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That had to go. It was all one package, Tully and that envelope. If Ehrran knew about Tully she likely knew he came with documents. And all of it had to go into mahen custody. Fast. She could keep the deputy off the bridge: the law gave her that.

But since the kif hit Gaohn, since a great many changes had happened in the han-

One took no chances. Gods knew what Prosperity would swear to. It had gotten to that.

Distrust of foreigners. Distrust of hani who defied the conventions. Foreign ways, they said. Hani males outside Anuurn: the keepers of the home, learning there were things outside the hon, friends stauncher than other hani, outsider-ways of thought.

She reached the bridge, opened the security bin beside Haral and took out the precious packet-committed treason by that if not before. She slammed the bin shut.

Haral looked round at her, her scarred face quite, quite calm.

Khyrn was there too, just watching, from the side, as staunchly downworld in his own way as Ehrran's clan.

Worried. And silent now.

"Got something coming outside," Haral said, whose eyes and ears were partly The Pride's from where she sat. And whose discretion was absolute. "Two minutes, captain."

Chapter Eight

She headed down the corridor from the lift in haste, keyed the airlock to inside-manual and looked back as Hilfy and Chur and Geran came hurrying along with Tully in their midst.

"Car's on the dockside," Harral advised them from the general address. "You operating that on manual?"

"I've got it," Pyanfar said, touching the pickup by the lock controls. "Just keep a sharp lookout up there."

The four arrived, Tully dishevelled looking and disreputable in a white stsho shirt half tucked into the blue hani trousers. The shirt was far too big, the trousers too small; and for luggage he clutched a white plastic sack of the kind they used for utility — a change of clothes, toiletries, gods knew what they had thrown together for him in so short a time.

"Got the translation tapes?"

"Got," Tully answered for himself, patting the bundle.

"Here." She handed him the packet. "Tuck that in too. For the gods' sakes don't give it to the mahendo'sat."

He knew what it was. She saw the disturbed look, the doubt.

"Go on," she said, and triggered the inner lock. It hissed open with an exhalation of cold air.

"Chur, Hilfy, you watch it. You watch it coming back. Don't you walk it. If they don't give you a car, you call and I'll see they do. Tell them priority. Tell them Personage."

"Right," said Chur.

She walked into the lock with them, pushed the button for the second door on alternate-set, so that the first closed behind them. She took no chances. Not now. The yellow accessway gaped like a ribbed gullet. The chill hit like a wall. "Hurry it."

"Pyanfar," Tully said of a sudden, and turned and balked. She put a hand on his back and propelled him ahead of her.

"Come on, come on, Tully. It's all right." She walked by him with her crewwomen trailing after, kept her arm at his back and kept him moving down the accessway. He was cold already. She felt the stiffness in his movements as they hit the slant and headed down to the rampway. "Won't be long. Bodies will heat up the car." — Chatter to keep him distracted. She saw the gray of the docks like docks anywhere, the pair of vehicles with the strobes flashing. "Translator's going to be out of range awhile, but they'll get you hooked up again when you get to station central. There's an outside chance — a small chance, understand? — it might be more than twenty hours. Might be, might be — they might have to shift you to some mahen ship. I don't think so-"

He balked again as they came down the last few steps, turned and gave her a panicked look.

"Captain," Chur said from behind, sharp and urgent: she heard the engines at the same time, looked toward the sound down the dock.

Another car, headed their way in a great hurry, from up-dock.

"Gods rot," she muttered, grabbed Tully by the arm and pulled him on. "Fast, Tully." The mahendo'sat in the cars got out, excepting the two drivers, one curly brown, a tasunno mahe, smaller than the others and rare this side of Iji; an officer and four others the gods-knew-what race of generations-back spacers, black and tall and bearing badges and sidearms on the usual harness. Not friendly-looking. Like one black wall. Tully balked again, looked about in panic as the moving car hummed up and braked, resisted again as two of the mahe grabbed him and pulled him toward the open door of the second mahen car.

"Pyanfar!" he cried.

Hilfy started forward, but Pyanfar caught her arm and held her as the number-three car door slid down and three Ehrran crew got out in haste.

"Hold it," the senior said. "Hold it there."

Pyanfar shrugged and faced them. She had let go Hilfy's arm, and everyone had stopped —

the mahe trying to get Tully into the car, the Ehrran who had bailed out of their vehicle.

"Go on," Pyanfar said to Hilfy, and moved the hand at her side. "Chur, Hilfy. It's all right.

Sorry, Ehrran. You've been preempted. Station-master's intervened."

"You," the foremost Ehrran said, gesturing at the mahendo'sat. "Where's the authorization?"

The mahe officer said something in one of Iji's manifold languages, waved a hand. The rest pulled Tully into the car and Chur and Hilfy piled in after. Doors began to close. "Chanur," the Ehrran said. Pyanfar gave a second shrug, displayed empty hands. "Out of my control."

"That's your personnel,"

"Just to keep him quiet on the way. You'll have to take it up with station offices."

There were limits. Cursing a captain to her face was one; calling her a liar was another. The Ehrran did neither, but it was in her eyes, that were lambent brass. The mahen vehicles snugged up the doors and began to move. Ehrran cast a wild look that way, waved an arm at her crewmates and they dived back into their own car.

"Evidently the Ehrran haven't got a com in there," Pyanfar observed to Geran, who had stood fast by her left. "Gods be!"

The hani vehicle swerved wildly about and cut close to the mahendo'sat, dropped back as the mahendo'sat refused to be passed on the narrow dock.

"Cheeky lot," Geran said.

"Won't go well out here. Gods-rotted black-breeches thinks it's Anuurn. Ought to be interesting when they get news to their captain, oughtn't it?"

Geran turned a quizzical look her way.

"I rather imagine they had trouble getting a car," Pyanfar said. "For some reason." Up the row there was another swerve, visible as the cars went up the curving deck, headed for the curtaining tangle of lines that would cut off the view. "Gods rot-"

"They're crazy," Geran said.

"Come on," she said, spun on her heel and headed up the ramp, with quickening long strides.

"Put me through to Vigilance," she said when she hit the bridge, not out of breath, not quite, but blowing through her nostrils. Geran was still with her, equally disarranged.

"Got that on vid," Haral said with quiet satisfaction, the while Khym stared in confusion and Tirun moved past his seat to reach com. "That maneuver going out."

"Sharp," she said. Haral smiled and powered her chair back round to business with the damage check.

"They don't answer," Tirun said, half turning in her seat. "No response."

"Log that. Call the station office and file a protest."

"Hazard to our personnel?"

"That'll do." She drew a quieter breath, hands on hips. Looked at Khym and saw a gleam in his eye she had not seen since Mahn. She stood a breath taller, walked over to lean over Haral's shoulder. "Next thing's that repair crew. Any sign yet?"