“Most adequate,” gtsta pronounced, walking on strange bare feet onto the carpet they hadn’t used in the decoration next door. Gods-be right, adequate, Hilfy thought, while the seconds ticked down in the count, and bare stsho toes curled into the white pile. “Most curious, the sensation.”
“We assure you gtst excellency and gtst companion are next door,” Hilfy said, while Fala and Tarras hovered near to prevent falls. “I must caution your holiness to watch your st—“ on the rim, she had been about to say, but gtsta put a bare foot on the edge of the improvised bowl-chair, and Tarras made a futile grab as gtsta slid down the plastic foot-pad, plump! to what was surely multiple fractures.
Gtstasprawled and bounced, a tangle of legs and gossamer. Gtsta trilled some note that did not seem of pain and, flailing gtsta arms, made another bounce that made the whole mattress quiver.
And a third, while three very time-pressed hani hovered at the edge and tried to assess the damage.
Another bounce, and a quivering like jelly. Is gtsta able to get up? Hilfy wondered. But gtsta seemed not to be distressed. Crackpot idea, she thought, a bagful of water. But if it didn’t pop and drown the old son during acceleration, gtsta had a chance. A water-filled bowl-chair … and all the essential nutrients they’d been able to pump into gtsta fragile veins.
“Pull the nets over,” she said. Gtsta had already had the medication, Tarras had seen to that, and it seemed to be taking effect. Gtsta lay flat on the ripples and rebounds, waving a languid arm, gtsta mouth pursed and gtsta eyes half-open, while Tarras and Fala hauled the safety netting over the pit and made it fast with cord.
“Blessing,” gtsta holiness said. “Well wishes. I see the tides of the many suns. I see the oneness of them. I shall tell you their names. …”
The tranquilizer definitely was taking hold. And she for one had rather rely on the navigational computer.
Chihin was saying Meras might be a sleepwalker, that the kid was spooked and seeing tc’a, and that that had been the alarm during system drop. They had a clearance from the kif for undock and a schedule they’d agreed to in a star system the kif were clearly touchy about protecting; and, gods save them, they had a Preciousness and a handful of stsho to get to Meetpoint alive to back up No’shto-shti-stlen against the allies of Paehisna-ma-to,— if theold son could live through the experience.
They had a contract to declare filled; and get out of there alive and solvent—because they’d been out nearly a year as stationers counted time, and Tahaisimandi Ana-kehnandian had routed himself straight to Meet-point out of Kshshti, three months ago—as Meetpoint counted time.
“Gtstahas gtsta nutrient packs, gtsta is comfortable …” Hilfy began; and gtsta murmured, “The oneness of it all. The ineffable contentment, after the darkness of my voyage. The light, go to the friendly light, for the sake of the peace. …”
Pretty gods-be out, Hilfy thought, and squatted down and looked through the net to be certain gtsta nutrients pack was still wrapped about gtsta frail arm. For the sick and the frail one didn’t depend on the strength to hunt for it: it would feed continually, or as continually as anything happened in hyperspace.
Ask the kid, Chihin said, and was spooked, herself. They had one in the family. And she’d watched Chur go thin and otherly and sometimes as sensible as gtsta, when she was tracking something. What do you see? was the logical question.
And gods save them, she recalled with a chill down her back, Chur had talked about the light and the tides…
They were underway, launched, outbound, so fast there was no time to wipe the dust off; and Chihin sat by him at her post, grinned at him, with a twitch of a white-smudged ear.
“I probably ought to tell the captain,” Hallan said, not happily.
“I did,” Chihin said. “It’s all right. It’s all right…”
“That’s Tiraskhti,” Fala said. “They’re away.”
“Salutations to the hakkikt,” the captain said. “Send it.”
Fala did that. He heard the lisped kifish. “The hakkikt says,” Fala reported back, ‘“ hold your exact course.”Ssakkukkta sa khutturkht.’—Is that right?”