The lift worked, down-bound, two hani kif-hunting in the lowerdeck; and soon enough, one kif coming up topside, near sensitive controls. Unease crawled up and down Pyanfar’s spine. She flicked switches at her board, taking some of the Pride’s automatic reflexes under her own hand while Tirun and Khym, where that lift let out, entered corridors that could become a four story plunge straight down if The Pride’s thrust cut in for some unexpected reason-like an avoid-alert.
They were perhaps cavalier about such scramblings-about while The Pride was inbound at some commercial port, with safe lanes and the prospect of a long, sedate voyage under inertia.
Kefk lacked all such guarantees.
“You stay course.” Jik’s voice sputtered into the complug in Pyanfar’s left ear: Haral had relayed it, on slight delay, Pyanfar flicked her ears back, looked at the time-differential ; of several situations ticking away on the upper margin of the number four monitor. Not enough time for her query to have gotten Jik’s direct response: half that. He had anticipated the question, she reckoned, when he himself had acquired beacon image from some source, maybe one from Kefk station itself. “Sikkukkut’s transmitting,” Hilfy said. “Same sort of thing.”
If anything short-flashed between Harukk and Aja Jin or Vigilance, close as they were riding within their own little band of kif, Jik gave no clue to this. ‘ ‘We got system scan now, got Kefk output, they not want trouble, a? Nice friendly port.”
Gods. “We stay it,” Pyanfar said to the crew about her. She twitched in misery; fatigue settled like a hot iron between her shoulderblades and into that shoulder and elbow locked into the brace above the control board. She sweated and stank and shed hair; crew were no better. The hunter-ships would likely have had a shift to backup crew now and again, all crew seated in a touchy situation like this, but taking the shunt to give main-crew a chance to stretch and eat and take the kinks out of their backs. The hunter-ships would have that luxury; so would the kif incoming at their backs and up ahead; and gods only knew if the multibrained tc’a even needed relief. She left shed fur on what she touched. And the aches-gods.
“Jik says they’ve asked for a ship list over and over again. No response from station.”
“That’s not good,” Haral said.
“Not at all friendly of them,” Chur said.
“Hope that tc’a stays real close,” said Pyanfar.
“The tc’a’s still transmitting,” Hilfy said. “Same stuff.”
“How are you doing, Chur?” Pyanfar asked.
“Uhhhn. Lost a bit of weight. Gods-be concentrates . . . we got to get a hot-box on the bridge if we keep this up. Nice warm food.”
“Food?” Tully asked.
“He has a hard time biting through the packets,” Geran said. “Here . . . now. You got to have the teeth for it, friend . . . He’s catching on with the equipment. Knows what he’s looking at, just fine.”
“Math,” Tully said.
“Help if he could read,” Pyanfar said.
“Sure might.”
No knowing whether human instrumentation was anything like their own. And his blunt-nailed hands had no hope of hani recessed buttons. Thank the gods. There was nothing he could push.
But a kif’s retractable claws were quite another matter.
She should, she thought, have gone down to the lower deck herself and left the ship in Haral’s capable hands. Not called a kif to the bridge.
It was too late to do otherwise. She saw the flash from the optional-telltale that was presently linked to lift operation and withdrew her arm from the brace. “Haral. You’ve got it.”
“Aye.”
“We got a kif coming up. All of you-“ Pyanfar rotated her chair crew-ward. “All of you keep your minds on you work, huh? Is this going to be a problem for anyone?”
Silence.
“Even if it gets interesting.”
“Aye.” From multiple throats.
Tully turned a bewildered look her way. Hilfy never budged.
“Geran, take over com for now. Hilfy wants a relief.”
“Aye, captain.”
Hilfy swung her chair half about. Her ears were back. “I didn’t say-“
“I know you didn’t. I want you on guard. Something wrong with that?”
“No, aunt,” Hilfy said, a quiet voice. She spun back td the board and looked up as Geran released restraints and prepared to shift.
Pyanfar spun her chair the other way and undid her own restraints.
“Is this a test?” Hilfy asked.
“No,” Pyanfar said. “It isn’t. It’s the real thing. I figure you know the kif well enough. Don’t you? Maybe your considered opinion’s worth something.”
Hilfy’s ears slanted back. Her adolescent mustaches drew down in a look of distress. “Putting it on me, are you?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t by-the-rods patronize me.”
“Don’t by-the-gods foul up.”
Hilfy’s mouth opened; she shut it definitively. The ears struggled erect. There was a nick in one. A gold ring swung from the sweep of the other.
“All right?”
Ears twitched. “All right.” Hilfy’s voice shed its edge. The eyes stayed black.
Down the corridor the lift-door had opened. “We’ve got company.”
Silence then. Pyanfar stood up, facing that oncoming set, in the center of which was a tall, robed darkness that set her teeth on edge.
So a kif arrived on the bridge, in the doorway, Tirun and Khym on either side. Hilfy stood up and Geran switched seats. .
“Tirun. Take scan one.”
Tirun took the indicated post without question. Khym stayed still at Skkukuk’s side, tall as the kif, twice its size in other ways. Tirun could have cracked its bones barehanded. Khym could take it apart. Its hands were bound before it: kif limbs did not flex back conveniently.
“Captain,” Skkukuk said.
Tully had turned in his seat, just once and briefly. Something had touched his face-wariness, surely. Maybe something else. But he was eyes-to-the-scope again, his back turned to the kif. Pyanfar noted it, and her estimation of the human went up another notch with that.
“You all right, Skkukuk?” Politely posed.
Skkukuk lifted his bound hands and let them fall. His dark, red-rimmed eyes wept tears of eyestrain in the light. “This is stupidity,” Skkukuk said. “Behind the neck, hani, is far more effective. We can bite through wire.”
“Thanks. We’ll remember that next time. Do you know where we are?”
“Kefk, I suppose.”
“Why do you suppose that?”
Yet another shrug. “It was the hakkikt’s intent.”
“Sikkukkut’s.”
“That hakkikt. Yes.”
“He took you into confidence, did he?”
“It was well known among his ships.”
“Were you-among his ships?”
Skkukuk ducked his head.
“You were Akkhtimakt’s, huh?”
“I am yours now.” The dark head lifted, the jaws worked. “I lend you my sfik. I am formidable, even now.”
“You lend me confidence. Tell me, Skkukuk. Do you know Kefk?”
“Yes. Thoroughly.”
“Why do you suppose Kefk hasn’t launched a defense?”
“You want my assistance.”
“I’m asking you, kif.”
Skkukuk gave a kifish shrug and lifted his hands toward the scan posts, miming request. “Show me the situation.”
“Haral, put the scan image up on main.”
It arrived. The kif’s face lifted to the overhead, where the big screen was.
“What we’ve got here,” Pyanfar said, “is Vigilance and Aja Jin and Harukk out in front, headed into Kefk with several other ships. Kefk guard ship’ve gone inertial now. No great hurry on them. Beyond that interval, ourselves. A tc’a beside us. The rest of the kif with a ship named Ikkiktk in charge of the rest.”
“A tc’a.”
“That ship’s named So’oa’ai.”
Another small gesture of joined hands. “This is ominous.”
“Why?”
Skkukuk’s eyes went to her and Hilfy. The stink of unwashed hani and human was already on the bridge. Now there was a strong ammonia scent. “The methane folk are unpredictable.”
“Have you got reason to say that? They’ve been stirred up. Haven’t they?”
“Yes.” The ammonia reek was very strong. Kif sweat. “I advise caution. Don’t offend this thing. Don’t speak to it. Let it dock.”
“That’s what the station seems to be doing.”
“That’s the wisest thing.”
“We conduct our little disagreement in a crowded house, is that it?”
“Kkkt. That’s adequate. Yes. We do. There are always the methane folk.”
“What were you-before you offended Sikkukkut?”
“Skku to him. Subordinate.”
Her ears went back. She pricked them up again. “Friend of Akkhtimakt’s, huh?”
“Skku to him also.”
“You have one chance, kif, to tell all the truth in terms I understand. You play games with me and I’ll serve you back to Sikkukkut for dinner. After I give you to the human and my niece for their amusement. Hear?”
The kif’s head drew subtly lower between his shoulders. The hands lifted and fell. “I hear, hani.”
“Then tell the gods-be truth!”
“I’ve offered you my weapons. I will give you your enemies. Name them to me. Or let me hunt them out. I will lend you sfik. Hani can be fools.”
“So can kif, friend. What about that invitation from Kefk? Those ahead of us are going in. Sikkukkut says come in. Is it a trap, kif?”
“Of course it’s a trap!”
“Whose?”
“Sikkukkut’s. And theirs. No one is to be trusted. Keep your speed, blast all and run.” Thin hands spread as best they could. “Perhaps the station and its defenses would take out the rest. But strike Aja Jin and cripple him; Nomesteturjai would pursue you to the death. Harukk would be the lesser danger in those circumstances. Kif would desert the hakkikt in such an attack. But strike him if you have time, the same with Vigilance. Still-“ The hands fell, the shoulders hunched. “Your ship lacks weapons; and hani would not respect your sfik. Do these things and go to the hakkikt Akkhtimakt. Bring him your weapons and he will welcome you.”
“Gods be,” Pyanfar said. Her fur bristled down her back. Her ears had lain down.. She got them up again. By the kif’s shoulder, Khym stood with ears still flat. And Hilfy-
“He would,” Hilfy said. “Our kifish ally would do that. What’s he waiting for?”
“Shall I answer this person?”
“Answer her,” Pyanfar said, “and respect my crew, rot your guts. You belong to all of us.”
Again a hunch of the shoulders, a sinking of the hooded head. “I answer. Sikkukkut thinks he has sfik enough to lure Akkhtimakt to a place of his choosing. He thinks he has sfik enough that Kefk will offer him its weapons-“
“-meaning what?”
“-that. They will be part of his sfik. He will hold Kefk temporarily, beyond doubt. Possibly he will take it completely.”
“Make sense,” said Khym.
“It’s truth.” Skkukuk turned that way and theirs again, opening his narrow hands before him. “Am I to blame that Sikkukkut is a fool? And you lend him sfik. I nourish hope this is a stratagem.”
“You hate Sikkukkut, huh?”
“I would spit him from my mouth.”
Her stomach turned. “How are we doing, Haral?”
“Steady on. Transmission from our lead still says come ahead. Other situations unchanged.”
Maybe there was time to put this atrocity safely back in its confinement. Maybe not. “Get him to a seat,” Pyanfar said to Khym and Hilfy: “Move. We don’t know what we’re into. Belt it in real tight.”
“There is no need. I tell you I could free myself.”
“See he doesn’t.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Skkukuk said, straightening as Khym took him by one arm and Hilfy moved to take the other.
“One moment,” Pyanfar said.
Motion stopped.
“Question,” Pyanfar said. “Is there a hani ship named Moon Rising with Akkhtimakt?”
“I’ve met them. Several times. Kif know this ship. They are-kthok kakatk kthi nankkhi sfikun-of diminishing sfik. They brought some of the sfik of Akkukkak to Akkhtimakt, but it wasn’t much by then. They’ve been of use. Ktoht-sfik. A good knife has that. But without ornateness. One values it. One can take another.”
Gods, the logic. “Go sit down. Trust me, kif.”
“The captain jokes. Further, I am hungry. I protest this treatment.”
Pyanfar hissed and sank into her chair.
“I wish to tell the captain-“
“Sit it down. And hurry it up.” Her back was still bristled; she looked back again, to see Hilfy and Khym drop the kif into observer four and jerk the restraints tight over his arms.
Tully looked her way. There was stark fear in his eyes. . Observer four was a non-working post one* seat removed from him-much too close, by Tully’s evident reckoning.
“I don’t blame you,” Pyanfar muttered. “Me too-“ And louder: “You’ve got a job, Tully. Do it, huh? Work.”
“Aye,” Tully said, and swung about and glued himself to the scope. Chur muttered something to him. He muttered something back.
Pyanfar spun her chair about.
“Kif says it’s a trap,” Haral said.
“Figured that,” Pyanfar said. “From the start, didn’t we?”
“Sounded like good kifish advice.”
“I’m sure it is.”
A moment’s silence. “Wonder what Jik’s got in mind,” Haral said. And after a moment more: “Captain-That business about Vigilance I’ve got no trouble believing. I know Jik’s saved our necks before.”
“But?”
“But coming in here like this- Captain, you ever remotely wonder if Jik’s been working the dark spots-a bit too long?”
“It occurs to me.” Pyanfar drew a deep, deep breath. “Occurs to me real strong lately. It’s going to be a lot stronger feeling on that dock.”
There was quiet on the bridge, except for the occasional beep from a system needing the crew’s attention. “Revert to posts?” Tirun queried.
“When you’re covered,” Haral said. -Seats whispered and hummed, Hilfy and Khym settling in. Ready-lights came live in the sorting-out of crew.
“Kkkk-kkt.” From the kif.
“Shut it down.” (Tirun’s voice.)
“Jik’s response,” Hilfy said. “He says to our query, just stay it. Vigilance says, quote: Follow orders.”
“No reply,” Pyanfar said.
So what’s Vigilance up to, huh? Ehrran was still going along with it-at this range.
And Jik with that ship at his side-
Strike first, the kif advised, knowing his own kind. Kif would.
A dire, ugly thought offered itself in the wake of that musing: that all chaos might break out just about the time those ships came in; among all those kif, with projectiles loosed, accidents might happen, ships losing track of where fire had been laid down- if things went wrong, if they were betrayed and shooting started-A very easy accident. Like one hani ship running into the other’s fire. blast Vigilance’s vanes and leave them for the kif. Take out the witnesses and all those records-It was not Chanur’s style. It was, gods help them, Sikkukkut’s own simple way. -^-want make sure you not come ‘cross bow with Vigilance at Kefk-Take out the witnesses.
With The Pride lost-there were piles of evidence and charges in Vigilance’s databanks. And Vigilance could go back to the han and offer it all uncontested, how Chanur betrayed hani and the han. Take The Pride out and accuse Chanur, and let Kohan Chanur fall; then the carrion-lovers-moved in and homeworld took the course Ehrran and her ilk longed for.
But accidents could go either direction-if the shooting started.
A gods-cursed kif put such thoughts into her head. Vigilance had no kif to advise them: could an Anuurn hani ever think of such a vile thing unhelped?
Out in the dark spots too long, Haral said of Jik.
Maybe, she thought, it described an aging hani captain all too well.
“We’re getting dock assignment,” Haral said at last, as if they were approaching any port in all the Compact. “Number 2. That’s Jik beyond Ehrran, Harukk way down the row.”
“Methane-side’s transmitting,” Tirun said, “docking for the tc’a.”
“Looks like a Compact standard setup,” Haral said while Pyanfar kept her attention on business. “Give or take the guns and the guardstations. No ship-names, rot their eyes. But we got a knnn in there, along with six tc’a.”
“I don’t like that,” Pyanfar said. “Gods, I don’t like that.”
A handful of tc’a in port and two more insystem, busy, doubtless, with tc’a/chi affairs, which was mostly mining and some cultivation, in their side of the station, of the cultures which methane-breathers relished, part furniture, part food. No threat there.
But anomalous behavior around a knnn-drew attention. Undoubtedly they had its notice. It was sitting still. Minding its own business. Watching, maybe, the curious madness of oxy breathers.
“Acknowledge the instruction,” Pyanfar said.
“Kkkkt.” From the kif.
They were far past the mark when they should have started realspace braking in any friendly system. Lagtime between themselves and Jik stayed constant. Between them and station collectively it had decreased.
Suddenly Jik’s number started ticking down.
“Jik’s group is braking,” Chur said in the same moment.
“We get a confirm on com,” Tirun said.
“Looks like here we go.”
“Transmission from Harukk,” Tirun said. “They want- get that!-Orders to the kif to brake.”
“Priority: Aja Jin: Quote: Stay with the tc’a.”
“ ‘Stay with the tc’a’,” Haral muttered, switch-flicking. “Match moves with a polybrained gods-be snake-Good gods. What’s he think we are?”
“A prime target,” Pyanfar said. “That’s what. He’s next to Sikkukkut. He wants us in the old snake’s shadow, right up to station. Like we were real cozy. I’m willing if it is.” She reached and snapped the restraints in place, chest-belt and arm-brace. “Snug in. Gods, Chur-you fit for this? Straight answer.”
“I’m fit. Soon be in this chair as walking that corridor back to quarters, I’ll tell you.”
“You play hero I’ll send you for a walk.” The tc’a-blip stayed steady on, ghosting along inertial as if it knew it served as shield. She reached for another concentrates packet, solids, this time. It tasted horrid. Her stomach rebelled and she shuddered. Beside her, Haral took the same opportunity, trying to keep reactions quick and brain functioning. By this time the hunter-ships were surely on their second shift of well-rested crews.
“The tc’a’s being real reasonable so far,” Haral said.
“Does it understand?” Khym asked from com. “Are those things ever friendly?”
“Those things do what they want and gods forbid it zigs or zags. It will when it gets to approach V.”
“Knnn, now,” Haral said, “have fewer rules.”
Vid came up on last-monitor, a collection of spheres and drivepack with five vanes irregularly spaced about it.
“That tc’a?” Tully asked.
“Closest you’ll ever want to see one in motion,” Haral said. “Yes, it’s tc’a.”
“Kkkt.” From Skkukuk. “Kkkkt. Kkkkt,” a soft droning, talking to himself.
Gods-rotted kif. Skkukuk’s advice was what Skkukuk would do. If he had the guts. The sfik. The self-assurance. Shoot anything that moved.
Loyalty was measured on that status-scale. Skku, the kifish word was . . . which meant vassal.
What’s Skkukuk mean, then? Faithful servant?
Slave?
“Skkukuk. Were you born with that name?”
A silence. “Kkkkt. No.” From across the bridge, out of its furthest corner. “I’ve had it seven years.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-six. Captain, I am in discomfort.”
Mysteries and mysteries.
Doubtless hani puzzled Skkukuk too. “Kkkkt,” it said. “Kkkkt.”
“Kif, shut up.”
There was silence then.
“Tc’a,” Khym said in distress. “Hilfy, tc’a-“
Communications matrix came up on-screen. “Priority. It’s going to-“
The Pride yawed, and power slammed in. “Gods and thunders!” Pyanfar swore.
“-maneuver,” Hilfy said.
Stable again. Gods-be earless gods-be lunatic-A stream of profanity, holding the concentrates that wanted to crawl back up her throat.
Pyanfar shook. Steadied her arm. Heard Khym’s deep gasp. The Pride kept up the braking thrust.
Clang!
“Rock,” Haral said.
“No alarms,” Tirun said.
Two more rang off the hull. Ping. Boom.
“Daughter of a-!” Pyanfar kicked in the braking full.
“We’re sound,” Tirun said.
“Kif back there aren’t happy,” Geran said.
“Neither am I,” Pyanfar muttered. “Gods rot-“
The tc’a left them, rolled and slewed off in an approach maneuver that made sense to a multibrained snake.
She held course. “No following that. We’re on our own.”
“The tc’a’s transmitting,” Hilfy said. “We’re getting Aja Jin-“
Scan image crossed to main monitor. The lead ships were moving in on docking approach.
“Guard ship’s braking,” Haral said.
“Message from Harukk: Sikkukkut’s compliments and he invites our docking. Says Kefk has surrendered.”
“Tc’a-“ said Khym.
“I’ve got it-“ Hilfy’s voice, weak and strained. “That’s station, docking instructions for the tc’a.”
“Kkkkt.”
“Skkukuk.” Pyanfar shifted her eyes to look up at a reflection of the bridge. “What’s your opinion, huh?”
“The station has surrendered.”
“Where’s the trap now?”
“Kkkt. They will let you dock. Beware Sikkukkut. Beware your allies. Return my weapons, hani. Arm me with the best you have. I will be an advantage.”
“To which side?”
“Kkkt. To the side of advantage. Sikkukkut has none for me. Kkkotok kto ufikki Sikkukkutik nifikekk nok Akkhtimaktok kektkhikt nok nokktokme-kkkkt.”
Something about Akkhtimakt and meals and unique objects.
Her screen lit with a transcription, mute, from Hilfy’s post: Sikkukkut having derived service from me would find it a twice unique treasure to feast on me in the face of Akkhtimakt.
“Sounds like he’s got a problem,” Haral muttered, “if one could believe the son. Which I don’t, not half.”
“That’s confirmed from Jik,” Hilfy said. “Jik’s committing himself to dock. Harukk’s transmitting.”
“Gods rot it.” Pyanfar flexed her hand in the brace and laid her ears back. The pulse kept on hammering in her ears. “We’re fools. Gods-be kif station, gods-be lunatic mane-“ Where’s our shiplist, Jik?
“What’s he up to?” Haral asked. So Haral had thought much the same, in the secrecy of her old and wily heart, that at the last moment Jik might pull something.
“I don’t know. Hilfy; feed the schema down to Skkukuk’s screen.”
“Aye.”
“Does that look normal, kif?”
“The traffic is heavy here, but it often is. They give you no ship names.”
“No.” .
“That is alarming.”
“Vigilance going in,” Khym said.
“That’s the one,” Haral said, “I wonder about.”
“Sure thought that son would bolt,” Tirun said.
“Skkukuk. What will they do?”
“They will surrender. Slowly. Testing sfik against sfik.
Withholding the shiplist may be the station’s test of the hakkikt.”
“Or Sikkukkut’s order?”
“He has no motive to withhold it. The ships about us obey him. No, it’s a test of him. It will be an expensive test if the are not careful. Kukottki-skki pukkuk. Sikkukkut may interest himself to find the one who withstood him. Do you wish to gain sfik at Sikkukkut’s expense? Discover this fool on tin station and kill him before Sikkukkut does. Captain, I id you, it is a waste-‘”
“Priority!” Chur yelled, simultaneously with Tully. “Sys tern entry, ecliptic 23-45, V z-70-aught factor 9-“
Pyanfar’s heart stopped. A lurking ship was on a nine-C startup and headed in; a kifish beacon carried its image t< them, and relayed as it came-“Relay on!” she ordered, am Hilfy already had the system set: the message went, calmly “This is The Pride. We’ve got an incoming, Aja Jin. Take- “
And over-riding her own message: “Priority,” Hilfy said “Aunt, it’s Mahijiru! That’s Goldtooth coming in! The kif-Harukk’s sending. Don’t fire, he’s telling his ships, don’t fire, it’s allied.”
Keep your speed, blast all and run, the kif advised. No one is to be trusted.
They were hani. Not kif. “Send,” Pyanfar said past the nausea in her throat. “Pride to Mahijiru. Gods fry you, Goldtooth, it’s about time you showed up!”
Harukk went into dock; Aja Jin; Vigilance and the advance kif guard followed in final approach: “The hakkikt take dock now,” word came from Aja Jin then; and shortly after that docking a voice from Kefk central: “Oxy-side traffic control will shut down briefly,” first in main-kifish and then in hani. “Pride of Chanur, this is Kefk central: oxy-side traffic control will shut down transmission briefly and resume with Harukk personnel, compliments of the hakkikt Sikkukkut an nikktukktin; methane-side operations will continue. Please stand by.”
“Skkukuk?” Pyanfar asked.
“The hakkikt Sikkukkut has secured the dock around his ship,” the kif said from his seat across the bridge. “His force is on its way to take station central; central indicates no resistance. Hani, I am suffering. Kkkt. I am-“
“So are all of us. Shut up.”
“Beware traps. Beware-Sikkukkut knows them. Beware hidden resistance. There will be-Kkkt. Hidden resistance.”
“Where?”
“Hidden. Hidden.”
“Lot of help, kif.”
“Kkkt. Ktkot kifik kifai. . .”
“Well, we’re not kif. Thank gods.”
“Fool. Kkkt. Fool.”
“Shut him up!” (From Hilfy, harsh and desperate.)
“Quiet. Kif, shut it down.”
“Kkkkt.” (Subdued.) “Kkk-kt.”
“Shut it down.” (Tirun.) “Or I’ll break your gods-be arm.”
Quiet then, excepting a few clicks. Profound silence, around Hilfy’s station. You lost it, kid, everyone knows it, the kif knows it. Pick it up again, huh, niece? Let’s pick it up, mind on business, you’re doing all right, kid.
And a little later: “Aunt,” Hilfy said; and from com “-This is Kefk traffic control, compliments of the hakkikt resuming transmission. Ikkiktk, continue as instructed.-Pride of Chanur, compliments of the hakkikt, continue as instructed. This is Tikkukka, skku to Sikkukkut an’nikktukktin akki-hakki pakkuk Kefktoki. Compliments of the hakkikt your dock will be berth 2 as assigned.-Ikkiktk, honor to the hakkikt you will occupy berth 4; Makkurik, honor to the hakkikt you will occupy berth 25-“
“Politeness,” Chur muttered. “Politeness. Listen to ‘em.”
“Skkukuk?” Pyanfar asked. “You hear that?”
“It seems straightforward,” Skkukuk said from his post the rear of the bridge. “The hakkikt has secured station central control. Hani, I am weary of this chair; the wire cuts my wrists. I need food-Kkkt. Kkkt. I warn you my service will be wasted-“
“Just shut up about it, kif. Answer me straight. What’s likely up there?”
“What will the mahendo’sat do? Kkkt. Kkkt. What does your incoming ally intend? Kkkt. If the mahendo’sat try treachery against the hakkikt we will not be wise to dock.”
Goldtooth’s Mahijiru was still coming, inertial now. Not hurrying as much as he might. But decidedly on his way.
“Aunt,” Hilfy said, “Aja Jin advises we dock and take no connections but shielded line and personnel access.”
“Affirm and acknowledge.”
“Kkkt. Most of all beware your allies. Beware-“
“Shut it down, kif.”
“Fools, I have been given to fools.”
They kept coming. Ahead of them their lone tc’a escort underwent its lunatic evolutions on its way to docking on Kefk’s methane side. Kefk’s methane-side control sent out data matrices in tc’a communication. And camera image came up now on monitor 4, Haral’s sending. Kefk station shone in its own floods like a baleful star, lit in orange and red.
“Gods-be mahen hell,” Chur said.
“Kif have a hell?” Tirun wondered. “How about it, Skkukuk?”
No answer.
“They don’t swear, either,” Hilfy said. “Kif don’t swear, do they, kif?”
“Mind on your business,” Pyanfar said shortly.
“Kefk,” Haral said, and switched a call through-likeliest from Khym’s board. Kefk stats started up, and Tirun sorted them on comp, searching for anomalies and trouble. “All clear, all clear,” Tirun said, “we got a normal approach at this V, all standard for Kefk’s size.”
More numbers started rolling in. “Auto this?” Haral wondered. “Affirm,” Pyanfar said. There was no reason not to. The Pride took the numbers in as Haral punched into the auto-approach: tired, gods, they were all tired. A red light blinked urgently, comp’s advisement that armament was live and it was being asked to violate the law. Pyanfar overrode with a triple keypunch and logged that decision with another press of a key.
“Approach under hostile conditions,” she muttered into the recorder. “Armaments will stay live until dock.” The vid screen caught her eye. There was a tone-difference in the slowly rotating station, a few ships not taking the floods in the same way as others docked at Kefk, three, not two bright spots in Kefk’s as yet indistinguishable row of oxy-breather ships, beside the methane-sector rim. She keyed in a tighter shot. Tighter still.
“I’m not picking up any heat,” Haral said, “except on the ships I think are ours.”
Meaning no hostile ship’s engines were hot and no one unanticipated was lately come or about to bolt dock. Yet.
“We got more than kif at this station,” Pyanfar said. “Haral, have a look at vid one. We’ve got more bright spots on that rim than we ought to have.”
“I see it. Maybe the spare’s our fugitive stsho. Maybe it docked here. Maybe it had to.”
“Might be.”
“Or more of Jik’s gods-be conniving?”
“Or Goldtooth’s.”
The Pride trimmed up and lines trued on: Kefk station kept talking, realtime now for all practical consideration. The system schematic indicated a scatter of miner craft, all insystem and hardly more maneuverable than the asteroids themselves. There were the guard ships, which had shed their V and began a sedate return to their base. And Mahijiru advancing with the only speed in the system besides their own that still warranted a flashing red line on the course-plot.
“Aja Jin says they’ve got the dock secure,” Hilfy said. “Mahijiru’s requesting docking instructions.”
“Huh,” Haral said, and: “thank the gods,” from Geran.
Not going to attack then. Once the braking started in earnest- Goldtooth meant to come in.
Why? for the gods’ sakes, when he was safe and secret out where he was?
Why leave cover, Goldtooth? What are you up to-friend of mine? Another doublecross?
Or did Jik always know you were here?
“Captain,” Haral said, and gave her station-image. “Vid one. That anomaly looks mahen-type.”
Pyanfar looked. The brightness among the dull grim shapes of kifish vessels resolved itself. It was indeed another ship of mahendo’sat design.
That meant an unanticipated mahen ship at Kefk dock-or a hani.
Closer and closer. Pyanfar wiped her eyes. Fool, stay awake, stay alert, or you won’t have to worry. Kif-taint had permeated the bridge. Her nose twitched in the promise of a sneeze. She restrained it, and it crept up again and erupted. She wiped her nose. Another revolution.
Aja Jin and Vigilance and one bright-shining ship too many. “That’s about berth 8 or 20,” Haral said. “I’d sure like to know what it is.”
“So would I,” said Pyanfar. Ask Jik, Haral meant. But Jik was not saying anything about the discrepancy. No one was talking. Neither Jik nor Vigilance. “Put in a call to Vigilance. Ask them to confirm status dockside.”
“Aye,” Hilfy said, and it went. Pyanfar bit at a hangnail and watched Kefk station in its slow turning at the highest magnification The Pride could use. Definitely mahen-type craft. Definitely. Not their stsho. That stsho had to have gotten through unscathed: it would take phenomenal luck for even hair-triggered kif guardstations to stop a through-bound starship that meant to jump out again without pausing. There was small chance a sedentary force could fire anything that could intercept a high- V transit-unless they were virtually in its path. That was the nature of stations. That was their vulnerability. And the vulnerability of ships that shed V and went to dock.
“Message from Vigilance,” Hilfy said. “They confirm. Central’s secured. They indicate we’re to come ahead with caution.”
“Thank them,” Pyanfar muttered absently. They haven’t noticed? Ehrran came into a kif station denied a shiplist and never tried the vid? Jik didn’t? In a mahen hell. Jik knows there’s a ship here that doesn’t belong. And Rhif Ehrran can’t be that much of a fool. What are they together on? Do they know that ship?
She fired retros. Hard.
“Huhhh!” Haral said. Hearts must have leapt all across the bridge.
“We’re off-pattern,” Tirun said calmly then; and Hilfy: “Message from Kefk, from our escort, they query-“
“We just missed a rock,” Pyanfar said. “Tell them sweep their lousy lanes, huh?”
“We going to take a look at that ship?” Haral asked, having figured it out for herself.
“Gods-be right we are.” She had just thrown The Pride off the auto-approach timing with the station’s revolutions. Now they had to revise their figures and fuss about with revised lane-assignment and approach. A few judicious pulses might put them closer to station on a timing that would swing that surplus ship under the camera’s scrutiny.
“Gods,” Haral said, “priority, priority-we show that knnn’s engines live on the rim.”
“Gods be.” Pyanfar scanned a ripple of new information across her screens, heard Khym talking urgently on one channel while Hilfy queried the other-“We’ve got that information,” Khym said. “-Py, Jik says-“ a new image came up. Scan.
“-it’s moving out from dock, gods, gods, look at that thing travel.”
“Get it, get it-Chur, help, I’ve fouled it!” “Kkkt, Kkkkt.”
“Priority, priority-it’s transmitting-Tc’a’s answering.”
Knnn-song wailed over com. Tc’a-matrix flashed up, totally numerical.
“What’s that?” From Khym.
“I’ve got translator on it,” Hilfy said. “Our tc’a escort’s talking to the knnn.”
“Kefk transmission,” Tirun said. “Methane-side’s talking on several wavelengths.”
“Keep going,” Pyanfar said and gnawed her mustaches. “We keep on approach until they try to stop us.”
“-Priority: Translation: query, query, query, from the knnn. Tc’a response: indeterminate. Translator can’t get it. Shall we query?”
“Negative, negative on the query. Steady as we go.”
More matrix came up.
Tc’a knnn kif kif hani mahe mahe Mkks Kefk Mkks Kefk Mkks Kefk Mkks Kefk go Kefk Kefk Kefk Kefk Kefk
“Sounds like it’s just talking to the knnn,” Haral muttered.
“Tc’a’s holding course, on the average. Gods-knnn’s shifting to match-o good gods-“
“-Priority,” Hilfy said. “Kefk’s giving us a new lane assignment. They’re scheduling us on in.”
“Knnn?” Tully asked. “What do, what do?”
“Hush,” said Chur. “Quiet. It’s not ... not ... doing anything, it’s just out there.”
“We’re just going on in, Tully. Quiet.”
“Kkkkt. Kkkkkt. Kkkkkt.”
“Shut up.” From Tirun. “Or we give you to it.”
“Easy, easy,” Pyanfar muttered. “Chur-you all right?”
“Priority-Jik’s advising us come on.”
“Knnn’s close-close to our line; intercept with the tc’a, looks like-“
“There-it’s not on our numbers-“ Geran said.
“That’s match with the-Tc’a’s moving. There’s the knnn-“
“Track it. Get vid.”
“Trying,” Haral said. “Gods-be-“
Image came up, magnified in a series of jolts, the tc’a’s jumbled planes in its running lights and floods: the flare of fire where the knnn was-no running lights, no numbers, no names: the knnn took no care in navigation at all and obeyed no lanes. It was out there, that was all-it showed on scan. Fire showed. Braking.
“That’s intercept with the tc’a,” Geran reported. “Minus 23, 22, 2-“
Goldtooth was back there-minutes outside the timeline and taking cues from what old information got to him. He might have spotted the knnn by now. Might be doing anything. Or he might be waiting on cues from them. Slowing down-continuing at V-anything was potential provocation with a knnn. Pyanfar gnawed her mustaches and spat them out again, her heart pounding against her ribs.
“. . . . 3, 2-Priority.”
Scan image came up. The knnn was moving into pattern with the tc’a. Was matching V with it-that quickly, that easily. Dead stop to course-reverse: metal could never stand it. Bodies would flatten.
Tully muttered to himself. It sounded like oaths, a steady drone of them. The tc’a and knnn began to accelerate together, the joint blip moving faster and faster away from the station vicinity.
“Gods,” Geran muttered, “they’re going, they’re going. Plus 0, 25-Look at that!”
The other way. The knnn was heading outsystem, nadir with the tc’a either grappled or close in pattern. Colors shifted on the scope, incredible acceleration.
“Ah!” Tully said.
“It’s jumped!”
“Kkkt. Kkkkt.”
“Minds on business!” Pyanfar snapped. Nothing had stopped, least of all The Pride hurtling inbound to station and the chrono flicking numbers down. It was over. The tc’a was gone. Lost. And Nav-comp was flashing red lines on second monitor. “Off the mark, off the mark, gods rot it, Haral-I want that flyby. Get that equipment up, get it, hear?”
“Aye, aye, up and coming.”
“We are observed,” Skkukuk said faintly. “Kkkkt. The methane folk, I warned you. Pull us out of here. Kkkt. Fools.”
“Shut up,” Tirun said.
“There is no profit to this!”
“Skkukuk,” Pyanfar snarled, “shut it up.”
Silence then. The beep and click from instruments went on. Kif ships talked to each other. “-honor to the hakkikt,” the station took up the refrain again, “there is no damage. We are secure. Continue in pattern. Please acknowledge.”
And from Mahijiru, incoming, silence, while the knnn business unfolded on Goldtooth’s timeline.
“Stand by,” Pyanfar said, “Tirun, I want that approach calc. Take stats and set me up again.”
“Got it, got it, I’m working.”
And a little later, when station handed revised schedules down the line: “Bastards! I just had that!”
“They’re not going to bump us down-schedule,” Haral said. “They’re going to revise the whole list of ships behind us. They want us in before the kif just real bad, don’t they?”
No one answered.
“Run that schedule,” Pyanfar said. “Can we do it? Are they going to route us blind to that ship again?”
“We got it, we got it,” Tirun said after a moment, and a course plot came up.
Closer then and closer. Vid clarified. One full revolution of Kefk station. Two.
“Come on, Haral, I want that ship,” Pyanfar muttered. “Digital-record. If we miss it on sight we’ll try that.”
The station revolved slowly past The Pride’s dome cameras. No need of amplification. The serial numbers showed plain on the next station revolution, on a bright vane column.
Hani ship. 656 YAAV.
“Moon Rising,” Haral muttered. “That’s Moon Rising. Tahar!” Oaths went through com all over the bridge.
Pyanfar sat silent. Not surprised, no. It fit. It fit very well. So how large does this party get? How did Goldtooth know to meet us here? Gods, what have I got us into?
It was the red trousers, a dash of perfume enough to mask the sweating she was likely to do in hours ahead-Pyanfar took time for that, with The Pride only tentatively in dock. Shielded com line and personnel accessway connections were still all that any of their ships took from station, and station dockers made weak protest about safety and undue strain on the grapples, but they swallowed it. Sikkukkut’s ships stayed ready to move; and so did they.
It was not vanity, this scrub-down: one of them ought to look and smell presentable to kifish hosts, and she made feverish haste about it. Three of them were off-shift at the moment. She had gotten Chur to rest, over protests she should go on sitting duty while her captain took showers; “Up,” Pyanfar had said, and Chur disengaged herself and headed down the corridor from the bridge to Khym’s cabin, wobbling as she walked. The wrapped bandage about Chur’s side had gone looser, her drawstringed trousers tending perilously low on the hips. “Get her bedded down and fed,”
Pyanfar ordered Geran, laying a hand on Geran’s chair-back. “See she’s all right, huh?-Khym-“ She paused for more assignments, reviewing what useable crew she had: the personnel-combination worked out wrong, but she took what there was. “Khym, you get the galley up, Tully, you help him, hear?”
And: “Aye,” Tully said with never a flinching on his part and only an unreadable look from Khym as he got out of his chair and headed galley ward.
Pyanfar came pattering out of her quarters still damp, still putting on her bracelets as she headed down the main corridor bridgeward. Tully was coming out of Chur’s cabin, having brought food in, she supposed. “She all right?” Pyanfar asked.
Tully laid a hand on his side. “Hurt,” he said in hani, and by his look had more to say he did not trust the translator for. He blocked her path. Gestured at the door. “See. Go see, captain.”
“Huh.” She lowered her ears. Tully tended to anxieties deaf to most that went on, he got the wrong of most crises. There was no time at present for them or him. But the worry was quiet this time, anguished; and Chur-“Get,” she said. “Go bathe.” He was the worst of them save the kif. “I’ll see about Chur. Go.”
“Chur-“ He refused to be moved. “Bad hurt.”
“Get!” She waved a half-hearted blow to be rid of him, turned and punched the door control.
Geran turned from Chur’s bedside as the door hissed back, quick and quick about getting her ears up and her face composed. Chur lay there with one arm on the covers. Indeed things were not right-not right, Chur’s listlessness. Not right, the tray sitting on the table, untouched by a spacer just out of jump.
“How’s she doing?” Pyanfar asked and let the door shut.
“She’s pretty tired,” Geran said.
“Fine,” Chur said,
“Sure. Sure, you are. You’re not working next jump.” Pyanfar caught Geran’s eyes with a glance. I’ll talk to you later. And to herself: Gods, gods, gods. “You get food down her. Huh? I don’t care if she doesn’t want it.”
“Right,” Chur said, and stirred in bed. She propped herself up on her arms. “My side’s doing a lot better. I’m a lot better, swear I am.”
Pyanfar walked up to her bedside and swiped a hand across Chur’s shoulder. Dead fur came away. Too much of it.
“I’ll see to her,” Geran said. “Captain, she’s all right. She’s doing all right. Just a little drained.”
Pyanfar laid her ears back and wiped the hand on her trousers. “Take care of her,” she said. “Chur, you stay put, hear me?”
“I’ll be fine, captain.”
Pyanfar stood there a moment. It was a conspiracy of silence. Chur and Geran-Chur always the busier one of the sisters, the cheerfullest, quickest wit. the ancient hall in the house of Chanur, in the days of na Dothon Chanur. The day the cousins had come down from their mountain home to apply to Chanur for domicile-
Chur answering always, laughing, dissembling a rage at fate and the fall of Anify to its new lord. Geran dour and grim; and letting Chur do the talking, letting Chur make light of the awful decision to desert their own new lord to his folly. “Lord Chanur, that man’s a fool,” Chur had said. “And worse, he’s boring.” While Geran sat silent as a grave-wraith and tongue-tied in her wrath.
Geran looking to Chur when Pyanfar spoke to her now; brief answer and a reflexive glance Chur’s way-Cover for me, sister, talk for me, deal with them-
Geran had come out of her reticence once she took to space and freedom: she had found her own competence, learned to laugh, learned to deal with strangers, swaggered with rings in her ear and a spacer’s easy grace.
But suddenly it was Chanur’s hall again. Two sisters arrived homeless and self-exiled from the far hills; Chur doing the thinking and Geran with the knife. Conspiracy. And it was clear again who in that pair ran it all.
“Huh,” Pyanfar said. “Huh.” Chur beckoned for the tray on the table. Her ears were up. Geran moved the tray to Chur’s lap.
“She’s all right,” Geran said.
Pyanfar walked out and closed the door. She punched the pocket com. “Hilfy-are we still all right up there?”
“We’re all right,” Hilfy’s voice came back from the bridge, even while Pyanfar walked. “We got a call from Jik, just told us take it easy, he’s handling what needs be; Goldtooth’s on a leisurely approach and he’s in no great hurry to make dock as long as things are the least bit unsettled. No one’s doing much right now, they’ve got a little set-to in the methane side-got a couple of tc’a/chi locals in some kind of upset and the chi are running wild over there. The kif aren’t talking about it. At least there aren’t any more knnn in port, and things are getting calmed down over there on methane-side, it sounds as if. Gods hope.”
Pyanfar overtook the voice, walking onto the bridge, and wrinkled up her nose with the pungent aroma of the kif. Skkukuk lay listless and neglected in his chair, still secured, a mere heap of black, while Hilfy and Tirun fended calls and Haral ran ops. At least his chatter had stopped.
The kif was one more problem on her mind. One more neglected and suffering piece of protoplasm. She paused by the kif, her hand on the chairback. Skkukuk turned his long jawed head and gazed at her with red-rimmed eyes. “Kkkkt. Captain. I protest this treatment.”
“Fine, fine.” The ammonia reek was overwhelming. She felt pity and loathing at once. And a desire to sneeze/e. “Hilfy, Tirun, go offshift-get this kif down below, get him fed, let him wash up.” She let go the buckle of Skkukuk’s restraints herself and hauled on the kif’s bound arm. “Up.”
Skkukuk cooperated, as far as the edge of the seat. “Captain,” he said.
And plummeted through her hands. Pyanfar recoiled as Skkukuk hit her legs and folded the rest of the way down onto his face in a black-robed, ammonia-smelling heap. Hilfy and Tirun rose from their chairs and Haral looked and quickly swung back to business.
“Gods,” Pyanfar muttered, between dismay and disgust, and squatted down as the kif began to stir and Tirun moved to help.
Chur. Chur lying abed, the hair peeling from her skin, Chur, of the red-gold coat, the shining mane that got second looks from every man she met-fading out. Wasting under their eyes-
She grasped the kif s thin, robed shoulder and remembered jaws that could bite wire in two. It was a shoulder hard as stone. “Watch it,” she said as Tirun tried to pull him over by the hip, but Skkukuk levered himself up on one elbow and his bound hands. His hood had fallen back. He lifted his bare head in a dazed way, blinking and looking from her to Tirun. “Get him water,” Pyanfar said. Hilfy stood there. It was Tirun who got up and went. “Get your hands back from it, aunt,” Hilfy said.
It was, reckoning those jaws, only sensible advice. “Help me,” Pyanfar said, got a grip on the shoulders of Skkukuk’s robe and hauled the kif upright. “Get his feet.”
Hilfy grimaced and gathered the knees up; the two of them heaved the kif into the chair he had fallen from.
Tirun came back across the bridge in haste, bringing a cup of water. Pyanfar took it and held it under Skkukuk’s mouth. His tongue darted and the water level dropped to a last soft gurgle as the cup emptied. Then he leaned his head back against the headrest and blinked listlessly.
“So he warned us,” Pyanfar muttered. “Get to galley- get something thawed.” Tirun left again in haste; and she put an unwilling hand up Skkukuk’s sleeve and felt the abnormal chill of his arm, “He’s gone into shock, that’s what. Gods rot, I don’t want to lose him.”
Hilfy looked at her in a guarded, hostile way.
“You want him?” Hilfy asked coldly.
“I by the gods don’t want him dying like this. Come out of it, niece. Is that my teaching-or something you learned in other company?”
Hilfy’s ears went back. Nostrils flared and pinched. And Hilfy turned and walked away to the corridor with businesslike dispatch.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“To fix your gods-be kif,” Hilfy snapped. “Captain. By your leave, ker Pyanfar.”
“Niece-“ Pyanfar muttered.
But what she had was Hilfy’s back as Hilfy headed away down main corridor; and an all-but-limp kif in her custody. “Gods. Gods be.” She unwound the flex which had bitten into the kif’s wrists. His hands were cold and limp, and he regarded her hazily, unresponsive to a fight among hani that, might have greatly amused him “n a better day. “Kkkkkt. Kkkkt,” was all the sound he made in his misery.
Shut up, they had told him when he had begun to make that noise. ,
Khym came in from the galley and stood there with his ears back. Tully came in after him, and stood observing the situation with one of those inscrutable expressions that evidenced something going on in his blond-maned head. Perhaps, like Hilfy, he wanted the kif’s death. Perhaps he was afraid, or wanted to warn them of the danger in this creature, and lacked words to do it. “Get cleaned up,” Pyanfar snapped at them both. “You think we got time to stare? Gods-be kif’s wilted on us, that’s all. Move it. The rest of us want their break. Go. Get to it. The rest of us are waiting on you.”
“Food-“ Tully said lamely, and pointed back at the galley.
“Come on,” Khym said, and caught him by the arm and took him on through the bridge to the corridor. Tully went, with a backward look from the bulkhead doorway.
“Get!” Pyanfar said.
“Captain,” Haral said from her post. “Harukk calling. The hakkikt advises us the guardstations have officially surrendered.”
“Thank the gods for that. Acknowledge.”
“Aye.”
Tirun came back from the galley, carrying a cup of chopped raw meat that reeked of thawing and chill even at arm’s length. “Kkkkt,” Skkukuk moaned, and averted his face when Tirun offered it.
Pyanfar scowled. “Shut up and eat it, hear me, kif? I haven’t got time for your stupid preferences.”
“Kkkkt. Kkkkt. Kkkkt.”
“Gods fry you.”-She took the cup from Tirun’s hand and held it under Skkukuk’s mouth. “Eat it. I don’t care what you don’t like. I haven’t got time for this.”
“Kkkkt.” And the jaws clamped together with a swelling of muscle down their long length. The nostrils drew inward. Skkukuk gave a long shiver, and kept his face averted, his eyes shut, his throat spasming.
Pyanfar took the cup back. “He eat anything we gave him before jump?”
“I’m not sure,” Tirun said. “A lot of it had dried up.”
“Captain,” Haral said, “We got a definitive whereabouts on that stsho that went out from Mkks: kited through here this morning and never stopped for hellos.”
“Gods rot. Naturally it did. What’s happened to Tahar? Any word on Moon Rising?”
“Make inquiry?” Haral said.
“Has anyone else?”
“Negative.”
“Gods, Now you’d expect that question out of Vigilance, wouldn’t you? No. Don’t ask. Just go on listening.”
“Maybe we ought to ask the hakkikt advice in kif-feeding,” Tirun muttered at her side. “Captain-maybe if we ask the kif to get something-“
Pyanfar turned a flat-eared look on her and Tirun tucked the stinking cup back into her hands and covered it and shut up.
And Hilfy came back from down the hall. With another cup in hand. “He eat anything?”
“No.”
Hilfy offered hers. It smelled of blood. It was. Pyanfar drew in her nostrils as Hilfy extended it past her face.
“Where in the gods’ good sense did you get this?”
“Med stores,” Hilfy said, ears back, jaw set.
There was already a twitch of kifish nostrils. The. head turned, the eyes opened and a desperate tongue investigated the air. Skkukuk lifted his own hands to cup Hilfy’s holding the vessel; and the darkish red contents disappeared in an energetic palpitation of the kif’s long jaw-muscles.
“Good gods,” Tirun said.
“Just selective,” Hilfy said. “A real delicate appetite. Freezerstuff’s just too far gone for him.”
“Get him cleaned up,” Pyanfar said. “Feed him again if you have to. But don’t by the gods get generous. We need those supplies. And you-“
Reprimand died in her mouth and left a bad taste after. Hilfy was on the edge. She saw it in the look in Hilfy’s eyes, the set of her jaw. “Get some rest,” she said to Hilfy; and that brought Hilfy’s ears down as quickly as a blow to the face would have.
“I’m fit.”
“Are you?”
Hilfy said nothing. The ears stayed down. The eyes stayed dark.
Get him off this .ship, off my deck, send him back to Sikkukkut.
Gods, gods, gods, the med supplies. How often do we have to bleed to feed this thing?
“Kkk-t,” Skkukuk breathed. Pyanfar looked at the kif, and saw already a focus to the eyes as Tirun made shift to move him out of the chair. “Kkkkt,” he said softly, “kkkkt-“ -trying to get his booted feet under him. His head came up and the reddened eyes looked at Pyanfar. He knew what he had drunk. After the rest of it, are you, kif?
Tirun got him on his feet. Hilfy took an arm and they led him away, slowly, holding onto him and holding him up at the same time. Ought to bind those jaws when we handle him. There was a patch on her left arm where the fur grew wrong: plastic surgery, once and long ago, in her wilder youth. Wonder if he’d smother—the nostrils run close to the surface.
Gods, get him off my ship, that’s all!
And get Hilfy away from him.
“Going to give that bastard to Jik,” Pyanfar muttered, settling into her own seat up by Haral’s side. And before Haral could venture comment into a family situation: “Go on. Get yourself cleaned up. I can handle things solo a while. We’ve got enough gods-be problems. I don’t know how long we’re going to be in this port. Not long, I’ll guess. Hours, maybe. Maybe a day or so. With luck.”
“Aye,” Haral said, no demur, no comment, and no delay in shunting things to her board and bailing out of her seat. “Anything you need below?”
“Negative. Just hurry at it. Send Hilfy and Tirun to the same when you see them.”
“Aye.” Haral headed off at all deliberate speed. Throw water and soap on herself, pull on fresh trousers, stagger back to the galley if there was time and get food in her belly.
None of them carried any spare fat nowadays. A gaunt and haunted look hung about all the crew, standing watch and watch without meals or sleep except in snatches, while jump after jump burned them up from inside. There was a physiological penalty for every jump. The kif paid it. They did. She found herself eating from knowledge that she had to, not because food appealed to her, when she should have been ravenous. Only the wobbles signaled need for food: no appetite. Another jump-gods, another jump and we’ll begin to feel it for sure. No one can stand this schedule.
Chur-can’t. I was a fool to listen to her at Kshshti. She’s in serious trouble, thinner and thinner. Bone and hair goes next. Bowel junction. Kidneys. Heart. It’s not only kifish fire that can kill us. We can’t run now. If anything goes wrong here we can’t pull out. Chur needs those hours. Needs days here.
Get a med? Whose?
No. No. Chur’s on the mend. The side’s healed. The jump took a lot of minerals out of her system. Healing leached everything. Feed her vitamins. Lots of red meat. She’ll make it now. She’s past the crisis and she’s still got reserves.
But I shed a lot. The kif collapsed. Pyanfar tongued a sore spot in her mouth, a tooth that promised soreness after brushing. So we’ve been running hard. Gods-be kif wilted after one jump. We’ve been-gods, how many jumps on short rations and short sleep?-and we’re still holding on.
We need a hani med, gods rot it. Not mahendo’sat, someone who knows what the margin is. And hani medical personnel are scarce out here. If I ask Vigilance-
In a mahen hell.
But her hand punched through to ship-to-ship while her mind was still arguing the matter. “Vigilance. This is The Pride of Chanur, Pyanfar Chanur speaking. Put me through to your med staff.”
(Gods, Chur’s going to chew sticks if we call over a Vigilance med. But by the gods, let her. I don’t like this. I don’t like that look in her.)
“Pride of Chanur, this is Vigilance watch. Captain, we have operations in progress. Our boards are busy. I’ll put your request through and call you back.”
She read between the lines, a big lazy ship with personnel to spare, crew on rest, backup crew on duty, Rhif Ehrran was offshift along with her high officers to shower and sleep and eat at leisure. And not wanting advertisement of their status.
Telling their ships’ internal schedules and habits to the kif did none of them any good.
“All right, Vigilance.” She shifted to Jik’s channel. “Aja Jin, this is The Pride.”
“Aja Jin here, got all personnel busy. This emergency?”
It’s Pyanfar Chanur, rot your hide, get me Jik! But that was panic. Jik was in communication with Mahijiru, likely, Aja Jin’s crew up to its noses in running codes and communications with Goldtooth as he continued on approach. Aja Jin was trying to keep track of that situation and take the whole operations load off Vigilance because they had no trust for that ship, and off The Pride because The Pride had no crew Available to carry it.
“No,” Pyanfar told Aja Jin’s com officer. “Put it through when things settle down.”
There was a delicate question-how to get in touch with Jik and get Jik to twist Ehrran’s ear for that medic without being too evident about it. They had made light of the stack of charges Ehrran accumulated. But they needed no more of them. Nothing to complete the pattern and damn them with the han.
Follow channels. Do it the safe way. Keep to protocols.
There had to be time. Even if that stsho had run for Meetpoint and babbled all gtst knew; even if knnn were stirring about. Goldtooth and Jik acted as if there were time. They laid plans. Goldtooth was still coming in to dock, which meant he expected at least a number of hours before trouble hit, at least personal business here to make the trip worthwhile.
But Chur—
Geran’s covering for her, that’s what. And Geran’s scared. So am I. Gods rot it, I never should have let her come past Kshshti.
But we needed her. We still need her.
Gods, she’s not getting better. She’s worse.
Com chatter kept up, Kefk adjusting to the reality of its occupation. Methane-sector was settling down at last-only a small portion of Kefk’s territory, but a precinct with which kif did not trifle and out of which little coherent information came: the chaos at least seemed less. And there were no more knnn involved.
Geran came back to the bridge. Came and leaned on Pyanfar’s chair, and Pyanfar turned it about to face her. “She all right?” Pyanfar asked Geran.
No. Not all right, Pyanfar thought with a sudden chill. Geran’s mouth was clamped tight, jaw clenched.
Tongue-tied again. Like in the hall. Like things that touched on resisting Chur. She watched Geran’s mouth twist, the strain of her throat, just to get words out. “She couldn’t keep it down, captain.”
“Listen, cousin, I’ve already got a call in for a med.”
“Aye,” Geran said, and to her surprise made no argument. Then with a look more naked and more wretched: “I really think you’d better. Captain, she choked pretty bad trying to eat. She’s that weak. She couldn’t get her breath.”
No words for a moment or so. Mortal equations. Points of no return. Healing in jump cost and cost. And if the wound drew too profoundly on Chur’s resources and the jump-stretch went on-
There was another jump beyond this; it might come in a day-or hours; and if things went really wrong here, there might be jump and jump and jump with kif on their track and somewhere, somewhen down that course-having to send I he Pride into jump knowing of a certainty Chur would die in it. That was what they faced.
“All right,” Pyanfar said quietly. “All right, we do it. We get that med in here right now. A hani med. Vigilance has got staff. I’ll get one. I don’t care what it takes.”
Another convulsive effort to speak. “Let me. Captain, let me.” And quietly, the dam broken: “Begging your pardon- but maybe I can talk to staff, go the quiet route, huh? Kin-right.”
Without the arrogance of captains involved, Geran meant.
“Do it,” Pyanfar said without rancor. “They’ve got a com-hold on. You’ll have to get past it.”
“Aye.” Geran took com one post, sat down and went on the com, quietly, urgently.
It was not a thing Pyanfar cared to listen to-Geran pleading Chur’s case with an Ehrran crewwoman who wanted to argue channels in the matter of a Chanur life.
/ should have done it before now. Begged them. Gods,-I don’t care, we’ve got to get a hurry-up on this. But it was more likely Geran could win it. Doubtless it would come to captains and her having to plead with Ehrran personally before all was done; but something still had to be sacred among hani-like kin-right and the bond between sisters. A ship incoming with family crisis on Anuurn outranked all oilier traffic. A woman homebound in such events could hoard any plane, commandeer any conveyance without stopping for formalities like fares till later. Kin-right could unsnarl red tape, overcome barriers’, silence opposition and objections. There was law higher than han law. There had always been. Vigilance had to respect that.
“Captain. They want your request on file.”
Pyanfar turned the chair and met an anguished stare with a quiet one before she took the call. “This is Pyanfar Chanur,” she said to com.
“Chanur.” It was Rhif Ehrran in person. “You want your crewwoman transferred to our facilities?”
“Treated here, if you can do it.” Gods, to put Chur in Ehrran hands. “I’ve got a next-of-kin request, ker Rhif.” Humbly. Quietly. With as much of Chanur dignity as she could save. “Geran Anify par Pyruun: she’s got the right to go with her sister if she has to be taken off.” You’ll have an able Chanur loose on your ship if you take them, you eggsucking Ehrran bastard, no luck getting your hands on one of us helpless and undefended-and we’ll be two crewwomen down, blast your eyes, and you’ll have two hostages and you know it. “I’d take it kindly, captain, if you could get a little speed on this. She’s pretty sick.”
A long delay. “Dispatch the case records. Such as you have. My medical staff doesn’t work on suppositions.”
“You know I haven’t got a medical staff, Ehrran.”
“You expect me to take on the liability without adequate records. I’ll want a release from Geran Anify as next of kin and from you as clan senior here before my staff touches her.”
“You’ll get it.” Cover your backside, you gods-be parasite. Protect yourself. You give-me the chance and it won’t be a lawsuit when I go for you. “With respect, can we get this underway? We don’t know how long we’ve got in this port.”
“It’s waiting on that release, Chanur. Or if you’d rather have the mahendo’sat or the kif see to your problem-“
“We’ll get your release. Thank you, ker Rhif. I owe you one.”
The contact went discourteously dead.
“Gods fry her,” Geran muttered.
“By the gods,” Pyanfar said, turning and matching Geran’s look with one of her own, “we owe her one, Chanur owes her one for this.”
“Aye,” Geran rasped. The breath came from the depths of her gut, as if it strangled on its way. “Hearth and blood, captain. When we get a chance.”
“When.” Pyanfar flicked her ears. Rings chimed, reminder of voyages and experience. They dealt with an Immune. Unchallengeable, by every principle of civilized law. But Chanur was older than any Immune clan. Older than Ehrran in all senses. “Get that release. Get Khym in here. And get the automed and relay Chur’s vital signs over to Vigilance; let’s give the meds all the help we can and save the Ehrran for our own time, not Chur’s.”
Khym came onto the bridge and got to legal files; Tully strayed through the door: “Here.,” Pyanfar said, called Tully over and leaned aside in her chair to fish a size three probe out of the under-console toolkit. She extended one claw in demonstration, punched a harmless button with the probe while Tully watched, and turned and slapped the probe into his palm. His blue eyes lighted with sudden understanding and he clenched his hand on the tool.
“We get Chur help,” she said. “Meanwhile we need crewman, huh? Understand? Buttons. Controls. Gods, you can’t read. Use your imagination. Go to Khym, tell him you do what he says, can you?”
“I understand,” he said. “I do. I work, I help.”
“Good for you.” She patted an available leg and sent him off, the halt to help the inexperienced, and both to do what they could. Gods, gods. She dropped her head against her hands and wiped her mane back. She was shaking with fatigue. She heard someone else come onto the bridge. Geran had come back with stats from the little medical equipment they had, and she flung herself into Haral’s vacant seat to put the data through to Vigilance, no motion wasted.
Gods know how long we’ll be here. Geran guesses the risk we’re at—if we have to run for it on the sudden. Chur-gods know if she’s thinking straight at all now. Or thinks she’s living anyway and won’t burden us with helping her. Gods-be stubborn hillwomen. We go to space. We never get home out of the blood. Gods, gods-There had been a look on Geran’s face for a moment in the dealings with Vigilance, a look such us she had seen on Hilfy’s with the kif, and neither expression looked much toward personal survival.- Her own heart beat hard when she thought on Ehrran, when she reflected on herself, on a fool who had gotten a little ship and a merchant crew involved in the affairs of Personages and hakkiktun and gods forbid, the knnn.
There was nowhere left to run but home, nothing but charges and challenge there, and no way with a sick woman aboard to do that running without killing her. They could get back to Mkks from here. Or reach Tt’a’va’o, in space no hani had ever visited and where no hani was welcome; or run for Meetpoint- where The Pride had no welcome either and no few agencies wanted their hides. Chur might not live to get to any of those places and The Pride itself might not last much longer than their arrival.
She gave her mane a second wipe, flicked the rings on her ears into order and listened to Geran getting the data through and insisting on an acknowledgement from the Ehrran medical staff.
Haral came back onto the bridge, still wet from her bath, as Khym got up from his board and quietly handed Geran the legal release for fax-transmission to Vigilance.
“What’s underway?” Haral asked.
“Getting a Vigilance med over here,” Pyanfar said quietly; and Haral’s damp ears went back in quiet acknowledgement. Haral knew who; why; was relieved, and avowed she had not been worried it would get done, all in that one twitch. It comforted her, such friendly familiarity, close as her own mind. There had been times in their youth when she and Haral had come to blows. Never on The Pride’s deck. Never since they took to sitting side by side at The Pride’s controls. “Chur’s not so good, huh?” Haral asked.
“Not critical,” Pyanfar said, “but none too good. It’s not now that worries me.”
Haral added up other unspoken things right too, with a scowl for their luck and Chur’s and for allies they had to rely on.
“Goldtooth’s on-“-insertion approach, Pyanfar started lo say, and com started flashing an attention-light. She reached and leaned over the mike. “Pride of Chanur. You’ve reached the captain.”
It was neither Ehrran nor Jik. It was the tinny putter of the shielded dockside line, “-kokkitta ktogotki, Chanur-hakto. Kgoto naktki tkki skthokkikt.”
“Gods rot it, I’m not opening that hatch.”
“-kohogot kakkti hakkiktu.”
“Not even for him.”
“-Khotakku. Sphitktit ikkti ktoghogot.”
“Speak pidgin!”
“-Gift. From the hakkikt.”
Pyanfar drew in a long breath and looked up at Haral. Haral’s ears were back. Don’t ask me, that look meant. You know what choice we’ve got.
“I’m coming,” Pyanfar said into the com. “Kgakki tkki, skku-hakkiktu.” Politeness grated. And when the contact was broken: “Gods, what else did we need? Khym. Tully. Haral and I are headed for the lock. Get on the com and tell Tirun and Hilfy meet us down in lowerdecks-armed, and hurry it. Geran: get that camera on.” She flung herself to her feet as Haral headed for the weapons-locker. “And, Khym, when you’ve done that get on shortrange and advise Jik we’ve got kif arriving with presents at our lock. Don’t use the station lines! Hear?”
“Aye,” Khym said, and shifted himself into Hilfy’s vacant place, already throwing com switches. No argument. Gods, the menfolk had settled in and become useful- somewhere something had happened, and the uphill weight she had been shoving against since Anuurn port began to move on its own impulse. She took the light pistol Haral handed her, checked the safety in haste and headed out of the bridge a step in front of Haral.
“Gifts,” Pyanfar muttered as Haral overtook her in the main corridor. “Gifts! That’s how-we got into this gods-forsaken mess in the first place. Knnn. Chur sick. Vigilance playing games. And a gods-be kif wants to give us presents.”
With Goldtooth in the last stages of his docking approach, they were losing their free-space shield; and from here on, it was stand prepped for a hasty undock and a mad scramble for defense at any moment.
They had caught station with its defenses low. It was an easy trick to take a starstation out-a few C-charged rocks carried through jump and let fly-if an attacker had no scruples... And, she kept recalling, Akkhtimakt’s reputation included none, even among kif.
Tirun and Hilfy met them in front of the lift lowerdecks, armed with pistols from the downside locker, ears laid back and both of them wetter than Haral had been. “What have we got?” Tirun asked as they headed down the corridor to the lock.
“We got a present coming from Sikkukkut,” Pyanfar muttered, and gave a look Hilfy’s direction; Hilfy showed nothing now but a clear-eyed attention to business. “That’s what they say out there, at least; I didn’t like the last present much; and b’gods, if Sikkukkut gives me another earless hanger-on I’ll feed it to Skkukuk and solve two problems.”
“I don’t like this,” Haral said. “I don’t like it at all. Captain, let Tirun and me sort this out in the lock. We might get more kif than we bargained for and they could sabotage that hatch-“
“Airlock gives them advantage of position,” Pyanfar said. “Geran, you got image on them?”
“No, captain-one’s in sight at the bend; there’s more, but they’re staying back and that accessway light’s lousy.”
“Gods-be mess,” Pyanfar muttered. “Stand by, Geran.”
A single shot from their airlock toward the accessway might blow them to hard vacuum, even with light pistols; and Kefk was rife with potential suicides willing to bet their lives hani would hesitate one necessary instant to take the opposition with them.
“We could take it from lowerdeck ops,” Haral said.
“Sfik,” Pyanfar said, and took her gun from her pocket and threw the safety off. “Besides, sabotage at that hatch we don’t need. Airlock it is. You and I go in, cousin. Hilfy and Tirun hold the, rear and keep your hand on that close-switch. And, Geran, you look sharp up there.”
“I’m on it,” Geran said.
Tirun’s ears were back. Tirun had the clear ruthless sense to throw the emergency seal, backup to Geran; Hilfy was there because Hilfy happened to be belowdecks, and sending her topside would say something Pyanfar had no wish to say.
“Huh,” Tirun said, commentary on it all.
They rounded the corner toward the lock. “Geran. Inner hatch only, Geran.”
Ssssnnk. The big inner hatch went back on the instant, and the lock glared white with lights. Tirun took up position where the hatch rim gave some cover from fire and a split-second longer survival in an explosive decompression, her left hand set on the emergency switch. Hilfy stood armed on the opposite side of the hatchway.
“Easy,” Pyanfar said; and walked into the airlock with Haral behind her. “Geran, open her up.”
The outer hatch whisked back. A single kif who stood there a distance down the orange-lighted access, its hands in plain sight. It looked not at all startled at the pair of guns it faced; and it wisely refrained from all sudden movement.
Sikkukkut himself? Pyanfar wondered. But it was not so tall as Sikkukkut. It smelled different. She caught the different smell of Kefk station, musty and ammoniac, that came wafting in with it, fit to raise the hairs on a hani’s back. Her nose twitched. Gods, I’m allergic to the bastards-
“The hakkikt sends,” it said. “Will you accept the gift?”
“What gift?”
The kif made a slow turn. “-Kktanankki!” he called out. Bring it-a word that implied other things beyond bring, like a present that was able to walk under its own power.
A faint sound came from further down, around the corner of the accessway. More kif arrived, a massed drift of shadow with the red-gold of a hani in their midst, a hani in torn blue silk breeches.
Pyanfar’s heart lurched, first in statement and then in recognition of that face, the tangled mane with the bronze tone of Anuurn’s southlands; left ear ripped, a black scar that raked mouth and chin.
“Dur Tahar,” Pyanfar said.
The captain of Moon Rising raised her eyes as the kif brought her to the threshold of the lock. She blinked and the ears came up and flattened as the first kif and two more took her inside, under the white light. Her eyes were the same bronze as her mane, wild and hard and crazed-looking. “Pyanfar Chanur,” Tahar said, in a distant, hoarse voice.
“The hakkikt gives you your enemy,” the foremost kif said. “His compliments, Chanur.”
“Mine to him,” Pyanfar muttered.
“Kkt,” the kif said, and turned with a sweep of its robes and left, taking its dark companions with it, in kifish economy of courtesy.
“My crew,” Dur Tahar said. Her voice struggled for composure and failed. “For the gods’ own sake, Chanur-go after them! Ask for them; get them out of there!”
Pyanfar expelled one breath, sucked in a new one and strode out into the accessway in pursuit of the departing kif. “Captain!” Haral called after her; but Pyanfar went only as far as the bend, where she had view of the down-bound knot of kif on the ramp. “Skku-hakkiktu!” she yelled after the collective shadow. “I want the rest of the hani! Hear?”
The kif came to a leisurely halt, and gazed up at her as his band halted around him.
“Tell the hakkikt,” Pyanfar called down the icy chute til the ramp, “I appreciate his gift. Tell the hakkikt I want the rest of the hani. I set importance on that. Tell him so!”
“Kkt. Chanur-hakto. Akktut okkukkun nakth hakti-hak-kikta.”
Something about passing the message on. Modes eluded her, the subtleties of when or how fast, woven into the words kif used with each other like fine-edged knives.
“See to it!” she yelled back.
The kif bowed like a slide of oil, turned and walked on down the ramp with his companions around him. Pyanfar scowled, snicked the safety onto the pistol, then turned and hastened back into the airlock.
“Shut it, Geran!” Pyanfar yelled up at com. “And lock her up good!”
The door hissed behind her, and the electronic seals clashed and thumped.
“Where are your crew?” Pyanfar asked Tahar.
“Station Central. Last I knew.” Tahar staggered as Haral took her by one bound arm and pulled her through into the warm corridor outside. As she passed, Tahar looked from Hilfy at her left to Tirun at her right; and with Hilfy whose mother was Faha-clan there was a feud as grievous as Chanur’s own. But Dur Tahar showed not a spark of defiance, only weary acquiescence as Pyanfar pushed her over to stand against the corridor wall.
“Get them out!” Tahar said hoarsely. “Chanur, anything you want, just get them out. Fast.”
“Tirun, you got a knife?”
“I got it.” Tirun drew her folding-knife from her pocket, turned Tahar’s face to the wall and sawed through the binding cords that held her hands, turned her about again and cut the one that circled her throat-stuffed the cut cord into her pocket, spacer’s neatness, while Dur Tahar leaned against the wall, rubbing the blood back into her hands, her eyes glassy with shock.
“I sure didn’t fancy to meet you under these circumstances,” Pyanfar said.
“We were off our ship when you came in. They held us in the offices-Gods, I don’t care what you do to me, just get them away from the kif.”
“I’m going to try. I sent Sikkukkut a message out there in the accessway. I’m not sure I’ve got enough credit the hakkikt’s going to listen, but I think I’ve got enough it’ll get to him.”
Dur Tahar pushed away from the wall. “You can do better than that, Chanur!”
“Listen, you make me trouble, Tahar, you’ll die earless. Hear me?”
“I hear. Just get on it. Talk to them. You know what they’ll do-“
“I know. But that message has to get there before I can do anything. You should know that well as any. I’m going to call Harukk on com. Suppose you tell me what you’re doing in port; where Akkhtimakt is. Maybe you can give me some coin to bargain with, huh?”
Tahar’s mouth tightened. She gestured vaguely outward, elsewhere, anywhere, with a lifting of her eyes. “There. Out there. Kshshti, likeliest.” It was the ghost of a voice. “You want our word, you have it from me. Anything. Just for the Gods’ sakes don’t let them die like that.”
Pyanfar stood staring at her. Old-fashioned words meant something on Anuurn; like our word, like clan and law and other things alien to the far dark place they had gotten to, in the modern age of Vigilance and stsho connivance. “It’s a long way from home. A long way, Tahar.”
Dur Tahar leaned her head back against the wall and shut her eyes. “They’ll turn on you. Mahendo’sat same as kif. They will. Take my example-get out of here. Shed all of them and run, Chanur.”
“You know a place to run to?”
Dur Tahar opened her eyes and looked at her, such a look as ached with exhaustion and terror and months and years of running. “No. Not ultimately. Not if you’re like me. And you’re getting there real fast, aren’t you, Chanur?”
It was not a sight any of them would ever have looked for- Moon Rising’s captain sitting at The Pride’s galley table up by the bridge, taking a cup of gfi Geran pressed on her. Dur Tahar drank, and Pyanfar sat across the table with a cup in her own hands and more of the crew lounging against the cabinets with whatever bits of food Tully had scrounged: two males in the galley-so beaten Dur Tahar was that she hardly spared more than a misgiving glance at Tully and less than that at Khym.
She knew Tully was with us, Pyanfar noted. Or at least knew he might be. So the rumor’s got to Akkhtimakt. Tirun was back on duty, trying to query Vigilance on the medical assistance and get Jik’s attention to the Tahar matter-(“Let me take this round,” Tirun had offered, while Geran was back seeing to Chur. “Do it,” Pyanfar said. And between the two of them: “Put the fire under Vigilance, huh? Discreetly. Gods rot them. Get some hurry out of them.”) Khym and Haral and Hilfy and Tully-they lounged about the walls, guns on hips, all of them armed but Tully; and Tahar drank her gfi in silence, eyes at infinity. “I want it straight,” Pyanfar said to her. “I want the whole story, ker Dur. And fast. Tell it to me.”
Focus came back. “My crew-“
“Mahijiru’s in dock; Goldtooth’s hooking up the com lines right now. We’ll begin to get some movement out of the kif soon now. Ships are on short crew, same as us. Even the kif. Your cousins’ll be safe enough for the time being-the kif’ll hold off till they’ve got some direct order from Sikkukkut, or until Sikkukkut’s free to see to them; and Sikkukkut’s real occupied just now. Depend on it. Drink that down. My watch officer’s sending to Aja Jin. We’re doing more than it looks like we are. But you play me for a fool, Dur, and I’ll-“
“No.” Tahar took a swallow. The cup trembled in her hands. “You run in rough company. This hakkikt of yours-“
“Not mine.”
“-he’s winning, do you understand that? The kif think Akkhtimakt’s already lost. The word’s spreading-How we!! do you know the kif?”
“About as well as serves, and better than I want to.”
“/ know them, gods, believe me that I do. Sfik. Gods-forsaken kif change sides quick as stsho in a situation like this, two kif at the top of the heap and both of them near-matched: Sikkukkut and Akkhtimakt-they both served Akkukkak in different capacities till he went, and now the two of them have all kif space in chaos. Every wind, every whisper that comes along, ordinary kif sniff it and change their politics. And all of a sudden Akkhtimakt’s small stuff. His move against Kita was a big threat; gods, he’s from Akkht, he’s big stuff there-got powerful skkukun hunting down all his rivals on homeworld, while Sikkukkut’s just a jumped-up provincial boss from Mirkti, for the gods’ sake. But the mahendo’sat know him. Sikkukkut’s a longtime neighbor of theirs, someone they’re used to dealing with-and they’re dealing with him. Do you see? All of a sudden Akkhtimakt looks like a kif a long way from his power base and losing it. Sikkukkut’s operating in his own home territory, using old connections, and Sikkukkut’s cut Akkhtimakt bad- thanks to you and the mahendo’sat. Real bad.”
Pyanfar leaned her elbows on the table. “Where’s humanity fit into this, huh?”
The whites showed around Tahar’s eyes, a slight tic in Tully’s direction, but Tahar did not turn her head, not even when Geran drifted quietly into the room and stood there with arms folded and her face like boding storm. “Humans,” Tahar said, “are coming in. They’re moving slowly-but your ally ought to be able to tell you that.”
“Sikkukkut, you mean?” .
“This human. Or the mahendo’sat. Akkhtimakt’s program was to stop the human ships; keep them out of Compact space. Or prey on them one by one on the fringes. Humans are mahen allies, the way the kif read it. But Sikkukkut’s got the mahendo’sat working with him. He’s got you, got himself the Eyes of the han, for the gods’ sweet sake. Got a pet human of his own. How do you fight a combination like that? Kefk took one look at that situation and all of Akkhtimakt’s partisans here started looking at their neighbors and refiguring every tie they had-I’ve been through it before. A kif looks at a situation, adds up his own sfik and whether he’s got any advantage to the other side, and if he doesn’t, he’ll know his neighbors are adding it up too, and one of them may try to get more sfik by killing him. If he kills his attacker he’s got more sfik for the moment, but if he suddenly gets too much, he may look like a threat and lose all the benefit of it. It’s a bloody game, Chanur. I’ve played it for two years.”
.”Looks like you missed a step, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, I tried. Kif don’t understand hani, that’s all; they don’t know how our minds work, not in crises-but they do know we’re different and the way we choose sides isn’t predictable or sensible by their lights. So that’s what happened to us. We didn’t get a chance to switch sides. We were in an office-the staff just turned without warning and killed one kif who was too high up-too much sfik to trust; and they rounded up others to hand over to Sikkukkut for-o gods.” Tahar shuddered and set the cup down with both hands. “My crew, Chanur, my crew-Sikkukkut handed me on for a gift. I’ve got sfik enough. The situation has. But my cousins-if you don’t get them out of there-Chanur, I’ve seen what happens when a kif wants to throw a celebration. I’ve seen it.”
“I’m working on it. My word on it, Tahar. Gods know I’d cheerfully break your neck if things were different. But not here and not now and not that way. I’m applying every leverage I’ve got. Want a warm-up on that?”
“No.”
“Take it anyway. You can use it.” She retrieved Dur Tahar’s cup, held it for Tirun to fill and set it back in front of Tahar’s hands. “You get news from home?”
Tahar raised her eyes with apprehension.
“Short and straight,” Pyanfar said. Gods, it had a bad taste in her mouth when delivering the news once would have been revenge in itself. “Tahar’s in deep trouble-but you’d figure that. I don’t know how bad or how much internally, or what’s going on at Anuurn at the moment, but you could figure it. Tahar was having trouble getting cargoes last year. Victory, Sunfire and Golden Ring are all working over farside, last that I know about it, as far from kif as they can get. If they haul their own cargo, someone raises a question whether it might be pirated goods being dumped; if they haul someone else’s they have to post a bond of guarantee in the case they should decide to pirate it themselves.”
“Cut it, Chanur!”
“I’m telling you the truth. What do you expect you’ve done for Tahar’s reputation? Gods rot it, you knew it when you bolted with the rest of the kif at Gaohn! You might as well listen to it.”
Tahar’s ears were back, she set the cup down hard and looked as if she were coming over the tabletop in the next breath; but then the wind went out of her in a long shuddering sigh, and she bowed her head and flexed her claws out, points on the hard table surface. “You gave me gods-be little choice. Do what? Come home and face my brother? Go on running Tahar cargoes after what the kif did to hani at Gaohn?”
“You knew they were kif when you bedded down with them.”
“So do you know it.” Tahar’s head came up, red-bronze eyes dark-centered and burning. “Remember that. Remember that, Pyanfar Chanur. You can’t shed your clan. You never can. What you do comes back on your kin at home. And kif are kif and hani are hani, and one can’t trust the other in the end. Get us out of here. Get my crew out and let’s go home, Chanur, for the gods’ sake, I’m begging you, let’s both of us go home!”
“Captain.” Tirun’s voice came over the com on the wall. “Vigilance is’ sending: Quote: ‘You’ve boarded Tahar personnel.’ I’m reading it exact, captain. ‘We require you stand by to transfer this person to Immune custody.’ “
“Gods rot them,” Pyanfar muttered, and slid out of the bench.
“Ehrran,” Dur Tahar murmured darkly, and started to her feet in a move that brought Chanur out of their leisured poses all about the galley. Tahar’s ears went flat in alarm and she subsided back into the seat.
“The law,” Pyanfar said. “They’re here, Tahar. Han law. They’ve been hunting you for two years.”
“Chanur-take my parole!”
Take custody, Tahar meant; clan to clan. Take her back to Anuurn justice in Chanur custody. It might even one-up Chanur enemies; and humiliate Rhif Ehrran. That was what Tahar offered, knowing what she offered.
It also might backfire.
Pyanfar stared at Dur Tahar eye to eye within the half-ring of Chanur crew and the hair bristled down her back. Gods, that I have to be afraid. That one hani has to look at another like this, and worry about the han.
She brushed past and headed for the bridge.
“Chanur!”
Pyanfar looked back, at Tahar with Haral’s hand clamped in a firm grip on her arm. Pyanfar jerked her chin up in a gesture that freed the Tahar captain, turned and walked the narrow, curve-floored corridor to the bridge.
“They still on?” she asked Tirun, at com one, as she settled into her own chair.
“Your two,” Tirun said, and Pyanfar spun her chair about, and punched that channel in on speaker, along with the recorder.
“Pyanfar Chanur speaking.”
“Rhif Ehrran,” the answer came back, delivered over speaker from the board, as others gathered on the bridge to hear it. “We understand the kif have turned one of the Tahar over to you.”
“That’s correct, ker Rhif. Dur Tahar. She’s advised us that her kin are still in the custody of the hakkikt’s forces, and that they’re in imminent danger. We made immediate application through all channels for their release. We’re holding her pending a quieter situation on the docks-“
“You undertook this without notifying us.”
“The notification to the hakkikt was a matter of emergency. Hani lives are in danger. Regarding the general situation, Tahar showed up at my lock in kif custody without advance warning. And let me remind the deputy this is not a secure communication.”
“You’re obstructing a han order, Chanur.”
“As a matter of record, Tahar has appealed to us to take her parole.”
Dead silence on the other end for a moment. Then:
“Cooperation, Chanur. You don’t take that parole. Hear me? Hear me? You want ours, we get yours. You’ll turn her over.
Pyanfar’s pulse skipped. She flicked a glance at the recorder light’s green glow. It was being logged on Vigilance and assuredly she wanted it on The Pride’s tapes. “You’re implying, are you, that our request for medical assistance to injured personnel hinges on our rejecting Tahar’s appeal?”
More silence. The trap was too obvious. Rhif Ehrran was too wary to confirm that with any chance of it being logged verbatim. “Nothing of the kind, Chanur. But I don’t send my crew into a situation I don’t trust. And pending resolution of this matter, I’m putting that request on hold.”
“Gods rot you, you’re talking about a critically ill woman and a gods-be short schedule! You’re-“
Click.
“Gods blast you!”
Tirun’s voice quietly: “Log it?”
“Log it. Log that cut-off, to the minute.” Pyanfar cut the recorder off. She was shaking when she spun the chair about, and her heart hurt her when she looked at the faces about her; Geran’s face; and Tahar’s. “Geran,” Pyanfar said quietly, to the killing-rage she saw in Geran’s eyes. And with profoundest shame: “Tahar. I’m still trying.”
“What are they doing?” Tahar asked in a hollow voice. “Chanur, what’s going on?”
“The law. The law that wants you is telling me they’ll by the gods let Chur Anify die if we don’t hand you over on the spot. That’s what’s happened on Anuurn since Gaohn. That’s what the han’s come to nowadays, spies and note-takers out to prove their case at any cost. Law by innuendo, by threat, by payoff and profit and political gain. That’s what we’ve got. Deals with the stsho. Buy-outs and sell-outs. Hani so gods-be anxious to get the advantage of their rivals they don’t see anything else-like you and me, Tahar. Like both us gods-be fools. I watched you and you watched me and we fought each other, and our menfolk did, and all the while the old women in Naur and Schunan licked their whiskers and planned how to skin us both. They sent Ehrran out. The stsho found a chink and they’re using it-stsho money; and hani gods-be stupidity. Incarnate in Ehrran.. By the gods, Tahar, I’ll help your crew, I swear to you. But they’re demanding I turn you and them over to Ehrran. And I don’t see a way out of it. I’ve got a sick woman aboard with another jump to go, gods know when. They’ve got the medic that can help her; and they’re going to play dirty.”
“My sister,” Geran said quietly. Her voice achieved a pitch of deep hoarseness it had never reached. And stopped though it was clear Geran had more to say than that. Shame, shame to have a transaction like that to Chanur’s account and Anify’s, and there was nothing else to do.
“Chanur,” Tahar said, hands clenched on the co-pilot’s cushion till the claws gouged. “Chanur, I’m a gift. A kifish gift, hear? You want the hakkikt to think Chanur can’t hold what they give you?”
“Gods, you argue like a kif.”
“You’re dealing with kif, Chanur. You’re in their station. This is their game. Not the han’s. Not yours. You give me to the han you lose sfik. And you can lose your life for it. You can lose all you’ve got.”
“Shut it down, Tahar!”
“Don’t send me yet! Gods, Chanur, if you’re going to throw it all away, at least get my crew out first, while you still have the sfik to bargain with!”
“I’ve got a woman sick, I’ve got gods-be little time to bargain in.”
“They’ll kill you. The kif will kill you if you slip. You hear me? Where’s Chur Anify or any of you then, huh? You think Tahar’s the only lives at stake at this gods-forsaken station?”
More silence, profound and dreadful. The crew listened; Tully’s face was set and pale, for what small amount he followed.
“Maybe-“ Geran’s voice came softly, hoarse and hollow. “Maybe a mahen doctor-Captain, maybe Chur’d be better off with someone not Rhif Ehrran’s pick in the first place. I trust her that little. And I know how Chur feels about it.”
What for godssakes has gotten into us? A darkness closed about Pyanfar’s vision, a narrowing tunnel in which one course leapt out with white-edged clarity. “By the gods, no! We’re not taking this from that blackbreeched foot-licker. Tirun! Get me Jik.” Pyanfar spun her chair about to the board and hit the recorder and the com. “Priority-“ The com came live. “The Pride of Chanur to Aja Jin, priority, priority; this is Pyanfar Chanur. Get the captain on-“ And as a mahen voice droned back: “Move it, crewman—Tirun, gods rot it, give me those med stats.” She punched buttons, hunting in two banks. “Where in a mahen hell’d you put that gods-be file?”
“Four, captain, it’s your comp four, I’m getting it-“
“Stand by comp transmission, Aja Jin, priority-Where’s Jik, gods blast your eyes!”
“I got,” a deeper voice came back.
“Jik, get our comp-send and get a med over here, priority, priority one! Mahen, hani, I don’t care what, just hurry, code one, hear? Hurry it, Jik!”
“You got. Ready you send.”
She sent, two keystrokes.
“Got. We go, go.”
“Go!” She broke the contact and spun the chair about. “Tirun. Log a medical emergency. Log the call.” She leaned buck in the cushions and stared at her crew and at Tahar, darkly smug. “There’s more than one way to get something done around here. Now let Ehrran play politics with an emergency call.”
It was not safe. Sudden moves in a stationful of nervous kif might open something else up.
No move at all was unthinkable. She looked at Geran, whose ears were canted back, whose eyes were white-edged about the amber and black.
“So we get Jik in on it,” Pyanfar said. “And by the gods he can get Blackbreeches to Kefk he can gods-be sure get a hani medic over here whether Rhif Ehrran likes it or not, and by the gods she’ll do her job.”
Geran gave a smile far from pleasant, prim pursing of her mouth. No smile at all from the rest of the crew; a wary look from Khym; a warier one yet from Tahar; and from Tully a lost and worried stare. He laid a hand on Haral’s arm, questioned her with a look.
“We get help for Chur,” Pyanfar said in simplicity, for turn, and got up from her chair. “Tahar, your crew gets my help nonconditional. I’m not Rhif Ehrran. If you doublecross me or get in my way I’ll just break your neck right off and send the remains to the kif. And let me make one thing more clear: my crew’s not in any state to be patient with your mouth. We’re short on sleep and gods-be mad, and I don’t know if I’d save you if you cross one of us again. Hear it?”
Tahar’s ears went back, a visible flinching. It was the truth, at least the first part. And maybe the second. And Tahar gave no sign of doubting it.
“Better be ready on that access,” Pyanfar said, and turned a look toward Haral. “Tirun, stay your post. You know who you’ve talked to. Hilfy, Khym, put Tahar in Tully’s room a while.” It was one of the few places on the ship relatively damage-proof, and it at least had a bed. “Move it. Geran- see to Chur, that’s all.”
Crew scattered, except Tully. He still had that lost look- anxious, frightened. Chur. That was all he could likely make out. Next to Hilfy, the closest friend he had. Pyanfar walked over to him and set a hand on his arm. Claws half out. He had that disconnected look of hysteria, and she gripped his arm to wake him up. “Hey,” Pyanfar said, “it’s all right, huh?”
“Tahar,” he said. “Kif. Kefk. What do, Pyanfar? What do, what do?”
What are you up to? What kind of game are you playing? I trusted you. What’s going on, Pyanfar?
“Captain,” Tirun said, “Jik’s lot’re headed up the dock. Estimate three minutes. Mahijiru queries: assistance wanted?”
“Affirmative.” She left Tully, walked over to Tirun’s side and leaned there.
“Kif query,” Tirun said. “It’s Harukk.”
Then the minuses of the trick came home to nest. “Respond: medical emergency. Injured crew.”
Tirun relayed it. “We have a call already in-“ Tirun added, reminder to the kif on the other end. And: “We understand that. Will you go on trying?” Another incoming-light lit. Haral snatched the call. “. . . Right. We got you. We’ll open for you. Captain, it’s the meds.”
“Tell Hilfy intercept them as they come in. Tully-go help Geran. Go to Chur. Take Geran’s orders.”
Tully went without question. It was off the bridge, it kept him from underfoot and he could fetch and carry if someone could get it through to him what was wanted. Loyal, she thought; he was that. Friend.
And alien and dangerous as the mahendo’sat when matters got beneath his skin.
There was a coming and going belowdecks, grim mahen personnel bristling with weapons taking up station in the .accessway, along the lowerdeck main corridor and at the lift.
And on the upperdeck main, where a frowning Ehrran medic worked with a tall black Ksota mahendo’sat, and Chanur’s off-duty and motley assortment standing grim and glowering round the walls of Chur’s sickroom-two males, either one of whom might have raised the Ehrran’s hackles for completely different reasons; Geran Anify and Hilfy Chanur, Hilfy standing there with her hand consciously or unconsciously on the butt of a pistol. They went armed, with the airlock standing open under mahen guard; and it was not only the kif that concerned them.
Pyanfar hovered by the door, with a complug in one ear, listening to operations as Tirun sorted them past.
The medics exchanged surly technicalities. “No gods-rotted good,” the hani said; and Geran moved closer, hands in her belt and a frown clenching her jaw. “What isn’t good?”
“Captain,” the medic protested, not for the first time. “I’d like this room cleared.”
“That’s all right,” Pyanfar said from the doorway. “We’re all friends. I’m sure Chur doesn’t mind.”
“Get them out of here-“ With a look at The Pride’s two menfolk.
“Why?” Pyanfar said. “You going to object to your professional colleague too?”-who was male, and mahendo’sat.
The hani medic gave a bleak hard stare and turned and laid out supplies. Plainly she did object to males in medicine, whatever the species, and swallowed it.
“Better be good,” Geran said.
The medic hesitated with a bottle in her hand.
“Mistake might damage your career real bad,” Hilfy said, hand still on the gunbutt.
“I didn’t come here to take abuse and threats from junior crew.”
“Better be right,” Chur said for herself, rousing herself to tilt her head back on the pillow and look at the drip stand the medic-assistants were setting up by her side. “Mahe, haosti.” Check it, will you?
“Shishti,” the mahe agreed.
The hani medic glared, and handed the bottles and the bags over to the mahe one by one. “Seals,” the hani said, pointing out the tops. “This woman never should have left Kshshti. By the gods she never should have sat a post-“
“You going to quote us another regulation?” Khym asked in his deep rumble. “I’ll quote you laws. Like criminal negligence, malpractice, and kin-right.”
“Get him out of here.”
“Huh,” Pyanfar said, and leaned on the doorframe and turned with it at her back until she was in the hall.
“Captain,” the voice came from com. “Medic down with Skkukuk says he’s fit enough. Says we got a diet problem with him, they want to send some stuff over.”
“Live?”
“They say-well, the things are real dumb and they breed fast.”
Pyanfar grimaced. The skin between her shoulders drew tight. “Vermin, huh? What’s it eat?”
A moment of silence. “I’II ask.”
She rolled back around the corner and looked into the room. Looked askance again when the lift door opened down the corridor and let in another band of mahendo’sat. For one moment the grim look of them sent Pyanfar’s hand instinctively to the gunbutt.
Then recognition took over, and she flung herself from the doorframe and strode down the dead middle of the corridor.
“Goldtooth!” she spat.
“Ha, Pyanfar-“ He was a black mahendo’sat, and he came in the somber black of his companions, not a flash of gold except when he smiled wide and glittery. He towered there in that dark company on whom the only metal was the black sheen of AP guns and belts and buckles. And the grin died a fast death. “Say Chur she all right, huh?”
“No thanks to you, you rag-eared bastard!” She jerked the com-plug from her ear and looked up at his black, worried face. “I got my tail wrecked at Urtur, got my crew shot up at Kshshti-“
“Message go.”
“Yes, rot you, your gods-be message went. Banny Ayhar and Prosperity took it on, if she got through alive.” She recalled the open door and the Ehrran medic, snagged Goldtooth by a lanky, powerful arm and dragged .him toward her own cabin. “Stay out!” she snapped at his gun-bearing escort as she opened the door and pulled Goldtooth inside.
She closed it in the faces of his guards and turned and glared at him in the privacy and soundproofing of her own quarters. “So no more merchant. No more play-acting. This is your real face, huh, hunter-captain? Leave us a message at Urtur- head us at Jik and never tell us. You play games, you earless bastard, and we do the bleeding, all over Kshshti docks. You good-humor me right now and I’ll break your gods-be neck. Where have you been?”
Goldtooth’s small ears were back. He had a different look than he was wont, no humor at all. “You want list?” His voice was hoarse and quiet, unlike himself. “Jik number one fool, Pyanfar, he fool listen to this kif.”
A cold feeling settled into her, worse than before. “He’s your friend, gods rot it! You sent him after me at Kshshti. Didn’t you?”
“I send. He friend. He same time number one fool. -Maybe work, this thing. Maybe I fool, same.” Goldtooth sought a place to sit down and sank down on her rumpled bed, leaning back on one arm to look at her. “We got trouble, Pyanfar. Fool Jik talk tc’a. Knnn take tc’a. We got lot human ship, come Tt’a’va’o ‘bout now. We got human come in, got knnn disturb, got stsho disturb, got kif make fight-Jik know this Sikkukkut. He say-got beat Akkhtimakt. Sikkukkut do. Jik say this kif he be poor pro-vin-cial, going make big lousy mess deal with homeworld, lot longtime trouble. I think Jik wrong. I think he big wrong. This kif not small problem. Got number one hakkikt want be real friendly with mahendo’sat, with you-You watch, you watch, Pyanfar. Sikkukkut be no dumb kif.”
“I don’t think he is.”
“Fool. Big fool, Jik.”
“So what are you doing here?”
Goldtooth’s ears went up and back again. “Maybe try make kif lot busy. I come, go, hit here, there. I close kif route to Meetpoint. They lot upset.” A flash of gilded teeth. “Keep Akkhtimakt lot busy, a? That kif want my heart number one urgent, three time try.”
“What’s Sikkukkut going to do now you’re here? Answer me that, huh?”
“He got no grudge on me. I bring him lot sfik. Same you, hani. Same Jik. Same Vigilance. We give that kif so damn much sfik he eat whole Compact.”
It made sense. It made an uncomfortable lot of sense.
“So why did you come in?”
The ears flicked. Dark mahen eyes half-lidded. “Maybe I got no more choice. Maybe Jik got whole thing.”
A fist closed about her heart. “You’re lying to me, Goldtooth. I’ve had enough of it.”
Long silence. “Maybe good thing one smart mahe come stand real close this kif, huh?”
“You’re planning to kill him?”
“A. You maybe got idea, hani.”
“You think other kif haven’t tried?”
“Kif no do. Kif no try. They kif, they want live, Pyanfar. We mahendo’sat, we little crazy, a? I tell you truth, Pyanfar. You talk that kif I die real slow. You know same, a?”
“Gods, I don’t want to hear this! Don’t make me your coconspirator!”
“Old friend.”
“Friend!” She strode over to her dressing table, unlatched the drawer and searched inside it for a small presentation box. Goldtooth had sat up straight; she tossed it and he caught it.
“What this?”
“Expensive present. From Stle sties stlen, your precious friend at Meetpoint. The stsho you told me to trust. A note. Go on. Read it. It’s short.”
He opened the lid, unfolded the paper and his ears tightened against his skull. “Bastard!”
“Gtst nearly Phased on me. Maybe he had a bad attack of treachery. Don’t trust Goldtooth. That piece of advice cost your government plenty. And that stsho bastard’s been dealing with Rhif Ehrran and the kif and the tc’a, I don’t doubt. And you. And me. And every landless daughter in the Compact’s been sniffing round for advantage. That son was real help, oh, yes! So was your stationmaster at Kshshti. Same gods-rotted kind of help as Stle stles stlen. Gods fry you, you sent me across the Compact like a gods-be lightning rod for every piece of doubledealing for forty lightyears round!”
Goldtooth got to his feet. Tossed the case back. Pyanfar caught it, threw it in the drawer, slammed and latched it.
“You got lot reason be upset, Pyanfar. But you got lot smart. You never ‘preciate same. You best damn captain Anuurn got. I got lot confidence you. You almost same good like me. Maybe better pilot, a?”
“Oh, no. No you don’t. No more favors. Gods rot it, I got no more crew, I got a gods-be zoo! I got a human scan tech, a kif who neglected to present his papers, and they want to feed him little live vermin-“
“You want mahe? Lend you number one fine fellow. Two, three guard.”
On my ship? Fine fellow to report every move I make? “No thanks. I got enough on file with Vigilance. Taking on mahen crew would about do it, friend.”
“You take. You got need. They take you order. Swear. I give you five.”
“No. No way! I can handle it.”
“We got lot trouble come. Akkhtimakt-he go Meetpoint.”
“Oh, good gods-“ It was credible. It was all too credible. The matter spread itself out like a piece of whole cloth. “He’s going to sell himself to Stle stles stlen.”
“You right.”
“Hani are allied with the other side!”
“ ‘Cept you; ‘cept maybe Tahar. Friend.”
Oaths failed her. She stood there staring up at Goldtooth; breath hung in her throat and the dark was all about them both. She coughed her throat clear and a shiver gathered in her gut and ran outward. “You,” she said finally, “you-“
“You no fool, Pyanfar. You got brain. You, me, Jik-not matter look right; matter what we do. Akkhtimakt got hani, got stsho ally, he make them fool. Where hani guns, a? Two, three ship. Stsho got none. Got proverb, hani-you go bed with some people half hour you got hundred year kid, and he got kids and they got in-laws. Same make deal with kif when you got no gun.
She stood there silent, staring up at this mahe, this somber self Goldtooth never showed on docksides. / kill this kif, he had said. Deal and double-deal. He could do it. Strike at Sikkukkut after the whole fragile structure was built and it would all tumble into chaos again.
More lives and ships. More years of hazard. And knnn with their black legs into it, weaving gods-knew-what about the fringes of the Compact, with humans trying to come and go.
Mahendo’sat. He’s fighting for mahen survival. His whole species is in danger.
And where’s hani survival?
Not, for sure, with Akkhtimakt.
She drew a deep breath and folded her arms. “So. So you got me listening, mahe. But you’d better know this: that tc’a the knnn snatched wasn’t the only thing we lost out of here. A stsho craft bolted Mkks, and it came this way, full sail for Meetpoint.”
“Ah, no. Not Meetpoint. Go out Tt’a’va’o vector.” A small flash of gilt teeth. “Try maybe take short cut, a? to Llyene?”
“Into the human ships?”
“Xenophobe stsho got big surprise, a?”
“The gods-rotted stsho are cozy with the tc’a, friend.”
“Maybe we fix.”
“O gods, gods, human lunacy’s catching-you’re playing tag with the knnn, you rag-eared bastard!”
“That do be problem, true.”
She stared into his dark eyes and had another cold moment of doubt. “More secrets? Where are the humans going, friend? Where next? Here? Meetpoint?”
Goldtooth’s humor had fallen away like a shed cloak. He gazed at her long and thoughtfully. “Maybe we make deal with knnn. Maybe e-qui-librium. Tape you got, tape I give you at Meetpoint, you say Banny Ayhar take on-one thing in this tape be knnn record; hani, we got hope this thing get to Maing Tol. You courier knnn message.”
“Good gods.”
“Tully-he be cover for message. He know. And I know you take good care this human. He got paper say he crew of The Pride. You fight save him if you not fight for me.”
“You bastard. You son of a-“
“You listen.” He held up a hand and with the other reached into his belt-pouch.
“What’s that?”
“From Jik. You got fine new comp unit downstair, a? You feed this. Got code sort. You process our private message real good, you get talk to us. Ehrran not got.”
“Best present I’ve had in a while.” She took it and tucked the envelope into her pocket.
“Also,” Goldtooth said, “my medic get look stats on Chur Anify; we got piece equipment we bring aboard. Number one fine she go through jump. Same like be in hospital, give her all she need.”
“Gods rot it, why didn’t Jik give us that at Mkks?”
“He not got. This from Mahijiru. We big ship-got zonal command post. Big hospital. Aja Jin, he maybe more fast, Mahijiru got more crew-got need have this thing. Save few lives. Now you got need, a?” He set his hands on her shoulders, hard and heavy. “We settle detail later. I got go, not like be longtime off my ship. Damn lousy place, Kefk. But one thing more I give-“ He reached into his belt pouch and took some other small thing from it, took her hand and hooked over her finger an earring, with one great perfect pearl.
“Best I find. I owe you long time for welders, a? Come from Llyene oceans, number one most beau-ti-ful.”
“Goldtooth-Ismehanan-min-“ But for the second time words failed her, and Goldtooth laid his hand on the door switch, “You fine woman,” he said. “Beau-ti-ful thing belong you.”
“Where are they going? Gods rot it, what’s their route?”
“Always want talk business,” he sighed, and opened the door and walked out into the corridor.
“Goldtooth, gods rot you-“
She pursued to the doorway, stopped abruptly as a pair of mahendo’sat came dollying a large polystyrene crate past the door. Goldtooth pressed himself against the wall on the other side of the corridor till it passed, waved his hand cheerfully toward the crate that headed for Chur’s room. “There, see, we move quick. I promise. It be done.” He gave an engaging grin. “You trust. You trust, Pyanfar.”
“Ismehanan-min-“
“Chur do fine now,” Goldtooth said definitely, and walked off toward the lift, with a nod of his head gathering up his darkclad crew that hulked along on all sides of him, formidable and irresistible.
She stood alone in the doorway with the pearl clenched in her hand. And felt entirely numb.
“She’s not to get out of that bed,” the hani medic said. The Ehrran’s ears were back, her nose drawn taut about the nostrils as she stood in the corridor prepared to leave. She looked up at Pyanfar the half-hand of difference in their height. “Whatever you imply about my ethics, captain, I did the best for her I could do, and the mahendo’sat have moved in a gods-rotted expensive piece of equipment she’ll stay hooked up to during jump. It’ll take the load off her heart and kidneys and prevent any more deterioration. With luck-“ Geran had showed up in the corridor and stood there with a face like thunder. “With luck she even may build back a little on the trip. Depends on a lot of things. You’re lucky this far. So is she. We don’t have that kind of resources. We can’t buy it.” There was bitterness in the woman, a tight jawed hani anger at outsider wealth, and the laws and agreements between mahendo’sat and stsho that forever shut hani out. And that was an old story Pyanfar well understood.
“I appreciate your professional effort,” Pyanfar said quietly. And could not forbear adding: “And I do understand you, Ehrran.”
“Thanks,” Geran said for her part. The word all but: strangled on its way out.
The hani medic nodded curtly and hitched the strap of her carry-sack higher on her shoulder as the mahen medic came out of the room. “She explain?” the mahe asked. “I hook up machine, she stay connect. No take off. You get list procedure. I leave supply in cabinet.”
“She explained it. Yes. Thank you. Mashini-to, a?” .
“A.” The mane grinned and bowed and swung off down main corridor with the hani slogging along beside, an unlikely pair headed for the lift. Mahen guards peeled them selves out of the corridor in their wake and followed, Goldtooth’s remaining intrusion withdrawing itself.
Geran looked drawn and shaken. Silent even yet. Pyanfar put her hand on Geran’s shoulder. “Hey, she’s going to be all right. Best new-fangled stuff Iji’s come out with. Good as hospital. And more good news. I don’t think we’re pulling out of here real soon, not like we were afraid we might. Day or so, maybe. Maybe more. We know where Akkhtimakt is; I just got word from Goldtooth, and it looks like we’re going to have a little chance to breathe. There’s more to it than that, but for Chur’s sake it’s the best news we could come up with on short notice.”
Geran said nothing. But her face went defenseless and ordinary as if she had come back to them finally. Pyanfar pressed with her hand and Geran drew a deep breath. “What did Goldtooth have to say?”
“A lot of stuff that takes explaining.” Pyanfar looked in on Chur, leaned there in the doorway of a room which had a great lot of machinery sitting over against the wall; and a crowd of visitors: Hilfy and Tully and Khym still lingered “Hey, you,” Pyanfar said, “out of there and let Chur rest, will you?” And as the file passed her in the doorway: “Chur, Cousin, you hear me?”
“Uh?” Chur lifted her head from the pillow.
“We just got a present, a little while to rest. We got a message where Akkhtimakt is and we’ve got time for a little R and R. You don’t be getting out of that bed or you walk back to Kshshti.”
“Gods-be needles,” Chur said. “I hate needles.”
“Got more news for you. You get more of them on the way. Get some sleep, huh?”
“Trying,” Chur said, and shifted in the bed and settled as far as the tubes and one arm strapped outward let her.
Pyanfar shut the door and looked at the somber gathering in the hall.
“So what is it, captain?” Geran asked.
“Not something I much want to dump on you right now,” Pyanfar said. “But I’d better.”
“Chur-“
“Not about her. Us. Bridge. Everyone.”
The four of them followed her. Tirun and Haral turned their chairs about as they walked in. Pyanfar went to her own seat near Haral and leaned on the back of it while the rest of the crew settled on chair-arms and against cabinets. “Haral, Tirun, you catch that business in the corridor?”
“Aye,” Haral said. “Both of us. Good news on Chur. Thank the gods.”
“Thank the gods and friends where, we have ‘em. Such as they are. We got anything essential running now?”
“No.”
“All right.” She took Goldtooth’s code-strip packet from her pocket and put that down on the counter by her seat, powered her chair about to face the crew and sat down.
“Humans are moving out from Tt’a’va’o. I don’t know what route they took; maybe you do, Tully, but the choices from there are real limited. I’ve talked to Goldtooth. I know a lot of things.” She watched Tully’s face, saw anxiety-the least little flicker of his strange eyes. “Humans on the move. And that’s not the worst of it. Goldtooth’s been lurking about Kefk regions keeping the Meetpoint route closed and creating a real difficulty for Akkhtimakt-Jik said sometime back that Goldtooth might be up to something hereabouts. But it turns out they don’t check things out with each other real well. It seems Jik took off on his own and made the deal with Sikkukkut. Unauthorized, as it were. Or at least without-consulting. Forced Goldtooth’s hand. Tully, I’ll try to use small words. Goldtooth had come in from deep space-at least from outside the Compact-with Tully aboard, off Ijir. He left Ijir to go its way-but he had a duplicate of the message packet Ijir carried. He had Tully. And he had gotten something else-some kind of message from the knnn. From the knnn, gods help us. At least that’s what Goldtooth hints. Meanwhile Akkhtimakt aimed to take Kita Point, while his agents were busy eliminating all opposition on the kifish home world-setting himself up as hakkikt of all the kif, that’s what he was after. And back at that stage, a few months ago, Sikkukkut was no more than a provincial boss from Mirkti- with ambitions. Sikkukkut courted his old mahen connections at Meetpoint, approached Goldtooth trying to outflank Akkhtimakt, probing for every weakness he could get- Meetpoint’s always a good place for intrigues. A real good place to pick up rumors. And right around that time rumors were running heavy-like hani deals with the stsho; mahen deals-everybody who was high up enough to get advance warnings was trying to get the best advantage against this new kifish hakkikt. Against Akkhtimakt.
“But Sikkukkut had a spy with Akkhtimakt, gods know how or where. Undoubtedly he had some stsho on the take at Meetpoint. He knew about the courier-ship falling into Akkhtimakt’s hands. He knew-I suspect from his spy with Akkhtimakt, the same way he probably got the ring-that Goldtooth had Tully aboard. And it wasn’t too hard to figure Goldtooth had handed Tully to us at Meetpoint, when we showed up with our papers cleared with a gods-awful monstrous bribe from the mahendo’sat. Which we didn’t know about. But Sikkukkut may have.
“Sikkukkut set us up, deliberately put us in a bind at Meetpoint. He snagged us into his reach, he snagged Ehrran, and Ayhar; and he steered us out of Akkhtimakt’s trap at Kita. Steered us right for his own front yard, step by step. And snagged Jik by having us in his net, while he was at it. By that business at Kshshti he gathered himself enough sfik to take Mkks on his own; and now he’s got Kefk. So all of a sudden momentum’s on his side and deserting Akkhtimakt. Akkhtimakt’s supporters are beginning to desert him. Fast. Kifish logic: shoot your former allies in the back and run for the winning side. Akkhtimakt’s got to be worried.
“Part two: Jik. Jik’s got this idea mahendo’sat are a lot better off with their old familiar neighbor from Mirkti as hakkikt over all the kif. And Jik got Ehrran in on it; and he got us. Never mind Mkks’ safety. That wasn’t all he was after in those negotiations at Mkks. And Ehrran’s on a lot more than Tahar’s track now if she’s got half sense-she’s up at the top of this little information pyramid. She’s got access to highlevel strategy-and if she’s not a total fool, and if she knows anything about this, it’s a lot more than Tahar got her to come to Kefk. Treaty law, yes. Jik’s got credentials clear from the top, I’m sure he has. And what he specifically said to her that got her out of Mkks and headed this way-gods know. I have an idea the whole urgency behind Ehrran’s search for Tahar has a whole lot to do with the han’s negotiations with the stsho and the fear of the kif getting a leader. I think they wanted Tahar dead. Wanted to eliminate any possibility of her advising and helping a hakkikt predict what hani would do. Xenophobia again. But in this case, xenophobia with a real good reason. I’m guessing Ehrran’s real and immediate motive in going along with this lunatic expedition, because she knew she hadn’t a spit in a hurricane of getting back to Meetpoint and hani lanes in one piece if she didn’t stay close by Jik-and learn what he was up to. Meanwhile Akkhtimakt supposedly held Kita, remember.”
“Supposedly?” Haral said.
“I think Jik gods-be knew where Goldtooth went when he left Meetpoint: straight for deep stsho-tc’a space; right for a rendez-vous with someone who was going to guide the humans in. And then he was supposed to go-probably from Tt’a’va’o (the tc’a connection again!) to Kefk-harassing Akkhtimakt, making him divide his efforts between holding Kita and trying to keep the Kefk lane open, while Goldtooth set himself to keep it shut. So Meetpoint’s had a two-way stranglehold on it, trade cut off by the kif at Kita; and-by Goldtooth at Kefk. Goldtooth’s plan was to bring Akkhtimakt down by weakening him-lessening his credibility-all the while playing another game designed to soften up this whole gods-be zone from Kefk to Meetpoint because he knew humans were going to come through in this vicinity. If he could link up a mahen-human traderoute right past kifish borders, he’d ruin Akkhtimakt’s credibility once and for all. Devastate him.
“Meanwhile the kifish homeworld is in complete chaos with hunter-squads and assassinations, trying to handle Goldtooth and hunt humans and balance its attentions between two rival hakkiktun. And the kif get information what’s going on at Kefk; and some of that information goes to Mkks ... to kif, but not to mahen authorities-unless the tc’a talked, and they may not have, to unauthorized mahendo’sat. No, Sikkukkut knew exactly where Goldtooth was all the time. But I’m not sure Jik did, when he accepted Sikkukkut’s deal to move on Kefk. I don’t think Jik even knew for sure whether Goldtooth was alive. So when he was offered a deal that might provide a hakkikt that mahendo’sat could deal with-he took it. It’d take him to Kefk. It would let him link up with Goldtooth, if Goldtooth was still alive. I think mahen information broke down at that one really critical point; and now Goldtooth’s in danger-because I think Sikkukkut sees a lot more of Goldtooth’s thinking than Goldtooth thinks he sees-a lot more even than Jik may be aware of. Sikkukkut’s drawn Goldtooth into the open now. Sikkukkut’s got him accessible; and Goldtooth’s come in, on his own, real close to Sikkukkut. Not playing coy at all. You see?”
“We got trouble,” Haral said. “Gods, we got trouble.”
“Oh, it gets worse, cousin. Jik used some kind of credit at Mkks to get that tc’a to go with us. The knnn are definitely into it. They’ve already sent one message to Maing Tol-that packet that we sent on with Banny Ayhar, if you can believe Goldtooth that far. I don’t know what else Jik did at Mkks but I’m betting he gave the tc’a stationmaster our navigation data and got a tc’a to run cover for us and make sure Kefk fell without a shot. The knnn may consent to it. Or the knnn may have taken exception to it. Gods-rotted sure they took the tc’a. We don’t know how they think. Or what they want. But humanity, remember, is cutting real close to the knnn’s territory in getting here, if they haven’t cut right through it; gods know where the knnn think their zones extend-if they even understand borders. And Tully says humans have fired at knnn ships.”
Eyes dilated all round the bridge. Ears flattened.
“So here we are,” Pyanfar said. “We moved into Kefk and caught Kefk by surprise and a high dice roll, and Kefk did the kifish thing and bellied down to the deck fast as they could spit. Sikkukkut takes everything on the table.
“Except for one thing. Akkhtimakt’s got one recourse. The stsho hire mahen guards for top security, right? The stsho don’t trust hani for anything but the lowest level guard jobs, and they trust kif for bully jobs. But. But. Mahendo’sat are trying to get the humans into the Compact, same way they bullied the stsho into admitting hani once upon a time. Now we have a common border with mahendo’sat that kept us satisfied with trade in that direction for a long time; and we’ve got a natural barrier on the stsho side, with a gulf our ships can’t jump. Hani haven’t been bad neighbors for the stsho. It’s a lot different with humanity. Humanity wants through stsho space. Wants through tc’a and knnn space. Through kif space, if it can’t get the other routes. That’s got the stsho worried. Real worried. And meanwhile, on Anuurn, we’ve got a division: we’ve got hani who took to space and we’ve got hani who’re gods-be near as xenophobic as the stsho. Old-fashioned hani who don’t know the stsho. They aren’t capable of knowing the stsho-gods, they aren’t capable of imagining the stsho. But stsho money gets to them and buys votes in the han. Sets up new hani authorities of a mindset the stsho approve. That takes care of one border problem. Hire hani guards, then. Displace the mahendo’sat from every security post they hold on stsho property. Get them out. That takes care of the in-office stuff and gets rid of the mahen stranglehold; and gets mahen fingers out of stsho lines of communication. But there’s one more thing the stsho need to stop the humans, something the nonspacing faction of the han can’t provide them and no stsho can possibly handle gtstself. Armed ships. In numbers.”
“O my gods,” Tirun said.
“You’ve got it, cousin. The humans are headed either for Meetpoint or for Kefk. Goldtooth planned it that way. Put pressure on the stsho to get closer to the mahendo’sat. Make ‘em deal with humanity: Bring Akkhtimakt down hard when he can’t stop the human advance right under kifish noses. But the plan’s backfired, partially thanks to Jik and thanks to us. By taking Kefk, Sikkukkut just piled a pressure on Akkhtimakt that’s forcing Akkhtimakt to do something he’d never ordinarily do-he can’t handle Sikkukkut and the mahendo’sat and the humans without more help than he’s got. So Akkhtimakt’s headed to Meetpoint to deal with the stsho. Same as the han is. The han’s just ended up on Akkhtimakt’s side.”
There was profound silence. Sound whispered from a loose complug; the ducts hissed.
“Well, we got a real problem, don’t we?” Haral said.
“Well, it’s the han!” Geran said. “It’s the likes of Ehrran, it’s the likes of Naur and all of them back home, the gods-be fools!”
“We end up,” Pyanfar said, “alone on this side with the mahendo’sat. And the kif. We’re headed for Meetpoint. That’s where the hakkikt will take this party for sure, he’s sure humanity’s going there and not coming here to take Kefk. That’s the one thing he’s got to be scared of-the one thing that could sink him, destroy everything he’s built-and Goldtooth might do it to him. He wants to know that. He desperately, wants to know that, and Goldtooth isn’t talking. If you want other possible motives for Goldtooth coming tamely in to dock-try the possibility that he’s got help coming. A lot of it. That has to worry Sikkukkut. He daren’t move til he has some way to cover himself and he daren’t stay here and lose his momentum with his own followers. Goldtooth’s got him worried bad, and Goldtooth wants to keep it that way.
One other thing you can figure: Ehrran. Ehrran’ll turn on us the moment we hit Meetpoint space. At the least, she’ll run for home-straight for the han to try to get a policy decision. And she’ll take them everything in those records. Everything. Our troubles may come to a head at home before we can possibly get there; if we can get there at all. And there’s no way we can get word to the House and Kohan what’s coming. No way we can warn them-unless we break and run for home ourselves. I’m not about to tell Chur what’s up: she can’t stand this right now. But the rest of you had better know. You’d better think about it real hard. We can tear out of here at first excuse and go home. We can lay course straight from Meetpoint, run for all we’re worth the second we hit that system, while everyone else is busy. And we can face whatever we have to back at Anuurn. We can’t outrun Vigilance. But we might get there in time to meet charges. Tie it up in the han. Organize a fight-when, gods help us-it may have already been lost out here.
“Or we can stay and fight with the mahendo’sat, when it comes, against Akkhtimakt and whatever force the han may have set to assist the stsho at Meetpoint. You can guess what captains they might have talked into it. And where that ends then, I don’t know. But I do know this beyond a doubt: if Akkhtimakt should win-he’ll own Meetpoint, he’ll move in on the stsho with no one to stop him, once he’s past their security systems; and gods know what the knnn and the humans and the han will do in their separate craziness. But I don’t decide this one. On this one you tell me.”
“What do you think we ought to do?” Haral asked.
“I’ve told you.”
“Tell us plain.”
“Aye,” Tirun muttered. “You’ve seen through this much of it-how much else do you see?”
Pyanfar drew a deep breath, pressed her hands against her eyes. Time went in loops. Anuurn sunset. The old vine on the estate wall. Hilfy playing in the dirt.
A ship at Meetpoint, dying because it happened to be hani, and in the wrong place-
Tully, crouching naked on her deck, writing numbers in his own blood-
Chur, handing them a white plastic packet, as she lay bleeding on a Kshshti dock-A kifish den. Jik’s ridiculous smoke-playing sfik-games with the kif.
“I’d go with the mahendo’sat. Maybe I’m a fool. Maybe it’s the worst kind of a fool-but being a fool hasn’t stopped Ehrran from dealing left and right, has it? We can’t do worse. We can’t do worse than the han’s done. Maybe that’s a fool’s arrogance too. Maybe, maybe, and maybe. Maybe it’s Anuurn’s last chance. Last chance for hani to do anything independent in the universe-sounds funny, too gods-rotted high for us; but that’s the plain truth. I’m not sure where we’ll end up, or what we’ll do to Chanur back at home, or how they’ll survive this. Or what we’ll be even if we win-on Sikkukkut’s side. But I don’t want to see what happens when Akkhtimakt laps up the stsho like an appetizer. That’s what I think. If you think the same, we get our minds on short-term business and we ride the waves the best we can. If it’s go home, you tell me and we go that way long and hard as we can, while we can.”
“I’m on your side,” Haral muttered. “The stsho go down-we haven’t seen trouble yet.”
“Same,” Tirun said; and: “Same,” said Geran. “No question.”
“Same with me,” said Hilfy quietly. “No choice, is there?”
Pyanfar found her claws clenched on the upholstery and carefully drew them in. “I owe you an apology for this,” she said. Understatement. But her voice threatened not to work. She bestirred herself to the side and picked up the code-packet from the counter and handed it to Haral. “Mahen codes. We just got made official. As of now, we’re guilty of everything in Vigilance’s files. I just don’t want to spook Vigilance out of our company too fast. So we go on doing what we’ve been doing and we don’t give any hints, if by some wild chance Ehrran hasn’t guessed what Goldtooth’s up to, and what Jik’s done. Gods help us, if we were really lucky, Ehrran would catch some common sense and side with us, and drag the han over to our side, out of the mess it’s in. But that’s about the last hope I entertain.”
“She’s snake enough to twist two ways at once,” Tirun said.
“Inside out if I had my choice,” Geran said.
“Meanwhile,” Pyanfar said, “while we’ve got some time, we don’t have much, and work goes on. Hilfy, Tully, Khym, they’re sending over some stuff for the kif. I’d like to get rid of him, but I don’t see a way to do it without creating a problem with Sikkukkut, and we don’t need that. On the other hand, whatever he is, he’s stood about what he can. I want him transferred to a regular cabin, I want the room safed, understand. We’re going to have some sort of live stuff to take care of. Skkukuk can do his own vermin-herding. I want it decontaminated. Never mind the docking-check on this watch, except the filters, the ops and the lifesupport; we’ll catch the little things next. Someone looks in on Chur now and again in Geran’s off-watch; you arrange that, Geran. Don’t wear yourself out. Tirun, call down to Tahar and tell her we’re still working on the problem. She’s probably chewing sticks down there. I haven’t got time to talk to her. Tirun and Geran, Hilfy and Haral when you’ve got time, I want this code-strip fed in and checked against the translator. And when you get all that done, I want a regular dinner set up, none of those gods-be sandwiches.”
There was dismay in tired faces until the matter of the dinner. “We’ll go off-shift,” Pyanfar said, “at need. When there’s a lull, sleep. Feel free to trade off jobs and watches-I don’t care who does it, just so it gets done before watch-end, and it gets done with due precautions: no one visits Skkukuk or Tahar alone. Sorry about the schedule. Goldtooth offered a full crew but I turned him down. Trust is fine; but I’m not handing over The Pride’s codes to anybody. Not these days.”
“Gods-rotted right,” Haral said, and, “Aye,” from the rest, with a flick of ears and a tautness of jaws.
“So get it done, huh?” She nodded a dismissal. Hilfy got up and walked out with Geran, down the corridor. Tirun turned back to com and Haral turned to the main board and systems-checks again. The menfolk were last on their way out, separately. And-“Khym,” Pyanfar said before he could go: “You all right in this? Tully?”
Khym stopped and stuck his hands in his belt, glanced at the deck with a deference natural in Chanur matters. “You pick the fight, I’ll settle the bastards, wasn’t it something like that we promised each other fifty years ago?” It was their marriage vow, less elegantly phrased. But then he looked up, and a curious quirk came and went she had not seen in years. “But I think you’ll have to help, though, wife.”
She laughed despite it all and he grinned as if pleased to have pleased her. She watched the straightening of his shoulders as he walked off the bridge. Somewhere he had got a swagger in his step.
The ache in her own bones felt less, for that.
“Py-anfar?”
“Tully.” She rose from her chair. Walked over near him as he stood there with confusion on his face. “Tully. Did you follow what I was saying to the crew? You understood?”
He nodded his head energetically- yes, that peculiar gesture meant. “I work,” he said. “I work.” And he turned his shoulder to her, there by the scan panel, his hands busy with some printout which he could no more read than he could breathe vacuum.
Avoidance.
“Tully,” she said. “Tully.”
“I work,” he said.
“Put those ridiculous papers down.” She snatched them from his hand and flung them onto the counter. He backed up, hit the chair and caught himself with an arm against the seat-back, eyes wide and flickering. He smelled of human sweat and Anuurn flowers. And sudden terror. Tirun half-turned her chair, and kept staring in distress. Tully stayed frozen, stsho-pale. Fear. Indeed, fear. It set her heart to pounding and touched off her aggressive reflexes; but child she made herself think, dismissing hunter-mind; and alien and friend and hair-triggered male. -
It was not her move that had frightened him. He was beyond that. He knew she. would never lay hands on him; she knew that he knew. It was a deeper thing.
“You worried about something, Tully?”
“Not understand lot you say-“ He waved a vague gesture at the room. At the scan panel. “I work. I don’t need any understand.”
“Tully, old friend.” Pyanfar laid a hand on his shoulder and felt the slight shift of muscles as if he had rather not have it resting there; she smelled his sweat despite that their air was cool for a human. “Listen-I know you doublecrossed me.” The translator sputtered through the com Tully wore at his belt. She wore no earplug: she needed none at this range. “You and Goldtooth worked together. He told me. Gods rot you, Tully, you did set me up-“
The translator rendered something in its flat, Tully-voiced way, and he sank down on the chair arm to evade her hand, out of room to retreat.
“You tell me the truth, huh, Tully. What’s got the wind up your back? Something I said?”
“Not understand.”
“Sure. Let’s talk about things. Like things maybe I might like to know-What’s the humans’ course?”
“Ta-va-“
“Tt’a’va’o. You heard that from me just now. Maybe you know more than that. Maybe you know what Goldtooth’s not saying. Truth, Tully, gods blast you!” ,
He flinched violently. “Truth,” he said. The translator gave him a woman’s voice in the return, but the pitch was not far from his own. “I don’t lie, I don’t lie.”
“Where before that?”
“Not sure. Ta-vik. Think Tavik.”
“Tvk. At least one kifish port. Tvk. I’ll guess they didn’t stop to say hello. Skimmed in and out. And then to Chchchcho, not Akkti, not likely. Chchchcho. The chi homeworld. That’s a real fine route, Tully. Real great. Who planned it?”
“I come-Ijir.”
“You mean you don’t know.”
“Not know.”
“Tully. That packet. Packet. Understand? What did it say?”
“Make offer trade.”
“To whom? Who to, Tully?”
A desperate wave of the hand. “All. All Compact.”
“Kif too, huh?”
“Mahe. Hani.”
“Tully, what else was in there? A knnn message, for instance. Knnn. You know that?”
A shake of the head. That was no. The eyes were wide and blue and anxious. “Not. Not know knnn thing. Py-anfar-I tell you, I tell you all thing. # # I don’t lie to you.”
“Funny thing how that translator always spits on sentences I’d really like not to doubt.”
“I’m friend, I’m your friend, Pyanfar!”
“Yeah. I know.”
“You think I lie.”
“Didn’t say you lied. Just wish you’d tell the truth before things get hot, huh? I just don’t like the feeling there’s something still rattling round back of those pretty blue eyes of yours. Something’s been there since a long while back.” She raked his mane back from his face with a judicious claw-let the hand rest on his shoulder again, gently. “Look, Tully- you’re not scared of me, are you?”
“No.”
“Then why don’t you tell me the truth? Why’d you keep things from me when we started this voyage?”
“I tell.”
“About the ships, yes. You did try. Why not the rest of it?”
“I try-try tell-You all time # busy not #-“
“Knnn’s a word would get my attention real fast, Tully. You ever talk about the knnn with Goldtooth, huh? You tell him about firing on the knnn?”
A blink, a shake of the head, a shift of the eyes. Evasion.
“Well, you’ve been real helpful to a lot of people, haven’t you? You tell me the truth about him taking you off that courier ship?”
“Truth.”
“He personally?”
“Goldtooth.”
“Ever hear anything about another ship? Another hunter-ship out there-someone with the rest of the humans?”
“No.”
“You mean these human ships are just careening about Compact space on their own. No charts, no guide? No one watching them? Come on, Tully. How many?”
“I don’t know.”
“Two. Ten?”
“Not know. Ten. Maybe ten. Maybe more.”
“More.”
“I don’t know!”
“Where’d these ships come from, Tully? Who’s bringing them? Who told them to? You know about that?”
“Not know.”
“Goldtooth knew. Truth, Tully. What do you know about these other humans?”
A darting of the eyes aside, elsewhere, back, away again.
“Huh?” she asked. “What do you know, Tully?”
“Come fight kif. They come fight kif.”
“Uhhnnn.” She caught his stare and held it. His eyes darted and jerked and stayed centered, dilated wide in the bright light of the bridge. “How do they sort out which kif, huh, Tully? Who tells them?”
“Kif is kif.”
“Think so? What kind of plan is that? Take on the whole by the gods kif species? You’re crazy, Tully. No. The mahendo’sat don’t deal with crazy people. And you’re dealing with the mahendo’sat, aren’t you?”
“I ask go to bring you, bring you, Pyanfar, I don’t # the mahendo’sat.”
“Say again.”
“Mahendo’sat don’t speak all truth. I’m scared. I don’t know what they do. I think maybe they want help us but I-//” He laid a hand on his chest and said it in hani, sending the translator into sputters. “I Tully-I scare, Py-anfar.”
“Of what? What scares you?”
“I think the mahendo’sat more want help self. Maybe hani have want help self. I don’t know. I don’t understand too much. The translator makes wrong words. I scare-I don’t know-“
“You’re talking real clear now. Tully. You understand me. And I don’t want any more evasions. You don’t tell me you don’t understand, hear? You know what kind of mess we’re in.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Oh, yes, you do. Who’s with the ships, Tully? What’s the arrangement they made? Where are they going next?”
“I don’t understand.”
“I told you I don’t want to hear that. I want to know what you know. Tell me this, Tully-what questions did Sikkukkut ask you? What did he ask you, all alone?”
“Not-not-“ His eyes widened. He twisted suddenly and looked behind him. Pyanfar glanced beyond, where Hilfy stood. Reflection and movement in the dead monitor screen. That had caught Tully’s eye; and he seized on the chance.
“Hilfy,” Tully said, pleaded. “Hilfy-“
“Something wrong?” Hilfy asked.
“We’re just talking,” Pyanfar said. Gods rot the timing. “Go see how Chur’s doing, huh?”
“Geran’s with her. Was just there.” Blind to hints. Or ignoring them.
“Fine. Go see about the filters. You want to walk through, walk.”
Hilfy’s ears went down. She stood there.
“I go help,” Tully offered, making to get up.
“You stay put.” She shoved him back down on the chair? arm. “I’m not through with you. Hilfy. Get.”
“What’s the matter? What’s going on?”
Fear. Human sweat. It was distinct and general in the air. The quiet on the bridge despite two stations working, the look on Tully’s face-
“We’re discussing routes,” Pyanfar said evenly, quietly, and laid a quiet hand on Tully’s shoulder. He flinched from under it and glanced round in panic. “Discussing what things he may still know. What he might have told without realizing it, to the mahendo’sat. To the kif in particular.”
“I don’t talk, Hilfy, I don’t.”
“Didn’t say you were a liar, Tully. I asked you what Sikkukkut asked you. I want to know what Sikkukkut wanted to know.”
“For godssakes, aunt-“
There was sweat on Tully’s face. His skin had gone white. He looked up at her.
“Let him alone, gods rot it, aunt, he’s had enough.”
“I know he’s had enough. I know what he went through-“
“You don’t know! Keep your hands off him!”
Panic. Killing rage. O gods. Gods, Hilfy. Whoever wore that look was not a child, had never been a child. “Tully. All right. Get.” She gave him a shove to move him. “Go on, I’ll talk to you later.”
“We send out ships,” Tully said, suddenly, perversely clinging to his place. He poured the words out, clutched her wrist when she made a gesture of dismissal, and he looked from Hilfy to her, to Tirun and Haral and back, his alien eyes flickering and distracted. “It long time-long time-I try- They leave the Earth, understand. They make # self a #-“ And when she shifted in the pain of his grip, he held the harder. “You listen, listen, Pyanfar, I tell you-“
“Make sense, gods rot it, the translator’s frying half you say.”
“We send ships-“ He let go her bruised wrist to make a vague and desperate gesture of displacement,-of going away. “Ships go from Earth, from homeworld, they make # self # law, make # self # Compact. They don’t like Earth. We fight # long with these human. Now we get no trade # be # to Earth. There be two human Compacts. They # want #. Want Earth. We want be free. We want make our # law. We want go-out in space-not the same direction like before. We find new direction, new trade. We find your Compact, find you. We want trade. This is the truth. If we get trade we make three Compact. Earth # be the third. Earth # be the # friend to hani, to mahendo’sat.”
“Two human compacts.” Pyanfar blinked and wiped her mane back with a sore hand and looked at Hilfy, who looked confused.
“Three,” Tully said. “Also Earth. My homeworld. We got trouble # two humanities. We want trade. We the home of humanity we need this #. We want make way into Compact space, come and go # # #.”
“You know about this?” Pyanfar asked Hilfy.
“No,” Hilfy said, “No, I don’t know what he’s talking about.”
“# #. Human be three kind.” Tully held up as many digits. “ #. #. Earth. I be Earth-man.”
“Politics,” Pyanfar muttered. “We got gods-be human politics, that’s what. Well, who’s telling the human ships where to go?”
“Earth. Earth tell.”
“And what are you, Tully?”
“I spacer.”
“You’re so gods-be quick with that.”
“Aunt.”
“You want to ask him?”
“Gods blast it, take it easy on him!”
Pyanfar drew a deep breath. “Look, maybe he never talked to the kif. I’ll take that on his say-so. Maybe he never spoke a word. But he doesn’t lie real good. He never did.”
“Not to us.”
“He speaks the language, niece. Watch the eyes when you ask him questions, never mind the ears, watch the eyes. He’s a lousy liar. He was alone with Sikkukkut. With drugs. With questions. All right, you know what and I don’t. Even if he didn’t talk-he may have spilled something he doesn’t know he spilled. You think of that?”
“You ever ask me what / gave them?”
Pyanfar blinked in shock. Shook her head at the thought. “A cracked skull and nothing else,” Hilfy said. “I didn’t give them anything. And they tried, aunt, that precious kifish friend of yours did try. You take my word, take his. I know he didn’t.”
“They had him quite a few hours to themselves, Hilfy. With all the pieces to this fractured mess starting to fit in Sikkukkut’s brain, with us in port and leaving Sikkukkut a lust few precious hours to try for what he could get out of Tully- along with what he learned from other kif living at Mkks. So you want to be some help here and let Tully for godssakes answer for himself?”
“He’s told you. No! He didn’t talk! I know him.”
“Sure you do,” Pyanfar drawled, and the inside of Hilfy’s ears went suddenly deep rose; and they folded. Eyes reacted. Everything shouted reaction and shame. It was not what she had meant. Pyanfar felt her own ears go hot; the flinch was unavoidable, the instantaneous glance aside from the matter they had skirted round and skirted round. She covered it with a cough and a wave of her hand. “Look, niece-“
“I know him real well,” Hilfy said with cold deliberation. “Maybe you take my word for something, huh, aunt? Maybe you trust / got out of there with my wits about me, huh? And I’m telling you how he was, and how he handled himself, and I’m telling you, he’s not a boy and he’s not the fool you take him for. Don’t talk to him like that.”
Pyanfar looked at her. Saw no child, no petulance. “I never said he was a fool. I’m saying you and he may be a little out of your territory-and smart, niece, smart is knowing when you are. If you’re not as clever as your enemy, you by the gods hope he’s over-confident: you sure as rain falls don’t need to make a mistake in that department. That kif’s not a dockfront tough; that kif’s smart enough to put the han’s tail in a vise; and con Jik; and outwit Akkhtimakt down the line; and by all the gods near take over the Compact. You want to tell me he couldn’t just ask you questions and watch your reactions? You don’t want to remember that time. Fine. You don’t want to think. All right. But that cripples you. And if you’re number two in wit, you don’t need another handicap. We’re in it up to our noses. Remember what I said a while ago-what the stakes are right now? We’ve got a problem, Hilfy Chanur. I need a straight answer out of our friend here. I need to know what that gods-be kif s onto and what he’s not; and I need to. know whether humans are going to be here or Meetpoint, which is what Sikkukkut would give a whole lot to learn right now. You think the Compact’s a tangled mess of ambitions? I’m betting what drives humanity is the same thing-politics we don’t understand. Three Compacts, good gods! I’ll tell you something else. It’s a good bet Tully doesn’t know the answers I’d really want. You think they’d let him know everything and send him off with the mahendo’sat? No. That kind of thing gets known by long-toothed old women in high councils. Politics is politics, at least in the oxy-breathing kinds we can talk to. I don’t take anything for granted. I think any thought that needs thinking. Like what deals Goldtooth’s made. Or Jik. Or-“ She looked at Tully. “-what Sikkukkut and you could have talked about in those few hours when he knew by the gods for certain you speak hani. What about it, Tully? What’d he ask? What’d he say?”
Tully’s pupils dilated and contracted and dilated again. He tried to speak and his voice failed him. “He say-say he know my friends die, he tell me-tell me # # # they #. Say I talk to him, what be human deal with mahendo’sat. What deal with you. Lot time ask. He want know route. Same you. He know human come. Not know where. # # #.”
“Lost that.”
Tully’s lips trembled. “Lot time. Lot time. Hurt me. # #. You make deal # this kif?”
“I’m not his friend, Tully.” ,
“/ know this kif.”
“Know him.” Pyanfar looked from him to a sudden shift of Hilfy’s stance.
“Sikkukkut said-“ Hilfy’s voice was quiet, subdued. “Said he knew Tully from before.”
“On Akkukkak’s ship.”
Tully nodded. Emphatic. His eyes focussed elsewhere, on something ugly. Came back to them. “He be Akkukkak # # #. Long time he ask me, my friend question.”
“Gods. Akkukkak’s interrogator. Is that what? Is that where you know him from?”
“He kill my friend,” Tully said. “He kill my friend, Py-anfar. With his hands.”
“O good gods.” She sat down against the counter edge, hands on knees. “Tully-“
“Tully asked me when we got back,” Hilfy said, “just how close you’re friends with Sikkukkut. Now I know why.”
“Gods,” Pyanfar said. “I’m not, Tully. I’m trying to save our lives, you understand me? Did you tell him anything, did you give him anything?”
Tully shook his head. It was not the naive look, not the clear blue stare he generally had. It was a different Tully. Tully-inside, calm and cold and thinking. She knew it when she saw it, long as it had been. “I say nothing, don’t look at him. I go far away. I wait. I not be. You say you come to get me. So I wait for you.”
Pyanfar let go a long, long breath. The silence stayed there a moment. “Politics,” she said. “All politics. You understand politics, Tully? Kif aren’t anyone’s friends. Not mine. Not anyone’s. But there’s kif and there’s worse kif. You know why I’m dealing with him? You understand? Can you understand?”
“Politics,” Tully said. Not naive, no. “I know you come take me from kif. That be your politics.”
“I’m not any friend of Sikkukkut’s. Believe that.”
“Bad thing happen. I don’t understand. You lot scare. Where we go? What we fight? We got enemy be friend, hani and stssts-“
“Stsho.”
“-be enemy. You don’t trust Goldtooth, don’t trust Jik. Don’t trust hani. Don’t trust kif.”
“Goldtooth and Jik are friends. We just can’t trust them much. Not where it crosses mahendo’sat interests.”
“Where be hani?”
Pyanfar glanced Hilfy’s way, felt Tirun’s stare at her side. She slouched against the console. “Good question.”
“What I do?” Tully asked. “What I do, Py-anfar?”
“What did you do? What are you going to do? I wish I had an answer for either one. Friend, Tully. That’s all I can tell you. Same’s Goldtooth’s my friend; and yours. Gods know what it counts for. Wish I had an answer for you. Wish you had one for me.”
“I fight,” he said. “I crewman on The Pride. You want fight #, hani, kif, I don’t # to die with #.”
“Gods rot that translator. Do you understand me at all? Have we got it fouled up again?”
Anything hani-like? Where was family, clan, House? What was he?
He.
Male. Houseless. Sisterless. Wifeless. Renegade. Nau hauruun.
But not hani. There was no analogy in Tully to that kind of destructive orphan, who killed and stalked at random. Nau hauruun.
Not Tully their friend. Tully no-name. Tully from distant Earth, of the ships and the strangers.
“Captain,” Tirun said quietly. “Captain-Ehrran’s on. ‘fraid they’ve been on hold a while. They’re getting pretty hot.”
“Good,” Pyanfar said flatly; and went and flung herself into her well-worn chair and powered it about to the boards.
Mind on business, Pyanfar Chanur; Wake up. Smell the wind and watch the branches overhead. “I’ll take it.-You got any movement out of Harukk on the Tahar business?”
“Not a thing,” Tirun said. “I keep calling; keep getting the same answer. Sikkukkut’s still not available. Business, they say.”
“Gods-be sfik games. I begin to get the feel of it. And I don’t like what’s going on. Put that call through again as soon as I finish with Ehrran. Have them tell Sikkukkut I’m personally interested in the Tahar crew. Tell him we’ve got sfik involved here.”
That got a look from Haral, beside her. “Captain. Begging your pardon-“
Haral left it unfinished. It was hani lives at stake, feud with Tahar or no feud. A miscalculation with the kif might touch something off and get the Tahar crew killed outright. Jik might even be working near to success on the matter. All these things she thought of, and thought of again under that worried glance from Haral, and a like one from Tirun past Haral’s back. A twitch of many-ringed ears. A deep frown.
“Send it,” Pyanfar said. “Be tactful, that’s all.”
“Tactful,” Tirun muttered, and turned to execute the first order.
“You be my friend. You. Hilfy. All. I die with you.”
“Gods, thanks,” Pyanfar murmured bedazedly. A superstitious chill went down her spine. “Translator again. I hope.” Hilfy’s ears had flagged. “I sure hope you come up with a better idea.”
Perhaps he did not take the humor. His face stayed void of it. Of everything but anxiety.
“Friend,” he said.
“You’ve got duties. Get. Hilfy. Get.”
“Aye,” Hilfy said. And touched the seat-back. “Tully.”
He rose from the chair arm. At the other side Tirun had just turned attention to something from the com-plug in her ear and turned half about again with a flick of the ears and a tilt of the head. Some new difficulty. An incoming call. Pyanfar gave Tully room to get up, laid a hand on his back as; he passed, a slight pat of consolation. “Friend. Go help Hilfy, huh? She wanted you for something.-Uhhhnnn. Tully.”
He looked back at her, all unprepared and trying to collect t again.
“Is there anything you know that we don’t?”
Flicker.
“Uhhhn,” she said again, eyes half-lidded.
“Py-anfar-“
“You think of something, huh, you come to me. You come and tell me. All right?”
The kif had used shocks with him and got nothing. The mahendo’sat used wit; and achieved something. She stared him in the eyes without any mercy at all. And tried for a piece of him.
“Don’t trust,” he said suddenly, miserably. “Don’t trust humanity, Py-anfar.” And he fled out the door-walked out, but it was flight, all the same. Hilfy delayed at his back with one anguished look toward her. And turned and went after him.
Pyanfar was unamazed, except by Tully’s unequivocal thoroughness. It was doublecross. Goldtooth’s. Jik’s. Hers. Humanity’s. Everyone’s but Tully’s-who, along with Chanur, had just betrayed his own kind. Gods knew his reasons. What drove him?
Pyanfar turned her chair again and touched the button to bring the long-waiting call through from Rhif Ehrran; listened to Tirun address the Vigilance com officer.
More games of politics and captainly protocols. The com officer insisted on getting response from The Pride’s captain before putting her own on.
“I’ll take it,” Pyanfar said-curiously, pride with Ehrran had just diminished in importance. She failed even to feel a twinge of temper with the Ehrran officer who tried to provoke her and put it on record. “This is Pyanfar Chanur.”
Keep Ehrran quiet. Get the essentials done. Tahar was the emergency. Chur was safe. Tully assured her nothing critical had spilled into kif hands. There were things Sikkukkut still needed. And that meant at once a safer and a less predictable kif.
“Vigilance. Com officer speaking. One more moment, captain. I’m afraid the captain’s gone off line a moment.” Cold arid calculatedly insolent. Games of provocation.
Three human compacts? Fights between them?
One human Compact, Earth, the human home world, trying to counter two rival human powers with new trading routes? Or was it trade they were interested in?
That was a big section of space, if it had room for three starfaring economies . . . correction: two. And one that just wanted to be bigger.
Did Goldtooth know the situation inside human space? Mahendo’sat with their scientists and their mad delving into oddities-always poking and prodding at things, hoping- hoping what? For new species? New alliances?
New situations they could use to deal with their old neighbors the kif?-
Beware of Goldtooth. Thus the stsho, who had double-dealing down to an art.
“Ker Pyanfar, this is Rhif Ehrran. I trust whatever emergency kept you wasn’t serious.”
“No. It’s all handled. No further problem. Unless you have one.”
“No. I’m going to relieve you of one. I’m sending a detail over to pick up Tahar.”
“Afraid not. I’ve accepted her appeal for parole. Sorry, Ehrran. She’s under a Chanur roof, so to speak. And I’m head of house-out here.”
“This isn’t Anuurn and we’re not in the age of sofhyn and spears, you hear me, Chanur?”
“No. We play with bigger toys nowadays, don’t we? You’re fond of quoting the law. Me, I like the old laws right fine: like kinright. The kind of law you can’t quote by the book, Ehrran.”
“Put Tahar on.”
“Maybe you ought to concentrate on her crew. They’ve got a real problem. They might appreciate your intervention. But Dur Tahar’s comfortable enough where she is. Is that all you want?”
Click.
“Log that,” Pyanfar said. “Put the other call through.”
“Aye,” Tirun said.
“Good shot,” Haral said with a dip of her ears. Meaning Rhif Ehrran and a genteel stroll to the brink.
“Huh,” Pyanfar said. “Why couldn’t the kif grab her, huh? Do us a favor.”
“Make a trade?” Haral suggested brightly.
“Gods, that’s a-“
“Captain.” Tirun lifted a hand, signaling quiet. “Harukk’s going through real procedures this time-I think they’re going to try to put the call through. Maybe-Yes. The captain’s waiting, Harukk com, if you can do that. Yes. . . . Right. Captain, Harukk com’s compliments, and they’ll try to reach the hakkikt if you’ll put the request yourself.”’
Protocols. Sfik games again. Pyanfar flicked her ears and made an affirmative handsign. Immediately the ready light came on and Pyanfar keyed it. Her claws flexed. She drew in a deep breath and killed all the anxieties, banished them to a cold, far place without a future.
“Harukk,” she said calmly, “this is Pyanfar Chanur. I have an urgent message for the hakkikt, praise to him.”
“Honor to the hakkikt, he may give you his attention, hunter.”
So we come up from our obscure beginnings, do we, kif? Provincial boss and chief torturer-to prince? And we by the gods set you there.
She waited. Coldly, calmly. Long. Eventually:
“This is Sikkukkut, ker Pyanfar. What is this urgency?”
“Hakkikt. I appreciate the courtesy. And the gift you sent me. I’d like to talk with you further. I understand you have Moon Rising’s crew in your custody. ...” -
“Hunter Pyanfar, your forwardness would daunt a chi. Is my gift too scant for your appreciation?”
“Hakkikt, I see a way to use it to your benefit and mine. There’s some urgency in it. If you’ll send a courier I can be more specific.” ?
Pause. “Hunter Pyanfar, you interest me. But I see no reason why one of my skkukun should come from my ship to yours and back again, when your own look to be in good health. And I have nothing to say to your crew. I made you a proposition at Meetpoint, you may recall, which you declined. I make it again-a rare offer. Come to my deck this time. If this offer has the merit you say. I trust it does. I’ll; expect you-within the hour.”
Click.
She leaned back in the chair.
“Captain,” Haral said, beside her, “good gods-“
She turned a look in Haral’s direction. “That didn’t go right.”
“Now what? We call Jik?”
“Call Jik to mop up?-We just got a challenge, cousin. / got it. Sfik. The bet just got taken and doubled.”
“They want to get their hands on you, good ,gods, they can’t get Goldtooth in reach-they want you! You just heard Tully say what that son is and you said yourself what Sikkukkut wants most-Goldtooth was just here, talking to you. The kif have to know that. They know he could have passed us what they want to know-“
“They’ll kill the prisoners. They’ll kill them sure now if I fail that appointment, and they’ll let us know about it. If that weren’t enough, our credit with the kif hits bottom. Hard.”
“You can’t do it!”
“I can’t duck it either. No. Sure that earless bastard is going to try us. One way or the other. And I think I’m starting to think in kifish; I think I read him. I’m perfectly safe to walk in there-if I can keep him wondering. I’m going to need company out there. Want to take a walk?”
“Oh, sure,” Haral said with a despairing shrug. “Gods, why not?”