The Kif Strike Back cs-3

by Caroline J. Cherryh

  "Fine. It'll be just fine. You're delegating to Chanur, are you?"

  Jik stood up, abruptly, with a rattle of his weaponry. "No joke," he said, moving into the midst. "Got number one serious problem. Not got time hani quarrel. Got one human got bad trouble. Got damn bad mess, kif got station, got plenty scared people, got long time not hear from mahen authority this station. You got way get in there, a, friend Pyanfar?"

  "Sure. Ask. That kif let us in number one quick. It's getting out again I can't vouch for."

  "How many kif?"

  "Last time, maybe a hundred, maybe more. That I saw in that room. Up and down that dock, you're talking—oh, maybe four, five thousand. Maybe worse.. You got current stats on Mkks?"

  "It's crazy to go in there," Rhif Ehrran said.

  "Got idea?" Jik asked.

  "I had the idea," Rhif Ehrran said, "that coming into dock with all three ships was crazy in the first place, but you had other opinions."

  "What you want? Shoot up dock? Got cit-i-zen here."

  —"Captain." Haral spun her chair about. "I got a blip."

  Pyanfar's eye was already moving, already taking in the scanimage that flashed to main-screen above all the seats.

  Every eye was. Crew dived for posts without an order. Pyanfar did, abandoning Jik and Rhif Ehrran and her lot to their own devices.

  "Get ID, gods rot it, what's the output?" She spun her chair about and felt the press of a large weight on the shoulder of her chair. Jik, getting view of the screens: she made no objection, too busy to take account of distractions.

  "That's stsho output!" Hilfy exclaimed.

  "We gods-blasted hope it is," Tirun said. "Kif could've—"

  "Send to station," Pyanfar said. "Query."

  A light on com-output lit: confirmation of the outgoing message. "This is The Pride of Chanur," Khym's deep voice rumbled, while other lights signaled activity from other crew. "What's that ship doing out there?"

  Not proper com-etiquette, gods knew, but direct.

  "Khym, give me the response," Pyanfar said, and as Rhif Ehrran moved up close and offered some advice: "Get clear. We're working, rot it."

  ''—of the hakkikt, Pride of Chanur, this information is private."

  "Give me output!" Pyanfar said; and it arrived. "Kif compliments of Pyanfar Chanur, you by the gods lay a hand on that stsho we'll yank loose and take your wall out! What's.

  going on over there?"

  Prolonged silence.

  "Give me that contact," Rhif Ehrran said, and leaned on her chair back.

  "Not on my bridge."

  "Stsho's pulling out," Haral said. "That's outbound, vectored nadir. ..."

  Better news.

  —"the hakkikt, Pride of Chanur, the stsho undocked without clearance Or docking assist. This is not an attack. This was not authorized. It was unprovoked."

  "Got station damage, central?"

  Silence a moment. "We are authorized to report so."

  "Got a problem, don't you, kif?"

  Silence.

  "Don't provoke it," Rhif Ehrran said. "Chanur, give me that."

  "Hhhhuh." From Jik. "Let be. Get ship code. No contact."

  "That's Nsthenishi," Hilfy reported. "Comp says Rlen Nle's its home port."

  "When rain falls up," Ehrran said. "Stsho never give ports further in than that. Eggs'll get you pearls it's Llyene. That ship is straight from the capital.''

  "Stsho personnel was on the dock," Pyanfar said, "when we came in. I don't know where it came from."

  —"Message from the hakkikt," the voice from central said. "The situation on this station is already conducive to incidents. Your allies have been permitted contact with you. Are you prepared now to meet and negotiate face to face, or do we expect more delays?"

  "No more delays. We'll come with our weapons, kif."

  Silence. "The hakkikt says: All sides will be armed, hunter Pyanfar.'''

  "We'll be there," Pyanfar said. "About a quarter hour." Rhif Ehrran leaned forward. Pyanfar brushed her aside with a forearm and stayed over the directional mike.

  "Rot you—" Ehrran said.

  "This is acceptable." From the kif.

  Pyanfar cut it off. "That stsho still headed?" she asked rightward.

  "Still," Haral said.

  "Monitor that output." She swung the chair about, looked up at Jik. "So we try for Tully this time.. We ready?"

  "You have no authority to negotiate," Rhif Ehrran said. "Leave this to us from here on. You got as much as you can get easily. You'd serve us better staying here."

  "Easily, huh?" At the boards the tracking and translating went on. Pyanfar stood up and stared at the backs of her crew. "Shut down to Hilfy and Chur's posts. Shunt command to Chur, Haral. We're going on a walk down the docks, we are." And when Hilfy turned her chair about, mouth open. "Hilfy, niece—you're a provocation to them, and I think .you know it. You're staying here."

  "Aunt—" Hilfy got to her feet.

  "Sfik, niece. You're a prize in this, like it or not, and bringing you back into the hakkikt’s reach is asking for more kifish tricks. Sit tight. And let Chur do the talking to central. Let's try to get Tully out of there, huh? Efficiently and quietly. For his sake."

  Hilfy's jaw clamped. Her ears were back, her claws dug into the seatback. But: "Aye," she said. Everyone but Chur was getting to her feet. Khym too. And the Ehrran crowd stood there aftward on the bridge, blackbreeches among whom her Rhif took her stance, still scowling, while Jik leaned his rump against a cabinet and rubbed behind one ear.

  "Is she running this?" Rhif Ehrran asked indignantly. "Captain Nomesteturjai, I undertook this business on your government's request, understanding you personally requested—"

  "My government same request you go with," Jik said. "Same request you got patience, honorable. Chanur got thing organized, a?"

  "Come on," Pyanfar said. "Guns, Tirun. Let's get this moving."

  "Aye," Tirun said, and brushed Ehrran crewwomen out of the way of the locker door.

  "Got positive ID on that stsho freighter," Chur said. "And they're not stopping for anything."

  "It go home," Jik said, "got plenty disturb."

  "Gods rot," Ehrran said, "what more did it need? We've got a stsho in the middle of this incident, tc'a and chi—."

  "Got also mahendo'sat cit-i-zen on this station," Jik said pointedly. His smallish ears were flat. "Maybe same got mahen agent, a?"

  "Yours?"

  Jik shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe not. I got check files. But I got other bet: when Sikkukkut come in here, some damn kif escape tell kif authority at Harak system. Four, five day ago. Maybe 'nother go Kshshti. We got move, get thing fix right, a, Pyanfar? Soon maybe got whole damn lot kif here."

  "Let's go," she said. She took the rifle Geran passed to her, while Haral buckled on an AP. Khym took his rifle from Geran's hand and checked the safety in rapid order.

  "Wait a minute," Rhif Ehrran said. "Chanur. You're not taking him out there, are you?"

  "I'm not taking him anywhere. He goes on his own."

  "Chanur, that's the limit. I've got a file on you that goes—''

  "I'm sure you do."

  "Look here, Chanur." Ehrran's ears were back and pricked up with a twitching effort. She lifted a hand, one carefully controlled foreclaw crooked. "Practice your cockeyed social theories on your own ship; that's your business. But when you plan to bring him into a sensitive negotiation and hand him a rifle into the bargain—"

  Rot it, speak up, she wished Khym. But he would not. His ears were down in outrage. It was all dammed up in him: and the temper it deserved if it came from him—would only confirm all the old prejudices Rhif Ehrran served. Unstable males. Hysteria. Berserker rages. He just kept his head down and threw the safety on again. And looked her way.

  He was a lousy shot. But kif were afraid of anything his size. Justifiably, if he got into it hand to hand.

  "I'd rather have him at my back," Pyanfar said studiedly, "than some." She slung the rifle into ca
rry, deliberately looking elsewhere, finding it convenient to throw a glance in Hilfy's direction. "Stay topside, will you?"

  Because, o gods, they had a kifish guest below; and the last thing she wanted on her mind was worry over Hilfy and Chur with a kif loose on the ship.

  "Get him out," Hilfy said.

  "I'll do that."

  "Chanur," Rhif Ehrran said, "for the record, his presence and your insistence is going in the report."

  "Fine. Maybe you'll be able to deliver it to the han in person. Or maybe none of us will ever have to worry about it, huh?" She waved her left hand. "Out!"

  "You don't give the orders on this."

  "We go," Jik said, bestirring himself from his cabinet-edge.

  "That quarter-hour's getting short," Pyanfar said- She lagged behind, seeing Ehrran's blackbreeched lot out the door, and Jik, and her own crew. She paused for a backward look, then strode through the others to overtake Jik halfway down the hall.

  "Got few my crew wait outside," Jik said as she came even with him. "They watch the ship."

  "Maybe," Pyanfar said reluctantly, "Chanur and Ehrran ought to go in there solo and let you and yours hold the dockside. Kif know you, Jik. Know you real well. You stay here, back me and Ehrran up; that's all we need."

  Jik rubbed his nose. "Long time I hunt kif. Sure thing they want me. Same want you, Pyanfar. Want bad. Maybe even want han deputy, a? But kif mind, that be crazy thing: we kill kif, no matter: that give us lot sfik with them. We not got sfik, they eat our heart number one sure. We got sfik, they want eat our heart—but same time think maybe they get sfik off us 'nother way. Like deal with us. Like they hope maybe we make more trouble on their rivals, a, than we make on them? We all go talk to Sikkukkut. We lose sfik else."

  "You know what you're doing," Pyanfar said.

  "Sure," Jik said cheerfully. "Number one sure."

  It gave her no reassurance. Neither that nor that washroom door they passed in the lower corridor on their way to the lock: she glanced that direction, and the hair bristled on her nape.

  Kill it, instinct said. Kill the kif hostage outright, let it vanish without a trace. Keep Sikkukkut guessing.

  But where was the sfik in that, and what was she supposed to do with such a gift?

  Be a fool and let it loose?

  One stsho merchant was already loose and running, bolting dock. If one shot went off on that dock and panicked the traders, more ships might break loose from Mkks dock. ships lacking the stsho's obsessively pacifist tendencies. There were the methane-breathers, for one large instance.

  It was a trap, of course. They had suddenly lost the rhythm of things and kept the kif's schedule, for a prize the kif still held.

  No kif ever yielded anything without gain.

  IV

  An eerie quiet persisted on the docks. A few blackbreeched Ehrran clan personnel were visible in vantage points, armed with rifles; .doubtless a few such were not visible at all; and there were two more Ehrran crewwomen stationed up inside the ramp, guarding The Pride's airlock and accessway. Less ominous and more, a solitary, AP-wearing mahendo'sat slouched her way up to her captain in specific. Sleekly black, gold glittering as Jik himself, she had half an ear missing and a bald streak on a burn scar down her jaw.

  Jik spoke to his crewwoman rapidly in some language they both shared, of Iji's great multitude. "A," the woman said, and with her hand on the AP gun's butt, moved off again into shadows near the gantry.

  "Khury," Rhif Ehrran muttered to her aide, "get back to the ship; take charge. And if we don't get back, get home directly and make a thorough report to the han."

  It was Enaury hani the Ehrran spoke; Pyanfar caught it: so would Geran, but not likely anyone else. And Pyanfar ducked her head and rubbed her nose—better say less than one knew than more, she reckoned. With the han deputy it was certainly the case. There were already mounds and mountains of reports aboard that ship, to the delight of Chanur's enemies when Ehrran got back to Anuurn and that collection of complaints got to the han debating floor—

  And a certain stsho check was on its way to a mahen bank at Maing Tol, if it had not gotten there already. When that hit the desk of a certain Personage—

  The han's deputy had not discovered that small matter yet.

  Nor had Jik.

  Pyanfar lifted her head and the oncoming kif welcoming committee looked almost friendly in that light.

  They did not turn in at the same corridor as before. The half-dozen kifish guides brought them further and further down the open dock, and the paper and ammonia smell even surmounted the cold in this sector. The light was dim and murkish orange-gold, the only visual warmth in the gray and black of their surroundings. The signs were kifish, in crawling, dotted script.

  Kifish ships were docked along the row at their left; kifish dens lined the right hand, deserted and quiet, which lent no reassurance at all. The hair prickled down Pyanfar's back as more and more of the horizon unfurled; it went all bristled as all the missing kif suddenly showed up past the curtaining overhead girders of the station's curve—a dark mass ahead, a gathering of thousands on the docks.

  O gods, she thought. Her legs wanted to stop right there; but Jik had not even hesitated, nor had Ehrran—perhaps they waited on her, on Chanur, who they thought had been this route before.

  "More of them than last time," Pyanfar said, breaking the spell of caution. "Gods-rotted lot more of them."

  Jik made some sound in his throat. A noise grew ahead, like nothing she had ever heard—clicking and talking all at once, the roar of kifish speech from thousands of kifish mouths together. And they were obliged to walk through this congregation. She was conscious of Khym at her back, hair-triggered; of Haral and Tirun and Geran, steady as they came, And Rhif Ehrran and her handful; Jik striding along with legs that could match a kifish stride and instead kept pace with theirs, holding their guides to a hani pace.

  She slipped the safety off her rifle as the scene came down off the upcurved floor and straightened itself out in the crazy tilting of things on station docks. It became flat, became distinct as hooded, robed kif standing about, became kif on all sides of them, close at hand, turning to stare at them as they passed with their escort. A clicking rose—"Kk-kk-kk. Kk-kk-kk." Everywhere, that soft, mocking sound.

  Kif territory for sure. Outnumbered, out-gunned a thousand times and three. If it got to shooting here—gods help them. Nothing else would.

  And if they had to enter one of the ships at dock to do their bargaining— they were in no position to protest the matter.

  The kif guiding them brushed other black-robed, hooded kif from their path like parting a field of nightbound grass; and indicated a double-doored passage into a dark like that other dark hole, into a place thicker with kif stench and the reek of drink.

  Kokitikk, the flowing sign above the door proclaimed—at least the symbols looked like that. Entry prohibited, mahen letters said. Kifish service only.

  Gods, that would keep the tourists out.

  "Meeting-hall," Jik said.

  Kifish noise rose about them as they entered, noise from tables at either hand. There was a clatter of glasses—the smell of alcohol. And of blood.

  "Gods save us," Geran muttered. "Drunk kif. That's the last."

  Pyanfar walked ahead, rifle at carry, keeping close by Jik's side. Rhif Ehrran caught up with a lengthening of her stride. There were chairs all about of the sort Sikkukkut had used; there were lamps and smoking bowls of incense that offended the nose and sent smoke curling up against the orange, dirty light. Kif shadows, kif shapes—kkkt, they whispered. In mockery. Kkkt.

  And their half-dozen kifish guides drifted ahead like black specters, clearing them a way. The muttering grew raucous. Jaws clicked. Glasses rattled with ice. There were red LED gleams about the fringes of the hall, rifle ready-lights.

  "It's a gods-cursed bar," Rhif Ehrran said.

  The crowd opened out, creating a little open space. In the midst were kifish chairs, a floor-h
ugging table.

  A kif sat alone at that table, beneath a hanging light.

  Its robed arm lifted and beckoned.

  There was a stirring all about the room as kif rose from chairs for vantage.

  "Sit down," the kif at the table said. "Keia." It was Jik's first name, his true one. "Pyanfar. My friends—"

  "Where's Tully?" Pyanfar asked.

  "Tully. Yes." Sikkukkut moved his hand, and kif about him stirred. There was-a mahen shout, unmistakable; a yelp of something in pain. "But the human is no longer the only matter in contention."

  The dark crowd parted near doors to the rear; and those doors opened. Dark shapes not kif were thrust forward and held fast—mahendo'sat prisoners, some in kilts, several the robes of station officials. One had badges of religious; importance. And a solitary stsho, pale, its gossamer robe smudged, its pearly skin stained with kifish light and smeared with dark patches. Its state was dreadful; it swayed and kif held it on its feet.

  "A," Jik said. "So the stsho leave Mkks got reason."

  "Mkks station," Sikkukkut said, "is mine. Its officials have formally ceded it to me in all its operations. Sit and talk, my friends."

  It was Jik who moved first, walking forward to settle himself on one of the several black, insect-legged chairs that ringed that table. Pyanfar went to Sikkukkut's other side, and set a foot on the chair seat, crouched down seated with the rifle over her raised knee and canted easily at Sikkukkut. There was one seat left. Rhif Ehrran filled it. Haral and Tirun moved up at Pyanfar's back; Khym and Geran and the rest of the Ehrran hani close about the table, with a wall of kif behind.

  "You let folk go," Jik said. He opened a pouch one-handed, took out a smoke and fished up a small lighter. It flared briefly. Jik drew on the stick and let out a gray breath of smoke. "Old friend.''

  "Do you propose a trade?" Sikkukkut said.

  "I not merchant."

  "No," the kif said. "Neither am I." He made a negligent move of his hand, and Pyanfar caught a whiff of something else, something strange and hers and scared, half a breath before another white thing was shoved into view through the wall of kif. Tully crashed down with arms on the table-edge between her and Sikkukkut. "There. Take him as a gift."