"Let him alone," Fala snapped.
"Touchy. Touchy."
"Cut it out," Hilfy said. "You want to end up as a dust cloud, let's just have an argument in ops."
"She—" Fala began.
"I don't care!" Hilfy said. "I don't care who did what. Shut it down! People are dead back there. Let's have attention to what's important, shall we? The ones that did that don't by the gods care who else they kill. Does that fact reach you?"
"Tiraskhti'saway," Chihin reported. "Going slow. No real hurry. Tc'a are away. Two of them. I'm looking for ID on our station chart. Station's not giving good output, I think they're confused. Hallan, double me, I've got my hands fall."
"I want those gods-be ID's," Hilfy said. "Hallan! Acknowledge, rot you!"
"I'm watching, captain."
" Ha'domaren's delivered an ultimatum to station. They get the lines shut down or they let them fall…"
Fala was back on the job. With her whole brain, hope to the gods.
Vectors were shaping up. Tiraskhti for Kefk, no question. Ha'domaren., Ha'domaren was going askew from that.
Meetpoint, Hilfy thought, about the time Tiar said it and Tarras swore.
"What's he up to?"
"I don't know." They could do it, unladed as they were. They could burn off v and go the other direction, as Ha'domaren was headed. They could arrive at Meetpoint with their contract unfilled, in debt for money part of which they'd spent, and have No’shto-shti-stlen suing them, along with Kshshti and Urtur. Or they could go to Kefk, alone with the kif.
"Fala. I want to talk to that son Haisi."
"Aye," Fala said. And made the try. It took a while. They were not cooperative.
Then Fala said, "They say he's not available. He's asleep."
"And I'm the Personage of Iji. Tell his crew I had a message for him, but it's not available either."
Fala did that. Of course they offered to take it.
"They—" Fala said.
"No. I'll talk to him."
There was a delay. And they were still headed for Kefk.
Then Haisi came through, loud and clear. "You damn fool, hani. What message?"
"What's the matter? Tired of our company?"
"You not learn lesson? Go kif? Good luck. Have nice funeral. What message?''
"What message? Regards from gtst excellency. What was it you wanted to know?"
"You chief number one bastard, youknow!"
"By the gods right I know, mahe! I know you didn't level with me. So I know and you don't. Good luck yourself.''
What followed was mahen dialect, and the gist of it was not polite. It was Haisi who broke off the contact, with: "/ don't tell you go hell, Chanur. You already got course set.''
"Not happy," Tiar said.
Out of Vikktakkht's ship, Tiraskhti, not a word.
"Tc'a!" Fala said, and matrix-corn shaped up on the number 4 screen.
Tc'a tc'a tc'a chi hani hani
birth chi rescue birth go go
danger danger danger danger danger danger
see join make divide danger danger
"What's this 'birth' business?" Tarras muttered. "I don't like that."
Neither did she, all considered. "Urtur," she said, of the inbound tc'a. "That son's from Urtur."
"Mama," Tiar said. "Not son. That's mama. "
The hours ran on, and the tc'a sent the same message, over and over, an accusing presence on the number four screen persistent as the presence on the scan display. No one said any more about it, but they didn't have to. It was in the tail of Hallan's vision, and the scan display showed the tc'a moving on their heading, not accelerating, but definitely tending toward a meeting of the incomer and the two local ships, and all three tc'a vessels transmitting that same message again and again.
It's my fault, he thought. They blame us.
He had heard how the methane-breathers would attach themselves to a ship, and how they could change vector in jump, which physicists couldn't explain, but tc'a and knnn could do; and chi, who always traveled with the tc'a, aboard their ships, but no one knew whether they were allies or pets…
The captain had warned him. The captain had said he was a fool and the ship could be in danger. Now it was in danger, from the methane-breathers, in addition to everything else, and the tc'a might follow them into hyperspace, where the gods only knew what might happen — if they could change directions, they could do things in hyperspace, and having them attack the ship there, he didn't want to think about…
Besides which there was the station back there with a hole in it; and Fala was upset with him, he could see it in every move she made… not that he'd done anything or promised anything. But she thought he'd insulted her — which he hadn't meant to do. And the crew was feuding with each other, just the way they said would happen with men on ships.
Besides which — gods, he only had to think about Chihin to think how he'd felt down in the airlock, and that was just stupid, he didn't want to do what he'd done, he didn't want to feel what he felt, he wanted to use his common sense and straighten things out… probably nothing was even wrong in Chihin's eyes, except for Fala: Chihin probably didn't think it meant anything more than the crewwomen on the Sun had thought it did. But Chihin was like them and unlike, so unlike and so diiferent in the way she dealt with things that he knew the spacerfarers he'd thought existed, both tough and kind, did exist…
And she might not care. That wasn't as important as her existing.
"Stand by for jump," ker Tiar said.
They were going. This part always scared him. And the tc'a were still there. The kifish ship Tiraskhti was pacing them. People were still dead back there.
"… here we go."
Fala said, "Why was I so unimportant? Is there something wrong with me?"
He didn't know how to answer that. But Chihin did.
"Nothing but youth," Chihin said, "and time cures that, if you don't make fetal mistakes."
"Let me alone!" Fala said.
He was dreaming. He knew he was, and he could make it stop. He wanted Chihin and Fala not to quarrel. He looked away.
But he could see the ship around him as if it were made of glass. And a shadow of a ship rode close beyond the hull.
Serpent bodies moved and twined within that ship, transparent as their own. He heard sound too low for sound. It quivered through deckplates and through bone, and shrieked until it passed above hearing.
Another ship came dangerously near them, within the proscribed limit, wailing. He leaped up, passed behind Chihin's frozen shape and reached past her shoulder. There was a warning button on that console and he pushed it.
Lights flared red. A siren wailed.
"Go away!" he shouted in this dream, as the shadow loomed larger. It was coming at them.
Foolishly he waved his arms to warn it off.
But it swept right through them, with a dimming of the lights, a rumbling of sound, a feeling unlike any heat or cold he remembered.
Then all the ships were beyond them and retreating, the rumbling gone fainter as they became a triple shadow against the stars, smaller and smaller and fainter.
He dropped into his cushion, breathless and numb-raked his fingers through his mane and caught a frantic breath.
People had dreams in jump. That was surely all it was.