Tully talked again, from his seat halfway down the table. In a quiet, colorless tone.
What came back sounded heated. But not when Tully rendered it. Simply: “They go. Want us come home with.”
“No,” the Llun said, before the mahen Personage got a word in. Skkukuk just sat and clicked to himself.
“This isn’t a good time,” Pyanfar said. Being an old trader. Tully rendered that in some fashion. “Knnn out there.” And he rendered that, which got surlier frowns.
“Kkkkt,” Skkukuk said, lifting his jaw, which they probably failed to understand.
Tully said something. It was probable that Tully did understand.
They were disposed to go to their ships after that.
“We’ve got it,” she said to the Llun, after, herself and Tully outside in the corridor again with the Llun guard, when it was all adjourning. They were somewhat kin, she and the Llun senior. They kept it remote: the Immunes cherished their neutrality.
“We expect,” the Llun said, “that the mahendo’sat may come up with some reparations.”
Pyanfar’s ears went down. Her jaw dropped. “My gods, we just got the kif and the mahendo’sat settled-”
“You have a peculiar position.”
She went on staring at the Llun.
“Unique influence,” the Llun said.
Trading instincts took over. In a blinding flash. My gods. They need something, don’t they?
Gods save us. The mahendo’sat.
/ can get The Pride running again. Maybe get clear of this port. Bluff them out of arresting us.
“It occurs to the han and the Immunes collectively,” the Llun said, “that if you can do this, you can do other things. You have an extreme influence with the mahendo’sat.”
My gods, my gods, they don’t see yet! The mahendo’sat, the mahendo’sat are all they can see. The stsho and the mahendo’sat. Their precious trading interests. She walked away, stared off down the corridor where her own multispecies escort waited, rattling with weapons. Like the knnn and the tc’a out there, which Jik and Goldtooth swore was a tolerably friendly presence. And a pirate ship which was lying very quiet, but assuredly listening. She knew Tahar, that she would go on listening till she knew it was time to run for it. I’m dangerous. I’m a plague and a danger to them. But they’re mistaken what the danger is.
“Chanur. The han is offering you your land back.”
She turned around, blinked and stared at the Immune. “You mean my son is giving it up. Surrendering the land? Or the han is just confiscating it?”
“They’ll work something out. They’re disposed to work something out.”
“Gods-be greedy eggsucking bastards! What are they asking? What are they buying? Who in a mahen hell do they think they’re trading with?”
“I don’t think they know either. I don’t think they imagine. / do. The spacer clans do. They’re saying they’ll fight if the han lays a hand on you. They know what it would mean with the kif and the mahendo’sat. I know.”
“They’re crazy!”
“You’re in a position. What will happen if you aren’t? Tell me that.”
Skkukuk being what Sikkukkut wanted to be. Jik discredited. Shakeups in the mahen government. More craziness.
It was not what she wanted to think of. It lay there day and night in her gut like something indigestible.
So did the solution.
“So the han just wants me to come down there and play politics and pay the bar tab, huh? Cozy up with the Naur.”
“I didn’t say that. I don’t say the Naur won’t try.” The Llun looked as if she had something sour in her mouth. “I don’t say you’ll have to listen to them. You’ve got friends. That’s what I’m trying to say. Unofficially.”
“Because I won in there.”
“I’ll be honest. Some clans would have stood by you. The Llun couldn’t have. We have other considerations. I’m not talking to a political novice. I’m not one either.”
“Meaning you know what I could do.”
“You’re hani. You came back here. You came back here like Ayhar did. Like all the rest. That’s some assurance what you’ll do.”
“The land’s the rest, is it?”
“Some accommodation can be worked out.”
Her heart hurt. Acutely. It took several breaths to dispel enough of the pain to talk. “I’m too honest, Llun. I’m too gods-be honest to take that deal. I’m too honest to do that to the han, and I mean us, not what sits on its broad backside down in that marble mausoleum and tries to play politics in a universe it doesn’t by the gods understand. I’m the best education they’re ever likely to get. You’re right. You and your guards don’t lay a hand on me or mine. You know what it would set off.”