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"Full release," Khym said.

"It had better be." She gathered up all the papers, spun the chair on its mechanism. "Eyes back to that scan, hear?"

"You need escort, captain?" Haral asked.

"You stay here. Tell Hilfy meet me at the lock. I gods-rotted don't need protection from the stsho and I want you at controls. In case." She flung herself out of the chair and headed for the door.

Tully was inbound, in great haste. "Pyan-far!" he cried.

"Sorry, Tully, no time." She brushed past, or tried. He caught her arm.

"Got talk! Pyanfar!"

"No time, Tully. Haral — see to him."

"No # listen I # go #!" He snatched again when she broke the grip and tried to overtake her in the hall. "Pyanfar!"

As she left him behind.

"Pyanfar- "

She made it into the lift and shut the door between. She punched com. "Haral. Get Tully under wraps. Get him his drugs for jump. And stay by those controls!" Not the most logical series of orders.

Gods, Tully and Khym loose on the same level of the ship, Haral busy-

The lift stopped on lower deck. The door opened, on Tirun, Chur and Geran, standing at the lift. Haral's voice rang through the lower corridor — "Who's free down there?"

"Get topside," Pyanfar said, coming through them, papers in hand. "Move it, hear?" Their fur was draggled, dark-tipped with sweat. They smelled of it. "Get Tully put somewhere."

"Aye."

The door closed and they went up. She headed down the corridor at a long stride, where Hilfy waited at the lock, slant-eared and with the whites showing round her eyes.

"Calm down, imp," she said, meeting that look. "It's just the stsho this time."

But she still had the gun in her pocket. It lately seemed a good idea.

The Pride's area of the dock was quiet now, ghostly quiet, with the giant doors to the market still sealed, with the cargo access shut and the station's cargo ramp drawn back and dark. No cans stood about the dock. Only the gantry remained, the huge air ducts socketed to the vent panel beside the water in- and outflow hoses, but those were in shutdown inside. The sensor-bundle, the sextuple power cables and the com lines: that was all that tied The Pride to station now, those and the access tube, the station personnel ramp, and the probe and grapples that, behind that triple-thick wall, added failsafe to The Pride's own steel-armed grip.

Not much, compared to the truck-wide cargo ramp. Not much to hold them now that that link was free. A ship could break away from grapples if it had to, taking damage and trusting station valves and gates to shut. Not even kif had done such a thing, reckless as they were of life, but stsho in their paranoia might think of such possibilities.

Pyanfar cast one narrowed look at that contact with their docking probe and thought such lawless thoughts. Like turning pirate.

Like what a desperate hani could do, if she lost a gamble with the mahendo'sat and the han and there were nothing left at home. Her crew would stay loyal and to a mahen hell with the han if Kohan Chanur died.

Good gods. The thought chilled. It came of advancing age.

Of having a male aboard. Put the mind in different modes. Like hunt and nest and kill the intruders instead of the polite surrender to the han on which civilization rested. Pulling sticks, Khym called it. Hani ships going far and wide across Compact space with males aboard and all the attendant mindset in the crews. Riot on station docks, interHouse brawls, crews at odds with other crews and hani born in space, never knowing Anuurn under their feet at all, with no Hermitage in reach.

Gods, what am I doing here? — standing by Hilfy, gun in pocket, watching a stsho official car come humming up the dock. Somehow she had gotten into this. The steps to it eluded her at the moment, but the steps that led from it-

A kif offered alliance — and for one fleeting moment it truly looked attractive. She was running out of friends.

The car rolled up and stopped humming; hummed again in a different key as the door slid down and Stle sties stlen's current persona put out a pink-shod foot. The translator got out the other door and hastened round with a flurry of robes like rainbow light, to offer gtst hand to the director.

Stle stles stlen (or whatever gtst called gtstself this hour) straightened to gtst feet and waved gtst limp-wristed, long-fingered hand. "Shoss."

A paper appeared from some depth of the translator's robes. Gtst offered it, gtst mooncolored eyes fluttering in wide nervousness.

"Take it," Pyanfar said to Hilfy, assuming the loftiness the stsho understood: assistants traded papers, perused them.

"Bill," Hilfy read in a small strangled voice, "for 1.2 billion credits, aunt."

"I figured. Let me see that."

Hilfy handed it over. Document-reading proceeded to a higher level as Stle sties stlen took the release forms into gist own pearly hands.

A long rustling of pages while the gantry lines thumped and hissed overhead.

"All right," Pyanfar said.

"Hesth," said Stle sties stlen, and in hani: "Where is this money?"

She held out the appropriate paper. Stle stles stlen took it in  gtst own hands, and gtst

head came up and gtst eyes went wide.

"Well?" Pyanfar said, keeping her ears up, her expression confident and bland.

"— This is an extravagant power," the translator rendered.

"Of course it is. And I'm sure the esteemed director will want to file that copy. I keep the original."

"Esteemed hani friend," said Stle sties stlen.

"Got a pen?"

Stle stles stlen snatched it from the translator and offered it gtstself. If gtst had had external ears they would have pricked far forward.

She signed; gtst signed; documents changed hands and Chur and the translator signed.

Hectic flushes almost to pink chased nacre across Stle sties stlen's pearly skin.

Gtst looked up with adoration in gtst eyes, waved gtst hand and out of the inexhaustible rainbow robes, the translator brought a smallish presentation box, which Stle sties stlen proffered gtstself.

"Accept this trifle."

"Munificent." Pyanfar pocketed the box. "Your files have my manifest: do select a case of Anuurn honey for your table."

"Excellent hani."

"I go first on the departure list."

"Oh, yes." Gtst bowed, fluttered. "At earliest." Gtst backed toward the car and stopped, looking wide-eyed, then ducked inside.

The translator saw the director inside and the door raised, whisked gtst rainbow self around to gtst own side.

The car hummed to life, opaqued its windows, and hummed a quick u-turn, off down the docks.

"Aunt-" Hilfy said.

She turned, expecting one of the crew had come outside.

She saw instead a kit between them and the lock, and her hand twitched toward her pocket —

prudently stopped with a mere twitch. She stood stiff-legged, hearing Hilfy sotto voce beside her, the belt-com doubtless thumbed: "Haral, for the gods' sakes — Haral — there's a kif out here-"

The kif flourished a hand among its robes, billowing the hem like the edge of some dark wing.

It sauntered forward with the ease of an old, old friend.