Give or take their own presence. And the interceptors.
"We believe that thing?" Tirun asked.
"Kefk's talking," Hilfy said. "It's a guardstation, I think. It's—welcoming us in."
"Gods," Haral said. "Now it's really working I don't like it."
Pyanfar gnawed her mustaches. "I don't either. Message. Relay Jik what it sent and put our wrap around it."
"Aye."
"Kif are talking," Khym said. Haral switched it. "Behind us."
"—kkthos fikkthi kthtokkuri ktokkt Harukkur shokkuin."
"They're querying Harukk," Pyanfar translated. "Sounds like they're confused as we are."
"That's good news," Haral muttered.
"Our tc'a's transmitting too," said Hilfy. "Same stuff as before. 'I'm coming in with hani and kif.' "
"That's the reason for our welcome," Geran said. "That lunatic tc'a. They can't shoot."
"Yet," said Pyanfar, and chewed her mustache-ends. She reached for another packet and drank it in one forced series of gulps. Put her head back and contemplated the situation while The Pride hurtled at C-residual V toward a kifish stronghold that wanted to let them in. Past a doubtless armed guard-station.
Get them onto the docks, she could imagine the counsels in that chunk of fragile metal up ahead. We outnumber them. Lure them out of their ships if possible. Send poison through their ventilation tubes if not. Let the tc'a dock peacefully in the methane-sector and then destroy the intruders on the oxy side.
"We brought our own private kif along, didn't we?" Pyanfar said: "Tirun. Khym. We've got a little time inertial. I want you two to go down, get some flex, and bring our guest in the washroom up here. His name's Skkukuk. Be polite. Tell him I sent for him."
"Aye," Tirun said.
A moment later. "Aye," said Khym.
Kif on The Pride's bridge. The other side of Mkks, she would have sooner died
VIII
The lift worked, down-bound, two hani kif-hunting in the lowerdeck; and soon enough, one kif coming up topside, near sensitive controls. Unease crawled up and down Pyanfar's spine. She flicked switches at her board, taking some of the Pride's automatic reflexes under her own hand while Tirun and Khym, where that lift let out, entered corridors that could become a four story plunge straight down if The Pride's thrust cut in for some unexpected reason—like an avoid-alert.
They were perhaps cavalier about such scramblings-about while The Pride was inbound at some commercial port, with safe lanes and the prospect of a long, sedate voyage under inertia.
Kefk lacked all such guarantees.
"You stay course." Jik's voice sputtered into the complug in Pyanfar's left ear: Haral had relayed it, on slight delay, Pyanfar flicked her ears back, looked at the time-differential ; of several situations ticking away on the upper margin of the number four monitor. Not enough time for her query to have gotten Jik's direct response: half that. He had anticipated the question, she reckoned, when he himself had acquired beacon image from some source, maybe one from Kefk station itself. "Sikkukkut's transmitting," Hilfy said. "Same sort of thing."
If anything short-flashed between Harukk and Aja Jin or Vigilance, close as they were riding within their own little band of kif, Jik gave no clue to this. ' 'We got system scan now, got Kefk output, they not want trouble, a? Nice friendly port.''
Gods. "We stay it," Pyanfar said to the crew about her. She twitched in misery; fatigue settled like a hot iron between her shoulderblades and into that shoulder and elbow locked into the brace above the control board. She sweated and stank and shed hair; crew were no better. The hunter-ships would likely have had a shift to backup crew now and again, all crew seated in a touchy situation like this, but taking the shunt to give main-crew a chance to stretch and eat and take the kinks out of their backs. The hunter-ships would have that luxury; so would the kif incoming at their backs and up ahead; and gods only knew if the multibrained tc'a even needed relief. She left shed fur on what she touched. And the aches—gods.
"Jik says they've asked for a ship list over and over again. No response from station."
"That's not good," Haral said.
"Not at all friendly of them," Chur said.
"Hope that tc'a stays real close," said Pyanfar.
"The tc'a's still transmitting," Hilfy said. "Same stuff."
"How are you doing, Chur?" Pyanfar asked.
"Uhhhn. Lost a bit of weight. Gods-be concentrates . . . we got to get a hot-box on the bridge if we keep this up. Nice warm food."
"Food?" Tully asked.
"He has a hard time biting through the packets," Geran said. "Here . . . now. You got to have the teeth for it, friend . . . He's catching on with the equipment. Knows what he's looking at, just fine."
"Math," Tully said.
"Help if he could read," Pyanfar said.
"Sure might."
No knowing whether human instrumentation was anything like their own. And his blunt-nailed hands had no hope of hani recessed buttons. Thank the gods. There was nothing he could push.
But a kif's retractable claws were quite another matter.
She should, she thought, have gone down to the lower deck herself and left the ship in Haral's capable hands. Not called a kif to the bridge.
It was too late to do otherwise. She saw the flash from the optional-telltale that was presently linked to lift operation and withdrew her arm from the brace. "Haral. You've got it."
"Aye."
"We got a kif coming up. All of you—" Pyanfar rotated her chair crew-ward. "All of you keep your minds on you work, huh? Is this going to be a problem for anyone?"
Silence.
"Even if it gets interesting."
"Aye." From multiple throats.
Tully turned a bewildered look her way. Hilfy never budged.
"Geran, take over com for now. Hilfy wants a relief."
"Aye, captain."
Hilfy swung her chair half about. Her ears were back. "I didn't say—"
"I know you didn't. I want you on guard. Something wrong with that?"
"No, aunt," Hilfy said, a quiet voice. She spun back td the board and looked up as Geran released restraints and prepared to shift.
Pyanfar spun her chair the other way and undid her own restraints.
"Is this a test?" Hilfy asked.
"No," Pyanfar said. "It isn't. It's the real thing. I figure you know the kif well enough. Don't you? Maybe your considered opinion's worth something."
Hilfy's ears slanted back. Her adolescent mustaches drew down in a look of distress. "Putting it on me, are you?"
"Yes."
"Don't by-the-rods patronize me."
"Don't by-the-gods foul up."
Hilfy's mouth opened; she shut it definitively. The ears struggled erect. There was a nick in one. A gold ring swung from the sweep of the other.
"All right?"
Ears twitched. "All right." Hilfy's voice shed its edge. The eyes stayed black.
Down the corridor the lift-door had opened. "We've got company."
Silence then. Pyanfar stood up, facing that oncoming set, in the center of which was a tall, robed darkness that set her teeth on edge.
So a kif arrived on the bridge, in the doorway, Tirun and Khym on either side. Hilfy stood up and Geran switched seats. .
"Tirun. Take scan one."
Tirun took the indicated post without question. Khym stayed still at Skkukuk's side, tall as the kif, twice its size in other ways. Tirun could have cracked its bones barehanded. Khym could take it apart. Its hands were bound before it: kif limbs did not flex back conveniently.