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