She had a headache, and sipped gfi and put a purple clip on the side of the paper for performance and a blue one for identity, took another sip and winced as something hung up in the Legacy's off-loading system. A new ship had glitches in common with an old one, systems with bugs in them.
One of the bugs was in the out-track, the very simple chain-driven system that should take one of the giant container-cans smoothly from the hydraulic lift to the hydraulic loader-arms. They had tried lasers to find a fault in the line-up, they had tried carbon-coated paper to turn up an imprecision in the teeth, they'd marked the places on the chain that jammed and the places on the wheel that jammed, and no joy. She had preferred the system because it was what The Pride used, it was old, it was tested, it was straight-forwardly mechanical, cheap to repair, but that gods-rotted chain was going to break and kill somebody someday. Every time it jammed like that she flinched.
A small problem, the outfitter swore. Easy to fix. Just pinpoint the problem, and we'll make it right.
The loader started up again. So nobody was killed. Hope it wasn't the mahen porcelain they were hauling. But the chain was intact. She heard it working.
If the party receiving the goods be not the person stipulated to in Subsection 3 Section 1, and have valid claim as demonstrated in Subsection 36 of Section 25, then it shall be the reasonable obligation of the party accepting the contract to ascertain whether the person stipulated to in Subsection 3 Section 1 shall exist in Subsequent or in Consequent or in Postconsequent, however this clause shall in no wise be deemed to invalidate the claim of the person stipulated to in Subsection 3 Section 1 or 2, or in any clause thereunto appended, except if it shall be determined by the party accepting the contract to pertain to a person or Subsequent or Consequent identified and stipulated by the provisions of Section5…
However the provisions of Section 5 may be delegated by the party issuing the contract, following the stipulations of Subsection 12 of Section 5 in regard to the performance of the person accepting the contract, not obviating the requirements of performance of the person accepting the contract…
Another sip of gfi. A chase through the stack of paper after subsection 12 of Section 5. She could Search it on the computer but that meant moving the output stacks, the notes, the reference manuals and the microcube case that was sitting in front of the screen. Somewhere in Library there was a reference work on Subsequents, at least as far as mahendo'sat understood stsho personality changes. She would have the computer look it up. When she found the monitor screen. She took another sip of gfi.
The Rows were the open market at Meetpoint— anything you wanted, you had a chance of finding scattered on the tables of a hundred and more smalltime merchants, stsho and mahendo'sat… stsho and mahen hucksters shoving things into your attention and claiming miraculous potency for unregulated vitamins and curious effects for legal and peculiar compounds, offering second-hand clothes and trinkets, carvings by bored spacers and erotic items peculiar to mahendo'sat and curious to everyone else.
But to a hani in a hurry, with specific measurements and business already in the hands of a mahen tailor in a real established Rows shop, with a pressure-door and every indication of permanency and respectability, the glitter and gaud and traffic of the market were an obstacle — and Tiar tried to make time against it.
Though an honest hani watching her waistline could get distracted here, because among the glitter of cheap jewelry and real gold, the echoes of argument and the twittering of doomed kifish delicacies — came the smell of baked goods and spice; mahen pastries. And a number of worldbound hani might turn up their noses at sweets, but she was cosmopolitan in taste: truth was, there was a good deal about mahen sweets she found to like.
And maybe the kid did. And certainly Tarras had the habit.
Well, maybe a dozen. The captain liked some sweets. Fala might. Chihin favored salted things. She could manage that.
And if they were in a mortal hurry and did not get back to the market on this rare stop at Meetpoint (she had asked the tailor to deliver, at soonest)… she could take a small detour.
She bought two dozen of the sweets. And decided, well, there were the fish done up in salt crystals, a crate of those, deliver immediately. And the smoked ones. Practical, and a welcome change in the menu aboard. The stsho merchant offered samples, and, well, a box of those. And there was the herb and spice section, right adjacent, where a hani could inhale her way along, collect a bottle or two — she did no small bit of the cooking, and she felt inspired, here.
Then she thought, with her arm considerably weighted with parcels, well, the poor kid had come aboard with nothing in hand. He could use a few toiletries — such things as a young man might like. Brushes, yes.
A couple of combs. A mild cologne, something clean and pleasant.
A pair of scissors. A file — it was absolute hell to be without that, and have a claw that snagged.
Tooth-brash. Of course. Creme for hands and feet — Meetpoint air was dry by hani standards, and he had been in it for days. A good conditioner for all over, while she was at it, not spicy, something like sweet grass. Any young man would like that.
A kit-case to hold it all. Second-hand, with real silver ornament. Never mind the inscription was in mahen script, and probably some love sentiment, it was a nice piece and if nobody but mahendo'sat could read it, who cared?
"Hani officer. A word?"
She looked around, at a brown mahen belly; and up, quite a distance up, at a sober mahen face.
"Legacy?" the mahe said, laying a hand on his chest. "Friend to Chanur, I, long time, follow the Personage."
Gods, another one.
"Look…" Tiar shifted the packages in her arms and suddenly realized she was far along the Rows, she had spent longer than she intended collecting her odd items, and a mahendo'sat with religious enlightenment or a crackpot scheme either one was not going to get her home any sooner.
"I know, I know, too many come you ship talk crazy. Not me." A hand larger than her head applied itself to approximately a mahen heart.
"Goodfriend, name Tahaisimandi Ana-kehnandian, ship name Ha'domaren, dock right down there—"
"I'm late. Cap'n's going to skin me as is. Send a message."
''No, no.'' Said mahen hand landed on her arm, and it was drop the packages or listen. As a third alternative, she laid back her ears and stared up at the owner of said hand, who protested, "Important you listen."
"Important I get back, mahe."
"Call me Haisi.''
"Haisi. Get the hand off or I'll give it to you on a plate."
"Very serious! Listen. What you name?" "Never mind my name! You got a message for the Personage, save it for her! My captain's got her own troubles!"
"You take stsho deal?"
She shouldn't have reacted. But she had, she did, and she stood staring at the mahendo'sat. "Where'd you hear that?"
"Got ears."
"Got ears. Great. You want a word with the captain? I'll get you a word with the captain, you just go right down to berth 23 and use the com, like any civilized individual." "What you name?" "Tiar Chanur."
"Ah! Chanur officer!"
"Chanur officer, gods-rotted right, Chanur officer! You want to stay friends with the Personage, you get down to 23 and say what you've got to say—" "I carry package for you."