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

"You do understand," she said. "That translator works both ways. You worked very hard on it. You knew well enough what you were doing, I'll reckon. So you've got what you worked to have. You understand us. You can speak and make us understand you. Do you want to sit down? Please do."
He felt after the bend of the cushion and sank down on the arm of it.
"Better," Pyanfar said. "What's your name, Outsider?"
Lips tautened. No answer.
"Listen to me," Pyanfar said evenly. "Since you came onto my ship, I've lost my cargo and hani have died-killed by the kif. Does that come through to you? I want to know who you are, where you came from, and why you ran to my ship when you could have gone to any other ship on the dock. So you tell me. Who are you? Where do you come from? What do you have to do with the kif and why my ship, Outsider?"
"You're not friends to the kif."
Loud and clear. Pyanfar drew in a breath, thrust her hands into her waistband before her and regarded the Outsider with a pursed-lip smile. "So. Well. No, we've said so; I'm not working for the kif and I'm no friend of theirs. Negative. Does the word stowaway come through? Illegal passenger? People who go on ships and don't pay?"
He thought that over, as much of it as did come through, but he had no answer for it. He breathed in deep breaths as if he were tired . . . jumped as a burst of knnn transmission came through the open com. He looked anxiously toward that bank, hands clenched on the cushion back.
"Just one of the neighbors," Pyanfar said. "I want an answer, Outsider. Why did you come to us and not to another ship?"
She had gotten his attention back. He looked at her with a thoughtful gnawing of a lip, a movement finally which might be a shrug. "You sit far from the kif ship. And you laugh."
"Laugh?"
He made a vague gesture back toward Hilfy and Haral. "Your crew work outside the ship, they laugh. They tell me no, go ####no weapons toward me. ### I come back ###."
"Into the rampway, you mean." Pyanfar frowned. "So. What did you plan to do in my ship? To steal? To take weapons? Is that what you wanted?"
"##### no ####"
"Slower. Speak slower for the translator. What did you want on the ship?"
He drew a deep breath, shut his eyes briefly as if trying to collect words or thoughts. Opened them again. "I don't ask weapons. I see the rampway . . . here with hani, small afraid."
"Less afraid of us, were you?" She was hardly flattered. "What's your name? Name, Outsider."
"Tully," he said. She heard it, like the occasional com sputter, from the other ear ... a name like the natural flow of his language, which was purrs and moans combined with stranger sounds.
"Tully," she repeated back; he nodded, evidently recognizing the effort. She touched her own chest. Pyanfar Chanur is my name. The translator can't do names for you. Py-an-far. Cha-nur."
He tried. Pyanfar was recognizable ... at least that he purred the rhythm into his own tongue. "Good enough," she said. She sat more loosely, linked her hands in her lap. "Civilized. Civilized beings should deal with names. Tully.-Are you from a ship, Tully, or did the kif take you off some world?"
He thought about that. "Ship," he admitted finally.
"Did you shoot at them first? Did you shoot at the kif first, Tully?"
"No. No weapons. My ship have no weapons."
"Gods, that's no way to travel. What should I do with you? Take you back to what world, Tully?"
His hands tightened on the back of the cushion. He stared at her bleakly past it. "You want same they want. I don't say."
"You come onto my ship and you won't tell me. Hani are dead because of you, and you won't tell me."
"Dead."
"Kif hit a hani ship. They wanted you, Tully. They wanted you. Don't you think I should ask questions? This is my ship. You came to it. Don't you think you owe me some answers?"
He said nothing. Meant to say nothing, that was clear. His lips were clamped. Sweat had broken out on his face, glistening in the dim light.
"Gods rot this translator," Pyanfar said after a moment. "All right, so somebody treated you badly too. Is it better on this ship? Do we give you the right food? Have you enough clothes?"
He brushed at the trousers. Nodded unenthusiastically.
"You don't have to agree. Is there anything you want?"
"Want my door #."
"What, open?"
"Open."
"Huh."
His shoulders sagged. He had not expected agreement on that, it was evident. He made a vague motion of his hand about their surroundings. "Where are we? The sound. . . ."
The dust brushing past the hull. It had been background noise, a maddening whisper they lived with. Down in lower-deck, he would have heard a lot of it. "We're drifting," she said. "Rocks and dust out there."
"We sit at a jump point?"
"Star system." She reached and cut on the telescope in the observation bubble, bringing the image onto the main screen. The scope tracked to Urtur itself, the inferno of energy in the center of the dusty lens-shaped system, a ringed star which flung out tendrils the movement of which took centuries, ropy filaments dark against the blaze of the center. The image cast light on the Outsider's face, a moment of wonder: Urtur deserved that. She saw his face and rose to her feet, moved to the side of this shaggy-maned Outsider-a calculated move, because it was her art, to trade, to know the moment when a guard was down. "I tell you," she said, catching him by the arm-and he shivered, but he made no protest at being drawn to his feet. He towered above her as she pointed to the center of the image. "Telescope image, you see. A big system, a horde of planets and moons-The dark rings there, that's where the planets sweep the dust and rocks clear. There's a station in that widest band, orbiting a gas giant. The system is uninhabited except for mahendo'sat miners and a few knnn and tc'a who think the place is pleasant. Methane breathers. But a lot of miners, a lot of people of all kinds are in danger right now, in there, in that center. Urtur is the name of the star. And the kif are in there somewhere. They followed us when we jumped to this place, and now a lot of people are in danger because of you. Kif are there, you understand?"
"Authority." His skin was cold under her fingerpads, his muscles hard and shivering, whether from the relative coolness of the bridge's open spaces or from some other cause. "Authority of this system. Hani?"
"Mahendo'sat station. They don't like the kif much either. No one does, but it's not possible to get rid of them. Mahendo'sat, kif, hani, tc'a, stsho, knnn, chi . . . all trade here. We don't all like each other, but we keep our business to ourselves."
He listened, silent, for whatever he could understand of what she said. Com sputtered again, the whistles and wailing of the knnn.
"Some of them," Pyanfar said, "are stranger than you. But you don't know the names, do you? This whole region of space is strange to you."
"Far from my world," he said.
"Is it?"
That got a misgiving look from him. He pulled away from her hand, looked at her and at the others.
"Wherever it is," Pyanfar said in nonchalance. She looked back at Haral and Hilfy. "I think that's about enough. Our passenger's tired. He can go back to his quarters."
"I want talk you," Tully said. He took hold of the cushion nearest, resisting any attempt to move him. "I want talk."
"Do you?" Pyanfar asked. He reached toward her. She stood still with difficulty-but he did not touch. He drew the hand back. "What is it you want to talk about?"