Chanur's Homecoming

Chapter Six

Color-shifts multiplied on the scan.

"Gods," Pyanfar muttered, and put in the general take-hold. Alarm rang up and down the corridors. In case. "Message to our partners: hold steady, keep course; Khym, advisement to Chur: Take precautions, we got kif moving gods know where. Tirun, feed scan down to Jik's monitor; tell him we're all right, we're still on course, we just got something going here."

Acknowledgments came back.

"Captain," Haral said, "Hilfy's got this idea-"

"Tahar acknowledges," Hilfy said. "They're on our lead. Aye-we got that, Aja Jin. Thanks-"

"-Akkhtimakt's got bad troubles," Haral said. "I think we got 'em too."

She waited. Waited till she heard Tirun report all personnel accounted for; Tirun had made it onto the bridge. A last safety snicked into place.

They were secure for running. If they had to.

On the screens the flares continued as the doppler recept sorted it out and got information trued again.

And one and another of Sikkukkut's ships flaring green and going into maneuvers.

Not all on the same vector. They were headed out like thistledown scattering from a pod. Everywhere.

In every direction open to them, mahen space and hani and stsho and tc'a.

"They go," Jik exclaimed over the open com. And something else profane in mahensi. He was monitoring the situation, down there in his sealed cabin. "Damn, they go, they go-"

To every star within reach. To strafe every station and every system where there might be a hostile presence.

"Priority, priority," Hilfy said, overriding something Geran was saying: ''Harukk-com says: Pride of Chanur, proceed on course."

"They go hit ever' damn target in Compact," Jik cried. There was the sound of explosion. Or of a mahen fist hitting something. "Damn! Let me out!"

"She was right," Haral muttered. "Gods-be right. They're going to do it anyhow and we got kif every which way. Captain, they're going to push Akkhtimakt right down that open corridor, to Anuurn, captain, by the gods they are."

"We got problems," Pyanfar muttered.

While a stream of mahen profanity warred with Chur's insistent question on the com.

"Kkkkt." From a forgotten source behind them.

And station was ahead. Meetpoint, with three hundred thousand stsho and a handful of hani citizens. With kif closing in on them with declared intent to dock.

"Transmit:" Pyanfar said. "The Pride of Chanur to all hani on station: prepare to assist in docking for incoming ships. Join us. This is your greatest hope of immediate safety."

Offer a hani an overlord, a master, a foreign hegemony-

They would spit in Sikkukkut's face. And die for it. That, beyond doubt.

But if they heard the reservation in that message, if they keyed on the nuances of safe-shelter-in-storm and all the baggage that went with it-even if the kif did, it was no more than kif expected, even if it was something no kif dared say: until we find a better.

"Repeat?" Hilfy queried.

"Repeat."

"Still braking," Geran said.

And the brightness on the amber lines that was their own position crept closer and closer to their own brake-point for station approach.

"Harun's Industry; responds," Hilfy said, "quote: We take your offer enthusiastically."

It took awhile, for ships to reduce V.

It took awhile for outbound kifish ships to go their way, leaping out into the dark, toward Hoas Point and Urtur System, toward Kshshti and Kefk and Tt’a’va’o and V'n'n'u and Nsthen. Seven ships, to follow right down Akkhtimakt's tail in a second strike after the first one; and right down the throats of Goldtooth and humans and mahendo'sat and whoever else might be coming in if they could find them.

It was, Pyanfar reckoned bleakly, both ruthless and effective.

"Kkkkt," was Skkukuk's comment. "Kkkkt."

"Kkkt," said Skkukuk. "He is challenging you all. Kkkkt. But his throat is unprotected. You are here. He thinks to daunt you. Surprise him, hakt'."

She spun her chair about to face the kif who sat at the aft of the bridge. And there was not a hair on her unbristled. "What has he in mind for us?"

"You are part of his sfik. You increase him. Kkkkt. His move is very good. He has penned you all in with his main force. Any attempt to exit toward your territories of resource are blocked first by his enemy and then by his own ships, whose capacities you do not know. It is a fine move, hakt'. But I have faith in you."

"Faith."

"Inappropriate word? Sgotkkis."

"Call it faith." She laid her ears back and stared at her private curse with coldest, clearest threat. "Since you don't have an idea in a mahen hell what I'm likely to do about it. But / am still here. And my resources have not diminished."

"Kkkkt, kkkt, skthot skku-nak'haktu."

Your slave, captain.

"Captain," Hilfy said. "Communication from Harukk. Quote: You have made a proposal to hani ships. You will gather these captains for my inspection on-station. End message."

Second move. It's going too fast. 0 gods.

"Acknowledge," she said, cold as routine. While they slogged their way at a sedate pace through a system laced with kif, toward a station which was going to be under kifish occupation. "Sikkukkut's going into dock. Cocky son's going to bring that ship in."

If Goldtooth and the humans have stopped short and the kif pass them by in hyperspace, we could get hit here.

Hilfy and Haral have got it figured. All of us do.

If Akkhtimakt's set up to dive in here again-an attack could be poised at system's edge right now. Or already inbound. Not saying whether the kif are onto that trick of stopping a jump. They could well have it. Maybe and maybe. It's not saying all their ships can do it.

"Transmit," she said. "Honor to the hakkikt: beware system edges. I fear more than spotters."

"Done," Hilfy said.

We help the bastard we're with. While we're with him.

We take whatever they want to do. And maintain our options. Ehrran's lost all hers. We got hani on that station and gods know how many fluttering stsho. Keep a cool head, Pyanfar Chanur. It's by the gods all the chance you've got.

"We're getting docking instructions," Hilfy murmured finally. They turned up on screen, where kifish ships were already well toward touch with station.

And from Chur, plaintively over com:

"What in a mahen hell's going on?"

"Easy," Geran said. "It's all all right."

"Got crew falling on their noses tired," Pyanfar muttered. "Haral, keep it steady, standard dock. Tirun, get yourself below, take the rest of your break."

"Aye," Tirun said. Old spacer. And falling-down tired. A belt snicked. Tirun went away in silence, to food, sleep, anything she could get.

"Jik's requesting to be out," Khym said. So that voice had vanished off com. Khym had silenced him. A mahen hunter captain, locked in a lowerdecks cabin and probably trying to think how to shortcircuit the latch or take the door apart.

"Jik," she said, cutting in on that blinking light on her com section. "We're all right. F'godssakes, be patient, get some rest, we've got our hands full, you got our scan image. We're moving in on dock and that's all that's going on for a while."

"Pyanfar." The voice was calm, quiet, reasoning. "/ understand. I make problem, a? You got protect you crew. I make 'pology. I lot embarrass', Pyanfar. Long time with kif make me crazy. Now I got time think-I know what you do. We be long time ally. We befriends, Pyanfar. Same interest. You unlock door, a?"

"I tell you there's nothing you can do up here. You got awhile to rest, Jik. Take it. You may need it."

"Pyanfar." Thump. Impact of a hand near the pickup. Hard. So much for patience. "You in damn deep water. Hear? Deep water!''

"We got another expression." She flattened her ears, lifted them again. "Told you. After we dock. We got enough troubles, friend. I want your advice, but I got enough to deal with right now."

"It be war," Jik said, and sent a chill up her back. War was a groundling word. "Fool hani! The ships go, they go ever' damn place, not got stop, not got stop!"

"F'godssake, this is open space! This is the Compact, we're not talking about some backwater land-quarrel!"

'No. No hanis. New kind thing. Not with rule. We talk 'bout make fight all kif, all hani, all mahendo'sat, make ally, make strike here, strike there. This new kind word. Not like clan and clan. Not like go council. Here we got no council. War, Pyanfar, all devils in hell got no word this thing I see."

Colder and colder.

"I see it too. So what are the mahendo'sat going to do about it? What have they done about it? Play games with the kif til we got 'em all at each others' throats? Shove Akkhtimakt off toward hani space? My world? How'm I supposed to be worried about you and yours, rot your conniving hide, when you doublecrossed my whole species! You doublecrossed the stsho, f'godssakes, and that takes fast dealing! You double-crossed the tc'a, gods help us, you doublecrossed them and the chi and maybe the knnn!"

"We got humans. We got humans, Pyanfar. Same got hunter-ships, got way shove these bastard back from out hani territory, you got listen, Pyanfar. Pyanfar, I got timetable!"

Her finger was on the cutoff, claw half-extruded. She retracted it.

"Do you? Way I hear, you got something else too. Like a fancy new maneuver your ships do, just like humans." Silence from belowdecks then. Profound silence. Then: "Open this door, Pyanfar.''

"At dock."

"Soshethi-sa! Soshethi-ma hase mafeu!"

Thump.

She cut him off. Looked Haral's way. Haral studiously lowered her ears. "Not too happy," Haral said. "Timetable. What's he mean?"

"By the gods I bet there's one. At our expense. Mahen gifts. 'Got a present for you.' Jik, turning up at Kshshti. Us, miraculously getting our papers cleared so we could turn up back here."

"I'd sure like to know what was in that packet Banny took on, I tell you that."

"Eggs to pearls that Jik slipped something into it. Goldtooth's version, I got a copy on. The stuff that didn't take a translator to dupe, at least. Which won't be the sensitive stuff. But anything might be helpful. Downgrade the nav functions: we'll run that packet of his with the decoder."

"I'll start it," Hilfy said. "My four."

She keyed the access up and sent the packet over, while The Pride started freeing up computer space.

Jik had held out on Sikkukkut. And on her. It was certain that he had. He had been dead silent on that gibe about mahen ship capabilities.

The archive in question blinked into Hilfy's reach.

And they slipped closer and closer to dock.

"Might have some lurker outsystem," Hilfy said. "I've been thinking about that. Might have a strike here most any time."

"Cheerful," Geran said. That sounded almost normal, crew bickering and muttering from station to station.

"Station's on," Hilfy said. "Docking calc."

"That's got it," Haral said, and sucked them into nav. "Auto?"

"Might as well. Nothing problematical here." Pyanfar sat and gnawed her mustaches, gnawed a hangnail on her third finger. Spat. "Hilfy: send to all hani at dock, hani-language,

quote: The Pride of Chanur to all hani at dock: we are coming in at berths 27, 28, 29 consecutive. Salutations to all allies: by hearth and blood we take your parole to assure your security. Industry, salutations to your captain in Ruharun's name: we share an ancestor. Let's keep it quiet, shall we? End."

"Got that," Hilfy said.

Haral gave her a look steady and sober, ears back-canted. "Think the kif read poetry?"

"Gods, I hope not."

Five decades ago. Dayschool and literature. When she had ten times rather be at her math. Stand and recite, Pyanfar.

"I hope to the gods this younger generation does."

On a winter's eve came Ruharan to her gates beneath black flight of birds in snowy court. White scarf flutters in the wind, red feather the fletch of arrows standing still in posts about the yard and the holy shrine where stands among a hundred enemies her own lord, no prisoner but of her enemies foremost seeming.

But Ruharun knew her husband a man with woman's wit and woman's staunchness.

So she cast down her bow and spilled out the arrows, on blood-spattered snow cast down defense, bowed her head to enemies and to fortune. . . .

"Industry answers," Hilfy said. "Quote: We got that. 27, 28, 29. We have another kinswoman here in Munur Faha. Greetings from her. We are at your orders."

"Gods look on them." Pyanfar drew a large breath. Message received, covered and tossed back again under kifish noses. Munur Faha of Starwind was kin to Chanur. But not to Harun. Harun had no ties of any kind.

And Faha had a bloodfeud with Tahar of Moon Rising.

A small chill went down her back. It was response to her own coded hail. It was just as likely subtle warning and question, singling out Faha for salutations: strange company you keep, Pyanfar Chanur, a mahen hunter, a kifish prince, and a pirate. The Faha-Tahar feud was famous and bitter.

At your orders, smooth and silky. It was kifish subservience, never hani; it was humor, bleak and black and thoroughly spacer. Let's play the game, hani. You and your odd friends. Let's see where it leads.

It took a mental shift, gods help her, to think hani-fashion again, and to know the motives of her own kind. Like crossing a gulf she had been on the other side of so long that hani were as strange as the stsho.

"Reply: See you on my deck immediately."

Grapples took. The Pride's G-sense shifted, readjusted itself. Other connections clanged and thumped into seal. They were not the first ship in. Ikkhoitr and Chakkuf crews were already on the docks. Harukk was in final. But no kif came to help non-kif ships dock. Pointedly, they handled their own and no others. They were Industry crewwomen risking their necks out there on the other side of that wall.

"I've got business," Pyanfar said, and unclipped the safeties.

"Aye," Haral said. "Routine shutdowns, captain. Go."

She got out of the chair and saw worried looks come her way. Tully's pale face was thin-lipped and large about the eyes, the way it got in Situations.

Thinking, O gods, yes, that this might be the end of his own journey, on a station where the kif had won everything that he had set out to take; and where humans were still a question of interest to Sikkukkut an'nikktukktin. He had reason to worry. The same as Jik did.

Queries were coming in, com from Moon Rising as it docked, operational chatter. Aja Jin was a minute away from touch.

Still playing the game, Kesurinan trusting that her captain was consenting to this long silence.

"Stay to stations," she said to all and sundry. "Khym, monitor lowerdecks."

"You going down there with him?" He looked at her with his ears down, the one with its brand new ring.

She flattened her own. He turned around again without a word. "Tirun's down there," she said to his back and Tully's face and Skkukuk's earnest attention.

/ would go, hakt', that kifish stare said. Tear the throat out of this mahendo'sat, I would, most eagerly, mekt'hakt'.

"Huh." She made sure of the gun in her pocket and walked on out, wobbly in the knees and still with the sensation that G was shifting. She felt down in her pocket, remembering a packet of concentrates, and drank it in the lift, downbound.

The salty flood hit her stomach and gave it some comfort. Panic killed an appetite. Even when panic had gotten to be a lifestyle and a body was straight out of jump. She ate because the body said so. And tried not to think about the aftertaste.

Or the ships around them, or the situation out there on the docks.

Jik was on the bed, lying back with his head on his arms. He propped himself up as the door opened, his small ears flat, a scowl on his face.

" 'Bout time."

"I'm here to talk with you." She walked in and let the door close behind her. His ears flicked and he gathered himself up to sit on the edge of the bed, with a careful hitch at his kilt.

"You been listening to ops?"

"A." Stupid question. But an opening one. He drew a large breath. "You do damn fine job, Pyanfar. We sit at station, same like stsho. We got kif go blow Compact to hell. Now what do?''

"What do you want? Run out of here? I got hani ships here, I got ten thousand kif on their way to Urtur, right where you wanted 'em, gods rot you."

"Listen me. Better you listen me now."

"Down the Kura corridor. Isn't that the idea?"

"He be kif, not make connection you with these hani. They got be smart, save neck all themselves-Better you do own business. You don't panic, Pyanfar. Don't think like damn groundling! Don't risk you life save these hani. You get them killed, you make damn mess!"

She laid her ears back. "I got kifish ships headed at my homeworld, Jik. What am I supposed to do, huh? Ignore that?"

"Same me." Muscles stood out on Jik's shoulders, his fists clenched. "You let kif make you plan for you? They shove, you go predict-able direction? Damn stupid, damn stupid, Pyanfar! You lock me up, take kif advice now? You let be pushed where this bastard want?''

"And where does that leave my world, huh? I got one world, Jik. I got one place where there's enough of my species to survive. Hani men don't go to space, they're all on Anuurn. What in a mahen hell am I supposed to do, play your side and lose my whole species? They got us, Jik, they got us cornered, don't talk to me about casualties, don't talk to me about any world and any lot of lives being equal, they're not. We're talking about my whole by the gods species, Jik, and if I had to blow every hani out there and three hundred thousand stsho to do something about it, I'd do it, and throw the mahendo'sat onto the pile while it burned, by the gods I would!"

The whites showed at the corners of his eyes. Ears were still back, the hands still clenched.

"Why you here?"

"Because," she said, "two freighters and a hunter can't stop it. Because there's a chance I can turn Sikkukkut to do what I can't. Now you tell me about timetables. You tell me about it, Jik, and you tell me all of it, your ship caps included!"

He sat silent a moment. "You got trust."

"Trust. In a mahen hell, Jik. Tell me the truth. I'm out of trust."

"I got interests I protect."

"No." She walked closer, held up a forefinger and kept the claw sheathed with greatest restraint. ' "This time you trust me. This time you give me everything you've got. You tell me. Everything."

"Pyanfar. Kif going to take you 'board Harukk. They try question me, I don't talk. My gover'ment, they make fix-" He tapped the side of his head. "I can't talk. Can't be force'. You whole 'nother deal. They shred you fast. Know ever'thing. They know you got me 'board, a? Know you got chance make me talk. Maybe they give me to you for same reason- they can't, maybe Pyanfar can do, a? Maybe block don't work when you ask, I tell you ever'thing like damn fool."

"Can you tell me? Can what they did to you, can what your Personage did to you-make you lie to me, even when you don't want to?"

A visible shiver came over him. Hands jerked. "I ask not do."

"Jik-you got to trust me. However they messed you up. Jik, if it kills you, I got to ask. What timetable?"

The tremor went through all his limbs. He hugged his arms against himself as if the room had gone freezing. And stared her in the eyes. "Fourteen," he said past chattering teeth. "Eighteen. Twenty. Twenty-four-First. Seventh." Another spasm. "This month. Next. Next. We g-got maneuver-make jump coordinate with same."

"You mean your moves are aimed at certain points at certain dates?"

"Where got th-threat. Don't fight. Move back. Make 'nother jump-point on focus date."

"So that somewhere, tracking the kif, your hunters are going to coincide and home in on them."

"Co-in-cide. A." He made a gesture with shaking hands. "More complicate', Pyanfar. We push. We pull. We make kif fight kif. We make kif go toward Urtur, toward Kita."

"Toward Anuurn!"

"Got-got help go there. Back side. We not betray you, Pyanfar!"

Her legs went weak. She sank down where she was, on her haunches, looking up at a shaken mahendo'sat on the edge of the bed. "You swear that."

"God witness. Truth, Pyanfar. You got help." The hands clenched again. "Ana-me Aja Jin. He got chance. Got chance, damn! and he run out from this place, leave us in damn mess! Got 'nother plan. He got 'nother plan, got way push kif on kif, damn conservative."

"Or he suspects deep down his human allies aren't to be trusted. What if he knows that? What would he do?"

"He be damn worried. Same got worry with tc'a." Another convulsive shiver. Jik wiped his face, where it glistened with sweat. "He maybe listen to me too much. Take my advice. I come into his section of space. He damn surprise' see me at Kefk. I tell him-I tell him we got save this kif, make number one. True. He be confuse', he pull out." He slammed his hand onto the bed beside him. "I don't send code. You understand. I not on Aja Jin, I don't send code, he don't attack!"

"Kesurinan doesn't know all this."

"I not dead. She got file to read if I be dead, but I be on friendly ship, a? She take you instruction, she think I be on bridge-She not know. She don't send the damn code and Ana don't move on this kif!"

There was sickness at her stomach all over again. She stared up at him. And have you told me the truth even yet, old friend, my true friend? Or have you only found a lie that' II keep me moving in the direction you want? Or are you giving me the only truth you've been brainwashed into believing? Would they do that to you, your own people?

Would they stick at that, when they got into your mind to do other things?

Gods save us, I almost trust the kif more.

"The kif would have blown us, Jik, before we could help anybody. We could've lost it all. I don't think it would've worked. We still got a chance, don't we? Where's our next .rendezvous point? When?"

"Kita. Eighteenth next month."

"Can't make it. Give me the next we could reach. Or is it here? Is Goldtooth just waiting a signal?"

"Two month. Twenty-fourth. Urtur. You got. Maybe be there. Maybe not. We got now six, seven ship go out from here."

And a single incoming ship at extremely high V had a killing advantage. If it turned out to have position as well, its high velocity fire could rip slower ships to ribbons'.

"When's Goldtooth come back?"

"I not say he come back. Don't know what he do. Not get damn signal!"

"Gods-be lie, Jik, you got to coordinate this somehow. You know what he's going to do. My information says he can short-jump and turn. That maybe all those ships can. Is it here, Jik? Is Meetpoint the place we have to be? Was that message he didn't get from Kesurinan-aimed to catch him a few days, a few hours out from this system, was that it?"

Terror. Never before in Jik. Raw fear.

"Scared I'll tell the hakkikt? Scared I guess too much?" She was sitting vulnerable and too close. She stood up and looked down at him, mindful of the gun in her pocket. "Scared they'll get it out of me?"

"You damn fool."

"I want your help. You want mine. You want to figure your chances without the hani? If it was you and nothing else, alone with the kif, with three human governments all doublecrossing each other, and the tc'a and the chi, gods help us, running lunatic? You refigure it, Jik, hear? You got some authority of your own. You got authority to take up a Situation and settle it, I got that figured. And I'm giving you a Situation. I'm giving you the fact we got this bastard going to take my species out, going to kill all of us, which loses you an ally, which loses you a major market, doesn't it, which loses you friends, about the time you need 'em most, you and your Personage. Humans aren't half your trouble. / am. The han is. And you don't give me orders. / got the influence, / got the thing in hand, and all of a sudden I'm dealing with a threat to my planet, Jik, which means I'll do any gods-be thing I got to and I'm not kiting off in any gods-be direction you want. I got one direction. And you got no choice but my choice, because I'll shoot you down before I let you do something that'll stop me. I love you like kin and I'll shoot you with my own hand, you hear me, mahe? Or you help me and give me the truth at all the right spots and maybe you still got an ally left."

Muscles were still clenched. Hard. He took a long time. "Got," he said finally. "You open door, a?"

"No deal. Not your terms, you hear?"

He stood up, gave the kilt a hitch, and stared down at her. Made a sudden move of his hand, a strike. She skipped back, ears flat.

"First thing," he said, "you got learn not trust ever' bastard got deal. You damn fine trader. But kif not be merchant.''

"Neither are you. I'm proposing something else. I'm telling you you're not going to break my neck because you got more sense."

"You got right," he said, and sniffed and drew a large breath. The fine wrinkles round his eyes drew and relaxed and drew again in an expression very like Tully's. "Love you like kin. Same. Got tell you you going to bleed." He touched his heart. "Same you win, same you lose. You number one fine woman. Got lot haoti-ma. Lot. I make deal, honest. You get me smoke, I give you whole timetable."

"You gods-be lunatic."

"Sikkukkut not only source. You got whole station. You got ask Aja Jin. Same bring."

"Drug's scrambled your brains."

A little light danced in his eyes. "You want me stay 'board, you got find me smoke. I be number one fine pilot. Same better when I got relax. You maybe need. You, Haral, you number one too. Not too many."

"What are you talking about?"

"Same you." He gave another hitch at the kilt. He had lost weight. "You got deal." More wrinkles round the eyes, a grimace. "My Personage damn me to hell. Same be old territory for me. You want me, you got. Long as Sikkukkut not got us all. You got trade sharp, hani. Number one sharp. This be hard deal. Maybe he take me. Maybe take you: you got no knowledge. You want plan you got get me back. Safe."

"He hasn't asked for you."

"He do. You wait, see. Know this kif."

"How's your nerves?"

"You not forget get smoke, a? Same time you get me out."

"Captain," Hilfy said over com. "Harukk's coming in right now. They're insisting to pick up all the captains. With appropriate escorts. They want Jik and Tully too."

Jik lifted his brows. "See?"

"Gods rot that kif." But she thought: He could strip every ship here of its senior command. Couldn't he? Me. Dur Tahar. That'd leave Haral Araun, but he doesn't know her that well.

/ need an escort. Not Haral. Gods, I can't take Haral off this ship.

Not one of my crew. Just my translator.

"Hilfy. Tell Skkukuk he's going with us. No other but the ones they asked for. Send my gear down here. Send an AP for Jik too. We got a point to prove."

Gods send the rest of the captains have got some sense.

Gods send they understand old epics.

"Aye," Hilfy said after a second. "Captain. Tahar's here. We got others coming. Haral asks: let 'em through?"

Not happy. No. Sikkukkut's not going to like this.

And, no, niece, I'm not crazy.

I just got no choice.

The lift worked. That was Tully coming down. Or the kif. She walked along the corridor with Jik for company, spotted Tirun coming the other way about the time the lock cycled with its characteristic whine and thump and let someone into the ship.

That and a cold lot of air with the smell of Meetpoint about it. Nostalgia hit, and left an ache after it. Old times and rotten ones, but that smell was familiar in a mundane way that made the present only worse by comparison.

Tully and Skkukuk arrived together, Skkukuk a-clatter with weapons, his own and what he had gathered on Kefk dock: maybe, she reflected dourly, it was sentiment.

Tully had her gun slung over his shoulder, and an AP at his hip: that took no claws to operate-shove in the shells and pull the trigger. He was steady and able to use it. He had proved that at Kefk.

And from the airlock corridor, Dur Tahar arrived with Soje Kesurinan.

Pyanfar drew in a large breath.

So how stop her? If hani were going to hold a meeting under the hakkikt's nose, what stopped Kesurinan from joining it?

And what stopped Jik now from joining her?

"We got a problem here," she muttered. "Jik, don't you do it."

"Lo," he said, "Soje. Shoshe-mi."

"Shoshe," Kesurinan said. And something else, in dialect.

While other figures came down the white corridor, several hani-bright and equipped with weapons. And one dark and tall-as a foreign kif walked right into The Pride's lowerdecks.

Countermove.

Do what, Pyanfar? Throw it out? This is a friendly conference we're going to, that's likely Ikkhoitr crew, and that bastard's one of Sikkukkut's own special pets.

Her heart set to beating doubletime. Fool. Twice a fool. Do what? Do what now?

"Gods be," Hilfy muttered, "we got Kesurinan and a kif past that lock. Gods rot! Haral-"

"I'm on it, I'm on it." Haral's voice rumbled with vexation. They were observing from the bridge. It was all they could do.

"I'll go down there," Khym said, a deeper, more ominous rumble.

"Easy, easy, stay put, the captain's handling this. Let's don't make it worse."

And from the com: "Pride of Chanur, this is Vrossaru's Outbounder, our captain should be arriving at your lock. Please confirm."

"Affirm that, Outbounder. No difficulties." With more confidence than she felt.

"I've got the lift under bridge control," Haral said. "We're sealed up here. They're not going to try anything on us, I don't think."

"Faha's going to be gnawing sticks with Tahar in reach," Hilfy said.

"At least they're not siding with Ehrran," Geran said.

"Spacers," Haral said. "You want to bet young black-breeches stopped to consult these crews before she kited on out of here? They've had their backsides to the fire here, and it's sure she didn't help their case."

It made sense. That the hani insystem had not fled meant that they had not had the chance; there was, gods knew, no profit in this crisis for a trader.

Now the resident hani had a further insanity to contemplate: kif in control of the station; and with those kif a mahen hunter-ship, and with them, Tahar and Chanur, who were blood enemies to each other.

But if these ships had been stuck at Meetpoint through all the troubles, they must be used to lunacies.

"Pride of Chanur," com said, "this is Faha's Starwind. Request explanation at your leisure. Standby signal for tight-beam."

Cagy old spacer, playing it very careful. Lifetime of experience with the kif. And taking a bigger risk than she knew.

"Starwind, this is The Pride, stand by your query." The board signaled acquisition of the impulse against The Pride's receptor-dish, and confirmed their own pulse sent back; all discreet and hope to the gods the kif did not pick up that furtive exchange. "Haral, we got a ship-to-ship-"

"Break it," Haral said, and Hilfy shut down at once, thwarting the contact. Then over a station-system relay Haral appropriated: "This is Haral Araun, duty officer, The Pride of Chanur: all com will go on station relay. The mekt-hakkikt Sikkukkut an'nikktukktin is an ally, and beyond that we aren't authorized to say anything-is that Junury I'm talking to?"

''Gods-be right it is. Haral, what in a mahen hell is going on between you and Ehrran? Can you at least answer me that one?"

"Bloodfeud, that's what's going on. Which is no part of anything going on in this system, excepting some deals with the stsho. Excepting deals in the han. I'll fill you in on it later. Junury, anyone else who's listening: we've been doubledealt in the han, every spacer clan's been done up inside and out by a few gods-be graynosed groundling bastards with full pockets. We had bloodfeud with Tahar; we paid that out; gods know Tahar's paid in blood. Right now I got a cousin lying gut-shot from back at Kshshti thanks to Ehrran and thanks to that bastard Akkhtimakt, and we got trouble loose that we got to settle-we got hani interests at stake, like we never had. And thank the gods you stayed, Junury. Thank the gods, is what I say: we can use the help, and I don't know if you'd have gotten through the way you were headed. Hear me?"

A long pause. / hear. I hear you, Haral Araun."

For Haral it was outright eloquence. Hilfy drew a long breath when Haral did; and tried to think whether Haral had shot any messages into it between the lines-nothing but caution, caution, caution, we're being monitored, was what she heard.

"Starwind," Transmission came from another source, "this is Moon Rising. Our captain's gone same as yours. We're under parole to Chanur. We'll stand trial. Araun's too polite. We're coming in for that. We haven't got a choice. So we surrendered. We're still armed and we're under Chanur's direction .End statement."

Transmissions ceased. Discreetly.

Hilfy switched back in on the intercom channel Khym was on, leaned back in her chair and tried not to think at all. She worked her hand and extended claws and tried to keep her ears up and her expression matter-of-fact as Tirun's down the row, while Khym nef Mahn sat there beside her with a new-won ring in his ear-a man, with a spacer's ring; with his scarred face grim and glowering at the trouble belowdecks, and the certainty Pyanfar was bound for the kif.

What kept him in that chair and what kept the pressure-seal on that temper of his gods alone knew; Hilfy felt his presence at her right like boding storm, like something ready to erupt, but which never did.

"Fry Ehrran," Khym muttered to himself. "Gods-be Immune. I want a few of them."

Khym nef Mahn was not a swearing man. Hilfy turned a second misgiving look his way and saw the set of his face and his ears, which was a male on the edge. With not an enemy in reach.

"Health," Pyanfar murmured-other salutations had loaded connotations in main-kifish. As more of the captains walked in on The Pride's lower deck and joined the conference. With one of Sikkukkut's kif to witness. Her own kif took up a wary stance with rifle in hands. Prudent; and ignorant and naive in his own kifish way, gods knew. "It's all right," she said in pidgin, and in hani: "Kerin, hau mauru." Clanswomen, there's no worry. "Haaru sasfynurhy aur?" Everyone understand the pidgin? She gave a meaningful glance up and about the edges of the ceiling. We're being monitored. So you know. "This is Tully. And na Jik. Nomesteturjai. And his first officer Kesurinan." No need for more than that. Since Gaohn, Aja Jin was famous among hani. Ears were up in respect, among these armed and vari-shaded hani, who came from every continent of Anuurn, mostly graynoses like Kaurufy Harun with younger escorts; Munur Faha being the exception, a red-gold smallish young woman with a graynosed and scarred old cargo officer beside her: that was Sura Faha, and a good and a steady old hand she was.

She knew most of them from docksides from one side of the Compact to the other, and the sight of familiar faces ought to have been a comfort. It was a mortal jolt, that sense of disconnection, how far she had come from civilization; it was like looking at it all through a window.

And Dur Tahar stood there to complicate it all, in a company that had individually and severally sworn to have her piratical hide, and carrying a heavier complement of weaponry than the rest of the captains, whose sidearms were all legal in the Compact.

"This is Skkukuk," she had to say atop everything else, smooth and never stopping, with a gesture to her left hand. "He's mine. Sha mhify-shau."

My vassal-man. She bent the language to make a word that had never existed: and called a kif a man, into the bargain, because so far as she could figure, he was not female. Mhify was a word for a woman who came to link herself to a more powerful clan. Women could do that. Men just fought their way in, with their lives at risk and in the greatest likelihood of being driven off by the clanswomen before they ever got as far as challenging their lord for his place. Male vassal, indeed. Ears flicked and flattened all around the room; and frowns grew darker.

"He was a present," she said. "The hakkikt, praise to him-" Another glance aloft: we're not alone, friends- "I couldn't explain anything when I sent that message out; but we've got a delicate situation in progress here. I'll be honest with you: the han has signed some kind of treaty with the stsho; Rhif Ehrran may have been carrying it-she came through here. She may not have stopped."

"Didn't," said Kauryfy, and drew a large breath, setting her hands in her belt. 'But she blasted out a warning." Kauryfy's ears went all but flat, lifted, flattened again nervously. "Said there were kif coming; and us up to our ears in aliens. Godsrotted late news. We got caught here-I gather this hakkikt isn't friendly with the other one."

"You might say." She flicked her own ears. Careful, Kauryfy. You're no fool; don't begin now. Watch the mouth. "Glad to see us, were you?"

"Crazy around here. Gods-be aliens. Mahendo'sat feuding with the kif. Stsho Phasing all over the place. Never know who you're dealing with from one hour to the next. Gods know who's maintaining station's lifesupport. This Akkhtimakt-not a friend of yours?"

"No."

"Well, none of ours either. A rotted mess, that's what we've had here. Got stuck here with Urtur shut down, just kept running up dock charges and mortgaging our hides with the gods-be stsho, and everything going crazy-Five months, five months we've been stuck in this godsforedoomed lunatic port, Chanur! Then we get the kif. Came in all peaceful, and us knowing, by the gods, knowing what he'd done over by Urtur, and these godsrotted fool stsho putting it out over the com that they'd asked him in, that it was all treaty-"

"It was. Treaty with the han and faceabout, treaty with Akkhtimakt. All to save them from humanity."

"Well, they got a gods-be poor bargain."

"You got stuck here."

"We got stuck here. That son moved in and interdicted traffic, got himself onto the station and did about what you'd figure. We went along with him while it looked like everything was going to be blown to a mahen hell and then the mahendo'sat showed and the humans came in and the kif cleared the station, we just sat still and hoped to all the gods it wasn't our problem. Now it is, I'm figuring."

Kauryfy's face underwent subtle changes, the tightening of her nose, the slight and timely tightening of a muscle by one ear-a wealth of signals a kif might miss. I'm trusting you only halfway; and there's a lot I'm not going to say out loud,

"Yes," Pyanfar said, with a like set of signals back again,and thrust her hands into her belt. So humans arrived here out of the dark. Couldn't be a coincidence of timing. They were short-jumped and parked out there. By the gods they were waiting. Goldtooth knew they would be. "It is our problem. The whole Compact's coming apart, and the han's policy has got us in a mess. I need you. Hear? Never mind the aliens. The hakkikt is going to ask you where you stand. And I'm telling you: we've never been worse off than we are right now. You can believe me or you can believe Ehrran; that's the sum of it. I'm trusting she messaged you more than just the news. Must've had plenty to say about us."

There was prolonged silence. Ears moved, flattened, halfway lifted.

"It got here," Munur Faha said. "We got it from the Stsho and we got it when she kited through. Urtur-bound."

"Gods fry her," Tirun said.

"There's a real strong reason," Pyanfar said, "she doesn't want to see us again. That's a han matter. Meanwhile we've our own business to tend to. Yours and ours. Very critical business."

"Specifically?" Kauryfy said.

"Settling things among ourselves. This isn't over. Far from it. I want you to take my orders."

Kauryfy's pupils did a quick tightening and re-dilating. Her mustaches drew down. "Known each other a few years, haven't we?"

"There was Hoas."

Kif dust-up, back in the small-time pirate days. Another flicker of Kauryfy's eyes.

"Yeah," Kauryfy said, and looked from her to the kifish shadow that stood at her back; and back again. "Well, we got along then."

"I'll go with it," said Haurnar Vrossaru, in her deep northlands accent.

"Same," said Haroury Pauran, dark as some mahendo'sat, and with one blue eye and one gold. She thrust her hands into her belt and scowled, looked aside at young Munur Faha, who sullenly lowered and lifted her ears: "Aye," said Munur. She was Hilfy's cousin, remote. "I'm with you."

That left two. Vaury Shaurnurn gnawed at her mustaches

and turned her shoulder to the lot of them: the other (that would be Tauran, by elimination, of The Star of Tauran) turned and looked Shaurnurn's way. And then Tahar's.

"Kin of ours died at Gaohn," said Tauran.

"Here is here," Tahar said.

And: "Kkkkt," from Skkukuk, who had antennae for trouble. That long jaw lifted. So did the gun. And the other kif stiffened.

"Pasiry died at Gaohn. Your allies shot her in the gut. She bled to death while we were pinned down."

"Here is here," Pyanfar said. "Argue it later. For godssake, ker Vaury. I'll tell it to you later, where we got Tahar. Right now we've got an appointment. An important one. In Ruharun's name, cousin."

They were not kin either. Far from it. Vaury Shaurnurn looked her way with ears flat. Cousin. Listen to me, ker Vaury. Believe nothing I say, do everything I say, make no false moves. Cousin.

She stared Vaury Shaurnurn dead in the eyes and thought that thought as hard as she could. Vaury's ears lowered and lifted again. "Cousin," Vaury said ever so deliberately. "We've been in and out of the same places, haven't we? Never been other than courteous with me; all right. That's all I'll say. All right." Vaury gave a glance at Tully, up and down. "This the same one?" The glance lingered at the AP at Tully's hip and traveled up again to his face. "Same human as at Gaohn?"

"Tully," Pyanfar said. "Yes." She looked aside to the stranger-kif. "Who this visitor of ours is, is another matter. Ikkhoitr crew, I'm thinking."

"Ikkhoitru-hakt."

"Captain." The hair bristled down her back. "Honored, we are. I'll trust your people are going to escort us over to Harukk.''

Ikkhoitr's captain turned and stalked down the hall in that direction, kifish-economical. And without hani courtesy.

"Kkkkt," Skkukuk said, warning.

It was not friendly, that captain's move. He was, kifish-like, on the push, looking for chinks and advantages; and one little lapse into hani courtesies had achieved unintended irony. She had ordered him.

She had invoked the hakkikt. And being kif, he dared not demur or hesitate. She had scored on him, who had come in here looking for fault, fluent and deadly dangerous.

Gods hope he had failed to find it. Or that kif did not have the habit of lying in certain regards.

"Skkukuk says watch him," she muttered to the others. "Tirun, you stay aboard. Hear?"

Tirun did not like it. But crew did not argue these days. Not in front of kif, even their own.

The personnel lock cycled, letting the party out. And closed again, audible from the bridge over the steady bleep and tick of incoming telemetry and com. "That's seal," Haral said to Tirun belowdecks. "Get up here."

"Station com's still gibbering," Hilfy said. "Gods-be stsho're going crazy. I can't make out anything except how glad they are to have the noble hakkikt back a-" She blinked, as Geran suddenly turned her head, and blinked again, seeing Chur wobbling into the bridge, Chur without her rings and dressed in a towel, the implant still in her arm and secured with tape. Her mane and beard were dull, her fur thin in pink spots where skin showed through, and her ribs showed prominent above a hollowed belly.

"Geran-" Hilfy said, but Geran had already grabbed her.

Haral turned her chair and took a look. ''Geran, for godssakes-"

"Got to walk a bit," Chur said, the merest ghost of Chur's voice, but she passed a glance around at monitors and displays. "Got a mess, do we? Lock working down there- Y'don't expect a body to sleep. Geran, set me down, I've got to sit. Who's covering you?"

"He is." Meaning Khym. "Sit."

"You're an emergency," Haral said. "Gods rot it, sit down." As Chur wilted onto Skkukuk's seat. "We're up to our noses. Could have an attack from gods know who come screaming through here any minute, we got to be able to move, how do we move with you wandering around?"

Chur gave a ghastly grin. "Hal, cousin, if we've got to move without the captain, I'm sitting a chair, no way I'm not. What in a mahen hell is going on out there?"

"The captain aboard Harukk is what's going on out there. We got kifish guns to our heads and gods know what else about to come in here for a piece of stsho hide."

"Figured." Chur drew a large breath as if breathing was hard. "Gods take 'em. What's our cousin up to?"

"Sfik," Hilfy said. "She's got three species for an escort and a half-dozen hani captains following her moves. She's running the biggest gods-be bluff of our lives, that's what she's doing. Trying to buy us time."

"If we got two hani walking sequential it'll be the first time since we went on two feet.'' Chur leaned her head back on the headrest and rolled it aside to look at the displays. "Not mentioning the mahendo'sat." Her breath was coming harder, and for a moment Hilfy tensed in her chair, thinking she might go unconscious; but Geran had Chur's shoulder, and Chur got her head up again. "Haral, I want a pocket com and I want ops-com run back there to my cabin. All right?"

"You got it," Haral said. "Geran, get her out of here."

"Hilfy," Khym said, "you want to cover me?" -preparing to get out of his seat and help. But: "I'm doing all right," Chur said, and caught hold of the arm and levered herself up like an old woman, where Geran could steady her. Then she walked, slowly, slowly, back the way she had come, past a startled Tirun Araun, just arrived up from lowerdecks.

"What's that?" Tirun asked when she and Geran were out and down the corridor. With a look backward. "She all right?"

"Wants to know what's going on," Khym said. "She's fighting."

"She's got her way again," Haral said in the same low tone. "Too." And swung her chair back around.

"Priority," Khym said suddenly, which set a lurch into Hilfy's pulse.

"Scan-blocking," Tirun said, slipping into place while Hilfy cast an anxious look at the scan display on her number-two monitor. A vanished ship reestablished itself in the red of projected-position. One by one other ships went red, the blight spreading in an orderly way. Then:

"That's friendly of them," Haral murmured as their own position at station vanished from the other display. "At least they're catholic when they blank the scan."

The ramp access doors opened, above the once-teeming docks: deserted now, mostly. Bits of paper. Trash. Abandoned machinery. Burn-scars on the paints. Arid cold, which the Meetpoint docks always were, too much size and too little free heat from the dull, dead Mass about which the station orbited. There were abundant kif-not far away, black shapes in robes. Skkukun, likely, quasi-slaves on Ikkhoitr. Expendables and dangerous as a charged cable.

And there were stsho, fragile-looking pale figures huddled over against the far side of their own docks, scurrying like pale ghosts, out of doorways and shelter, the dispossessed owners of Meetpoint. A mass of them surged toward the foot of the ramp, indecisively retreated, bolted again toward them in utter chaos, a crowd all spindle-limbed and gossamer-robed in opalescent whites and pearl, stsho of rank, with their feathery, augmented brows, their moonstone eyes struck with panic. They gibbered and wailed their plaints, their effusive pleas for protection-

And they came to one collective and horrified halt, and gasped and chittered for dread. Of the kif, perhaps.

Or perhaps it was the first sight of Tully that did it.

"Stay close," Pyanfar muttered to Tully. "Not friends."

"Got," he said under his breath. And kept close at her elbow as they descended, Jik trailing behind her; and Tahar; and Harun and all the rest. Kif waiting below formed a black wedge as they went down into that mass of stsho, and the stsho gave way before that like leaves before a wind, gibbering as they went, down a dock on which many of the lighted signs, indicating ships at dock, showed stsho names. Too timid to break dock, helpless in the advent of armed ships sweeping in out of Kefk inbound vector, which was unhappily also the outbound vector for the nearest stsho port, at Nsthen-they could do nothing in their unweaponed state but cower and wait, while their appointed kifish defenders did the smart thing and ran like the devils of a mahen hell were on their heels.

"Lousy mess," Pyanfar said; and hitched the rifle she carried to a more conspicuous attitude, while they walked along an aisle of kif with Ikkhoitr's black-robed captain, and stsho retreated and stared at them from concealment with terrified, moonstone eyes.

Then a kifish name showed in lights above a berth: and the ramp of Harukk gaped for them.

She hitched her gunbelt up and tried to calm her stomach. Her nose had begun to prickle and she searched after another pill in her pocket, never minding the timelapse. Metabolism did peculiar things after jump. She was strung tight and getting tighter, on the raw edge of fatigue.

Walking up that ramp was very much not what she wanted to do, if her body had had its choice in the matter; but brain began to assert itself as cold terror ebbed down to a different kind of wariness.

Gods, we got to think, Pyanfar Chanur, we got to think about all those stationfolk, dithering stsho though they be, and gods help any hani and any mahendo'sat-the hakkikt's just taken himself another spacestation, and this time he's got his blood up and he's got a point to make. Gods help 'em all, think, think, get the mind wide awake.

Gods-be pills make you sleepy, curse 'em.

I haven't got the strength for this. I'm not any kid anymore. The knees are going to go. I'm going to fall down right on this godsforsaken rampway, and if I do it's all unraveled, we're all going to die and the gods-blessed Compact is going to go all to pieces because I can't keep my knees from wobbling and my gut from hurting and my eyes from fuzzing.

Ten more steps, Pyanfar Chanur, and then ten more, and we get to rest a while, we can lean on that lift wall, can't we? They won't notice.

Down the corridor, the bleak, black, ammonia-reeking corridor past Harukk’s airlock; and Jik and Kesurinan walking side by side behind her- No knowing what signals they've passed, gods rot the luck-

Tully, where's Tully, f’godssakes-

She caught sight of him, shouldered back by Skkukuk as she entered the lift with Ikkhoitr's captain and Jik and Kesurinan and Tahar. "Tully!" she snarled, and he dived forward and made the door before it closed on the first group, leaving the others for a second lift, and gods only hope they ended up in the same place.

Herself and Jik and Tully and Skkukuk, with Tahar and the kifish captain and his lot: the lift let them out in Harukk's upper corridor, in a chill, damp closeness and the stink of ammonia and incense.

They'll die if we foul it up. All these people on Meetpoint. My crew. Us on this ship. How do you reason with a kif?

Kif waited for her at the other end, kif dressed in skintight suits and robes modified for freefall work. Sodium-light glared and tinted gray-black skins, the glitter of weapons, of wet-surfaced eyes as they waited to welcome the hakkikt's guests.

In a hospitality both Jik and Tully had abundant cause to remember.