Pyanfar settled into her place, listened to the chatter insystem, ran checks, took a cup of gfi when Fiar came bringing cups round. Charity. Out of their own galley.
The hunt went on, upper decks and lower. And the system they were running through stayed far quieter than it ought to be.
“They got the upperdecks filter changed out,” Hilfy said. “Caught three of those things. Skkukuk swears they didn’t slip from his collection. Old stuff, he says. They’re coming from somewhere.”
“Great. Wonderful.” She clicked through changes on the comp. “That’s fine news.” Ought not to snap. Crew has enough on their minds. “Sorry.”
“Aye, captain.”
You’ve grown a lot, Hilfy Chanur. Can’t tell you that. Crown woman never wants to hear that. Can’t tell you anything anymore.
“First escort’s jumped,” Tirun said. “We’re on-” The fifteen-minute warning sounded, a double pulse. “That’s fifteen,” Hilfy’s voice rang out through the halls.
Pyanfar punched in on the same channel. “Leave it, whatever it is. Give us an easy trip, get yourselves to stations and quarters, wherever they are, forget the gods-be mess, I want you where you’re going on the five. Tully, you go to Chur’s room. Now.”
“Got,” that lone human voice came back. And other acknowledgments. Perhaps no one had broken it to Tully until now where he was spending the jump.
He would not object. He understood. Would do anything for Chur. Friend, he would say.
What Chur would say about Tully in her bed was another matter.
Annoy her. Make her mad. Get her mind back. That was what might work. Of a sudden she saw Geran’s logic, clear and plain.
“He’s what?” Chur murmured, and blinked at her sister, and at Tully standing all diffident at the foot of her bed.
“Taking care of you,” Geran said. “Mind your manners. You take advantage of him the captain’ll skin you. Hear?”
Chur blinked again, deciding finally that this was funny. The worried look on Tully’s face was funny. There was a time she would have worried. Had been a time-yesterday, it seemed-when she had wanted no more of anything but hani. It was strange how all that had washed away, as if jump had left it behind, left her washed out, new, all things and everywhere. A god would feel this strange sensation, as if all space was her body and her brain, the stars so many particles. She might be a god. She laughed at them both, and flexed the fingers on the arm so long stiff it had gone beyond pain. Machinery ticked away. She had learned how to cheat it, how to keep her heart quiet and not trigger its anesthetizing flood through the tubes. She felt the pulse increase and settled it down again, deliberately.
“Brought me a handsome lover, have you? I must be better. C’mon, Tully. It’s all right. They got one hand out of operation.”
“I stay with,” he said. Innocent of everything.
He stank. Everyone did. She did. There was no help for it, though Geran tried to keep her clean. That was all right too. Geran went off and left them together, Tully standing there lost-looking, and the com crackling with reports.
The reports confused her. They had hunted the black things out at- wherever they had been.
They were back again at Kura. Little slinking evils. A god might have worse things to deal with. They were only nuisance-nightmares.
“Go soon,” Tully said, and sat on the edge of her bed. “I be with you.” He patted her knee under the blankets. That hurt a little. All her joints ached. “You be fine, Chur.”
It was nice to be told that by someone other than Geran, who was biased. She drew a larger breath.
“We go to Anuurn,” he said, and held up two slender, agile fingers. “Two jump. We got-” Another rearrangement of the fingers. “Nine ship. Make safe.”
“Against the kif?” For a moment space went inside and out. “No. Tell the captain-tell the captain- trouble. They’ll be waiting off Tyar.”
“Geran tell,” Tully said. “She tell, all right?”
“Logic,” Chur said, and waved the free hand, a loose, limp failure of a gesture. “Logic-position. The geometry of the thing-” She stared at him in despair. Geran had looked at her as if she were crazed. Tully simply blinked, beyond his vocabulary.