C. J. Cherryh - Chanur 3 - The Kif Strike Back

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The Kif Strike Back

by CJ Cherryh

(Chanur series book #3)

In Our Last Episode. . . . (As told in: The Pride of Chanur and Chanur's

Venture.)

A kifish prince named Akkukkak acquired a prize and an unprecedented

opportunity: an alien ship and crew fell into his hands -- promising him new

hunting-grounds for the kif and a new species to prey on. All he had to do was

to find out where the ship came from and how powerful the aliens might be.

But the last surviving alien escaped him onto the docks at Meetpoint, and ran

onto the hani ship The Pride of Chanur.

That was how Pyanfar Chanur met Tully the human; and how the ancient Chanur

clan ended up in a fight hani would ordinarily have avoided.

It ended in a full-scale shootout at Gaohn Station in the hani home system,

when Akkukkak occupied Gaohn. Chanur clan and a couple of mahendo'sat hunter-

captains named Goldtooth and Jik joined forces to defeat the kif.

Akkukkak perished in that battle -- or at least made an unwilling exit in the

company of a species called the knnn, methane-breathers of bizarre mentality.

Tully went back to human space. Pyanfar Chanur hoped then that there would be

trade forthcoming. She anticipated a whole new era of hani prosperity with

Chanur clan getting rich.

But she was quickly betrayed, first by the stsho who owned Meetpoint and who

barred her from that critical trading, station -- and thereby from access to

humanity; then by her mahendo'sat partners, who went off and dealt with the

humans on their own; and finally by her own kind, because a good many hani

clans saw Chanur clan as a threat to their own power and were all too glad to

see it impoverished.

In hani eyes, Pyanfar Chanur had done a heinous thing in bringing aliens to

Gaohn: hani had been brought into space by the mahendo'sat and always resented

the debt. Mahendo'sat had taken their direct influence off the hani home world

of Anuurn, but hani never quite trusted them; they liked kif far less,

distrusted the stsho, and wished not even to contemplate the knnn -- let alone

the prospect of non-Compact aliens like humans, all of which Pyanfar Chanur

had brought into the very heart of hani civilization.

More, she had grown foreign. When a hani lord is defeated in challenge, he

dies; but Pyanfar intervened when her son supplanted her husband: she took her

husband offworld where no hani male had ever been permitted, and declared him

part of The Pride's crew. Moreover, Kohan, lord of Chanur, acquiesced in her

action, a circumstance which occasioned ribald jokes at Chanur's expense and

further damaged Chanur's credit among hani.

So for two years The Pride of Chanur and other Chanur ships made small runs

and barely kept operating, sinking deeper and deeper into financial ruin.

Constantly Pyanfar renewed her applications for Meetpoint access; but she

lacked money for the bribes necessary to deal with the stsho, she had no help

from the mahendo'sat, not a whiff of human trade, and there seemed no hope for

Chanur's fortunes.

But unexpectedly and for no reason she could fathom, the stsho sent word her

application was approved: The Pride turned toward Meetpoint with the last

large cargo Chanur could scrape together.

Once docked, Pyanfar headed immediately for the offices Stle stles stlen,

stationmaster of Meetpoint, to sign the necessary documents and reinstate her

trading license. She was accosted on dockside by Goldtooth, who dragged her

aboard his ship, Mahijiru, and brought her face to face with Tully -- -back in

Compact space and at a station which would erupt in xenophobic riot if it

knew a human was present

Now Pyanfar Chanur was a hani of considerable nerve, but this was more than

she could bear -- until Goldtooth began naming advantages to the deal, like

human trade, and money, and alliance -- and until a small quiet alarm started

going off In her skull telling her just who had gotten those papers cleared,

and how fast it all might collapse if she refused Goldtooth's deal.

She took it; and Tully; and a packet of papers; and went buck to break the

news to her crew.

Hut kif on the station arranged a riot to cover their attempt to snatch Tully

from her custody. Goldtooth fled the docks; she and her crew ended up billed

for damages -- which she charged to the mahendo'sat government, using the

papers Goldtooth had left her. Stle stles stlen was mollified -- for the

moment, so well-disposed, in fact, that this avowed friend of the mahendo'sat

gave her one direct warning: don't trust Goldtooth.

The kif also approached Pyanfar with two direct offers: one, to buy Tully from

her and, two, to ally themselves with her against a certain kif who had a

bounty on her head.

It was certainly tempting. Money enough to solve their problems. A way out of

their dilemma. A possible peace with the kif.

But she turned it down, dumped her precious cargo, and pulled out of Meetpoint

as rapidly as she could with Tully aboard -- because her credit with Stle

stles stlen hung upon a credit authorization from the mahendo'sat -- and that

was only valid if she played her role as Goldtooth's courier. Kif offers

or not, she had never dealt with kif and never wished to; Goldtooth, moreover,

had her trapped -- and Goldtooth had run, heading deep into stsho space with

kifish hunters on his tail, some of whom were interested in her.

Then she learned that getting Tully and his message to the mahen regional

capital was only part of it --

A knnn tracked them out of Meetpoint. That was no good news. Rumors of what

she was carrying had evidently spread to methane-side. Knnn, so alien no one

could talk to them, so technologically advanced no one could fight them --

existed inside the Compact and outside the law. They might take exception to

any move at any moment and kill a ship; and no one would do a thing about it -

- because no one could talk to them. It was a monumental achievement that the

serpentine tc'a had once upon a time gotten the knnn to understand the concept

of trade: so nowadays knnn simply contacted a station, rushed onto its

methane-dock and deposited whatever they liked, grabbed whatever they wanted

and left. This was an improvement over their former behavior, in which they

simply looted and left. Or took a ship apart.

And Tully, when questioned, avowed that humans were late getting back to

Compact space because their ships had been stopped. Someone was conducting

piracy against human ships in human space, and kif was the automatic

assumption. The message and the mission seemed to have to do with a mahen

determination to push through a regular, patrollable route that would bring

humans to Compact space -- and incidentally right past their old enemies the

kif. All this made sense, and Pyanfar was averse to nothing that bothered the

kif.

But Tully handed her his own suspicions -- that it was not kif which had

raided them: it was knnn, and humans had fired on knnn ships.

Pyanfar was horrified.

If Tully was right, they had a potential knnn target aboard their ship. They

were carrying a message which involved knnn affairs, either one of which was

about as welcome as a ticking bomb. If the knnn moved on them they were flatly

done for. Moreover, the kif who was hunting them had seized the route that led

most directly to the mahen capital and they had to reroute to the border

station of Kshshti -- far from a safe place to have a prize like Tully, a

place close to kif territory and frequented by the methane breathers.

As if they needed more trouble, they had picked up another pursuer. A hani

government ship captained by one Rhif Ehrran was out hunting a hani renegade

named Tahar. This Tahar had sided with the kif at the battle of Gaohn, and was

a well-known outlaw, said to be operating as a pirate in the vicinity of Kefk

and Meetpoint. But The Pride of Chanur turned up under Rhif Ehrran's nose,

trafficking with mahendo'sat and kif -- and this policewoman of the han

diverted herself from one quarry to another potential traitor. Rhif Ehrran's

political patrons would be far happier to see the demise of Chanur than that

of a mere pirate already powerless in hani affairs. So priorities were

revised. Rhif Ehrran learned, probably from Stle stles stlen, that Chanur had

Tully aboard -- and that Chanur was in the employ of a foreign government;

and Rhif Ehrran saw a chance to ruin Chanur once for all.

Ehrran commandeered assistance: Banny Ayhar of Ayhar's Prosperity was

compelled to dump her cargo and come along as Ehrran's ally -- as they headed

off in the only direction now open to travel.

Pyanfar barely reached Kshshti alive: The Pride, long running without needed

repairs, broke down under the stress of the jump and limped into Kshshti to

discover a welcoming committee in port: Rhif Ehrran, Banny Ayhar -- and the

same kif who had tried to buy Tully back at Meetpoint.

Now, this kif's name was Sikkukkut an'nikktukktin, once a vassal of Pyanfar's

old enemy Akkukkak. Akkukkak in fact had had two lieutenants: Akkhtimakt and

Sikkukkut; and the two of them were currently contending for primacy among kif

Akkhtimakt was the one they had evaded on their way to Kshshti; Akkhtimakt had

imposed the blockade not only to slop traffic, but to forestall his rival

Sikkukkut -- and lo! into Sikkukkut's reach came the whole mahendo'sat plan to

out-maneuver the kif ... in the person of Pyanfar Chanur and Tully.

The mahendo'sat authorities at Kshshti knew what Sikkukkut was up to, and they

were anxious to get The Pride out of there at any cost. They broke The Pride's

old engine pack off the rear and began to install a new one, effectively

rebuilding the ship, but as The Pride sat immobile in the last stages of

repairs, kifish raiders kidnapped Tully and, by accident, Pyanfar's young

niece Hilfy Chanur, gravely wounding Pyanfar's cousin Chur Anify.

Whoever began the fracas, Akkhtimakt's agents or Sikkukkut's, it was

undisputably Sikkukkut's ship Harukk which sped out of Kshshti with Tully and

Hilfy aboard, with The Pride dockbound and helpless.

Moreover, the methane-breathing tc'a delivered Pyanfar an ambiguous warning of

multiple factions and connivance among kif; of danger to themselves, and of

knnn involvement in the whole question.

At this depth of despair another ship pulled into Kshshti: the mahen hunter

ship Aja Jin, commanded by none other than Keia Nomesteturjai -- Jik, to his

friends; partner to Goldtooth; agent of the mahen government and armed with

enough authorizations to coerce even Rhif Ehrran.

Pyanfar still had the message packet destined for Maing Tol -- but Sikkukkut's

parting message indicated if she wanted to see Hilfy and Tully alive she must

come instead to Mkks -- even deeper into the border zone, where kif were

predominant.

Jik called a conference of captains and handed the packet to Banny Ayhar with

orders to get it to Maing Tol; and thrust upon Rhif Ehrran a set of

authorizations that won her cooperation as well.

So one message has sped toward Maing Tol; Hilfy and Tully are held hostage on

the kifish border; Goldtooth is among the missing and one more dockside has

been wrecked.

They move each as they must. And The Pride leaves Kshshti, headed deliberately

into a kifish trap.

The Pride came in, dropping suddenly into here and now; and Pyanfar Chanur

reached for controls, half-dazed yet.

Where? she thought, with one wild panicked notion that the drive could have

betrayed them and they might be nowhere at all. There were new routines to

remember. There were new parameters, new systems --

No. Go on comp, fool, let the autos take her --

"Location," she said past jaws gone dry as dust.

"We're in the range," Tirun said.

The first dump came, phasing them into the interface and out again; and The

Pride of Chanur hauled herself back to realspace with authority.

"We're alive," Khym said.

And that surprised them all.

"Chur?" Geran asked.

"Here," a voice said from in-ship com, faint and slurred. ''I'm here, all

right. We made it, huh?"

Second dump: The Pride shed more of the speed the gravity drop had lent her.

And kept going, while the red numbers reeled on the board, a passage-speed

that flicked astronomical measures past like local trivialities.

"Just passed third mark," Haral said.

"Huh," said Pyanfar.

"Beacon alarm."

"No response." Pyanfar's eye was on the scan image Mkks' robot beacon sent

them, positions of everything in Mkks system. Beacon protested their velocity.

"Get me that line, gods rot it, can we do it? -- where's that line? Wake up!"

The line flashed onto the monitor, red and dangerous, showing them a course

that broke every navigation code in the Compact.

Alarms flashed: the siren howled. Pyanfar laid back her ears and reached

frantically to controls as Haral synched moves with her to get the numbers

ripped loose from scan-comp and embedded in nav. She keyed a confirmation, one

press of a button. Alarms died, and The Pride kept going, hellbent on the line

-- -

("We're on, we're on, we're on!" Tirun breathed -- )

-- sending a C-charged jumpship on a course straight to Mkks station, a

maneuver two stars wide, betting everything they had that Mkks beacon would be

accurate. They were racing the lightspeed wavefront of their own arrival, the

message which that jumprange beacon back there sent to Mkks -- chased that

moment down the timeline as fast as any ship could dare, with enough energy

bound up in their mass to make one great flare if anything Mkks beacon had not

reported should turn up in their path -- a nova in miniature, a briefly

flaring sun.

Pyanfar let the controls go, flexed aching hands and reached in null G drift

for the foil packet she had clamped to the chair arm. It escaped her claws and

she snagged it back, bit a hole in it and drank the contents down in several

convulsive gulps, shuddering at the taste and the impact on her stomach. It

was necessary: the body shed hair, shed skin, depleted its minerals and

moisture. Shortly blood sugar would surge and plummet, and she had to be past

that point when The Pride's course reached critical again.

There was no hope now of steering. They were going too fast to skew off to any

influence but the star's, and that pull was plotted into their course. She

wiped her mane back and rubbed an itch on her nose that had been there since

Kshshti.

"Mkks nine minutes Light," Haral said.

Nine minutes til Mkks station got the news of their arrival; mahendo'sat

authority would take a few minutes more realizing they had not made that

critical third velocity dump. In the meanwhile The Pride was shortening the

nine minute reply interval. In much less than eighteen minutes, they would run

into the outgoing communications wavefront of a frantic station.

That was time as starships saw it: but someone had to call the kif on com;

someone had physically to push buttons and get to kif authority, while in each

running stride of kifish feet down a corridor an inbound jumpship traveled a

planetary diameter.

"Send," she said to Khym. "The Pride of Chanur inbound to Mkks: requesting

shiplist and dock assignment. We want berths clear on either side of us. We

have cargo hazard. Send."

That would confuse them: a ship behaving like vane malfunction and talking

like cargo emergency. Eight point nine minutes to get that message to station.

Fifteen point something by the time station could so much as reply if they

were instantaneous. Someone had to turn a chair, ask a supervisor, report the

message. She heard Khym send it out -- gods, a male voice from a hani ship:

that alone would confound station central. They would not have heard its like

before -- would be checking their doppler-receivers for potential malfunction,

doubting the truth while it hurtled down on them, even techs accustomed to C-

fractional thinking --

"Send again: Message to Harukk, Sikkukkut commanding. We have an appointment.

We've come to keep it. We'll see you on the docks."

(Someone deciding to relay that to the kif; kifish feet racing to locate the

commander: another moment to decide to undock or sit tight -- An instant's

consideration and a planetary diameter flicked by.)

Ten minutes to launch a ship like Harukk if they ripped her loose from dock

without preamble: forty more to get her sufficient range from mass to pulse

the fields up. Harukk had a star to fight for its velocity, and that star was

helping them come in.

Another half minute down.

At this dizzying rate, inside this time-packet, there was a curious sense of

slow-motion, of insulation from kif and threats.

And a sense of helplessness. There were things the kif could do. And there was

time for those things -- like pressing a trigger, or cutting a defenseless

throat --

The dizziness hit; the concentrate had reached her bloodstream.

"You sick, Khym?"

"No." A small and strangled voice. It was not the first time.

"Chur?"

"Still with you, captain."

"Tirun: got a realtime check?"

"483 hours in transit, by the beacon."

"That's 20 minutes to final dump," Haral said.

On schedule, on mark. They had worked it all out at Kshshti, before they

undertook this lunacy; worked it out the hard way, in the hours before undock,

and in the long hard push that sent The Pride out to a jump by-the-gods deep

in the gravity ,well and brought her in gods-rotted deep in this one, in a

maneuver a hunter-crew would stick at and no merchanter ever ought to try.

They were hani, all: red-gold maned and bearded, red-gold hides. All of them

but one had gold rings aplenty up the sweep of their tuft-tipped ears, gold

that meant experience, voyages and ventures from home at Anuurn to Idunspol,

Meetpoint, Maing Tol and Kura; Jininsai and Urtur; strange ports, foreign

trade, dice-throws and wide bets. But no voyage like this one. Mkks was no

hani port. Not a place where any honest freighter would care to go. And no

honest merchanter had that outsized engine pack they carried; or that ratio of

vane to mass.

Pyanfar said nothing. She uncapped the safety switch on what few armaments The

Pride had, and broke another law.

"Eighteen to final dump," Haral said.

"Call coming -- Tirun -- Tirun -- which one?" Khym's voice betrayed strain and

panic, inexperienced as he was at that board. Disoriented as well as jump-

sick, it was well possible. But the switch got made and the station's voice

came through, dopplered out into sanity.

Mahen voice. "Confirm dump, confirm dump -- "

"Repeat previous message. Tell them we want that shiplist. Fast."

There were codes they might have used to get cooperation from the mahendo'sat.

There was no way to use them. The kif had ears too.

So they went at it the hard way, and Mkks station began to panic, dopplered

message overlaying message, continuing a few seconds yet in the initial

assumption: that they had a ship incoming dead at them in helpless

malfunction.

By now their own message would be flashing to the kif, who would not be so

naive.

The kif might -- might -- at this stage get a ship out to run; but she had not

read Sikkukkut an'nikktukktin as that breed of kif.

Not with prisoners in his hands.

It was a hall somewhere within the upper reaches of the ship docked gods-knew

where. Hilfy Chanur knew the ship-name now. It was Harukk.

And she knew the kif seated before her, among other kif. His name was

Sikkukkut. He sat as a dark-robed lump on an insect-chair, among its black,

bent legs. Sodium-glow relieved the murk close in, casting harsh shadow and

orange-pink light. Incense curled from black globes set about the room and

mingled with ammonia-stench. She could not so much as rub her offended nose.

Her hands were linked with cords behind her back, Tully's likewise, for all

the good that he could have done if his hands were free. Tully's face was

pale, his golden mane and beard all tangled and sweat-matted, his fragile

human skin claw-streaked and bleeding in the lurid glow. He had done his best.

She had. Neither was good enough.

"Where did you hope to go?" Sikkukkut asked. "To do what?"

"I hoped," Hilfy Chanur said, because it never paid to back up with a kif, "to

fracture a skull or two."

"No fracture," Sikkukkut said. "Concussed." -- whether that this was a kif s

humor or a kifish total lack of it. Harukk's captain unfolded himself from his

insect-chair in a rustling of black robes. There was no color save the sodium-

light, none, throughout all the ship. Objects, walls, clothes were all grays

and blacks -- They're color blind, Hilfy thought, really, totally blind to it.

She thought of blue Anuurn skies and green fields and hani themselves a riot

of golds and reds and every color they decked themselves in, and held that

recollection like a talisman against the dark and the hellish glare.

Sikkukkut moved closer. There was a sound like the wind in old leaves as other

kif moved beyond the lights and the curling wisps of smoke. She braced

herself; but it was Tully the kif aimed at.

"This speaks hani," Sikkukkut said. "It tries to pretend not -- ''

Hilfy stepped into his path.

"And where our understanding fails," the kif said in flawless hani accents, "I

know you have expertise with the human. We can secure that. Can't we?" He

brushed past her and jerked Tully suddenly toward him by one arm and the

other. The kif s claws made small indentations in his flesh and Tully stood

there, face to face with those jaws a hand's breadth from his eyes. Hilfy

could smell the sweat and fear.

"Soft," Sikkukkut said, tightening his grip. "Such fine, fine skin. That might

have value on its own."

Closer still.

"Let him go!"

The dark snout wrinkled and the tip twitched. Kif sustenance was mostly fluid,

so outsiders said: they were total carnivores, and disdained not at all to use

those razored outer jaws. Two rows of teeth, two sets of jaws. One to bite and

one fast-moving set far up inside that long snout to reduce the outer-jaw

bites to paste and fluids the tiny throat could handle. The tongue darted in

the v-form gap of the teeth. Tully jerked and winced in silence. The long face

lifted, to use its eyes at level, its jaws --

"Stop it! Gods rot it -- stop!"

"But it will have to stop struggling," Sikkukkut said, "I can't release my

claws. -- Tell him so. ..."

Hilfy took in her breath. But Tully had stopped resisting, slopped -- all at

once, betraying himself.

"Ah. It does understand."

"Let him go."

The kif sniffed, jerked Tully against his chest and flung him free all in two

quick motions.

Tully stumbled back. Hilfy thrust her shoulder between him and Sikkukkut's

step forward and stood her ground with her knees wobbling under her from stark

fear. Her ears were back; her nose rumpled into a grin that was not at all the

grin of Tully's helpless primate kind.

A dry sniffing. Kifish laughter. Sikkukkut gazed at her from within the

hood, the dim light glinting off his eyes. 'Implicit in the hani tongue are

concepts like friendship. Fondness. These are different than sfik. But equally

useful. Particularly I do not discount them when you have such success talking

to this creature. How have you bound him?"

"Try kind words."

"Do you think so? I have been kind. Perhaps then my accent confuses him. Tell

him I want to know everything he knows, why he came, to whom he came, what he

hopes to do- -- Tell him this. Tell him that I am anxious and impatient and

many other things."

She weighed it for what seemed forever. She wondered that the kif s patience

could last so long.

It broke. The kif reached and she blocked that reach a second time with her

shoulder. " -- He's asking questions, Tully," she said all in one breath. "He

wants to talk."

Tully said nothing.

"Guess he doesn't understand," she said. "He gets words muddled up -- "

"I was skku to the hakkikt Akkukkak in his day." Sikkukkut's voice was soft,

cultured; but in its softness she heard distinctly the clicks within the

throat, the clashing of inner jaws as he lifted his chin. "We do know each

other, he and I- We have met -- before this. At Meetpoint. Does he remember?"

"- -- Friend of Akkukkak's," Hilfy said. Distract him; gods, distract him, get

him off the hunt. " -- If kif had friends."

"This human has sfik," Sikkukkut said, unmoving. "Akkukkak failed to know

this. How could so soft a creature have so much sfik as this, to elude kif on

Meetpoint docks? Had I been there, of course, he would have fared less well.

And now I am here, and he is here, and I am asking him these things."

" -- He's still asking questions," she said to Tully.

"I shall be asking them," Sikkukkut said. "I do ask them." The silence

lingered. Light kifish fingers touched her shoulder, stroked the fur --

-- withdrew. She sucked in a kif-tainted breath, trembling. Her ears were

flat. She went deaf, near blind, hunter-vision narrowed to one long black

tunnel focused on the kif. But Sikkukkut drew away. He settled down again onto

his many-legged chair and tucked his legs up until he indeed resembled some

ungainly insect.

Tully's shoulder touched hers and leaned there. She felt his weight, the chill

of his flesh: gods, no, stay upright, don't give way, don't faint, they'II go

for you --

The kif lifted his hands to the hood he wore and dropped it back to his

hunched shoulders, the first sight she had ever had of any kif unhooded, and

it was no pleasant thing, the long dark skull, the dull black wisp of mane

that lay forward-grained along the centerline: he was virtually earless,

stsho-like in that respect. She had seen models. Holos. None were this

peculiarly graceful, ugly thing.

The eyes rested on her, apt for such a face, dark and glittering. "You will

understand these things: this creature has more than sfik-value; it has sfik

itself. Let me speak in hani terms: Akkukkak perished of embarrassment.

Therefore I love this creature, because it has killed my superior and now I

have no superior."

"Gibberish."

"I think it quite clear. It has value. If it yields me its value and tells me

what I ask I shall be further grateful,"

"Sure."

"Perhaps I shall keep it in my affection and let it see the death of my friend

Akkhtimakt. Perhaps I shall let it eat of my rivals."

It still spoke hani. The words meant other, kifish things. Her nape bristled.

She wanted out, out of here.

"Translate this."

" -- He's crazy as all kif."

The thin body shook and hissed atop its insect-perch. "Bigot. I shall make my

own translations. Kkkt!"

"Fool!" mahen authority screamed into com; and other, less complimentary

things.

"Stand by third dump," Pyanfar said.

"You fool, daughter ten thousand fools, what do? what do? You get report sent

han this outrage; we report you endanger -- ''

The Pride dumped speed, a breakup of telemetry --

-- phased in again, into a new flood of station chatter.

"Khym. List." Tirun's voice, prompting him in his muzziness. "Shift it. Move."

The incoming shiplist turned up on number two screen, Haral's transfer of data

smooth and routine while station's voice suddenly grew quieter ...

"That's two minutes Light," Geran said. They were virtually realtime with Mkks

station, moving at a crawl now, within the capacity of their realspace

braking thrust.

Harukk, the shiplist said. There were other kifish names. A lot of them. A few

mahendo'sat. A stsho. (A stsho, at Mkks!) A flock of tc'a and chi in Mkks'

small methane-sector.

"Thank the gods," Pyanfar muttered, and began to take he telemetry again,

shifting her mind back to business. "Approach," she said; and when Geran

delayed: "Course clearance, gods rot it, look to it!" She began The Pride's

high-V braking roll. "Hang on. We're going with it. Now."

"What business?" Sikkukkut asked; and Hilfy pressed close to Tully's side,

hearing the shifting of bodies about them beyond the smoke and the lights.

"What did it arrange with the mahe? Kkkt. Ask it. Get an answer, young

Chanur."

" -- He's asking about deals," Hilfy said, and shifted again, for a kif moved

up on that side of Tully. She looked at Sikkukkut. "He doesn't understand. He

can't understand, gods rot it. He uses a translator on our ship. He can't

speak, he can't shape our words even if he knew what I was saying to him."

Sikkukkut gathered up a silver cup from the table, a ball-like thing studded

with thumbsized, flat-ended projections. He extended a dark tongue, dipped his

snout into it and drank -- gods knew what. He lifted his face. A thin tongue

flicked about his muzzle. He still held the cup, his fingers caressing the

flat-studded surface. "Choose better words: They will harm him, young Chanur,

my skkukun; they will. Persuade him. Break this silence of his. If there are

mechanical translators needed, we will supply them. Only make him speak."

"I'm trying." She shifted again, bringing herself between Tully and the

circling kif. "Back off! -- Tully, Tully, tell him something. Anything. I

think you'd better."

-- Lie, she wished him; play the game, I'll help you -- She felt the chill of

his body against her side. She tried to look up at him, but he looked only to

the kif, perhaps without the wit left to lie at all.

"Perhaps," said Sikkukkut -- A door opened, admitting sullen light: another

kif came in, silhouette like all the rest. -- "We should consider another

private interview with him. Kkkk-t?"

The kif hastened past the others. Sikkukkut turned his head.

"Ksstit," it hissed. "Kkotkot ktun."

Message. Hilfy drew a breath and felt Tully shiver against her. The interloper

bent its hooded head near its captain's and whispered shortly. Sikkukkut

rested with his hands upon his knees. His shoulders moved with a long, long

breath and his jaw lifted.

"Kkkt! Kktkhi ukkik skutti fikkti knkkuri. Ktikkikt!"

All about them the room rustled with kif. Take them from here. Hilfy knew that

much kifish. But not the inflections. Not why, or what had happened, or what

happened next.

Kif closed about them: Tully let out an unaccustomed sound as they tore him

from her side.

"Claws in," she yelled at the kif, "you stupid clot!" -- She raked a kifish

shin with a bare-clawed foot. A returned blow jolted her teeth and claws bit

into her shoulders. There was nothing, with her hands tied, that she could do.

They were enough to carry her. They seized her about both knees and did that

at the end, despite her twisting and turning.

"Bastard!" she yelled past kifish bodies. She saw Sikkukkut still sitting

there like some graven image in the dark, flanked by other kif.

"They are here," Sikkukkut said.

The door came between and closed.

Mkks station was a wall in front of them as The Pride homed in: the berth Mkks

had assigned her glowed with the comeaheads on the number two screen while the

closing numbers ticked off.

-- "Please you wait," mahen authority had protested via com during the last

part of their approach, a much, much more conciliatory tone. "Got already

advise Harukk, same want conference, repeat, want conference. Request reply^ -

- "

And closer still, in their silence: "We make request you delay dock, Pride of

Chanur, you got problem, please, we negotiate -- "

Because there was no way a station like Mkks had to stop any ship from coming

in. And worse, there were fifteen vulnerable kifish ships dead-vee at dock,

attached to Mkks' very vulnerable side. Mkks would have sounded alarms by now

and thrown the section-seals on its docks, fearing projectiles launched,

fearing kif; and riot.

-- "Please," the protest went on from Mkks authority: ''You stop this make

negotiate the kif: We forbid you carry quarrel here."

But they had the berth they demanded, a clear spot with

nothing directly next them on either side. There were kif at hand. Harukk was

in the sixth berth down, within the section. Two mahen traders were docked far

over on the other side of Mkks' torus. Kif ships lined the adjacent section's

docks. There were more mahen ships beyond. The solitary stsho. And tc'a and

chi on methane-side.

-- "We meet you at dockside. We bring security. Make negotiate this matter.

We appeal -- "

Clank-thump. The grapples took, from their side and from station's; the hookup

routines started. They had a docking crew waiting. And security. So Mkks

Central said.

"They've stopped talking," Khym said anxiously, meaning he had done nothing to

cut them off by accident, in his inexperience. "They just went quiet."

But half a heartbeat later, another call came through.

"This is kif port authority," said a clicking voice." You are clear. Welcome

to Mkks, Pride of Chanur. You may even bring your arms. The hakkikt extends

safeconduct. You will have guides. Welcome, again, to Mkks."

"Gods rot those bastards!" Geran cried.

"They've got their own personnel inside Central for sure," Tirun said. "That

was a valid code."

"Move. We've got no choice." Pyanfar powered her chair about and hurled

herself out of it, slapped the back of Haral's seat. "Get that linkup made."

"Rifles or APs?" Tirun was already on her feet; Haral's sister, tall, full-

maned and bearded, with gold rings winking from her ear. There was Geran,

slight and fairer: slight indeed against the size of Khym nef Mahn who climbed

out of his seat and towered there, wider and taller and dead grim.

"APs," Pyanfar said with a tautness about the mouth, a drawing-down of her

mustaches. "But I'll take a rifle; want you with one, too. Might want a

distance weapon on those docks -- might-want a lot of distance, huh? And I

don't think we have to worry about the law here."

There were quiet laughs, a soft explosion of ugly humor. Tirun opened the

locker and passed out side-arms to her and Geran, mahen weapons that fired an

explosive shell, not the motley patchup of pocket guns they had had back at

Kshshti: APs with the necessary extra cartridge-case on the holster belt. And

the two rifles, hers and Tirun's, longer-range and capable of a precise

target, unlike the APs.

Pyanfar took the rifle and checked the safety and cycled the power-test while

com crackled with further instructions. "We will meet you outside," the kifish

voice said. Thumps and clanks went on, the securing of lines and hoses.

The kif intended ambush. They took that for granted. Ambush might come later,

after they had gotten far from the ship, or it might be a kifish rush the

moment the airlock opened, and gods help any mahen dock-worker caught between.

"They're moving the access link in." Haral spun her chair about. "We're in."

She rose and belted on the AP Tirun handed her.

"One of us," a voice said from the door, "has got to stay here and hold the

farm."

"Gods rot -- " Pyanfar did not need to turn. She saw Chur clearly from where

she stood. Geran's sister leaned in the doorway of the bridge, blue breeches

drawstringed perilously low, beneath the bandages swathing her midsection.

"Chur -- "

"Doing fine, thanks." The tightness about Chur's nose and mouth denied it. "Na

Khym's worth more outside, isn't he? And / can bust her loose from dock if

need be." Chur limped across the bridge into her sister's reach and waved off

Geran's help. She reached for her own accustomed seat at scan and leaned on

the back of it, kept going as far as Haral's co-pilot's post and sat down.

"You tell me when you want her opened, captain. I'll figure shut for myself.

No mahe's getting in, huh? Gods rotted sure no kif either."

Pyanfar gnawed her mustaches and threw one look at Geran, whose head lifted in

terminal stubbornness. No reasoning with either sister. It ran in the blood.

No reasoning with that sudden fire in Khym's eyes, when he saw a chance more

to his liking than sitting guard up here. "Fine," she said. "Get Chur a rifle.

In case. And get him one. Move Khym, you keep your wits about you out there.

You don't breathe without my order. Hear? We've got one problem on those

docks. One. Hear me?"

"Aye."

They were husband and wife at other times. Not here. Not out there. As males

went, he was a rock of stability and self-control.

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TheKifStrikeBackbyCJCherryh(Chanurseriesbook#3)InOurLastEpisode....(Astoldin:ThePrideofChanurandChanur'sVenture.)AkifishprincenamedAkkukkakacquiredaprizeandanunprecedentedopportunity:analienshipandcrewfellintohishands--promisinghimnewhunting-groundsforthekifandanewspeciestopreyon.Allhehadtodowastofi...

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C. J. Cherryh - Chanur 3 - The Kif Strike Back

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