The Kif Strike Back

XI

"She's not to get out of that bed," the hani medic said. The Ehrran's ears were back, her nose drawn taut about the nostrils as she stood in the corridor prepared to leave. She looked up at Pyanfar the half-hand of difference in their height. "Whatever you imply about my ethics, captain, I did the best for her I could do, and the mahendo'sat have moved in a gods-rotted expensive piece of equipment she'll stay hooked up to during jump. It'll take the load off her heart and kidneys and prevent any more deterioration. With luck—" Geran had showed up in the corridor and stood there with a face like thunder. "With luck she even may build back a little on the trip. Depends on a lot of things. You're lucky this far. So is she. We don't have that kind of resources. We can't buy it." There was bitterness in the woman, a tight jawed hani anger at outsider wealth, and the laws and agreements between mahendo'sat and stsho that forever shut hani out. And that was an old story Pyanfar well understood.

"I appreciate your professional effort," Pyanfar said quietly. And could not forbear adding: "And I do understand you, Ehrran."

"Thanks," Geran said for her part. The word all but: strangled on its way out.

The hani medic nodded curtly and hitched the strap of her carry-sack higher on her shoulder as the mahen medic came out of the room. "She explain?" the mahe asked. "I hook up machine, she stay connect. No take off. You get list procedure. I leave supply in cabinet."

"She explained it. Yes. Thank you. Mashini-to, a?" .

"A." The mane grinned and bowed and swung off down main corridor with the hani slogging along beside, an unlikely pair headed for the lift. Mahen guards peeled them selves out of the corridor in their wake and followed, Goldtooth's remaining intrusion withdrawing itself.

Geran looked drawn and shaken. Silent even yet. Pyanfar put her hand on Geran's shoulder. "Hey, she's going to be all right. Best new-fangled stuff Iji's come out with. Good as hospital. And more good news. I don't think we're pulling out of here real soon, not like we were afraid we might. Day or so, maybe. Maybe more. We know where Akkhtimakt is; I just got word from Goldtooth, and it looks like we're going to have a little chance to breathe. There's more to it than that, but for Chur's sake it's the best news we could come up with on short notice."

Geran said nothing. But her face went defenseless and ordinary as if she had come back to them finally. Pyanfar pressed with her hand and Geran drew a deep breath. "What did Goldtooth have to say?"

"A lot of stuff that takes explaining." Pyanfar looked in on Chur, leaned there in the doorway of a room which had a great lot of machinery sitting over against the wall; and a crowd of visitors: Hilfy and Tully and Khym still lingered "Hey, you," Pyanfar said, "out of there and let Chur rest, will you?" And as the file passed her in the doorway: "Chur, Cousin, you hear me?"

"Uh?" Chur lifted her head from the pillow.

"We just got a present, a little while to rest. We got a message where Akkhtimakt is and we've got time for a little R and R. You don't be getting out of that bed or you walk back to Kshshti."

"Gods-be needles," Chur said. "I hate needles."

"Got more news for you. You get more of them on the way. Get some sleep, huh?"

"Trying," Chur said, and shifted in the bed and settled as far as the tubes and one arm strapped outward let her.

Pyanfar shut the door and looked at the somber gathering in the hall.

"So what is it, captain?" Geran asked.

"Not something I much want to dump on you right now," Pyanfar said. "But I'd better."

"Chur—"

"Not about her. Us. Bridge. Everyone."

The four of them followed her. Tirun and Haral turned their chairs about as they walked in. Pyanfar went to her own seat near Haral and leaned on the back of it while the rest of the crew settled on chair-arms and against cabinets. "Haral, Tirun, you catch that business in the corridor?"

"Aye," Haral said. "Both of us. Good news on Chur. Thank the gods."

"Thank the gods and friends where, we have 'em. Such as they are. We got anything essential running now?"

"No."

"All right." She took Goldtooth's code-strip packet from her pocket and put that down on the counter by her seat, powered her chair about to face the crew and sat down.

"Humans are moving out from Tt'a'va'o. I don't know what route they took; maybe you do, Tully, but the choices from there are real limited. I've talked to Goldtooth. I know a lot of things." She watched Tully's face, saw anxiety—the least little flicker of his strange eyes. "Humans on the move. And that's not the worst of it. Goldtooth's been lurking about Kefk regions keeping the Meetpoint route closed and creating a real difficulty for Akkhtimakt—Jik said sometime back that Goldtooth might be up to something hereabouts. But it turns out they don't check things out with each other real well. It seems Jik took off on his own and made the deal with Sikkukkut. Unauthorized, as it were. Or at least without-consulting. Forced Goldtooth's hand. Tully, I'll try to use small words. Goldtooth had come in from deep space—at least from outside the Compact—with Tully aboard, off Ijir. He left Ijir to go its way—but he had a duplicate of the message packet Ijir carried. He had Tully. And he had gotten something else—some kind of message from the knnn. From the knnn, gods help us. At least that's what Goldtooth hints. Meanwhile Akkhtimakt aimed to take Kita Point, while his agents were busy eliminating all opposition on the kifish home world—setting himself up as hakkikt of all the kif, that's what he was after. And back at that stage, a few months ago, Sikkukkut was no more than a provincial boss from Mirkti— with ambitions. Sikkukkut courted his old mahen connections at Meetpoint, approached Goldtooth trying to outflank Akkhtimakt, probing for every weakness he could get— Meetpoint's always a good place for intrigues. A real good place to pick up rumors. And right around that time rumors were running heavy—like hani deals with the stsho; mahen deals—everybody who was high up enough to get advance warnings was trying to get the best advantage against this new kifish hakkikt. Against Akkhtimakt.

"But Sikkukkut had a spy with Akkhtimakt, gods know how or where. Undoubtedly he had some stsho on the take at Meetpoint. He knew about the courier-ship falling into Akkhtimakt's hands. He knew—I suspect from his spy with Akkhtimakt, the same way he probably got the ring—that Goldtooth had Tully aboard. And it wasn't too hard to figure Goldtooth had handed Tully to us at Meetpoint, when we showed up with our papers cleared with a gods-awful monstrous bribe from the mahendo'sat. Which we didn't know about. But Sikkukkut may have.

"Sikkukkut set us up, deliberately put us in a bind at Meetpoint. He snagged us into his reach, he snagged Ehrran, and Ayhar; and he steered us out of Akkhtimakt's trap at Kita. Steered us right for his own front yard, step by step. And snagged Jik by having us in his net, while he was at it. By that business at Kshshti he gathered himself enough sfik to take Mkks on his own; and now he's got Kefk. So all of a sudden momentum's on his side and deserting Akkhtimakt. Akkhtimakt's supporters are beginning to desert him. Fast. Kifish logic: shoot your former allies in the back and run for the winning side. Akkhtimakt's got to be worried.

"Part two: Jik. Jik's got this idea mahendo'sat are a lot better off with their old familiar neighbor from Mirkti as hakkikt over all the kif. And Jik got Ehrran in on it; and he got us. Never mind Mkks' safety. That wasn't all he was after in those negotiations at Mkks. And Ehrran's on a lot more than Tahar's track now if she's got half sense—she's up at the top of this little information pyramid. She's got access to highlevel strategy—and if she's not a total fool, and if she knows anything about this, it's a lot more than Tahar got her to come to Kefk. Treaty law, yes. Jik's got credentials clear from the top, I'm sure he has. And what he specifically said to her that got her out of Mkks and headed this way—gods know. I have an idea the whole urgency behind Ehrran's search for Tahar has a whole lot to do with the han's negotiations with the stsho and the fear of the kif getting a leader.I think they wanted Tahar dead. Wanted to eliminate any possibility of her advising and helping a hakkikt predict what hani would do. Xenophobia again. But in this case, xenophobia with a real good reason. I'm guessing Ehrran's real and immediate motive in going along with this lunatic expedition, because she knew she hadn't a spit in a hurricane of getting back to Meetpoint and hani lanes in one piece if she didn't stay close by Jik—and learn what he was up to. Meanwhile Akkhtimakt supposedly held Kita, remember."

"Supposedly?" Haral said.

"I think Jik gods-be knew where Goldtooth went when he left Meetpoint: straight for deep stsho-tc'a space; right for a rendez-vous with someone who was going to guide the humans in. And then he was supposed to go—probably from Tt'a'va'o (the tc'a connection again!) to Kefk—harassing Akkhtimakt, making him divide his efforts between holding Kita and trying to keep the Kefk lane open, while Goldtooth set himself to keep it shut. So Meetpoint's had a two-way stranglehold on it, trade cut off by the kif at Kita; and-by Goldtooth at Kefk. Goldtooth's plan was to bring Akkhtimakt down by weakening him—lessening his credibility—all the while playing another game designed to soften up this whole gods-be zone from Kefk to Meetpoint because he knew humans were going to come through in this vicinity. If he could link up a mahen-human traderoute right past kifish borders, he'd ruin Akkhtimakt's credibility once and for all. Devastate him.

"Meanwhile the kifish homeworld is in complete chaos with hunter-squads and assassinations, trying to handle Goldtooth and hunt humans and balance its attentions between two rival hakkiktun. And the kif get information what's going on at Kefk; and some of that information goes to Mkks ... to kif, but not to mahen authorities—unless the tc'a talked, and they may not have, to unauthorized mahendo'sat. No, Sikkukkut knew exactly where Goldtooth was all the time. But I'm not sure Jik did, when he accepted Sikkukkut's deal to move on Kefk. I don't think Jik even knew for sure whether Goldtooth was alive. So when he was offered a deal that might provide a hakkikt that mahendo'sat could deal with—he took it. It'd take him to Kefk. It would let him link up with Goldtooth, if Goldtooth was still alive. I think mahen information broke down at that one really critical point; and now Goldtooth's in danger—because I think Sikkukkut sees a lot more of Goldtooth's thinking than Goldtooth thinks he sees—a lot more even than Jik may be aware of. Sikkukkut's drawn Goldtooth into the open now. Sikkukkut's got him accessible; and Goldtooth's come in, on his own, real close to Sikkukkut. Not playing coy at all. You see?"

"We got trouble," Haral said. "Gods, we got trouble."

"Oh, it gets worse, cousin. Jik used some kind of credit at Mkks to get that tc'a to go with us. The knnn are definitely into it. They've already sent one message to Maing Tol—that packet that we sent on with Banny Ayhar, if you can believe Goldtooth that far. I don't know what else Jik did at Mkks but I'm betting he gave the tc'a stationmaster our navigation data and got a tc'a to run cover for us and make sure Kefk fell without a shot. The knnn may consent to it. Or the knnn may have taken exception to it. Gods-rotted sure they took the tc'a. We don't know how they think. Or what they want. But humanity, remember, is cutting real close to the knnn's territory in getting here, if they haven't cut right through it; gods know where the knnn think their zones extend—if they even understand borders. And Tully says humans have fired at knnn ships."

Eyes dilated all round the bridge. Ears flattened.

"So here we are," Pyanfar said. "We moved into Kefk and caught Kefk by surprise and a high dice roll, and Kefk did the kifish thing and bellied down to the deck fast as they could spit. Sikkukkut takes everything on the table.

"Except for one thing. Akkhtimakt's got one recourse. The stsho hire mahen guards for top security, right? The stsho don't trust hani for anything but the lowest level guard jobs, and they trust kif for bully jobs. But. But. Mahendo'sat are trying to get the humans into the Compact, same way they bullied the stsho into admitting hani once upon a time. Now we have a common border with mahendo'sat that kept us satisfied with trade in that direction for a long time; and we've got a natural barrier on the stsho side, with a gulf our ships can't jump. Hani haven't been bad neighbors for the stsho. It's a lot different with humanity. Humanity wants through stsho space. Wants through tc'a and knnn space. Through kif space, if it can't get the other routes. That's got the stsho worried. Real worried. And meanwhile, on Anuurn, we've got a division: we've got hani who took to space and we've got hani who're gods-be near as xenophobic as the stsho. Old-fashioned hani who don't know the stsho. They aren't capable of knowing the stsho—gods, they aren't capable of imagining the stsho. But stsho money gets to them and buys votes in the han. Sets up new hani authorities of a mindset the stsho approve. That takes care of one border problem. Hire hani guards, then. Displace the mahendo'sat from every security post they hold on stsho property. Get them out. That takes care of the in-office stuff and gets rid of the mahen stranglehold; and gets mahen fingers out of stsho lines of communication. But there's one more thing the stsho need to stop the humans, something the nonspacing faction of the han can't provide them and no stsho can possibly handle gtstself. Armed ships. In numbers."

"O my gods," Tirun said.

"You've got it, cousin. The humans are headed either for Meetpoint or for Kefk. Goldtooth planned it that way. Put pressure on the stsho to get closer to the mahendo'sat. Make 'em deal with humanity: Bring Akkhtimakt down hard when he can't stop the human advance right under kifish noses. But the plan's backfired, partially thanks to Jik and thanks to us. By taking Kefk, Sikkukkut just piled a pressure on Akkhtimakt that's forcing Akkhtimakt to do something he'd never ordinarily do—he can't handle Sikkukkut and the mahendo'sat and the humans without more help than he's got. So Akkhtimakt's headed to Meetpoint to deal with the stsho. Same as the han is. The han's just ended up on Akkhtimakt's side."

There was profound silence. Sound whispered from a loose complug; the ducts hissed.

"Well, we got a real problem, don't we?" Haral said.

"Well, it's the han!" Geran said. "It's the likes of Ehrran, it's the likes of Naur and all of them back home, the gods-be fools!"

"We end up," Pyanfar said, "alone on this side with the mahendo'sat. And the kif. We're headed for Meetpoint. That's where the hakkikt will take this party for sure, he's sure humanity's going there and not coming here to take Kefk. That's the one thing he's got to be scared of—the one thing that could sink him, destroy everything he's built—and Goldtooth might do it to him. He wants to know that. He desperately, wants to know that, and Goldtooth isn't talking. If you want other possible motives for Goldtooth coming tamely in to dock—try the possibility that he's got help coming. A lot of it. That has to worry Sikkukkut. He daren't move til he has some way to cover himself and he daren't stay here and lose his momentum with his own followers. Goldtooth's got him worried bad, and Goldtooth wants to keep it that way.

One other thing you can figure: Ehrran. Ehrran'll turn on us the moment we hit Meetpoint space. At the least, she'll run for home—straight for the han to try to get a policy decision. And she'll take them everything in those records. Everything. Our troubles may come to a head at home before we can possibly get there; if we can get there at all. And there's no way we can get word to the House and Kohan what's coming. No way we can warn them—unless we break and run for home ourselves. I'm not about to tell Chur what's up: she can't stand this right now. But the rest of you had better know. You'd better think about it real hard. We can tear out of here at first excuse and go home. We can lay course straight from Meetpoint, run for all we're worth the second we hit that system, while everyone else is busy. And we can face whatever we have to back at Anuurn. We can't outrun Vigilance. But we might get there in time to meet charges. Tie it up in the han. Organize a fight—when, gods help us—it may have already been lost out here.

"Or we can stay and fight with the mahendo'sat, when it comes, against Akkhtimakt and whatever force the han may have set to assist the stsho at Meetpoint. You can guess what captains they might have talked into it. And where that ends then, I don't know. But I do know this beyond a doubt: if Akkhtimakt should win—he'll own Meetpoint, he'll move in on the stsho with no one to stop him, once he's past their security systems; and gods know what the knnn and the humans and the han will do in their separate craziness. But I don't decide this one. On this one you tell me."

"What do you think we ought to do?" Haral asked.

"I've told you."

"Tell us plain."

"Aye," Tirun muttered. "You've seen through this much of it—how much else do you see?"

Pyanfar drew a deep breath, pressed her hands against her eyes. Time went in loops. Anuurn sunset. The old vine on the estate wall. Hilfy playing in the dirt.

A ship at Meetpoint, dying because it happened to be hani, and in the wrong place—

Tully, crouching naked on her deck, writing numbers in his own blood—

Chur, handing them a white plastic packet, as she lay bleeding on a Kshshti dock—A kifish den. Jik's ridiculous smoke—playing sfik-games with the kif.

"I'd go with the mahendo'sat. Maybe I'm a fool. Maybe it's the worst kind of a fool—but being a fool hasn't stopped Ehrran from dealing left and right, has it? We can't do worse. We can't do worse than the han's done. Maybe that's a fool's arrogance too. Maybe, maybe, and maybe. Maybe it's Anuurn's last chance. Last chance for hani to do anything independent in the universe—sounds funny, too gods-rotted high for us; but that's the plain truth. I'm not sure where we'll end up, or what we'll do to Chanur back at home, or how they'll survive this. Or what we'll be even if we win—on Sikkukkut's side. But I don't want to see what happens when Akkhtimakt laps up the stsho like an appetizer. That's what I think. If you think the same, we get our minds on short-term business and we ride the waves the best we can. If it's go home, you tell me and we go that way long and hard as we can, while we can.''

"I'm on your side," Haral muttered. "The stsho go down—we haven't seen trouble yet."

"Same," Tirun said; and: "Same," said Geran. "No question."

"Same with me," said Hilfy quietly. "No choice, is there?"

Pyanfar found her claws clenched on the upholstery and carefully drew them in. "I owe you an apology for this," she said. Understatement. But her voice threatened not to work. She bestirred herself to the side and picked up the code-packet from the counter and handed it to Haral. "Mahen codes. We just got made official. As of now, we're guilty of everything in Vigilance's files. I just don't want to spook Vigilance out of our company too fast. So we go on doing what we've been doing and we don't give any hints, if by some wild chance Ehrran hasn't guessed what Goldtooth's up to, and what Jik's done. Gods help us, if we were really lucky, Ehrran would catch some common sense and side with us, and drag the han over to our side, out of the mess it's in. But that's about the last hope I entertain."

"She's snake enough to twist two ways at once," Tirun said.

"Inside out if I had my choice," Geran said.

"Meanwhile," Pyanfar said, "while we've got some time, we don't have much, and work goes on. Hilfy, Tully, Khym, they're sending over some stuff for the kif. I'd like to get rid of him, but I don't see a way to do it without creating a problem with Sikkukkut, and we don't need that. On the other hand, whatever he is, he's stood about what he can. I want him transferred to a regular cabin, I want the room safed, understand. We're going to have some sort of live stuff to take care of. Skkukuk can do his own vermin-herding. I want it decontaminated. Never mind the docking-check on this watch, except the filters, the ops and the lifesupport; we'll catch the little things next. Someone looks in on Chur now and again in Geran's off-watch; you arrange that, Geran. Don't wear yourself out. Tirun, call down to Tahar and tell her we're still working on the problem. She's probably chewing sticks down there. I haven't got time to talk to her. Tirun and Geran, Hilfy and Haral when you've got time, I want this code-strip fed in and checked against the translator. And when you get all that done, I want a regular dinner set up, none of those gods-be sandwiches."

There was dismay in tired faces until the matter of the dinner. "We'll go off-shift," Pyanfar said, "at need. When there's a lull, sleep. Feel free to trade off jobs and watches—I don't care who does it, just so it gets done before watch-end, and it gets done with due precautions: no one visits Skkukuk or Tahar alone. Sorry about the schedule. Goldtooth offered a full crew but I turned him down. Trust is fine; but I'm not handing over The Pride's codes to anybody. Not these days."

"Gods-rotted right," Haral said, and, "Aye," from the rest, with a flick of ears and a tautness of jaws.

"So get it done, huh?" She nodded a dismissal. Hilfy got up and walked out with Geran, down the corridor. Tirun turned back to com and Haral turned to the main board and systems-checks again. The menfolk were last on their way out, separately. And—"Khym," Pyanfar said before he could go: "You all right in this? Tully?"

Khym stopped and stuck his hands in his belt, glanced at the deck with a deference natural in Chanur matters. "You pick the fight, I'll settle the bastards, wasn't it something like that we promised each other fifty years ago?" It was their marriage vow, less elegantly phrased. But then he looked up, and a curious quirk came and went she had not seen in years. "But I think you'll have to help, though, wife."

She laughed despite it all and he grinned as if pleased to have pleased her. She watched the straightening of his shoulders as he walked off the bridge. Somewhere he had got a swagger in his step.

The ache in her own bones felt less, for that.

"Py-anfar?"

"Tully." She rose from her chair. Walked over near him as he stood there with confusion on his face. "Tully. Did you follow what I was saying to the crew? You understood?"

He nodded his head energetically— yes, that peculiar gesture meant. "I work," he said. "I work." And he turned his shoulder to her, there by the scan panel, his hands busy with some printout which he could no more read than he could breathe vacuum.

Avoidance.

"Tully," she said. "Tully."

"I work," he said.

"Put those ridiculous papers down." She snatched them from his hand and flung them onto the counter. He backed up, hit the chair and caught himself with an arm against the seat-back, eyes wide and flickering. He smelled of human sweat and Anuurn flowers. And sudden terror. Tirun half-turned her chair, and kept staring in distress. Tully stayed frozen, stsho-pale. Fear. Indeed, fear. It set her heart to pounding and touched off her aggressive reflexes; but child she made herself think, dismissing hunter-mind; and alien and friend and hair-triggered male. -

It was not her move that had frightened him. He was beyond that. He knew she. would never lay hands on him; she knew that he knew. It was a deeper thing.

"You worried about something, Tully?"

"Not understand lot you say—" He waved a vague gesture at the room. At the scan panel. "I work. I don't need any understand."

"Tully, old friend." Pyanfar laid a hand on his shoulder and felt the slight shift of muscles as if he had rather not have it resting there; she smelled his sweat despite that their air was cool for a human. "Listen—I know you doublecrossed me." The translator sputtered through the com Tully wore at his belt. She wore no earplug: she needed none at this range. "You and Goldtooth worked together. He told me. Gods rot you, Tully, you did set me up—"

The translator rendered something in its flat, Tully-voiced way, and he sank down on the chair arm to evade her hand, out of room to retreat.

"You tell me the truth, huh, Tully. What's got the wind up your back? Something I said?"

"Not understand."

"Sure. Let's talk about things. Like things maybe I might like to know—What's the humans' course?"

''Ta-va—''

"Tt'a'va'o. You heard that from me just now. Maybe you know more than that. Maybe you know what Goldtooth's not saying. Truth, Tully, gods blast you!" ,

He flinched violently. "Truth," he said. The translator gave him a woman's voice in the return, but the pitch was not far from his own. "I don't lie, I don't lie."

"Where before that?"

"Not sure. Ta-vik. Think Tavik."

"Tvk. At least one kifish port. Tvk. I'll guess they didn't stop to say hello. Skimmed in and out. And then to Chchchcho, not Akkti, not likely. Chchchcho. The chi homeworld. That's a real fine route, Tully. Real great. Who planned it?"

"I come—Ijir."

"You mean you don't know."

"Not know."

"Tully. That packet. Packet. Understand? What did it say?"

''Make offer trade.''

"To whom? Who to, Tully?"

A desperate wave of the hand. "All. All Compact."

"Kif too, huh?"

"Mahe. Hani."

"Tully, what else was in there? A knnn message, for instance. Knnn. You know that?"

A shake of the head. That was no. The eyes were wide and blue and anxious. "Not. Not know knnn thing. Py-anfar—I tell you, I tell you all thing. # # I don't lie to you."

"Funny thing how that translator always spits on sentences I'd really like not to doubt."

"I'm friend, I'm your friend, Pyanfar!"

"Yeah. I know."

"You think I lie."

"Didn't say you lied. Just wish you'd tell the truth before things get hot, huh? I just don't like the feeling there's something still rattling round back of those pretty blue eyes of yours. Something's been there since a long while back." She raked his mane back from his face with a judicious claw—let the hand rest on his shoulder again, gently. "Look, Tully— you're not scared of me, are you?"

"No."

"Then why don't you tell me the truth? Why'd you keep things from me when we started this voyage?"

"I tell."

"About the ships, yes. You did try. Why not the rest of it?"

"I try—try tell—You all time # busy not #—"

"Knnn's a word would get my attention real fast, Tully. You ever talk about the knnn with Goldtooth, huh? You tell him about firing on the knnn?"

A blink, a shake of the head, a shift of the eyes. Evasion.

"Well, you've been real helpful to a lot of people, haven't you? You tell me the truth about him taking you off that courier ship?"

"Truth."

"He personally?"

"Goldtooth."

"Ever hear anything about another ship? Another hunter-ship out there—someone with the rest of the humans?"

"No."

"You mean these human ships are just careening about Compact space on their own. No charts, no guide? No one watching them? Come on, Tully. How many?"

"I don't know."

"Two. Ten?"

"Not know. Ten. Maybe ten. Maybe more."

"More."

"I don't know!"

"Where'd these ships come from, Tully? Who's bringing them? Who told them to? You know about that?"

"Not know."

"Goldtooth knew. Truth, Tully. What do you know about these other humans?''

A darting of the eyes aside, elsewhere, back, away again.

"Huh?" she asked. "What do you know, Tully?"

"Come fight kif. They come fight kif."

"Uhhnnn." She caught his stare and held it. His eyes darted and jerked and stayed centered, dilated wide in the bright light of the bridge. "How do they sort out which kif, huh, Tully? Who tells them?"

"Kif is kif."

"Think so? What kind of plan is that? Take on the whole by the gods kif species? You're crazy, Tully. No. The mahendo'sat don't deal with crazy people. And you're dealing with the mahendo'sat, aren't you?"

"I ask go to bring you, bring you, Pyanfar, I don't # the mahendo'sat."

"Say again."

"Mahendo'sat don't speak all truth. I'm scared. I don't know what they do. I think maybe they want help us but I—//" He laid a hand on his chest and said it in hani, sending the translator into sputters. "I Tully—I scare, Py-anfar."

"Of what? What scares you?"

"I think the mahendo'sat more want help self. Maybe hani have want help self. I don't know. I don't understand too much. The translator makes wrong words. I scare—I don't know—''

"You're talking real clear now. Tully. You understand me. And I don't want any more evasions. You don't tell me you don't understand, hear? You know what kind of mess we're in."

"I don't understand."

"Oh, yes, you do. Who's with the ships, Tully? What's the arrangement they made? Where are they going next?"

"I don't understand."

"I told you I don't want to hear that. I want to know what you know. Tell me this, Tully—what questions did Sikkukkut ask you? What did he ask you, all alone?"

"Not—not—" His eyes widened. He twisted suddenly and looked behind him. Pyanfar glanced beyond, where Hilfy stood. Reflection and movement in the dead monitor screen. That had caught Tully's eye; and he seized on the chance.

"Hilfy," Tully said, pleaded. "Hilfy—"

"Something wrong?" Hilfy asked.

"We're just talking," Pyanfar said. Gods rot the timing. "Go see how Chur's doing, huh?"

"Geran's with her. Was just there." Blind to hints. Or ignoring them.

"Fine. Go see about the filters. You want to walk through, walk."

Hilfy's ears went down. She stood there.

"I go help," Tully offered, making to get up.

"You stay put." She shoved him back down on the chair? arm. "I'm not through with you. Hilfy. Get."

"What's the matter? What's going on?"

Fear. Human sweat. It was distinct and general in the air. The quiet on the bridge despite two stations working, the look on Tully's face—

"We're discussing routes," Pyanfar said evenly, quietly, and laid a quiet hand on Tully's shoulder. He flinched from under it and glanced round in panic. "Discussing what things he may still know. What he might have told without realizing it, to the mahendo'sat. To the kif in particular."

"I don't talk, Hilfy, I don't."

"Didn't say you were a liar, Tully. I asked you what Sikkukkut asked you. I want to know what Sikkukkut wanted to know."

"For godssakes, aunt—"

There was sweat on Tully's face. His skin had gone white. He looked up at her.

"Let him alone, gods rot it, aunt, he's had enough."

"I know he's had enough. I know what he went through—"

"You don't know! Keep your hands off him!"

Panic. Killing rage. O gods. Gods, Hilfy. Whoever wore that look was not a child, had never been a child. "Tully. All right. Get." She gave him a shove to move him. "Go on, I'll talk to you later."

"We send out ships," Tully said, suddenly, perversely clinging to his place. He poured the words out, clutched her wrist when she made a gesture of dismissal, and he looked from Hilfy to her, to Tirun and Haral and back, his alien eyes flickering and distracted. "It long time—long time—I try— They leave the Earth, understand. They make # self a #—" And when she shifted in the pain of his grip, he held the harder. "You listen, listen, Pyanfar, I tell you—"

"Make sense, gods rot it, the translator's frying half you say."

"We send ships—" He let go her bruised wrist to make a vague and desperate gesture of displacement,-of going away. "Ships go from Earth, from homeworld, they make # self # law, make # self # Compact. They don't like Earth. We fight # long with these human. Now we get no trade # be # to Earth. There be two human Compacts. They # want #. Want Earth. We want be free. We want make our # law. We want go—out in space—not the same direction like before. We find new direction, new trade. We find your Compact, find you. We want trade. This is the truth. If we get trade we make three Compact. Earth # be the third. Earth # be the # friend to hani, to mahendo'sat."

"Two human compacts." Pyanfar blinked and wiped her mane back with a sore hand and looked at Hilfy, who looked confused.

"Three," Tully said. "Also Earth. My homeworld. We got trouble # two humanities. We want trade. We the home of humanity we need this #. We want make way into Compact space, come and go # # #."

"You know about this?" Pyanfar asked Hilfy.

"No," Hilfy said, "No, I don't know what he's talking about."

"# #. Human be three kind." Tully held up as many digits. " #. #. Earth. I be Earth-man."

"Politics," Pyanfar muttered. "We got gods-be human politics, that's what. Well, who's telling the human ships where to go?"

"Earth. Earth tell."

"And what are you, Tully?"

"I spacer."

"You're so gods-be quick with that."

"Aunt."

"You want to ask him?"

"Gods blast it, take it easy on him!"

Pyanfar drew a deep breath. "Look, maybe he never talked to the kif. I'll take that on his say-so. Maybe he never spoke a word. But he doesn't lie real good. He never did."

"Not to us."

"He speaks the language, niece. Watch the eyes when you ask him questions, never mind the ears, watch the eyes. He's a lousy liar. He was alone with Sikkukkut. With drugs. With questions. All right, you know what and I don't. Even if he didn't talk—he may have spilled something he doesn't know he spilled. You think of that?"

"You ever ask me what / gave them?"

Pyanfar blinked in shock. Shook her head at the thought. "A cracked skull and nothing else," Hilfy said. "I didn't give them anything. And they tried, aunt, that precious kifish friend of yours did try. You take my word, take his. I know he didn't."

"They had him quite a few hours to themselves, Hilfy. With all the pieces to this fractured mess starting to fit in Sikkukkut's brain, with us in port and leaving Sikkukkut a lust few precious hours to try for what he could get out of Tully— along with what he learned from other kif living at Mkks. So you want to be some help here and let Tully for godssakes answer for himself?''

"He's told you. No! He didn't talk! I know him."

"Sure you do," Pyanfar drawled, and the inside of Hilfy's ears went suddenly deep rose; and they folded. Eyes reacted. Everything shouted reaction and shame. It was not what she had meant. Pyanfar felt her own ears go hot; the flinch was unavoidable, the instantaneous glance aside from the matter they had skirted round and skirted round. She covered it with a cough and a wave of her hand. "Look, niece—"

"I know him real well," Hilfy said with cold deliberation. "Maybe you take my word for something, huh, aunt? Maybe you trust I got out of there with my wits about me, huh? And I'm telling you how he was, and how he handled himself, and I'm telling you, he's not a boy and he's not the fool you take him for. Don't talk to him like that."

Pyanfar looked at her. Saw no child, no petulance. "I never said he was a fool. I'm saying you and he may be a little out of your territory—and smart, niece, smart is knowing when you are. If you're not as clever as your enemy, you by the gods hope he's over-confident: you sure as rain falls don't need to make a mistake in that department. That kif's not a dockfront tough; that kif's smart enough to put the han's tail in a vise; and con Jik; and outwit Akkhtimakt down the line; and by all the gods near take over the Compact. You want to tell me he couldn't just ask you questions and watch your reactions? You don't want to remember that time. Fine. You don't want to think. All right. But that cripples you. And if you're number two in wit, you don't need another handicap. We're in it up to our noses. Remember what I said a while ago—what the stakes are right now? We've got a problem, Hilfy Chanur. I need a straight answer out of our friend here. I need to know what that gods-be kif s onto and what he's not; and I need to. know whether humans are going to be here or Meetpoint, which is what Sikkukkut would give a whole lot to learn right now. You think the Compact's a tangled mess of ambitions? I'm betting what drives humanity is the same thing—politics we don't understand. Three Compacts, good gods! I'll tell you something else. It's a good bet Tully doesn't know the answers I'd really want. You think they'd let him know everything and send him off with the mahendo'sat? No. That kind of thing gets known by long-toothed old women in high councils. Politics is politics, at least in the oxy-breathing kinds we can talk to. I don't take anything for granted. I think any thought that needs thinking. Like what deals Goldtooth's made. Or Jik. Or—" She looked at Tully. "—what Sikkukkut and you could have talked about in those few hours when he knew by the gods for certain you speak hani. What about it, Tully? What'd he ask? What'd he say?"

Tully's pupils dilated and contracted and dilated again. He tried to speak and his voice failed him. "He say—say he know my friends die, he tell me—tell me # # # they #. Say I talk to him, what be human deal with mahendo'sat. What deal with you. Lot time ask. He want know route. Same you. He know human come. Not know where. # # #."

"Lost that."

Tully's lips trembled. "Lot time. Lot time. Hurt me. # #. You make deal # this kif?"

"I'm not his friend, Tully." ,

"/ know this kif."

"Know him." Pyanfar looked from him to a sudden shift of Hilfy's stance.

"Sikkukkut said—" Hilfy's voice was quiet, subdued. "Said he knew Tully from before."

"On Akkukkak's ship."

Tully nodded. Emphatic. His eyes focussed elsewhere, on something ugly. Came back to them. "He be Akkukkak # # #. Long time he ask me, my friend question."

"Gods. Akkukkak's interrogator. Is that what? Is that where you know him from?"

"He kill my friend," Tully said. "He kill my friend, Py-anfar. With his hands."

"O good gods." She sat down against the counter edge, hands on knees. "Tully—"

"Tully asked me when we got back," Hilfy said, "just how close you're friends with Sikkukkut. Now I know why."

"Gods," Pyanfar said. "I'm not, Tully. I'm trying to save our lives, you understand me? Did you tell him anything, did you give him anything?"

Tully shook his head. It was not the naive look, not the clear blue stare he generally had. It was a different Tully. Tully-inside, calm and cold and thinking. She knew it when she saw it, long as it had been. "I say nothing, don't look at him. I go far away. I wait. I not be. You say you come to get me. So I wait for you."

Pyanfar let go a long, long breath. The silence stayed there a moment. "Politics," she said. "All politics. You understand politics, Tully? Kif aren't anyone's friends. Not mine. Not anyone's. But there's kif and there's worse kif. You know why I'm dealing with him? You understand? Can you understand?"

"Politics," Tully said. Not naive, no. "I know you come take me from kif. That be your politics."

"I'm not any friend of Sikkukkut's. Believe that."

"Bad thing happen. I don't understand. You lot scare. Where we go? What we fight? We got enemy be friend, hani and stssts—"

"Stsho."

"—be enemy. You don't trust Goldtooth, don't trust Jik. Don't trust hani. Don't trust kif."

"Goldtooth and Jik are friends. We just can't trust them much. Not where it crosses mahendo'sat interests."

"Where be hani?"

Pyanfar glanced Hilfy's way, felt Tirun's stare at her side. She slouched against the console. "Good question."

"What I do?" Tully asked. "What I do, Py-anfar?"

"What did you do? What are you going to do? I wish I had an answer for either one. Friend, Tully. That's all I can tell you. Same's Goldtooth's my friend; and yours. Gods know what it counts for. Wish I had an answer for you. Wish you had one for me."

"I fight," he said. "I crewman on The Pride. You want fight #, hani, kif, I don't # to die with #."

"Gods rot that translator. Do you understand me at all? Have we got it fouled up again?"

Anything hani-like? Where was family, clan, House? What was he?

He.

Male. Houseless. Sisterless. Wifeless. Renegade. Nau hauruun.

But not hani. There was no analogy in Tully to that kind of destructive orphan, who killed and stalked at random. Nau hauruun.

Not Tully their friend. Tully no-name. Tully from distant Earth, of the ships and the strangers.

"Captain," Tirun said quietly. "Captain—Ehrran's on. 'fraid they've been on hold a while. They're getting pretty hot."

"Good," Pyanfar said flatly; and went and flung herself into her well-worn chair and powered it about to the boards.

Mind on business, Pyanfar Chanur; Wake up. Smell the wind and watch the branches overhead. "I'll take it.—You got any movement out of Harukk on the Tahar business?"

"Not a thing," Tirun said. "I keep calling; keep getting the same answer. Sikkukkut's still not available. Business, they say."

"Gods-be sfik games. I begin to get the feel of it. And I don't like what's going on. Put that call through again as soon as I finish with Ehrran. Have them tell Sikkukkut I'm personally interested in the Tahar crew. Tell him we've got sfik involved here."

That got a look from Haral, beside her. "Captain. Begging your pardon—"

Haral left it unfinished. It was hani lives at stake, feud with Tahar or no feud. A miscalculation with the kif might touch something off and get the Tahar crew killed outright. Jik might even be working near to success on the matter. All these things she thought of, and thought of again under that worried glance from Haral, and a like one from Tirun past Haral's back. A twitch of many-ringed ears. A deep frown.

"Send it," Pyanfar said. "Be tactful, that's all."

"Tactful," Tirun muttered, and turned to execute the first order.

"You be my friend. You. Hilfy. All. I die with you."

"Gods, thanks," Pyanfar murmured bedazedly. A superstitious chill went down her spine. "Translator again. I hope." Hilfy's ears had flagged. "I sure hope you come up with a better idea."

Perhaps he did not take the humor. His face stayed void of it. Of everything but anxiety.

"Friend," he said.

"You've got duties. Get. Hilfy. Get."

"Aye," Hilfy said. And touched the seat-back. "Tully."

He rose from the chair arm. At the other side Tirun had just turned attention to something from the com-plug in her ear and turned half about again with a flick of the ears and a tilt of the head. Some new difficulty. An incoming call. Pyanfar gave Tully room to get up, laid a hand on his back as; he passed, a slight pat of consolation. "Friend. Go help Hilfy, huh? She wanted you for something.—Uhhhnnn. Tully."

He looked back at her, all unprepared and trying to collect t again.

"Is there anything you know that we don't?"

Flicker.

"Uhhhn," she said again, eyes half-lidded.

"Py-anfar—"

"You think of something, huh, you come to me. You come and tell me. All right?"

The kif had used shocks with him and got nothing. The mahendo'sat used wit; and achieved something. She stared him in the eyes without any mercy at all. And tried for a piece of him.

"Don't trust," he said suddenly, miserably. "Don't trust humanity, Py-anfar." And he fled out the door—walked out, but it was flight, all the same. Hilfy delayed at his back with one anguished look toward her. And turned and went after him.

Pyanfar was unamazed, except by Tully's unequivocal thoroughness. It was doublecross. Goldtooth's. Jik's. Hers. Humanity's. Everyone's but Tully's—who, along with Chanur, had just betrayed his own kind. Gods knew his reasons. What drove him?

Pyanfar turned her chair again and touched the button to bring the long-waiting call through from Rhif Ehrran; listened to Tirun address the Vigilance com officer.

More games of politics and captainly protocols. The com officer insisted on getting response from The Pride's captain before putting her own on.

"I'll take it," Pyanfar said—curiously, pride with Ehrran had just diminished in importance. She failed even to feel a twinge of temper with the Ehrran officer who tried to provoke her and put it on record. "This is Pyanfar Chanur."

Keep Ehrran quiet. Get the essentials done. Tahar was the emergency. Chur was safe. Tully assured her nothing critical had spilled into kif hands. There were things Sikkukkut still needed. And that meant at once a safer and a less predictable kif.

"Vigilance. Com officer speaking. One more moment, captain. I'm afraid the captain's gone off line a moment." Cold arid calculatedly insolent. Games of provocation.

Three human compacts? Fights between them?

One human Compact, Earth, the human home world, trying to counter two rival human powers with new trading routes? Or was it trade they were interested in?

That was a big section of space, if it had room for three starfaring economies . . . correction: two. And one that just wanted to be bigger.

Did Goldtooth know the situation inside human space? Mahendo'sat with their scientists and their mad delving into oddities—always poking and prodding at things, hoping— hoping what? For new species? New alliances?

New situations they could use to deal with their old neighbors the kif?-

Beware of Goldtooth. Thus the stsho, who had double-dealing down to an art.

"Ker Pyanfar, this is Rhif Ehrran. I trust whatever emergency kept you wasn't serious."

"No. It's all handled. No further problem. Unless you have one."

"No. I'm going to relieve you of one. I'm sending a detail over to pick up Tahar."

"Afraid not. I've accepted her appeal for parole. Sorry, Ehrran. She's under a Chanur roof, so to speak. And I'm head of house—out here.''

''This isn't Anuurn and we're not in the age of sofhyn and spears, you hear me, Chanur?"

"No. We play with bigger toys nowadays, don't we? You're fond of quoting the law. Me, I like the old laws right fine: like kinright. The kind of law you can't quote by the book, Ehrran."

"Put Tahar on."

"Maybe you ought to concentrate on her crew. They've got a real problem. They might appreciate your intervention. But Dur Tahar's comfortable enough where she is. Is that all you want?"

Click.

"Log that," Pyanfar said. "Put the other call through."

"Aye," Tirun said.

"Good shot," Haral said with a dip of her ears. Meaning Rhif Ehrran and a genteel stroll to the brink.

"Huh," Pyanfar said. "Why couldn't the kif grab her, huh? Do us a favor."

"Make a trade?" Haral suggested brightly.

"Gods, that's a—"

"Captain." Tirun lifted a hand, signaling quiet. "Harukk's going through real procedures this time—I think they're going to try to put the call through. Maybe—Yes. The captain's waiting, Harukk com, if you can do that. Yes. . . . Right. Captain, Harukk com's compliments, and they'll try to reach the hakkikt if you'll put the request yourself."'

Protocols. Sfik games again. Pyanfar flicked her ears and made an affirmative handsign. Immediately the ready light came on and Pyanfar keyed it. Her claws flexed. She drew in a deep breath and killed all the anxieties, banished them to a cold, far place without a future.

"Harukk," she said calmly, "this is Pyanfar Chanur. I have an urgent message for the hakkikt, praise to him."

"Honor to the hakkikt, he may give you his attention, hunter.''

—So we come up from our obscure beginnings, do we, kif? Provincial boss and chief torturer—to prince? And we by the gods set you there.

She waited. Coldly, calmly. Long. Eventually:

"This is Sikkukkut, ker Pyanfar. What is this urgency?"

"Hakkikt. I appreciate the courtesy. And the gift you sent me. I'd like to talk with you further. I understand you have Moon Rising's crew in your custody. ..." -

"Hunter Pyanfar, your forwardness would daunt a chi. Is my gift too scant for your appreciation?"

"Hakkikt, I see a way to use it to your benefit and mine. There's some urgency in it. If you'll send a courier I can be more specific." ?

Pause. "Hunter Pyanfar, you interest me. But I see no reason why one of my skkukun should come from my ship to yours and back again, when your own look to be in good health. And I have nothing to say to your crew. I made you a proposition at Meetpoint, you may recall, which you declined. I make it again—a rare offer. Come to my deck this time. If this offer has the merit you say. I trust it does. I'll; expect you—within the hour."

Click.

She leaned back in the chair.

"Captain," Haral said, beside her, "good gods—"

She turned a look in Haral's direction. "That didn't go right."

"Now what? We call Jik?"

"Call Jik to mop up?—We just got a challenge, cousin. / got it. Sfik. The bet just got taken and doubled."

"They want to get their hands on you, good ,gods, they can't get Goldtooth in reach—they want you! You just heard Tully say what that son is and you said yourself what Sikkukkut wants most—Goldtooth was just here, talking to you. The kif have to know that. They know he could have passed us what they want to know—"

"They'll kill the prisoners. They'll kill them sure now if I fail that appointment, and they'll let us know about it. If that weren't enough, our credit with the kif hits bottom. Hard."

"You can't do it!"

"I can't duck it either. No. Sure that earless bastard is going to try us. One way or the other. And I think I'm starting to think in kifish; I think I read him. I'm perfectly safe to walk in there—if I can keep him wondering. I'm going to need company out there. Want to take a walk?"

"Oh, sure," Haral said with a despairing shrug. "Gods, why not?"