“No way! News of it got here with my ship! No way they know about it. You ask Haisi Ana-kehnandian what spooked them, you ask him what in your seventh reprehensible hell he knows about our cargo and who’s pockets he’s got access to. I want to talk to the stationmaster, I want to talk to the personage of this station, I want a legal accounting of every paper you’ve brought against us, and I want my ship cleared!”
“You not yell in this office!”
“I by the gods yell in this office, I yell until somebody contacts the personage of Urtur and gets my customs slip cleared, and no more of this talk about invading a stsho emissary’s privacy and searching his baggage!”
There was a disturbance at the door behind her. A mahen voice registered protest in some alien tongue, another joined it before she could even look around. She did look, and there was a handful of mahen spacers and Haisi Ana-kehnandian shoving other business out the door.
He shut the door and held it then, with a wall of large mahendo’sat.
She missed carrying a gun. Gods, she did. Claws came out. Haisi twitched and she went over the counter, scattering customs personnel left and right. Chairs went over, clerks jammed up in an inner office door and shrieked in panic.
“Hani!” Haisi shouted. “You stop, stop now! You listen!”
Nobody had guns. But they had the door. There were clerks under desks. The group behind her squeezed into the room and shut that door.
“Where’s your authority? Where’s any proof you’re not a pirate, Haisi Ana-kehnandian? Unblock that door!”
“All right, all right.” Haisi made calming gestures. “You not break furniture, Chanur captain. You got important relative, no reason break place up. Don’t be damn fool!”
“I got important relative, same time got real distrust of people who get pushy, mahe. You want I charge piracy? You want I say you try damn underhanded trick with customs? I want to talk to the stationmaster, I want to talk right now, and no more tricks!”
“Stationmaster indispos’”
“Indisposed like the stsho ambassador? Indisposed like run for Iji?”
“You talk wild, hani. No. Indispos’ like not take time talk with every damn’ fool got problem.”
Damn’ fool was close to the point. Something was seriously wrong at Urtur, and the more they suspected she knew the less likely she was to get out of this room, much less out of the port. Far better to have played outraged trader.
“I want my ship cleared! I want customs clearance, I want my record cleared, I want to sell my cargo when and if and at what price I choose, and I want an end of interference with my business.”
“You want tell what sort object you carry?”
“No, I don’t. It’s none of your gods-rotted business! You get out from in front of that door, you get yourself and your crew out of my way! This is a public office. If I don’t see a badge, an authorization, or a personage, I’m not giving you anything. And if you try to hold me, my ship—a Chanur ship—is going to carry a complaint to the Compact.”
“You be calm, be calm, hani. This get to very silly point. You listen to me. You walk ‘round station talk about dangerous business, name dangerous stuff, you come in this office make demand in front of witness you don’t know by damn who, you try get throat cut?”
“Open that door!”
“A’ right, a’ right. —Rahe’ish’ taij meh, jai.”
The mahendo’sat with him moved aside from the door.
“Against the wall!” she said.
“You got damn poor idea who give orders in this room, hani!”
“I got damn good idea you got no authority to give orders. Or you can clear the papers. You want big blow-up you just keep going.”
“Clear papers. I clear papers. All right!” Haisi spat out a torrent of mahendi instructions, only half of which she could understand, but which got the clerks cautiously out from under the desks and brought the customs agent back from the office in the rear.
The door opened, from the other side. Station police stood there, armed with pistols and ready for trouble. Someone had called them. Probably from the back office.