Free Chanur's Legacy by C. J. Cherryh

before it came to me, as a birthday gift from my prospective husband.” It was white and it had a history, which she had written up in florid and dramatic detail. It had last been her late husband’s, and such historical trinkets impressed the stsho.
    Clearly No’shto-shti-stlen was pleased. The creature bowed numerous times where gtst sat. Hilfy felt constrained to bow.
    And there was, necessarily, yet another round of tea, after which she bade farewell for the second time, and walked out with the kifish guards and out into the foyer and took the lift down to the docks.
    Feeling rather pleased with herself, truth be known. She had scored with that gift. She knew the stsho, in a way most hani did not. The governor had given hersomething monetarily valuable and ceremonially valuable in the cases of tea. But she had given gtst something ceremonially and personally and historically valuable—so there, she thought, walking out onto the dockside. So there. Remember me, stsho, remember me and my crew.
    She was in such a good mood she decided against taking the public transport. It wasn’t that far, down to the Legacy’s berth. She was still in a good mood when she threaded her way through the maze of loaders and cargo transports to reach the Legacy’s personnel access. She walked on up the rampway into the yellow, uncertain tube, with its coating of frost, and she walked into the Legacy’s lower decks and operations area in an expansive, happy mood, after what she had had to do. She had at least an assurance it was going to work.
    Then she put her head into ops and saw Hallan Meras.
    “What in hell is he doing here?”
    “Captain,” Meras said, standing up at once.
    “Not bad, actually,” Tiar said; and Chihin, managing the number two console, said, “Begging the captain’s pardon.”
    “Get him back to his quarters!”
    “Aye,” Tiar said. “But he is a licensed spacer. And we are short-handed.”
    She was not in a mood for reason. Disasters were still possible. “He’s not been out on the docks, has he?”
    “No, captain,” Hallan said at once, and got up from the chair he was occupying, very respectful.
    Which made her the villain in the case.
    “Gods rot it, he’s not crew! He goes back to quarters!”
    “Aye,” Tiar said. “But he’s a help, captain.”
    “Not right now!” she said. Gods, they had outside messengers likely coming aboard. They didn’t need Hallan Meras underfoot. Even with that soulful look in his eyes.
    “Captain,” he said.
    “Don’t ‘captain’ me! You’re a passenger on this ship. Chihin, take him back where he belongs.”
    “I—“ he was still saying.
    “Kid’s done all right” Tiar muttered, as Chihin took him by the arm and drew him out the door. “He’s not had a good day, cap’n, go easy.”
    “He’s not had a good day. We’re going with the number 1 load. Skip the alternates. Berths full of kif. Snooping police. I want the gods-rotted deck clear out there, I want the fueling done—we’ve got three loads coming in tonight and we’re going to be working straight through the watch!” She was on nervous overload, on her own way to the door. ‘Tm going to run the nav-calc, I want it checked and triple checked— we’re hurrying, if you haven’t noticed. We haven’t got time for shopping tours and mahendo’sat with a deal and stray boys who’ll be reporting our ship cap to Sahern, next thing we know, keep him the hell out of stations!”
    “He doesn’t want to go back to Sahern.” She swung around, hand on the door frame, finding herself in the middle of somebody’s completely foreign dealings, that possibly went against her own. “He says. Don’t cut him any deals, cousin! You don’t know what he did, you don’t even know he isn’t a total mistake—‘Take this poor lost boy,’ the stsho say. In the same gods-rotted conversation with their deal—and / don’t know what connection if any the two have, I don’t know why they didn’t