Chanur's Homecoming

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.