"Look, I'm tired, I don't want to explain this all. Say it's Goldtooth's fault. I want a bath. I want — gods know what I want. I came to tell you what's happened, that's all."
"That kif business. . have anything to do with this?"
"I don't know."
"Don't know?"
Aliens and alien things. He was downworlder. Worldbred. "Later. It's under control. Don't worry about it. You going to be all right?"
"Sure."
She started then to go.
"I was remarkable, Py. They arrested me and I didn't kill even one of them. Isn't that fine?"
The bitterness stopped her and sent the wind up her back. "Don't be sarcastic. It doesn't become you."
"I didn't kill anyone, all the same. They were quite surprised."
She turned all the way around and set her hands on her hips. "Gods-rotted stsho bigots. What did they say to you?"
"The ones in the bar or the ones in the office?"
"Either."
"What do you expect?"
"I want an answer, Khym."
"Office wouldn't speak to me. Said I wasn't a citizen. Wanted the crew to keep me quiet.
They wanted to put restraints on me. Crew said no. I'd have let them go that far."
She came back and extended a claw, straightened a wayward wisp of mane. He stood a head taller than she; was far broader-they had at least put weight back on him, from that day she had found him, gone to skin and bones, hiding in a hedge outside Chanur grounds. He had been trying to find his death then, had come to see her one more time, in Chanur territory, with their son hunting him to kill him and Kohan apt to do the same. . if Kohan were not Kohan, and ignoring him for days: gods, the gossip that had courted, male protecting male.
"Listen," she said. "Stsho are xenophobes. They've got three genders and they phase into new pysches when they're cornered. Gods know what's in their heads. You travel enough out here and you don't wonder what a stsho'll do or think tomorrow. It doesn't matter. Hear?"
"You smell like fish," he said. "And gods know what else."
"Sorry." She drew back the hand.
"Human, is it?"
"Yes."
He wrinkled his nose. "I won't kill him either. See, Py? I justify your confidence. So maybe you can tell me what's going on. For once."
"Don't ask."
"They think I'm crazy. For the gods' sakes, Py, you walk in here with news like that. Don't kill the human, please. Never mind the kif. Never mind the gods-be-blasted station's going to sue-"
"They say that?"
"Somewhere in the process. Py — I don't put my nose into Chanur business. But I know accounts. I was good at it. I know what you've put into this trip, I know you've borrowed at Kura for that repair-"
"Don't worry about it." She patted his arm, turned for the door in self-defense, and stopped there, her hand on the switch. She faced about again with a courtesy in her mouth to soften it; and met a sullen, angry look.
"My opinion's not worth much," he said. "I know."
"We'll talk later. Khym, I've got work to do."
"Sure."
"Look." She walked back and jabbed a claw at his chest. "I'll tell you something, na Khym. You're right. We're in a mess and we're short-handed, and you gods-rotted took this trip, on which you've gotten precious few calluses…." The eyes darkened. "It was your idea."
"No. It was yours. You gods-rotted well chose new things, husband: this isn't Mahn, you're on a working ship, and you can rotted sure make up your mind you're not lying about on cushions with a dozen wives to see to the nastinesses. That's not true anymore. It's a new world. You can't have it half this and half that — you don't want the prejudice, but you gods-rotted well want to lie about and be waited on. Well, I haven't got time. No one's got time. This is a world that moves, and the sun doesn't come round every morning to warm your hide. Work might do it."
"Have I complained?" The ears sank. The mouth was tight in disaste. "I'm talking about policy."
"When you know the outside you talk about policy. You walk onto this ship after what happened in that bar and you walk into your quarters and shut the door, huh? Fine. That's real fine. This crew saved your hide, gods rot it, not just because you're male. But you sit in this cabin, you've sat in this cabin and done nothing-"
"I'm comfortable enough."
"Sure you are. You preen and eat and sleep. And you're not comfortable. You're eating your gut out."
"What do you want? For me to work docks?"
"Yes. Like any of the rest of this crew. You're not lord Mahn any more, Khym."
It was dangerous to have said. So was the rest of it. She saw the fracture-lines, the pain. She had never been so cruel. And to her distress the ears simply sank, defeated. No anger. No violence.
"Gods and thunders, Khym. What am I supposed to do with you?"
"Maybe take me home."
"No. That's not an option. You wanted this."
"No. You wanted to take on the han. Myself — I just wanted to see the outside once. That's all."
"In a mahen hell it was."
"Maybe it is now."
"Are they right, then?"
"I don't know. It's not natural. It's not-"
"You believe that garbage? You think the gods made you crazy?"
He rubbed the broad flat of his nose, turned his shoulder to her, looked back with a rueful stare.
"You believe it, Khym?"
"It's costing you too much. Gods, Py — you're gambling Chanur, you're risking your brother to keep me alive, and that's wrong, Py. That's completely wrong. You can't stave off times. I had my years; the young whelp beat me."
"So it was an off day."
"I couldn't come back at him. I didn't have it, Py. It's time. It's age. He's got Mahn. It's the way things work. Do you think you can change that?"
"You didn't see the sense in another fight. In wasting an estate in back and forth wrangling.
Your brain always outvoted your glands."
"Maybe that's why I lost. Maybe that's why I'm here. Still running."
"Maybe because you've always known it's nonsense and a waste. What happened to those talks we used to have? What happened to the husband who used to look at the stars and ask me where I went, what I'd seen, what outside the world was like?"
"Outside the world's the same as in. For me. I can't get outside the world. They won't let me."
"Who?"
"You know who. You should have seen their faces, Py."
"Who? The stsho?"
"Ayhar."
"Those godforsaken drunks?"
"Last thing they expected — me in that bar. That's what the stsho owner said. 'Get away from me, get away from my place, don't go crazy here.' "
"Gods rot what they think!"
"So? Did I teach them anything? Stsho didn't want to serve me in the first place. And I'd had — well, two. To prove I wouldn't, you know — go berserk. And then the riot started. What good's that going to do you — or Kohan?"
"Kohan can take care of himself."
"You're asking too much of him. No, Py, I'm going back downworld when we get back."
"To do what?"
"Go to Sanctuary. Do a little hunting."
"— be the target of every young bully who's honing up his skills to go assault his papa, huh?"
"I'm old, Py. It catches up with a man faster. It's time to admit it."
"Gods-rotted nonsense! You'll go back to Anuurn with a ring in your ear, by the gods you will."
He gave a smile, taut laugh, ears up. "Good gods, Py. You want my life there to be short, don't you?"
"You're not going downworld."
"I'll beg on the docks till I get passage, then."
"Gods-rotted martyr."
"Let me go home, Py. Give it up. You can't change what is. They won't let you change. Gods know they won't let me. Whatever you're trying, whatever grandstanding nonsense you've gotten into —