Chanur's Homecoming

Chapter Thirteen

The lock shot open and it was Tully on the other side, Tully alone and armed and out of breath, his lively pale eyes widening when he saw them, shock and worry at once. He bolstered the gun and reached for Khym as he limped over the threshold, and got a snarl for his trouble: "Let be," Tirun said; and: "I'm all right, gods rot it!" from Khym. "Gods! Let me alone!" And: "Shut up," from Tirun. "I got a lame leg from that kind of stuff. Down to the lab and move it."

While Tully shoved a bit of paper at her. "Chur send. Kif ship come send take our kif gods-be quick now. Got Central fine. Now got ask question from station hani what we do. Lot worry. Sirany captain got smart, let Chur do,"

More human babble, mingled good and bad news. Urgent, Chur's message said: Courier Nekekkt is braking. Lighter is enroute to pick up Skkukuk back at E-lock. I have transcript of all his communications to the kif. They seem clean. Com­munications from station indicate Ehrran holed up in Cen­tral, attack ongoing; no mention from Llun regarding kif; Vigilance applying to han for instructions, captain's where­abouts unknown. . . .

That was a message a few moments old. Long as it took for Tully to run down the topside corridor and down the lift and down another passage to meet them. There was more than that happening. / am transmitting messages to system edge, Tully assisting; Tauran cooperation excellent-

Thank the gods for Chur Anify. And everyone else involved.

"Come on." She swept Tully up, Tirun having snatched Khym on through; Geran and Haral limped along with her.

Was altruism possible? Had Ehrran come at her in defense of the station itself, tried to arrest Chanur crew in hope of seizing control of the situation, knowing that kifish ship was incoming?

Sorry about it if that's so. Real sorry. All I got time to be. She hurt everywhere. Her eyes blurred with particulate dust and her nose still bled. She stank of sweat and volatiles.

There was no time to wonder about it. She headed for the lift.

Two of Sifeny's crew and one of her own were still out there in the shooting. And her husband was down in sickbay to let an exhausted, shaking spacer hunt a piece of shrapnel out of him.

Those were the things she wanted to worry about, the things a hani could somehow manage.

It was not what was waiting for her topside.

There were casualties. One dead. Three likely to be. The dead one was one of the lads from Llun; and Hilfy stood over him and looked down at a boyish, simple face. Nothing much. A boy who had been too brave and a little foolish. Playing at hero.

Gods. Gods. He never knew it was real.

Did he? This boy? Could he imagine Harukk’s black gut? A kifish dockside?

Or did he have to?

A hand touched her shoulder. Her father, sweaty and bloody and breathing hard. And safe. She looked up at Kohan Chanur: he towered, huge and kind and perhaps no longer or ever as innocent as she had always thought him.

She looked at him and saw he was also hunting someone who no longer existed. His daughter. The unscarred one. Perhaps he wanted her to show some emotion. That made her saddest of all, that if she softened it would be a lie. Sadness was all she could muster. She only looked at him.

Her mother was more practical. Huran Faha stood by, with perhaps a little amazement, a hard and reckoning look between them when she turned away, a warning look, because there were Llun taking back this control center as Ehrran clanswomen were rounded up and led away. It had not been that hard at the last. Poor groundling fools who melted away in hand-to-hand so fast it was over in a couple of shots and a tangle of bodies, Ehrran struggling up close and intimate with spacers who learned their infighting in dockside bars. Not a chance in a mahen hell, after that. Easy stuff.

Only the boy, who had never dodged. Who just plunged ahead in his simple bravery because that was what men were supposed to do, wasn't it?

"Gods blast "em!" Suddenly the anger was too much, and there was nowhere to spend it. She had no wish to stay and answer close questions from the Llun.

She was not known the way her aunt Pyanfar was. She was only another spacer, thin and scarred and unremarkable, ex­cept that she had stood for a moment with Chanur clan, except for a moment the lord of Chanur-ex-lord! O gods! had laid his hand on her shoulder. It was time to be gone back to her ship. She gave a look to Fiar and Sif, caught their eye in one sweep and slanted an ear toward the door. Time to be out indeed, before Llun caught on to who she was, and what crew she belonged to.

... gut a brusque presence swept into the center, graynosed and haggard and accompanied by a band of hani in hardly better shape-the look, Hilfy had gotten to know it, of spac­ers off a brutally hard run. Dulled fur, thinned patches. She knew them, had seen this lot last on a Meetpoint dockside with police closing in on all of them.

Banny Ayhar and her crew filled the doorway, blinked, and stared at her closer than a chance encounter warranted. "Is that young Chanur?" Banny asked. "Is that Hilfy Chanur?"

Hilfy's jaw refused to work. The wits that had done quite well up to that point, turned to butter.

"Chanur for sure!" Banny drew a deep breath, and her ears slanted back and up again. "They told me what you did." Down again. "Got us free, b'gods! Gods-be fools! But what's this with you and the kif?"

There was profound silence at her back, and profoundest attention to the question.

"Chanur," another voice said at her back. "Ker Hilfy."

She started out, past Banny. But that obstacle was not moving.

"Kif," Banny Ayhar said. "That's what I want to know. What's going on?"

It was stop or fight. A fight now could do Chanur no particular good. She glared at Banny Ayhar with flattened ears and the power of the AP in her fist which was right now worth nothing at all.

My gods, I can lose it all. Everything. If they get wind of what we're doing, they'll throw it wide and high and we'll all die, the whole world will die for it. O Banny Ayhar, you godscursed fool, you're about to throw away everything you won.

"You got the message here," she said to Banny, quiet and urgent, ears up now. "You want to lose it all? Or you want to stand with me here?"

She was talking to a captain; and a hardnosed one; and flatly forgot the ker and the respects: she threw her whole life and self into it.

Banny's ears twitched this way and that in the deep hush. Everyone in the whole center must have heard that appeal, as if Ayhar and Prosperity were part of all that tainted Chanur. There was Harun back there. And Munur Faha. She was not alone. Even in the matter with the kif. There were senior captains to rely on. There stood Fiar and Sif, co-conspirators off the same bridge.

She saw a sudden guardedness in Banny Ayhar's eyes, the look of an old trader and an old hand in rough places. The old woman knew when she had gotten a high sign, by the gods she caught it up; and it was suddenly spacers and stationers in the control center, spacers and Them, which was only slightly less foreign than the kif.

"Chanur," that Llun voice behind her said, a woman's voice of some age and authority.

But before she turned, Ayhar lifted her chin in that way that from Anuurn docks to Meetpoint, said Ally, till I find out different.

"Cap'n, they got into Central, they got it."

Pyanfar crossed the bridge in the wake of a cheer from both crews, to lean on Chur's seatback. "Clear?"

"Not officially confirmed yet." Chur did not look around. Her ears backslanted as she flicked switches and punched buttons. "Gaohn station, this is The Pride of Chanur, we got an incoming lighter, we'll handle that. Appreciate word on casualties at your earliest." Pause. Flick of the ears. "Cap­tain, we got a general announcement: Remain calm. Llun has retaken Central."

"They'll have every clan in reach of there asking casual­ties. We've got to sit and wait, I'm guessing."

"I'd like it better if they got some operators on output. We just got that same message cycling over and over. Nobody's handling anything. We got what we got from a ship-to-ship off a Maura freighter. Somebody's got com in there."

Pyanfar gnawed at her mustaches, spat and gnawed again. "We got no favors coming. Those with bad news get it first, that's the way of it. They're all right. Just keep after 'em."

While Tauran crew methodically handled the approach of the kifish lighter, which was coming in toward the docking boom aft. And a certain kif was standing there with bags and Dinner packed. One hoped.

("Skkukuk," she had said lately, over com. "This is the captain. Just want you to know I'm back and we're quite well in control.")

("/ had absolutely no doubts," the kifish voice came back to her, tinny the way E-deck pickup always sounded. "/ will give you the hearts of your enemies.")

Literally. It was not a thing she wanted to contemplate at the moment, with the possibility of casualties up in Central and the dire memory of Ehrran out there on the docks. She flinched from that every time the image came back to her, and it came time and again.

Nothing left. Nothing, O gods.

An Immune. With all the trouble she was, she was still an Immune.

She listened while the sorting-out of com and the docking of a kifish lighter proceeded.

"You want your chair," Sirany offered her a second time.

Meaning: command of this situation. Everything that went with it. She looked at the Tauran, saw the exhaustion and the anxiousness of a woman who feared every moment she sat there and feared equally to abdicate that chair and turn it back to Chanur.

"I'll take it," Pyanfar said. "I want to get my second up here; you mind to sit observer? Fit both our crews in here and galley: we got need of all the expertise we got."

"I'll sit it," Sirany said, and hauled herself out of the number one place. "Two minute break and I'm back here."

"We have touch imminent," the Tauran working that dock­ing said, never pausing: the interface between crews went through smooth as the shift of a few bodies, and never a missed beat.

Not a jolt as the kifish lighter made its contact with the boom. Retraction whined away, a moan throughout the ship as the boom swung down and dragged lock and lock into contact.

A hani might wish to say goodbye. Even to a kif. It was not the way of kif. The presence quit The Pride with never a word and never a report, just the abrupt communication from the lighter pilot that they were ready for undock.

Then the lighter took off, rolled and left with all the speed it could muster, a little sputter of its engines against The Pride's hull.

That was, she reckoned, another ambitious kif, the captain of that so-quickly moving ship out there, the one which had appropriated the responsibility for picking up the hani's kif.

Not the foremost among the ships out there. She knew that much by now. It was about the third-subordinate, not in contention for primacy in Sikkukkut's favor; so it was taking a calculated risk, maybe to do in its passenger, maybe to listen to him, depending on how things developed. And right now there were probably some very worried captains on the number one and two kifish ships. There were worried cap­tains everywhere among the kif out there, Sikkukkut's highest captains sweating sudden adjustments in hierarchy: they had just gained a lot of Akkhtimakt's ships.

Good luck, my skulking shadow. Good luck. To both of us.

She drew a deep breath and flipped switches.

"We pulling out?" Haral wondered, beside her.

It was what she ached to do, get The Pride out of station, away from dock where it was less a target. "Want to get our people back." There was a cold lump at her gut. / want to hear something out of Central, gods rot it. What kind of a hash have they got going up there? Station's stable. No damage alarms. They can't have shot it up too bad.

Kohan's too reckless. Gods, don't let him have rushed in there.

Hilfy, now, Hilfy can cover herself.

"I don't credit that answer," the Llun said quietly. "Not tip off our enemies. I don't see any enemies here, ker Hilfy Chanur. I see alien ships moving out there, I see this station in jeopardy, I hear talk about a threat to the planet. I'm wondering where it comes from. I'm wondering what else we don't know about."

Hilfy kept her ears up, let them dip a bit in displeasure, brought them up again. Kohan was there, Kohan stripped of his title and his courtesies, the whole clan-gods, the whole clan must have deserted Kara Mahn's takeover and exiled themselves with their lord rather than submit to the Mahn and his sister. The powers of Chanur were most likely here: like Rhean. Like Jofan, who must have connived at getting herself and Kohan and the rest up to Rhean.

She was never prouder of her clan and her kin. "Ker Llun," she said, quietly, steadily, "I can tell you this. It's not numbers that'll win this one. We can't match numbers with what's out there. We haven't got the ships or the guns. Best thing we've got on our side right now is a mahendo'sat we've lost track of out there and the deep-spacers. My aunts are three of them. Ayhar here. Harun and Faha and Shaurnurn and Pauran and Tauran. And all the rest. Whatever men and kids are onstation, we'd be safer to get them off, out of here: every ship that hasn't got the guns to fight-take the men and the kids far as they can run into mahen space, and we just hope to the gods they'll get the word in a few months that Anuurn's still here. If it's not-there'll still be hani. That's what we're fighting for. The worst place in the whole system to be right now is one of our armed ships; second worst is the space stations; third is the world down there. You've got to turn the spacers loose, ker Llun, it's not Chanur I'm talking about, I'm not asking favors; I'm asking you turn the spacers loose and let us have a chance." She held out an arm, turned a shoulder, where kif had left scars that would last all her life. "That's the kind of treatment kifish guests get. Never mind what they do to the ones who aren't hostages."

"Are you," the Llun asked in a slow and level voice, "are you that now, Hilfy Chanur?"

"Hearth and blood, Llun. We're our own."

"We're on that ship." A young voice, talking out where seniors were silent. It wavered and all but died. Then Fiar Aurhen par Tauran edged her way past two captains and faced the Authority of Llun, flat-eared and with her voice pitched too high. "They're r-right. They ran clear from Kshshti-"

To station-bound Llun, Kshshti was only a place on a map, remote from all experience. Mkks was beyond their imagin­ing. For a moment Hilfy felt a profound terror, the gulf between them uncrossable.

"We got a mess out there," Banny Ayhar said in her rumbling voice, and sniffed and hitched her pants up before she flung an arm out to gesture. "F'godssakes, you got your house afire you ask them as have buckets, Shan Llun! You don't lock 'em up and call 'em traitors! To a mahen hell with the gods-be han deputies and the notebooks and that trash! You can't call any referendum from the kif and they don't have any study committee! You godsforsaken fools, you listen to the likes of Ehrran till they take your station over and you don't listen to them that's had their shoulders to the dike. Look at 'em, you say! They got mud on 'em, must be they brought the flood! And you never seeing they've been prop­ping up the gods-be timbers!"

There was profound silence. The Llun's ears flickered minutely in restraint. The eyes were gold and large and black-centered.

She waved a hand at the Llun who was taking furious notes.

"Record that a quorum voted. The Llun have heard the vote. The Llun call civil emergency: the amphictiony is space-wide." The hand fell. "Which captain do you want in charge?"

The silence went on several breaths. "Pyanfar Chanur," Kauryfy Harun said.

"Banny Ayhar," another said.

"Gods and thunders, not me," Banny said. "Pick some­one who's got some idea what's out there. Chanur's stayed alive this far. I'd go with their know-how."

Quiet mutters then. "Chanur," Munur Faha said. And: "Chanur," from Shaurnurn and Pauran and a scatter of others.

"Chanur," the Llun said, with another wave of her hand. "Implement the orders. Tanury: evacuation operations. Nis: communications interface. Parshai: spacer logistics. Open the boards. Get it moving."

Hilfy stood there with her muscles cold and uncooperative. It had all changed course. She was free. The ships were. She cast a grateful look Banny Ayhar's way, but Ayhar was already moving; and beyond that consideration she knew where she belonged. Fast.

She was into the rush for the door and collected Fiar and Sif before she recalled she owed some glance toward her father and her mother, some apology for having set herself forward: but the Llun had cornered her, they had wanted her answers, and Rhean had stood there in the silence an accused clan had to maintain. With dignity. The little dignity that Chanur had left, with its land gone.

I'm sorry, she wanted to say. But the rush carried her through the door and there was no time to spend on goodbyes and regrets.

Gods hope they talked Kohan into going refugee with the other men. Gods hope.

She doubted that they could.

Where are the rest of us, the old aunts, the kids, my sisters and cousins?

On Fortune and Light? How many could they get aloft?

If that's so, if we lose those ships, Chanur will die here.

She did not wait for the lift. There were too many waiting. She joined the impatient ones that ran the stairs, all the way down again to dockside.

". . . earnestly hope," the voice out of Gaohn Central Control said, precise and patient, "you will remember the lives on this station; but we realize that this is not the greatest priority under the threat that exists. Therefore we do not encumber you with instructions of any sort. Take what ac­tions you see fit. The citizens of this station are carrying out all domestic safety precautions. We will not issue any further order to you until this emergency is past. Gods defend us. You'll have other priorities. End statement."

"Thank you, Llun." Pyanfar kept the voice cool, the hand steady over the contact. "We'll be putting out as quickly as possible. Can we have all dock crews on line?"

Gods, where had she learned such short courtesy? The kif? She got the acknowledgment and punched out of the contact. But there were no promises that meant anything. There was nothing she wanted to say, that might not get to one of the other ships and have one of those captains second-guessing her. That was not kifish manners: it was hani good sense, hani levelheadedness. So the whole gods-be system defense was in her lap. So they were sending men and children out to the far quarters of mahen space, to be sure something of the species survived. It was what the Llun ought to have done days ago, instead of waiting till disaster came in on them. Rage boiled up in her and shortened her breaths as she kept the pre-launch checks going, one and the other switches, while Haral ran those on Tirun's board. Armaments.

There was another ship coming into Gaohn's traffic con­trol, up from the world itself: shuttle-launch, out of Syrsyn. The information trickled out of Central to Light's query: an unauthorized lift. An escape. A junior pilot and a single flight tech. The story came in from a ground station: the little Syrsyn Amphictiony had heard the warning out of space, and gotten the menfolk and the teenaged boys and girls of at least six clans all onto a commandeered shuttle, the men and the boys all drugged beyond argument, and that whole fragile, precious package presently climbing out of Anuurn's atmos­phere.

That terrified her more than Gaohn's danger. Syrsyn was taking the monumental risk of an action she had asked them to take. And it was so small a ship, and so helpless, and a fool thing to do, under-crewed and gods knew, with no flight plan but up. Use the engines, get course after they were in space, trust someone would take them in: lifesupport ade­quate for-gods, what kind of figure? how many on that ship? Six clans' kids, the menfolk, a couple of women to handle the emergencies and keep down panic-

Four, five hundred lives?

How many of Chanur were still ground-bound?

Gods, get us away from this dock. Give us a chance.

Let us get at least to system edge.

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.

/ 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 man 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, broadnosed 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.

Skukkuk? Is that Skkukuk?

"Pukkukf on your enemies, hakkikt. / will give them to you."

"Skkukuk?"

A pause. "Of course, hakkikt-mekt. Skkukkuk." 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 headon 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 go 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 readylight 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."

"That's by the gods sure," Haral said under her breath, when she punched out. Haral's ears were flat. Pyanfar found her left hand clenched on the seat, claws right through the leather.

So what's he done? Fired or talked?

Farther and farther.

"They're dumping!" Geran yelled, and a yell and a collec­tive breath and a gasp went through the bridge. "Thank gods," someone said. Tully muttered something humanist) and faint.

"Keep transmitting that message," Pyanfar ordered. "Re­peat, repeat."

"We've got it going," Hilfy said.

Five ships. Five, six ships in the system now. Harukk and Ikkhoitr. And another one. Seven.

How many? Gods, how many? Did he get away free? Run early and save his ships?

He's got to have lost some. At Meetpoint. At Kura, if the mahendo'sat got there from Ajir. They've got to have done that. Run them through that gauntlet and peel a bit more flesh off them. Give us some help, for godssakes!

Eight now. Nine and ten, widely separated.

"Priority," Hilfy said, "from Harukk-com: gods, it's code, we got some kind of code, it's for those ships back there. ..."

"Keep our transmission going."

The ache grew around her heart, grew and grew. The blood pounded in her temples. Not a sound from the ships around them, nothing from the ships behind, yet ... yet. Light had a little lagtime for them.

"Nekekkt's answering," Hilfy said. "All code."

So what are you doing, Skkukuk? What are you up to? Who's in charge on that ship?

Twelve. Thirteen ships. Fourteen.

"Priority." Com came through direct to her earplug. "In­struction from the hakkikt, praise to him. Restore buoy output to our ships. Surrender this system and all its ships instantly. It will exist under the authority of my skku Pyanfar Chanur, whose orders come from me. Cease all hostilities. You are dealing with the mekt-hakkikt Sikkukkut an'nikktukktin, who allots the rule of this system and its adjuncts to his vassal Chanur.''

She let the breath hiss softly. Gods-be, what must they think now, Rhean and Anfy and Harun and Banny and the rest-what in a mahen hell do the kif back behind me think, and what kind of a move have I made with Skkukuk?

Then: Gods help me, I've got it, I've got it all, everything in my hands to protect, my people, my allies. He's not shooting.

Now what do I do?

"Reply: Pyanfar Chanur to the mekt-hakkikt Sikkukkut an'nikktukktin, praise to his foresight, his enemies are under my hand."

Ambiguity. Gods save us all.

Haral had looked her way. And there was that little black thing slinking back from the galley, in a hurry, as if Tauran crew in there had done something violent.

"Smart is all we got," she said to Haral. "I remember what Goldtooth said. We get this situation calmed down a little and then I go for a little visit to Harukk. That's what. We take Goldtooth's suggestion. Snuggle up to this kif and get him."

"The two of us," Haral said.

"No. You got a ship to run. Get our V and Harukk'% matched, that's what we got to do. I'd hit him now if we had the angle and his V to use, but we can't break through those shields, slow as we are."

Haral kept looking at her. She was talking about suicide. Haral knew it. Haral also knew the other plain fact, that their armaments were nothing against hunter-ship armor-unless one or the other in the encounter had C-fractional velocity to add to the impact, virtually head-on. And Sikkukkut, praise to his wily kifish heart, was not obliging them.

" 'Bout the only thing we can do, don't, you think?"

"You mean just board and shoot him pointblank."

"Hey, they never have been too fussy about us carrying weapons. Kifish etiquette's on our side, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Haral said.

"He'll ask me aboard. You wait and see. I get my chance, and then you blow his vanes if you can. I don't have to tell you. You know what you're doing." A look aside at Haral. Old partner. Old friend. The one who just as well could have captained The Pride a long, long time ago. Who right now looked at her with that stolid calm behind which was a great deal of pain. "Long time."

"Yeah," Haral said again. "Watch out for Ikkhoitr, that's what I got to do. But that's not your job in there right now. No one but you's got the credentials, hear me?"

"Nobody else can get close to the gods-be kif-"

"He's going to be expecting a move like this. That's why no one else can get close to him. This is why it doesn't work for the kif. No percentage in it. You do it, Py, and we got ourselves a kif ball-up right here in the system."

"We just got to get me inside there, that's what we got."

"We got those mahendo'sat hanging off system. We still don't know where Goldtooth is-he could come tearing through here any minute, f godssakes, him and the whole clutch of humans. We got that message going out to the mahendo'sat. Jik's coming in here-don't do it. Don't throw yourself into that mess. We just stay tight here, we talk to that bastard as long as he wants to talk, we got to hold our nerve, captain, that's what we got to do. We got to just bide our time and hope to-"

"Captain," Hilfy said. "We got a query from Vigilance. Query, query, query, quote. That's all they say."

"Gods rot that nest of lunatics. Tell 'em shut it down. My gods, they'll blow this up yet. Tell 'em-No. Tell 'em what I said. Shut it up. Next ship transmits out of turn I'll have some ears for it, say that. Tell Harukk again the system is stable and his enemies are in retreat. Say that we have a contingent of mahendo'sat insystem in support of Jik, who's gone on in pursuit of Akkhtimakt. Say that we're ready to meet and arrange things."

Eighteen ships in. The range out there was a confusion of ship IDs and colors as ships downshifted their V and others kept arriving.

"Aye," Hilfy said.

"Captain," Tully said. "Wrong. Ship wrong."

"Gods." Geran's voice. "No ID on that last ship. It's not outputting. We got an anomaly out there."

Her heart sped. "Track and target. Get me vector on it."

"Working," Sif said.

It was behind the others. The line popped up, projecting course right with the rest of the mass.