Kif Strike Back (24 page)

"Get!" Pyanfar said.

"Captain," Haral said from her post. "Harukk calling. The hakkikt advises us the guardstations have officially surrendered."

"Thank the gods for that. Acknowledge."

"Aye."

Tirun came back from the galley, carrying a cup of chopped raw meat that reeked of thawing and chill even at arm's length. "Kkkkt," Skkukuk moaned, and averted his face when Tirun offered it.

Pyanfar scowled. "Shut up and eat it, hear me, kif? I haven't got time for your stupid preferences."

"Kkkkt. Kkkkt. Kkkkt."

"Gods fry you."-She took the cup from Tirun's hand and held it under Skkukuk's mouth. "Eat it. I don't care what you don't like. I haven't got time for this."

"Kkkkt." And the jaws clamped together with a swelling of muscle down their long length. The nostrils drew inward. Skkukuk gave a long shiver, and kept his face averted, his eyes shut, his throat spasming.

Pyanfar took the cup back. "He eat anything we gave him before jump?"

"I'm not sure," Tirun said. "A lot of it had dried up."

"Captain," Haral said, "We got a definitive whereabouts on that stsho that went out from Mkks: kited through here this morning and never stopped for hellos."

"Gods rot. Naturally it did. What's happened to Tahar? Any word on Moon Rising?"

"Make inquiry?" Haral said.

"Has anyone else?"

"Negative."

"Gods, Now you'd expect that question out of Vigilance, wouldn't you? No. Don't ask. Just go on listening."

"Maybe we ought to ask the hakkikt advice in kif-feeding," Tirun muttered at her side. "Captain-maybe if we ask the kif to get something-"

Pyanfar turned a flat-eared look on her and Tirun tucked the stinking cup back into her hands and covered it and shut up.

And Hilfy came back from down the hall. With another cup in hand. "He eat anything?"

"No."

Hilfy offered hers. It smelled of blood. It was. Pyanfar drew in her nostrils as Hilfy extended it past her face.

"Where in the gods' good sense did you get this?"

"Med stores," Hilfy said, ears back, jaw set.

There was already a twitch of kifish nostrils. The. head turned, the eyes opened and a desperate tongue investigated the air. Skkukuk lifted his own hands to cup Hilfy's holding the vessel; and the darkish red contents disappeared in an energetic palpitation of the kif's long jaw-muscles.

"Good gods," Tirun said.

"Just selective," Hilfy said. "A real delicate appetite. Freezerstuff's just too far gone for him."

"Get him cleaned up," Pyanfar said. "Feed him again if you have to. But don't by the gods get generous. We need those supplies. And you-"

Reprimand died in her mouth and left a bad taste after. Hilfy was on the edge. She saw it in the look in Hilfy's eyes, the set of her jaw. "Get some rest," she said to Hilfy; and that brought Hilfy's ears down as quickly as a blow to the face would have.

"I'm fit."

"Are you?"

Hilfy said nothing. The ears stayed down. The eyes stayed dark.

Get him off this .ship, off my deck, send him back to Sikkukkut.

Gods, gods, gods, the med supplies. How often do we have to bleed to feed this thing?

"Kkk-t," Skkukuk breathed. Pyanfar looked at the kif, and saw already a focus to the eyes as Tirun made shift to move him out of the chair. "Kkkkt," he said softly, "kkkkt-" -trying to get his booted feet under him. His head came up and the reddened eyes looked at Pyanfar. He knew what he had drunk. After the rest of it, are you, kif?

Tirun got him on his feet. Hilfy took an arm and they led him away, slowly, holding onto him and holding him up at the same time. Ought to bind those jaws when we handle him. There was a patch on her left arm where the fur grew wrong: plastic surgery, once and long ago, in her wilder youth. Wonder if he'd smother--the nostrils run close to the surface.

Gods, get him off my ship, that's all!

And get Hilfy away from him.

"Going to give that bastard to Jik," Pyanfar muttered, settling into her own seat up by Haral's side. And before Haral could venture comment into a family situation: "Go

on. Get yourself cleaned up. I can handle things solo a while. We've got enough gods-be problems. I don't know how long we're going to be in this port. Not long, I'll guess. Hours, maybe. Maybe a day or so. With luck."

"Aye," Haral said, no demur, no comment, and no delay in shunting things to her board and bailing out of her seat. "Anything you need below?"

"Negative. Just hurry at it. Send Hilfy and Tirun to the same when you see them."

"Aye." Haral headed off at all deliberate speed. Throw water and soap on herself, pull on fresh trousers, stagger back to the galley if there was time and get food in her belly.

None of them carried any spare fat nowadays. A gaunt and haunted look hung about all the crew, standing watch and watch without meals or sleep except in snatches, while jump after jump burned them up from inside. There was a physiological penalty for every jump. The kif paid it. They did. She found herself eating from knowledge that she had to, not because food appealed to her, when she should have been ravenous. Only the wobbles signaled need for food: no appetite. Another jump-gods, another jump and we'll begin to feel it for sure. No one can stand this schedule.

Chur-can't. I was a fool to listen to her at Kshshti. She's in serious trouble, thinner and thinner. Bone and hair goes next. Bowel junction. Kidneys. Heart. It's not only kifish fire that can kill us. We can't run now. If anything goes wrong here we can't pull out. Chur needs those hours. Needs days here.

Get a med? Whose?

No. No. Chur's on the mend. The side's healed. The jump took a lot of minerals out of her system. Healing leached everything. Feed her vitamins. Lots of red meat. She'll make it now. She's past the crisis and she's still got reserves.

But I shed a lot. The kif collapsed. Pyanfar tongued a sore spot in her mouth, a tooth that promised soreness after brushing. So we've been running hard. Gods-be kif wilted after one jump. We've been-gods, how many jumps on short rations and short sleep?-and we're still holding on.

We need a hani med, gods rot it. Not mahendo'sat, someone who knows what the margin is. And hani medical personnel are scarce out here. If I ask Vigilance-

In a mahen hell.

But her hand punched through to ship-to-ship while her mind was still arguing the matter. "Vigilance. This is The Pride of Chanur, Pyanfar Chanur speaking. Put me through to your med staff."

(Gods, Chur's going to chew sticks if we call over a Vigilance med. But by the gods, let her. I don't like this. I don't like that look in her.)

"Pride of Chanur, this is Vigilance watch. Captain, we have operations in progress. Our boards are busy. I'll put your request through and call you back."

She read between the lines, a big lazy ship with personnel to spare, crew on rest, backup crew on duty, Rhif Ehrran was offshift along with her high officers to shower and sleep and eat at leisure. And not wanting advertisement of their status.

Telling their ships' internal schedules and habits to the kif did none of them any good.

"All right, Vigilance." She shifted to Jik's channel. "Aja Jin, this is The Pride."

"Aja Jin here, got all personnel busy. This emergency?"

It's Pyanfar Chanur, rot your hide, get me Jik! But that was panic. Jik was in communication with Mahijiru, likely, Aja Jin's crew up to its noses in running codes and communications with Goldtooth as he continued on approach. Aja Jin was trying to keep track of that situation and take the whole operations load off Vigilance because they had no trust for that ship, and off The Pride because The Pride had no crew Available to carry it.

"No," Pyanfar told Aja Jin's com officer. "Put it through when things settle down."

There was a delicate question-how to get in touch with Jik and get Jik to twist Ehrran's ear for that medic without being too evident about it. They had made light of the stack of charges Ehrran accumulated. But they needed no more of them. Nothing to complete the pattern and damn them with the han.

Follow channels. Do it the safe way. Keep to protocols.

There had to be time. Even if that stsho had run for Meetpoint and babbled all gtst knew; even if knnn were stirring about. Goldtooth and Jik acted as if there were time. They laid plans. Goldtooth was still coming in to dock, which meant he expected at least a number of hours before trouble hit, at least personal business here to make the trip worthwhile.

But Chur--

Geran's covering for her, that's what. And Geran's scared. So am I. Gods rot it, I never should have let her come past Kshshti.

But we needed her. We still need her.

Gods, she's not getting better. She's worse.

Com chatter kept up, Kefk adjusting to the reality of its occupation. Methane-sector was settling down at last-only a small portion of Kefk's territory, but a precinct with which kif did not trifle and out of which little coherent information came: the chaos at least seemed less. And there were no more knnn involved.

Geran came back to the bridge. Came and leaned on Pyanfar's chair, and Pyanfar turned it about to face her. "She all right?" Pyanfar asked Geran.

No. Not all right, Pyanfar thought with a sudden chill. Geran's mouth was clamped tight, jaw clenched.

Tongue-tied again. Like in the hall. Like things that touched on resisting Chur. She watched Geran's mouth twist, the strain of her throat, just to get words out. "She couldn't keep it down, captain."

"Listen, cousin, I've already got a call in for a med."

"Aye," Geran said, and to her surprise made no argument. Then with a look more naked and more wretched: "I really think you'd better. Captain, she choked pretty bad trying to eat. She's that weak. She couldn't get her breath."

No words for a moment or so. Mortal equations. Points of no return. Healing in jump cost and cost. And if the wound drew too profoundly on Chur's resources and the jump-stretch went on-

There was another jump beyond this; it might come in a day-or hours; and if things went really wrong here, there might be jump and jump and jump with kif on their track and somewhere, somewhen down that course-having to send I he Pride into jump knowing of a certainty Chur would die in it. That was what they faced.

"All right," Pyanfar said quietly. "All right, we do it. We get that med in here right now. A hani med. Vigilance has got staff. I'll get one. I don't care what it takes."

Another convulsive effort to speak. "Let me. Captain, let me." And quietly, the dam broken: "Begging your pardon- but maybe I can talk to staff, go the quiet route, huh? Kin-right."

Without the arrogance of captains involved, Geran meant.

"Do it," Pyanfar said without rancor. "They've got a com-hold on. You'll have to get past it."

"Aye." Geran took com one post, sat down and went on the com, quietly, urgently.

It was not a thing Pyanfar cared to listen to-Geran pleading Chur's case with an Ehrran crewwoman who wanted to argue channels in the matter of a Chanur life.

I should have done it before now. Begged them. Gods,-I don't care, we've got to get a hurry-up on this. But it was more likely Geran could win it. Doubtless it would come to captains and her having to plead with Ehrran personally before all was done; but something still had to be sacred among hani-like kin-right and the bond between sisters. A ship incoming with family crisis on Anuurn outranked all oilier traffic. A woman homebound in such events could hoard any plane, commandeer any conveyance without stopping for formalities like fares till later. Kin-right could unsnarl red tape, overcome barriers', silence opposition and objections. There was law higher than han law. There had always been. Vigilance had to respect that.

"Captain. They want your request on file."

Pyanfar turned the chair and met an anguished stare with a quiet one before she took the call. "This is Pyanfar Chanur," she said to com.

"Chanur."
 
It was Rhif Ehrran in person. "You want your crewwoman transferred to our facilities?"

"Treated here, if you can do it." Gods, to put Chur in Ehrran hands. "I've got a next-of-kin request, ker Rhif." Humbly. Quietly. With as much of Chanur dignity as she could save. "Geran Anify par Pyruun: she's got the right to go with her sister if she has to be taken off." You'll have an able Chanur loose on your ship if you take them, you eggsucking Ehrran bastard, no luck getting your hands on one of us helpless and undefended-and we'll be two crewwomen down, blast your eyes, and you'll have two hostages and you know it. "I'd take it kindly, captain, if you could get a little speed on this. She's pretty sick."

A long delay. "Dispatch the case records. Such as you have. My medical staff doesn't work on suppositions."

"You know I haven't got a medical staff, Ehrran."

"You expect me to take on the liability without adequate records. I'll want a release from Geran Anify as next of kin and from you as clan senior here before my staff touches her."