Chanur's Homecoming (3 page)

"Therefore he wrecks Kefk's docks."

Jik shrugged and drew in a puff, blinked and stared at the kif beneath heavy lids. "Well, but independence is Ana's way. I've known him for years. He's damn stubborn. He thinks he sees a way and he takes it. Agreements to this side and that- sure, he's working the mahen side. And maybe the human side too. Most of all he's gathering assets-" (Careful, Keia, the brain's fogged; stay to the narrow, the back-doubling path and lead us all round again.) Jik drew in smoke and let it out again in a shaky exhalation. "He'll negotiate with you. Eventually. But think like a mahendo'sat. He has to get something in hand to negotiate with, something to offer you, hakkikt, to demonstrate his worth."

"Like Meetpoint? You weigh upon my credulity, Keia.'' Silk, silk and soothing-soft. "Try again."

"Not Meetpoint. But some matter of substance he can come to you with. I think he means to come back to talk. But he will bring something."

Sikkukkut's snout twitched in a dry sniffing, kifish laughter, which came for many reasons, not all of which were civilized. "Like a million human ships and a great number of guns?''

"Now, that is possible, hakkikt." Jik blinked and narrowed his focus still tighter on what he had resolved to say, never on what he was hiding. Find the threads of the story and stay to them, walk the narrow path, while the drug and the alcohol and the stimulants in the smoke flowed through his veins. "That is remotely possible; but the advantage would be too onesided for the humans. What good to mahendo'sat, to exchange one powerful neighbor for another of unknown potential?''

"Unknown, is it?"

"You speak excellent mahensi. Far better than I speak your language. Mechanical translators are hardly a substitute for living and fluent brains. The best human translator we know can ask for a cup of water and say he wants trade. Now, what does that tell us about human motives, human government, human minds, a? Friend, they say. You say friend, I say friend. Do we mean the same thing? What do humans mean with that word? Assuredly Ana doesn't know; and I much doubt he means to upend the Compact as long as he doesn't know." Jik held up a blunt-clawed forefinger, to maintain attention to a point. "Goldtooth, our esteemed Ana, takes orders. He also interprets them freely. This is the danger in him. The Personage who sent us both knows this. Therefore he sent me to restrain Ana from his excesses. I have failed in this. But I know Ana's limits. I am saying this to you, and you speak such excellent mahensi; but I don't know whether you know the meaning of this word limits in the way we do. It implies the edge of Ana's personal assumptions. Ana still obeys the Personage at Maing Tol. As I do. And I tell you that negotiation with you is in the Personage's interest and human ships running freely through Compact is not in those interests. Therefore I make alliance with

you, as I would have made it simultaneously with Akkhtimakt it he were not the fool he is."

This pleased Sikkukkut, perhaps. The dark eyes flickered. Sikkukkut picked up his cup and the thin tongue exited the v-form gap of his outer teeth and lapped delicately at the petroleum-smelling contents. "I have known mahen fools," Sikkukkut said.

"Don't number Ana among them."

"Or yourself?"

"I hope not to be."

"I have a notion what you might have been doing out on that dockside, Keia, my friend. Ana Ismehanan-min wanted confusion behind which to depart. And someone fired the shot that touched off the riot."

"Rhif Ehrran."

"The hani? Come now, Keia. Hani gave no orders to the mahendo'sat."

"It's not certain that they take them either, your pardon, hakkikt. Myself, I look for a fool to do a fool's work; and Ehrran is the greatest fool I know."

"Ehrran isn't sitting here at this moment."

Jik drew in a long breath of smoke and let it go again. "It did give her the diversion she needed. And indeed, she isn't sitting here at this moment. At cost to me, to Chanur-in fact, hakkikt, expensive as it may be to her in the long run, in the short, it served her very well. And what my partner is thinking of in her regard I wish I could tell you. I wish I knew. I think he has use for that hani he took with him, use he couldn't get out of Chanur-Chanur being no fool."

"Perhaps he has made use of all the hani. Perhaps he has secured his retreat from among us, and that is all he hoped to do-might that not be, Keia? I only wonder what you are doing here."

"Perhaps he only followed her because he saw no way to stop her."

"His ship has armaments," Sikkukkut said dryly. "He was close behind her before her ship reached velocity."

"I mean within his intentions he had no way to stop her."

"And those intentions are?"

Jik spread his hands. "I keep my agreements, hakkikt. And if he has abrogated our partnership-" It was his best argument, his most desperate. His brain fuzzed and the drug meandered through his veins with the force of a tidal bore. "If he has cast me off, hakkikt, I still keep my agreements with you. That's my job to do; and if I fare better than he does, then that will prove to my Personage which agreement is the better to keep."

"Mahen mentality."

"I tell you: it's very like sfik. Give me status and I'll outweigh him with the Personage at Maing Tol. It's that simple. It's not unknown that the mahendo'sat conclude conflicting treaties. And if my course looks wiser than Ana's, mine will be honored and his will be set aside. If both of us look like fools, our Personage will lean on other agencies- nor can either of us know if our Personage is not concluding a third treaty with the stsho. If all fail him, he will fall and another Personage's agents will be to deal with. The mahendo'sat is easy to predict and reasonable to deal with. It will always go for its greatest advantage."

"Kk-kk-t. And will this Personage of yours stir forth in action or wait for events?"

"Outcome from the subordinates is always the deciding factor."

"Where has Ismehanan-min gone? Where is this human fleet? What agreements has he made with the methane-breathers? What of your own?"

They returned to old questions, the same questions, bringing the interview in its usual circle. "Again, mekt-hakkikt, I don't know. They may aim at Meetpoint. It's not impossible the humans might come here. And I don't know of any agreement with the knnn. I asked the tc'a to come here to assure that there was no panic on methane-side-"

"Why did the knnn take your tc'a?"

"I don't know. Who knows the knnn? Who can make an agreement with them-"

"Except the tc'a. Except the tc'a, Keia. Tell me what dealings you have had with them."

"God help me, none." He held up a protesting hand. "I never deal with knnn." And carefully, with his sense in rags
 
from drugs and drink: "That's Ana's department."

"You wish to alarm me."

"Hakkikt, I am alarmed. I don't know whether Ana is in control of it, or whether the knnn are doing something independent."

"In control of it."

It did sound stupid. Jik blinked slowly and took another drag at the smoke. "I mean maybe he's in consultation with them." The hakkikt feared the methane-breathers. Their irrationality, their technology, their vapors and tempers or whatever it was that sent them into frenzies, made the methane-folk a force no one sane wanted to stir up. "'Or they approached him." That was enough to send the wind up Sikkukkut's back. "I don't know, hakkikt. I swear. God witness. I don't know. I did send a message to Maing Tol. So did Goldtooth. What was in his packet I don't know."

"What was in yours?"

Jik shrugged. "My deal with you. My urging they accept this treaty. I tell you, hakkikt, I'd urge you-all respect, hakkikt, you let me go back to my ship. I have a personal interest in seeing this agreement of ours flourish. It'll make me a very powerful man at home."

Give the kif something he understood, an ambition within kifish comprehension.

"You're attempting to use psychology on me," Sikkukkut said.

"Of course I am. It also happens to be true."

"What happened to friendship! You know I know words like this. I am not stupid, Keia; I can study up on a concept without having the-internal circuitry to process it. Friendship means that you work in concert with Ismehanan-min. Loyalty means that you might become a martyr-I learned that word of ker Pyanfar. An appalling concept. But there it was in the mahen dictionary. I was curious. Martyr. Martyrdom. The whole of mahen history teems with martyrs. You place value on them. Like the hani. Have you wish to become one, Keia?"

Jik lifted his brows. "Martyr is another word for fool."

"I found no such cross-reference. Tell me: Keia: I want to know this: where do the knnn fit into Ismehanan-min's

arrangements? What arrangements has he made with the stsho?"

"He would betray them."

"And your opinion of them?"

"They would betray us."

"They have. Stle sties stlen is a deadly creature. For a grass-eating stsho. Is he dealing with this person?"

"I don't know. No. Yes." God help him, the drug was fuzzing up his mind again. For a panicked instant he lost all the threads and got them back again, remembering his story. "But not at depth. Ana doesn't trust the stsho. It's mutual. Of course. The humans will come to Meetpoint- eventually. I think they'll come there. And Stle stles stlen will Phase when gtst sees it. No sts-stsho can withstand that kind of blow to gtst reputation. Ana will take advantage of the confusion and seize the station. If he can."

"And Akkhtimakt will allow this."

"Ana will have to anticipate him there. Perhaps-perhaps, hakkikt, Ana moved so quickly because he knows something of Akkhtimakt's intentions. That there was no more time-in Ana's estimation."

"And why would he go with the hani?"

"Look for advantage." That questioning made him nervous. It was a new tack; he tried to think his way through it and in desperation went back to old answers. "I think-think he hopes to use Rhif Ehrran to get into Meetpoint itself without having stsho techs Phase and bring the systems down. Now you doubt this. I well know. But stsho react badly to surprises; from kif, they expect threats. Even from hani. But mahen threats unbalance them. They're unaccustomed. Ehrran has a treaty with them. That's all I can guess about it. She's a key. That's all. A fool and a key."

"To do what?"

"Hakkikt, I'm not privy to his plans."

Upon that, they were back to old matters. He sat and smoked while Sikkukkut thought that reply over once more, hunched faceless within the hooded robe, on his insect chair, the silver emblem of his princedom among kif shining on his breast stained with sodium-glow. Now and again from the shadows about them came the rustling of other robes, the restless stirring of subordinates who waited on their prince's pleasure.

In a moment Sikkukkut would negligently lift his hand and those waiting about the room would close in, to bear their prisoner back downship and belowdecks to a different sort of questioning, now that he was sufficiently muddled and drugged. Jik did not let himself doubt that. He did not let himself hope that his argument might sway the hakkikt; least of all did he hope that his hani allies on The Pride of Chanur and his own crew back on Aja Jin would effect a rescue. That was the core of his defense here among the kif, the hard center to his resistance that let him sit here so placidly taking his smokestick down to a stub and watching heavy-lidded while Sikkukkut an'nikktukktin meditated what next to do to him; it was the center of all secrets he held, that he counted himself already dead, from which position it was possible to be quite patient with all manner of misery, since, dead, he was enjoying a degree of sensation and occasional pleasant interlude no one dead had a right to. Even when the pain was extreme, it was better than not feeling anything at all. Ever.

Besides, he was mahendo'sat, and curiosity was second nature to him: he was still picking up information, skilled as Sikkukkut was. He had learned, for instance, that Aja Jin, The Pride of Chanur, and Tahar's Moon Rising were all at dock and all seemed free: that was very pleasant news. That Pyanfar Chanur was at hand to lend her experience to his own second in command was very good news; that Pyanfar still had credit enough with Sikkukkut to keep Dur Tahar's throat uncut was excellent news as well, and if there was still enough hani left under Tahar's red-brown hide, the pirate would adhere to her old enemy like burr to fur: hani paid their debts, if nothing else; and Tahar owed Chanur enough to Stick to hell and back.

All of this he had learned in these sessions, as he knew that the human Tully was indeed safe aboard The Pride of Chanur, so Sikkukkut evidently valued Pyanfar more than he wanted the human to question and for other purposes, which was a mighty great deal of value for any kif to put on a non-kif. This was a double-edged benefit, of course: knowing kifish mindset, value-as-ally could turn with amazing swiftness to

high-status-target. Friend in a kif s doubletoothed mouth had no overtones of loyalty or self-sacrifice at all, was in fact nearly the opposite. Ally-of-convenience, rather. Potential rival, rather. Or poor fool.

The hani knew these things; and he knew well that his second in command knew. So they would both keep one finger to the wind; and he hoped that heads would stay cool if, as seemed possible and even likely, portions of himself turned up as decoration on Sikkukkut's ship-ramp. He loathed stupidity, himself; he had sinned in that regard or he would not be here. But he truly abhorred the thought that he might singlehandedly serve as trigger to the undoing of the Compact. That was the one thing even a dead man could fear, the legacy he might leave the living for generations to come. That thought was the crack in his defense: Sikkukkut, being kif, taking no thought to posterity, was not capable of reaching that chink without a strong hint.

It was very easy for species to misunderstand each other, particularly when it came to abstracts.

It was possible, for instance, that he and Pyanfar had persistently misinterpreted Sikkukkut's lack of metaphysics as a lack of emotional abstracts and irrational desires. He had come to know the kif with unwanted intimacy, and now suspected Sikkukkut of a kifish sentimentality, a preference for intimate targets for his most personal satisfaction, while Akkhtimakt was less personal in his mayhem, and more catholic in his attacks.