Chanur's Homecoming (36 page)

. . . "Captain."

"I got it, we're on, aren't we?"

"We're running smooth."

How's Chur? Calm down, she won't answer yet. Can't answer. Gods-be drugs. No. Tully's with her. "Tully. Report. How is Chur?"

A long pause. Muzzy human. Tully was always hard to rouse after jump.

"Tully? How's Chur, Tully?" Is she alive, Tully? F'gods-sakes, answer back there. "She sleep."

"Are you sure? Is she all right?" With Geran listening. But it was what Geran had to know.

"She sleep," Tully's voice came back again. "We've got acquisition on our escort," Geran said, dead calm, onto business. "We're still doing fine, captain."

/ have no nerves, captain. The job gets done. For the ship and all of us.

"No buoy here, either," Haral muttered. "No sign of anything." She drank down the concentrates. Her hand shook. She wadded up the foil packet and thrust it into the bin after, and wiped her face. An appalling lot of hair came away. Teeth were sore, when she pushed them with her tongue. One felt loose. That more than any wound she had ever suffered made her afraid; not of dying. Of time. Of the inevitable wall that said this far for a body and no further, courage and wit and skill notwithstanding. Where are we? Is what I remember true? Gods, how did I get here? Get this old?

Kif. Kif out in front of us. It's all true. No hallucination. Gods, if it were a hallucination, if I was back there with Urarun all this time, if I never knew these things, if these friends, this ship, this terrible mess-were all illusion-

Earflick.
 
A weighty number of rings chimed and rang against each other.

Old graynose. Yourself, Pyanfar. Here. In this gods-be mess. Wake up. Come back. You're fuzzed and drifting. . . . . . . when did I get old?

Haral beside her. A flash and flicker of monitors at her board. Scan information vanished for a checklist, one critical moment. Reappeared again. Haral had missed a switch and changed all the priorities in a rippling flicker of screens. Haral had missed. That never happened. "You on?"

"I got it, cap'n. Sorry. That's confirm on Aja Jin. They're in on schedule." Vermin. Little vermin. drop again. ... . . . reform. ". . . got us stable."

"Hilfy. Relay that. Tell our relief we're looking for 'em up here fast as they can do it. Skkukuk, you're discharged. Get some rest."

"Hakt', I should check the filter traps."

"Do it fast, then. Go to it."

"Yes, hakt'." Long hour til jump-out.

And still days down. She did not want to know how many. The figures were lost in her jump-mazed brain.

Akkhtimakt's ships were indisputably in front of them, already gone, in transit toward Anuurn. Of the two missing probes, nothing. Their own escort was there, that was all.

She forced another nutrients-packet down. Swallowed and listened to an eerily deserted nowhere, the dark mass of Kura Point, its little beacon extinguished. Not a place hani had ever found it economical to put a station, it was just an astronomical oddity, Kura Point Mass, a lump of rock that just incidentally made hani an independent species-making a route to Meetpoint and other species through hani space only, and not through mahen Ajir, to the sure annoyance of the mahendo'sat.

An accident of nature that had cut four months off the Anuurn-Kura run and saved the whole hani species from becoming a dependency of the mahendo'sat.

It just sat there radiating away, dead and quiet. A chancy, spooky place where hani met and hailed each other, glad of another voice in the tomblike silences. Have a breakdown here and a ship just sat and waited for rescue. Which might bankrupt a running ship. Weeks waiting on help and months getting a repair crew out from Anuurn or Kura star.

She made the count on those coming in behind them. "Send," she said to Hilfy. "The Pride of Chanur to all ships. Status check."

Because the silence oppressed her, because of a sudden, this last, this perilous last jump, she wanted a voice or two out of the dark. She wanted Jik's most of all, wanted it to come across the way she was used to hearing it, deep and humorous and reservedly friendly.

Crazy. Crazy impulse. Why him? Ought to want his ears, I should, I ought.

Lying bastard that he is. He's not suffering on that ship of his. Got enough crew to rotate shifts with no pain at all.

They're built for this kind of run. A ship like Lightweaver, or Starwind, back there, they're going to be feeling it near as bad as we are, gods help 'em.

Kifish advisements came in, cold and exact. No pain there either. We are running well, one sent. Glory to the hakkikt.

Hani ships: "We're hanging on." -Harun's Industry.

"We got one system on backup." -Pauran's Lightweaver.

"We counting? We got four." That was Shaurnurn's Hope, a youngish voice. "We're patching, this lay-through."

"We're doing all right. We've got a few red-light conditions. We're seeing to them." Munur Faha, on Starwind.

And last of all: ''We all time good condition, friend. I be here, no worry. What you 'spect, a?"

Hilfy made acknowledgments, passed advisements, in a wan, tired voice.

And from Geran, quietly, speaking to someone: "How is she?"

"Geran. You want to get back there? That's an order, cousin."

"Aye."

No argument this time. Tirun signaled she was covering that station. A belt clicked, and Pyanfar gnawed her mustaches and fought the hypnosis of the blinking lights, the wash of green on the board- Going to lose her, was the thought that wanted through, and she would not let it.

Bone and muscle. Vital organs. Nutrients. Steel and plastics could last the trip. Living bodies needed time to rebuild, and there was no recovery in their schedule.

Do kif suffer this?

Image of a black bundle of rags, Skkukuk collapsing in her arms, virtually moribund in the first jump they had made.

Image of black, ravenous lengths of fur and muscle and
 
sharp little teeth gnawing away at The Pride's vitals, fatal, voracious stupidity destroying the vessel which kept them from the cold of space.

Like the han and the stsho.

We learned the lesson: the kif must have learned it. The law of controlled predation: neither predator nor prey can survive alone. Intelligent predators manage their resources.

Do you recall that lesson, Sikkukkut?

Burn the land? Lay waste whole ecosystems?
    

Suicide, na kif. Kill the stsho and you will die. Take out hani and mahendo'sat and the economy the stsho live on collapses, same result.

A predator needs his rivals as much as he needs his prey. Ecosystems interlock. One predator, one prey, can never sustain itself.

Her eyes hazed out. She knew the signs. Forced herself back again, arched her shoulders. Withdrew her arm from the brace and hissed at the pain.

"You all right?" Haral asked.

"Gods," she said, short of breath from the hurt. Old age, cousin. It's old age for sure. You and me. It's not fair this should happen to us. We were immortal. Weren't we? "We got one more jump to make. One more." That reassurance was for herself. Not that much more to go, Pyanfar, not that far. Done it time after time, haven't you, lived days while Anuurn lives a month. Two months out and back.

But the gods of the Wide Dark gave time with one hand and took it with the other. Wore a spacer out from the inside, strained the heart, took the steadiness from the hands. Kohan was graying, last she saw him. Graying in earnest. But he sat on his cushions in the stability his wives provided him in Chanur's lands, and hunted his preserves and had the best of care. He never knew hunger, only a lunch delayed in the field, his wives and daughters and nieces and cousins and juvenile sons all slogging along with the makings of a small feast. Rough living, the groundlings thought. A hunt burned off the fat and quickened the blood and a little hunger put an edge on a body.

O gods, Kohan. Late lunch. A tragedy. Never been jump-stretched, never had your fur falling out so thick it left a shimmer of bare skin beneath it, never had your backside hurt because the bones hit the seat, never wake up from jump and find the bones and tendons all prominent, your hand like a stranger's at the end of your arm, your teeth sore and your joints aching like the stab of a knife between the bones.

Another food packet. Something on the stomach. "What in a mahen hell's keeping Tauran?"

"They're in the lift," Hilfy said. About the time the lift door opened, bright and spreading reflection in the right-hand monitor, and dark figures came down the hall, resolving themselves into hani silhouettes and hani presence.

She turned the chair around and saw Sirany Tauran, saw her face change and her ears flatten in dismay at what she saw. Like looking in a mirror. Am I that bad? She reckoned that she was.

"We're stable, everything clear," she said to Sirany. And levered herself up from the chair, caught herself on the arm and on Sirany's suddenly offered hand. She had a close view of Sirany's face then, wide, shocked eyes. She shoved herself upright and tried to find equilibrium. "Ker Pyanfar-"

"Want to rest," she said.

"Go to it," Sirany said.
 
"We'll bring you something. You, your whole crew. Get to bed." Pity, Tauran?

She resented that. Resented it with an irrational touchiness and knew that it was irrational. It was concern the Tauran offered her. Was belief in them. Was what she had been trying to rouse in Tauran in this long alternate life-death they were locked in.

How long? Months on months now. How long have the kif had to do harm at Anuurn? Gods, were they gone from Urtur long before us? Was the

force at Meetpoint only a part of what they have? Were they already weeks ahead of us?

Are we running into a trap meant for Sikkukkut?

Chur seeing visions.

Black vermin in the ducts.

"Pyanfar-"

A hard grip settled onto her right shoulder. Claws bit. She stared into lambent, hani eyes. "I let Jik go," she mumbled, knowing she was rambling, but suddenly it seemed to matter, it seemed something that Tauran had to know, part of the puzzle, the jagged pieces that resulted when someone dropped the universe and it shattered, scattered, made new patterns that a ship had to navigate. "It's important." But that was not enough to say. "The mahendo'sat are the key. Neither predator nor prey. They're important. Always prying into things. Like Tully. The humans are like them. Both predator and prey. Be careful. The mahendo'sat didn't know that. Humans are trouble. They'll confound us like the mahendo'sat. Like the methane-breathers. The kif know that. Even the han had instinct on their side in that one. We were right."

"Captain," Haral said. Haral's face this time, displacing the other. "Captain, here's here. Watch the time, cap'n."

She blinked. Jolted back to physical motion again instead of all-movement, particle-dance and star motions. Blinked again. "Yeah," she said. Blinked a third time and things hurt again. Her legs felt unsteady. "I'm going."

("Is she all right?" someone asked, not a Chanur voice. Young voice. Fiar.)

Pyanfar turned around, flattened her ears, fixed the young tech with a stare. "She's fine, youngster." She drew a larger breath, continued the sweep of her eyes on back to Sirany. "I've preset us to drop close in. May have been a mistake. We do the best we can."

Doubt. Plain and clear on Sirany's face. This is what we've got to rely on, is it? Woman's been through too much. Too long, too far. We're bound to sit duty on this leg and we have to hand off the ship at Anuurn to a lunatic. With all that may be at stake.

"Sirany, if you think I'm not tracking right, you're mistaken."

"Didn't say that." Not a bristle at the familiarity of first names. Not a twitch of irritation. It was pity. The ship crossed planetary diameters at a breath or two, and a fool wanted long arguments on the bridge, distracting the crew from their business.

"Get to work," Pyanfar said. "Eyes on those boards!" Ordering the wrong crew. "Somebody get their eyes on those boards. I don't care which." So much for inattention, Sirany Tauran. Which of us is wit-wandering? "I'm telling you," she said, trying to dredge gnosis up from the free-association where it was wandering. Dark territory. Nowhere. Numbers and lines spread wide through the Compact. "Jik is the best we've got. Rely on him and his First. And I want com through to allship this time. The kif too. We can't afford to come out the other side wondering where we are."

No, Pyanfar Chanur, we certainly can't afford that. Still the doubt. Below the surface now, like a fish gone into deep waters. Surface smooth, a relief to have the proprieties back again. But the doubt was still cruising along down there, all sleek and dark and quiet.

To flare up at the wrong moment, and turn and bite you, yes, Pyanfar Chanur.

"We're still on auto?" Sirany asked. "Still?"

"Good computer," Pyanfar said. "Good crew. I told you those nav figures are right. I'm not a liar, ker Sirany."

"No," Sirany said, quiet against her heat, "I really don't think you are."

"What I was talking about. Think on it, you said. Think on it." See, I remember. Do you, Tauran? Your mind that clear? Or do you still think I'm crazy? "I'm asking again. Here and now. Before we get make drop at Anuurn."

"Join you?"

"That's what I'm asking. You're supposed to give the rest of the captains out there some kind of report before then, aren't you? Sure you are. But you haven't, yet. Jik would have reported it to us. Unless you coded it real clever." She leaned hard on the chair back, eased the weight on her legs. "What are you going to tell them?"

Long hesitation. "That you're no pirate. That we're convinced of that."

She stood there a moment. Blinked, trying to run it through .her brain. "But not that we're right."

Sirany's ears went down. Not anger. Profound distress. "I'm still figuring that out for myself."

"How long are you going to think about it, huh?" Her pulse thumped in her ears. The bridge fuzzed in one longusmear of lights both white and green. "We got no gods-be time left when we come out. You understand that?"