Chanur's Homecoming

“I got it, I got it,” she mumbled to save Haral the effort. Not malfunction lights: it was gas out there, thick enough to flow and flare off their shields. The shield-depletion curve was rising, fluctuating as they swept up gas and hit a bare spot, where the shield recovered a little strength. The kifish escort was far away now. On auto, relying on numbers alone and not even in direct control, they achieved a kind of tranquility. Warning lights flickered, reminding them of laws and lanes they overrode. Haral swore and disabled them for the duration of Urtur passage, to be rid of the beep.

She fumbled after the nutrients packet, bit a hole in it and drank it down-and Tully, Tully was alone belowdecks, his poor teeth always had trouble with the packets and there was no one to help him, alone because the gods-be Tauran were too squeamish—

—behind her Skkukuk would be seeing to his own meal. Her stomach heaved at the thought. But his kifish voice came through now and again, delivering some information to Hilfy and Fiar at com, translating off those kifish ships up front.

Kifish transmissions everywhere; and Chakkuf and Nekekkt and Sukk were doing their job, the point of a spear that had to drive straight into Urtur before it stopped, re-vectored, and ran up the V sufficient for a jump out of this hell. That was the worst of it, that dead-relative-stop they had to do to line up that next jump, or slew through hyperspace askew from their target and depending on the next star to pull them in, loss of realspace-time, loss of everything if they miscalculated. . . .

Those hunter-ships were aware of their schedule, were able to make up that time and distance on sheer power, and rendezvous again, elsewhere. They claimed. It was their idea. A merchant pilot would have laughed, disbelieved it: and suffered a chill up the back at the thought of ships that could do that, knnn-like, as far off their capacity as they were off that of an insystemer.

She had no doubts. Clearly the kif would not have shown them everything they had.

And, gods, she would have given anything to find that fire answered, Akkhtimakt in Urtur system, resisting. He was not. That meant he was elsewhere. The terror reasserted itself, habitual and consuming.

“Chur,” she heard Hilfy say. “Time you woke up. Chur-”

Persistently. She cut in on that channel herself. “Chur, gods rot it, answer, we’re coming up on braking.”

No answer.

“Geran,” Pyanfar snapped. “You got backup, we’re stable; get back there.”

There was a snap from a released restraint. She did not look around to see. Did not try to talk to Khym, had no doubts of his safety, or Tully’s. They were no different from oilier crew, probably had reported in to com monitoring, as the Tauran would report, from crew quarters, going through frantic prep for shift change while they had this small inertial stretch for the generation systems to recharge. The machine was keeping Chur quiet. That was what it was. It was supposed to. That was all it was.

“No gods-be hope of Akkhtimakt being here,” she muttered to Haral.

“We ever expect it? Hope to all the gods those first ships of Sikkukkut’s cut ’em good. We got station output, no buoy, no ship-com. No tc’a, f’godssakes, tc’a miners don’t notice kit’ stuff. They’re not talking either. Something big’s been through here like thunder. Something that bothered them.”

“And a knnn comes in at Meetpoint. I want out of here. I want out of here real bad.” Pyanfar took another swallow at the bag, another listen at com off Chur’s cabin. There was the sound of the door opening. Geran’s voice desperately calling Chur’s name. She swept an eye over scan. All the ships behind them had dumped down. “We’re all on. How’re you doing, Haral?”

“I’m holding up.” The voice was hoarse as her own.

Then: “Chur’s coming out of it,” Geran said over com. “Tell the captain.”

“I got that,” Pyanfar said, punching in. “How is she?”

“Weak,” the answer came back, which was not the answer she had wanted, not with what they had coming.

If Geran admitted that much, it was bad back there.

Pyanfar took another drink, emptied the noxious liquid into her mouth and swallowed hard. She threw com wide to all-ship. “We’re stable. We’re doing all right, high over the soup. If the two kif have jumped past us back to Sikkukkut, he’s welcome to ’em. . . .” She cut it off. “Gods,” she said to Haral. “Gods, I hope. What in a mahen hell’s keeping our backup crew? Query ’em.” The weakness came and went in waves. Her muscles had no strength left. They had awhile yet