"Got that," Hilfy said.
Haral gave her a look steady and sober, ears back-canted. "Think the kif read poetry?"
"Gods, I hope not."
Five decades ago. Dayschool and literature. When she had ten times rather be at her math. Stand and recite, Pyanfar.
"I hope to the gods this younger generation does."
On a winter's eve came Ruharan to her gates beneath black flight of birds in snowy court. White scarf flutters in the wind, red feather the fletch of arrows standing still in posts about the yard and the holy shrine where stands among a hundred enemies her own lord, no prisoner but of her enemies foremost seeming.
But Ruharun knew her husband a man with woman's wit and woman's staunchness.
So she cast down her bow and spilled out the arrows, on blood-spattered snow cast down defense, bowed her head to enemies and to fortune.
"Industry answers," Hilfy said. "Quote: We got that. 27, 28, 29. We have another kinswoman here in Munur Faha. Greetings from her. We are at your orders."
"Gods look on them." Pyanfar drew a large breath. Message received, covered and tossed back again under kifish noses. Munur Faha of Starwind was kin to Chanur. But not to Harun. Harun had no ties of any kind.
And Faha had a bloodfeud with Tahar of Moon Rising.
A small chill went down her back. It was response to her own coded hail. It was just as likely subtle warning and question, singling out Faha for salutations: strange company you keep, Pyanfar Chanur, a mahen hunter, a kifish prince, and a pirate. The Faha-Tahar feud was famous and bitter.
At your orders, smooth and silky. It was kifish subservience, never hani; it was humor, bleak and black and thoroughly spacer. Let's play the game, hani. You and your odd friends. Let's see where it leads.
It took a mental shift, gods help her, to think hani-fashion again, and to know the motives of her own kind. Like crossing a gulf she had been on the other side of so long that hani were as strange as the stsho.
"Reply: See you on my deck immediately."
Grapples took. The Pride's G-sense shifted, readjusted itself. Other connections clanged and thumped into seal. They were not the first ship in. Ikkhoitr and Chakkuf crews were already on the docks. Harukk was in final. But no kif came to help non-kif ships dock. Pointedly, they handled their own and no others.
They were Industry crewwomen risking their necks out there on the other side of that wall.
"I've got business," Pyanfar said, and unclipped the safeties.
"Aye," Haral said. "Routine shutdowns, captain. Go."
She got out of the chair and saw worried looks come her way. Tully's pale face was thin-lipped and large about the eyes, the way it got in Situations.
Thinking, O gods, yes, that this might be the end of his own journey, on a station where the kif had won everything that he had set out to take; and where humans were still a question of interest to Sikkukkut an'nikktukktin. He had reason to worry. The same as Jik did.
Queries were coming in, com from Moon Rising as it docked, operational chatter. Aja Jin was a minute away from touch.
Still playing the game, Kesurinan trusting that her captain was consenting to this long silence.
"Stay to stations," she said to all and sundry. "Khym, monitor lowerdecks."
"You going down there with him?" He looked at her with his ears down, the one with its brand new ring.
She flattened her own. He turned around again without a word. "Tirun's down there," she said to his back and Tully's face and Skkukuk's earnest attention.
I would go, hakt', that kifish stare said. Tear the throat out of this mahendo'sat, I would, most eagerly, mekt'hakt'.
"Huh." She made sure of the gun in her pocket and walked on out, wobbly in the knees and still with the sensation that G was shifting. She felt down in her pocket, remembering a packet of concentrates, and drank it in the lift, downbound.
The salty flood hit her stomach and gave it some comfort. Panic killed an appetite. Even when panic had gotten to be a lifestyle and a body was straight out of jump. She ate because the body said so. And tried not to think about the aftertaste.
Or the ships around them, or the situation out there on the docks.
Jik was on the bed, lying back with his head on his arms. He propped himself up as the door opened, his small ears flat, a scowl on his face.
" 'Bout time."
"I'm here to talk with you." She walked in and let the door close behind her. His ears flicked and he gathered himself up to sit on the edge of the bed, with a careful hitch at his kilt.
"You been listening to ops?"
"A." Stupid question. But an opening one. He drew a large breath. "You do damn fine job, Pyanfar. We sit at station, same like stsho. We got kif go blow Compact to hell. Now what do?''
"What do you want? Run out of here? I got hani ships here, I got ten thousand kif on their way to Urtur, right where you wanted 'em, gods rot you."
"Listen me. Better you listen me now."
"Down the Kura corridor. Isn't that the idea?"
"He be kif, not make connection you with these hani. They got be smart, save neck all themselves-Better you do own business. You don't panic, Pyanfar. Don't think like damn groundling! Don't risk you life save these hani. You get them killed, you make damn mess!"
She laid her ears back. "I got kifish ships headed at my homeworld, Jik. What am I supposed to do, huh? Ignore that?"
"Same me." Muscles stood out on Jik's shoulders, his fists clenched. "You let kif make you plan for you?
They shove, you go predict-able direction? Damn stupid, damn stupid, Pyanfar! You lock me up, take kif advice now? You let be pushed where this bastard want?''
"And where does that leave my world, huh? I got one world, Jik. I got one place where there's enough of my species to survive. Hani men don't go to space, they're all on Anuurn. What in a mahen hell am I supposed to do, play your side and lose my whole species? They got us, Jik, they got us cornered, don't talk to me about casualties, don't talk to me about any world and any lot of lives being equal, they're not.
We're talking about my whole by the gods species, Jik, and if I had to blow every hani out there and three hundred thousand stsho to do something about it, I'd do it, and throw the mahendo'sat onto the pile while it burned, by the gods I would!"
The whites showed at the corners of his eyes. Ears were still back, the hands still clenched.
"Why you here?"
"Because," she said, "two freighters and a hunter can't stop it. Because there's a chance I can turn Sikkukkut to do what I can't. Now you tell me about timetables. You tell me about it, Jik, and you tell me all of it, your ship caps included!"
He sat silent a moment. "You got trust."
"Trust. In a mahen hell, Jik. Tell me the truth. I'm out of trust."
"I got interests I protect."
"No." She walked closer, held up a forefinger and kept the claw sheathed with greatest restraint. ' "This time you trust me. This time you give me everything you've got. You tell me. Everything."
"Pyanfar. Kif going to take you 'board Harukk. They try question me, I don't talk. My gover'ment, they make fix-" He tapped the side of his head. "I can't talk. Can't be force'. You whole 'nother deal. They shred you fast. Know ever'thing. They know you got me 'board, a? Know you got chance make me talk.
Maybe they give me to you for same reason- they can't, maybe Pyanfar can do, a? Maybe block don't work when you ask, I tell you ever'thing like damn fool."
"Can you tell me? Can what they did to you, can what your Personage did to you-make you lie to me, even when you don't want to?"
A visible shiver came over him. Hands jerked. "I ask not do."
"Jik-you got to trust me. However they messed you up. Jik, if it kills you, I got to ask. What timetable?"