The lift braked and let them out again on lowerdecks. They sorted themselves out into an order of instinctive precedence as they headed down the hall: herself and Haral; Khym with partnerless Geran; Tirun at the rear, Haral’s sister-shadow, a little lame in a long run, but veteran of too many ports to let anything reach their backs.
And Khym – calamity waiting a chance, she thought; lousy shot, male-like; male-like, a worry in a crisis; and twice as strong as any of them if it came to a set-to hand to hand.
“Got a call from a mahen officer named Jiniri,” Chur’s disembodied voice boomed out from com. ‘”We got ourselves some mahen station guards out there and a lot of citizens. I told them keep clear; they’re not – not listening – ”
“You all right up there?”
“Fine, captain.” The voice was hoarse and thin. “Fine.” Stronger that time. “Watch yourselves, huh?”
They reached the bend toward the airlock. “We’re there,” Pyanfar said to the pickups in the corridor. “Where’s the kif? See any?”
“Can’t tell for sure. Haven’t heard a sound in the access and I’ve got the gain up full. The com – they say they’re out there. Mahe – mahendo’sat – out there – Me, I’d just as soon they were.”
“Gods-rotted trouble. Tell them get out of it. Fast.”
“Won’t listen – They invoke the Compact. Say – say – Gods rot. you can guess.”
Pyanfar snicked the safety off her rifle; there were two echoes and a couple of different sounds as Haral and Geran took the APs from their clip-holsters, took the safeties off and sent cartridges to the chambers. “We’re set. Open us up.”
The hatch hissed open. They herded in and stopped, facing the outer door. “Seal us out and let’s go,” Pyanfar said.
The way behind them closed; the facing hatch shot open on an empty accessway, a yellow-lighted passage, icy cold.
Pyanfar dashed to the last point of cover where the accessway bent; Tirun took the other side with her rifle and the two of them came round the bend together, with three more guns aimed past their backs.
No kif. Empty passage. Pyanfar jogged soft-footed as far as the debouchment, where the yellow access tube gave over to descending rampway, a slope of interlocked gratings leading down to the pressure gates, and down again, a long exposed walk to the dock. People down there. Crowd-noise. A knot of about forty civilian mahendo’sat waited at the bottom of that long ramp, with a handful of mahen guards, dark, tall, primate: black-furred and one conspicuous tasunno, brown. And, gods, an anomaly in the midst of the crowd, a white-skinned stsho in drifting rainbow gossamer. The crowd surged forward with a gibbering outcry at the sight of them.
“Smell it?” Haral muttered, at her side.
Ammonia: kif scent. The dilapidated dockside was in twirl light, and a hundred doorways showed on the anti-dockward side, any one of which might hold a sniper; if the wind had! not been up her back before, that smell would have sent it.
She headed down in haste, a quick thunder of steps on the; old-fashioned steel rampway, Haral at her side. The mahendo’sat below shouted and pushed and shoved among themselves, attempting the ramp while the guards struggled to-hold the line.
One passed, came striding forward right onto the foot of the ramp as they came down to it. “You crazy, crazy!” The official-looking mahe waved her hands as they came face to face; her howl rose louder than the rest, even the stsho’s agitated warble. “You go back ‘board, we negotiate this trouble, not bring guns this dock! You keep back our line, let our guard do, hani captain! Hear? Go back you ship! We arrange talk; come, go between talk, you, kif hakkikt! No go down, hear! We got accommodations-we fix-”
They had it down smooth, she and Haral: she could deal with the mahe knowing her second in command was watching the crowd; and Geran and Tirun would be watching left and right, with the known space of the ramp at their backs. God knew where Khym’s attention was. She ignored the waving hands, the attempt to catch her arm, and brushed the officer aside. “Come on,” she said to her crew, and left the ramp, parallel to the line of guards who had their hands full with agitated dignitaries.