He was trying. And getting harder to deceive. Pyanfar swallowed hard, and took
the damage summary as it came flickering to the screen. “We’re all right,” she
heard Hilfy say, which was probably into the com, for Tully. “We’re through. We
just had trouble with that unit. Sit still down there.”
“Blew two holes in final-backup,” Pyanfar muttered to Haral, in
conversation-tone.
“Gods,” Haral said. That was all. And sent Kshshti system image her way, onto
all the screens. “Not much, this place.”
“Huh.”
It was not. A dull orange sun with only moons for company, moons and a station.
Small mining, sufficient for its needs. Some trading. Mostly mahendo’sat
maintained it because it would be someone’s, situated as it was; and best it
should be theirs, when it was a connection on a route straight for Maing Tol
from Kefk, inside kif space. With a shipyard facility, thank the gods.
“Lot of traffic,” Pyanfar muttered, picking up the com chatter. “Gods-rotted lot
of traffic to be out here at this hole.”
“Kita,” Haral reminded her.
“Kita for sure. Word got spread uncommon fast, didn’t it? Or we lost more time
than we ought in that jump.”
“Huuuhn.” No comment. Not here, not now. Not with Khym on the bridge.
Twenty stars were The Pride’s regular ports of call. Not Kshshti. It was not a
port any hani sought.
“Nasty little place,” Geran muttered from back along the counter. “Real nasty.”
* * *
There was time. There was time for a great many things as The Pride came limping
in toward Kshshti–
Time to hear the chatter of the station before their wavefront reached station
and station’s then-wave reached them: the chitter and wail of methane-breathers
in confused conference, the clicking sounds of kif whose uncoded remarks were on
ordinary kifish business, terse and uninfprmative. No hani voices. No sign of
hani at all.
“Station answering,” Hilfy said as that wave came in. The feed was routine,
coldly businesslike transmission. It might have been any approach to a mahen
station, less lively than some. “Queer quiet,” Haral muttered. “I’d’ve expected
a curse to a mahen hell and back again, the way we came in.”
“Huh,” Pyanfar said. “Bet you to a mahen hell all of this is set up from the
start. We’re expected and they’re not rattling this thicket, no.”
That got a look from Haral. Not a happy one.
So they glided closer and closer to Kshshti with the noise of methane-breathers
whispering over com.
Rimstation. Border station. Kif claimed the star; mahendo’sat had built the
station and held it with the tc’a and chi, whose mining had no particular
profit. Nothing at Kshshti did . . . except its nuisance value to kif ambitions
across the line.
“Where’s that shiplist?” she asked of Hilfy. “I want names, imp.”
“I’m still trying,” Hilfy said. “Station says they’ve got computer trouble.”
“Sure they do. Like the board at Meetpoint.”
“Beg pardon, aunt?”
“Gods-rotted lot of malfunctions lately. Get that list. Tell them read it off by
voice and cut the nonsense.”
“Don’t know what we can do,” Haral muttered beside her. And that was truth. The
vane systems boards flickered steady disaster under Tirun’s probes. It was all
down. Everything.
“We’ll manage,” she said, “something–” but her gut was knotted up in one
unceasing panic. She fished the repair authorization out of safekeeping and
shifted to put that in her pocket, braced for arguments with mahen officials.
There would be outcries, howls, delays if she could not face them down.
And if there was no ship for Tully, if there were the wrong kif, and no help —
Not leaving here real quick, no.
“List is in,” Hilfy said.
“To your one,” Haral said and put it to the screen.
14 Iniri-tai: Maing Tol
9 Pasunsai: Idunspol
7 Nji-no: Maing Tol
30 Canoshato: Kshshti: insystem
29 Nisatsi-to: Kshshti: insystem
2 Ispuhen: Maing Tol: repair
32 Sphii’i’o: V’n’n’u
34 T’T’Tmmmi: N’i’i
40 A’ohu’uuu: Tt’a’va’o
49 knnn
50 knnn
51 knnn
52 knnn
10 Ginamu: Rlen Nle
20 Kekkikkt: Kefk
21 Harukk: Akkt
22 Inikktukkt: Ukkur
8 Ehrran’s Vigilance: Anuurn
15 Ayhar’s Prosperity: Anuurn
3 The Pride of Chanur: Anuurn: enroute