C Cherryh: Chanur's Homecoming

“Kkkkt,” Skkukuk said, lifting his jaw, which they probably failed to understand.

Tully said something. It was probable that Tully did understand.

They were disposed to go to their ships after that.

“We’ve got it,” she said to the Llun, after, herself and Tully outside in the corridor again with the Llun guard, when it was all adjourning. They were somewhat kin, she and the Llun senior. They kept it remote: the Immunes cherished their neutrality.

“We expect,” the Llun said, “that the mahendo’sat may come up with some reparations.”

Pyanfar’s ears went down. Her jaw dropped. “My gods, we just got the kif and the mahendo’sat settled-”

“You have a peculiar position.”

She went on staring at the Llun.

“Unique influence,” the Llun said.

Trading instincts took over. In a blinding flash. My gods. They need something, don’t they?

Gods save us. The mahendo’sat.

/ can get The Pride running again. Maybe get clear of this port. Bluff them out of arresting us.

“It occurs to the han and the Immunes collectively,” the Llun said, “that if you can do this, you can do other things. You have an extreme influence with the mahendo’sat.”

My gods, my gods, they don’t see yet! The mahendo’sat, the mahendo’sat are all they can see. The stsho and the mahendo’sat. Their precious trading interests. She walked away, stared off down the corridor where her own multispecies escort waited, rattling with weapons. Like the knnn and the tc’a out there, which Jik and Goldtooth swore was a tolerably friendly presence. And a pirate ship which was lying very quiet, but assuredly listening. She knew Tahar, that she would go on listening till she knew it was time to run for it. I’m dangerous. I’m a plague and a danger to them. But they’re mistaken what the danger is.

“Chanur. The han is offering you your land back.”

She turned around, blinked and stared at the Immune. “You mean my son is giving it up. Surrendering the land? Or the han is just confiscating it?”

“They’ll work something out. They’re disposed to work something out.”

“Gods-be greedy eggsucking bastards! What are they asking? What are they buying? Who in a mahen hell do they think they’re trading with?”

“I don’t think they know either. I don’t think they imagine. / do. The spacer clans do. They’re saying they’ll fight if the han lays a hand on you. They know what it would mean with the kif and the mahendo’sat. I know.”

“They’re crazy!”

“You’re in a position. What will happen if you aren’t? Tell me that.”

Skkukuk being what Sikkukkut wanted to be. Jik discredited. Shakeups in the mahen government. More craziness.

It was not what she wanted to think of. It lay there day and night in her gut like something indigestible.

So did the solution.

“So the han just wants me to come down there and play politics and pay the bar tab, huh? Cozy up with the Naur.”

“I didn’t say that. I don’t say the Naur won’t try.” The Llun looked as if she had something sour in her mouth. “I don’t say you’ll have to listen to them. You’ve got friends. That’s what I’m trying to say. Unofficially.”

“Because I won in there.”

“I’ll be honest. Some clans would have stood by you. The Llun couldn’t have. We have other considerations. I’m not talking to a political novice. I’m not one either.”

“Meaning you know what I could do.”

“You’re hani. You came back here. You came back here like Ayhar did. Like all the rest. That’s some assurance what you’ll do.”

“The land’s the rest, is it?”

“Some accommodation can be worked out.”

Her heart hurt. Acutely. It took several breaths to dispel enough of the pain to talk. “I’m too honest, Llun. I’m too gods-be honest to take that deal. I’m too honest to do that to the han, and I mean us, not what sits on its broad backside down in that marble mausoleum and tries to play politics in a universe it doesn’t by the gods understand. I’m the best education they’re ever likely to get. You’re right. You and your guards don’t lay a hand on me or mine. You know what it would set off.”

The Llun’s ears had gone flat. “Is that a threat? Is that what I take it for?”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m not Ehrran. Or Naur. I don’t keep notebooks. And I’m going to be a lousy houseguest. You understand that? I can’t drag that kind of politics into the han. I can’t sit in the han and handle the kif. Or the mahendo’sat. Or the stsho. That isn’t what the kif and the mahendo’sat created. I don’t have any kin anymore. I can’t have. I can’t pay those kinds of debts. Come on, Tully.”

She walked past the Llun, away from her and down the corridor without a backward look. She hurt inside. There were only foreigners waiting for her. And the crew she had to face. And explain to.

“Wrong?” Tully asked.

“No.” She felt better, having said that. Having decided it. She laid a hand on his shoulder as they walked. “Friend,” she said, and discovered that felt better too.

“Pyanfar.” He stopped, faced her, pulling something from

his hand and, taking hers palm up, pressed that something into it. She opened her fingers. It was the little gold ring. The one from lost Ijir. From some other friend of his. “You take.” He reached out and touched the side of her ear. “So.”

It was the most precious thing he owned, the only thing he really owned, the only link he had with his dead. “My gods, Tully-”

“Take.”

She clenched her hand on it. He seemed pleased at that, even relieved, as if he had let something go that had been too heavy to carry.

“You want to stay or go? Tully?”

“Stay. With The Pride . With you. With crew.”

“It’s not the same! It won’t be the same! Gods rot it, Tully, I can’t make you understand what you’re walking into. The crew may leave. Hilfy will have to. I don’t know where we’ll be. I don’t know how long this will last before it gets worse.”

“Need me.”

She opened her mouth and shut it. Of all the crew she reckoned might be steadiest, she had never even reckoned him. Like the ring, it was too profound a gift.

“Come on,” she said.

“We’re doing all right,” she said, on a full stomach, in the crowded galley-the Tauran had gone, with Vrossaru, aboard Mahijiru, trailing the humans out. There was a matter of getting back to Meetpoint and picking up their ships and cargoes. Ayhar’s Prosperity had a guaranteed run in that direction too, with a full hold, which Meetpoint might direly need. And, good or bad news, one never knew, the knnn had disappeared with the tc’a, off on a vector which ought to get it lost in limbo, if it were not a knnn, and capable of making jumps that other ships could not. Toward stsho space, it looked like. At best guess.

“We got word from Tahar,” Haral said. “They got the message.”

“What’d they say about it?”

“Said thanks. They said they’ll believe in a han amnesty when they get it engraved, but they say they plan to shadow us awhile. Till the word gets around.”

“Huh.” It was prudent. Dur Tahar was that. She let go a small sigh. “We got some business at Meetpoint too, soon as they get our tail put back together.” She took a sip of gfi. There was a vacancy at table. Hilfy was off doing Chanur business. Which was the way it had to be. Married, within the year: that was what Hilfy had to do, find herself some young man strong enough to take her cousin Kara and pitch him clear back to Mahn territory.

In that choice she had burned to give advice; but what was between her and Hilfy had gotten too remote for that, too businesslike. It was her own hardheaded, closemouthed pride. She saw it like a mirror. Hilfy knew everything; more than Hilfy might ever know when she was a hundred.