"… Welcome to sunny Kefk," Chihin was saying. "A friendly sodium burner, no planet, but then, we can't have every convenience…"
"Look alive," the captain snapped. "Where's the tc'a?"
"There's Tiraskhti," Chihin said, and Hallan saw that, and murmured so, but, searching the scan for the tc'a ships… nothing showed. An alarm had gone off in hyperspace. One of those anomalies, Chihin called it. Sometimes things happened.
There were things she'd rather lose track of than a clutch of methane-breathers bearing on their tail at three quarters light. "Gods-be snakes could drop out right on top of us," Hilfy muttered, when scan persistently showed nothing but their kif escort.
"With real luck," Tarras said, "they'll drop on Tiraskhti. ''
"Don't count on it," Tiar said, and toggled a screen change, view of the mass itself: Kefk, sullen apricot orange.
Then it was real to her. The wan sun evoked that reflection on steel bars, that spectrum cast triple shadows on the decking of a kifish prison, lit distant objects in a deathly imitation of sunlight, recalled the clangs and clash of doors and the working of machinery. And over all the smell of it…
Sunny Kefk, Chihin said — leading edge of kifish territory, first of a nest of same-generation suns they favored. Pirate territory, before the treaty, space no other species ever wanted to see.
Well, so, this is an experience, Hilfy thought to herself. The young kid that had come to space with Pyanfar had longed after the strange and the dangerous. And found it once. And now again.
You fool, she said to herself — you utter fool, Hilfy Chanur.
It must be all right, Hallan decided. Everything was normal on the boards. He felt after the nutrients pack. His hands were shaking. He'd never come out of jump so dehydrated or so wobbly. He could scarcely handle the pack without sticking holes in it, he couldn't make his fingers work.
Truth was, he was scared — because there was nothing he could do for himself, because there was, beneath the ordinary and necessary chatter the crew made, a grimness that hadn't been there on the jump before this. And it might very reasonably be because it was a kifish port and their lives were in imminent danger, and they'd lost track of the tc'a ships, all of which was very good reason to be upset.
But there was just this subtle turning of the shoulder Fala did toward him, and somehow she avoided looking at him or at Chihin at all. Everybody was upset with Chihin, the captain had been angry on the starting side of jump, and tempers might be a little cooler on this side — time passed, in hyperspace, a lot of time; and you didn't come out of it as intense about most things as you'd gone in, even if it felt like only an hour later. It was a lot more than that, the body had had a chance to cool down, and the angers and the fears had a chance to settle and evaporate if they had no reason to start up again on this side of jump.
But he'd made a public scene; and as soon as people weren't busy they were going to remember it, the same as Fala already did, as his fault.
He wanted to say something to Fala, he wanted to do something to set it right, but Chihin was sitting between them out there, and his brain was still caught in that sugar-short haze that deprivation created in jump. He was doing well to get himself to his feet when the captain told him: Go fix breakfast, be useful; and his trousers started a slide he only just stopped with a grab at his waistband.
Thank the gods Fala was busy on the bridge and the captain didn't send her too. He couldn't deal with it now. He could scarcely walk. He felt his way into the galley, which was next to the bridge for very good reasons, and giddily, wobbily, started locating the frozen dinners, keeping a hand sort of near safety holds, because a ship coming in from above a sun could find some other ship dropping in too close to them, even yet, and the ship could have to maneuver without warning.
But you didn't plan for it. And probably you couldn't really hold on if it did. Most times the off-duty crew began to stir about just now, only the Legacy didn't have that many hands, and they took their breaks close to the bridge, where they could answer a sudden recall. People took breaks as they could, did necessary maintenance on the bridge and thereabouts…
And snacked, if they could keep it down. He popped another nutrient pack and shed fur over everything. He wanted a bath, but that wasn't possible till they'd reached the inner system boundary: he'd asked for duty and he had it.
Crew was up and moving. Chihin went through, and gave him some kind of a look he didn't dare meet; and came back through again, with her face wet and her mustaches dripping.
He was scared to death she was going to speak. But she didn't. He had some chips, galley's privilege, to keep his stomach from heaving, and it didn't help much. He followed it with cold tea, from the fridge.
And he thought he was going to be sick right there, he was cold from the drink and shaking and his stomach was trying to turn itself inside out. He leaned on the counter trying just to breathe, wondering if he should go for the facilities, or if jostling wasn't the right thing to do just now…
A hand landed on his shoulder. "You need some help?" Tarras asked, and when he stood against the counter: "You all right?"
"Fine," he managed to say. And prayed to keep his stomach still, while Tarras wandered around and looked in the oven and put a pot of gfi on to brew… the smell was almost more than he could take.
"Looks like you've about got it," Tarras said, and came and leaned against the counter beside him.
"Hits you hard sometimes."
"Yes," he said.
"You want to go back to the bridge and sit down?"
"No," he said, monosyllabic, desperate. No, he did not.
Silence for a moment. Then: "Prickly situation," Tarras said, and he felt his stomach knot a little tighter, hoping she was going to talk about the kif and the ship out there or anything else but—
"You and Fala have something going?"
"No!" He kept his voice low, hoping to the gods they didn't carry over the noise of the fans. "She's just nice, is all."
"She's a good kid," Tarras said. "You're the most attractive thing she's seen in a year. The only. But that's beside the point."
"I didn't—" He didn't want to talk about this. But he was cornered. And Tarras might be on Fala's side, but Tarras was easier to talk to than Fala. "I didn't want to upset her."
"Chihin's a full-time pain. It's her aim in life. You're not obligated to put up with—"
He didn't like Tarras saying that. He didn't want to hear it. He shoved off on his way to the crew lounge, as the only refuge he could think of, and Tarras caught his arm, caught it with a claw, and it hurt, but he kept going.
She caught him again. Most wouldn't. Nobody ever had, on this ship. But he'd learned on the Sun, that defying orders meant getting dumped. So he did stop. He didn't have to look at her.
"Oh,gods," Tarras muttered. "Chihin?"
So Chihin joked. He knew that. It didn't change the fact he felt it in the gut when she walked past him. It didn't change the fact he liked her, and it didn't change the way he'd felt, and the way he still felt.
Tarras let out a breath and leaned against the wall. "Kid, Chihin isn't the most serious-minded soul in the crew."
"That's all right," he said without looking at her.
"Ow," Tarras said, and after a moment of silence. "Look, na Hallan. She's not a bad sort. — Gods, I've landed in it, haven't I?"
He didn't know what to say. He wasn't mad at Tarras. He wasn't mad at anybody. Mostly his stomach was upset and he wished Fala wasn't mad. The oven timer went off, to his vast relief, and he said, "It's ready."
"I'll call them," she said, and ducked out while he took the dinners out.