Chanur's Venture (3 page)

here?"

Khym flinched, faced about with his back to the bar, starting with misgiving at

the drunken Ayhar spacers.

"Hey!" --A second hani voice, from among the Ayhar. "Chanur! You crazy, Chanur?

What are you up to, huh, bringing him out here? You got no regard for him?"

"Come on," Hilfy pleaded. "Na Khym--" She tugged at a massive arm, felt the

tension in it. "For gods' sake, na Khym -- we've got an emergency."

Maybe that got through. Khym shivered, one sharp tremor, like an earthquake

through solid stone.

"Get, get, get!" a stsho shrilled in pidgin. "Get out he my bar!"

Hilfy pulled with all her might. Khym yielded and kept walking, through the hani

crowd that drew aside wide-eyed and muttering, past the black wall of curious

mahendo'sat and the glitter of their gold.

Another black wall formed athwart the brighter, outside light. Billowing robes

blocked the path to the door, two tall, ungainly shapes.

"Chanur," said a kif, a dry clicking voice. "Chanur brings its males out. It

needs help."

Hilfy stopped. Khym had, with a rumbling in his throat. "Don't," Hilfy said,

"don't do it -- Khym, for gods' sakes, just let's get out of here. We don't want

a fight."

"Run," the kif hissed. "Run, Chanur. You run from kif before."

"Come on." Hilfy wrapped her arm tightly about Khym's elbow. She guided him

through the crowd toward the doorway, past the first brush of robes, trying to

look noncombatant, trying to watch the whereabouts of dark kifish hands beneath

the dusky cloth.

"Hilfy," said Khym.

She looked up. The whole doorway had filled with kif.

"It's got a knife!" A hani voice. "Look out, kid--"

Something flew, trailing beer and froth, and hit a kifish head. "Got!" A mahen

voice crowed delight. Kif lunged, Khym lunged. Hilfy hit a kif with claws bared

and bodies tangled in the doorway. Yiiii-yinnnnn! a stsho voice wailed above the

din. "Yeeiei-yi! Police, police, police!"

"Yaooo!" (The mahendo'sat).

"Na Khym!"

Tirun's voice, a roar from outside the tangled doorway, inbound. "Hilfy! Na

Khym! Chanur!"

"Ayhar, ai Ayhar."

"Catimin-shai!"

Mugs and bottles sailed.

* * *

"He's on the Rows! Hurry!" Haral's voice came from the pocket com; and Pyanfar,

delaying for a check of eat-shops outside the market, started to run for all she

was worth, past startled mahendo'sat and stsho who leapt from her path, herself

dodging round the confused course of a methane-breather vehicle that zigged away

on another tack.

Sirens sounded. The three-story bulkhead doors of the market sector were

blinking with red warning lights. She put on a final burst of speed and dived

through asprawl as the valves began to move. The edges met with a boom and

airshock that shook the deck, drowning the din of howls beyond, and she gathered

herself up off the deck plates and ran without even a backward look.

The whole market was in turmoil. Merchants or looters snatched armfuls of

whatever they could; aisles jammed. Animals screeched above the roar. A black

thing darted past Pyanfar's legs and yelped at being trodden on. She vaulted a

counter, scrambled on a rolling scatter of trinkets, found a clear aisle and ran

toward the Rows where a moment's clear sight showed a heaving mass in the

doorway. Stsho darted from that crowd, pale and gibbering; drunken mahendo'sat

stayed to yell odds -- a pair of hani arrived from the other direction: Chur and

Geran headed full tilt toward the mass.

She jerked spectators this way and that, careless of her claws. Mahendo'sat

howled outrage and moved. A kif-shape darted past her, moving faster than clear

sight. She caught at it and got only robe as she broke through to the center of

the mob. Plastic splintered. Glass broke, bodies rolled underfoot.

More kif ran from the scene, a scatter of black-robed streaks outward bound at

speed.

"Khym!" Pyanfar yelled and flung herself in the path of his wild-eyed rush after

the kif. Behind him Haral and Geran added themselves; Chur and Tirun followed.

Hilfy jumped last, atop the heap on Khym's shoulders as it all came down in

front of her.

They stopped him. They held him down until the struggles ceased.

There was mahen laughter, quickly hushed. In prudence, mahe drew back to

perimeters, while the noise of looting went on in the market, the crash of

glass, the splintering of plastics, the polyglot wails of outrage and avarice.

"Gods rot you!" Pyanfar yelled, with a claws-out swipe at anything too near.

"Get!"

Mahendo'sat gave her room. A small knot of hani spacers stood facing her. Ears

were back. The Pride's crew gained their feet, Haral foremost, ears laid back

and grinning. Khym levered himself to his feet with Tirun holding fast to his

right arm and Hilfy locked to the other side. The last sounds of combat died

inside the bar. A last glass broke.

"Pyanfar Chanur," a broadnosed hani said in stark, disapproving tones.

"Tell it to your captain," said Pyanfar. "Tell it proper. He's my husband. You

hear? Na Khym nef Mahn. Hear me?"

Ears flicked. Eyes showed whites. The news had not gotten this far out, what

lunacy she had done. Now it did. "Sure," a younger hani said, backing up. "Sure,

captain."

And Chur, at her back: "Captain -- we'd better get out of here."

She heard the sirens. She looked about past the melting crowd, who sought other

bars. Trampled bodies stirred within the doorway.

There were cars coming up the dock, with the white strobe flash of Security.

Chapter Two

The door hissed back and revealed two guards, which at Meetpoint might have been

any oxy-breathing kind but stsho, considering the stsho's congenital distrust of

violence. They hired all their security. Fortunately for the peace at present,

these were both mahendo'sat.

Pyanfar stopped in her pacing of the narrow room -- waiting area, they had

called it: stsho euphemism. Other species had other names for such small rooms

with doorlocks facing outward. "Where's my crew?" she spat at the mahendo'sat

forthwith, ears flattened despite herself. "Gods rot it, where are they?"

"Director wants," one said, standing aside from the door. "You come now, hani

captain."

She pulled in her claws and came, since something finally seemed in movement,

and since neither of the two mahendo'sat were armed with more than nature gave

them and showed no desire for confrontation. They would not talk, not this pair;

not threaten or swerve from duty: mahendo'sat at punctilious, honest best.

"Here," was their only other word, at a lift door some distance through the

maze.

More traveling. The lift went a long zigzag distance through Meetpoint's bowels,

and let them out again in white, pastel-decorated halls. Lights obtruded here

and there in seeming random -- stsho, this section, not making apology to other

species' tastes, all pastels and opal colors, vast spaces, odd-angled panels

riddled with random holes and alcoves. The tall black-furred, black-kilted mahen

guards and the splash of her own scarlet trousers and red-gold hide were equally

alien here.

A last door, a last hallway of twisting plasti-form shapes. She flicked her ears

so that the rings chimed, flexed her claws with one deep breath as if she

contemplated a leap from some height, and let herself be shown into a

pearl-toned hall, a splendor of bizarre walls and white-upholstered depressions

in the level, gleaming floor. One gossamer-clad stsho stood to meet them,

recorder in hand. Another sat serenely important in the central bowl. Gtst

--(stsho had three sexes at one time, and neither he, she, nor it was really

adequate) gtst was ornamented in subtlest colors ranging into hues invisible to

hani eyes, but detectible at the verges, whites with low violet shimmerings on

the folds. Gtst tattooings were equally illusory on gtst naturally pearly skin,

and shaded off into green and violets. Pearl-toned plumes nodded from augmented

brows, shading moonstone eyes. The small mouth was clamped in disapproving

straightness and nostrils flared in busy alternation.

Pyanfar bowed before this elegance, once and shortly. The stsho waved a languid

hand and the servant-translator, it must be, came and stood near, gist own robes

floating free on invisible breezes -- stsho-silk and expensive.

"Ndisthe," Pyanfar said, "sstissei asem sisth an zis--" with the right amount of

respect, she reckoned. Feathery eyebrows fluttered. The assistant clutched gtst

recorder and drew back in indecision.

"Shiss." The Director motioned with one elegant jeweled hand. The translator

stopped in gtst retreat. "Shiss. Os histhe Chanur nos schensi noss' spitense

sthshosi chisemsthi."

"Far from fluent," Pyanfar agreed.

The Director drew breath. Gtst plumes all nodded in profound agitation. "Sto

shisis ho weisse gti nurussthe din?"

"Did you know--" The translator flung gtstself into belated action. "--the riot

in the market took four hours to stop?"

"--ni shi canth-men horshti nin."

"--Forty-five individuals are treated in infirmary-"

Pyanfar kept her ears erect, her expression sympathetic.

"Ni hoi shisisi ma gnisthe."

"--and extensive pilferage has taken place."

"I do share," said Pyanfar, drawing down her mouth in yet more distress, "your

outrage at this disregard for stsho authority. My crew likewise suffered from

this kifish banditry."

That got rendered, with much fluttering of hands.

"Shossmeinn ti szosthenshi hos! Ti mahen-thesai cisfe llyesthe to mistheth hos!"

"-You and your mahendo'sat co-conspirators have wreaked havoc-"

"Spithi no hasse cifise sif nan hos!"

"-involved the kif-"

"Shossei onniste stshoni no misthi th'sa has lies nan shi math!"

"--A tc'a ship has undocked and fled during the riot. Doubtless the chi are

disturbed--"

"Ha nos thei no lien llche knnni na slastheni hos!"

"--Who knows but what this may also agitate the knnn?"

"Nan nos misthei hoisthe ifsthen noni ellyes-theme to Nifenne hassthe shasth!"

"--You and your crew within three hours of docking have created havoc with every

species of the Compact!"

Pyanfar set her hands at her belt and lowered her ears deliberately. "As well

say all victims of crime are guilty of incitement! Is this a new philosophy?"

A long silence once that was translated. Then:

"--I am put in mind of papers lately recovered, hani captain. I am in mind of

heavy fines and penalties. Who will recompense our market? Who will see to our

damages?"

"It's true," Pyanfar said with a direct, baleful stare. "Who dares charge the

kif -- excepting hani. Excepting us, esteemed Director. Tell me, what would

happen without hani traffic here? Without mahendo'sat? How would the kif behave

at Meetpoint then? Not simple pilferage, I'll warrant!"

Plumes fluttered. Round eyes stared, dark centered. "--You make threats without

teeth. The han does not bend at your breath. Less so the mahendo'sat."

"Neither will the han look with favor on a hani ship beset, on a hani captain

detained -- I omit mention of the locked door!"

"--Have you such confidence you will relate to the han how a Chanur captain

suffered such embarrassment? I have heard otherwise. I have heard Chanur's

affairs are less than stable with the han in these days."

Pyanfar drew a long, long breath, wrinkling up her nose so that the translator

drew back a pace. "There is no profit in such a wager, esteemed Director."

"-What profit to any dealing with Chanur? We restore your papers and see how you

repay us. Where are our damages? Where will you obtain the funds, who claim to

be a terror to the kif? We fine you. You dare take nothing from them."

"They by the gods steal nothing from us except where we have relied on stsho

authority."

The moonstone eyes acquired wider, darker centers. "--You have brought a male of

your kind here. I hesitate to breach this delicacy, but it is well known that

this gender of your species is unstable. This surely contributed--"

"This is a hani affair."

"--Other hani find the state of affairs on your ship disturbing and improper."

"A hani matter."

"--A deputy of the han has shown concern. The deputy has assured me that this is

not new policy, that the han deplores this action--"

"It's none of the deputy's gods-rotted business. Or anyone else's. Let's stay to

the issue of safety on the docks."

"--Hani have not found it wise to bring their males into foreign contacts, for

which they are naturally unsuited and unprepared. Other hani are shocked at your

provocation."

"The docks, esteemed director. And public safety."

"--You have violated law. You have brought this person--"

"A member of my crew."

"--This person has a license?"

"He's got a temporary. All in order. Ask your own security."

"--A permit granted at Gaohn station. By a Chanur ally, doubtless under

pressure. He is here without permissions--"