“Got.”
“Got authority, do you? Lot of authority, same as Goldtooth.”
Jik’s ears twitched. “Some thing yes.”
“Some thing, huh? You want this packet, you go with me to Mkks.”
“Hani, I guard you tail at Gaohn!”
“Guard it at Mkks and you get the packet.”
Gently: “You bastard, Pyanfar.”
“You same kind bastard. You say, you do. I know this.”
“I go Mkks,” he said.
“Get the packet, Haral.”
Haral moved. Jik leaned back into the leather cushion and watched, bestirred
himself to take it when it came, this largish several-times crushed envelope
with a dark stain at one corner. “All here?” Jik asked.
“Everything they sent me. What are you going to do with it?”
“Try find honest captain.”
“In this port? Stay away from the hani.”
“A?” He looked her in the eyes and the ears sank slowly before they came up
again. The face had no fool’s look, not now. “Trouble, huh?”
“Lot trouble.”
“You come.”
“Come where?”
“Come with. We talk these hani.”
“No.”
Jik stood up. “I go. Sure thing we talk. Want share?”
“Gods rot — Gods rot it, I’ve got enough trouble! Leave my name out of it!”
“They got jealous, huh?”
“Look, look, you earless lunatic, there’s laws, there’s regulations I already
break– The han’s after my hide, you understand me? Chanur’s got troubles! You
want to hand them proof, huh? It’s illegal for me to work for foreign
government, understand? Against the conventions!”
“You carry cargo government give.”
“That’s legal. Gods rot it, you know the distinction. You trade, what time
you’re not up to no good–”
“So you carry cargo.” He lifted the packet. “Same legal.”
“Look, look, Jik — old friend. They’re looking for an excuse. They want find
trouble, understand? You’ll get us skinned, all of us.”
“What choice got? Pyanfar, good friend, got no choice. Packet got go.”
“Send it with the tc’a!”
Ears flicked. “No.” Short and sharp, a small flicker in the eyes that rang
alarms. “Not number one good idea, Pyanfar.”
More alarms. Methane-breathers, with their own interests. Tt’om’m’mu rearing up
behind his glass, violet and murky phosphorescences.
“You come,” Jik said. “Maybe better you be there, huh, stop stupid mahe say
wrong thing these honest hani?”
“No! Absolutely no!” She got up, flung off across the bridge, waving her arms
and dislodging Khym from her path. She looked back again. Jik still stood there
with the packet in his hands and that Tully-look on his too-narrow mahen face.
“Pyanfar.” He held up the envelope.
“No,” she said.
“Chanur,” the Ehrran said, Rhif, rising from a much-scarred and grimy chair.
KSHSHTI PORT AUTHORITY the office said on the outer door, in four different
alphabets with letters missing. CONFERENCE in three: the hani line had fallen
off altogether and left only brighter paint behind, misspelled.
“Ehrran,” Pyanfar said. And with a glance at the other hani captain in the
narrow room: “Ayhar.” Jik closed the door behind them both and they were all
alone with each other.
“You?” Ehrran asked of Jik. “The Personage send you here?”
“No,” Jik said quietly, with unflappable good nature. “I ask Personage send
you.”
It shot straight through Ehrran’s guard and Pyanfar got a quick furtive breath
and swallowed it quick, straight-faced, watching the Ehrran’s face.
Quick re-thinking, by the gods. Rhif Ehrran drew herself up, mouth not quite
closed, and then it did close, and the Ehrran stared closely at this
raffish-dressed mahe.
“Sit,” Jik said, “captains, I ask you.”
Pyanfar pursed her mouth and sat, watched first Banny Ayhar lower her portly
self into a grimy seat and then fastidious Ehrran, who looked as if she had a
mouthful of salt and no idea where to spit.
“What I got ask,” Jik said, taking his own seat at the battered table, in this
despicable little office, “what I got ask-” He laid the rumpled envelope on the
table. “Need courier.”
“Who needs?” The question got out past Ehrran’s well-groomed mustaches. “I’d
like to see some Signature, if you don’t mind.”
“A.” Jik bent a lank wrist toward his kilt belt, deftly whipped up a small
folder, spun it across the table. “That good?”
The Ehrran picked it up as if it had been charged, extruded claws to pull the