Her ears twitched, her nostrils widened with the scent of something more than Meetpoint-sized amiss, more than a corrupt stsho and closed routes and xenophobe stsho councils back in Llyene, atwitter over humanity that wanted through stsho space. Mahen connivances. Kif greed. She looked back at Goldtooth. "Presents. One fine present. Ha!"
Goldtooth lifted his head, his brown eyes half-lidded. "Tell you this, old friend. Kif don't forget.
They hunt me. Soon hunt you. Not revenge. Kif-thought. Skikkik. Hunt me, hunt you. Tully come here — Got one fine trouble this time. This business Tully bring us only — hurry things. Make timetable ours, not kif's."
"Huh," she said. "So I take this gift. I don't like things coming at my back. You watch yourself.
You run far, mahe. You do good. Wish you luck."
"You got," Goldtooth said. "Wish you luck, hani."
She flicked her ears, indecisive, turned and stalked out the airlock through the parting crowd of tall mahendo'sat. Luck. Luck indeed.
Her mind was not in it as she walked on down the dock. It kept sorting troubles past and troubles future — dangerous, she thought, catching a whiff of some scent not mahendo'sat nor stsho, but something she could not, in this large, cold space. identify.
Cargo, maybe. Maybe something else. It set her nose to twitching and set an itch between her shoulderblades.
She did not look about, here on Meetpoint's docks, padding along the cold deckplates, beside the gapings of ship accesses, out of which wafted more friendly scents. There were other hani ships at Meetpoint. She had read the list before she had put The Pride into dock: Marrar's Goiden Sun; Ayhar's Prosperity; oh, yes, and Ehrran's Vigilance. That ship. That one, that Goldtooth had mentioned, but not by name. that han's eyes, which were doubtless on other business at the moment, but which were capable of catching small furtive moves — like a Chanur captain paying calls on mahen ships.
There were a dozen other mahen vessels in port: Tigimiransi, Catimin-shai, Hamarandar were some she had known for years. And familiar stsho names, like Assustsi, E Mnestsist, Heshtmit and Tstaarsem Nai. Round the wheel of Meetpoint, beyond the great lock that separated oxy- from methane-breathers, ships went by stranger titles: tc'a and knnn and chi names, if knnn had names at all. Tho'o'oo and T'T'Tmmmi were tc'a/chi ships she had seen on docking lists before.
And kif. Of course there were kif. She had made a particular point to know those names before she put The Pride in dock.. names like Kekt and Harukk, Tikkukkar, Pakakkt, Maktikkh, Nankktsikkt, Ikhoikttr. Kif names, she memorized wherever she found them, a matter of policy — to recall their routes, their dockings, where they went and trading what.
The kif watched her routes with as much interest this last year. She was very sure of that.
She did not loiter on the docks, but she made no particular haste which might attract attention on its own. She stared at this and that with normal curiosity, and at the same general pace she strolled up to the nearest com booth along the row of dockside offices, keyed up Chanur credit and punched in the code for the station comlink to The Pride's bridge. She waited. The com whistled and clicked through nine cycles unanswered.
There was a kif on the docks. She spied the tall, black-robed form standing over shipside in conversation with a stsho, whose pale arms waved emphatically. She stood with her back to the plastic wall and watched this exchange past the veil of other traffic, the passing of service vehicles, of pedestrians, mostly stsho, pale-robed and elegant; here and there mahen-do'sat, dark and sleek.
Something winged whipped past, small and upward bound for the heights of the tall, cold dock.
Gods only knew what that was.
Click. "Pride of Chanur," the voice finally answered. "Deck officer speaking."
"Haral, gods rot you, how long does it take?"
"Captain?"
"Who's out?"
"Outside?"
"I want that cargo inventoried. Hear? I want all of you on it, right now. No liberties. If anyone's out, get her back. Right now."
"Aye," the voice came back, diffident. "Aye, Captain." There was question in the voice.
"Just do it!"
"Aye. But — Captain?"
"What?"
"Na Khym's out."
"Gods and thunders!" Her heart fell through her feet. "Where'd he go?"
"Don't know. To the free market, I think — There some kind of trouble?"
"I'm coming back. Get him, Haral. I want him found."
"Aye, Captain."
She slammed the receiver down and headed back toward the ship in haste.
Khym, for the gods' sake. Her mate, gone strolling out in fullest confidence that papers in order meant safety… on a stsho trading station, where weapons were banned, as he had gone out of ship at Urtur and Hoas among mahendo'sat; as he had gone wandering wherever he liked through the last two markets — male, and duty-less and bored. Gods. O gods.
She remembered the kif then, looked back, one injudicious glance over her shoulder, breaking the rest of her precautions.
The kif was still there, looking her way beyond the gesticulating stsho, looking black and grim and interested.
She flung around again and moved as fast as a walk could carry her, past Mahijiru behind its darkened (malfunctioning?) registry board, past one berth and the other in the chill, stsho-made air.
She was panting in earnest when she came within sight of The Pride's berth. Everything was stopped there. The machinery that ought to be offloading stood still with cans still on the ramp. Haral was outside waiting for her, red-gold figure in blue breeches; and spying her, came her way with scurrying haste.
"Captain-" Haral skidded up and braked, claws raking on the plates. "We're looking."
"Kif are out," Pyanfar said. That was enough. Haral's ears went flat and her eyes went wide.
"With Ehrran clan in port. I want him back, Haral. Where'd he talk about going? Doing what?"
"Didn't talk, Captain. We were all busy. He was there by us at the ramp. When we looked round — gone."
"Gods rot him!"
"Can't have gotten far."
"Sure he can't." She took the pocket com Haral offered her and clipped it to her belt to match what Haral had. "Who's on bridge?"
"No one. I stayed. Alone."
"Hilfy's out there."
"First."
"Lock up. Come with me."
"Aye!" Haral snapped, spun on her heel and ran.
Pyanfar strode on.
Market, she reckoned. Meetpoint's famed Free Market was far and away the likeliest place to look. Baubles and exotics. Things to see.
He might have tried the restaurants before the market.
Or the bars of the Rows.
Gods rot him. Gods rot her soft-headedness in ever taking him aboard. On Anuurn they called her mad. At times like this she believed it, all the way.
She was breathing in great side-aching gasps when Haral came pelting back to fall in at her side.
"He's not here," Hilfy said — youngest of The Pride: her left ear one-ringed, her beard only beginning, her breeches the tough blue cloth of hani crew, though she was Ker Hilfy, Chanur's someday heir. She met Tirun Araun between two aisles of the dock bazaar, among the stacks of cloth, foodstuffs, the fluttering of stsho merchants. Fluting cries of exotic nonsapients legal here for trade, the shouts of traders and passersby, music from the bars of the Rows alongside the market-echoed off the lofty overhead in one commingled roar. Smells abounded, drowning other scents. Color rioted. "I've been down every aisle, Tirun-"