Haral beside her. A flash and flicker of monitors at her board. Scan information vanished for a checklist, one critical moment. Reappeared again. Haral had missed a switch and changed all the priorities in a rippling flicker of screens. Haral had missed. That never happened. “You on?”
“I got it, cap’n. Sorry. That’s confirm on Aja Jin. They’re in on schedule.” Vermin. Little vermin. drop again. … . . . reform. “. . . got us stable.”
“Hilfy. Relay that. Tell our relief we’re looking for ’em up here fast as they can do it. Skkukuk, you’re discharged. Get some rest.”
“Hakt’, I should check the filter traps.”
“Do it fast, then. Go to it.”
“Yes, hakt’.” Long hour til jump-out.
And still days down. She did not want to know how many. The figures were lost in her jump-mazed brain.
Akkhtimakt’s ships were indisputably in front of them, already gone, in transit toward Anuurn. Of the two missing probes, nothing. Their own escort was there, that was all.
She forced another nutrients-packet down. Swallowed and listened to an eerily deserted nowhere, the dark mass of Kura Point, its little beacon extinguished. Not a place hani had ever found it economical to put a station, it was just an astronomical oddity, Kura Point Mass, a lump of rock that just incidentally made hani an independent species-making a route to Meetpoint and other species through hani space only, and not through mahen Ajir, to the sure annoyance of the mahendo’sat.
An accident of nature that had cut four months off the Anuurn-Kura run and saved the whole hani species from becoming a dependency of the mahendo’sat.
It just sat there radiating away, dead and quiet. A chancy, spooky place where hani met and hailed each other, glad of another voice in the tomblike silences. Have a breakdown here and a ship just sat and waited for rescue. Which might bankrupt a running ship. Weeks waiting on help and months getting a repair crew out from Anuurn or Kura star.
She made the count on those coming in behind them. “Send,” she said to Hilfy. “The Pride of Chanur to all ships. Status check.”
Because the silence oppressed her, because of a sudden, this last, this perilous last jump, she wanted a voice or two out of the dark. She wanted Jik’s most of all, wanted it to come across the way she was used to hearing it, deep and humorous and reservedly friendly.
Crazy. Crazy impulse. Why him? Ought to want his ears, I should, I ought.
Lying bastard that he is. He’s not suffering on that ship of his. Got enough crew to rotate shifts with no pain at all.
They’re built for this kind of run. A ship like Lightweaver, or Starwind, back there, they’re going to be feeling it near as bad as we are, gods help ’em.
Kifish advisements came in, cold and exact. No pain there either. We are running well, one sent. Glory to the hakkikt.
Hani ships: “We’re hanging on.” -Harun’s Industry.
“We got one system on backup.” -Pauran’s Lightweaver.
“We counting? We got four.” That was Shaurnurn’s Hope, a youngish voice. “We’re patching, this lay-through.”
“We’re doing all right. We’ve got a few red-light conditions. We’re seeing to them.” Munur Faha, on Starwind.
And last of all: ”We all time good condition, friend. I be here, no worry. What you ‘spect, a?”
Hilfy made acknowledgments, passed advisements, in a wan, tired voice.
And from Geran, quietly, speaking to someone: “How is she?”
“Geran. You want to get back there? That’s an order, cousin.”
“Aye.”
No argument this time. Tirun signaled she was covering that station. A belt clicked, and Pyanfar gnawed her mustaches and fought the hypnosis of the blinking lights, the wash of green on the board- Going to lose her, was the thought that wanted through, and she would not let it.
Bone and muscle. Vital organs. Nutrients. Steel and plastics could last the trip. Living bodies needed time to rebuild, and there was no recovery in their schedule.
Do kif suffer this?
Image of a black bundle of rags, Skkukuk collapsing in her arms, virtually moribund in the first jump they had made.