"Captain," Tirun said. "Got the customs chief on. Claims the papers aren't in order on that shipment."
She spun the chair about. "The Director cleared that! Tell gtst so."
"The customs chief says you have to come and sign."
"I signed that god-rotted thing!"
Tirun relayed as much, politely phrased. Amber eyes lifted. Ears flicked. "Gtst says that was the customs release. Now they want a waiver against claims by the consignor-"
She punched it in on her own com. "This is Pyanfar Chanur. If I come over there I bring my whole ship's company. Hear? And you can explain that to the Director, you flat-bottomed bureaucrat!"
Silence from the other end.
She broke the contact. "Tirun: you and Geran get across that dock to that office and watch those cans all the way."
"Kif," Tirun said.
"Gods-rotted right the kif. They've got their bluff in on the stsho."
"Customs is back on," Chur said. "Give it to five." She punched it in. "Well?"
"I have schedule, hani."
"You just put us at the head of it. Hear? I'm sending my own security. I've been robbed once at this forsaken station. Not again!"
She broke the connection, leaned back and exhaled a long, long breath, staring at Tirun.
"Get!"
"Aye!" Tirun and Geran scrambled up and headed for the door.
"Arm and take a pocket com!" she shouted after them. "And be gods-rotted discreet about it!" She spun the chair left to Haral. "I want that forward hold warmed and pressurized."
"How long's Tully been in there?" Hilfy asked.
Pyanfar shot a glance at the chronometer overhead. "Figure six hours. At least."
"How good's that lifesupport?"
"The way Goldtooth's set up the rest of this mess — who knows?" She shoved her chair around and keyed up comp, hunting cargo lists, mass records. "This list updated?"
"No," Hilfy said.
"I need that list, gods rot it, niece." "I'm on it," Chur said, "Scan to your number four, captain."
She smoothed her nose with an effort, twitched her ears and heard the jingling of the several rings. Experience, they meant. Wealth. Successful voyages. She sat and watched for anything untoward, monitoring station corn, scan, every pulse and breath of information Meetpoint central let them have.
Their own systems showed live in a series of amber lights.
"Pressure's coming up," Haral said.
"Estimate of mass loss to three, captain."
She shunted it to Records. Comp brought up the revision. "Fine that down, Chur. Navcomp's taking main five." "You've got them."
Nav's five segments unified themselves in comp and shunted other programs to different banks: command screens acquired nav's displays. Maing Tol. From Meetpoint that was Urtur to Kita Point to Maing Tol at best.
"We can't singlejump." she said at last. "Not with the cargo we've still got, not anything like it."
Silence all round. "Aye," — finally, from Haral.
She sat staring at the graphs. "Aunt," Hilfy murmured, and turned her chair with a wide-eyed look and the comset pressed in her ear. "Aunt, it's Geran. Says customs has those cans loaded and out already; they have a bunch of mahen security on it, too."
"Good gods. Something's going right. How long?"
"How long?" Hilfy relayed; and her eyes flickered as she listened. "They're coming now."
"How's that pressure?"
"Pressure's good," Haral said.
"Captain-" Chur. "Someone's down at the access com — It's Banny Ayhar, captain. She wants to talk to you."
"Gods rot!" She punched in all-ship com. "Ayhar, get clear, hear me!"
"Who is this?"
"Pyanfar Chanur, rot your eyes, and clear my dock! There's an emergency in progress."
"What emergency? Chanur, I'm not in a mood for more connivances. You hear me, Chanur-"
"I've got no time for this." She spun the chair about and left it. "Haral, stand by to open up that hold. And tell Ayhar get herself out of the way. Hilfy, Chur, come on."
They heeled her down the corridor at an almost run, into the lift for downdecks. She hit the button.
Com snapped from the panel above the lift controls, at the first lurch of the car down.
"Captain." Haral's voice. "Geran's on. They've got kif out there."
She put a claw in the slot before the lift had a chance to pass the next level and stopped the car right there, on a level with the airlock. "Hilfy!" she said in leaving, before Hilfy had a chance to follow her and Chur. "Go on below and get that bay opened up."
"Aunt-" One youthful protest, hands lifted, before the door closed between.
They ran all-out, she and Chur, stopping only for the weapons-locker and the com-panel in the hall.
"Get that hatch open!" Pyanfar yelled at Haral, and headed for the lock.
Chapter Three
They hit the access tube running and came round the bend headon into hani coming up the accessway, a broad, scarred hani captain flanked by two senior crew.
Pyanfar evaded collision.
"Gods rot you-" Banny Ayhar yelled, and Chur cursed; there was the thump of impact.
"Gods rot you!" Pyanfar yelled, whirling about, outraged, as Chur recovered from her stagger and spun about at her side. "I told you clear my dock!"
"What's it take to bring Chanur to its senses?" Banny Ayhar yelled. "When's it stop, hey? -
You listen to me, ker Pyanfar! I've had enough being put off-"
"We've got kif after my crew, blast your eyes."
"Chanur!"
She spun and gathered Chur and ran, with the thump of running Ayhar at their heels at least as far as the passageway's exit onto the downward ramp.
"Cha-nur!" Banny Ayhar roared at her back, waking echoes off the docks; but Pyanfar never stopped, down the ramp-way and past the frozen cargo ramp and the gantry that hell The Pride's skein of station-links.
"Chanur." Far behind them.
There was a curious absence of traffic on the chill, echoing docks, and that silence itself was a warning. Trouble was in sight even from here, around a big can-loader grinding its slow way beside the ship accesses four berths distant.
An odd crowd accompanied it — a half dozen mahendo'sat in station-guard black strode along beside. Two red-pelted hani in faded blue breeches rode the flatbed with the tall white cans, while a dozen black-robed kif stalked along in a tight knot; and if any stsho customs officer was involved at all gist was either barriered inside the cab or fled for safety.
"Come on," Pyanfar said to Chur — no encouragement needed there. Chur kept beside her as they crossed the space at a deliberate jog, not out to provoke trouble, not slow to meet it either. Her hand was in her spacious pocket, clenched about the butt of the gun she tried to keep still and out of sight, and her eyes were constantly on that knot of kif, alert for anything kif-shaped that might show itself from ambushes among the maze of gantries and dock-side clutter to the right and the office doors to the left.
"Hai," she yelled with great joviality, when they were a single berth apart. "Hai, you kif bastards, about time you came out to say hello."
The kif had seen them coming too. Their dozen or so scattered instantly all about the moving can-carrier, some of them screened by it. But from the carrier's broad bed, from beside the four huge cans, several mahen guards dropped down to stand at those kif's backs.
"Good to see you," Pyanfar gibed, halting at a comfortable distance. Kifish faces were fixed on her in starkest unfriendliness. "I was worried. I thought you'd forgotten me."
"Fool," one hissed.