Queries were coming in, com from Moon Rising as it docked, operational chatter. Aja Jin was a minute away from touch.
Still playing the game, Kesurinan trusting that her captain was consenting to this long silence.
“Stay to stations,” she said to all and sundry. “Khym, monitor lowerdecks.”
“You going down there with him?” He looked at her with his ears down, the one with its brand new ring.
She flattened her own. He turned around again without a word. “Tirun’s down there,” she said to his back and Tully’s face and Skkukuk’s earnest attention.
/ would go, hakt’, that kifish stare said. Tear the throat out of this mahendo’sat, I would, most eagerly, mekt’hakt’.
“Huh.” She made sure of the gun in her pocket and walked on out, wobbly in the knees and still with the sensation that G was shifting. She felt down in her pocket, remembering a packet of concentrates, and drank it in the lift, downbound.
The salty flood hit her stomach and gave it some comfort. Panic killed an appetite. Even when panic had gotten to be a lifestyle and a body was straight out of jump. She ate because the body said so. And tried not to think about the aftertaste.
Or the ships around them, or the situation out there on the docks.
Jik was on the bed, lying back with his head on his arms. He propped himself up as the door opened, his small ears flat, a scowl on his face.
” ‘Bout time.”
“I’m here to talk with you.” She walked in and let the door close behind her. His ears flicked and he gathered himself up to sit on the edge of the bed, with a careful hitch at his kilt.
“You been listening to ops?”
“A.” Stupid question. But an opening one. He drew a large breath. “You do damn fine job, Pyanfar. We sit at station, same like stsho. We got kif go blow Compact to hell. Now what do?”
“What do you want? Run out of here? I got hani ships here, I got ten thousand kif on their way to Urtur, right where you wanted ’em, gods rot you.”
“Listen me. Better you listen me now.”
“Down the Kura corridor. Isn’t that the idea?”
“He be kif, not make connection you with these hani. They got be smart, save neck all themselves-Better you do own business. You don’t panic, Pyanfar. Don’t think like damn groundling! Don’t risk you life save these hani. You get them killed, you make damn mess!”
She laid her ears back. “I got kifish ships headed at my homeworld, Jik. What am I supposed to do, huh? Ignore that?”
“Same me.” Muscles stood out on Jik’s shoulders, his fists clenched. “You let kif make you plan for you? They shove, you go predict-able direction? Damn stupid, damn stupid, Pyanfar! You lock me up, take kif advice now? You let be pushed where this bastard want?”
“And where does that leave my world, huh? I got one world, Jik. I got one place where there’s enough of my species to survive. Hani men don’t go to space, they’re all on Anuurn. What in a mahen hell am I supposed to do, play your side and lose my whole species? They got us, Jik, they got us cornered, don’t talk to me about casualties, don’t talk to me about any world and any lot of lives being equal, they’re not. We’re talking about my whole by the gods species, Jik, and if I had to blow every hani out there and three hundred thousand stsho to do something about it, I’d do it, and throw the mahendo’sat onto the pile while it burned, by the gods I would!”
The whites showed at the corners of his eyes. Ears were still back, the hands still clenched.
“Why you here?”
“Because,” she said, “two freighters and a hunter can’t stop it. Because there’s a chance I can turn Sikkukkut to do what I can’t. Now you tell me about timetables. You tell me about it, Jik, and you tell me all of it, your ship caps included!”
He sat silent a moment. “You got trust.”
“Trust. In a mahen hell, Jik. Tell me the truth. I’m out of trust.”