The Kif Strike Back

by C. J. Cherryh

  “He talked about a kifish ship not his.” The lift stopped and the door opened. “Rearranging its loyalties. He said.”

  “That kif’s one of Akkhtimakt’s?” Haral guessed, right down her own track.

  “Bet you.”

  “Good gods, what do we do with the son?”

  Pyanfar walked out and threw a glance over her shoulder on the way to the bridge, to Chur. “If you figure out what a kif’s mind’s like, let me know. It says it belongs to Chanur. If we let it go we lose sfik. And we got a stationful of kif at our throats if we do.”

  “We could space it,” Tirun muttered longingly.

  “We could give it to Ehrran,” Geran said.

  Pyanfar looked back, short of the bridge door. “That’s the best idea I’ve heard yet.”

  “We do it?”

  She bit at her mustaches, gnawed and gnawed. “Huh,” she said, storing that thought up. “Huh.” And walked onto the bridge.

  “Kefk?” Chur asked, turning her chair about.

  * * *

  “I got him for you,” Khym said, huge, dishevelled, hands hooked into the waistband of a tatty and snagged pair of brown breeches. His much scarred ears were slanted halfback, his scarred nose ducked in embarrassment. Hilfy came and fussed his mane into order, and the ears came up, there, in that room with another male, with Tully lying still on the bed and witnessing all of this.

  “You were marvelous,” Hilfy said.

  “Huh,” Khym muttered. “Huh. He smells awful. So do I.” And with one shrug of his great shoulders he meandered out into the corridor.

  Hilfy shivered then. And she thought of killing kif, which had become a constant, burning thought with her.

  “Hilfy.” Tully made an attempt to get up from where Khym had disposed him, on his own bed in his own quarters, on a coverlet soiled with blood from his poor back. She looked his way and he made a face and tried to stand. He sat down again, hard, and caught himself on one elbow.

  “Gods.” She snatched at the pocket com she had and punched the translator channel through. “Tully. Lie still.” She came and put the com into his hands, so that he could speak and understand, with that unit to relay to the computer on the bridge.

  But he let it fall and grabbed her about the shoulders and held on, just held, the way he had done when he had been hurt; or she had; or the kif threatened to separate them. “It’s all right,” Hilfy said. She held to him, which she had done in their dark cell when he could understand little more than that. “It’s all right. We got you. No more kif.”

  He lifted his face finally and looked at her, alien and awful-smelling and his mane and beard, his handsomest feature—all wispy gold when it was clean; but it was all tangled. His strange eyes were reddened and spilled water down his face—kif-stink hurt her eyes too, and his rags of clothes were full of that and kifish incense. “Pyanfar,” he said, “Pyanfar—friend these kif?”

  “Gods, no.”

  Tully shivered, a shudder apt to tear his joints apart. She held him tight, talisman of her own safety. She was aware of his maleness as she had been aware of it in their prison on Harukk, in a vague, disturbing way; but Anuurn and home and men were very far away—excepting Khym, who was enough to remind her of such things though he was Pyanfar’s, and far too old. As for Tully, whatever humans felt, it was complex and alien and gods knew whether he even thought of her as female.

  But someone should defend him. Hilfy had known all her life that men were precious things; and their sanity precarious; and their tempers vast as their vanity. Na Khym was—well, exceptional; and gray-nosed and sedate in age, whatever Pyanfar believed. Young men were another kind. One made a place for them and kept all unpleasantness away; and they wore silks and hunted and made a woman proud. They fought only when their wives and sisters had failed, when disaster came. And they were brave with the bravery of last resort, no craft—no one expected slyness of males. Not when the madness took them. Not when they were young.

  Her Tully was clever. And brave. There had been a time kif had laid hands on her and Tully had thrown himself at them, clawless as he was. They had batted him aside, but he had tried to defend her till they knocked him senseless.

  And she could not reach him then. That hurt with more than the pain of the bruises it had cost. They had drugged her. And she had been helpless when they took him to question.

  “Chur’s all right,” she said—remembered to say, for he had not gone up topside yet to learn it. “Tully, she got out.”

  He looked at her and blinked. “Chur safe.”

  “Everyone.”

  He made a sound, wiped his face and ran his blunt fingers through the tangles of his mane. “###,” he said, something the translator mangled. He edged one foot and the other over the side. “I # crew. I crew, Hilfy, go work—want work—understand.”

  He got himself on his feet. He wobbled in the process, caught his balance on her offered hand, then: “Bath,” he said. And headed that direction.

  She understood that.

  “I’ll wait for you,” she said.

  So they were all a little crazed. She felt like collapse herself and felt the dizziness a lump on her skull had left. But The Pride was close to moving. They would be pulling out and getting out of this; and she had undergone one long nightmare of jump in kifish hands—

  —shut below, trapped belowdecks, with no sense of where they went or where they were or when they would die.

  They were at Mkks, Chur had told her. And a host of other things—like a deal struck at Kshshti station, that had sent Banny Ayhar hellbent for Maing Tol with messages; and brought Jik and Vigilance with them—improbable alliance, but a useful one.

  Jik’s got some piece of Ehrran’s hide, Chur had said, in the long waiting for results. He flashed some paper at her at Kshshti and she caved right fast. He’s no hunter-captain, that Jik, no way that’s all he is. He’s got connections—got us out of port, used that fancy computer on Aja Jin and laid us a course that put us straight into Mkks, all three, neat as you please. We went out on our mark and by the gods we were on when we came in. Got that new engine pack back there—

  Chur had showed her that, working the cameras aft; and the sight of their tail assembly on the vid had sent a shiver up Hilfy’s back.

  The Pride had changed. Had become something else since they pulled into Kshshti.

  Like her. And she would have wished to see the old outlines back there and to have felt she had come home to something known and never changed.

  Pyanfar friend these kif?

  Hilfy conjured scenes—things Tully had seen and she had not when Pyanfar had stayed alone in that room of kif; and again when Pyanfar had gone in after Tully with Jik and Ehrran and all the crew but herself and Chur. So, gods, why would he even ask?

  True, they had a kif aboard. Tully did not know that. The presence set twitches in Hilfy’s lip, and a shudder in her bones. The thing was down the corridor. Just a few doors down and around the bend.

  She sat on Tully’s bed and hugged her arms about herself, wishing as she had not wished since she begged to go to space and got a doting father’s leave—she wanted her home again, and safety, and not to see what she wanted now to do. Better hunting in the hills, that kind of killing. A clean kind. Find a mate. She was due that in her life. Have the grass under her feet again and the sun on her back where no hani she might meet would understand what kif were or the things that she had seen.

  Tully staggered out again, naked. There were wounds on him that seeped blood; bruises, bruises and burns and every sort of abuse. She carried like scars. He hunted a drawer for another pair of Haral’s cast-off breeches and came up with what must be the last.

  “Need help?” she asked.

  He shook his head, a human no. He sat down and tried with several attempts to get his leg in. He rested a bit, waved her off, hanging on the chair edge; and finally succeeded, one leg at least.

  The door opened, unannounced. Chur stood there, all bandage
d as she was. Her eyes widened; her voyages-ringed ears flicked back.

  “Chur,” Tully said, and got the other leg; and contrived to stand up and pull the breeches on and pull the drawstring in, with now and then a grasp at the chair back.

  “Gods-rotted little we haven’t seen of each other,” Hilfy muttered with a little shrug at Tully and a heat about her ears. “Him or me. It’s all right, Chur.”

  “You all right,” Tully said. He left the chair and reached out both hands for Chur. Chur winced instinctively; but he did not grab, only took her hands and clasped them in his own. “Chur, good to see you. Good to see you—”

  “Same,” Chur said. Her mouth pursed in a gaunt smile, and Hilfy got to her feet. “We’re some sight, aren’t we?”

  “We fine,” Tully said, with simplicity that ached. He grinned, tried to stop himself, got his face into a hani pleasantness. “Chur, I think you got dead.”

  “Got dead, no—” Chur cuffed his cheek ever so gently. “Gods, they chewed you up and spat you out, didn’t they?”

  Hilfy flinched, leaning on the chair. “Let him sit down, for the gods’ sakes. You too. What are you doing here?”

  “Got a small break. They’ve got data coming in up there; Tirun’s on it—thought I’d take the chance to come down and see you while I had it.”

  “We’re going out, are we?”

  Chur’s ears went down.

  “Aren’t we?”

  “Got some little deal going,” Chur said.

  “What deal?”

  “Jik. We got this—well, we got this pay-off we got to make. Jik’s asked us to go to Kefk. He’s talked Ehrran into it.”

  “Gods-be.” Hilfy’s claws dug into the upholstery and she retracted them. Fear. Stark fear. She knew it in herself, that flinchings had been set into her, bone and nerve, forever. “What’s at Kefk but kif? We still following this willy-wisp of human trade?”

  “Some other kind of deal,” Chur said. Her ears stayed at halfmast. The white showed at the corners of her eyes. “I don’t know clearly what. Captain’s back and forth with Jik.”

  “Go Kefk?” Tully asked. He wobbled over against the wall and stood there holding himself on his feet. “Kif? Go kif?”

  “What deal?”

  “Jik’s deal,” Chur said. “Hilfy—we bribed you out. I don’t know what’s up, but it’s certain we’ve got trouble on our tail and we’re clearing out of here to lead Akkhtimakt off Mkks in the likely case he comes this way. We got two kif headed for a showdown at Kefk and Jik’s taking sides. Mahen politics. And we’re in it.”

  “Gods, no!” The room went black-tunneled. She thrust the chair skidding on its track and headed doorward, dodged Chur’s hand.

  “Hilfy—” Chur’s voice pursued her. “Hilfy!” —Tully’s, that cracked and broke.

  “In a mahen hell,” Hilfy said to everything in reach, and headed for the lift.

  Chapter 5

  “We got Ehrran agree,” Jik’s terse message had said, scantly after Jik could have gotten back to his ship and put the call through. (“Good gods,” Haral muttered then. “What kind of blackmail’s he using?”) (“Must be good—” —from Tirun.) And straightway from Jik: “We got hakkikt send comp feed, lot interesting stuff. We run through library. You take, we make check.”

  And arriving with that feed from Sikkukkut’s Harukk: “I Sikkukkut send a gift. Kefk is not Mkks. You will discover this. We leave port in twelve hours or less.”

  “Aja Jin,” Pyanfar protested at once, “that’s a short turnaround. I know we’re pushing, but gods rot it, we haven’t got relief.”

  “Sorry,” Jik said. “Got do. Try, friend. We got problem.”

  “What problem?”

  “Like vector on that stsho.”

  “Went to Kefk, huh?”

  “Damn right.”

  “Gods be.” She raked a hand through her mane, leaned both elbows on the console, feeling the tension behind her eyes.

  The com kept up a steady crackle of kifish chatter and mahendo’sat, the station central offices still in kifish control, but with a few mahendo’sat speaking now from dock offices. The boards rippled systems-lights with the feed from Jik’s Aja Jin, which was filtering Harukk data through its own computer and checking it against records before sending it on.

  “I’d like to have a look at that comp system over there,” Tirun said. “One gods-rotted complicated son, I’m betting, the way it put us in here.”

  “Better do it twice,” Haral said, “that’s all I say. Khym—get that thing, will you? Help him, Geran. He’s got it fouled somehow.”

  “It’s gone. I’m sorry. I lost it out of records.”

  “What’s one more bill?” Geran said.

  Two crew down. Chur was not up to more work and Hilfy was R&R with Tully belowdecks, while the accessible universe wanted through the com system with individual complaints.

  “We sue,” was a frequent note.

  “You gods-rotted optimist,” Pyanfar yelled at one mahe more persistent than the rest. “Send your lawsuit to Maing Tol and I by the gods hope it gets through!”

  Then she wished she had held her peace. Her hands shook and there was a hollow feeling at her gut that going hyper-ac after jump was guaranteed to do to a body. She ate concentrates, drank, and it did no good.

  They had to sleep, no matter what; they all had to go off-shift and get some rest, and Jik’s communications streamed in without letup.

  “Gods-rotted mahe’s got no nerves,” she muttered. “He had a relief crew while he was inbound. Probably had a five-course dinner. What’s he think we are?”

  No one answered that.

  And: “Gods,” Geran muttered when the course plan and the Kefk information began to take shape. “That son’s mean.”

  “That’s before we even get there,” Haral said. “I’m betting there’s more surprises in that system that kif doesn’t want to show us.”

  “Not taking that bet,” Geran said.

  There was no jump-point on their way to Kefk, no point of mass where three ships up to no good could come in, go dead silent and rest and sleep a while. The route was just two stars in each other’s gravitational influence; The Pride would ride its own jump field and Kefk’s pull directly in with a vengeance. Three stars, counting Mkks and Kefk 1 and Kefk 2: Kefk was a close binary; and that made for difficult navigation at best.

  “Six ships go in with Sikkukkut, Jik, and our friend Rhif,” Tirun said. “We get the tailguard post.”

  “Alone with seven kif,” Geran said. “Gods, what a party.”

  “Beats going first.”

  “How much interval we got?”

  “Not by the gods enough.” Haral took furious notes and Pyanfar’s comp slot spat out a paper.

  All she could think of was sleep, the chance to lay her aching bones on a mattress and let her mind go. . . while they sat on a kifish dockside with a kifish strike force likely inbound at their backs from either of two enemies. . . kifish authorities at Harak or Akkhtimakt’s ships off by Kshshti. They hoped Akkhtimakt was no closer than Kshshti.

  Gods only knew. If an attack caught them like this, if Akkhtimakt came to Mkks before they left or got up to speed, they were sitting targets with their nose to station and no way to get up to v in time—the same thing they had done to Harukk and all its allies.

  It took no mindreading to know the practical reason why Jik wanted out of Mkks in a hurry.

  But other things occurred to her: like the chance Jik knew things he was not saying, about operations in progress elsewhere; the absolute surety that Sikkukkut did.

  There is fire, hani. From Llyene to Akkt to Mkks. Even Anuurn.

  Even Anuurn.

  And Vigilance agreed to join in an act of unvarnished piracy.

  I surmised correctly that you would follow me, hunter Pyanfar, as soon as your ship could move.

  So why us? Gods and thunders, what have we got either side wants but Tully? And Sikkukkut gave him back. Jik coul
d have laid claim to him. And Jik backed off.

  Why did Sikkukkut want us in this?

  Kif in the washroom. Kif all about. Threatened lawsuits pouring in, because a hani merchant was easier to sue than a han deputy or a mahen hunter ship; and, gods knew, the kif.

  “We just got a transmission from Vigilance,” Haral said. “Official notice we got a complaint filed.”

  “Tell ’em eat it.”

  “Captain.”

  “No, don’t tell them that. Acknowledge.” She shifted her attention to another board where a systems check had just blinked clear. “Number two vane is clean.” She verified Tirun’s check, punched the test of number three and got back to the Kefk system data.

  The schematic showed armed guard stations. Three of them at Kefk. And the robot navigation beacon in the jumprange gave no inner-lanes data to incoming ships until it got a ship ID; and if it disliked what it got, it would blank out entirely. That meant dumping speed early to avoid collision, and risking collision even at that reduced velocity. And without that incoming v they were sitting targets for anything those guard stations decided to throw at them. Gods, it was lunacy.

  “It’s sure something to run with clean equipment,” Tirun said. “I’d gotten used to alarms.”

  “Huh.” Pyanfar read an incoming schedule on screen two, blinked it clear, rubbed her right ear. The letters separated in a green haze and came back again. Not a complaint from the crew. A hani male sat over there bone-tired and working keys and grumbling in his throat in a kind of mindless reflex moan that occasionally became a mutter: poor Khym, too well-bred to swear like the rest of them, and doing a crewwoman’s job with a woman’s steady concentration, side by side with Geran. “Give me your information,” his litany ran, impeccably delivered. “I’ll get it to the appropriate officer.”

  And: “I’m sorry, that’s not quite possible.”

  The lift worked—Pyanfar turned the chair half about to glance down the corridor, nervous reflex with a kif aboard and Ehrran crew on guard in The Pride’s airlock.

  Hilfy was coming bridgeward in some haste. Ears back.

  Eyes dark, when she had gotten past the door.