The Kif Strike Back

by C. J. Cherryh

  “We just found the tc’a,” Tirun said.

  “Gods and thunders,” said Pyanfar. Her blood ran hot and cold, her joints went weak; the concentrate fought to come up again. Someone was throwing up. On scan there were sane blips again, but one was far too close.

  Human babble. Tully had come to.

  “V plus point zero eight,” Haral said. “That bastard gave us v!”

  “Let it ride; we burn it off later.” Pyanfar swallowed hard and blinked her eyes and tried not to listen to the retching off over at com. “We got—while yet before Jik’s AOS on Kefk—gods-rotted tc’a: it saying anything?”

  Someone over at com managed to get transmission to her screen.

  “It’s saying, I think—” Hilfy said hoarsely, “it’s come from Mkks to Kefk with a hani and lots of kif. Hello.”

  “They won’t shoot,” Pyanfar said, as the thought got through. Jik. That earless bastard, Jik’s called in another debt and snagged us a tc’a. It knows our flight plan. It must. “Gods, that son’s riding us close out there—they won’t shoot. Kef wouldn’t dare.” She leaned back, turned her head. “Chur. You all right?”

  “Fine.” The voice sounded weak. “I’m on-duty.”

  “Khym?”

  He was the sick one. She had thought so. No answer but a moan.

  “We’re nominal on equipment,” Tirun said.

  “We still got the kif back there,” Geran said. “Got another ship just blipped in behind us. Ikkiktk. . . I think. . . right on mark, five minutes Light.”

  Everywhere about them the tick and blip of instruments went on, The Pride’s ordinary functions, unflappable mechanical processes.

  “Tully?” Chur said. “Tully, you all right?”

  “What that?” A slurred, faint voice on com. “What?”

  “Tc’a got friendly. Gods-rotted closest we ever came to collision. Closest I ever want to hear about.”

  “That’s blip two: second kif in.”

  “We just got a message from the lead kif back there,” Hilfy said. “It’s confirming it’s behind us, that’s all.”

  “Acknowledge,” Pyanfar said. Their realscan showed their own little packet of space; their passive-signal pickup, half a roundtrip quicker than bounce-signal scan, showed them the stars and the things that reflected light, and the lead ships’ recent emission-trails. A lot of them.

  “We’ve got time-calc on that image,” Tirun said. “Jik’s doing fine. Jik, Ehrran, Sikkukkut and a flock of the hakkikt’s best. Haaa—we got Harukk scan now—Clear, clear, clear!”

  “Good luck to ’em,” Haral muttered. “Even the gods-be kif.”

  “Hope those earless bastards at Kefk haven’t moved any rocks,” Geran said.

  “We’re running into old chatter,” Hilfy said. “Kefk isn’t aware yet of anything, on this timeline. Geran, I’m going to feed you sequencing on this stuff. See if you can do a locator on it, get an update on these positions.”

  “Lot of scatter,” Geran said. “Chur, take scan one.”

  Down the time line again, racing their own incoming wavefront to Kefk station. Waiting for the message to come back. But this time they had shed a lot of speed. Kif talked behind them and in another time-reference, station-kif talked, and that clicking chatter occupied com.

  More kif dropped in behind them.

  And the tc’a glided along beside.

  “We’re getting reaction now,” Hilfy said. “That’s a guardstation talking, I think. They’re challenging. That’s minus twelve Light.”

  Two guardstations, one at Kefk 1 nadir, to stop escapees; one at Kefk 1 zenith, not so far away. The third off in Kefk 2’s ecliptic. And Kefk station itself was armed, by Sikkukkut’s admission, which violated more Compact laws.

  “Harukk just answered,” Hilfy said. “Harukk ordered Kefk system to surrender. Challenge goes on. . . . I can’t make out if they’ve launched anything. Translator, Khym; help; gods-be—”

  “Is that it?”

  “—Back it up. Geran.”

  “Sorry,” Khym said. “I’m sorry—”

  “I got it,” Geran said. “That’s affirmative on launch. Two interceptors away from Kefk 1 on Jik’s contact-moment.”

  “Intercept vector for Jik,” Hilfy said.

  “Kif behind us report—” Khym said, “they just heard that defense-engage.”

  Pyanfar bit her mustaches, watched the steady rotation of images Haral shunted past her screens.

  “Unchanged,” Hilfy said.

  “Tc’a’s unchanged,” Chur said. “Still by us.”

  “Let’s hope it stays put,” Haral said.

  “Unchanged,” Hilfy droned on. Then: “Wait, we’re beginning to get some comment out of station now. They’re real disturbed and they’re speaking pidgin as well as main-kifish. We won’t get the guardstation transmission to station or to Jik’s bunch at their angle.”

  “What’s it doing?” Khym’s first out-of-line question, in a careful, quiet voice. “What the gods-sakes is it up to?”

  “Easy.” Haral’s voice. “We’re not skinned yet.”

  “Kif,” Tully said sharply.

  “Tully’s right,” Chur said from scan. “Another one of our party just came in.”

  “Huh,” Geran said, “By the gods all and sundry, we may just make it.”

  “That’s a hakkikt, five kif hunter ships, Aja Jin and a han deputy telling them there’s a tc’a inbound at their tail,” Tirun muttered. “And they don’t know what more or how many. You think that won’t shake them up? If I was kif with my nose to station or a desk-sitter in central I’d be real upset just now. They’ll fold. Sikkukkut’s not half crazy.”

  “Huh,” Pyanfar muttered. Crew talked themselves to confidence. Her stomach fought her again and she fought it back. Comp asked a question, offered choices. She kept her eyes focused, read comp’s suggestion, scanned two other monitors and punched confirm.

  Another desperate swallow. Her hand shook, terror catching up to her in a chill when the moment was long past. The tc’a could have hit them. Gods. How much closer? How much closer before they got pulled apart? Or before they made one ball of fire, hani, tc’a and kif together?

  “They friend?” Tully asked and no one had time.

  “Tc’a insystem are upset,” Hilfy said. “We’re starting to get chatter out of our own tc’a. It identifies itself and us. They’re sixteen minutes down the timeline.”

  Camera image came up on the screens: Haral had gotten them image. . . at this range, a bright orange sun washing out the stars. There was a red dwarf companion, Kefk 2, invisible or inconspicuous. Everything else was still too far. Heavy debris orbited Kefk, by Sikkukkut’s outdated charts.

  And four stations all told, with a lot of disturbed kif.

  “Transmission,” Hilfy said. “It’s them!”—forgetting protocols. “It’s Jik!”

  “—Hold course,” the message reached Pyanfar via Haral’s switching. “You hold course. We go ahead in. Got no trouble yet—”

  “They know the guard ships are on their track?” Khym wondered.

  “Can’t tell,” Haral said. “They ought to. That’s—ten minutes Light. We’re still getting output. . . just chatter. Jik’s bunch isn’t upset, and they’re further into the timeline than we are.”

  “Looking good,” Geran said.

  Pyanfar let out a breath. A chill went up her back. To cut it that fine, to do it, by the gods, to come in blind like that and pick up signal on the mark, with all the kif behind them.

  Navigation like that was a hunter-ship trick. Not for honest merchant-folk. But they did it.

  They had done it.

  They were alive so far.

  “Haral,” Hilfy exclaimed, “we just got beacon!”

  Image flashed up on monitor. Full current system composite: it showed Sikkukkut’s cluster of ships inbound for the main station; showed a skein of ships inbound where they themselves ought to be. . . the kif, the tc’a, The Pride. And the interceptors.r />
  Three guardstations; a belt full of miners; an outbound ship; a schema of the main station that showed forty-six ships in dock, origin indeterminate. Same as Jik’s initial snatch of image before beacon shut down.

  Give or take their own presence. And the interceptors.

  “We believe that thing?” Tirun asked.

  “Kefk’s talking,” Hilfy said. “It’s a guardstation, I think. It’s—welcoming us in.”

  “Gods,” Haral said. “Now it’s really working I don’t like it.”

  Pyanfar gnawed her mustaches. “I don’t either. Message. Relay Jik what it sent and put our wrap around it.”

  “Aye.”

  “Kif are talking,” Khym said. Haral switched it. “Behind us.”

  “—kkthos fikkthi kthtokkuri ktokkt Harukkur shokkuin.”

  “They’re querying Harukk,” Pyanfar translated. “Sounds like they’re confused as we are.”

  “That’s good news,” Haral muttered.

  “Our tc’a’s transmitting too,” said Hilfy. “Same stuff as before. ‘I’m coming in with hani and kif.’”

  “That’s the reason for our welcome,” Geran said. “That lunatic tc’a. They can’t shoot.”

  “Yet,” said Pyanfar, and chewed her mustache-ends. She reached for another packet and drank it in one forced series of gulps. Put her head back and contemplated the situation while The Pride hurtled at c-residual v toward a kifish stronghold that wanted to let them in. Past a doubtless armed guard-station.

  Get them onto the docks, she could imagine the counsels in that chunk of fragile metal up ahead. We outnumber them. Lure them out of their ships if possible. Send poison through their ventilation tubes if not. Let the tc’a dock peacefully in the methane-sector and then destroy the intruders on the oxygen side.

  “We brought our own private kif along, didn’t we?” Pyanfar said. “Tirun. Khym. We’ve got a little time inertial. I want you two to go down, get some flex, and bring our guest in the washroom up here. His name’s Skkukuk. Be polite. Tell him I sent for him.”

  “Aye,” Tirun said.

  A moment later. “Aye,” said Khym.

  Kif on The Pride’s bridge. The other side of Mkks, she would have sooner died.

  Chapter 8

  The lift worked, down-bound, two hani kif-hunting in the lowerdeck; and soon enough, one kif coming up topside, near sensitive controls. Unease crawled up and down Pyanfar’s spine. She flicked switches at her board, taking some of The Pride’s automatic reflexes under her own hand while Tirun and Khym, where that lift let out, entered corridors that could become a four story plunge straight down if The Pride’s thrust cut in for some unexpected reason—like an avoid-alert.

  They were perhaps cavalier about such scramblings-about while The Pride was inbound at some commercial port, with safe lanes and the prospect of a long, sedate voyage under inertia.

  Kefk lacked all such guarantees.

  “You stay course.” Jik’s voice sputtered into the complug in Pyanfar’s left ear: Haral had relayed it, on slight delay. Pyanfar flicked her ears back, looked at the time-differential of several situations ticking away on the upper margin of the number four monitor. Not enough time for her query to have gotten Jik’s direct response: half that. He had anticipated the question, she reckoned, when he himself had acquired beacon image from some source, maybe one from Kefk station itself.

  “Sikkukkut’s transmitting,” Hilfy said. “Same sort of thing.”

  If anything short-flashed between Harukk and Aja Jin or Vigilance, close as they were riding within their own little band of kif, Jik gave no clue to this. “We got system scan now, got Keft output, they not want trouble, a? Nice friendly port.”

  Gods. “We stay it,” Pyanfar said to the crew about her. She twitched in misery; fatigue settled like a hot iron between her shoulderblades and into that shoulder and elbow locked into the brace above the control board. She sweated and stank and shed hair; crew were no better. The hunter-ships would likely have had a shift to backup crew now and again, all crew seated in a touchy situation like this, but taking the shunt to give main-crew a chance to stretch and eat and take the kinks out of their backs. The hunter-ships would have that luxury; so would the kif incoming at their backs and up ahead; and gods only knew if the multibrained tc’a even needed relief. She left shed fur on what she touched. And the aches—gods.

  “Jik says they’ve asked for a ship list over and over again. No response from station.”

  “That’s not good,” Haral said.

  “Not at all friendly of them,” Chur said.

  “Hope that tc’a stays real close,” said Pyanfar.

  “The tc’a’s still transmitting,” Hilfy said. “Same stuff.”

  “How are you doing, Chur?” Pyanfar asked.

  “Uhhhn. Lost a bit of weight. Gods-be concentrates. . . we got to get a hot-box on the bridge if we keep this up. Nice warm food.”

  “Food?” Tully asked.

  “He has a hard time biting through the packets,” Geran said. “Here. . . now. You got to have the teeth for it, friend. . . he’s catching on with the equipment. Knows what he’s looking at, just fine.”

  “Math,” Tully said.

  “Help if he could read,” Pyanfar said.

  “Sure might.”

  No knowing whether human instrumentation was anything like their own. And his blunt-nailed hands had no hope of hani recessed buttons. Thank the gods. There was nothing he could push.

  But a kif’s retractable claws were quite another matter.

  She should, she thought, have gone down to the lower deck herself and left the ship in Haral’s capable hands. Not called a kif to the bridge.

  It was too late to do otherwise. She saw the flash from the optional-telltale that was presently linked to lift operation and withdrew her arm from the brace. “Haral. You’ve got it.”

  “Aye.”

  “We got a kif coming up. All of you—” Pyanfar rotated her chair crew-ward. “All of you keep your minds on your work, huh? Is this going to be a problem for anyone?”

  Silence.

  “Even if it gets interesting.”

  “Aye.” From multiple throats.

  Tully turned a bewildered look her way. Hilfy never budged.

  “Geran, take over com for now. Hilfy wants a relief.”

  “Aye, captain.”

  Hilfy swung her chair half about. Her ears were back. “I didn’t say—”

  “I know you didn’t. I want you on guard. Something wrong with that?”

  “No, aunt,” Hilfy said, a quiet voice. She spun back to the board and looked up as Geran released restraints and prepared to shift.

  Pyanfar spun her chair the other way and undid her own restraints.

  “Is this a test?” Hilfy asked.

  “No,” Pyanfar said. “It isn’t. It’s the real thing. I figure you know the kif well enough. Don’t you? Maybe your considered opinion’s worth something.”

  Hilfy’s ears slanted back. Her adolescent mustaches drew down in a look of distress. “Putting it on me, are you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t by-the-gods patronize me.”

  “Don’t by-the-gods foul up.”

  Hilfy’s mouth opened; she shut it definitively. The ears struggled erect. There was a nick in one. A gold ring swung from the sweep of the other.

  “All right?”

  Ears twitched. “All right.” Hilfy’s voice shed its edge. The eyes stayed black.

  Down the corridor the lift-door had opened. “We’ve got company.”

  Silence then. Pyanfar stood up, facing that oncoming set, in the center of which was a tall, robed darkness that set her teeth on edge.

  So a kif arrived on the bridge, in the doorway, Tirun and Khym on either side. Hilfy stood up and Geran switched seats.

  “Tirun. Take scan one.”

  Tirun took the indicated post without question. Khym stayed still at Skkukuk’s side, tall as the kif, twice its size in oth
er ways. Tirun could have cracked its bones barehanded. Khym could take it apart. Its hands were bound before it: kif limbs did not flex back conveniently.

  “Captain,” Skkukuk said.

  Tully had turned in his seat, just once and briefly. Something had touched his face—wariness, surely. Maybe something else. But he was eyes-to-the-scope again, his back turned to the kif. Pyanfar noted it, and her estimation of the human went up another notch with that.

  “You all right, Skkukuk?” Politely posed.

  Skkukuk lifted his bound hands and let them fall. His dark, red-rimmed eyes wept tears of eyestrain in the light. “This is stupidity,” Skkukuk said. “Behind the neck, hani, is far more effective. We can bite through wire.”

  “Thanks. We’ll remember that next time. Do you know where we are?”

  “Kefk, I suppose.”

  “Why do you suppose that?”

  Yet another shrug. “It was the hakkikt’s intent.”

  “Sikkukkut’s.”

  “That hakkikt. Yes.”

  “He took you into confidence, did he?”

  “It was well known among his ships.”

  “Were you—among his ships?”

  Skkukuk ducked his head.

  “You were Akkhtimakt’s, huh?”

  “I am yours now.” The dark head lifted, the jaws worked. “I lend you my sfik. I am formidable, even now.”

  “You lend me confidence. Tell me, Skkukuk. Do you know Kefk?”

  “Yes. Thoroughly.”

  “Why do you suppose Kefk hasn’t launched a defense?”

  “You want my assistance.”

  “I’m asking you, kif.”

  Skkukuk gave a kifish shrug and lifted his hands toward the scan posts, miming request. “Show me the situation.”

  “Haral, put the scan image up on main.”

  It arrived. The kif’s face lifted to the overhead, where the big screen was.

  “What we’ve got here,” Pyanfar said, “is Vigilance and Aja Jin and Harukk out in front, headed into Kefk with several other ships. Kefk guard ships’ve gone inertial now. No great hurry on them. Beyond that interval, ourselves. A tc’a beside us. The rest of the kif with a ship named Ikkiktk in charge of the rest.”