that truly had to get someone more knowledgeable. Log the discourtesy? Who would
read it but the han?
Khym was busy already, a look of concentration on his broad, scarred face the
while he listened to station chatter that flowed past him like so much babble,
sorting for anything of interest, anything of tc’a or knnn, anything of kif or
mahendo’sat. Doing the best he could.
In Hilfy’s vacant post.
Pyanfar turned back again, twisted in her seat a third time as she heard the
lift work down the corridor.
“Captain!” Tirun spun her chair as she did, as she came out of her chair
reaching for her pocket and Khym was out of his place.
“Identify.” Haral had usurped com function to her panel and keys clicked to
freeze locks, but the lift door opened all the same.
Hani. Hani and smallish and one of their own.
“Geran,” Pyanfar muttered, and the gun went back. No rejoicing, not from any of
them. It was not that kind of time, an hour to go and Geran out of place.
“Something wrong?” Pyanfar asked as Geran walked onto the bridge. “Chur all
right, Geran?”
“Left her below, snugged in.”
“Gods and thunders!”
Geran shrugged, padded over to main scan, rested a hand on her seatback and
looked round again, ears at half, and obduracy in the stare she gave back.
“Don’t like to cross those docks, captain. Scary place out there.”
It took a good long moment of even breathing to cope with that.
“Geran–” in a tone quiet enough to warn a chi. “We’ve got one hour, one
gods-rotted hour to get things sorted out. You two–”
“Captain, please.” Geran’s voice sank to the same level, but all wobbly. “Chur’d
kill me for saying it, but she’s scared. Gut-scared. Being left here — the ship
and all — where’d she be? What good’s two of us — here? By ourselves? Where’s
home, but The Pride?”
Something superstitious settled into her own gut, nothing reasonable. “Look.
We’re not after suicide, hear me? Jik’s in port. He’s got Vigilance on our side
for what she’s worth. We’re going to Mkks to do some good. Hear me? Now get Chur
back where she belongs.”
“She is. Same as me.” Geran’s claws sank into the chairback, tendons stark on
the backs of her hands. “What’s all this new stuff worth with half a crew, huh?
Chur can walk — walked across that dock out there from the lift, she did, just
fine.”
“Good gods.”
“The plasm took; the wound won’t tear. Got her packed in real good and the
time-stretch’11 give her a good few days to heal. Might be on her feet by the
time we get to Mkks–”
“The gravity-drop’ll kill her.”
“No. Not Chur.”
She folded her ears down and Geran stood her ground, meant to stand it, gods
knew. And they needed that pair of hands. Needed hands that could fit
hani-specific controls, fit a hani crewwoman’s space. “Gods rot,”,she muttered
and walked off the other way with a wave of her hand. “Bring her topside. Put
her in my cabin. Put her close to us. Pack a med kit in there.”
“My cabin,” Khym said. “She can have mine.”
“Do it.”
“Thanks,” Geran said, all heartfelt. “Thanks, captain.”
“And get yourself back here. We’ve got a tight schedule, huh?”
“Aye!” Geran scrambled and took Khym with her.
Pyanfar looked at Tirun and Haral. Tirun’s face carefully showed nothing;
Haral’s was toward the boards, occupied with business.
“Odds just went up,” Tirun said, “captain.”
“We need crazy people on our side?” She threw herself into the chair, powered it
about again, feeling a shameful comfort to know one more seat was filled. The
lift hummed, Khym and Geran going down to see to the transfer.
“Getting a confirmation from Aid /in,” Haral said, who still had com. “Getting a
readoff on course, They’re putting us out gods-rotted deep in the well.”
She looked at the figures that flashed onto monitor one. “Huh.” She keyed that
data set into the simulator and watched the lines tick across the screen,
affirmative, affirmative, can-do. It was still The Pride’s boards, but something
alien answered from aft, up the circuit-synapses through the metal spine. “Huh.”