Chihin had the dockside post, with her arm in a sling and a button-fuse on her temper. (“Gods-rotted nitpicking doesn’t gods-be make a difference, half this stuff! She says she’s going to enforce this? She’s serious?”)
That was somewhat Tiar’s own opinion, but: “Whatever we’re doing we better all do it,” was her second one. And Chihin, who had read the whole thing, had muttered a surly, pain-infected obscenity and declared The Pride’s crew obviously had to bolt everything down and double-check the readouts because The Pride’s captain was crazy.
But that was the ship’s-manual ops section, and every spacer in the clan knew Pyanfar Chanur was a stickler for neatness, double and triple checks, and logging every sneeze. The part about arms maintenance, about who went armed and where and when and when not to fire, who in a group was to watch what and who was to break for help, what the ship would stand good for and what the captain would not tolerate … all that, in Tiar’s estimation, was a piece of good sense. The instructions might violate five separate Compact laws and two Trade office regulations Tiar could immediately think of, not mentioning local ordinances, but it was comforting to think that there was a standing order for a rescue, that station police no matter with what warrant were not going to take a crew member from the dockside for any reason whatsoever, and that the ship would seal up and leave dock at any moment to protect its crew, disregarding cargo and disregarding station central control. That was against the law. That would get them barred from trade unless they had a good story for the tribunal.
But Hilfy Chanur said that the new rules were the rules and she was going to follow them. It was a major lot of trouble if they ever had to do what was set down here: lawsuits, blacklisting, the various fines and penalties and loss of license Compact law threatened them with evidently didn’t matter, if they had another incident like the one yesterday—because ker Hilfy said that was the way it was, and in Tiar’s experience, Hilfy meant it, come fire come thunder. Ker Chanur had no few faults, but if she promised something this drastic, she wouldn’t back down if it went operational.
No wonder they didn’t want a copy leaving the ship. They weren’t trade rules. They were a manual for …
A manual for, it occurred to Tiar Chanur as she thought about it, a hunter ship, an outright privateer … as, at least in the speculation of some in Chanur clan, that was what cousin Pyanfar had been for certain forces in the han, for years before it became official and war broke out and the han tried to bring her under control.
If we ever do any of these things, Tiar thought, we’ll go over that same edge. At that point we’ll no longer be a trading ship: ports won’t treat us as one. We might get into port—but no knowing who’d trade with us.
And if the Legacy goes over the edge, if Chanur has two ships operating like this … how can we claim we’re still just another clan? The han won’t stand for it.
She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. The captain was upset, she’d picked that up clearly enough. She’d seen it in Chihin, who was in pain, and had a right to be, but she could read Chihin, and it was more than the pain in the wounded arm, Chihin was rattled, ambivalent about this business, and mad as she’d seen her in years.
Because the kid had saved her neck? Maybe. Chihin really, honestly, didn’t approve of the boy being here, particularly on this voyage … even if Chihin had grudgingly called him a nice, cooperative kid— (“Too gods-be nice,” Chihin had put it. “Mincemeat in a month, at home, at his age.”)
So it probably wasn’t the kid, probably not even the stsho. Chihin was walking around this morning with a head of steam built up and a set to her jaw that said the pain was only an aggravation, she was holding it in, and the wise wouldn’t cross her opinions.