“Good day, captain. What a rare sight … hani back at Kshshti. How pleasant. Captain Hilfy Chanur, is it?”
“We might have met,” she said flatly, ears back and with no pretense at friendliness. “Have we?”
“That unfortunate incident. I assure you I was light-years away and not involved. Let me introduce myself. My name is Vikktakkht, ambassador Vikktakkht an Nikkatu, traveling aboard Tiraskhti.
Perhaps the mekt-hakkikt has mentioned me.”
“I doubt it. If she has, we haven’t been in the same port in years.”
“Ah. And your companion, your chief officer, perhaps.”
“Tiar Chanur.”
“Another name to remember. How do you do, captain? And I won’t ask you such a meaningless question as why you’re here. I know why you’re here, I know where you’re going.”
The hair prickled at her nape. The last she’d seen there were only mahendo’sat back there in front of the office, but there’d been those inside. And she had no inclination to wait here through kifish courtesies. “Nice to meet you, give my regards to the mekt-hakkikt, and excuse us if we don’t stand about. We’re running a tight schedule.” She took Tiar’s arm and started around the obstacle, but there were more of them beyond him, between them and the consoles and the ramp.
“Captain,” the kif called after her. “Tell Hallan Meras I’d like to talk to him.”
Dangerous to turn her back. It wasn’t Pride crew she was with. “Watch them,” she snapped, and turned to see what Vikktakkht was up to.
“Just tell him,” it said, with a lifting of empty, peaceful hands. “We’re old acquaintances.”
Smug. Oh, so smug.
“Good day, then, Vikktakkht an Nikkatu.”
“You have a very good accent.”
“Practice,” she said succinctly, and turned her back and swept up Tiar on a walk for the ramp access, past the kif who attended Vikktakkht.
The bastard thought she’d panic. The bastard thought she’d still twitch to old wounds. Wrong, kif.
Dangerously wrong.
“What’s he want with na Hallan?” Tiar asked, glancing over her shoulder. “What’s he talking about?
Do you know him?”
“Not yet.”
“What’s the kid possibly got to do with him?”
“That’s what I want to ask na Hallan.”
They were down on several spices, they’d run low on tissues, and they were out of shellfish, but they certainly had enough staples from here to Anuurn.
“KerChihin,” Hallan said. “Ker Chihin, I’ve got the-“
Straight into the captain’s presence.
“—inventory,” he said. But by the captain’s frowning, ears-down look, by Tarras and Tiar Chanur standing behind her likewise ears-down and frowning, he didn’t somehow think they wanted the inventory. He didn’t think anything he’d done in the galley could have fouled anything else up, unless maybe he’d messed up the computer somehow.
Maybe dumped their navigation records … something that bad…
“Vikktakkht,” the captain said, and his heart skipped a beat. Or two. He remembered the jail. He remembered the kif he’d talked to every day. He remembered the richly dressed one who’d said …
… said, “Remember my name. …”
“Meetpoint,” he managed to say.
“Where on Meetpoint? Was he the one you hit?”
“I—don’t know.”
“But you know this name.”
“He said … ‘Someday you’ll want to ask me a question.’ “
“What question?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head in utter confusion. “That was all he said. I was in the jail. And that was what he said.”
“You know him from there.”
“The day they … brought me to this ship.” He didn’t know whether what he’d answered was enough. He tried to think if there was anything else, any detail he could dredge up from memory, but nothing came clear to him, nothing had made sense then and nothing made sense now.
“That’s all he said, captain. I didn’t know what it meant. I still don’t. I don’t know what question he’s talking about. I don’t know what he wants.”
“What would you ask him?”
“What he means. What he wants. I don’t know!”
He was scared, really scared. He hadn’t thought about the jail. He had put that place behind him. He trusted them, that there was no way he was going back to that place. But he’d found the way to foul up, it seemed. The captain just stood there looking at him, and finally said, “Are you willing to go out there, Meras?”