“Two month. Twenty-fourth. Urtur. You got. Maybe be there. Maybe not. We got now six, seven ship go out from here.”
And a single incoming ship at extremely high V had a killing advantage. If it turned out to have position as well, its high velocity fire could rip slower ships to ribbons’.
“When’s Goldtooth come back?”
“I not say he come back. Don’t know what he do. Not get damn signal!”
“Gods-be lie, Jik, you got to coordinate this somehow. You know what he’s going to do. My information says he can short-jump and turn. That maybe all those ships can. Is it here, Jik? Is Meetpoint the place we have to be? Was that message he didn’t get from Kesurinan-aimed to catch him a few days, a few hours out from this system, was that it?”
Terror. Never before in Jik. Raw fear.
“Scared I’ll tell the hakkikt? Scared I guess too much?” She was sitting vulnerable and too close. She stood up and looked down at him, mindful of the gun in her pocket. “Scared they’ll get it out of me?”
“You damn fool.”
“I want your help. You want mine. You want to figure your chances without the hani? If it was you and nothing else, alone with the kif, with three human governments all doublecrossing each other, and the tc’a and the chi, gods help us, running lunatic? You refigure it, Jik, hear? You got some authority of your own. You got authority to take up a Situation and settle it, I got that figured. And I’m giving you a Situation. I’m giving you the fact we got this bastard going to take my species out, going to kill all of us, which loses you an ally, which loses you a major market, doesn’t it, which loses you friends, about the time you need ’em most, you and your Personage. Humans aren’t half your trouble. / am. The han is. And you don’t give me orders. / got the influence, / got the thing in hand, and all of a sudden I’m dealing with a threat to my planet, Jik, which means I’ll do any gods-be thing I got to and I’m not kiting off in any gods-be direction you want. I got one direction. And you got no choice but my choice, because I’ll shoot you down before I let you do something that’ll stop me. I love you like kin and I’ll shoot you with my own hand, you hear me, mahe? Or you help me and give me the truth at all the right spots and maybe you still got an ally left.”
Muscles were still clenched. Hard. He took a long time. “Got,” he said finally. “You open door, a?”
“No deal. Not your terms, you hear?”
He stood up, gave the kilt a hitch, and stared down at her. Made a sudden move of his hand, a strike. She skipped back, ears flat.
“First thing,” he said, “you got learn not trust ever’ bastard got deal. You damn fine trader. But kif not be merchant.”
“Neither are you. I’m proposing something else. I’m telling you you’re not going to break my neck because you got more sense.”
“You got right,” he said, and sniffed and drew a large breath. The fine wrinkles round his eyes drew and relaxed and drew again in an expression very like Tully’s. “Love you like kin. Same. Got tell you you going to bleed.” He touched his heart. “Same you win, same you lose. You number one fine woman. Got lot haoti-ma. Lot. I make deal, honest. You get me smoke, I give you whole timetable.”
“You gods-be lunatic.”
“Sikkukkut not only source. You got whole station. You got ask Aja Jin. Same bring.”
“Drug’s scrambled your brains.”
A little light danced in his eyes. “You want me stay ‘board, you got find me smoke. I be number one fine pilot. Same better when I got relax. You maybe need. You, Haral, you number one too. Not too many.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Same you.” He gave another hitch at the kilt. He had lost weight. “You got deal.” More wrinkles round the eyes, a grimace. “My Personage damn me to hell. Same be old territory for me. You want me, you got. Long as Sikkukkut not got us all. You got trade sharp, hani. Number one sharp. This be hard deal. Maybe he take me. Maybe take you: you got no knowledge. You want plan you got get me back. Safe.”