"Goldtooth's mahendo'sat," she said flatly. "And he's got a Personage breathing down his neck. They went to get you, friend, because they wanted trade. I'll bet on that. And those human ships weren't getting through. Ijir's no common trader, no way. They wanted to get you to a rendezvous —
find out what humanity's up to. That was the game. But they found out too gods-rotted much and now Goldtooth's scared. Scared, understand? Kif, the mahe can handle. But if knnn have their small black feet in this — o gods, Tully — you lunatics."
"Got lot ship come — lot, Pyanfar. Got fight kif, got make stop knnn."
"No one fights the knnn! Gods and thunders, you don't pick a fight with something you can't talk to!"
Wide eyes looked back at her in distress.
"Where's Goldtooth, Tully? You know?"
A shake of an uncomprehending head.
"Huh." She shoved back from the table feeling her knees gone jellylike. And still that blue-eyed stare was on her. Lost.
Don't go to the han, Goldtooth had said; and Beware of Goldtooth-from Goldtooth's stsho ally-
With Vigilance in the selfsame port.
Suspicions occurred to her, vague and circular, that the han ship might have gotten wind of the clearing of Chanur papers, of mahen money passed to stsho-
— that that ship's presence and Goldtooth's might have had connections Goldtooth would not say. . han/mahen consultations. Stsho like Stle sties stlen, with slippered feet well into it. .
And self-interested betrayals, at more than financial depths-
Knnn. Gods, stsho the ultimate xenophobes, and knnn the ultimate reason. . living right next door — living, or traveling, or whatever it was knnn did with those ships of theirs.
Perhaps, hani had whispered, stung by stsho references to the mahendo'sat bringing hani into space to balance kif — perhaps a great deal that the stsho knew came from methane-breathers. Tc'a were likely.
But had limbless serpents originated their own tech?
Or had chi, who might be parasites — or slaves — or pets — to the tc'a? Not likely.
Goldtooth had reason to run scared. And being mahe he had done a mahen thing: he had gone for the contacts that he knew. Same as the whole mahen species had: bring Tully. Go get him. While with trouble in the offing Goldtooth had wanted her. Not the han. Not Ehrran. The han knew the mahendo'sat, by the gods: it was why the law existed against taking foreign hire. Mahendo'sat went for Personage. For the Known Quantity. They set up powers. Tore them down. Tied hani rules in knots and brought down powers by ignoring them in crises.
Here's unlimited credit-friend. Tell us what you know. Same as they worked on humans.
Send for Tully.
Gods, they'd drained him dry. Even kif had failed at that.
(I do good? Tully asked. With that blue-flower stare.)
They had her by the beard, that was sure. Had her, and maybe Stle stles stlen himself.
Until humanity launched ships at the Compact, and knnn objected.
"Trouble?" Tully asked.
She lifted her ears, turned on him the blandest of looks. "We'll fix it. Just go back to your quarters, huh?"
"I spacer. I work." He patted his pocket. "Got paper, Py-an-far."
He did. That was truth. Citizen of the Compact, licensed spacer. More mahen maneuverings.
He could not handle controls. He needed a pick to reach the buttons and he was illiterate in hani.
So they locked him up below and shoved him this way and that. He had looked for better from them. Gods knew he must have looked for better.
"Na Khym's aboard," she said, feeling the flush all the way to her ears. "Male, Tully."
"Friend."
The flush went hotter. "As long as you aren't in the same room, fine. Go where you like. Just stay out of his way. Males are different. Don't argue with him. Don't talk to him if you can avoid it. Just duck your head and for gods-sakes keep your hands off him and us."
Blankest confusion.
"Hear?"
"Yes," he said.
"Get." She turned him loose and watched him go for the bridge.
She waited for the explosion — realized she was waiting, claws flexed, and drew them in.
There was the dust-whisper, high-pitched with their velocity, reminding her of movement, of The Pride's hurtling toward a jump she had to make now.
No way out but that.
The bridge lights were still on, with all of them snatching sleep where they could, going back to quarters for rotating breaks and coming back to the paper-snowed number-two counter, while the dust whispered and the occasional impact of larger fragments hit the hull. ("We'll shine like a new spoon when we get through this," Hilfy had said early on; "We'll be cratered like Gaohn," Tirun had replied, which they were not yet.) The dust screamed now and again, V-differential. Now and again The Pride's particle-sensors and automated systems sent the trim jets into action, little instabilities in G which put a stagger into a walk down a corridor. Now and again The Pride's scan showed her something major and the ship moved to take care of it.
But hani work went on too. And human: a section of the comp still had the working light on that meant Tully was still at it, doing what he could do — working away with linguistics from his terminal in his quarters. He hunted words. Equivalencies. Fought the translator into fewer gaps and spits. Learned hani. That was what he did, far into the hours.
And Khym, shambling red-eyed and shivering from out the corridor-errand to the so-called heated hold: "Got the stores moved down," he said, and cast a worried eye over boards he could not read, at backs turned to him and work still underway. "Go on to bed," Pyanfar said. "Hot bath. You've done all you can."
"We're still in trouble, aren't we?"
"We're working on it. Go. Go on. Need you later. Get some sleep."
He went, silent, with one backward, worried glance.
She sighed. Heard other sighs from crew, rubbed her aching eyes and felt a twinge of shame.
"Suppose he secured that?" Tirun wondered.
"He'll remember." But there were his habits in galley — dishes left, a cabinet latch undone. She walked over and keyed in security check. All doors showed closed and a sense of panic still gnawed at her.
On the monitors the numbers still rolled up bleak information. Constant operation. No matter what they tried. They went deeper into the dust, into the well, and station information showed four kif docked, one loose and outward bound, two mahen freighters and six tc'a miner/processors.
Bad odds.
"Gods rot." From Haral.
Another theory failed.
"Go on break," she muttered, back on the bridge the third time, finding Tirun still in the huddle of three heads round the console: Hilfy had changed with Chur; and Haral was back after shift with Geran; while she had stood two straight herself. "Gods rot it, Tirun, didn't I tell you get?"
"Sorry, captain." Tirun's voice was hoarse, and she never looked up from the papers and the moving stylus. "Got this one more idea."
She subsided onto the counter edge, steadied herself through another of The Pride's attitude corrections. She gnawed at her mustaches and waited, wiped her eyes. The stylus scratched away on the paper.
"There's the YR89," Haral said, putting out a hand to point. "If it went-"
"Huuuh." The snarl was hoarse and vexed and Haral got the hand out of Tirun's way. Fast.
Scratch-scratch went the stylus.
More silence. The dustscream on the hull grew louder. The Pride corrected. There was a resounding impact.