She met a shut hatch beyond the bend of the tube. She had expected that, and hit the bar of the com unit in the accessway. "Haral. Haral, gods rot it, it's Pyanfar. Open up."
The hatch shot open at once, with a waft of warmer, familiar air. Tirun was there; and Chur, appearing armed from the lower-deck ops room down the corridor. Both showed the plasmed seams of recent wounds on their red-brown hides, Chur with a stripe of plasm visible across the leather of her nose, a painful kind of cut.
"Huh." She walked in past the lock. "Close that. Everyone aboard?"
"All accounted for, nothing serious."
She came to a stop and gave Tirun one long stare. "Nothing serious. Gods and thunders, cousin!"
Tirun's ears fell. "On our side," Tirun said.
"Huh." She turned and stalked for the lift, with their company as the inner lock hissed shut at her back. "Where's Khym?"
"Na Khym's up in his quarters."
"Good." She shoved that distress to the hindmost, swung about in the lift as they got in with her. Chur anticipated her reach for the button, tucked her arm behind her again in haste when she had pushed it. Pyanfar glared at her. "What else is wrong? What's Haral doing up there?"
"Got a lot of messages in," said Tirun. "Still coming. Board's jammed."
"Huh." The lift slammed upward. Pyanfar studied the door in front of her till it opened and spat them out on main, then strode for the bridge with a cousin on either side. "Who's called in?"
"Stsho, mostly," Chur said. "One message from Ayhar's Prosperity. Banny Ayhar requests conference at soonest."
"And some mahen nonsense," said Tirun. "No ship code."
She gave Tirun a second hard look, caught the lowered ears, the tension round the nose. She snorted, walked on into the bridge where Haral stood to meet her, where Hilfy got up from com- o gods, Hilfy — with her side patched in bandages. Geran with her right ear plasmed along a rip.
"You all right?" Haral asked. "We got a message from stsho central. . said you were coming."
"How courteous of them. They give you any trouble?"
"Kept us locked up filling out forms," said Geran. "Sent us out about an hour ago."
"Huh." She sat down in her own place, at The Pride's controls, swung the chair about in its pit to look at the solemn row of faces. Hilfy, her niece, young and white about the eyes just now. Haral and Tirun, tall, wide shouldered, daughters of an elder Chanur cousin; Geran and Chur, wiry and deft, daughters to Jofan Chanur, her third cousins. A row of earnest, sober stares. She gazed last and steadily at her brother Kohan's favorite daughter, at Hilfy Chanur par Faha with a scratch down her comely nose and her ears, gods forfend — plasm on a nick in the left one. Heir to Chanur's mercantile operations, while-and-likely-after Kohan Chanur ruled at home. On the last edge of adolescence. Fearfully proud.
Once and silently she wished Hilfy safe at home, but she did not say that. Home was a long, long way away and Chanur interests were at stake.
"I want a watch on com," she said. "I want scan set to alarm if something comes in, if something budges from this station. I don't care what it is. I want to know."
"Aye," said Haral.
"Tally's back."
Ears went up. Eyes went wide. Hilfy sat down.
"Good gods," Chur said.
"Mahijiru's here. Was here. Goldtooth's cut loose and run." There were other things to break to them, like being backed into agreements, like a fool of an aging captain who had believed for one moment in a way out of what she had gotten Chanur into, a way into human trade and all it meant.
"He was going to slip us a canister with a special cargo. Don't blame me-" She waved a hand.
"Goldtooth's originality, gods help us. But the stsho are playing power games. That can's tied up in red tape in customs. I think I've got it fixed."
Chur and Tirun sank into seats where they were, ears back.
"Sorry," Pyanfar said tautly. "Sorry, cousins."
"Got a chance?" Haral asked. Meaning lost trade. Lost chances. A whole variety of things, in loyalty too old to be completely blind. "The mahendo'sat've come through?"
"Don't know. They just headed out and left us the package. There's worse news. The kif are onto it."
"Gods." Geran leaned onto the back of Chur's couch. "And the bar fight-"
"Set up. Absolutely it was a set-up." She recalled with chagrin the kif watcher while she had been on the docks. "Maximum confusion. Goldtooth kited out. Under what circumstances- gods know.
Messages were going up and down that dock like chi in a fire drill. Maybe it was a kifish smash-and-grab. Maybe not. Likely it was targeted at the stsho. They've sure got the pressure on."
"The kif know about that can?" Tirun asked.
"Gods-rotted mahe shoved a shipment out in the middle of bolting dock like their tail was afire
— what else could they guess? Gods know who's been bribed. Gods know how long the bribes will hold.
— Khym all right, is he?"
Silence for a moment. Haral shrugged uncomfortably. "Guess he is," Haral said.
"He have anything to say?"
"Not much."
"Huh."
"Said he'd be in his quarters."
"Fine." She bit it off. They were blood kin, she and the crew. All Chanur. All with the same at stake, excepting Khym, Mahn-clan, male, past his prime and his reason for living and belonging anywhere. Her brother Kohan Chanur relied on her, back home. Meetpoint in ruins. Kif on the loose.
Stsho facing her down. The Pride nose-deep in it again. She had gone softheaded as well as softhearted. Hani everywhere muttered to that effect. Only her long-suffering crew would not say it, even yet. And Hilfy, of course Hilfy. Worship shone undimmed in those young eyes.
Fool kid, she thought. And to the crew at large: "What happened with our cargo out there?"
"Cans on the dock were gone when we got back," Tirun said. "We filed a theft report with station. Cans still inside are safe."
"Kif are fast. Power her up. We go on using station's hookups, but we keep our own online. Look sharp, hear? Don't ask me how long this goes on. I don't know. Contact customs. I want to know where that incoming shipment is."
No one mentioned costs or what the stsho might do. No one mentioned licenses, and the docking rights and routes it had cost too much to regain. No one mentioned Khym, a private folly that had long since become a public one. Not a backward look. No protests. Just a quiet moving toward stations, the whine of chairs receiving bodies all about her as she powered her own chair about and keyed in the old com messages.
From a mahendo'sat, unidentified: "I leave paperwork, leave cans same station office. Good voyage. Got go quick. Same you."
She drew one long, quivering breath.
From Ayhar's Prosperity: "Banafy Ayhar to Pyanfar Chanur: We have a matter between us.
I suggest we keep it private. I suggest you bring your witnesses to my deck. Expecting immediate reply."
"In a mahen hell."
"Captain?"
She restrained herself from violence to the board. "Reply to Ayhar: Tell it to the kif."
"Captain-"
"Send it."
Geran ducked her head and bent to the keys. Other messages crawled past, mostly stsho: a dozen threats of lawsuit from irate bazaar merchants; two scurrilous letters from stsho vessels in port, impugning Chanur sanity; others were rambling. Four were anonymous congratulations in mahen pidgin, some sounding inebriate, one babbling obscure mahen religious slogans and offering support.
From Vigilance, not a word.
"Tirun," said Chur behind her. "Got that customs contact." And a moment later: