Hani, was one word her ears caught. Chanur, was another.
Tiar was at the desk. She walked up to Tiar's elbow and waited while the mahen clerk processed the information.
"Not a real happy mahe," she muttered into Tiar's canted ear. "He claims he pilots that ship. Cocky son, says he'll miss us, we don't have to worry about collision."
"'What did he want?"
"Oh, the usual, warn us about a plot to take over the universe, that sort of thing. What else is new?"
Tiar's ear flicked. "Captain, somebody might speak hani.''
Dear, literal-minded Tiar. For the first time in a decade she felt alive, felt—
— by the gods, ahead of the situation instead of chasing after it.
Didn't know what she was going to do, precisely, but she knew what she was doing — and whoever was against them, didn't: that was the name of the game; and quite comfortably she turned her back to the counter, leaned her elbows there, and simply stared back (smiling pleasantly, of course) at the mahendo'sat and kif staring at her.
Crazy as the rest of the family, she thought. It probably onset with age. Aunt Py had been relatively stable until she became captain of The Pride.
The business at the desk concluded, Tiar putting in her bid for loaders to their dockside, no, they hadn't sold the cargo yet, but they'd put in a destination when they agreed with the loaders, so much per section the load had to go around the rim of Kshshti, and no, they didn't need provisioners soliciting them.
Everything was fine.
Meanwhile she watched the room in the remote but not impossible chance someone might turn up with a weapon or some sort of trouble might come through the door.
Somebody like Haisi. Somebody like a few of his crew. Probably Haisi was thinking hard what to do about troublesome hani. And if he was connected to anyone responsible, gods rot him, he could have produced credentials from people she knew. She didn't need any, to prove to him who she was.
"I think we're ready," Tiar said.
"Let's walk back," she said. "Sort of watch it.’’
The crowd at the door moved and let them out onto the dingy, multiple-shadowed docks. "Haisi's left," Hilfy said under her breath.
"Wasn't highly helpful?"
"You could say that." Another time-flash, on the smells and the sights and the sounds of the dock, a bus passing, on its magnetic guide strip, rattling the deck plates at a service access. And not a hani in sight…
just not a place hani had gotten to, lately. Peace might have brought prosperity… but merchant ships tended to establish quiet, regular routes. There weren't the disruptions, the wild incidents, the rumors, that tended to send the timid running and the foolhardy kiting in on the smell of profit: and, absent those motives, a merchant ship tended to carve out a route it followed and stick to that route for fear of someone moving in to compete… from a cooperative, rumor-trading free trade, they'd become misers, close-mouthed on information, jealously protective of their routes and resentful if somebody moved in on them or undercut their prices — a mercantile age, it was, a greedy, tight-fisted age.
And what was a hani ship saying by being out of its normal route these days, or what was a mahen hunter ship doing sniffing about? That there was something different about them? That, being Chanur, there was something other than trade on their minds?
That murdered stsho were significant?
Trust Kshshti to spread the rumors it got. That little business with Haisi was already spreading on a network more efficient than the station news, bet on it.
"Ever been on Kshshti?"
"No," Tiar said shortly. Tiar had an anxious, distracted look. And she knew Tiar hadn't been here: aunt Rhean hadn't favored this area of space. Aunt Pyanfar had been the one to run the edges, preferentially, using her experience of foreigners to make The Pride profitable.
But aunt Pyanfar hadn't spoken the languages with any great fluency. And she could. She'd gone into that study to give herself an edge in getting into the crew, she'd had an aptitude for words, a mind quick to grasp foreign ideas, and a tongue that didn't trip on stshoshi… best bribe she could have offered aunt Py, who couldn't say Llyene without dropping an essential l.
And where had it brought her?
A car swerved near them. "Gods-be fool!" Tiar exclaimed.
"NaHallan would be right at home here," she said — nasty joke; but na Hallan wasn't here to hear it, and she was in a joking mood, crazy as it was. Maybe it was discovering Kshshti was a real place, and debunking it of the myth of nightmare… she hadn't flinched from coming here, hadn't let herself, but by the gods, maybe she should have come here years ago, walked the docks, had a look at the place and told herself…
"Kif," Tiar said suddenly, and her eyes spotted them at the same moment, a handful of them standing about in the shadows near the Legacy's berth.
Her heart was beating faster. She told herself there was no reason for panic, the station was civilized enough these days that an honest trader could get from the dock office to her ship's ramp without a gun; and that calling on the pocket com would be an over-reaction.
One of them was walking toward them, strobed in the multiple shadows of the lights and the flash of a passing service track. The matte black of his hooded robe was only marginally different from the skin of the long snout that was all of him that met the light. She couldn't see his hands, and while what had once been gunbelts were mere ornament these days… knives weren't outlawed.
"Captain…" Tiar said.
"If something happens, break for cover behind the number two console, call station on com, I'll take the number one, call the ship…" She monotoned it, under her breath: her mind was on autopilot, her eyes were on the kif… all the kif. They were predators, highly evolved, and fast over short distances. And no weapons ban covered teeth.
"Good day, captain. What a rare sight… hani back at Kshshti. How pleasant. Captain Hilfy Chanur, is it?"
"We might have met," she said flatly, ears back and with no pretense at friendliness. "Have we?"
"That unfortunate incident. I assure you I was light-years away and not involved. Let me introduce myself. My name is Vikktakkht, ambassador Vikktakkht an Nikkatu, traveling aboard Tiraskhti.
Perhaps the mekt-hakkikt has mentioned me."
"I doubt it. If she has, we haven't been in the same port in years."
"Ah. And your companion, your chief officer, perhaps."
"Tiar Chanur."
"Another name to remember. How do you do, captain? And I won't ask you such a meaningless question as why you're here. I know why you're here, I know where you're going."
The hair prickled at her nape. The last she'd seen there were only mahendo'sat back there in front of the office, but there'd been those inside. And she had no inclination to wait here through kifish courtesies.
"Nice to meet you, give my regards to the mekt-hakkikt, and excuse us if we don't stand about. We're running a tight schedule." She took Tiar's arm and started around the obstacle, but there were more of them beyond him, between them and the consoles and the ramp.
"Captain," the kif called after her. "Tell Hallan Meras I'd like to talk to him."
Dangerous to turn her back. It wasn't Pride crew she was with. "Watch them," she snapped, and turned to see what Vikktakkht was up to.
"Just tell him," it said, with a lifting of empty, peaceful hands. "We're old acquaintances."
Smug. Oh, so smug.