I know he ask hani help. Also I know the han, like you know han, lot politic, lot talk, lot do nothing. Lot make trouble you about this mate business — forgive I mention this, but truth. You stupid, Pyanfar, one stupid-bastard hani give jealous hani chance bite your ankles. That translate? I know what you do. You too long go outworld, got foreign idea, got idea maybe hani male worth something. You sometime crazy. You know Chanur got personal enemy, know got lot hani not like mahendo'sat, same got lot hani got small brain, not like change custom, same got hani lot mad with stsho embargo. What you try, save time, fight all same time? Hope you get smart, eat their hearts someday. But someday not now.
You go han they make big mess. I know. You know. You go han they turn all politic. Instead go mahen Personage like good friend, take Personage message in number one tape. Sorry this coded. We all got little worry.
Now give bad news. Kif hunting you. Old enemy Akkukkak sure dead, but some kif bastard got ambition take Akkukkak's command. We got another hakkikt coming up, name Akkhtimakt. I think this fellow lieutenant to Akkukkak, got same ugly way make trouble, want prove self more big than Akkukkak. How do this? Revenge on knnn not good idea. Revenge on human another kind thing; same revenge on you and me. Ship in port name Harukk, captain name Sikkukkut. This number one bastard claim self enemy this Akkhtimakt, want offer deal. This smell many day dead.
You add all same up, run mahen Personage. Paper good. You make number one deal mahendo'sat this time. You got big item. Forget other cargo. Be rich. Promise. You hani enemies not touch.
Wish all same luck. I got business stsho space. Got fix thing.
Goldtooth Ana Ismehanan-min a Hasanan-nan, same give you my sept name.
She looked up, ears flat.
"What's it say?" asked Haral, in all diffidence.
"Goldtooth wished us luck. Promises help. He's bribed the stsho. Someone got those papers fixed to get us here and gods-be if any of it was accident." She gnawed a filthy hangnail. It tasted of fish and human. She spat in distaste and clipped the papers into her data bin. "Tell Tirun and Geran get out cargo unloaded. Get Chur on it. Fast."
"All of it?"
She turned a stare Haral's way. It was a question, for sure; but not the one Haral asked aloud.
"All of it. Call Mnesit. Tell them get an agent down here to identify what's theirs. Tell Sito sell at market and bank what's ours."
"They'll rob us. Captain, we've got guarantees; we've got that Urtur shipment promised —
We've got the first good run in a year. If we lose this now-"
"Gods rot it, Haral, what else can I do?" Embarrassed silence then. Haral's ears sank and pricked up again desperately.
So they prepared to run. Prepared — to lose cargo that meant all too much to Chanur in its financial straits, trusting a mahen promise... for the second time. And for the first time in memory Haral Araun disputed orders.
"I'm going for a bath," she said.
"Do what with the incoming cargo?" A faint, subdued voice.
"Offer it to Sito," she said. "Warehouse what he won't take. So maybe things work out and we get back here." Likely the stsho would confiscate it at first chance. She did not say what they both knew.
She got out of the chair and headed out of the bridge, no longer steady in the knees, wanting her person clean, her world in order; wanting — gods knew what.
Youth, perhaps. Things less complicated.
There was one worry that wanted settling — before baths, before any other thing shunted it aside.
She buzzed the door of number one ten, down the corridor from her own quarters, down the corridor from the bridge. No answer. She buzzed again, feeling a twinge of guilt that set her nerves on edge.
"Khym?"
She buzzed a third time, beginning to think dire thoughts she had had half a score of times on this year-long voyage — like suicide. Like getting no answer at all and opening the door and finding her husband had finally taken that option that she had feared for months he would.
His death would solve things, repair her life; and his; and she knew that, and knew he knew it, in one great guilty thought that laid her ears flat against her skull.
"Khym, blast it!"
The door shot open. Khym towered there, his mane rumpled from recent sleep. He had thrown a wrap about his waist, nothing more.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
"Sure. Fine." His pelt was crossed with angry seams of scratches plasmed together. His ears, his poor ears that Gaohn Station medics had redone with such inventive care and almost restored to normalcy — the left one was ripped and plasmed together again. He had been handsome once. . still was, in a ruined, fatal way. "You?"
"Good gods." She expelled her breath, brushed past him into his quarters, noting with one sweep of her eye the disarray, the bedclothes of the sleeping-bowl stained with small spots of blood from his scratches. Tapes and galley dishes lay heaped in clutter on the desk. "You can't leave things lying." It was the old, old shipboard safety lecture, delivered with tiresome patience. "Good gods, Khym, don't. Don't do these things."
"I'm sorry," he said, and meant it as he did all the other times.
She looked at him, at what he was, with the old rush of fondness turned to pain. He was the father of her son and daughter, curse them both for fools. Khym once-Mahn, lord Mahn, while he had had a place to belong to. Living in death, when he should have, but for her, died decently at home, the way all old lords died; and youngsters died, who failed to take themselves a place — or wander some male-only reserve like Sanctuary or Hermitage, hunting the hills, fighting other males and dying when the odds got long. Churrau hanim. The betterment of the race. Males were what they were, three quarters doomed and the survivors, if briefly, estate lords, pampered and coddled, the brightness of hani lives.
He had been so beautiful. Sun-shining, clear-eyed-clever enough to get his way of his sisters and his wives more often than not. And every hani living would have loved him for what he did at Gaohn, rushing the kif stronghold, an old lord outworn and romantically gallant in the eternal tragedy of males-
But he had lived. And walked about Gaohn station with wonder at ships and stars and foreignness. And found something else to live for. She could not send him home. Not then. Not ever.
"It was a good fight," she said. "Out there."
His nose wrinkled. "Don't patronize, Py."
"I'm not. I'm here to tell you it wasn't your fault. I don't care how it started, it wasn't your fault.
Kif set it up. Anyone could have walked into it. Me, Haral, anyone." His ears lifted tentatively. "We've got one other problem." She folded her arms and leaned against the table edge. "You remember Tully."
"I remember."
"Well, we've got ourselves a passenger. Not for long. We take him to Maing Tol. A little business for the mahendo'sat."
The ears went down again, and her heart clenched. "For the gods' sakes don't be like that.
You know Tully. He's quiet. You'll hardly know he's here. I just didn't want to spring that on you."
"I'm not 'being like that.' For the gods' sakes I've got some brains. What 'business for the mahendo'sat'? What have you gotten yourself into? Why?"
"Look, it's just a business deal. We do a favor for the mahendo'sat, it gets paid off, like maybe a route opens. Like maybe we get ourselves that break we need right now."
"Like the last time."