''Come on," Hilfy had said. ''Tully.''
You know, don't you? Pyanfar had thought then. You know she'll leave you now. Her own kind, Tully. She's Chanur now. The Chanur. And you're ours; even when you go back, your people won't forget that, will they? Ever.
Gods help you, Tully. Whatever your name really is. Whatever you think you are and wherever you go now.
Like Tahar. They don't ever quite forget.
I'm no fool, that look of his said back to her. Neither of us are. We're friends.
And perhaps some other human, unfathomably complicated strangeness she could not puzzle out.
Tully came with them onto the docks this time. It was the second time for him onto Gaohn station, among staring and mistrustful hani, in a confrontation where he was a showpiece, an exhibit, a pawn. They gave him weapons. The same as themselves. So he would know another important thing in a way the sputtering translator could not relay.
Last of all she had caught hold of him in the airlock, taken him by the arm and made sure he was listening: "Tully. You can go with the human ships. You're free, you understand that. You know free?"
"I know free," he had said. And just looked at her with that gentle, too-wise expression of his.
Down the docks where a line of grim-looking Llun had set the perimeters of this meeting, the towering section seals in place on either end of this dock. There were stationer clanswomen, spacer clans. And a delegation from the han had come thundering up from the world, only just arrived. There were weapons enough. And Llun guards enough to discourage anything some hani lunatic might try.
The Llun marshals were no protection against the hunter-ships which had come in, snugged their deadly sleek noses up into Gaohn's vulnerable docking facilities, and disgorged their own guards and their own very different personnel. Three mahendo'sat, a human ship, and a trio of kif: besides The Pride and Harun's Industry: that was the final agreement. Aja Jin, Mahijiru, then one other mahen ship named Pasarimu, that had come in after Jik; Nekkekt, Chakkuf, Maktakkt, and finally something unpronounceable that Tully said for them three times and they still could not manage. The Human Ship, they called it by default.
The gathering on the dock was very quiet, and all too careful. Even Jik, who had on a dark cloak and kilt so unlike
his usual gaud it took a second look to know it was Jik. Only a single collar, a solitary bracelet. An AP on his hip and a knife beside it. That was usual. Soje Kesurinan was there, brighter-dressed and no less armed. And with them some Personage walked with the captain of Pasarimi, complete with Voice, with all the appropriate badges. Official, yes. Indisputably.
There was Goldtooth, in the same dark formality. And his own escort. Not a flicker of communication passed between him and his partner.
Harun and Llun, a tired crew in spacer-blues, with Kauryfy herself in green and the Llun all in Immune black.
Another lot came in black: a mass of Shadow drifted out from the perimeters, all alike in their robes, their hoods, their utter sameness to hani eyes, all bristling with weapons. One of them would be Skkukuk, but she could not find him by the clues she knew, the gait, the small gestures. There was a tall kif evidently in charge, one the others evidently gave place to.
Who is that? Is it my kif?
She feared it was altogether another. In one sense or another.
And the humans, from whatever-it-was. She had seen the like once before: different kinds of humans; different shapes; any species had that. But these varied wildly, some handsome in a Tully-way; some just strange. They all wore dark gray, all glittered with silver and plastics, body-fitting, skin-covering suits: even the hands covered. Not one was armed with anything that looked like a weapon. Com equipment. Plenty of that. They remained an enigma. And stopped, at about the distance everyone else had stopped, like points of a star.
Fear grew thick on this dockside: it was evident in the set of hani ears, in the way kif and mahendo'sat moved. In the way that Tully stayed right at their side, and no human advanced beyond the mahen perimeter.
There was another thing in the system. There was a very real knnn and a tc'a out there, singing to each other in harmonics of which the computer-translators which were supposed to handle such things, made no sense but positional
data. It was significant and ominous that the matrix of the harmonics had the position of Gaohn station in it.
The knnn were interested. That was more than enough to account for the fear.
But the representatives from downworld would hardly comprehend that much: they would, most likely, be getting their first look at a mahendo'sat, let alone kif or humans. And perhaps they had a resolution in their hands; or perhaps the debating was still going on, and Naur and Tahy Mahn par Chanur and others of that worldbound mindset were still arguing protocols and policies. Gods knew. If she let herself think about it she grew cold, killing mad.
They had set out a huge table, for godssake, a table and chairs there on dockside, the Llun's council furniture moved out, that was what it was, hani council furniture, as if all these factions could be gotten together, as if in all the chaos and amid ships moving in with major damage and injured, some fool (from Anuurn surface most likely) had time to insist on tables and chairs which would hardly even accommodate the anatomy of some of the invaders. With knnn running around the neighborhood, and ships still at standoff out there in the zenith range, over fifty of them determined to force an issue and get passage through, others determined to move kif who would literally die of the shame, and kif who were as doggedly determined to resist.
Gods-cursed groundling fools. If that knnn out there comes calling, we won't survive it. Do your resolutions understand that?
Humans have fired on them. Tully says.
Jik's played politics with the tc'a. Gods! does he know what that is out there, is it something that's come for him, for the mahendo'sat?
Tables. My gods, we're lucky to get these species within shouting distance of each other! The kif never do anything without the scent of advantage, they're here on a thread, on the least thread of a suspicion that I'm their best way out.
And Jik and Goldtooth aren't talking, they're not looking at each other, the crews don't mix-and who in their own hell is the Personage Pasurimi came in with?
Came in with the ships out of mahen space, not the Kura route. Came in, my gods, from Iji, that's where he's from. That's someone from the homeworld.
That's Authority. That, with the Voice and the badges and the robes. And he hasn't introduced himself. The Voice hasn't spoken a word. The han's been insulted and they don't even know it.
They're frozen. No one's not moving. It's the kif they distrust.
"Skkukuk," she guessed, taking the risk. And the foremost kif lifted his face the least degree, then lowered it, belligerence and manners in two breaths. Even amiability. For a kif.