”I not do!” Jik fell back from a convulsive shout, breathing hard, and they stared at each other for a moment.
“Then who’s this Ghost? What’s the rest of it?”
Silence. Jik only stared and breathed.
“It’s another doublecross. Isn’t it? They’ve threatened my world, you hear me?”
He blinked. That was all.
“Gods rot you-” She snatched the paper from her pocket and waved it in his face. “What’s this thing mean? What’s this gods-be message worth if the humans doublecross you?” And when his mouth only clamped the tighter: “Jik-”
“My nose itch, Pyanfar.” Quietly. With full self-possession. And when she lost the breath to shout with: “Damn miserable, Pyanfar, damn ridic’lous situation, you and me. You come get me. Now what we do? What you think do?”
She took the paper and folded it, absorbed in that meticulous task.
“You got too good heart deal with kif,” Jik said.
“What’s our choice? What gods-be choice have we got? Your whole plan’s blown up, we’ve got the Compact coming apart around our ears-”
“Same you, me, a?” He made a grimace, blinked sweat and strained to see her. “What we do, a? How far we want go, you, me?”
“I don’t know.” She shoved the message into her pocket and leaned into his view, close, ears flat and a shaking in her knees. “How far do I go, huh, Jik? How far’d you go? This
mess you put in motion is threatening to take my world out. We talk about friendship now? We talk about what you’d do in mahendo’sat interests? About two mahen bastards who’d doublecross every friend they got, all for the Personage?”
“You want try drug next?”
“Don’t push me.”
“What we got, huh? Damn Anuurn hani sit and wait, good friend? You longtime got mind like rock, Pyanfar, whole damn han got own interest, let mahendo’sat fight kif pirate, let mane do, hani too damn busy make politic-”
“Why blame us? You created the han, take the poor hani bastards, teach ’em spaceflight, shove ’em into your own gods-rotted politics with the stsho, and to a mahen hell with the clans-”
“What you want? Sit on world, be sit there when politic in the Compact roll over you heads like wave in the sea? Be sit there when kif eat our heart and come find hani? Maybe all time you like sit on world, Pyanfar, maybe you get old, want go sit in damn dirt and wait for kif?”
“So what d’we get? The kif or you?”
“You got choice.”
“Gods blast you!”
“If we want you damn world, Pyanfar, we one time got, first time we land on Anuurn you got nothing but point’ sticks. You forget? You ask us leave, we go.”
“Sure, you went. You never turned loose of us. Manipulate our trade, shape our government, let us here and let us there and don’t let us get beyond ourselves-”
“Fine. You make fine deal. Maybe you like kif lot better. Wish you luck, Pyanfar. Or you got trust me-”
“Trust you!”
“Damn, you come, I crazy drunk, talk kif, you say; I do, I do, Pyanfar, I got so much trust in you, I do. All diff rent, you say; got human louse things up, got bad trouble-‘Talk, Jik: tell the kif what he want, I get you out-‘ God! what kind fool I be with trust?”
“I should let you loose on my ship? Let you loose with my crew? Jik, I got you out of there. I did that for you. If you trusted me you’d tell me what’s in this paper, but you won’t do that. You can’t do that, and I know why, like you know why I don’t dare let you go. I’ve got to survive. I have to stay alive in this gods-rotted mess you handed me. I’ve got to hold a position where I can still do something. You understand me? I’m going to do something.”
“I tell you paper.” Jik’s voice came faintly, almost inaudible. “You know mahendo’sat-know I got power to make agreement for my Personage. I make now-with you. With hani.”
“Same as you make with Sikkukkut, huh? Same as you make with Akkhtimakt and set them at each other’s throats.”