"Go," said the kif on the docks, with the wave of a dark hand toward the waiting lighter-access. "Compliments of the hakkikt."
Praise to him stuck in the throat. Pyanfar favored the kif with a stare and stood there with hands in her belt, near her empty weapons, while both crews boarded. Haral stood with her. They went aboard together, down the short, dark tube past the hatch.
No suits necessary in the lighter, thank the gods: nothing kifish would have fit. Pyanfar walked the center aisle into the dim, utilitarian rear of the cargo lighter, where Chanur and Tahar sat side by side on the deep benches. Up front, the kifish pilot gave confirmation to the launch crew in hisses and clicks and gutturals. Pyanfar sat down, belted in as the lighter whined in final launch-prep, sealing its hatch to the ship. The lighting, such as it was, lined the pilot and co-pilot up front in lurid orange, making shadows as they moved. The cold air stank of ammonia and machinery.
No one spoke. They swayed and braced as the lighter moved out of the bay on the launch boom— smooth, not a shudder in the arm. Well-maintained, was Harukk. Pyanfar noted such details, recalling the balky loader The Pride had tolerated for years. No glitches in this sleek killer-ship. No little flaws even in things that had tolerance. One knew something about a captain from such detail as this, and Pyanfar stored the information away among the other things she knew of Sikkukkut an'nikktukktin, inquisitor for Akkukkak, conniver from Mirkti, prince and lord over ruined Kefk.
The boom grapple thunked and let them free in their armored little shell as the shadow-pilot reached out a thin arm and put in a gentle thrust aft. Beyond their shadow and the glare, the massive side of a neighboring kifish ship hove up in the double viewport and spun off as the lighter accelerated and maneuvered at once, leaving the rotational plane and letting station spin bring The Pride-to its approach-point.
Arrogant, Pyanfar thought, irritated with the cavalier exit maneuver. There's a flaw for you.
Grandstanding for the passengers. Sikkukkut would have this pilot's hide for that. Then, remembering the access ramp to Harukk and its awful ornaments. Literally. O gods, gods,
JIK——
Kif talked to kif as the viewplate dimmed to dark. They went inertial now, freefall. From here on out the tricky business was up to the onboard computers and Kefk's guidance—nastiest of all maneuvers, getting up to the emergency access of a ship at dock, on computerized intercept among the vanes and projections of ships locked to a rotating body. They did not propose to use the cable-grapple and winch in, but to engage The Pride's own docking boom and come in on The Pride's power. That took one access code to activate the hatch and boom—one precious key into The Pride's computers, handed to the kif. That code had to be changed immediately when they got aboard. Damage my ship, hotshot, and I'll have your ears.
Easier to worry about a botched dock or a code switch than worry about other things. Like no contact with The Pride. "Your ship does not respond," the kifish officer had said when she had asked the docking request transmitted. And that meant Chur was not answering. Chur could not answer.
Geran knew it and sat back there with the rest, silent and uncommunicative and with no expression at all when Pyanfar chanced to look her way.
Chanur estate. The courtyard gate where Geran and Chur walked in one day, young and catching eyes wherever they went with their delicate Anify beauty—Chur all pleasantness and Geran sullen-silent even while Chur was asking favors of the Chanur lord and a place in Chanur's household. "Watch them both," the old lord had said, na Dothon, her father. "Watch them both." Chur of the ready smile, and Geran of the ready knife.
It was the knife in Geran's mind now.
Bloodfeud. Pyanfar knew. She gnawed her mustaches with dread of what might already exist on The Pride, and fretted at the delay of using the lighter; and loathed the procedures and the kif with their dark hand into The Pride's codes, their presence at her vulnerable downside access. Allies. Allies—while they did gods-knew-what to Jik.
Traitor, was a word she thought, among other words for Ana Ismehanan-min. Vigilance had to be going for jump by now and Mahijiru sped after—Goldtooth knowing, by the gods, knowing he was leaving Jik in a desperate bind—But not knowing he had left Jik a prisoner. She refused to believe Goldtooth had known his gods-be fool of a partner would have not gone immediately back aboard Aja Jin with his crew, that the loyal fool would have headed down that dock-side personally, hunting a hani friend, trying to get them clear of that threatened dock and clear of kifish retaliation.
And gotten himself caught by the kif. Alone.
Soje Kesurinan commanded Aja Jin now—an able woman: all Jik's people were first-rate, and his second in command was no fool. Would not become one, she hoped. Gods, she hoped.
Treachery on all sides. Only the kif had betrayed no one. Only the kif had stood by their word. Like Skkukuk, back there, a forgettable lump of shadow at the lighter's extreme rear. Skkukuk, who had never yet played them false.
Loyalty?
Your sfik still attracts his service, Sikkukkut had said of Skkukuk.
And wondered in the next breath whether it was the alternative which compelled Skkukuk's devotion to his new captain.
Chur. Jik. The cold of the air penetrated Pyanfar's skin and she sat numb while the G force of rollover hit and a vast white mass hove up in the viewport. Braking started in earnest as white and black alternated—as station rotation carried a kifish ship past their bow. Slower and slower. Lower and lower toward the place The Pride would occupy as the rotation carried it round. Doing it on the first pass, thank the gods. No waiting round. The access code would have gone out. The Pride would have her docking boom extended, waiting for them to make contact, continually tracking them, aligning the cone precisely with their approach.
The rim of the cone came up, gargantuan on their relative scales. The co-pilot reached and hydraulics whined, extending the lighter's own docking-stops, a ring of partials about the bow to prevent the cone swallowing them entire. They shoved forward into the green-lit interior.
Contact and gentle hydraulic rebound as the lighter's ring absorbed the shock and locked hard. Not a grind or grate. Perfect dock. ... Arrogant and good, Pyanfar acknowledged. But if he isn't, a kif’s not a Harukk pilot, is he? A dozen worries gnawed at her, tumbling in suddenly as she ran out of concerns to distract her. Another whine from the lighter's systems, a shuddering as The Pride's years-unused boom dragged them down against the hullport, lock beeping at lock until the boom knew how much extension to leave on it.
They had stable G now, linked via The Pride's boom to station's rotation. She unbuckled and felt her way over Khym's knee and Haral's till both of them unbuckled and made room for her next Dur Tahar. "Dur," she said, "you're welcome aboard. Want to tell you that again. We've still got a little time here, I hope to the gods."
''You've got your own troubles."
"We got medical equipment. Moon Rising—"
"We're pretty well set up to handle it. Got some nice stuff. Piracy—pays, Pyanfar. We'll see to Haury. And the rest of us."
She nodded, started to get up and make her way back forward as the deck rocked to final contact. The accessway whined, starting into place overhead.
Dur Tahar caught her arm. "What you did—going after my crew; staying with them—they told me how you and Haral carried Haury down that dock—"
"Yeah, well—"
"Hey." The hand bit hard. "Chanur. You want my word? You want anything we have? You've got it."
"You follow my lead in this?"
"Hearth and blood, Chanur."
She nodded slowly. There were things not to say aboard, where every word they whispered might be monitored up front; or outright recorded. Even dialect was unsafe: there might be kif translators. And there was a plenitude of things not to hint at—like plans for Meetpoint; and what they were going to do if they found hani lined up on the other side.
Like what Moon Rising might do to her credit with the hakkikt if it ran.
"I vouched for you," Pyanfar said, "way out on the cliff's edge."
"We're with you, I said."
She looked long into Tahar's shadowy face, as the final contact boomed home, as the hatch opened and her crew unbuckled. She calculated again that they might be recorded: she gestured with her eyes toward the overhead, saw the little lowering of Dur Tahar's lids that acknowledged she was also thinking of it. "There's one ship in particular I want," Pyanfar said.
"Meaning Vigilance," said Tahar.
"Meaning Vigilance."
"No argument from me."
"Huh." An orange glare flooded in from overhead as the lighter hatch whined open. She turned and reached for the ladder without a courtesy to the kifish crew, as Haral scrambled up it ahead of her, where the pale circle of The Pride's hatch was mated up to the dark access-clamps. Haral whipped a wad of kifish cloth from her pocket, grasped the space-cold lever and yanked. The hatch retracted in a puff of unmatched
airpressure, a breath of clean cold wind. Haral looked down from the top of the ladder, in a bath of white light; Pyanfar waved her on, protocols be hanged; and Haral clambered up and through.
Pyanfar scrambled after, feeling the ladder shake as someone else hit it in haste. She came up in the brilliant white light of The Pride's emergency airlock, turned round with Haral to pull Tirun through, and Geran next, and Tully, and Hilfy, and Khym with his arm bleeding again after the quick plasm-spray the kif had given it. She forgot, she outright forgot and had straightened to see to Khym when she heard something else hit the ladder and saw a shadow scramble up to them.
She bent and offered her hand: Haral was not about to. Skkukuk's dark, bony fingers hooked to hers and he sprang up into the hatch with kifish agility, head up and wide-eyed.
So the captain helped him with her own hand. Skkukuk's eyes glittered and his nostrils flared in excitement, and she felt a frustrated disgust. The hatch whined-down and thumped into seal under Haral's pushbutton command. The inner hatch shot open on the E-corridor. "Geran," Pyanfar said on the instant, turning. "Get!"
"Aye!"
And the smallish woman headed out of the lock at a dead run ahead of them. "Seal us!" Pyanfar yelled at the crew in general, leaving security to them, and lit out on Geran's heels, headed for topside, for—gods help them, whatever there was to find up there on the bridge.
She heard the hatch seal. Lights came on in the corridor ahead as the monitor picked up the sound of Geran's running footsteps and stayed on to the sound of hers.
The E-lift was in place, automatically downsided by the hatch-open command. The lift door opened instantly to Geran's push of the call button, and Pyanfar skidded in after and emergencied the door shut as Geran punched the code to send them on their way, up and then sideways as the car shot down the inner tracks for the main lift shaft.
Geran was panting. Her ears were laid flat, her eyes showing white at the corners. She was close to panic and she would not look Pyanfar's direction, staring only at the sequencing marker-lights as the lift ran its course up, up-ship and up again to the main lift-shaft and the corridor to the bridge.
There was no time for comfort now. And no use in it.
They hit the main-corridor running—a small, dark thing squealed and eeled away down a side passage, and another scuttled ahead of them in panic—gods, what is it?—Pyanfar let it go, her mind on one thing and only that; and one quick glance into the open door as they passed Chur's borrowed room—showed where Chur was not. The bed was empty, sheets flung back, tubes left hanging, the lifesupport machinery flashing with malfunction lights. Pyanfar spun on one foot and ran all-out after Geran, on and pell-mell onto the bridge, where a thin, red-brown figure lay slumped in Hilfy's chair, head-down on the counter. A pistol lay by Chur's shoulder. Her arm hung limp over the chair arm.
Geran brought up, hand against the chair, and lifted Chur's head—used both hands to prop her back against the seat. Chur's jaw hung slack. Pyanfar reached to offer what she could of help, her own hands shaking.
Chur's ears twitched, the jaw shut, the eyes opened half, and she made a wild lunge for the counter and the gun.
Pyanfar caught her. " 'S all right, it's all right," Pyanfar said, bracing her up and putting her face where the wild fix of Chur's eyes could register who it was. "It's us."
"Gods," Geran said, and sank down to her knees on the spot, against the chair. Her ears were back. She was shaking visibly as she clung to the chair arm. "Gods rot it, Chur— What're you doing here?"
Chur's ears twitched and slanted her sister's way as she turned her head. "Everybody get out?" she asked, the faintest ghost of a voice.
The lift was cycling. "They're on their way up," Pyanfar said. "Even got Skkukuk back, worse luck."
"He with you?" Chur asked thickly. "Gods, I thought he was loose on the ship. Been seeing things—little black things— Couldn't find anybody aboard—Gods." Chur. lay back against the seat-back and blinked, licked her mouth. "Vigilance— went, captain. I tried to get the guns to bear, tried to stop 'er. Missed my fix. Armament's still live—" She made a loose gesture toward Haral's seat. "Got back here—I don't remember—Gods-be little black things in the corridors—"
Pyanfar got up and walked over to her own post. The armament ready-light was flashing red on the boards. She shut it down and capped it and looked up as the lift door opened down the hall and their ill-assorted crew came running, kif and all. "She's all right!" she yelled out to them from the bridge, violating her own cardinal rule; and went back to Chur, only then realizing Chur had not a stitch on. "Migods," she muttered, with not a blanket to be had and two men—no, three—arriving on the bridge; and then decided no one cared. They were all crew. Even the kif Skkukuk, brought along willy-nilly. Tully came rushing over among the rest, and Chur grinned and reached up and patted his anxious face right in front of Khym and everyone.
"Let's get you back to bed," Pyanfar said. "Gods-be med-machine's blowing its fuses in there."
"Uhhnn." Chur put a hand on the chair arm to lever herself up, and fell back. "Goldtooth," she said suddenly, hazily. "Goldtooth."
"What about Goldtooth?"
"Took out after Ehrran—blasted out this message—"
"You get it?"
Chur waved her hand at the com board. "In there somewhere. In the decoding—function—"
Pyanfar started to bring it through on the spot; and stopped with her hand on the board, remembering Skkukuk standing there. She turned and waved a hand at the crew. "Tirun, take station. I want a systems checkout. Fast. Geran, Hilfy, get Chur to bed. Haral, Khym, Tully, take Skkukuk to his room, then go wash up, patch up, and get back here double-quick. We got ops to run."
Haral's ears slanted. "You're worse hurt than I am." The metal particles stung at every move; most of her exposed fur was matted with blood from pinprick punctures. Her battered skull throbbed with so many impacts she had gotten used to the pain. It was likely true she was the worse case. But: "Get," she said, because there was that message from Goldtooth in the decoder; and Haral read her by that silent way they had of thinking down the same line. Protest filed, Haral turned and made to gather up Skkukuk as she went.
"I am a valued ally," Skkukuk said, drawing himself up in offense. "Captain, I am not to have my door locked, I am not—"
Shut up," Hilfy said, facing him by Chur's side. "Move it."
"This one means harm," Skkukuk said. "Kkkt. Kkkt. Captain—" He dodged as Khym reached for his arm. "They have taken my weapons! I warn you their intentions—"
"Get!" Pyanfar said. Skkukuk flinched and ducked his head, and Haral motioned to him again. Shouldn't have yelled, Pyanfar thought. / shouldn't have yelled; the son did save my life, fair and plain.
But he's kif.
They led. him out and down the corridor, Haral and Tully and Khym together. And Hilfy and Geran turned Chur's chair about and with tenderest care bent down and lifted Chur out of it. "I can walk," Chur said. "I c'n walk, I just got tired—" But they swept her off her
feet between them and carried her anyway, off the bridge and down the corridor, Chur mumbling protests all the way, only then and loudly realizing she had forgotten her breeches.
Pyanfar sank into the vacated chair and punched the recycle on the corn-system. Nothing came up. Frustration welled up, changes in the systems, every time they looked, some new gewgaw in the works. "Gods-be, what's access on the decoder?''
"That's CVA2," Tirun said from Haral's post. "To your one, I got it, I'm getting it."
It ran.
"Gods rot, it's in mahensi!" She cycled it again and sent it through the translator.
"Situation deteriorating," came the translator's droning voice. "Advise you human destination Meetpoint. Same mine.
I got talk to one Stle stles stlen. Make maybe deal. Ehrran I go, same. Keep company. You clear dock number one fast, both. Got little fracas start."
"Gods blast him!"
"—Best chance I can give."
''Blast him to his own hell!—You know what you did, you smug bastard, you know where you left your partner?"
The message ended. Pyanfar cut it off with a shaking hand.
Sat there with both fists clenched, until the black edges cleared from her vision. Then she carefully punched in another call. "Aja Jin, this is Pyanfar Chanur, come in."
Not on coder program. The kif down the row, the kif in station command—were undoubtedly monitoring even the so-called shielded-line. Everything. It was not politic to be too closely associated with Aja Jin just now. Or to talk in secret.
"Captain, this Soje Kesurinan, Aja Jin You back? You got news?"
"Bad news, Kesurinan. Your captain's been detained. Him. Those with him. In the hakkikt's custody. I think your personnel are going to be released. No word like that on your captain. The hakkikt—" Keep it neutral, keep it ambiguous, tip Kesurinan off to the situation as much as she could read between the lines. "—the hakkikt sort of wants to assure Aja Jin's good behavior. After Mahijiru lit out. And to discuss the matter. You got any news on that?"
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