“I could—I could try to have station get a message to them, station can talk with them…”
“That’s a myth. That’s a thorough-going myth. Station can approximate things like ‘Open the hatch,’ and ‘That’s a fire hazard!’ It doesn’t do gods-be well with, ‘Hello, I’m Hallan Meras, I’m responsible for your offspring.’ They’ve been in space long before we were, and we still don’t know how to say ‘Stop it you’re in my lane,’ and: ‘My ship can’t perform that maneuver.’ You want to see a matrix brain communication? I can show you one. …” She got into comp with two jabs of a key and voiced it: “Matrix-corn!”
Matrix-corn came up, with the typical grid. Five rows across, output of each of five voices of its multiple brains. She hit vocal and knnn-voice wailed over the speaker, like a wind-organ, like pipes, and deep, deep bass vibrations.
Hallan winced, ears twitching with the assault, nostrils working. He shivered visibly. Then she remembered she was dealing with adolescent male hormones, which ought to give a sane woman pause—but gods rot it, he insisted he was one of the girls, that he was cool-headed, he wanted to play the game on their terms; and she slammed her hand down on the desk, bang!
“Off-comp!”
Sound stopped. And Meras was still twitching, but be hadn’t left his chair, his eyes were dilated, but the ears were trying to come upright—he was paying attention, he was listening, he wasn’t crazy.
“Captain.”Tiar—on the bridge. Magnificent timing.
“I’m hi my office, Tiar. What’s the problem?”
“Just got a blip on station feed.Sun Ascendant’s just entered system.”
The answer to prayers, it might be.
Hallan looked upset. Shook his head and shaped No with his mouth. Said something else.
“Thanks, cousin. Glad to hear that.’’
“I don’t want to go, captain. I don’t want them—“
“You signed with them. You sat at their table, you slept in their shelter, they got you your license, and I don’t know what made diem leave you at Meetpoint, Meras, but so far as what I’ve seen they may have run for their lives.”
Made him mad, that did. Good.
“If you want to go back to the laundry, you stay there. If you want to go back to the passenger cabins and help Chihin paint and patch, feel free. I’m not turning you over to station police, and being the righteous fool I am, I’m not identifying Sun Ascendant to the tc’a. We’ll handle it. But I’ve done everything I’m obliged to do for somebody I gathered out of a jail he by the gods got himself into. I’ve got 41 messages in ship’s files for my aunt at this station; I’ve got 156 for me, most of them from people trying to use me to get to my aunt for favors they want; and here comes one of my aunt’s devoted admirers who just really badly wants into my crew, because he just really badly wants it, that’s why. —Well, so does half the universe, Meras. And I’d suggest you give up and go home if meeting my aunt is what you want; or if being a spacer is what you want, focus down and use your head on problems before you kill somebody. I’d suggest you give up on the Manual of Trade and start reading the licensing and operations manual. It may keep you out of the next hot spot you land in. —And give my regards to Tellun Sahern. Minute your ship makes port you’re going over there.”
Ears were flat. Really mad. Better. Maybe he’d survive in Sahern, in far space.
“Go on,” she said. And he got up and bowed and left.
Which didn’t make her happy. Nobody could be happy, who had a 200,000 credit charge pending against her ship, a cargo half unloaded, a distraught stsho dignitary in the crew lounge, and a course change pending to Kita Point, a gods-forsaken dot in the great empty, after which, as she had said to Meras—limited options.
“Ker Chihin,” Hallan said, hesitating in the open doorway. “The captain suggested I help.”
“I don’t need anything backed into,” Chihin said shortly, and Hallan winced. The room was all white.