch cycle. Then she leaned over and killed displays, swung the chair around toward the door.
Boy, she had said. So many were, that had gone to space. But he was older than that. He had his full growth — at least in height; had to duck his head coming through the door. His shoulders were wide enough to put the consoles in jeopardy. Handsome lad — a statue had to notice: and a spacer crew months out on a run was going to notice. Shy, scared, all those things a young man might be, dropped in the midst of a strange clan, and him in the wrong — it took a moment before he decided he had to look at her.
"NaMeras. Welcome aboard."
"Thank you, ker Chanur. I'm very grateful to be here."
"I don't doubt. I hesitate to ask why your ship found it necessary to leave."
"I don't know, ker Chanur."
"Captain will do. And don't you?"
Ears lowered. The boy found a spot on the deck of interest. "I don't remember what I did. They say I broke some pottery. And hit a kifish gentleman."
"A kifish gentleman." The boy was delicately bred.
"I don't remember that part," he said. Add new to drink and bars.
"You weren't in communication with your ship."
"No, captain."
"Not since?"
"No, captain."
"And you've no notion why your captain suffered a lapse of memory either."
"No, captain."
"NaMeras, that answer could get very tiresome over the next several months. Possibly even by tomorrow."
"I'm sorry, captain."
"What's your name, na Meras?"
A glance up, ears half-lifted. "Hallan, captain. From Syrsyn. — I–I met your aunt once, on Anuurn dock. And ker Haral…"
Her ears went down. She remembered a dockside, at Anuurn, too, a parting with the crew. A handful of bitter words.
There was absolute adoration on the boy's face-not, she was sure, cultivated on any Sahern ship. And sensitivity enough to realize he had just trod on dangerous ground. Bewilderment… confusion. He had the sense to shut up, give him that.
"Are you married in Sahern, lateral kin… what's the relationship?'' It was a measure of how often and how long she had been downworld that she did not track the lineages any longer. He could be related to the Holy Personage of Me'gohti-as for all she knew.
"No relation," he said, managing to locate that spot on the deck again.
So a tasteful person would stop asking. Look at the boy. Figure a kid wanted a berth. And Sahern gave him one.
She shot a glance up at Tiar. "I think the lad could stay in passenger quarters."
"I can work maintenance. I have my license."
"That's to prove. In the meanwhile—" Practicalities occurred to her. "I don't suppose you came with baggage."
"Everything—" The boy made a despairing gesture. "Everything's aboard the Sun. "
"Sun Ascendant? — TellunSahern?"
"Yes, captain."
More bad news. "We'll get you caught up to your ship, or drop you where you can make connections
…"
"I want to stay here."
"On Meetpoint?"
"No, captain. On this ship. I want to stay with you.' '
"The Legacy has a full complement. No berths." She saw the ears go flat, the frowning attitude of not quite resignation, and ticked down a Watch this boy, a little sense of resistance there. Of… one was not certain what. "You want my long-term advice? Ship home. Go back, work insystem cargo if you're so dead set on space."
"No,captain."
A little flare of temper. A set of the mouth. Gods-rotted fool kid, she thought, and glared. What did I do to deserve this?
Chapter Two
The stack from the translator was 532 pages thick… counting the alternative translations successively rendered. That was the first pass the comp had made. The legal advisement program advised that its analysis of the translation would be 20588 pages in length and did the Operator want it simply to summarize?
"Apparently the thing is a vase," Hilfy said. Four hani faces, four worried hani faces, stared back, and blinked in near unison.
"A ceremonial vase," Tiar said.
"Somebody's grandmother buried in it?"
"Not from what I figure. I've run oji through every cognate and every derivation I can find. It means
'ceremonial object with accumulated value' and it's related to the word for 'antique' and 'relic.' Its transferred meanings and derivatives seem to mean 'ceremonial object with social virtue,' 'communal high tea,'…"
"You're kidding."
"… and 'inheritance.' "
"No'shto-shti-stlen's going to die?" Fala asked.
"Who knows?" A shrug was not politic, but it was close company, here. "Maybe gtst is designating a successor. Maybe the old son is going home to die."
"They do that," Chihin said. "Stsho won't die in view of strangers. Bad taste."
"It's pay in advance. Gtst can't change gtst mind."
"That's for certain."
Hilfy stared at the stack. "Pay in advance. Gods, it pays. You just keep asking yourself why."
"What can go wrong?" Fala asked, and got a circle of flat-eared looks and a moment of silence.
"There's an encyclopaedia entry," Hilfy said, "under oijgi, related substantive, to the effect that an object like that can't be paid for, that it just transfers, and money can't touch it directly. Mustn't touch it directly.
It's all status. Of some kind. It could account for the extravagance."
"We could outright ask somebody," Tarras said.
"No. Not when we don't know what we're dealing with — or how explosive it is. No'shto-shti-stlen has ears in every wall in this station."
"Electronically speaking," Tiar said.
"I certainly wouldn't bet the contract against it."
"So you're leaning toward signing?"
"Once every quarter hour. Elsewhen I'm inclined to take our cargo on to Hoas and forget I ever heard about it. Why in a mahen hell does this thing have to go rush-shipment to Urtur? Why not a slow trip via Hoas in the first place? Does the governor have to be difficult? Does the thing explode on delivery?"
"You want my opinion?"
"What?" she asked.
"I say if we take the contract, we get all our cargo buys nailed down in advance. And stall signing to the very last moment. Gossip's going to fly the moment that check hits the bank. They'll jack the prices on us."
"Give the old son no time," Tarras said, "to frame us for anything. Because you can bet the next trip's take that bastard No'shto-shti-stlen is thinking how to get that money back before it hits our pockets.
On gtst deathbed gtst would make that arrangement. Gtst isn't the richest son this side of space for no reason."
"Trouble is," Chihin said, " — we've got to take certain cargo for Urtur if that's where we're going. And unless old No'shto-shti-stlen's been uncommonly discreet, there are stsho on this station who know what the deal is; and if they know, security's already shot. If we're going to deal, we'd better deal fast, because I've got a notion if this thing is that important to the stsho, it could be important to No'shto-shti-stlen's enemies, too. If it is, figure on spies reporting what we buy, and what we deal for, and what we've got contracts on — if we sneeze, it's going into somebody's databank and right to No'shto-shti-stlen's ears for a starter."