Chanur's Homecoming (8 page)

Pride back at Kshshti-gods knew what all it did. While no one who wanted to keep a document in code was going to be fool enough to drop proper names through it or use telltales like /' or -to, or -ma extensions, it had the advantage of that mahen code program it sorted in as a crosscheck. The result was coming out in abbreviated form, truncated, dosed with antique words and code phrases no machine could break, but it was developing sense.

Prime writes haste* not * runner/courier accident* eye/see.

Events bring necessity clarify actions take* prime/audacity....

She added a hani brain's opinion what the choice ought to be in two instances. The computer flicked through another change.

Number one writes hastily {?} Do not hold this courier or risk disclosure. Events compel me to clarify actions which Number One has taken--

"Haral," she said, and felt a shiver all over as she added another suggestion to comp.

. . . since {ghost?} is not holding to agreements support will go {to?} opposition all efforts supporting candidacy-

"We got some stuff here," Tirun muttered. "Jik's talking doublecross of somebody."

"Who's Ghost?" Hilfy said. "Goldtooth?"

"Akkhtimakt?" Tirun wondered in her turn.

"Ehrran?" Geran wondered, which possibility of double-dealing sent a chill down Hilfy's back.

"Maybe some human," Haral said, and the hair bristled all the way down.

O gods, Pyanfar needs to know this.

And may never know it.

If they lay a hand on her; if we blow this place; gods know what we're taking out-if we have to. If they make us do that.

Good gods, we're talking about conspiracy all the way to Maing Tol or wherever-Candidacy, who in creation has a candidacy anyone out here worries about-

-except the hakkikt.

The corridors of Harukk would haunt her dreams-ammonia-smelling and dim, with none of The Pride's smooth pale paneling: conduits were in plain view, and bore bands of knots on their surfaces that, Pyanfar suddenly realized in a random flash, must be the kifish version of color-coding. The codings added alien shadows to the machinery, shadows cast in the ubiquitous and horrid orange of sodium-light and the occasional yellow-green of a coldglow. Tall robed shadows stalked ahead of them and others walked behind, as a door opened and let her and Kesurinan and Skkukuk into the hakkikt's meeting-room.

Sikkukkut waited for them, in a room ringed with black kifish shadows. Two incense-globes on tall poles gave off curls of sickly spicy smoke that curled visibly in front of the sodium-lights mounted to the side of the room, while another light from overhead fell wanly on Sikkukkut's floor-hugging table, himself and his chair, the legs of which arched up about him like the legs of a crouching insect. Sikkukkut sat where the body of the insect would be, robed in black edged with silver that took the orange light, with the light falling on his long, virtually hairless snout and the glitter of his black eyes as he lifted his head.

"Hunter Pyanfar," he said. "Kkkt. Sit. And is it Kesurinan of Aja Jin?'

"Same, hakkikt," Kesurinan said. And did not say: where is my captain? which was doubtless the burning question in her mind.

Pyanfar settled easily into another of the insect chairs and tucked her feet up kif-style as one of the skkukun brought her a cup, one of the ball-shaped, studded cups the kif favored, and another poured parini into it. Kesurinan had hesitated to sit: "You too," Sikkukkut said, and as Kesurinan took another of the chairs, next Pyanfar, he looked in Skkukuk's direction. "Kkkkt. Sokktoktki nakt, skku-Chanuru."

A moment's hesitation. It was courtesy; it was invitation to a kifish slave to sit at table with the hakkikt and his captain. "Huh," Pyanfar said, sensing Skkukuk's crisis; and her flesh shrank at the sudden purposeful grace with which Skkukuk came around that table and assumed the chair beside her-he slithered, on two feet: was, she suddenly recognized those moves, not skulking, not slinking-but moving with that fluidity very dangerous kif could use; very powerful kif; kif whose moves she instinctively kept an eye to when she saw them dockside and met them in bars. This was a fighter, among a species who were born fighting. And all hers, for the moment.

She sipped her parini. Sikkukkut sipped whatever he was drinking while a skku served the others in turn.

"Tahar," Sikkukkut said, "is on her way in. And your ship is live, hunter Pyanfar. Have you noticed this?"

"I've noticed," she said, and kept all her moves easy.

Sikkukkut's long tongue exited the v-form gap of his teeth and extended into the cup, withdrew again. "So have I. Your crew claims they're following orders. Is this so?"

"Yes."

"Kkkt." Silence a moment. "While you are on the dock."

"I hope," Pyanfar said ever so softly, "that nothing's been launched toward my ship-bearing in mind there might be agencies still on the station that would like to damage the hakkikt's ally. I hope the hakkikt will protect us against a thing like that."

Deathly stillness. At last the hakkikt lapped at his cup again and blinked with, for a kif, bland good humor. "You have been foolish, hunter Pyanfar. There's far too much opportunity for error. And you have delivered far too much power into the hands of subordinates. We will talk about this."

Another weighty silence, in which perhaps she was expected to reply. She simply sat still, having achieved a position in which she could sit and stare thoughtfully at the hakkikt.

Eggsucking bastard, she thought. Where's Jik, you earless assassin?

She tried not to think of what kind of demonstration Sikkukkut was capable.

"We will have a discussion on the matter," Sikkukkut said; and there was the subtle, soft whisper of arrival in the outer corridor. "Is that Tahar? Yes. Alone except for my escort. I wonder at this new tactic."

Tahar hesitated in the doorway, then ventured close-a quiet step, a quiet settling into place when the hakkikt gestured her to sit at the table: a rippled-maned, bronze-pelted southern hani with a black scar across her mouth that gave her a grim and raffish look.

"So all the ships in your hand," Sikkukkut said, looking at Pyanfar, "are in mine."

"/ am in your hand," Pyanfar said, with as steady a voice as ever she faced down a dockside official bent on penalties. But never suggest I don't control those ships, no, not to a kif. Status, Pyanfar Chanur. Status is all there is with him. "It's a complex situation, hakkikt. Hani minds are not, after all, kifish. But that's my value to you.''

"Godsawful gibberish," Haral said from her station. The printout was ten pages long, and full of code words that only Jik and his Personage might know. Hilfy Chanur stared at the same set of papers and flipped this way and that, trying to get some idea what they applied to.

-Ghost is proceeding on the course suggested in her previous report.

Pieces and bits of information depending on other information.

-reports from inconvenience/Inconvenience? are negative.

"I think Inconvenience is another codename," Hilfy said.

"We knew," said Tirun, from the end of the consoles, "that that son was in connivance up to his nose."

"Who are we?" Haral wondered. "Could we be that Ghost?"

"Inconvenience," Hilfy suggested. "If-"

"Priority," Geran exclaimed, atop a sound from Tully. "Priority, engine live, coming over station rim vicinity berth 23-"

Harukk's neighborhood. Kif ship.

"I am glad to know your value to me," said Sikkukkut carefully. "It's always helpful to have those things explained." His fingers moved delicately over the projections on the cup he held, restless, sensual movement. "I have held such a discussion with my friend Keia. He has tried to explain. I'm not sure with what success."

"He's very valuable," Pyanfar said, her heart thudding the harder against her ribs. Careful, careful, don't tie the crew and all we've got to him. "He's a force we'd miss. Against Meetpoint."

"You assume Meetpoint."

"Hakkikt, I've expected the order hourly."

"Is that why your ship's engines are live?"

She grinned, honest hani grin, a gentle pursing of the mouth. "I'm quite ready to go."

"Kkkt. Skku of mine."

"Congruent interests."

And do your subordinates share your enthusiasm?"

"They'll follow."

"They've followed you here. Meetpoint might be far more dangerous."

"They're well aware of that."

"What is their motive, do you suppose?"

"Self-interest. Survival."

"They think then that your guidance will advance them."

"Evidently they think that. They're here."

"You see outside my ship the results of miscalculation."

"I noticed, hakkikt."

"You still consider Keia Nomesteturjai a friend, hunter Pyanfar."

"Hakkikt, when you use that word it makes me nervous. I'm not certain we understand each other."

"When you say subordinate I suffer similar apprehensions. What is that ship of yours doing?"

"Following my orders."

"Which are?"

"Are we to Iater? I'm willing to discuss it if we are." In the hakkikt's stony silence she sipped at the cup. "On the other hand, we were talking about Meetpoint. That is where we're going."

"Do be very careful, hunter Pyanfar."

She lowered her ears and pricked them up again. But a kif might not read that hani apology; and galling as retreat was: "I retract the question then."

"Nankt." The kif waved a hand; a door opened and someone moved; it was a name he had called. It sounded like one. The hand flourished and took up the cup again from the table. "Well that you learn caution, hunter Pyanfar."

"It's holding stationary," Geran said, and Hilfy watched the development on her own number two monitor, where the limited sweep of their scan picked up a ship which had risen to station zenith, hanging where it had a free shot at everything.

"That's Ikkhoitr," Haral said. "One of the hakkikt's oldest pets."

"If they're not talking," said Tirun, "and they're not moving, that means they're at the limit of their orders."

"Move and countermove," Haral said.

Hilfy flexed her claws out and in again with an effort at control. Her stomach hurt. She felt a shiver coming on at the thought of that button near Haral's hand. You going to tell us before you push it? Or just surprise us all, cousin?

With a mental effort she shifted her eyes back to the translation problem and got herself busy, leaving the ship over their heads to Haral's discretion.

From Khym and Tully, not a word; silence; Chur had not cut in her monitor: Geran had gone back to Chur's room briefly when it all started, and pushed a button on the machinery, ordering sedative, putting her sister out cold before it got to the noise of locks opening and the ship powering up. Or other things Chur might want to listen in on; and learn too much of situations that she could do nothing about. Geran quietly put her sister out, turned her back and walked back to the bridge to do her job, which she sat doing, businesslike and without a shake or a wobble in her voice or a trace of worry on her face.

Gods-be coward, Hilfy Chanur, do your own job and quit thinking about it.

It was Jik they brought into the hall-Jik, a dark, dazed figure between two kif who held him by either arm: who had to go on holding him on his feet after they brought him to the table. Jik lifted his head as if that took all his strength. Pyanfar's stomach turned over; her ears twitched against her determination not to let them flatten, and then she let them down anyway: any hani smelling that much drug-laden sweat and pain would wrinkle up the nose and lay the ears down, even if it was not a friend held there in such condition before her eyes.

"Keia," said Sikkukkut. "Your friends have come to see you."

"Damn dumb," Jik said thickly; and Kesurinan climbed slowly to her feet, stood there with her hands at her sides, a bolstered pistol brushing one of them. Kesurinan had the cold good sense to go no farther than that. Tahar tensed in her seat, but she made no further move either, and Pyanfar nodded in Jik's direction.

"You don't look too good."

"Lot drug," Jik said, head wobbling. "You damn fool. Go ship. Private, huh?"

"It is the drug," said Sikkukkut. "I forgive his discourtesies. Do you want to cede him your place in our council, Kesurinan? Or not, as you please."

Do you repudiate your captain? Do you want his post?

Perhaps Kesurinan had no idea what was being asked. She moved and took Jik's arm from the kif who held it, flung her arm about him and gently eased him down onto the chair.

"Kkkt. Mahen behaviors." Sikkukkut lapped at his drink while Jik leaned on one of the upraised insect-legs of the chair his first officer had yielded him and stared through a pair of them at Pyanfar.

"H'lo," he said. "Damn mess."

"Godsrotted mess for sure. What've you been telling the hakkikt, huh? You going to go with us to Meetpoint?"

"I dunno," he said. He shut his eyes as if he had gone away a moment and opened them again. They shone dark and desperate in the orange light, spilling water onto his black skin and black fur. His nostrils widened and sucked in air. "Go ship, Pyanfar."

"You see," said Sikkukkut, "we are moving at some deliberate speed. Kesurinan, Tahar, I tell you what I have told my other captains: follow your orders. You came here, which is very well. Now you will go to another room; and you will stay there. Until I release you. Tell them they will do this, hunter Pyanfar; and dismiss this skku of your own ship.''

"Do it," Pyanfar said. It was protocols. Or a demonstration of power. There was no choice, not even with all of them armed. She looked at Tahar as the scar-nosed pirate got upkand stared back at her with that expressionless calm that had carried her through two years of close dealing with kif. Skkukuk got to his feet on the same order.

And:

"You go," Jik murmured on his own, speaking to Kesurinan.

"A," Kesurinan agreed.

"Kkkt," Sikkukkut said, not missing that little distinction, it seemed, of control in that exchange. He waved his hand: kif cleared a way and one of the ranking skkukun motioned to Tahar and to Kesurinan and Skkukuk. There was, Pyanfar noted with some relief, no question about the weapons they wore, and Skkukuk had not signaled any warning. If he had not changed sides altogether when he sat down at that table.