“Come on,” Pyanfar said to her company. Goldtooth offered his papers to the hani on guard, but the guard waved him through unquestioned; the mahe and his crew walked out to join her in the walk toward the main dockside entry, a towering dark crowd of mahendo’sat. Sidearms, openly carried, businesslike heavy pistols strapped to the right leg. Decorations, worn by more than one of the group.
“Where we go?” Goldtooth asked.
“Gathering. Ihi. Place where we sort things out. Hani law here, mahe. Civilized.”
“Got kif here,” Goldtooth muttered. “Got Jik watch our tail.”
They entered the corridor. It stretched ahead, polished, clean, uncommonly vacant. No young ones about, precious few of anyone except officials in uniform, a very few hani dressed like spacers, who watched in silence and stepped well aside.
“Too few,” one of the mahe observed. Goldtooth made a low sound, uninformative.
“Too rotted few,” Pyanfar said. She turned a necessary corner, saw the doors of the meeting hall ahead, double-guarded. She took no more thought of her companions then, of mahe or Outsider or kinswomen, flicked her ears to settle the rings in place and waved a grand gesture to the black-trousered hani who stood there.
“Chanur,” one said. The doors whisked open, and a milling, noisy crowd of hani were gathered beyond — a crowd which retreated in growing quiet as they swept into the room. Pyanfar stopped in the midst, hands in her belt, looked toward the Cardinal point of the room, at the station authorities who gathered there, at Llun and Khai and Nuurun, Sahan and Maura and Quna, evident by their position and by the posted Colors in front of which they stood.
And kif, to their right, a cluster of black robes. A pair of stsho. Pyanfar’s nose wrinkled and her ears flattened, but she lifted them again as she faced the Llun, who stood centermost and prominent among the station families. She held up the paper and proffered it for a page who retrieved it and took it to the Llun senior.
“Chanur requests transport downworld,” Pyanfar said quietly. “Our claim has precedence over any litigation.”
The Llun senior — Kifas Llun herself, broad and solid and unmistakable in her gold and her dignity, unhurriedly took the paper, thrust it into her belt, and looked again at Pyanfar. “A complaint of piracy has been filed by Compact law; by treaty, this station has obligations which have precedence.”
“The rights of a family when questioned bear on treaty law and define the han. Our place is in question.”
The Llun hesitated, mouth taut. “Challenge hasn’t yet been issued.”
“Yet. But it will be now — won’t it, her Kifas? You know it; and I know it; and there are those here flatly counting on it. Point of equity, her Kifas. Point of equity.”
There was long silence. The Llun senior’s ears lowered and lifted. Her nose wrinkled and smoothed again. “Point of equity,” she declared. “The composition of the han is in fact in question. Family right takes precedence. The hearing is postponed until Chanur rights and Mahn have been settled.”
“No,” said a familiar, kifish voice. Among the tall, black-robed figures there was a stirring, and Pyanfar moved her hands to her hips and close to her pockets. More of the kif moved — to the outrage of the hall, the whole kifish contingent left the rim of the meeting hall and came out to the center of it. The stsho moved with them, gangling pale figures, sorrowfully gaunt, their pastel patterns asymmetric and erratic on their white skins, their persons in disarray and their heads drooping. And one kif stood taller than the rest, his stance that of authority among them. Pyanfar pursed her lips and slowly drew them back, eyes broadfocused on all the kif, well toward a dozen of them and, gods knew, armed beneath those robes.
“Akukkakk,” she said.
“We protest this decision,” the kif said to the Llun. Not whining, no: he drew himself up with borderline arrogance. “We have property in question. We’ve suffered damages. This Outsider and these mahe are in question. I claim this Outsider for kif jurisdiction; and I claim these mahe as well for crimes committed in our territories. They’re from the ship Mahijiru, which is wanted for crimes contrary to the Compact.”
“Tully,” Pyanfar said. “Papers.”
He moved up beside her and gave them to her, rigidly quiet. She offered the papers to the page, who took and read them.
“Tully. Listed by Kirdu Station authority as crew, The Pride of Chanur, with a mahen registration number.”
“The connection is obvious,” the kif said. “I charge this Outsider with attack on a kif ship in our territories; with murder of kif citizens; with numerous atrocities and crimes against the Compact and against kif law in our territories.”
Pyanfar tilted her head back with a small, unfriendly smile. “Fabrications. Is the Llun going to tolerate this move?”
“In which acts,” Akukkakk continued, “this Chanur ship and all its crew intervened at Meetpoint, with the provocation of a shooting incident on the docks, the killing of one of my crew; with the provocation of a hani attack in the vicinity of the station, in which we defended ourselves. In which attack this mahe intervened and took damage, a reckless act of piracy—”
“Lie,” Gold tooth said. “Got here papers my government charge this kif.”
“A wide-reaching conspiracy,” Akukkakk said, “in which Chanur has involved itself. Ambition, wise hani. Don’t you know the Chanur… for ambition? I am kif. / have heard… the Chanur have maintained a tight hold over the farther territories where your ships go, private for themselves and their partisans. Now they deal with the mahe, on their own; now they make separate treaties with Outsider forces, contrary to the Compact, for their own profit. Kif relations with the mahe are not friendly; we know this particular captain and his companion who hovers armed and waiting just off the station perimeter, threatening our ships and yours. This is your law? This is respect for the Compact?”
“Llun,” said Pyanfar, “this kif is disregarding the station’s decision. I don’t need to specify the game he’s engaging in. The law protects the han from such outside manipulations. These charges are a tactic, nothing more.”
“No,” said a voice from the gallery behind. A hani voice. A voice she had heard. Pyanfar turned, ears flattened, pricked them up again as she saw a whole array of familiar faces on the other side of the hall. Dur Tahar and her crew; and the Faha beside her.
“This is not,” the Llun said, “a hearing. The kif delegation has its right to lodge a protest; but the matter is deferred.”
Dur Tahar walked forward, planted herself widelegged. “What I have to say has bearing on the protest. The kif s right that the Chanur’s gone too far, right that the Chanur’s made deals on her own. Ask about a translator tape the Chanur traded to mahendo’sat and denied to us. Ask about this Outsider the Chanur claims as crew. Ask about deals worked out in Kirdu offices which excluded other hani and created incidents from there to Meetpoint.”
“By the gods, ambition!” Pyanfar yelled, and crooked an extended claw at the Tahar’s person. “Ambition’s a spacer captain who’d side with a hani-killing kif to serve her house’s grab for power. Gods!” she shouted, looking about the room at strange faces, at unknowns, insystem crews and landless on Anuurn for the most part. “Is there anyone here from Aheruun? Anyone from that side of the world, someone here to speak for the Handur ship this kif killed at Meetpoint, while they were nose-to-dock and had no idea there was any trouble in the system? Ambition — is the Tahar, who left us at Kirdu crippled and alone and came running home to use the information to Tahar advantage, who sides with the kif who hit three hani ships and a fourth ship from outside our space, a kif who’s terrorized these wretched stsho into coming here with gods know what story, a kif who’s created a crisis involving the whole structure of the Compact. By the gods, I know what blinds the Tahar to the facts — but you, you, Faha — great gods, they killed your kin, and you stand there taking the part of the hakkikt who had you boarded? What’s happened to your nerve, Hilan Faha?”