Third dump. Pyanfar swallowed heavily and looked at scan again as it sorted itself out. “Image aft,” Geran said: it went to number two screen. Mahijiru. The wavefront was running up their backsides, where that ship and its partner were aimed if they delayed dump.
“Too close, mahe,” Pyanfar muttered.
Final dump. They hit course, down the slot and true, on Kilan Station’s guidance. “Transmit intent to dock at Gaohn,” Pyanfar said: that was the innermost of the two stations of Ahr System, that about Anuurn itself. The signal went out: the acknowledgment flashed back from one of the robot buoys, automatic routing, approach as routine as any incoming merchanter.
“Dump behind us,” Chur said. “Second arrival; both our I friends are in.”
“Transmit instructions to ignore routing and stay on our tail. Give them a signal.”
“Station scan,” Geran said, “is showing a lot of ships. A lot of ships.”
Pyanfar looked. Six major planets about Ahr: Gohin; Anuurn itself; Tyo; Tyar; Tyri and Anfas — with assorted moons, rings and planetoids. Anuurn alone was comfortably habitable; and Gaohn Station circled it; and there was Kilan Station which supported the little colony on Tyo. There was always traffic. Hani were not the colonists that mahendo’sat” and stsho and even knnn tended to be: but here, in home-system, there was always traffic, from little ships which plied the system to the greater ones which jumped in from other stars; there was the huge null-g shipyard of Harn Station, where all hani ships were born and where they came for refitting and repair.
But there were twice the usual number, easily twice, ships in offlanes positions, waiting; ships in clusters; ships by groups of four and five. “I don’t like that,” Haral said.
“Not all ours,” Pyanfar said. And after a moment: “He’s here. Goldtooth said it; the kif at Kirdu said it. Hinukku’s come here. After revenge.”
No one said anything. The minutes crept up on the chronometer. The Pride was sending her own signal, computer talking to computer. A telltale flashed and a signal came over com. “Mahijiru,” Chur said. “Aja Jin, Both moving up on our track.”
“Blink them a comeahead,” Pyanfar said. “Tightbeam; nothing more.”
“Permission to move about,” Tirun sent from lowerdeck. “Denied. Got a situation here. Stay put.” “Understood,” Tirun answered.
Chur leaned down, opened the cabinet by her post and brought out a bottle, sucked a bit from it and passed it on; it went to Geran and to Haral; finally into Pyanfar’s hand with an exact quarter visible through the opaque plastic. She sipped at it, her mouth like paper and tasting days stale; her hand left shed fur on the moist bottle when she dropped it into the wasteholder. The salt and the moisture helped, took some of the shakes from her limbs. There was still a misery in her back and in her joints, a tendency for her eyes to blur. Not easy on the body, double-skipping. Bodies were not designed for such abuses. She thought of docking, of having to walk about, to deal with possible trouble—
To get a shuttle and to get downworld with all else hovering about them…
Something clenched about her gut, protesting. She looked at scan, their own, tight scan, number four screen, where a friendly blip was moving up into intercept. Another blip showed on the edge of the screen.
“Got synch,” Goldtooth’s voice came through. “Jik come up otherside.”
“Got too many ships,” Pyanfar said, signaling Chur to put the transmission through. “Want you where you are, mahe.”
A mahen chuckle. “A.”
“Rot your hide.”
She shut it down.
“Got station contact,” Chur said. “They don’t say anything out of the way; normal approach instructions.”
“Three berths,” Pyanfar said. “Together. Tell them to clear something if they don’t have it. Talk them into it.”
It was a long interval. They still had lagtime from station. “Stationmaster,” Chur said finally, “intervened to grant it. We’ve got twenty through twenty-two.”
“Comment?”
“Nothing,” Chur reported.
Trouble. Pyanfar’s ears flicked. If they could demand ships shunted about and get their request it was because they had a right to it; and if they had a right to it, then there was an emergency in progress. Homecoming kin had right-of-way… in situations of death; of challenge; of disasters.
“System’s quiet,” Chur reported. “I’m not getting idle chatter. They’re not volunteering any information, captain.”
“Kif,” Pyanfar said. “Outsiders present.”
Tully said something from belowdecks. Went silent. Hilfy’s voice followed, talking to him, low and urgent.
“Let’s not have any panic down there,” Pyanfar said. “Tully. Quiet. Take orders, hear?”
“Understand,” Tully said.
The minutes crawled past. Jik’s Aja Jin came into position, so that The Pride went flanked by the mahe. “Goldtooth,”
Pyanfar said. “You come onstation with me; want your friend stay out of dock and watch, a?”
“A,” the answer came back, short and sweet; from Jik no word. He would do it, Pyanfar thought. Station was sending specific instructions: Haral was attending that, inputting it for comp. She hit the shunt which dumped the data onto Haral’s screens, with a blinking warning that control of the ship came with it: Haral nodded, accepting it without missing a keystroke. Pyanfar loosed her restraints, swung her cushion about and assayed to get her feet under her.
“Get to the bridge,” she told those below, leaning over com. “Aye,” Tirun sent back. Pyanfar walked about a bit, unsteady on her feet, bent down enough to get some of the dried food out of storage by her own console. Chips and bottles of salts. She opened them, put them in reach of Haral and Geran and Chur, chewed on a bit of dried meat and washed it down with half a bottle of the liquid. Dehydrated. The jumps took some time off bodies. She walked about trying to get the needling pains out of her joints, heard the lift in function and then steps coming down the corridors.
“Captain.”
Knnn-song wailed out of com.
“Gods and thunders!” Pyanfar spat. “Location on that.”
“Ahead of us,” Geran said. “One of those ships moving up on station.”
Tirun and Hilfy and Tully had arrived, stood together in the archway which opened onto the bridge, silent in the grating sound which ran the scale.
Knnn never called at Anuurn. Never, till now.
“It overjumped us,” Pyanfar said with — she reckoned — commendable calm. “If that’s our knnn, it just overjumped us by at least an hour.”
“Fast bastard,” Tirun muttered.
“Mahijiru,” Chur said, “asks if we notice.”
“Cut that thing off,” Pyanfar said. “Tell Mahijiru yes, we did notice.” She pricked up her ears with an effort, flicking the rings into order on the left. “Hilfy. Tully’s channel.” Hilfy turned her pager onto broadcast. “Tully — we’re home now. Anuurn. Got trouble here.”
“Kif,” Tully said. “I hear. Hani — make deal with them?”
“Papers,” Pyanfar said sharply, and when Tully’s hand went to his left pocket: “You keep those with you. You’re registered; you’ve got a number in the Compact. No. No way the kif can take you by law. Going to have one lot of mad kif, maybe; maybe some mad hani. But they can’t take you, except by force.”
“Fight them.”
“You take my orders. My crew, my orders.”