Kesurinan believed she knew the answers to all these things, perhaps. And stayed patient. So far.
But on that dockside Kesurinan was bound to ask questions that needed direct lies. And inventive ones.
Goldtooth, gods curse you, what have you set up here?
Made an agreement with someone, have you?
Or have we got something else lurking out there, outsystem, that we’re going to find out about when our wavefront gets to them and they get themselves run up to attack speed?
Gods, gods, this is no situation to be in. What’s Sikkukkut doing? Is that son really depending on us, for godssakes? Are we the backup he thinks he has?
Fool, Sikkukkut. Can a kifmind be that tangled, to trust us now?
Or are you no fool at all?
Com beeped. “Py,” Khym said, and cut it in from his board.
“I got it.” It was station, talking to them in effusive jabber. A stsho told them that they could, if they wished, have any free berth, but suggested numbers twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine. Which the lord captain of Ikkhoitr had suggested, praise to the hakkikt.
“Affirm,” she said, and with a flattening of her ears: “Praise to the hakkikt.”
“No real choice, do we?” Khym asked.
“Life and not. We got that.”
“What are we going to do?” There was the faintest note of despair there. A man asking his wife for reassurance. Tell me there’s something you can do. Tell me it’s not that bad, not that hopeless. A man lived within the small borders of his estate-never tell a man a thing: never worry him with problems he had no capacity to deal with. And no power. Old habits, Khym, gods rot it, grow up!
No. It’s crew talking to captain. That’s all. Get off him, Pyanfar.
“Feathered if I know what we’re going to do,” she muttered. No mercy, Khym. “Got an idea?”
“He’s going to ask for Jik.”
“I’m afraid he is.”
”What are we going to do?”
“I’ll make something up.”
Nothing to do but watch it unfold. Obey instructions, take the berth.
You got it, husband. There isn’t an answer. I haven’t got a miracle to pull off. I don’t know what in a mahen hell we’re going to do and most of all I don’t know how we’re going to get out of here.
Thank gods Ehrran’s headed home to warn the han. Even if she goes for Chanur in the process. Better the clan goes down than the whole world. Better a whole lot of things than that.
But, gods, Ehrran’s a fool. What’s a fool going to tell them? What’s a fool going to persuade those fools to do? Gods, give her good sense just once and I’ll go religious, I swear I will. I’ll reform. I’ll- Haral startled her, settling ghostlike into place beside her.
“Captain,” Haral said. “What we got?”
She turned the chair half-about, saw Tirun out of her place and Tully and Hilfy settling into theirs, ghostlike silent under the noise of operating systems. “We got our docking instructions. Give Tirun time to get herself down to quarters. We can brake a little late. Meetpoint sure as rain isn’t going to file any protest on us for violations.” She swung the chair about again and punched in com. Two veteran crewwomen in their places arid two novices. But it was a routine docking, whatever else was proceeding. “Geran,” she said. “Five minutes.”
“I’m on my way,” Geran answered back from somewhere.
“Captain,” Haral said, “Hilfy’s got this idea-”
“Tahar acknowledges recept on docking instructions,” Hilfy said. “They’re on our lead.”
“-Akkhtimakt’s just lost any reason he had for restraint,” Haral said. “He’s losing. Mahendo’sat aren’t dealing with him. He’s gone off toward Urtur; there’s two moves he could make. One’s us. One’s the mahendo’sat. Things could get ugly. Real ugly. That’s what we been thinking.”
“Huhhhn.” Another body hit the cushions, hard. She heard the click of restraints. Geran was in. Heard a wild high chittering coming down the corridor, which was a kif in full career, headed for his station and trying to tell them to wait for him: a shove of The Pride’s, mains would send him smashing back into the lift door with the same force as if he had fallen off a building roof.