The Kif Strike Back

  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. “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 on 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.”

  “Kkkk
t.” 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 function. 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 The 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.”