old, old shipboard safety lecture, delivered with tiresome patience. “Good gods,
Khym, don’t . . . don’t do these things.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and meant it as he did all the other times.
She looked at him, at what he was, with the old rush of fondness turned to pain.
He was the father of her son and daughter, curse them both for fools. Khym
once-Mahn, lord Mahn, while he had had a place to belong to. Living in death,
when he should have, but for her, died decently at home, the way all old lords
died; and youngsters died, who failed to take themselves a place — or wander
some male-only reserve like Sanctuary or Hermitage, hunting the hills, fighting
other males and dying when the odds got long. Churrau hanim. The betterment of
the race. Males were what they were, three quarters doomed and the survivors, if
briefly, estate lords, pampered and coddled, the brightness of hani lives.
He had been so beautiful. Sun-shining, clear-eyed-clever enough to get his way
of his sisters and his wives more often than not. And every hani living would
have loved him for what he did at Gaohn, rushing the kif stronghold, an old lord
outworn and romantically gallant in the eternal tragedy of males–
But he had lived. And walked about Gaohn station with wonder at ships and stars
and foreignness. And found something else to live for. She could not send him
home. Not then. Not ever.
“It was a good fight,” she said. “Out there.”
His nose wrinkled. “Don’t patronize, Py.”
“I’m not. I’m here to tell you it wasn’t your fault. I don’t care how it
started, it wasn’t your fault. Kif set it up. Anyone could have walked into it.
Me, Haral, anyone.” His ears lifted tentatively. “We’ve got one other problem.”
She folded her arms and leaned against the table edge. “You remember Tully.”
“I remember.”
“Well, we’ve got ourselves a passenger. Not for long. We take him to Maing Tol.
A little business for the mahendo’sat.”
The ears went down again, and her heart clenched. “For the gods’ sakes don’t be
like that. You know Tully. He’s quiet. You’ll hardly know he’s here. I just
didn’t want to spring that on you.”
“I’m not ‘being like that.’ For the gods’ sakes I’ve got some brains. What
‘business for the mahendo’sat’? What have you gotten yourself into? Why?”
“Look, it’s just a business deal. We do a favor for the mahendo’sat, it gets
paid off, like maybe a route opens. Like maybe we get ourselves that break we
need right now.”
“Like the last time.”
“Look, I’m tired, I don’t want to explain this all. Say it’s Goldtooth’s fault.
I want a bath. I want — gods know what I want. I came to tell you what’s
happened, that’s all.”
“That kif business . . . have anything to do with this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t know?”
Aliens and alien things. He was downworlder. Worldbred. “Later. It’s under
control. Don’t worry about it. You going to be all right?”
“Sure.”
She started then to go.
“I was remarkable, Py. They arrested me and I didn’t kill even one of them.
Isn’t that fine?”
The bitterness stopped her and sent the wind up her back. “Don’t be sarcastic.
It doesn’t become you.”
“I didn’t kill anyone, all the same. They were quite surprised.”
She turned all the way around and set her hands on her hips. “Gods-rotted stsho
bigots. What did they say to you?”
“The ones in the bar or the ones in the office?”
“Either.”
“What do you expect?”
“I want an answer, Khym.”
“Office wouldn’t speak to me. Said I wasn’t a citizen. Wanted the crew to keep
me quiet. They wanted to put restraints on me. Crew said no. I’d have let them
go that far.”
She came back and extended a claw, straightened a wayward wisp of mane. He stood
a head taller than she; was far broader-they had at least put weight back on
him, from that day she had found him, gone to skin and bones, hiding in a hedge
outside Chanur grounds. He had been trying to find his death then, had come to