“How long ago?” Pyanfar shouted at the messenger, and the tall mahe backed up a
step.
“Soon ago, soon.” The mahe laid hands on his chest. “I messenger, hani captain,
got com shot up, come office Personage give me same, say bring you.”
Pyanfar took a swing at nothing in particular, turned away and found Rhif Ehrran
in her path.
“Well, Chanur? Got any brilliant plan?”
“If you weren’t down here on the dock, if you hadn’t left the only ship fit to
chase them sitting crewless, you gods-rotted fool–!”
“To do what? Chase a hunter-ship to Kefk? You’re the fool, Chanur. There’ll be a
full report. Believe me that there will.”
“Py, don’t!” It was Khym who got her arm in time and dragged her back, so it was
too late to do it at white heat. She straightened herself, stared at the Ehrran
whose crew had moved in to back their captain.
“Captain,” a mahe said, moving in. “Captain, Personage want see, quick, please
quick. Got car.”
She shoved the rifle at Khym, turned and followed the mahe across the littered
deck. She was aware of Haral with her, Tirun, Khym hastening to catch up.
“Chanur.” A hani voice, a portly hani moving up from the side. “Chanur–” Banny
Ayhar caught her arm and tried to stop her.
She flung the hand off. “Get out of my way, Ayhar. Go lick Ehrran’s feet.”
“Listen, Chanur.” Ayhar caught her arm with force this time and thrust her bulk
in the way. “I’m sorry! You want passage?”
She stopped dead and stared at Banny Ayhar’s broad face.
“She hire you?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
“See here, Chanur–”
Pyanfar walked off.
Chapter Nine
The lift let them out where Tully and Hilfy should have gotten to, in the upper
security levels, where guards looked nervous at the appearance of a clutch of
blood-stained hani armed with rifles, and one of them a male.
But doors opened for them unquestioned, doors upon doors of Kshshti’s
utilitarian architecture, gray steel, heavy security, armed guards at intervals.
Stars and dark: Pyanfar lost the sight in front of her for that, remembrance of
the kif hunter-ship in dock at Meetpoint, sleek, deadly, fast; of a ship
outbound to Kshshti nadir and the jump range at a greater and greater fraction
of C. She went there the guard motioned, went where doors parted.
The last let them into a dim chamber with a plasteen division, with violet light
beyond. On the white-lit side, a desk and two mahendo’sat. On the violet one, a
huge serpent-form, which moved and shifted restlessly before the waist-up glass.
Tc’a. The sight of the methane-breather shocked her to an involuntary stop. The
barrier looked frail, the presence hani were accustomed to see only on vid and
dimly, showed detail that made it seem all too imminent: wrinkled, soft-leather
skin with phosphor-glow in the gold, eyespots large as a fist, five of them
clustered round a complex trifold mouth/sensor. The tongue darted, constantly.
The body shifted to this side and that, which tc’a always did.
“Esteemed captain.” The Voice spoke, uncharacteristically subdued. “I present
the Personage Toshena-eseteno, stationmaster this side Kshshti; the Personage
Tt’om’m’mu, stationmaster methane side.”
“Honorables,” Pyanfar murmured. The tc’a alone deserved the plural, several
times over; and gods help psychologists.
The leathery serpent-shape loomed closer, twisted to peer through the glass with
its five orange eyespots. A wailing came through, five-voiced, from a brain of
multiple parts, as a monitor below the glass displayed the glowing matrix:
TC’A TC’A HANI HANI MAHE KIF KIF
CHI CHI STAY STAY STAY GO GO
UNITY UNITY ANGER ANGER ANGER GO GO
STAY STAY STAY STAY STAY GO MESSAGE
“Thank the tc’a Personage. What message?”
“Kif.” The mahen Personage rose slowly from the desk, robes falling into order,
severe robes unlike the display of Personages elsewhere. He held out a paper
with his own hand, and she took it. “This come,” the Personage said, not through
the Voice, “from Harukk. All three kif ship outbound. We got two mahe ship
chase.”
“Shoot?”
“No shoot.”
She held a small, horrid doubt whether they should have refrained, hostages or
no. For the hostages’ sake. If it were The Pride in pursuit- but she pushed that