The Kif Strike Back

by C. J. Cherryh

  “Aye,” Tirun said, and brushed Ehrran crewwomen out of the way of the locker door.

  “Got positive ID on that stsho freighter,” Chur said. “And they’re not stopping for anything.”

  “It go home,” Jik said, “got plenty disturb.”

  “Gods rot,” Ehrran said, “what more did it need? We’ve got a stsho in the middle of this incident, tc’a and chi—”

  “Got also mahendo’sat cit-i-zen on this station,” Jik said pointedly. His smallish ears were flat. “Maybe same got mahen agent, a?”

  “Yours?”

  Jik shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. I got check files. But I got other bet: when Sikkukkut come in here, some damn kif escape tell kif authority at Harak system. Four, five day ago. Maybe ‘nother go Kshshti. We got move, get thing fix right, a, Pyanfar? Soon maybe got whole damn lot kif here.”

  “Let’s go,” she said. She took the rifle Geran passed to her, while Haral buckled on an AP. Khym took his rifle from Geran’s hand and checked the safety in rapid order.

  “Wait a minute,” Rhif Ehrran said. “Chanur. You’re not taking him out there, are you?”

  “I’m not taking him anywhere. He goes on his own.”

  “Chanur, that’s the limit. I’ve got a file on you that goes—”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  “Look here, Chanur.” Ehrran’s ears were back and pricked up with a twitching effort. She lifted a hand, one carefully controlled foreclaw crooked. “Practice your cockeyed social theories on your own ship; that’s your business. But when you plan to bring him into a sensitive negotiation and hand him a rifle into the bargain—”

  Rot it, speak up, she wished Khym. But he would not. His ears were down in outrage. It was all dammed up in him: and the temper it deserved if it came from him—would only confirm all the old prejudices Rhif Ehrran served. Unstable males. Hysteria. Berserker rages. He just kept his head down and threw the safety on again. And looked her way.

  He was a lousy shot. But kif were afraid of anything his size. Justifiably, if he got into it hand to hand.

  “I’d rather have him at my back,” Pyanfar said studiedly, “than some.” She slung the rifle into carry, deliberately looking elsewhere, finding it convenient to throw a glance in Hilfy’s direction. “Stay topside, will you?”

  Because, o gods, they had a kifish guest below; and the last thing she wanted on her mind was worry over Hilfy and Chur with a kif loose on the ship.

  “Get him out,” Hilfy said.

  “I’ll do that.”

  “Chanur,” Rhif Ehrran said, “for the record, his presence and your insistence is going in the report.”

  “Fine. Maybe you’ll be able to deliver it to the han in person. Or maybe none of us will ever have to worry about it, huh?” She waved her left hand. “Out!”

  “You don’t give the orders on this.”

  “We go,” Jik said, bestirring himself from his cabinet-edge.

  “That quarter-hour’s getting short,” Pyanfar said. She lagged behind, seeing Ehrran’s blackbreeched lot out the door, and Jik, and her own crew. She paused for a backward look, then strode through the others to overtake Jik halfway down the hall.

  “Got few my crew wait outside,” Jik said as she came even with him. “They watch the ship.”

  “Maybe,” Pyanfar said reluctantly, “Chanur and Ehrran ought to go in there solo and let you and yours hold the dockside. Kif know you, Jik. Know you real well. You stay here, back me and Ehrran up; that’s all we need.”

  Jik rubbed his nose. “Long time I hunt kif. Sure thing they want me. Same want you, Pyanfar. Want bad. Maybe even want han deputy, a? But kif mind, that be crazy thing: we kill kif, no matter: that give us lot sfik with them. We not got sfik, they eat our heart number one sure. We got sfik, they want eat our heart—but same time think maybe they get sfik off us ‘nother way. Like deal with us. Like they hope maybe we make more trouble on their rivals, a, than we make on them? We all go talk to Sikkukkut. We lose sfik else.”

  “You know what you’re doing,” Pyanfar said.

  “Sure,” Jik said cheerfully. “Number one sure.”

  It gave her no reassurance. Neither that nor that washroom door they passed in the lower corridor on their way to the lock: she glanced that direction, and the hair bristled on her nape.

  Kill it, instinct said. Kill the kif hostage outright, let it vanish without a trace. Keep Sikkukkut guessing.

  But where was the sfik in that, and what was she supposed to do with such a gift?

  Be a fool and let it loose?

  One stsho merchant was already loose and running, bolting dock. If one shot went off on that dock and panicked the traders, more ships might break loose from Mkks dock. . . ships lacking the stsho’s obsessively pacifist tendencies. There were the methane-breathers, for one large instance.

  It was a trap, of course. They had suddenly lost the rhythm of things and kept the kif’s schedule, for a prize the kif still held.

  No kif ever yielded anything without gain.

  Chapter 4

  An eerie quiet persisted on the docks. A few blackbreeched Ehrran clan personnel were visible in vantage points, armed with rifles; doubtless a few such were not visible at all; and there were two more Ehrran crewwomen stationed up inside the ramp, guarding The Pride’s airlock and accessway. Less ominous and more, a solitary, AP-wearing mahendo’sat slouched her way up to her captain in specific. Sleekly black, gold-glittering as Jik himself, she had half an ear missing and a bald streak on a burn scar down her jaw.

  Jik spoke to his crewwoman rapidly in some language they both shared, of Iji’s great multitude. “A,” the woman said, and with her hand on the AP gun’s butt, moved off again into shadows near the gantry.

  “Khury,” Rhif Ehrran muttered to her aide, “get back to the ship; take charge. And if we don’t get back, get home directly and make a thorough report to the han.”

  It was Enaury hani the Ehrran spoke; Pyanfar caught it: so would Geran, but not likely anyone else. And Pyanfar ducked her head and rubbed her nose—better say less than one knew than more, she reckoned. With the han deputy it was certainly the case. There were already mounds and mountains of reports aboard that ship, to the delight of Chanur’s enemies when Ehrran got back to Anuum and that collection of complaints got to the han debating floor—

  And a certain stsho check was on its way to a mahen bank at Maing Tol, if it had not gotten there already. When that hit the desk of a certain Personage—

  The han’s deputy had not discovered that small matter yet.

  Nor had Jik.

  Pyanfar lifted her head and the oncoming kif welcoming committee looked almost friendly in that light.

  They did not turn in at the same corridor as before. The half-dozen kifish guides brought them further and further down the open dock, and the paper and ammonia smell even surmounted the cold in this sector. The light was dim and murkish orange-gold, the only visual warmth in the gray and black of their surroundings. The signs were kifish, in crawling, dotted script.

  Kifish ships were docked along the row at their left; kifish dens lined the right hand, deserted and quiet, which lent no reassurance at all. The hair prickled down Pyanfar’s back as more and more of the horizon unfurled; it went all bristled as all the missing kif suddenly showed up past the curtaining overhead girders of the station’s curve—a dark mass ahead, a gathering of thousands on the docks.

  O gods, she thought. Her legs wanted to stop right there; but Jik had not even hesitated, nor had Ehrran—perhaps they waited on her, on Chanur, who they thought had been this route before.

  “More of them than last time,” Pyanfar said, breaking the spell of caution. “Gods-rotted lot more of them.”

  Jik made some sound in his throat. A noise grew ahead, like nothing she had ever heard—clicking and talking all at once, the roar of kifish speech from thousands of kifish mouths together. And they were obliged to walk through this congregation. She was conscious of Khym at he
r back, hair-triggered; of Haral and Tirun and Geran, steady as they came. And Rhif Ehrran and her handful; Jik striding along with legs that could match a kifish stride and instead kept pace with theirs, holding their guides to a hani pace.

  She slipped the safety off her rifle as the scene came down off the upcurved floor and straightened itself out in the crazy tilting of things on station docks. It became flat, became distinct as hooded, robed kif standing about, became kif on all sides of them, close at hand, turning to stare at them as they passed with their escort. A clicking rose—“Kk-kk-kk. Kk-kk-kk.” Everywhere, that soft, mocking sound.

  Kif territory for sure. Outnumbered, out-gunned a thousand times and three. If it got to shooting here—gods help them. Nothing else would.

  And if they had to enter one of the ships at dock to do their bargaining—they were in no position to protest the matter.

  The kif guiding them brushed other black-robed, hooded kif from their path like parting a field of nightbound grass; and indicated a double-doored passage into a dark like that other dark hole, into a place thicker with kif stench and the reek of drink.

  Kokitikk, the flowing sign above the door proclaimed—at least the symbols looked like that. Entry prohibited, mahen letters said. Kifish service only.

  Gods, that would keep the tourists out.

  “Meeting-hall,” Jik said.

  Kifish noise rose about them as they entered, noise from tables at either hand. There was a clatter of glasses—the smell of alcohol. And of blood.

  “Gods save us,” Geran muttered. “Drunk kif. That’s the last.”

  Pyanfar walked ahead, rifle at carry, keeping close by Jik’s side. Rhif Ehrran caught up with a lengthening of her stride. There were chairs all about of the sort Sikkukkut had used; there were lamps and smoking bowls of incense that offended the nose and sent smoke curling up against the orange, dirty light. Kif shadows, kif shapes—kkkt, they whispered. In mockery. Kkkt.

  And their half-dozen kifish guides drifted ahead like black specters, clearing them a way. The muttering grew raucous. Jaws clicked. Glasses rattled with ice. There were red LED gleams about the fringes of the hall, rifle ready-lights.

  “It’s a gods-cursed bar,” Rhif Ehrran said.

  The crowd opened out, creating a little open space. In the midst were kifish chairs, a floor-hugging table.

  A kif sat alone at that table, beneath a hanging light.

  Its robed arm lifted and beckoned.

  There was a stirring all about the room as kif rose from chairs for vantage.

  “Sit down,” the kif at the table said. “Keia.” It was Jik’s first name, his true one. “Pyanfar. My friends—”

  “Where’s Tully?” Pyanfar asked.

  “Tully. Yes.” Sikkukkut moved his hand, and kif about him stirred. There was a mahen shout, unmistakable; a yelp of something in pain. “But the human is no longer the only matter in contention.”

  The dark crowd parted near doors to the rear; and those doors opened. Dark shapes not kif were thrust forward and held fast—mahendo’sat prisoners, some in kilts, several in the robes of station officials. One had badges of religious importance. And a solitary stsho, pale, its gossamer robes smudged, its pearly skin stained with kifish light and smeared with dark patches. Its state was dreadful; it swayed and kif held it on its feet.

  “A,” Jik said. “So the stsho leave Mkks got reason.”

  “Mkks station,” Sikkukkut said, “is mine. Its officials have formally ceded it to me in all its operations. Sit and talk, my friends.”

  It was Jik who moved first, walking forward to settle himself on one of the several black, insect-legged chairs that ringed that table. Pyanfar went to Sikkukkut’s other side, and set a foot on the chair seat, crouched down seated with the rifle over her raised knee and canted easily at Sikkukkut. There was one seat left. Rhif Ehrran filled it. Haral and Tirun moved up at Pyanfar’s back; Khym and Geran and the rest of the Ehrran hani close about the table, with a wall of kif behind.

  “You let folk go,” Jik said. He opened a pouch one-handed, took out a smoke and fished up a small lighter. It flared briefly. Jik drew on the stick and let out a gray breath of smoke. “Old friend.”

  “Do you propose a trade?” Sikkukkut said.

  “I not merchant.”

  “No,” the kif said. “Neither am I.” He made a negligent move of his hand, and Pyanfar caught a whiff of something else, something strange and hers and scared, half a breath before another white thing was shoved into view through the wall of kif. Tully crashed down with arms on the table-edge between her and Sikkukkut. “There. Take him as a gift.”

  Pyanfar did not stir. Hunter-vision was centered only on the kif, the trigger under her finger, with the rifle against her knee. If Tully raised up too far, Tully would be in the line of fire. It was intended. She knew it was. She adjusted the knee and the rifle into a higher line. Sikkukkut’s face, this time. “You want your hostage back?”

  “Skkukuk? No. That one is for your entertainment. Let’s talk about things of consequence.”

  Rhif Ehrran’s ears had pricked. Jik let out a great cloud of smoke that drifted up and mingled with kifish incense. “We got time.”

  “Excellent. Hokki.” Sikkukkut picked up his cup from the table and filled it with something that reeked like petroleum and looked rotten green. He drank and set the cup down, looking toward Pyanfar. “You?”

  “I’ve got plenty of time.”

  “Even before Kshshti,” Sikkukkut said, “even before that, at Meetpoint, I had converse with Ismehanan-min. Goldtooth, hunter Pyanfar calls him. I advised him to avoid certain points and certain contacts. You’ll have noticed that the stsho vessel has deserted us now.”

  “Same notice,” Jik said dryly.

  “You’ll have noticed a certain distress on the part of this stsho who remains with us—kkkt, perhaps you would care to question this one. A negotiator, gtst claims to be—”

  “You tell,” Jik said, puffing a cloud of smoke. “You got something drink, friend kif?”

  “Indeed. Koskkit. Hikekkti ktotok kkok.” A wave of his hand. A kif departed. “Were you always at Chanur’s back?”

  “No, not. Crazy accident I come Kshshti. Friend Pyanfar say she got trouble. So I come. Bring this fine hani.” A nod Ehrran’s way. “You remember, a?”

  “Meetpoint,” Sikkukkut said. The long-jawed face lifted. There was no readable expression. “Yes. This hani was dealing with the grass-eaters.”

  Rhif Ehrran coughed. “By treaty, let me remind you—”

  Sikkukkut waved his hand. “I have no desire for treaties. Operations interest me. Chanur interests me.”

  “Hunter Sikkukkut, there’s been a persistent misunderstanding of hani channels of authority.”

  O gods, Pyanfar thought, and felt sick at the stomach. Hunter, indeed. Rhif Ehrran demoted the kif in a word, in front of his subordinates.

  “It seems mutual,” Sikkukkut said, with equanimity and heavy irony, and pointedly turned his attention from Ehrran. “Hunter Pyanfar, I will speak, with you. And my old friend Keia. When did we last trade shots? Kita, was it?”

  “You at Mirkti?” Jik asked.

  “Not I.”

  “Kita, then.” Another puff at the stick. Jik flicked ash onto the floor. “We got shoot here?”

  “Mahen bluntness. That thing is a foul habit, Keia.”

  Jik laughed, replaced the smokestick in his mouth. “True.” He glanced aside as a kif approached him with a glass. He sniffed it and drank. “Mahen. Nice stuff.”

  “Ssskkt. I appreciate it now and again.”

  “What got?”

  “My business? Very serious business. Mahen interference. Stsho connivance with hani. This humanity—” Sikkukkut reached down and lifted Tully’s chin. “How are you faring? Are you well, kkkt? Understanding this?” He let go and Tully kept his head up, white-faced and sweating and incidentally in the line of fire till he slumped and rested his arms on the table. “This huma
nity is a problem. Not alone has their presence disrupted trade: we do not, ourselves, depend so much on trade. . . kkkt? But stsho do. Stsho fear anything that comes near them. So the balance of the Compact is upset. And when that balance tilts, so agreements fall; and when agreements fall, so authorities give way—so there is disarrangement. This is our perspective. And our opportunity. Akkukkak first brought this creature into Compact space. Had it been my doing, of course, I would have fared better, kkkt?”

  “Akkukkak dead. Lot dis-arrangement, a?”

  “We trust that he is dead. The knnn are unpredictable. Perhaps he will turn up in a bazaar in some trade—but let us assume he is out. Presently there is Akkhtimakt. Akkhtimakt styles himself hakkikt, holds Kita, disrupting traffic—”

  “—make lousy big trouble,” Jik said.

  “Have you dislodged him?”

  “I maybe do. Maybe not. Why you raid Kshshti dock?”

  “Ah. Now, there you are mistaken. The Kshshti Personage has a traitor on the staff—”

  “Not got now.”

  “Kkkt. You redeem my opinion of you. But this spy was Akkhtimakt’s operative, not mine.”

  “Ummmn. You same got spy at Kshshti?”

  “Not now. But then I did. When the human was crossing the docks—Akkhtimakt’s agents moved to seize him. And I, fortunately, foreknew it. So I was on the hunt as well. Kkkt. Would Kshshti have fared so well in that firefight if kif had not fought kif on that dock? Mahendo’sat have me to thank; I believe thank is the expression—at any rate I stepped in and gathered up the prize before Akkhtimakt’s agents could seize it. There was no negotiating there, at Kshshti, with everything astir, with every probability Akkhtimakt’s agents would presently report all this—I am discreet no longer. By this intervention at Kshshti I have challenged my rival openly. Now I contend with him. And I surmised correctly that you would follow me, hunter Pyanfar, as soon as your ship could move.”

  “What’s the deal?” Pyanfar asked.

  “You might, you know, put the safety on that thing.”

  “Huh. Might. But I’m comfortable, hakkikt.”

  The snout wrinkled in what might be humor. “You don’t trust my word.”