“Decide, decide, fgodssakes, there’s no decide. We got you and the kif trying to blow each other to the hereafter all through our solar system-”
“You Personage. You got kif. You want deal for the han?”
“I don’t deal for the hani I’m telling you, me, Pyanfar, you talk to your Personage and tell him what Tully told us.”
“I do.” Jik looked at her in a strange and maddening way. “You not be han. You be Personage. Send hakkikt back to kif-how you guarantee, a? Stoheshe, Ana.” With a glance at Goldtooth. And back again. “The han decide this, decide that. You do what you want with han. But the han be for Anuurn. You be Personage for hani, Personage for kif, same Tt’om’m’mu want save you life. You got the Person-thing. Born with. You understand this?”
“What are you talking about, for godssakes?”
“You no damn fool. You see. You see clear. Sikkukkut get power by create little hakkikt and take what they got. Let them do work. He lot smart kif. Till he make you hakkikt and try take what you got. You got the Person-thing. He think he got more, he damn lot mistake. We don’t mistake. This kif here don’t mistake. You got whole thing in you hands. Me, / recognize. Same like this kif. Long time.”
“No. My gods, no!” She waved her hand, cast a look at the hani behind her, at her crew and back again.
“War, friend. What I tell you happen? Not war like ground war. War like new kind thing. Like crazy thing.”
“Then send your gods-be human friends home! Out! Turn those ships around, restore the balance, for godssake!”
“How you guarantee Anuurn be safe, a? How you heal stsho? How you ‘splain these human we got change mind? How you deal with knnn, a?”
A sense of panic closed in on her. Not alone because it was all logical, and the pieces were there. She looked around again at the hani lines, at her own people, at some faces gone hard and ears gone flat. At others, spacers, who just looked worried. Like her crew.
Like Goldtooth.
And not a sound from the kif.
The politicians would hang her, eventually, when all the furor died down. It was the last shred of Chanur’s reputation they asked for.
“Yeah,” she said. “Well, it’s clear, isn’t it? We just tell these humans they have to leave. That you consulted with some high Personage and there’s a lot of trouble and they just have to turn those ships around and get back the other side of that border. Which we can do, can’t we? It just might give Skkukuk here a good chance to go home in style, number one fine-a whole shift in policy, a new mekt-hakkikt, a new directive. I’m not real interested in going into kifish space, Skkukuk my friend: I’m just real pleased for you to be hakkikt over all the kif you can get your hands on. And all you have to do is hold that border tight once the humans cross it outbound.”
“Kkkt.” Skkukuk drew in a hissing breath. “Mekt-hakkikt, you justify my faith in you.”
“You won’t cross into mahen territory.”
“They won’t cross into ours.”
“They won’t.” Looking at Jik. And Goldtooth. Goldtooth lowered his small ears and bowed his head slowly, with reluctance.
“I hear,” he said quietly. And made the same gesture to Jik, and to the Personage as he turned away.
Something’s wrong with him. Something mahen and crazy, and something I don’t know: I’ve done something to him. I’ve beaten him.
Two plans. Two treaties. The mahendo’sat rise and fall on their successes; and they disown the failures.
“If I’ve got to run this business for a while,” she said to Jik, “I want him. What would he think about it?”
Jik’s eyes flickered and something lightened there. “He tell you you got damn fine fellow.”
“This Personage of yours-” She tilted a careful ear toward the robed mahe with the Voice. “Iji?”
“Same. I talk for him. He don’t got good pidgin. Same his Voice. He also Personage, see you got same Person-thing, lot strong. He say-God make Personage. He-” Jik gave a helpless gesture. “He say God make lot peculiar experiment.”