outsider-ways of thought.
She reached the bridge, opened the security bin beside Haral and took out the
precious packet-committed treason by that if not before. She slammed the bin
shut.
Haral looked round at her, her scarred face quite, quite calm.
Khyrn was there too, just watching, from the side, as staunchly downworld in his
own way as Ehrran’s clan.
Worried. And silent now.
“Got something coming outside,” Haral said, whose eyes and ears were partly The
Pride’s from where she sat. And whose discretion was absolute. “Two minutes,
captain.”
Chapter Eight
She headed down the corridor from the lift in haste, keyed the airlock to
inside-manual and looked back as Hilfy and Chur and Geran came hurrying along
with Tully in their midst.
“Car’s on the dockside,” Harral advised them from the general address. “You
operating that on manual?”
“I’ve got it,” Pyanfar said, touching the pickup by the lock controls. “Just
keep a sharp lookout up there.”
The four arrived, Tully dishevelled looking and disreputable in a white stsho
shirt half tucked into the blue hani trousers. The shirt was far too big, the
trousers too small; and for luggage he clutched a white plastic sack of the
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C. J. Cherryh
kind they used for utility — a change of clothes, toiletries, gods knew what
they had thrown together for him in so short a time.
“Got the translation tapes?”
“Got,” Tully answered for himself, patting the bundle.
“Here.” She handed him the packet. “Tuck that in too. For the gods’ sakes don’t
give it to the mahendo’sat.”
He knew what it was. She saw the disturbed look, the doubt.
“Go on,” she said, and triggered the inner lock. It hissed open with an
exhalation of cold air. “Chur, Hilfy, you watch it. You watch it coming back.
Don’t you walk it. If they don’t give you a car, you call and I’ll see they do.
Tell them priority. Tell them Personage.”
“Right,” said Chur.
She walked into the lock with them, pushed the button for the second door on
alternate-set, so that the first closed behind them. She took no chances. Not
now. The yellow accessway gaped like a ribbed gullet. The chill hit like a wall.
“Hurry it.”
“Pyanfar,” Tully said of a sudden, and turned and balked. She put a hand on his
back and propelled him ahead of her.
“Come on, come on, Tully. It’s all right.” She walked by him with her crewwomen
trailing after, kept her arm at his back and kept him moving down the accessway.
He was cold already. She felt the stiffness in his movements as they hit the
slant and headed down to the rampway. “Won’t be long. Bodies will heat up the
car.” –Chatter to keep him distracted. She saw the gray of the docks like docks
anywhere, the pair of vehicles with the strobes flashing. “Translator’s going to
be out of range awhile, but they’ll get you hooked up again when you get to
station central. There’s an outside chance — a small chance, understand? — it
might be more than twenty hours. Might be, might be — they might have to shift
you to some mahen ship. I don’t think so–”
He balked again as they came down the last few steps, turned and gave her a
panicked look.
“Captain,” Chur said from behind, sharp and urgent: she heard the engines at the
same time, looked toward the sound down the dock.
Another car, headed their way in a great hurry, from up-dock.
“Gods rot,” she muttered, grabbed Tully by the arm and pulled him on. “Fast,
Tully.” The mahendo’sat in the cars got out, excepting the two drivers, one
curly brown, a tasunno mahe, smaller than the others and rare this side of Iji;
an officer and four others the gods-knew-what race of generations-back spacers,
black and tall and bearing badges and sidearms on the usual harness. Not
friendly-looking. Like one black wall. Tully balked again, looked about in panic
as the moving car hummed up and braked, resisted again as two of the mahe
grabbed him and pulled him toward the open door of the second mahen car.
“Pyanfar!” he cried.
Hilfy started forward, but Pyanfar caught her arm and held her as the