Chanur's Homecoming

“I want your help. You want mine. You want to figure your chances without the hani? If it was you and nothing else, alone with the kif, with three human governments all doublecrossing each other, and the tc’a and the chi, gods help us, running lunatic? You refigure it, Jik, hear? You got some authority of your own. You got authority to take up a Situation and settle it, I got that figured. And I’m giving you a Situation. I’m giving you the fact we got this bastard going to take my species out, going to kill all of us, which loses you an ally, which loses you a major market, doesn’t it, which loses you friends, about the time you need ’em most, you and your Personage. Humans aren’t half your trouble. / am. The han is. And you don’t give me orders. / got the influence, / got the thing in hand, and all of a sudden I’m dealing with a threat to my planet, Jik, which means I’ll do any gods-be thing I got to and I’m not kiting off in any gods-be direction you want. I got one direction. And you got no choice but my choice, because I’ll shoot you down before I let you do something that’ll stop me. I love you like kin and I’ll shoot you with my own hand, you hear me, mahe? Or you help me and give me the truth at all the right spots and maybe you still got an ally left.”

Muscles were still clenched. Hard. He took a long time. “Got,” he said finally. “You open door, a?”

“No deal. Not your terms, you hear?”

He stood up, gave the kilt a hitch, and stared down at her. Made a sudden move of his hand, a strike. She skipped back, ears flat.

“First thing,” he said, “you got learn not trust ever’ bastard got deal. You damn fine trader. But kif not be merchant.”

“Neither are you. I’m proposing something else. I’m telling you you’re not going to break my neck because you got more sense.”

“You got right,” he said, and sniffed and drew a large breath. The fine wrinkles round his eyes drew and relaxed and drew again in an expression very like Tully’s. “Love you like kin. Same. Got tell you you going to bleed.” He touched his heart. “Same you win, same you lose. You number one fine woman. Got lot haoti-ma. Lot. I make deal, honest. You get me smoke, I give you whole timetable.”

“You gods-be lunatic.”

“Sikkukkut not only source. You got whole station. You got ask Aja Jin. Same bring.”

“Drug’s scrambled your brains.”

A little light danced in his eyes. “You want me stay ’board, you got find me smoke. I be number one fine pilot. Same better when I got relax. You maybe need. You, Haral, you number one too. Not too many.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Same you.” He gave another hitch at the kilt. He had lost weight. “You got deal.” More wrinkles round the eyes, a grimace. “My Personage damn me to hell. Same be old territory for me. You want me, you got. Long as Sikkukkut not got us all. You got trade sharp, hani. Number one sharp. This be hard deal. Maybe he take me. Maybe take you: you got no knowledge. You want plan you got get me back. Safe.”

“He hasn’t asked for you.”

“He do. You wait, see. Know this kif.”

“How’s your nerves?”

“You not forget get smoke, a? Same time you get me out.”

“Captain,” Hilfy said over com. “Harukk’s coming in right now. They’re insisting to pick up all the captains. With appropriate escorts. They want Jik and Tully too.”

Jik lifted his brows. “See?”

“Gods rot that kif.” But she thought: He could strip every ship here of its senior command. Couldn’t he? Me. Dur Tahar. That’d leave Haral Araun, but he doesn’t know her that well.

/ need an escort. Not Haral. Gods, I can’t take Haral off this ship.

Not one of my crew. Just my translator.

“Hilfy. Tell Skkukuk he’s going with us. No other but the ones they asked for. Send my gear down here. Send an AP for Jik too. We got a point to prove.”

Gods send the rest of the captains have got some sense.

Gods send they understand old epics.

“Aye,” Hilfy said after a second. “Captain. Tahar’s here. We got others coming. Haral asks: let ’em through?”

Not happy. No. Sikkukkut’s not going to like this.

And, no, niece, I’m not crazy.

I just got no choice.

The lift worked. That was Tully coming down. Or the kif. She walked along the corridor with Jik for company, spotted Tirun coming the other way about the time the lock cycled with its characteristic whine and thump and let someone into the ship.

That and a cold lot of air with the smell of Meetpoint about it. Nostalgia hit, and left an ache after it. Old times and rotten ones, but that smell was familiar in a mundane way that made the present only worse by comparison.

Tully and Skkukuk arrived together, Skkukuk a-clatter with weapons, his own and what he had gathered on Kefk dock: maybe, she reflected dourly, it was sentiment.

Tully had her gun slung over his shoulder, and an AP at his hip: that took no claws to operate-shove in the shells and pull the trigger. He was steady and able to use it. He had proved that at Kefk.

And from the airlock corridor, Dur Tahar arrived with Soje Kesurinan.

Pyanfar drew in a large breath.