“What’s that?”
“Surrender our stsho passengers.”
“They are reprehensible individuals!” gtst excellency cried, waving gtst arms. “They are covered in shame and perfidy!”
“Your excellency could not then discover the whereabouts of No’shto-shti-stlen? Or is it tasteful for me to ask—“
“Your honor has every attribute of taste! Your honor is the only whiteness in a thousand worlds, wai! the treachery, wai! the reckless and shameless behavior of individuals who were born with better advantage!”
“What is the condition of No’shto-shti-stlen?”
“Dire. Gtst bravely holds gtst post. But gtst confides to me that gtst despairs. The influence of Paehisna-ma-to has reached even to Llyene, and the capital has lost confidence in gtst excellency, the capital has sent out other persons to displace gtst that may be more pleasing to Paehisna-ma-to.”
“And not pleasing to the mekt-hakkikt?”
“One can hardly please both, as gtst excellency foresaw. I must take the Preciousness, I must advance onto the station, I must show these emissaries that I am disdainful of them and their gross displays of foreign force, these—“
Gtstran out of breath and subsided onto the pillows, while Dlimas-lyi tried with gentle touches to calm gtst.
“I shall go with gtst,” Dlimas-lyi looked up to say. “I shall not permit gtst alone to venture among strangers.”
“your excellency,” Hilfy said in all honesty, “your tastefulness and good qualities make me admire you exceedingly. You are the most excellent of stsho.”
“You are likewise the most excellent of hani,” Tlisi-tlas-tin declared, reaching up a thin, white hand.
“I value your estimation.”
Was it possible a hani could grow fond of gtst excellency? She thought so, quite profoundly fond of the fellow and gtst nestmate.
She knelt down, to bring herself eye to eye with gtst excellency, who gazed at her with no lowering of lashes or nodding away.
“Your excellency, may I ask the most extreme trust? The most reckless trust? And perhaps something of great delicacy?”
“Ask.”
“May I—em—transport the Preciousness elsewhere for perhaps an hour or two? May I do things in your name which I may try to perform tastefully, but which, if I fail, will attach only to me and my ignorance? In no wise would I risk your excellencies’ honor or your reputations.”
Eyes lowered, hands fluttered. “You ask a most dire favor!”
“I am—aware of the nature of the Preciousness, and I will treat the Preciousness as if it were my own honor in question.”
It seemed gtst excellency might faint or Phase, so great was gtst agitation. Then gtst seized her hand with all gtst slight strength.
“Gtstamight handle the Preciousness! In this fashion would our honor be kept!”
“Most resourceful of stsho!” she said, and leaped up in a thoroughly tasteless haste, on her way to the door before she remembered a courteous bow.
“Wai, go!” gtst excellency cried, waving gtst gossamer sleeve. “Go, at all necessary speed, dear hani, and work necessary disarrangements upon our enemies!”
Chapter Twenty
For a while there was just no thinking, even about hazards around them. It helped that Chihin was crazy; or as crazy as he was, with everything that had happened, and it helped that the other four of his wives didn’t insist on conjugal privileges…
But for a while one’s brain just shorted out, and then wouldn’t work, and when common sense finally came back, the two of them seemed to find it together.
“I think—“ Hallan tried to say.
“Yeah’’ Chihin breathed.
“I think maybe we better get back. …”
“I think so too,” Chihin said, and started getting up, so he did. He thought, We could be killed. We could all be arrested. What kind of fools are we, acting like this?
But Chihin looked at him and he straightway lost his good sense again, until she made a face and swore and shoved him out the door, where the air was colder and clearer and the ship-sounds in the corridor reminded anybody with a brain at all that there were urgent operations going on.
They went to the bridge but only Tiar was there. Tiar twitched an ear back to take in their presence, Chihin flung herself into station and punched buttons—he settled into his chair more carefully, and didn’t.