“You’re young,” Pyanfar said, looking down her nose. “The young always worry. You’re right, your captain would have backed me. She had the nerve for it. But go your way, Hilan Faha. I’ll pay your debts because I promised; Chanur will reward the mahe who pulled you out. And when I’ve settled with that whelp Kara I’ll be in better humor, so I may even forget this. So you won’t worry how to meet me in future — don’t fear too much. I’ll not regard you too badly… the young do grow; but by the gods I’ll never regard you the way I did your captain. You’re not Lihan, Hilan Faha, and maybe you never will be.”
The Faha fairly shook with anger. “To be paid the way you paid her—”
“She’d curse me to a mahe hell if she were here, but she’d not do what you’ve done. She’d not run out on a friend. Go on, Hilan Faha, leave my deck. A safe voyage to you and a quick one.”
For a moment the Faha might have struck out; but she was worn thin and hopeless and the moment and the courage went. “Her curse on you then,” she said, and turned and stalked out, not so straight in the shoulders, not so high of head as she had come in. Pyanfar scowled and looked at Hilfy, and Hilfy herself was virtually shaking.
“Kohan never said anything about this Mahn business in his letter,” Pyanfar said. “What do you know, niece?”
“I don’t,” Hilfy said. “I won’t believe it. I think the Faha’s been listening to rumors.”
“How much did you know about the estates when you were at home? Where was your head then, but on The Pride? Is it possible something was brewing and you didn’t hear?”
“There was always talk; Kara Mahn was always hanging about the district. He and Tahy. There — was some calling back and forth; I think na Khym talked to father direct.”
“Rot his hide, Kohan could have said something in that letter.”
“He sent me,” Hilfy said in a small, stricken voice. “When The Pride turned up in system I asked to go, and he said he’d never permit it; and then — the next night he gave me the letter and put me in the plane and gods, I was off to the port like that. Hardly a chance to pack. Said I had to hurry or The Pride would leave port and I’d miss my chance. Like that, at night; but I thought — I thought it was because ships don’t calculate day and night, and that shuttle was going up anyway.”
“O gods,” Pyanfar groaned, and sat down against the counter, looked up at all the ring of anxious faces. “Not yet that son of mine doesn’t. Gods blight the kif; we’ll settle them, but we’re going to take care of that small business at home; that’s first.”
Ears pricked. “We’re with you,” Haral said. “Gods, yes, home. Going to shake me some scruffs when I get there.”
“Hai!” Geran agreed, and Tirun; and Tully visibly flinched, calmed again as Chur patted his shoulder. He settled and Hilfy sat down beside him, put her hand on his other shoulder, two disconsolate souls who shared not much at all but their misery.
“We’ll straighten it out,” Pyanfar said to Hilfy. “We’ll do it on our terms. Agreed, niece?”
“He got me out of there,” Hilfy said. “I could have helped and he saw it coming and he moved me out.”
“Huh. You’re not old enough to know your father from my view, with all respect for your own. He thinks, some time before a problem comes on him — not much meditation during, gods know, but he sets things up like pieces on a board. Too rotted proud to call me downworld, ah, yes; too rotted smart to have young Hilfy Chanur at hand to get herself in a tangle with her Mahn cousins and to pitchfork that temper of Kohan’s into it… don’t get your ears down at me, imp; we’re family here. The sun rises and sets on your shoulder so far as your father’s concerned, and that blasted son of mine would go right for the greatest irritance he could give your father if he wanted to take on Chanur — your precious inexperienced self. No, Kohan just cleared the deck, that’s all. Chances are he was wrong; he’s not immune to that either. I’d sooner have had you there; I think you’d have handled young Kara right enough; and Tahy with him. But if Moon Rising’s going home, it’s to carry the kind of news the Tahar have gotten here; it’s going to make trouble, no thanks to the Faha: and there’s a time past which Kohan’s going to be hard put. He’s got — what mates in residence? Your mother and who?”
“Akify and Lilun.”
“Hope your mother stands by him,” Pyanfar said heavily: the Kihan and the Garas were ornaments. She walked over to the counter and stared at the scan a moment. “No matter. Whatever’s going on, we’ll put it in order.”
“Pyanfar—”
Tully’s strange voice. She turned about and looked at him, recalled the pager and turned it on broadcast, not bothering with the plug.
“Question,” Tully said, and made a vague gesture toward the door where the Faha had left. “He fight.”
“She,” Pyanfar said impatiently. “All she.” Tully bit his lip and looked confused. “It’s nothing to do with you,” Pyanfar said. “Nothing you’d understand.”
“I go.” he offered, starting to slide from his place on the counter, but Chur held his shoulder. “No,” Chur said. “It’s all right, Tully. No one’s angry at you.”
“You’re not the cause,” Pyanfar said. “Not of this.” She walked to the door, looked back at the crew. “We’ll settle it,” she said to the crew, and turned and walked out, down the corridor and alone toward the lift.
Khym overthrown. Dead, maybe. At the least in exile. The loss of her mate oppressed her to a surprising degree. Mahn in young Kara’s hands would not be what it had been in Khym’s. Khym’s style had been easygoing and gracious and admittedly lazy: he was a comfortable sort of fellow to come back to, who liked fine things and loved to sit in the shade of his garden and listen to the tales she could spin of far “ports he would never see. Boundless curiosity, gentle curiosity. That was Khym Mahn. And the son he had indulged and pardoned had come back and taken his garden and his house and his name, while poor Khym — gods knew where he was, or in what misery.
She rode the lift up to main level and entered her own quarters, shut the door and sat down at the desk… forbore for a long time to pull out the few mementoes she bothered to keep, keeping home more in her mind than in objects. Finally she looked at what she had, a picture, a smooth gray stone — odd how pleasant a bit of stone felt, and how alien in this steel world; stone that conjured the Kahin Hills, the look and the sound of grass in the wind, and the warmth of the sun and the slick cold of the rain on the rocks which thrust up out of the grassy hillsides.
Her son… cast Khym out: moved in next to Chanur to threaten Kohan himself, to break apart all that she had done and built and all that Kohan held. Small wonder Kohan had wanted Hilfy out of harm’s way — out of a situation in which tempers could be triggered and reason lost.