Free Pride of Chanur by C. J. Cherryh Page A

help more than that.
    That was logic speaking.
    But it hurt.
     
     
    IV
    She sat and listened a time in her cabin, finally contacted Geran belowdecks and turned over the monitoring to her. "Faha," was Geran's only comment.
    "Hilfy knows," Pyanfar said.
    "So," Geran murmured. And then: "I'm on. I've got it."   
    Pyanfar signed off and sighed heavily, sitting on the edge of her bed, arms on her knees-finally took a mild sedative and undressed and curled up in the bowlshaped bed for a precious while of oblivion, trying not to think of emergencies and contingencies and the horde of kif prowling about the system.
    That did not work, but the sedative did. She went under like a stone into a pond and came out again startled by the alarm- but it was only the timer going off, and she lay in the bedclothes with her heart slowly stepping back down to normal.
    "Any developments?" she asked lowerdeck op by com from her bedside, not even having crawled from beneath the sheets, but thrusting an arm out to push the bottom on the console. "Anything happened while I was off?"
    "No, captain." Haral's voice answered her. A shift change had occurred in her off time. "The situation seems to be temporary stalemate. Station is broadcasting only operational chatter now. We aren't getting much from the kif. Nothing alarming. We'd have waked you if there was news."
    So their orders ran. Interpretations of emergency varied; but Haral was the wisest head in the crew, the canniest. Pyanfar lay there staring at the ceiling a moment and finally decided she might take her time. There was nowhere to rush. The rib muscles she had strained in g force had stiffened. "What about systems check? Has anyone had time to get to that?"
    "We're still running the board, captain, but it looks good all the way. The blowout was absolutely clean and the recalibration was right almost to the hair."
    "Better luck than we deserve. What's the Outsider up to?"
    "Back at work at the keyboard. Chur and Geran are off now, and Tirun's on, but I didn't feel, by your leave, captain, that Tirun belonged in there with him in her condition, and I've had all I can do with visual checks on the separation readouts-again by your leave."
    "You were right."
    "He's slept a bit. He hasn't made any trouble . . . gods, he worked till he nearly dropped over, Chur said; and he's back at it again this shift, shaky as he is. We fed him right away when he woke up, and he ate it all and went back to his drills, polite as you please. I've got his roomcom and his comp monitored from the op station, so we've at least got an ear toward him."
    "Huh." Pyanfar ran a hand through her mane and scowled up at the brightening room light. The alarm had started the day cycle in the room. "Let the Outsider work; if it falls over, then let it rest. How's Tirun making it?"
    "Limping, sore, and working with the leg propped up. She's still white around the nose."
    "I'm all right," Tirun's voice cut in, usurping the same mike.
    "You go off," Pyanfar said, "anytime you feel you ought to. We're dead drifting, and someone else can take up the slack if those first checks are run. You see to it, Haral. Anything else I should know?"
    "That's the sum of it," Haral said. "We're all right so far."
    "Huh," she said again, got out of the spring-held sheets and cut the com off, pulled on her black trousers and put on her belt, her bracelet, and her several earrings-shook the ear to settle them and gave her mane and beard a quick comb into order. Vanity be hanged. She left the cabin and paid a short visit to the galley, ate a solitary breakfast, feeling somewhat better. She turned the pager to the monitor channel in the meanwhile, listened to the chatter which was reaching them and found it much what Haral had said, a lull in events which in itself contained worrisome possibilities. By now the kif had surely figured out what had happened, and by now they would be hunting in stealth-hence the quiet. The Pride had undergone a great deal