Chanur's Venture (22 page)

They had left. "Tully," Hilfy said. The G stress was considerable, and it was

hard to breathe; the kif had beat that out the door, gone somewhere for

protection, but they had left Tully lying there on the table, no blanket,

nothing against the cold. "Tully--"

But he did not move. She gave over trying to rouse him. They had patched the

worst, she reckoned. They were headed for long acceleration, for jump, and they

wanted their prisoner to stay alive that long.

She, she reckoned, was quite another matter. Against Chanur, quite a number of

kif had a score to settle.

"Going where? She built the map in her head. Kefk, likeliest. Kefk, inside kif

territory. They could do that in one jump.

The whole ship jolted. Hit, she thought with one wild hope that someone,

somehow, had moved to stop it; but the G grew worse then, incredibly worse. The

ship had dumped cargo, no, not even cargo: she remembered Harukk, the sleek

wicked lines of her docked at Meet-point. It was the false pods that had just

blown, and stripped Harukk down to the hunter-ship she was.

Nothing could catch her now.

"How long ago?" Pyanfar shouted at the messenger, and the tall mahe backed up a

step.

"Soon ago, soon." The mahe laid hands on his chest. "I messenger, hani captain,

got com shot up, come office Personage give me same, say bring you."

Pyanfar took a swing at nothing in particular, turned away and found Rhif Ehrran

in her path.

"Well, Chanur? Got any brilliant plan?"

"If you weren't down here on the dock, if you hadn't left the only ship fit to

chase them sitting crewless, you gods-rotted fool--!"

"To do what? Chase a hunter-ship to Kefk? You're the fool, Chanur. There'll be a

full report. Believe me that there will."

"Py, don't!" It was Khym who got her arm in time and dragged her back, so it was

too late to do it at white heat. She straightened herself, stared at the Ehrran

whose crew had moved in to back their captain.

"Captain," a mahe said, moving in. "Captain, Personage want see, quick, please

quick. Got car."

She shoved the rifle at Khym, turned and followed the mahe across the littered

deck. She was aware of Haral with her, Tirun, Khym hastening to catch up.

"Chanur." A hani voice, a portly hani moving up from the side. "Chanur--" Banny

Ayhar caught her arm and tried to stop her.

She flung the hand off. "Get out of my way, Ayhar. Go lick Ehrran's feet."

"Listen, Chanur." Ayhar caught her arm with force this time and thrust her bulk

in the way. "I'm sorry! You want passage?"

She stopped dead and stared at Banny Ayhar's broad face.

"She hire you?"

"No."

"Who did?"

"See here, Chanur--"

Pyanfar walked off.

Chapter Nine

The lift let them out where Tully and Hilfy should have gotten to, in the upper

security levels, where guards looked nervous at the appearance of a clutch of

blood-stained hani armed with rifles, and one of them a male.

But doors opened for them unquestioned, doors upon doors of Kshshti's

utilitarian architecture, gray steel, heavy security, armed guards at intervals.

Stars and dark: Pyanfar lost the sight in front of her for that, remembrance of

the kif hunter-ship in dock at Meetpoint, sleek, deadly, fast; of a ship

outbound to Kshshti nadir and the jump range at a greater and greater fraction

of C. She went there the guard motioned, went where doors parted.

The last let them into a dim chamber with a plasteen division, with violet light

beyond. On the white-lit side, a desk and two mahendo'sat. On the violet one, a

huge serpent-form, which moved and shifted restlessly before the waist-up glass.

Tc'a. The sight of the methane-breather shocked her to an involuntary stop. The

barrier looked frail, the presence hani were accustomed to see only on vid and

dimly, showed detail that made it seem all too imminent: wrinkled, soft-leather

skin with phosphor-glow in the gold, eyespots large as a fist, five of them

clustered round a complex trifold mouth/sensor. The tongue darted, constantly.

The body shifted to this side and that, which tc'a always did.

"Esteemed captain." The Voice spoke, uncharacteristically subdued. "I present

the Personage Toshena-eseteno, stationmaster this side Kshshti; the Personage

Tt'om'm'mu, stationmaster methane side."

"Honorables," Pyanfar murmured. The tc'a alone deserved the plural, several

times over; and gods help psychologists.

The leathery serpent-shape loomed closer, twisted to peer through the glass with

its five orange eyespots. A wailing came through, five-voiced, from a brain of

multiple parts, as a monitor below the glass displayed the glowing matrix:

TC'A TC'A HANI HANI MAHE KIF KIF

CHI CHI STAY STAY STAY GO GO

UNITY UNITY ANGER ANGER ANGER GO GO

STAY STAY STAY STAY STAY GO MESSAGE

"Thank the tc'a Personage. What message?"

"Kif." The mahen Personage rose slowly from the desk, robes falling into order,

severe robes unlike the display of Personages elsewhere. He held out a paper

with his own hand, and she took it. "This come," the Personage said, not through

the Voice, "from Harukk. All three kif ship outbound. We got two mahe ship

chase."

"Shoot?"

"No shoot."

She held a small, horrid doubt whether they should have refrained, hostages or

no. For the hostages' sake. If it were The Pride in pursuit- but she pushed that

thought away. Unfolded the paper.

Hunter Pyanfar, it said. When the wind blows one should spread nets. Mine was

fortunate for us both. Should your sfik insist to meet with me, Mkks is neutral

ground. There you may reclaim what is yours.

"He's got them," she said for the crew's benefit. She gave the paper to Haral.

Mkks. Disputed Zones. Not Kefk, in kif territory.

Bait. Where she could reach it.

"I make order," the Personage said, "mahe ship track this kif. Go Mkks. Try use

influence."

"Influence. How much influence, when a kif s got what he wants?"

The Personage made a small, casting-away gesture. Pyanfar stood there with her

pulse hammering in her ears and no trust at all. Nothing, where they crossed the

mahe's interest.

"You follow this kif?" the Personage asked. "Or you go Maing Tol?"

Which gets my ship fixed, Honorable? But she did not say that. She cast a look

toward the glass where the tc'a dipped and wove aimless patterns. Back then to

the mahendo'sat in his ascetic robes. "You have a suggestion?"

The Personage lasped into mahen language.

"Hani captain," the Voice said, "kif use proverb mean he got result from

confusion someone else. Maybe not plan. Got maybe other motive. This

Sikkukkut--" The Voice shifted footing and put her hands behind her. "Forgive.

Not got polite hani word. Hatonofa, He look get number-one position."

"I know the word. I don't know this kif. No one knows a kif, but another kif."

Another exchange between Personage and Voice.

"Personage," said the Voice, "want make delicate this. I confess lack skill."

"Say it plain. I'll add the courtesy."

"Ask what else you got this kif want."

"I don't know."

The tc'a made a sound.

CHI TC'A HANI KIF KIF KIF

STAY WARN DATA WANT GOT WANT

TC'A KSHSHTI MKKS MKKS KEFK AKKT

FEAR WARN DIE TAKE TAKE TAKE

"Information," Toshena-eseteno translated that.

"What's the Kefk and Akkt mean?"

The screen went dark and stayed that way.

"What's it mean?" she asked the mahe.

"Not clear." The Personage walked to the glass and laid his hand on it. "Not

always clear, tc'a colleague. Warn you. Got warn you. Crew -- already work

repair you ship. Where go?"

She gnawed her mustache. "Twenty hours."

"Maybe do better."

The screen lit again. The serpent wailed.

CHI TC'A CHI KNNN HANI HANI MAHE

TC'A HANI HANI HANI SAME OTHER OTHER

KSHSHTI KSHSHTI KSHSHTI KSHSHTI KSHSHTI KSHSHTI KSHSHTI

MKKS MKKS MKKS MKKS MKKS MKKS KSHSHTI

SEE SEE SEE SEE GO DIE STAY

DANGER DANGER DANGER THREAT DANGER DANGER DANGER

"What threat?" Pyanfar asked. The matrix had potential to be read in any

direction. The computer picked it out of the harmonics and no sequence was

certain. "Knnn? What hani die? Present or future?" The tc'a reared back from the

glass.

AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID

"Is that the answer or the reaction?" The tc'a dipped and weaved. A chi

skittered up into view from below the glass, a hani-sized bundle of rapidly

moving sticks phosphoresced in the violet light. It clambered up the tc'a

wrinkled side and clung there, touching with frenetic quivers of its limbs.

The Compact's sixth alleged intelligence. Or a tc'a symbiont. No one had figured

that out.

DANGER DANGER DANGER DANGER DANGER DANGER DANGER

"Still, be still." The mahen Personage lifted his hands to the violet glow,

turned about against the light. His ears were back. The light glistened in a

halo about him; his profile was shadowed, featureless.

"One broke out of Meetpoint," Pyanfar said. "Knnn. Tc'a too. There was trouble

there. Haven't seen it since."

"Knnn come, go. No one ask."

"Might be here, you mean."

"Knnn business. Not talk this."

"They snatched the human ships."

"Not talk this!" The Personage turned to face her, totally shadow now.

She flicked her ears and lifted her head in one long grudging breath.

"Apologies." A second, shorter breath. The air seemed close. "I'd better go,

Honorable."

"Where you go?" the Personage asked. "Maing Tol? Mkks?"

"You want to tell me which?"

"I say, you not listen, true?"

Not dull-witted. No.

And not, adding up the asked and not-asked, not knowing everything Goldtooth had

planned or done. Maybe the wavefront of that information was one lonely hani

ship. Or maybe Maing Tol had not trusted Kshshti security.

Coils within coils within coils. To pull the snake's tail one had to know which

end was which.

"I got orders," Pyanfar said, "mahe who gave me this job. He trust. You?"

The Personage said something the Voice did not render, and turned and gazed at

Tt'om'm'mu. The tc'a and chi were otherwise occupied, the chi busy waving its

limbs over the tc'a's leathery hide. Speech, maybe. No oxy-breather knew.

The mahe turned round again. "You go where choose. Got no bill, no dock charge.

Kshshti give."

"Gratitude."

The mahe joined his hands in courtesy. The tc'a Tt'om'm'mu -- remained occupied.

"Hurts," Chur murmured. Her eyes cleared somewhat, looking up at them clustered

about her bed. "Want--" The rest of it faded out.

"Sedation's pretty heavy," Geran said, leaning forward from her low stool at the

bedside to brush at her sister's mane. Pyanfar nodded, hands within her belt.

Geran had gotten the news outside the door, knew the contents of the message.

"Good treatment here. Kshshti medics get a lot of practice."

It was a joke, desperately delivered. Eyes still closed, Chur gave a twitch of a

smile, as forced as the joke. "Get me out of here, captain. Gods-rotted dull

port."

"Get your rest." Pyanfar leaned over and closed her hand on Chur's arm. "Hear?

We'll be back."

"Where's Hilfy? Tully?" Chur's eyes opened, far sharper than she had thought.

"You find them?"

"We're working on it."

"Gods rot." Chur moved, a stir of her whole body. "Where are they?"

"Go to sleep. Don't move about like that."

"Something's wrong."

"Chur." Geran slipped a hand in and held her arm. "Captain's got work to do. Go

back to sleep."

"In a mahen hell. What's the news?"

There was no lying about it. Not to Chur. Not likely. The blood pressure would

go up and up. She would worry at it. "Mkks," Pyanfar said. "Kif snatched them

both. One Sikkukkut. Says he's talking deal. Wants us to go to Mkks to meet

him."

"O gods."

"Listen." She held Chur's arm, hard. "Listen. It's not hopeless. We've got help

from the mahendo'sat. We'll get them back. Both."

"You going to let the mahendo'sat do it?"

She hesitated on that answer. Gave it up for the second truth. "Haral and Tirun

and I. We can handle The Pride. They're going on the repairs."

Chur's ears went down against the pillow. Her eyes were shut. "Promised. You."

"Can't do it. Can't do it now."

"Tomorrow. I'll be there. At the ship. Geran too."

"You rest."

"Huhhhhnn." Chur's eyes flashed open. "Patch will hold. I'll stand jump just