C Cherryh: Chanur's Homecoming

It was already on monitor, a sudden and ominous blinking all along the mahen front that sent her heart speeding. “Message? Gods rot it, is he saying anything?"-while crew, away from seats, in the galley, wherever they had strayed to, came scrambling unordered: in-ear coms, and a fine sense of disaster when it started.

“Negative. He’s just started to move. All of them-We got-got an inquiry from Nekkekt, quote: Shall we attack? Advisories-”

Other crew hit the seats, low murmur of exchanged information, the passing of duties, briefings in two words and a key punch that logged in: Geran, Hilfy. Others were already there. “I tell human stop,” Tully protested. “Give com.”

“General output,” Pyanfar snapped, as Haral hit the seat beside her and logged on. “Hold steady. Message to Mahijiru: Hold position. Keep your ships back. We will not be bluffed. Reply to query at once and brake. Endit and repeat. What’s our lagtime?”

“Fourteen nine,” Tirun said; and a hani message turned up on channel two. “Chanur, this is Ayhar. What in a mahen hell is going on?”

“Ayhar. Hold firm. Hold firm.”

“Hold firm! We got a half a hundred ships gone stark lunatic! What do they think they’re doing?”

“They think they’re getting through, they’re pushing us, that’s what they think they’re doing. Those are human ships out there. Stand firm-”

“Mahijiru,” a voice broke in on her into her left ear. “Same Goldtooth. H’lo, Pyanfar, old friend!” Cheerful as any dockside. “Good hear you voice, same good find you one piece. Long time chase, damn good job stop these bastard. Got you number one message, good news. You number one fine, a? Same. Plenty ship. Same you tell these fine kif they stand by, we make deal bout how they get home.”

“Mekt-hakkikt!” Into the right ear. “We are tracking this advance. Give us the order! We are your allies! This mahendo’sat is a devious and a ruthless liar! Take him!”

“Goldtooth, I got a real anxious kif here. Now it’s seven-odd minutes ago, and if I don’t see those ships of yours start braking in thirty seconds from the time you get this, I’m going to take some serious measures. I’ll clip you good, friend. Your ship. Now you stop, and you get ready to talk this out, you don’t push your way here. You want an incident, you want trouble that’s going to echo all the way to Iji, I got to serve you notice these hani ships aren’t moving. I’m timing this real close. I know you, old friend. If I call your bluff like this, you’ll shoot if I don’t. So you better be doing what I say by now, because if you aren’t, you got a fight coming. Endit. No repeat. Time that bastard. Skkukuk! You keep those ships of yours in line.”

“Yes.”

“Jik!” Hilfy’s voice, between two beats of a panicked heart. “Jik’s transmitting, incoming-”

“Negative scan,” Geran said.

Lightspeed wavefront, inbound, the buoys not reporting and no one in position to pick him up.

“Pyanfar-” the thin voice reached her. “We follow you fast we can, damn, you not engage, not engage-”

He was talking about the kif. She realized that finally. He was that far away. Hours out.

Hours ago, when he had fired off that message, he had known Sikkukkut incoming and that a few fool hani were in a lot of trouble.

About his own partner, he could not know.

Nor could Goldtooth know that he was there. For seven more minutes.

“Goldtooth. I’m in contact with your partner now. Ismehanan-min. My friend. There’s a lot of data you don’t have. Critical information. It’s Iji at stake. It’s your border. We’ve got a kifish hakkikt here willing to talk borders. What we’ve got left at Meetpoint you know and I don’t. But I’ve got a passenger, an old mutual acquaintance, who has some real important information. And I’m not talking to a fool, Goldtooth. I want a face to face meeting. You, me, a few old friends.”

“One minute,” Tirun said, timekeeping.

“At Gaohn. Dockside.”

The docks at Gaohn were deserted, with the profound chill that came of seals cutting off the air circulation, the deckplates so cold they burned the feet; and Pyanfar limped a bit-had been limping since she rolled out of bed stiff and sore and knowing what there was yet to face.

There had been a little leisure, on the way back to Gaohn, a little time for The Pride to run at a decent, safe rate; for aching crew to tend their own needs and the ship’s, and to catch a nap and a hot meal.

She went in spacer’s blues. It was all she had left, and that was borrowed. She went with her own crew about her, and left The Pride in Sirany’s capable hands.

Another lostling had turned up. Dur Tahar had quietly showed up on-scope, blinking in with an ID signal and turning out not to be a piece of hurtling wreckage. “Friggin’ hell,” Tahar had said when they got her on com: “you don’t think I’m going to run my ID, us, while we got you standing off half the Compact and most every hani ship out here ready to blow us to dust and gone. I’m not coming in yet, Chanur. I’ll meet with you or one of your ships, I’ll let Vrossaru and her crew off, but I’m not going to go in to dock ... not this old hunter. I’ll just watch awhile.”

“You running with Goldtooth? Or Sikkukkut?”

“Me? Gods upside down, Chanur, you got an exaggerated idea how fast we are. I got out on your tail, been following your emissions trail like a highway clear from Meetpoint, firing like hell to catch you up, but I blew two more systems making that gods-be Urtur shift: sorry if you had any fondness for that kif. Me, I owed him. Plenty." 5 “You godsforsaken lunatic! You could have blown us all.”

This during two hours of timelagged exchange. And after a longer than usual pause, in which she had thought Tahar might have quit talking: “Chanur, if you ever trusted that kif, you got something yet to learn. He made you too powerful, haven’t you got it yet? So did the mahendo’sat. Do I have to tell you?”

She had sat there then, after Dur Tahar had in fact quit talking, a decisive signoff. She sat there receiving the information from Gaohn that a half dozen little light-armed freighters had scattered down the Ajir route with a precious cargo of hani lives, the men and children of the Syrsyn clans.

Seeds on a stellar wind.

And she looked Khym’s way, her husband sitting backup duty at a quieter time on the bridge, taking his time at scan while exhausted senior crew took theirs at washup and rest. He did not notice that glance: his face, dyed with the light from the scope, was intent on business.

Whatever we lose here, she had thought then. For all we failed in, one thing we did.

There was one other man there on the bridge. And he did look her way. She thought she had seen every expression Tully’s alien face had to offer. But this, that all the life seemed to have left him, no more of fight, as if something in him had broken and died. Except that the eyes lighted a moment, glistened that way they did in profoundest sorrow; and looked-O gods-straight at her. While Hilfy, leaving the bridge, paused to put her hand on his shoulder. For comfort. For—

“Come on,” Hilfy had said. “Tully.”

You know, don’t you? Pyanfar had thought then. You know she’ll leave you now. Her own kind, Tully. She’s Chanur now. The Chanur. And you’re ours; even when you go back, your people won’t forget that, will they? Ever.

Gods help you, Tully. Whatever your name really is. Whatever you think you are and wherever you go now.

Like Tahar. They don’t ever quite forget.

I’m no fool, that look of his said back to her. Neither of us are. We’re friends.

And perhaps some other human, unfathomably complicated strangeness she could not puzzle out.