Chanur's Homecoming

Jik frowned. And said nothing at all.

“Not quite by his wish,” Pyanfar said. “Say that friendship has other uses. He was confused when we got him. He talked rather too much to us. That simple.” We’re lying, Kesurinan. Trust me. Sit still. “It’s what I said. Nothing Jik wants. He knows something Goldtooth doesn’t. That made the difference. Tully doesn’t know what the humans are up to, but a thought occurs to me that I don’t like, hakkikt. That the trouble inside the Compact is weakening us as a whole. That the humans may not wait until the trouble’s settled. Just delay their attack till the most advantageous moment. Because they will push at us.”

“Is this so, Tully?”

Tully made an uncomfortable shift of position. A shrug. Turned a worried look Sikkukkut’s direction, hers.

“He has trouble understanding sometimes. Tully. The hakkikt asked: will the humans fight the mahendo’sat?”

“Not know.” Tully’s eyes fixed on hers, shifting minutely as if they hoped to read a clue.

“You told me. Tell him what you told me. Do it, Tully.”

“Human-” He looked back toward Sikkukkut. Toward this kif who was more than all others his personal enemy. “Come. Got three-” He held up fingers. “Three human-”

“Governments,” Pyanfar said.

“Three,” Tully said. “Fight. Push one humanity to here.”

“Kkkkt”

“I belong The Pride. Crew-man!”

Keep your hands off me, you bastard.

And implicit in a glance her way: Captain, don’t let them take me.

“He doesn’t know much more than he’s said, mekt-hakkikt. But he understands methane-breathers. I don’t think the rest of his people do. He had no importance among his people. They got what information from him they wanted to hear and they shoved him aside without listening to the rest of what he had to say. They didn’t want him to say the rest. We think. Gods know he might not understand as much as I think. We might not understand him. I think he’s tried to tell the truth, but I don’t think he was in on the planning. Just a crewman. That’s all he ever was. That’s what he still is.” Her hands wanted to shake. If the kif took him, there was nothing she could do to stop it. / got their attention on him. Gods, get it off!

“But,” Sikkukkut said, “we have other sources to question. The stsho will not hold back information. They bend to any wind. And I have sufficient of them to gain an excellent picture of what happened here-they will lie to a mahendo’sat, they will lie to a hani, but they will not lie to a kif. And they have very large eyes. Two of my least skkukun are on the station at this moment; and so are three hundred thousand stsho.” Again Sikkukkut lifted the cup and drank, a quick dart of his dark tongue. “They are apprised of the possibility that I will decide to remove this station. And that they will not be allowed to leave-”

My gods.

“I have told my skkukun the same. They will find information. They will cause the stsho to find it. We have already identified responsible individuals. My enemy destroyed the station datafiles. After doubtless sucking them into his own records. So there is nothing to learn there: I expected as much. But we have direct resources. Ksksi kakt.”

A servant moved. Fast. Hani shifted anxiously as an inner door opened, as kif rearranged themselves, a rustle like leaves in a midnight forest.

“Sit still,” Pyanfar said again. In case any of them forgot. Her ears were flat, her muscles had a chill like fever in them that was going to start her shivering. She reached, ears flat and scowling, and picked up her cup and drank.

The parini went down like fire. And held her caught in that minor, eye-watering misery when a gibbering outcry rang out from the opened door.

A gleam of white showed in the doorway, where kif parted, where dark-robed kif shoved stsho forward, through the shadowed rows of their own kind. Stsho white, stained with sodium-light, marked with darker smears, their pitiful, spindly limbs all bruised from kifish handling.

So fragile. A breath could break such limbs.

Jik turned his face in that direction, slowly. The smoke curled up from the stick in his hand. He did not move, himself, beyond that; the other captains turned in their chairs; and Tully-on her other side-she had no way to observe. She guessed.

“Now,” said Sikkukkut, “let us ask some questions.”

“Translator’s not making sense of it,” Hilfy murmured, gnawing her mustaches and monitoring kifish transmissions. Harukk was talking to its minions off-station. Talking a great deal. “I don’t like it, gods, I don’t like this.”

“Takes a decision somewhere,” Geran said, “to get that ship that talkative. You’d think Sikkukkut’d be busy. You’d hope he’d be.”

“Calling more of them in?” Khym said.

“They got a worry about something,” Geran said. “No. They won’t pull ships in while there’s a chance of something coming in and catching them nose to station. That’s some kind of bulletin. Instruction. Gods know what.”

“Still talking,” Hilfy muttered. And remembered Harukk’s dark bowels. The transmission went on at some length.