Chanur's Homecoming (38 page)

. . . down again. . . . gravity slope.

It was hard to move at all. But Chur did that, levered herself to the side of the bed and remembered-she could have forgotten nothing-to put the safety back. For Tully's sake.

Longer still down the corridor, which reeled and snaked and kept going into the lighted bridge. Perhaps it took a day to walk it. Dark things skittered and moved, ran like black, rapid serpents in the corridors.

New logical track: moving and breeding. Feeding where they could. Insulation. Plastics. Ignoring barriers.

Akkht-bred. Like the kif.

Alert within jump.

. . . down and still falling. . . .

She made it as far as the captain's place. And leaned there. "Captain," she said, perhaps another day in the saying of it: "The mahendo'sat. A message has gone to them. A message can have reached from Maing Tol to Iji. Ayhar of Prosperity will have come home. From Kirdu to Kita is one jump. A ship can have gone to Iji from there. From Kirdu to Ajir, one; from there to Anuurn. Our ships will have heard. They'll come home, captain. As we are, coming home at the earliest possible. The mahendo'sat will not have resisted this move. The quarry goes to the small valley, but hunters cross the hill. That is only reasonable." Words slurred. She watched the slow twitch of a listening ear. Not her captain, but this stranger. Tauran. She knew that too.

"Believe us," she said to that captain. "Believe what we've told you."

Other calculations. The solar system danced in her memory, swung through two years of positional changes. Lanes threaded like moving spirals of color through this maze of rock, converging on Anuurn.

Cover a ship with mass and emissions-noise, a gravity well it could stay in, concealed in dancing fragments, in the thunderous emissions of a gas giant. Akkhtimakt knew there would be attack coming in at him. He had had time to plan and research the moves he hoped to make, and attack could not possibly take him by utter surprise.

She crossed to the com board, reached the slack hand of a Tauran crewwoman, punched in a channel. "Kif. Do you hear me?"

"Kkkt," the voice came back, slow and slurred. "Who calls? Who is this?"

She reached-it was terrible effort-to the board. Sat down in a vacant chair. Tully's. Between two Tauran crewwomen. She freed up armaments from that master board and set her hand on that control, preprogramming fire on the Tyar vector from their entry point.

Black things ran and squealed. There were red lights on boards, systems failures. She went to the main board and carefully switched to backups, system after system, where automation had failed.

. . . down again. She staggered, held to the board, blinked with the jolting here of the bridge about her, where she spent her life. The crewwoman beside her was turning her head in confusion, the whole of the bridge was real for the moment before it began to darken.

"My gods," someone said. As The Pride fired on its own.

The dark folded round again, but it was only a dimming of the light; and there was pain, the bite of the strap against her sagging body. She pushed herself upright again. She reached for the com-switch again, threw it on wide. "Captain. This is Chur. Get up here. Emergency, emergency."

"How in a mahen hell'd she do it?" a young voice cried; and another: "Captain!"

As space sorted itself into sanity, as alarms wailed, advising of systems gone backup; as they ran into a wavefront of information that said ANUURN, ANUURN, ANUURN-

"My gods!" someone yelled, seeing something.

And their own ship answered, automatic: The Pride of Chanur.

They were well into system. Close to the star. To the sun that had warmed their backs as children and beaconed them home trip after trip.

Anuurn buoy was out. No help for that. "Watch out for Tyar," she said to the scan operator by her, tried to say. As The Pride's weapons fired again.

Pyanfar ran. She had never moved so hard, straight out of jump. She hit the door with her whole body, triggered the lock and staggered into the hall and ran it with the thud and thump of Khym running behind her. A blurred figure came out of Chur's room and collided with her, embraced her, stink of human, half-naked and all but falling. "Chur-" Tully said, but she sorted out from him, already on her way, and left him to obstruct Khym's path.

Bridge loomed, lit and swimming in and out of focus. She grabbed the doorframe, safetywise hand-over-handed toward the nearest console and lurched for the next, heading for the captain's seat, grabbed the back of it and hung there. "I'm here," she gasped, and Sirany twisted in the seat and began to get out of it. "Get to observer one. Too far to go below."

"We're still firing," a youngish voice said. "Do I stop?"

"Priority, we got no buoy here."

"What are we firing at?" Sirany snapped. "Gods and thunders, what are we doing? My gods, we're high-V-those guns-"

"Not sure," that one said; and: "She's fainted-" Another voice. As Pyanfar grabbed Sirany's seatback. "Out!" she yelled at the Tauran; and Sirany cleared it as she threw herself into it, a collision of bodies. "Tyar vector," someone said; and: "Stay your posts," Pyanfar snapped, blinking at a blur of lights, and felt blind after the general hail: "Chanur, get your backsides up here! Run for it! Tauran, cancel fire, cancel."

''My door, my door! Fools!''

"Unlock the kif," she said to the Tauran copilot/switcher. Confusion behind as Tully and Khym tried to ascertain Chur's state. "Khym! Get her to the galley, emergency secure. Getcliquid down her if you can." They had run that drill, galley-secure, smallest fore-aft space next the bridge. Close the corridor-access and hit the padded benches, collapse the table to use for auxiliary brace, and belt in and tie down. In the tail of her vision they took Chur out that way. Sirany moved and came on over intercom from the seat Chur had left. "I'll aux switch, Chanur."

"You got it," she said, ripped a nutrients packet loose and downed it, her eye to the chrono and the red numbers flashing on the screen. "Gods - " Into the general com: "Make that lift, gods rot you, run, we got thirty seconds to dump, run, run, run! Ride it out in the lift!"

"We'll make it!" Haral's voice. Dopplered and moving, from the com. "Let it go!"

Images got to her screen. She jammed a com plug into her right ear and listened with one ear to that flow, kifish jabber.

Fifteen seconds. Noise from the intercom, wide open from both ends. Shouts and curses at a recalcitrant door. "Open the gods-be lift!' '

Then: "We're in. Different speaker. Tirun this time. And: "Wait, wait, wait! Kkkkt-kkt-kt! Wait!"

''Hurry!' '

"Kkkkkkkkkkkkkk-"

Dump. - down. Velocity drop.

- red lights. Breaking out like plague.

O my gods, don't let us lose it here.

Not now. Not now.

Normal space. Anuurn and kif. She swallowed down sickness and flicked switches while the Tauran switcher next to her fed her images.

"Position, position, where in a mahen hell are we?" Not Haral beside her. Fire was going on out there, their kifish escort hammering away at something forty five degrees off and low. Haze blossomed on the scan as it cleared. They had no clear way to know what the kif were firing on. "Com, gods rot it, where 's ID on those ships?"

"No ID," the young voice answered. "I'm not getting ID."

Captain, we got hits out there, Tyar vector!' '

"Targeting."

"We don't know who we're shooting at," Sirany objected.

"Targeting, gods rot it, did I say fire? Get us a gods-be lock on it!''

"Gods rot yourself, did I say I wasn't?"

Not a crew up here. A collection. Left and right hand tangling. In the monitor a light-reflection showed, widened. Lift door opening. She looked at the time and saw fifty seconds to next dump. "Fifty to dump, clear those seats, number two, three, five, seven-Chanur crew's in upper main, we got a fast shift, bail out and go, move it!"

"Get!" Sirany yelled at her own crew. "You heard her. Galley!"

Every regulation in the book was fractured. Crew bailed out and fled in mid-ops, a scramble for the galley corridor. Running footsteps hit the bridge deck and seats sighed and hummed and belts clicked, new crew in. New voices reported over com.

"Your sister's all right," Pyanfar said.

As the chrono ticked over and they went down again-

-programmed dump. More red. Red, red, red. O gods, not the main boards- Lifesupport out. Gods fry those slinking things!

Over to backup on three more systems. Final backup on another.

Out again, with telemetry coming in, Chanur voices delivering information.

"Affirmative: Akkhtimakt. Tyar vector, breaking for nadir."

"Fire."

As another disruption streaked past them, disrupting scan. "That was Jik!" Geran said.

"Go for 'em!" Tirun cried, and: "Kkkt! Sgot sotikkut pukkukt'!" from Skkukuk.

More disruptions. A welter of high-V projectiles, passing by them.

They added their own, lower-V, and a burst of beamfire from their small bow projector. Hydraulics whined and thumped, reloading the chambers on the launcher, tracking.

The source of the fire was off-gods, in the ecliptic. A chill went up her back. Chur and premonitions. The first fire they had thrown out was the most damaging kind, high-velocity, aimed blind.

Someone had keyed the guns.

Whump and groan. Another missile round off. More loading.

"Stand by braking." Gods hope the systems hold. As she threw them into rollover, the guns still tracking and firing under auto.

She threw the mains in. Her hand was shaking on the board, even with her arm thrust through the stress brace. Her vision fuzzed under the strain, and something small and black flew past her head and hit the forward bulkhead beyond her panel, squealing and yelping. Three story drop, where it had come from. "Gods!" she yelled in revulsion: it ran right back over the boards and chittered and squealed as it went, tiny claws scrabbling as it climbed against the G-force and ran right over the counter along the bulkhead, the course of least resistance.

Then colors blossomed all across the scan. . "We got company!" Geran yelled, and pounded the board. "Gods, o gods, they're ours, hani IDs-hani ships lying off-system ecliptic, they're coming in!"

Chapter Eleven

"Hani ships!" Hilfy cried. "Waiting-O gods, someone got 'em the word! They're coming in on our escorts' wavefront!"

"Ayhar," Pyanfar said. Her heart again. It was a good hurt. As if the universe itself were not large enough to hold it. "Gods look on her, Banny Ayhar got through!"

While The Pride hammered down its V and Akkhtimakt's kif picked theirs up, faster and faster shifts. Comp subtracted their V-drop out of that relative V increase and still came up with a plus. "The bastards are running!" Haral exclaimed. "They're getting out of here; they got Ajir for an outbound-''

"They got Jik on their tail," Tirun exclaimed. While on com, Sif was trying to explain it all to the crew in the galley. A cheer racketed out of that section, weak and wobbly in the strain of decel, but a cheer all the same.

"They are lost!" Skkukuk cried, and a string of something else in kifish.

His former associates. Akkhtimakt and all his minions, and Skkukuk was not with them in their debacle, but in the lead ship of the winning side. It was surely a sweet moment to a kif, all his maneuvers justified. He chittered and hissed and all but chortled. "Give me a channel," he cried. "Hakt, give me a channel, praise to my captain, mekt-hakt', they will not turn, they dare not turn, give me a channel!"

"Affirm," she said. It seemed little enough to keep a kif content. And having gotten it he sent out a steady burst of clicking main-kifish.

Fools, was the burden of it. Join my captain, join us in success, turn and rend the doomed and hapless fools who lead you!

"Com," Hilfy said. "Harun's Industry says their compliments and they're wanting instructions."

"Come about and stay after them and for the gods' sweet sake let the comp do the shooting, we got too many allies out there that look like the other side."

"Kifish signal," Hilfy snapped. "Skkukuk."

"Notiktkt has begun to fire on its fellows!" Skkukuk cried. "It signals its loyalty, mekt-hakt'!"

O my gods.

She stared, appalled, listened as Skkukuk rattled off more and more names. As kif hindmost in the whole retreating force began to add their fire to the attack on their own forces, and hani ships swept in like a wave, hammering at the ships that were attempting to flee.

Hammer and anvil. More and more kifish defections, and the Ajir vector, the only way out at their velocity and on that heading-barriered suddenly with yet another wave.

"My gods, what's that?"

More breakout of plague on the com, this time nadir, ships lying emissions-silent suddenly having picked up velocity and started to run.

Howling out mahen IDs.

"My gods, we got "em," Haral yelled. And laughed aloud and pounded the console. "You hear that? That's the mahendo'sat! We got the kif between us, Akkhtimakt's forces are defecting right and left, they're chewing each other to bloody rags!"

Pyanfar stared at it with her mouth open. With bits and pieces of things sorting themselves into vague order, as they had been ordered for longer than she had wanted to look at them.

She did not cheer. There was an obscenity in what was happening in front of them. And yet not obscene or unfit. No more than the little vermin that had multiplied and succeeded against all odds.

It was kif out there, surviving again.

Doing the best they knew to do.

Murder is possible here. Ours, committed against kif innocent by their own lights.

In one stroke, I can order it, clear our system of kifish ships till we can get organized in defense. Wipe the aliens out of home system.

It's prudent to do. It's only prudent.

But gods help me, I'm not a butcher.

"Send: The Pride of Chanur to all ships. Cease fire, cease fire on all kifish IDs that signal surrender."

Then com reached her down the other vector, backflung from Jik.