understand. Tell me. Why Maing Tol? And why me?”
He shivered, palpably, and reached across the table to grip her retreating hand,
ignoring the reflexive jerk of claws. “Big trouble. Lot human ship, lot go Maing
Tol soon.”
“Across kif space? There’s knnn out there! How many ship, huh, how many human
ships are you talking about? Three? Four? More than that?”
“Paper say — we make stop kif come human space, take human ship. But Goldtooth
say me– Goldtooth say– think now maybe not kif got human ship. Maybe knnn.”
“O good gods.” The heart sank in her. If there had been a bench under her she
would have sat down. As it was she just stared.
“Goldtooth say message got go Maing Tol make stop mahe, make stop kif, go
fight–”
“Fight? Gods-rotted humanity can’t tell knnn from kif?”
“Not.”
“Well, for the gods’ sake you know knnn.’ Did you teJI them, did you telJ them
the difference?”
“Who I? They don’t hear. Shut up, Tully. I’m small person, small, not #,
Pyanfar!”
“Gods and thunders.”
“Pyanfar–”
“Lunatics!”
“Goldtooth friend?” he asked again. “I do good?”
She stared at him a long, long time and he just looked scared. Scared and on the
other side of a half-functioning translator. And the gulf of other minds.
“Goldtooth’s mahendo’sat,” she said flatly. “And he’s got a Personage breathing
down his neck. They went to get you, friend, because they wanted trade. I’ll bet
on that. And those human ships weren’t getting through. Ijir’s no common trader,
no way. They wanted to get you to a rendezvous — find out what humanity’s up
to. That was the game. But they found out too gods-rotted much and now
Goldtooth’s scared. Scared, understand? Kif, the mahe can handle. But if knnn
have their small black feet in this — o gods, Tully — you lunatics.”
“Got lot ship come — lot, Pyanfar. Got fight kif, got make stop knnn.”
“No one fights the knnn! Gods and thunders, you don’t pick a fight with
something you can’t talk to!”
Wide eyes looked back at her in distress.
“Where’s Goldtooth, Tully? You know?”
A shake of an uncomprehending head.
“Huh.” She shoved back from the table feeling her knees gone jellylike. And
still that blue-eyed stare was on her. Lost.
Don’t go to the han, Goldtooth had said; and Beware of Goldtooth-from
Goldtooth’s stsho ally–
With Vigilance in the selfsame port.
Suspicions occurred to her, vague and circular, that the han ship might have
gotten wind of the clearing of Chanur papers, of mahen money passed to stsho–
–that that ship’s presence and Goldtooth’s might have had connections Goldtooth
would not say . . . han/mahen consultations. Stsho like Stle sties stlen, with
slippered feet well into it. . . .
And self-interested betrayals, at more than financial depths–
Knnn. Gods, stsho the ultimate xenophobes, and knnn the ultimate reason . . .
living right next door — living, or traveling, or whatever it was knnn did with
those ships of theirs.
Perhaps, hani had whispered, stung by stsho references to the mahendo’sat
bringing hani into space to balance kif–
–perhaps a great deal that the stsho knew came from methane-breathers. Tc’a
were likely. But had limbless serpents originated their own tech?
Or had chi, who might be parasites — or slaves — or pets — to the tc’a? Not
likely.
Goldtooth had reason to run scared. And being mahe he had done a mahen thing: he
had gone for the contacts that he knew. Same as the whole mahen species had:
bring Tully. Go get him. While with trouble in the offing Goldtooth had wanted
her. Not the han. Not Ehrran. The han knew the mahendo’sat, by the gods: it was
why the law existed against taking foreign hire. Mahendo’sat went for Personage.
For the Known Quantity. They set up powers. Tore them down. Tied hani rules in
knots and brought down powers by ignoring them in crises.
Here’s unlimited credit-friend. Tell us what you know. Same as they worked on
humans.
Send for Tully.
Gods, they’d drained him dry. Even kif had failed at that.
(I do good? Tully asked. With that blue-flower stare.)