Nomesteturjai was his name: captain Keia Nomesteturjai. Jik to tongue-bound hani, this thin, anxious-looking mahe. “Sit,” Pyanfar said and, spinning the com-post chair about, backed Jik into it. She leaned on the counter and one chair arm with not an arm’s length between their noses. “Where’s Goldtooth?”
“Not know sure.”
“What, not know?”
Jik’s dark eyes shifted uncomfortably at that range. “Think near Kefk.”
“_Kefk!_”
“Not know sure.” The eyes shifted back and forth, bloodshot-rimmed. “Not good make guess.”
“Gods and thunders, what are we in?”
“You go Mkks?”
She stood back. “Khym. Get him a hot drink, huh?” Gods. Him. A weary twitch went through her nerves, a panic rage at biology.
But: “Aye,” Khym said and went. Pyanfar sat down on the counter edge. Haral settled one hip on the console near her station, to keep an eye to things, Tirun slouched onto the padded arm of observer two.
“We talk,” Pyanfar said. “Real slow. You understand me.”
“Not sleep,” Jik said, wiping a lank, blunt-clawed hand over his face. His shoulders slumped. “God, lousy course change Urtur system.”
“It took us out,” Pyanfar said. “Come on, Jik. What’s going on out there? Hilfy and Tully are headed for Mkks, Chur’s in hospital, they’re dicing up my ship, the Personage says he’s sorry and don’t discuss the knnn I’ve had on my tail.”
The arm went stiff in mid-motion, eyes fixed on hers. “Knnn.”
“Out of Meetpoint. Maybe to here. I don’t know. Kshshti stationmasters are nervous as stsho. What’s going on?”
“Got kif take human ship. Human lot upset.”
“Knnn take human ship, gods rot you, tell it straight! And I’ve got other news. Ship named Ijir. The other courier with other humans. Kif got it.”
“God.” He leaned back against the leather seat, arms on either rest, and looked at her. “How you know?”
“Message from Sikkukkut an’nikktukktin. Same as got Tully and Hilfy.”
“_He_ got Ijir?”
“Don’t know.”
Jik let go a deep long breath. His reddened eyes traveled up again as Khym padded in with a tray. Khym offered him the first, stiffly courteous, and Jik took it without a flinch. “We not meet. Both Gaohn station.”
“Huh,” Khym breathed, a grinding in his throat. But his ears came up with interest. He passed cups around, kept one for himself and settled, silent—gods, decorous—on the arm of the com-station seat, empty tray aside on the counter, quiet as Haral, as Tirun.
“Hunter ship,” Pyanfar said for Khym’s benefit, while Jik drank gfi and wrinkled his nose, shuddering as he drank. Gfi was not a mahen favorite, but it was substance and Jik seemed to need that. The strength looked to have drained out of him as if he had run a long, long time. “Best pilot in mahen space,” Pyanfar said, not lying. “You talk to the stationmaster, Jik?”
Weary eyes lifted, guileless. “Go station center, talk.” Another sip of gfi, another small shudder and grimace at the taste. “Got ask you—Pyanfar. Where packet?”
She drew in a long, long sip of her own cup. “What packet?”
Jik swallowed hard. The gfi was hot and tears sprang to his eyes, which acquired a heat of their own and a hard glitter of thought. “Bastard,” he said. “No game.”
“It isn’t. When they get my tail back working, huh? You know, it occurs to me with Aia Jin in port they might take me off priority. They got hunter ship, huh? Not need hani now.”
“Fix.”
“Sure, they will.”
He sat there a moment, breathing in and out and a good deal more rapid going on behind his eyes. “You got packet, huh? Kif got Tully, you got packet and you go Mkks. What want? Give both to kif?”
“Maybe trade.”
The least uncertainty crept into his expression. “No. You no do.” It became fear. “You got too much smart, Pyanfar.”
“No,” she said, gazing deep into his eyes. “I got friends. Don’t I, Jik?”
He drew a breath, “You give packet. Damn, hani! You try hold this thing, Kshshti authority board and take!”
“Stationmaster doesn’t know it exists. Does he? Not Eseteno, not Tt’om’m’mu, not our pink-slippered cutthroat Stle stles stlen. But you know. And the fewer know it exists, the better. Don’t you think?” She jabbed a claw at him, “How’d the kif know to move that quick, to set up an ambush on the docks? How’d we get set up, huh?”
“You say Stationmaster?”
“You say kif make lucky guess?”
“I know this Eseteno. No. No, Pyanfar. Not. He honest, long time got post. Trust him.”
“All right. That’s one. But how far down the line does honest go? How much does it take? Kif got some security agent’s relatives, make deal, huh?”
Jik’s dark face was very sober, ears down. “All time possible.”
“Maybe same got agent repair crew, huh?”
“Kif want you go Mkks. Want blow ship there got lot chance. Not need sabotage.”
It made sense. It was the cheerfullest reassurance she had had since the docks blew up. She drew her mustache down, thinking on the odds.
“Give packet,” Jik said. “Got go Maing Tol, this packet. I ask. Number one important.”
“Goldtooth’s observations, is it? His report—what’s going on out there in kif space. Knnn stuff too.”
Jik’s small ears went back. “You got no profit make guess, Pyanfar.”
“I make deal. I trust my honest mahe friend.
That repair crew stays on the job and my engineer gets specs on those parts number one quick.”
“Got.”
“Got authority, do you? Lot of authority, same as Goldtooth.”
Jik’s ears twitched. “Some thing yes.”
“Some thing, huh? You want this packet, you go with me to Mkks.”
“Hani, I guard you tail at Gaohn!”
“Guard it at Mkks and you get the packet.”
Gently: “You bastard, Pyanfar.”
“You same kind bastard. You say, you do. I know this.”
“I go Mkks,” he said.
“Get the packet, Haral.”
Haral moved. Jik leaned back into the leather cushion and watched, bestirred himself to take it when it came, this largish several-times crushed envelope with a dark stain at one corner. “All here?” Jik asked.
“Everything they sent me. What are you going to do with it?”
“Try find honest captain.”
“In this port? Stay away from the hani.”
“A?” He looked her in the eyes and the ears sank slowly before they came up again. The face had no fool’s look, not now. “Trouble, huh?”
“Lot trouble.”
“You come.”
“Come where?”
“Come with. We talk these hani.”
“No.”
Jik stood up. “I go. Sure thing we talk. Want share?”
“Gods rot -- Gods rot it, I’ve got enough trouble! Leave my name out of it!”
“They got jealous, huh?”
“Look, look, you earless lunatic, there’s laws, there’s regulations I already break—The han’s after my hide, you understand me? Chanur’s got troubles! You want to hand them proof, huh? It’s illegal for me to work for foreign government, understand? Against the conventions!”
“You carry cargo government give.”
“_That’s_ legal. Gods rot it, you know the distinction. You trade, what time you’re not up to no good—“
“So you carry cargo.” He lifted the packet. “Same legal.”
“Look, look, Jik—old friend. They’re looking for an excuse. They want find trouble, understand? You’ll get us skinned, all of us.”
“What choice got? Pyanfar, good friend, goes h choice. Packet got go.”
“Send it with the tc’a!”
Ears flicked. “No.” Short and sharp, a small flicker in the eyes that rang alarms. “Not number one good idea, Pyanfar.”
More alarms. Methane-breathers, with their own interests. Tt’om’m’mu rearing up behind his glass, violet and murky phosphorescences.
“You come,” Jik said. “Maybe better you be there, huh, stop stupid mahe say wrong thing these honest hani?”
“No! Absolutely no!” She got up, flung off across the bridge, waving her arms and dislodging Khym from her path. She looked back again. Jik still stood there with the packet in his hands and that Tully-look on his too-narrow mahen face.
“Pyanfar.” He held up the envelope.
“No,” she said.
“Chanur,” the Ehrran said, Rhif, rising from a much-scarred and grimy chair. KSHSHTI PORT AUTHORITY the office said on the outer door, in four different alphabets with letters missing. CONFERENCE in three: the hani line had fallen off altogether and left only brighter paint behind, misspelled.
“Ehrran,” Pyanfar said. And with a glance at the other hani captain in the narrow room: “Ayhar.” Jik closed the door behind them both and they were all alone with each other.
“You?” Ehrran asked of Jik. “The Personage send you here?”
“No,” Jik said quietly, with unflappable good nature. “I ask Personage send you.”
It shot straight through Ehrran’s guard and Pyanfar got a quick furtive breath and swallowed it quick, straight-faced, watching the Ehrran’s face.
Quick re-thinking, by the gods. Rhif Ehrran drew herself up, mouth not quite closed, and then it did close, and the Ehrran stared closely at this raffish-dressed mahe.
“Sit,” Jik said, “captains, I ask you.”
Pyanfar pursed her mouth and sat, watched first Banny Ayhar lower her portly self into a grimy seat and then fastidious Ehrran, who looked as if she had a mouthful of salt and no idea where to spit.
“What I got ask,” Jik said, taking his own seat at the battered table, in this despicable little office, “what I got ask-“ He laid the rumpled envelope on the table. “Need courier.”
“_Who_ needs?” The question got out past Ehrran’s well-groomed mustaches. “I’d like to see some Signature, if you don’t mind.”
“A.” Jik bent a lank wrist toward his kilt belt, deftly whipped up a small folder, spun it across the table. “That good?”
The Ehrran picked it up as if it had been charged, extruded claws to pull the two leaves apart, and read something there that brought her head up and her ears to level. She mutely flipped the holder closed and spun it back again. Jik replaced it.
“Know you,” he said. “Rhif Ehrran. Where you course?”
“_Han_ business.”
“A. Maybe got same business lot trouble kif. Maybe got invoke treaty.”
“Maybe you can get Chanur to do your work.”
“Maybe invoke treaty. Need you, Ehrran.”
Ehrran’s eyes smoldered. One claw came out, traced a pattern on the tabletop, a clean green line amid the grime. “I’ve got business, mahe.”
“So. Maybe got. I got. Got hani citizen with kif. Got hani shot up, a? No, I tell you, ker Ehrran. You in mahen space, inside mahen agreement—“ Jik held up one blunt-clawed finger, forestalling a word from the Ehrran. “You here, a? I call other side treaty, got number-one emergency, got need ship run courier—“
“You want to buy other hani?”
“_Gods rot--!_” Pyanfar straightened and a dark-furred mahen arm landed slam! on the table between her and the Ehrran.
“I make request,” Jik said. “Of-fi-cial, a? Treaty stuff. Now, we got cooperative agreement, agreement like I tell you, Ehrran. You got say yes, say no. You honor treaty?”
The ears were flat already, the fine fair nose rumpled, the eyes ruddy amber. “What do you want?”
“You on hunt. Tell you this hunt go Mkks.”
“_Mkks!_”
“Mkks, hani. Got other thing Ayhar do.” He shoved the packet skidding at Ayhar’s startled grasp. “You got priority undock, captain. You got. You run damn fast. Know you. Know you, Banny Ayhar. You got lot year, lot smart. I know, huh?”
Ayhar’s ears sank. Her eyes showed white rims. “Where?” Ayhar asked.
“Maing Tol.”
Banny Ayhar drew the packet up in her hands, drew her mouth down taut, not without a shift of her eyes Ehrran’s way. But Ehrran never looked. “No trouble,” Ayhar said, all quiet.
“Good,” Jik said. “You go. Go fast, ker Ayhar. You not talk, you not wait. Got six rny crew see you get car, see you car get ship. Dock crew already work get you out.”
Ayhar stood up, the envelope still in her hands.
“You not open,” Jik said.
“Gods be feathered if I want to,” Ayhar muttered, and looked this way and that . . . delayed then, with a look back. “_Ker_ Pyanfar. You want that crewwoman ferried out?”
“No,” said Jik ahead of anything. “You run. Run hard. Not ask why. You not got safety. Not got choice.”
“See here—“ But it faded. Whatever Ayhar had meant to say faded out. She looked a moment at Jik and turned then, the envelope in her hands, and vanished out the door.
Ehrran had gained her feet, ears flat. “Chanur,” she said, “out.”
Pyanfar leaned back and fixed Ehrran with a cold stare. “I’ll stay, thanks. I can sit proxy to Chanur’s interests. Or is the mahen captain more privy to han business than a member is? I’m here to witness. Formally.”
Ehrran drew a long, long breath, and her eyes were dark-centered. Perhaps she considered the recorders. “Kshshti’s already had one security breach. . . .”
“_My crew_, my niece, my passenger, Ehrran. You want to talk to me about security breach—“
“We’ll settle that. Elsewhere. This action of yours-“ Ehrran looked at Jik, with no more pleasant face. “My course is Kefk.”
Jik waved a loose, limp hand. “Now Mkks.” The hand returned to his hip above the gun and rested there. “Ten, maybe twelve hour. You think got business Kefk. No. Lousy place, Kefk. You no go.”
“To do what? To do what at Mkks?”
“You stay my tail, a? You dock left. Dock right, Chanur. Three number one bastard go take walk Mkks docks, a?”
There was a long, long silence. Ehrran stood staring, hunter-fix. “Right,” Ehrran said. “Ten hours. I’ll trust this gets authorized higher up, na Jik.”
She walked out, flat. The door whisked shut. “Pyanfar,” Jik said, and gestured that way, in Ehrran’s wake.
“Huh.” Pyanfar got up with a grimace, collected herself and followed Jik outside, where three of his crew waited, all of them gaudy as Jik himself, even toward raffish; guns carried openly. An abundance of gold chains and armlets, and one had a knife.
“All done,” Jik said, laying a hand on her shoulder, “got fix good, a?”
“Sure. Sure, fix.” She looked round at him with her ears back. “Expensive fix, friend. She won’t forget.”
“Got soul like kif, that hani.”
“Number one right. What business? What’s she after?”
The hand squeezed, a pressure of blunt claws. The mahe’s dark eyes wrinkled round their edges and looked only tired. “This Ehrran hunt hani ship. Not you, no, she got rumor got hani work many side this thing. han lot upset. This Rhif Ehrran, she want this renegade real bad. Think maybe you, a? han lot crazy. They don’t like the stsho make sudden clear paper, bring you to Meetpoint. Got lot suspicion, the han. I tell you, Pyanfar, you got go home talk sense these hani.”
“_Who_ cleared those papers up?”
Jik pushed her doorward. She braced her feet.
“Who, gods rot it?”
“Goldtooth talk good stsho, got same treaty, a?”
“Stle stles stlen.”
Jik rubbed the bridge of his nose, where an old scar showed gray. “Same got Ayhar.”
“_What_ ‘same got Ayhar’?”
“Stle stles stlen. Got somehow station damage charge, a? Got big bill, Ayhar. Stsho seize Ayhar cargo.”
“O gods.”
“Lot scared, Banny Ayhar. Stsho send here, direct route, run courier old bastard Stle sties stlen. Same come Vigilance. Same Stle stles stlen got long talk Rhif Ehrran after you leave Meetpoint, a?”
“That eggsucker!”
“One scared hani, Ayhar.”
“Gods rot. What’s gtst after?” But ideas occurred to her. A certain bill. A detailed report to the han sent by way of Vigilance.
And another thought muddled past, about timing, information and mahen interests. “You came from Kura, huh? Sure, you did.” Jik held up both hands. “Maybe come Meetpoint. Forget these detail.”
“Gods rot it, can’t somebody tell the truth?”
“Lot truth.”
“Sure.” She jerked her arm as he laid a hand on it to move her on, and he gave her all her reach for distance between them. “_Sure_,” she said. “Maybe fifty-fifty, huh? What happens now when I get outbound? Maybe have an accident? -- Sorry, old friend? Repair crew made a mistake? Hope you enjoy the trip? Gods rot—“
“No. Swear to you.” Jik held up his hands again and dropped them. “Say message come to Kshshti. I get same here.”
“Who sent you here?”
“Mahen agent, a? Got here, there agent, same hani, same kif. I not say more, Pyanfar. See? I one time try tell truth, got big trouble.”
Ayhar? she wondered. Gods, no. Not Banny, not that lot. They loved their liberties too well.
Methane-breather? T’T’Tmmmi had come in from Meetpoint. She had seen it on the list. It was still in port.
Tt’om’m’mu’s spy, reporting to methane-side of Kshshti? Circles upon circles. It sent a cold, cold feeling to the stomach.
Knnn. But no one talked to knnn. No one could—excepting tc’a.
“You come,” Jik said, mistaking overload for acquiescence, taking her by the unresisting arm, flinging his over her shoulders. “Get you safe back ship, Pyanfar. Got time maybe catch sleep. Tell you truth . . . I come Kura way, lousy long run. Sleep make you better, a?” He squeezed hard, dropped the arm again as they came out into the general offices and walked through. Mahen crew hastened to open the outside door. Station guards stood with rifles beside the waiting car.
Kura. Kura was in hani territory. And Ehrran had folded fast when she had a look at the authority in that small wallet Jik had at his belt. Ayhar-Ayhar had been folded before she got there, ears down.
Scared. Plenty scared.
She got into the car at Jik’s side in back, surrounded by mahe whose musky flavor got past the perfumes. A guard caught her eye, one curly-furred and smallish, and alarms rang.
“That one,” she said to Jik, digging claws into his knee, “outside—“
“Name her Tginiso,” Jik said, ducking his head to look past her out that window. “Eseteno aide.”
“She was with the car when Hilfy went. Her fur’s not singed.” For a moment the air seemed very close, the scent of mahendo’sat all-enveloping, and she knew who she was talking to, hunter-captain, mahe with mahen interests very much at stake. She felt Jik’s arm shift across the seatback.
“Move,” he said to the driver in the mahen tongue. The car leapt forward with a burr of the motor, wheels bumping on the plates like a panicked heartbeat.
Not a word from Jik, only a shifting of his eyes from one side to the other, watching everything along the sides.
Pyanfar watched him, among the rest. Friend. Companion. Along with Rhif Ehrran.
The car thumped along, dodged pedestrians.
Jik took out his pistol and thoughtfully took the safety off in his lap, no small piece like her pocket gun, no, nearly as long as his forearm, with a black, wicked sheen. The mahe on the other side drew hers and kept scanning the surrounds, the whisk of gantries past, of lines, machinery, canisters, all places for ambushes.
Berth five passed. Jik spoke to the driver in something mahen and obscure. “We go close,” Jik said. “Want you go fast up ramp.”
“Gods rot it, my whole lower deck’s occupied.”
He pressed her knee. “Same good get you safe in ship.” The car veered: a ship access and guards loomed into the way and the car veered again, bringing the door even with the access. The door flew up and Pyanfar scrambled out with Jik and the crewwoman close behind.
Up the ramp then, a slower pace, the long, chill walk through that yellow gullet with the L bend to the lock. Pyanfar looked back, looked round again as they reached the lock and Jik laid a hand on her shoulder.
“Safe. Safe here.”
“Sure. The stationmaster’s handpicked aides—“
“Listen. I know you safe.”
“_You_ know. What’s in that ID, Jik? Who are you? Who are you working for?”
Both hands settled on her shoulders. There was nowhere to look but dark mahen eyes, a plain mahen face. “You got watch on you deck, understand, got number one good watch.”
“Who? What are you talking about?”
Jik’s lips went tight. “Mahe take orders somewhere else. Same good tech, a? Not make mistake.”
“Like that aide? Safe like that?”
“I fix.”
That left cold after it. Jik lifted his hands from her shoulders, held one finger up.
“Then,” Jik said, “get good sleep.”
“Ayhar’s jumped,” Khym said, who sat monitor on com, and the board checks paused for the moment. He scribbled furiously on the lightpad and his florid scrawl came up on screen three as Haral punched it through, a string of numbers meaningless to him, but he got them down with speed.
Heading, velocity, strength of field.
“It’s on its way,” Tirun muttered, and Pyanfar felt a twinge of relief as the full scan input went to the number two: no pursuit.
There was a tc’a out. T’T’Tmmmi. Outbound on the same heading, none too quietly.
TC’A TC’A TC’A TC’A TC’A TC’A TC’A
transmission said, with ship-function babble in all its harmonics, a tc’a ship fully occupied with tc’a business and the speaker thinking only of its/their jobs. Tc’a did not lie, so the story ran, could not. Once a tc’a began to output, the underminds had to be there or the harmonics failed and the whole matrix fell into gibberish.
So someone non-tc’a had reckoned, from what gtst thought tc’a had claimed, a hundred years ago.
She went back to work, running checks through the systems, resetting failsafes and running them again and again, putting comp through one and the other simulation as it re-programmed itself.
“_Pride_.” Khym’s low voice, answering some call, in the profound silence, the click of keys, the sometime shift of a body in a leather seat. “First is busy. Can you—“ The shift of a heavier body. “_Ker_ Tirun. It’s Vigilance. They want a crew member.”
Tirun muttered something and took it. “Gods rot,” she said. “You don’t need to go up the line for that, Ehrran . . . . That was a crew member.”
Pyanfar turned around.
“Fine,” Tirun said, and punched the contact out. “That’s a confirm on the Ayhar jump.”
Pyanfar said nothing. There was nothing to say. Tell Khym to stand his ground and ignore a request for higher authority? But next time it might be something that truly had to get someone more knowledgeable. Log the discourtesy? Who would read it but the han?
Khym was busy already, a look of concentration on his broad, scarred face the while he listened to station chatter that flowed past him like so much babble, sorting for anything of interest, anything of tc’a or knnn, anything of kif or mahendo’sat. Doing the best he could.
In Hilfy’s vacant post.
Pyanfar turned back again, twisted in her seat a third time as she heard the lift work down the corridor.
“Captain!” Tirun spun her chair as she did, as she came out of her chair reaching for her pocket and Khym was out of his place.
“Identify.” Haral had usurped com function to her panel and keys clicked to freeze locks, but the lift door opened all the same.
Hani. Hani and smallish and one of their own.
“Geran,” Pyanfar muttered, and the gun went back. No rejoicing, not from any of them. It was not that kind of time, an hour to go and Geran out of place.
“Something wrong?” Pyanfar asked as Geran walked onto the bridge. “Chur all right, Geran?”
“Left her below, snugged in.”
“Gods and thunders!”
Geran shrugged, padded over to main scan, rested a hand on her seatback and looked round again, ears at half, and obduracy in the stare she gave back. “Don’t like to cross those docks, captain. Scary place out there.”
It took a good long moment of even breathing to cope with that.
“Geran—“ in a tone quiet enough to warn a chi. “We’ve got one hour, one gods-rotted hour to get things sorted out. You two—“
“Captain, please.” Geran’s voice sank to the same level, but all wobbly. “Chur’d kill me for saying it, but she’s scared. Gut-scared. Being left here—the ship and all—where’d she be? What good’s two of us—here? By ourselves? Where’s home, but The Pride?”
Something superstitious settled into her own gut, nothing reasonable. “Look. We’re not after suicide, hear me? Jik’s in port. He’s got Vigilance on our side for what she’s worth. We’re going to Mkks to do some good. Hear me? Now get Chur back where she belongs.”
“She is. Same as me.” Geran’s claws sank into the chairback, tendons stark on the backs of her hands. “What’s all this new stuff worth with half a crew, huh? Chur can walk—walked across that dock out there from the lift, she did, just fine.”
“Good gods.”
“The plasm took; the wound won’t tear. Got her packed in real good and the time-stretch’11 give her a good few days to heal. Might be on her feet by the time we get to Mkks—“
“The gravity-drop’ll kill her.”
“No. Not Chur.”
She folded her ears down and Geran stood her ground, meant to stand it, gods knew. And they needed that pair of hands. Needed hands that could fit hani-specific controls, fit a hani crewwoman’s space. “Gods rot,”,she muttered and walked off the other way with a wave of her hand. “Bring her topside. Put her in my cabin. Put her close to us. Pack a med kit in there.”
“My cabin,” Khym said. “She can have mine.”
“Do it.”
“Thanks,” Geran said, all heartfelt. “Thanks, captain.”
“And get yourself back here. We’ve got a tight schedule, huh?”
“Aye!” Geran scrambled and took Khym with her.
Pyanfar looked at Tirun and Haral. Tirun’s face carefully showed nothing; Haral’s was toward the boards, occupied with business.
“Odds just went up,” Tirun said, “captain.”
“We need crazy people on our side?” She threw herself into the chair, powered it about again, feeling a shameful comfort to know one more seat was filled. The lift hummed, Khym and Geran going down to see to the transfer.
“Getting a confirmation from Aid /in,” Haral said, who still had com. “Getting a readoff on course, They’re putting us out gods-rotted deep in the well.”
She looked at the figures that flashed onto monitor one. “Huh.” She keyed that data set into the simulator and watched the lines tick across the screen, affirmative, affirmative, can-do. It was still The Pride’s boards, but something alien answered from aft, up the circuit-synapses through the metal spine. “Huh.” It made her nervous, in a way that camera-view did not, that picked up the wider vanes, the rakish lines of the vane-columns. That was plain to inspection. The heart and core of it was not, that added some twenty percent to their unladed mass and threw varied percentages into the figures of moving that mass. Old familiar reckonings went by the board. They had to lean on comp entirely, trust it without the dead-reckoning knowledge what the answers ought to be, when it told them The Pride could make a jump that she could never in a mahen hell have survived half a week before.
“We go with it,” she said.
Continued in
THE KIF STRIKE BACK
The Compact
The Compact is a loose affiliation of all trading species of a small region of stars who have agreed by treaty to observe certain borders, trade restrictions, tariffs, and navigational procedures. It is an association, not a government, has no officials and maintains no offices, except insofar as all officials of the various governments are de facto officers of the Compact.
The hani
Native to Anuurn, hani may be among the smaller species of the Compact, but the size range, particularly among males, is so extreme that individual hani may overreach and outbulk the average of other, taller species. Their fur is short over most of their bodies except for manes and beards. It ranges in color from red gold to dull red brown with blackish edges, and in texture from crimped waves to curls to coarse straightness.
Hani were a feudal culture divided into provinces and districts a few centuries previous to the events of The Pride of Chanur. They had well-developed trade and commerce when they were contacted by the spacefaring mahendo’sat (qv) and flung from their middle ages, with its flat-earth concept and territoriality, into interstellar trade.
The way of life previous to that age had been this: that individual males carved out a territory by challenge and maintained it with the aid of their sisters, currently resident wives, and female relatives of all sorts, so long as the male in question remained strong enough to fend off other challengers. Actual running of the territory rested with a lord’s sisters and other female relatives, at least a few of whom, if he was fortunate, would prove skillful traders, and whose marriages with outclan males would form profitable links with the females of other clans. Such males as lived to become clan lords were sheltered and pampered, kept in fighting trim at the urging of their female relatives, and generally took no part whatsoever in interclan dealings or in mercantile decisions, which were considered too exacting and stressful for males to cope with. The male image in most households was that of a cheerful, unworldly fellow mostly involved in games and hunts, and existing primarily for the siring of children and, in time of challenge, idolized for those natural gifts of irrational temper and berserker rage which would greet the sight of another male. The females stood between him and all other vicissitudes of life. Much of hani legendry and literature, of which they are fond, involves the tragic brevity of males; or the cleverness of females; or the treks and voyages of ambitious females out to carve out territory for some unlanded brother to defend.
Under the management of certain great females, vast estates grew up. Certain estates contained crucial trade routes, shrines, mountain passes, dams—things which were generally the focus of ambition. Certain clans formed amphictionies, associations of mutual interest to assure the access of all members to areas of regional importance, which was usually done by declaring the area in question protected. Out of such protected zones grew the concept of the Immune Clan; that is, a clan whose hold over a particular resource must not change, because of the need of the surrounding clans to have that resource managed over the long term by a clan with experience and peculiar skill: such clans devoted themselves to public service and dressed distinctively. Immune males enjoyed great ceremonial prestige and were generally cloistered and pampered, while the sons of Immune houses were without hope of succession except by the death of the lord by natural causes. To attack an Immune male was a capital offense, bringing all the area clans to enforce the law.
This form of regional government proved successful in bringing Enafy province, where the Llun Immune had its seat, to preeminence in the great plains of the Llunuurn River. Enafy province spread its influence through trade into other regions and other amphictionies sprang up, some less benevolent. The concept of amphictiony spread to other continents and races and, while other cultures survived, generally they were small, or so divided that they managed little growth: the Enafy and Enaury of Anuurn’s largest continent spread their culture by trade and occasionally by intrigue and by marriage and alliance.
Into this situation came the mahendo’sat, who chose for their landing site the Llunuurn basin, as the most extensive river system on the planet and the area with the most developed roads and habitations. Because of this selection, initial contact happened to be with the largest and oldest amphictiony, in the lordship of na Ijono Llun.
Na Ijono’s sister ker Gifhon Llun went out to meet the intruders, since they were neither hani nor (as Gifhon assumed incorrectly in several cases) male. By the time she understood what she was dealing with, dealing had begun, trade had been offered, and the world, without Gifhon’s clearly realizing it for some years, had forever changed.
Other amphictionies felt threatened by this relationship of Enafy province to the mahendo’sat and the elevation of the Llun clan from supervisors of the dams of the lower Llunuurn tributaries, to supervisors of a starfaring shuttle-port and station. The mahendo’sat played one against the other and snared all the hani leaders into trade.
The hani amphictionies, however, whether or not it accorded with mahen intentions (and perhaps it was the intent of the mahendo’sat from the start) began to deal with each other in the concept of a much larger amphictiony, one with Anuurn itself as the Resource which had to be protected.
So the hem was created, the council of councils, the heart and center of hani government, microcosm of the world in which alliance, province, clan and Immunity still played their role—as, indeed, han has another meaning as a collective meaning All Hani. Theoretically every hani lord was ceremonially part of the body: some actually attended and addressed the assembly. The seats, one to each clan, belonged to the female heads of household, or, in practice, to any senior female in the vicinity of the several meeting halls, one of which existed and exists in every province. The han is thus composite, and only infrequently holds a true general meeting, the location of which is subject to intense negotiation.
Hani relations with other starfaring folk were not generally positive. The stsho (qv) were not in accord with the mahendo’sat intervention on Anuurn: their motives might be judged to be several—unwillingness to see the mahen sphere of influence increase; the fact that they and the hani shared a territorial border; their distrust of all virtually exclusive carnivores based on their experience with the kif (qv); their fears of instability in the Compact; or other reasons which like minds might comprehend. The kif understood the arrival of the hani on the scene as opportunity, in the exercise of which they were driven back by mahendo’sat and hani combined. The opinion of the compact’s other species was never solicited nor received.
Hani territory included originally Anuurn system. The name of their home star is Ahr. The planets of Ahr system are, in order: Gohin, a hot and barren world without atmosphere; Anuurn itself; Tyo, a cold, barren world partially terraformed for a hani colony; the gas giants Tyar and Tyri; and frozen Anfas. Gaohn station was built by mahendo’sat in orbit about Anuurn and turned over to Llun, whose males were the only hani males ever to leave the surface. Kilan station was built in orbit about Tyo, never particularly prosperous; and Harn station was built as a shipyard facility.
The Chanur Family
A very old clan of Enafy province, occasionally obscure but more often involved in the amphictiony of Enafy under a series of ambitious leaders, Chanur sprang into considerable prominence as one of the first clans to see the benefits of offworld trade.
Kohan Chanur is current lord: his principle mates are Huran Faha, Akify Llun, Lilun Sifas. Actual manager of the estate is his aunt Jofan Chanur par Araun. His sisters are Pyanfar, Rhean and Anfy Chanur, whose mates are of clan Mahn, Anury, and Quna respectively, and who captain the ships The Pride of Chanur, Chanur’s Fortune and Chanur’s Light. His daughters are: Hilfy, by Huran; Nifas, by Akify, among others; and two sons (exiled).
Araun is a tributary clan, rated as cousins to Chanur; other cousin clans are Tanan, Khuf, and Pyruun. Jisan Araun par Chanur was mother to Haral and Tirun through an obscure tributary clan lord from remote Llunuurny, long since defeated and replaced by a male Haral and Tirun declined to support, leaving him to his numerous if unambitious sisters. Nifany Pyruun, Jofan Chanur’s blood cousin, is birth-mother to Chur and Geran and a son in exile. She is administrator of Chanur offices in the port authority. Kohan’s most recent defense of Chanur was against Kara Mahn, son of Pyanfar Chanur and Khym Mahn. Mahn, a nonspacing clan in the Kahin Hills nearby, remains an uneasy neighbor with Kara in Khym’s stead, and his full sister Tahy at the head of Mahn’s financial interests.
Hani language and religion
There was not, of course, one language, but the Enafy dialect of the Llunuurn valley became standardized as the language of commerce and diplomacy. With considerable resistance it was adopted as the language of the han and is the only language heard offplanet.
The language was the vehicle of the spread of Llunuurn culture planetwide and carries it into space.
Terms of respect are: ker, title of a high clan woman; na, title of a clan lord; par maternal daughter of a clan. Nef is the title of an ex-lord, who is no longer entitled to be called by the name of his clan.
Hani terms of disrespect involve uncleanness; age (eggsucker implies one too old to hunt moving game); disavowal by clan (bastard is an inaccurate translation, since legitimacy cannot be at issue in a matrilineal descent); the deities; the condition of the ears, which tell a great deal about one’s efficiency in self-defense. More peculiar is the use of feathered, an impious reference to a hani religious debate; and son, as in gods give you sons; since male offspring do no work and are exiled at puberty to return and attempt to take over the estate in their prime, a house with many sons is in constant turmoil.
The Mahendo’sat
Among the tallest species of the Compact, tending to ranginess and length of limb, the mahen-do’sat have fur ranging from sleek sheened black to curly brown, with all gradations in between. Their claws do not retract, and are more a tool of utility than a weapon. They are omnivores, native to Iji, from which they control a considerable territory. Their neighbors on the one side are the hani, on the other the kif, with whom they share some territory in dispute.
The mahendo’sat have more than a hundred languages native to Iji. Their own lingua franca is chiso, which not all mahendo’sat speak; and very many mahendo’sat have never succeeded in learning even the simplified pidgin that they popularized during the hani contact. Ironically, this species which pursues both art and science for its own sake and which is continually engaged in research of all kinds, cannot translate either into or out of its own set of languages with any degree of accuracy, which some might suspect indicates more than apparent idiosyncrasies in psychology as well as physiology. The fact that the pidgin is mostly hani rests on several facts, most of them having to do with the mahendo’sat’s inability to translate their own tongue. First, mahendo’sat and stsho were already in communication with great difficulty through a bastard tongue involving kif, who spoke stsho. Second, when hani came into the picture, hani proved able to learn kifish and stsho and with their long experience as traders, evolved a pidgin hani that blended with the current pidgin and virtually supplanted it. This proved something even mahendo’sat could handle, and which kif had less trouble with than they did with stsho. So the mahendo’sat took to it with relief.
As for the inner workings of the mahen culture, even the species name exists in some uncertainty. Mahe is generally singular, sometimes plural; and mahendo’sat actually seems to stand for the species collective mentality, or the species as an entity, or for some concept which refuses translation as nation or species. The term han in its application as the collective of the hani species is clearly a reflection of mahen influence in the formative phase of hani world government.
Mahendo’sat are often collectors, which they have in common with stsho; but mahendo’sat are most interested in natural objects and make elaborate gardens, an art which they taught to the hani, whose gardens nevertheless maintain a hani-like plainness and agricultural practicality. Mahendo’sat on the other hand are devoted to design and derive philosophical meaning from the growth patterns of their carefully tended trees. Mahendo’sat also keep pets, a trait they share with stsho and perhaps tc’a (qv) but mahendo’sat are likely to keep difficult ones and to lavish care on exotics. The history of the mahen species is one of pocket kingdoms, continual religious ferment, mysticism, leaders with self-claimed credentials rising to some purpose and vanishing in what may have been a tradition of such vanishments. They are greatly concerned with abstracts and courtesies, symbol and hidden meaning.
Modern and ancient mahen authority rests on Person, involving dignity and charismatic appeal, and interlinking Personages in an elaborate chain of command in which one appoints the next, but in which a higher Personage may be brought down by the malfeasance or error of an appointee. Mahendo’sat set great store by this indefinable quality and esteem it where found, to such an extent that they likewise choose to honor or ignore members of other species with complete disregard of those species’ own concepts of authority. Personages are of either of the species’ two genders, usually of mature years. Personages come in many ranks and levels of authority, but all are attended by a Voice, a person usually of the opposite gender whose apparently self-appointed task it is to represent the Personage and to utter unpleasantness which the Personage is too serene to deal with.
The mahen social unit is complex, revolving around personage: mating is at apparent random, but Person has a great deal to do with it. Young are traded about with apparent abandon, but this also has to do with the bonds of Person, and the desire to expose the young to good influence or superior instruction.
The mahen government currently rests with a Personage at Iji whose serenity is untroubled; but in the fashion of mahendo’sat, this and the entire form of government are subject to change without notice.
The Stsho
The stsho, native to remote Llyene, are a pale, hairless species, trisexual hermaphrodites, one of each triad bearing young: but that same individual may exist within another triad as a non-bearer. Stsho refuse to explain.
They are omnivores of great sensitivity and fragility. Their limbs break easily. Their very personalities fragment under stress, which seems to serve as a social absolution. It is very impolite to recognize a stsho who has changed persona, or as stsho call it . . . Phased. An individual seems to go through many Phases in life.
They trade. They are aesthetes and enjoy subtle distinctions in taste and sight. They have forty-seven different words, for instance, for white.
Like hani, they prefer bowl-structures for chairs and beds. Their elaborate architecture is apparently random and universally pastel in color.
They are the only natives of Compact space who need drugs to survive jump.
They permit no intrusion of oxygen-breathing species within their territory, but they are utterly incapable of enforcing this except through their relationship with the unpredictable methane-breathers who divide them from kif territory. They share one border with the hani; methane-breathers come and go within their space; and to their considerable distress they have discovered humans are at their backs, on the side of stsho space nearest Llyene, which is a mysterious and forbidden world.
They were among the first spacefarers in the region, anomalous, because their primary policy seems to be to acquire the widest possible area about their homeworld from which strangers are excluded. Certainly they did not seem to go to the stars to make contact with outsiders. Or perhaps some experience lies in their past which has made them what they are. Stsho allow no real information about stsho to leak out of their space, which greatly vexes the curious mahendo’sat.
Legendarily Llyene is a treasure world of fantastical wealth. It is certain that stsho trade is lucrative in all directions, and that they are the source of a great deal of technology that the mahendo’sat turn to various purposes.
The Kif
Kif are tallest of the species of the Compact, very lean and having virtually no body fat. They are mostly hairless, except for a close-growing strip down the midline of their elongate, long-snouted skulls—which is seldom visible, as kif go robed and hooded and seldom bare their heads. The skin is gray and soft, if very tough and much wrinkled, and hot to the touch of hani or mahendo’sat. They are agile and strong; their claws are retractable and very sharp. Their eyes are usually red-rimmed: they prefer very dim light. What their genders are is a matter of guesswork. They may have two, but outsiders often use it of a kif in complete uncertainty, and he by convention which the mahendo’sat began: kif use he and occasionally she of themselves, but whether this precisely reflects a mahen/hani style gender distinction or something more like the stsho is still uncertain. Kif give few clues to aid the guesswork.
Kif got into space independently, through an arms race, and acquired starflight through contact with tc’a, whose wisdom in this other species question.
Kif are totally carnivorous, incapable of swallowing anything very large. Two independent sets of jaws exist within the snout, one to bite, another to reduce the intake to pulp and fluids. They prefer live food, and actually have rather delicate appetites: they are repulsed by carrion and could not easily handle cooked meat.
Color does not play a part in their decor, which is generally utilitarian and often black and gray. The light in their dwellings is quite dim. They have keen night vision, and indeed much of their homeworld dwelling is underground, though some mahen scientists have disputed on the basis of the kifish eye (smaller than the eyes of other nocturnals on other worlds) whether the species did not in fact originate as a diurnal hunter and change its lifestyle in the remote past. As kif do not share data with mahendo’sat, and stsho and hani have no interest in the question, it goes unanswered. Curiously kif do practice art, which seems confined to objects of ordinary use, weapons, cups, boxes and containers, which are embellished in tactile patterns. They place little value on mass-produced goods and great value on objects they believe to be unique, or on consumables such as rare and endangered species or uncommon liquors. They do appreciate intoxicants of various kinds but are the most moderate of known species in their consumption: individual kif who have become intoxicated have been killed outright by their companions.
Kif are facile linguists, great mimics, and in particular speak fluent hani, as well as their own several languages. Their homestar is Akkt, their homeworld Akkht, which outsiders often confuse, and reputedly both mean home or homebase, since home as understood by kif has the connotation of a place to which one repairs to gather one’s forces for the next season. When they discovered outsiders, the shock and subsequent period of organization enabled a few leaders to seize power on Akkht, and eventually let the space-faring kif seize power over Akkht entirely.
Kif have historically had little organization, usually engaged with each other in disputes and continual snatching of property from weaker kif. They have the concept of sfik, or face, in which the stronger will hold to a thing and defy all comers. The more attractive and unique the prize, the greater the sfik. Their interest in art perhaps revolves around this; of particular _sfik_-value are consumables or perishables which may be destroyed or used at any moment and for calculated purpose to frustrate the enemy. Taking such a thing is difficult and of great value, and there are also legendary destructions of great and valued objects.
Along with sfik there is also pukkukkta, which has no true translation except as a devastating blow to a rival.
Usually the kif operate as individuals or as crews, in which one kif is supreme, and weaker kif, if not protected from this one, are at least protected from other kif.
Sometimes a kif rises to a position of supremacy in which others fear to challenge him and in which he gathers great fear and support from those about him. Such a kif is a hakkikt, which kif say means prince. A hakkikt’s existence usually means a period in which outsiders will have trouble with kif. There is a growing expectation among kif that a hakkikt will arise to unite all kifish worlds into a power the rest of the Compact cannot withstand.
Tc’a
Tc’a are serpentine beings, leathery gold, methane breathers, native to Oh’a’o’o’o. They have a multipartite brain that thinks in matrices and communicates in harmonics. The mouthparts are toolusing. They can bulk a dozen times the weight of a mahendo’sat and bear several young at once, without apparent attention to the process, which has happened in the middle of conversations. They do trade, and mine, and what they think remains tc’a business. They usually run the methane side of stations in the Compact, since so far as anyone knows they are the only methane breathers interested in doing so. They are associated with chi and knnn (qqv), and while a great deal is known about tc’a comings and goings and while they take no aggressive action against any species, virtually nothing is known about the tc’a mind or the history of the species, except that they were in contact with the chi before they met the stsho, and were extremely early spacefarers.
Chi
Chi are neon yellow sticklike beings who (which?) move with great rapidity and often seem to be in total panic. “Crazy as a chi” is a hani proverb widely understood.
It is uncertain whether chi are associates of the tc’a or pets. Chi can run ships but are erratic navigators and it is virtually certain they did not invent their own technology. Tc’a are not found without chi, though occasionally chi may nest in communities into which tc’a do not appear to go.
Natives of Chchchoh, chi regularly accompany tc’a into the most hazardous mining areas. No oxygen-breather has ever reported visiting Chchchoh. Tc’a will not permit it, for what reason is unclear. It is known that chi reproduce by growing a second brain at some point midway along their bodies. Additional leg segments follow; then fission, and the newborn chi races off independently. Gender with a chi is therefore of questionable application. Activities have been observed which may be mating, but this is uncertain.
Knnn
No one knows the name of the knnn homeworld. No one knows if their ships have names-except perhaps the tc’a or the chi, who do not say. No oxy-breather is even sure which star they come from, except that it is on the underbelly of the Compact, and suspicion centers around one star known to be a hub of knnn activity.
Knnn look like black nests of hair-snarl with spider legs. Packrats of the galaxy, they breathe methane and sing long involved songs over ships’ radio. They are (perhaps) miners and (one supposes) traders, but their idea of trade (as best the tc’a could communicate with them) is to dash onto station or ship, and exchange what they’ve brought for what they want or what they take a fancy to. In the bad old days, knnn simply gutted ships. They go in swarms or solitary, and their ships are the only ships known to change vector in jumpspace. They have a jump boost and turn maneuver that is impossible for oxy-breathers. They are not popular. One can only talk to them through the tc’a, who can get a kind of general translation-if you can understand the tc’a’s seven-part matrix-sentences.
Knnn ships observe no lane regulations or instructions, and no one is about to challenge them on the point. It is suspected in some quarters that the knnn may have been the origin of much of the technology of the Compact. No one except the stsho knows whether the stsho actually devised their own technology, and perhaps stsho in general do not know: certainly they do not comment on it.
Knnn were unknown at Anuurn until Pyanfar Chanur brought them there. Her people are not grateful.