Khym had gotten to the airlock with Tully in his arms. The hatch stood open; and two Ehrran guards stood there with rifles uncertainly in their hands and panic in their eyes.
"That's all right," Pyanfar said equably, taking her breath. She pursed her mouth into a cheerful smile for the guards, all
innocent of the fracas outside. "Hold your post. Come on, Khym. Need help with him?"
"He doesn't weigh much." Khym shifted his arm to roll Tully's head up against his chest as they went on through the lock and into the inner corridor. Tully moved, a limp wave of his hand. "Py-an-far."
"We've got you," Haral said, gently disengaging Khym's rifle from his arm, taking the weapon to herself before it blew a hole in the overhead. "No more worry, Tully, we got you."
The lift worked as they walked on into main corridor. Hilfy came out and headed for them at a run
" He' s all right," Geran said.
Hilfy slid to a worried halt in the face of Khym and an evident Situation; but Tully reached out his hand and she took his arm, Khym or no. "Hil-fy—" Tully tried to grasp her arm, awkwardly, with Khym's holding him and walking again. "Hilfy—" —over and over again.
"Huh," Pyanfar said. It was good to see Hilfy's ears up, her eyes bright like that. As if something was repaired. "Gods, get him to bed. We got other problems."
She leaned back against the corridor wall when Khym had taken the whole Tully-business away. Across from her Tirun sagged, standing on one foot. The wound Tirun had gotten at Meetpoint two years ago, the wound they had never had time on that voyage properly to treat—gods, they ran scared again. She thought of Chur, patched together at Kshshti. Like The Pride itself.
"Kefk," Haral said, going to lean against the wall beside her sister. "That's going to be one bitch, captain."
She listened. Geran overtook them and joined the lineup, the several of them. She felt numb. Her gut hurt from long walking, and from the earnest desire to break Rhif Ehrran's neck. "Gods rotted right one bitch." She shoved off from the wall and walked along the corridor toward the lift, alone.
Gods, the worry and the trust in Haral's eyes. Oldest of her friends and truest, Tirun next by a year; Geran and Chur after that by two. Five hani, with a few gray hairs round the nose mid aches when they ran; a young fool kid. A stray human and a hani male past his prime— There had been a time, when she had gotten into this, that she had had ambitions—trading deals with mahendo'sat and humans, to repair Chanur's financial damages; get the ship up to standard—well, that much she had done. And The Pride had altered outlines, wider vanes, alien systems that would put a kink in Chanur's enemies for sure—if it came to a conflict in space.
But there were other kinds of enemies—like on the debating floor of the han, when the Rhif Ehrran stood up to declare charges and bring Chanur down.
Khym, gods, Khym—she hugged the moment to herself, his defiance of Rhif Ehrran on the docks. But it cost. It would cost plenty when Ehrran and Vigilance got home. Chanur had staked much on this dealing with outsiders; risked too much. Chanur had become like The Pride itself, half-hani, with alien outlines. Foreign wealth bought those changes.
—but go home again? See her clan-home again? Deal again as hani and not some mahen agent bought and paid for?
She pushed the lift button. Turned. The crew had stayed where they were down the corridor, not following. Maybe they sensed her mood. She beckoned and Haral saw and brought the others.
Another hani ship had gotten cut off from hani kind two years ago: Tahar's Moon Rising. Moon Rising served the kif nowadays; and time was when she would have gone for Tahar on dock or in open space and known that she was right.
The lift arrived; her crew did. Another thought occurred to her and sent the wind up her back. "We've still got that kif aboard," she said.
"We can throw it out," Tirun said. "We've got what we want."
Pyanfar thought about it, her claw hooked into the lift-switch. But small alarms went off in everything she knew about the kif. "Sfik," she said. She let them into the lift and got in after. "If we turn it out, we lose a sfik-item, don't we, whatever by the gods that means. Status. Face."
"What's that kif want we do with it?" Geran asked in disgust.
"What he did with Tully," Haral surmised in the general silence as the lift went up. "Maybe worse. What's a kif care? It's to salve our pride, that's what."
A chill spread through Pyanfar. "Gods."
"Captain?"
"He talked about a kifish ship not his," The lift stopped and the door opened. "Rearranging its loyalties. He said."
"That kif's one of Akkhtimakt's?" Haral guessed, right down her own track.
"Bet you."
"Good gods, what do we do with the son?"
Pyanfar walked out and threw a glance over her shoulder on the way to the bridge, to Chur. "If you figure out what a kif's mind's like, let me know. It says it belongs to Chanur. If we let it go we lose sfik. And we got a stationful of kif at our throats if we do"
"We could space it," Tirun muttered longingly.
"We could give it to Ehrran," Geran said.
Pyanfar looked back, short of the bridge door. "That's the best idea I've heard yet."
"We do it?"
She bit at her mustaches, gnawed and gnawed. "Huh," she said, storing that thought up. "Huh." And walked into the bridge.
"Kefk?" Chur asked, turning her chair about.
"I got him for you," Khym said, huge, disheveled, hands hooked into the waistband of a tatty and snagged pair of brown breeches. His much scarred ears were slanted halfback, his scarred nose ducked in embarrassment. Hilfy came and fussed his mane into order, and the ears came up, there, in that room with another male, with Tully lying still on the bed and witnessing all of this.
"You were marvelous," Hilfy said.
"Huh," Khym muttered. "Huh. He smells awful. So do I." And with one shrug of his great shoulders he meandered out into the corridor.
Hilfy shivered then. And she thought of killing kif, which had become a constant, burning thought with her.
"Hilfy." Tully made an attempt to get up from where Khym had disposed him, on his own bed in his own quarters, on a coverlet soiled with blood from his poor back. She looked his way and he made a face and tried to stand. He sat down again, hard, and caught himself on one elbow.
"Gods." She snatched at the pocket com she had and punched the translator channel through. "Tully. Lie still." She came and put the com into his hands, so that he could speak and understand, with that unit to relay to the computer on the bridge.
But he let it fall and grabbed her about the shoulders and held on, just held, the way he had done when he had been hurt; or she had; or the kif threatened to separate them. "It's all right," Hilfy said. She held to him, which she had done in their dark cell when he could understand little more than that. "It's all right. We got you. No more kif."
He lifted his face finally and looked at her, alien and awful-smelling and his mane and beard, his handsomest feature—-all wispy gold when it was clean; but it was all tangled. His strange eyes were reddened and spilled water down his face—kif-stink hurt her eyes too, and his rags of clothes were full of that and kifish incense. "Pyanfar," he said, "Pyanfar—friend these kif?"
"Gods, no."
Tully shivered, a shudder apt to tear his joints apart. She held him tight, talisman of her own safety. She was aware of his maleness as she had been aware of it in their prison on Harukk, in a vague, disturbing way; but Anuurn and home and men were very far away—excepting Khym, who was enough to remind her of such things though he was Pyanfar's, and far too old. As for Tully, whatever humans felt, it was complex and alien and gods knew whether he even thought of her as female.
But someone should defend him. Hilfy had known all her life that men were precious things; and their sanity precarious; and their tempers vast as their vanity. Na Khym was— well, exceptional; and gray-nosed and sedate in age, whatever Pyanfar believed. Young men were another kind. One ma
de a place for them and kept all unpleasantness away; and they wore silks and hunted and made a woman proud. They fought only when their wives and sisters had failed, when disaster came. And they were brave with the bravery of last resort, no craft—no one expected slyness of males. Not when the madness took them. Not when they were young.
Her Tully was clever. And brave. There had been a time kif had laid hands on her and Tully had thrown himself at them, clawless as he was. They had batted him aside, but he had tried to defend her till they knocked him senseless.
And she could not reach him then. That hurt with more than the pain of the bruises it had cost. They had drugged her. And she had been helpless when they took him to question. "Chur's all right," she said—remembered to say, for he had not gone up topside yet to learn it. "Tully, she got out."
He looked at her and blinked. "Chur safe."
"Everyone."
He made a sound, wiped his face and ran his blunt fingers through the tangles of his mane. "# # #," he said, something the translator mangled. He edged one foot and the other over the side. "I # crew. I crew, Hilfy, go work—Want work— understand."
He got himself on his feet. He wobbled in the process, caught his balance on her offered hand, then: "Bath," he said. And headed that direction.
She understood that.
"I'll wait for you," she said.
So they were all a little crazed. She felt like collapse herself and felt the dizziness a lump on her skull had left. But The Pride was close to moving. They would be pulling out and getting out of this; and she had undergone one long nightmare of jump in kifish hands— shut below, trapped belowdecks, with no sense of where they went or where they were or when they would die.
They were at Mkks, Chur had told her. And a host of other things—like a deal struck at Kshshti station, that had sent Banny Ayhar hellbent for Maing Tol with messages; and brought Jik and Vigilance with them—improbable alliance, but a useful one.
Jik's got some piece of Ehrran's hide, Chur had said, in the long waiting for results. He flashed some paper at her at Kshshti and she caved right fast. He's no hunter-captain, that Jik, no way that's all he is. He's got connections—got us out of port, used that fancy computer on Aja Jin and laid us a course that put us straight into Mkks, all three, neat as you please. We went out on our mark and by the gods we were on when we came in. Got that new engine pack back there—
Chur had showed her that, working the cameras aft; and the sight of their tail assembly on the vid had sent a shiver up Hilfy's back.
The Pride had changed. Had become something else since they pulled into Kshshti.
Like her. And she would have wished to see the old outlines back there and to have felt she had come home to something known and never changed.
Pyanfar friend these kif?
Hilfy conjured scenes—things Tully had seen and she had not when Pyanfar had stayed alone in that room of kif; and again when Pyanfar had gone in after Tully with Jik and Ehrran and all the crew but herself and Chur. So, gods, why would he even ask?
True, they had a kif aboard. Tully did not know that. The presence set twitches in Hilfy's lip, and a shudder in her bones. The thing was down the corridor. Just a few doors down and around the bend.
She sat on Tully's bed and hugged her arms about herself, wishing as she had not wished since she begged to go to space and got a doting father's leave—She wanted her home again, and safety, and not to see what she wanted now to do. Better hunting in the hills, that kind of killing. A clean kind. Find a mate. She was due that in her life. Have the grass under her feet again and the sun on her back where no hani she might meet would understand what kif were or the things that she had seen.
Tully staggered out again, naked. There were wounds on him that seeped blood; bruises, bruises and burns and every sort of abuse. She carried like scars. He hunted a drawer for another pair of Haral's cast-off breeches and came up with what must be the last.
"Need help?" she asked.
He shook his head, a human no. He sat down and tried with several attempts to get his leg in. He rested a bit, waved her off, hanging on the chair edge; and finally succeeded one leg at least.
The door opened, unannounced. Chur stood there, all bandaged as she was. Her eyes widened; her voyages-ringed flicked back.
"Chur," Tully said, and got the other leg; and contrived to stand up and pull the breeches on and pull the drawstring in with now and then a grasp at the chair back.
"Gods-rotted little we haven't seen of each other," Hilfy muttered with a little shrug at Tully and a heat about her ears "Him or me. It's all right, Chur."
"You all right," Tully said. He left the chair and reached out both hands for Chur. Chur winced instinctively; but did not grab, only took her hands and clasped them in his own. "Chur, good to see you. Good to see you—''
"Same," Chur said. Her mouth pursed in a gaunt smile and Hilfy got to her feet. "We're some sight, aren't we?"
"We fine," Tully said, with simplicity that ached He grinned, tried to stop himself, got his face into a hani pleasantness. "Chur, I think you got dead."
"Got dead, no—" Chur cuffed his cheek ever so gently "Gods, they chewed you up and spat you out, didn't they?"
Hilfy flinched, leaning on the chair, "Let him sit down for the gods' sakes. You too. What are you doing here?"
"Got a small break. They've got data coming in up there' Tirun's on it—thought I'd take the chance to come down and see you while I had it."
"We're going out, are we?"
Chur's ears went down.
"Aren't we?"
"Got some little deal going," Chur said.
"Who? deal?"
"Jik. We got this—well, we got this pay-off we got to make. Jik's asked us to go to Kefk. He's talked Ehrran into it."
"Gods-be." Hilfy's claws dug into the upholstery and she retracted them. Fear. Stark fear. She knew it in herself, that flinchings had been set into her, bone and nerve, forever. "What's at Kefk but kif? We still following this willy-wisp of human trade?"
"Some other kind of deal," Chur said. Her ears stayed at halfmast. The white showed at the corners of her eyes. "I don't know clearly what. Captain's back and forth with Jik."
"Go Kefk?" Tully asked. He wobbled over against the wall and stood there holding himself on his feet. "Kif? Go kif?"
"What deal?"
"Jik's deal," Chur said. "Hilfy—we bribed you out. don't know what's up, but it's certain we've got trouble on our tail and we're clearing out of here to lead Akkhtimakt off Mkks in the likely case he comes this way. We got two kif headed for a showdown at Kefk and Jik's taking sides. Mahen politics. And we're in it."
"Gods, no!" The room went black-tunneled. She thrust the chair skidding on its track and headed doorward, dodged Chur's hand.
"Hilfy—" Chur's voice pursued her. "Hilfy!"—Tully's, that cracked and broke.
"In a mahen hell," Hilfy said to everything in reach, and headed for the lift.
V
"We got Ehrran agree," Jik's terse message had said, scantly after Jik could have gotten back to his ship and put the call through. ("Good gods," Haral muttered then. "What kind of blackmail’s he using?") ("Must be good—"—from Tirun.) And straightway from Jik: " We got hakkikt send comp feed, lot interesting stuff. We run through library. You take, we make check."
And arriving with that feed from Sikkukkut's Harukk: "I Sikkukkut send a gift. Kefk is not Mkks. You will discover this. We leave port in twelve hours or less."
"Aja Jin," Pyanfar protested at once, "that's a short turnaround. I know we're pushing, but gods rot it, we haven't got relief."
"Sorry," Jik said. "Got do. Try, friend. We got problem."
''What problem?"
''Like vector on that stsho."
''Went to Kefk, huh?"
''Damn right."
Gods be." She raked a hand through her mane, leaned both elbows on the console, feeling the tension behind her eyes. -
The com kept up a stead
y crackle of kifish chatter and mahendo'sat, the station central offices still in kifish control, but with a few mahendo'sat speaking now from dock offices. The boards rippled systems-lights with the feed from Jik's Aja Jin, which was filtering Harukk data through its own computer and checking it against records before sending it on.
"I'd like to have a look at that comp system over there," Tirun said. "One gods-rotted complicated son, I'm betting, the way it put us in here."
"Better do it twice," Haral said, "that's all I say. Khym— get that thing, will you? Help him, Geran. He's got it fouled somehow."
"It's gone. I'm sorry. I lost it out of records."
"What's one more bill?" Geran said.
Two crew down. Chur was not up to more work and Hilfy was R&R with Tully belowdecks, while the accessible universe wanted through the com system with individual complaints.
"We sue," was a frequent note.
"You gods-rotted optimist," Pyanfar yelled at one mahe more persistent than the rest. "Send your lawsuit to Maing Tol and I by the gods hope it gets through!"
Then she wished she had held her peace. Her hands shook and there was a hollow feeling at her gut that going hyper-ac after jump was guaranteed to do to a body. She ate concentrates, drank, and it did no good.
They had to sleep, no matter what; they all had to go off-shift and get some rest, and Jik's communications streamed in without letup.
"Gods-rotted mahe's got no nerves," she muttered. "He had a relief crew while he was inbound. Probably had a five-course dinner. What's he think we are?"
No one answered that.
And: "Gods," Geran muttered when the course plan and the Kefk information began to take shape. "That son's mean."
"That's before we even get there," Haral said. "I'm betting there's more surprises in that system that kif doesn't want to show us."
The Kif Strike Back cs-3 Page 8
