Chanur’s Homecoming by CJ Cherryh

All of this he had learned in these sessions, as he knew that the human Tully was indeed safe aboard The Pride of Chanur, so Sikkukkut evidently valued Pyanfar more than he wanted the human to question and for other purposes, which was a mighty great deal of value for any kif to put on a non-kif. This was a double-edged benefit, of course: knowing kifish mindset, value-as-ally could turn with amazing swiftness to

high-status-target. Friend in a kif s doubletoothed mouth had no overtones of loyalty or self-sacrifice at all, was in fact nearly the opposite. Ally-of-convenience, rather. Potential rival, rather. Or poor fool.

The hani knew these things; and he knew well that his second in command knew. So they would both keep one finger to the wind; and he hoped that heads would stay cool if, as seemed possible and even likely, portions of himself turned up as decoration on Sikkukkut’s ship-ramp. He loathed stupidity, himself; he had sinned in that regard or he would not be here. But he truly abhorred the thought that he might singlehandedly serve as trigger to the undoing of the Compact. That was the one thing even a dead man could fear, the legacy he might leave the living for generations to come. That thought was the crack in his defense: Sikkukkut, being kif, taking no thought to posterity, was not capable of reaching that chink without a strong hint.

It was very easy for species to misunderstand each other, particularly when it came to abstracts.

It was possible, for instance, that he and Pyanfar had persistently misinterpreted Sikkukkut’s lack of metaphysics as a lack of emotional abstracts and irrational desires. He had come to know the kif with unwanted intimacy, and now suspected Sikkukkut of a kifish sentimentality, a preference for intimate targets for his most personal satisfaction, while Akkhtimakt was less personal in his mayhem, and more catholic in his attacks.

Akkhtimakt operates with the fist, Sikkukkut was wont to say, and I with the knife.

It was kifish poesy; it was also a profound statement of styles which might, if a mahendo’sat were well-educated in kifish mentality, say more than its surface content, and delve into those deep things language barriered away from translation between species.

He smoked the butt down to the last possible remnant, and carefully pinched it out instead of stubbing it, spacer’s affectation. Fire never hurt if one’s moves were definite and one’s mind was set firmly on the extinguishing and not on the fire. Spacer’s affectation, because when the fingers could bear it comfortably, it was safe to put away. He dropped the butt

into the side of the pouch reserved for that and laid the pouch on the table. They never let him keep it. The pouch, with the liquor and Sikkukkut’s good humor, was delivered only in this room. So he let it lie, and met Sikkukkut’s eyes with lazy amusement.

Perhaps he perplexed the hakkikt with his attitude, a coolness between defiance and alliance and certainly not the behavior of a kif; perhaps that was what kept his head off the spikes outside. Sikkukkut gazed at him a moment in what seemed interest, then lifted his hand as he had done before, and signaled his removal.

“There it goes,” someone cried down the hall, and footsteps went thundering past Chur Anify’s door, disturbing her convalescence. “Kk-kk-kt, something else called out, and that brought Chur’s eyes open and set a little quicker pulse into her heart, so that needles jumped on the machine to which she was bound by a large skein of tubes, indicating an increase in pulse rate; in response to that, a flood of nutrients and appropriate chemicals came back into her bloodstream, automatically supplied.

Living bound to a machine-extension which thought it knew best what a body ought to feel was bad enough; lying there while riot went on in the corridor was another thing, and Chur edged her way off the bed, carefully (the spring extensions on the skein of tubings made it possible for her to teach the bathroom and saved her some indignities). In this case she gripped the various tubes in one fist to keep the extension from jerking painfully at the needles and padded over to the bureau where she had her gun, hearing the kifish clicking going on out there. Her head spun and her heart raced and the gods-cursed machine flooded her veins with sedative when it sensed her elevated pulse, but she made it to the door and pushed the button with the knuckle of her gun-hand.

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