Chanur's Homecoming

Tc’a and chi and-gods save us- knnn-they’re not here, they’re always here. Where are they? Knnn aren’t afraid of anything. They won’t run. Avoid, maybe; run in panic-not the knnn. Ever.

“Methane-breathers,” Hilfy said. “Gods rot it, Haral. It’s a trap. Sikkukkut’s and Goldtooth’s both.”

Haral’s ears flagged and lifted again, and a thinking look got through the exhaustion in Haral’s eyes.

“Hilfy.” Tully held his cup between his knees and his brow furrowed with worry under its fringe of pale wet hair. “Goldtooth not go Tt’a’va’o.”

“You mean you know that?”

“I think. He come-turn, go whhhsss, like Tt’a’va’o Not.”

“You mean he faked a jump? Stopped out there in deep space? You think he can do that?”

Tully might or might not have gotten all of that. “Mahe,” he said. “Human do.”

“Stop a jump short?”

“Same.”

“Good gods.”

“Makes sense,” Haral said. “If they’ve got the stuff to do that. If they got it from humans- He waits here to fake a run.”

“And Ehrran runs for good and real and leaves hani here to catch it when Sikkukkut came through? Gods-be, she’s got a treaty with the stsho!”

“Give her credit. What could she do-if Akkhtimakt was here first. Goldtooth wanted Akkhtimakt intact. He’s shoving the two kif into a fight, by the gods, that’s what he’s doing!” Haral rubbed her graying nose and it wrinkled up again. “Let them weaken each other before he throws the humans at them and before the mahen forces come in here. That’s what he’s up to. Let Jik hang; let Jik keep at least one gods-be kif halfway tame if he can while Goldtooth sets it up so he can take out both kif. That’s what the mahendo’sat would really like. Throw the humans at ’em. Let the humans get shot up. That’s why he left Jik behind at Kefk.”

“No mahen workers left here onstation, I’ll bet on that.”

“Gods-rotted sure. Goldtooth could have had the word out long before this. Routed everything out of here. Cleared it all out when the stsho broke that treaty.”

“Eggs to pearls Goldtooth’s left a spotter here.”

“No contest.”

“It’s still insystem,” Hilfy said. “It’s still in position to get whatever happened here, maybe there’s more than one of them, huh? Maybe a couple of spotters, one drifting out slow, going to fire up when it’s outside normal pickup, just sneak out of here. And if Goldtooth’s out there in the deep and those fool kif that were tailing him jump all the way to Tt’a’va’o-”

Haral’s ears lifted. The exhaustion melted from her eyes and replaced itself with a hard, hard look. “Keep going.”

“Goldtooth might wait for news. Before his turnaround. If he makes one. He may have put more than one or two spotters on the outside of this system. He’s used up all his credit with Sikkukkut himself, he’s out there in the dark with the humans, with the tc’a that Jik was working with, he’s got some credit with the han, maybe some with the knnn. What if he decided there wasn’t any choice and he just lets the kif fight it out?”

“Maybe that’s the safest thing we could all do.”

“But-”

“I’m listening.”

“But-you know the mahendo’sat are going to save their own hides. Ehrran’s left him. We can’t speak for the han. We got kif going to go head-on against each other with the humans on their backside. If both of them get busy, if the mahendo’sat hit them in the back-neither Akkhtimakt nor Sikkukkut can stand for that chance. They’re in a mess. They can’t leave the mahendo’sat armed at their backs. They’re kif, and Goldtooth’s going to attack and they know it. My gods, we got one kif making a threat against Anuurn. What’s Akkhtimakt going to threaten, huh? Or is he just going to turn around and send a ship apiece at every mahen world and station?”

Haral’s ears were all but flat. She was still listening.

“Ask Skkukuk,” Tully said suddenly.

“Ask him what?” Hilfy asked.

“He kif. Ask what kif do.”

“He’s not on Sikkukkut’s level. If he’d outthought him, we’d have Skkukuk to worry about.”

“Kif mind. Lot dark. / go ask.”

“Man’s got a point,” Haral said. “But no way we talk to the kif. Better we talk to the captain. Py-an-far, you understand me, Tully?”

“You think I’m right?”

“I been in space forty some years, kid, I never been real close to kif on their terms. You have. And you speak main-kifish. Which I still don’t, not real well. But I’ve had a look at our passenger, ’bout enough to get an idea or two. And between the mahendo’sat and that kif, I’m real anxious. We got that other bomb aboard. And sorry as I am for him, he scares me worse’n Skkukuk.”

“Jik,” Hilfy murmured. And took another sip that failed to warm her gut.

“He’s got a lot on him,” Haral said, “and much as we owe him and he owes us-first, he’s hurting; second, he’s been hurt, by the kif and by his own partner and by us on top of it all; and thirdly, he’s mahendo’sat and seeing his whole species in danger, and maybe he’s got more information than we’ve gotten out of him. What’s he going to do?”