Put some experience on her, Kohan had asked. And: Take care of her.
She put the things away, and sat thinking, because while repairs proceeded, there was little else she could do. They sat here locked into station’s embrace and hoping that the kif stayed off their vulnerable backside. Sat here while their enemies had time to do what they liked.
Strike at Anuurn itself — Akukkakk could not be so rash. He had not that many ships, that he could do such a thing. It was bluster, of the sort the kif always used, hyperbole… of the sort they always flung out, hoping for more gains from an enemy’s panic than force could win. Unless the hakkikt was mad… a definition which, between species, lacked precision. Unless the hakkikt commanded followers more interested in damage than in gain.
No hakkikt on record had ever stirred as wide a distance, involving so many ships. No one had ever done what this one had done, attacking a stsho station, harassing and threatening an entire starsystem and all its traffic as he had done at Urtur.
She sat and gnawed at her lip and reckoned that the threat might have substance to it after all. She checked scan finally, on her own terminal. Nothing showed but the expected. The knnn still hovered off from station: when she searched audio the singing came back, placid now and wavering over three discordant tones. The tc’a were silent, but one, which babbled static in tones as slow as the knnn’s. The prisoner? she wondered. Lamenting its fate? Beyond those voices there was only normal station noise, and the close-in chatter of the skimmer crews who had never ceased their work on The Pride’s damage. Normally some of these jump freighters would have put out: Hasatso’s venture out only to meet emergency had frozen everything. Not even the miners were stirring out from their berths with the orehaulers and those were snugged into orbit about Mala or Kilaunan.
She patched a call through to station services, complained about the late delivery on ordered goods: the courier service issued promises after the time-honored fashion, and she took them, reckoning on the usual carrier arriving about the time the rampway was about to close down.
Stasteburana-to used sense, at least; and the patrols stayed out, shuttling the system, alert against trouble. The mahe kept faith.
She expected less of the Tahar.
IX
Moon Rising pulled out in the off shift, a departure without word to them, in Pyanfar’s night. She ignored it, snarling an incoherency from out the bedclothes to the com at bedside when she was advised, and pulling the cover back over herself; it was not worth getting up to see, and she had no courtesies to pay the Tahar, who deserted another hani to strangers, crippled as they still sat. She was hardly surprised. Watch had their standing orders, and there was no need to wake up and deal with it. Hilfy slept: there was no need to rouse her out for what Hilfy also expected. Pyanfar burrowed into sleep again and shed the matter from her mind… no getting her adrenalin up to rob herself of rest, no thinking about here, or home, or anything in particular, only maybe the repairs which were still proceeding, which ought to be virtually finished by the time she waked, all the panels in place now, and mahe working out on their tail checking all the sorry little connections on which their lives relied.
The dark took her back. She snugged down with a feeling of rare luxury.
“Captain. Captain, hate to disturb you, but we’re getting some movement out of the knnn.” She thrust an arm about, felt after the time switch. An hour and a half from wakeup. She kept moving, swinging her feet out.
“Captain.” That was Tirun on watch. “Urgent.”
“I’m with you. Feed it here. What’s happening?”
The screen lit in the darkened cabin. Pyanfar blinked and rubbed her eyes and focused on the schematic. Ship markers were blinking in hazard warning, too close to each other for safety. “Every knnn at dock,” Tirun said. “They’re breaking dock and the general direction—”
“After Moon Rising? Query station. What’s going on with them?”
“Did, captain; official no comment.”
“Rot their hides. Put me through.”
It took a moment. Pyanfar rummaged in the halflight from the screen after her breeches, pulled them on and jerked the ties.
“Station’s still refusing contact, captain: they insist communication by courier only.”
Pyanfar tied the knot and swallowed down a rush of temper. “My regards to them. What are the kif doing?”
“Sitting still. If they’re talking to each other it’s by runner or by line.”
“Just keep watching it. I’m awake.” She went to the bath, turned on the lights and washed, walked out again and took a look at the situation on the screen. Ten ships out of dock now, all chasing out after Moon Rising, as if that same rotted knnn had gotten utterly muddled which hani was which and convinced all the others — ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous; but humor failed her — there had been misunderstandings in the old days, before stsho had gotten the idea of the Compact across to the tc’a, and the tc’a in turn had gotten the knnn and chi to comprehend Compact civilization… enough to come and go in it without trouble; to trade with it; to avoid collisions and provocations and sometimes to cooperate. The methane-breathers were dangerous when stirred. She frowned over the image, combed, cut off the com and headed out down the corridor for the lift.
“No change?” she asked when she walked in on Tirun in op.
“No change,” Tirun said. Her injured leg was not propped, though thrust out at an angle as she leaned to tap the screen. “They’re all in a string, all ten of them, all after the Tahar.”
“Gods,” Pyanfar muttered. “A mess.”
“They’ve got id signals — they have to know that’s not us.”
Pyanfar shrugged helplessly. She walked back to the door. “I’m going to get the others. About time for you to go off, isn’t it?”
“Half an hour.”
“Who’s up next?”
“Haral.”
“So we start early.” Pyanfar walked out and down the corridor toward the large cabin that was in-dock crew quarters, pushed the bar to open the door and inside, the one that started dawn-cycle on the lights. “Up. Got a little disturbance. Knnn have gone berserk. I don’t want us abed if they come this way.”
There was a general stirring of blanketed bodies in the half-light, on a row of bunks under the protective netting of the overhead; bunks and cots — Tully was at the left, curtained off, but not from her vantage, a tousled head and bewildered stare from among the blankets — and Hilfy… Hilfy was on the other side of the room, stirring out with the rest, naked as the rest, as Tully, who was getting out of bed on his side of the curtain. Gods. Anger coursed her nerves, a distaste for this upset in order which had swept The Pride. They voyaged celibate. In her mind she could hear Tahar gossip — something else that would be told on Anuurn. And gods, she could see the look in Kohan’s eyes. She scowled. “Hilfy. Breakfast on watch, half an hour. Move!”
“Aunt.” Hilfy stood up and jerked up her breeches with dispatch.
Pyanfar stalked out, headed back to the op room, shook off her distaste in self-reproach. So Hilfy had resigned the privilege of guest quarters and snugged in with the crew; she guessed why — with the parting of ways with the Faha. And the crew had invited: that was territory in which the invitation came from inside and she did not intervene. In their eyes,
I hen, Hilfy belonged.
As they had taken Tully in.