It sounded like good advice. Except it sat on his heart like lead where it came to Chihin; and he wasn’t used to talking back to people, not at home, not on the Sun. He just hadn’t mastered the art of saying no.
Hadn’t grown up before he’d left home. And maybe hadn’t yet, he thought. In spite of banging his head on shipboard doorways, and sitting in the chair he was in with more of him than the chair was designed to hold.
He just felt awkward. At everything. And he didn’t know if he could say that to Chihin. Or even Fala. In which case things could only get worse.
“You don’t like that advice,” Tiar said.
He didn’t know what to say. He shrugged, knew he wasn’t going to follow her advice, which was stupid, and maybe could lose him his place on board. But he couldn’t do it.
“I’m not good at telling people no,” he said.
“You want me to tell them?”
That was cowardly. And it would hurt Chihin’s feelings, in a major way, he kept thinking that, even when everybody else told him Chihin was having a joke at his expense. And it would last until about the next time the two of them were in the same area of the ship.
“I like Chihin,” he said. “And I don’t think she’s joking.”
“She’s not joking, if you mean is she serious,” Tiar warned him bluntly. But Tiar wasn’t stupid, and she seemed to catch on, then. “You like her.”
He nodded.
Tiar raked a hand through her mane, sat back and stared at the boards a second as if she were dumbfounded.
“I don’t think,” he said, in the chance she hadn’t just dismissed him, “I don’t think she’s acting the way everybody says she is. I just don’t think that.”
Tiar looked in his direction, and slowly swung her chair around. “I’ve known her a long time. I know her in ways Tarras and Fala don’t. And if that’s what you’re picking up—next serious question: do you want a rescue?”
He shook his head; and Tiar looked oddly, vaguely satisfied.
“You’re sure.”
He nodded; and Tiar frowned and seemed to have thoughts she wasn’t saying.
Finally she did say: “You’re gods-be young. You won’t always understand her. But if you get to that side of her—good luck, you’ll need it; and I’d like to see it happen. Just don’t let her run over you.
She needs a full stop now and again. Keeps her honest.”
He sat there a moment, trying to sort through that, and deciding it meant he wasn’t crazy and things were the way he thought, and things could be the way he hoped for—
“But Fala,” he said.
“But Fala,” Tiar said. “I’ll talk to her.”
“No!”
“She’ll live. You don’t dislike her.”
“No. I like her fine, just not—“
“People have to respect that, in clans, on ships, doesn’t matter: there’s serious and there’s not-serious, and Fala will forgive me saying she’d run the other way from a real commitment. That’s what I think. I’ve been wrong before, but I don’t think I am. If you want my further advice, I’d say Fala’s more interested in feeling she’s not unattractive to young men.”
“Fala? She’s beautiful.”
“Beautiful doesn’t matter. She wants to be attractive. Doesn’t everyone?” “I understand.”
“So you pretty well know how to handle it, don’t you?”
He was just not used to things going right. Something in him was still knotted up expecting disaster, like maybe the ship would fall apart in hyperspace just when things were about to sort themselves out. The gods didn’t intend he should get absolutely everything he wanted. The captain was going to throw him off the ship. Chihin was going to decide she didn’t like him.The kif were going to turn on them after all and all the ships around them were going to join in.
“I hope you’re right,” he said.
“Kid, you go follow your instincts—but don’t present too much temptation to anybody till we get this ship out of this godsforsaken port in one piece.”
“Yes, ker Tiar.”
Besides, the stsho were down there. So he couldn’t get to downside ops. He decided he should go clean up, and when he had showered, he was hungry. All of a sudden he had a ravenous appetite, when nothing had much appealed to him since before he was arrested on Meetpoint.