“Good,” she said, patted Tully on the shoulder as the document went back into the hands of mahendo’sat officials — looked about again, nose wrinkling to a scent of perfume, for two stsho had just come into the offices. They stood there with their jeweled pallor looking out of place in mahendo’sat massive architecture, the huge blocky desks and the garish colors. Moonstone eyes stared unabashedly at Tully and at them. Capacious stsho brains stored up a wealth of detail for gossip, which stsho traded like other commodities. Pyanfar bared her teeth at them and they wisely came no closer.
The papers came back, plasticized and permanent, with Tully’s face staring back from them, species handwritten, classification general spacer semiskilled, sex male, and most of the other circles unfilled. The official gave the folder to Pyanfar. She gave it to Tully, clapped him on the shoulder, faced him about and headed him for the door, past the gawking stsho.
Elsewhere, she trusted, orders were being passed which would get a repair skimmer prioritied for The Pride. The mahendo’sat’s prime concern had become getting rid of them at utmost speed: she did not doubt it.
There would be a mahe official demanding that tape before all was done: that was beyond doubt too. There would be some little quibble which came first, repairs or tape; repairs, she was determined. The mahe had little choice.
They walked the corridor to the right from the office doorway, toward the lift, the three of them, past occasional mahendo’sat office workers and business folk who either found reason to duck back into their doorways or anxiously tried to ignore them.
But the three who waited before them at the lift… Pyanfar stopped half a step, made it a wider one. “You,” she said, striding forward, and the foremost mahe stood out from his two companions, gilt teeth hidden in a black scowl.
“Bring trouble, you,” said the captain of Mahijiru.
“How you live, mahe? A? Sell information every port you touch?”
“My port, Kirdu. You make trouble.”
“Huh. Trouble found me. Got crew shot getting you your rotted welders to keep our deal. Do I say anything about pearls you owe me? No. I give you a gift, brave mahe. I ask no return.”
Goldtooth frowned the more, looked at Chur and walked closer to Tully, tilted his round chin and looked Tully up and down, but kept his hands off him. Then he threw a glance at Pyanfar. “This you pick up on the dock.”
“You ask questions for the Personage? Same you gather information at Meetpoint?”
For the first time the mahe flashed that sharpedged gold grin. “You clever, hani captain.”
“You know this Akukkakk.”
The grin died, leaving deadly seriousness. “Maybe.”
“You really merchant, mahe captain?”
“Long time, honest hani. Mahijiru longtime merchant ship, me, my crew, longtime merchanter, sons and daughters mer-chanters. But we know this Hinukku, yes. Longtime bad trouble.”
Pyanfar looked into that broad dark face and wrinkled her nose. “Swear to you, mahe captain — I didn’t think to bring trouble down on you. I give you the trade goods, make no claim for return. You saved our hides, put us onto that kif bastard. Owe you plenty for that.”
The mahe frowned. “Deal, hani. They make you repair, you get quick leave… danger. Tell you that free.”
“Mahijiru took no damage getting out of Meetpoint?”
“Small damage. You take advice, hani.”
“I take it.” She pressed the lift button, took a second look, to remember the face of this mahe beyond doubt. “Come,” she said as the lift arrived empty. She shepherded Chur and Tully through the door and turned once inside. Goldtooth/ Ismehanan and his companions showed no inclination to go with them. The door closed between and the lift started down. She looked back, at Tully and at Chur, and gathered Tully by the elbow as the car, unstopped this time by other passengers, made the whole trip down and let them out on the docks.
The crowd had dispersed somewhat, thank the gods; but not enough. It gathered quickly enough as they crossed the dock, and Pyanfar watched on all sides, flicking quick glances this way and that, reckoning that by now, trouble had time to have organized itself.
And it was there. Kif — by the gantries, watching. That presence did not at all surprise her. Tully failed to spot them, seeming dazed in the swirl of bodies, none of which pressed too closely on them, but stayed about them.
The rampway access gaped ahead. A group of mahendo’sat law enforcement stood there, sticks in hand, and the crowd went no farther. Pyanfar thrust her companions through that line, with her own legs trembling under her — want of sleep, gods, want of rest. Chur was in the same condition, surely, and Tully was hardly steady on his feet, unfit mentally and physically for this kind of turmoil. She sighted on the rampway and went, hard-breathing.
But among the gantries beside them… hani shadows. Moon Rising’s folk, none of her own, had spilled over from the next berth, behind the security line. “Come on,” she said to Chur and Tully. “Ignore them.”
She headed into the rampway’s ribbed and lighted gullet, had led the two of them up the curving course almost to the security of their own airlock when she heard someone coming behind. “In,” she said to her companions, and turned to bar the intruder who appeared around the curve. Her ears were flat; she reached instinctively for the weapon she had left behind — but the figure was hani, silk-breeched and jeweled, striding boldly right up the rampway.
“Tahar,” she spat, waved a dismissing hand. “Gods, do we need complications?”
“I’ve done napping.” The Tahar captain stopped just short of her, took her stance, hands at her waist, a large figure, with a torn left ear beringed with prosperity. Broadfaced… a black scar crossed her mustache, making it scant on the left side, and giving Dur Tahar no pleasant expression. Her beard was crisply rippled and so was her mane, characteristic of the southerners, dark bronze. Two of her crew showed up behind her, like a set of clones.
“We’ve managed,” Pyanfar said, “without troubling your rest.”
Dur Tahar ignored her, looked beyond her shoulder — at what sight, Pyanfar had no trouble guessing. “What’s that thing, Chanur? What creature is that?”
“That’s a problem we’ve got settled, thank you.”
“By the gods, settled! We’ve just been ordered off the station, and it’s all over the dock about this passenger of yours. About hani involved with the kif. About a deal you’ve made — by the gods, I’ll reckon you’ve settled things. — What are you, trading in live bodies now? You’ve found yourself something special, haven’t you? That fracas that sent you kiting in here with your tail singed — involved with that?”
“That’s enough.” Her claws came out. She was tired, gods, shaking on her feet, and she stared at Dur Tahar with a dark tunnel closing about her vision. “If you want to talk about this, you ask me by com. Not now.”
“Ah. You don’t need our help. Are you planning to stay here in dock with your tail hanging… or did you and the mahendo’sat come up with a deal? What kind of game are you proposing, Chanur?”
“I’ll make it clear enough. Later. Get clear of my airlock.”
“What species is it? Where from? The rumor flying the docks says kif space. Or knnn. Says there’s a knnn ship here that dropped a hani body.”
“I’ll tell it to you once, Tahar: we got this item at Meetpoint and the kif took out Handur’s Voyager for spite, no survivors. Caught them sitting at dock, and they and we hadn’t even been in communication. We dumped cargo and ran for Urtur, and the kif who followed us struck at Faha’s Starchaser with no better reason. Whether Starchaser got away or not I don’t know, but they At least had a run at it. The kif want this fellow badly. And it’s gotten beyond simple profit and loss with them. There’s a hakkikt involved, and there’s no stopping this thing till we’ve got him. Maybe we did, at Urtur. He looked bad, and that may settle it. But if you want to make yourself useful, you’re welcome to run our course.”