Kif Strike Back (19 page)

"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-

-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."

"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.

"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.

tc'a
  
     
chi
        
hani
      
kif
        
kif
        
kif
        
kif

Mkks
    
Mkks
    
Mkks
    
Mkks
    
Mkks
    
Mkks
    
Kefk

Kefk
     
Kefk
     
Kefk
     
Kefk
     
Kefk
     
Kefk
     
Kefk

"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. Kif 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 wave-front 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 guard-station talking, I think. They're challenging. That's minus twelve Light."

Two guardstations, one at Kefk I nadir, to stop escapees; one at Kefk
 
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
 
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 godssakes 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 focussed, 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.

Three guardstations; a belt full of miners; an outbound ship; a schema of the main station that show forty-six ships in dock, origin indeterminate. Same as Jik's initial snatch of image before beacon shut down.