“I want stay on bridge,” he said. “Py-an-far. Same you don’t trust me, this know. All same ask.”
“I can’t shut you up. I can’t have you distracting my crew. I can’t risk it. I’m telling you. I can’t risk it. You want your ship to survive this? You help me, gods rot you, cooperate.”
He lifted his face then, his eyes burning.
“Survival, Jik. Is there anything we’d better know? Because we’ve got two kif out there fighting over everything we’ve got, and gods rot it, I hate this, Jik, but we got no gods-be choice, Jik!”
His mouth went to a hard line. He picked up the glass and drank half the remainder. Shoved it across to her. “I deal with that damn kif, set up whole damn thing.” His hand shook where it rested on the table. “Drink, damn you, I don’t drink without drink with.”
She picked it up and drank the rest. It hit bottom with the rest and stung her eyes to tears.
“We got make friend this damn kif,” he said, all hoarse. “I don’t know where Ana go, don’t know what he do. We, we got go make good friend this kif. This be job, a? Got go be polite.” A tic contorted his face and turned into a dreadful expression. “Pyanfar. You, I, old friend. You, I. How much you pay him, a?”
A chill went up her back and lifted the hair between her shoulderblades. “I won’t give you up to him. Not again.”
‘No.” He reached across and stabbed a blunt-clawed finger at her arm. “I mean truth. We got to, we deal with this damn kif. You got to, you give him me, you give him you sister, we got make surround-” His finger moved to describe a half-circle in the spilled liquor. “Maybe Ana damn fool. Maybe human lot trouble. We be con-tin-gency. Con-tin-gency for whole damn Compact. We be inside. Understand?”
“I don’t turn you over to him again.”
“You do. Yes. I do job. Same my ship. Same we got make deal.” His mouth jerked. “Got go bed this damn kif maybe. I do. Long time I work round this bastard.” He shoved the glass at her again. “Fill.”
“I’m not drinking with you. I got a-” -ship to run. She swallowed that down before it got out. “Gods rot. You got to get something real on your stomach.” She filled the glass and got up, jerked a packet of soup out of the cabinet and tore the foil, poured it into a cup and shoved it under the brewer. Steam curled up. It smelled of salt and broth, promised comfort to a stomach after the raw assault of the parini. She took a sip
herself and turned around to find him lying head on arms. “Come on,” she said. “I’ll drink this one with you, turn about. Hear? You take the pills.”
He hauled himself off the table and took a sip of the cup. Made a face and offered it back.
One and one. She gave him the next sip. “Just keep going,” she said. “I got a sick crewwoman to see about back there.” Her stomach roiled. She still tasted the parini and she never wanted to taste it again in her life. But it was to a point of locking a friend into a cubbyhole of a prison and letting a kif loose as crew to walk the corridors where he liked. That was the way of things.
He was right. He was utterly right, and thinking, past all the rest of it.
They might have no choice at all.
“Come on,” she said. “While you can walk. Going to put you to bed myself. Pills in the mouth, huh?”
“No.” He picked them up and closed his fist on them. “I keep. Maybe need. Now I sleep. Safe, a? With friend.”
He gathered himself up from the table. Staggered. And gained his balance again.
She motioned toward the number two corridor. The back way toward the lift, that did not pass through the bridge, past delicate controls.
He cooperated. He went with her quietly, when he had every chance to try something. But that would be stupid, and gain him nothing, in a ship he could not control.