“No mahen workers left here onstation, I’ll bet on that.”
“Gods-rotted sure. Goldtooth could have had the word out long before this. Routed everything out of here. Cleared it all out when the stsho broke that treaty.”
“Eggs to pearls Goldtooth’s left a spotter here.”
“No contest.”
“It’s still insystem,” Hilfy said. “It’s still in position to get whatever happened here, maybe there’s more than one of them, huh? Maybe a couple of spotters, one drifting out slow, going to fire up when it’s outside normal pickup, just sneak out of here. And if Goldtooth’s out there in the deep and those fool kif that were tailing him jump all the way to Tt’a’va’o-”
Haral’s ears lifted. The exhaustion melted from her eyes and replaced itself with a hard, hard look. “Keep going.”
“Goldtooth might wait for news. Before his turnaround. If he makes one. He may have put more than one or two spotters on the outside of this system. He’s used up all his credit with Sikkukkut himself, he’s out there in the dark with the humans, with the tc’a that Jik was working with, he’s got some credit with the han, maybe some with the knnn. What if he decided there wasn’t any choice and he just lets the kif fight it out?”
“Maybe that’s the safest thing we could all do.”
“But-”
“I’m listening.”
“But-you know the mahendo’sat are going to save their own hides. Ehrran’s left him. We can’t speak for the han. We got kif going to go head-on against each other with the humans on their backside. If both of them get busy, if the mahendo’sat hit them in the back-neither Akkhtimakt nor Sikkukkut can stand for that chance. They’re in a mess. They can’t leave the mahendo’sat armed at their backs. They’re kif, and Goldtooth’s going to attack and they know it. My gods, we got one kif making a threat against Anuurn. What’s Akkhtimakt going to threaten, huh? Or is he just going to turn around and send a ship apiece at every mahen world and station?”
Haral’s ears were all but flat. She was still listening.
“Ask Skkukuk,” Tully said suddenly.
“Ask him what?” Hilfy asked.
”He kif. Ask what kif do.”
“He’s not on Sikkukkut’s level. If he’d outthought him, we’d have Skkukuk to worry about.”
“Kif mind. Lot dark. / go ask.”
“Man’s got a point,” Haral said. “But no way we talk to the kif. Better we talk to the captain. Py-an-far, you understand me, Tully?”
“You think I’m right?”
“I been in space forty some years, kid, I never been real close to kif on their terms. You have. And you speak main-kifish. Which I still don’t, not real well. But I’ve had a look at our passenger, ’bout enough to get an idea or two. And between the mahendo’sat and that kif, I’m real anxious. We got that other bomb aboard. And sorry as I am for him, he scares me worse’n Skkukuk.”
“Jik,” Hilfy murmured. And took another sip that failed to warm her gut.
‘He’s got a lot on him,” Haral said, “and much as we owe him and he owes us-first, he’s hurting; second, he’s been hurt, by the kif and by his own partner and by us on top of it all; and thirdly, he’s mahendo’sat and seeing his whole species in danger, and maybe he’s got more information than we’ve gotten out of him. What’s he going to do?”
The cold got worse. For one uneasy moment Hilfy could not even look at Tully. For one uneasy moment he was like Jik, alien and full of strange motives and unpredictabilities.
And she was female and he was not, with all the craziness on that score. No place for him to be sitting. Listening to us. Gods, what if he was only waiting, all this time? He’s alien. Isn’t he? Same as Jik. And we’ve been through so gods-be much-and I don’t know what’s in his mind right now. My friend. My- She gave a mental shiver, looked at the time. “Gods,” she said, “we better get topside. Tirun-”
“Yeah,” Haral said. And: “You want me to talk to the captain?”
“She listens to you more than me.”