“Aja Jin’s outputting,” Hilfy said. “Jik. Translate.”
Faster than the mechanical translation.
“They make ID. Say hello to Ana. Say got kif coming behind us.”
“Gods rot them.” Monitors flicked and shifted. They were being inundated with com input, faster than their operators could handle it. Transcriptions were coming over. Kifish com. Hani ships were standing out from station. Stsho were in panic. Their wavefront had gotten to the station but not to the outliers they had seen on passive. Three more minutes for Akkhtimakt’s kif to notice them. Seven for the unidentifieds that might be mahendo’sat. Eight for the ones farthest out, who might be human. And double that for response time. “We’re going to have kif up our backsides.”
“You going have damn kif break through system, they don’t stop, you hear? Pyanfar! Give com!”
“Shut it up. Haral! Dump us down.”
Haral hit the switches. The Pride shed V in a single lurch to a lower state; space went inside out-
. . . another lurch. The universe spun once about. . . . . . . .revised itself.
Instruments cleared. Broke up again with a heartstopping jolt and cleared, some ship too near them and themselves displaced off their nav-fix as the field popped them down the gravity-slope.
The rate was far less. Easy from here. Two more blips reappeared: Moon Rising and Aja Jin matched them and came down again widely spaced from them and a little to the rear.
“Reacquire,” Geran said.
“Com output to my board,” Pyanfar said; and when the light went on: “All ships: this is Pyanfar Chanur, The Pride of Chanur. Take precautions; all station personnel, go to innermost secure areas. Maintain order. All ships drop to low-V for your own protection.-We have limited time. This is The Pride of Chanur and allied ships urging all ships to maintain position and take no action. The hakkikt Sikkukkut is inbound with a large number of ships. Take precautions-”
“Sheshe sheshei-to!” Jik cried. And Geran:
“Priority, Priority!” Geran cried, as the scan-monitor went red all across the top, with a breakout behind them like plague in the jumprange.
“Gods-be!” Pyanfar cried; and hit the alarm.
Useless. With ships coming up their backsides and under their bellies at V that could cross a planetary diameter in seconds. The informational wavefront was on them at C and the ships a fraction behind it-
Instruments jumped and went crazy. Her heart slammed in her chest, and the first firing of panicked neurons said they were dying-the second, that they had not died and the encounter was over in nanoseconds.
It passed like a storm. It was inbound to Meetpoint with a dopplered flare of output, like devils screaming down on the damned, Meetpoint with minutes left and mortal reflexes hopeless of mounting any response-
“O gods,” she said for the third time. It came out with what felt like the last of her breath.
“Give com,” Jik yelled. “Give-”
”Stay in your seat!” Tirun snarled back.
“Priority, com,” Hilfy snapped. “Tully!”
And hard on that a stream of alien language, Tully’s voice, rapid-paced: “… to all ships,” the words turned up on monitor, translator-function. “This is # Tully ###, ask you # stay #####-”
Total breakup. Whatever he was speaking, it was not in the comp-dictionary.
“Damn,” Jik said. “Ana!”
While a mass of kifish output raced ahead of them, Sikkukkut, howling down on the station, nadir-bound, past a stationful of stsho who could not fight; and a cluster of hani ships who might try. And die doing it.
“Gods curse that bastard,” Pyanfar muttered, and something hurt deep in her gut, diminishing that pain about her heart. “Gods curse him. Haral. To my boards. Hilfy: tell our partners stand by. Haral: course to Urtur.”
“Aye,” Hilfy said.
“Do it,” Pyanfar said, “Haral.”
A code flashed to her screen. Priority four. Personnel emergency. From Tirun’s hand.
“Pyanfar!” Jik’s voice. She spun the chair, saw Jik unbuckled and rising to his feet as Khym scrambled for his and Skkukuk moved faster still.
But Jik stopped. Stopped still. So did everything else when she held up a hand. “Pyanfar, you got give me com-”
“Aja Jin’s outputting code,” Hilfy said. “Inputting to code faculty, Haral.”