And one of the knnn had put out from station, putting out wailing transmission and wallowing uncertainly about station’s peripheries like a globe of marshfire, touching off ticking objections/accusations/ pleas? from the tc’a control.
Gods. The oxygen-breather command went silent for the moment. Tc’a chattered and hissed. Pyanfar reached for translation output, but it failed: tc’a translated best when it was simple docking instruction or operations which were common to all ships. This was something else, gods rot them.
There was silence finally, even from the tc’a. The knnn moved out farther and stayed there. Hasatso continued its slow inward progress. At last the mahendo’sat side of station came on again, quiet operational directions for the incoming freighter, nothing informational.
Pyanfar sent them no questions. No one did.
The news came when Hasatso entered final approach: four survivors, a fifth dead in the stress of the pod eject, of wounds, and allowed to go with the pod when Hasatso released it, not a hani choice, but mahe honor. Two went with Starchaser, dead in the attack or unable to get to the pod — the information was not clear. There was a name: first officer Hilan Faha, survivor; and another: Lihan Faha — the captain, the third casualty.
“Aunt,” Hilfy said, when Pyanfar called her to the bridge and told her, “I’d like to go down to the dock where they are. I know it’s dangerous. But I’d like to go. By your leave.”
Pyanfar set her hand on Hilfy’s shoulder. Nodded. “I’ll go with you,” she said, at which Hilfy looked both relieved and pleased. “Geran,” she said, turning to lean over the com board, putting it through on allship. “Geran.”
The acknowledgment came back.
“Geran, take watch again, lowerdeck op. New word’s come in. Starchaser captain is lost, and two of the crew. Hilfy and I are going to meet the rescue ship; we’ll bring the Faha back aboard if they’re so inclined. No sense them having to put up with mahe questions and forms.”
There was a moment’s delay, a sorrowful acknowledgment.
“Come,” Pyanfar said to Hilfy then, and they walked out toward the lift. Hilfy’s bearing was straight enough, her face composed… not good news, when she had gone to sleep thinking that things were better than they were; but they had something, at least, of the Faha crew, something saved; and that was still more than they had once hoped.
Another matter to the kif account, when it came to reckonings. But if there were kif out there now — and there might be, hovering at the system’s edges, the same game that they themselves had played at Urtur — then they were waiting some moment of advantage, some moment when there were not five armed mahendo’sat patrol ships cruising a pattern out there.
Allship had waked more than Geran. Tirun was up, sitting in op when they came down toward the lock; and Geran, who had been assigned the duty; and Chur was standing about with Tully, who looked vaguely distressed in this disturbance he likely failed to comprehend. Haral showed up in haste from farther down the corridor. “Going with you, by your leave,” Haral said, and Pyanfar nodded, not sorry of it. “Kif out there,” Pyanfar said. “I’m not getting caught twice the same way.”
“Take care,” Tirun wished them as they went, and in the airlock, while Haral opened the outer hatch, Pyanfar delayed to take the pistol from its secure place in the locker by com and to slip it into her pocket.
“No detectors to pass,” Pyanfar said. “Come on.”
The hatchway stayed open behind them; they walked out the ribbed rampway and down onto the dockside. Engines whined on their left: Moon Rising was still about her offloading, and canisters were coming off into the hands of mahendo’sat dockworkers, not hani crew.
“They may have gone to meet the Faha too,” Pyanfar judged, marking the total absence of a hani supervisor outside. It was a courtesy to be expected, politics aside in a hani-ship’s misfortune.
“Not much stirring,” Haral said.
That was so. Where normally the vast docks would have had a busy pedestrian traffic up and down the vast curve, there was a dearth of casual strollers, and the activity about Moon Rising was the only activity of any measure in sight. Dockworkers, service workers, mahe with specific business underway paused to stare at them and after them as they walked. Stsho huddled near their accesses and whispered together. The kif were out about, predictably, clustered together near the accessway of one of the ships, a mass of black robes, seven, eight of them, who lounged near their canisters and clicked insults after them.
And at one of those insults Pyanfar’s ears flicked, and she stopped the impulse in mid-twitch, trying to make believe she had not heard or understood. He knows, hani thief. How many more hani ships will you kill?
“Captain—” Haral murmured, and Hilfy started to turn around. “Front, gods—” Pyanfar hissed and seized Hilfy by the arm. “What do you want to start, at what odds?”
“What do we do?” Hilfy asked, walking obediently between them. “How can he know?”
“Because one of those kif ships is his, imp; came in here from Kita; and now Akukkakk’s enlisted other ships to help him. They’ll scatter out of here like spores when we go, and gods help us, we’re stuck till we get that repair done.”
“They as good as hit Starchaser themselves. I’d like to—”
“We’d all like to, but we have better sense, Come on.”
“If they catch us on the dock—”
“All the more reason we get the survivors aboard and get off the docks. Afraid you’re not going to get that station liberty here either, imp.”
“Think I can do without,” Hilfy muttered.
They kept walking, down among the gantries, past idle crews, as far as number fifty-two berth, where a surplus of bystanders gathered, a dark crowd of mahendo’sat, sleek-furred, tall bodies which made it difficult to see anything. Medical personnel were among them; and station officials, conspicuous by their collars and kilts.
And hani, to be sure. Elbowing through the gathering, Pyanfar caught sight of bronze manes and a glitter of jewels on a hani ear, and she made for that group with Haral and Hilfy behind her.
“It’s high time you showed up,” Dur Tahar said when she arrived.
“Mind yourself,” Pyanfar said. “My niece behind me is Faha.”
Dur Tahar slid a glance in that direction without comment. “Hasatso’s due to touch any moment,” she said.
“We’ve got some kif getting together down the dock. I’d watch that if I were you.”
“Your problem.”
“A warning, that’s all.”
“If you start something, Chanur, don’t look for our help.”
“Gods rot you, you give me no encouragement to be civil.”
“I don’t need your civility.”
“A mutual hazard, Tahar.”
“What, are you asking favors?”
The claws twitched. “Asking sense, rot you.”
“I’ll think on it.”
Hasatso touched, a crashing of locks and grapples. Gantries slid up and crews opened station ports one after another in response to the ship, connected lines, started the rampway out to meet the lock. It was an agonizingly slow process from the spectator ranks, and only the mahendo’sat found occasion to chatter.
And finally a distant whine and thump announced the breaching of the freighter’s hatch, first in procedure: station reciprocated, and the mahe crew escorted off four hani, exhausted hani, one with an arm bandaged and bound to her chest, all of them looking as if they were doing well to be walking at all. Necessarily the mahendo’sat officials moved in: there was signing of papers, mahe and hani; and Pyanfar took Hilfy by the shoulder, worked forward with her. Hilfy went the last on her own and offered an embrace to the refugees, an embrace wearily returned by the Faha, one after the other.