“Fine,” he managed to say. And prayed to keep his stomach still, while Tarras wandered around and looked in the oven and put a pot of gfi on to brew … the smell was almost more than he could take.
“Looks like you’ve about got it,” Tarras said, and came and leaned against the counter beside him.
“Hits you hard sometimes.”
“Yes,” he said.
“You want to go back to the bridge and sit down?”
“No,” he said, monosyllabic, desperate. No, he did not.
Silence for a moment. Then: “Prickly situation,” Tarras said, and he felt his stomach knot a little tighter, hoping she was going to talk about the kif and the ship out there or anything else but—
“You and Fala have something going?”
“No!” He kept his voice low, hoping to the gods they didn’t carry over the noise of the fans. “She’s just nice, is all.”
“She’s a good kid,” Tarras said. “You’re the most attractive thing she’s seen in a year. The only. But that’s beside the point.”
“I didn’t—“ He didn’t want to talk about this. But he was cornered. And Tarras might be on Fala’s side, but Tarras was easier to talk to than Fala. “I didn’t want to upset her.”
“Chihin’s a full-time pain. It’s her aim in life. You’re not obligated to put up with—“
He didn’t like Tarras saying that. He didn’t want to hear it. He shoved off on his way to the crew lounge, as the only refuge he could think of, and Tarras caught his arm, caught it with a claw, and it hurt, but he kept going.
She caught him again. Most wouldn’t. Nobody ever had, on this ship. But he’d learned on the Sun, that defying orders meant getting dumped. So he did stop. He didn’t have to look at her.
“Oh,gods,” Tarras muttered. “Chihin?”
So Chihin joked. He knew that. It didn’t change the fact he felt it in the gut when she walked past him. It didn’t change the fact he liked her, and it didn’t change the way he’d felt, and the way he still felt.
Tarras let out a breath and leaned against the wall. “Kid, Chihin isn’t the most serious-minded soul in the crew.”
“That’s all right,” he said without looking at her.
“Ow,” Tarras said, and after a moment of silence. “Look, na Hallan. She’s not a bad sort. —Gods, I’ve landed in it, haven’t I?”
He didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t mad at Tarras. He wasn’t mad at anybody. Mostly his stomach was upset and he wished Fala wasn’t mad. The oven timer went off, to his vast relief, and he said, “It’s ready.”
“I’ll call them,” she said, and ducked out while he took the dinners out.
And burned his fingers.
Something about na Hallan and Chihin … Tiar didn’t wholly pick it up on the first hearing, with Tarras leaning and whispering into her ear.
And then she didn’t believe it. But Tarras said, “It’s serious.”
Sheunbelted and got up; and went over to the captain and whispered, “The kid and Chihin? We got a problem.”
Hilfy turned her head, looked at her nose to nose and said, ominously: “Problem?”
Tiar made a glance back toward the galley, another to Chihin and Fala, working side by side. An unnaturally quiet Chihin.
“She hasn’t said a word.”
The captain evidently added the same chain of figures. Chihin was deathly quiet. Not a joke. Not an ill-timed jibe about the situation. A lot of efficiency out of her, this last hour, but seldom a word, since the first.
And Fala—Fala was talking to the kif, but not to Chihin.
“I want this straightened out,” Hilfy said under her breath. “Good gods, we aren’t in a place we can afford this! Grow by the gods up, can’t we?”
“I don’t think it’s Fala,” Tiar said as faintly as she could, and got a second furious look from Hilfy.
“I don’t care what’s going on,” Hilfy hissed. “This is deadly serious, cousin. The kif aren’t playing lovers’ games out there. Breakfast at stations, nobody’s getting a break.”
Good idea, Tiar thought to herself, and went and relayed the order out loud: “Stay at vrr’*- nnsts. We’ve got a situation shaping up. We’re”n~r”£n “ongoing caution, here, we can get the food out, but we’re not taking any breaks, got it?”