"Tell me the paper."
"Let go first."
"Oh, no, friend. You listen to me. You listen good. We're going out of here, going to come kiting blind into whatever you set up over at Meetpoint, and Kesurinan's going in there on my directions. It's your ship. Your crew. I'd think you'd be a little concerned."
"Damn kif heart, you got kif heart, Pyanfar."
"I got a hani one, same as you're working for your own." She laid her hand on his shoulder, even knowing it was unwelcome. "Listen, you bastard, you and I had rather deal with each other. I take your agreement. I'll sleep with your gods-be Personage if it gets us out of this, but the first thing I got to do is get us into Meetpoint in one piece. And I want those code names and I want every godsrotted thing you've been holding out on me. Right up front, I want to know what's in that message, and what kind of a deal you and Goldtooth have already made."
He shut his eyes, blinked at the sweat. "Paper say-most this you got to know already: the stsho betray us; the human maybe ally; hani-hani not reliable; I make deal with Sikkukkut to make him hakkikt, I got also deal with tc'a-Pyanfar, you say this wrong ear, you blow Compact to hell."
"That's real fine. What of it we've got left. Keep talking."
"Tc'a long time take knnn orders: why they change now, I don't know. Got some crazy input from chi, damn lunatic chi got notion want go out from Chchchcho, want expand-"
"You mean the chi are pushing the knnn? Good gods, those-"
"Not sure. Maybe tc'a idea. Methane-breather be lot crazy. But knnn-we not be sure, think maybe knnn got eye on chi. Also human got lot planetaries, got lot thing knnn want, maybe; also got human-ity, number one problem. Long time problem. Stir up kif. Stir up methane-folk. Big trouble. You not know."
"The Akkukkak business?"
"Before Akkukkak." Jik explored a cut on his lip with his tongue and drew a deep breath. "Old hakkikktun be small stuff; lot little hakkikktun be lousy neighbor, lot trouble, steal you cargo, do little pirate stuff, easy we keep lanes clear-few hunter-ship take care these bastard number one good. Then we get fellow name Afkkek, nasty lot trouble. He go down, we get 'nother, name Gotukkun. He got own authority, take what belong Afkkek too. After Gotukkun be Sakkfikktin. Kasotuk. Nifekekkin. Each more big."
"Each adding his own followers to what he'd taken."
"You got. Long time kif be fight at Akkht, lot internal stuff. Long time we know kif got more big and more big hakkikt. So we try-try push hakkikktun make difficulty with methane-folk. Sometime work good. Now-we got mistake. Big mistake. We been get human signal, longtime."
"You asked them in? Gods blast-!"
"Not ask. We try take quiet look, see what be this kind. Lose ship. Lose two ship, we think be knnn, maybe kif take those ship. Maybe knnn same time got curiosity 'bout humanity. I think, me, I think Akkukkak set up trap, bring human, take. But we not know this: he be dead; maybe no one know."
"Of course you didn't share this information with anyone."
"Who we tell? Stsho? Hani You got Tully. We don't know what else you got. We don't know what he tell you-I tell you, Pyanfar, you come mahen station, bring human- you trust us damn too much. 'Cept we be friend, a? We don't tell you all thing we know. But we fight with you keep kif off Anuurn. Lot thing then we don't know. We got find out. You
know when Tully 'scape kif? Lot time kif operate at Meetpoint, make trade with stsho. They got Akkukkak, got couple kif be rival-lot trouble with kif. Ana try-not know what that ship got; he know one kif ship chase 'nother, Akkukkak come there 'cause he got no safe route else. Then he not be real happy find my partner Ana come in port. He 'fraid stay, got other kif; 'fraid go, 'fraid Ana get on his tail, he got tail in vise number one good. So he sit at dock. He so damn busy watch Ana he forget watch other kif. One kif inside ship make snatch Tully; Tully run like hell down dock-you got rest. Now Ana lot worry, not know what this be, not know if this be species we know about, or be something lot different. He try find Tully. Kif try find. Tully go you ship and start damn lot trouble. Now you got stsho go crazy, all scare' 'bout knnn, scare' 'bout humans come, damn mad 'bout you damage station-Mahendo'sat work hard, bribe lot stsho, make so hani come back to Meetpoint. We need hani. Need balance with kif, damn sure stsho no good, tc'a and knnn lot disturb. We get hani back to Meetpoint, go try make careful new contact with humanity, try find out what they be, how big, what they minds be like-find out what knnn want."
"And the kif took offense at it."
"Kif damn busy big fight on Akkht. We know we got worry 'nother hakkikt grow up; so we got make opposition, hit here, hit there, try make lot little hakkikktun. Then we got Sikkukkut. My mistake. Sikkukkut."
"Who already had his hands into Akkhtimakt's organization. He got that ring, Jik, that ring Tully has on his hand. He got it from a human prisoner in Akkhtimakt's hands-Sikkukkut was already poised with his spies and his organization before we ever got to Kshshti, before you dealt with him at Mkks. This wasn't a little provincial boss we were dealing with, this was a kif already on his way to being what he is. Sikkukkut knows humans. He was Akkukkak's interrogator, he killed all of Tully's crew except the one Tully killed himself, when it got that bad, Jik, and you know better than I do what it could get to. This is the gods-be kifish expert on humanity we're dealing with, and if kif have anything like a security organization, I'm guessing some of Akkukkak's old staff that got swept up into Akkhtimakt's organization-never were Akkhtimakt’s. They were Sikkukkut's partisans all along. Am I wrong?"
Jik stared at her. "You got damn good ears."
"I'm an old trader and I know how to add. You knew this. You knew some of it; and you went right ahead and you promoted this kif of yours at every step. The wrong gods-be kif. I didn't see it. You didn't see it till Kefk. Jik, I could lake this dock out. I could stop this one. And that still leaves Akkhtimakt-"
"Same damn bastard. I be right, Pyanfar, still be right 'bout that one. Akkhtimakt got no bottom. Swallow everything. Sikkukkut want use everything. Ana-Ana got this idea he use human for break the kif. But if they got motive-''
"Tully's got no reason to lie. They're big, Jik. You're not dealing with one human government. There's their homeworld, but there's two other powers. Tully's from their homeworld. It's fighting the other two and it wants to beat them-you tell me how. They've shot at the knnn. The knnn are putting up with it for reasons the gods and the knnn only know; we've got one human planet out there at odds with every other human in space, and there's gods know how many worlds the other side of their homestar from us. Their homeworld is cut off, isolate, having bloodfeud with its own outposts-what in the gods' name can you imagine we're dealing with? What's this lot after, when they've got a dozen worlds in the other direction and all of them are shooting at each other?"
"Tully say this?"
"By bits and pieces. Yes. That's what he's told me. We've just got the tail of the creature. When it turns around-"
"God."
"If you and your earless Personage had told the same truth twice in a day we might not be in this mess. You understand me?"
"If we not got damn hani traitor, if we not got the han screw up-we both got damn fools, Pyanfar, both kind. We got be fools too? Let me go. You got one of you crew sick. You want damn good pilot, you want me sit boards, you got. You want chain me to damn chair, you got. Pyanfar. I don't want lie down here in dark!"
She stood there on yea and nay, reached as far as the release and took her hand back. "Agreement?"
"You got."
She pulled the first release; and the second.
And stood there remembering the power there was in a mahen arm. And the wit there was in this mahendo'sat, and all his twists and turns: make a simple move against her he would not-until it was profitable.
Fool, a small voice said, while Jik slowly lifted his hands to his face and wiped the sweat, while he groped for the edge of the table and gave every indication of weakness and disorientation. He looked apt to pitch onto his face. She made a g
rab for him and steadied him as he got his feet over the edge and sat there blinking and grimacing as if his head hurt considerably. He put a hand up to his brow, wiped his eyes and looked at her.
As well admit Skkukuk to the bridge during jump. Much rather admit Skkukuk-who was on their side.
Of all the things I've done, she thought to herself, staring into Jik's alien eyes, this is the one I'll deserve to die for. I know I'm making a mistake. I'm wrong. I'm going to foul up and the kif’ll launch that ship, that ship no one can stop and no one can catch, and there won't be hani left except those of us who happen to be in space, that the kif will hunt down one by one. All because there's this chance that we need him, and Tully, and that gods-be kif who thinks I'm his ticket to kifish glory; because I'm an old fool of a hani who's been out in the dark too long and I can't shake if off and think clear of it any longer.
"Pyanfar," he said gently, "you be damn bastard."
"Got you out, didn't I?"
"You got."
"You know you're not sitting a post on this ship."
"What you want?" He held out his hands together. "Chain to chair? Do! I want be on bridge. Want talk to my ship. Want hear my ship."
"Hear them, I'll give you."
Fool, Pyanfar. This isn't Anuurn. He isn't hani. Parole means nothing to him weighed against his orders.
And how do I treat him like this and trust him again, ever?
"Agreement, Jik. You put this one in my hands. You stay on the bridge, but you keep your mouth shut and you keep your hands off controls."
He turned his hands, showed blunt mahen claws which nature had never made retractable, or fine enough for the smaller controls on hani boards; and they were broken and bloody, the fingertips swollen and coated with plasm from Tirun's caretaking: it was sure the kif had done no good for them.
She felt a cold shiver inside, a sympathetic twitch of her own claws in their retractile sheaths. But she set her face all the same. "Is that all the answer I get? Or do you give me those codewords and give us some honest help?"
He looked at her straight from under his dark brow, a hard glitter in his eyes. "I do, Pyanfar. Now you got believe what I say, a?"
Chapter Four
I am writing this in haste at Mkks. Do not hold or compromise this courier. Present crisis compels me to clarify the actions which I have taken in support of Ismehanan-min, since his lines of operation have crossed mine. I trust his report has reached you, but have placed a duplicate in the care of the Personage at Kshshti should the courier have failed. Since Stle stles stlen is not holding to treaty agreements both Ismehanan-min and I are taking measures to support other candidates and to prevent replacement of mahen personnel with hani. Here at Mkks we have retrieved all hostages and have suffered no damage at present. We are requested by Sikkukkut to add support to his candidacy by moving on Kefk. I am not apprised of Ismehanan-min's whereabouts and do not speculate. I advance on Meetpoint by that route. All reports from tc'a sources indicate that Stle stles stlen is proceeding as in the previous report, and reports from our contact inside stsho space are not encouraging. . . .
Tc'a contacts report knnn agitation in urgent terms. . . .
I have given Ehrran a false packet. Evidently this is a stsho agent and I dispense only disinformation into this outlet. Her willingness to participate I am certain is only a means to gather information on our activities which I am sure she has gained through stsho contacts of her own and which she has twice attempted to relay through furtive contact with stsho agents, some of which have eluded the net. Our movements are reported through an efficient system of couriers and I maintain a close watch over Ehrran's transmissions.
Thus far Chanur remains reliable. Support for this agent must be managed with extreme discretion on all levels. I would send her on to Maing Tol but I see no means to do this over Sikkukkut's objections and considering Ehrran's present state of mind. Therefore Chanur remains with us, under utmost priority of protection. Particularly alarming is Sikkukkut's courting of Chanur. Leverage will have to be arranged to counter this. . . .
Pyanfar looked away from the translation on screen, and Jik, sitting in a ring of Chanur at the bridge com station, gave a pained shrug as she flattened her ears. "What kind of leverage?"
"Money," Jik said faintly. "Debt. Like maybe-a, Pyanfar, I not arrange these thing. This gover'ment stuff. They also help. Who repair you ship, a? Who bribe Stle stles stlen get you license back?" He looked around him, at face after face, looked again as Khym leaned a huge hand on the back of the cushion, and gazed up at Khym's glowering countenance before he thought otherwise and turned back to Pyanfar. "No good this read message," Jik said. "Damn, you read mail you going find stuff don't got all the truth. Truth, truth I can't say in letter- What you want, I write to Personage say I want help friend, I say I want them do good to you? No. I do quiet. I push make Personage you friend, I push keep you out trouble, I down on knee ask Personage treat Chanur right-" I le reached and made a backhanded gesture toward the screen. "This, this be evidence in law. You know what I mean say. You don't write down some thing. No want enemies get, not kif enemy, not hani enemy, not mane, not stsho. God, Pyanfar, you know what I try say."
She stared at him bleakly, saw the tremor in his hand and (he pain etched around his eyes and his mouth, saw-maybe she wanted to see past the damning words on the screen.
"I know," she said, and saw the tremor grow worse in his arm before he let it down. Proud Jik, vain Jik, pressed to give accounts he would not have given, not for any threat, except lot hope of help from the friends he had doublecrossed, with Ins ship held hostage and more than his freedom and his reputation at stake. What she saw hurt.. And rang clearer than any protestations. "I know, gods rot it, we both got a mess. Haral, what's status on our allies out there?"
"Aja Jin and Moon Rising both report on schedule. I reported ourselves the same, all well aboard."
"So we've told Kesurinan you're fine," Pyanfar muttered to Jik. "So what was the hope-send me off sideways about the time you made the jump with Sikkukkut to Meetpoint?"
"We not want lose you," Jik said.
"I ought to be flattered," she said in her throat, and looked up at the others. Tully was on the bridge with them. Everyone but Skkukuk. Tully as usual lost all of it. He looked confused. So did the crew, confused and on the edge of anger. "We got a value to the mahendo'sat," she said. "They like their friends to survive. Gods know what else they want. It's fair, I guess. We have certain mahendo'sat we favor more than others. No great wrong in that, as far as it goes. You're offshift. Whole crew. Get a good meal in your stomachs: we got gods know what coming up. We got more than Meetpoint laid into Nav. If we have to."
She looked toward Jik. Jik leaned back in his chair, folded his hands across his stomach with something more like his usual ease. His eyes were tired. But the gesture at least looked like Jik, bedraggled as he was and lacking his usual finery.
"You too," she said. And for a moment the lids half-lowered on his eyes, the faintest of warnings.
Don't give me orders, that was to say. I've had enough.
Well, it was Jik, and he was only trying to recover a bit of his dignity. She let her ears dip: all right.
Then he unfolded his arms, pried his stiffening frame out of the chair and gave himself up to Tirun Araun, who indicated the galleyward corridor.
Fool, she told herself again. It was not just Jik she was trusting. It was a mahe the mahendo'sat put ultimate confidence in, one of a few who were turned loose in the field to make decisions across lightyears too many for the central government to be consulted on every twitch and adjustment of policy-places where agents had no time to consult, and a hunter-captain like Jik had to make up his own law and make treaties and direct local ships with the authority of the whole mahen government behind him.
Personage was more than an individual back in Maing Tol and another at Iji. It was the whole concept on which the mahendo'sat concluded anything: when a mahe was right he w
as right as law, and when he made a mistake he fell from power. His superiors would disown him. And if he made too great a mistake the superior who appointed him might fall: so there might be more than one agent in the field making contradictory arrangements.
The most viable would be acknowledged, the agents who stood too visibly for the nonviable policies would fall from power, and the mahen government went smoothly on.
Doublecross was the standard order of business. Betrayal of each other, of everyone but the superior. That he protected his own agents was Jik's saving honesty, and Goldtooth's, who had run and left Jik because he had to. It took this many years in space for an old hani to understand how it worked and to understand that it worked.
And there was still the question whether Jik might turn back on an agreement he had made, and repudiate it himself.
He had made a hard one, gods knew, with Sikkukkut.
And a contradictory one with her.
She frowned, and walked on the way others had gone, into the galley, where Tirun had gotten Jik seated at table and where Haral and Hilfy and Khym and Tully were all delving into the cabinets and the freezer hunting quick-fix edibles. There was the bitter odor of dry gfi in the air: Tirun was filling a pot. There was the rattle of plastic: disposables. Pyanfar leaned on the table with both hands and looked Jik in the eyes.
"Got a question for you. Say you got two agreements, you, yourself. And the people you made them with-get at odds. How do you resolve that?"
Jik frowned. His eyes still wept. His sweat smelled of ammonia and drug even yet. "You, Sikkukkut?"
"Me and Sikkukkut."
"I keep best agreement."
"The one that serves the mahendo'sat best."
"A." He blinked and gazed at her like a tired child. "Always."
"Just wondered," she said. "In case."
Something else occurred to her, when she turned to the cabinet and took a packet of dried meat out of the storage.
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