The Kif Strike Back

by C. J. Cherryh

  “The deal, hakkikt.”

  “Ah. Kkkt. Yes. In simplicity: I have chosen Mkks as my temporary base. And my motives and yours coincide.”

  “Do they?”

  “Kkkt. There are fools at large. Many fools. Stsho seek a way to prevent humankind from going through their space. Stsho connive with hani—am I right, deputy?—against mahendo’sat, who would wish to bring humans through at our backs, for reasons not lost to us. How quickly Keia distracted me when I mentioned stsho negotiators! But we know. To gain a foothold at Meetpoint, mahendo’sat route humans through tc’a space. Unwise. Vastly unwise. Stsho will not tolerate this any more than the other—and the very possibility of a human route approaching their territory or even their neighbor and ally tc’a—agitates them beyond rationality. Akkhtimakt operates with the fist. I, with the knife. Akkhtimakt wishes humans barred. But I am, among kif, your friend. Our motives frequently coincide. Is this not a better definition of alliance than friendship?”

  Jik let out a puff of smoke. “You wrong, friend. Human got own idea. Damn stupid. But they want come through.”

  “They have urging. Do they not?”

  “Who know? I tell you got number one serious thing, methane-breather upset. We got trouble. Kif got trouble. Not all profit, either side. A?”

  “You are willing to deal.”

  “Maybe.” Another puff of smoke. “What you got I want?”

  “Mkks.”

  Jik flicked ash. “A. Now we talk kif logic.”

  “You understand.”

  “Sure thing. You no trade. Maybe give gift. You give me Mkks. I then got plenty sfik. I make good ally, a? Maybe do something more.”

  “Take Kefk.”

  Jik’s heavy brow shot up. The stick hesitated on its way to his mouth. Arrived. “So. Maybe.”

  Take Kejk. Only take the only kifish gateway to Meetpoint, the one kifish channel to the biggest trading point in the Compact—a major station and probably the most sensitive spot in kifish space outside Akkht itself. Pyanfar kept her ears erect with the greatest of efforts, kept a bland look on her face; and counted the kif and her ally stark mad.

  “You think it possible,” Sikkukkut said.

  “I got allies. You got same. We go take Kefk.” Jik took a final drag on the stick and drowned it in the dregs of the drink. “Personnel this station take back jobs. Then I take Kefk. You want?”

  “Wait a minute,” said Rhif Ehrran. “Wait a minute.”

  “I talk to her,” Jik said without a look in that direction. “Got same good friend Pyanfar, one tough bastard hani. You want Kefk, fine. You get.”

  “Alliance,” Sikkukkut said. “Myself and your Personage.”

  “You got.”

  “It’s more than talk we’ve got to do,” Rhif Ehrran said.

  “The han deputy wants to know her advantage in this,” Sikkukkut said. “But hani have allied with kif before. The deputy knows whereof I speak. Hani have formed various associations.”

  Pyanfar slid a glance Ehrran’s way; the deputy’s ears were down.

  “What,” Ehrran asked, “does the hakkikt know about hani allied with kif?”

  “One word. Tahar. Does that interest you?”

  “Where is Tahar?”

  “In service to Akkhtimakt. Moon Rising is one of his ships and Tahar one of his skkukun. Not high in his estimation—but of some use to him.”

  “Gods rot,” Pyanfar muttered, and looked at Sikkukkut herself.

  “A hani famed for treason—treason, is that not the word?”

  “It’s close enough. Where is she?”

  The kif shrugged, smooth as oiled silk. “Where is Akkhtimakt? Now does confrontation interest you?”

  “She do fine,” Jik said, studying the ice in the glass, in Rhif Ehrran’s silence. “What say, hakkikt?”

  “Ssko kjiokhkt nokthokkti ksho mhankhti akt.” Sikkukkut waved a hand. “The station personnel are free to go.”

  “A.” Jik twisted half about in his chair, leaned back within view of the mahendo’sat and stsho. “Shio! Ta hamhensi nanshe sphisoto shanti-shasti no.”

  There was babble. The stsho shrilled; and the mahendo’sat left the kif’s hands and headed for the door, walking at first, then moving with increasing speed. The stsho ran, fell, scrambled up and fled through the chittering crowd even before the mahendo’sat.

  Jik turned around again when the jam in the doorway had cleared. He pulled another stick from his belt and lit it. “How many ship you got?” he asked.

  “Here? All kif here are mine but one. And that one is disabled; its crew—is presently rearranging its loyalties.”

  “Fourteen ship. We got three. No problem. Akkhtimakt maybe come Kshshti; maybe come Mkks. Not good you stay here, all same. Advice come free, a?”

  “So Mkks will fall again—if Akkhtimakt comes here.”

  “He not stay. Got no reason stay.” Another expansive puff of smoke. “He quick learn we go Kefk, a? So he come. He leave Mkks, come Kefk number one quick, pay you visit.”

  Wrinkles chained up Sikkukkut’s snout. “So by aiding me you aid Mkks.”

  “You right, friend.”

  “Hunter Pyanfar, where are your loyalties in this?”

  “Myself. My crew. My friends. Jik wants us there, I don’t doubt we’ll talk about it.”

  “So. And a promise. Will you keep it?”

  “Thought kif didn’t have the word.”

  “You do.”

  She scowled. “I do.”

  “Then take your human as a gift. Join us. I will give the orders in this attack. I will personally provide you information on Kefk defenses.”

  “Jik?”

  “You promise. Got no problem.”

  She shot Jik one long, burning look. But he did not look her way, studying instead the contents of his glass. She looked back over the rifle barrel balanced on her knee.

  “Jik and I will talk about it.”

  “You go,” Jik said.

  “Huh,” she said.

  “She promise.”

  “Excellent.” Sikkukkut unfolded upward from his chair. There was a stir among the kif. “You are all free. Take that as my gift.”

  He drew back. Blackrobed kif surrounded them.

  “Tully.” Pyanfar reached out and nudged Tully with her foot, her rifle in both hands. “Tully. Up. We get you out of here. You walk, Tully.”

  He gathered himself up, holding to Sikkukkut’s vacated chair, and stood wobbling on his feet. No one said anything. Likely Rhif Ehrran was choking on what she wanted to say about the situation, but it was not the time or place for it. Pyanfar stood up and let her rifle hang at carry, laid her hand on Tully’s bare, claw-streaked shoulder. It was icy cold. There was a deep and healing wound on his arm. “Come on,” she said. “With us.”

  He walked. Geran took his arm with her left hand, her right on the butt of her pistol. Jik was up—he had the stick still in his mouth, and drew yet another puff on the foul thing. Rhif Ehrran was on her feet and drew her own crew into retreat.

  It was a long walk through the silent kifish crowd to the door, a slow one, at Tully’s pace. But they made it out into the comparatively bright light of the docks, the atmosphere laden with oils and volatiles that hit like a gust of fresh air after the closeness of the meeting hall.

  Khym walked along with them, Haral out in front. Tirun carried her rifle left-handed to keep Tully on his feet, with Jik and Rhif Ehrran bringing up the rear. Pyanfar cast a look back: gods, Jik was puffing on that filthy thing all the way and scattering ashes as he went. But kif kept hands off them. There were stares from the crowd outside, and there was muttering, but nothing worse.

  “You get quick you ship,” Jik said, as Pyanfar fell back to walk beside him. “Got lot work, hani, lot work.”

  “It’s your intention to go through with this,” Rhif Ehrran said.

  “Number one sure. You want wait here, say hello Akkhtimakt? Got also other big trouble. That stsho go out from here. Maybe
go Kshshti—maybe instead go Kefk, a, on way to Meetpoint. Maybe talk too much. Stsho lot talk. Not good thing we get compli-cation. Stsho make same, a? Go.”

  “There’s a limit to what treaty makes me liable to. We’ll discuss this, na Jik.”

  “Fine. Same time you lay course. We do same. I tell you, I bet some kif leave here, go Kshshti. They tell Akkhtimakt what happen here at Mkks, we got small time. Akkhtimakt got fast ship. Same got trouble with kif maybe go Harak. Same trouble stsho go Kefk—lot smart, stsho: maybe got rumor already Akkhtimakt come Kshshti, so run damn quick go Kefk, go Meetpoint—maybe Tt’a’va’o, maybe Llyene—bet Sikkukkut lot unhappy not stop that ship.”

  “You’ve stopped coinciding with han interests.”

  “A. Then maybe wish you goodbye, lot luck. Akkhtimakt eat you heart.”

  “You foul this up—”

  “—he eat mine. Number one sure, hani. Akkhtimakt want me, long time.” He put his hand amid Rhif Ehrran’s back and hastened them along. “Best we move, a?”

  “Kefk, for the gods’ sake,” Pyanfar muttered.

  “Easy stuff.”

  “Then why for the gods’ sake hasn’t Sikkukkut done it?”

  “Sfik.” Jik took the stick from his mouth and blew a cloud of smoke. “Need sfik, make convince other kif, a? Now he got us. We all got lot sfik, le-gi-ti-macy, a?”

  “Lunacy,” she muttered.

  “You run, good friend?”

  “Gods rot it, you’d find some reason why not.”

  Jik grinned and put the stick back in his mouth. “You owe me. When Chanur ever default on debt, a?”

  “Gods rot your hide.”

  She strode along by him, cast occasional looks back, as Ehrran’s crew did. Gods, get us off this dock. More and more kif appeared along the way, all chittering and chattering among themselves. Our allies. Gods!

  And Tully limped along at his own pace, doing the best he could.

  There was the safe area ahead, that portion of the dock under surveillance from their own guns. They reached it, and Pyanfar looked back. The kif had not followed them across that imaginary line. . . thank the gods.

  “We’re safe,” an Ehrran crewwoman said. Ehrran crew. stood out from cover on the docks; a few of Jik’s were visible.

  “We’re all right,” Haral said by pocket com, now that they came in range of The Pride’s dockside pickup. “Haral speaking. We got him. He’s all right.”

  Some answer came back. Pyanfar did not hear. She saw Rhif Ehrran sweep a signal to her own crew as they passed the dockage of Ehrran’s Vigilance,—not a signal to turn in there, but to come with her. Rhif Ehrran lengthened stride; and stopped Tirun and Tully and Geran at the foot of The Pride’s docking area, with a grip on Tully’s arm. “The human’s safer in our keeping,” Rhif said. “We’ll take him.”

  “No,” Pyanfar said, overtaking. “Gods rot it, Ehrran, we’ll discuss it somewhere else. Get out of the way. We got kif back there—let go of him. He’s had enough! Gods fry you, that’s crew you’ve got your hands on.” She launched a blow of her own and it brought up short on Jik’s out-thrust arm.

  “I take,” Jik said. “I take, hear.”

  “By the gods you don’t. No! He’s listed crew of mine. Gods rot you, let him go—”

  —as Haral decked an Ehrran crewwoman and mayhem broke loose, one brawling knot with Tully in the midst. Pyanfar elbowed Jik and shoved her way in as Khym did.

  “Out!” Khym yelled, a male hani voice that shocked echoes off the overhead; he dived amid the mess and snatched Tully to himself. He grinned at Ehrran, ears flat, with Tully crushed against his chest.

  It stopped. It all stopped.

  “I’m crazy,” Khym said. “Remember?”

  And it was in Pyanfar’s own head that he truly might go berserk. She opened her mouth, shut it. Tully was not struggling. He held on, fists clenched in the fur of Khym’s shoulders. And Ehrran waited for the bloody bits and pieces to start flying. Male and male. Tully hanging in Khym’s grip like an unstrung toy.

  “He’s Chanur crew, isn’t he?” Khym rumbled. “Like me.” He swung Tully up into both arms, the rifle swinging loose from his elbow—good gods, the safety off on a gun fit to hole armor plate. Tully’s head lolled back, his limbs suddenly gone loose. “We going inside, captain?”

  “Move it,” Pyanfar said. Her heart started beating again.

  “Hhhunnh. Excuse me.” Khym walked deliberately through Ehrran’s ranks, swinging to clear Tully’s legs.

  “Chanur,” Rhif Ehrran said.

  “I know. You’ll file a protest. Get your crew out of my crew’s way, or they’ll be picking fur out of the filters all over Mkks.”

  “Damn fool,” Jik muttered. He pinched out his stick and dropped it into a pouch. “Move! You think we got no witness?” He jerked a hand toward the watching kif, far off down the dock. “What want? Entertain them?”

  Rhif Ehrran made an abrupt gesture upward. Rifles clattered out of the way. Her eyes were amber rings around black. Her rumpled mane stood out in curling wisps as if charged with static. “We’ll settle it later, Chanur.”

  “Fine.” Pyanfar led her own crew through, lingered at the rail of the upward ramp and turned her head to see nothing happened behind her. The Ehrran crewwomen stood stock still. Ker Rhif herself stared with ears flat, promise in that look. Geran came last, not without a backward glance on her own. “Get in,” Pyanfar said in Geran’s slight hesitation: Need help? that delay implied. Geran went; she followed, and as they came into the accessway she remembered the Ehrran guards in lowerdeck. “Gods,” she muttered, and started running, sweeping the crew with her.

  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. “Hilfy—” 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 and aches when they ran; a young fool kid. A stray huma
n 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 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 hanikind 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?”