The Kif Strike Back

by C. J. Cherryh

  “What’s that Ehrran think she is?” Hilfy cried over it all, as if there had never been kif, never been those awful days. Hilfy: youth and outrage. “What’s been going on?”

  “Welcome back, kid,” Haral said dryly, never turning around. “You want a list?”

  “Chanur’s got trouble,” Geran said, from Hilfy’s right. “Ehrran’s the name of it. She’s after our hide. Any way she can get it. We don’t cross her bows. That’s the word on it. We take this jump, we thank the gods this time we’re coming in a little slower than that ship of Ehrran’s. She’ll be in front of us at Kefk. Don’t want her on our tail, no thanks.”

  “Prefer the kif instead, huh?”

  A small shiver in the air.

  “Gods-rotted safer,” Tirun said. “Temporarily.”

  Silence then.

  “Niece,” said Pyanfar. “We don’t forget either.”

  Silence still.

  “What after Kefk?” Hilfy asked then, finally, in a normal voice. “Where do we go? You got an idea—captain?” Respectfully. “Have I been left out of briefings?”

  Pyanfar flexed her fingers on controls, worked her elbow in the stress-brace. Drew a whole breath. “Some. You want it in a capsule? That engine-pack back there, this fancy new rig—nothing’s free, is it? We’re in hock, Hilfy Chanur. Nothing money pays for. And that Ehrran business—”

  Lines trued up. They were on, headed for their mark. The tc’a was out in front of them now, having gotten up to its speed: no more turns now, even for it. Nothing but a knnn played games with physics.

  “Gods-rotted tc’a’s going to be in front all the way,” Pyanfar said. “Gods only know where it’ll be after jump. I can tell you this. Jik’s got an idea he’s going to fake an ID signal at Kefk—break through there a shade ahead of the rest and get that scan for us before it shuts down.”

  “Gods,” Tirun said. “How much ahead?”

  “He didn’t say. No schema. Nothing. I tell you this, if he doesn’t make it, we got trouble. Real trouble. We got a nest of kif for one thing. We got some other things too. What are we getting on com? We got some quiet out there?”

  “Nothing worth listening to,” Haral said. “Lot of kif stuff.”

  “Vigilance has stopped transmitting,” Geran said.

  “So’s Aja Jin,” Hilfy said.

  “All right. Geran, I want you com backup right now; take number one scan after jump.”

  “Got it.”

  “Hilfy.”

  “Aunt?”

  “You asked about Ehrran. I’ll tell you what I’ve guessed so far in this business. Our troubles aren’t just bad luck. They’ve been coordinated.”

  “Ehrran?”

  “Oh, higher than that, imp. We settled that dustup at Gaohn, we busted our hani enemies out of Kohan’s way, drove Tahar clan into near collapse, pushed Moon Rising into exile—we brought mahendo’sat to the homeworld, we brought humans and we brought knnn, which sets off the isolationists back home right proper, doesn’t it? Naur. Her bunch. Llun clan got chewed up helping us at Gaohn; so’d others of our friends. Tahar, enemy that they were—we broke them and broke their power over their allies; and that left vacuum, and that let some other clans move up in the han.”

  “Naur and Jimun and Schunan,” Haral muttered. “Ehrran’s precious patrons.”

  “That’s precisely the shape of it. We were better off with Tahar for enemies. They were bastards, but they were spacing bastards. What we got left is the worldbound old eggsuckers like Naur; and those fat old women’d just as soon see us all back in kilts and sofhyn.”

  “It’s me,” Khym said.

  “Swallow it, Khym.”

  “Look, if I’d stayed downworld—”

  “If not that, some other thing. We brought outworlders into Anuurn system—”

  “—and got a male offworld.”

  “So we got every bigot in the han stirred up. The spacing clans got chewed up bad at Gaohn; among the Immunes, our Llun friends lost too gods-rotted many good women; and Ehrran’s been itching after a piece of their rumps for years. Sure, Ehrran’ll kiss-foot for the Naur; they got themselves that shiny ship, got themselves big ears and notebooks, and the stsho—those fluttering bastards have got their fingers in the stew. The mahendo’sat leaned on the stsho to get our papers reinstated because Goldtooth suddenly wanted our help—wanted spacing hani on his side. So the stsho bent, they always will—but straightway they ran and got Ehrran’s ear and sucked that fool right in. Ehrran was out at Meetpoint hunting down Tahar and doing any other bit of business the han wanted with the stsho—like secret negotiations, maybe, for a whole lot of things—and then the stsho up and offered them our hides for a bonus.”

  “Stle stles stlen,” said Hilfy.

  “Stsho got humanity coming in at their backs. They waffled on Goldtooth at Meetpoint. Gods know what they spilled to Ehrran; and I think if Stle stles stlen were less corrupt and less scared of Goldtooth the old bastard would have sold Tully to the kif right off. But we were there, and Ehrran didn’t bribe them, iron-spined fool that she is. Rotted stsho xenophobes are climbing all over each other, thinking about humans coming in at their backs and straight up against stsho territory. But Ehrran played politics and got outbid—I’m guessing. Stle stles stlen lost his nerve about doublecrossing Goldtooth when we turned up with a virtual blank check and high-level mahen authorizations. But I wouldn’t be surprised if old Stle stles stlen worries a lot nowadays about the mahen guards at his door at night. And I’ve got to tell you something else. Something you’d better hear. Haral—you got that tape from down in the corridor?”

  “Aye.”

  “Run it. That and the one with Sikkukkut. We’ve been getting a lot of offers, cousins. On all sides.”

  It was a long, long silence on the bridge, except for that thread of sound. Operations interrupted it. Pyanfar listened with one ear and winced now and again, kept The Pride running, tried not to think what Hilfy was going to say. Or what the translator was doing with it in Tully’s ear.

  Tc’a. Tc’a. Methane-breathers were upset, Jik had said.

  Jik had been out in the station at large. In secret. Conniving with gods knew what agencies; and tc’a were high on the list of possibilities.

  Right along with Sikkukkut.

  The tape finished. There was silence after, too.

  “I’ve got us into a mess,” Pyanfar said. “One gods-be mess. I thought you’d like to know just what kind.”

  “Sounds like—” Tirun said, “sounds like Jik’s right. We were born involved. Being Chanur. When we get home—I’m betting we won’t find the han what we left.”

  “I’m betting we won’t,” Pyanfar said. “But what is, nowadays?”

  Another long silence.

  “Well, I’m with you,” Tirun said.

  “Same,” Chur said; and: “Same,” her sister said.

  “Aunt, I—”

  “Maybe you want to think about it, niece.”

  The beep and tick of instruments went on. Tc’a matrix came up as comp sorted it, but it was all the same.

  “Tully,” Pyanfar said, “you understand even half of it?”

  “I hear some.”

  Pyanfar could not see his face, saw only a shadowy reflection in a monitor, one un-hani silhouette.

  “I hani,” he said. “I hani.”

  She blinked, thinking that through. But it made a warm spot all the same. “Khym,” she said.

  “My opinion?” he said. A great sigh gusted into com, a low rumbling: “Pity Ehrran’s Immune.”

  “But they are,” Hilfy said. “They’ll go at father. They’ll go for him at home. We may not have Chanur any more.”

  “I figure,” said Pyanfar, “I figure Kohan Chanur’s still no easy mark, niece. My brother and your father’s no fool. Neither’s any of our sisters, to let the bastards maneuver them out of the house. They’ll be holding on. Long as we’re in space, long as there’s Chanur ships loose to worry about—Naur and her p
ets’ll use some caution about dirty tricks. Kohan can still take anything that I know about, if the fight’s fair.”

  And she thought of Khym when she said it, and felt an old pang of guilt: If I’d been home when Kara challenged him, if I’d been there to prevent hangers-on from interfering—

  Khym might still be lord in Mahn if she had been home—if she had come blasting in for him the way Chanur clan had rallied for Kohan Chanur against her son Kara Mahn. Khym might not be in exile now if she had been there—even alone. Even when the rest of his wives and sisters and daughters deserted him. She might have stood by him against their son and their blackguard daughter. Chanur might then have had its best ally intact, in Khym lord Mahn. And the likes of Ehrran would not have risen and the world would not have changed.

  “Nav fix positive,” said Haral.

  “Wonder if that tc’a up there understands the flight plan,” Tirun said.

  “We’ll find out, I guess,” said Geran. “Want to lay bets against, na Khym?”

  “She’s cheating again,” Tirun said. “She always collects.”

  “We got formation behind us,” Haral said. “The kif are making mark. Looks like we’re really going.”

  “Looks like,” Pyanfar said. Her nerves tingled. Her forearm shed fur on the panel-edge. Sheer terror. Doubtless the rest of them were flutter-nerved as well.

  “I’m with you,” Hilfy said hoarsely.

  “Thanks, niece. Stand by, everybody. We’re coming up on jump. Tully. You better use the drugs. Help him, Chur. Make sure he’s out.”

  “Aye,” Chur said.

  She punched in all-ship. “Kif—Skkukuk. Get ready: we’re going for jump.”

  “I offer you your enemies.”

  “Fine, that’s real fine, kif.” She broke the contact quickly. A vague guilt still gnawed at her. For a kif.

  As well talk to the walls. It talked good hani; they talked good hani back to it; and nothing intelligible got said to either mind.

  I offer you your enemies.

  There was stress in its voice. Maybe it was scared, alone on a hani ship. Maybe it was trying to bargain.

  Maybe it would starve, helpless and unattended in that washroom. Or break its bones in maneuver.

  It was, gods knew, as trapped in its fortunes as they were—their good luck talisman; or their personal jinx.

  “Jump plus ninety,” Haral said. “Fixed on Kefk.”

  “Get it in your heads,” Pyanfar said, because the other side of jump, things fuzzed and habits took over. “Jik might not make it. If he doesn’t, we’ve got to move fast: get position first. Locate Harukk next. Remember that, hear? We’re going in with g. We’ll make it that easy on ourselves. If it goes real sour we’ve got a few options. The second we come out, we lock reference on Tt’av’a’o; we run for Meetpoint if we have to. That’s not Jik’s plan; it’s mine. We’ve got those three guardstations to keep track of at Kefk. We’ve got heavy debris in that system, it’s a close binary stirring that stuff up, and kif made our map. Even if Jik gets us one. Remember that. Remember it, all the time.”

  “We got those numbers,” Tirun said, “I got ’em up. Gods send Jik’s anywhere along his entry line and we’ll track him.”

  “Nasty place,” Chur said. “Real nasty.”

  “Set systems,” Haral said in calm, cold tones, and switch-flicking went on apace, systems-check, line-up. Pyanfar coordinated with her, shed the anxieties and called up the computer prompt program, comparing plan against tc’a-problems and Jik’s intentions. Shifted a priority in the prompts. Re-ran it. Fed it in with the press of a key. Other stations were doing similar things. Haral was running master-check, making sure all jobs were sequenced.

  There was most need of locating themselves on the passive-scan; getting absolute position to start with.

  Then find Jik, find Harukk and Vigilance and ride down their trail to Kefk’s heart.

  “Sure one lunatic way to run a starsystem,” Tirun said.

  “We can try telling them that.”

  The numbers ticked away.

  “There goes the tc’a,” Geran said.

  “Gods help us,” Haral said.

  “Tully?” Pyanfar asked.

  “He’s under,” Chur said.

  “Minus five,” Haral said.

  Gods, a tc’a loose in their pattern.

  And Jik had been out of pocket before undock. Talking about methane-breathers and visiting spies—

  Could Jik bribe a tc’a? Was that what he had been up to, in his furtive sortie onto Mkks station docks just before they left?

  Navigation help? Precision?

  Was that what Jik had been after—a way to cut it fine enough to keep Harukk on his tail—using tc’a computers and tc’a charts to get one critical spacetime calculation—

  —on a kifish system?—against Harukk’s wishes and beyond what Harukk wanted to provide them?

  My gods—

  “Minus one.”

  They were gone.

  * * *

  —there again.

  —falling—

  —material and solid. Lights were blinking, the dopplered instruments gathering input and reading it—

  “Kefk,” Haral said. “Spectrum-match.”

  “Mark, where’s our mark?”

  “Searching,” Geran said. “It’s—gods rot—that’s—in tolerance.”

  “Unnnh.” The mind wanted to wander off at tangents and seek its former nowhere. The lights danced, hypnotic, led the eye in patterns: there was the sunlight on the hills—

  * * *

  —home.

  “Aunt Pyanfar,” the little girl cried, running breakneck down the hill, ears laid back and small limbs pumping with all their might, “Aunt Pyanfar! you’re home!”

  Wide eyes and all ears, was Hilfy Chanur, her father’s darling daughter, her aunt’s surrogate for her own faithless Tahy—

  —in Chanur’s yard at night: “Aunt Pyanfar, name me that star—”

  “—That’s Kjohi; it’s a white, much, much too far and too hot anyway. We don’t go there. See that little one below? That’s a yellow. That’s Tt’a’va’o.”

  “Have you been there?”

  “No hani has, yet. That’s a tc’a star. Tc’a have a whole hand of brains; they sing when they talk; they have seven voices all at once. I knew one once. Its name was So’o’ai’na’a’o.”

  Hilfy laughed. “Say that again—”

  * * *

  “Where’s that gods-be tc’a? Geran! Chur! where’s our own schema, we got any position on anybody?”

  “Negative, negative, I got the other map integrated almost—got it, got it, got it—It’s coming through. . . .”

  The image turned up on Pyanfar’s board. Kefk-system schematic, adjusted to their entry-point. Sikkukkut’s best current map—at least of things like major rocks that could be long-term mapped and tracked in their chaotic orbits through Kefk system.

  A huge starstation—gods, she knew it must be big. The kif’s only legitimate outlet to Compact trade, after all. Fifty ships in port and miner-craft scattered like red stars among the yellow ones of asteroids; and no one of those ships where a ship was indicated. It was only a for-instance of a map. Beware, hani: ships might exist. And they do.

  It showed kif and tc’a and chi in port. Likely. Again a for-instance. Gods knew what else.

  “Stand by dump. Haral, double-check me.”

  “Aye.”

  —Use the wits, remember, wake up. Aja Jin out front by now—gods, where? Harukk and half the kif and Vigilance, with more kif due in at any instant.

  * * *

  —Down again.

  —“Aunt Pyanfar—teach me the stars—”

  Her own daughter, Tahy Mahn: “You’re never here. You always come back too late. It’s all over now. Kara’s gone. I sent him to Hermitage—”

  Son and daughter gone. Each in different ways—

  “So. I’ve got things to do, Tahy. I’m sorry.”

&
nbsp; “You’ll always have them. You don’t live in this world. It’s that ship! It’s that ship! I don’t know you, I never will—”

  * * *

  —And up.

  Back to realspace. Pyanfar’s eyes rolled and centered on the lights, her fingers scantly aware of the controls; her elbow ached.

  “Third dump. Come on, line us up, look alive back there—”

  “Got it—we got Jik, he’s out there!”

  —“Pyanfar,” Kohan said, his broad face, his golden eyes gone all gentle, unlike the scowl he wore for show. “Sister—for the gods’ own sake—be careful this time.”

  —She was selfish. He was not. He omitted to mention the real reason for his worry. Khym. Her private madness. His own public embarrassment. They had talked about it once.

  —“They’ll go for you,” Kohan said. “All our enemies. They’ll be trying.”

  —“Law out there’s different, brother of mine. Safer. Folk accept what’s strange.”

  —“I hope so,” Kohan said. “I do hope so.”

  —And he walked away.

  * * *

  “We’re on, we’re all right. Got signal, got signal—he’s got us a beacon-image, he got it!”

  “Star-fix, get that star-fix, Haral.”

  “Affirmative. Tt’a’va’o. We’ve acquired.”

  “Uhhhnnn.” She felt the drain of strength, the wobble in her hand. They were inertial. G pushed her decidedly down, not back. The arm ached in the brace. She freed it and pulled loose one of the concentrate packets from its clip, bit a hole in it and drank. The stuff hit bottom in her stomach and lay there like lead.

  Gods, gods—figures ripped past like lunacy. And coincided.

  “We’re on,” Haral said. “By the gods, we did it twice, and blind; and Jik and all of ’em—”

  “I’ll believe it when we find that tc’a,” Geran said. “Where is that lunatic? GOOD GODS!”

  Scan broke up. Lights went red. The siren howled. “Haaaa!” from Khym; and for a moment there was a nausea like dumpdown; but not—

  “V check,” Pyanfar yelled into the mike. “Gods blast—”

  * * *

  —dump, this time, with a sluggish awful nausea.

  The tc’a had come in close. Ripped past and dumped speed with two rapid flares of its field. And it was there, a large lump on scan matched with them in v.