Tc’a did take on fuel, in realspace. Tc’a did pay bills, like the rest of them. There were surely constraints of physics on what they did in hyperspace. But one had to remember that ships didn’t entirely enter hyperspace, didn’t leave the interface, please the gods they didn’t …
“Message to station,” Hilfy said, “we have tc’a ships in the vicinity. A navigational caution is in order.”
Let the mahendo’sat hunter ships lurking out there worry about that one. Tc’a didn’t obey lane restrictions. Not on Kshshti docks. Not hi the regulated space around a station.
And the gods knew, you didn’t shoot at one. Never shoot at anything, aunt Py had used to say, that you can’t talk to.
“Let’s get us a little more v, Tiar, full 1 g sustained.”
Sustained 1 g push, and one hoped the stsho aboard had taken advice and remained in their beds. Things tended to go rapidly to the aft bulkhead under these circumstances.
“Kkkt,” came over her earpiece. “This amuses. We are going with you, Chanur. “
You didn’t tell a kifish hakkikt mind his own business, either. Thank the gods it was only Tiraskhti that moved. And she’d never thought she’d live to say it, but that sleek hunter moving with them was a welcome sight.
And all those kif out there … if anything happened to the hakkikt, there would be a twenty-way sort-out after the leadership of that fleet. Station surely knew that. Station surely knew that it would be very dangerous to deprive the kif of a leader, if it didn’t want a firefight in its territory.
But one had to ask oneself why station was staying silent—besides the fact it didn’t yet know, and wouldn’t, for some few minutes, that they had a kif inbound.
She punched the intercom. “How are you both faring, excellency?”
“Wai,” came the breathless answer. “Wai, the dreadfulness of ships! We are most uncomfortable! I fear for the holiness! I fear for the Preciousness! I fear for our lives!”
“We’re going to cease acceleration, your excellency, in just a few moments. —Tiar, establish Tiraskhti helm, we don’t want to surprise them, ustj stay in link with their pilot.—Fala, I’ll take your board, get downside, see if gtsta needs attention. —Go inertial, Tiar, at your discretion.”
“Standby.”
The weight that had been pushing them slantwise into their cushions became ordinary, regular orientation revised up and down. “I’m going,” Fala said; and Hilfy keyed over to basic com functions on her own board. “Station, this is , inbound on your instructions. Inform gtst excellency No’shto-shti-stlen that we return delighted with our success in gtst instructions.”
That was stshoshi. That for the representatives of the han, who would not bother to learn the language of their trading partners.
But after the due round-trip time-lapse, mahendi came back: “You stay lane, Chanur ship. Same ask kif ship Tiraskhti. Stay lane. Legal matter here. No gun. “
A crackle of kifish followed, with no time-lag: Tiraskhti. “In the name of the mekt-hakkikt, we wilt follow the treaty and we will enforce the treaty. Parau’a mekt-hakkikta rassurrn na uunfaura, uunfaura sassurrn ma …”
Hani, by the gods.
And from below-decks: “Captain, gtsta is saying something about tc’a and the sun and ker Pyanfar, Something like the stars speaking with one voice …” She could hear the babble from elsewhere, something about star-drives and resonances and talking with the fields … “Otherwise gtsta looks all right. Should I release the netting?”
“No!” She amended that more quietly. “Tell gtsta where we are, tell gtsta the situation, tell gtsta it’s a safety measure, and get your agile young bones up here as fast as you can.”
There still wasn’t a guarantee there wouldn’t be shooting; but the opposition would have to be crazier than the holiness. The opposition had Meetpoint. The opposition had the Treaty and the Compact itself to hold hostage—because if the opposition didn’t start shooting, the opposition held Meetpoint, and Momentum continued on the side of Paehisna-ma-to; while if they started shooting, the mekt-hakkikt’s own side would have broken the Treaty. And it all came unraveled from there—even if they had the force to take Meetpoint without damage, which, with a mahen fleet hidden out there—they didn’t have.