Chanur's Venture Read online

"Huh." She flicked her ears up with a light chiming of their rings. "I'm not a gods-blessed warship, mahe."

  "Know that."

  "Sure. Sure." She walked off a pace to get clear breath, looked at Tully, who understood— perhaps a little. Always more than he spoke.

  Tully would not lie to her. That much she believed. His silence, his level, unflinching stare now, that vouched for his own honesty in this.

  "When bring to you?" Goldtooth asked.

  She turned back to him. "Got an appointment in station office. Got to make that. Got to advise my crew. Got to tell them— you give me lot of problems, hear? And you be careful." She extruded a claw and poked Goldtooth hard in the chest, so she saw him wince. "You be careful this package. You be gods-rotted careful, hear?" She meant two things.

  "Hear," Goldtooth said, full soberly. He heard both things. She knew.

  "Got three days this port," she said. "Got stall three days with gods-rotted kif sniffing round. I pull The Pride out sooner, big trouble. Lot of attention. When you go?"

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  "Deliver package, wait a while, then go. Got no cargo but fake cans I give to you."

  "So." She turned away, met Tully's eyes, patted him very gently on his arm, recalling his fragile skin. " Safe, understand. You do what they say.

  No fear. These mahendo'sat bring you to me. Understand?"

  "Yes," Tully said, and looked at her in that way he had, his pale stare desperately intense.

  Her ears twitched, her nostrils widened with the scent of something more than Meetpoint-sized amiss, more than a corrupt stsho and closed routes and xenophobe stsho councils back in Llyene, atwitter over humanity that wanted through stsho space. Mahen connivances. Kif greed. She looked back at Goldtooth. "Presents. One fine present. Ha!"

  Goldtooth lifted his head, his brown eyes half-lidded. "Tell you this, old friend. Kif don't forget. They hunt me. Soon hunt you. Not revenge. Kif-thought. Skikkik. Hunt me, hunt you. Tully come here— got one fine trouble this time. This business Tully bring us only— hurry things. Make timetable ours, not kif's."

  "Huh," she said. "So I take this gift. I don't like things coming at my back.

  You watch yourself. You run far, mahe. You do good. Wish you luck."

  "You got," Goldtooth said. "Wish you luck, hani."

  She flicked her ears, indecisive, turned and stalked out the airlock through the parting crowd of tall mahendo'sat.

  Luck.

  Luck indeed.

  * * *

  Her mind was not in it as she walked on down the dock. It kept sorting troubles past and troubles future— dangerous, she thought, catching a whiff of some scent not mahendo'sat nor stsho, but something she could not, in this large, cold space... identify.

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  Cargo, maybe. Maybe something else. It set her nose to twitching and set an itch between her shoulderblades.

  She did not look about, here on Meetpoint's docks, padding along the cold deckplates, beside the gapings of ship accesses, out of which wafted more friendly scents. There were other hani ships at Meetpoint. She had read the list before she had put The Pride into dock: Marrar's Golden Sun; Ayhar's Prosperity; oh, yes, and Ehrran's Vigilance. That ship. That one, that Goldtooth had mentioned, but not by name... that han' s eyes, which were doubtless on other business at the moment, but which were capable of catching small furtive moves— like a Chanur captain paying calls on mahen ships.

  There were a dozen other mahen vessels in port: Tigimiransi, Catimin-shai, Hamarandar were some she had known for years. And familiar stsho names, like Assustsi, E Mnestsist, Heshtmit and Tstaarsem Nai. Round the wheel of Meetpoint, beyond the great lock that separated oxygen- from methane-breathers, ships went by stranger titles: tc'a and knnn and chi names, if knnn had names at all. Tho'o'oo and T'T'Tmmmi were tc'a/chi ships she had seen on docking lists before.

  And kif. Of course there were kif. She had made a particular point to know those names before she put The Pride in dock... names like Kekt and Harukk, Tikkukkar, Pakakkt, Maktikkh, Nankktsikkt, Ikhoikttr. Kif names, she memorized wherever she found them, a matter of policy— to recall their routes, their dockings, where they went and trading what.

  The kif watched her routes with as much interest this last year. She was very sure of that.

  She did not loiter on the docks, but she made no particular haste which might attract attention on its own. She stared at this and that with normal curiosity, and at the same general pace she strolled up to the nearest com booth along the row of dockside offices, keyed up Chanur credit and punched in the code for the station comlink to The Pride's bridge. She waited. The com whistled and clicked through nine cycles unanswered.

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  There was a kif on the docks. She spied the tall, black-robed form standing over shipside in conversation with a stsho, whose pale arms waved emphatically. She stood with her back to the plastic wall and watched this exchange past the veil of other traffic, the passing of service vehicles, of pedestrians, mostly stsho, pale-robed and elegant; here and there mahendo'sat, dark and sleek. Something winged whipped past, small and upward bound for the heights of the tall, cold dock.

  Gods only knew what that was.

  Click. "Pride of Chanur," the voice finally answered. "Deck officer speaking."

  "Haral, gods rot you, how long does it take?"

  "Captain?"

  "Who's out?"

  "Outside?"

  " I want that cargo inventoried. Hear? I want all of you on it, right now.

  No liberties. If anyone's out, get her back. Right now."

  "Aye," the voice came back, diffident. "Aye, captain." There was question in the voice.

  "Just do it!"

  "Aye. But— captain?"

  "What?"

  " Na Khym's out."

  " Gods and thunders!" Her heart fell through her feet. "Where'd he go?"

  "Don't know. To the free market, I think— there some kind of trouble?"

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  "I'm coming back. Get him, Haral. I want him found."

  "Aye, captain."

  She slammed the receiver down and headed back toward the ship in haste.

  Khym, for the gods' sake. Her mate, gone strolling out in fullest confidence that papers in order meant safety... on a stsho trading station, where weapons were banned, as he had gone out of ship at Urtur and Hoas among mahendo'sat; as he had gone wandering wherever he liked through the last two markets— male, and duty-less and bored.

  Gods. O gods.

  She remembered the kif then, looked back, one injudicious glance over her shoulder, breaking the rest of her precautions.

  The kif was still there, looking her way beyond the gesticulating stsho, looking black and grim and interested.

  She flung around again and moved as fast as a walk could carry her, past Mahijiru behind its darkened (malfunctioning?) registry board, past one berth and the other in the chill, stsho-made air.

  She was panting in earnest when she came within sight of The Pride's berth. Everything was stopped there. The machinery that ought to be offloading stood still with cans still on the ramp. Haral was outside waiting for her, red-gold figure in blue breeches; and spying her, came her way with scurrying haste.

  "Captain—" Haral skidded up and braked, claws raking on the plates.

  "We're looking."

  "Kif are out," Pyanfar said. That was enough. Haral's ears went flat and her eyes went wide. "With Ehrran clan in port. I want him back, Haral.

  Where'd he talk about going? Doing what?"

  "Didn't talk, captain. We were all busy. He was there by us at the ramp.

  When we looked round— gone."

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  "Gods rot him!"

  "Can't have gotten far."

  "Sure he can't." She took the pocket com Haral offered her and clipped it to her belt to match
what Haral had. "Who's on bridge?"

  "No one. I stayed. Alone."

  "Hilfy's out there."

  "First."

  "Lock up. Come with me."

  "Aye!" Haral snapped, spun on her heel and ran.

  Pyanfar strode on.

  Market, she reckoned. Meetpoint's famed Free Market was far and away the likeliest place to look. Baubles and exotics. Things to see.

  He might have tried the restaurants before the market.

  Or the bars of the Rows.

  Gods rot him. Gods rot her soft-headedness in ever taking him aboard. On Anuurn they called her mad. At times like this she believed it, all the way.

  She was breathing in great side-aching gasps when Haral came pelting back to fall in at her side.

  * * *

  "He's not here," Hilfy said— youngest of The Pride: her left ear one-ringed, her beard only beginning, her breeches the tough blue cloth of hani crew, though she was ker Hilfy, Chanur's someday heir. She met Tirun Araun between two aisles of the dock bazaar, among the stacks of cloth, 15

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  foodstuffs, the fluttering of stsho merchants. Fluting cries of exotic nonsapients legal here for trade, the shouts of traders and passers-by, music from the bars of the Rows alongside the market— echoed off the lofty overhead in one commingled roar. Smells abounded, drowning other scents. Color rioted. "I've been down every aisle, Tirun—"

  "Try the Rows," said Tirun, older spacer. Her beard was full; her mane hung wild about her shoulders. Her left ear flicked, clashing half a dozen rings. "Come on. I take evens, you take odds. Hit every bar on the Rows.

  He might have, gods only know."

  Hilfy gulped air and went, not questioning the orders as Haral herself had not questioned what had happened, except that something had gone wrong. Very wrong. That had been a coded call to get off the docks. At once. Her ears kept lying back on their own; she pricked them up with spasmodic efforts, seeking a hani voice through the din, from out of the row of spacer bars that lined the marketplace.

  No sign of any hani in the first bar on the row. It was all mahendo'sat inside, honking music and the raucous screech and stamp of drunken spacers.

  She crossed Tirun's path on the walk on the way out and they split again into the third and fourth bar.

  Stsho, this den. But she spotted the red-gold of hani backs clustered about a bowl-table, dived through and slid to her knees on the rim. A senior hani spacer turned round and eyed her; other eyes turned her way, all round the table. She bobbed a hasty bow with hands gripping the rim.

  "Hilfy Chanur par Faha, gods look on you— you seen a hani male?"

  Ears laid back and pricked in non-sobriety all round the table, six pairs of ears heavy with rings. "Gods— what you been drinking, kid?"

  "Sorry." That was a mistake. She scrambled to her feet and started away; but the spacer swayed erect, waved wildly for balance as she clawed her 16

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  unsteady way up the plastic bowlseat to catch her arm. "Hani male, hey?

  Need help, Chanur? Where you see this vision, hey?"

  There were derisive laughs, curses— someone was trodden on. The rest of the hani came up on the seat and scrambled out of the pit. Hilfy tore loose and fled. "Hey," she heard at her back, hani-cough, a drunken roar.

  "Pay!" A shrill stsho warble from another side. "Pay, hani bastard—"

  "Charge it to Ayhar's Prosperity! "

  "O gods!" Hilfy dived for the exit, just as a pair of kifish patrons loomed in the doorway. Black musty robes brushed her with a smell that sent the wind up her back. She did not look back or pause as she dived past them both. "Hani rabble!" she heard hissed behind her, the noise of drunken encounter mingled with kifish voices.

  She darted through the outer doors into the light of the market, blinked, hesitating on one foot, hearing above the market noise the sound of hani in full chase behind her— no sight of Tirun. She leaned into a run and plunged into the next odd-numbered bar— stsho again, not a sight of hani.

  She pelted back out the doors, through the incoming mass of Ayhar clan, who began a turnabout in that doorway in merry disorder.

  Still no Tirun. She dived into the next odd-number, another stsho den, saw a tall red shape, and heard the voices, a deeper hani voice than this port had ever heard, the chitter of stsho curses, the snarl of mahendo'sat.

  " Na Khym," she cried in profoundest relief. " Na Khym!" She eeled her way through the towering crowd at the bar and grabbed him by the arm.

  "Uncle— thank the gods. Pyanfar wants you. Now. Right now, na Khym."

  "Hilfy?" he said, far from focused. He swayed there, a head taller than she, twice her breadth of shoulder, his broad, scarred nose wrinkled in confusion. "Trying to explain to these fellows—"

  "Uncle, for the gods' sakes—"

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  "He is, " a hani voice cried from the door. "By the gods— what's he doing 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 18

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  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 19

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  beyond, and she gathered herself up off the deck plates and ran without even a backward look.

&nb
sp; 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!"

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  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.