"Go Kefk?" Tully asked. He wobbled over against the wall and stood there holding himself on his feet. "Kif? Go kif?"
"What deal?"
"Jik's deal," Chur said. "Hilfy—we bribed you out. don't know what's up, but it's certain we've got trouble on our tail and we're clearing out of here to lead Akkhtimakt off Mkks in the likely case he comes this way. We got two kif headed for a showdown at Kefk and Jik's taking sides. Mahen politics. And we're in it."
"Gods, no!" The room went black-tunneled. She thrust the chair skidding on its track and headed doorward, dodged Chur's hand.
"Hilfy—" Chur's voice pursued her. "Hilfy!"—Tully's, that cracked and broke.
"In a mahen hell," Hilfy said to everything in reach, and headed for the lift.
V
"We got Ehrran agree," Jik's terse message had said, scantly after Jik could have gotten back to his ship and put the call through. ("Good gods," Haral muttered then. "What kind of blackmail’s he using?") ("Must be good—"—from Tirun.) And straightway from Jik: " We got hakkikt send comp feed, lot interesting stuff. We run through library. You take, we make check."
And arriving with that feed from Sikkukkut's Harukk: "I Sikkukkut send a gift. Kefk is not Mkks. You will discover this. We leave port in twelve hours or less."
"Aja Jin," Pyanfar protested at once, "that's a short turnaround. I know we're pushing, but gods rot it, we haven't got relief."
"Sorry," Jik said. "Got do. Try, friend. We got problem."
''What problem?"
''Like vector on that stsho."
''Went to Kefk, huh?"
''Damn right."
Gods be." She raked a hand through her mane, leaned both elbows on the console, feeling the tension behind her eyes. -
The com kept up a steady crackle of kifish chatter and mahendo'sat, the station central offices still in kifish control, but with a few mahendo'sat speaking now from dock offices. The boards rippled systems-lights with the feed from Jik's Aja Jin, which was filtering Harukk data through its own computer and checking it against records before sending it on.
"I'd like to have a look at that comp system over there," Tirun said. "One gods-rotted complicated son, I'm betting, the way it put us in here."
"Better do it twice," Haral said, "that's all I say. Khym— get that thing, will you? Help him, Geran. He's got it fouled somehow."
"It's gone. I'm sorry. I lost it out of records."
"What's one more bill?" Geran said.
Two crew down. Chur was not up to more work and Hilfy was R&R with Tully belowdecks, while the accessible universe wanted through the com system with individual complaints.
"We sue," was a frequent note.
"You gods-rotted optimist," Pyanfar yelled at one mahe more persistent than the rest. "Send your lawsuit to Maing Tol and I by the gods hope it gets through!"
Then she wished she had held her peace. Her hands shook and there was a hollow feeling at her gut that going hyper-ac after jump was guaranteed to do to a body. She ate concentrates, drank, and it did no good.
They had to sleep, no matter what; they all had to go off-shift and get some rest, and Jik's communications streamed in without letup.
"Gods-rotted mahe's got no nerves," she muttered. "He had a relief crew while he was inbound. Probably had a five-course dinner. What's he think we are?"
No one answered that.
And: "Gods," Geran muttered when the course plan and the Kefk information began to take shape. "That son's mean."
"That's before we even get there," Haral said. "I'm betting there's more surprises in that system that kif doesn't want to show us."
"Not taking that bet," Geran said.
There was no jump-point on their way to Kefk, no point of mass where three ships up to no good could come in, go dead silent and rest and sleep a while. The route was just two stars in each other's gravitational influence; The Pride would ride its own jump field and Kefk's pull directly in with a vengeance. Three stars, counting Mkks and Kefk and Kefk 2: Kefk was a close binary; and that made for difficult navigation at best.
"Six ships go in with Sikkukkut, Jik, and our friend Rhif," Tirun said. "We get the tailguard post."
"Alone with seven kif," Geran said. "Gods, what a party."
"Beats going first."
"How much interval we got?"
"Not by the gods enough." Haral took furious notes and Pyanfar's comp slot spat out a paper.
All she could think of was sleep, the chance to lay her aching bones on a mattress and let her mind go ... while they sat on a kifish dockside with a kifish strike force likely inbound at their backs from either of two enemies . . . kifish authorities at Harak or Akkhtimakt's ships off by Kshshti. They hoped Akkhtimakt was no closer than Kshshti.
Gods only knew. If an attack caught them like this, if Akkhtimakt came to Mkks before they left or got up to speed, they were sitting targets with their nose to station and no way to get up to V in time—the same thing they had done to Ihirukk and all its allies.
It took no mindreading to know the practical reason why Jik wanted out of Mkks in a hurry.
But other things occurred to her: like the chance Jik knew things he was not saying, about operations in progress elsewhere; the absolute surety that Sikkukkut did.
There is fire, hani. From Llyene to Akkt to Mkks. Even Anuurn..
Even Anuurn.
And Vigilance agreed to join in an act of unvarnished piracy.
/ surmised correctly that you would follow me, hunter Pyanfar, as soon as your ship could move.
So why us? Gods and thunders, what have we got either side wants but Tully? And Sikkukkut gave him back. Jik could have laid claim to him. And Jik backed off.
Why did Sikkukkut want ms in this?
Kif in the washroom. Kif all about. Threatened lawsuits pouring in, because a hani merchant was easier to sue than a han deputy or a mahen hunter ship; and, gods knew, the kif.
"We just got a transmission from Vigilance," Haral said. "Official notice we got a complaint filed."
"Tell 'em eat it."
"Captain."
"No, don't tell them that. Acknowledge." She shifted her attention to another board where a systems check had just blinked clear. "Number two vane is clean." She verified Tirun's check, punched the test of number three and got back to the Kefk system data.
The schematic showed armed guard stations. Three of them at Kefk. And the robot navigation beacon in the jumprange gave no inner-lanes data to incoming ships until it got a ship ID; and if it disliked what it got, it would blank out entirely. That meant dumping speed early to avoid collision, and risking collision even at that reduced velocity. And without that incoming V they were sitting targets for anything those guard stations decided to throw at them. Gods, it was lunacy.
"It's sure something to run with clean equipment," Tirun said. "I'd gotten used to alarms."
"Huh." Pyanfar read an incoming schedule on screen two, blinked it clear, rubbed her right ear. The letters separated in a green haze and came back again. Not a complaint from the crew. A hani male sat over there bone-tired and working keys and grumbling in his throat in a kind of mindless reflex moan that occasionally became a mutter: poor Khym, too well-bred to swear like the rest of them, and doing a crewwoman's job with a woman's steady concentration, side by side with Geran. "Give me your information," his litany ran, impeccably delivered. "I'll get it to the appropriate officer."