Chanur's Homecoming (23 page)

The whites showed at the corners of his eyes. Ears were still back, the hands still clenched.

"Why you here?"

"Because," she said, "two freighters and a hunter can't stop it. Because there's a chance I can turn Sikkukkut to do what I can't. Now you tell me about timetables. You tell me about it, Jik, and you tell me all of it, your ship caps included!"

He sat silent a moment. "You got trust."

"Trust. In a mahen hell, Jik. Tell me the truth. I'm out of trust."

"I got interests I protect."

"No." She walked closer, held up a forefinger and kept the claw sheathed with greatest restraint. ' "This time you trust me. This time you give me everything you've got. You tell me. Everything."

"Pyanfar. Kif going to take you 'board Harukk. They try question me, I don't talk. My gover'ment, they make fix-" He tapped the side of his head. "I can't talk. Can't be force'. You whole 'nother deal. They shred you fast. Know ever'thing. They know you got me 'board, a? Know you got chance make me talk. Maybe they give me to you for same reason- they can't, maybe Pyanfar can do, a? Maybe block don't work when you ask, I tell you ever'thing like damn fool."

"Can you tell me? Can what they did to you, can what your Personage did to you-make you lie to me, even when you don't want to?"

A visible shiver came over him. Hands jerked. "I ask not do."

"Jik-you got to trust me. However they messed you up. Jik, if it kills you, I got to ask. What timetable?"

The tremor went through all his limbs. He hugged his arms against himself as if the room had gone freezing. And stared her in the eyes. "Fourteen," he said past chattering teeth. "Eighteen. Twenty. Twenty-four-First. Seventh." Another spasm. "This month. Next. Next. We g-got maneuver-make jump coordinate with same."

"You mean your moves are aimed at certain points at certain dates?"

"Where got th-threat. Don't fight. Move back. Make 'nother jump-point on focus date."

"So that somewhere, tracking the kif, your hunters are going to coincide and home in on them."

"Co-in-cide. A." He made a gesture with shaking hands. "More complicate', Pyanfar. We push. We pull. We make kif fight kif. We make kif go toward Urtur, toward Kita."

"Toward Anuurn!"

"Got-got help go there. Back side. We not betray you, Pyanfar!"

Her legs went weak. She sank down where she was, on her haunches, looking up at a shaken mahendo'sat on the edge of the bed. "You swear that."

"God witness. Truth, Pyanfar. You got help." The hands clenched again. "Ana-me Aja Jin. He got chance. Got chance, damn! and he run out from this place, leave us in damn mess! Got 'nother plan. He got 'nother plan, got way push kif on kif, damn conservative."

"Or he suspects deep down his human allies aren't to be trusted. What if he knows that? What would he do?"

"He be damn worried. Same got worry with tc'a." Another convulsive shiver. Jik wiped his face, where it glistened with sweat. "He maybe listen to me too much. Take my advice. I come into his section of space. He damn surprise' see me at Kefk. I tell him-I tell him we got save this kif, make number one. True. He be confuse', he pull out." He slammed his hand onto the bed beside him. "I don't send code. You understand. I not on Aja Jin, I don't send code, he don't attack!"

"Kesurinan doesn't know all this."

"I not dead. She got file to read if I be dead, but I be on friendly ship, a? She take you instruction, she think I be on bridge-She not know. She don't send the damn code and Ana don't move on this kif!"

There was sickness at her stomach all over again. She stared up at him. And have you told me the truth even yet, old friend, my true friend? Or have you only found a lie that' II keep me moving in the direction you want? Or are you giving me the only truth you've been brainwashed into believing? Would they do that to you, your own people?

Would they stick at that, when they got into your mind to do other things?

Gods save us, I almost trust the kif more.

"The kif would have blown us, Jik, before we could help anybody. We could've lost it all. I don't think it would've worked. We still got a chance, don't we? Where's our next .rendezvous point? When?"
   

"Kita. Eighteenth next month."

"Can't make it. Give me the next we could reach. Or is it here?
 
Is Goldtooth just waiting a signal?"

"Two month. Twenty-fourth. Urtur. You got. Maybe be there. Maybe not. We got now six, seven ship go out from here."

And a single incoming ship at extremely high V had a killing advantage. If it turned out to have position as well, its high velocity fire could rip slower ships to ribbons'.

"When's Goldtooth come back?"

"I not say he come back. Don't know what he do. Not get damn signal!"

"Gods-be lie, Jik, you got to coordinate this somehow. You know what he's going to do. My information says he can short-jump and turn. That maybe all those ships can. Is it here, Jik? Is Meetpoint the place we have to be? Was that message he didn't get from Kesurinan-aimed to catch him a few days, a few hours out from this system, was that it?"

Terror. Never before in Jik. Raw fear.

"Scared I'll tell the hakkikt? Scared I guess too much?" She was sitting vulnerable and too close. She stood up and looked down at him, mindful of the gun in her pocket. "Scared they'll get it out of me?"

"You damn fool."

"I want your help. You want mine. You want to figure your chances without the hani? If it was you and nothing else, alone with the kif, with three human governments all doublecrossing each other, and the tc'a and the chi, gods help us, running lunatic? You refigure it, Jik, hear? You got some authority of your own. You got authority to take up a Situation and settle it, I got that figured. And I'm giving you a Situation. I'm giving you the fact we got this bastard going to take my species out, going to kill all of us, which loses you an ally, which loses you a major market, doesn't it, which loses you friends, about the time you need 'em most, you and your Personage. Humans aren't half your trouble. / am. The han is. And you don't give me orders. / got the influence, / got the thing in hand, and all of a sudden I'm dealing with a threat to my planet, Jik, which means I'll do any gods-be thing I got to and I'm not kiting off in any gods-be direction you want. I got one direction. And you got no choice but my choice, because I'll shoot you down before I let you do something that'll stop me. I love you like kin and I'll shoot you with my own hand, you hear me, mahe? Or you help me and give me the truth at all the right spots and maybe you still got an ally left."

Muscles were still clenched. Hard. He took a long time. "Got," he said finally. "You open door, a?"

"No deal. Not your terms, you hear?"

He stood up, gave the kilt a hitch, and stared down at her. Made a sudden move of his hand, a strike. She skipped back, ears flat.

"First thing," he said, "you got learn not trust ever' bastard got deal. You damn fine trader. But kif not be merchant.''

"Neither are you. I'm proposing something else. I'm telling you you're not going to break my neck because you got more sense."

"You got right," he said, and sniffed and drew a large breath. The fine wrinkles round his eyes drew and relaxed and drew again in an expression very like Tully's. "Love you like kin. Same. Got tell you you going to bleed." He touched his heart. "Same you win, same you lose. You number one fine woman. Got lot haoti-ma. Lot. I make deal, honest. You get me smoke, I give you whole timetable."

"You gods-be lunatic."

"Sikkukkut not only source. You got whole station. You got ask Aja Jin. Same bring."

"Drug's scrambled your brains."

A little light danced in his eyes. "You want me stay 'board, you got find me smoke. I be number one fine pilot. Same better when I got relax. You maybe need. You, Haral, you number one too. Not too many."

"What are you talking about?"

"Same you." He gave another hitch at the kilt. He had lost weight. "You got deal." More wrinkles round the eyes, a grimace. "My Personage damn me to hell. Same be old territory for me. You want me, you got. Long as Sikkukkut not got us all. You got trade sharp, hani. Number one sharp. This be hard deal. Maybe he take me. Maybe take you: you got no knowledge. You want plan you got get me back. Safe."

"He hasn't asked for you."

"He do. You wait, see. Know this kif."

"How's your nerves?"

"You not forget get smoke, a? Same time you get me out."

"Captain," Hilfy said over com. "Harukk's coming in right now. They're insisting to pick up all the captains. With appropriate escorts. They want Jik and Tully too."

Jik lifted his brows. "See?"

"Gods rot that kif." But she thought: He could strip every ship here of its senior command. Couldn't he? Me. Dur Tahar. That'd leave Haral Araun, but he doesn't know her that well.

/ need an escort. Not Haral. Gods, I can't take Haral off this ship.

Not one of my crew. Just my translator.

"Hilfy. Tell Skkukuk he's going with us. No other but the ones they asked for. Send my gear down here. Send an AP for Jik too. We got a point to prove."

Gods send the rest of the captains have got some sense.

Gods send they understand old epics.

"Aye," Hilfy said after a second. "Captain. Tahar's here. We got others coming. Haral asks: let 'em through?"

Not happy. No. Sikkukkut's not going to like this.

And, no, niece, I'm not crazy.

I just got no choice.

The lift worked. That was Tully coming down. Or the kif. She walked along the corridor with Jik for company, spotted Tirun coming the other way about the time the lock cycled with its characteristic whine and thump and let someone into the ship.

That and a cold lot of air with the smell of Meetpoint about it. Nostalgia hit, and left an ache after it. Old times and rotten ones, but that smell was familiar in a mundane way that made the present only worse by comparison.

Tully and Skkukuk arrived together, Skkukuk a-clatter with weapons, his own and what he had gathered on Kefk dock: maybe, she reflected dourly, it was sentiment.

Tully had her gun slung over his shoulder, and an AP at his hip: that took no claws to operate-shove in the shells and pull the trigger. He was steady and able to use it. He had proved that at Kefk.

And from the airlock corridor, Dur Tahar arrived with Soje Kesurinan.

Pyanfar drew in a large breath.

So how stop her? If hani were going to hold a meeting under the hakkikt's nose, what stopped Kesurinan from joining it?

And what stopped Jik now from joining her?

"We got a problem here," she muttered. "Jik, don't you do it."

"Lo," he said, "Soje. Shoshe-mi."

"Shoshe," Kesurinan said. And something else, in dialect.

While other figures came down the white corridor, several hani-bright and equipped with weapons. And one dark and tall-as a foreign kif walked right into The Pride's lowerdecks.

Countermove.

Do what, Pyanfar? Throw it out? This is a friendly conference we're going to, that's likely Ikkhoitr crew, and that bastard's one of Sikkukkut's own special pets.

Her heart set to beating doubletime. Fool. Twice a fool. Do what? Do what now?

"Gods be," Hilfy muttered, "we got Kesurinan and a kif past that lock. Gods rot! Haral-"

"I'm on it, I'm on it." Haral's voice rumbled with vexation. They were observing from the bridge. It was all they could do.

"I'll go down there," Khym said, a deeper, more ominous rumble.

"Easy, easy, stay put, the captain's handling this. Let's don't make it worse."

And from the com: "Pride of Chanur, this is Vrossaru's Outbounder, our captain should be arriving at your lock. Please confirm."

"Affirm that, Outbounder. No difficulties." With more confidence than she felt.

"I've got the lift under bridge control," Haral said. "We're sealed up here. They're not going to try anything on us, I don't think."

"Faha's going to be gnawing sticks with Tahar in reach," Hilfy said.

"At least they're not siding with Ehrran," Geran said.

"Spacers," Haral said. "You want to bet young black-breeches stopped to consult these crews before she kited on out of here? They've had their backsides to the fire here, and it's sure she didn't help their case."

It made sense. That the hani insystem had not fled meant that they had not had the chance; there was, gods knew, no profit in this crisis for a trader.

Now the resident hani had a further insanity to contemplate: kif in control of the station; and with those kif a mahen hunter-ship, and with them, Tahar and Chanur, who were blood enemies to each other.

But if these ships had been stuck at Meetpoint through all the troubles, they must be used to lunacies.

"Pride of Chanur," com said, "this is Faha's Starwind. Request explanation at your leisure. Standby signal for tight-beam."

Cagy old spacer, playing it very careful. Lifetime of experience with the kif. And taking a bigger risk than she knew.

"Starwind, this is The Pride, stand by your query." The board signaled acquisition of the impulse against The Pride's receptor-dish, and confirmed their own pulse sent back; all discreet and hope to the gods the kif did not pick up that furtive exchange. "Haral, we got a ship-to-ship-"

"Break it," Haral said, and Hilfy shut down at once, thwarting the contact. Then over a station-system relay Haral appropriated: "This is Haral Araun, duty officer, The Pride of Chanur: all com will go on station relay. The mekt-hakkikt Sikkukkut an'nikktukktin is an ally, and beyond that we aren't authorized to say anything-is that Junury I'm talking to?"

''Gods-be right it is. Haral, what in a mahen hell is going on between you and Ehrran? Can you at least answer me that one?"

"Bloodfeud, that's what's going on. Which is no part of anything going on in this system, excepting some deals with the stsho. Excepting deals in the han. I'll fill you in on it later.
 
Junury, anyone else who's listening:
 
we've been doubledealt in the han, every spacer clan's been done up inside and out by a few gods-be graynosed groundling bastards with full pockets. We had bloodfeud with Tahar; we paid that out; gods know Tahar's paid in blood. Right now I got a cousin lying gut-shot from back at Kshshti thanks to Ehrran and thanks to that bastard Akkhtimakt, and we got trouble loose that we got to settle-we got hani interests at stake, like we never had. And thank the gods you stayed, Junury. Thank the gods, is what I say: we can use the help, and I don't know if you'd have gotten through the way you were headed. Hear me?"