Then it wasn't a thought-out thing at all, they were just holding on to each other, and the bomb still hadn't blown up. Tarras was asking, via com,
"Are you all right? Chihin?Na Hallan?".
But holding on seemed more important than making sense, and breathing more important than answering, and Chihin was all right, that was what he kept thinking, Chihin was the senior officer, she ought to answer if she wanted to.
"Chihin?Na Hallan?"
He hadn't any breath at all to answer.
"They look all right, "he heard Tarras say, almost off mike.
And someone else, a younger, outraged voice: "Gods rot her!"
He knew he was in trouble then, he didn't want to make Fala mad, but he didn't know how to extricate himself, he didn't even try — he wasn't thinking quite clearly, and knew it.
"Is it a bomb?" thecaptain's voice said, off mike.
“ I think they 're calling in the bomb disposal people. The customs agent left. "
“I think we’re going for Kefk.”
"Now?"
"We're off-loaded all but two cans. We call the dealer, say we 're unable to deliver those two, we deduct the price, we get our tails out of this hellhole, right now. Advisegtst excellency and gtst — whatever. — Can you get those two fools out of the airlock?"
The captain was up there. Fala was. Tarras. Everybody. There was a bomb on the dock as large as a country haystack and the ship was going to leave. And all he could think of was the face, the very mature face of someone he couldn't believe was attracted to him.
"Got to get inside," Chihin said. And he was scared of the ship going or the can blowing up outside, but more vivid was the thought that Chihin was too different and too common-sense and too steeped in spacer morals to realize he cared for her, he truly, really cared for Chihin — who, with every prejudice she had, honestly made the effort to understand him.
"You gods-rotted idiots, get topside, report in immediately, do you hear me?"
That was the captain. Chihin said a word his sisters never said, then with the rake of a claw through his mane, breathed, "We better do it, kid. Or she'll make us hike to Kefk."
Chapter Fifteen
It was one way to get out of station — station traffic control couldn't rightly refuse an emergency undock, a fire squad had their last two lines shut down, and they were on their way.
With empty holds and running light; with Ha'domaren and the kif still at dock and trying to get clearance, Hilfy was sure: one could imagine the messages flying back and forth. If they hadn't a stsho aboard, if they weren't for other reasons reluctant to demonstrate to the universe at large what the Legacy could do unladed, they could kite out of here.
As it was they put as much push on it as they dared use and listened to Kshshti try to solve its problem.
With nervous ships trying to bolt, the doors of that section of dock shut, and the whole population of Kshshti under seal-failure warning… station police were looking for the driver, who had disappeared, the truck was registered to a warehouse two sections away, no one they'd dealt with, it was stolen, so far as the manager claimed, and the can, which could match almost any ship's ink-written sequence-number for the manifest, didn't match anyone's serial numbers in the embedded ID, that a laser reader would pick up: the manufacturer was Ma'naoshi on Ijir. Mahendo'sat. But cans scattered from their point of manufacture, by the very nature of carrying freight. It could be anybody's; and being a cold-can, and being handled only by robot and by gloved personnel, any exterior biological contact could go all the way back to the day of manufacture, or to some truck driver on Gaohn station three years ago.
"Probably some load of frozen vegetables," Tarras said.
"Funny thing they haven't cleared anybody to leave the station," Tiar said. "I'm surprised they cleared us."
Station hadn't been at all happy when they declared themselves outbound. Station had threatened them with legal action. But station was silent on that point now that they'd entered the all but vacant traffic pattern and declared course for Kefk.
"We're getting the traffic advisories," Tiar said.
"Guess they've decided not to sue," Chihin said.
There was a markedly subdued atmosphere on the bridge — no Hallan hadn't said a thing, Chihin had been remarkably quiet, and Fala maintained a business-only report on the comflow.
One could say one had foreseen this situation, one could toss na Hallan off the bridge and lock him in the laundry, except if anyone deserved to be locked in the laundry the senior scantech ought to be first for that accommodation.
"They're saying," Fala said with a sudden edge of alarm in her voice, "they're saying there's something electronic in the can. They're taking it real seriously. Wondering if they should jettison it out the nearest lock."
"Could be a pressure trigger," Tarras said. "That's a cold-hold can. Could be vacuum sets it off, could be thermal…"
"Thermal's the better bet," Tiar said, "rig it through the environmental sensors. Think they want advice?''
"They've probably thought of it," Hilfy muttered, "but gods know… relay that, Fala. If they're going to kick it out, better they maneuver it out sun-side…"
"Thing could be thermonuclear for all we know," Chihin said. "Somebody's out of their godloving mind.
They didn't think we were going to let that thing aboard."
"Enough if it's sitting on our dock when it…"
"… goes off. Plain gods-be timer fuse. They should quit messing around and kick it out of there."
Fala was relaying that, too, she could hear the gist of it. It was useless. Kshshti had to know its possibilities, a few more, maybe, than they could think of.
But the perpetrators had to be on the station or on one of those ships still at dock.
"Methane ship's hit system."
"Gods, that's the brick too many on this load."
Add the confusion of an inbound methane-breather to a stationside catastrophe and there was no telling what could happen.
"They are going to jettison the can," Fala reported. Station wasn't answering its traffic inquiries, wasn't acknowledging calls, evidently… station's internal calls were probably reaching crisis proportions. What was coming back to them was the ops channel station made available to nervous ships at dock.
"Tiraskhtiis breaking dock. The kif have given station five minutes to shut down their lines. Station isn't happy.''
"One gets you ten Ha'domaren is next."
"Won't take that bet," Tarras said.
"Oh, good… gods…"
Number two screen. A white light flashed on Kshshti's side, flashed and died.
Like a lot of innocent station workers.
There was quiet on the bridge. Station ops com was dead. Then some other channel came through, reporting a major explosion, the decompression of sector 8, ordering Kshshti citizens to remain calm and stay put, ordering ships not to complicate matters by launching.
"Those sons are going anyway," Chihin said. "Gods rot it, there's—"
"Methane-breathers are going out," Fala said.
"They're talking to the one inbound, I'm not getting any sense on the translator — all that comes clear is destruction and hani and stsho, kif and mahendo'sat."
Chilling message. You could read a methane-breather's many-brained matrix output in any direction at all. And it all said the same thing.
Chihin said, "Got more than you bargained for, na Hallan. Nice quiet trading voyage…"