The Kif Strike Back

X

Tirun and Hilfy met them in front of the lift lowerdecks, armed with pistols from the downside locker, ears laid back and both of them wetter than Haral had been. "What have we got?" Tirun asked as they headed down the corridor to the lock.

"We got a present coming from Sikkukkut," Pyanfar muttered, and gave a look Hilfy's direction; Hilfy showed nothing now but a clear-eyed attention to business. "That's what they say out there, at least; I didn't like the last present much; and b'gods, if Sikkukkut gives me another earless hanger-on I'll feed it to Skkukuk and solve two problems."

"I don't like this," Haral said. "I don't like it at all. Captain, let Tirun and me sort this out in the lock. We might get more kif than we bargained for and they could sabotage that hatch—"

"Airlock gives them advantage of position," Pyanfar said. "Geran, you got image on them?"

''No, captain—one's in sight at the bend; there's more, but they're staying back and that accessway light's lousy."

"Gods-be mess," Pyanfar muttered. "Stand by, Geran."

A single shot from their airlock toward the accessway might blow them to hard vacuum, even with light pistols; and Kefk was rife with potential suicides willing to bet their lives hani would hesitate one necessary instant to take the opposition with them.

"We could take it from lowerdeck ops," Haral said.

"Sfik," Pyanfar said, and took her gun from her pocket and threw the safety off. "Besides, sabotage at that hatch we don't need. Airlock it is. You and I go in, cousin. Hilfy and Tirun hold the, rear and keep your hand on that close-switch. And, Geran, you look sharp up there."

"I'm on it," Geran said.

Tirun's ears were back. Tirun had the clear ruthless sense to throw the emergency seal, backup to Geran; Hilfy was there because Hilfy happened to be belowdecks, and sending her topside would say something Pyanfar had no wish to say.

"Huh," Tirun said, commentary on it all.

They rounded the corner toward the lock. "Geran. Inner hatch only, Geran."

Ssssnnk. The big inner hatch went back on the instant, and the lock glared white with lights. Tirun took up position where the hatch rim gave some cover from fire and a split-second longer survival in an explosive decompression, her left hand set on the emergency switch. Hilfy stood armed on the opposite side of the hatchway.

"Easy," Pyanfar said; and walked into the airlock with Haral behind her. "Geran, open her up."

The outer hatch whisked back. A single kif who stood there a distance down the orange-lighted access, its hands in plain sight. It looked not at all startled at the pair of guns it faced; and it wisely refrained from all sudden movement.

Sikkukkut himself? Pyanfar wondered. But it was not so tall as Sikkukkut. It smelled different. She caught the different smell of Kefk station, musty and ammoniac, that came wafting in with it, fit to raise the hairs on a hani's back. Her nose twitched. Gods, I'm allergic to the bastards—

"The hakkikt sends," it said. "Will you accept the gift?"

“What gift?"

The kif made a slow turn. "—Kktanankki!" he called out. Bring it—a word that implied other things beyond bring, like a present that was able to walk under its own power.

A faint sound came from further down, around the corner of the accessway. More kif arrived, a massed drift of shadow with the red-gold of a hani in their midst, a hani in torn blue silk breeches.

Pyanfar's heart lurched, first in statement and then in recognition of that face, the tangled mane with the bronze tone of Anuurn's southlands; left ear ripped, a black scar that raked mouth and chin.

"Dur Tahar," Pyanfar said.

The captain of Moon Rising raised her eyes as the kif brought her to the threshold of the lock. She blinked and the ears came up and flattened as the first kif and two more took her inside, under the white light. Her eyes were the same bronze as her mane, wild and hard and crazed-looking. "Pyanfar Chanur," Tahar said, in a distant, hoarse voice.

"The hakkikt gives you your enemy," the foremost kif said. "His compliments, Chanur."

"Mine to him," Pyanfar muttered.

"Kkt," the kif said, and turned with a sweep of its robes and left, taking its dark companions with it, in kifish economy of courtesy.

"My crew," Dur Tahar said. Her voice struggled for composure and failed. "For the gods' own sake, Chanur—go after them! Ask for them; get them out of there!"

Pyanfar expelled one breath, sucked in a new one and strode out into the accessway in pursuit of the departing kif. "Captain!" Haral called after her; but Pyanfar went only as far as the bend, where she had view of the down-bound knot of kif on the ramp. "Skku-hakkiktu!" she yelled after the collective shadow. "I want the rest of the hani! Hear?"

The kif came to a leisurely halt, and gazed up at her as his band halted around him.

"Tell the hakkikt," Pyanfar called down the icy chute til the ramp, "I appreciate his gift. Tell the hakkikt I want the rest of the hani. I set importance on that. Tell him so!"

"Kkt. Chanur-hakto. Akktut okkukkun nakth hakti-hak-kikta."

Something about passing the message on. Modes eluded her, the subtleties of when or how fast, woven into the words kif used with each other like fine-edged knives.

"See to it!" she yelled back.

The kif bowed like a slide of oil, turned and walked on down the ramp with his companions around him. Pyanfar scowled, snicked the safety onto the pistol, then turned and hastened back into the airlock.

"Shut it, Geran!" Pyanfar yelled up at com. "And lock her up good!"

The door hissed behind her, and the electronic seals clashed and thumped.

"Where are your crew?" Pyanfar asked Tahar.

"Station Central. Last I knew." Tahar staggered as Haral took her by one bound arm and pulled her through into the warm corridor outside. As she passed, Tahar looked from Hilfy at her left to Tirun at her right; and with Hilfy whose mother was Faha-clan there was a feud as grievous as Chanur's own. But Dur Tahar showed not a spark of defiance, only weary acquiescence as Pyanfar pushed her over to stand against the corridor wall.

"Get them out!" Tahar said hoarsely. "Chanur, anything you want, just get them out. Fast."

"Tirun, you got a knife?"

"I got it." Tirun drew her folding-knife from her pocket, turned Tahar's face to the wall and sawed through the binding cords that held her hands, turned her about again and cut the one that circled her throat—stuffed the cut cord into her pocket, spacer's neatness, while Dur Tahar leaned against the wall, rubbing the blood back into her hands, her eyes glassy with shock.

"I sure didn't fancy to meet you under these circumstances," Pyanfar said.

"We were off our ship when you came in. They held us in the offices—Gods, I don't care what you do to me, just get them away from the kif."

"I'm going to try. I sent Sikkukkut a message out there in the accessway. I'm not sure I've got enough credit the hakkikt's going to listen, but I think I've got enough it'll get to him."

Dur Tahar pushed away from the wall. "You can do better than that, Chanur!"

"Listen, you make me trouble, Tahar, you'll die earless. Hear me?"

"I hear. Just get on it. Talk to them. You know what they'll do—"

"I know. But that message has to get there before I can do anything. You should know that well as any. I'm going to call Harukk on com. Suppose you tell me what you're doing in port; where Akkhtimakt is. Maybe you can give me some coin to bargain with, huh?"

Tahar's mouth tightened. She gestured vaguely outward, elsewhere, anywhere, with a lifting of her eyes. "There. Out there. Kshshti, likeliest." It was the ghost of a voice. "You want our word, you have it from me. Anything. Just for the Gods' sakes don't let them die like that."

Pyanfar stood staring at her. Old-fashioned words meant something on Anuurn; like our word, like clan and law and other things alien to the far dark place they had gotten to, in the modern age of Vigilance and stsho connivance. "It's a long way from home. A long way, Tahar."

Dur Tahar leaned her head back against the wall and shut her eyes. "They'll turn on you. Mahendo'sat same as kif. They will. Take my example—get out of here. Shed all of them and run, Chanur."

"You know a place to run to?"

Dur Tahar opened her eyes and looked at her, such a look as ached with exhaustion and terror and months and years of running. "No. Not ultimately. Not if you're like me. And you're getting there real fast, aren't you, Chanur?"

It was not a sight any of them would ever have looked for- Moon Rising's captain sitting at The Pride's galley table up by the bridge, taking a cup of gfi Geran pressed on her. Dur Tahar drank, and Pyanfar sat across the table with a cup in her own hands and more of the crew lounging against the cabinets with whatever bits of food Tully had scrounged: two

males in the galley—so beaten Dur Tahar was that she hardly spared more than a misgiving glance at Tully and less than that at Khym.

She knew Tully was with us, Pyanfar noted. Or at least knew he might be. So the rumor's got to Akkhtimakt. Tirun was back on duty, trying to query Vigilance on the medical assistance and get Jik's attention to the Tahar matter—("Let me take this round," Tirun had offered, while Geran was back seeing to Chur. "Do it," Pyanfar said. And between the two of them: "Put the fire under Vigilance, huh? Discreetly. Gods rot them. Get some hurry out of them.") Khym and Haral and Hilfy and Tully—they lounged about the walls, guns on hips, all of them armed but Tully; and Tahar drank her gfi in silence, eyes at infinity. "I want it straight," Pyanfar said to her. "I want the whole story, ker Dur. And fast. Tell it to me."

Focus came back. "My crew—"

"Mahijiru's in dock; Goldtooth's hooking up the com lines right now. We'll begin to get some movement out of the kif soon now. Ships are on short crew, same as us. Even the kif. Your cousins'll be safe enough for the time being—the kif'll hold off till they've got some direct order from Sikkukkut, or until Sikkukkut's free to see to them; and Sikkukkut's real occupied just now. Depend on it. Drink that down. My watch officer's sending to Aja Jin. We're doing more than it looks like we are. But you play me for a fool, Dur, and I'll—"

"No." Tahar took a swallow. The cup trembled in her hands. "You run in rough company. This hakkikt of yours—"

"Not mine."

"—he's winning, do you understand that? The kif think Akkhtimakt's already lost. The word's spreading—How we!! do you know the kif?"

"About as well as serves, and better than I want to."

"/ know them, gods, believe me that I do. Sfik. Gods-forsaken kif change sides quick as stsho in a situation like this, two kif at the top of the heap and both of them near-matched: Sikkukkut and Akkhtimakt—they both served Akkukkak in different capacities till he went, and now the two of them have all kif space in chaos. Every wind, every whisper that comes along, ordinary kif sniff it and change their politics. And all of a sudden Akkhtimakt's small stuff. His move against Kita was a big threat; gods, he's from Akkht, he's big stuff there—got powerful skkukun hunting down all his rivals on homeworld, while Sikkukkut's just a jumped-up provincial boss from Mirkti, for the gods' sake. But the mahendo'sat know him. Sikkukkut's a longtime neighbor of theirs, someone they're used to dealing with-and they're dealing with him. Do you see? All of a sudden Akkhtimakt looks like a kif a long way from his power base and losing it. Sikkukkut's operating in his own home territory, using old connections, and Sikkukkut's cut Akkhtimakt bad— thanks to you and the mahendo'sat. Real bad."

Pyanfar leaned her elbows on the table. "Where's humanity fit into this, huh?"

The whites showed around Tahar's eyes, a slight tic in Tully's direction, but Tahar did not turn her head, not even when Geran drifted quietly into the room and stood there with arms folded and her face like boding storm. "Humans," Tahar said, "are coming in. They're moving slowly—but your ally ought to be able to tell you that.''

"Sikkukkut, you mean?" .

"This human. Or the mahendo'sat. Akkhtimakt's program was to stop the human ships; keep them out of Compact space. Or prey on them one by one on the fringes. Humans are mahen allies, the way the kif read it. But Sikkukkut's got the mahendo'sat working with him. He's got you, got himself the Eyes of the han, for the gods' sweet sake. Got a pet human of his own. How do you fight a combination like that? Kefk took one look at that situation and all of Akkhtimakt's partisans here started looking at their neighbors and refiguring every tie they had—I've been through it before. A kif looks at a situation, adds up his own sfik and whether he's got any advantage to the other side, and if he doesn't, he'll know his neighbors are adding it up too, and one of them may try to get more sfik by killing him. If he kills his attacker he's got more sfik for the moment, but if he suddenly gets too much, he may look like a threat and lose all the benefit of it. It's a bloody game, Chanur. I've played it for two years."

"Looks like you missed a step, doesn't it?"

"Oh, I tried. Kif don't understand hani, that's all; they don't know how our minds work, not in crises—but they do know we're different and the way we choose sides isn't predictable or sensible by their lights. So that's what happened to us. We didn't get a chance to switch sides. We were in an office—the staff just turned without warning and killed one kif who was too high up—too much sfik to trust; and they rounded up others to hand over to Sikkukkut for—o gods." Tahar shuddered and set the cup down with both hands. "My crew, Chanur, my crew—Sikkukkut handed me on for a gift. I've got sfik enough. The situation has. But my cousins—if you don't get them out of there—Chanur, I've seen what happens when a kif wants to throw a celebration. I've seen it."

"I'm working on it. My word on it, Tahar. Gods know I'd cheerfully break your neck if things were different. But not here and not now and not that way. I'm applying every leverage I've got. Want a warm-up on that?"

"No."

"Take it anyway. You can use it." She retrieved Dur Tahar's cup, held it for Tirun to fill and set it back in front of Tahar's hands. "You get news from home?"

Tahar raised her eyes with apprehension.

"Short and straight," Pyanfar said. Gods, it had a bad taste in her mouth when delivering the news once would have been revenge in itself. "Tahar's in deep trouble—but you'd figure that. I don't know how bad or how much internally, or what's going on at Anuurn at the moment, but you could figure it. Tahar was having trouble getting cargoes last year. Victory, Sunfire and Golden Ring are all working over farside, last that I know about it, as far from kif as they can get. If they haul their own cargo, someone raises a question whether it might be pirated goods being dumped; if they haul someone else's they have to post a bond of guarantee in the case they should decide to pirate it themselves."

"Cut it, Chanur!"

"I'm telling you the truth. What do you expect you've done for Tahar's reputation? Gods rot it, you knew it when you bolted with the rest of the kif at Gaohn! You might as well listen to it."

Tahar's ears were back, she set the cup down hard and looked as if she were coming over the tabletop in the next breath; but then the wind went out of her in a long shuddering sigh, and she bowed her head and flexed her claws out, points on the hard table surface. "You gave me gods-be little choice. Do what? Come home and face my brother? Go on running Tahar cargoes after what the kif did to hani at Gaohn?"

"You knew they were kif when you bedded down with them."

"So do you know it." Tahar's head came up, red-bronze eyes dark-centered and burning. "Remember that. Remember that, Pyanfar Chanur. You can't shed your clan. You never can. What you do comes back on your kin at home. And kif are kif and hani are hani, and one can't trust the other in the end. Get us out of here. Get my crew out and let's go home, Chanur, for the gods' sake, I'm begging you, let's both of us go home!"

"Captain." Tirun's voice came over the com on the wall. "Vigilance is' sending: Quote: 'You've boarded Tahar personnel.' I'm reading it exact, captain. 'We require you stand by to transfer this person to Immune custody.' "

"Gods rot them," Pyanfar muttered, and slid out of the bench.

"Ehrran," Dur Tahar murmured darkly, and started to her feet in a move that brought Chanur out of their leisured poses all about the galley. Tahar's ears went flat in alarm and she subsided back into the seat.

"The law," Pyanfar said. "They're here, Tahar. Han law. They've been hunting you for two years."

"Chanur—take my parole!"

Take custody, Tahar meant; clan to clan. Take her back to Anuurn justice in Chanur custody. It might even one-up Chanur enemies; and humiliate Rhif Ehrran. That was what Tahar offered, knowing what she offered.

It also might backfire.

Pyanfar stared at Dur Tahar eye to eye within the half-ring of Chanur crew and the hair bristled down her back.Gods, that I have to be afraid. That one hani has to look at another like this, and worry about the han.

She brushed past and headed for the bridge.

"Chanur!"

Pyanfar looked back, at Tahar with Haral's hand clamped in a firm grip on her arm. Pyanfar jerked her chin up in a gesture that freed the Tahar captain, turned and walked the narrow, curve-floored corridor to the bridge.

"They still on?" she asked Tirun, at com one, as she settled into her own chair.

"Your two," Tirun said, and Pyanfar spun her chair about, and punched that channel in on speaker, along with the recorder.

''Pyanfar Chanur speaking."

"Rhif Ehrran," the answer came back, delivered over speaker from the board, as others gathered on the bridge to hear it. "We understand the kif have turned one of the Tahar over to you."

"That's correct, ker Rhif. Dur Tahar. She's advised us that her kin are still in the custody of the hakkikt's forces, and that they're in imminent danger. We made immediate application through all channels for their release. We're holding her pending a quieter situation on the docks—"

"You undertook this without notifying us."

"The notification to the hakkikt was a matter of emergency. Hani lives are in danger. Regarding the general situation, Tahar showed up at my lock in kif custody without advance warning. And let me remind the deputy this is not a secure communication."

"You're obstructing a han order, Chanur."

"As a matter of record, Tahar has appealed to us to take her parole."

Dead silence on the other end for a moment. Then:

"Cooperation, Chanur. You don't take that parole. Hear me? Hear me? You want ours, we get yours. You'll turn her over.

Pyanfar's pulse skipped. She flicked a glance at the recorder light's green glow. It was being logged on Vigilance

and assuredly she wanted it on The Pride's tapes. "You're implying, are you, that our request for medical assistance to injured personnel hinges on our rejecting Tahar's appeal?"

More silence. The trap was too obvious. Rhif Ehrran was too wary to confirm that with any chance of it being logged verbatim. "Nothing of the kind, Chanur. But I don't send my crew into a situation I don't trust. And pending resolution of this matter, I'm putting that request on hold."

"Gods rot you, you're talking about a critically ill woman and a gods-be short schedule! You're—"

Click.

"Gods blast you!"

Tirun's voice quietly: "Log it?"

"Log it. Log that cut-off, to the minute." Pyanfar cut the recorder off. She was shaking when she spun the chair about, and her heart hurt her when she looked at the faces about her; Geran’s face; and Tahar's. "Geran," Pyanfar said quietly, to the killing-rage she saw in Geran's eyes. And with profoundest shame: "Tahar. I'm still trying."

"What are they doing?" Tahar asked in a hollow voice. "Chanur, what's going on?"

"The law. The law that wants you is telling me they'll by the gods let Chur Anify die if we don't hand you over on the spot. That's what's happened on Anuurn since Gaohn. That's what the han's come to nowadays, spies and note-takers out to prove their case at any cost. Law by innuendo, by threat, by payoff and profit and political gain. That's what we've got. Deals with the stsho. Buy-outs and sell-outs. Hani so gods-be anxious to get the advantage of their rivals they don't see anything else—like you and me, Tahar. Like both us gods-be fools. I watched you and you watched me and we fought each other, and our menfolk did, and all the while the old women in Naur and Schunan licked their whiskers and planned how to skin us both. They sent Ehrran out. The stsho found a chink and they're using it—stsho money; and hani gods-be stupidity. Incarnate in Ehrran.. By the gods, Tahar, I'll help your crew, I swear to you. But they're demanding I turn you and them over to Ehrran. And I don't see a way out of it. I've got a sick woman aboard with another jump to go, gods know when. They've got the medic that can help her; and they're going to play dirty."

"My sister," Geran said quietly. Her voice achieved a pitch of deep hoarseness it had never reached. And stopped though it was clear Geran had more to say than that. Shame, shame to have a transaction like that to Chanur's account and Anify's, and there was nothing else to do.

"Chanur," Tahar said, hands clenched on the co-pilot's cushion till the claws gouged. "Chanur, I'm a gift. A kifish gift, hear? You want the hakkikt to think Chanur can't hold what they give you?"

"Gods, you argue like a kif."

"You're dealing with kif, Chanur. You're in their station. This is their game. Not the han's. Not yours. You give me to the hanyou lose sfik. And you can lose your life for it. You can lose all you've got."

"Shut it down, Tahar!"

"Don't send me yet! Gods, Chanur, if you're going to throw it all away, at least get my crew out first, while you still have the sfik to bargain with!"

"I've got a woman sick, I've got gods-be little time to bargain in."

"They'll kill you. The kif will kill you if you slip. You hear me? Where's Chur Anify or any of you then, huh? You think Tahar's the only lives at stake at this gods-forsaken station?"

More silence, profound and dreadful. The crew listened; Tully's face was set and pale, for what small amount he followed.

"Maybe—" Geran's voice came softly, hoarse and hollow. "Maybe a mahen doctor—Captain, maybe Chur'd be better off with someone not Rhif Ehrran's pick in the first place. I trust her that little. And I know how Chur feels about it."

What for godssakes has gotten into us? A darkness closed about Pyanfar's vision, a narrowing tunnel in which one course leapt out with white-edged clarity. "By the gods, no! We're not taking this from that blackbreeched foot-licker. Tirun! Get me Jik." Pyanfar spun her chair about to the board and hit the recorder and the com. "Priority—" The com came live. "The Pride of Chanur to Aja Jin, priority, priority; this is Pyanfar Chanur. Get the captain on—" And as a mahen voice droned back: "Move it, crewman——Tirun, gods rot it, give me those med stats." She punched buttons, hunting in two banks. "Where in a mahen hell'd you put that gods-be file?"

"Four, captain, it's your comp four, I'm getting it—"

"Stand by comp transmission, Aja Jin, priority—Where's Jik, gods blast your eyes!''

"I got," a deeper voice came back.

"Jik, get our comp-send and get a med over here, priority, priority one! Mahen, hani, I don't care what, just hurry, code one, hear? Hurry it, Jik!"

"You got. Ready you send."

She sent, two keystrokes.

"Got. We go, go."

"Go!" She broke the contact and spun the chair about. "Tirun. Log a medical emergency. Log the call." She leaned buck in the cushions and stared at her crew and at Tahar, darkly smug. "There's more than one way to get something done around here. Now let Ehrran play politics with an emergency call."

It was not safe. Sudden moves in a stationful of nervous kif might open something else up.

No move at all was unthinkable. She looked at Geran, whose ears were canted back, whose eyes were white-edged about the amber and black.

"So we get Jik in on it," Pyanfar said. "And by the gods he can get Blackbreeches to Kefk he can gods-be sure get a hani medic over here whether Rhif Ehrran likes it or not, and by the gods she'll do her job."

Geran gave a smile far from pleasant, prim pursing of her mouth. No smile at all from the rest of the crew; a wary look from Khym; a warier one yet from Tahar; and from Tully a lost and worried stare. He laid a hand on Haral's arm, questioned her with a look.

"We get help for Chur," Pyanfar said in simplicity, for turn, and got up from her chair. "Tahar, your crew gets my help nonconditional. I'm not Rhif Ehrran. If you doublecross me or get in my way I'll just break your neck right off and send the remains to the kif. And let me make one thing more clear: my crew's not in any state to be patient with your mouth. We're short on sleep and gods-be mad, and I don't know if I'd save you if you cross one of us again. Hear it?"

Tahar's ears went back, a visible flinching. It was the truth, at least the first part. And maybe the second. And Tahar gave no sign of doubting it.

"Better be ready on that access," Pyanfar said, and turned a look toward Haral. "Tirun, stay your post. You know who you've talked to. Hilfy, Khym, put Tahar in Tully's room a while." It was one of the few places on the ship relatively damage-proof, and it at least had a bed. "Move it. Geran— see to Chur, that's all."

Crew scattered, except Tully. He still had that lost look— anxious, frightened. Chur. That was all he could likely make out. Next to Hilfy, the closest friend he had. Pyanfar walked over to him and set a hand on his arm. Claws half out. He had that disconnected look of hysteria, and she gripped his arm to wake him up. "Hey," Pyanfar said, "it's all right, huh?"

"Tahar," he said. "Kif. Kefk. What do, Pyanfar? What do, what do?"

What are you up to? What kind of game are you playing? I trusted you. What's going on, Pyanfar?

"Captain," Tirun said, "Jik's lot're headed up the dock. Estimate three minutes. Mahijiru queries: assistance wanted?"

"Affirmative." She left Tully, walked over to Tirun's side and leaned there.

"Kif query," Tirun said. "It's Harukk."

Then the minuses of the trick came home to nest. "Respond: medical emergency. Injured crew."

Tirun relayed it. "We have a call already in—" Tirun added, reminder to the kif on the other end. And: "We understand that. Will you go on trying?" Another incoming-light lit. Haral snatched the call. ". . . Right. We got you. We'll open for you. Captain, it's the meds."

"Tell Hilfy intercept them as they come in. Tully—go helpGeran. Go to Chur. Take Geran's orders."

Tully went without question. It was off the bridge, it kept him from underfoot and he could fetch and carry if someone could get it through to him what was wanted. Loyal, she thought; he was that. Friend.

And alien and dangerous as the mahendo'sat when matters got beneath his skin.

There was a coming and going belowdecks, grim mahen personnel bristling with weapons taking up station in the accessway, along the lowerdeck main corridor and at the lift.

And on the upperdeck main, where a frowning Ehrran medic worked with a tall black Ksota mahendo'sat, and Chanur's off-duty and motley assortment standing grim and glowering round the walls of Chur's sickroom—two males, either one of whom might have raised the Ehrran's hackles for completely different reasons; Geran Anify and Hilfy Chanur, Hilfy standing there with her hand consciously or unconsciously on the butt of a pistol. They went armed, with the airlock standing open under mahen guard; and it was not only the kif that concerned them.

Pyanfar hovered by the door, with a complug in one ear, listening to operations as Tirun sorted them past.

The medics exchanged surly technicalities. "No gods-rotted good," the hani said; and Geran moved closer, hands in her belt and a frown clenching her jaw. "What isn't good?"

"Captain," the medic protested, not for the first time. "I'd like this room cleared."

"That's all right," Pyanfar said from the doorway. "We're all friends. I'm sure Chur doesn't mind."

"Get them outof here—" With a look at The Pride's two menfolk.

"Why?" Pyanfar said. "You going to object to your professional colleague too?"—who was male, and mahendo'sat.

The hani medic gave a bleak hard stare and turned and laid out supplies. Plainly she did object to males in medicine, whatever the species, and swallowed it.

"Better be good," Geran said.

The medic hesitated with a bottle in her hand.

"Mistake might damage your career real bad," Hilfy said, hand still on the gunbutt.

"I didn't come here to take abuse and threats from junior crew."

"Better be right," Chur said for herself, rousing herself to tilt her head back on the pillow and look at the drip stand the medic-assistants were setting up by her side. "Mahe, haosti." Check it, will you?

"Shishti," the mahe agreed.

The hani medic glared, and handed the bottles and the bags over to the mahe one by one. "Seals," the hani said, pointing out the tops. "This woman never should have left Kshshti. By the gods she never should have sat a post—"

"You going to quote us another regulation?" Khym asked in his deep rumble. "I'll quote you laws. Like criminal negligence, malpractice, and kin-right."

"Get him out of here."

"Huh," Pyanfar said, and leaned on the doorframe and turned with it at her back until she was in the hall.

"Captain," the voice came from com. "Medic down with Skkukuk says he's fit enough. Says we got a diet problem with him, they want to send some stuff over."

"Live?"

''They say—well, the things are real dumb and they breed fast."

Pyanfar grimaced. The skin between her shoulders drew tight. "Vermin, huh? What's it eat?"

A moment of silence. "I'II ask."

She rolled back around the corner and looked into the room. Looked askance again when the lift door opened down the corridor and let in another band of mahendo'sat. For one moment the grim look of them sent Pyanfar's hand instinctively to the gunbutt.

Then recognition took over, and she flung herself from the doorframe and strode down the dead middle of the corridor.

"Goldtooth!" she spat.

"Ha, Pyanfar—" He was a black mahendo'sat, and he came in the somber black of his companions, not a flash of gold except when he smiled wide and glittery. He towered

there in that dark company on whom the only metal was the black sheen of AP guns and belts and buckles. And the grin died a fast death. "Say Chur she all right, huh?"

"No thanks to you, you rag-eared bastard!" She jerked the com-plug from her ear and looked up at his black, worried face. "I got my tail wrecked at Urtur, got my crew shot up at Kshshti—"

"Message go."

"Yes, rot you, your gods-be message went. Banny Ayhar and Prosperity took it on, if she got through alive." She recalled the open door and the Ehrran medic, snagged Goldtooth by a lanky, powerful arm and dragged .him toward her own cabin. "Stay out!" she snapped at his gun-bearing escort as she opened the door and pulled Goldtooth inside.

She closed it in the faces of his guards and turned and glared at him in the privacy and soundproofing of her own quarters. "So no more merchant. No more play-acting. This is your real face, huh, hunter-captain? Leave us a message at Urtur— head us at Jik and never tell us. You play games, you earless bastard, and we do the bleeding, all over Kshshti docks. You good-humor me right now and I'll break your gods-be neck. Where have you been?"

Goldtooth's small ears were back. He had a different look than he was wont, no humor at all. "You want list?" His voice was hoarse and quiet, unlike himself. "Jik number one fool, Pyanfar, he fool listen to this kif."

A cold feeling settled into her, worse than before. "He's your friend, gods rot it! You sent him after me at Kshshti. Didn't you?"

"I send. He friend. He same time number one fool. -Maybe work, this thing. Maybe I fool, same." Goldtooth sought a place to sit down and sank down on her rumpled bed, leaning back on one arm to look at her. "We got trouble, Pyanfar. Fool Jik talk tc'a. Knnn take tc'a. We got lot human ship, come Tt'a'va'o 'bout now. We got human come in, got knnn disturb, got stsho disturb, got kif make fight—Jik know this Sikkukkut. He say—got beat Akkhtimakt. Sikkukkut do. Jik say this kif he be poor pro-vin-cial, going make big lousy mess deal with homeworld, lot longtime trouble. I think Jik wrong. I think he big wrong. This kif not small problem. Got number one hakkikt want be real friendly with mahendo'sat, with you—You watch, you watch, Pyanfar. Sikkukkut be no dumb kif."

"I don't think he is."

"Fool. Big fool, Jik."

"So what are you doing here?"

Goldtooth's ears went up and back again. "Maybe try make kif lot busy. I come, go, hit here, there. I close kif route to Meetpoint. They lot upset." A flash of gilded teeth. "Keep Akkhtimakt lot busy, a? That kif want my heart number one urgent, three time try."

"What's Sikkukkut going to do now you're here? Answer me that, huh?"

"He got no grudge on me. I bring him lot sfik. Same you, hani. Same Jik. Same Vigilance. We give that kif so damn much sfik he eat whole Compact."

It made sense. It made an uncomfortable lot of sense.

"So why did you come in?"

The ears flicked. Dark mahen eyes half-lidded. "Maybe I got no more choice. Maybe Jik got whole thing."

A fist closed about her heart. "You're lying to me, Goldtooth. I've had enough of it."

Long silence. "Maybe good thing one smart mahe come stand real close this kif, huh?"

"You're planning to kill him?"

"A. You maybe got idea, hani."

"You think other kif haven't tried?"

"Kif no do. Kif no try. They kif, they want live, Pyanfar. We mahendo'sat, we little crazy, a? I tell you truth, Pyanfar. You talk that kif I die real slow. You know same, a?"

"Gods, I don't want to hear this! Don't make me your coconspirator!"

"Old friend."

"Friend!" She strode over to her dressing table, unlatched the drawer and searched inside it for a small presentation box. Goldtooth had sat up straight; she tossed it and he caught it.

"What this?"

"Expensive present. From Stle sties stlen, your precious friend at Meetpoint. The stsho you told me to trust. A note. Go on. Read it. It's short."

He opened the lid, unfolded the paper and his ears tightened against his skull. "Bastard!"

"Gtst nearly Phased on me. Maybe he had a bad attack of treachery. Don't trust Goldtooth. That piece of advice cost your government plenty. And that stsho bastard's been dealing with Rhif Ehrran and the kif and the tc'a, I don't doubt. And you. And me. And every landless daughter in the Compact's been sniffing round for advantage. That son was real help, oh, yes! So was your stationmaster at Kshshti. Same gods-rotted kind of help as Stle stles stlen. Gods fry you, you sent me across the Compact like a gods-be lightning rod for every piece of doubledealing for forty lightyears round!"

Goldtooth got to his feet. Tossed the case back. Pyanfar caught it, threw it in the drawer, slammed and latched it.

"You got lot reason be upset, Pyanfar. But you got lot smart. You never 'preciate same. You best damn captain Anuurn got. I got lot confidence you. You almost same good like me. Maybe better pilot, a?"

"Oh, no. No you don't. No more favors. Gods rot it, I got no more crew, I got a gods-be zoo! I got a human scan tech, a kif who neglected to present his papers, and they want to feed him little live vermin—"

"You want mahe? Lend you number one fine fellow. Two, three guard."

On my ship? Fine fellow to report every move I make? "No thanks. I got enough on file with Vigilance. Taking on mahen crew would about do it, friend."

"You take. You got need. They take you order. Swear. I give you five."

"No. No way! I can handle it."

"We got lot trouble come. Akkhtimakt—he go Meetpoint."

"Oh, good gods—" It was credible. It was all too credible. The matter spread itself out like a piece of whole cloth. "He's going to sell himself to Stle stles stlen."

"You right."

''Hani are allied with the other side!''

" 'Cept you; 'cept maybe Tahar. Friend."

Oaths failed her. She stood there staring up at Goldtooth; breath hung in her throat and the dark was all about them both. She coughed her throat clear and a shiver gathered in her gut and ran outward. "You," she said finally, "you—"

"You no fool, Pyanfar. You got brain. You, me, Jik—not matter look right; matter what we do. Akkhtimakt got hani, got stsho ally, he make them fool. Where hani guns, a? Two, three ship. Stsho got none. Got proverb, hani—you go bed with some people half hour you got hundred year kid, and he got kids and they got in-laws. Same make deal with kif when you got no gun.

She stood there silent, staring up at this mahe, this somber self Goldtooth never showed on docksides. / kill this kif, he had said. Deal and double-deal. He could do it. Strike at Sikkukkut after the whole fragile structure was built and it would all tumble into chaos again.

More lives and ships. More years of hazard. And knnn with their black legs into it, weaving gods-knew-what about the fringes of the Compact, with humans trying to come and go.

Mahendo'sat. He's fighting for mahen survival. His whole species is in danger.

And where's hani survival?

Not, for sure, with Akkhtimakt.

She drew a deep breath and folded her arms. "So. So you got me listening, mahe. But you'd better know this: that tc'a the knnn snatched wasn't the only thing we lost out of here. A stsho craft bolted Mkks, and it came this way, full sail for Meetpoint."

"Ah, no. Not Meetpoint. Go out Tt’a’va’o vector." A small flash of gilt teeth. "Try maybe take short cut, a? to Llyene?"

"Into the human ships?"

"Xenophobe stsho got big surprise, a?"

"The gods-rotted stsho are cozy with the tc'a, friend."

"Maybe we fix."

"O gods, gods, human lunacy's catching—you're playing tag with the knnn, you rag-eared bastard!"

"That do be problem, true."

She stared into his dark eyes and had another cold moment of doubt. "More secrets? Where are the humans going, friend? Where next? Here? Meetpoint?"

Goldtooth's humor had fallen away like a shed cloak. He gazed at her long and thoughtfully. "Maybe we make deal with knnn. Maybe e-qui-librium. Tape you got, tape I give you at Meetpoint, you say Banny Ayhar take on—one thing in this tape be knnn record; hani, we got hope this thing get to Maing Tol. You courier knnn message."

"Good gods."

"Tully—he be cover for message. He know. And I know you take good care this human. He got paper say he crew of The Pride. You fight save him if you not fight for me."

"You bastard. You son of a—"

"You listen." He held up a hand and with the other reached into his belt-pouch.

"What's that?"

"From Jik. You got fine new comp unit downstair, a? You feed this. Got code sort. You process our private message real good, you get talk to us. Ehrran not got."

"Best present I've had in a while." She took it and tucked the envelope into her pocket.

"Also," Goldtooth said, "my medic get look stats on Chur Anify; we got piece equipment we bring aboard. Number one fine she go through jump. Same like be in hospital, give her all she need."

"Gods rot it, why didn't Jik give us that at Mkks?"

"He not got. This from Mahijiru. We big ship—got zonal command post. Big hospital. Aja Jin, he maybe more fast, Mahijiru got more crew—got need have this thing. Save few lives. Now you got need, a?" He set his hands on her shoulders, hard and heavy. "We settle detail later. I got go, not like be longtime off my ship. Damn lousy place, Kefk. But one thing more I give—" He reached into his belt pouch and took some other small thing from it, took her hand and hooked over her finger an earring, with one great perfect pearl.

"Best I find. I owe you long time for welders, a? Come from Llyene oceans, number one most beau-ti-ful."

"Goldtooth—Ismehanan-min—" But for the second time words failed her, and Goldtooth laid his hand on the door switch, "You fine woman," he said. "Beau-ti-ful thing belong you."

"Where are they going? Gods rot it, what's their route?"

"Always want talk business," he sighed, and opened the door and walked out into the corridor.

"Goldtooth, gods rot you—"

She pursued to the doorway, stopped abruptly as a pair of mahendo'sat came dollying a large polystyrene crate past the door. Goldtooth pressed himself against the wall on the other side of the corridor till it passed, waved his hand cheerfully toward the crate that headed for Chur's room. "There, see, we move quick. I promise. It be done." He gave an engaging grin. "You trust. You trust, Pyanfar."

"Ismehanan-min—"

"Chur do fine now," Goldtooth said definitely, and walked off toward the lift, with a nod of his head gathering up his darkclad crew that hulked along on all sides of him, formidable and irresistible.

She stood alone in the doorway with the pearl clenched in her hand. And felt entirely numb.