The Goldtooth-human aggregate went green. Retreating. Faster and faster.
Jik swore. In mahensi. "All way doublecross. Pyanfar. You, me, Ana. Damn, damn!"
"Shut it down."
"Kif-damn, kif do this thing, you don't go in fight, don't go in, Pyanfar."
"That, you got. No way are we going into that."
While the recent past unfolded on the screen, the computer struggling to make sense of it and sending out image that had two shades of the same kifish color on the ID monitor.
"Gods-be fool kif've hardly dumped," Haral muttered at her side. "Carrying sixty-five of light. Gods, look at that."
"I'd rather not," she said back. And felt sick at the stomach. Felt a tremor in all her limbs. "Bastard's got enough V to hyper out of here, right up Akkhtimakt's tail."
"Dangerous," Haral said. Meaning collisions on the other side, where they would drop down into the well at Urtur not knowing the trim and the precise capacity on the ships ahead of them. It was asking for it.
And the godscursed mahendo'sat were leaving system. Abandoning them. There were other conclusions, but none of them were enough to pin hope on. Knowing Goldtooth, whose priorities were all mahendo'sat.
That's one more I owe you, Goldtooth, you bastard.
We got hani ships at station. We got three hundred thousand stsho who can't defend themselves.
She reached after the last of the food packets by her chair and got it down; her mouth tasted of dry fuzz and copper. She was aware of loose fur rubbing between her skin and the chair leather; of hair sticking to the console-rim where it had rubbed from her arm; sweat had soaked her trousers and made the leather of the seat moist wherever she touched it.
Once at Urtur Akkhtimakt might rum about and come back with V on his side. Even if it took four months. But beyond Urtur was hani territory; the conflict might keep going.
Four months out and back, again and again and again. Years of maneuvering as the ground-bound saw it. Mere weeks in the time-stretch of ships that made virtually no system-time at all. Years of fighting, with ship-crews caught in virtual stasis, unaged.
How does anything survive in that kind of lunacy? What have we got at the end of it?
Gods fry him, what game is Goldtooth playing now? Him ;, and the humans. All running. What in a mahen hell good are they?
What doublecross are the humans planning?
What did Tully tell them?
"Priority," Hilfy said. "Message from Sikkukkut: quote: Dock and hold the station."
Got our orders, do we? Kiss the hakkikt's feet, do his work, move at his order. Go in there like a bunch of gods-be pirates?
I wish I were dead before this.
"Advise Aja Jin and Tahar," she said.
"Aye," Hilfy said. And a moment later: "They acknowledge: final message: Going on your signal."
We're worrying about what Goldtooth's doing. What Akkhtimakt's doing. We forget one important thing: Sikkukkut's no fool. He's had time to think this thing through. He's got something planned. He's thinking ahead of Akkhtimakt. Gods, what's the next move?
"Put us in," she said.
"Aye," said Haral. And began to lay course. They were moving in approximately the right vector. Haral hit the directionals and they started hammering off the V, turning, bringing the mains to bear on it. Those cut in, a one-G push, sudden and solid against the downward G they had from the rotation, a steady discomfort.
"Chur all right back there?" she asked. "Khym?"
"Chur's asked," Khym said, "What we're doing. I've tried to explain. I think she's drugged. She says she wants free of the machine. I said no, we had enough trouble."
"We got enough trouble," she muttered, and punched in all-ship. "Chur, we're all right. We got our hands full up here, huh? Just don't worry your sister."
"Aye," Chur's voice came back to her. She had been Geran's partner at that board. Now she lay listening while scan tried to track a Situation multiplied by fives and worse. "Geran, I'm . . . going to sleep . . . gods-be machine."
"G-stress," Pyanfar said.
Is it? Gods, cousin, hang on.
"We're headed into station," Geran said. "Hear that, sister of mine?"
"Got it," Chur murmured. It sounded like that. But she was far from the pickup.
The mains cut in, hard acceleration. And cut out again.
"We're on," Haral said. "We're going to be inertial. Take our time getting in there."
Preserve our options. Haral was reading her mind again. And inertial-time was rest-time.
She dropped her hand from the boards and sat there a moment while her muscles went weak and she was not at all certain that she could stand up. The interval between the two groups of kif narrowed further and further, changes perceptible only in the data-tags, but definitive. That would go on for the better part of an hour til someone got in position to do something. Jump and shoot, respectively. Then it remained to see what Sikkukkut would do.
Leave us to hold onto Meetpoint while he chases that bastard down?
Us to hold Meetpoint with Goldtooth loose? Goldtooth's taking his options. He won't jump till he has to, he wants to know what Sikkukkut's doing; and Sikkukkut's going to give him no options, going to follow right on his tail till he jumps. There's some small chance that Sikkukkut might leave if he can get Goldtooth out. He might rip loose everything he can pirate here and go for Akkhtimakt at Urtur. Akkhtimakt's got to go slow on the turn-around there, all that gods-be dust.
Got to. Then Sikkukkut could catch him up and hammer him good.
If we knew Goldtooth's mind. Kifish ships are going to run up his backside, make him jump for Tt’a’va’o, they got V on him, he's got no choice either.
And once Goldtooth goes, he and the humans've got a three, four month turnaround to get back here. Gods, think, Pyanfar! What are the options?
"Tirun. Take watch. All the rest of you, you're off. Get something to eat. Geran, you're cleared aft; Skkukuk, belowdecks. Take what you can get. Jik. You I want to talk to."
Seats moved, restraints clicked open. Everyone was in motion, Haral as well. Pyanfar turned her own chair and stopped. Jik still sat in his place, staring at the screens. Tirun was beside him, keeping her station. And Tully, though Hilfy had him by the elbow, lingered with a confused and sorrowful look toward the boards. Toward-gods knew, his own people starting off in retreat with Goldtooth, leaving him behind, perhaps forever, who knew? It was not a time to say anything. Pyanfar stared their way till Hilfy prevailed and they went out the door.
"Haral," she said. "Take the long break. Tirun, board to you, you go off when we get to final. Sorry about it."
"Got it," Tirun said hoarsely. 'I'm fine, captain."
That left Jik to deal with. Khym had lingered in the corridor. She saw him standing down near Chur's door, looking back toward the bridge.
In case.
"Haral," she said in deepest and most impenetrable hani: "You want to bring me up a sedative. Something our guest can take. If we have to do that."
"Aye, captain," Haral said.
"I'll be in galley."
She wanted to be clean. She wanted to go back to her cabin and run herself under the shower. The whole bridge smelled like ammonia and hani and human and mahen sweat, an aroma even the fans did not totally disperse. But there was no time for that. It was far from over.