Or perhaps it was the first sight of Tully that did it.
“Stay close,” Pyanfar muttered to Tully. “Not friends.”
“Got,” he said under his breath. And kept close at her elbow as they descended, Jik trailing behind her; and Tahar; and Harun and all the rest. Kif waiting below formed a black wedge as they went down into that mass of stsho, and the stsho gave way before that like leaves before a wind, gibbering as they went, down a dock on which many of the lighted signs, indicating ships at dock, showed stsho names. Too timid to break dock, helpless in the advent of armed ships sweeping in out of Kefk inbound vector, which was unhappily also the outbound vector for the nearest stsho port, at Nsthen-they could do nothing in their unweaponed state but cower and wait, while their appointed kifish defenders did the smart thing and ran like the devils of a mahen hell were on their heels.
“Lousy mess,” Pyanfar said; and hitched the rifle she carried to a more conspicuous attitude, while they walked along an aisle of kif with Ikkhoitr’s black-robed captain, and stsho retreated and stared at them from concealment with terrified, moonstone eyes.
Then a kifish name showed in lights above a berth: and the ramp of Harukk gaped for them.
She hitched her gunbelt up and tried to calm her stomach. Her nose had begun to prickle and she searched after another pill in her pocket, never minding the timelapse. Metabolism did peculiar things after jump. She was strung tight and getting tighter, on the raw edge of fatigue.
Walking up that ramp was very much not what she wanted to do, if her body had had its choice in the matter; but brain began to assert itself as cold terror ebbed down to a different kind of wariness.
Gods, we got to think, Pyanfar Chanur, we got to think about all those stationfolk, dithering stsho though they be, and gods help any hani and any mahendo’sat-the hakkikt’s just taken himself another spacestation, and this time he’s got his blood up and he’s got a point to make. Gods help ’em all, think, think, get the mind wide awake.
Gods-be pills make you sleepy, curse ’em.
I haven’t got the strength for this. I’m not any kid anymore. The knees are going to go. I’m going to fall down right on this godsforsaken rampway, and if I do it’s all unraveled, we’re all going to die and the gods-blessed Compact is going to go all to pieces because I can’t keep my knees from wobbling and my gut from hurting and my eyes from fuzzing.
Ten more steps, Pyanfar Chanur, and then ten more, and we get to rest a while, we can lean on that lift wall, can’t we? They won’t notice.
Down the corridor, the bleak, black, ammonia-reeking corridor past Harukk’s airlock; and Jik and Kesurinan walking side by side behind her- No knowing what signals they’ve passed, gods rot the luck-
Tully, where’s Tully, f’godssakes-
She caught sight of him, shouldered back by Skkukuk as she entered the lift with Ikkhoitr’s captain and Jik and Kesurinan and Tahar. “Tully!” she snarled, and he dived forward and made the door before it closed on the first group, leaving the others for a second lift, and gods only hope they ended up in the same place.
Herself and Jik and Tully and Skkukuk, with Tahar and the kifish captain and his lot: the lift let them out in Harukk’s upper corridor, in a chill, damp closeness and the stink of ammonia and incense.
They’ll die if we foul it up. All these people on Meetpoint. My crew. Us on this ship. How do you reason with a kif?
Kif waited for her at the other end, kif dressed in skintight suits and robes modified for freefall work. Sodium-light glared and tinted gray-black skins, the glitter of weapons, of wet-surfaced eyes as they waited to welcome the hakkikt’s guests.
In a hospitality both Jik and Tully had abundant cause to remember.
Chapter Seven
The hakkikt waited for them in his audience-chamber, deep within Harukk’s well-shielded ring, and, thank all the gods, there was a place to sit, a chair at a low table, the captains and Jik and Tully all offered chairs at the table with Sikkukkut, and the captains’ escorts left with the skkukun, standing about in the dim sodium light and the smoke of incense. Pyanfar took the little cup of parini they offered her as she sat: her hand shook when she did it, and if the cup was not drugged, it was as dangerous on her queasy and pill-shocked stomach as if it had been. She had rather food, she had far rather food at the moment.