The Kif Strike Back

XIV

"Gods," Pyanfar cried, "that's Dur! Tahar!—where's the rest?"

Dur Tahar yelled something back, and came sprinting through the fire-zone into Gilan Tahar's path—cousin and cousin in the stinging smoke, Gilan and Vihan, the distant kin, in hasty embrace—A glance round as Pyanfar struggled up with Canfy in tow and Haral came running, glancing at every third stride to the darkened farside where sniping went on unabated.

"Where?" Pyanfar yelled at Dur Tahar. "Gods rot it, where' s my crew?"

"Ehrran—" Tahar gasped, and whirled and caught her by both arms, "they tangled with Ehrran—Pyanfar—" Tahar gasped a second mouthful of air. "Come on—"

Pyanfar scanned her up and down in hopes of AP rounds; there was nothing, nothing but the smallish gun in Tahar's grip against her arm. Her heart sank. "Tahar, where's Jik? You seen Jik or Ismehanan-min?"

"Gods-be mahendo'sat're off across the docks holding their own positions—I don't know."

"Captain!" Haral sang out, and Pyanfar looked beyond Tahar's shoulder to more oncoming figures, red-brown hides and one white shirt that shone through the smoke like a natural target.

"Gods rot it!" Pyanfar screamed at the lot of them, "we got snipers! Run!"

Her heart was up in her throat as her own crew came charging up through the smoke. Tirun, Geran, Hilfy, Khym and Tully, all of them armed; Khym bleeding down his arm, Hilfy from the calf, Tirun limping along hindmost and grimacing in pain.

"What kept you?" Haral yelled at her sister.

"Hey," said Tirun, panting to a halt in front of Haral, swinging a gesture back at the smoke-hazed dockside. "What'd you want? Next time you arrange a party, Hal, for godssakes give us the address!"

"Let's get out of here!" Pyanfar yelled, and waved an arm. "Get the injured on their feet, let's get out of here!"

Khym gathered Haury Savuun up in his arms, leaking blood on both of them, and Tirun and Geran flung an arm each around Canfy Maurn as they gathered breath and wits and headed through the smoke and the din of sirens—the deep bass sirens of dock-emergency alternate with loudspeakers that clicked and hissed and thundered with kifish threats and instructions.

A sudden glare of sodium-light broke through the smoke-haze at the left, close, a light alive with shadows as robed figures came pouring out of a ship-access.

A hundred kif, a whole ship's crew headed out toward them at some summons; or having finally made its collective mind up which side to join. New sirens wailed, high-pitched. Fire hailed about them from the flank as other kif aimed at the sudden breakout.

"Run!" Pyanfar yelled, and veered off across the dock, limping. She turned and let off her last shot where it counted, into the heaviest firepoint that was putting shots past their ears; and turned again and ran, breathless and all but blind toward a set of girders near the main freight-chute, where a conveyor went up into the station's upper levels.

And stopped cold as she rounded the corner and saw the band of kif in front of her, APs leveled dead at her and her empty gun.

Gods-be, she had time to think, in profound self-disgust.

An AP shell landed in the full middle of the kif. Her forearm flew up on instinct to save her eyes, her legs flung her sideways and sprawling to confuse hostile aim; and she rolled to her knees staring up at a single standing kif who held his AP gun widely to the side, non-combatant beside a smoking heap that had been five of his fellows.

"Captain," Skkukuk said as cheerfully as she had ever heard a kif speak, about the time her crew poured about her and made a defensive wall.

She struggled for her feet, almost sprawled again, but Tully, closest to her, caught her arm and saved her balance.

"I feared treachery," said Skkukuk with a wave of his hand at the rest of the crew. "And so I followed you my own way, captain, to be of service."

"Gods save us," Tirun muttered.

"I would advise," Skkukuk said, "going back to the ship. The hakkikt Sikkukkut will reward you for that prudence."

"You're a gods-be agent of-his!" Pyanfar cried.

A flourish of dark sleeves and weapon-hand toward the smoking pile of kifish corpses. "Did I not offer you my weapons? I am skku to Chanur, no other, and I have given you your enemies." Skkukuk turned and pointed down the docks toward their own berth. "The mahendo'sat have secured the docks a little further on. Come and I will show you a safe route."

"Then move," Pyanfar said numbly. "Get!"

"Keep this one from my back!" Skkukuk pointed a claw in Hilfy's direction. "This one—"

"You gods-be filth!" Hilfy cried, and headed for him, but Pyanfar caught her ann. "Move it!" Pyanfar yelled at the kif.

The kif turned and started off in a dash for other cover. "Go," Pyanfar said, still holding Hilfy's arm, and hurled her into free, passing her in the tracks of the kif who sped as a darting wisp of black in the smoke.

Whump! Overhead, power went up full: lights glared; the distant burr of fans reasserted itself. Kefk station was trying to live. The loudspeaker blared, inaudible in the other din.

There was a sudden fading-out of fire; as if entropy had set in—decreasing organization and increasing desire on the part of kif still involved to exit the affair with whatever gains they had: alive. Defense only, at this point.

Follow the kif. Trust the kif who had saved her skin. They were within com range of The Pride. Pyanfar reached for the pocket com in her limping jog, coughing as she went, blinking smoke-stung tears and hoping to the gods all the rest were still behind her as she tracked the light-footed kif from cover to cover. "Chur," she gasped into the com. "Chur, it's Pyanfar—do you hear me?"

No answer.

A dozen strides more. "Chur!"

Silence from the com. It could have gotten broken in a fall. It could have.

Skkukuk came to a sudden halt in the shelter of a set of girders just ahead, and plastered himself against it. Strobe-light flashes lit the smoke ahead, a ceiling-towering series of upward cycling lights that sent ice to a spacer's heart.

Of a sudden the whole station shuddered. Pyanfar flailed wildly for balance and found it next Skkukuk in a thunder of rollers and hydraulics and an airshock that made the ears ache.

"0 gods," she said, braced against the column and staring into that rolling cloud as the rest of the company reached them. The great doors of the section seal had shut. The Pride's dock, Mahijiru's, Vigilance—Aja Jin—They were cut off.

"What—!' Khym's voice came in gasps, subdued and frightened. He leaned there gasping, his back to the girder crossbrace, Haury limp in his arms. "What happened?"

"I don't know," Pyanfar said. The whole station seemed suddenly quiet. The sirens were silenced. "Could've been holed—" The Pride. O gods. "We're cut off." She tried the pocket com again. "Chur. Chur, you receiving?"

She expected no answer. She got none. She flicked it to standby again and met Geran's eyes by accident. "Probably can't get through," Pyanfar said on a gasp. "Range is marginal through that seal."

"Ktiot ktkijik!" the PA thundered— EMERGENCY. And went on and on—Skkukuk lifted his dark, long face the better to hear, but the kifish words garbled in the echoes.

Another burst of loudspeaker sound, from another direction, likewise kifish, groundlevel.

"Captain!" Haral caught her arm and pointed, where four brightly-garbed mahendo'sat had broken from cover and begun to run their way, close at hand.

Desperately.

"Gods be," Pyanfar said, "Jik—Jik, you gods-be earless— What's going on over there?"

Jik came panting up and caught her arms, at the end of his breath. "You come—got go—other way. Got no go ship, no go ship—"

"What happened over there?"

"Got trouble. Got Vigilance—I think she blow dock. I think she go—go Meetpoint."

"Where's Mahijiru? What's Aja Jin doing, for godssakes? You got contact? Clip a vane off her! Stop her!"

Jik blinked and gasped. "I lose contact Aja Jin—Mahijiru power up. Mahijiru—Vigilance—go."

"He's after her."

"He no shoot, no shoot. Pyanfar, I not know what he do—Get off dock, we got get off dock! My partner—he—he not shoot!"

"You mean he's going with her? He's going out with Vigilance?"

"A," Jik gasped, shaking at her. "We got—problem—"

"Kkkt," said Skkukuk. "Understatement. The hakkikt will not be pleased with mahendo'sat or hani today."

"Shut up!" Pyanfar snarled; and Skkukuk lowered his head between his shoulders.

"Look about you," said Skkukuk.

"Uuhhhnn," Haral said; and Pyanfar looked.

Shadows appeared throughout the smoke-haze, robed shadows converging on them from all sides, with caution and deliberation. And leveled rifles.

"These will be the hakkikt's," Skkukuk said. "Since they aren't shooting. They will get us back to your ships. Or not, at the hakkikt's pleasure. Kkkt. I trust you did not offend him in your interview."

"Beware of Goldtooth," Pyanfar muttered distractedly. "Beware of Ismehanan-min."

"What say?" asked Jik. "What talk, Pyanfar?"

"Not me. Stle stles stlen. The stsho warned me at Meetpoint. From the start. I paid a lot for that advice. A whole lot." She shoved her empty gun into its holster and stared bleakly at the narrowing circle of kif. "Everyone stand easy. Let's just hang onto the guns if we can."

"Kkkkt. Parini, ker Pyanfar?"

"Appreciated, hakkikt." Pyanfar reached out a sooty, blood-caked hand as an attendant brought a cup to her side, there in Harukk's dim hall.

Back to starting-point. The blood and stink of the docks still clung about them. They bled from wounds. The hakkikt elected to have his nose offended; or delighted in the sweat and discomfort of the opposition.

All of them were there—Hilfy, Tully—seated at Sikkukkut's low table, on insect-legged chairs: Haral; Dur Tahar; Jik; the others of all three crews, hani and mahendo'sat alike, were back in the shadows along the wall, among armed kif—except Haury Savuun. The kif had taken her over objections as violent as they dared make. To no avail. It was surely mockery that set Hilfy and Tully as guests at Sikkukkut's table; with Dur Tahar: and unsubtle mockery that set Skkukuk to crouch on the floor near the hakkikt's chair, robed knees up near hooded head, arms tucked out of sight, a very, very quiet Skkukuk, as small as he could make himself.

Sikkukkut sipped his own cup. It was not parini. Dark eyes glittered. "Should I wish a dockside destroyed in future," Sikkukkut said, "I will only invite my friend Pyanfar. First the stsho, then the mahendo'sat, and now the kif. You are an expensive guest."

"I'd like to contact my ship."

"Of course you would. Kkkt., Chur Anify has stayed aboard. Wounded, you say. But perhaps still capable at controls. Who knows? While, Keia, the complement you left on Aja Jin—virtually complete. Except yourself and the four with you. You and Ismehanan-min withdrew your crews from the docks simultaneously with those of Vigilance. To put it directly—why?"

"A. Because—" Jik fished in his pouch for something and came up with a smoke and a light. He carried the stick to his lips and lit the lighter.

"No," said Sikkukkut definitively, and Jik paused and looked his way, fire burning and smokestick unlit. "No," Sikkukkut said again.

Jik froze a moment as if undecided, then deftly snapped out the lighter, palmed the smokestick and returned both to the pouch.

"Well?" said Sikkukkut.

"Number one sure thing Vigilance got make trouble." Jik hooked a thumb toward the company over by the wall, and gestured loosely toward Tahar immediately at his right. "Ehrran go out, they think maybe they get hands on Tahar. Want bad. No good try. Pride don't let. Things go bad quick, shooting start, those hani they get recall order. Pride crew, they try find captain, a? Try cross dock—they same time save Ehrran hides all by accident. They run like hell, board ship. When I see Vigilance crew go off dock, I get quick nervous."

"You knew what she would do." Sikkukkut sipped at his cup, flicked his tongue delicately about his lips. "Well, as we sit here at our ease, Vigilance is still outbound—on Meetpoint vector, without a doubt. Your colleague and partner Ismehanan-min is running hard behind her, not a shot fired on either side. Does that surprise you, Keia?"

"Damn sure surprise," Jik said darkly.

"And yourself, ker Pyanfar?"

Pyanfar lowered her ears. "Hakkikt, I told you what Ehrran would do the minute she got the chance. No, I'm not at all surprised."

That did not well please the hakkikt. She saw the tension in the hand that held the cup, the relief of tendons and veins under the dark gray skin. But the snout gracefully lifted from the cup again. The dark eyes blinked ingenuously. "What would you do, skth skku?"

Vassal of mine. Pyanfar flattened her ears further. "What's necessary to do, The hakkikt has no need of my advice, but our motives still coincide. Pukkukkta. Ehrran plainly aims to kill us, and I don't intend to let her have a sitting target. By your leave, hakkikt. What I said before the fighting started is still the truth."

"Sktothk nef mahe fikt." Safety snicked off a gun close at hand. A guard held a pistol close to Jik's head and Jik never flinched, but picked up his wine and took a measured sip.

"Do you trust our friend Keia?" Sikkukkut asked.

"He's still here. He was doublecrossed in this, same as us."

"Was he, truly? Second question. Is he my friend?"

"Like always," Jik said with a tilt of his imperiled head, and the cheerfulness faded to a frown. "Hakkikt, long time I work with Ana Ismehanan-min. He sometime crazy. I think maybe he got idea, maybe go this place—"

"Humans." Sikkukkut leaned forward, set down the cup on the low table and rested his hands on both his knees, long jaw outthrust. "Ismehanan-min knows precisely what he is working for. Mahen interests—which have perhaps very little to do with mine.—Or even yours, ker Pyanfar. I wonder what those two discussed with each other before Ismehanan-min left dock. I wonder what agreements exist. Would you know these things?"

"I've never found Goldtooth forthcoming on his plans." Exhaustion threatened her with shivers; or it was the cold; or a sick dread of the narrow path .they walked, and where it might turn next. The gun stayed at Jik's head; and there was ice in her stomach and her nose ran. "He left Jik here. So he didn't tell Jik anything. Same as me. Didn't trust me with what he was up to."

"But he trusted—I do dislike that concept—trusted this Rhif Ehrran."

"That isn't necessarily so, hakkikt. I don't think he trusts anyone."

"But Ehrran has a ship on her tail and at last report, she isn't firing. Is this characteristic of Ehrran?"

"It is if she's got a hunter-ship on her back. She's only brave on docksides. I haven't seen her style in space. But I know she's no match for Goldtooth in a fight. Couldn't be, if he's got position on her. Fancy ship, fancy computers, lot of programmed stuff. Programs for everything. But I wouldn't bet Vigilance's arms systems against Mahijiru and I sure wouldn't bet her crew. Evidently she thinks the same."

"There's another possibility. Ismehanan-min boarded Vigilance during his time in port."

Her ears pricked up. It took no acting. "After or before he came to me, hakkikt?"

"After. Does it suggest something to you?"

"It might still have been on our business." The sweat stung in her wounds. Across the chamber, against the wall, Canfy Tahar slowly slumped to the deck, not fainting, but at her limit. Tav knelt by her; and kifish guns angled toward them. They still had their own weapons: kifish etiquette. But theirs were not out of holsters; and the kif s were.

And the gun never left Jik's temple. He sipped carefully at his drink and ignored it. But that was calculated and dangerous too.

"I doubt it was," Sikkukkut said. "If they are not acquaintances, who sleep in one bed, they will be by morning. Is that not a hani proverb?"

She blinked. "A hundred year child. That's a mahen proverb. Longtime trouble from a single act. Goldtooth's either making a serious mistake, hakkikt, or he's still acting in your interest. He'll be at Meetpoint. Where he's useful. And it's not his style to consult with his partners."

"What of that, Keia?"

"/ like that smoke now, hakkikt."

''Answer."

Jik's eyes came slowly to Sikkukkut's. "She right. I think maybe Ana got idea put self where make lot trouble."

Sikkukkut's long nose drew down somewhat. It was not a pleasant expression. He folded his long fingers beneath his outthrust jaw. "Kkkkt. Shall I observe, Keia, that your position is uncomfortable? That I presently have ships proceeding toward jump, to warn my enemies. That this whole diversion on the docks—diversion, Keia!—was perhaps created to give those two ships time to get away."

"They be kif who fight, hakkikt."

"They are worms who lacked initiative until someone moved! Don't tell me kifish motives! Don't play the innocent with me, mahe, or you will find me other than civil!"

Pyanfar flexed claws and tried to think past the pounding of her heart. Hunter-vision tried to take over. She forced the black edges back. "She was in port with him."

"Him," Sikkukkut said sharply. The kif turned his attention in her direction, went off one hunter-fix and onto her. "Who?"

"Goldtooth was at Meetpoint at the same time as Rhif Ehrran; same time as you, hakkikt. I'm wondering who was talking to whom back then. You talked to Goldtooth. He intimated that much. But who met with the stsho? And who met with whom in stsho offices?"

"No," Sikkukkut said, as if he had turned a thing over in his mouth and decided to eject it, delicately, his eyes burning and full of estimations. "No. I don't credit the stsho with that much nerve."

"Then," said Pyanfar, "the stsho at least thought they were on the inside of this business. They thought they were ahead of the hunt. Or leading the hunters where they liked."

"Suppositions are a shaky bridge, ker Pyanfar. Particularly when the waters are deep. You wish to distract me. You see—I know friendship. I put it with martyrdom—in the category of terms useful to know. Friendship—is also subject to rearrangement of loyalties. At the most disadvantageous moments. Believe me that I understand the exigencies of allegiance-trading and advantage. Let's operate within them. Shall we? Let's consider what prompted this attempt on my life . . . since that's surely what it was. Let's consider how it incidentally created the timing for escape—Vigilance uses its guns as it parts our company and breaches an entire dock to hard vacuum, a dock conveniently free of mahen or hani casualties. Not of kif. But remarkably your crew and the crews of Mahijiru, Aja Jin—Keia; and of course Vigilance— were not on that dock when it decompressed."

"We weren't in a favorable situation ourselves, hakkikt!"

"Be still, ker Pyanfar, and let my old friend Keia do this explaining. Let him tell me how Aja Jin was so fortunate in its timing. Do you want your smoke, Keia?—Take it. Perhaps it will facilitate your thinking."

"A." Jik reached again into the pouch, kept his movements measured: I am not in a hurry, they said. You do not force me.

And that sudden patience on Sikkukkut's part raised the hair on Pyanfar's nape. Stalk and circle. Take it. Have what you want at my hand. When I choose. If I choose. Your addiction is your vulnerability and I control it, I demonstrate it to these others and you must bear with that.

And soon with other things.

See, hunter Pyanfar, how easy and how perilous the fall from my favor.

Friendship and kinship is your addiction. I can twist that knife too.

Godssakes—as Hilfy let go a long, careful breath—sit still, niece.

The smoke rose, gray wisp against the orange sodium-glow; and swirled above Jik's head, taken by the ventilation. "I tell you," Jik said easily, and gods, there was only the faintest fear-smell: he was that steady. The strong smoke subdued other olfactory cues, deliberate stratagem, perhaps. "I tell you, I not happy. Ana be old friend. But politic make different. We be mahendo'sat, hakkikt. I know what he do. He hedge bet." He made a gesture with the smokestick and put the lighter away. "He call me fool. Maybe I be. We not trust Ehrran either one. I know damn sure when Ehrran crew make fast withdraw from dock we got trouble. Mahijiru already got close up tight hatch. I send all crew aboard, tell get hell off dock, try get damn fool hani—" He gestured Pyanfar's direction, and over his shoulder at the others. "They going find captain. Damn sure / got no way stop. Damn good idea anyhow. Pyanfar be val-u-able ally. Maybe do favor to hakkikt, a? Rescue Pyanfar." Another large drag at the smoke.

It leaked slowly from his nostrils. "I not like whole ship company go out from The Pride—but they go quick get off dock. This number one good idea. I don't trust Ehrran. I run like hell, try catch these hani. No good. We get pin down. We got no hakkikt permission be on dock, a? Every damn fool out there want shoot us. Hani go through. We stuck. So got one job then—hold way open for hani, back to ship. We do. We hope Ana take care Ehrran. I think he do. He follow her. I still got hope he got good idea. Maybe help. He not like tell what he do. This maybe make friend lot nervous. Make me damn nervous now, a? I be like you, hakkikt. I always like know what my friend do."

"Your friend has left you in a precarious position. Or you've elected to stay and lie to me."

"A. No lie. Got know truth to make lie. I not know. He not talk to me."

"Meaning nothing can extract this truth from you."

"Not got. What want? I say give you Kefk. I give."

"Kefk is in ruins, Keia. It seems a dubious gift."

"You got lot sfik. You step on Kefk, go 'way, take lot more prize, a? Akkhtimakt no got. You be rich, you fix, easy."

"Ah. But you still suppose Ismehanan-min is going to support us at Meetpoint."

"He no like Akkhtimakt."

"I take that for granted. You yourself serve your Personage and not me. As he does. Doesn't this mean some agreement of action?"

Jik drew another large breath of smoke and sought a place for the ash afterward. There was none. He tapped it and let it fall to the floor. "I serve Personage. I tell you plain I got reason want see you be hakkikt. I think this be good for all. So I serve Personage. Serve you. Balance, hakkikt. You be Personage we recognize. You got lot sfik with mahendo'sat. These be crazy times. Better kif got good smart Personage, a?"

"Flattery, base flattery, Keia. Diversion again. I tell you I am not persuaded it was kif who began that fight on the docks. And this—"

—in a blink Sikkukkut's arm shot out, and guards pounced on Skkukuk, hauling him upright.

"Kkkt!" Skkukuk's protest was throat-deep and anguished.

"He's mine," Pyanfar said tautly. Never back up, never back down, never let a kif get away with any property. "A present from you, hakkikt."

Dangerous. O gods, dangerous. So was flinching when that long-jawed face turned her way.

"It remains yours," Sikkukkut said.

"It gained a little sfik," said Pyanfar. "In our service out there. I'd like to keep it."

"Kothogot ktktak tkto fik nak fakakkt?"

The question went to Skkukuk; and Skkukuk drew his head back as if he wanted to be far from Sikkukkut's sight.

"Nak gothtak hani, hakkikta."

"Nakt soghot puk mahendo'satkun?"

"Hukkta. Hukktaki soghotk. Hani gothok nak uman Taharkta makkt oktktaikki, hakkikta."

—No. Desperately. / saw no collusion. The hani argued over possession of the human and Tahar and left, hakkikt.

A wave of Sikkukkut's hand. The guards let Skkukuk go and he collapsed back into a head-down chittering heap beside the table.

"So he attests your behavior," Sikkukkut said. "Your sfik still powerfully attracts his service. I wonder is it hope of you or dread of me so impels him."

"He's useful."

"And as we speak, Vigilance and Ismehanan-min hasten, to betray us at Meetpoint. What attraction can they find there, I wonder, that impels Ismehanan-min to abandon Keia here to my pleasure—Do I not correctly recall a mahen proverb, Keia my friend, that green leaves fall in storms and the strongest friendships in politics?"

"Long time friend, Ana Ismehanan-min."

"But he would let you die."

"Like you say, politic. Also—" Jik pinched out the smoke and dropped the butt into his pouch. "Also Ana lot mad with me." Jik's eyes came up, liquid and vulnerable and without the least doubt. "He know I work with tc'a. Fool, he say; Jik, you be damn fool involve methane-folk. Ana, I say, I not much worry, I long time talk tc'a. Got lot tc'a know me, long time. I want tc'a come here to Kefk—fine. Dangerous, maybe. I think now maybe knnn got interest. Maybe good, maybe bad—"

O, deft, Jik. The methane-breather connection. That's one thing Sikkukkut has to be afraid of. For godssakes don't overdo it.

Jik shrugged. "So, Ana be lot upset. Lot knnn interest this human thing. Lot interest."

Profound silence. Pyanfar found herself holding her breath and daring not get rid of it. She kept the ears still; and even that betrayed the tension every posture in the room already betrayed, kif and hani alike. Tully's eyes darted to Jik, to her, to the kif, the solitary, sapphire-glittering motion in a gray and black world.

"Yes," Sikkukkut said. "There would be interest on their part. And it has also occurred to me that we have a source of information here among us. At this table. Tully—you do understand me, Tully."

O gods—She saw Hilfy's minute flinching; the tension of muscles in her, in Tully, in Haral—Look this way, Tully—

"I understand," Tully said at his clearest, looking straight at Sikkukkut with never a look or a pause for advice. "I not know, hakkikt. I not know route. I not know time. I know humans come quick."

A long moment Sikkukkut gazed at him as she glanced between them. A visible shiver began in Tully's arms, his hands upon his knees. "You and I have met before on this matter," Sikkukkut said. "But how fluent you've become."

"I be crewman, hakkikt, on The Pride. I belong captain Pyanfar. She say talk, I talk."

Gods help us, be careful, Tully.

"Where will they likely come?"

Now Tully looked her way, one calmly desperate look.

"Do you know?" Pyanfar asked, pretense, not-pretense. He continually baffled her. "Tully, gods rot it, talk."

He looked back toward Sikkukkut. "I not know. I think humanity come Meetpoint. I think Goldtooth know."

"Kkkkt. Yes. I think so too. So does Akkhtimakt, who stripped that knowledge from your shipmates. Who has what that courier carried, information that—doubtless—has sped to points in mahen space. Truth, finally, arrives from the least likely source. You amuse me—Tully. You endlessly amuse me. What shall I do with Keia?"

"Friend," Tully said quietly, evenly. His best word. Almost his first word. His fall-back word when he was lost.

"But whose?"

There was silence. Long silence.

"I think that Keia will be my guest a while. Go back to your ships. I shall release your crew, Keia—in time. I wouldn't impair your ship's operation. And I'm sure your first officer is quite competent."

Jik reached for another smokestick. No one interfered. He slid a look Pyanfar's way. Go.

"Right," Pyanfar said in a low voice. "I take it we're dismissed, hakkikt?"

"Take all I have given you. You'll board by lighter. The dock access is not useable."

"Understood." She rose from the insect-chair, in the murk and the orange glare; and signed to her crew and to Tahar. Jik sat there lighting his second smoke and looking as if that were the most ordinary of companies to be left in.

O gods, Jik. What else can I do?

"The hakkikt promised all," Pyanfar said to the guard, her ears flattened and her nose rumpled. "I want the wounded hani. Savuun. Haury Savuun. You'll know where she is. You'll bring her."

It pushed—about as far as they could push. "Yes," the kif in charge said, stiff—all over stiff. The hostility was palpable. Not hate. There was no hate in question. It was assessment—what the foreigners' credit was with the hakkikt. When to kill. When to advance and when retreat in the hakkikt's name. A kif did not make two mistakes.

Yes. It turned and gave orders to that effect.

It was a silent trip after that—down through Harukk's gut to the hangar-bay; and no relief at all until they had gotten down near the large boarding-room, and Haury arrived on the other lift—dazed, wobbling on her feet as they brought her out, but limping along with kifish help. From Haury a lift of the head, a momentary prick of the ears and widening of hazed eyes that betrayed confusion, then a taciturn expression, a wandering sweep of the eye that took in friends and guards and the boarding-lock. Gods knew what she had expected being brought down the lift. But only the tautness about her jaw still betrayed emotion—a hani long-accustomed to kif, grim and quiet. Eternally playing the game that kept a kif alive.

"We're getting out of here," Dur Tahar said when Haury and her guards came up close. "You all right?"

"Fine," Haury said in a hoarse whisper of a voice. That was all. She gave Pyanfar one long uncommunicative look; and took her sister Tav's help in place of the kif s. There were bandages about her ribs. Plasm on her wounds. The kif had, done something for her at the least . . . with what courtesy was another question.

"Go," said the kif on the docks, with the wave of a dark hand toward the waiting lighter-access. "Compliments of the hakkikt."

Praise to him stuck in the throat. Pyanfar favored the kif with a stare and stood there with hands in her belt, near her empty weapons, while both crews boarded. Haral stood with her. They went aboard together, down the short, dark tube past the hatch.

No suits necessary in the lighter, thank the gods: nothing kifish would have fit. Pyanfar walked the center aisle into the dim, utilitarian rear of the cargo lighter, where Chanur and Tahar sat side by side on the deep benches. Up front, the kifish pilot gave confirmation to the launch crew in hisses and clicks and gutturals. Pyanfar sat down, belted in as the lighter whined in final launch-prep, sealing its hatch to the ship. The lighting, such as it was, lined the pilot and co-pilot up front in lurid orange, making shadows as they moved. The cold air stank of ammonia and machinery.

No one spoke. They swayed and braced as the lighter moved out of the bay on the launch boom— smooth, not a shudder in the arm. Well-maintained, was Harukk. Pyanfar noted such details, recalling the balky loader The Pride had tolerated for years. No glitches in this sleek killer-ship. No little flaws even in things that had tolerance. One knew something about a captain from such detail as this, and Pyanfar stored the information away among the other things she knew of Sikkukkut an'nikktukktin, inquisitor for Akkukkak, conniver from Mirkti, prince and lord over ruined Kefk.

The boom grapple thunked and let them free in their armored little shell as the shadow-pilot reached out a thin arm and put in a gentle thrust aft. Beyond their shadow and the glare, the massive side of a neighboring kifish ship hove up in the double viewport and spun off as the lighter accelerated and maneuvered at once, leaving the rotational plane and letting station spin bring The Pride-to its approach-point.

Arrogant, Pyanfar thought, irritated with the cavalier exit maneuver. There's a flaw for you.

Grandstanding for the passengers. Sikkukkut would have this pilot's hide for that. Then, remembering the access ramp to Harukk and its awful ornaments. Literally. O gods, gods,

JIK——

Kif talked to kif as the viewplate dimmed to dark. They went inertial now, freefall. From here on out the tricky business was up to the onboard computers and Kefk's guidance—nastiest of all maneuvers, getting up to the emergency access of a ship at dock, on computerized intercept among the vanes and projections of ships locked to a rotating body. They did not propose to use the cable-grapple and winch in, but to engage The Pride's own docking boom and come in on The Pride's power. That took one access code to activate the hatch and boom—one precious key into The Pride's computers, handed to the kif. That code had to be changed immediately when they got aboard. Damage my ship, hotshot, and I'll have your ears.

Easier to worry about a botched dock or a code switch than worry about other things. Like no contact with The Pride. "Your ship does not respond," the kifish officer had said when she had asked the docking request transmitted. And that meant Chur was not answering. Chur could not answer.

Geran knew it and sat back there with the rest, silent and uncommunicative and with no expression at all when Pyanfar chanced to look her way.

Chanur estate. The courtyard gate where Geran and Chur walked in one day, young and catching eyes wherever they went with their delicate Anify beauty—Chur all pleasantness and Geran sullen-silent even while Chur was asking favors of the Chanur lord and a place in Chanur's household. "Watch them both," the old lord had said, na Dothon, her father. "Watch them both." Chur of the ready smile, and Geran of the ready knife.

It was the knife in Geran's mind now.

Bloodfeud. Pyanfar knew. She gnawed her mustaches with dread of what might already exist on The Pride, and fretted at the delay of using the lighter; and loathed the procedures and the kif with their dark hand into The Pride's codes, their presence at her vulnerable downside access. Allies. Allies—while they did gods-knew-what to Jik.

Traitor, was a word she thought, among other words for Ana Ismehanan-min. Vigilance had to be going for jump by now and Mahijiru sped after—Goldtooth knowing, by the gods, knowing he was leaving Jik in a desperate bind—But not knowing he had left Jik a prisoner. She refused to believe Goldtooth had known his gods-be fool of a partner would have not gone immediately back aboard Aja Jin with his crew, that the loyal fool would have headed down that dock-side personally, hunting a hani friend, trying to get them clear of that threatened dock and clear of kifish retaliation.

And gotten himself caught by the kif. Alone.

Soje Kesurinan commanded Aja Jin now—an able woman: all Jik's people were first-rate, and his second in command was no fool. Would not become one, she hoped. Gods, she hoped.

Treachery on all sides. Only the kif had betrayed no one. Only the kif had stood by their word. Like Skkukuk, back there, a forgettable lump of shadow at the lighter's extreme rear. Skkukuk, who had never yet played them false.

Loyalty?

Your sfik still attracts his service, Sikkukkut had said of Skkukuk.

And wondered in the next breath whether it was the alternative which compelled Skkukuk's devotion to his new captain.

Chur. Jik. The cold of the air penetrated Pyanfar's skin and she sat numb while the G force of rollover hit and a vast white mass hove up in the viewport. Braking started in earnest as white and black alternated—as station rotation carried a kifish ship past their bow. Slower and slower. Lower and lower toward the place The Pride would occupy as the rotation carried it round. Doing it on the first pass, thank the gods. No waiting round. The access code would have gone out. The Pride would have her docking boom extended, waiting for them to make contact, continually tracking them, aligning the cone precisely with their approach.

The rim of the cone came up, gargantuan on their relative scales. The co-pilot reached and hydraulics whined, extending the lighter's own docking-stops, a ring of partials about the bow to prevent the cone swallowing them entire. They shoved forward into the green-lit interior.

Contact and gentle hydraulic rebound as the lighter's ring absorbed the shock and locked hard. Not a grind or grate. Perfect dock. ... Arrogant and good, Pyanfar acknowledged. But if he isn't, a kif’s not a Harukk pilot, is he? A dozen worries gnawed at her, tumbling in suddenly as she ran out of concerns to distract her. Another whine from the lighter's systems, a shuddering as The Pride's years-unused boom dragged them down against the hullport, lock beeping at lock until the boom knew how much extension to leave on it.

They had stable G now, linked via The Pride's boom to station's rotation. She unbuckled and felt her way over Khym's knee and Haral's till both of them unbuckled and made room for her next Dur Tahar. "Dur," she said, "you're welcome aboard. Want to tell you that again. We've still got a little time here, I hope to the gods."

''You've got your own troubles."

"We got medical equipment. Moon Rising—"

"We're pretty well set up to handle it. Got some nice stuff. Piracy—pays, Pyanfar. We'll see to Haury. And the rest of us."

She nodded, started to get up and make her way back forward as the deck rocked to final contact. The accessway whined, starting into place overhead.

Dur Tahar caught her arm. "What you did—going after my crew; staying with them—they told me how you and Haral carried Haury down that dock—"

"Yeah, well—"

"Hey." The hand bit hard. "Chanur. You want my word? You want anything we have? You've got it."

"You follow my lead in this?"

"Hearth and blood, Chanur."

She nodded slowly. There were things not to say aboard, where every word they whispered might be monitored up front; or outright recorded. Even dialect was unsafe: there might be kif translators. And there was a plenitude of things not to hint at—like plans for Meetpoint; and what they were going to do if they found hani lined up on the other side.

Like what Moon Rising might do to her credit with the hakkikt if it ran.

"I vouched for you," Pyanfar said, "way out on the cliff's edge."

"We're with you, I said."

She looked long into Tahar's shadowy face, as the final contact boomed home, as the hatch opened and her crew unbuckled. She calculated again that they might be recorded: she gestured with her eyes toward the overhead, saw the little lowering of Dur Tahar's lids that acknowledged she was also thinking of it. "There's one ship in particular I want," Pyanfar said.

"Meaning Vigilance," said Tahar.

"Meaning Vigilance."

"No argument from me."

"Huh." An orange glare flooded in from overhead as the lighter hatch whined open. She turned and reached for the ladder without a courtesy to the kifish crew, as Haral scrambled up it ahead of her, where the pale circle of The Pride's hatch was mated up to the dark access-clamps. Haral whipped a wad of kifish cloth from her pocket, grasped the space-cold lever and yanked. The hatch retracted in a puff of unmatched

airpressure, a breath of clean cold wind. Haral looked down from the top of the ladder, in a bath of white light; Pyanfar waved her on, protocols be hanged; and Haral clambered up and through.

Pyanfar scrambled after, feeling the ladder shake as someone else hit it in haste. She came up in the brilliant white light of The Pride's emergency airlock, turned round with Haral to pull Tirun through, and Geran next, and Tully, and Hilfy, and Khym with his arm bleeding again after the quick plasm-spray the kif had given it. She forgot, she outright forgot and had straightened to see to Khym when she heard something else hit the ladder and saw a shadow scramble up to them.

She bent and offered her hand: Haral was not about to. Skkukuk's dark, bony fingers hooked to hers and he sprang up into the hatch with kifish agility, head up and wide-eyed.

So the captain helped him with her own hand. Skkukuk's eyes glittered and his nostrils flared in excitement, and she felt a frustrated disgust. The hatch whined-down and thumped into seal under Haral's pushbutton command. The inner hatch shot open on the E-corridor. "Geran," Pyanfar said on the instant, turning. "Get!"

"Aye!"

And the smallish woman headed out of the lock at a dead run ahead of them. "Seal us!" Pyanfar yelled at the crew in general, leaving security to them, and lit out on Geran's heels, headed for topside, for—gods help them, whatever there was to find up there on the bridge.

She heard the hatch seal. Lights came on in the corridor ahead as the monitor picked up the sound of Geran's running footsteps and stayed on to the sound of hers.

The E-lift was in place, automatically downsided by the hatch-open command. The lift door opened instantly to Geran's push of the call button, and Pyanfar skidded in after and emergencied the door shut as Geran punched the code to send them on their way, up and then sideways as the car shot down the inner tracks for the main lift shaft.

Geran was panting. Her ears were laid flat, her eyes showing white at the corners. She was close to panic and she would not look Pyanfar's direction, staring only at the sequencing marker-lights as the lift ran its course up, up-ship and up again to the main lift-shaft and the corridor to the bridge.

There was no time for comfort now. And no use in it.

They hit the main-corridor running—a small, dark thing squealed and eeled away down a side passage, and another scuttled ahead of them in panic—gods, what is it?—Pyanfar let it go, her mind on one thing and only that; and one quick glance into the open door as they passed Chur's borrowed room—showed where Chur was not. The bed was empty, sheets flung back, tubes left hanging, the lifesupport machinery flashing with malfunction lights. Pyanfar spun on one foot and ran all-out after Geran, on and pell-mell onto the bridge, where a thin, red-brown figure lay slumped in Hilfy's chair, head-down on the counter. A pistol lay by Chur's shoulder. Her arm hung limp over the chair arm.

Geran brought up, hand against the chair, and lifted Chur's head—used both hands to prop her back against the seat. Chur's jaw hung slack. Pyanfar reached to offer what she could of help, her own hands shaking.

Chur's ears twitched, the jaw shut, the eyes opened half, and she made a wild lunge for the counter and the gun.

Pyanfar caught her. " 'S all right, it's all right," Pyanfar said, bracing her up and putting her face where the wild fix of Chur's eyes could register who it was. "It's us."

"Gods," Geran said, and sank down to her knees on the spot, against the chair. Her ears were back. She was shaking visibly as she clung to the chair arm. "Gods rot it, Chur— What're you doing here?"

Chur's ears twitched and slanted her sister's way as she turned her head. "Everybody get out?" she asked, the faintest ghost of a voice.

The lift was cycling. "They're on their way up," Pyanfar said. "Even got Skkukuk back, worse luck."

"He with you?" Chur asked thickly. "Gods, I thought he was loose on the ship. Been seeing things—little black things— Couldn't find anybody aboard—Gods." Chur. lay back against the seat-back and blinked, licked her mouth. "Vigilance— went, captain. I tried to get the guns to bear, tried to stop 'er. Missed my fix. Armament's still live—" She made a loose gesture toward Haral's seat. "Got back here—I don't remember—Gods-be little black things in the corridors—"

Pyanfar got up and walked over to her own post. The armament ready-light was flashing red on the boards. She shut it down and capped it and looked up as the lift door opened down the hall and their ill-assorted crew came running, kif and all. "She's all right!" she yelled out to them from the bridge, violating her own cardinal rule; and went back to Chur, only then realizing Chur had not a stitch on. "Migods," she muttered, with not a blanket to be had and two men—no, three—arriving on the bridge; and then decided no one cared. They were all crew. Even the kif Skkukuk, brought along willy-nilly. Tully came rushing over among the rest, and Chur grinned and reached up and patted his anxious face right in front of Khym and everyone.

"Let's get you back to bed," Pyanfar said. "Gods-be med-machine's blowing its fuses in there."

"Uhhnn." Chur put a hand on the chair arm to lever herself up, and fell back. "Goldtooth," she said suddenly, hazily. "Goldtooth."

"What about Goldtooth?"

"Took out after Ehrran—blasted out this message—"

"You get it?"

Chur waved her hand at the com board. "In there somewhere. In the decoding—function—"

Pyanfar started to bring it through on the spot; and stopped with her hand on the board, remembering Skkukuk standing there. She turned and waved a hand at the crew. "Tirun, take station. I want a systems checkout. Fast. Geran, Hilfy, get Chur to bed. Haral, Khym, Tully, take Skkukuk to his room, then go wash up, patch up, and get back here double-quick. We got ops to run."

Haral's ears slanted. "You're worse hurt than I am." The metal particles stung at every move; most of her exposed fur was matted with blood from pinprick punctures. Her battered skull throbbed with so many impacts she had gotten used to the pain. It was likely true she was the worse case. But: "Get," she said, because there was that message from Goldtooth in the decoder; and Haral read her by that silent way they had of thinking down the same line. Protest filed, Haral turned and made to gather up Skkukuk as she went.

"I am a valued ally," Skkukuk said, drawing himself up in offense. "Captain, I am not to have my door locked, I am not—"

Shut up," Hilfy said, facing him by Chur's side. "Move it."

"This one means harm," Skkukuk said. "Kkkt. Kkkt. Captain—" He dodged as Khym reached for his arm. "They have taken my weapons! I warn you their intentions—"

"Get!" Pyanfar said. Skkukuk flinched and ducked his head, and Haral motioned to him again. Shouldn't have yelled, Pyanfar thought. / shouldn't have yelled; the son did save my life, fair and plain.

But he's kif.

They led. him out and down the corridor, Haral and Tully and Khym together. And Hilfy and Geran turned Chur's chair about and with tenderest care bent down and lifted Chur out of it. "I can walk," Chur said. "I c'n walk, I just got tired—" But they swept her off her feet between them and carried her anyway, off the bridge and down the corridor, Chur mumbling protests all the way, only then and loudly realizing she had forgotten her breeches.

Pyanfar sank into the vacated chair and punched the recycle on the corn-system. Nothing came up. Frustration welled up, changes in the systems, every time they looked, some new gewgaw in the works. "Gods-be, what's access on the decoder?''

"That's CVA2," Tirun said from Haral's post. "To your one, I got it, I'm getting it."

It ran.

"Gods rot, it's in mahensi!" She cycled it again and sent it through the translator.

"Situation deteriorating," came the translator's droning voice. "Advise you human destination Meetpoint. Same mine.

I got talk to one Stle stles stlen. Make maybe deal. Ehrran I go, same. Keep company. You clear dock number one fast, both. Got little fracas start."

"Gods blast him!"

"—Best chance I can give."

''Blast him to his own hell!—You know what you did, you smug bastard, you know where you left your partner?"

The message ended. Pyanfar cut it off with a shaking hand.

Sat there with both fists clenched, until the black edges cleared from her vision. Then she carefully punched in another call. "Aja Jin, this is Pyanfar Chanur, come in."

Not on coder program. The kif down the row, the kif in station command—were undoubtedly monitoring even the so-called shielded-line. Everything. It was not politic to be too closely associated with Aja Jin just now. Or to talk in secret.

"Captain, this Soje Kesurinan, Aja Jin You back? You got news?"

"Bad news, Kesurinan. Your captain's been detained. Him. Those with him. In the hakkikt's custody. I think your personnel are going to be released. No word like that on your captain. The hakkikt—" Keep it neutral, keep it ambiguous, tip Kesurinan off to the situation as much as she could read between the lines. "—the hakkikt sort of wants to assure Aja Jin's good behavior. After Mahijiru lit out. And to discuss the matter. You got any news on that?"

"They jump," Kesurinan said after a moment. "Confirm. You got word captain's status?"

"Just that the hakkikt, honor to him, wanted to talk to him. Alone. I left him in good health."

Honor to him.—We're being spied on, Kesurinan, remember that, we're in real trouble. Don't press me with questions.

A long pause on the other side. "You got suggestion, captain?"

"I suggest if you've got a good explanation what Mahijiru's up to with Ehrran, it sure might help."

"/ get," Kesurinan said. The strain came through the accent and the corn-garble. "/ do number one quick."

"If you learn anything let us know double-quick. I think your captain's situation is extremely delicate. I don't think he knows what the hakkikt, praise to him, wants from him. If you can come up with that it might help. Understood? We'll use what good influence we have."

A second long pause. "Yes, understand. Thank you, Chanur captain. Thank you call us."

"I'm sorry," she said, heartfelt, and broke the transmission. Propped her throbbing head on her hands and winced helplessly at touching one of several lumps on her skull. It bled. She felt the dampness and looked at the stain on the fur between her pads. She began to shiver. "I'm going to wash up," she told Tirun. "Can you carry on a while?"

"Aye," Tirun said without turning around. On the boards rapid checks were going, searches after surreptitious exterior damage which, if not the kif, Ehrran might have done to them.

Or Mahijiru. She could not believe in Mahijiru's desertion. Could not believe Goldtooth had turned on them.

But it was politics. Like han politics, like the scramble for power that put herself and Ehrran at odds. In this case it was two partners who violently disagreed on how to deal with the kif—Jik who wanted compromise, and Goldtooth who played some other game, involving knnn; a game in which the stakes were perhaps too high, too unthinkably high, to put friendship anywhere in the equation.

The affairs of rulers, of Personages. Hani had never tolerated any divine right but the right of clans to decide their own affairs; or the rights of groups of clans to hold a territory: and hani never by the gods bent the knee to anyone but kin and house lord.

Honor to him. Honor to a prince of pirates who tortured her friends and laughed inside when a hani had to mouth politeness to him.

I'd pay him any pretty speech he likes for Jik's life; and I'll pay him something by the gods else, the first chance I get.

Likely he knows it too.

He wanted me before he wanted the mahendo'sat. Offered me alliance back at Meetpoint. He couldn't trust the mahendo’sat' sat. He knew that. He knew how a hani could be snared: he appreciates what Chanur could be and do—the way the han appreciates it, oh, yes, the han wants our hides on the wall. The han saw it before the kif did . . . what we were capable of after we took out Akkukkak, after we contacted humans. They saw it coming . . . if we were ambitious. And they thought we were. And they pushed us to it.

She walked off the bridge, paused for a moment at the door of Chur's room, where Hilfy and Geran had settled Chur in again.

"Gods-cursed needles," Chur said to her.

"Sure. You tear loose of that again I'll have a word with you."

"Goldtooth's message."

"Ambiguous as ever." She saw the glance Hilfy and Haral gave her. "I don't know what he's up to. "They would not have told Chur about Jik and his companions, not spilled any more bad news on her than they could avoid. "Stay put, huh?"

"Where's he going?"

"He thinks he's going to Meetpoint. So's everyone else we know. Big party going to happen."

"We?"

"Oh, yes. You can lay bets on that, cousin. We'll be there."

Chur blinked, turned her head to the side, where Geran was taping tubes at her elbow. "Captain's not telling all of it, is she?"

Geran pursed her mouth. Said nothing.

''Conspiracy,'' Chur muttered. And shut her eyes, exhausted.

"She did a good job," Pyanfar said, reckoning Chur could hear that.

"Yes," Geran said.

Pyanfar lingered there a moment, studied the three of them. Chur; Geran; Hilfy. None of them the same as they had been, excepting Chur, excepting maybe Chur. Geran's movements were quiet, economical, delicate; her manner was wry cheerfulness, and it was a mask. Chur sensed it, surely, knew the killing rage buried under it, Geran of the knife, Geran the silent one. Geran who smiled with the mouth nowadays and not with the eyes. And Hilfy. Hilfy had gone to whipcord and hairtriggered temper. No more young Hilfy; no more young at all. Hilfy had gone fine-honed and when she was quiet there was always a shadowplay behind the eyes, where things moved Hilfy Chanur did not talk about. There was sodium-fire and dark; and no bath took away the ammonia-stink and the blood.

But Hilfy had sat there in that all listening to her tread the narrow line with this kif, the same as Geran had sat there consumed with worry about her sister and never betrayed it; and Tirun had done her job down to the line same as Haral, where they were needed.

And sitting there side by side in that dark council hall— Tully, answering the kif calmly; and Khym, whose self-control had never broken, two males who had held their anger quiet inside and waited for orders from their captain. Crew. Same as the rest of them. The best. The Pride. Something the kif would never own.

"Huh," Pyanfar said, summation, and walked away down the corridor.