The Kif Strike Back

by C. J. Cherryh

  “Huh,” said Pyanfar; bowed and slanted her ears back when she did it. Haral stayed close as they passed the hatch to Harukk’s ammonia-smelling interior.

  More kif waited in the inside corridor—one who turned out to be merely delayed traffic, who stalked on; and four tall kif rattling with weapons.

  “Follow,” one said, and stalked off in the lead without looking back. Three walked behind, while two stayed. And not a word of objection about the array of weapons their visitors brought aboard. Not a word of any kind. They passed kif in these dim corridors that stank of ammonia and machinery and blood and other, unidentifiable things, and no one gave them a second glance.

  Kifish manners, Pyanfar thought. Don’t notice the hakkikt’s odd guests, don’t stare, don’t give offense. The aura of fear and fierceness throughout the place was infectious. It bristled the back, set the pulse beating faster, sent fight-flight impulses coursing the nerves.

  Hilfy knows this place, Pyanfar thought at sight after sight, with an involuntary tightening of her gut. Hilfy was in this awful place.

  Hilfy had stood silent by Khym’s side when she had broken the news to them where she and Haral proposed to go. Khym had had his opinion of it all. Like Geran. But Hilfy’s ears just went flat and her nostrils drew taut; and: “Huh,” Hilfy had said. “Why?” With a darkness of memory in her eyes; and an estimation, and nothing else readable. “You know it’s a trap.”

  “I know,” Pyanfar had said. “At this point there isn’t a better choice.”

  Hilfy knew the ways of kif better than any. And gave her no argument. No offer to come either. The situation wanted cold steadiness and as little as possible chance of provoking the kif. And that put the job, by seniority and by disposition, on Haral Araun.

  Haral walked along beside her now as warily easy as on a trek down one of the Compact’s rougher docksides—kept her ears up and her face serene during the ride pent in a lift with the pair of kifish guards.

  The lift stopped; one guard exited and the rest hung back as they had done below. And it was one more long walk down the dimly lit corridor aft from the lift; then an open doorway, and a dim chamber where a handful of kif waited attendance on one seated on an insect-legged chair, a kif who wore a silver medallion, whose black robe and hood were edged in silver that shone dimly in sodium-light.

  “Hakkikt,” Pyanfar said, approaching this grim magnificence. And bowed with a carefully rationed measure of respect and self-importance.

  “Kkkt.” Sikkukkut flourished his thin, dark-gray hand. “Ksithikki.” Kif scurried to the corners of the room and carried back two chairs and a low table, all at a virtual run.

  “Ksithti.”

  Pyanfar nodded and sat down in one, feet tucked. Haral took the other. More orders from Sikkukkut, and a wave of his hand in a silver-bordered sleeve. Kif scurried after pitcher and cups with as great haste; and hurried to put a cup into Sikkukkut’s outstretched hand before it had had time to tire of waiting. A cup went to Pyanfar; a third to Haral. A kif had poured for Sikkukkut; and came quickly to pour for them from the same pitcher.

  It was, thank the gods, parini. Liquor. Strong and straight and likely to go straight to the head; but it was nothing objectionable. Pyanfar sipped gingerly and tried not to think of obvious things like whether the off-taste was the ammonia in her nostrils or something in the drink.

  But they were sitting in Sikkukkut’s hall, on Sikkukkut’s deck; in his starstation; in kif space; and drugged drinks here seemed as superfluous as removing their weapons, which no one had offered yet to do. Haral followed her lead and drank: Haral, whose stomach was redoubtable in station bars from Anuurn to Meetpoint and who always made her duty schedules without a hangover. For the second time she was glad it was Haral by her and not Khym.

  “You turned down this invitation once at Meetpoint,” Sikkukkut said.

  “I remember.” A sneeze threatened her dignity. And their lives. She fought it back with an effort that made her eyes water. It was psychological, this aversion to kif. She had taken the pills. And gods, those pills made a hazardous combination with the liquor, dried her mouth, dulled her perceptions. And her nose still prickled.

  “I told you then I looked for a change of mind someday.” Sikkukkut dipped his nose into the ornate cup and drank. “And here it is. Kkkt. After an emergency on your ship. What sort of emergency, do you mind?”

  Wits, get your mind working, Pyanfar Chanur. “There was a medical difficulty; but the emergency call to the mahendo’sat was a matter of convenience.” She looked straight at the hakkikt and prayed the gods greater and lesser for no sudden sneezes. Attack the matter straight on. Rob the bastard of all his carefully laid traps and surprises. “Actually it was an excuse for consultation with two of my allies—without the nuisance of a third, speaking plainly. On several matters. Your gift, hakkikt—gives me options to deal with that nuisance. That’s why I came. It may rid you of one too—since I think my annoyance and yours has one source.”

  “Kkkkt.” Another sip, and a shadowed glance within the shadowing, silver-edged hood, black eyes reflecting the glare of sodium-light. “I take it then you don’t intend to kill this Tahar hani.”

  “No. I don’t.”

  “So you have asked for the crew as well as the captain. This would be a rather large gift on my part. They are unusual—kkt. Ikkthokktin. A mild rarity. Amusing. I don’t say I’m personally interested, but certain of my skkukun would be pleased to have one or another of them. Is it perhaps a certain—ethical reluctance—on your part? Should your desires mass more than others of my captains?”

  Think. “I have reasons more than amusement.” Kifish logic. Pukkukkta. Let him lead himself astray. When outclassed in wit, create plausible complications and let the enemy think himself to death. “You have to understand, hakkikt, I’m sure you do—that Rhif Ehrran is no particular friend of mine. I don’t doubt you’ve heard from her, wanting them released to her.”

  “And from Keia and even from Ismehanan-min. These Tahar hani seem to be a matter of some excitement in your faction. A sfik-item, you say. But why should I give the whole prize to you?”

  “Tahar interests quite a few people, particularly hani. They’re a big family, they’ve got wide holdings in the same continent as Chanur, as well as being spacer-hani, which also makes them valuable in some quarters. No. I’m going to ask an even larger favor of you, hakkikt—trusting Moon Rising got through the station takeover undamaged. I want that crew handed over to me—and I want their ship.”

  “Kkkt. Pyanfar Chanur, your audacity grows larger by the hour. First Tahar, then the crew, now the ship. Next will you ask me for Kefk? Akkht, perhaps?”

  There was a hush in the room. Not a kif stirred. “You have Kefk.” Pyanfar assumed her most charming smile. “Myself, hakkikt, my ambitions are different. I want this one small ship. And its crew. For my own reasons.”

  “Where are the mahendo’sat? Where is Keia? He could surely make hani reasonable to me. Kkkt. I make no assumptions when dealing with such a suicidal species. And—kkt—the emergency call and the consultation. Kkkt. Kkkt. Who is injured?”

  “One of my crew. A minor business. It gave me the chance to talk with Goldtooth. Ismehanan-min. It has to do with the ship.” (Back to the trail, hakkikt!) “Goldtooth delivered me some information that makes me surer than ever where my interests lie. Rhif Ehrran and I are about to come to severe difference; it’s possible she’ll attack us directly, but I doubt it—she wants to survive. She has the means to create difficulties for me on Anuurn. When we get to Meetpoint we’ll have her to reckon with.”

  “To Meetpoint.”

  Pyanfar blinked. “Meetpoint. Definitely Meetpoint.”

  “You assume this.”

  “Where Akkhtimakt is headed. Where a certain treaty with the stsho could bring the han and all their ships in on Akkhtimakt’s side. You don’t act surprised, hakkikt. I didn’t think you’d be.”

  “Only in your forthrightness. I know abou
t the stsho treaty.”

  “Then explain a kif motive for me. Why haven’t you taken Ehrran out, since her liability is about to outweigh her use?”

  “Kkkt. She is attached to Kefk at the moment. Inconvenient and dangerous. Let’s wait till she goes outbound. Explain in return: why did Keia acquire this double-edged person in the first place?”

  “To keep her from going anywhere else. And for the same reason you’ve used her: the sfik of the han. Roughly speaking. Hakkikt, honor to you, I don’t know how often you’ve monitored our communications, but Ehrran has quite a collection of reports she trusts will damage Chanur’s sfik on Anuurn—I’m translating this as best I can—so thoroughly that the pro-stsho party can destroy us. I don’t intend to let that happen. Now is my motive clear?”

  “Labyrinthine as I expected. Kkkt. Once away from dock I can solve everyone’s difficulty at a stroke.”

  “Ah, but that’s another favor I ask you: leave the Ehrran ship to me. Destroying it outright might be a present convenience to me, but a difficulty in the long run, when the tale got around, and it would get around. Among this many ships, even among your own, some would talk, to damage me and advance themselves, I have no doubt. If that rumor got out, those records of Ehrran’s wouldn’t even need to get to Anuurn. The pro-stsho party would have all the ammunition it needs to do me harm. Martyr. You know that concept?”

  “I haven’t heard that word, no.”

  “It’s a kind of sfik you get by dying in a way that makes a point, hakkikt. Double sfik because you’re dead and you can’t be discredited. People will die following you forever. And that makes more martyrs. Destroy Ehrran and she’ll cause us twice the trouble.”

  “Kkkkkt. Kkkkkkt. Kkkkt.” Sikkukkut’s snout drew down as if something offended his nostrils. He sipped at his cup and the tongue lapped delicately around his lips. “What a concept. Kkkkkt. I think, hunter Pyanfar, the straightest course is simply to blow up the Ehrran ship in the next action, when matters are suitably confused.”

  “Ah, but then I’m still left with Tahar for company, which would ruin my sfik—unless I can first discredit Ehrran. And you can’t discredit a dead hero. Bad taste. Martyrdom. No, I can put this simple hani concept in kifish without any difficulty at all: pukkukkta. Revenge. I have to deal with Ehrran in a hani way, in a way that shows other hani what we both know she is—an utter fool. And to do that, I need Tahar.”

  “Why should I risk my ships for the sake of your pukkukkta?”

  “Sfik. I’m your ally. I can put a stop to a problem. Balance, hakkikt. Equilibrium in the Compact. It’s one thing to climb a mountain, it’s quite another thing to build a house there.”

  Kif stirred about the room. Sikkukkut was frozen still with the cup in his hand. Too far, gods, one step too far with him.

  But: “For a hani, you have a fine grasp of politics,” Sikkukkut said, and sipped at his parini, a delicate lapping of a long, black tongue.

  “Hakkikt, hani may be new in space, but politics is the air we breathe.”

  Sikkukkut’s snout wrinkled. “So you want the small matter of seven more hani and a well-armed ship, the behavior of which in our midst you guarantee. And you want the Ehrran ship to deal with too. Kkkt, hani, you amuse me. You may have the Tahar crew and Moon Rising. Kgotok skkukun nankkafkt nok takkif hani skkukunikkt ukku kakt tokt kiffik sikku nokkuunu kokkakkt taktakti, kkkt?”

  Something about turning over a thousand kif as well. There was the sniffle of kifish laughter about the room. “So,” said Sikkukkut. “What else did Ismehanan-min have to say when he met with you?”

  Gods. To the flank and in. “Beyond the warning about affairs at home, the business about Akkhtimakt moving on Meetpoint. That, mostly. And warned me about the stsho treaty with the han. Which I’d suspected.” Turning over that much truth made a knot of foreboding in her gut, but some coin had to go on the table, and it was the thing most likely Sikkukkut already knew—with former partisans of Akkhtimakt in his hands.

  “Kkkt. Yes. And the humans are coming in. Did he say that?”

  “He said they were headed this way.”

  Another lapping at the cup. A flicker of dark eyes. “Be more specific.”

  “He wasn’t specific.”

  “Tt’a’va’o,” Sikkukkut said. “Go on.”

  Pyanfar blinked again. Surprise took no acting. Dissembling outright fright did. The little she had drunk reacted with the medicines and hummed in her blood. “Tt’a’va’o,” she said. “I know the stsho are panicking. The mahendo’sat can’t restrain them. This alliance with Akkhtimakt is the worst thing they could do for themselves, but it’s the stsho’s only hope of getting armed ships, which the han can’t provide in numbers. The kif are a known quantity. The stsho are most afraid of what they least understand. And they think—mistakenly, I think—that they know how to cheat a kif, playing one against the other.”

  There was a whisper, a stirring of robes.

  “Kkkkt. This place is a mine of information. All sorts of things pour into my ears. Where will the humans come next?”

  “The stsho think Meetpoint. They would. I don’t know.” She took the slightest of sips. And took a risk that chilled the blood. “The tc’a may have some part in that decision.”

  Sikkukkut’s snout moved. Score one. Fear. “Your estimation? Or the mahendo’sat’s?”

  “I got the impression that’s the case. I don’t like it, hakkikt.”

  “You say you don’t know the human’s course. Kkkt. You do have one resource.”

  “My human crewman? Hakkikt, the mahendo’sat might know. Tully doesn’t. I get the impression the human ships are improvising their course—going where they can go. And Tully left humanity—months back. He hasn’t got any more idea than I do where the humans are going—less, in fact. I’ve talked to Goldtooth.”

  “Kkkt.” Sikkukkut gazed at her long and thoughtfully. “Interesting. Interesting, this human. Friend of yours. Friend of mine. I would not take a gift amiss—since you expect my generosity.”

  “I’m still hani, hakkikt. We have our differences. I can’t give up a crewman. But pukkukkta’s a fit gift to give a hakkikt, isn’t it? Pukkukkta’s something we have in common. And if I win—Chanur’s going to do some re-arranging back home. Pukkukkta for certain. You want no more hani-stsho treaties, hakkikt, I’ll give you that with my compliments. Common motives. Wasn’t that the way you described a good alliance?”

  “You have aspirations on Anuurn.”

  “Oh, yes. On Anuum and in space.”

  Another long silence. A dry sniffing. “The prisoners are inconsequence.” Sikkukkut waved his left hand and set the cup aside into a hand that appeared to take it on the instant. “Go. I have taken time enough with this.”

  Pyanfar stood up, bowed; Haral did the same. “And the ship,” Pyanfar said.

  “Details.” Sikkukkut waved his hand again. “See to them. Skktotik.”

  * * *

  Kif arrived at the lock. With deliveries.

  “They can by the gods wait,” Tirun said; and Hilfy turned and looked at her, her heart pounding. Tirun was senior; Tirun called the decisions now on The Pride and sat in Haral’s chair. And Hilfy only looked at her, having known Tirun Araun long enough to know with Tirun there was impulse and there was what Tirun had the sense to do in spite of impulse. Don’t back up, don’t show fear—

  “Gods be,” Tirun muttered with fury in her eyes. “Hilfy—they’re pushing, these kif are: I don’t like their timing; but it’s a real soft push right now. We got to take that delivery.”

  “Sure as rain falls we can’t back up from them,” Hilfy said. “I’ll go down there.”

  “Take Khym with you.”

  “Rather have Geran.”

  “I want a second pair of eyes up here at the boards. Take Khym.”

  “Right.” Hilfy punched the all-ship, on low volume. “Geran. Tully. You’re needed on the bridge. Na Khym, go to lower main.”

  And she felt a quiver
in her stomach as she got up from the board. Raw terror. Pyanfar was out with Haral and the kif wanted in at the lock with an innocuous delivery of a cage full of stinking vermin and a mini-can of grain.

  Compliments of the hakkikt.

  From Sikkukkut, who had kept Pyanfar and Haral aboard a worrisome long time.

  Geran reached the bridge before she had gotten across the deck to the weapons locker. “Kif below,” Tirun said at her back, talking to Geran. “We got visitors.”

  A chair sighed with Geran’s weight as Hilfy heaved the weight of an AP about her hips and gathered up a light pistol for herself and one for Khym. Her hands were shaking. She looked up as Tully arrived on the bridge. “Sit scan,” Hilfy said as he looked her way. “Help Geran.”

  “Py-anfar got trouble?” Tully asked. There was panic in his eyes. Raw nightmare. “What do?”

  “Sit down! Don’t ask me questions!” She had not meant to snarl. Instinct delivered it; terror; vexation. Men. It was not a man’s kind of fight—yet. And all she had for help down there in lowerdeck was a man not hers. Pyanfar could handle Khym. Pyanfar could knock reason into his thick skull, and Pyanfar was off with the kif in gods knew what trouble—

  —and na Khym knew that.

  Gods, gods. She snapped the locker shut as across the bridge Tully slipped into the chair by Geran’s side, an extra pair of eyes and hands in crisis—that, at least. Skilled and illiterate. And mortally scared.

  “Stay put!” Geran was saying to someone on com; and Hilfy guessed who. Chur had surely heard that bridge-call.

  Hilfy hit the topside-main at a run, the heavy gun knocking at her leg, the light pistols in either hand as she headed for the lift downside.

  “This way,” their guide said, deep in the gut of the kifish ship, down reeking halls, down sodium-lighted corridors and through one and the other ominously sealable door.

  On the far side of this last doorway were cross-barred cells.

  “Wait outside, captain?” Haral said.

  “Aye,” Pyanfar said, and Haral stepped to the side by the outside of that door and set her hand on her gun—fast; and firm; and she blessed her first officer’s good sense as Haral got away with it.