Chanur's Homecoming

“I’m doing something. What in a mahen hell has the han done right lately? What has anybody done about it?” A claw popped through the seat-leather as her hand clenched tighter. A second. “Tauran, how long do you think we can sit still while the Compact’s blown to a mahen hell? Humanity’s coming in on us. Mahendo’sat’ve done something stupid, they’ve done something that’s touched off humans and got something started that they don’t understand and I’m not sure the humans do: Tully’s witness to that, and he warned us. Jik’s tried to do something to save us all, and it’s cost him. He at least knows his people’ve been fools. Like the stsho. Like hani. And the kif. And maybe the tc’a, gods save us. And even the humans may know by now. Most of ’em are fools by doing something. Ehrran just got us a brand-new treaty with the stsho, did you know that? And look where they are. Look what we’re into. The kif just took ’em. We got kif backing into hani space. We got Kura not answering here. We got Akkhtimakt in such a mess that hani space is the only thing left he can get to, because ^Sikkukkut’s sent out ships to every jump-point in reach and blocked his other routes. Meanwhile there’s a major mahendo’sat push coming down out of Kshshti, which if Akkhtimakt’s spies are worth anything, he knows and Sikkukkut doesn’t-he’s been at Kita and up by Kshshti. That bastard’s going to let Sikkukkut take the hit from the mahendo’sat while he pulls off into hani space and conies up again at the mahen underbelly, straight up at Iji. You know the mahendo’sat, you know they’ll fragment if the Personage goes out. They won’t have a defense. And humanity’s going to be right in the middle of mahen territory with a whole lot of ships, ships that can jump short, just like our friends the mahendo’sat and just like the kif, ships that can shorten the time between strikes like nothing we want to imagine. But we won’t worry about it. We’ll be lucky to have a world left. And we’ll belong to whoever wins. With nothing to say about it. If we survive at nil. We got one of our men in space. One, and you know how safe this ship is, with half the kif in the universe hunting us and the other half about to. The whole rest of our species is on Anuurn. And it takes one big rock, Sirany Tauran, one C-charged rock, and we’re all widows and brotherless. Forever. You hear me? You know what I’m saying?”

Tauran said nothing. The ship hurtled on, crossing planetary diameters in every few heartbeats. In silence, all about them, inside the ship, inside the space between them.

“Tauran.”

“I hear you. This is all crazy.”

“Tauran’s a spacing clan. Three generations. You know what I’m talking about. That mess you got into at Meetpoint. Could you even explain to those old old women in the han why you couldn’t take out running? What chances you had getting up to V or what those distances are like? How many of ’em understand a stsho?”

“Who understands a stsho?”

“How do they formulate policy with them, make a treaty with them, tell us who live out here that we’re supposed to stand off the kif, do I guess-that they expect us to dispose of the kifish problem, because it’s going to take them ten, twenty years to change their concept of the way kif behave, or what the mahendo’sat are likely to do, and gods save us when they start dealing with the humans and their three governments, all fighting each other? What in a mahen hell are they going to do right now when Akkhtimakt comes into system? Order the Llun to bar them from station? Put hegemony sanctions on them? Study the problem?”

“It’s too much-”

“I’m asking another clan to damn itself. With me. I’m asking all the rest of you. I’m asking those who know what I’m talking about to do something about it. We’re not dealing with scattered pirates anymore. Hani out here’ll do the right thing. I’m betting all we’ve got on that. Traders’ll have stripped down, some go home, some scatter like seeds on a high wind. Everywhere. They’re warned. But it won’t save us from a rock. It won’t protect us if some kif decides to take our species out. I can’t get to the han to tell them what I’m telling you. I can’t explain what happened at Meetpoint- gods know what’s happened at Meetpoint. Or what’s going to follow us. Or when. If Sikkukkut sent a ship out we don’t know about, and some bastard’s tailing us, they might pick up our directional transmissions. We can’t do anything but what we’ve done.”

“I read your running orders. I got your message from Sif. And I’m not a fool.”