"Those tanks will blow off real easy," she said. "Take a good look, Hilfy, Khym. A real good look."
"Hunter-ship," Hilfy said.
"No trader. That's for sure. Gods-rotted kif hunter. That's Harukk, no need to look for numbers." She keyed the safety systems to *ADVISE ONLY* and pushed the mains in hard.
G hit, pressed her elbow into the brace and triggered the over-arm lock that held her hand within reach of the board. New system. It worked. She had rigged The Pride with what protections they could afford, since Gaohn; handholds, line-rigs, braces at all boards. A few extra firearms, quietly acquired.
"That's the kif reason," she said against the G. "And the other one for putting a little hurry on — I'd like to beat a certain check to the bank."
"Can we cover it?" Tirun's voice, over com. "-Later?"
"Huh. That's still Goldtooth's problem."
"What's going on?" asked Khym.
Silence, except for ship noise, the long misery of acceleration.
"What's going on?" he asked again.
"Just a business arrangement," she said. "Hold onto your stomach. We're coming up on two-range. Going to give ourselves a boost."
"Pyanfar-"
"Tell you later. Haral, set her up."
"Captain, got another ship undocked," Chur said from scan.
"Gods rot. Who?"
"Can't tell yet. Station's not talking. Stand by."
They were not yet far enough and fast enough for G to play havoc with information: not far enough and fast yet by far to be out of range of that sleek kif ship back there.
That ship could start out a day late and be waiting for them on Urtur rim. No question. She drew quiet small breaths against the G and calculated. A rush after them made no sense, for a ship that fast.
It was not kif that had undocked. She was willing to bet not kif. It had no need to race, being able to guess their course.
"Ship is knnn."
"Oh, good gods."
"What's the matter?" (Khym.)
Knnn. Methane-breathing, dangerous and lunatic in their moves. No one wanted the knnn stirred up.
And kif trouble might. Any trouble might.
"What's the matter?" (Khym again).
"Long explanation," Pyanfar muttered. "Hold the questions, Kyhm. We're busy."
"Com coming up," Hilfy said.
An insane wailing came over com, knnn-song, which announced to the universe and other knnn whatever it was the knnn thought good to say.
Or it was simply singing for its own amusement, and putting it out on com out of thinking as obscure as the rest of its logic.
"Bearing zero two by fourteen."
Askew for them. That meant nothing. Knnn ships obeyed different laws.
"Stand by that cycle," she said, and listened for Haral's acknowledgment. "Take it twice. We're getting out of here."
Vanes cycled in, a brief, stomach-wrenching lurch to a higher energy state. Nausea threatened. Instruments recycled with a flurry of lights, recalibrating. She checked the nav fix on Urtur.
"Knnn no change," Chur said.
Second pulse.
"Helm to one." Controls flashed live under her hands as Haral handed it over. They were up to V, outbound. "Stand by jump. Fix on that knnn to the last gods-rotted second."
Knnn had policy, somewhere in their moves. Black hair-snarls animate on long thin legs, they built good ships — far better ships than oxy-breathers could survive, unless things also went on in them that played games with stress. Nothing could talk to knnn but the leathery, serpentine tc'a, and tc'a brains were manifold matrices.
Nothing could reason with knnn but tc'a. Time was, knnn took anything they liked, stripped ships in midcourse, raided the earliest stations: so stsho said. It was before the hani came. Tc'a got through the concept of trade — at least so knnn left something in their forays. Now they darted manic-fast into methane-breather sectors, deposited some object, which might be anything, and skittered off again with whatever they wanted — which might, again, be anything.
Tc'a coped. Chi did, one supposed; but chi, looking like a collection of yellow, rapid-moving sticks, were crazier than knnn. And tc'a themselves were hazy on trade-concepts. Gods knew how they ran their worlds. No outsider did.
"Mark to jump: five minutes."
"How's that knnn?"
"Still- It just cycled, captain."
"I want better news. That's four and counting."
"Continuing to cycle. That's into our lag-time-" Meaning that in the lag of lightspeed information the knnn might be doing other things.
"Rot the book." She shoved the jump cycle in.
— dropped — seatfirst — topside down — rightside up — back again in here and now, and the stomach still wanting to turn itself inside out —
There was that wretched halfway-there, while senses swam, fingers took an hour clenching on controls, instruments underwent a slow ripple of lights that took a subjective day arriving at nothing special at all —
Solidity then, with one focus, sharp-edged and dreadful as the soft uncertainties before, with endless fascination in the angles of counters, the colors, the textures. A mind could get lost in the endless detail of a counter-edge.
Pyanfar swallowed against the dry mouth and copper taste that came with compressed time, flexed hands that had not flexed for three-odd weeks local. The chronometers showed a dubious 3.2 days. The body reacted: would shed hair and old skin within the hour as if entropy had hit, not quite three days' worth, but some: and Tully's drugs would wear off, while the bowels and kidneys had other, later consequences, and blood sugar went through loops and dives, obscuring sense and hazing senses and doing things to the stomach.
Beep went controls.
She shoved the Dump down hard.
Second phasing in and out of hyperspace, bleeding off velocity in the process.
Third.
Her stomach heaved. She held her jaw clenched. The copper taste was worse.
Beep.
"That's Urtur beacon confirmed," Haral read off. "Heading zero, nine, two."
Automatic alarms went off in her skull, memories she had forced there weeks ago.
"Geran! 'ware of kif. Do we have company?"
"Checking."
Three subjective days since she had done out-bound at Meetpoint and she felt the ache in her shoulders. "Khym. You all right?"
An incoherent answer; he sounded alive.
"Got Urtur beacon," Haral said. "Tirun. Sort it."
"Aye." That was Urtur beacon information coming in, constant-send, giving incoming ships the exact position of objects insystem so far as known. Course assignment would come, as soon as bounce-back time had delivered their presence to Urtur's robot outrange beacon and its automated systems computed them a lane.
"Advise Beacon," Pyanfar said, "that we're through-traffic. Get your star-fix." Her hands shook. Crew would be in no better state. She wanted a drink, imagined floods of liquid, iced, deluges of flavors. Even tepid. Brackish. Anything.
"Fix on Kirdu," Haral said. "Affirmative. Laying course for Maing Tol via Kita Point."
"Message sent," Hilfy said.
"How long to station signal?"
"About two hours," Tirun said. "That's 2.31. Beacon doesn't show any ship in the range. It's not picking us up."
"Beacon signal," Hilfy said. "Aunt — We're getting a code-call off beacon. We've got a message waiting. Stand by."
"Huh." A cold feeling settled to Pyanfar's stomach. "Put it through on one." The beacon robot had output something triggered by The Pride's automatic ID, like a tripline. They came into system, beacon affirmed their identity and spat out what it held memory-stored for them. Expensive mail. Very.