I’m sorry, she wanted to say. But the rush carried her through the door and there was no time to spend on goodbyes and regrets.
Gods hope they talked Kohan into going refugee with the other men. Gods hope.
She doubted that they could.
Where are the rest of us, the old aunts, the kids, my sisters and cousins?
On Fortune and Light? How many could they get aloft?
If that’s so, if we lose those ships, Chanur will die here.
She did not wait for the lift. There were too many waiting. She joined the impatient ones that ran the stairs, all the way down again to dockside.
“. . . earnestly hope,” the voice out of Gaohn Central Control said, precise and patient, “you will remember the lives on this station; but we realize that this is not the greatest priority under the threat that exists. Therefore we do not encumber you with instructions of any sort. Take what actions you see fit. The citizens of this station are carrying out all domestic safety precautions. We will not issue any further order to you until this emergency is past. Gods defend us. You’ll have other priorities. End statement.”
“Thank you, Llun.” Pyanfar kept the voice cool, the hand steady over the contact. “We’ll be putting out as quickly as possible. Can we have all dock crews on line?”
Gods, where had she learned such short courtesy? The kif? She got the acknowledgment and punched out of the contact. But there were no promises that meant anything. There was nothing she wanted to say, that might not get to one of the other ships and have one of those captains second-guessing her. That was not kifish manners: it was hani good sense, hani levelheadedness. So the whole gods-be system defense was in her lap. So they were sending men and children out to the far quarters of mahen space, to be sure something of the species survived. It was what the Llun ought to have done days ago, instead of waiting till disaster came in on them. Rage boiled up in her and shortened her breaths as she kept the pre-launch checks going, one and the other switches, while Haral ran those on Tirun’s board. Armaments.
There was another ship coming into Gaohn’s traffic control, up from the world itself: shuttle-launch, out of Syrsyn. The information trickled out of Central to Light’s query: an unauthorized lift. An escape. A junior pilot and a single flight tech. The story came in from a ground station: the little Syrsyn Amphictiony had heard the warning out of space, and gotten the menfolk and the teenaged boys and girls of at least six clans all onto a commandeered shuttle, the men and the boys all drugged beyond argument, and that whole fragile, precious package presently climbing out of Anuurn’s atmosphere.
That terrified her more than Gaohn’s danger. Syrsyn was taking the monumental risk of an action she had asked them to take. And it was so small a ship, and so helpless, and a
fool thing to do, under-crewed and gods knew, with no flight plan but up. Use the engines, get course after they were in space, trust someone would take them in: lifesupport adequate for-gods, what kind of figure? how many on that ship? Six clans’ kids, the menfolk, a couple of women to handle the emergencies and keep down panic-
Four, five hundred lives?
How many of Chanur were still ground-bound?
Gods, get us away from this dock. Give us a chance.
Let us get at least to system edge.
There were no mines laid, gods-be nothing done, to forestall invasion. The han directed: the han had no grasp of mahen tactics, gods help them, no knowledge what the universe was shaped like above their day-sky, how ships and objects incoming and dropping out of hyperspace went missilelike to a sun, and coincidentally the near planets, of the habitable kind, at velocities that made them undetectable until they arrived. And the farther out from the system center the defense was set, to prevent such strikes, the larger the sphere of defense, and the wider the gaps in it, even if a body was reasonably sure what jump point it was coming from, and whether it was sticking to standards like system zenith entry, or whether the cant of the local star and the origin-well permitted something like a nadir arrival. It was a good guess where anything incoming from Meetpoint might arrive via Kura. Which was, gods knew, the shortest route.