The Kif Strike Back

IX

Harukk went into dock; Aja Jin; Vigilance and the advance kif guard followed in final approach: "The hakkikt take dock now," word came from Aja Jin then; and shortly after that docking a voice from Kefk central: "Oxy-side traffic control will shut down briefly," first in main-kifish and then in hani. "Pride of Chanur, this is Kefk central: oxy-side traffic control will shut down transmission briefly and resume with Harukk personnel, compliments of the hakkikt Sikkukkut an nikktukktin; methane-side operations will continue. Please stand by."

"Skkukuk?" Pyanfar asked.

''The hakkikt Sikkukkut has secured the dock around his ship," the kif said from his seat across the bridge. "His force is on its way to take station central; central indicates no resistance. Hani, I am suffering. Kkkt. I am—"

"So are all of us. Shut up."

"Beware traps. Beware—Sikkukkut knows them. Beware hidden resistance. There will be—Kkkt. Hidden resistance."

"Where?"

"Hidden. Hidden."

"Lot of help, kif."

"Kkkt. Ktkot kifik kifai. . ."

"Well, we're not kif. Thank gods."

"Fool. Kkkt. Fool."

"Shut him up!" (From Hilfy, harsh and desperate.)

"Quiet. Kif, shut it down."

"Kkkkt." (Subdued.) "Kkk—kt."

"Shut it down." (Tirun.) "Or I'll break your gods-be arm."

Quiet then, excepting a few clicks. Profound silence, around Hilfy's station. You lost it, kid, everyone knows it, the kif knows it. Pick it up again, huh, niece? Let's pick it up, mind on business, you're doing all right, kid.

And a little later: "Aunt," Hilfy said; and from com "—This is Kefk traffic control, compliments of the hakkikt resuming transmission. Ikkiktk, continue as instructed.—Pride of Chanur, compliments of the hakkikt, continue as instructed. This is Tikkukka, skku to Sikkukkut an'nikktukktin akki-hakki pakkuk Kefktoki. Compliments of the hakkikt your dock will be berth 2 as assigned.—Ikkiktk, honor to the hakkikt you will occupy berth 4; Makkurik, honor to the hakkikt you will occupy berth 25—''

"Politeness," Chur muttered. "Politeness. Listen to 'em.''

"Skkukuk?" Pyanfar asked. "You hear that?"

"It seems straightforward," Skkukuk said from his post the rear of the bridge. "The hakkikt has secured station central control. Hani, I am weary of this chair; the wire cuts my wrists. I need food—Kkkt. Kkkt. I warn you my service will be wasted—"

"Just shut up about it, kif. Answer me straight. What's likely up there?"

"What will the mahendo'sat do? Kkkt. Kkkt. What does your incoming ally intend? Kkkt. If the mahendo'sat try treachery against the hakkikt we will not be wise to dock.''

Goldtooth's Mahijiru was still coming, inertial now. Not hurrying as much as he might. But decidedly on his way.

"Aunt," Hilfy said, "Aja Jin advises we dock and take no connections but shielded line and personnel access."

"Affirm and acknowledge."

"Kkkt. Most of all beware your allies. Beware—"

"Shut it down, kif."

"Fools, I have been given to fools."

They kept coming. Ahead of them their lone tc'a escort underwent its lunatic evolutions on its way to docking on Kefk's methane side. Kefk's methane-side control sent out data matrices in tc'a communication. And camera image came up now on monitor 4, Haral's sending. Kefk station shone in its own floods like a baleful star, lit in orange and red.

"Gods-be mahen hell," Chur said.

"Kif have a hell?" Tirun wondered. "How about it, Skkukuk?"

No answer.

"They don't swear, either," Hilfy said. "Kif don't swear, do they, kif?"

"Mind on your business," Pyanfar said shortly.

"Kefk," Haral said, and switched a call through—likeliest from Khym's board. Kefk stats started up, and Tirun sorted them on comp, searching for anomalies and trouble. "All clear, all clear," Tirun said, "we got a normal approach at this V, all standard for Kefk's size."

More numbers started rolling in. "Auto this?" Haral wondered. "Affirm," Pyanfar said. There was no reason not to. The Pride took the numbers in as Haral punched into the auto-approach: tired, gods, they were all tired. A red light blinked urgently, comp's advisement that armament was live and it was being asked to violate the law. Pyanfar overrode with a triple keypunch and logged that decision with another press of a key.

"Approach under hostile conditions," she muttered into the recorder. "Armaments will stay live until dock." The vid screen caught her eye. There was a tone-difference in the slowly rotating station, a few ships not taking the floods in the same way as others docked at Kefk, three, not two bright spots in Kefk's as yet indistinguishable row of oxy-breather ships, beside the methane-sector rim. She keyed in a tighter shot. Tighter still.

"I'm not picking up any heat," Haral said, "except on the ships I think are ours."

Meaning no hostile ship's engines were hot and no one unanticipated was lately come or about to bolt dock. Yet.

"We got more than kif at this station," Pyanfar said. "Haral, have a look at vid one. We've got more bright spots on that rim than we ought to have."

"I see it. Maybe the spare's our fugitive stsho. Maybe it docked here. Maybe it had to."

"Might be."

"Or more of Jik's gods-be conniving?"

"Or Goldtooth's."

The Pride trimmed up and lines trued on: Kefk station kept talking, realtime now for all practical consideration. The system schematic indicated a scatter of miner craft, all insystem and hardly more maneuverable than the asteroids themselves. There were the guard ships, which had shed their V and began a sedate return to their base. And Mahijiru advancing with the only speed in the system besides their own that still warranted a flashing red line on the course-plot.

"Aja Jin says they've got the dock secure," Hilfy said. "Mahijiru's requesting docking instructions."

"Huh," Haral said, and: "thank the gods," from Geran.

Not going to attack then. Once the braking started in earnest— Goldtooth meant to come in.

Why? for the gods' sakes, when he was safe and secret out where he was?

Why leave cover, Goldtooth? What are you up to—friend of mine? Another doublecross?

Or did Jik always know you were here?

"Captain," Haral said, and gave her station-image. "Vid one. That anomaly looks mahen-type."

Pyanfar looked. The brightness among the dull grim shapes of kifish vessels resolved itself. It was indeed another ship of mahendo'sat design.

That meant an unanticipated mahen ship at Kefk dock—or a hani.

Closer and closer. Pyanfar wiped her eyes. Fool, stay awake, stay alert, or you won't have to worry. Kif-taint had permeated the bridge. Her nose twitched in the promise of a sneeze. She restrained it, and it crept up again and erupted. She wiped her nose. Another revolution.

Aja Jin and Vigilance and one bright-shining ship too many. "That's about berth 8 or 20," Haral said. "I'd sure like to know what it is."

"So would I," said Pyanfar. Ask Jik, Haral meant. But Jik was not saying anything about the discrepancy. No one was talking. Neither Jik nor Vigilance. "Put in a call to Vigilance. Ask them to confirm status dockside."

"Aye," Hilfy said, and it went. Pyanfar bit at a hangnail and watched Kefk station in its slow turning at the highest magnification The Pride could use. Definitely mahen-type craft. Definitely. Not their stsho. That stsho had to have gotten through unscathed: it would take phenomenal luck for even hair-triggered kif guardstations to stop a through-bound starship that meant to jump out again without pausing. There was small chance a sedentary force could fire anything that could intercept a high- V transit—unless they were virtually in its path. That was the nature of stations. That was their vulnerability. And the vulnerability of ships that shed V and went to dock.

"Message from Vigilance," Hilfy said. "They confirm. Central's secured. They indicate we're to come ahead with caution."

"Thank them," Pyanfar muttered absently. They haven't noticed? Ehrran came into a kif station denied a shiplist and never tried the vid? Jik didn't? In a mahen hell. Jik knows there's a ship here that doesn't belong. And Rhif Ehrran can't be that much of a fool. What are they together on? Do they know that ship?

She fired retros. Hard.

"Huhhh!" Haral said. Hearts must have leapt all across the bridge.

"We're off-pattern," Tirun said calmly then; and Hilfy: "Message from Kefk, from our escort, they query—"

"We just missed a rock," Pyanfar said. "Tell them sweep their lousy lanes, huh?"

"We going to take a look at that ship?" Haral asked, having figured it out for herself.

"Gods-be right we are." She had just thrown The Pride off the auto-approach timing with the station's revolutions. Now they had to revise their figures and fuss about with revised lane-assignment and approach. A few judicious pulses might put them closer to station on a timing that would swing that surplus ship under the camera's scrutiny.

"Gods," Haral said, "priority, priority—we show that knnn's engines live on the rim."

"Gods be." Pyanfar scanned a ripple of new information across her screens, heard Khym talking urgently on one channel while Hilfy queried the other—"We've got that information," Khym said. "—Py, Jik says—"

—a new image came up. Scan.

"—it's moving out from dock, gods, gods, look at that thing travel."

"Get it, get it—Chur, help, I've fouled it!" "Kkkt, Kkkkt."

—"Priority, priority—it's transmitting—Tc'a's answering."

Knnn-song wailed over com. Tc'a-matrix flashed up, totally numerical.

"What's that?" From Khym.

"I've got translator on it," Hilfy said. "Our tc'a escort's talking to the knnn."

"Kefk transmission," Tirun said. "Methane-side's talking on several wavelengths."

"Keep going," Pyanfar said and gnawed her mustaches. "We keep on approach until they try to stop us."

"—Priority: Translation: query, query, query, from the knnn. Tc'a response: indeterminate. Translator can't get it. Shall we query?"

"Negative, negative on the query. Steady as we go."

More matrix came up.

Tc'a knnn kif kif hani mahe mahe

Mkks Kefk Mkks Kefk Mkks Kefk Mkks

Kefk go Kefk Kefk Kefk Kefk Kefk

"Sounds like it's just talking to the knnn," Haral muttered.

"Tc'a's holding course, on the average. Gods—knnn's shifting to match—o good gods—''

"—Priority," Hilfy said. "Kefk's giving us a new lane assignment. They're scheduling us on in."

"Knnn?" Tully asked. "What do, what do?"

"Hush," said Chur. "Quiet. It's not ... not ... doing anything, it's just out there."

"We're just going on in, Tully. Quiet."

"Kkkkt. Kkkkkt. Kkkkkt."

"Shut up." From Tirun. "Or we give you to it."

"Easy, easy," Pyanfar muttered. "Chur—you all right?"

"Priority—Jik's advising us come on."

"Knnn's close—close to our line; intercept with the tc'a, looks like—"

"There—it's not on our numbers—" Geran said.

"That's match with the—Tc'a's moving. There's the knnn—"

"Track it. Get vid."

"Trying," Haral said. "Gods-be—"

Image came up, magnified in a series of jolts, the tc'a's jumbled planes in its running lights and floods: the flare of fire where the knnn was—no running lights, no numbers, no names: the knnn took no care in navigation at all and obeyed no lanes. It was out there, that was all—it showed on scan. Fire showed. Braking.

"That's intercept with the tc'a," Geran reported. "Minus 23, 22, 2—"

Goldtooth was back there—minutes outside the timeline and taking cues from what old information got to him. He might have spotted the knnn by now. Might be doing anything. Or he might be waiting on cues from them. Slowing down—continuing at V—anything was potential provocation with a knnn. Pyanfar gnawed her mustaches and spat them out again, her heart pounding against her ribs.

". . . . 3, 2—Priority."

Scan image came up. The knnn was moving into pattern with the tc'a. Was matching V with it—that quickly, that easily. Dead stop to course-reverse: metal could never stand it. Bodies would flatten.

Tully muttered to himself. It sounded like oaths, a steady drone of them. The tc'a and knnn began to accelerate together, the joint blip moving faster and faster away from the station vicinity.

"Gods," Geran muttered, "they're going, they're going. Plus 0, 25—Look at that!"

The other way. The knnn was heading outsystem, nadir with the tc'a either grappled or close in pattern. Colors shifted on the scope, incredible acceleration.

"Ah!" Tully said.

"It's jumped!"

"Kkkt. Kkkkt."

"Minds on business!" Pyanfar snapped. Nothing had stopped, least of all The Pride hurtling inbound to station and the chrono flicking numbers down. It was over. The tc'a was gone. Lost. And Nav-comp was flashing red lines on second monitor. "Off the mark, off the mark, gods rot it, Haral—I want that flyby. Get that equipment up, get it, hear?"

"Aye, aye, up and coming."

"We are observed," Skkukuk said faintly. "Kkkkt. The methane folk, I warned you. Pull us out of here. Kkkt. Fools."

"Shut up," Tirun said.

"There is no profit to this!"

"Skkukuk," Pyanfar snarled, "shut it up."

Silence then. The beep and click from instruments went on. Kif ships talked to each other. "—honor to the hakkikt," the station took up the refrain again, "there is no damage. We are secure. Continue in pattern. Please acknowledge."

And from Mahijiru, incoming, silence, while the knnn business unfolded on Goldtooth's timeline.

"Stand by," Pyanfar said, "Tirun, I want that approach calc. Take stats and set me up again."

"Got it, got it, I'm working."

And a little later, when station handed revised schedules down the line: "Bastards! I just had that!"

"They're not going to bump us down-schedule," Haral said. "They're going to revise the whole list of ships behind us. They want us in before the kif just real bad, don't they?"

No one answered.

"Run that schedule," Pyanfar said. "Can we do it? Are they going to route us blind to that ship again?"

"We got it, we got it," Tirun said after a moment, and a course plot came up.

Closer then and closer. Vid clarified. One full revolution of Kefk station. Two.

"Come on, Haral, I want that ship," Pyanfar muttered. "Digital-record. If we miss it on sight we'll try that."

The station revolved slowly past The Pride's dome cameras. No need of amplification. The serial numbers showed plain on the next station revolution, on a bright vane column.

Hani ship. 656 YAAV.

"Moon Rising," Haral muttered. "That's Moon Rising. Tahar!" Oaths went through com all over the bridge.

Pyanfar sat silent. Not surprised, no. It fit. It fit very well. So how large does this party get? How did Goldtooth know to meet us here? Gods, what have I got us into?

It was the red trousers, a dash of perfume enough to mask the sweating she was likely to do in hours ahead—Pyanfar took time for that, with The Pride only tentatively in dock. Shielded com line and personnel accessway connections were still all that any of their ships took from station, and station dockers made weak protest about safety and undue strain on the grapples, but they swallowed it. Sikkukkut's ships stayed ready to move; and so did they.

It was not vanity, this scrub-down: one of them ought to look and smell presentable to kifish hosts, and she made feverish haste about it. Three of them were off-shift at the moment. She had gotten Chur to rest, over protests she should go on sitting duty while her captain took showers; "Up," Pyanfar had said, and Chur disengaged herself and headed down the corridor from the bridge to Khym's cabin, wobbling as she walked. The wrapped bandage about Chur's side had gone looser, her drawstringed trousers tending perilously low on the hips. "Get her bedded down and fed,"

Pyanfar ordered Geran, laying a hand on Geran's chair-back. "See she's all right, huh?—Khym—" She paused for more assignments, reviewing what useable crew she had: the personnel-combination worked out wrong, but she took what there was. "Khym, you get the galley up, Tully, you help him, hear?"

And: "Aye," Tully said with never a flinching on his part and only an unreadable look from Khym as he got out of his chair and headed galley ward.

Pyanfar came pattering out of her quarters still damp, still putting on her bracelets as she headed down the main corridor bridgeward. Tully was coming out of Chur's cabin, having brought food in, she supposed. "She all right?" Pyanfar asked.

Tully laid a hand on his side. "Hurt," he said in hani, and by his look had more to say he did not trust the translator for. He blocked her path. Gestured at the door. "See. Go see, captain."

"Huh." She lowered her ears. Tully tended to anxieties deaf to most that went on, he got the wrong of most crises. There was no time at present for them or him. But the worry was quiet this time, anguished; and Chur—"Get," she said. "Go bathe." He was the worst of them save the kif. "I'll see about Chur. Go."

"Chur—" He refused to be moved. "Bad hurt."

"Get!" She waved a half-hearted blow to be rid of him, turned and punched the door control.

Geran turned from Chur's bedside as the door hissed back, quick and quick about getting her ears up and her face composed. Chur lay there with one arm on the covers. Indeed things were not right—not right, Chur's listlessness. Not right, the tray sitting on the table, untouched by a spacer just out of jump.

"How's she doing?" Pyanfar asked and let the door shut.

"She's pretty tired," Geran said.

"Fine," Chur said,

"Sure. Sure, you are. You're not working next jump." Pyanfar caught Geran's eyes with a glance. I'll talk to you later. And to herself: Gods, gods, gods. "You get food down her. Huh? I don't care if she doesn't want it."

"Right," Chur said, and stirred in bed. She propped herself up on her arms. "My side's doing a lot better. I'm a lot better, swear I am."

Pyanfar walked up to her bedside and swiped a hand across Chur's shoulder. Dead fur came away. Too much of it.

"I'll see to her," Geran said. "Captain, she's all right. She's doing all right. Just a little drained."

Pyanfar laid her ears back and wiped the hand on her trousers. "Take care of her," she said. "Chur, you stay put, hear me?"

"I'll be fine, captain."

Pyanfar stood there a moment. It was a conspiracy of silence. Chur and Geran—Chur always the busier one of the sisters, the cheerfullest, quickest wit.

—the ancient hall in the house of Chanur, in the days of na Dothon Chanur. The day the cousins had come down from their mountain home to apply to Chanur for domicile—

—Chur answering always, laughing, dissembling a rage at fate and the fall of Anify to its new lord. Geran dour and grim; and letting Chur do the talking, letting Chur make light of the awful decision to desert their own new lord to his folly. "Lord Chanur, that man's a fool," Chur had said. "And worse, he's boring." While Geran sat silent as a grave-wraith and tongue-tied in her wrath.

—Geran looking to Chur when Pyanfar spoke to her now; brief answer and a reflexive glance Chur's way—Cover for me, sister, talk for me, deal with them—

Geran had come out of her reticence once she took to space and freedom: she had found her own competence, learned to laugh, learned to deal with strangers, swaggered with rings in her ear and a spacer's easy grace.

But suddenly it was Chanur's hall again. Two sisters arrived homeless and self-exiled from the far hills; Chur doing the thinking and Geran with the knife. Conspiracy. And it was clear again who in that pair ran it all.

"Huh," Pyanfar said. "Huh." Chur beckoned for the tray on the table. Her ears were up. Geran moved the tray to Chur's lap.

"She's all right," Geran said.

Pyanfar walked out and closed the door. She punched the pocket com. "Hilfy—are we still all right up there?"

''We're all right,'' Hilfy's voice came back from the bridge, even while Pyanfar walked. "We got a call from Jik, just told us take it easy, he's handling what needs be; Goldtooth's on a leisurely approach and he's in no great hurry to make dock as long as things are the least bit unsettled. No one's doing much right now, they've got a little set-to in the methane side—got a couple of tc'a/chi locals in some kind of upset and the chi are running wild over there. The kif aren't talking about it. At least there aren't any more knnn in port, and things are getting calmed down over there on methane-side, it sounds as if. Gods hope."

Pyanfar overtook the voice, walking onto the bridge, and wrinkled up her nose with the pungent aroma of the kif. Skkukuk lay listless and neglected in his chair, still secured, a mere heap of black, while Hilfy and Tirun fended calls and Haral ran ops. At least his chatter had stopped.

The kif was one more problem on her mind. One more neglected and suffering piece of protoplasm. She paused by the kif, her hand on the chairback. Skkukuk turned his long jawed head and gazed at her with red-rimmed eyes. "Kkkkt. Captain. I protest this treatment."

"Fine, fine." The ammonia reek was overwhelming. She felt pity and loathing at once. And a desire to sneeze/e. "Hilfy, Tirun, go offshift—get this kif down below, get him fed, let him wash up." She let go the buckle of Skkukuk's restraints herself and hauled on the kif's bound arm. "Up."

Skkukuk cooperated, as far as the edge of the seat. "Captain," he said.

And plummeted through her hands. Pyanfar recoiled as Skkukuk hit her legs and folded the rest of the way down onto his face in a black-robed, ammonia-smelling heap. Hilfy and Tirun rose from their chairs and Haral looked and quickly swung back to business.

"Gods," Pyanfar muttered, between dismay and disgust, and squatted down as the kif began to stir and Tirun moved to help.

—Chur. Chur lying abed, the hair peeling from her skin, Chur, of the red-gold coat, the shining mane that got second looks from every man she met—fading out. Wasting under their eyes—

She grasped the kif s thin, robed shoulder and remembered jaws that could bite wire in two. It was a shoulder hard as stone. "Watch it," she said as Tirun tried to pull him over by the hip, but Skkukuk levered himself up on one elbow and his bound hands. His hood had fallen back. He lifted his bare head in a dazed way, blinking and looking from her to Tirun. "Get him water," Pyanfar said. Hilfy stood there. It was Tirun who got up and went. "Get your hands back from it, aunt," Hilfy said.

It was, reckoning those jaws, only sensible advice. "Help me," Pyanfar said, got a grip on the shoulders of Skkukuk's robe and hauled the kif upright. "Get his feet."

Hilfy grimaced and gathered the knees up; the two of them heaved the kif into the chair he had fallen from.

Tirun came back across the bridge in haste, bringing a cup of water. Pyanfar took it and held it under Skkukuk's mouth. His tongue darted and the water level dropped to a last soft gurgle as the cup emptied. Then he leaned his head back against the headrest and blinked listlessly.

"So he warned us," Pyanfar muttered. "Get to galley— get something thawed." Tirun left again in haste; and she put an unwilling hand up Skkukuk's sleeve and felt the abnormal chill of his arm, "He's gone into shock, that's what. Gods rot, I don't want to lose him."

Hilfy looked at her in a guarded, hostile way.

"You want him?" Hilfy asked coldly.

"I by the gods don't want him dying like this. Come out of it, niece. Is that my teaching—or something you learned in other company?"

Hilfy's ears went back. Nostrils flared and pinched. And Hilfy turned and walked away to the corridor with businesslike dispatch.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"To fix your gods-be kif," Hilfy snapped. "Captain. By your leave, ker Pyanfar."

"Niece—" Pyanfar muttered.

But what she had was Hilfy's back as Hilfy headed away down main corridor; and an all-but-limp kif in her custody. "Gods. Gods be." She unwound the flex which had bitten into the kif’s wrists. His hands were cold and limp, and he regarded her hazily, unresponsive to a fight among hani that, might have greatly amused him «n a better day. "Kkkkkt. Kkkkt," was all the sound he made in his misery.

Shut up, they had told him when he had begun to make that noise. ,

Khym came in from the galley and stood there with his ears back. Tully came in after him, and stood observing the situation with one of those inscrutable expressions that evidenced something going on in his blond-maned head. Perhaps, like Hilfy, he wanted the kif's death. Perhaps he was afraid, or wanted to warn them of the danger in this creature, and lacked words to do it. "Get cleaned up," Pyanfar snapped at them both. "You think we got time to stare? Gods-be kif's wilted on us, that's all. Move it. The rest of us want their break. Go. Get to it. The rest of us are waiting on you."

"Food—" Tully said lamely, and pointed back at the galley.

"Come on," Khym said, and caught him by the arm and took him on through the bridge to the corridor. Tully went, with a backward look from the bulkhead doorway.

''Get!'' Pyanfar said.

"Captain," Haral said from her post. "Harukk calling. The hakkikt advises us the guardstations have officially surrendered."

"Thank the gods for that. Acknowledge."

"Aye."

Tirun came back from the galley, carrying a cup of chopped raw meat that reeked of thawing and chill even at arm's length. "Kkkkt," Skkukuk moaned, and averted his face when Tirun offered it.

Pyanfar scowled. "Shut up and eat it, hear me, kif? I haven't got time for your stupid preferences."

"Kkkkt. Kkkkt. Kkkkt."

"Gods fry you."—She took the cup from Tirun's hand and held it under Skkukuk's mouth. "Eat it. I don't care what you don't like. I haven't got time for this."

"Kkkkt." And the jaws clamped together with a swelling of muscle down their long length. The nostrils drew inward. Skkukuk gave a long shiver, and kept his face averted, his eyes shut, his throat spasming.

Pyanfar took the cup back. "He eat anything we gave him before jump?''

"I'm not sure," Tirun said. "A lot of it had dried up."

"Captain," Haral said, "We got a definitive whereabouts on that stsho that went out from Mkks: kited through here this morning and never stopped for hellos."

"Gods rot. Naturally it did. What's happened to Tahar? Any word on Moon Rising?"

"Make inquiry?" Haral said.

"Has anyone else?"

"Negative."

"Gods, Now you'd expect that question out of Vigilance, wouldn't you? No. Don't ask. Just go on listening."

"Maybe we ought to ask the hakkikt advice in kif-feeding," Tirun muttered at her side. "Captain—maybe if we ask the kif to get something—"

Pyanfar turned a flat-eared look on her and Tirun tucked the stinking cup back into her hands and covered it and shut up.

And Hilfy came back from down the hall. With another cup in hand. "He eat anything?"

"No."

Hilfy offered hers. It smelled of blood. It was. Pyanfar drew in her nostrils as Hilfy extended it past her face.

"Where in the gods' good sense did you get this?"

"Med stores," Hilfy said, ears back, jaw set.

There was already a twitch of kifish nostrils. The. head turned, the eyes opened and a desperate tongue investigated the air. Skkukuk lifted his own hands to cup Hilfy's holding

the vessel; and the darkish red contents disappeared in an energetic palpitation of the kif's long jaw-muscles.

"Good gods," Tirun said.

"Just selective," Hilfy said. "A real delicate appetite. Freezerstuff's just too far gone for him."

"Get him cleaned up," Pyanfar said. "Feed him again if you have to. But don't by the gods get generous. We need those supplies. And you—"

Reprimand died in her mouth and left a bad taste after. Hilfy was on the edge. She saw it in the look in Hilfy's eyes, the set of her jaw. "Get some rest," she said to Hilfy; and that brought Hilfy's ears down as quickly as a blow to the face would have.

"I'm fit."

"Are you?"

Hilfy said nothing. The ears stayed down. The eyes stayed dark.

Get him off this .ship, off my deck, send him back to Sikkukkut.

Gods, gods, gods, the med supplies. How often do we have to bleed to feed this thing?

"Kkk-t," Skkukuk breathed. Pyanfar looked at the kif, and saw already a focus to the eyes as Tirun made shift to move him out of the chair. "Kkkkt," he said softly, "kkkkt—" —trying to get his booted feet under him. His head came up and the reddened eyes looked at Pyanfar. He knew what he had drunk. After the rest of it, are you, kif?

Tirun got him on his feet. Hilfy took an arm and they led him away, slowly, holding onto him and holding him up at the same time. Ought to bind those jaws when we handle him. There was a patch on her left arm where the fur grew wrong: plastic surgery, once and long ago, in her wilder youth. Wonder if he'd smother—-the nostrils run close to the surface.

Gods, get him off my ship, that's all!

And get Hilfy away from him.

"Going to give that bastard to Jik," Pyanfar muttered, settling into her own seat up by Haral's side. And before Haral could venture comment into a family situation: "Go

on. Get yourself cleaned up. I can handle things solo a while. We've got enough gods-be problems. I don't know how long we're going to be in this port. Not long, I'll guess. Hours, maybe. Maybe a day or so. With luck."

"Aye," Haral said, no demur, no comment, and no delay in shunting things to her board and bailing out of her seat. "Anything you need below?"

"Negative. Just hurry at it. Send Hilfy and Tirun to the same when you see them."

"Aye." Haral headed off at all deliberate speed. Throw water and soap on herself, pull on fresh trousers, stagger back to the galley if there was time and get food in her belly.

None of them carried any spare fat nowadays. A gaunt and haunted look hung about all the crew, standing watch and watch without meals or sleep except in snatches, while jump after jump burned them up from inside. There was a physiological penalty for every jump. The kif paid it. They did. She found herself eating from knowledge that she had to, not because food appealed to her, when she should have been ravenous. Only the wobbles signaled need for food: no appetite. Another jump—gods, another jump and we'll begin to feel it for sure. No one can stand this schedule.

Chur—can't. I was a fool to listen to her at Kshshti. She's in serious trouble, thinner and thinner. Bone and hair goes next. Bowel junction. Kidneys. Heart. It's not only kifish fire that can kill us. We can't run now. If anything goes wrong here we can't pull out. Chur needs those hours. Needs days here.

Get a med? Whose?

No. No. Chur's on the mend. The side's healed. The jump took a lot of minerals out of her system. Healing leached everything. Feed her vitamins. Lots of red meat. She'll make it now. She's past the crisis and she's still got reserves.

But I shed a lot. The kif collapsed. Pyanfar tongued a sore spot in her mouth, a tooth that promised soreness after brushing. So we've been running hard. Gods-be kif wilted after one jump. We've been—gods, how many jumps on short rations and short sleep?—and we're still holding on.

We need a hani med, gods rot it. Not mahendo'sat, someone who knows what the margin is. And hani medical personnel are scarce out here. If I ask Vigilance—

In a mahen hell.

But her hand punched through to ship-to-ship while her mind was still arguing the matter. "Vigilance. This is The Pride of Chanur, Pyanfar Chanur speaking. Put me through to your med staff."

(Gods, Chur's going to chew sticks if we call over a Vigilance med. But by the gods, let her. I don't like this. I don't like that look in her.)

"Pride of Chanur, this is Vigilance watch. Captain, we have operations in progress. Our boards are busy. I'll put your request through and call you back."

She read between the lines, a big lazy ship with personnel to spare, crew on rest, backup crew on duty, Rhif Ehrran was offshift along with her high officers to shower and sleep and eat at leisure. And not wanting advertisement of their status.

Telling their ships' internal schedules and habits to the kif did none of them any good.

"All right, Vigilance." She shifted to Jik's channel. "Aja Jin, this is The Pride."

"Aja Jin here, got all personnel busy. This emergency?"

It's Pyanfar Chanur, rot your hide, get me Jik! But that was panic. Jik was in communication with Mahijiru, likely, Aja Jin's crew up to its noses in running codes and communications with Goldtooth as he continued on approach. Aja Jin was trying to keep track of that situation and take the whole operations load off Vigilance because they had no trust for that ship, and off The Pride because The Pride had no crew Available to carry it.

"No," Pyanfar told Aja Jin's com officer. "Put it through when things settle down."

There was a delicate question—how to get in touch with Jik and get Jik to twist Ehrran's ear for that medic without being too evident about it. They had made light of the stack of charges Ehrran accumulated. But they needed no more of them. Nothing to complete the pattern and damn them with the han.

Follow channels. Do it the safe way. Keep to protocols.

There had to be time. Even if that stsho had run for Meetpoint and babbled all gtst knew; even if knnn were stirring about. Goldtooth and Jik acted as if there were time. They laid plans. Goldtooth was still coming in to dock, which meant he expected at least a number of hours before trouble hit, at least personal business here to make the trip worthwhile.

But Chur—

Geran's covering for her, that's what. And Geran's scared. So am I. Gods rot it, I never should have let her come past Kshshti.

But we needed her. We still need her.

Gods, she's not getting better. She's worse.

Com chatter kept up, Kefk adjusting to the reality of its occupation. Methane-sector was settling down at last—only a small portion of Kefk's territory, but a precinct with which kif did not trifle and out of which little coherent information came: the chaos at least seemed less. And there were no more knnn involved.

Geran came back to the bridge. Came and leaned on Pyanfar's chair, and Pyanfar turned it about to face her. "She all right?" Pyanfar asked Geran.

No. Not all right, Pyanfar thought with a sudden chill. Geran's mouth was clamped tight, jaw clenched.

Tongue-tied again. Like in the hall. Like things that touched on resisting Chur. She watched Geran's mouth twist, the strain of her throat, just to get words out. "She couldn't keep it down, captain."

"Listen, cousin, I've already got a call in for a med."

"Aye," Geran said, and to her surprise made no argument. Then with a look more naked and more wretched: "I really think you'd better. Captain, she choked pretty bad trying to eat. She's that weak. She couldn't get her breath."

No words for a moment or so. Mortal equations. Points of no return. Healing in jump cost and cost. And if the wound drew too profoundly on Chur's resources and the jump-stretch went on—

There was another jump beyond this; it might come in a day—or hours; and if things went really wrong here, there might be jump and jump and jump with kif on their track and somewhere, somewhen down that course—having to send I he Pride into jump knowing of a certainty Chur would die in it. That was what they faced.

"All right," Pyanfar said quietly. "All right, we do it. We get that med in here right now. A hani med. Vigilance has got staff. I'll get one. I don't care what it takes."

Another convulsive effort to speak. "Let me. Captain, let me." And quietly, the dam broken: "Begging your pardon— but maybe I can talk to staff, go the quiet route, huh? Kin-right."

Without the arrogance of captains involved, Geran meant.

"Do it," Pyanfar said without rancor. "They've got a com-hold on. You'll have to get past it."

"Aye." Geran took com one post, sat down and went on the com, quietly, urgently.

It was not a thing Pyanfar cared to listen to—Geran pleading Chur's case with an Ehrran crewwoman who wanted to argue channels in the matter of a Chanur life.

/ should have done it before now. Begged them. Gods,-I don't care, we've got to get a hurry-up on this. But it was more likely Geran could win it. Doubtless it would come to captains and her having to plead with Ehrran personally before all was done; but something still had to be sacred among hani—like kin-right and the bond between sisters. A ship incoming with family crisis on Anuurn outranked all oilier traffic. A woman homebound in such events could hoard any plane, commandeer any conveyance without stopping for formalities like fares till later. Kin-right could unsnarl red tape, overcome barriers', silence opposition and objections. There was law higher than han law. There had always been. Vigilance had to respect that.

"Captain. They want your request on file."

Pyanfar turned the chair and met an anguished stare with a quiet one before she took the call. "This is Pyanfar Chanur," she said to com.

"Chanur." It was Rhif Ehrran in person. "You want your crewwoman transferred to our facilities?"

"Treated here, if you can do it." Gods, to put Chur in Ehrran hands. "I've got a next-of-kin request, ker Rhif." Humbly. Quietly. With as much of Chanur dignity as she could save. "Geran Anify par Pyruun: she's got the right to go with her sister if she has to be taken off." You'll have an able Chanur loose on your ship if you take them, you eggsucking Ehrran bastard, no luck getting your hands on one of us helpless and undefended—and we'll be two crewwomen down, blast your eyes, and you'll have two hostages and you know it. "I'd take it kindly, captain, if you could get a little speed on this. She's pretty sick."

A long delay. "Dispatch the case records. Such as you have. My medical staff doesn't work on suppositions."

"You know I haven't got a medical staff, Ehrran."

"You expect me to take on the liability without adequate records. I'll want a release from Geran Anify as next of kin and from you as clan senior here before my staff touches her."

"You'll get it." Cover your backside, you gods-be parasite. Protect yourself. You give-me the chance and it won't be a lawsuit when I go for you. "With respect, can we get this underway? We don't know how long we've got in this port."

"It's waiting on that release, Chanur. Or if you'd rather have the mahendo'sat or the kif see to your problem—"

"We'll get your release. Thank you, ker Rhif. I owe you one."

The contact went discourteously dead.

"Gods fry her," Geran muttered.

"By the gods," Pyanfar said, turning and matching Geran's look with one of her own, "we owe her one, Chanur owes her one for this."

"Aye," Geran rasped. The breath came from the depths of her gut, as if it strangled on its way. "Hearth and blood, captain. When we get a chance."

"When." Pyanfar flicked her ears. Rings chimed, reminder of voyages and experience. They dealt with an Immune. Unchallengeable, by every principle of civilized law. But Chanur was older than any Immune clan. Older than Ehrran in all senses. "Get that release. Get Khym in here. And get the automed and relay Chur's vital signs over to Vigilance; let's give the meds all the help we can and save the Ehrran for our own time, not Chur's."

Khym came onto the bridge and got to legal files; Tully strayed through the door: "Here.," Pyanfar said, called Tully over and leaned aside in her chair to fish a size three probe out of the under-console toolkit. She extended one claw in demonstration, punched a harmless button with the probe while Tully watched, and turned and slapped the probe into his palm. His blue eyes lighted with sudden understanding and he clenched his hand on the tool.

"We get Chur help," she said. "Meanwhile we need crewman, huh? Understand? Buttons. Controls. Gods, you can't read. Use your imagination. Go to Khym, tell him you do what he says, can you?"

"I understand," he said. "I do. I work, I help."

"Good for you." She patted an available leg and sent him off, the halt to help the inexperienced, and both to do what they could. Gods, gods. She dropped her head against her hands and wiped her mane back. She was shaking with fatigue. She heard someone else come onto the bridge. Geran had come back with stats from the little medical equipment they had, and she flung herself into Haral's vacant seat to put the data through to Vigilance, no motion wasted.

Gods know how long we'll be here. Geran guesses the risk we're at—-if we have to run for it on the sudden. Chur—gods know if she's thinking straight at all now. Or thinks she's living anyway and won't burden us with helping her. Gods-be stubborn hillwomen. We go to space. We never get home out of the blood. Gods, gods—There had been a look on Geran's face for a moment in the dealings with Vigilance, a look such us she had seen on Hilfy's with the kif, and neither expression looked much toward personal survival.- Her own heart beat hard when she thought on Ehrran, when she reflected on herself, on a fool who had gotten a little ship and a merchant crew involved in the affairs of Personages and hakkiktun and gods forbid, the knnn.

There was nowhere left to run but home, nothing but charges and challenge there, and no way with a sick woman aboard to do that running without killing her. They could get back to Mkks from here. Or reach Tt'a'va'o, in space no hani had ever visited and where no hani was welcome; or run for Meetpoint— where The Pride had no welcome either and no few agencies wanted their hides. Chur might not live to get to any of those places and The Pride itself might not last much longer than their arrival.

She gave her mane a second wipe, flicked the rings on her ears into order and listened to Geran getting the data through and insisting on an acknowledgement from the Ehrran medical staff.

Haral came back onto the bridge, still wet from her bath, as Khym got up from his board and quietly handed Geran the legal release for fax-transmission to Vigilance.

"What's underway?" Haral asked.

"Getting a Vigilance med over here," Pyanfar said quietly; and Haral's damp ears went back in quiet acknowledgement. Haral knew who; why; was relieved, and avowed she had not been worried it would get done, all in that one twitch. It comforted her, such friendly familiarity, close as her own mind. There had been times in their youth when she and Haral had come to blows. Never on The Pride's deck. Never since they took to sitting side by side at The Pride's controls. "Chur's not so good, huh?" Haral asked.

"Not critical," Pyanfar said, "but none too good. It's not now that worries me."

Haral added up other unspoken things right too, with a scowl for their luck and Chur's and for allies they had to rely on.

"Goldtooth's on—"—insertion approach, Pyanfar started lo say, and com started flashing an attention-light. She reached and leaned over the mike. "Pride of Chanur. You've reached the captain."

It was neither Ehrran nor Jik. It was the tinny putter of the shielded dockside line, "—kokkitta ktogotki, Chanur-hakto. Kgoto naktki tkki skthokkikt."

"Gods rot it, I'm not opening that hatch."

"—kohogot kakkti hakkiktu."

"Not even for him."

"—Khotakku. Sphitktit ikkti ktoghogot."

"Speak pidgin!"

''—Gift. From the hakkikt."

Pyanfar drew in a long breath and looked up at Haral. Haral's ears were back. Don't ask me, that look meant. You know what choice we've got.

"I'm coming," Pyanfar said into the com. "Kgakki tkki, skku-hakkiktu." Politeness grated. And when the contact was broken: "Gods, what else did we need? Khym. Tully. Haral and I are headed for the lock. Get on the com and tell Tirun and Hilfy meet us down in lowerdecks—armed, and hurry it. Geran: get that camera on." She flung herself to her feet as Haral headed for the weapons-locker. "And, Khym, when you've done that get on shortrange and advise Jik we've got kif arriving with presents at our lock. Don't use the station lines! Hear?"

"Aye," Khym said, and shifted himself into Hilfy's vacant place, already throwing com switches. No argument. Gods, the menfolk had settled in and become useful— somewhere something had happened, and the uphill weight she had been shoving against since Anuurn port began to move on its own impulse. She took the light pistol Haral handed her, checked the safety in haste and headed out of the bridge a step in front of Haral.

"Gifts," Pyanfar muttered as Haral overtook her in the main corridor. "Gifts! That's how-we got into this gods-forsaken mess in the first place. Knnn. Chur sick. Vigilance playing games. And a gods-be kif wants to give us presents."

With Goldtooth in the last stages of his docking approach, they were losing their free-space shield; and from here on, it was stand prepped for a hasty undock and a mad scramble for defense at any moment.

They had caught station with its defenses low. It was an easy trick to take a starstation out—a few C-charged rocks carried through jump and let fly—if an attacker had no scruples... And, she kept recalling, Akkhtimakt's reputation included none, even among kif.