And Chihin: "There's — ah — a complication."
"What complication?"
"The boy's seen the vase."
"What do you mean, 'seen the vase'? Wasn't it put away? Didn't I order it taken down until we'd absolutely finished knocking around in there?"
"We were. I thought he'd gone back to quarters. I sent him there. I thought he'd stay. He didn't."
"Chihin, —"
"I'm sorry, captain."
"He disobeyed orders?"
"I didn't exactly order him to stay there. I sent him there. He came back."
"Gods. What else? What possibly else can he get into?"
"I don't know," Chihin said. "But — being fair, it wasn't as if he was deliberately doing anything wrong."
"He's never doing anything wrong! I've never met anybody so gods-rotted innocent. Gods in feathers, why is Meras wherever you don't want him?"
"It's a small world down there."
"Small world. Small gods-rotted one corridor he was told to keep his nose out of!"
"The stsho took an unscheduled walk too."
"The stsho is a paying passenger. The stsho wasn't picked out of station detention! The stsho didn't create an international incident on the docks and have the section doors closed!"
"What I can't figure," Tiar said, "is why this Haisi Ana-kehnandian wants to know what the object is.
What possible difference could it make?"
"Evidently a major one, to someone." She stirred the stew around in her bowl, stared at floating bits as if they held cosmic meaning, and thought back and back to this port, and days when one went armed to dockside. When accidents that happened weren't accidents and you didn't trust anything for face value. It felt like those days again and she felt trapped.
Fool, she said to herself. Fool, fool, fool. One grew accustomed to high politics, one grew used to breathing the atmosphere at the top of bureaucratic mountains, and one's vital nerves grew dull to signals of high-level interest and dangerous associations.
One just didn't by the gods think of it as unusual … when any freight-hauler else would have said Wait, go back, why me?
"If we leave him," Tarras said, "somebody's going to grab him for questioning. Or try to."
Of course they were. Give them sufficient cause for curiosity and local authorities might trump up some charge to get the boy off any ship that was carrying him: figure that too. She had rather not have that ship be Legacy. But honorably speaking, she could not wish it to be Narn, either.
And customs had come asking about the nature of the cargo. Maybe Ana-kehnandian's questions had put them up to it, and maybe the Personage of Urtur was innocent as spring rain. Or maybe she wasn't.
Maybe that angry scene with Ana-kehnandian had been only because Ana-kehnandian had produced no results. Because it had gotten noisy, and public, and Ana kehnandian had had his bluff called in a way the Personage of Urtur didn't like.
She found herself still stirring the stew, like an idiot. And asking herself what Meras could actually say that could do damage. 'It's a white vase?' Stupid piece of information. And what did it mean? What in a reasonable and occasionally logical universe did Ana-kehnandian know or not know about the stsho that could make it valuable or life-threatening or politically important to his Personage, or what in a mahen hell was going on among the stsho? Meras could know something useful or he might not have seen any detail the mahendo'sat could remotely find useful. It might not be that it was a vase. It might be the carving on the vase. It might be that it wasn't a doorstop, a bag of dried fish or an antique teapot, for all they could possibly know.
She looked up at four sober faces, four sober stares. Fala's ears went down, Tarras' did; then Tiar's did, one ear at a time. Chihin was the only exception, eye to eye with her.
"My fault," Chihin said. "I thought he'd stay. I didn’t 't expect the stsho down the lift, — If we could transfer him to Narn secretly—"
"And say somebody gets onto it, they get him anyway, and they've got help. Say they might be within one jump of doing something with the information, straight back the way we came. But the ambassador went to Kita so we have to go to Kita. That's more than one jump from Meetpoint. I wish I knew what in all reason it matters it's a vase." Chihin shrugged perplexedly. Hilfy took a spoonful of stew, wondering if history would forget one Hallan Meras if she sent him on a spacewalk, say on their way to jump.
"I'll talk to him," she said, and ate another spoonful. "With any luck whatsoever, divinely owed us these last five years, there'll be a hani ship through here outbound from Hoas on its way to somewhere useful.
I've got a hundred lots of cans, a general mail shipment, twenty cans of medical supplies, the luxury goods, the dupe-rights on the entertainment tapes; and that's about the best we can do on short notice.
High value shippers are spooked. Can you blame them? Lucky we can get better than pig iron this run.
Industrials and a load of foodstuffs and a ten can lot of spare parts for some construction company at Kita. Mostly cold-hold stuff. I know you've been going shift and shift; and we could carry more. But we need to get out of here. I want us out of this port before somebody files suit."
"I'll go with that," Chihin said. "The sooner the better."
"I'll get down to cargo," Tiar said. "I've had the easy stint last watch."
"We're going to push till we're loaded," she said. "Sleep when you're off, do anything we can to get turned around. I'll work hold. Meras can stay in the lounge, in the lounge, I don't care if it catches fire, he's not to leave it except on my personal order, do we agree on that?''
Nods. "Aye, captain," from Tiar.
She shoved the bowl back and got up. "I'll talk to him. And I don't care how persuasive he is, I don't care how pretty his eyes are, I don't care how polite he is, I don't want that son out of the crew lounge until we're sealed and we're sure our paying passenger is staying put! Do I hear Yes, captain?"
"Yes, captain," the answer came back.
So she left the galley for the lounge.
The captain came through the door with her ears down and her face scowling. Which might mean something else had happened that was his fault, although, before the gods, Hallan had no idea how or what. He stood up in proper respect and ducked his head.
"If the gods are good, a hani ship will come through here at the last moment bound directly for hani space and take you off our hands. If the gods are less well-disposed, you'll be on to Kita with us. And if—" The captain's first claw extruded. "If you do one more thing to screw up, if you walk out of this lounge without my express permission, if you startle our passenger again, if you assume any gods-be need to go anywhere, if you bat your eyes at one of my crew or land in anyone's quarters, you're going to find yourself chained in the laundry for the duration of this voyage, which may last another year! Does this order get through to you?"
"Yes, captain."
"Do you believe I'm joking?"
He looked the captain in the face, a very pretty face it was, and a very serious and dangerous one.
"No, captain,"
"Do you want to spend a year down there?"
"No, captain. But if I could help in any way—"
"You don't help!" She jabbed the forefinger in his direction and he backed up. "You don't offer to help me, you don't offer to help my crew, you don't offer to help our passenger. You never saw anything, you will never remember that you saw anything in the stsho's cabin, and if you ever do remember you saw anything you'll forget it forthwith. Do you follow that?"