C.J. Cherryh. Chanur’s Venture

now?”

“Always got kif at Meetpoint.”

“Then why come here, for the gods’ sakes? What are you doing here? The kif know

what you’ve got?”

Goldtooth shrugged. “Maybe.”

“From how long? How long you been at this?”

A second shrug. “Packet. In packet got paper tell you. Tully bring in canister.

You take, you read all. You run fast. Go Maing Tol, go Personage. Get plenty

help from there.”

“They on your tail?”

A third shrug.

“Goldtooth, you bastard, how tight?”

“Got trouble,” Goldtooth said.

She weighed that. Mahijiru in trouble. A mahen hunter-ship with more kif

troubles than it could handle. “So you got. Where you go now?”

“Best thing you don’t ask.”

“Human space?”

“Maybe deep in stsho territory. Read packet. Read packet. Friend.”

“Rot you.”

“Rot you too,” Goldtooth said soberly. His ears stayed up. There were fine

wrinkles round his dark eyes. “God save us. Need you, Pyanfar. Need bad.”

“Huh.” She flicked her ears up with a light chiming of their rings. “I’m not a

gods-blessed warship, mahe.”

“Know that.”

“Sure. Sure.” She walked off a pace to get clear breath, looked at Tully, who

understood — perhaps a little. Always more than he spoke.

Tully would not lie to her. That much she believed. His silence, his level,

unflinching stare now, that vouched for his own honesty in this. “When bring to

you?” Goldtooth asked. She turned back to him. “Got an appointment in station

office. Got to make that. Got to advise my crew. Got to tell them — You give me

lot of problems, hear? And you be careful.” She extruded a claw and poked

Goldtooth hard in the chest, so she saw him wince. “You be careful this package.

You be gods-rotted careful, hear?” She meant two things.

“Hear,” Goldtooth said, full soberly. He heard both things. She knew.

“Got three days this port,” she said. “Got stall three days with gods-rotted kif

sniffing round. I pull The Pride out sooner, big trouble. Lot of attention. When

you go?”

“Deliver package, wait awhile, then go. Got no cargo but fake cans I give to

you.”

“So.” She turned away, met Tully’s eyes, patted him very gently on his arm,

recalling his fragile skin. “Safe, understand. You do what they say. No fear.

These mahendo’sat bring you to me. Understand?”

“Yes,” Tully said, and looked at her in that way he had, his pale stare

desperately intense.

Her ears twitched, her nostrils widened with the scent of something more than

Meetpoint-sized amiss, more than a corrupt stsho and closed routes and xenophobe

stsho councils back in Llyene, atwitter over humanity that wanted through stsho

space. Mahen connivances. Kif greed. She looked back at Goldtooth. “Presents.

One fine present. Ha!”

Goldtooth lifted his head, his brown eyes half-lidded. “Tell you this, old

friend. Kif don’t forget. They hunt me. Soon hunt you. Not revenge. Kif-thought.

Skikkik. Hunt me, hunt you. Tully come here — Got one fine trouble this time.

This business Tully bring us only — hurry things. Make timetable ours, not

kif’s.”

“Huh,” she said. “So I take this gift. I don’t like things coming at my back.

You watch yourself. You run far, mahe. You do good. Wish you luck.”

“You got,” Goldtooth said. “Wish you luck, hani.”

She flicked her ears, indecisive, turned and stalked out the airlock through the

parting crowd of tall mahendo’sat.

Luck.

Luck indeed.

Her mind was not in it as she walked on down the dock. It kept sorting troubles

past and troubles future — dangerous, she thought, catching a whiff of some

scent not mahendo’sat nor stsho, but something she could not, in this large,

cold space . . . identify.

Cargo, maybe. Maybe something else. It set her nose to twitching and set an itch

between her shoulderblades.

She did not look about, here on Meetpoint’s docks, padding along the cold

deckplates, beside the gapings of ship accesses, out of which wafted more

friendly scents. There were other hani ships at Meetpoint. She had read the list

before she had put The Pride into dock: Marrar’s Goiden Sun; Ayhar’s Prosperity;

oh, yes, and Ehrran’s Vigilance. That ship. That one, that Goldtooth had

mentioned, but not by name . . . that han’s eyes, which were doubtless on other

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