Her heart was thumping doubletime. But seeing a stsho, finally, proved they did exist here, stsho seemed on the receiving end of the trouble in mahen space, and this one was no threat… terrified, rather, distraught, exhausted, at the visible limit of gtst resources.
"Help for what?" Kif was still echoing in her ears, but if the inner hatch had opened, the outer hatch had shut; and no kit' was getting in here.
"Oh, great hani, kindly hani person… please, refuge from this terrible place, please, violence, terrible violence…"
Four stsho dead, Haisi had said.
And beside her the door opened and Tlisi-tlas-tin put gtst head out. "Oh, woe! Oh, distress! Is this the person? Is this the one?'‘
"Captain," Tiar tried to say, but there was too much stsho wailing from both sides, and Tiar gestured helplessly with the gun in hand. "Kif, watching the ship!"
And Tarras and Chihin about to open up the hold for the dockers.
"Have we got a docking crew out there? Have we got any station security on the cargo lock?"
"Just the dockers…"
The intruder had edged forward, toward Tlisi-tlas-tin, babbling and bowing… was all but at the door, and that set off old, war-honed instincts. Hilfy put out a warning hand and laid her ears back, by no means eager to let gtst near the oji.
But the intruder-stsho bowed and bobbed and babbled in manic frenzy, gtst moonstone eyes wide and bright, paint streaked on gtst face and arms and onto gtst pastel robes… gtst reached Tlisi-tlas-tin, gtst honor nothing protesting, with the parcels dangling about gtst limbs, but Tlisi-tlas-tin had retreated inside gtst cabin, and the intruder seemed overcome, hanging on the doorway and wailing.
Tlisi-tlas-tin hissed and straightened gtst robes, a hand on the pedestal of the oji. "This is by no means Atli-lyen-tlas!" gtst declared. "This is a juvenile! What unseemliness has turned an unformed individual loose without face-saving escort?"… or something to that effect. It was a barrage of high stshoshi, indignant and outraged, and the intruder covered gtst face and cowered.
"Aide to gtst excellency!" gtst protested. "I am no juvenile! I am an honorable person, gainfully employed and competent!"
"What," demanded Tlisi-tlas-tin, "what is your wretched and undistinguished name?''
What had gtst done? Hilfy wondered, stunned by the viciousness of Tlisi-tlas-tin's attack. Stsho weren't violent. Stsho avoided conflict, and unpleasantness, and gtst attacked a stsho gtst called a juvenile…
who hovered in the doorway murmuring,
"Oh, the beauty, oh, the elegance, oh, oh!"
Tlisi-tlas-tin's crest lowered and lifted. Gtst blinked rapidly, and the young stsho bowed repeatedly, and turned and patted Hilfy's arm.
"Tell gtst excellency, tell gtst excellency I am overwhelmed, I cannot remember the unworthiness in the face of this magnificence, I admire gtst excellency, please say this!"
"Gtstsays…"
"Gtstisi,oh, gtstisi!"
Gtstisi.The Indeterminate. The Transitory.
They had a gods-be Phasing stsho on their hands, a personality overwhelmed and disintegrating.
"Gtstisisays… gtstisi is overwhelmed." It was all of it she could construct. It was all that made sense.
But Tlisi-tlas-tin turned gtst back and walked a few steps before gtst deigned to answer.
And gtstisi — assuming it was Phasing — crouched on the floor at the doorway.
"Your honor," Hilfy said, trying to attract gtst attention. "Is this—" One could not directly refer to the former identity of a stsho in fragmentation — it was abominable manners. "Is this someone with whom your honor might have business?
Gtstwas clearly agitated, pacing and wringing gtst long, white fingers. "Excellency," gtst had the presence of mind to declare, promoting gtstself\f a notch, for the visitor's benefit, one could think. "I do not notice this distasteful event. If gtstisi remains, gtstisi remains. Where is Atli-lyen-tlas, what am I to think?"
"Excellency, I have had a report gtst moved on, likely to Kshshti. This could not possibly., possibly … be the identical person, please forgive my forwardness."
"A servant," gtst said, at which the intruder wailed and covered gtstisi head with locked arms. "Take this juvenile from my sight. It is insane."
One hesitated to make any disposition of the wretched creature. One hesitated to lay hands on it: stsho were fragile, and bones might break. But she took it by a fold of cloth and tugged, wondering what she might do with it, thinking of the accommodation they might improvise out of the remaining passenger cabin next door, and recalling that cabin was dark gray and a definite blue.
It might drive the creature over the edge, or pry its last grip loose from reality. Final arbiter, the contract said, of the disposition of the Preciousness. And that was the loader clanking into motion, those hydraulics were the cargo hatch unsealing the Legacy to the dock-side and the dockers and kifish bandits, by Tiar's report.
"White paint," she said, and cast about desperately after resources of personnel or energy. "White paint.
Panels. There have to be some pieces in storage."
"I think there were," Tiar said.
"Get on the com. Advise Tarras and Chihin there's kif out there. Get—" She had the stsho in hand, Meras topside, gtst honor in the passenger quarters… and gtstisi was wilting in her grip, wiping at its body paint and its crest indiscriminately. "Lost, lost," gtstisi wailed. "I was someone and I forget, I forget, oh, the misery I have had, and I forget!"
"Get on it!" Hilfy said, and dragged the fainting stsho to the neighboring cabin. "This is temporary," she said. "It has no taste, no distinction. It will change."
"Oh, the despair!" gtstisi cried, and slumped inside. "I die, I perish, oh, woe and obliteration… where is my name to be? What shall I become?"
"An honest stsho!" she said irritably, and shut the door and locked it.
And leaned against the wall, surveying over her left shoulder a scattered trail of small abandoned parcels.
Tiar was not in sight. Probably Tiar would gladly be several lights away at the moment, and the hold was not far enough.
But she could not blame Tiar entirely. Nor blame Hallan Meras for this disaster. This one came of being here, came of kif stalking them, came of dealing with a scoundrel of a mane who wouldn't tell her what she needed to know.
She had the most sinking feeling that this was the stsho Haisi had claimed was still available and knowledgeable, this was the source of knowledge still available to them, and gtst had just lost touch with gtst own mind — was, in effect, dying to the stsho gtst had been, and becoming another entity, if gtst could pull the bits and pieces of a personality together.
But gtst might not remember once gtst had made that transition. Gtst — gtstisi. Indeterminate, desperately trying to sort out its reality, and locked, within that storage compartment, in an environment that could lend it no cues.