Gods, get him off my ship, that’s all!
And get Hilfy away from him.
“Going to give that bastard to Jik,” Pyanfar muttered, settling into her own seat up by Haral’s side. And before Haral could venture comment into a family situation: “Go
on. Get yourself cleaned up. I can handle things solo a while. We’ve got enough gods-be problems. I don’t know how long we’re going to be in this port. Not long, I’ll guess. Hours, maybe. Maybe a day or so. With luck.”
“Aye,” Haral said, no demur, no comment, and no delay in shunting things to her board and bailing out of her seat. “Anything you need below?”
“Negative. Just hurry at it. Send Hilfy and Tirun to the same when you see them.”
“Aye.” Haral headed off at all deliberate speed. Throw water and soap on herself, pull on fresh trousers, stagger back to the galley if there was time and get food in her belly.
None of them carried any spare fat nowadays. A gaunt and haunted look hung about all the crew, standing watch and watch without meals or sleep except in snatches, while jump after jump burned them up from inside. There was a physiological penalty for every jump. The kif paid it. They did. She found herself eating from knowledge that she had to, not because food appealed to her, when she should have been ravenous. Only the wobbles signaled need for food: no appetite. Another jump-gods, another jump and we’ll begin to feel it for sure. No one can stand this schedule.
Chur-can’t. I was a fool to listen to her at Kshshti. She’s in serious trouble, thinner and thinner. Bone and hair goes next. Bowel junction. Kidneys. Heart. It’s not only kifish fire that can kill us. We can’t run now. If anything goes wrong here we can’t pull out. Chur needs those hours. Needs days here.
Get a med? Whose?
No. No. Chur’s on the mend. The side’s healed. The jump took a lot of minerals out of her system. Healing leached everything. Feed her vitamins. Lots of red meat. She’ll make it now. She’s past the crisis and she’s still got reserves.
But I shed a lot. The kif collapsed. Pyanfar tongued a sore spot in her mouth, a tooth that promised soreness after brushing. So we’ve been running hard. Gods-be kif wilted after one jump. We’ve been-gods, how many jumps on short rations and short sleep?-and we’re still holding on.
We need a hani med, gods rot it. Not mahendo’sat, someone who knows what the margin is. And hani medical personnel are scarce out here. If I ask Vigilance-
In a mahen hell.
But her hand punched through to ship-to-ship while her mind was still arguing the matter. “Vigilance. This is The Pride of Chanur, Pyanfar Chanur speaking. Put me through to your med staff.”
(Gods, Chur’s going to chew sticks if we call over a Vigilance med. But by the gods, let her. I don’t like this. I don’t like that look in her.)
“Pride of Chanur, this is Vigilance watch. Captain, we have operations in progress. Our boards are busy. I’ll put your request through and call you back.”
She read between the lines, a big lazy ship with personnel to spare, crew on rest, backup crew on duty, Rhif Ehrran was offshift along with her high officers to shower and sleep and eat at leisure. And not wanting advertisement of their status.
Telling their ships’ internal schedules and habits to the kif did none of them any good.
“All right, Vigilance.” She shifted to Jik’s channel. “Aja Jin, this is The Pride.”
“Aja Jin here, got all personnel busy. This emergency?”
It’s Pyanfar Chanur, rot your hide, get me Jik! But that was panic. Jik was in communication with Mahijiru, likely, Aja Jin’s crew up to its noses in running codes and communications with Goldtooth as he continued on approach. Aja Jin was trying to keep track of that situation and take the whole operations load off Vigilance because they had no trust for that ship, and off The Pride because The Pride had no crew Available to carry it.
“No,” Pyanfar told Aja Jin’s com officer. “Put it through when things settle down.”