Chanur's Homecoming

“I got her.” When the whole universe did a sharp and sudden tilt. Khym hauled her along with an arm about her. Might as well have been flying, upside down and sideways.

Bed then. Mattress. Sheets. Pillow.

“Chur’s room,” Geran’s voice said, hoarse and panting und utterly exhausted. “Haral, tell ’em. We can fall in there.”

A body landed beside her. Thump. The safety restraint hummed and clicked.

Dark then.

Till the gravity shifted and she came awake with a reflexive clench of the claws into what was not mattress, but her I husband; he hissed and shifted and jerked as he came awake weighing less than he ought and with gravity not where it’ ought to be.

“Uuuh!”

“Docking. It’s all right, it’s all right, we’re at Gaohn.” Mumble. Even that was not sufficient goad to get the body moving. The brain dimmed down again, with too great a load to push. More G-shifts. Clang and thump. Not safe to stand, in the condition she was. Prudent just to lie there and catch the few extra moments of drowse she could. Before the clangs and thumps of contact told her the grapples were secure. Then was time to get on her feet and clean up.

Safety hummed into retraction. It was Fiar standing over them, with a tray in her hands and an ears-back worried look on her face. The ship was miraculously stable and quiet. “Captain. M’lord. You want to try to eat something?”

We aborted dock? Backed off?

I slept through the grapple-noise? The connects? Gods, we’re not on rotation.

She levered herself up on her arms. Khym stayed unconscious beside her. The place smelled. They did. Everything did. Her eyes were sticky and her mouth felt awful. “Situation,” she said.

“We’re in, captain. Berth thirteen. Got a solid line of our ships out there beyond us. Just everybody sitting, except us, except our lot-Harun and Pauran and Faha and all, we’re in dock right together. So’s ker Rhean and Chanur’s Fortune. Ehrran too. Anfy Chanur held ’em under her guns on the way to dock, she’s still got Light standing out right nearby, but Ehrran’s still talking for Naur and them, but spacers are mad, captain, they’re not having any of it. They want to see you. We told ’em you were in no fit condition. But my captain asks, she says maybe you should get Up there and see ’em soon as you can, captain-we got a whole lot of kif and a whole lot of hani eyeball-on out there around Tyar; but she wants you to have a breakfast and take it slow, her word, captain.”

“Gods.” She shut her eyes with force and opened them again, trying to focus. Fiar looked exhausted, ears flagging in a curious, lopsided way that made her look younger than she was. Stable at dock. Other ships having had time to make it in. Anfy and Ehrran in standoff. She reached and took the offered cup. Biggest they had. Full of savory soup, steam going up like a wish to the gods. “Unnnhh.” She took a sip. Blinked the kid back into focus. “Ayhar. Where in a mahen hell’s Ayhar?”

The ears sank. “They still got them hostage, captain.”

“Where?”

“Up in station. Ker Rhean and Harun and my captain, they’re working on it, but there’s some holdup, and they got fighting at the shuttleports downworld, some on our side and some on theirs, and they can’t launch, except a couple got away-The Llun are mediating that, captain says, trying to get the shuttles clear to launch, and some of the Immunes onworld, they’re trying to negotiate-”

“A mahen hell with that.”

“Meanwhile your crew is coming on, captain said they should take their orders from ker Haral, and ker Haral said-”

“The kif. Where’s the kif?”

“They’re just staying out there. That kif Skkukuk wanted to talk to them. My captain said no. Ker Haral said no.”

“No,” she said, and took a careful mouthful of soup as Khym moaned and rolled over and lifted himself on his elbows. “Food,” she said. “Khym.” The soup was hot as Ahr’s fires. Instant stuff. Wonderful stuff. They were still alive and the cabin was staying still and the worst things were far from as bad as they might be. No major confrontations. Kif staying where they belonged. Everybody where they belonged. Excepting Ehrran and a set-to at the shuttle-dock. And Ayhar; and gods knew where Sikkukkut was. Alarm bells kept going off all down her nerves. That bastard Sikkukkut pulled a surprise arrival at Meetpoint. Does he need originality? She shivered convulsively, blinked and guarded herself as Khym shook the mattress getting himself propped up. “Here.” She gave him her cup and took the other, the tray more convenient for her, then glanced up at Fiar’s anxious, dutiful lace. “Llun’s fending rocks, is she?”

“Lots of rocks,” Fiar said. And dipped her ears in nervous respect. Embarrassed, now that Khym was awake. She was young. “But my captain told them on station lines, about the* kif, about the methane-breather we saw. About all those stations shut down. About the humans and the mahendo’sat. Everything. Figuring they might not have had time to sort the log out, they better know.”

“Good. Thank her. I’ll be there fast as I can.”