They had guns enough aboard — only prudent, never mind where they had bought them, or how, but it had involved a mahen trader; while weapons were such a cultural necessity among the kif, such a part of life-sustaining self-esteem, that the Compact peace treaty had had to except knives and blades from the weapons ban, figuring that kifish teeth were no less dangerous, and that it was far better to have the kif signatory to the peace than not…
Of course, it had taken considerable efforts in translations and cross-cultural studies to explain the word peace to all the several species. Granted, war did not translate with complete accuracy; but kif had understood neither idea. Kif weren't wired to understand war, since they were at constant odds with each other, cooperated when hani least would, betrayed when hani would be most loyal, and hit the ground at birth competitive, aggressive, and (some scholars surmised) having first to escape their nest before they were eaten.
As to the last… that was speculation. But she did understand their minds better than most hani. It wasn't to say she was forgiving. The kif weren't either. Circumstances either changed or they did not. They had that in common.
She got up from the console, she walked back to where na Hallan was puttering about in the galley, and said, with a queasy feeling,
"NaHallan, — how do you feel about talking to the kif?"
"If you want me to," he said.
"You take orders?"
"Aye, captain." Dubiously.
"You foul this up, Meras, and I'll shoot you myself. Lives are at risk, yours, mine, more than that, do you understand? You go out on the docks. And I'll suggest a question you can ask this Vikktakkht — that is, if you can't think of one of your own. Nothing comes to you yet, what he might have meant?"
"I've been trying to understand what he meant, captain. I don't. I can't imagine what he's talking about. It doesn't make sense. It didn't then."
"What would be important to ask him?"
"I don't know…"
"Like in the myths, Meras. You get one wish. What would help us?''
His ears went down and lifted again, tentatively. "Knowing where the stsho is. Getting hold of him…"
"Gtst. Not him. They're quite touchy on that score. But, yes, that's the question — unless you think of a better one."
"I'm sure I wouldn't—"
"I'm sure if you think of one, you'll tell me. I'll find this Vikktakkht. And if we meet him, if knives or guns come out, you take orders, and you don't act the fool. Do you hear me? Do you absolutely, beyond any question, understand?"
"Aye, captain," he said faintly. But if she had said the local star is green, she had the uneasy feeling that na Hallan would have agreed.
Give him credit, he would have tried to see the star that way. But it didn't make Yes the best answer.
And it didn't tell you what he'd do when the shots started flying.
She stared at him long enough to let him think about it. "I'll see if this Vikktakkht is by any chance in touch with his ship."
"You," Hilfy said to Fala, in the lower deck main corridor, "work the hold. Can you handle that?"
"No trouble," Fala said, "but…"
"No 'but.' I need you handling the loader." Ears went down. "Because I'm the—"
"Because I have things on my mind, Fala! Gods!" She headed down the corridor toward the airlock, where, if Chihin and Tiar had gotten Hallan downside, their expedition was organizing.
The dockers had lost no time: the Legacy's cargo lock was open, and Tarras, in the requisite coat, was out there going over the final customs forms.
There was no graceful way for a hani to wear a cold-hold coat on dockside: Tarras could justify it by going back and forth inside, and perspiring by turns. But they couldn't. So that meant the lightest arms, lousy for accuracy, but they fit in a formal-belted waist with no more than a slight bulge… and it was their office-meeting, formal reception best they wore.
Except na Hallan, who went in ordinary spacer blues. But when they walked down the ramp to the dock, there was no question where the stares went— straight to the hani a head taller than any of them, the one with the shoulders and the mane that matched.
Work stopped. A transport bumped the one in front with a considerable jolt. Hallan watched his feet on the way down. She watched their surroundings and said, under her breath, "I don't expect it, but watch left and right and say if you see anything untoward. Na Hallan, if there should be trouble, you do understand that getting your head down doesn't necessarily cover your rear. There's a lot of you.
Wherever we go, I want you to have somewhere in mind that you could get to that would be a solid barrier; and where you'd duck to if you had to fall back. I want this whole dock to be a map like that in your head, do you follow me?"
"Yes, captain. I do, thank you."
He might. Boys learned hunting, bare-handed; boys learned tracking and hiding and all such games as fitted them for defending their lives. It was heroics she worried about. Boys learned to show out, and bluff, and trust the other side most often to follow the rules, although na Kohan had said once, reflectively, that men learned to cheat in the outback, because some did, and once that was true — you couldn't assume.
So with Chihin and Tiar. The rings in their ears meant a lot of ports and each one of those rings a risky situation, in space or on the docks. But they weren't Pride crew, and they hadn't studied this together.
She just trusted they were thinking now, better than Tiar had been when she had felt that cross-up of signals.
They walked through the traffic of transports and past the towering gantry that held the power umbilical, took that route for the next three berths, before they tended around the off-loading of another ship, mahen, as happened.
There were stares. Hallan cast an anxious look back at them and stumbled on a power cable.
"Feet," Chihin said.
"Sorry," he said.
There was the kifish trade office, number 15, opposite berth 28, as listed — an unambitious and functional looking place, conspicuous by the orange light behind the pressure windows; but beyond the section doors was a district where that lighting was the norm, where kifish bars, restaurants and accommodations mingled with gambling parlors where kif played games no outsider would care to bet on, and where bloodletting was not an uncommon result, at least… it had been that way.
Maybe they had cleaned it up. One reminded oneself these were civilized times.
But that might be fatal thinking.
"This is the place. If there's trouble, have your spots picked and don't look after anyone but yourself — at least you know what you're thinking and where you're going."
"Too gods-be close to the kif section," Chihin said.
"We're dealing with kif," Tiar said.
Now she was nervous. Now the hair down her backbone must be ridged, and her claws kept twitching in their sheaths.
But not notably scared. It was like sleepwalking, saying to herself, I've done this before, this is the life I chose for myself, this is the way the Compact is, not—
— not the safe, law-hedged half-truths the treaty made. Safe, as long as you're within twenty lights of Anuurn, civilized, as long as it's only hani you deal with, altruistic, as long as you're not dealing with species who have to have that word explained to them.
A methane-breather wove past, in its sealed vehicle; a bus followed, humming along its mag strip.
Never could convince the tc'a to rely on the magnetics. Something about their sensitivities. You couldn't get that clear in translation either.
That was the truth out here. It wasn't law that got you by. It was good manners. It was giving in on a point that wasn't fatal to you, and might be to them.