“Who is this?”
“Pyanfar Chanur, rot your eyes, and clear my dock! There’s an emergency in
progress.”
“What emergency? Chanur, I’m not in a mood for more connivances. You hear me,
Chanur–”
“I’ve got no time for this.” She spun the chair about and left it. “Haral, stand
by to open up that hold. And tell Ayhar get herself out of the way. Hilfy, Chur,
come on.”
They heeled her down the corridor at an almost run, into the lift for downdecks.
She hit the button.
Com snapped from the panel above the lift controls, at the first lurch of the
car down. “Captain.” Haral’s voice. “Geran’s on. They’ve got kif out there.”
She put a claw in the slot before the lift had a chance to pass the next level
and stopped the car right there, on a level with the airlock. “Hilfy!” she said
in leaving, before Hilfy had a chance to follow her and Chur. “Go on below and
get that bay opened up.”
“Aunt–” One youthful protest, hands lifted, before the door closed between.
They ran all-out, she and Chur, stopping only for the weapons-locker and the
com-panel in the hall.
“Get that hatch open!” Pyanfar yelled at Haral, and headed for the lock.
Chapter Three
They hit the access tube running and came round the bend headon into hani coming
up the accessway, a broad, scarred hani captain flanked by two senior crew.
Pyanfar evaded collision.
“Gods rot you–” Banny Ayhar yelled, and Chur cursed; there was the thump of
impact.
“Gods rot you!” Pyanfar yelled, whirling about, outraged, as Chur recovered from
her stagger and spun about at her side. “I told you clear my dock!”
“What’s it take to bring Chanur to its senses?” Banny Ayhar yelled. “When’s it
stop, hey? — You listen to me, ker Pyanfar! I’ve had enough being put off–”
“We’ve got kif after my crew, blast your eyes.”
“Chanur!”
She spun and gathered Chur and ran, with the thump of running Ayhar at their
heels at least as far as the passageway’s exit onto the downward ramp.
“Cha-nur!” Banny Ayhar roared at her back, waking echoes off the docks; but
Pyanfar never stopped, down the rampway and past the frozen cargo ramp and the
gantry that hel$I The Pride’s skein of station-links.
“Chanur.” Far behind them.
There was a curious absence of traffic on the chill, echoing docks, and that
silence itself was a warning. Trouble was in sight even from here, around a big
can-loader grinding its slow way beside the ship accesses four berths distant.
An odd crowd accompanied it — a half dozen mahendo’sat in station-guard black
strode along beside. Two red-pelted hani in faded blue breeches rode the flatbed
with the tall white cans, while a dozen black-robed kif stalked along in a tight
knot; and if any stsho customs officer was involved at all gist was either
barriered inside the cab or fled for safety.
“Come on,” Pyanfar said to Chur — no encouragement needed there. Chur kept
beside her as they crossed the space at a deliberate jog, not out to provoke
trouble, not slow to meet it either. Her hand was in her spacious pocket,
clenched about the butt of the gun she tried to keep still and out of sight, and
her eyes were constantly on that knot of kif, alert for anything kif-shaped that
might show itself from ambushes among the maze of gantries and dock-side clutter
to the right and the office doors to the left.
“Hai,” she yelled with great joviality, when they were a single berth apart.
“Hai, you kif bastards, about time you came out to say hello.”
The kif had seen them coming too. Their dozen or so scattered instantly all
about the moving can-carrier, some of them screened by it. But from the
carrier’s broad bed, from beside the four huge cans, several mahen guards
dropped down to stand at those kif’s backs.
“Good to see you,” Pyanfar gibed, halting at a comfortable distance. Kifish
faces were fixed on her in starkest unfriendliness. “I was worried. I thought
you’d forgotten me.”
“Fool,” one hissed.
She grinned, her hand still in her pocket, her ears up, her eyes taking in all