“See you on the dock.”
Weapons, she meant to say: hani stations observed no weapons-rules. It was not a thing she wanted to discuss on com. She trusted that the mahe would turn up armed. It was certain the kif would.
XI
Automation took them in to the last, trued to the cone. It was an easy dock. The grapples touched and locked on both sides. The instruction came up to access the line ports; declined, she sent back, refusing that mandated service. It was not likely, considering the circumstances, that station would quibble. No objection came back, only a pressure reading for the station itself and a recommendation to use the ah — shunt in the lock.
“They know it’s trouble,” Pyanfar muttered. “Tirun, someone’s got to stay aboard. You’re it; you and Geran. Sorry.”
“Aye,” Tirun muttered unhappily. No discussion. “Shall I page Geran and advise her?”
“Do that.”
“Want both of you fit. If we can’t get back, take command, your own discretion. Take the ship and get out of here, pick up crew at Kirdu — mahendo’sat or anything else; and make it count, hear me?”
Tirun’s ears went down. “You’re not planning on it.”
“Gods no, I’m not planning on it. But if, if, old friend. If we lose — in any sense — neither hani nor kif sets hand to The Pride. That’s firm.”
“That’s firm,” Tirun said. “Tully — our problem or yours?”
“Mine,” Pyanfar said. “He’s walking evidence. And more problem than you need. You’ve got that tape; you’ve got an ally in the Kirdu stationmaster if it comes to that. I don’t leave you any instructions. If something goes wrong, make up your own rules.”
“Right,” Tirun said.
The order split the sister-teams down the middle. If it came to that — Tirun and Geran would be a wounded half. But that was the way it went: she wanted Haral’s size and strength with her, and Tirun was hardly fit for a fight. Chur was the smallest of the lot, but of the two remaining, the meanest temper. Pyanfar extended her hand in rising, pressed Tirun’s shoulder. Practicalities. Tirun knew.
They gathered belowdecks, all of them, clean and combed, excepting Tirun, who had never gotten her turn at washing up: Tully wore a white stsho shirt belted hiplength about him, and a better pair of blue breeches — Haral’s likely, who had been sharing clothes with him. Pyanfar looked the party over; and remembering the perfume in her pocket, took it out and tossed it at Tully. “All things help,” she said. Tully unstopped it and sniffed, wrinkled his nose and looked doubtful, but when she j mimed putting it on, he splashed some on his hand and wiped I his beard and his throat. He coughed, and thrust the bottle into his own pocket.
“Another matter,” Pyanfar said, and took a fine gold ring from the depth of her lefthand pocket, offered it to Hilfy and had the satisfaction of seeing the look in Hilfy’s eyes. “I won’t take you anywhere ringless. If we meet some kif, or even politer company — you’d better look like where you come from, hear, imp?”
“Thank you,” Hilfy said, looked uncertain with it, and flustered; but Geran tugged her head over on the spot and bit a I neat place for it, deftly thrust the earring through for her and fastened it. “Huh,” Pyanfar said, there being her niece with I her first gold shining in her ear and pride glowing in her eyes, j “Come on. Let’s find out what’s waiting out there. — Tirun, Geran, you keep that lock sealed for everyone but us, no matter how bad it gets to sound, no matter what they offer you. Get on the com in op. Tell Goldtooth to get moving.”
“Aye,” Tirun said. Neither Tirun nor Geran was pleased with the unship assignment — Geran was trying to be cheerful, and not well succeeding: “Take care,” Geran said, patted Chur’s shoulder. “Luck,” Tirun said, last, and Pyanfar nodded to the others and walked with them down the corridor, leaving Tirun and Geran to get to business: she and Haral and Chur, and Hilfy; and Tully, who looked back, when none of the rest of them did, with a forlorn expression.
Pyanfar went first into the airlock, waited for Tully, hand on the hardness of the pistol she had in her pocket — as all of them had but Tully; he hurried in with them and Haral closed the inner hatch. One further insane moment Pyanfar debated with herself, then made up her mind and opened the locker by the outer hatch, took out the pistol they kept there and gave it to Tully. “Pocket,” she said when he looked anxious surprise at her. “Pocket. Don’t touch it. Don’t think about it. If / fire, you can, hear? If you see me shoot, then you shoot. But I won’t. It’s civilized here. Hani don’t take nonsense from the kif and kif know that. If the kif get nasty they find themselves more hani than they know how to run from. Promise you. You draw that at the wrong time and I’ll skin you.”
“Understand,” Tully said fervently. He thrust the pistol into his pocket and put his hands demonstratively in his belt at his back. “I take orders. I don’t make mistake.”
“Huh.” She touched the bar. The airlock’s outer seal opened for them and her ears popped with the pressure change as the cold air of dockside sucked through the access tube. Sounds outside echoed, nothing out of the ordinary. Pyanfar led the way onto the ramp way plates, around the curve and down toward the grayness of the dockside, with all its metal and machinery.
The translator was out of pickup range now: Tully became effectively deaf and mute. Pyanfar looked askance at him as they walked out the arch of the farside lock, onto the dockside itself. He was sticking close to Chur and Hilfy, or they to him, while Haral brought up the rear, tall and solid and looking like business with her scars and her be-ringed left ear. Haral had instinctively planted herself back there to guard the rear and quite possibly to head off Tully if he should lose his head. The latter was not likely, Pyanfar thought with some assurance. Old hunter that she was, she had some sense which way things would dart in a crisis, and she had Tully figured for the other direction. She directed her attention sharply ahead, where dockworkers had set up cord barriers — where a station official, Llun house or one of half a dozen other Protected families which kept the station, made her body the gateway, guard enough for a hani station, where civilized folk knew what they would touch off if they harried a warder representing her family and her family’s post.
Llun, that guard, if the set of the ears was any true indication, a mature hani in the black breeches of officialdom immemorial. The Llun drew a paper from her belt as they approached her, and offered it, not without an ears-down look at Tully: but the Llun kept her dignity all the same. “Ker Chanur, you’re requested for Gathering in the main meeting area. You’re held responsible for all the others of your party; it’s assumed the mahen ship is under your escort.”
“Accepted,” Pyanfar said, taking the paper. The Llun moved aside then to let them pass, impeccable in her neutrality. A little distance away, at the next berth, a similar barrier was set up about Mahijiru’s access. “Come,” Pyanfar said to the others, and walked in that direction, took the chance to scan the official summons. “Charges filed,” she said. “Compact violations and piracy.”
“Rot them,” Chur muttered.
“We’re going to get that shelved,” Pyanfar said, looked up again and let her jaw drop as Goldtooth led a good number of mahe down onto the dock, a Goldtooth resplendent in dark red collar and kilt, glittering with mahen decorations. “By the gods, look at him.”
“Merchanter,” Haral spat. “And I’m kif.”