“Kita. Eighteenth next month.”
“Can’t make it. Give me the next we could reach. Or is it here? Is Goldtooth just waiting a signal?”
“Two month. Twenty-fourth. Urtur. You got. Maybe be there. Maybe not. We got now six, seven ship go out from here.”
And a single incoming ship at extremely high V had a killing advantage. If it turned out to have position as well, its high velocity fire could rip slower ships to ribbons.
“When’s Goldtooth come back?”
“I not say he come back. Don’t know what he do. Not get damn signal!”
“Gods-be lie, Jik, you got to coordinate this somehow. You know what he’s going to do. My information says he can short-jump and turn. That maybe all those ships can. Is it here, Jik? Is Meetpoint the place we have to be? Was that message he didn’t get from Kesurinan—aimed to catch him a few days, a few hours out from this system, was that it?”
Terror. Never before in Jik. Raw fear.
“Scared I’ll tell the hakkikt? Scared I guess too much?” She was sitting vulnerable and too close. She stood up and looked down at him, mindful of the gun in her pocket. “Scared they’ll get it out of me?”
“You damn fool.”
“I want your help. You want mine. You want to figure your chances without the hani? If it was you and nothing else, alone with the kif, with three human governments all doublecrossing each other, and the tc’a and the chi, gods help us, running lunatic? You refigure it, Jik, hear? You got some authority of your own. You got authority to take up a Situation and settle it, I got that figured. And I’m giving you a Situation. I’m giving you the fact we got this bastard going to take my species out, going to kill all of us, which loses you an ally, which loses you a major market, doesn’t it, which loses you friends, about the time you need ’em most, you and your Personage. Humans aren’t half your trouble. I am. The han is. And you don’t give me orders. I got the influence, I got the thing in hand, and all of a sudden I’m dealing with a threat to my planet, Jik, which means I’ll do any gods-be thing I got to and I’m not kiting off in any gods-be direction you want. I got one direction. And you got no choice but my choice, because I’ll shoot you down before I let you do something that’ll stop me. I love you like kin and I’ll shoot you with my own hand, you hear me, mahe? Or you help me and give me the truth at all the right spots and maybe you still got an ally left.”
Muscles were still clenched. Hard. He took a long time. “Got,” he said finally. “You open door, a?”
“No deal. Not your terms, you hear?”
He stood up, gave the kilt a hitch, and stared down at her. Made a sudden move of his hand, a strike. She skipped back, ears flat.
“First thing,” he said, “you got learn not trust ever’ bastard got deal. You damn fine trader. But kif not be merchant.”
“Neither are you. I’m proposing something else. I’m telling you you’re not going to break my neck because you got more sense.”
“You got right,” he said, and sniffed and drew a large breath. The fine wrinkles round his eyes drew and relaxed and drew again in an expression very like Tully’s. “Love you like kin. Same. Got tell you you going to bleed.” He touched his heart. “Same you win, same you lose. You number one fine woman. Got lot haoti-ma. Lot. I make deal, honest. You get me smoke, I give you whole timetable.”
“You gods-be lunatic.”
“Sikkukkut not only source. You got whole station. You got ask Aja Jin. Same bring.”
“Drug’s scrambled your brains.”
A little light danced in his eyes. “You want me stay ’board, you got find me smoke. I be number one fine pilot. Same better when I got relax. You maybe need. You, Haral, you number one too. Not too many.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Same you.” He gave another hitch at the kilt. He had lost weight. “You got deal.” More wrinkles round the eyes, a grimace. “My Personage damn me to hell. Same be old territory for me. You want me, you got. Long as Sikkukkut not got us all. You got trade sharp, hani. Number one sharp. This be hard deal. Maybe he take me. Maybe take you: you got no knowledge. You want plan you got get me back. Safe.”
“He hasn’t asked for you.”
“He do. You wait, see. Know this kif.”
“How’s your nerves?”
“You not forget get smoke, a? Same time you get me out.”
“Captain,” Hilfy said over com. “Harukk’s coming in right now. They’re insisting to pick up all the captains. With appropriate escorts. They want Jik and Tully too.”
Jik lifted his brows. “See?”
“Gods rot that kif.” But she thought: He could strip every ship here of its senior command. Couldn’t he? Me. Dur Tahar. That’d leave Haral Araun, but he doesn’t know her that well.
I need an escort. Not Haral. Gods, I can’t take Haral off this ship.
Not one of my crew. Just my translator.
“Hilfy. Tell Skkukuk he’s going with us. No other but the ones they asked for. Send my gear down here. Send an AP for Jik too. We got a point to prove.”
Gods send the rest of the captains have got some sense.
Gods send they understand old epics.
“Aye,” Hilfy said after a second. “Captain. Tahar’s here. We got others coming. Haral asks: let ’em through?”
Not happy. No. Sikkukkut’s not going to like this.
And, no, niece, I’m not crazy.
I just got no choice.
* * *
The lift worked. That was Tully coming down. Or the kif. She walked along the corridor with Jik for company, spotted Tirun coming the other way about the time the lock cycled with its characteristic whine and thump and let someone into the ship.
That and a cold lot of air with the smell of Meetpoint about it. Nostalgia hit, and left an ache after it. Old times and rotten ones, but that smell was familiar in a mundane way that made the present only worse by comparison.
Tully and Skkukuk arrived together, Skkukuk a-clatter with weapons, his own and what he had gathered on Kefk dock: maybe, she reflected dourly, it was sentiment.
Tully had her gun slung over his shoulder, and an AP at his hip: that took no claws to operate—shove in the shells and pull the trigger. He was steady and able to use it. He had proved that at Kefk.
And from the airlock corridor, Dur Tahar arrived with Soje Kesurinan.
Pyanfar drew in a large breath.
So how stop her? If hani were going to hold a meeting under the hakkikt’s nose, what stopped Kesurinan from joining it?
And what stopped Jik now from joining her?
“We got a problem here,” she muttered. “Jik, don’t you do it.”
“Lo,” he said, “Soje. Shoshe-mi.”
“Shoshe,” Kesurinan said. And something else, in dialect.
While other figures came down the white corridor, several hani-bright and equipped with weapons. And one dark and tall—as a foreign kif walked right into The Pride’s lowerdecks.
Countermove.
Do what, Pyanfar? Throw it out? This is a friendly conference we’re going to, that’s likely Ikkhoitr crew, and that bastard’s one of Sikkukkut’s own special pets.
Her heart set to beating doubletime. Fool. Twice a fool. Do what? Do what now?
* * *
“Gods be,” Hilfy muttered, “we got Kesurinan and a kif past that lock. Gods rot! Haral—”
“I’m on it, I’m on it.” Haral’s voice rumbled with vexation. They were observing from the bridge. It was all they could do.
“I’ll go down there,” Khym said, a deeper, more ominous rumble.
“Easy, easy, stay put, the captain’s handling this. Let’s don’t make it worse.”
And from the com: “Pride of Chanur, this is Vrossaru’s Outbounder, our captain should be arriving at your lock. Please confirm.”
“Affirm that, Outbounder. No difficulties.” With more confidence than she felt.
“I’ve got the lift under bri
dge control,” Haral said. “We’re sealed up here. They’re not going to try anything on us, I don’t think.”
“Faha’s going to be gnawing sticks with Tahar in reach,” Hilfy said.
“At least they’re not siding with Ehrran,” Geran said.
“Spacers,” Haral said. “You want to bet young blackbreeches stopped to consult these crews before she kited on out of here? They’ve had their backsides to the fire here, and it’s sure she didn’t help their case.”
It made sense. That the hani insystem had not fled meant that they had not had the chance; there was, gods knew, no profit in this crisis for a trader.
Now the resident hani had a further insanity to contemplate: kif in control of the station: and with those kif a mahen hunter-ship, and with them, Tahar and Chanur, who were blood enemies to each other.
But if these ships had been stuck at Meetpoint through all the troubles, they must be used to lunacies.
“Pride of Chanur,” com said, “this is Faha’s Starwind. Request explanation at your leisure. Standby signal for tight-beam.”
Cagy old spacer, playing it very careful. Lifetime of experience with the kif. And taking a bigger risk than she knew.
“Starwind, this is The Pride, stand by your query.” The board signaled acquisition of the impulse against The Pride’s receptor-dish, and confirmed their own pulse sent back; all discreet and hope to the gods the kif did not pick up that furtive exchange. “Haral, we got a ship-to-ship—”
“Break it,” Haral said, and Hilfy shut down at once, thwarting the contact. Then over a station-system relay Haral appropriated: “This is Haral Araun, duty officer, The Pride of Chanur: all com will go on station relay. The mekt-hakkikt Sikkukkut an’nikktukktin is an ally, and beyond that we aren’t authorized to say anything—is that Junury I’m talking to?”
“Gods-be right it is. Haral, what in a mahen hell is going on between you and Ehrran? Can you at least answer me that one?”
“Bloodfeud, that’s what’s going on. Which is no part of anything going on in this system, excepting some deals with the stsho. Excepting deals in the han. I’ll fill you in on it later. Junury, anyone else who’s listening: we’ve been doubledealt in the han, every spacer clan’s been done up inside and out by a few gods-be graynosed groundling bastards with full pockets. We had bloodfeud with Tahar; we paid that out; gods know Tahar’s paid in blood. Right now I got a cousin lying gut-shot from back at Kshshti thanks to Ehrran and thanks to that bastard Akkhtimakt, and we got trouble loose that we got to settle—we got hani interests at stake, like we never had. And thank the gods you stayed, Junury. Thank the gods, is what I say: we can use the help, and I don’t know if you’d have gotten through the way you were headed. Hear me?”
A long pause. “I hear. I hear you, Haral Araun.”
For Haral it was outright eloquence. Hilfy drew a long breath when Haral did; and tried to think whether Haral had shot any messages into it between the lines—nothing but caution, caution, caution, we’re being monitored, was what she heard.
“Starwind,” Transmission came from another source, “this is Moon Rising. Our captain’s gone same as yours. We’re under parole to Chanur. We’ll stand trial. Araun’s too polite. We’re coming in for that. We haven’t got a choice. So we surrendered. We’re still armed and we’re under Chanur’s direction. End statement.”
Transmissions ceased. Discreetly.
Hilfy switched back in on the intercom channel Khym was on, leaned back in her chair and tried not to think at all. She worked her hand and extended claws and tried to keep her ears up and her expression matter-of-fact as Tirun’s down the row, while Khym nef Mahn sat there beside her with a new-won ring in his ear—a man, with a spacer’s ring; with his scarred face grim and glowering at the trouble belowdecks, and the certainty Pyanfar was bound for the kif.
What kept him in that chair and what kept the pressure-seal on that temper of his gods alone knew; Hilfy felt his presence at her right like a boding storm, like something ready to erupt, but which never did.
“Fry Ehrran,” Khym muttered to himself. “Gods-be Immune. I want a few of them.”
Khym nef Mahn was not a swearing man. Hilfy turned a second misgiving look his way and saw the set of his face and his ears, which was a male on the edge. With not an enemy in reach.
* * *
“Health,” Pyanfar murmured—other salutations had loaded connotations in main-kifish. As more of the captains walked in on The Pride’s lower deck and joined the conference. With one of Sikkukkut’s kif to witness. Her own kif took up a wary stance with rifle in hands. Prudent; and ignorant and naive in his own kifish way, gods knew. “It’s all right,” she said in pidgin, and in hani: “Kerin, hau mauru.” Clanswomen, there’s no worry. “Haaru sasfynurhy aur?” Everyone understand the pidgin? She gave a meaningful glance up and about the edges of the ceiling. We’re being monitored. So you know. “This is Tully. And na Jik. Nomesteturjai. And his first officer Kesurinan.” No need for more than that. Since Gaohn, Aja Jin was famous among hani. Ears were up in respect, among these armed and vari-shaded hani, who came from every continent of Anuurn, mostly graynoses like Kauryfy Harun with younger escorts; Munur Faha being the exception, a red-gold smallish young woman with a graynosed and scarred old cargo officer beside her: that was Sura Faha, and a good and a steady old hand she was.
She knew most of them from docksides from one side of the Compact to the other, and the sight of familiar faces ought to have been a comfort. It was a mortal jolt, that sense of disconnection, how far she had come from civilization; it was like looking at it all through a window.
And Dur Tahar stood there to complicate it all, in a company that had individually and severally sworn to have her piratical hide, and carrying a heavier complement of weaponry than the rest of the captains, whose sidearms were all legal in the Compact.
“This is Skkukuk,” she had to say atop everything else, smooth and never stopping, with a gesture to her left hand. “He’s mine. Sha mhifÿ-shau.”
My vassal-man. She bent the language to make a word that had never existed: and called a kif a man, into the bargain, because so far as she could figure, he was not female. Mhifÿ was a word for a woman who came to link herself to a more powerful clan. Women could do that. Men just fought their way in, with their lives at risk and in the greatest likelihood of being driven off by the clanswomen before they ever got as far as challenging their lord for his place. Male vassal, indeed. Ears flicked and flattened all around the room; and frowns grew darker.
“He was a present,” she said. “The hakkikt, praise to him—” Another glance aloft: we’re not alone, friends— “I couldn’t explain anything when I sent that message out; but we’ve got a delicate situation in progress here. I’ll be honest with you: the han has signed some kind of treaty with the stsho: Rhif Ehrran may have been carrying it—she came through here. She may not have stopped.”
“Didn’t,” said Kauryfy, and drew a large breath, setting her hands in her belt. “But she blasted out a warning.” Kauryfy’s ears went all but flat, lifted, flattened again nervously. “Said there were kif coming; and us up to our ears in aliens. Gods-rotted late news. We got caught here—I gather this hakkikt isn’t friendly with the other one.”
“You might say.” She flicked her own ears. Careful, Kauryfy. You’re no fool; don’t begin now. Watch the mouth. “Glad to see us, were you?”
“Crazy around here. Gods-be aliens. Mahendo’sat feuding with the kif. Stsho Phasing all over the place. Never know who you’re dealing with from one hour to the next. Gods know who’s maintaining station’s lifesupport. This Akkhtimakt—not a friend of yours?”
“No.”
“Well, none of ours either. A rotted mess, that’s what we’ve had here. Got stuck here with Urtur shut down, just kept running up dock charges and mortgaging our hides with the gods-be stsho, and everything going crazy— Five months, five months we’ve been stuck in this godsforedoomed lunatic port, Chanur! Then w
e get the kif. Came in all peaceful, and us knowing, by the gods, knowing what he’d done over by Urtur, and these gods-rotted fool stsho putting it out over the com that they’d asked him in, that it was all treaty—”
“It was. Treaty with the han and faceabout, treaty with Akkhtimakt. All to save them from humanity.”
“Well, they got a gods-be poor bargain.”
“You got stuck here.”
“We got stuck here. That son moved in and interdicted traffic, got himself onto the station and did about what you’d figure. We went along with him while it looked like everything was going to be blown to a mahen hell and then the mahendo’sat showed and the humans came in and the kif cleared the station, we just sat still and hoped to all the gods it wasn’t our problem. Now it is, I’m figuring.”
Kauryfy’s face underwent subtle changes, the tightening of her nose, the slight and timely tightening of a muscle by one ear—a wealth of signals a kif might miss. I’m trusting you only halfway; and there’s a lot I’m not going to say out loud.
“Yes,” Pyanfar said, with a like set of signals back again, and thrust her hands into her belt. So humans arrived here out of the dark. Couldn’t be a coincidence of timing. They were short-jumped and parked out there. By the gods they were waiting. Goldtooth knew they would be. “It is our problem. The whole Compact’s coming apart, and the han’s policy has got us in a mess. I need you. Hear? Never mind the aliens. The hakkikt is going to ask you where you stand. And I’m telling you: we’ve never been worse off than we are right now. You can believe me or you can believe Ehrran; that’s the sum of it. I’m trusting she messaged you more than just the news. Must’ve had plenty to say about us.”
There was prolonged silence. Ears moved, flattened, halfway lifted.
“It got here,” Munur Faha said. “We got it from the stsho and we got it when she kited through. Urtur-bound.”
“Gods fry her,” Tirun said.
“There’s a real strong reason,” Pyanfar said, “she doesn’t want to see us again. That’s a han matter. Meanwhile we’ve our own business to tend to. Yours and ours. Very critical business.”