And don't say Pyanfar Chanur got beyond biology when it came to personal choices either. Pyanfar had dumped Chanur in her lap and run off to do as she pleased, free as she pleased, with na Khym — It's your turn, niece. You go be responsible.
Nothing in her life she had planned had ever worked and no living person she had ever trusted or wanted had ever come her way. Tell that to the jealous rivals who thought Hilfy Chanur got everything she ever wanted at no cost and no effort.
She was on a self-pity binge. She recognized it when she hit the chorus. She tried to get her mind out of the track and stared at lights reflected in the overhead, listened to the small constant sounds of the ship under way, and thought how so long as they were out of ports and so long as she had the Legacy, she was safe-how she didn't have to go back to Anuurn ever again if she didn't want to, how space was all she wanted, all she ever had wanted, and to a mahen hell with planets and the attitudes that grew up on them.
So occasionally she ran into other hani ships and had to meet the world-bound mindset out here, in people like Narn, who ought to know better, who ought to be free enough to spit at the han and the old women back home — but she didn't, and wouldn't: you couldn't expect it of most of the clans, and you didn't see it taking rapid hold of the spacerfarers. Quite to the contrary, there was a conservative backlash. That was the disappointment.
Which told her how badly she personally wanted to crack heads and knock courage into Narn and Padur, and how badly she wanted the universe to be different, and play by civilized rules, and not by the gods care whether a young fool wanted to fight biology and go to space, but things didn't work that way either.
So Meras hadn't asked for what had happened. Neither his upbringing nor his apprenticeship had taught him what he needed to know, and maybe she hadn't been fair with him, either: she hadn't exactly given him any parameters, just a general instruction to go out there and do what he claimed he knew how to do, as if those papers of his really meant more than a license to sit and watch the boards while a licensed spacer took a break.
There were ships that treated apprentices like that. There were ships that treated female apprentices like that — a lot of them, more the pity. The Pride had turned her out knowing what she was doing — and most ships never met what The Pride had on her tour: there wasn't much she hadn't met or done or seen in the years of running communications on Pyanfar Chanur's intrigue-bound dealings.
The kid hadn't had any such break. The kid was in the lounge watching vids, the only one of them who wasn't falling down tired; they were stuck with him for a little while; and the more she thought about it, the more she felt uneasy with herself for the family temper and an extravagant expectation of an apprentice she'd sent onto that dockside, thanks to the lack of a coat — rather than down in the hold, also true, where he could lose an arm or a neck in the machinery. But the dust-up with the Urtur authorities hadn't been entirely the lad's fault… he hadn't known his limitations, he'd probably imitated a bad habit he'd seen somebody else do — Tarras was right in that.
And he'd go off the Legacy no smarter and no better than he was if nobody knocked the need-to-knows into his head. He'd been the Sun's responsibility; somehow he'd gotten to be theirs, and by the gods, she had a certain vanity where it came to the Legacy's operating and the Legacy's way of doing business.
Her papa hadn't been stupid. Uncle Khym wasn't stupid. Young men were stupid, while their hormones were raging and their bodies were going through a hellacious growth spurt that had them knocking into doorways and demolishing the china. Then was when young men left home, and went out and lived in the outback, and fought and bashed each other and collected the requisite scars and experience to come back formidable enough to win a place for themselves. Seven or so years and a gangling boy all elbows came back all shoulders and with muscle between his ears.
But Hallan Meras didn't seem to have as much of that as, say, Harun Chanur. Light dose Meras had been given. Illusions he was a girl. Trying to act like one and use his head, at his age.
She angled the couch upright, straightened her mane and flicked her earrings into order with a snap of her ears. She punched in the lounge com and called Meras forward; so he came, diffidently, as far as the middle of the bridge, darting glances here and there about the crew less stations.
"Used to the environment, are you?"
"I've — seen the bridge, yes, captain."
"Seen the bridge. You're a licensed spacer and you've seen the bridge? That's remarkable."
"I mean I've seen the bridge on the Sun. "
"Not worked it?"
"I got my papers in cargo management, down in—"
"You're a specialist, then. A real specialist. — What's that station?"
"That's scan, captain."
"Congratulations. Ever read the screen?"
"Not actually."
Figured. "Who in a mahen hell gave you your papers?"
Ears flagged. "The authorities at Touin."
"Did they speak the Trade? Did you take a test? Did they interview you?"
"I think they took her Druan's word."
"Druan Sahern."
"Hanurn, actually. Ker Druan Hanurn nef Sahern. She helped me. She showed me things."
Aunt Pyanfar had had no patience. Under her captaincy, an apprentice sat every board on the bridge, somewhere before aunt Py signed any application for a license. Emergencies don't wait for the experts, aunt Pyanfar had used to say. Gods-be right you learned every board, every button, and every readout.
You could be the only one that could reach the seat. The whole ship could depend on you in a station you didn't ordinarily work.
"I haven't changed my mind. I'm still kicking you off this ship first chance I get. But I don't think we're apt to find a thing at Kita, it's not a place I'd leave anybody, and, by the gods, nobody's going off my ship and having the next crew say we didn't teach him anything. You understand me?" Ears were up, eyes shining. "Thank you, captain." "Thank me, hell. Keep me awake. We've got six hours to jump, my eyes are crossing, I'm sore down to my fingertips, I'm out of patience with fools and I want you to sit down over there at the scan station and read me off what you see happening on that board and on that screen."
"Yes,captain!" He went and dropped into the seat, and started rattling it off, the numbers and the names and the lane designations. Not by the gods bad, actually. Most critical first and right along their laid course which was plotted there, for somebody who could read the symbols.
"Who taught you the codes?"
"I had this book."
"You had this book. What book?"
"The general licensing manual. Ker Dru let me study it."
"She let you study it. Nice of her. So you read up on more than cargo operations."
"Everything. I read all of it."
"You remember everything you read?"
"I read it a lot."
Her pulse ticked up. It sounded familiar, sounded by the gods familiar; in the same way, she'd had the manual downworld, aunt Py had slipped her the copy, and she'd studied and studied and kept it out of her father's sight, because he had gotten upset about her studying. He had wanted her to stay downworld and be papa's favorite daughter; but she'd memorized every bit, every chart — memorized boards she'd never seen and operations she'd never watched.