Kif Strike Back (31 page)

"You ever ask me what I gave them?"

Pyanfar blinked in shock. Shook her head at the thought. "A cracked skull and nothing else," Hilfy said. "I didn't give them anything. And they tried, aunt, that precious kifish friend of yours did try. You take my word, take his. I know he didn't."

"They had him quite a few hours to themselves, Hilfy. With all the pieces to this fractured mess starting to fit in Sikkukkut's brain, with us in port and leaving Sikkukkut a lust few precious hours to try for what he could get out of Tully- along with what he learned from other kif living at Mkks. So you want to be some help here and let Tully for godssakes answer for himself?"

"He's told you. No! He didn't talk! I know him."

"Sure you do," Pyanfar drawled, and the inside of Hilfy's ears went suddenly deep rose; and they folded. Eyes reacted. Everything shouted reaction and shame. It was not what she had meant. Pyanfar felt her own ears go hot; the flinch was unavoidable, the instantaneous glance aside from the matter they had skirted round and skirted round. She covered it with a cough and a wave of her hand. "Look, niece-"

"I know him real well," Hilfy said with cold deliberation. "Maybe you take my word for something, huh, aunt? Maybe you trust I got out of there with my wits about me, huh? And I'm telling you how he was, and how he handled himself, and I'm telling you, he's not a boy and he's not the fool you take him for. Don't talk to him like that."

Pyanfar looked at her. Saw no child, no petulance. "I never said he was a fool. I'm saying you and he may be a little out of your territory-and smart, niece, smart is knowing when you are. If you're not as clever as your enemy, you by the gods hope he's over-confident: you sure as rain falls don't need to make a mistake in that department. That kif's not a dockfront tough; that kif's smart enough to put the han's tail in a vise; and con Jik; and outwit Akkhtimakt down the line; and by all the gods near take over the Compact. You want to tell me he couldn't just ask you questions and watch your reactions? You don't want to remember that time. Fine. You don't want to think. All right. But that cripples you. And if you're number two in wit, you don't need another handicap. We're in it up to our noses. Remember what I said a while ago-what the stakes are right now? We've got a problem, Hilfy Chanur. I need a straight answer out of our friend here. I need to know what that gods-be kif s onto and what he's not; and I need to. know whether humans are going to be here or Meetpoint, which is what Sikkukkut would give a whole lot to learn right now. You think the Compact's a tangled mess of ambitions? I'm betting what drives humanity is the same thing-politics we don't understand. Three Compacts, good gods! I'll tell you something else. It's a good bet Tully doesn't know the answers I'd really want. You think they'd let him know everything and send him off with the mahendo'sat? No. That kind of thing gets known by long-toothed old women in high councils. Politics is politics, at least in the oxy-breathing kinds we can talk to. I don't take anything for granted. I think any thought that needs thinking. Like what deals Goldtooth's made. Or Jik. Or-" She looked at Tully. "-what Sikkukkut and you could have talked about in those few hours when he knew by the gods for certain you speak hani. What about it, Tully? What'd he ask? What'd he say?"

Tully's pupils dilated and contracted and dilated again. He tried to speak and his voice failed him. "He say-say he know my friends die, he tell me-tell me # # # they #. Say I talk to him, what be human deal with mahendo'sat. What deal with you. Lot time ask. He want know route. Same you. He know human come. Not know where. # # #."

"Lost that."

Tully's lips trembled. "Lot time. Lot time. Hurt me. # #. You make deal # this kif?"

"I'm not his friend, Tully." ,

"I know this kif."

"Know him." Pyanfar looked from him to a sudden shift of Hilfy's stance.

"Sikkukkut said-" Hilfy's voice was quiet, subdued. "Said he knew Tully from before."

"On Akkukkak's ship."

Tully nodded. Emphatic. His eyes focussed elsewhere, on something ugly. Came back to them. "He be Akkukkak # # #. Long time he ask me, my friend question."

"Gods. Akkukkak's interrogator. Is that what? Is that where you know him from?"

"He kill my friend," Tully said. "He kill my friend, Py-anfar. With his hands."

"O good gods." She sat down against the counter edge, hands on knees. "Tully-"

"Tully asked me when we got back," Hilfy said, "just how close you're friends with Sikkukkut. Now I know why."

"Gods," Pyanfar said. "I'm not, Tully. I'm trying to save our lives, you understand me? Did you tell him anything, did you give him anything?"

Tully shook his head. It was not the naive look, not the clear blue stare he generally had. It was a different Tully. Tully-inside, calm and cold and thinking. She knew it when she saw it, long as it had been. "I say nothing, don't look at him. I go far away. I wait. I not be. You say you come to get me. So I wait for you."

Pyanfar let go a long, long breath. The silence stayed there a moment. "Politics," she said. "All politics. You understand politics, Tully? Kif aren't anyone's friends. Not mine. Not anyone's. But there's kif and there's worse kif. You know why I'm dealing with him? You understand? Can you understand?"

"Politics," Tully said. Not naive, no. "I know you come take me from kif. That be your politics."

"I'm not any friend of Sikkukkut's. Believe that."

"Bad thing happen. I don't understand. You lot scare. Where we go? What we fight? We got enemy be friend, hani and stssts-"

"Stsho."

"-be enemy. You don't trust Goldtooth, don't trust Jik. Don't trust hani. Don't trust kif."

"Goldtooth and Jik are friends. We just can't trust them much. Not where it crosses mahendo'sat interests."

"Where be hani?"

Pyanfar glanced Hilfy's way, felt Tirun's stare at her side. She slouched against the console. "Good question."

"What I do?" Tully asked. "What I do, Py-anfar?"

"What did you do? What are you going to do? I wish I had an answer for either one. Friend, Tully. That's all I can tell you. Same's Goldtooth's my friend; and yours. Gods know what it counts for. Wish I had an answer for you. Wish you had one for me."

"I fight," he said. "I crewman on The Pride. You want fight #, hani, kif, I don't # to die with #."

"Gods rot that translator. Do you understand me at all? Have we got it fouled up again?"

Anything hani-like? Where was family, clan, House? What was he?

He.

Male. Houseless. Sisterless. Wifeless. Renegade. Nau hauruun.

But not hani. There was no analogy in Tully to that kind of destructive orphan, who killed and stalked at random. Nau hauruun.

Not Tully their friend. Tully no-name. Tully from distant Earth, of the ships and the strangers.

"Captain," Tirun said quietly. "Captain-Ehrran's on. 'fraid they've been on hold a while. They're getting pretty hot."

"Good," Pyanfar said flatly; and went and flung herself into her well-worn chair and powered it about to the boards.

Mind on business, Pyanfar Chanur; Wake up. Smell the wind and watch the branches overhead. "I'll take it.-You got any movement out of Harukk on the Tahar business?"

"Not a thing," Tirun said. "I keep calling; keep getting the same answer. Sikkukkut's still not available. Business, they say."

"Gods-be sfik games. I begin to get the feel of it. And I don't like what's going on. Put that call through again as soon as I finish with Ehrran. Have them tell Sikkukkut I'm personally interested in the Tahar crew. Tell him we've got sfik involved here."

That got a look from Haral, beside her. "Captain. Begging your pardon-"

Haral left it unfinished. It was hani lives at stake, feud with Tahar or no feud. A miscalculation with the kif might touch something off and get the Tahar crew killed outright. Jik might even be working near to success on the matter. All these things she thought of, and thought of again under that worried glance from Haral, and a like one from Tirun past Haral's back. A twitch of many-ringed ears. A deep frown.

"Send it," Pyanfar said. "Be tactful, that's all."

"Tactful," Tirun muttered, and turned to execute the first order.

"You be my friend. You. Hilfy. All. I die with you."

"Gods, thanks," Pyanfar murmured bedazedly. A superstitious chill went down her spine. "Translator again. I hope." Hilfy's ears had flagged. "I sure hope you come up with a better idea."

Perhaps he did not take the humor. His face stayed void of it. Of everything but anxiety.

"Friend," he said.

"You've got duties. Get. Hilfy. Get."

"Aye," Hilfy said. And touched the seat-back. "Tully."

He rose from the chair arm. At the other side Tirun had just turned attention to something from the com-plug in her ear and turned half about again with a flick of the ears and a tilt of the head. Some new difficulty. An incoming call. Pyanfar gave Tully room to get up, laid a hand on his back as; he passed, a slight pat of consolation. "Friend. Go help Hilfy, huh? She wanted you for something.-Uhhhnnn. Tully."

He looked back at her, all unprepared and trying to collect t again.

"Is there anything you know that we don't?"

Flicker.

"Uhhhn," she said again, eyes half-lidded.

"Py-anfar-"

"You think of something, huh, you come to me. You come and tell me. All right?"

The kif had used shocks with him and got nothing. The mahendo'sat used wit; and achieved something. She stared him in the eyes without any mercy at all. And tried for a piece of him.

"Don't trust," he said suddenly, miserably. "Don't trust humanity, Py-anfar." And he fled out the door-walked out, but it was flight, all the same. Hilfy delayed at his back with one anguished look toward her. And turned and went after him.

Pyanfar was unamazed, except by Tully's unequivocal thoroughness. It was doublecross. Goldtooth's. Jik's. Hers. Humanity's. Everyone's but Tully's-who, along with Chanur, had just betrayed his own kind. Gods knew his reasons. What drove him?

Pyanfar turned her chair again and touched the button to bring the long-waiting call through from Rhif Ehrran; listened to Tirun address the Vigilance com officer.

More games of politics and captainly protocols. The com officer insisted on getting response from The Pride's captain before putting her own on.

"I'll take it," Pyanfar said-curiously, pride with Ehrran had just diminished in importance. She failed even to feel a twinge of temper with the Ehrran officer who tried to provoke her and put it on record. "This is Pyanfar Chanur."

Keep Ehrran quiet. Get the essentials done. Tahar was the emergency. Chur was safe. Tully assured her nothing critical had spilled into kif hands. There were things Sikkukkut still needed. And that meant at once a safer and a less predictable kif.

"Vigilance. Com officer speaking. One more moment, captain. I'm afraid the captain's gone off line a moment." Cold arid calculatedly insolent. Games of provocation.

Three human compacts? Fights between them?

One human Compact, Earth, the human home world, trying to counter two rival human powers with new trading routes? Or was it trade they were interested in?

That was a big section of space, if it had room for three starfaring economies . . . correction: two. And one that just wanted to be bigger.

Did Goldtooth know the situation inside human space? Mahendo'sat with their scientists and their mad delving into oddities-always poking and prodding at things, hoping- hoping what? For new species? New alliances?

New situations they could use to deal with their old neighbors the kif?-

Beware of Goldtooth. Thus the stsho, who had double-dealing down to an art.

"Ker Pyanfar, this is Rhif Ehrran. I trust whatever emergency kept you wasn't serious."

"No. It's all handled. No further problem. Unless you have one."

"No. I'm going to relieve you of one. I'm sending a detail over to pick up Tahar."

"Afraid not. I've accepted her appeal for parole. Sorry, Ehrran. She's under a Chanur roof, so to speak. And I'm head of house-out here."

"This isn't Anuurn and we're not in the age of sofhyn and spears, you hear me, Chanur?"

"No. We play with bigger toys nowadays, don't we? You're fond of quoting the law. Me, I like the old laws right fine: like kinright. The kind of law you can't quote by the book, Ehrran."

"Put Tahar on."

"Maybe you ought to concentrate on her crew. They've got a real problem. They might appreciate your intervention. But Dur Tahar's comfortable enough where she is. Is that all you want?"

Click.

"Log that," Pyanfar said. "Put the other call through."

"Aye," Tirun said.

"Good shot," Haral said with a dip of her ears. Meaning Rhif Ehrran and a genteel stroll to the brink.

"Huh," Pyanfar said. "Why couldn't the kif grab her, huh? Do us a favor."

"Make a trade?" Haral suggested brightly.

"Gods, that's a-"