Chanur's Homecoming

The airlock sealed again. The Pride took back its own.

“We’re on count,” Geran advised the new arrivals. “Get up here.”

Six minutes.

“Captain-” From the Tauran comtech. “We got contact with Ehrran’s Vigilance.”

“Give it here.” Pyanfar punched the button when it lit; and her gut knotted. “This is Pyanfar Chanur.”

“Captain.” The voice that came back was cold and neutral. “This is Jusary Ehrran. Acting captain. Vote has been taken on this ship. We will act in system defense. We will go to Kura vector.”

She looked aside at Haral, at a flat-eared scowl.

“Gods-be earless bastard,” Haral muttered. Bloodfeud: there was no doubt of that. With an Immune clan. They could not decline that, or their offer of help. “Covering their gods-be ass.”

“We got no graceful way, have we? You want to leave ’em docked at Gaohn?”

“Captain-” The tech again. “Ayhar’s on. Prosperity. They’re aboard.”

Bad news and good, like opposite swings of the pendulum. The whole universe was confounded. She punched in on the indicator, the first one still blinking. “This is Pyanfar Chanur. Banny, I owe you a drink.”

“You owe my whole crew drinks, you notch-eared old dockcrawler, first we get back to port.”

“You got it, Banny. Take care, huh? I’ll get you sequence in a minute here.” She cut out and punched the other. While quietly, a little murmur among the crew, the rest of them arrived, Tirun and Khym, Hilfy and Fiar and Sif. There was

sorting-out going on, Chanur crew prioritied to seats. “He’s got ob-2,” she heard, Geran’s voice. Definitively. A murmur from Khym. A Tauran voice, quietly. And Tully and Hilfy. It was all getting arranged over there. “We got a prelim sequence here,” Haral was saying, likely to her sister Tirun. “Central’s passed control over to us, we got the say.” And into the microphone: “Vigilance,” Pyanfar said. “This is Pyanfar Chanur. Stand by your sequence.”

“Understood,” the acknowledgment came back. And: hearth and blood, she heard unsaid, under the chill, precise voice. Later, Chanur.

“We’ll cover you same as the rest,” Pyanfar said.

A small delay. “We appreciate that, Chanur.” Grace for grace. The woman had some positive qualities. Then: “This is your fault, Chanur.”

“We’ll see you in the han, Ehrran.”

The com-telltale went out.

The power came up, the undocking sequence initiated. Familiar sounds. There was a great cold in her gut and an ache in her side. A sequencing flicked up on number one screen. She keyed affirm, and it flicked off: flashed out to all the ships via Central.

Fortune and Light were going wide out on either side of their formation; her own group contained the ships she had come with: Industry and Shaurnurn’s Hope, Starwind and Pauran’s Lightweaver. And ships that had run with Fortune and those that adhered to Ayhar’s Prosperity each to those captains’ discretion-a great number to Prosperity, with more on the way. Ehrran’s Vigilance took farthest sweep, nadir. Not the hottest spot. The catcher-point. The one to take the strays.

It was the second time for some of these crews, the second time they had ever uncapped the red switches on the few armaments a freighter carried. Two years ago. Or whatever year it was, currently. Gods. She had lost track. Four? More man that? Kohan’s face flashed to mind, Kohan grayed and time-touched. The world changed. More of the people she had known in her youth onworld would have died. Of old age.

How old am I? How many years did we lose out there?

The month, two-month jumps added up to years fast, with so little dock time between. She suddenly tried to think what her son and her daughter might look like, Kara Mahn and Tahy, down there ruling Chanur land, sitting in the han, for the gods’ sake, Tahy senior enough to sit in the han and talk for Mahn, and vote against Chanur interests. Of a sudden the baby faces leapt to adolescence, to adulthood, to broad-faced maturity, Kara’s sullen, broadnosed face gone more sullen still, Tahy’s furtive look gone to something pinched and unpleasant-a smallish teenager become a smallish, surly woman whose ears were always flicking about as if she suspected conspiracy. A mother’s imagination painted these things and touched her children’s manes’ with gray. Kara’s ears would be notched up right proper. Kohan had gotten the ears the first time Kara made a try for Chanur land: it was a good guess Kohan had gotten him again. In return for his own scars. Gods. So fast. Life’s so fast. How much of it I’ve missed.

Grapples withdrew. Undocking jets eased them out, under Haral’s careful hand. Com babble came to her, three operators at once, on their separate channels, each dealing with procedures some of which went to Tirun back there at the aux panel.

She used her own comp, sorting the data that sifted past Tirun. The Pride backed hard; and something black and furred and angry shrieked and scrabbled across the decking, crack! against the bottom of the panel. It squealed in rage and scrambled sideways under the acceleration.