"Get Tully out of here."
"In time," said Sikkukkut. "Perhaps."
"What perhaps?" asked Pyanfar.
"How soon," asked Sikkukkut, "these friends of yours?"
"Inbound now," Pyanfar said. Sikkukkut made a flourish of his sleeve, a sweep of his robe, an acceleration of small moves. " Stand still, hakkikt.''
"Ah."
"I advise you. Stay put." The shot she fired would take out Sikkukkut. The
returning barrage would do for her, her crew, and the wall behind them. "Not a convenient time leave dock, even if you could get to your ships. Hilfy, get. Get out."
"With your allies," Sikkukkut said, "I will also deal. There is no need for haste." He paced aside, the only moving figure in the room. "After all." He moved again. Close
Spread his arms in a dark flourish. "Fire, hunter Pyanfar. Or admit I have judged what you will do."
"Don't push me, kif."
''Civilization. Is that not your word for it? Friendship? The mahendo'sat who will die of your rashness are your allies. Your own life is still more precious. / shall be your ally, hunter Pyanfar, as I was at Kshshti. Is it not true? Others aimed at this young hani and this human. / took them. Therefore they were safe. Is this not a friendly act?"
"You want us out of here before the rest of us reach station. Is that it?"
"I will deal with you, hunter Pyanfar. Nankhit! Skki sukkutkut shik'hani skkunnokkt. Hsshtk!''
Rifles lowered, one by reluctant one, among the kif. A tremor came to her muscles, a long, long shiver; her heart thudded against her ribs. But the rifle stayed steady.
"You may go," said Sikkukkut.
"Haral. Get them out. Get everybody out."
"Captain—"
"Move it!" She heard a low rumbling. "Khym. Out."
"Come on," she heard from Haral. She drew in her breath, heard the sibilance of cloth and quiet hani feet, the slight rattle of arms.
She was alone then. Herself. A roomful of kif. Tully and Sikkukkut.
"You plan to die like this?" the hakkikt asked.
Her nose rumpled into a hani grin. “Scare you, kif?"
Sikkukkut walked again, laid a hand on Tully's shoulder, where he stood in the others' grip. Gently. "One last prize. I shall keep this one for a while, and give you another, perhaps, for your sfik.—Your crew is still outside. Do they pick and choose your orders?"
"They understand me."
The kif stared at her within the shadow of the hood, faceless against the glare.
And laughed his dry laughter then. The hand fell from Tully's shoulder. "Hunter-ships."
"They'll come."
"Skhi nokkthi." Sikkukkut retreated again to his chair, the while a rustling of cloth told her of movement at her side. The kif reached to the table beside the many-legged chair, where a meshwork bowl stood. Something in it raced and scrabbled madly; squealed as the hakkikt's hand closed. The squeal ceased abruptly. He popped it in his mouth, the jaws worked rapidly a moment. Then he took an ornate cup andspat into it.
She laid her ears back.
"Would you join me at table?" asked Sikkukkut. "No, I thought not." A bony-knuckled hand gestured Tully's way. "You know he has not spoken since the day we took him. Not a word. He utters sounds, sometimes. I cherish such sfik. His words are precious. Perhaps he will give them up."
Take him from me, the kif meant, do something about it, if you can. .
"The mahe gave you this passenger at Meetpoint," Sikkukkut went on. "Was that all? Was that all Mahijiru brought you? Goldtooth. Is that not what you call that mahe? Ismehanan-min is his name. We are old acquaintances. I spoke to him about alliance. He was doubtful." Again Sikkukkut raised the cup and thrust his snout inside. He lifted his face after. " think this bigotry."
"Think what you like. Let's talk about Tully, shall we?"
"I was skku to Akkukkak. Vassal, you would say. And potential heir—to use hani terms, which mislead. You did me a service."
"Killing Akkukkak, you mean."
"Even so. Often our interests have been mutual. This human, for one. And have you noticed the stsho here? Uncommon. Stsho send emissaries about. Even here to Mkks. When the grass-eaters raise such dust, expect fire. And there is fire, hani. From Llyene to Akkt to Mkks. Even Anuurn. A fool would reject my offer. You are not a fool."
"No. I'm not."
He set the cup aside. "Is Mahijiru one of these ships?"
"No. Lost, I thought you told me."
"Perhaps. Ismehanan-min is full of surprises."
"And Tully's folk? What happened to them?"
A kifish shrug.
"You had a ring, gods rot it. It came from Ijir. What's your part in that?"
"I have my agents. Even among Akkhtimakt's spawn. That ring has traveled, hasn't it? Like Tully himself. you'll give it back to him."
"Did you take that ship?"
"I? No. That was Akkhtimakt. He has that prize. I have mine. Go back to your ship. I'd hate to have a misunderstanding with your allies coming in. If my ships should be damaged at dock—you understand. It would be a great mistake.''
"So would harming him. You want talk. All right. Return him now. You'll get talk. You'll get something more. I'll tell you we won't fire."
There was long, long silence. "Ah. Promises. Another hani term. Some hani put sfik-value on a promise. Mahendo'sat are another matter. I will keep this human. To assure good behavior. But for your promise I will give you one of mine-
"I get him back. Alive. And well."
"There's no kif word for promise. When -your allies arehere. I promise." Wrinkles chained up and down the kif's dark snout, limned in light. "I do tell you truth. You should thank me, hani. Someone else might have gathered up your people, there on Kshshti dock. I found them in an alleyway But it was not I who aimed at them."
"Akkhtimakt."
"His agents. If he had taken them, there would be no hope for them. I've protected them. Comparatively."
"Tully." Still she did not look at him. She did not want to see that look, that blue-eyed trusting look that confounded and knotted up her gut. "Tully. They want me to go. hours more. I get you back, Tully."
"Fine," he said, a faint, slurred voice. "Py-anfar. Go.'
"Kkkt. It does talk."
She stood very still. Points, gods: Tully scored on the hakkikt and maybe did not know it. She held the gun constantly toward Sikkukkut, not daring look Tully's way.
"Promises," she said. "Your ships are safe. Safe as is."
The silence hung there. "We will talk," Sikkukkut said then. "He and I. While we wait on your agreement. Go back to your ship. You have no choice, hani. See that nothing happens."
"Likewise." She backed for the door, reached the archway where the brighter light of the twilit hall fell on the corners of her eyes. There was light to one side of that vision, hani red and blue and brown. There was kif black to the right. She kept the gun trained on the hakkikt inside the room. "You want a deal, kif," she said into the murk. "An alliance. I'll ask my allies. Don't foul it up, huh?"
Silence from the room. Perhaps the majority expected her to fire and scour the room. Most kif would, losing points by it, in Tully's case. Destroying all, both gain and loss.
A very arrogant kif might not.
Or a hani with a friend in there. In his own arrogance, Sikkukkut was confident he knew hani. She stared constantly at that single seated shadow beneath the lights. At the hakkikt's right, among the guards, she saw Tully's pale face and never focussed on it. About the room the LED ready-lights of a hundred rifles glowed a wicked, unblinking red.
She dived aside, rolled her shoulders against the wall and bounced off it, headed at a trot for her own crew while they covered the kif down the hall.
"Tully-—" Hilfy said.
"We can't get him yet."
"Give me a gun." Hilfy caught at Geran's wrist. "For the gods' sakes—"
"Gods rot it, move." Pyanfar tore Hilfy away one-handed and dragged her along the hal
l. Hilfy dug her claws in, roundhoused a swipe at her and Khym caught her by that arm.
Hilfy fought without a sound. Her feet went from under her in their haste and Khym hugged her against his side and kept her moving, down the hall, round the corner.
Further still, as they reached the open docks. Hilfy still struggled, but more weakly now, as Khym maintained his grip. Pyanfar never let them slow. There were kif, kif everywhere, in the doorways off the dock, standing about by the gantries of the ships.
Up ahead—far distant—— blue lights blinked on the wall above two shipberths: incoming ships, one on either side of The Pride. . . "
"We’ll get him," she premised Hilfy, herself hard-breathing as they strode toward that goal. We'll get him out."
Hilfy's rage sank away to gasps. She thrust away from Khym's side as he let her, staggered free, weaving in her steps ahead of them.
Rage; and grief. It was not the youngster she had lost and found. It was all too profound for lighthearted Hilfy. Pyanfar's gut hurt, seeing it, seeing the bowed shoulders, the hurt no one could hold and cure.
She had grown too old for comforting, the niece who used to swing upon her belt-ends and laugh and beg for tales, where the ship went, where she fared, what the stars were like.
Hilfy strode on ahead of them, staggering now and again. There was bloodstain on her trousers and her fur, across her shoulders: Her mane was tangled and matted with it.
And the ships were coming in.
"Chur," Pyanfar called on pocket com, there at the foot of the ramp. "Chur—We're coming in." She cast a glance back; Tirun was still behind them, gun live, covering them against the chance of attack from the shop-lined far side of the docks, over among the shadows and the kif. The mahendo'sat and stsho had gone, hidden, abandoning them.
"You get 'em?" The voice coming back from the bridge was faint and full of breath-
"Hilfy's with us," said Pyanfar, Hilfy's ears had come up as they started up the ramp pricked forward with the first liveliness she had shown. Had a little problem getting Tully loose. We're working on it-"
The ears went down.
"Hhhuh," Chur said, of the com lost something. "Hatch is open. Vigilance and Aja Jin are headed in; they haven't dumped down yet. They want our instructions."
"Huh." From her side. "Confirm as agreed." An unshielded pocket-corn was not the way to talk that out. She strode up the chill ramp plates with one glance back to every three steps forward. Tirun had stationed herself in the cover the start of the ramp afforded, there by the gantry control console, rifle slowly sweeping the dock. They entered the covered access way and Pyanfar glanced back yet again, Haral standing by her side with AP in hand. "Tirun!" she called out, and Tirun ducked about and pelted up the echoing metal plates.
Inside, then, Tirun still out of breath as they hurried through the lock into The Pride's safe inner corridors. Geran swore in relief. Tirun clicked the safety back on her rifle and used it for a stick as she walked: "Not good for sprints anymore," Tirun muttered as they bolstered the APs and slung the rifles back to carry-straps. Hilfy went on through the corridors ahead of them, ears down; got into the lift first and held the door for them, tempers past. But no one touched her. Welcome home, kid. Welcome back. Glad you're all right, at least. No one ventured it.
Neither back nor right, Pyanfar thought, with profile view of that young face as the lift went up: ears back, mouth tight on silences. Gods rot it, niece, I got everything I could.
The lift let them out on bridge level. They trudged out in no particular order. Khym stayed with them, past his cabin and baths and all such allurements. They were filthy, cold from the docks, and stank of kif. They brought that smell onto The Pride along with them.
Chur powered the co-pilot's chair about when they came in, inexorable move of machinery cradling a bandaged hani who lay shrunken and feeble against the cushions. But her ears came up and she lifted her head.
"Good to see you, kid."
Hilfy crossed the bridge and bent down to clasp Chur's arm. "Good to see you," Hilfy said hoarsely. "I thought they'd got you. Gods, I thought you were dead."
"Huh. No." Chur laid her head back as they gathered around her. She shut her eyes and opened them refocused on Pyanfar. "Captain. I sent the confirm-message. Not a rotted
bit of help from the mahendo'sat on-station. 'Cept traffic control. Central's staying real quiet. They've
been real upset ever since our friends dropped into system. Scared. Not saying a thing but necessities."
"Huh." Pyanfar laid her hand on the chairback. "Best you get to bed, right now."
"Food," Chur said. "Lousy c-stuff. Want a cup of gfi."
"I'll get it," Khym said, and set the rifle down (gods, on the counter, loose) and headed off.
"Secure that!" Pyanfar snapped. He jerked to a stop and looked about, looking for what he had done. But Tirun took the gun along with Chur's.
"Got it, captain. He gave it to me."
Pyanfar nodded and collapsed onto her rump on the console edge as Khym headed off. She gave him no mercy. None. Crew covered for him; and they did it not because he was male, or hers, but because he had just earned it out there if he had the sense to know it. That warmed some of the cold at her gut. Some. That beaten weariness in the slump of Hilfy's shoulders, that bleak, all-business stare—that was out of reach.
"How close are our friends to final dump?" she asked Chur, and handed her rifle on to Haral. "We got anything trustable out of Central?"
"I marked the first alarm," Chur said, gestured loosely toward comp, a ticking chronometer on the number two monitor. "Figure—figure our ships'll be dumping down about now, but Jik may freehand it. Don't trust the kif to tell us huh?"
Understatement. Complicated comp operations from a crewwoman doing well to be sitting upright. "You're going off-duty. Shift's Haral and Tirun. Rest of us clean up, then turn about. Move it. We've got company coming."
There were minute delays, a quick dart of Haral's eyes.
Questioning. What do we do? Sit here?—because sitting here at dock was not altogether sane. Think there's a chance of pulling the rest of this off?
"Send," Pyanfar said. "Us to both those ships. Tell them we're back aboard. Tell them we've talked to the kif and we've got half the job done. Kif wants to go on talking."
"Tully's left there," Hilfy said, of a sudden turning about and leaning toward her on the counter edge. Hilfy's voice cracked and spat. "Four days, aunt—four days they worked on him. ..."
"Then we made good time," Pyanfar said, cold, very cold, because Hilfy wanted heat. "I'd have figured five. We'll get him out."
"They're taking him apart." Hilfy stood up and back. "That bastard kif has got time to do it in."
"We got what we could."
Hilfy drew one long breath. "Yes," she said, and was ail quiet, all the way through.
"Send that message," Pyanfar said to Tirun, and unbuckled her AP and passed it to Haral to put in the locker with the rest. She turned back to Hilfy. "Go wash up. We're not through yet, niece."
"Aye," Hilfy said, and turned and walked off.
"You too," she said to Chur. "Geran, get her out of here."
"Want the gfi," Chur protested.
"Fine. It'll come back there where you are, just fine." She stood there while Geran helped her sister up from Haral's chair and supported her toward the door. "Stay to Khym's cabin, huh? I want to keep you near controls. Might need you to sit watch."
"Aye," Geran said on Chur's behalf, a departing glance.
The situation was not what they had feared, in all: hostages murdered, Mkks with major damage—That was what could have happened even before they made dock. It was little short of a miracle they had worked, getting in and getting Hilfy free.
But it was not good enough.
Haral slid into the chair that Chur had left, powered it about again and got to work in Haral's own unflappable fashion, mind going instantly from dockside to those boards with no glitch-ups like
ly. Pyanfar tested the weapons-locker door and heard the electric tick of the resisting latch. "That access camera and the motion-sensor better stay on. We don't control those gates down there."
"Right," Haral said, and reached and keyed mode and number without a beat missed, while the numbers ticked by on comp's other sections.
"Got a confirmation on that final dump," Tirun said, holding the complug to her ear. "Captain, just got the confirm from Aja Jin. Captain's compliments and he'll see you here soon as he gets in."
Pyanfar looked at the chronometer. They were down to two minutes Light on response-time between themselves and the incoming ships. "Understood," she said.. Two minutes as light moved. A good deal longer for a ship that had blown off its C- fractional energy to move into station's slow-going frame of reference, and longer still to dock. "I'm going for that bath."
Mayhem and chaos might erupt. There might be attack. There were wobbles in her knees, deprivations coming due. There was still time for a bath, a cup to drink; in the meanwhile it was The Pride's seniormost crew at controls. No flap, no emotional decisions, no foulups. Thank the gods.
She dumped it all into their laps and headed down the corridor untying belt-cords as she went.
Hilfy had gone below, to the empty crewquarters. Alone. She would not have had that. But there was nothing else to do, nothing else to offer.
So we throw the party later, kid. When it's due.
Gods help us all.
She thumbed the door open and headed straight for the bath, shed trousers into the bin, hung the com on the bathroom wall within reach of the shower cabinet and turned on the warm mist with a melting sigh.
Fur by the fistful swirled into the drain at her feet—gods, only half of it was left from jump: the kif business had scared the rest off. And the while she lathered and rinsed under the warm flood she tried to collect her jump-scattered wits, plotting and replotting how to bet the next dice-throw. The kif would have a trick or two. She knew.
And the com beeper went off as she reached to cut in the drying-cycle.
"Gods, what?" she asked, snatching the com, shedding water on the floor. Her heart thudded. Showers—any offduty indulgence—had begun to make her paranoid. They knew; somehow the whole universe knew the moment her guard went down.
The Kif Strike Back cs-3 Page 4
