"C. J. Cherryh - Chanur 05 - Chanur's Legacy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cherryh C J)

"I do not of course guarantee signing the contract. Please make the gift contingent on our agreement!"

"Your honor is impeccable in my eyes. No such stipulation. Please. Take it for your help in an additional difficulty."

A sip of the tea. Definitely. Two sips. "Additional difficulty."

"A matter in which your honor might, if you will, be a solution."

"In what way might I be the solution of a problem so difficult?"

"A matter of delicacy. A member of your species is stranded here at Meetpoint-clearly an oversight on the part of the ship in question. But we are most anxious to see this resolved."

"They left her."

No'shto-shti-stlen took a sip of tea, and fluttered eyelashes. "Him, if I may be so entirely forward."
Him. Gods. Hilfy did a rapid resorting, with a distinct sense of alarm. "A hani ship? Left a crewman?"

"There was-your honor will please be understanding-a slight intoxication, a breakage of insignificant items of extremely bad taste- most of all- an altercation with a foreign national of- em- higher status- which I assure your honor had been harmlessly resolved."

"The nationality offended, excellency?"

"Kif."

Gods.

"A simple misunderstanding, a few hours detention and filling out of forms ... but through some inadvertency, his ship- simply claimed a cargo priority and left without our office- em- aware of the oversight. We are excruciatingly embarrassed. We believe that perhaps they believed he was already back aboard, as did-em-an individual in traffic management, who cleared the undock."

"Did no one advise them?"

"They were unalarmed. They sent back word that it was unfortunate, but they had a contractual commitment and they urged us to send him along by the first hani ship that might consent. Your esteemed aunt, of course, had already left. Handur's Rainbow, which came in afterward and preceded you out ... did not have a berth available."

A contractual commitment?

Read that Rainbow had refused to burden itself. Damn their down-the-nose attitude.
But- gods- hit a kif of rank? Did one want to take aboard a hani with that kind of grudge?
"Can we prevail upon your extreme generosity? His presence here is an embarrassment. How do we care for him? How do we lodge him?''

"I quite understand." Think fast, Hilfy Chanur. "What was his ship's course?" Fifty-fifty it was ...

"Hoas, as happens. But everything passes through Urtur."

"In any case-" Gods, how did I get into this? But, damn it to a mahen hell ... you don't even ask his clan. He's hani. He's lost. He's been dumped here, gods rot them- if the kif claim him, the stsho can't resist that pressure. Small wonder they want him out of here before there's an incident.

"We can pay his passage," No'shto-shti-stlen said.

"No. No. Forgive my unseemly distress. I could not possibly accept payment. This is a question of ..." Stsho had no equivalent for species-honor. "... Elegance."

"Another case of tea."

"Please." On the other hand. At three thousand the case. "On the other hand-"