“The knnn seems to have intercepted a gift of mine meant for the kif. It’s confused, I’m sure. Probably it’ll return the tc’a. — It was, at the time, a matter of necessity, revered mahe.”

“Necessity!”

“Only spoiled food, I assure you. Nothing more. — We were on the point of discussing repairs to my ship… which are urgent. You’ll not want me sitting at your dock any longer than you have to. Ask the honest captain of Mahijiru.”

“Outrage!” the Voice proclaimed. “Extortion!”

“Shall we discuss the matter?”

The fluffball suffered another transfer, to the nearest of the dignitaries, and the Voice looked to be preparing for verbal combat; but the Personage lifted a placid and silencing hand, motioned the group back down the corridor, delaying to give an instruction regarding the tc’a. Then the Personage led the way back into the comfortable room down the corridor.

“Profit,” Pyanfar said quickly and soothingly when the elder mahe and his entourage turned to face her and hers.

“Trouble first with kif and now with knnn and with tc’a. Deceptions and hazards to this station.”

“A new species, revered mahe. That’s the prize that has the kif disturbed. They see the hope of profit the like of which they’ve not known before; and I have the sole surviving member of his company, a spacefaring people, communicative, civilized, wise mahe, and fit to tilt the balance of the Compact. This was the prize at Meetpoint. This was the reason of the loss of the Handur ship, and this was the part of my cargo I refused to jettison. Surely we agree, revered mahe, what the kif meant to do if they had gotten this information first. Shall I tell you more of my suspicions… that the stsho knew something about what was going on? That kif meant to annex a large portion of adjacent space… having intimidated the stsho? That having done so, they would then be in a position to expand their operations and rearrange the map of the Compact to suit themselves — an acquisition from which the other members of the Compact would be positionally excluded; only the stsho… who would lick the kif s feet. And what future for the Compact then? What of this Compact which holds all of our very profitable trade together? What of the balance of things? But I shall tell you what I have: a tape, a tape, my good, my great and farsighted mahe elder, for a symbol translator… a tape which the kif spent sapient lives to obtain and failed to get. We aren’t selfish; I make this tape available to mahendo’sat as freely as hani, in the interests of spreading this knowledge as far as possible among likeminded people. But I want my ship repaired, the fines forgotten, the assurance that Chanur will continue in the friendship of this great and powerful station.”

The Personage laid his ears back, his eyes dilated. He turned away, leaving his Voice to face the matter. “Where come this creature? How we know sapient? How we know friendly?”

“Tully,” Pyanfar said, and put a hand on his arm and drew him forward. “Tully, this is the Voice of the stationmaster . . friend, Tully.”

For a terrible moment that arm was tense, as if Tully might bolt. “Friend,” he said then obediently. The Voice frowned, peered this way and that at Tully’s face… on a level with the mahe’s own. “Speak hani?” the Voice asked.

“I go on Pyanfar ship. Friend.”

Gods. A sentence. Pyanfar squeezed the arm and put him protectively behind her. The Voice frowned; and behind the Voice the Personage had turned back with interest. “You bring this trouble to us,” Stasteburana said. “And knnn… why knnn?”

“A resident of Urtur. I claim no understanding of knnn. It’s become disturbed… but not of my doing, noble mahe. The safest thing for Kirdu Station in all events is to have me safely on my way… and to have that, I fear, there’s a matter of certain essential repairs—”

The elder flared his nostrils and puffed breaths back and forth. He consulted with his Voice, who spoke to him rapidly involving kif and knnn. The Personage turned back yet again. “This tape deal—”

“—key to another species, revered mahe. Mahendo’sat will have access to this development; meet ships of this kind — assured peaceful meeting, full communication. And mind, you deal with no stranger, no one who will cheat you and be gone. Chanur expects to be back at Kirdu in the future, expects — may I speak to you in confidence — to develop this new find.”

Stasteburana cast a nervous glance at Tully. “And what you find, a? Find trouble. Make trouble.”

“Are you willing to have the kif do the moving and the growing and the getting? They assuredly will, good mahe, if we don’t.”

The Personage made nervous moves of his hands, walked to the one of his companions who held the angry ball of fluff and took it back, stroking it and talking to it softly. He looked up. “Repairs begin,” Stasteburana said, and walked near Tully, who stood his ground despite the growling creature in the mahe’s arms. The growling grew louder. The mahe stood and stared a long moment, gave a visible twitch of the skin of his shoulders and lifted a hand from his pet to sign to his Voice. “Make papers this sapient being. Make repairs. All hani go. Go away.” He looked suddenly at Pyanfar. “But you give tape. We say nothing to kif.”

“Wise mahe,” Pyanfar said with all her grace, and bowed. The Personage waggled fingers and dismissed them in the company of the Voice, and the fluff growled at their backs.

So, Pyanfar thought, as they delayed at the desks outside, as nervous mahendo’sat officials went through the mechanics of identifications with Tully. So they had promises. She kept her ears up, her expression pleasant, and smiled with extraordinary goodwill at the deskdwellers. Chur kept her hand hovering near Tully’s arm, at his back, constantly reassuring him at this and that step, answering for him, keeping him calm when they wanted his picture, urging him to sign where appropriate. Pyanfar craned forward, got a glimpse of a signature of intricate regularity which could not be an illiterate’s mark in anyone’s eyes.

“Good,” she said, patted Tully on the shoulder as the document went back into the hands of mahendo’sat officials — looked about again, nose wrinkling to a scent of perfume, for two stsho had just come into the offices. They stood there with their jeweled pallor looking out of place in mahendo’sat massive architecture, the huge blocky desks and the garish colors. Moonstone eyes stared unabashedly at Tully and at them. Capacious stsho brains stored up a wealth of detail for gossip, which stsho traded like other commodities. Pyanfar bared her teeth at them and they wisely came no closer.

The papers came back, plasticized and permanent, with Tully’s face staring back from them, species handwritten, classification general spacer semiskilled, sex male, and most of the other circles unfilled. The official gave the folder to Pyanfar. She gave it to Tully, clapped him on the shoulder, faced him about and headed him for the door, past the gawking stsho.

Elsewhere, she trusted, orders were being passed which would get a repair skimmer prioritied for The Pride. The mahendo’sat’s prime concern had become getting rid of them at utmost speed: she did not doubt it.

There would be a mahe official demanding that tape before all was done: that was beyond doubt too. There would be some little quibble which came first, repairs or tape; repairs, she was determined. The mahe had little choice.

They walked the corridor to the right from the office doorway, toward the lift, the three of them, past occasional mahendo’sat office workers and business folk who either found reason to duck back into their doorways or anxiously tried to ignore them.