What was the kif—
— after,by the gods?
Hunt. Prey. Run or fight and you got their attention. Stand still and you got eaten.
She'd escaped the kif. That story was probably famous among kif. But this kif had been right there at Meetpoint, set up with a prisoner guaranteed to get a hani's attention…
In jail for hitting a kif. One wondered how far that was a set-up.
Any hani might have done. But he'd just missed
Pyanfar, who'd just gone through there. Pyanfar went through, the Preciousness suddenly became an urgent matter that No'shto-shti-stlen had to get to Atli-lyen-tlas, and Atli-lyen-tlas ran off with the kif while the mahendo'sat ran in panicked desperation to find out what No'shto-shti-stlen had sent.
No'shto-shti-stlen was guarded by kif. So Vikktakkht had either had access to information or had been pointedly excluded from information.
Atli-lyen-tlas had either run to the kif for transport or fallen into their hands as a prisoner. And who even knew which kif? Allies of Vikktakkht? Allies of Pyanfar Chanur?
It was No'shto-shti-stlen who'd rather urgently wanted Hallan Meras in her hands. That urgency might have been stsho anxiety about having a hani male on their hands — stsho didn't understand hani touchiness about their menfolk (stsho were no more constitutionally certain what 'male' meant than hani were about the stsho's third gender) but an old diplomat like No'shto-shti-stlen certainly understood that they were touchy, and that it was an issue that could come back and cause trouble of unforeseen dimensions.
So had Vikktakkht given Meras that odd promise at No'shto-shti-stlen's urging… or had he outmaneuvered the stsho to get into the jail and set a trap for her?
And had he set it up for any hani ship they could get, or had the fact that a second Chanur ship had shown up… either suggested to Vikktakkht a connection between events that wasn't connected, or had it offered him a second chance to involve Chanur in this mess?
He certainly would know who she was. He certainly would know she'd had an experience with kif. That she'd survived and come back to Meetpoint with a ship meant, in kifish eyes, she'd increased in rank, not diminished. In kifish eyes, aunt Py hadn't thrown her out, she'd promoted her or been unable to prevent her rise. She was Chanur clan head, and one could bet the average kif knew what she was.
So Vikktakkht had ignored her in that interview and let himself be interrogated only by na Hallan. If she were kif, she might have casually shot na Hallan and insisted he talk to her. That would have gotten his respect. But he was too sophisticated a kif to expect a hani to do that, or to consider it in purely kifish terms that she didn't. He was sophisticated enough, like the Meetpoint stsho, to know that hani didn't tolerate affront to their menfolk, and probably to know that it was indecent for hani males to deal with outsiders, except when sex was directly at issue.
So was it some bizarre kifish joke? Or the careful playing of a Chanur's desire for specific information against her awareness that if she interrupted the game or refused his rules she might not get everything he would give if she didn't?
Interesting question.
She punched the pillow, battered it with her fist and tried for a comfortable spot in the tangled bedclothes, on a mental hunt through tangles of information. Too many weeds and not enough substance.
The merest shadow of what she was looking for. Clearly enough, the kif wanted her to cross the kifish border.
Another punch at the pillow, which refused to take a convenient shape. She wanted to sleep. Please the gods, she could dump it now and not think through what just didn't have an answer.
But what in a mahen hell made all these various pieces add up?
Chapter Fourteen
You could manage to read printout and work cargo. The cold-suit mittens had a spike on the thumb next the first finger that you could use to turn pages, and Tiar read on, with the loader banging and booming overhead, the giant cannisters fuming from their passage out of the cold-hold into the pressurized so-called heated hold, on their way to the docks.
Chihin had the dockside post, with her arm in a sling and a button-fuse on her temper. ("Gods-rotted nitpicking doesn't gods-be make a difference, half this stuff! She says she's going to enforce this? She's serious?")
That was somewhat Tiar's own opinion, but: "Whatever we're doing we better all do it," was her second one. And Chihin, who had read the whole thing, had muttered a surly, pain-infected obscenity and declared The Pride's crew obviously had to bolt everything down and double-check the readouts because The Pride's captain was crazy.
But that was the ship's-manual ops section, and every spacer in the clan knew Pyanfar Chanur was a stickler for neatness, double and triple checks, and logging every sneeze. The part about arms maintenance, about who went armed and where and when and when not to fire, who in a group was to watch what and who was to break for help, what the ship would stand good for and what the captain would not tolerate… all that, in Tiar's estimation, was a piece of good sense. The instructions might violate five separate Compact laws and two Trade office regulations Tiar could immediately think of, not mentioning local ordinances, but it was comforting to think that there was a standing order for a rescue, that station police no matter with what warrant were not going to take a crew member from the dockside for any reason whatsoever, and that the ship would seal up and leave dock at any moment to protect its crew, disregarding cargo and disregarding station central control. That was against the law. That would get them barred from trade unless they had a good story for the tribunal.
But Hilfy Chanur said that the new rules were the rules and she was going to follow them. It was a major lot of trouble if they ever had to do what was set down here: lawsuits, blacklisting, the various fines and penalties and loss of license Compact law threatened them with evidently didn't matter, if they had another incident like the one yesterday — because ker Hilfy said that was the way it was, and in Tiar's experience, Hilfy meant it, come fire come thunder. Ker Chanur had no few faults, but if she promised something this drastic, she wouldn't back down if it went operational.
No wonder they didn't want a copy leaving the ship. They weren't trade rules. They were a manual for…
A manual for, it occurred to Tiar Chanur as she thought about it, a hunter ship, an outright privateer… as, at least in the speculation of some in Chanur clan, that was what cousin Pyanfar had been for certain forces in the han, for years before it became official and war broke out and the han tried to bring her under control.
If we ever do any of these things, Tiar thought, we'll go over that same edge. At that point we'll no longer be a trading ship: ports won't treat us as one. We might get into port — but no knowing who'd trade with us.
And if the Legacy goes over the edge, if Chanur has two ships operating like this… how can we claim we're still just another clan? The han won't stand for it.
She wasn't sure how she felt about that. The captain was upset, she'd picked that up clearly enough.