Focus came back. "My crew—"
"Mahijiru's in dock; Goldtooth's hooking up the com lines right now. We'll begin to get some movement out of the kif soon now. Ships are on short crew, same as us. Even the kif. Your cousins'll be safe enough for the time being—the kif'll hold off till they've got some direct order from Sikkukkut, or until Sikkukkut's free to see to them; and Sikkukkut's real occupied just now. Depend on it. Drink that down. My watch officer's sending to Aja Jin. We're doing more than it looks like we are. But you play me for a fool, Dur, and I'll—"
"No." Tahar took a swallow. The cup trembled in her hands. "You run in rough company. This hakkikt of yours—"
"Not mine."
"—he's winning, do you understand that? The kif think Akkhtimakt's already lost. The word's spreading—How we!! do you know the kif?"
"About as well as serves, and better than I want to."
"/ know them, gods, believe me that I do. Sfik. Gods-forsaken kif change sides quick as stsho in a situation like this, two kif at the top of the heap and both of them near-matched: Sikkukkut and Akkhtimakt—they both served Akkukkak in different capacities till he went, and now the two of them have all kif space in chaos. Every wind, every whisper that comes along, ordinary kif sniff it and change their politics. And all of a sudden Akkhtimakt's small stuff. His move against Kita was a big threat; gods, he's from Akkht, he's big stuff there—got powerful skkukun hunting down all his rivals on homeworld, while Sikkukkut's just a jumped-up provincial boss from Mirkti, for the gods' sake. But the mahendo'sat know him. Sikkukkut's a longtime neighbor of theirs, someone they're used to dealing with-and they're dealing with him. Do you see? All of a sudden Akkhtimakt looks like a kif a long way from his power base and losing it. Sikkukkut's operating in his own home territory, using old connections, and Sikkukkut's cut Akkhtimakt bad— thanks to you and the mahendo'sat. Real bad."
Pyanfar leaned her elbows on the table. "Where's humanity fit into this, huh?"
The whites showed around Tahar's eyes, a slight tic in Tully's direction, but Tahar did not turn her head, not even when Geran drifted quietly into the room and stood there with arms folded and her face like boding storm. "Humans," Tahar said, "are coming in. They're moving slowly—but your ally ought to be able to tell you that.''
"Sikkukkut, you mean?" .
"This human. Or the mahendo'sat. Akkhtimakt's program was to stop the human ships; keep them out of Compact space. Or prey on them one by one on the fringes. Humans are mahen allies, the way the kif read it. But Sikkukkut's got the mahendo'sat working with him. He's got you, got himself the Eyes of the han, for the gods' sweet sake. Got a pet human of his own. How do you fight a combination like that? Kefk took one look at that situation and all of Akkhtimakt's partisans here started looking at their neighbors and refiguring every tie they had—I've been through it before. A kif looks at a situation, adds up his own sfik and whether he's got any advantage to the other side, and if he doesn't, he'll know his neighbors are adding it up too, and one of them may try to get more sfik by killing him. If he kills his attacker he's got more sfik for the moment, but if he suddenly gets too much, he may look like a threat and lose all the benefit of it. It's a bloody game, Chanur. I've played it for two years."
"Looks like you missed a step, doesn't it?"
"Oh, I tried. Kif don't understand hani, that's all; they don't know how our minds work, not in crises—but they do know we're different and the way we choose sides isn't predictable or sensible by their lights. So that's what happened to us. We didn't get a chance to switch sides. We were in an office—the staff just turned without warning and killed one kif who was too high up—too much sfik to trust; and they rounded up others to hand over to Sikkukkut for—o gods." Tahar shuddered and set the cup down with both hands. "My crew, Chanur, my crew—Sikkukkut handed me on for a gift. I've got sfik enough. The situation has. But my cousins—if you don't get them out of there—Chanur, I've seen what happens when a kif wants to throw a celebration. I've seen it."
"I'm working on it. My word on it, Tahar. Gods know I'd cheerfully break your neck if things were different. But not here and not now and not that way. I'm applying every leverage I've got. Want a warm-up on that?"
"No."
"Take it anyway. You can use it." She retrieved Dur Tahar's cup, held it for Tirun to fill and set it back in front of Tahar's hands. "You get news from home?"
Tahar raised her eyes with apprehension.
"Short and straight," Pyanfar said. Gods, it had a bad taste in her mouth when delivering the news once would have been revenge in itself. "Tahar's in deep trouble—but you'd figure that. I don't know how bad or how much internally, or what's going on at Anuurn at the moment, but you could figure it. Tahar was having trouble getting cargoes last year. Victory, Sunfire and Golden Ring are all working over farside, last that I know about it, as far from kif as they can get. If they haul their own cargo, someone raises a question whether it might be pirated goods being dumped; if they haul someone else's they have to post a bond of guarantee in the case they should decide to pirate it themselves."
"Cut it, Chanur!"
"I'm telling you the truth. What do you expect you've done for Tahar's reputation? Gods rot it, you knew it when you bolted with the rest of the kif at Gaohn! You might as well listen to it."
Tahar's ears were back, she set the cup down hard and looked as if she were coming over the tabletop in the next breath; but then the wind went out of her in a long shuddering sigh, and she bowed her head and flexed her claws out, points on the hard table surface. "You gave me gods-be little choice. Do what? Come home and face my brother? Go on running Tahar cargoes after what the kif did to hani at Gaohn?"
"You knew they were kif when you bedded down with them."
"So do you know it." Tahar's head came up, red-bronze eyes dark-centered and burning. "Remember that. Remember that, Pyanfar Chanur. You can't shed your clan. You never can. What you do comes back on your kin at home. And kif are kif and hani are hani, and one can't trust the other in the end. Get us out of here. Get my crew out and let's go home, Chanur, for the gods' sake, I'm begging you, let's both of us go home!"
"Captain." Tirun's voice came over the com on the wall. "Vigilance is' sending: Quote: 'You've boarded Tahar personnel.' I'm reading it exact, captain. 'We require you stand by to transfer this person to Immune custody.' "
"Gods rot them," Pyanfar muttered, and slid out of the bench.