Kif Strike Back (39 page)

"After. Does it suggest something to you?"

"It might still have been on our business." The sweat stung in her wounds. Across the chamber, against the wall, Canfy Tahar slowly slumped to the deck, not fainting, but at her limit. Tav knelt by her; and kifish guns angled toward them. They still had their own weapons: kifish etiquette. But theirs were not out of holsters; and the kif s were.

And the gun never left Jik's temple. He sipped carefully at his drink and ignored it. But that was calculated and dangerous too.

"I doubt it was," Sikkukkut said. "If they are not acquaintances, who sleep in one bed, they will be by morning. Is that not a hani proverb?"

She blinked. "A hundred year child. That's a mahen proverb. Longtime trouble from a single act. Goldtooth's either making a serious mistake, hakkikt, or he's still acting in your interest. He'll be at Meetpoint. Where he's useful. And it's not his style to consult with his partners."

"What of that, Keia?"

"I like that smoke now, hakkikt."

"Answer."

Jik's eyes came slowly to Sikkukkut's. "She right. I think maybe Ana got idea put self where make lot trouble."

Sikkukkut's long nose drew down somewhat. It was not a pleasant expression. He folded his long fingers beneath his outthrust jaw. "Kkkkt. Shall I observe, Keia, that your position is uncomfortable? That I presently have ships proceeding toward jump, to warn my enemies. That this whole diversion on the docks-diversion, Keia!-was perhaps created to give those two ships time to get away."

"They be kif who fight, hakkikt."

"They are worms who lacked initiative until someone moved! Don't tell me kifish motives! Don't play the innocent with me, mahe, or you will find me other than civil!"

Pyanfar flexed claws and tried to think past the pounding of her heart. Hunter-vision tried to take over. She forced the black edges back. "She was in port with him."

"Him," Sikkukkut said sharply. The kif turned his attention in her direction, went off one hunter-fix and onto her. "Who?"

"Goldtooth was at Meetpoint at the same time as Rhif Ehrran; same time as you, hakkikt. I'm wondering who was talking to whom back then. You talked to Goldtooth. He intimated that much. But who met with the stsho? And who met with whom in stsho offices?"

"No," Sikkukkut said, as if he had turned a thing over in his mouth and decided to eject it, delicately, his eyes burning and full of estimations. "No. I don't credit the stsho with that much nerve."

"Then," said Pyanfar, "the stsho at least thought they were on the inside of this business. They thought they were ahead of the hunt. Or leading the hunters where they liked."

"Suppositions are a shaky bridge, ker Pyanfar. Particularly when the waters are deep. You wish to distract me. You see-I know friendship. I put it with martyrdom-in the category of terms useful to know. Friendship-is also subject to rearrangement of loyalties. At the most disadvantageous moments. Believe me that I understand the exigencies of allegiance-trading and advantage. Let's operate within them. Shall we? Let's consider what prompted this attempt on my life . . . since that's surely what it was. Let's consider how it incidentally created the timing for escape-Vigilance uses its guns as it parts our company and breaches an entire dock to hard vacuum, a dock conveniently free of mahen or hani casualties. Not of kif. But remarkably your crew and the crews of Mahijiru, Aja Jin-Keia; and of course Vigilance- were not on that dock when it decompressed."

"We weren't in a favorable situation ourselves, hakkikt!"

"Be still, ker Pyanfar, and let my old friend Keia do this explaining. Let him tell me how Aja Jin was so fortunate in its timing. Do you want your smoke, Keia?-Take it. Perhaps it will facilitate your thinking."

"A." Jik reached again into the pouch, kept his movements measured: I am not in a hurry, they said. You do not force me.

And that sudden patience on Sikkukkut's part raised the hair on Pyanfar's nape. Stalk and circle. Take it. Have what you want at my hand. When I choose. If I choose. Your addiction is your vulnerability and I control it, I demonstrate it to these others and you must bear with that.

And soon with other things.

See, hunter Pyanfar, how easy and how perilous the fall from my favor.

Friendship and kinship is your addiction. I can twist that knife too.

Godssakes-as Hilfy let go a long, careful breath-sit still, niece.

The smoke rose, gray wisp against the orange sodium-glow; and swirled above Jik's head, taken by the ventilation. "I tell you," Jik said easily, and gods, there was only the faintest fear-smell: he was that steady. The strong smoke subdued other olfactory cues, deliberate stratagem, perhaps. "I tell you, I not happy. Ana be old friend. But politic make different. We be mahendo'sat, hakkikt. I know what he do. He hedge bet." He made a gesture with the smokestick and put the lighter away. "He call me fool. Maybe I be. We not trust Ehrran either one. I know damn sure when Ehrran crew make fast withdraw from dock we got trouble. Mahijiru already got close up tight hatch. I send all crew aboard, tell get hell off dock, try get damn fool hani-" He gestured Pyanfar's direction, and over his shoulder at the others. "They going find captain. Damn sure I got no way stop. Damn good idea anyhow. Pyanfar be val-u-able ally. Maybe do favor to hakkikt, a? Rescue Pyanfar." Another large drag at the smoke.

It leaked slowly from his nostrils. "I not like whole ship company go out from The Pride-but they go quick get off dock. This number one good idea. I don't trust Ehrran. I run like hell, try catch these hani. No good. We get pin down. We got no hakkikt permission be on dock, a? Every damn fool out there want shoot us. Hani go through. We stuck. So got one job then-hold way open for hani, back to ship. We do. We hope Ana take care Ehrran. I think he do. He follow her. I still got hope he got good idea. Maybe help. He not like tell what he do. This maybe make friend lot nervous. Make me damn nervous now, a? I be like you, hakkikt. I always like know what my friend do."

"Your friend has left you in a precarious position. Or you've elected to stay and lie to me."

"A. No lie. Got know truth to make lie. I not know. He not talk to me."

"Meaning nothing can extract this truth from you."

"Not got. What want? I say give you Kefk. I give."

"Kefk is in ruins, Keia. It seems a dubious gift."

"You got lot sfik. You step on Kefk, go 'way, take lot more prize, a? Akkhtimakt no got. You be rich, you fix, easy."

"Ah. But you still suppose Ismehanan-min is going to support us at Meetpoint."

"He no like Akkhtimakt."

"I take that for granted. You yourself serve your Personage and not me. As he does. Doesn't this mean some agreement of action?"

Jik drew another large breath of smoke and sought a place for the ash afterward. There was none. He tapped it and let it fall to the floor. "I serve Personage. I tell you plain I got reason want see you be hakkikt. I think this be good for all. So I serve Personage. Serve you. Balance, hakkikt. You be Personage we recognize. You got lot sfik with mahendo'sat. These be crazy times. Better kif got good smart Personage, a?"

"Flattery, base flattery, Keia. Diversion again. I tell you I am not persuaded it was kif who began that fight on the docks. And this-"

-in a blink Sikkukkut's arm shot out, and guards pounced on Skkukuk, hauling him upright.

"Kkkt!" Skkukuk's protest was throat-deep and anguished.

"He's mine," Pyanfar said tautly. Never back up, never back down, never let a kif get away with any property. "A present from you, hakkikt."

Dangerous. O gods, dangerous. So was flinching when that long-jawed face turned her way.

"It remains yours," Sikkukkut said.

"It gained a little sfik," said Pyanfar. "In our service out there. I'd like to keep it."

"Kothogot ktktak tkto fik nak fakakkt?"

The question went to Skkukuk; and Skkukuk drew his head back as if he wanted to be far from Sikkukkut's sight.

"Nak gothtak hani, hakkikta."

"Nakt soghot puk mahendo'satkun?"

"Hukkta. Hukktaki soghotk. Hani gothok nak uman Taharkta makkt oktktaikki, hakkikta."

-No. Desperately. I saw no collusion. The hani argued over possession of the human and Tahar and left, hakkikt.

A wave of Sikkukkut's hand. The guards let Skkukuk go and he collapsed back into a head-down chittering heap beside the table.

"So he attests your behavior," Sikkukkut said. "Your sfik still powerfully attracts his service. I wonder is it hope of you or dread of me so impels him."

"He's useful."

"And as we speak, Vigilance and Ismehanan-min hasten, to betray us at Meetpoint. What attraction can they find there, I wonder, that impels Ismehanan-min to abandon Keia here to my pleasure-Do I not correctly recall a mahen proverb, Keia my friend, that green leaves fall in storms and the strongest friendships in politics?"

"Long time friend, Ana Ismehanan-min."

"But he would let you die."

"Like you say, politic. Also-" Jik pinched out the smoke and dropped the butt into his pouch. "Also Ana lot mad with me." Jik's eyes came up, liquid and vulnerable and without the least doubt. "He know I work with tc'a. Fool, he say; Jik, you be damn fool involve methane-folk. Ana, I say, I not much worry, I long time talk tc'a. Got lot tc'a know me, long time. I want tc'a come here to Kefk-fine. Dangerous, maybe. I think now maybe knnn got interest. Maybe good, maybe bad-"

O, deft, Jik. The methane-breather connection. That's one thing Sikkukkut has to be afraid of. For godssakes don't overdo it.

Jik shrugged. "So, Ana be lot upset. Lot knnn interest this human thing. Lot interest."

Profound silence. Pyanfar found herself holding her breath and daring not get rid of it. She kept the ears still; and even that betrayed the tension every posture in the room already betrayed, kif and hani alike. Tully's eyes darted to Jik, to her, to the kif, the solitary, sapphire-glittering motion in a gray and black world.

"Yes," Sikkukkut said. "There would be interest on their part. And it has also occurred to me that we have a source of information here among us. At this table. Tully-you do understand me, Tully."

O gods-She saw Hilfy's minute flinching; the tension of muscles in her, in Tully, in Haral-Look this way, Tully-

"I understand," Tully said at his clearest, looking straight at Sikkukkut with never a look or a pause for advice. "I not know, hakkikt. I not know route. I not know time. I know humans come quick."

A long moment Sikkukkut gazed at him as she glanced between them. A visible shiver began in Tully's arms, his hands upon his knees. "You and I have met before on this matter," Sikkukkut said. "But how fluent you've become."

"I be crewman, hakkikt, on The Pride. I belong captain Pyanfar. She say talk, I talk."

Gods help us, be careful, Tully.

"Where will they likely come?"

Now Tully looked her way, one calmly desperate look.

"Do you know?" Pyanfar asked, pretense, not-pretense. He continually baffled her. "Tully, gods rot it, talk."

He looked back toward Sikkukkut. "I not know. I think humanity come Meetpoint. I think Goldtooth know."

"Kkkkt. Yes. I think so too. So does Akkhtimakt, who stripped that knowledge from your shipmates. Who has what that courier carried, information that-doubtless-has sped to points in mahen space. Truth, finally, arrives from the least likely source. You amuse me-Tully. You endlessly amuse me. What shall I do with Keia?"

"Friend," Tully said quietly, evenly. His best word. Almost his first word. His fall-back word when he was lost.

"But whose?"

There was silence. Long silence.

"I think that Keia will be my guest a while. Go back to your ships. I shall release your crew, Keia-in time. I wouldn't impair your ship's operation. And I'm sure your first officer is quite competent."

Jik reached for another smokestick. No one interfered. He slid a look Pyanfar's way. Go.

"Right," Pyanfar said in a low voice. "I take it we're dismissed, hakkikt?"

"Take all I have given you. You'll board by lighter. The dock access is not useable."

"Understood." She rose from the insect-chair, in the murk and the orange glare; and signed to her crew and to Tahar. Jik sat there lighting his second smoke and looking as if that were the most ordinary of companies to be left in.

O gods, Jik. What else can I do?

"The hakkikt promised all," Pyanfar said to the guard, her ears flattened and her nose rumpled. "I want the wounded hani. Savuun. Haury Savuun. You'll know where she is. You'll bring her."

It pushed-about as far as they could push. "Yes," the kif in charge said, stiff-all over stiff. The hostility was palpable. Not hate. There was no hate in question. It was assessment-what the foreigners' credit was with the hakkikt. When to kill. When to advance and when retreat in the hakkikt's name. A kif did not make two mistakes.

Yes. It turned and gave orders to that effect.

It was a silent trip after that-down through Harukk's gut to the hangar-bay; and no relief at all until they had gotten down near the large boarding-room, and Haury arrived on the other lift-dazed, wobbling on her feet as they brought her out, but limping along with kifish help. From Haury a lift of the head, a momentary prick of the ears and widening of hazed eyes that betrayed confusion, then a taciturn expression, a wandering sweep of the eye that took in friends and guards and the boarding-lock. Gods knew what she had expected being brought down the lift. But only the tautness about her jaw still betrayed emotion-a hani long-accustomed to kif, grim and quiet. Eternally playing the game that kept a kif alive.