"Inside out if I had my choice," Geran said.
"Meanwhile," Pyanfar said, "while we've got some time, we don't have much, and work goes on. Hilfy, Tully, Khym, they're sending over some stuff for the kif. I'd like to get rid of him, but I don't see a way to do it without creating a problem with Sikkukkut, and we don't need that. On the other hand, whatever he is, he's stood about what he can. I want him transferred to a regular cabin, I want the room safed, understand. We're going to have some sort of live stuff to take care of. Skkukuk can do his own vermin-herding. I want it decontaminated. Never mind the docking-check on this watch, except the filters, the ops and the lifesupport; we'll catch the little things next. Someone looks in on Chur now and again in Geran's off-watch; you arrange that, Geran. Don't wear yourself out. Tirun, call down to Tahar and tell her we're still working on the problem. She's probably chewing sticks down there. I haven't got time to talk to her. Tirun and Geran, Hilfy and Haral when you've got time, I want this code-strip fed in and checked against the translator. And when you get all that done, I want a regular dinner set up, none of those gods-be sandwiches."
There was dismay in tired faces until the matter of the dinner. "We'll go off-shift," Pyanfar said, "at need. When there's a lull, sleep. Feel free to trade off jobs and watches—I don't care who does it, just so it gets done before watch-end, and it gets done with due precautions: no one visits Skkukuk or Tahar alone. Sorry about the schedule. Goldtooth offered a full crew but I turned him down. Trust is fine; but I'm not handing over The Pride's codes to anybody. Not these days."
"Gods-rotted right," Haral said, and, "Aye," from the rest, with a flick of ears and a tautness of jaws.
"So get it done, huh?" She nodded a dismissal. Hilfy got up and walked out with Geran, down the corridor. Tirun turned back to com and Haral turned to the main board and systems-checks again. The menfolk were last on their way out, separately. And—"Khym," Pyanfar said before he could go: "You all right in this? Tully?"
Khym stopped and stuck his hands in his belt, glanced at the deck with a deference natural in Chanur matters. "You pick the fight, I'll settle the bastards, wasn't it something like that we promised each other fifty years ago?" It was their marriage vow, less elegantly phrased. But then he looked up, and a curious quirk came and went she had not seen in years. "But I think you'll have to help, though, wife."
She laughed despite it all and he grinned as if pleased to have pleased her. She watched the straightening of his shoulders as he walked off the bridge. Somewhere he had got a swagger in his step.
The ache in her own bones felt less, for that.
"Py-anfar?"
"Tully." She rose from her chair. Walked over near him as he stood there with confusion on his face. "Tully. Did you follow what I was saying to the crew? You understood?"
He nodded his head energetically— yes, that peculiar gesture meant. "I work," he said. "I work." And he turned his shoulder to her, there by the scan panel, his hands busy with some printout which he could no more read than he could breathe vacuum.
Avoidance.
"Tully," she said. "Tully."
"I work," he said.
"Put those ridiculous papers down." She snatched them from his hand and flung them onto the counter. He backed up, hit the chair and caught himself with an arm against the seat-back, eyes wide and flickering. He smelled of human sweat and Anuurn flowers. And sudden terror. Tirun half-turned her chair, and kept staring in distress. Tully stayed frozen, stsho-pale. Fear. Indeed, fear. It set her heart to pounding and touched off her aggressive reflexes; but child she made herself think, dismissing hunter-mind; and alien and friend and hair-triggered male. -
It was not her move that had frightened him. He was beyond that. He knew she. would never lay hands on him; she knew that he knew. It was a deeper thing.
"You worried about something, Tully?"
"Not understand lot you say—" He waved a vague gesture at the room. At the scan panel. "I work. I don't need any understand."
"Tully, old friend." Pyanfar laid a hand on his shoulder and felt the slight shift of muscles as if he had rather not have it resting there; she smelled his sweat despite that their air was cool for a human. "Listen—I know you doublecrossed me." The translator sputtered through the com Tully wore at his belt. She wore no earplug: she needed none at this range. "You and Goldtooth worked together. He told me. Gods rot you, Tully, you did set me up—"
The translator rendered something in its flat, Tully-voiced way, and he sank down on the chair arm to evade her hand, out of room to retreat.
"You tell me the truth, huh, Tully. What's got the wind up your back? Something I said?"
"Not understand."
"Sure. Let's talk about things. Like things maybe I might like to know—What's the humans' course?"
''Ta-va—''
"Tt'a'va'o. You heard that from me just now. Maybe you know more than that. Maybe you know what Goldtooth's not saying. Truth, Tully, gods blast you!" ,
He flinched violently. "Truth," he said. The translator gave him a woman's voice in the return, but the pitch was not far from his own. "I don't lie, I don't lie."
"Where before that?"
"Not sure. Ta-vik. Think Tavik."
"Tvk. At least one kifish port. Tvk. I'll guess they didn't stop to say hello. Skimmed in and out. And then to Chchchcho, not Akkti, not likely. Chchchcho. The chi homeworld. That's a real fine route, Tully. Real great. Who planned it?"
"I come—Ijir."
"You mean you don't know."
"Not know."
"Tully. That packet. Packet. Understand? What did it say?"
''Make offer trade.''
"To whom? Who to, Tully?"
A desperate wave of the hand. "All. All Compact."
"Kif too, huh?"
"Mahe. Hani."
"Tully, what else was in there? A knnn message, for instance. Knnn. You know that?"
A shake of the head. That was no. The eyes were wide and blue and anxious. "Not. Not know knnn thing. Py-anfar—I tell you, I tell you all thing. # # I don't lie to you."
"Funny thing how that translator always spits on sentences I'd really like not to doubt."
"I'm friend, I'm your friend, Pyanfar!"
"Yeah. I know."
"You think I lie."
"Didn't say you lied. Just wish you'd tell the truth before things get hot, huh? I just don't like the feeling there's something still rattling round back of those pretty blue eyes of yours. Something's been there since a long while back." She raked his mane back from his face with a judicious claw—let the hand rest on his shoulder again, gently. "Look, Tully— you're not scared of me, are you?"
"No."
"Then why don't you tell me the truth? Why'd you keep things from me when we started this voyage?"
"I tell."
"About the ships, yes. You did try. Why not the rest of it?"
"I try—try tell—You all time # busy not #—"
"Knnn's a word would get my attention real fast, Tully. You ever talk about the knnn with Goldtooth, huh? You tell him about firing on the knnn?"
A blink, a shake of the head, a shift of the eyes. Evasion.
"Well, you've been real helpful to a lot of people, haven't you? You tell me the truth about him taking you off that courier ship?"
"Truth."
"He personally?"
"Goldtooth."
"Ever hear anything about another ship? Another hunter-ship out there—someone with the rest of the humans?"
"No."
"You mean these human ships are just careening about Compact space on their own. No charts, no guide? No one watching them? Come on, Tully. How many?"
"I don't know."