Hani, thank the gods, were much more straightforward.
"What's the situation at Meetpoint?" Padur asked on the way to the airlock.
"Chancy. You want my opinion, if I weren't carrying what I'm carrying, for a rate I can't tell you, I'd do a turn-around at Hoas back for here. Something's going on with the stsho, you've guessed that the same as I have, and I don't have the least idea what, but it would keep me out of Meetpoint if I wasn't paid real, real well. Possibly the administration there is in some kind of crisis. Possibly the crisis is here. Possibly
…" The idea occurred to her on the spot, and she might have censored it, but these were allied captains, of nominally friendly clans. "Possibly it could be a crisis much further into stsho territory. And someone wiser than I am should consider that possibility. I've no way to get a message anywhere, except by you."
Kaury Narn gave her a particularly straight stare. And nodded and left. Padur walked with her down the yellow, ribbed tube, around the curve, the two of them talking together and doubtless more comfortably, with an associate decades older in her friendship than a young upstart Chanur.
Seniority was what they had lost, with Pyanfar out of the picture, and doubly so with Rhean retiring to manage the situation at home. From senior, and important, Chanur had descended to a Chanur had descended to a "Who are you?" from captains who honestly had to see Hilfy Chanur to know whether they could trust her word or her judgment. Oh, they knew her: they'd recall her as one of The Pride's crew, once upon a time; but no few of the captains and worse, the crewwomen, gave her that second look that remarked her youth, and wondered what deals she'd cut to obtain of her clan, at her age, the post they'd worked a lifetime for.
Working for her aunt, certain mahendo'sat evidently thought — running the mekt-hakkikt's errands and serving as decoy.
Having notions, the old women in the han would say of her and of Pyanfar. Delusions of deity. A disdain for Anuurn. A blurring of self — what, was hani and what was not. Herself, yes, defiantly she blurred those lines — but blurred lines were definitely not Pyanfar's attitude: that was the first and foremost of the problems between them.
The loader clanked. She held her breath, stopped in her office door, wondering was it going to balk and stick. It kept on. Tiar passed her, paint-spattered, towing a large carrier full of plastic-wrapped cushions, all white.
"For the gods’ sake watch the — whatever-it-is. Don't spatter it."
"Won't, cap'n," Tiar panted. Chihin and Fala brought up the rear, with a lamp trailing connections, like some sea creature rudely uprooted. A trail of white dust tracked down the Legacy's corridor, while gtst honor sat in sheet-draped splendor in the lounge, making personal purchases on the station market and demanding to be back in gtst quarters as soon as possible.
The loader balked again, cl-unk. She looked at the deck as if she could look through it, beseeched the indifferent gods of trade, and the thing limped onward. It worked better on incoming, for some reason known only to those gods. They had the cursed thing on auto at the moment, and trusted mahen passers-by and dockers not to fling themselves gratuitously into the gears and sue while Tarras was working inside.
Impossible. Impossible to get out of here with any dispatch. And a tired crew was asking for accidents to happen.
Wasn't, however, the only source of brute muscle they had aboard. The stsho was topside and little likely to stir.
She walked down to the laundry, hit the door once, and opened it.
Hallan Meras stuffed something away in a hurry, ears flat, face dismayed, and she surveyed the laundry, that now contained pieces of the crew lounge, the galley, and somebody's personal library.
"Captain," Hallan said, scrambling for his feet. He was respectful, commendably so.
"Crew says you say you can work cargo."
"Aye, captain."
Sounded sane. Sounded like someone who could take basic orders.
"We've got a problem," she said. "We're in a crunch, Tarras is working the loader solo, inside, we've got nobody keeping the local kids' fingers out of the loader — I don't suppose you brought a coat, did you?"
"No, captain." Ears flagged. "But I could sort of wrap a blanket around—''
"Unworkable. No boots, no coat, no cold suit, no hold. Can you behave yourself on the dockside?
We're going late. We're nearly 12 hours behind, we're unloading and we're loading, fast as I can get the buy made and the cans on our dock. Nobody's getting any sleep."
"I'd love to, captain. I really would!"
She truly didn't trust enthusiasm in a kid who'd broken up the Meetpoint market. She refused to soften her expression, only stared at him with ears flat and nose drawn. "Hallan Meras, have you lied? Can you work cargo? Do you know what you're doing?"
"I swear to you, captain."
"You foul up, you break any seals, you scare anybody on this station, Hallan Meras, I'll sell you to the kif."
"Aye, captain."
She hated when people she threatened were overanxious to go ahead.
"At ten percent off," she said. But she failed to kill his enthusiasm. And it made her remember what he really wanted, which she wouldn't give, wasn't about to give, gods rot him. She had a smoothly functioning crew, they understood each other, they were relatives, they had everything they needed.
He was also too gods-rotted handsome and too feckless and too male, confound him, which was the main reason to get him out of here before more than the crew lounge and the galley found its way down here.
"Get!" she said, shoved a pocket com into his hand, and he got, down the main corridor toward the airlock, at a near run.
Couldn't fault that. She looked for ways. She went into the laundry, looked around for signs of mayhem or misdeed, found nothing out of order except one unfolded blanket, the viewer, the Manual of Trade, for some gods-only-knew reason, and…
She bent and drew from under the blast cushion the printed book Hallan Meras had put there.
And who gave him that? she wondered.
Chapter Seven
You didn't run on the rampway link, you respected that perilous connection, that icy cold passage that gave a ship pressured access to station.
But Hallan walked it very fast, and, via the pocket com, called Tarras to report in: he figured that was the first test, whether he could use it and whether he knew what to do next.
"What areyou doing out there?" Tarras snapped at him, probably cold, certainly surprised.
"The captain said I should, she said you could use some help."
"Gods-rotted right I could use some help, but don't scare the dockers! Are you on pocket com?"
"Aye."
"You keep near the access ramp. And don't be sightseeing!"
"I'm at the bottom now. Have you got a cam-link?" That, he figured, would tell Tarras he had some notion what his job was. "We've got space for one more can on the transport, we've got a 14 canner moving up. Have we got a destination list?"
"Your display, code 2, check it out. Docker chief's a curly coated fellow, and just hold it, I'll call him and tell him who you are. For godssake, bow, be polite, you 'II scare him into a heart seizure. ''
"Aye, I do understand. Tell me when it's clear." He used his time taking stock of the surroundings, feeling the cold near the access and wishing that he could move away from the draft. The pocket com had a display: keyed, it scrolled the offload, 142 of the giant containers gone to their various buyers, the loader with, one reckoned, 10 more in its grip, outbound, and the transport sitting there with 15, which meant that particular hold was probably approaching empty, and Tarras was going to have to initiate the number two hold, which—