Chanur's Venture (14 page)

distracted movement of the eyes. Fear of them as well as well as kif? And

suspicious reprobate that she was: Lies, Tully? Or plain self-interest from the

start?

"Sure," she said. She stank, reeked; she thought instinctively of baths, of

males and quarrels and a thousand lunatic distracted things like impacts at this

speed, and the vane that showed intact in the image on Tirun's screens (but it

was not, inside, and that could be bad news indeed.) Urtur. Docking with,

likely, kif about. And not a hope of help. Urtur had no muscle adequate to fend

off anything. Poor human fool, we could lose us all here, don't you know? They'd

move in, take what they liked, you foremost-- "Gome on," she said to the crew at

large, who were all tremble-handed at their work. "Break it off. We eat, get

some sleep." She caught Tully by the arm. "You come and tell me, huh?"

Chapter Six

The dust whispered on the hull like distant static, above the other

sounds-abrading away, Pyanfar reckoned; but their vanes were canted edge-on to

it, the observation dome and lenses were shielded, and that was the best that

they could do. So The Pride exited this fringe of Urtur with a little polish on

her hull. They made what speed they could through the muck at system-edge.

Meanwhile--

Meanwhile they crammed shoulder to shoulder into the galley. They had already

extended their table with a fold-out and a let-down bench end when na Khym

became permanent. Now they squeezed a few inches each and got Tully in, a

company of seven now, unlikely tablefellows. But Tully was still wobbly in his

moves, his hands shaking as he gulped cup after cup of carbohydrate-laced gfi

and nibbled at this and that; while Khym -- Khym ate, plenty, for one who had

been wobbly-sick half an hour ago. Pyanfar shot glances his way -- misgiving (he

bade fair to make himself sick) and halfway pleased (he had lasted the rough

ride, by the gods, and gone white-nosed as he was to galley duty, and was on

incredibly good behavior.) There might not have been another male at table for

all the attention Khym paid between his plate and the rotating center-section

with the serving-trays.

There was silence at table, mostly -- a little muttered discourse as Tirun and

Chur and Haral brought their vane-problem to table with them, and worried it

like a bone. A little "have this," and "try that," from Hilfy who tried to slip

a little more substance under Tully's ribs.

No harrying, no pressure -- take it slow, she thought. And: Keep him calm, keep

everything low-key . . . the while she watched him relax at last, their old

friend, old comrade. It was as if he had -- finally -- come back to them the way

he had been, easier and finally letting go -- Time then to talk of things, when

he might tell them the truth. Perhaps they had cornered him, pushed him too

much, assured him too little. Perhaps he felt the panic in the air and only now

felt easy. Perhaps now there would be truth.

"Your House send you?" Khym said suddenly, looking straight Tully's way, and

sent her heart lurching past a beat.

Tully blinked that into slow non-focus. "Send?" the translator queried,

flat-voiced . . . O gods, trust indeed, wide-eyed innocence. "Send me?"

"I don't know that they have Houses," Pyanfar said, and found her fingers flexed

and the claws out. Khym tried the situation. She knew him. And she knew Tully.

Of a sudden the silence round the table was absolute. She wanted to stop it, to

shut it off, and there was no way, no way with Khym in bland, smooth

attack-mode. Hunting, gods rot him. Pushing for reaction, the crew's and hers.

"Don't use big words. Translator can't handle them."

"House isn't a big word."

"Stick to ship-things. Technical stuff. You don't know how it comes out the

other side."

"Say again," Tully said.

"I asked who sent you."

"# # send me."

"See?" said Pyanfar. "You get a word it won't make sense."

"Name home," Tully said. "Sun. Also call Sol. Planet name Earth. Send me "

"He does talk."

"So," Pyanfar said. Her ears pricked up despite herself. "Sun, is it?"

"Where are we?" Tully asked. "Ur-tur?"

"Urtur. Yes."

He drew a great breath. "Go Maing Tol."

"Seems so. By way of Kshshti. You know that name?"

"Know." He moved his plate aside a handspan and touched his strange, thin

fingers to the table surface. "Meetpoint -- Urtur -- Kshshti -- Maing Tol."

"Huh." He had never known much of the Compact stars. Not from them. "Goldtooth

teach?"

"Mahe name Ino. Ship name Ijir."

"Before Goldtooth got you, huh? How'd you find Goldtooth?"

He looked worried. Or the translator scrambled it. "Go Goldtooth, yes."

"You with him long?"

"#?"

"Were you long time in Goldtooth's ship?"

Perhaps it was the tone of her voice. His eyes met hers and dived aside after

one frozen instant, reestablishing contact perforce.

"Where did you meet Goldtooth?"

"Ino find him."

It did not satisfy her. She sat and stared, forgetting the bite on her fork, not

forgetting Khym at her elbow. No fight; don't pick a fight, no trouble while

Khym's in it. The strictures crawled up and down her nerves.

"You come how long ago?" Geran asked.

"Don't know," he said, glancing that way. "Long time."

"Days?"

"Lot days."

He could be more precise. He knew the translator's limits. Knew how to

manipulate it better than he did. He picked up the cup and drank, covering the

silence.

Perhaps the rest of the crew picked up the undertones. She thought so. There was

not a move at table. Only Tully.

Their old friend.

She reached slowly into the depths of her pocket, hooked the small, thin ring

with a claw and laid it precisely on the tabletop. Click.

His face went a shade further toward stsho pallor, and then he reached for it

and took it up in his flat-nailed fingers, examining the inside band. His eyes

lifted, that startling blue, wide and dreadful.

"Where find?" he asked. "Where find, Pyanfar?"

"Whose?" She knew pain when she saw it and suddenly wished the ring back in her

pocket and them less public than this. A kifish gift. She was a fool to have

suspected anything but misery in it, a double fool; and having started it there

was no way to go but straight ahead.

"Mahe got?" he asked. "Goldtooth?"

"Kif gave it to me," she said, and watched a tremor come into his mouth and

stop, his face go paler still if it were possible. "Friend of yours, Tully?"

"What say this kif?"

"Said -- said it was a message for our cargo."

The tremor started again, harder to control. No one moved at table, no one on

left or right. For a long time that lasted, with the dust rattling on the hull,

the rumble of the rotation, the distant whisper of air in the duct above their

heads. Water spilled from Tully's eyes and ran down into his beard.

"Friend, huh?" She coughed in self-disgust and shoved her plate back, creating a

stir and a little healthy living noise. Scowled at the crew. "Want to get that

vane fixed?"

"Where get?" Tully asked before anyone could move.

"Kif named Sikkukkut. Ship named Harukk. Who did it belong to, huh?"

His mouth made a sudden straight line, white-edged, as he looked down and put

the ring on.

It was too small. He forced it. "Need #," he murmured, seeming to have nothing

to do with them or here or now.

"This kif," she said, slipping the words past while the shock was fresh. "This

kif was at Meetpoint, Tully. He knew you'd come to us from Goldtooth. He knew

our way ahead was blocked. What more he knew I have no idea. Do you want to tell

us, Tully? Whose is it?"

The blue eyes burned. "Friend," he said. "Belong friend stay Ijir."

She let go a breath and shot a look past a row of puzzled hani faces. "So

Goldtooth hedged his bet, huh? You come to us. Your companions go somewhere

else. Where?"

"Kif got. Kif got # Ijir."

"Then the kif know a gods-rotted lot more than you've told us. What do they

know, Tully? What are you up to, your hu-man-i-ty?"

"They ask help."

"How much help? Tully-what are you doing here?"

"Kif. Kif."

"What's going on?" Khym asked from her left. "What's he talking about -- kif?"

"Later," she said, and heard the breath gust through Khym's nostrils. "Tully.

Tell me what's in that paper. You tell me, hear."

"You got take to Maing Tol."

"Tully. Gratitude mean anything to you? I saved your mangy hide, Tully, more

times than I ought."

He gave back against the seat. The eyes set again on hers with that tragic look

she hated. "Need you," he said in hani words, a strange, mangled sound that

confused the translator to static. "Friend, Pyanfar."

"I ask him," Khym rumbled.

"No," she said sharply, and felt an acid rush in her gut, raw panic at the

potential in that. She brought her clenched hand down on the table and rattled

dishes. Tully flinched, and she glared. "Tully, You talk to me, gods rot you.

You tell me what those papers are."

"Ask hani come fight ship take human."

"Make sense."

"Want make trade hani-mahe."

"Truth?"

"Truth."

The eyes pleaded for belief. It did nothing for the feeling in her gut. Wrong,

it said. Wrong, wrong, wrong. For kif trouble alone the mahe might have asked

the han direct. Trade -- was the lure, and there was something in the trees.

She shifted her eyes past his shoulder to Haral, wise, scar-nosed Haral. Haral's

ears canted back and her mustache drew down with the intimation of something

odorous.

But there was nothing profitable in pushing Tully. Trust. They had a little of

it. There had been a time he had staved off kif for months, led his

interrogators in circles despite torture, despite the murder of companions.

Tully had held out. More, he had escaped, off a kifish ship. That was no fool.

And no one to be pushed.

"Vane," she said with ulterior motives. "Go."

"Aye." Haral moved, shoved Chur's shoulder. Hilfy and Geran shifted to clear the

seats and Tully got up.

"Get the galley cleared," Pyanfar said- "Tully. You just became juniormost. Help

Hilfy with the galley. Khym -- you fetch and carry on the bridge. Whoever needs

it."

"I want to talk to you," Khym said, unbudged.

"No time to talk." She turned her head and met his scowl with her own as he

stayed put on the bench, still blocking her way out. "Look, Khym, we've got a

vane in partial failure. One of us may have to take a walk after it yet. You got

a question that tops it?"

His ears went down in dismay.

"Out," she said.

"We could go to Kura, couldn't we?"

"No. We can't. Can't shift course again this side of Urtur -- we're in the dust;

we've got a vane down . . . .The last course change gods-rotted near killed us,

you understand that? I haven't got time to discuss it." She shoved and he moved.

She got up and looked back at him, at Hilfy and Tully who were gathering dishes

at furious speed. But Khym lingered, a towering hurt. She gathered up her

patience, took him by the arm, walked him to the privacy of the bridgeward

corridor. "Look, Khym -- we've got troubles."

"Somehow," he said, "I figured that."

"Kshshti's mahen-held," she said. "Barely. If the kif have Kita watched they've

likely got something in at Kshshti. But there's help there or the mahendo'sat

wouldn't send us that direction."

"You trust what they say?"

She looked behind him, where one stark-pale human hastened to hand dishes off

the table and close doors.

"I don't know," she said. "Go."

"You don't put me off, Py."

She gave him one long burning look.

"Chanur property," he said. "I do forget."

"What do you want, Khym? I'll tell you what I want. I want that gods-rotted vane

fixed. I want us out of here. Are you helping?"

He drew a long, long breath and cast a look over his shoulder in Tully's

direction. "Pet?"

"Shut it up. Right there."

The ears that had half-lifted sank again. "All right. That was low. But for the

gods' sake, Py, what have you got yourself into? You can't make deals outside

the han. They'll have your hide. That Ehrran ship-="

"Noticed that, did you?"

"Gods, Py!"

"Hush."

He coughed. Caught his breath. "Chanur property. Right."

"Did you expect different?" She jabbed him hard. It took a lot to get through a

male's skin when he had that look in his eyes. "Are they right?"

"Who's right?"

"The stsho in that bar."

His nostrils dilated, closed, dilated, and his nose went pale round the edges.

"I don't see what that has to do with it."

"Hilfy back there. You hear a question out of her?"

He looked over his shoulder, where Hilfy was closing cabinet latches, click,

slam, click, one after the other; and Tully was folding the table up. He looked

round again and his ears were flat.

"Go help Tirun," she said.

"I asked a question."