“I got interests I protect.”
“No.” She walked closer, held up a forefinger and kept the claw sheathed with greatest restraint. ‘ “This time you trust me. This time you give me everything you’ve got. You tell me. Everything.”
“Pyanfar. Kif going to take you ‘board Harukk. They try question me, I don’t talk. My gover’ment, they make fix-” He tapped the side of his head. “I can’t talk. Can’t be force’. You whole ‘nother deal. They shred you fast. Know ever’thing. They know you got me ‘board, a? Know you got chance make me talk. Maybe they give me to you for same reason- they can’t, maybe Pyanfar can do, a? Maybe block don’t work when you ask, I tell you ever’thing like damn fool.”
“Can you tell me? Can what they did to you, can what your Personage did to you-make you lie to me, even when you don’t want to?”
A visible shiver came over him. Hands jerked. “I ask not do.”
“Jik-you got to trust me. However they messed you up. Jik, if it kills you, I got to ask. What timetable?”
The tremor went through all his limbs. He hugged his arms against himself as if the room had gone freezing. And stared her in the eyes. “Fourteen,” he said past chattering teeth. “Eighteen. Twenty. Twenty-four-First. Seventh.” Another spasm. “This month. Next. Next. We g-got maneuver-make jump coordinate with same.”
“You mean your moves are aimed at certain points at certain dates?”
“Where got th-threat. Don’t fight. Move back. Make ‘nother jump-point on focus date.”
“So that somewhere, tracking the kif, your hunters are going to coincide and home in on them.”
“Co-in-cide. A.” He made a gesture with shaking hands. “More complicate’, Pyanfar. We push. We pull. We make kif fight kif. We make kif go toward Urtur, toward Kita.”
“Toward Anuurn!”
“Got-got help go there. Back side. We not betray you, Pyanfar!”
Her legs went weak. She sank down where she was, on her haunches, looking up at a shaken mahendo’sat on the edge of the bed. “You swear that.”
“God witness. Truth, Pyanfar. You got help.” The hands clenched again. “Ana-me Aja Jin. He got chance. Got chance, damn! and he run out from this place, leave us in damn mess! Got ‘nother plan. He got ‘nother plan, got way push kif on kif, damn conservative.”
“Or he suspects deep down his human allies aren’t to be trusted. What if he knows that? What would he do?”
“He be damn worried. Same got worry with tc’a.” Another convulsive shiver. Jik wiped his face, where it glistened with sweat. “He maybe listen to me too much. Take my advice. I come into his section of space. He damn surprise’ see me at Kefk. I tell him-I tell him we got save this kif, make number one. True. He be confuse’, he pull out.” He slammed his hand onto the bed beside him. “I don’t send code. You understand. I not on Aja Jin, I don’t send code, he don’t attack!”
“Kesurinan doesn’t know all this.”
“I not dead. She got file to read if I be dead, but I be on friendly ship, a? She take you instruction, she think I be on bridge-She not know. She don’t send the damn code and Ana don’t move on this kif!”
There was sickness at her stomach all over again. She stared up at him. And have you told me the truth even yet, old friend, my true friend? Or have you only found a lie that’ II keep me moving in the direction you want? Or are you giving me the only truth you’ve been brainwashed into believing? Would they do that to you, your own people?
Would they stick at that, when they got into your mind to do other things?
Gods save us, I almost trust the kif more.
“The kif would have blown us, Jik, before we could help anybody. We could’ve lost it all. I don’t think it would’ve worked. We still got a chance, don’t we? Where’s our next .rendezvous point? When?”
“Kita. Eighteenth next month.”
“Can’t make it. Give me the next we could reach. Or is it here? Is Goldtooth just waiting a signal?”