"Tirun. We got a visitor leaving. Let him out."
"Aye," the answer came back. Sikkukkut walked on in serene dignity and Pyanfar tautened the skin at her back to smooth the fur. Muscles resisted and turned the motion into a shiver.
"Gods," Haral muttered.
"See he gets off," Pyanfar said; and Haral strode off down the corridor in that direction, where the kif had disappeared around the corner, headed for the lock.
Her hair did not unbristle until Haral reappeared and walked back to join her.
"You record that, Tirun?" she asked of the empty air.
"/ got it," Khym's voice came back. "/ wasn't Mahn’s backroom lawyer for nothing."
She drew a whole breath and spat out a laugh. It was as if some thunderstorm had blown through The Pride's corridor and the sun had come out again.
But then Haral froze, looking down the corridor beyond her shoulder.
Pyanfar turned abruptly. Hilfy stood there with a pistol in hand.
"What do you think you're doing?" Pyanfar yelled.
"I heard the hatch," Hilfy said. Too quietly.
"We handled it. Get back to quarters, huh?"
"Aye," Hilfy said. The safety clicked back on. Hilfy pocketed the gun and disappeared around the corner.
"Why did I yell?" Pyanfar muttered to Haral, to no one in particular. "I didn't have to yell, gods rot it."
"She's all right," Haral said.
"Sure."
But she did not get the cold of it out of her gut until she had gotten back to the bridge and into the galley.
"What he want?" Tully asked, worried-looking, half-rising from the table; but Pyanfar pushed him down again, her hand on his shoulder.
"Nothing but nuisance."
"He give money. Want me."
"He knows I wouldn't take it." She sank down onto the bench and reached for her abandoned cup. So what did he want?
Khym took the cup before her hand got there and slid a hot one into her hand.
"Good," Khym said.
She looked up at her husband, puzzled.
"Good," Khym said again, meaning just, she thought, good job. She doubted it. But she sipped the gfi and looked up at him. She saw patience in his amber eyes. Patience he had won the hard way.
"Your cabin's taken," she said pointedly.
"Huh." He looked embarrassed at the invitation when he had realized it. Geran was there. Another male was.
Then he looked pleased in spite of himself. His ears flicked. Cods. Tc'a. Methane-breathers. She remembered the knnn that had paced them out of Meetpoint and the hair wanted to stand up on her back again.
Something he said was important. Something was worth the trip here. Him. Would-be lord of all the kif. Visiting me.
Let us assume we are allies. Remember this at Kefk.
"Something wrong?" he asked.
Revenge on all our enemies. Hani, there will be a day you want it.
"Not yet," she said. She caught the plastic-wrapped confection Geran spun her way on the tabletop. Haral and Tirun blundered back in, hunting gfi and food. She tore the plastic and swallowed the mince in hunks, guaranteed to make for hiccups. She chased it with gfi. "Gods, tofi." The spice made her sneeze.
"Slow down, for the gods' sake."
"What, slow down? We've got eight and a half hours to sleep." She stood up and grabbed Khym's arm. "Come on, husband. Suddenly I'm in the mood."
"Gods, Py "
"Who notices? Finish the gfi Come on."
VI
Eight and a half hours was not enough. The alarm went off like attack and mayhem and universal doom. Pyanfar climbed over Khym to kill it, but there was nothing for it then but to remember where she was and what there was waiting, and to pull herself and her half-conscious husband out of bed and face it.
She faced it in a plain twill pair of blue trousers, common-spacer-like, because they were headed out, and otherside of that jump was likely no time for washup or amenities. She saved her brightest silk pair for after-cleanup on the docks at Kefk.
Healthiest to think in those terms, that there would be the need of red silk trousers and all the finery.
But she did put on the ruby pendant earring, among the others, that winked and shone ferociously in the red-gold sweep of her tufted, many-ringed ear. It advised all who wanted to argue with a rather plainly dressed hani that she held a captaincy. On such a day she needed all the convincing it could lend.
"Feed the gods-rotted kif," she ordered Tirun when she found her on the bridge.
"Feed it what?" Tirun asked, and forthwith turned her stomach.
"I don't know: thaw something. Throw a steak through the door. Don't get near it. And don't carry weapons."
"Gods, it's just one kif. I can—"
"Don't go near it. How much more trouble do we need on this ship?"
"Aye," Tirun said, and swallowed all further argument.
They were all up, all functioning: Chur came out from Khym's former cabin to sit check-out on the bridge; Haral and Hilfy and Geran arrived from below; and Tully came up too, stiff and sore and pottering about the galley with Khym (gods!) and Hilfy, getting breakfast. On the bridge the com-flow started and The Pride began to drink down the information Aja Jin and Vigilance had been awake through the down-watches composing. Haral and Geran and Chur were in Charge there, while Tirun went off to kif-feeding.
"We got a request," Chur reported, "from Aja Jin. They want conference when you can."
"Fine," Pyanfar said, martyred. "Fine. I'll get to it."
"Checks are running fine. We just take Aja Jin's course the way it stands?"
"We take whatever they give us. I'm not quarreling with their comp." She leaned over Chur's seat and took a look at station output. It was mahen language again. Mkks began to have the feel of normalcy in its operations.
Any kif on Mkks who valued his Life, she reckoned, was headed for Sikkukkut's ships. She thought of others of the noninvolved, non-kif, wishing they could have evacuated the entire station. But that was impossible. Mahendo'sat and stsho had to stay and trust the few conventions of non-involvement and neutrality even kif observed in the Compact. Tc'a and chi were safe. Indisputably. And they protected the other, oxy-breathing residents by their own immunity and their insanity.
"What's our count?"
"Hour three minutes to undock," Haral said.
"Good gods, they're going with it, are they?"
"That mahe's a stubborn bastard."
"We on count?"
"We're catching up."
She put her own board live. Ran a survey of systems and recent com messages.
From Aja Jin: You got no problem, you come in on coordinate number one good. ...
Another optimist, she thought. "Put in a call to Jik."
"Aye," Geran said. And a moment later. "He's not answering."
"What, not answering? We're in countdown. Remind him who's asking, huh?"
Another delay. "Captain, his first is on if you want to talk to her."
She punched it in. "This is Pyanfar Chanur. Have we got a problem?"
"This Soje Kesurinan. Not got problem. Fix good."
Unease ran up and down her spine. There was a don't ask implicit in the mahe's tone.
(So what for godssakes is the matter?)
"Want me to come over there?"
"No need. All fine, honored captain."