Chanur's Homecoming

Chapter Seven

The hakkikt waited for them in his audience-chamber, deep within Harukk's well-shielded ring, and, thank all the gods, there was a place to sit, a chair at a low table, the captains and Jik and Tully all offered chairs at the table with Sikkukkut, and the captains' escorts left with the skkukun, standing about in the dim sodium light and the smoke of incense. Pyanfar took the little cup of parini they offered her as she sat: her hand shook when she did it, and if the cup was not drugged, it was as dangerous on her queasy and pill-shocked stomach as if it had been. She had rather food, she had far rather food at the moment.

But not on a kifish ship.

And: "Tully," she said. "Be careful of that. Hakkikt, I don't know if he can drink."

"Kkkt. Indeed. Can you, na Tully?"

"Yes," Tully said in perfect hani. And answered the hakkikt face to face, after all his evasions and his stratagems. He sipped a bit from his cup, and what went on behind those strange, shyly down-glancing eyes was anyone's guess.

So with Jik, who drank his own cup, carefully. And if there was raw hate inside him, if there was shock and a still-raw wound, it did not surface. Kesurinan sat beside him, at this different, jointed table with the hollow center, in which a kifish servant squatted ungainly with a serving-flask and waited for someone's cup to empty. Harun and Tauran, Vrossaru and Pauran and Shaurnurn, Faha and Kesurinan and Jik and scar-faced Dur Tahar; Tully and Skkukuk side by side; and the captain of Ikkhoitr, if she had not lost track of the kif in the shuffle, sitting by his (her?) prince's elbow.

Gods save them all from the Ikkhoitr captain's talebearing. The long-snouted bastard had indeed been whispering and clicking away, nose to Sikkukkut's hooded ear.

"Kkkkt," Sikkukkut said then, and looked at his senior captain with-it might be-curiosity. "Indeed." He turned then and extended a thin tongue briefly into the metal-studded cup which rested like a silver ball in his black hand. "Is there unanimity among you?"

"Enough," Pyanfar said; and in coldest blood: "Hani methods, hakkikt. Hani will always dispute. Even when they agree. A sfik-thing. Mine and theirs. It's satisfied and they're here. In fact they're glad to see you."

"Kkkkt. Are they?"

"We weren't fond of Akkhtimakt," Harun said in a low voice, before Pyanfar could mull it over.

Gods, be careful. Speak for yourself and you become a Power, Harun. He may ask what you don't know how to answer. Watch it, for godssakes watch it, you don't know what that sounds like in kifish.

"Hani understatement," Pyanfar said. "Akkhtimakt, a curse on his name, moved in here and dealt with the stsho. That was one thing. He disturbed hani interests. That was another."

"There were, of course, the mahendo'sat. And this other group of ships. Humans? Were those humans?"

"Yes," Harun said.

"Interesting." Another sip at the cup, a glance Tully's way and back again. "Close but not close enough. The mahendo'sat have pulled off, doubtless to try again. Hence my watchers about the system. A fool would linger on these docks. We might have another Kefk here. In an emergency. There might even be sabotage, kkkt? Did the mahendo'sat touch here?"

"No," Harun said.

"Who is this captain?"

"Harun of Harun's Industry," Pyanfar said.

"Ah. Your cousin."

Cold went through her nerves. "Distant," Pyanfar said. "Our clans have a distant tie." O gods, I hope he doesn't have our kinships in library. "Ceremonial." The lie wove itself wider and wider. "Hani place sfik on kinships. And blood-debts. Harun has ties to some of these. I have ties to Harun and Faha, there. It's really quite simple. And blood-debt to Jik and Kesurinan." Not to forget that business. Add it in. Secure Jik much as I can. "We can have that even to non-hani." Change the subject. Hold out possibilities to the bastard. "There's sfik-value on that too."

And if hani around the table did not know now that every other word she said to the kif was a lie, they were deaf and blind.

"Has he talked to you?"

"Somewhat." She took a chance, reached and took a sip of parini. "I'm going to keep him on my ship as advisor. I'm sure Kesurinan understands, ummn? But he misses the smokes, hakkikt. He truly does."

"The smokes," Sikkukkut repeated in a flat tone, as if she had gone quite mad. "Do we still have such a thing?"

The skku in the center of the tables searched anxiously among its robes. Efficient, by the gods. Foresight covering all sorts of hospitality. It brought out the little sack, eyes aglitter with triumph.

"Your skku is amazing," Pyanfar murmured, making a low-status kif very happy in its neurotic zeal; and took another minuscule sip of parini.

"I might bestow you another gift," Sikkukkut said. And scared two kif and a hani at the same time.

"Huh." She kept her calm. With difficulty. "We hardly have formalities enough to keep another skku occupied- Nothing so splendid, hakkikt."

"But you want another gift."

Bluff called. She looked up, lowered her ears and got them up again, heart hammering. "Is the hakkikt disposed to talk policy?''

"Ah." Sikkukkut set down his cup, hands in his lap as he sat crosslegged in the insect-chair. "Shikki," he said sharply; and the skku eeled its way over to lay the smoke-pouch on the table in front of Jik.

Jik picked it up carefully, felt of it and carefully extracted a smokestick and a lighter. "You mind?"

Sikkukkut gave a wave of his hand and Jik put the stick in his mouth and carefully lit it. His hands were shaking, but only a little, limned in the fire that lit his face. The light died. He drew a long breath of smoke in as if it was life itself.

"Foul habit," Sikkukkut said as the smoke went up to mingle with the ammonia-stink and the incense. He rested an elbow on the raised insect-leg of his chair and leaned his chin on that hand. "But you and I remain friends. Kkkt. Good. That is very well. Kotgokkt kotok shotokkiffik ngik thakkur."

-prisoners?

All round the table backs stiffened. Except Jik's, to look at him; he sat there concentrating on his smoke, with a cloud of it round his head.

"Sit still," Pyanfar said in hani; and Haurnar Vrossaru and Vaury Shaurnurn turned their heads to look toward their escorts, the only two who did.

But maybe they knew their crew.

"Is the hakkikt disposed?" Pyanfar repeated.

"The hani captain may push too far," Ikkhoitr's captain said out of his silence. "Be careful of it."

"Makes me nervous," Pyanfar said. "This place. We're exposed sitting here at station. If I were Akkhtimakt-" She rested her elbow on her knee, easy pose, though her heart was hammering away fit to take her breath: thank gods for the incense that masked the sweat. Her nose itched and ran. She ignored it. "This place smells of trap, hakkikt."

"In what way?"

"I'm an old trader, hakkikt. And stsho may cheat you one way and five more, but I never knew them to plot violence." Phrase it so the bastard has salve for his pride. A trader can know merchant-things. He isn't expected to understand grasseaters, is he? "But they'll buy violence, without understanding what they've bought. They've made mistakes before. This is a big one. They've involved the han. Technically, hani are allied with Akkhtimakt, because of the stsho treaty, which gave him what he never would have had. Support on the far side of the Compact. All of a sudden you don't hold the majority of Akkhtimakt's territory. He's just quadrupled his holdings. And he's on the other side of an uncrossable gulf. No jump points, hakkikt, no bridge between hani space and here. It's a narrow neck and one where he can interdict you if hani abide by that treaty."

There was deathly quiet in the room. No kif moved. Then a nervous shift from the Faha. Ears were flat, all in that section of the table.

And Jik shot her a carefully frowning glance. Sucked in a great deal of smoke and let it go. "A." Drawing Sikkukkut's attention to himself.

"Is it so."

"He go Urtur. Damn sure not go Kita."

"You have ships at Kita."

Another slow draw at the smoke. "I don't swear. Good guess. We send message Maing Tol. My Personage make move on Kita. Where he go? Here? Got no cross-jump but Tt’a’va’o, damn bad choice. Methane-breather, human, lot mahendo'sat. Damn bad choice. You no do. He no do."

"Should I wonder that that is then precisely what I should do?"

Go off toward Tt’a’va’o and possible ambush, and involve himself with everything Jik had listed? Go home to Akkht and consolidate his hold? Or to Llyene and terrorize the stsho in a raid every kifish pirate must have dreamed of?

They were all good choices for the Compact as a whole. If they cast themselves totally on hope of rescue from the mahendo'sat.

Who had their hands full already, saving their own hides.

"Masheo-to," Jik said. And something more involving Akkhtimakt and ship IDs, rapidly. While Sikkukkut's black eyes fixed on him.

"Kkkt," Sikkukkut said. "Interesting thought. Do you follow that? No? Keia proposes that Akkhtimakt may have faked identification in his ship ID. That he may not be among that group we dispersed, but already at Urtur. We will both have taken precautions: my ships will reach all the jump-points that lead out from here in time to prevent escape from insystem or to prevent any ships not already launched from arriving here. But Keia favors us with another interesting proposal. I tell you I value you both."

Gods, he means it. The absolute, thorough-going bastard. He's dead inside. He doesn't know what he's done. He doesn't know Jik's his enemy. Or if he knows it he doesn't know it, from the gut. He hasn't got the equipment. He theorizes. You can revise a theory, but never gut-knowledge, never instinct.

He's naive as Skkukuk in some ways. He mimics our ways. Even friendship. And he can't feel it. He can't ever understand us: just logic his way through our motives; and that won't always work for him.

''Not know where he be," Jik said. Another puff of smoke. "Maybe even hani space."

Hani bodies all about the table stiffened.

"Maybe already there, a?"

Gods look on us all. Let it go. Let him think his way into it. Slowly, slowly.

"Kkkkt. Kkkkt." Sikkukkut's tongue flicked in the gap of his teeth.

Can we go too far? Make him lose sfik in front of his servants?

And beside the hakkikt the captain of Ikkhoitr leaned over and spoke rapidly and quietly. Sikkukkut answered a word or two back.

Gods rot him. That one's no good news.

Worse and worse.

Ikkhoitr's captain got up from table. And left. While Sikkukkut looked their way again. "You will have noticed the dispatch of certain ships. They are not the first. From Meetpoint, from Kshshti, from Mkks and Kefk. Continually my messengers have gone to inform my ships. And ships have moved. You have never seen all I have. Nor is this all of Akkhtimakt's company. You are quite correct. Kkkkt. From you, Keia, I expect a certain astuteness in such matters. But the hani are also hunters. And you've talked to them, have you, Keia?"

Jik frowned. And said nothing at all.

"Not quite by his wish," Pyanfar said. "Say that friendship has other uses. He was confused when we got him. He talked rather too much to us. That simple." We're lying, Kesurinan. Trust me. Sit still. "It's what I said. Nothing Jik wants. He knows something Goldtooth doesn't. That made the difference. Tully doesn't know what the humans are up to, but a thought occurs to me that I don't like, hakkikt. That the trouble inside the Compact is weakening us as a whole. That the humans may not wait until the trouble's settled. Just delay their attack till the most advantageous moment. Because they will push at us."

"Is this so, Tully?"

Tully made an uncomfortable shift of position. A shrug. Turned a worried look Sikkukkut's direction, hers.

"He has trouble understanding sometimes. Tully. The hakkikt asked: will the humans fight the mahendo’sat?"

"Not know." Tully's eyes fixed on hers, shifting minutely as if they hoped to read a clue.

"You told me. Tell him what you told me. Do it, Tully."

"Human-" He looked back toward Sikkukkut. Toward this kif who was more than all others his personal enemy. "Come. Got three-" He held up fingers. "Three human-"

"Governments,' Pyanfar said.

"Three," Tully said. "Fight. Push one humanity to here."

"Kkkkt"

"I belong The Pride. Crew-man!"

Keep your hands off me, you bastard.

And implicit in a glance her way: Captain, don't let them take me.

"He doesn't know much more than he's said, mekt-hakkikt. But he understands methane-breathers. I don't think the rest of his people do. He had no importance among his people. They got what information from him they wanted to hear and they shoved him aside without listening to the rest of what he had to say. They didn't want him to say the rest. We think. Gods know he might not understand as much as I think. We might not understand him. I think he's tried to tell the truth, but I don't think he was in on the planning. Just a crewman. That's all he ever was. That's what he still is." Her hands wanted to shake. If the kif took him, there was nothing she could do to stop it. / got their attention on him. Gods, get it off!

"But," Sikkukkut said, "we have other sources to question. The stsho will not hold back information. They bend to any wind. And I have sufficient of them to gain an excellent picture of what happened here-they will lie to a mahendo'sat, they will lie to a hani, but they will not lie to a kif. And they have very large eyes. Two of my least skkukun are on the station at this moment; and so are three hundred thousand stsho." Again Sikkukkut lifted the cup and drank, a quick dart of his dark tongue. "They are apprised of the possibility that I will decide to remove this station. And that they will not be allowed to leave-''

My gods.

"I have told my skkukun the same. They will find information. They will cause the stsho to find it. We have already identified responsible individuals. My enemy destroyed the station datafiles. After doubtless sucking them into his own records. So there is nothing to learn there: I expected as much. But we have direct resources. Ksksi kakt."

A servant moved. Fast. Hani shifted anxiously as an inner door opened, as kif rearranged themselves, a rustle like leaves in a midnight forest.

"Sit still," Pyanfar said again. In case any of them forgot. Her ears were flat, her muscles had a chill like fever in them that was going to start her shivering. She reached, ears flat and scowling, and picked up her cup and drank.

The parini went down like fire. And held her caught in that minor, eye-watering misery when a gibbering outcry rang out from the opened door.

A gleam of white showed in the doorway, where kif parted, where dark-robed kif shoved stsho forward, through the shadowed rows of their own kind. Stsho white, stained with sodium-light, marked with darker smears, their pitiful, spindly limbs all bruised from kifish handling.

So fragile. A breath could break such limbs.

Jik turned his face in that direction, slowly. The smoke curled up from the stick in his hand. He did not move, himself, beyond that; the other captains turned in their chairs; and Tully-on her other side-she had no way to observe. She guessed.

"Now," said Sikkukkut, "let us ask some questions.''

"Translator's not making sense of it," Hilfy murmured, gnawing her mustaches and monitoring kifish transmissions. Harukk was talking to its minions off-station. Talking a great deal. "I don't like it, gods, I don't like this."

"Takes a decision somewhere," Geran said, "to get that ship that talkative. You'd think Sikkukkut'd be busy. You'd hope he'd be."

"Calling more of them in?" Khym said.

"They got a worry about something," Geran said. "No. They won't pull ships in while there's a chance of something coming in and catching them nose to station. That's some kind of bulletin. Instruction. Gods know what."

"Still talking," Hilfy muttered. And remembered Harukk's dark bowels. The transmission went on at some length.

Likely Haral remembered Harukk, too. She had seen it, when they pulled the Tahar crew out of there.

"Hostages," Hilfy said. "That's what he's got Gods-foe, Haral, I could make a routine query over there, take the temperature."

"Just sit still," Haral said. "Captain's got enough trouble. Let it be."

They flung the larger of the two stsho at the table, between Pyanfar's chair and Haroury Pauran's. Gtst collapsed all in a nodding huddle of white, delicate limbs, of swirling pearlescent draperies at the table edge. Gtst shuddered and shivered and bubbled.

While Pyanfar looked at the designs of pastel paints on gtst brow and her heart thudded in shock.

It was Stle stles stlen. Or it had been. Gods knew what personality the wretch had fragmented to when the second wave of kif invaded gtst station.

"You recognize this creature?" Sikkukkut asked. "Or do they still look alike to you?"

"I know gtst."

Gtst-or gstisi: it might well be Phasing-wrung gtst hands und wailed something about noble kif and noble hani. Moonstone eyes looked her way, liquid with pleading, and Pyanfar's stomach turned over. Gtst stank of oil and perfume and

something indefinable, doubled when the kif flung the other stsho down beside it.

"Talk," Sikkukkut said to the stsho. "Or we begin to hurt something, perhaps one of these others; perhaps your translator. And then if you don't, we will hurt you. Do you understand, creature?"

The stsho bubbled and babbled at each other; the one clung to the person which had been Stle sties stlen, fingers locked in gtst robes. Do it, do it, the translator was crying, and the erstwhile Stle sties stlen poured out a sudden flood of wails and words.

"-The Director is not responsible," the translator cried then. "Gtst was another person-"

"That's very well. We don't care which of you we skin."

"-But! But! noble, esteemed friend-this wretch Akkhtimakt-"

"You begin already to make a lie. Tell us about the treaty and about what happened here."

More babble. The translator turned gtst face about again, moonstone eyes wide, gtst mouth a tiny, trembling o. "It was a mistake, it was-"

"Report what you did!"

"We are not a violent people, we had need-"

"This translator is useless. We can send for another."

"-but! but! in our foolishness we listened to agents of the other hakkikt, we had need of ships to defend us and in our foolishness-"

"What of your bargains with mahendo'sat; with hani; with the methane-folk; with humans?''

"Mahendo'sat are with these creatures, these-" The translator looked Tully's way with a visible shiver that made all gtst plumes tremble. "Creatures! We ejected them. We sought accommodation with the hani. But hani have no great ships. What can we do now but shelter with the most powerful? We were fools to think this was Akkhtimakt: we see very well now: we will make treaty with you, at once, at once, estimable! Defend us!"

"Kkkkt. What an offer! And what will you do for me, little grasseater?"

"We have science! We have-unique objects-"

The whole of stsho culture-open to kifish piracy.

Pyanfar coughed, and the stsho mistook it and trembled the more, lifting gtst hands to the kif.

"Save us! Estimable!"

"This thing is a fool," said Sikkukkut. "Where is Ismehanan-min? What bargains have you made with him and with his Personage?"

Jik, Jik, for godssakes don't make a move, gtst'll talk, O gods, we can't help it and we don't need craziness right now, we need wits, we need the sharpest gods-be dealing any trader ever made.

The stsho once Stle sties stlen waved gtst hands and babbled.

"Hakkikt," the translator lisped. "Hakkikt, Ismehanan-min dealt with us, he is the other side of a conspiracy, pernicious, pernicious, most honorable hakkikt-" The stsho waved gtst hands, rocking and tearing with nervous fingers at gtst robes; gtst cast an anxious look back where the kif stood with guns all about them; toward Jik, who had no restraint on him. "We are not a violent people. What are we to do? Mahendo'sat crowd upon us, they force their way into our offices-we need guards to secure our privacy, but we are not a violent people-"

"And we are not a patient kind," Sikkukkut said, and Stle sties stlen said something lengthy and urgent.

"-The mahendo'sat left us. They left these few they said must close out certain business, menials, functionaries, persons of no import- Lies. They attempted bribery-"

"To which you surely listened."

"-Akkhtimakt had betrayed our agreements!"

"What are the mahendo'sat up to?"

"-They are making you fight each other, hakkikt. One mahe aids you; the other dare not aid your enemy, but he leads and lures him."

O thank gods.

"Kkkkt, is this so, Keia?"

Jik was relighting his smoke, which looked to be reluctant to stay lit. He capped the fire. "Sure. Same we always like you best. You win, hakkikt, we glad deal with you. I think maybe you do win. Right now I not much happy 'bout humans. So same I convince Ana, he switch tactic fast. Maybe come you side, a? Meanwhile got this hani problem."

"A ship of mine has gone to Kshshti. If it finds no resistance it may find other sympathetic kif and send them out from there. I tell you that we will cover all of space. We are already close to encounter with your partner. At Tt’a’va’o. Or wherever he is."

Pyanfar sat still, forced herself to sit still. O gods, gods, how much does he know? How much can these hunter-ships do? If kif can match the mahendo'sat, all bets are off, what Akkhtimakt may be doing, what he's doing-Would the kif ever have started this mess, with inferior ships?

"We sit here," Sikkukkut said, "attempting to preserve three hundred thousand fools. Why this is, I wonder. Perhaps I shall lose patience with it. In a very little time any outsystem spotter will be receiving our early movements down his timeline. Once he knows Harukk has docked, he will know it is too late: I will not have stayed here overlong. Or if he is a fool and does not know that, still I will not be here, kkkkt?" Sikkukkut took a sip from his cup. "As for incursions from system-edge in general, that is all anticipated. If some of Akkhtimakt's ships exist out there, which I still doubt. Only a fool would annoy me and pen himself into the system with me, a fool or a very formidable enemy. Or my friends Keia and Pyanfar, kkkkt? But I am not vastly worried. On the one hand I am not anxious to lose the station itself; on the other anything that brought Akkhtimakt's ships within my reach would please me, and likewise," Sikkukkut said, and turned a glance on the two stsho before which they wilted like grass in the fire. "Likewise anything that brought the perfidious Ismehanan-min to an interview with me. Do you understand me, kkkt?"

"Yes. Yes, honorable."

"He dislodged Akkhtimakt. And the hani ship with him?"

"-Yes, yes. He hung off and waited, the hani went to Urtur. Discovering Akkhtimakt here, these perfidious scoundrels abandoned us, each, yes, honorable."

"And sent you nothing?"

"-Nothing, nothing, O, Honorable, we would tell you. They waited and then these creatures came out of hiding! Waiting at the limits of our system! We were shocked, we were dismayed, we cannot understand how they penetrated our net-"

"Akkhtimakt here," Jik said lazily. "Ana know you come. He do thing I say. He wait. Wait you come. Maybe you fight these bastard kif, he come in. He got these human on short chain."

"And you?"

Jik drew a mouthful of smoke and let it out. "What I do, a? What do my ship? My First, she don't fire. We make quiet, wait. I be you friend, mekt-hakkikt. Not po-li-cy fight you. Po-li-cy my side want you win. What we got, we come in, hit both you hakkikktun, a? Damn mess. Ten, fifteen week got new hakkikt, whole different game." There was a stirring in the hall, ominous movement against the lights. Jik lifted a hand. "I not dis-courteous, a? Long time neighbor, you, me. We do fine. I know these thing, same Pyanfar know these thing. Same time I got big worry what we see here not real honest. Maybe bait. Maybe Akkhtimakt sudden smart, want bring us here, hold us here, make us fight Ana while he go do what he want."

Safeties had gone off weapons. "Kkkkt," Skkukuk said anxiously, with a furtive wave of his hand.

"No. Long time the mekt-hakkikt been patient with truth. He ask question, he still be patient."

"I am still patient, Keia." Long jaw rested on black, retractile-clawed fist. "Pay no attention to them. I am listening."

"This got big danger. Tully say don't trust human. What happen, a? You got fight Ana, fight human, fight maybe other mahen ship, few; then come some bastard out from Akkht, want make self hakkikt-same all time happen, you know you people real good: first time you got trouble you got some bastard want make suicide. All same take time, take ship, take you attention. Same time got Akkhtimakt settle in real good in hani space, same time far from methane-breather- you got methane-breather trouble, a? You be real close over here. But Akkhtimakt not got. Maybe he make good friend with mahendo'sat over by Iji-same join with them, come fight human when human make trouble-now where we be, a?"

"That is an elaborate possibility. Very elaborate."

"Same. But two kif want fight, my people always help." Another lifting of a finger. ' 'This time you got luck. Akkhtimakt damn fool, all time push mahendo'sat, mahendo'sat never like help that bastard. A? So you got no mahen help to you enemy. Maybe change. That bastard get rule in hani space, he be whole different bastard.''

"Can it be you're trying to maneuver me, Keia? Or do you agree in this move, hunter Pyanfar?"

"I think it a real possibility, mekt-hakkikt." While hani captains and Tully sat and listened to this; while kifish hands rested near weapons and the two stsho retreated into a small, soiled ball, glad to be forgotten. Her heart beat to the point of hurting. Her stomach ached and weakness came and went in tides. "I see one way Akkhtimakt could go from here. One path. Mahendo'sat occupy Tt’a’va’o; you have Meetpoint. Either you've got Kshshti or the mahendo'sat have, by now; or they'll be headed there like chi to a hot spot; on that, I wouldn't predict. The third path Akkhtimakt assuredly has, open all the way behind him." Do you see, sister captains, do you see yet what we're dealing with, what we're trying to do? For godssakes don't twitch, don't distract this kif, don't make a slip.

"Kkkkt. One path. Yes. Why do you think I've favored you as I have? That area of space which lies like a peninsula amid a gulf without jump points. That unfortunate circumstance which has made hani isolate. And kept them pinned between that gulf and mahen ambitions. Do you understand me, hunter Pyanfar? Do you know now why I have given you so much?"

"Hani space." The pain was back in her chest. She found breathing difficult. "A pocket in which Akkhtimakt can be contained. Uncrossable space on two sides, unfriendly mahendo'sat on the third, yourself on the narrow fourth."

"Mahendo'sat will be quite busy. I want Akkhtimakt kept busy. I know you have self-interest in that. Do you recall our debate on self-interest?"

"I have one there. Yes. A considerable interest."

"Name what you need."

So easy? My gods. So easy. "These captains. All these in my company. Their ships."

"Do you include Aja Jin?"

Gods, gods. Be calm, Pyanfar. Don't lose it all. Don't let the voice wobble. Her nose was running. She sniffed and tried to focus. Ignored the itch. "I wouldn't put Jik to a choice between you and Goldtooth. Not twice. With me he's got clear reason to cooperate. With me he'll be fighting something that's clearly his enemy, and a threat to that whole border. Self-interest. He won't bolt and go home till he knows hani aren't going to collapse. I know the mahendo'sat, and everything he's done is perfectly reasonable. So is his going with us now. You want hani ships to fight against Akkhtimakt, they will, and a lot safer with Aja Jin's guns with us."

"Kkkkt. Merchants. Against hunters. I will give you reliable ships of my own. They will give you that chance."

"And Jik, mekt-hakkikt. I'm going to have to make a show of power with both the mahendo'sat and the han: call it hani psychology, call it sfik, but it works that way. You need no ornaments. I do, to prove what I've got. I need Jik and Aja Jin: I need my human; I need your ships-" All right, I accept them. Worry about my motives, bastard.

Sikkukkut's jaw lifted ominously. And sank again. Dark eyes glittered in the sodium-light, beneath the hood.

"Skku of mine, you look to make yourself a hakkikt."

"I look to hold hani space, mekt-hakkikt. I'm securing my agreements."

There was profound silence. Her heart beat hard, every thump a pain in her chest; her limbs went cold and hot and the edges of the room went in and out of focus around the one darkness that was the kif; and life or death, then and there, if the kif took suspicion, if one of the hani captains reached her tolerance, if someone moved or sneezed, they could all die.

And worlds would.

O gods, O gods of my mothers, gods greater and lesser, littlest and far away, gods of my world-hear an old reprobate: can you move a kif . . . even a little bit?

"Kkkkt. Take all you have named. Dispose of Keia as you will. On his ship or in your hands. Now. Go. You are dismissed, skku-hakkikt."

She drew in a breath; a second one. Not skku-hakkiktu but skku-hakkikt. Not vassal of mine but vassal-prince. Her heart beat and skipped. Then she gulped air, grabbed the insect-leg of the chair and thrust herself to her feet. "Up," she said. "Move. The hakkikt's order, gods rot it, don't sit and think about it!"

Hani moved as if galvanized; Jik was slower, but only to put out his smoke and to pocket the pouch.

And the stsho huddled there at her feet gibbering and wailing in pain. A chill went over her. She hesitated, turned back toward Sikkukkut, opened her mouth.

"If the hakkikt has no use for these-"

"Enough!"

She stepped past the stsho. One caught at her trouser-leg. "Help," it cried. "Esteemed hani, help, intercede-"

She walked past. She had to. The kif had made an aisle, directing everyone out.

No further risk, I can't, I daren't, gods, don't let me fall on my face here and now.

I can't do more than I've done.

"That's another," Hilfy said. "Harukk's talking again. Encoded. Names-that's orders to ships. Chakkuf. Sukk. Nekkekt. I can't make anything out of it, but they could be moving-orders."

"I don't like this." From Tirun.

"What's going on?" From Chur's channel, over the main speakers.

"You know everything we know," Khym said.

Which summed it up well enough.

If there was a spotter, something they had constantly to worry about, it would lie more than a lighthour out, maybe three or four. And it would move when it felt like it. When its own criteria had been met. One of Goldtooth's ships, maybe. Maybe one of Akkhtimakt's. Or more than one. They sat here with nose to station with the chance, however remote, that some attack might come in, some mass of ships might be sitting out there dead silent and so lost in the immensity of the spherical search-zone that they were virtually invisible. Like the spotters. There was no way to find that kind of lurker either, except by that same blind luck, or its own error. The entire perimeter of Meetpoint's dark-mass influence, at a spherical radius of one to four lighthours-was an impossible area to search for any single ship. Station obscured part of their sweep and rotation complicated matters, with station not sending, the buoys on but erratic, and the kif deliberately censoring their own scan output. There was not even a star close enough to light an object, little help that that was: the dark-mass radiated, but with a sullen, dying heat, a spot their instruments regularly scanned, looking for any anomaly that might be a ship trying to mask itself; Meetpoint's own mass gave off a quiet white noise to their most sensitive instruments, the several system navigational buoys screamed their false information into the dark, emissions of a vast number of ships churned and dispersed in a maelstrom generated by other traffic; while their best chance of seeing a hidden ship lay in the computer's memory of the starfield continually overlaid on its present reception. Any star occulted, anywhere about the sweep, might signal that presence, and they had had two such occultations, which buoy-information called planetesimals-

"-Library," Haral had said on the first such: "does the Meetpoint buoy correlate its input with archives?"

Meaning did the buoy-system ever check itself to see if a cold, silent object it spotted was a known planetesimal? Affirmative. It did. But it reported it out as a planetesimal even while it was relaying a query: it was defaulted that way. The AI of the buoy knew nothing else to call it. The stsho who built it built no contingencies into it: or they had made them and did not put that information into the navigational ephemeris.

If something was out there hours out it had not seen recent developments in any of its timelagged reception: depending on its line of sight, it might only now be watching Harukk arriving at station ... in the confused, digital way of distance-scattered passive. It might not know what ship; or be sure how many were out here.

And gods only knew what would trigger it.

Hilfy wiped her eyes, shifted the com plug and kept focused. For their very lives.

"Abort linguistics search," Haral said suddenly, out of profound silence. "We need the room in nav."

Hilfy hesitated. And did it. Haral started running calc and never saying what it was for; but if Haral aborted one of Pyanfar's orders it was desperate. She pulled out the print she had, which was all gibberish. Lost. Utterly.

Then com beeped:

"Harukk-com to all ships at dock: praise to the hakkikt, stand by departure."

"What are they doing?" Khym exclaimed. "They can't be putting out!"

"We're going live," Haral said sharply. And started throwing switches. Systems thunked and started coming up.

"We keep those connectors?" Tirun asked, businesslike, while Hilfy sweated in panic and punched buttons on her own:''Harukk-com, this is The Pride of Chanur.''

"This is Harukk-com, praise to the hakkikt, report your status."

Her mind blanked. She sorted wildly, found the standard reports, shot them over. "Praise to the hakkikt,''' she muttered, "status on our personnel."

"Returning," the kif said. "We are in receipt of your data, Chanur-com. Provide data on your subordinates."

She shut the channel down to hold. Kifish courtesies, abrupt and rude by any other standard. She punched in on Haral, whose information-request light was flashing priority. "They say they're coming back. Harukk wants stats from the rest."

"Subordinates," Haral said. "Get the stats on all those ships."

Haral was right, gods, entirely right: it was kifish, it was a matter of protocols, claim everything the captain claimed, have all those stats in hand, permit no ship they claimed to report on its own. Her fingers stabbed at buttons, opened com to the mahendo'sat, to Tahar, to every other hani berth.

Claim it or lose it.

Down to the docks again, herself and all her company, and no kif but Skkukuk with them. Pyanfar drew one great breath of burn-tainted air and drew a second, and ventured a glance about her as others overtook her at the bottom of Harukk'?, ramp. Jik and Tully, Harun, Tauran, Vrossaur, Faha- The faces blurred and hazed: she went lightheaded in the change of air. "Did what we could," she muttered. "We got a chance. Whatever we got to argue among ourselves we do it on the way. Jik, Jik, my gods-" She bit it off, with the sight of the kif in the tail of her vision and remembering Skkukuk's interested ears. "Come on. Let's move it. We got to clear this dock." The departure light was flashing on the wall over their heads, Harukk preparing to move out. Across the dock, stsho huddled in forlorn panic- foolhardy of their kind. The prudent were locked in other levels, hidden deep in station interiors.

Where kifish crews searched for records and raided central in search of names and data.

"We're ready to move," Harun said. "We've been ready, waiting the chance for months. And we've got questions, but I'm not going to ask any. Any way we can get out of this godsforsaken place I'll take the ticket."

With an ears-down, troubled look. No fools in this group. Oldest to youngest.

Though Munur Faha looked at her with her anxieties plain and the whites showing round her eyes.

What are you doing? What kind of deal are you making? You were lying but how often and where and for whose sake?

As for Dur Tahar, she walked along in her own world, her scarred face grim, never looking at other hani. Scars were everywhere about her. Inside and out.

Skkukuk brought up the side and clicked and muttered to himself; Tully walked along with his hand on his gun the same as the kif.

And Jik asked Kesurinan quiet, rapid questions, the two of them talking dialect as they walked.

Do what about it? Jeopardize his life and everything else? Pyanfar fretted and gnawed her mustaches, and walked along near the pair, her heart speeding as she saw other departure lights start flashing all down the row. Their own ships.

"Word's out," she said, and glanced at the hani walking on the other side of her. "We do it the way you heard it. Adjustments and amendments when we clear Urtur. We've got to clear Urtur. We'll be thanking the gods for that kifish escort and I hope to gods Urtur is as far as Akkhtimakt gets, but I doubt it. We have a long run and a hard one ahead of us. We're fast enough to keep pace with the hunters. We've had some modifications: say we've been running courier for the mahendo'sat and we've got a hunter-rig. There's a lot been happening, but you heard some of it in there. What I'm worried about is getting us through systems fast enough and holding together long enough to get home in time. I can slow down; so can Aja Jin; and I can argue the kif into it; but nothing's going to slow Akkhtimakt down, and they're all hunters. Days can count in this. We're bypassing Hoas Point. What're your unladed caps on the Urtur jump and what on the brake and cross to Kura vector? Who's low?"

A low mutter of stats and capacities. Industry was far and away the strongest; little Starwind was fast enough, engines large enough with its light mass to send her right up into Industry's rating. Shaurnurn's Hope put them only a little down, and Pauran's Lightweaver only a shade under that. But The Star of Tauran was far under. Likewise Vrossaru's Outbounder.

"You know," Pyanfar said, "Tauran, Vrossaru. We can slow down and make your rate; it'll cost us. You understand what we're facing. I'm going to ask you-I got to ask-"

"We'll get there," Sirany Tauran said. "Our own way."

"No. Power down. Mothball at dock. I know it's risking your ships; so's the trip home. Listen. My crew's blind tired, strung out. Tahar's little better. I can take Tahar on The Pride-" Instant glower from Dur Tahar, but no word. "Or one crew can go with me and work alternate; other with Tahar. Get us all there alive and precious days faster."

Work alternate with a pirate? Bloodfeud and outlawry. She all but heard the scream. But:

"You can keep an eye on us," Tahar said in a low voice. "Split shift or whole. Whatever suits you."

"All right," Vrossaru said. "We'll take you on."

Tauran looked at Pyanfar's direction. Thoughts went throughher eyes. Aliens. Gods know what. And maybe on the other side: That Chanur ship's got priority protection from the kif. And it's fast. It'll get us there alive. And we'll be sitting where we can do some good if they're lying, won't we?

"All right," Sirany Tauran said. "Soon as I can get my crew off. We got seven. You got berths?"

"We'll find 'em." Does she know about Khym? Pyanfar's muscles clenched up and let go again. Gods be, we got worse problems than hani prejudices. "Thanks." They had reached Moon Rising's berth. And Aja Jin and The Pride beyond, all with departure warnings blinking urgently above. "We get those stats relayed ship to ship, right, down the line, direct transmission. We have to share specifics with our kifish escort, no choice. Let's get ourselves out of this port, we don't want anything intervening and we got gods know what going we don't know where."

"Understood," Harun said. "Luck to us."

"Luck," Faha said. "Gods look on us." And with the appearance of a shudder, she looked at Tully and his dark-robed partner. Perhaps in that instant of afterthought she wanted to take that pious wish back. But that would have been an embarrassment. "Hearth and home," she added, and with monumental charity: "and whatever." With a physical effort.

Then Munur Faha started on ahead, her own ship farther on; other captains followed, Harun and Vrossaru with a backward look, Vrossaru’s ears flat in dismay.

"Tahar," Pyanfar said: and Tahar stopped there at her own dock. So did Tully and Skkukuk. "Jik," she said. Jik and Kesurinan stopped, too, within an easy sprint of Aja Jin's berth. "We got it worked out," Pyanfar said. Which Jik and Kesurinan might not have heard, they had been talking too intensely and too urgently all the way back. Passing instructions, fomenting conspiracy. Gods knew what.

But Jik left his First and came back to her, his dark face all sober. "Where I go, a?" He held up both hands. "Want back? Or you tell me go?"

"Gods rot you, what are you likely to do? Leave us? Get us all skinned? Kill my world with your conniving?"

Sikkukkut's kifish ignorance had let this hazard loose: Dispose of Keia as you will.

Now it came to a bluff she could not call, force she could not use, persuasion she knew would not work. To haul him aboard The Pride even by strong pressure now would set Kesurinan off, trigger gods knew what contingency orders.

"I do number one good back there."

"I got no way to trust you!"

"I got interest like I say." He reached out and laid his hands on her shoulders. Stared into her eyes, and she stared up at him, looking for something to rely on. Liar. Ten times a liar. Your gods-be government won't let you tell the truth once a day. "Hani got importance, Pyanfar. I swear. God witness."

"More than your own? Don't tell me that!" Her knees felt weak. The face looming over her was alien, the eyes as unreadable as Tully at his most obscure.

"We be neighbor to hani more than kif, a? That be backside whole mahen space, I don't doublecross you."

"Gods be, we're reasoning like the kif. Self-interest!"

"Politic all time reason like kif. Damn mess. I best pilot you got, hani. You want lock me up? Or you want trust?"

"When did it ever work?" Panic rushed over her. "No, gods rot it, I don't want to trust you."

"Work in there number one good. You get me out, got me smokes, a?"

"Same time we got Sikkukkut going to come in behind us! You know he is! He's appointed me to do his work for him, you think he's not going to follow up on it?"

"Damn sure. You be no fool, Pyanfar." He waved a hand toward Aja Jin's berth. "Number one fine ship in whole Compact, you got. Got number one fine pilot. Me. We go keep promise, a?"

"Get! Go! Give your orders! And get your rotted carcass back aboard my ship and give me that data before we undock. I want it, Jik, I want it in plain language and plain charts!"

"You beautiful." A touch at her face. She flinched and spat; and he gave one of his maddening humor-grins, then turned and sprinted for his own access-ramp, Kesurinan running with him stride for stride.

For their own ship. Their own choice. Gods knew if he would come back. The docks were dangerous. Kif might intercept him even on that short a crossing between ships. Sikkukkut might discover something in his questioning of stsho to change his mind. Stle stles stlen might have secreted damning records, being a trader through and through.

She looked at Dur Tahar. And had no doubt at all of the pirate, of her enemy, of a hani she had been willing to kill.

"That may have been a mistake," Pyanfar said.

"Could be."

"Tahar, if we get through this, anything between us. . . ."

Tahar's face went hard, her ears flat. "Yeah. I know."

"You don't know, gods rot it! There is no bloodfeud, between you and Chanur. You've paid it."

The ears came up. "Paid it on your side too," Tahar said with Tahar's own surly arrogance. And stood there a breath longer before she turned abruptly and headed for Moon Rising's ramp.

It left her Tully and Skkukuk. A bewildered and nonplussed Skkukuk, Tully close at her side and the kif standing there as if his orderly world were all disarranged.

The great captain let his enemy lay hands on her. The great captain believes she has these for subordinate. The captain is wrong. Can the great captain be such a fool? Beware these hani. They are not subordinate either.

She lifted her chin. Come-hither. And Skkukuk came, all anxious, not without a suspicious glance toward the vanishing mahendo'sat. "Hakt', that is dangerous."

"Friend," she said. And in perversity reached out and laid a hand on Skkukuk's hard arm, from which touch he flinched out of reach.

"Kkkt!" As if she had attacked him. Very like her own gut reaction with Jik. And she had not perceived Jik's touch as lifethreatening.

"I teach you a thing, Skkukuk. You're traveling with hani. You'll hear things that may disturb you." A second time she reached, and this time caught him. The arm was thin, hard as metal. She felt a tremor there. "Scare you, skku of mine? Power among hani is a different matter. Power among hani is a handful of clans that just decided to go along with me because I handed them the only way out of here they're ever going to get. And because as long as there've been clans on Anuurn, there's been Chanur, and our roots go deep and our connections are complicated, and we're calling in debts they have to pay for sfik reasons and self-protection. We're connected to Faha; Faha's got ties of its own. Gods know I'd have to look up library to see where the others run. That's the way we are. Clan is one entity. You're skku to Chanur. Do you see? You behave yourself with these strangers aboard. And they won't gain a bit on you. Their relation is all with Chanur as a clan, do you follow that?"

Dark eyes glittered. She stared at a kif s face a handspan from hers, closer than she ever wanted to be. He made her nose run. And she made him shiver.

"Yes, hakt'." he said. "Power."

She let him go. And wanted a bath. Wanted clean air. Wanted-gods, never to have tried to reason with a kif. Or to have dealt with one.

"Come on," she said, shoved him and then Tully into motion and turned and hurried to The Pride, faster and faster, Skkukuk close after her, Tully panting along beside her, his breath hollow and hoarse from the thin air and the chill. Get you out of this, lad, before you catch a cough. Get me out of this. Gods, I'm too old for this kind of stuff. She took the pocketcom from her belt. "This is Pyanfar. Open up, hear me? We're coming in."

"Aye," Haral's voice came back.

Up the ramp. Into the chill ribbed yellow of the passageway. Around the bend and toward the white light, the safety of the airlock. She came across that threshold weak-kneed and with her side one mass of pain.

"Lock it up," she yelled at com. "We're all in."

''Aye,'' Haral said. ''Everyone all right?'' The hatch whined and hissed shut; and they were as free of the kif as they were able to be.

She shut her eyes and hung there, bent over then to get her breath while Tully did the same.

"Captain?"

"Fools, fools!" Skkukuk cried, and an alien grip closed on her arm. "The mekt-hakt' is starved, is fainting for your incompetence!"

Tully snarled something at him. Pyanfar rescued her own arm, blinking dazedly as it became almost a matter of keeping two men apart. Neither one hers. And both being hers, in a way which had nothing to do with being male. She had never seen that look on Tully's face. Tully’s teeth bared without humor at all, teeth no match for Skkukuk's, which were all too close. She straight-armed them apart, hard. "Manners, gods-be, shut it down!"

"Captain?"

"I'm all right," she said, and shook her head, dazed, dizzy, and with a rush of fight-impulse going through her veins that turned her giddy. Human sweat and kifish mingled in her nostrils with her own. So much for human/kifish cooperation.

Gods, no time, we got our orders, I got no time to go away like this.

"I'm coming down there," Khym said.

"No need." She felt totally disconnected, blinked back and forth between Skkukuk and Tully. Her husband in it was the last thing she wanted. "We got more coming. Tauran's crew is boarding as soon as they can get locked up and back here. Working alternate with us. They tell you? We got a trip to make."

The door to the inside corridor opened. "Where, cap'n?" Haral's voice took over com again. "Where are we going?"

They had not known. "Home," she said; and felt a momentary rush of triumph for her own cleverness.

Until she thought again of Chur, and the cost it might be to them all in more terms than one. The triumph faded, left only an ache and a vast and mortal terror. "They've turned us loose. We're going home."