Chanur's Legacy Read Online Free PDF Page A

leave.”
    “I don’t know, ker Chanur.”
    “Captain will do. And don’t you?”
    Ears lowered. The boy found a spot on the deck of interest. “I don’t remember what I did. They say I broke some pottery. And hit a kifish gentleman.”
    “A kifish gentleman.” The boy was delicately bred.
    “I don’t remember that part,” he said. Add new to drink and bars.
    “You weren’t in communication with your ship.”
    “No, captain.”
    “Not since?”
    “No, captain.”
    “And you’ve no notion why your captain suffered a lapse of memory either.”
    “No, captain.”
    “Na Meras, that answer could get very tiresome over the next several months. Possibly even by tomorrow.”
    “I’m sorry, captain.”
    “What’s your name, na Meras?”
    A glance up, ears half-lifted. “Hallan, captain. From Syrsyn. —I—I met your aunt once, on Anuurn dock. And ker Haral ...”
    Her ears went down. She remembered a dockside, at Anuurn, too, a parting with the crew. A handful of bitter words.
    There was absolute adoration on the boy’s face-not, she was sure, cultivated on any Sahern ship. And sensitivity enough to realize he had just trod on dangerous ground. Bewilderment ... confusion. He had the sense to shut up, give him that.
    “Are you married in Sahern, lateral kin, ... what’s the relationship?” It was a measure of how often and how long she had been downworld that she did not track the lineages any longer. He could be related to the Holy Personage of Me’gohti-as for all she knew.
    “No relation,” he said, managing to locate that spot on the deck again.
    So a tasteful person would stop asking. Look at the boy. Figure a kid wanted a berth. And Sahern gave him one.
    She shot a glance up at Tiar. “I think the lad could stay in passenger quarters.”
    “I can work maintenance. I have my license.”
    “That’s to prove. In the meanwhile—“ Practicalities occurred to her. “I don’t suppose you came with baggage.”
    “Everything—“ The boy made a despairing gesture. “Everything’s aboard the Sun. “
    “Sun Ascendant? —TellunSahern?”
    “Yes, captain.”
    More bad news. “We’ll get you caught up to your ship, or drop you where you can make connections ...”
    “I want to stay here.”
    “On Meetpoint?”
    “No, captain. On this ship. I want to stay with you.’ ‘
    “The Legacy has a full complement. No berths.” She saw the ears go flat, the frowning attitude of not quite resignation, and ticked down a Watch this boy, a little sense of resistance there. Of ... one was not certain what. “You want my long-term advice? Ship home. Go back, work insystem cargo if you’re so dead set on space.”
    “No, captain.”
    A little flare of temper. A set of the mouth. Gods-rotted fool kid, she thought, and glared. What did I do to deserve this?

Chapter Two
    The stack from the translator was 532 pages thick ... counting the alternative translations successively rendered. That was the first pass the comp had made. The legal advisement program advised that its analysis of the translation would be 20588 pages in length and did the Operator want it simply to summarize?
    “Apparently the thing is a vase,” Hilfy said. Four hani faces, four worried hani faces, stared back, and blinked in near unison.
    “A ceremonial vase,” Tiar said.
    “Somebody’s grandmother buried in it?”
    “Not from what I figure. I’ve run oji through every cognate and every derivation I can find. It means ‘ceremonial object with accumulated value’ and it’s related to the word for ‘antique’ and ‘relic.’ Its transferred meanings and derivatives seem to mean ‘ceremonial object with social virtue,’ ‘communal high tea,’ ...”
    “You’re kidding.”
    “... and ‘inheritance.’ “
    “No’shto-shti-stlen’s going to die?” Fala asked.
    “Who knows?” A shrug was not politic, but it was close company, here. “Maybe gtst is designating a successor. Maybe the old son is going home to