Chanur’s Homecoming by CJ Cherryh

“I have. We’ve got a problem. Sikkukkut wants Meetpoint. He wants us three to go in first, The Pride, Aja Jin, and Moon Rising. You see how much he trusts us. He wants us to go in there and shake things up and crack Meetpoint so he can walk right in easy.”

“Akkhtimakt maybe be there.”

“So’s everyone else. Aren’t they? I got one more question. What about the methane-folk? What’s the real truth?”

“Lot-lot mad.” Another pass of Jik’s tongue across his lips. “I try talk to tc’a. They want keep like before. Knnn- different question. Goldtooth said-said got maybe trouble.”

“Who’s Ghost?”

Jik blinked. His eyes locked on hers, pupils dilated.

“When you were in trouble,” Pyanfar said, “I hauled out that little packet you gave me at Mkks and started it through comp. We got a number one good linguistics rig. The best. Mahen make, a? Why’d you ever give me that packet, huh?-to carry on for you. In case something happened here at Kefk? So I could get through to Kshshti or Meetpoint? Gods-be careless job of encoding if we could break it-but then, then it might have had to go to a mahen ship way out from your Personage, mightn’t it? Someone like Goldtooth, maybe? And the real code’s in the language- isn’t it?”

“Maybe same-want you to have.”

“You knew gods-be well we’d have to go to mahen authority to read it? You by the gods knew we’d have to run to your side when it got hot-we’d be held to being your courier again, that’s what you knew, that’s what you set us up for, rot your conniving, doublecrossing hide?”

He lay there and blinked at her.

“Was it because you thought something might happen to you, Jik? Or did you already plan to do what Goldtooth did for you here at Kefk? Blow the docks and run and leave me to get anywhere I gods-blessed could, with your confounded message? Was it you who gave Goldtooth the orders to break dock?”

“Hani, you got damn nasty mind.”

“I’m dead serious, Jik.”

“You crazy.” He gave a wrench at the restraints. “Damn, Pyanfar?! walk fine.”

“Answer me.”

“What you think, I run out on you, leave you talk to kif? / on that damn dock myself!”

“You weren’t in the zone that blew! That’s by the gods close timing, Jik!”

“I not do!”

“Didn’t you? I think you knew with Chur sick I wasn’t free to run for it. That it’d kill her and I wouldn’t move if I had a chance in your coldest hell. Goldtooth gave us that med unit-fine, so I could run. You gave me that gods-be packet back at Mkks before we knew we’d find him here-you gave it in case something happened to you, a packet we’d have to take to mahen authorities. And what does it talk about? People reneging on agreements, that’s what; it talks about contingencies, talks about supporting some candidacy-whose? Sikkukkut’s? What agreements?”

“Sikkukkut. Same. You know agreement.”

“You’re lying, Jik. By the gods, you show up at Kshshti and help me out of one mess, then you help me all the way here, deeper and deeper you helped me, you and your godsforsaken partner, you and your gods-be deals-”

”I come out on that dock save you damn neck!”

“Where were you planning to ditch us? Where, huh? Here? Or later, at Meetpoint? Where was it I was supposed to find this gods-be packet was the only currency I had, where was I supposed to go? Kshshti? Back through kif territory, get my ship and my crew shot up one more time, end up on mahen-charity because there’s no gods-be help else when you’ve got through using me and mine for every gods-be gods-rotted piece of mahen politics you’ve got going? Or maybe I get to Meetpoint and find you’ll drop me to politic with the stsho to save them from the kif-some mahen squeeze play, throw one kif at them from Kefk, another from Kita and Kshshti, catch them between your ships and the humans and haul the whole gods-be Compact into your lap, with me and the han left the way you left us the last time, out in the cold with our ships shot up, our station in ruins, and nothing this time to do but come crawling to your gods-be charity! Is that the way your favors go? Am I what you think you’re buying with this little packet that tells your authorities how to deal with me?”

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