chase behind her — no sight of Tirun. She leaned into a run and plunged into
the next odd-numbered bar — stsho again, not a sight of hani. She pelted back
out the doors, through the incoming mass of Ayhar clan, who began a turnabout in
that doorway in merry disorder.
Still no Tirun. She dived into the next odd-number, another stsho den, saw a
tall red shape, and heard the voices, a deeper hani voice than this port had
ever heard, the chitter of stsho curses, the snarl of mahendo’sat.
“Na Khym,” she cried in profoundest relief. “Na Khym!” She eeled her way through
the towering crowd at the bar and grabbed him by the arm. “Uncle — thank the
gods. Pyanfar wants you. Now. Right now, na Khym.”
“Hilfy?” he said, far from focused. He swayed there, a head taller than she,
twice her breadth of shoulder, his broad, scarred nose wrinkled in confusion.
“Trying to explain to these fellows–”
“Uncle, for the gods’ sakes-”
“He is,” a hani voice cried from the door. “By the gods — what’s he doing
here?”
Khym flinched, faced about with his back to the bar, starting with misgiving at
the drunken Ayhar spacers.
“Hey!” –A second hani voice, from among the Ayhar. “Chanur! You crazy, Chanur?
What are you up to, huh, bringing him out here? You got no regard for him?”
“Come on,” Hilfy pleaded. “Na Khym–” She tugged at a massive arm, felt the
tension in it. “For gods’ sake, na Khym — we’ve got an emergency.”
Maybe that got through. Khym shivered, one sharp tremor, like an earthquake
through solid stone.
“Get, get, get!” a stsho shrilled in pidgin. “Get out he my bar!”
Hilfy pulled with all her might. Khym yielded and kept walking, through the hani
crowd that drew aside wide-eyed and muttering, past the black wall of curious
mahendo’sat and the glitter of their gold.
Another black wall formed athwart the brighter, outside light. Billowing robes
blocked the path to the door, two tall, ungainly shapes.
“Chanur,” said a kif, a dry clicking voice. “Chanur brings its males out. It
needs help.”
Hilfy stopped. Khym had, with a rumbling in his throat. “Don’t,” Hilfy said,
“don’t do it — Khym, for gods’ sakes, just let’s get out of here. We don’t want
a fight.”
“Run,” the kif hissed. “Run, Chanur. You run from kif before.”
“Come on.” Hilfy wrapped her arm tightly about Khym’s elbow. She guided him
through the crowd toward the doorway, past the first brush of robes, trying to
look noncombatant, trying to watch the whereabouts of dark kifish hands beneath
the dusky cloth.
“Hilfy,” said Khym.
She looked up. The whole doorway had filled with kif.
“It’s got a knife!” A hani voice. “Look out, kid–”
Something flew, trailing beer and froth, and hit a kifish head. “Got!” A mahen
voice crowed delight. Kif lunged, Khym lunged. Hilfy hit a kif with claws bared
and bodies tangled in the doorway. Yiiii-yinnnnn! a stsho voice wailed above the
din. “Yeeiei-yi! Police, police, police!”
“Yaooo!” (The mahendo’sat).
“Na Khym!”
Tirun’s voice, a roar from outside the tangled doorway, inbound. “Hilfy! Na
Khym! Chanur!”
“Ayhar, ai Ayhar.”
“Catimin-shai!”
Mugs and bottles sailed.
* * *
“He’s on the Rows! Hurry!” Haral’s voice came from the pocket com; and Pyanfar,
delaying for a check of eat-shops outside the market, started to run for all she
was worth, past startled mahendo’sat and stsho who leapt from her path, herself
dodging round the confused course of a methane-breather vehicle that zigged away
on another tack.
Sirens sounded. The three-story bulkhead doors of the market sector were
blinking with red warning lights. She put on a final burst of speed and dived
through asprawl as the valves began to move. The edges met with a boom and
airshock that shook the deck, drowning the din of howls beyond, and she gathered
herself up off the deck plates and ran without even a backward look.
The whole market was in turmoil. Merchants or looters snatched armfuls of
whatever they could; aisles jammed. Animals screeched above the roar. A black
thing darted past Pyanfar’s legs and yelped at being trodden on. She vaulted a