Chanur's Homecoming

“We got humans. We got humans, Pyanfar. Same got hunter-ships, got way shove these bastard back from out hani territory, you got listen, Pyanfar. Pyanfar, I got timetable!”

Her finger was on the cutoff, claw half-extruded. She retracted it.

“Do you? Way I hear, you got something else too. Like a fancy new maneuver your ships do, just like humans.” Silence from belowdecks then. Profound silence. Then: “Open this door, Pyanfar.”

“At dock.”

“Soshethi-sa! Soshethi-ma hase mafeu!”

Thump.

She cut him off. Looked Haral’s way. Haral studiously lowered her ears. “Not too happy,” Haral said. “Timetable. What’s he mean?”

“By the gods I bet there’s one. At our expense. Mahen gifts. ‘Got a present for you.’ Jik, turning up at Kshshti. Us, miraculously getting our papers cleared so we could turn up back here.”

“I’d sure like to know what was in that packet Banny took on, I tell you that.”

“Eggs to pearls that Jik slipped something into it. Goldtooth’s version, I got a copy on. The stuff that didn’t take a translator to dupe, at least. Which won’t be the sensitive stuff. But anything might be helpful. Downgrade the nav functions: we’ll run that packet of his with the decoder.”

“I’ll start it,” Hilfy said. “My four.”

She keyed the access up and sent the packet over, while The Pride started freeing up computer space.

Jik had held out on Sikkukkut. And on her. It was certain that he had. He had been dead silent on that gibe about mahen ship capabilities.

The archive in question blinked into Hilfy’s reach.

And they slipped closer and closer to dock.

“Might have some lurker outsystem,” Hilfy said. “I’ve been thinking about that. Might have a strike here most any time.”

“Cheerful,” Geran said. That sounded almost normal, crew bickering and muttering from station to station.

“Station’s on,” Hilfy said. “Docking calc.”

“That’s got it,” Haral said, and sucked them into nav. “Auto?”

“Might as well. Nothing problematical here.” Pyanfar sat and gnawed her mustaches, gnawed a hangnail on her third finger. Spat. “Hilfy: send to all hani at dock, hani-language,

quote: The Pride of Chanur to all hani at dock: we are coming in at berths 27, 28, 29 consecutive. Salutations to all allies: by hearth and blood we take your parole to assure your security. Industry, salutations to your captain in Ruharun’s name: we share an ancestor. Let’s keep it quiet, shall we? End.”

“Got that,” Hilfy said.

Haral gave her a look steady and sober, ears back-canted. “Think the kif read poetry?”

“Gods, I hope not.”

Five decades ago. Dayschool and literature. When she had ten times rather be at her math. Stand and recite, Pyanfar.

“I hope to the gods this younger generation does.”

On a winter’s eve came Ruharan to her gates beneath black flight of birds in snowy court. White scarf flutters in the wind, red feather the fletch of arrows standing still in posts about the yard and the holy shrine where stands among a hundred enemies her own lord, no prisoner but of her enemies foremost seeming.

But Ruharun knew her husband a man with woman’s wit and woman’s staunchness.

So she cast down her bow and spilled out the arrows, on blood-spattered snow cast down defense, bowed her head to enemies and to fortune. . . .

“Industry answers,” Hilfy said. “Quote: We got that. 27, 28, 29. We have another kinswoman here in Munur Faha. Greetings from her. We are at your orders.”

“Gods look on them.” Pyanfar drew a large breath. Message received, covered and tossed back again under kifish noses. Munur Faha of Starwind was kin to Chanur. But not to Harun. Harun had no ties of any kind.

And Faha had a bloodfeud with Tahar of Moon Rising.

A small chill went down her back. It was response to her own coded hail. It was just as likely subtle warning and question, singling out Faha for salutations: strange company

you keep, Pyanfar Chanur, a mahen hunter, a kifish prince, and a pirate. The Faha-Tahar feud was famous and bitter.

At your orders, smooth and silky. It was kifish subservience, never hani; it was humor, bleak and black and thoroughly spacer. Let’s play the game, hani. You and your odd friends. Let’s see where it leads.

It took a mental shift, gods help her, to think hani-fashion again, and to know the motives of her own kind. Like crossing a gulf she had been on the other side of so long that hani were as strange as the stsho.

“Reply: See you on my deck immediately.”

Grapples took. The Pride’s G-sense shifted, readjusted itself. Other connections clanged and thumped into seal. They were not the first ship in. Ikkhoitr and Chakkuf crews were already on the docks. Harukk was in final. But no kif came to help non-kif ships dock. Pointedly, they handled their own and no others. They were Industry crewwomen risking their necks out there on the other side of that wall.

“I’ve got business,” Pyanfar said, and unclipped the safeties.

“Aye,” Haral said. “Routine shutdowns, captain. Go.”