Kif Strike Back (28 page)

"What's Sikkukkut going to do now you're here? Answer me that, huh?"

"He got no grudge on me. I bring him lot sfik. Same you, hani. Same Jik. Same Vigilance. We give that kif so damn much sfik he eat whole Compact."

It made sense. It made an uncomfortable lot of sense.

"So why did you come in?"

The ears flicked. Dark mahen eyes half-lidded. "Maybe I got no more choice. Maybe Jik got whole thing."

A fist closed about her heart. "You're lying to me, Goldtooth. I've had enough of it."

Long silence. "Maybe good thing one smart mahe come stand real close this kif, huh?"

"You're planning to kill him?"

"A. You maybe got idea, hani."

"You think other kif haven't tried?"

"Kif no do. Kif no try. They kif, they want live, Pyanfar. We mahendo'sat, we little crazy, a? I tell you truth, Pyanfar. You talk that kif I die real slow. You know same, a?"

"Gods, I don't want to hear this! Don't make me your coconspirator!"

"Old friend."

"Friend!" She strode over to her dressing table, unlatched the drawer and searched inside it for a small presentation box. Goldtooth had sat up straight; she tossed it and he caught it.

"What this?"

"Expensive present. From Stle sties stlen, your precious friend at Meetpoint. The stsho you told me to trust. A note. Go on. Read it. It's short."

He opened the lid, unfolded the paper and his ears tightened against his skull. "Bastard!"

"Gtst nearly Phased on me. Maybe he had a bad attack of treachery. Don't trust Goldtooth. That piece of advice cost your government plenty. And that stsho bastard's been dealing with Rhif Ehrran and the kif and the tc'a, I don't doubt. And you. And me. And every landless daughter in the Compact's been sniffing round for advantage. That son was real help, oh, yes! So was your stationmaster at Kshshti. Same gods-rotted kind of help as Stle stles stlen. Gods fry you, you sent me across the Compact like a gods-be lightning rod for every piece of doubledealing for forty lightyears round!"

Goldtooth got to his feet. Tossed the case back. Pyanfar caught it, threw it in the drawer, slammed and latched it.

"You got lot reason be upset, Pyanfar. But you got lot smart. You never 'preciate same. You best damn captain Anuurn got. I got lot confidence you. You almost same good like me. Maybe better pilot, a?"

"Oh, no. No you don't. No more favors. Gods rot it, I got no more crew, I got a gods-be zoo! I got a human scan tech, a kif who neglected to present his papers, and they want to feed him little live vermin-"

"You want mahe? Lend you number one fine fellow. Two, three guard."

On my ship? Fine fellow to report every move I make? "No thanks. I got enough on file with Vigilance. Taking on mahen crew would about do it, friend."

"You take. You got need. They take you order. Swear. I give you five."

"No. No way! I can handle it."

"We got lot trouble come. Akkhtimakt-he go Meetpoint."

"Oh, good gods-" It was credible. It was all too credible. The matter spread itself out like a piece of whole cloth. "He's going to sell himself to Stle stles stlen."

"You right."

"Hani are allied with the other side!"

" 'Cept you; 'cept maybe Tahar. Friend."

Oaths failed her. She stood there staring up at Goldtooth; breath hung in her throat and the dark was all about them both. She coughed her throat clear and a shiver gathered in her gut and ran outward. "You," she said finally, "you-"

"You no fool, Pyanfar. You got brain. You, me, Jik-not matter look right; matter what we do. Akkhtimakt got hani, got stsho ally, he make them fool. Where hani guns, a? Two, three ship. Stsho got none. Got proverb, hani-you go bed with some people half hour you got hundred year kid, and he got kids and they got in-laws. Same make deal with kif when you got no gun.

She stood there silent, staring up at this mahe, this somber self Goldtooth never showed on docksides. I kill this kif, he had said. Deal and double-deal. He could do it. Strike at Sikkukkut after the whole fragile structure was built and it would all tumble into chaos again.

More lives and ships. More years of hazard. And knnn with their black legs into it, weaving gods-knew-what about the fringes of the Compact, with humans trying to come and go.

Mahendo'sat. He's fighting for mahen survival. His whole species is in danger.

And where's hani survival?

Not, for sure, with Akkhtimakt.

She drew a deep breath and folded her arms. "So. So you got me listening, mahe. But you'd better know this: that tc'a the knnn snatched wasn't the only thing we lost out of here. A stsho craft bolted Mkks, and it came this way, full sail for Meetpoint."

"Ah, no. Not Meetpoint. Go out Tt'a'va'o vector." A small flash of gilt teeth. "Try maybe take short cut, a? to Llyene?"

"Into the human ships?"

"Xenophobe stsho got big surprise, a?"

"The gods-rotted stsho are cozy with the tc'a, friend."

"Maybe we fix."

"O gods, gods, human lunacy's catching-you're playing tag with the knnn, you rag-eared bastard!"

"That do be problem, true."

She stared into his dark eyes and had another cold moment of doubt. "More secrets? Where are the humans going, friend? Where next? Here? Meetpoint?"

Goldtooth's humor had fallen away like a shed cloak. He gazed at her long and thoughtfully. "Maybe we make deal with knnn. Maybe e-qui-librium. Tape you got, tape I give you at Meetpoint, you say Banny Ayhar take on-one thing in this tape be knnn record; hani, we got hope this thing get to Maing Tol. You courier knnn message."

"Good gods."

"Tully-he be cover for message. He know. And I know you take good care this human. He got paper say he crew of The Pride. You fight save him if you not fight for me."

"You bastard. You son of a-"

"You listen." He held up a hand and with the other reached into his belt-pouch.

"What's that?"

"From Jik. You got fine new comp unit downstair, a? You feed this. Got code sort. You process our private message real good, you get talk to us. Ehrran not got."

"Best present I've had in a while." She took it and tucked the envelope into her pocket.

"Also," Goldtooth said, "my medic get look stats on Chur Anify; we got piece equipment we bring aboard. Number one fine she go through jump. Same like be in hospital, give her all she need."

"Gods rot it, why didn't Jik give us that at Mkks?"

"He not got. This from Mahijiru. We big ship-got zonal command post. Big hospital. Aja Jin, he maybe more fast, Mahijiru got more crew-got need have this thing. Save few lives. Now you got need, a?" He set his hands on her shoulders, hard and heavy. "We settle detail later. I got go, not like be longtime off my ship. Damn lousy place, Kefk. But one thing more I give-" He reached into his belt pouch and took some other small thing from it, took her hand and hooked over her finger an earring, with one great perfect pearl.

"Best I find. I owe you long time for welders, a? Come from Llyene oceans, number one most beau-ti-ful."

"Goldtooth-Ismehanan-min-" But for the second time words failed her, and Goldtooth laid his hand on the door switch, "You fine woman," he said. "Beau-ti-ful thing belong you."

"Where are they going? Gods rot it, what's their route?"

"Always want talk business," he sighed, and opened the door and walked out into the corridor.

"Goldtooth, gods rot you-"

She pursued to the doorway, stopped abruptly as a pair of mahendo'sat came dollying a large polystyrene crate past the door. Goldtooth pressed himself against the wall on the other side of the corridor till it passed, waved his hand cheerfully toward the crate that headed for Chur's room. "There, see, we move quick. I promise. It be done." He gave an engaging grin. "You trust. You trust, Pyanfar."

"Ismehanan-min-"

"Chur do fine now," Goldtooth said definitely, and walked off toward the lift, with a nod of his head gathering up his darkclad crew that hulked along on all sides of him, formidable and irresistible.

She stood alone in the doorway with the pearl clenched in her hand. And felt entirely numb.

XI

"She's not to get out of that bed," the hani medic said. The Ehrran's ears were back, her nose drawn taut about the nostrils as she stood in the corridor prepared to leave. She looked up at Pyanfar the half-hand of difference in their height. "Whatever you imply about my ethics, captain, I did the best for her I could do, and the mahendo'sat have moved in a gods-rotted expensive piece of equipment she'll stay hooked up to during jump. It'll take the load off her heart and kidneys and prevent any more deterioration. With luck-" Geran had showed up in the corridor and stood there with a face like thunder. "With luck she even may build back a little on the trip. Depends on a lot of things. You're lucky this far. So is she. We don't have that kind of resources. We can't buy it." There was bitterness in the woman, a tight jawed hani anger at outsider wealth, and the laws and agreements between mahendo'sat and stsho that forever shut hani out. And that was an old story Pyanfar well understood.

"I appreciate your professional effort," Pyanfar said quietly. And could not forbear adding: "And I do understand you, Ehrran."

"Thanks," Geran said for her part. The word all but: strangled on its way out.

The hani medic nodded curtly and hitched the strap of her carry-sack higher on her shoulder as the mahen medic came out of the room. "She explain?" the mahe asked. "I hook up machine, she stay connect. No take off. You get list procedure. I leave supply in cabinet."

"She explained it. Yes. Thank you. Mashini-to, a?"
  
.

"A." The mane grinned and bowed and swung off down main corridor with the hani slogging along beside, an unlikely pair headed for the lift. Mahen guards peeled them selves out of the corridor in their wake and followed, Goldtooth's remaining intrusion withdrawing itself.

Geran looked drawn and shaken. Silent even yet. Pyanfar put her hand on Geran's shoulder. "Hey, she's going to be all right. Best new-fangled stuff Iji's come out with. Good as hospital. And more good news. I don't think we're pulling out of here real soon, not like we were afraid we might. Day or so, maybe. Maybe more. We know where Akkhtimakt is; I just got word from Goldtooth, and it looks like we're going to have a little chance to breathe. There's more to it than that, but for Chur's sake it's the best news we could come up with on short notice."

Geran said nothing. But her face went defenseless and ordinary as if she had come back to them finally. Pyanfar pressed with her hand and Geran drew a deep breath. "What did Goldtooth have to say?"

"A lot of stuff that takes explaining." Pyanfar looked in on Chur, leaned there in the doorway of a room which had a great lot of machinery sitting over against the wall; and a crowd of visitors: Hilfy and Tully and Khym still lingered "Hey, you," Pyanfar said, "out of there and let Chur rest, will you?" And as the file passed her in the doorway: "Chur, Cousin, you hear me?"

"Uh?" Chur lifted her head from the pillow.

"We just got a present, a little while to rest. We got a message where Akkhtimakt is and we've got time for a little R and R. You don't be getting out of that bed or you walk back to Kshshti."

"Gods-be needles," Chur said. "I hate needles."

"Got more news for you. You get more of them on the way. Get some sleep, huh?"

"Trying," Chur said, and shifted in the bed and settled as far as the tubes and one arm strapped outward let her.

Pyanfar shut the door and looked at the somber gathering in the hall.

"So what is it, captain?" Geran asked.

"Not something I much want to dump on you right now," Pyanfar said. "But I'd better."

"Chur-"

"Not about her. Us. Bridge. Everyone."

The four of them followed her. Tirun and Haral turned their chairs about as they walked in. Pyanfar went to her own seat near Haral and leaned on the back of it while the rest of the crew settled on chair-arms and against cabinets. "Haral, Tirun, you catch that business in the corridor?"

"Aye," Haral said. "Both of us. Good news on Chur. Thank the gods."

"Thank the gods and friends where, we have 'em. Such as they are. We got anything essential running now?"

"No."

"All right." She took Goldtooth's code-strip packet from her pocket and put that down on the counter by her seat, powered her chair about to face the crew and sat down.

"Humans are moving out from Tt'a'va'o. I don't know what route they took; maybe you do, Tully, but the choices from there are real limited. I've talked to Goldtooth. I know a lot of things." She watched Tully's face, saw anxiety-the least little flicker of his strange eyes. "Humans on the move. And that's not the worst of it. Goldtooth's been lurking about Kefk regions keeping the Meetpoint route closed and creating a real difficulty for Akkhtimakt-Jik said sometime back that Goldtooth might be up to something hereabouts. But it turns out they don't check things out with each other real well. It seems Jik took off on his own and made the deal with Sikkukkut. Unauthorized, as it were. Or at least without-consulting. Forced Goldtooth's hand. Tully, I'll try to use small words. Goldtooth had come in from deep space-at least from outside the Compact-with Tully aboard, off Ijir. He left Ijir to go its way-but he had a duplicate of the message packet Ijir carried. He had Tully. And he had gotten something else-some kind of message from the knnn. From the knnn, gods help us. At least that's what Goldtooth hints. Meanwhile Akkhtimakt aimed to take Kita Point, while his agents were busy eliminating all opposition on the kifish home world-setting himself up as hakkikt of all the kif, that's what he was after. And back at that stage, a few months ago, Sikkukkut was no more than a provincial boss from Mirkti- with ambitions. Sikkukkut courted his old mahen connections at Meetpoint, approached Goldtooth trying to outflank Akkhtimakt, probing for every weakness he could get- Meetpoint's always a good place for intrigues. A real good place to pick up rumors. And right around that time rumors were running heavy-like hani deals with the stsho; mahen deals-everybody who was high up enough to get advance warnings was trying to get the best advantage against this new kifish hakkikt. Against Akkhtimakt.