"Cherryh, C. J. - Chanur 1 - The Pride of Chanur_289" - читать интересную книгу автора (C J Cherryh - Ealdwood 01 - The Dreamstone (v4) (HTML))

Knnn, kif, stsho . . . gods, the whole pot had been stirred when this Outsider, this human, dropped into the middle of it. An uncomfortable feeling persisted at the back of her neck, like a cold wind of belated reason. The whole dock at Meetpoint, zealously trying not to hear or see anything amiss, with a fugitive on the loose and the kif on the hunt. . . .
There was no particular evil in the stsho-except the desire to avoid trouble. That had always been the way of them. But they were different. No hani read past the patterns. No hani understood them. And, gods, if the knnn were stirred up- along with the kif. ...
She swallowed the dry mouthful and washed it down with a draught of gfi, poured herself another cupful. Tully ate with what looked like appetite. Food disappeared all round the table, and the plates rotated for second helpings.
"I'm going to put Tully on limited assignment," she said. "He can't read, sure enough. But some things he can do." He had looked up. "Niece," she said, "you're no longer junior-most on The Pride, this run. Ought to make you happy."
Hilfy's brown study evaporated into disquiet. "He's junior-most?"
"A willing worker," Pyanfar said, with a wrinking of her nose. "Your responsibility in part, now."
"Aunt, I-"
"I told you how it was, niece. Hear? You know what we're dealing with, and what stakes are involved?"
"I hear," Hilfy said in a faint voice. "No, I don't know. But I'm figuring it out."
"Kif," Geran spat. "They're different, when the odds go against them."
"Once-" Haral said, and winced. The knnn song was back again, shriller. "Rot that."
"Close," Pyanfar judged. It was exceedingly clear reception. She met Haral's eyes facing her down the length of the table, more and more uneasy. The song continued for a moment, too loud to talk above it, then wailed away, gibbering to itself into lower tones.
"Too rotted close," Haral said. "Captain-"
Pyanfar started to push herself back from table, surrendering to anxiety.
"Chanur Captain," com said far more faintly, a clicking voice speaking the hani tongue. "Chanur Captain-don't trouble to acknowledge. Only listen. ..."
Pyanfar stiffened, looked toward com with a bristling at her nape and a lowering of her ears. Everyone was frozen in place.
"The bargain you refused at Meetpoint . . . is no longer available. Now I offer other terms, equal to the situation. A new bargain. A safe departure from this system, for yourself and for the Faha ship now at dock. I guarantee things which properly interest you, in return for one which doesn't. Jettison the remnant of your cargo, hani thief. You know our ways. If you do the wise thing, we will not pursue you further. You know that we are the rightful owners of that merchandise. You know that we know your name and the names of your allies. We remember wrongs against us. All kif. . . remember crimes committed against us. But purge your name, Pyanfar Chanur. More, save lives which were not originally involved in your act of piracy. Give us only our property, Pyanfar Chanur, and we will take no further action against the Faha and yourself. That is my best offer. And you know now by experience that I mahe no empty threat. Is this matter worth your sure destruction and that of the Faha? Or if you think to run away again, deserting your ally, will you hope to run forever? That will not improve your trade, or mahe you welcome at stations who will learn the hazard of your company. Give it up, thief. It's small gain against your loss, this thing you've stolen."
"Akukkakk," Pyanfar said in a low voice when it had done. "So."
"Aunt," Hilfy said, carefully restrained. "They're going to go after Starchaser. First."
"Undoubtedly they are." The message began to repeat. Pyanfar thrust herself to her feet. "Gods rot that thing. Down it."
Chur was nearest. She sprang from her seat and turned down the volume of the wall unit. Others had started working themselves out of their places, Tully among them. Sweat had broken out on his skin, a fine, visible dew.
"Seal the galley," Pyanfar said. "Secure for jump. We're moving."
Hilfy turned a last, pleading look on her. Pyanfar glowered back. And with Geran urging him to move on, Tully delayed, putting out a hand to touch Pyanfar's shoulder. "Sleep," Tully pleaded, reminding her, panic large in his eyes.
"For the gods' sake put him out," Pyanfar snarled, turned and thrust her own plate and some of the nearer dishes into the disposal, shoved others into the hands of Haral and Tirun and Chur, who were throwing things in as fast as they could snatch them. Hilfy started to help. "Out," Pyanfar said to Chur.
"That business in the airlock . . . get its lifesupport going. Move it!"
Chur scrambled over the top of the table and ran for the doorway in a scrabbling of claws. Pyanfar turned with fine economy and stalked out in her wake, toward controls. Tirun limped after her, but Pyanfar had no disposition to wait. Anxiety prickled up and down her gut, disturbing the meal she had just eaten, sudden distrust of all the choices she had made up till now, including the one that had a slightly crazed Outsider loose on the ship in a crisis; and knnn near them; and their eyes blinded and their ears deaf to the outside. . . .
She walked into the darkened bridge, slid into the well worn cushion which knew her body's dimensions, settled in and belted in, heard the stir of others about her, Tirun, Hilfy, Haral. The kif voice continued over com. Elsewhere she heard Tully pleading with Geran over something, trying to get something through the translator which he could only half say. She started running perfunctory clear checks, all internal, threw a look toward her companions. Haral and Tirun were settled and running personal checks on their posts, rough and solid and intent on business. Hilfy had her ears back, her hands visibly shaking in getting her boards ready. So. It was one thing, to ride through kif fire at Meetpoint . . . quite another to face it after thinking about it.
"Please," a mahendo'sat voice came through, relayed suddenly from Hilfy's board to hers. "Stand off from station. We appeal to all sides for calm. We suggest arbitration. ..."
They had thrown that out on longrange, plea to all the system, to all their unruly guests, this station full of innocents, where all who could in the system had taken refuge.
And among them, Starchaser.
"That had to antedate the other message," Pyanfar said morosely. "It's all old history at station." That for Hilfy, to get her mind straight. Tully was still talking: she took the translator plug from her ear, shutting down all communication from that quarter, trusting Geran's not inconsiderable right arm if all else failed.
"Captain." That was Chur on allship. " Lifesupport's on and the lock's sealed again."
"Understood, Chur," she muttered, plying the keyboard and calling up her course plottings. "Take station in lower-deck op." She would rather Chur on the bridge; but there was Tully loose; there was a kif loose, and time running on them-it was getting late to risk someone moving about in the corridors. She spun half about, indecisive. Hilfy, the weak link, sat at com, scan backup. "What's the kif doing? Any pickup?"
"Negative," Hilfy said calmly enough. "Repeat of message. I'm getting a garble out of ships insystem, no sign yet of any disruption. The knnn. ..."
That sound moaned through main com again, a transmission increasingly clear and distinct. Closer to them in this maelstrom of dust and debris. Pyanfar sucked in a breath. "Stand by to transmit, full sensors, all systems; I want a look out there, cousins." She started throwing switches. The Pride's nervous system came alive again in flares of color and light, busy ripplings across the boards as systems recalibrated themselves. She hit propulsion and reoriented, reached for the main comp.
"Gods," Tirun muttered, throwing to her number-one screen the scan image which was coming in, a dusty soup pocked with rocks. "Ship," Haral said suddenly, number-one scan, and overrode with that sectorized image. Panic hit Pyanfar's gut. That was close to them, and moving.
"Resolution," she demanded. The Pride was accelerating, without her shields as yet. The whisper of dust over the hull became a shriek, a scream: they hit a rock and it shrilled along the hull; hit another and a screen erupted with static. "Gods, this muck!"
"Shields," Haral said.
"Not yet."
"No resolution," Tirun said. "Too much debris out there. We're still blind."
" "Gods rot it." She hit the airlock control, blew it. "We lost something," Tirun said; "Beeper output," Hilfy said at once. "Loud and clear. Aunt, is that our decoy?"
Pyanfar ignored the questions, harried. "Longrange com to my board. Now."
It came through unquestioned, a light on her panel. She put the mike in. "This is Pyanfar Chanur, Hinukku. We've just put a pod out the lock. Call it enough, hakkikt. Leave off."
And breaking that contact, to Hilfy: "Get that on repeat, imp, twice over; and then cut all signal output and ID transmission and output the signal on translator channel five."
Half a second of paralysis: Hilfy reached for the board, froze and then punched something else over, static-ridden snarl, a hani voice. "Chanur! Go! We're moving!" It repeated, a rising shriek of urgency like that of the debris against the hull.
"It's not our timeline," Pyanfar snapped at Hilfy, but Hilfy was already moving again, outputting one transmission, then clearing, reaching with ears back and a panicked look after what recording she had been ordered, however insane.
"Prime course laid," Haral pronounced imperturbably. "Referent bracketed."
"Stand by." Their acceleration continued: the dust screamed over the hull. Another screen broke up and recovered.
"Aunt," Hilfy exclaimed, "we're outputting knnn signal."
"Right we are," Pyanfar said through her teeth. She angled The Pride for system zenith, where no outgoing ship belonged. A prickle of sweat chilled her nose, sickly cold, and the wail over the hull continued. "Readout behind us," Geran said, "confirmed knnn, that ship back there." Gods rot it, nothing was ever easy. Differential com was suddenly getting another signal in the sputter of dust. "Chanur! Go. ..."