C.J. Cherryh. Chanur’s Venture

name Akkhtimakt. I think this fellow lieutenant to Akkukkak, got same ugly way

make trouble, want prove self more big than Akkukkak. How do this? Revenge on

knnn not good idea. Revenge on human another kind thing; same revenge on you and

me. Ship in port name Harukk, captain name Sikkukkut. This number one bastard

claim self enemy this Akkhtimakt, want offer deal. This smell many day dead.

You add all same up, run mahen Personage. Paper good. You make number one deal

mahendo’sat this time. You got big item. Forget other cargo. Be rich. Promise.

You hani enemies not touch.

Wish all same luck. I got business stsho space. Got fix thing.

Goldtooth Ana Ismehanan-min a Hasanan-nan, same give you my sept name.

She looked up, ears flat.

“What’s it say?” asked Haral, in all diffidence.

“Goldtooth wished us luck. Promises help. He’s bribed the stsho. Someone got

those papers fixed to get us here and gods-be if any of it was accident.” She

gnawed a filthy hangnail. It tasted of fish and human. She spat in distaste and

clipped the papers into her data bin. “Tell Tirun and Geran get out cargo

unloaded. Get Chur on it. Fast.”

“All of it?”

She turned a stare Haral’s way. It was a question, for sure; but not the one

Haral asked aloud. “All of it. Call Mnesit. Tell them get an agent down here to

identify what’s theirs. Tell Sito sell at market and bank what’s ours.”

“They’ll rob us. Captain, we’ve got guarantees; we’ve got that Urtur shipment

promised — We’ve got the first good run in a year. If we lose this now–”

“Gods rot it, Haral, what else can I do?” Embarrassed silence then. Haral’s ears

sank and pricked up again desperately.

So they prepared to run. Prepared — to lose cargo that meant all too much to

Chanur in its financial straits, trusting a mahen promise . . . for the second

time. And for the first time in memory Haral Araun disputed orders.

“I’m going for a bath,” she said.

“Do what with the incoming cargo?” A faint, subdued voice.

“Offer it to Sito,” she said. “Warehouse what he won’t take. So maybe things

work out and we get back here.” Likely the stsho would confiscate it at first

chance. She did not say what they both knew. She got out of the chair and headed

out of the bridge, no longer steady in the knees, wanting her person clean, her

world in order; wanting–

–gods knew what.

Youth, perhaps. Things less complicated.

There was one worry that wanted settling — before baths, before any other thing

shunted it aside.

She buzzed the door of number one ten, down the corridor from her own quarters,

down the corridor from the bridge. No answer. She buzzed again, feeling a twinge

of guilt that set her nerves on edge.

“Khym?”

She buzzed a third time, beginning to think dire thoughts she had had half a

score of times on this year-long voyage — like suicide. Like getting no answer

at all and opening the door and finding her husband had finally taken that

option that she had feared for months he would.

His death would solve things, repair her life; and his; and she knew that, and

knew he knew it, in one great guilty thought that laid her ears flat against her

skull.

“Khym, blast it!”

The door shot open. Khym towered there, his mane rumpled from recent sleep. He

had thrown a wrap about his waist, nothing more.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Sure. Fine.” His pelt was crossed with angry seams of scratches plasmed

together. His ears, his poor ears that Gaohn Station medics had redone with such

inventive care and almost restored to normalcy — the left one was ripped and

plasmed together again. He had been handsome once . . . still was, in a ruined,

fatal way. “You?”

“Good gods.” She expelled her breath, brushed past him into his quarters, noting

with one sweep of her eye the disarray, the bedclothes of the sleeping-bowl

stained with small spots of blood from his scratches. Tapes and galley dishes

lay heaped in clutter on the desk. “You can’t leave things lying.” It was the

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