“Danger,” she said. “Danger, gods rot it.”
“Understand,” he said. And looked at her with fear. With Geran’s look.
Crew returned. Pyanfar ran the checks. They were still on the mark. They had no communication with the other ships excepting the necessary crosschecks of position and exchange of navigational data. It was not politic or wise, considering possibility of spies overhearing them, to do more than they had done. Their messages would be reported, as often as they were detected, and some they had sent were already pushing the limits of prudence.
Hakkikt, she would say, such arguments were necessary. They won us allies. Isn’t that the point?
If she got the chance. .
The five-minute warning sounded. The ship started procedures. Data started coming up. Tauran crew and their mahen passengers reported themselves secure.
“Sukk just made jump,” Geran said.
“Coming up on mark,” Haral said.
They left behind a scrap of message, to persist after them. Danger to Anuurn. Assist.
Chapter Ten
. . . Down. . . .
. . . one more time. … . . . “Kura Point, Pyanfar.”
She was young. Back in Urarun’s day. Green kid on her first trip back home again. Looking forward to Anuurn and swaggering about the estate.
See me. Ring and all. Got this scratch dockside at Meetpoint, I did.
Difference of opinion, me and a Jesur crewwoman.
Gods bless. What were we fighting about?
No matter. We healed fast in those days.
“Meet you at the door, Hal.” With a slow and heavy-lidded look, while a gray nosed spacer (that was the name: Pura Jesur) Pura Jesur thought she could push a couple of Chanur kids and have a bit of fun. Herself and Haral, insubordinate and full of young arrogance toward a rival ship’s crew. And drunk. That too.
Gods save us.
Urarun Chanur being the captain on the old Golden Sun. She retired as captain two voyages after. Chanur clan took the ship out of service, sold it finally to Thusar, where it ran under the name of Thusar’s Merit, a little ship. A lot of ship, for a little clan like Thusar, new to spacefaring. Chanur retired the shipname. Transferred the crew eventually, as many together as they could, to the newbuilt Pride. Urarun Chanur died in her sleep one night planetside.
. . . “Captain.”
“I got it, we’re on, aren’t we?”
“We’re running smooth.”
How’s Chur? Calm down, she won’t answer yet. Can’t answer. Gods-be drugs. No. Tully’s with her. “Tully. Report. How is Chur?”
A long pause. Muzzy human. Tully was always hard to rouse after jump.
“Tully? How’s Chur, Tully?” Is she alive, Tully? F’gods-sakes, answer back there. “She sleep.”
“Are you sure? Is she all right?” With Geran listening. But it was what Geran had to know.
“She sleep,” Tully’s voice came back again. “We’ve got acquisition on our escort,” Geran said, dead calm, onto business. “We’re still doing fine, captain.”
/ have no nerves, captain. The job gets done. For the ship and all of us.
“No buoy here, either,” Haral muttered. “No sign of anything.” She drank down the concentrates. Her hand shook. She wadded up the foil packet and thrust it into the bin after, and wiped her face. An appalling lot of hair came away. Teeth were sore, when she pushed them with her tongue. One felt loose. That more than any wound she had ever suffered made her afraid; not of dying. Of time. Of the inevitable wall that said this far for a body and no further, courage and wit and skill notwithstanding. Where are we? Is what I remember true? Gods, how did I get here? Get this old?
Kif. Kif out in front of us. It’s all true. No hallucination. Gods, if it were a hallucination, if I was back there with Urarun all this time, if I never knew these things, if these friends, this ship, this terrible mess-were all illusion-
Earflick. A weighty number of rings chimed and rang against each other.
Old graynose. Yourself, Pyanfar. Here. In this gods-be mess. Wake up. Come back. You’re fuzzed and drifting. . . . . . . when did I get old?