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, Py-anfar!”
“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—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 gods-sakes, 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 I 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 last 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 gods-sakes 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 I 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 oxygen-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.”
“I 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.”