They had her by the beard, that was sure. Had her, and maybe Stle stles stlen
himself.
Until humanity launched ships at the Compact, and knnn objected.
“Trouble?” Tully asked.
She lifted her ears, turned on him the blandest of looks. “We’ll fix it. Just go
back to your quarters, huh?”
“I spacer. I work.” He patted his pocket. “Got paper, Py-an-far.”
He did. That was truth. Citizen of the Compact, licensed spacer. More mahen
maneuverings. He could not handle controls. He needed a pick to reach the
buttons and he was illiterate in hani.
So they locked him up below and shoved him this way and that. He had looked for
better from them. Gods knew he must have looked for better.
“Na Khym’s aboard,” she said, feeling the flush all the way to her ears. “Male,
Tully.”
“Friend.”
The flush went hotter. “As long as you aren’t in the same room, fine. Go where
you like. Just stay out of his way. Males are different. Don’t argue with him.
Don’t talk to him if you can avoid it. Just duck your head and for godssakes
keep your hands off him and us.”
Blankest confusion.
“Hear?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Get.” She turned him loose and watched him go for the bridge.
She waited for the explosion — realized she was waiting, claws flexed, and drew
them in. There was the dust-whisper, high-pitched with their velocity, reminding
her of movement, of The Pride’s hurtling toward a jump she had to make now.
No way out but that.
The bridge lights were still on, with all of them snatching sleep where they
could, going back to quarters for rotating breaks and coming back to the
paper-snowed number-two counter, while the dust whispered and the occasional
impact of larger fragments hit the hull. (“We’ll shine like a new spoon when we
get through this,” Hilfy had said early on; “We’ll be cratered like Gaohn,”
Tirun had replied, which they were not yet.) The dust screamed now and again,
V-differential. Now and again The Pride’s particle-sensors and automated systems
sent the trim jets into action, little instabilities in G which put a stagger
into a walk down a corridor. Now and again The Pride’s scan showed her something
major and the ship moved to take care of it.
But hani work went on too. And human: a section of the comp still had the
working light on that meant Tully was still at it, doing what he could do —
working away with linguistics from his terminal in his quarters. He hunted
words. Equivalencies. Fought the translator into fewer gaps and spits. Learned
hani. That was what he did, far into the hours.
And Khym, shambling red-eyed and shivering from out the corridor-errand to the
so-called heated hold: “Got the stores moved down,” he said, and cast a worried
eye over boards he could not read, at backs turned to him and work still
underway. “Go on to bed,” Pyanfar said. “Hot bath. You’ve done all you can.”
“We’re still in trouble, aren’t we?”
“We’re working on it. Go. Go on. Need you later. Get some sleep.”
He went, silent, with one backward, worried glance.
She sighed. Heard other sighs from crew, rubbed her aching eyes and felt a
twinge of shame.
“Suppose he secured that?” Tirun wondered.
“He’ll remember.” But there were his habits in galley — dishes left, a cabinet
latch undone. She walked over and keyed in security check. All doors showed
closed and a sense of panic still gnawed at her.
On the monitors the numbers still rolled up bleak information. Constant
operation. No matter what they tried. They went deeper into the dust, into the
well, and station information showed four kif docked, one loose and outward
bound, two mahen freighters and six tc’a miner/processors.
Bad odds.
“Gods rot.” From Haral.
Another theory failed.
“Go on break,” she muttered, back on the bridge the third time, finding Tirun
still in the huddle of three heads round the console: Hilfy had changed with
Chur; and Haral was back after shift with Geran; while she had stood two
straight herself. “Gods rot it, Tirun, didn’t I tell you get?”
“Sorry, captain.” Tirun’s voice was hoarse, and she never looked up from the