“No question,” Tiar said.
“Ship left him?” Fala asked, her young face all seriousness.
“It’s a long story. We’re taking him out of here, is all we can promise. Catch his ship if we can. Just be nice. Be nice.”
She clapped Tiar on the shoulder, Chihin second, and deliberately did not hear Chihin say, “That’s what comes of letting men into space …” Chihin was conservative, so was Tiar, and you didn’t change her overnight.
But things had changed. They had changed so far a hani ship could bring a hani lad forty lights away from home and leave him to a station where kif were the guards and stsho were the only justice.
She walked up the ramp and into the yellow-ribbed access tube, trod the chilly distance to the lock and locked through. In the lowerdeck ops station, she found Tarras working comp on the loaders, and she snagged Tarras for the computer work.
One did not drop a strange cube into the ship’s main computer or any terminal in touch with it. Not that one didn’t trust gtst excellency. Of course not.
So it was the downside auxiliary, the computer that suicided and resurrected on command.
“I want a printout,” she told Tarras. “One original, one through the translator, stsho formal, but first I want you to diagnose the source. I don’t want the thing changing, erasing, or cozying up to our navigation. Ma’sho?”
“Sho’shi,”Tarras said, ears pricked, all enthusiasm.
“Fast. Inside the hour.”
Tarras’ ears went to half. “Captain…”
“You can do it.”
Tarras muttered another word in mahen trade, gave a shiver and took the cube, looked at it on one side and another—for obvious things like inbuilts.
“I need a laser on this.”
“Check for more exotic contagions after we get the print. I need the print, Tarras. All of us need this printout.”
“What’s up?”
“Only our operating budget. Only a major contract I don’t know if I want and I don’t know if we can get out of, on which the governor’s good will happens to be riding.”
“I’m on it,” Tarras said, and went.
The sounds and smells of the cells were dreadful. Hallan slept when he could, a sleep disturbed by distant sounds of doors, attendants coming and going. It went on constantly, but you could never see anything; just a blank door and blank gray walls, and the sounds to let you know you were not alone. He had long since lost track of the time. He amused himself by adding chains of figures. They had said when they arrested him that his captain would have to get him out. And then, days and days ago, the kifish guard who brought him his breakfast had said his ship had left without him.
That had been the absolute depth of despair. He had asked the guard what would they do then, and the guard said, oh, probably keep him here for the rest of his life.
The kif had said, When we want rid of someone we kill him. Hani sneak away and leave him. You’re half again bigger than your females. They say you’re a fighter. Why didn’t you kill them and secure your place?
He had been appalled. But the kif as kif went was a talkative one, and more friendly than he had expected of that dangerous kind. He had had trouble understanding it at first. It interrupted everything with clicks. It smelled of ammonia. It complained that he stank. It had naked, black skin that was gray where the light fell on it, and velvety soft and wrinkled, although in kif that didn’t seem to be a sign of age. It had long jaws and a small mouth and what he had heard said it had to have live food, which it diced into a fine paste with a second set of jaws, far up toward the gullet-after which it spat out the bones and the fur. If it bit you, those teeth could get a crippling mouthful. It ate its own kind and it did not feel remorse. Such statements were not prejudicial: its psychology was different, utterly self-interested, and one had better believe so and not judge it by hani standards: that was what he had learned about kif in his books.