"Two. Ten?"
"Not know. Ten. Maybe ten. Maybe more."
"More."
"I don't know!"
"Where'd these ships come from, Tully? Who's bringing them? Who told them to? You know about that?"
"Not know."
"Goldtooth knew. Truth, Tully. What do you know about these other humans?''
A darting of the eyes aside, elsewhere, back, away again.
"Huh?" she asked. "What do you know, Tully?"
"Come fight kif. They come fight kif."
"Uhhnnn." She caught his stare and held it. His eyes darted and jerked and stayed centered, dilated wide in the bright light of the bridge. "How do they sort out which kif, huh, Tully? Who tells them?"
"Kif is kif."
"Think so? What kind of plan is that? Take on the whole by the gods kif species? You're crazy, Tully. No. The mahendo'sat don't deal with crazy people. And you're dealing with the mahendo'sat, aren't you?"
"I ask go to bring you, bring you, Pyanfar, I don't # the mahendo'sat."
"Say again."
"Mahendo'sat don't speak all truth. I'm scared. I don't know what they do. I think maybe they want help us but I—//" He laid a hand on his chest and said it in hani, sending the translator into sputters. "I Tully—I scare, Py-anfar."
"Of what? What scares you?"
"I think the mahendo'sat more want help self. Maybe hani have want help self. I don't know. I don't understand too much. The translator makes wrong words. I scare—I don't know—''
"You're talking real clear now. Tully. You understand me. And I don't want any more evasions. You don't tell me you don't understand, hear? You know what kind of mess we're in."
"I don't understand."
"Oh, yes, you do. Who's with the ships, Tully? What's the arrangement they made? Where are they going next?"
"I don't understand."
"I told you I don't want to hear that. I want to know what you know. Tell me this, Tully—what questions did Sikkukkut ask you? What did he ask you, all alone?"
"Not—not—" His eyes widened. He twisted suddenly and looked behind him. Pyanfar glanced beyond, where Hilfy stood. Reflection and movement in the dead monitor screen. That had caught Tully's eye; and he seized on the chance.
"Hilfy," Tully said, pleaded. "Hilfy—"
"Something wrong?" Hilfy asked.
"We're just talking," Pyanfar said. Gods rot the timing. "Go see how Chur's doing, huh?"
"Geran's with her. Was just there." Blind to hints. Or ignoring them.
"Fine. Go see about the filters. You want to walk through, walk."
Hilfy's ears went down. She stood there.
"I go help," Tully offered, making to get up.
"You stay put." She shoved him back down on the chair? arm. "I'm not through with you. Hilfy. Get."
"What's the matter? What's going on?"
Fear. Human sweat. It was distinct and general in the air. The quiet on the bridge despite two stations working, the look on Tully's face—
"We're discussing routes," Pyanfar said evenly, quietly, and laid a quiet hand on Tully's shoulder. He flinched from under it and glanced round in panic. "Discussing what things he may still know. What he might have told without realizing it, to the mahendo'sat. To the kif in particular."
"I don't talk, Hilfy, I don't."
"Didn't say you were a liar, Tully. I asked you what Sikkukkut asked you. I want to know what Sikkukkut wanted to know."
"For godssakes, aunt—"
There was sweat on Tully's face. His skin had gone white. He looked up at her.
"Let him alone, gods rot it, aunt, he's had enough."
"I know he's had enough. I know what he went through—"
"You don't know! Keep your hands off him!"
Panic. Killing rage. O gods. Gods, Hilfy. Whoever wore that look was not a child, had never been a child. "Tully. All right. Get." She gave him a shove to move him. "Go on, I'll talk to you later."
"We send out ships," Tully said, suddenly, perversely clinging to his place. He poured the words out, clutched her wrist when she made a gesture of dismissal, and he looked from Hilfy to her, to Tirun and Haral and back, his alien eyes flickering and distracted. "It long time—long time—I try— They leave the Earth, understand. They make # self a #—" And when she shifted in the pain of his grip, he held the harder. "You listen, listen, Pyanfar, I tell you—"
"Make sense, gods rot it, the translator's frying half you say."
"We send ships—" He let go her bruised wrist to make a vague and desperate gesture of displacement,-of going away. "Ships go from Earth, from homeworld, they make # self # law, make # self # Compact. They don't like Earth. We fight # long with these human. Now we get no trade # be # to Earth. There be two human Compacts. They # want #. Want Earth. We want be free. We want make our # law. We want go—out in space—not the same direction like before. We find new direction, new trade. We find your Compact, find you. We want trade. This is the truth. If we get trade we make three Compact. Earth # be the third. Earth # be the # friend to hani, to mahendo'sat."
"Two human compacts." Pyanfar blinked and wiped her mane back with a sore hand and looked at Hilfy, who looked confused.
"Three," Tully said. "Also Earth. My homeworld. We got trouble # two humanities. We want trade. We the home of humanity we need this #. We want make way into Compact space, come and go # # #."
"You know about this?" Pyanfar asked Hilfy.
"No," Hilfy said, "No, I don't know what he's talking about."
"# #. Human be three kind." Tully held up as many digits. " #. #. Earth. I be Earth-man."
"Politics," Pyanfar muttered. "We got gods-be human politics, that's what. Well, who's telling the human ships where to go?"
"Earth. Earth tell."
"And what are you, Tully?"
"I spacer."
"You're so gods-be quick with that."
"Aunt."
"You want to ask him?"
"Gods blast it, take it easy on him!"
Pyanfar drew a deep breath. "Look, maybe he never talked to the kif. I'll take that on his say-so. Maybe he never spoke a word. But he doesn't lie real good. He never did."
"Not to us."
"He speaks the language, niece. Watch the eyes when you ask him questions, never mind the ears, watch the eyes. He's a lousy liar. He was alone with Sikkukkut. With drugs. With questions. All right, you know what and I don't. Even if he didn't talk—he may have spilled something he doesn't know he spilled. You think of that?"
"You ever ask me what / gave them?"
Pyanfar blinked in shock. Shook her head at the thought. "A cracked skull and nothing else," Hilfy said. "I didn't give them anything. And they tried, aunt, that precious kifish friend of yours did try. You take my word, take his. I know he didn't."
"They had him quite a few hours to themselves, Hilfy. With all the pieces to this fractured mess starting to fit in Sikkukkut's brain, with us in port and leaving Sikkukkut a lust few precious hours to try for what he could get out of Tully— along with what he learned from other kif living at Mkks. So you want to be some help here and let Tully for godssakes answer for himself?''
"He's told you. No! He didn't talk! I know him."
"Sure you do," Pyanfar drawled, and the inside of Hilfy's ears went suddenly deep rose; and they folded. Eyes reacted. Everything shouted reaction and shame. It was not what she had meant. Pyanfar felt her own ears go hot; the flinch was unavoidable, the instantaneous glance aside from the matter they had skirted round and skirted round. She covered it with a cough and a wave of her hand. "Look, niece—"
"I know him real well," Hilfy said with cold deliberation. "Maybe you take my word for something, huh, aunt? Maybe you trust I got out of there with my wits about me, huh? And I'm telling you how he was, and how he handled himself, and I'm telling you, he's not a boy and he's not the fool you take him for. Don't talk to him like that."