So, it put him with Chihin. Not the happiest pairing, but not one na Hallan could blink his pretty eyes at and overwhelm with stupidity, either.
“Meras, you stay out of Chihin’s way.”
“Aye,” he said, “thank you, captain.”
Chihin shot her a reproachful look; and probably took it for revenge for the stsho incident. But na Hallan settled in, and Chihin settled at nav and scan; Tarras on his other side, at general ops and cargo; and armaments, if the Legacy had ever needed them. Fala Anify slid in at com; and the captain—the captain sat backup to several posts, a selection of inputs to her screens.
“We’ve got company out there,” Chihin said. “That son’s still with us.”
“Noticed that,” Hilfy said. “I don’t credit him with any good wishes.”
“Not him or whoever sent him,” Chihin said.
Switches went to On, lights and more screens flared up, and changed displays at Tarras’ switching. The computer locked onto the guidance point. Fala advised their stsho passenger to take precautions and got an acknowledgement. Hilfy took the leisure of being momentarily out of the critical loops to pull up Kita charts and the latest trade figures, figuring that if the gods were good they could do a jump for Kirdu and mahen space, once they’d delivered the oji. They had the requisite clearances. No question on that. And Kirdu wasn’t a bad destination out of there. Most ships were going the other direction, and you could pick up a major load of mail, bank shipments, and the occasional high-paying passenger, not to mention the items out of stsho space that were fairly scarce at Kirdu port.
Only granted the faint, fair hope their addressee was at Kita and not elsewhere by now … or about to be elsewhere. Atli-lyen-tlas seemed to have had a fair head start. “Set for jump,” Tiar said, “Boy, are you all right over there?”
“I’m fine,” the answer came back, but he was doing something that wasn’t regulation, she could see the activity in the tail of her eye as the numbers spieled down toward a convergence of v and distance from mass.
“Kid,” Chihin cautioned him.
“I’m trying to get ops echoed,” he said. “I want to see—“
“Just enjoy the ride,” Chihin said.
“Can we get attention to what we’re doing?” Hilfy asked. It wasn’t a time for a side issue. “Tiar.”
“I’ve got it, I’ve got it. —Kid, punch in your 3. Leave that gods-be board alone, it’s live!”
“There it is!”
“Gods-rotted distraction,” Chihin muttered. “This is a working station. The kid had better learn not to punch buttons.”
“I’m sorry, ker Chihin.”
“Learn it!”
“Yes, ker Chihin.”
“Belong at home, is where.”
“Ease off,” Tarras muttered.
“I want to know if he understands about that board!”
“I’m not pushing any buttons, ker Chihin. I won’t. I swear.”
“By the gods better not. That board’s got a link to fire controls. Why don’t we shoot at the station for entertainment?”
From Tiar: “Just shut up, Chihin, godssakes, he said he was sorry.”
“Everybody quiet!” Hilfy said. “We’re almost on mark, I’m supposed to be off duty, can we have the crew paying attention for the next small while?”
“Sorry, captain.”
“I’m sorry,” Meras said, and Chihin: “No gods-be place on the …”
“Shut it up, Chihin!”
(“She’s always like this,” Fala whispered.)
“Gods-be zoo,” Hilfy said, running her eye down the figures, watching the lines converge. “Shipped with two men and a kif that fought less.” She hadn’t been able to think about that in years. Certainly not to joke about it. There was something oddly comfortable about the kid sitting there, hulking over the controls that, one had to admit, he came aboard understanding better than na Khym had. Certainly better than Tully.
Numbers reached +14 and 4-14, Lines met, at 0 and O.
Dead on. …
… Not bad, Tully said to her. Not bad. You could do worse than that young fellow.
Tully walked away then, down what might have been a dockside. She thought it was.
Wait, she said, Tully. Come back here. You can’t leave like that …
… Stick to your own kind, aunt Pyanfar said. And she: