“I think that was a joke,” Tiar said.
“You’ve got to tell me,” Chihin said.
“That was a joke,” Tarras said dryly.
Chihin’s ears twitched. Chihin’s mouth pursed into what might have been a smile. You could want to kill her. But Chihin was as ready to take it as give. Not from strange men, be it noted. Not from men in general, that she knew. Or most wouldn’t try: definitely old school, Chihin was, and radiated her willingness to notch ears. Not unlike her cousins.
Fact was, Hilfy thought suddenly, and for no particular reason but many bits and tags, Chihin was pushing in a very odd way, for Chihin. Gods-be patient, she was.
And she knew the looks young Fala threw in na Hallan’s direction.
It could get down to a sticky situation trying to get na Hallan’s highly attractive self off the ship. Which by the gods she was twice determined to do. They had a smoothly functioning crew. They got along. The ship didn’t need the scandal, Chanur didn’t need the gossip, Meras didn’t need it, and if she had her hands on ker Holy Righteousness Sahern at this moment she’d give her a lasting remembrance of Hilfy Chanur.
The crew was nattering at each other again. Quibbling over the jump, which was all right—exactitude saved fuel and saved money.
But they were coming up on the mark.
“Stow it. We’re away, on the count. Are our passengers set, Fala?”
“Gtstexcellency says they are.”
“On the mark. How’s our shadow?”
“Just blazing right along. I wish that son’d give us more room. We don’t need to bump him in the drop.”
“That son or his pilot is probably just too gods-be good. He could jump that ship onto a dinner-plate, you want to lay odds? They don’t give just any captain a hunter-ship. And that’s by the gods what it is.”
“I’d lay odds our stsho passenger might know more about that son than gtst is saying.”
“I’d lay odds our other stsho passenger did know more than gtst is sane enough to say. But we’ve no guarantee gtstisi is going to sort out anything like the stsho that was.”
“Spooky,” Tarras said. “Spooky lot. / wouldn’t want to go through jump with a crazy person.”
“I wouldn’t want to be a crazy person in jump,” Tiar said. “Can you imagine?”
“I’d rather not,” Hilfy said. “Are we watching where we’re going, please? We’re coming up …”
The coordinates blinked.
She punched the button. The Legacy …
… dropped out of Kita Point space …
… “Well, well,” Pyanfar said.
“Go away,” Hilfy said. She didn’t want her aunt. It frightened her that it was her aunt who kept disturbing her dreams—and it was beyond any doubt a dream, it was that comfortable thing the mind did when it didn’t want to handle space that wasn’t space. Except her gods-rotted aunt wouldn’t stay out of them lately. Maybe it was the political stench about the Legacy on this voyage. Maybe it was her good sense trying to tell her she’d made a mistake. She wasn’t superstitious about the illusions.
Not much, anyway.
“You’re indulging yourself,” Pyanfar said, sitting on something or another—furniture and rocks materialized when you wanted to sit. And Pyanfar usually sat down when she was going to meddle, parked herself like a gravity sink and insisted on affecting things around her. “Woolgathering’s a bad habit, slows your reflexes, fogs your thinking…”
She tried to imagine Pyanfar into the encompassing gray haze.
Pyanfar said, obstinately present: “You live in jump, don’t you? Just your own little place where you can have your way with Tully and nobody can object. Not even Tully.”
Her subconscious was getting vicious.
“Try living in realspace,” Pyanfar said. “Try living where you are, Hilfy-girl. Try your own species, for starters.”
“Gods rot your interference!” She was as mad as she’d been in years. “If you’d stayed out of my business I wouldn’t have married that gods-cursed fool—“
“You’re not listening. This isn’t a life, niece. Life’s not this. Your cousin Chur doesn’t time out. Your cousin Chur sees the stars in a way I almost can. And you spend your time wishing for what wasn’t. Wasn’t, niece, wasn’t ever, and wouldn’t be, and couldn’t be in a thousand years, and if you want me to say more, I will.”