There were no mines laid, gods-be nothing done, to forestall invasion. The han directed: the han had no grasp of mahen tactics, gods help them, no knowledge what the universe was shaped like above their day-sky, how ships and objects incoming and dropping out of hyperspace went missilelike to a sun, and coincidentally the near planets, of the habitable kind, at velocities that made them undetectable until they arrived. And the farther out from the system center the defense was set, to prevent such strikes, the larger the sphere of defense, and the wider the gaps in it, even if a body was reasonably sure what jump point it was coming from, and whether it was sticking to standards like system zenith entry, or whether the cant of the local star and the origin-well permitted something like a nadir arrival. It was a good guess where anything incoming from Meetpoint might arrive via Kura. Which was, gods knew, the shortest route.
But it was a lot of space. And if the kifish bastard did some fancy maneuvering at Kura they might just come in nadir.
Or they might already be there, having short-jumped. That thought set the hair on end all down her back: Sikkukkut or gods-knew-who might be out there and by now inbound, well knowing the position of everything in the system.
“Take the count. Mark.”
“Mark.” Haral started the clock running. “Tirun. Na Khym. We’re on the count.”
“We’re on our way,” Tirun’s voice came up from lowerdecks.
Put Khym in his cabin? It was where he belonged.
No. Give him that. We’re not going to get out of this one the same as we got in. The last time, husband. I think this crew knows it.
“Hilfy’s just called,” Geran said. “She’s on her way to the ramp. With Sif and Fiar. Not a scratch on ’em.”
“Got that.” A muted murmur of relief across the bridge. The lost were found. Hydraulics sounded below, as Haral opened up the lock from the board.
I ought to wish she missed the ship. I wish she had. Gaohn’s got a better chance than we have.
The airlock sealed again. The Pride took back its own.
“We’re on count,” Geran advised the new arrivals. “Get up here.”
Six minutes.
“Captain—” From the Tauran comtech. “We got contact with Ehrran’s Vigilance.”
“Give it here.” Pyanfar punched the button when it lit; and her gut knotted. “This is Pyanfar Chanur.”
“Captain.” The voice that came back was cold and neutral. “This is Jusary Ehrran. Acting captain. Vote has been taken on this ship. We will act in system defense. We will go to Kura vector.”
She looked aside at Haral, at a flat-eared scowl.
“Gods-be earless bastard,” Haral muttered. Bloodfeud: there was no doubt of that. With an Immune clan. They could not decline that, or their offer of help. “Covering their gods-be ass.”
“We got no graceful way, have we? You want to leave ’em docked at Gaohn?”
“Captain—” The tech again. “Ayhar’s on. Prosperity. They’re aboard.”
Bad news and good, like opposite swings of the pendulum. The whole universe was confounded. She punched in on the indicator, the first one still blinking. “This is Pyanfar Chanur. Banny, I owe you a drink.”
“You owe my whole crew drinks, you notch-eared old dockcrawler, first we get back to port.”
“You got it, Banny. Take care, huh? I’ll get you sequence in a minute here.” She cut out and punched the other. While quietly, a little murmur among the crew, the rest of them arrived. Tirun and Khym, Hilfy and Fiar and Sif. There was sorting-out going on, Chanur crew prioritied to seats. “He’s got ob-2,” she heard, Geran’s voice. Definitively. A murmur from Khym. A Tauran voice, quietly. And Tully and Hilfy. It was all getting arranged over there. “We got a prelim sequence here,” Haral was saying, likely to her sister Tirun. “Central’s passed control over to us, we got the say.” And into the microphone: “Vigilance,” Pyanfar said. “This is Pyanfar Chanur. Stand by your sequence.”
“Understood,” the acknowledgment came back. And: hearth and blood, she heard unsaid, under the chill, precise voice. Later, Chanur.
“We’ll cover you same as the rest,” Pyanfar said.
A small delay. “We appreciate that, Chanur.” Grace for grace. The woman had some positive qualities. Then: “This is your fault, Chanur.”
“We’ll see you in the han, Ehrran.”
The com-telltale went out.
The power came up, the undocking sequence initiated. Familiar sounds. There was a great cold in her gut and an ache in her side. A sequencing flicked up on number one screen. She keyed affirm, and it flicked off: flashed out to all the ships via Central.
Fortune and Light were going wide out on either side of their formation; her own group contained the ships she had come with: Industry and Shaurnurn’s Hope, Starwind and Pauran’s Lightweaver. And ships that had run with Fortune and those that adhered to Ayhar’s Prosperity each to those captains’ discretion—a great number to Prosperity, with more on the way. Ehrran’s Vigilance took farthest sweep, nadir. Not the hottest spot. The catcher-point. The one to take the strays.
It was the second time for some of these crews, the second time they had ever uncapped the red switches on the few armaments a freighter carried. Two years ago. Or whatever year it was, currently. Gods. She had lost track. Four? More than that? Kohan’s face flashed to mind, Kohan grayed and time-touched. The world changed. More of the people she had known in her youth onworld would have died. Of old age.
How old am I? How many years did we lose out there?
The month, two-month jumps added up to years fast, with so little dock time between. She suddenly tried to think what her son and her daughter might look like, Kara Mahn and Tahy, down there ruling Chanur land, sitting in the han, for the gods’ sake, Tahy senior enough to sit in the han and talk for Mahn, and vote against Chanur interests. Of a sudden the baby faces leapt to adolescence, to adulthood, to broad-faced maturity, Kara’s sullen, broad-nosed face gone more sullen still, Tahy’s furtive look gone to something pinched and unpleasant—a smallish teenager become a smallish, surly woman whose ears were always flicking about as if she suspected conspiracy. A mother’s imagination painted these things and touched her children’s manes with gray. Kara’s ears would be notched up right proper. Kohan had gotten the ears the first time Kara made a try for Chanur land: it was a good guess Kohan had gotten him again. In return for his own scars. Gods. So fast. Life’s so fast. How much of it I’ve missed.
Grapples withdrew. Undocking jets eased them out, under Haral’s careful hand. Com babble came to her, three operators at once, on their separate channels, each dealing with procedures some of which went to Tirun back there at the aux panel.
She used her own comp, sorting the data that sifted past Tirun. The Pride backed hard; and something black and furred and angry shrieked and scrabbled across the decking, crack! against the bottom of the panel. It squealed in rage and scrambled sideways under the acceleration.
“Gods and thunders.” She kicked at it, hardly sparing attention for the little bastard. Figures were more important. What it had done to systems back aft, gods only knew. It escaped, off galleyward. “Have to purge the ship to hard vacuum to get rid of those things.”
“I’m not sure,” Haral muttered, “that that’d do it. Standby rollover.”
The Pride rolled, G-shift and re-shift; and six of the mains cut in, a moral shock this close to Gaohn. Laws and regulations were fractured. But Gaohn was under disaster-rigging, population snugged to the inmost sections. They made speed. They passed the zone where the aux-engines were permitted and slammed the mains in full.
They were free. Moving. Bound for the system rim.
Gods knew what was already out there, inbound.
“Communication from Mahaar’s Favor,” Chur said, “bearing off Tyar. They’re AOS on our earlier transmission and say they’re holding position.”
Standing nose to nose with the kif.
She cast a wary eye at scan
, where a dot that was a kifish ship stood all too close to Gaohn with the lighter-ship in its gut.
Too gods-be close to Gaohn and Anuurn.
It’s a mistake. I’m a fool. They’ll kill Skkukuk, poor bastard. They’ll take him apart and they’re in position to take the station out.
Fire on ’em? Gods-be kif hunters bury their personnel sections deep inside, got twenty feet of stuff to blast through to get a hit on the things, godsforsaken missiles we got won’t dent it that deep without us throwing ’em at V and we’re near sitting still even yet. Fool, Pyanfar, fool.
While acceleration went on. There was a stuffiness about the air. An unpleasant taint, like chemicals. Like dust in the air. Ozone. Filters were out. They had a redlight condition on the lifesupport board. They ignored it.
She blinked her eyes. For a moment it was Harukk’s dark gut, the flare of sodium-light. Dark-robed kif and the smell of incense and ammonia.
Kifish ships at dock at Kefk, lean and wicked and massive-vaned, bristling with guns. Like that thing out there.
“Priority,” Hilfy said, and froze her heart. “Captain, it’s Nekkekt. They’re asking instructions.”
Gods, of course it won’t turn now. Things are too uncertain. It’s in crisis they kill their officers.
And their allies.
“Have ’em put Skkukuk on.”
A pause. While the mains blasted away, squaring the V and bringing them at an angle to the kif. Kif could fire from any angle. The Pride and the rest of the freighters had their limits.
It’s godsblessed suicide. Bluff from one end to the other.
“They’re sending for him,” Hilfy said. “Captain, there’s a Situation over there. That was the captain who asked instructions, I think, by their comtech.”
“I think you got it,” she muttered. Push the bastard. Make him get your own skku to the mike. Gods. What’re the han doing, what are they thinking, the ships out there? Chanur’s talking to the kif, we got a kif right into Gaohn, we got kifish and human transmission going out of this ship. . . .
It’s Harun and the rest they’re watching. The ships that came with me. Spacers. That’s what they’re taking their cue from—they know Chanur could be crazy, but not Chanur and five other clans and the mahendo’sat. They’re holding steady so far—gods, they know the kif, they know this whole mess is unstable.
If they knew how much—
“Skkukuk to your com one,” Haral said. A light blinked.
She punched it. “Skku of mine. We’re taking Kura vector. See to it.”
There was a pause. Is he on? Gods, let’s not have a mistake.
“Chanur-hakkikt.” In a voice cold and clear and clipped.
Skkukuk? Is that Skkukuk?
“Pukkukt’ on your enemies, hakkikt. I will give them to you.”
“Skkukuk?”
A pause. “Of course, hakkikt-mekt. Skkukuk.” An edge to the voice. The tone was different. “Pukkukt’ on all your enemies. Rely on me.”
What in the gods’ name is he up to? Is that him? What’s going on with him?
Is this some gods-help-us kifish test?
Or a kif gone important?
“Get those gods-be ships into line and get it organized. First one makes a wrong move, take it out!”
“Yes.”
The light went out. Like that. A little chill went down her back.
“What’ve we created? Migods, what’ve we created out, huh?”
Haral looked her way. Mirrorlike. “Mekt-hakkikt, was it?”
She blinked. The chill got no better. And no questions came through com from hani ships. Or station. Or the few mahendo’sat keeping their post out there with the kif Skkukuk had just appropriated.
Not a word from Sirany Tauran, sitting a duty post like crew.
It’s out of control.
Crew’s not talking. Stations are too quiet. What are they thinking, for godssakes?
Last run we make, and we know it, don’t we? It’s not what we used to be. None of us are that.
She coughed. “We got one of those gods-be black things loose somewhere up here, gods know where it’ll land when we maneuver, just want you to know that.”
“Gods,” someone muttered. And it was as if the whole crew drew a collective breath and loosened collective muscles. “What say?” Tully asked plaintively, lost as usual. “What say?”
“Captain said—” Khym began.
“Movement on Nekkekt,” Geran said monotone, deliberate monotone. As Haral prioritied scan up. No emergency. That was where it had to be.
“Transmission,” Hilfy said. “Skkukuk’s passing your orders to the kif. Ordering the clans and the mahendo’sat to clear out of their way.”
“Confirm that to our allies.”
A pause. A longer-than-one-breath pause. Then: “Aye.” And compliance, rapid pushing of buttons.
“Captain.” Chur’s voice, quiet, very quiet. Strain was in it. “I got this idea—”
“Spill it.”
“The kif. They know their enemy. They turned round here. Akkhtimakt’s ships—” The voice faded out, restored itself. “They knew it was sprung, the trap— They’ve been here—how long? Jik went on—but there’s others—”
“Timetables. Gods. The mahendo’sat know there’s a second wave, they knew it. Hilfy. Transmit: Hasano-ma. My gods, we’ve been sitting on that code program—Jik’s letter. Run the coded parts through. Spit it on at them. Send it out on the Ajir vector. Put our wrap on it and get the mahendo’sat—gods, gods, gods, the man gives us a key and a coder and we sit on it.”
“That’ll worry the kif some.”
“Good! They love it. Jik. Jik, gods rot it—no, he hasn’t gone on. He doesn’t have to jump all the way to Ajir, b’gods, he can stop out there, stop, turn, and get back here, and the kif know it, they know it, that’s why they’re stalled. Akkhtimakt’s run into a trap, and his ships saw it coming, by gods, he was already pinned here thanks to Ayhar—We came in and his ships panicked; and defected; and now they don’t know what to do.”
“Kill their captains,” Haral said grimly. “That’s what they’re doing, you want to lay odds to it? One place they’re not going is back to Akkhtimakt. That bastard’s gone. Run to the deep for sure, and his crew will kill him and turn that ship around if they can stop fighting mahendo’sat long enough: they’ll be out of there and back through here like a shot if they get half a chance.”
“Tirun. What’s the mahen AOS?”
“Good eight minutes.”
She gnawed at her mustaches. A good hour Light to the nadir range. Maybe two out, if there was a mahen force out there lurking.
Gods blast you, Jik—throw the hani at it again, do you? Use us for a decoy. Set us up. Unless you’re already on your way. And you won’t be, will you? It’s a trap the kif understand. The lurking kind. That’s why the kif flinched, why I’ve got me a dozen kif out there trying to figure out whether to listen to me now and turn on me later—
They don’t know what might come through out there first. Anything could. If it’s Goldtooth they better have joined me. If it’s Sikkukkut they better not have. Poor bastards. What’s a kif to do but stall?
And Skkukuk, that gods-be conniving son is out there risking his neck because it’s logical. He’s mine. He senses I’m against the hakkikt and Sikkukkut’s going to kill him right along with the rest of us, that’s what’s going on in that earless head of his—he’s taking all he’s got and charging the bastards head-on with the widest bluff he can run—
Gods, can you call a kif brave?
“We got a—”
“Priority!” Geran cried. “Blip’s in, bearing zenith ten, twenty two, ten. . . .”
The scan image flashed red-rimmed, flashed red on the newly arrived blip—
“Knnn!” Hilfy said. “That’s knnn output—”
“Vector, vector—”
A line popped onto the course diagrams, the whole perspective shifted, rotated, showed it passing through
system on a trajectory right past them, while the dopplered image flashed to yellow: “Going right through system fringes,” Geran said, “passing within—Tyri orbit to nadir range.”
“Gods, I don’t like this.” That was Sirany. Quietly.
“All sorts of strange fish,” Pyanfar muttered. “Goldtooth. They ran right before Goldtooth at—”
“Priority, priority, we got another one—”
“It’s here,” Haral said. As the scan image acquired another blip that blinked and came ahead. The knnn kept dopplering, the image rotating to show relative position: comp had the hazard warning blinking all round the edges. “Same course.”
“Not knnn,” Pyanfar said. “That thing’s might not be knnn, I got this terrible feeling—”
“Fake a knnn ID?”
“Who’d dare fire on it? Put the armaments on track. Warning to all ships: Hilfy.”
“Aye.”
“Armaments locked,” Tirun said. “And tracking.”
“It’s just gone kifish; it’s Harukk!”
“Gods rot— To all ships. Inertial!”
“Slow him down?” Haral was mind-reading again. The Pride’s mains cut out abruptly, an abrupt feeling that down was no longer aft, bodies were suddenly not lying flat on backs but attracted weakly seatward under the slight rotation—the whole board went blurred a moment in her eyes and a feeling of vertigo and panic came over her—
“We’ve got—got to play it step by step. Hope to gods Sikkukkut’s being smart again, smart’ll hang him—nobody understands the han.” A screen flashed change. More kif were dropping into system. IDs multiplied. Harukk. Ikkhoitr. Others of the old association.
It was very quiet for a moment. Just ship after ship dropping out of hyperspace.
And hani ships biding in prudent silence. Even Ehrran. No moves but the cutting of thrust, instant and undisputed. Keep the formation. They were still ripping along at more speed than insystem navigation rules permitted.
Think, fool. That kif’s either fired or talked out there, the other side of Light. Do one or the other.
“Com to my board.” The ready-light flashed link to com one. Gods, they got our message wavefront out there, everything Chur’s sent out, kifish and human: and they can’t crack the human stuff. “Get scan relayed out there, give ’em everything we know. Fast.” She punched the mike in. “Harukk, welcome to Anuurn: this is Pyanfar Chanur, aboard The Pride of Chanur. Akkhtimakt is defeated, his ships have defected, praise to the hakkikt. If enemies follow you we are ready.”